The Banished Gods Box Set: Books 1-3

by L. A. McGinnis

  “Yeah, when we go to the museum.” The words seemed to come out automatically.

  “Okay then, tomorrow.” She made one last attempt at a goodbye with a soft, “See you.” And closed the door on Mir’s expressionless face.

  Chapter 6

  “So you’re really going back to the museum tomorrow?” Celine asked Sydney as they walked side by side, Fen trailing three steps back, a looming mountain of muscle.

  “I am. I don’t know what time, but I’ll show Mir the dolmens and explain my calculations. I can show him your translations, if that’s okay with you?”

  Celine’s answer was soft. “Sure. I don’t remember them anyway.”

  A low, lethal growl came from behind them.

  Fen. Realization struck Sydney like a blow. She turned slowly, taking him in. Huge shoulders. Black, tousled hair, lupine eyes that practically glowed green in the dim light of the hall. Fenrir. “You’re Fenrir, aren’t you? You’re Loki’s son, which means you’re Hel’s brother. And he’s your…” She turned mutely to the diminutive woman beside her.

  “Mate.” Celine breathed. “He’s my mate. For a few weeks, now. So you see, Syd, you’re not the only one who’s adjusting to everything. I know what it’s like to flounder.” Her voice turned thoughtful. “What if I went along? Maybe I could…”

  “You are not going anywhere near that place. You’re staying here.” Fen’s voice turned even deeper, growlier, if that was possible.

  Sydney shivered. “He’s right. I have to go. I have the codes to unlock the doors, and I have to explain everything to Mir. There’s no reason for you to go.” She spun around, sizing up Fenrir. “You though… You should come tomorrow. You’d be useful.”

  “And why do you believe that?”

  Sydney sighed. “Because there might be complications. And reinforcements seem like a good idea. These stones are like nothing I’ve ever found before, and I didn’t have time to explain everything but I will tomorrow. If Mir will listen. He seems to think I’m just window dressing.” When Fen opened his mouth to protest, she held up her hand. “Trust me. There’s some things in life you need to see for yourself.” She turned and started walking, and to the wolf’s benefit, he didn’t fight her. He simply let her walk away.

  The bedroom was luxurious by any standard, and best of all, it had heat. And a big, fluffy bed. And a shower. After weeks of wet naps, she took the longest, most luxurious shower she could ever remember taking, until steam billowed and her skin puckered, and she fell face first into bed.

  Heavy, rhythmic banging pulled Syd out of her lovely dream, and she stumbled to the door, fumbling for the handle, then backing slowly away as Mir filled up the entire doorway. For someone who was never intimidated by anyone in her life, she found this one guy confounding.

  She’d always been the smartest person in the room. The most confident. The top of the intellectual food chain. None of which mattered around Mir. He was superior to any man she’d ever encountered. Maybe because he was an immortal god, but she had a sneaking suspicion it was more than that. Far too late, she glanced down, feeling cool air on her skin. “At least turn around, Mir,” she mumbled, blushing. “Or better yet, get out and let me get dressed.”

  In answer, he leaned a beefy shoulder into the doorframe. “Take your time, I’ve got all day.” For an uncomfortable minute, they stood, staring at each other, until she finally turned and sauntered over to the end of the bed, grabbed her clothes and pulled them on slowly, taking her damn time, and put a little extra wiggle in her butt as she shimmied into her jeans.

  “Enjoy the damn show, because it’s all you’re going to get, asshole.”

  Behind her, Mir used every ounce of his self-control to keep his ass parked in the doorway, hands in his pockets, and off all that creamy acreage. Because Sydney was perfect. Absolutely perfect, he thought, as she pulled on those jeans and bent to zip up her boots. “Fates fucking help me,” Mir muttered at the long line of her back, tattooed with the phases of the moon, curving into the low waistband of those soft, ripped jeans, jamming his hands into his pockets before he lost it completely and did things he might or might not regret.

  “Asshole,” she reiterated on the way past him.

