The Banished Gods Box Set: Books 1-3

by L. A. McGinnis

  What’s going to happen when Sydney finds out you’ve been manipulating her for days, now? Or if this goes on much longer, weeks? Months? Will she still blush pink when you look at her then? Or will she be ripping your head off, boyo?

  Mir’s argument with himself was thankfully cut short when Tyr flung open the door, stopping dead on the threshold, his sharp, brown eyes locking with Mir’s blue.

  Tyr watched Sydney through slitted eyes, and Mir wondered what secrets the God of War and Odin were keeping between them. Knowing, by now, there must be a death sentence on her head. Kept at bay only according to the degree of usefulness accorded her by the All Father. Mir moved in beside her, putting himself between her and Tyr. Meeting those dark eyes hard and fast. I’m her fucking shield. You want her? You fucking go through me.

  Tyr offered a shallow nod of acknowledgment before spinning away, as Syd continued reading, flipping through the report, paying no attention. For two entire days, she’d been blissfully herself. That first night, after he’d brought her home, she’d slept soundly, though he’d kept every light in the room on. Even now, not wanting the risk, most of the lights were on even during the day. Stupid, maybe, but if it warded off those shadows…

  Still, he’d almost relaxed. Almost. There’d be a time when he had no doubt those clear, honest eyes would swirl to black, and she’d once again be yanked away from him. But until then, she was his. And he was hers.

  And if the worst happened, he’d do whatever he had to and get her back.

  Chapter 17

  Sydney looked one way down the darkened hallway.

  Then the other way.

  She was hopelessly turned around. “Figures. I can calculate the secrets of the cosmos, but stick me in a building, and I’m lost in a maze like a rat in a trap.”

  When Celine had sent her down to this floor, with some vague, mumbled instructions about a room full of discarded computer parts, she’d half listened, grabbed the broken computer cable, and headed out to search for a new one. She’d been in the Tower for days, most of it spent with Mir, but right now she wasn’t even sure she was on the right floor. The low sound of conversation drifted down the long hall, and like a moth to a flame, she gravitated to it, drawn by the soft murmurs. Her feet stopped dead at Loki’s voice. At what she overheard.

  “All right. We reset all the dolmens, per your specifications, using the newest calculations. Took us an extra day, but they’re in place. What’s our next step?”

  Mir’s gruff voice cut through the rising chatter like a buzz

  saw. “We guard those rocks with our fucking lives until the night of the solstice. And once the alignment begins at 9:47…”

  Sydney shuffled closer to the cracked door as Mir paused. “Once it starts, we’re going to have to be ready for anything. My money’s on the Orobus or Hel showing up at some point during the event.” She strained to catch the words beneath the hum of voices following his statement but failed, even as her chest constricted painfully.

  Mir had lied. About everything.

  “These newest adjustments might buy us some time, but I have no idea how much. And chances are, they won’t prevent the creature from using those other dolmens, once they start opening up. Not after the latest set of readings Tyr just brought me.” More mumbling assent greeted his observation, including a muffled series of curses from the God of War himself.

  She fell against the wall, her legs suddenly unsteady. “Anything might come through those doorways, once they open up. Or nothing, it’s hard to tell. The important thing is, we’re ready for whatever’s going to happen.”

  Syd touched her face. She was crying. The realization sent a fresh gush of tears spilling down her face.

  “So Tyr’s going to run through protocol of what our positioning should be, according to the timing of the solstice. We need to maximize damage control, and whatever you assholes do, stay in position. We’re not letting anything get through, do you hear me? All else fails, we bring the building down on top of the fucker.”

  The voices murmuring beneath Mir’s grew louder, and Sydney realized everyone was in that room. Everyone was in on the plan. Well, almost everyone. Except for her.

  He’d lied. All this time, and he’d been lying to her. They’d been sharing a bed. Secrets. Whispers and kisses and embraces and all the little tokens that lovers exchange, and all the while, this huge deception had been going on behind her back.

