The Banished Gods Box Set: Books 1-3

by L. A. McGinnis

  With a grating echo, like mountains being dragged over land plates, Sydney watched in horrified awe as the entire brick and mortar structure of the Field Museum vanished around her. The venerated mausoleum that had stood on the shores of Lake Michigan for a hundred years, built from ten thousand tons of white marble, was whisked into nothingness with a mere thought.

  “Now we’re fucking talking.” Hel’s gleeful shout disappeared into the roar of sound as the building, the marble, the entire structure exploded outwards. In its place the sky twinkled overhead, the moon shining brightly. “That’s a neat trick. I am going to love watching you work.”

  Sydney’s knees turned to rubber beneath her. She LOVED the Field Museum. She loved its architecture, its history, the displays, the tidy glass cabinets, the storage facilities, even her shitty little office. Everything about it, actually. And this bastard dark-god-thing had just wiped it out of existence.

  Just like it’s about to do to your entire world. With everybody on it.

  She staggered against one of the dolmens, feeling the pulsations grow stronger, as if the rock was responding to her. How, she didn’t know, but she felt somehow…connected to them. Moving to her right, feeling carefully, she found the next dolmen, number C-27, and placed both hands against it, feeling it awaken beneath her.

  “Well,” she muttered, noting how the Orobus was following her with invisible eyes, “This is a definitely an unexpected side effect.”

  When the whole of the Field Museum vanished, leaving the lot of them staring over the flattened site at the lake beyond, even Loki seemed at a loss for words. It was Odin who led the long slog down into the pit toward the stone circle, occupied by what looked like a dark black sphere of whirling shadow flanked by two slight, female forms.

  The plan that Mir had been formulating for the past week vaporized along with the museum. Now all he cared about was the redhead beside the second largest dolmen. Sydney had chosen a relatively safe spot against one of the stones, and one glance told him all he needed to know before the iron band that encircled his heart loosened enough for it to start beating again.

  His girl was still his girl.

  And as soon as he saw a way through the whirling shadow that was the Orobus’s power, he’d ghost straight in there and get her out.

  Hel’s face sparkled with hatred the moment they drew close. But Mir’s eyes were on Syd, her hair lashing in the wind stirred up by the Orobus, as he searched for a way to get to her through the thing’s swirling power.

  “Come to watch the end of your immortal reign?” Hel taunted, her voice cool. “One day soon, Mir, you’ll become one of my tenants.” That low, sultry voice turned creamy. “And when that happens, my love, I have plans for you.” She licked her ruby lips. “Big plans.”

  “You can put those plans on hold.” Sydney’s voice sounded hollow, dampened down by the blanket of power the Orobus laid over the space. “Never going to happen.”

  Hel whipped around. “So says the pawn.”

  Sydney grinned, her smile a quick flash of teeth and resolve. “So says me.” She laughed loudly, the sound ricocheting through the circle, the stones themselves picking up the vibrations. “I’d be careful if I were you, Hel. You never know when the paradigm of power might shift.” Her eyes narrowed dangerously. “Right beneath your feet.”

  Mir tensed as he measured the roiling power between him and Syd.

  There was something else odd shimmering around the circle as well. Around Hel and Sydney. Even around the Orobus. And yet, it didn’t appear to be the evil, dark brand of power the Orobus wielded. Something was there…and yet, not there. An old, ancient magic, one he’d not seen for an age. One he didn’t think even existed anymore.

  Stepping forward, he reached out and the strange power snapped at him, a bite of energy that had him curling back his hand. Mir considered who might have enough power to block them out. Hel didn’t have this brand of juice. Who, then?

  “I’m here to offer you a trade.” His eyes skimmed over Sydney, watched her sink helplessly against the nearest stone, her eyes wide. “Me for her.”

  “Mir, no.” Her voice was rough. “Don’t do it. You’re immortal. With your body, it could do anything.” Her voice was a quiet, helpless plea. “You have to trust me. I’ve got this all figured out.”

  A hand on his arm whipped him around and Odin snarled, “I swear, Mir, if you fucking do this, I’ll find a way to kill you myself.”

  By Mir’s calculations, this would work. Entrapped into any physical body, the entity might yet be killed. Or at least, imprisoned. At the very least, he’d buy Sydney enough time to get away. He shot Sydney a look. I love you, it said. Forgive me, it also said as he shoved Odin aside and braced himself, opening his arms up wide.

  The Orobus, it seemed, didn’t need much more encouragement or convincing. “I still get him when this is over, right? You fucking promised me all their souls…” Hel screamed, her voice a high, banshee-wail. The trail of shadows shot toward Mir like an arrow, black, inky water hurling through the air, making for its destination…

  But Sydney’s voice stopped it, her husky, otherworldly voice that halted the progress of the Orobus. And when Mir saw the hand she held up, the one gleaming red with blood…

  “You’ll never get through my magic. He is mine.”

  His gaze skimmed quickly around the stones, noting the anomaly went all the way around. A blood circle. Sydney had created a blood circle, but for her to have made something as magically powerful as what he’d detected…

  There was a predatory gleam in her eyes, along with that deep, otherworldly undercurrent to her voice as she faced off with the monster poised to devour the world.

  “You know, a strange thing happens to a witch who denies their power. It begins in the most insidious ways to find its way back.” Her words turned playful, light, as if they were discussing the weather. “I’ve never fully embraced my power. Perhaps I was a fool to do so. I was always afraid to, always worried I’d cause too much damage.” The energy building in the air around her lifted her hair until it floated around her head in a bright halo.

  “But tonight, I think I’m ready to give it a go.”