  He couldn’t disagree. Still, he wouldn’t have traded the experience for anything. Plus Odin had told him not to let her out of his sight today, and he was a man of his word. She stomped so fast down the hallway, he had to lengthen his stride to catch her. Steering her into the War Room, he pointed her to a chair at the end of the table and slid a plate of fruit and yogurt in front of her.

  “Eat. I know you’re hungry.”

  She slid it back toward him, eyes narrowing dangerously. He smiled wide. Stubbornness was a total turn on for him. “Syd. We’ve got a long day ahead of us. You’ve got to eat. If you don’t eat, you stay here.” The moment she caved, triumph shimmered through him.

  Sullenly she ate, though her eyes sparkled with every bite. She’d recently lost weight. He hadn’t missed the vertebrae sticking out nor the angled jut of her ribs. He watched every morsel that passed over those pink lips, watched her chew thoughtfully, slowly, even though she must be starving. When she noticed him watching her all too closely, she swiveled away and focused on Tyr up front, outlining the strategy for the day.

  She stayed quiet while he stood behind her, watching. She was hiding something. There was an awareness to her attention that was too avid for someone just heading back to her workplace. No. she was testing them. Evaluating their readiness, he realized. He watched her surreptitiously survey the papers Tyr laid down on the table, then her gaze moved over the participants of today’s field trip.

  Tyr gave a brief rundown, never sparing Sydney a single glance, which irked her. He could tell. But even so, she kept her head down and stayed silent. And polished off the last of her breakfast. As they stood and filed out, she fell into step beside him.

  “Are you expecting trouble?” she whispered, leaning in close enough he felt the brush of her against him. “Really, it’s just a bunch of old stones in a basement.”

  “It’s not and you know it.” Taking her arm, they stopped, and he pushed her against the wall, his face a mere inch from hers, searching her eyes, the hallway almost pitch dark. “Anything else you need to tell me before we go? Because I know you’re hiding something from me, Syd.”

  As Sydney opened her mouth to tell him, the dark-haired god with the flinty eyes who gave the operational recap shouldered between them.

  “Mir, I’ll need a rundown on what to expect once we get in the building.”

  Sydney noted he pretended she didn’t exist.

  “You already know I’m not on board with her coming along for the ride.” He hooked a thumb over his shoulder at her.

  Sydney felt like a third wheel for the rest of the walk down, trailing behind Tyr, who made it perfectly clear, with every single action, how he felt about her, and Mir, who listened without complaint. But by the time they’d reached the impossibly long hike to the basement, one thing was for sure. Her temper perfectly matched the shade of her hair.

  To make things even better, twenty minutes later she sat wedged between Mir and Tyr in the back of a Hummer hurtling toward the museum. And her last chance to reveal the truth to Mir vanished.

  Well, she consoled herself, they’d find out soon enough. Thankfully they’d brought enough guns for an invasion.

  She only hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  Chapter 7

  On some weird level, none of this seemed real.

  The fall of the world.

  Professor McRoy’s delusional rantings.

  Now, this armed incursion to the museum, side by side with immortal beings.

  Sydney risked a sideways glance at Mir while trying to ignore the warm, steady pressure of his thigh against hers. That was real. Mir was real. How was she supposed to tell him the stones seemed to come alive? That they hummed beneath her touch? When she was close to them, she swore she heard mus
ic? That she was somehow connected to them, in ways she could not explain?

  She leaned over to warn him. Changed her mind. Leaned in again, and someone from the front asked a question. A radio blared static. Then they started checking guns and knives, and she stared out the window, wondering what to do.

  She had to tell Mir.

  Because there was another side to McRoy’s ravings. Other, darker delusions. The professor claimed he knew this Orobus creature. Professed to have visions. Said he helped it. Claimed it led him straight to the dolmens, told him where they were buried, like “X” marked the spot. But once she revealed any of that to Mir? Or worse, Odin? She shivered.

  They’d dismiss everything she said as the rantings of a lunatic. And she’d be back on the street.

  So yeah, there lay her dilemma.