  She’d given him her fucking heart, and he’d concealed everything from her. Her head in a daze, her feet began to move by themselves. Away from the half-opened door, away from Mir’s lies, as the cables spilled from her hand and fell to the floor. But her feet stopped, frozen, by his final command.

  “Needless to say, nobody, and I mean nobody, tells her what’s going on. If you do, I swear to fucking god, I will kill you.”

  Chapter 18

  A half an hour later, Sydney readied herself for the dash across Lakeshore.

  “Simple, really, just a walk in the park,” she muttered, forcing her nerves to a dull roar. The overpass would make her too exposed, but it was too late to change direction now. She’d chosen this way, out of desperation or stupidity, hard to say for sure which, and now she was committed. Halfway across the dark, empty expanse, she broke into a slow jog, one she hoped didn’t instantly mark her as prey, making for the west face of the Field Museum, half-hidden now in the angular shadows cast by the buildings across the highway.

  She felt the quickening interest, heard the soft, distant patter of steps behind her as she cut diagonally across the parking lot, praying for enough time to make the entrance. If she made it to the building, she could lose them in the maze of the museum. Nobody knew those hallways like she did.

  “Run, Allen, move your ass.” Huffing and puffing, she caught herself on the push handle and practically launched herself into the quiet building, feeling them at her back, more than one, less than ten, was all she knew as she disappeared like a wraith into the dark marble tomb.

  Mir was in a shitty mood when he reached the tenth floor, still brooding over Tyr’s resistance to the plan, Loki’s lack of interest in nailing down the need for exact timing and… Well, pretty much everything that was going on right now.

  Shit. Who was he kidding?

  He was pissed at himself, that’s who he was pissed at.

  His feet slowed as he approached their room, or what he’d begun to think of as their room. He’d left Sydney sleeping in there hours ago and prayed she still was. This sneaking around was getting harder, and not just logistically. His chest ached every time he looked at her. He felt like a cheat when she touched him, fingers gently stroking his face. And these past few days, he’d had a hell of a hard time meeting her eyes.

  “A few more days,” he muttered. “Just a couple more days, and this will all be over and things can just go back to normal.” Whatever the fuck that meant.

  He rubbed the sharp ache in his sternum, wishing it would just go away. Maybe she’d never find out. Not likely, the little voice inside him said. She’d find out sooner or later, and man was she going to be pissed. Not that he’d blame her or anything. He remembered how it felt when she’d lied… No, he corrected, withheld information from him about McRoy.

  This was different, and so much worse on so many levels. He’d outright lied. For the right reasons, perhaps, but lied none the less. Fucking Odin.

  Pushing the door open slowly, he scanned the room, found it empty, the light over the desk left on, her laptop still booted up, open on the bed. “Syd? Baby?” He felt, more than saw, the void she’d left behind. “Okay. It’s okay, she’s just next door.” Although somehow, his gut did a twist that was downright painful.

  It took a little more effort to push open the next door. “Sydney?” That now-familiar twist cut deeper as he kept explaining, “I’m sorry, I know it took me longer than I said, but let me get you something to eat, and then we can…” Nobody home.

  Room to room, floor to floor Mir
searched, until he stood staring down at the pile of tangled cables lying on the floor outside the deserted room they’d just vacated. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what happened.

  She’d overheard their secret meeting, which meant she knew.

  And if she wasn’t in the building, that meant she’d run. Worst of all, it was night.

  Desperation drove him to the last place on earth he wanted to be. Striding up the never-fucking- ending gauntlet of marble, without prelude, he got right in Odin’s face. “You tell me. Where the fuck she is.”

  Odin, for once in his life, wished like hell he was someone else.

  Anyone else.

  “She’s gone, Mir.”

  Not that he’d had a vision or anything. Those fuckers had dried up months ago. No, Tyr had informed him when the human left the building, having watched her bail out the side entrance on the security feed. And then, Odin set the wolf on her trail to ensure she made it to the museum in one piece. Gentleman that he was and everything.

  “Because of you, you miserable shit. You’re the one who insisted I lie to her. Keep up this bullshit charade.” Mir got right up in his face. “Because you didn’t trust her.”

  It was a testament to how fucking depressing this whole miserable situation was that not even a flare of anger sparked inside him at Mir’s challenge. Nope, he just felt…resigned.

  “Because of the dark god still inside of her, Mir,” Odin explained patiently, “watching us. It can see everything. Every. Fucking. Thing.” The Orobus knew their plans, their weaknesses. His weaknesses.

  “So you let her go, didn’t you?”

  Odin stared over Mir’s head. “I did. It was either that or tie her up. Somehow I thought you might take exception to that approach.”

  “I’m going after her.”

  With a flick of his eyes, Odin made sure the two figures slipped in through the doors before focusing his gaze again on Mir. “No. Actually, you’re not.”

  Mir shot him a mocking smile, a big, fuck you, middle finger in the air, right before he spun on his heel and started striding away. “And why the hell not?”

  “Free will.”

  Free will was the double-edged sword by which they all lived. The fucking paradox that generally had no winner. Only losers. Mir’s feet ground to a halt, his voice every bit as hollow as the marble hall around them. “You let her leave.”

  “I let her choose.” Odin wished he had better news. “I challenge you to do the same.”

  “She doesn’t even know what the choices are.” Bitterness dripped from Mir’s words. “She doesn’t see the big picture because we’ve kept it from her. I’ve tied her hands, blinded her, all to protect us.”

  “All to protect her, you mean?” Odin smiled faintly at his second-in-command. “Consider this, Mir. Had she known what faced her, it might have made her decision harder. May have pushed her to run earlier or worse. Now she’s where she needs to be, and she is, for the moment, safe.”

  “I don’t trust you.” Mir said flatly. “And I still think she should have been warned.”

  “It would not matter in the end. No one really knows what choices produce which outcomes. What the infinite variables of free will create. Only that in an instant, one makes a choice.” Odin leaned in, his eyes rapt. “And that choice, that instant, determines the course of your life, others’ lives, or even, in this particular instance, the fate of the world.”

  The weight of that statement settled heavily in him, that it all might come down to this, this one choice, that of a woman, hurt feelings and all, storming through the streets, taking her anger to the one place she deemed safe. Only to find there is no safe place.

  Odin sought to keep his voice even, watching the torment play across Mir’s face. “You must let her go.”

  “She’s in danger out there.” Utter rage blurred Mir’s normally clear blue eyes, masking the acumen, the wisdom, the utter clarity. He was about to fray apart. “I’m going after her.”

  “Give her a chance to handle this herself.” Odin glanced again to the two figures lurking near the door, urging them closer. “To figure a way out of her dilemma. By herself.”

  “Bullshit. I’m going to find her.” Mir seethed, completely unyielding. “There’s no way I’m leaving her out there all alone.”

  “You can and will. This must play out. There will be no stopping events now, and nothing you can do will save her. You’ll make things worse.”

  Pure anguish coated Mir’s voice as he ground out, “I will…”

  “No, Mir. You won’t.” This was what Odin feared and hated. Failing all of them. Watching them lose the people they loved and not being able to save them. Standing by helplessly to watch. It was the peril of being a parent. And it just plain sucked. Nodding, Vali and Thor stepped out of the shadows. “You will watch. As we all will. To see if she’s as strong as I believe she is.”

  Roaring in fury, Mir charged for the door, and as Vali and Thor took him to ground, Odin closed his eyes and sent a pulse of magic over them, a thrumming through the air, and didn’t open his eyes again until Mir was silent, and the scuffling sounds had ceased.

  He cursed the day they’d been reborn on this planet, forced to die all over again.

  Wasn’t once enough for the Fates?

  Sydney held her hands over her mouth, forcing herself to breathe, and then breathe again. The darkness made for good cover, and the building felt empty enough, the only sense of life she felt were the humans who followed her in here.