  Syd fumed a little, chewing her lip. Well, she was the one who figured out how to erect the circle, how to arrange them exactly so they aligned with the moon and Venus and Saturn. And she hadn’t been having any visions. “I’m not part of this thing’s plan,” she assured herself. “I’m not part of this shit show. I’m here of my free will.” Yet, worry ate away at her, all the way to the Field.

  She slid over on the seat, hemmed in by Mir’s big body, and she stayed close because he made her feel safe, she supposed. Once the engines turned off and the doors opened, she directed them to the small side entrance by the lake. Making their way down the first, echoing corridor, where flashlights cut crisp beams through the inky black, she twisted her fingers into the back of Mir’s shirt and pulled him nearer.

  “Pass the next two hallways and then make a right. We’ll go down four flights of steps then my office is on the left, and the room we have the dolmens set up in is on the right. I have to open the door, since it’s coded to my palm print.” A jolt of surprise went through her as Mir’s hand went around hers and he pulled her against him.

  “Stay right next to me, and do exactly as I say, Syd, no matter what happens.”

  She nodded, realizing he probably couldn’t see a thing either. At least she knew the place by feel. “Okay, I will,” she murmured into his ear, adding, “This hall only goes about twenty feet, but the lower levels are longer and narrower.”

  “Are you sure the door’s palm lock still works?” Mir whispered in her ear.

  “Yeah, the museum’s got a backup electric generator, in case of emergencies. Solar power, installed last year. The security system’s hardwired into it, and I can’t figure out how to bypass the security lock. So you’ll need me to get you inside the room.”

  Progress down the next four floors was slow. For whatever reason, they were cautious, as if they knew something she didn’t. To her, the place seemed as empty as ever.

  Until the little hairs on the back of her neck rose, her steps faltered, and she reached out and caught Mir’s arm. Wrapping her hand around his wrist, she tugged him back to her, whispering, “Something’s here. I can feel it.”

  They said nothing, but as by design, the formation slowed and divided, lining the walls. Lights clicked off, leaving them in total darkness. Mir’s words were a whisper against her ear. “What do you feel, Syd?”

  She closed her eyes, the building expanding around her. The stone mausoleum had a different atmosphere when it was open, like blood flowed through its veins, and when it was closed, it felt like a cadaver, cold, lifeless. Right now, it seemed alive, as if something rustled at the building’s core, the barest sign of life.

  “Like there’s something up ahead, waiting. I can’t say for sure… It just feels weird, like we’re not alone.” Gut tightening, she cursed herself for bringing them all here. Especially for not telling Mir everything. “Mir, there’s something I’ve got to…”

  “Syd, it’s too late now for anything except whether or not there’s another entrance into that room.”

  She took a shallow breath, followed by a deeper, calmer one. She knew this building like the back of her hand. She could at least give them that. “There is. Follow me.” Peeling the penlight from Mir’s hand, she led them in the opposite direction, down a corridor to the service entrance.

  Fourteen turns and a couple dozen hallways later, they were on the other side of the loading dock. The hairs on the back of her neck were doing a little dance. “Mir, I’m…”

  “Got it, I sense the same thing. Keep behind me Syd. Shit, I should have left you at the Tower.”

  “Yeah, but then you’d be coming in the front. This way, at least you have the element of surprise.”

  If she was right, and she was, they’d enter behind the pile of wooden shipping crates stacked in the southwest corner of the room, blocked from sight of whomever, or more likely, whatever was in the room. If she was right. “And I’m always right,” she muttered, pressing her palm to the flat, shiny glass panel. After a few seconds, the cold screen flickered to life, and a faint click sounded from the door lock.

  Sydney’s voice was barely a whisper. “There’s enough room behind the shipping crates for you to slip inside, but careful, it might…” Fen shoved the door and there was a slight whooshing noise as it opened. The glow of emergency lighting outlined the dolmens with an eerie brilliance, their irregular silhouettes casting long shadows up the walls of the cavernous room.

  Skittering, clawlike sounds echoed faintly, ricocheting off the stones and marble, as if a million insects were encapsulated within the room and looking for a way out.

  “Fuckers.” Fen muttered to a chorus of quiet assentation.

  Sydney risked a glance over the wall of shoulders and glimpsed something. Just as her logic said, Uh-huh, can’t be possible, Mir shoved her back and slammed the door in her face, plunging her into darkness with only the faint, flickering light from the palm lock keeping her company.

  From the other side of the thick door came a cacophony of thumping, shouts, screams. Shaking knees giving out beneath her, she slid down the wall next to the door, until even the light from the security lock winked out, leaving her in total and complete darkness, her chest heaving, her eyes squeezed tight.

  “Syd?” Mir crouched down. “Syd, open up your eyes.” She opened one, just in case, she thought. Safer that way. Mir crouched in front of her, a long, open gash across his forehead, black oily stuff coating the rest of him. “We need you to look at something.”

  “Seriously, you expect me to go in there?”

  His voice was unusually gentle. “Syd, you’ve got to come and see if the stones are where you left them. I think they were moved.” She searched his eyes and found something resembling regret in those blue depths. “I’m sorry, but you’ve got to do this.” He stood and waited, his gaze fixed in her.

  Sydney took a deep breath. Whatever had happened in there couldn’t be half as bad as what Mir’s face looked like. She curled her fingers back into her palm, wanting to reach out and trace that terrible cut, if only to check if it was as bad as it looked. “I can do it, just give me a second, okay?”

  Knees wobbling, she rose, could take one step then another before crossing the threshold, sensing Mir’s watchful presence a step behind her. Jackson Pollack couldn’t have done a better job, she thought, as she looked around, shocked to her foundation. The room glistened under the shafts of light cast by flashlights, and the faint sickly glow from the emergency lighting. She gingerly skirted husk-like carcasses strewn across the floor—what the hell?—as the logical, clear part of her mourned over months of work undone.

  “You’re right. They’ve all been moved.” She dropped to her knees, ran a finger along the smooth floor. “Not a lot, just slightly.” Although she wasn’t sure how. The floor was pristine. She’d spent a small fortune renting JLG’s to move these behemoths. Professor McRoy had insisted on not marring the floor, and she’d complied. Whoever tweaked her calculations had taken the same care.

  “Let me look… Can I have your light?” Mir pressed it into her hand. Sydney circled the room, inspecting the bases of the side slabs, squatting to inspect the
heel stones of the dolmens themselves. All off, just a little bit, as if… “As if they didn’t like my schedule, and tried to postpone it,” she joked, only to walk around again, slowing, inspecting the placement more closely.

  She blew out a disbelieving breath. “Actually, that’s it. My calculations pinpointed the lunar event to the night of the solstice, but this one is adjusting the timetable back. Can I take some…?”

  Mir slapped his phone into her hand.

  She snapped picture after picture, trying not to notice all the steaming carcasses in the room, nor the oily black blood splattered all over the stones and floor. “All right, I’ve got what I need. Let me swing by my office. There’s something I’ve got to pick up before we head out.” She paused. “I suppose it’s too much to hope you guys have Internet?” When Mir nodded, a faint smile curved her mouth.

  Her fingers trailed one final time over the stones, tracing the strange markings, noting the new positions. She swore she sensed the faintest vibration as the stones hummed ever so slightly beneath her touch.

  Loading into the trucks, they set off to the Tower. Mir couldn’t shake his mental picture of Sydney’s office. Nothing there but notes, files, a laptop, and a desk. Not even a fucking dead plant. Just work, work, and more work. He’d been, subconsciously at least, holding his breath, searching for a picture of her with some undeserving mortal, smiling and in love, whatever. Would that make things worse or better? Would it make it harder or easier for him to wipe her memories and walk away?

  When he’d knelt in front of her in the hallway, and she’d opened those tear-filled eyes, it had taken everything not to pull her into him and hold her until she stopped shaking. But he’d stopped himself. He never touched anyone unless he stitched them up or healed them. And occasionally, very, occasionally, to fuck. Even then, the physical contact felt…off.

  Yet. There was something about her that made him want to do just that.