  There were several. She heard their frightened whisperings and footsteps and rustling, driving her deeper into the bowels, deeper into the darkness. Practically begging them to follow. Except she wasn’t.

  She knew what was skittering around down in the basement, and they didn’t. But she knew if she yelled, it would bring everyone and everything running, so she worked her way down, floor by floor. Feeling her way along down the staircase and past the lecture hall, she sighed as they stumbled along behind, making enough noise to alert a hundred of the awful Grim things.

  She thought she lost them somewhere between the Etruscan pottery and the Egyptian displays. Their increasingly frantic whisperings had turned into panicked arguing when she’d finally darted through the remaining hallways, eager to leave them to their fates. Shutting the door to her former office, she barricaded herself inside, a cheap metal trashcan wedged up against the doorknob, the flashlight she’d pilfered from the supply room weeks earlier casting a focused beam of light on the dingy tiled ceiling.

  “Not my problem,” she muttered when the arguing, panicked attackers went by. A minute later, sighing, she pulled the trashcan away from the door and followed them down the hallway.

  “Hey.” She swung the light into their faces. None of them were out of their teens. “Go back the way you came.” Sydney indicated the end of the hallway with her flashlight. “Feel your way back up that flight of stairs, make a left and then you should see the light from the glass doors at the west entrance. The way you came in,” she clarified.

  When they took a few brazen steps towards her, she smiled. “Or I can turn this light off and disappear and leave you to it.” Their advance halted immediately. “Go on, end of the hall, top of the stairs. Make a left. Look for the light.” She clicked off the light and listened until their footsteps faded into nothingness.

  Barricading herself again in her office, she made sure the flashlight was wedged so it didn’t fall over, huddled herself into a familiar position, and settled in for the night. Part of her whimpered, why? Why had Mir lied? Part of her knew exactly why and wasn’t quite ready to face that truth yet.

  “Tiny office refuge, we meet again.” Turning, the rustle of empty candy wrappers reminded her that her food supply was almost exhausted. Welcome home, indeed.

  The next morning dawned bright and early, or at least, she assumed it did, stuck as she was in the bowels of the Doric marble sarcophagus on the lake. “Kind of hard to tell in here. But one can hop
e the blue ball is still spinning.”

  She grabbed the last water out of her stash, shoved a stale candy bar in her mouth and decided she really needed to see for herself if everything she’d overheard in that meeting was true. If everything between her and Mir had been a lie. Rubbing her chest because it hurt, it really, really hurt, she opened the door. The emptiness of the place was encouraging. Just her, the silence, and the dark. Stretching out her senses, she felt nothing. “Good, very, very good.”

  Across the hall, the screen flickered to life when she laid her palm against it, and she pushed the handle down. The thick door swung open, its weight carrying her into the huge room and face first into the truth.

  Emergency lighting flickering, the dolmens were arranged exactly where she’d placed them weeks ago. Back so they’d open up on the night of the solstice.

  Her heart sank because part of her, the trusting part, had hoped to find them back in the wrong place, just so she could go on trusting Mir, go on being in love with him, go on pretending that she wasn’t possessed, that the world wasn’t crashing and burning around her. “But no, you just have to rub it in, don’t you?” she muttered to no one in particular. Running the penlight over the stones, she eyed their placement. Perfect. “Of freaking course it’s perfect. Mir was here. Of course it’s perfect,” she groused sarcastically.

  For a second, when the sound of claws on stone hissed through the air, she figured maybe it was her imagination. Certainly nobody had luck that bad, right? But as the flashlight swung over the far wall, and the little black beasties came swarming down onto the floor, she figured she should have known better. Luck, it seemed, was another disappearing commodity.

  “Well, well, well.” Like the peal of a bell, the female voice rang out over the din of creepy claws scratching across concrete, and as one, the wave of monsters stopped, a black, shiny wave of ick that froze just before it engulfed her. “What have we here?”