  Chapter 24

  Twelve years.

  It had been twelve years since she’d touched her magic. Summoned any sort of power for any sort of purpose.

  Her blood on the stones created a defined, focused perimeter for her magic. A short-term containment field for whatever was about to happen, when the rest of the planets aligned and the remainder of the dolmens opened.

  Providing, of course, her magic was strong enough.

  Twelve years, though, was a long time to amass power. She kept reminding herself of that. Around them, Sydney felt the stones’ vibration as if her teeth were shaking in her skull.

  Blood. A bit of her physical self.

  The spell. A touch of her energy.

  She remembered enough of her father’s training, his endless lessons, his constant, continued instruction. His ever-loving efforts to focus her raw, unbridled power into something sublimely useful. Harnessing her.

  For such a night as tonight.

  Watching Mir open up his arms, as if he was welcoming the Orobus to take him over, so willing to give himself up for her, for all of them, Sydney nearly stumbled to her knees at the realization.

  This was what everything had been about.

  Not McRoy. Not her thesis. Not her degree or her skill set or her intelligence. Not even that damned prophecy that haunted her footsteps. It was this. The power she’d been born with. The legacy she’d always sought to disavow. The magic she’d never, ever fully accepted.

  Magic coursed through her veins, fed by the rampant power in the stones, the solstice, perhaps even a little of the Orobus’s own energy, all of it tangling together as she drew and drew and drew from an ever-deep well that, at the moment, seemed bottomless. She hadn’t been lying, in what she’d screamed at Hel, though it had been mostly anger. It
was time she fully embraced who she was.

  A quick shift of her eyes and she caught Mir’s, saw the quick, flash of surprise in those blue depths. Oh Mir, I am so sorry, I didn’t think it would come to this. But if this is the only way…

  Sydney straightened her shoulders. She had a plan, and it was going to work.

  Besides, it wasn’t likely she’d get a second chance.

  Chapter 25

  The first doorway shimmered open, a pool of light shining just behind where Sydney stood, the very air around her seeming to tremble.

  From outside the circle, Mir desperately tried to find a way in, but Sydney’s magic was too strong. Every touch sent him reeling back, his flesh feeling as if it was being peeled off his bones.

  Hel stalked across the center of the circle toward Syd, her eyes narrowed, hands curled into claws, and Mir could only watch in absolute horror as the Orobus loomed up in front of her as well, an ominous whip of black. Even as the entity reached out for her, those inky shadows entwining with her red hair, she threw herself backward through the portal opening behind her, dragging the shadowy darkness through with her.

  The door snapped closed.

  All that was left behind, trapped in the blood circle of Sydney’s making, was a faint spiral of dust and Hel’s gaping face.

  Mir threw himself against the wall, pain ricocheting through his body, hot needles of agony spiking through him with every crushing blow he struck against the invisible barrier. “Syd, get your fucking ass back here.” He screamed, watching in horror as the vortex she’d passed through spun away into nothingness.

  Throwing himself against the invisible wall a second time, he bounced back, landed on his ass and skidded across the rubble, staring up at the night sky over the city of Chicago. Hel gaped at him, openmouthed, from the center of the circle.

  Whatever doorway Syd opened was now shut. “No. No. No, this can’t be fucking happening.” Mir ran the circumference of the circle, the stones still vibrating, the power still leaching outwards in great, sweeping gouts. “I am going to get inside, you just fucking wait and see,” he muttered, pulling out his gun, watching Hel’s eyes widen a bit. Either at his stupidity or her predicament, he wasn’t sure, but he did not give a fuck as he fired a full clip into the wall, the bullets falling harmlessly to the ground.

  “Uhm, Mir, I think we have a problem.” Freyr indicated the next portal opening up, the one that had a greenish, slightly sickly light emanating from it. It was doorway number seven, and it apparently opened onto Jotunheim. Hel’s eyes widened for real as three huge Frost Giants stepped out of the doorway, ducking beneath the capstone, barely wedging their shoulders through the opening.

  “Holy shit,” Fen muttered from beside him. “Those things kill anything in their paths. Is that circle going to hold?”

  “I have no idea.”

  Mir had pretty much written off high magic.

  The true ways in which natural magic could be bent were long forgotten, reduced to parlor tricks and sleight of hand. Yet, things had once been different. Natural magic had run rampant on all the worlds, a touch of the divine from the old gods themselves, but it had faded as the generations passed, and its essence was used up, bit by bit.

  But…

  Every so often, through chance or fate or simple luck, something special happened.

  And magic flowed once again through a mortal’s veins. Mir had never been able to scent witchblood. Hadn’t given Odin’s insult much credence that day, not when the snub seemed personal and barely relevant. But now he saw the truth as Odin offered him a shallow, curt nod.

  Sydney Allen was everything Odin claimed at that first meeting.

  A witch. And a powerful one at that.

  Given what he was detecting from the circle, and the way the dolmens were behaving, it was entirely possible her circle might hold through the entire solstice. At least, it was holding at the moment, Mir noted, as one of the giants lunged for them and was repelled back, practically crushing Hel as it fell in a spectacular shower of dirt and stones. Conjuring up a sword from fuck knows where, the goddess drove it through the monster’s chest then turned it, agilely avoiding the things flailing arms that terminated in three long, sharp talons. A gurgle, a hiss, and its head flopped to the side, even as the other two roared their anger.

  With a disinterested flick of her wrist, she had the sword up and ready, her hair tucked back behind her ears, her back taut.

  Mir had only seen her fight once, at the very end on Asgard. And he’d been pretty close to death at the time. Odin and Tyr, he noted, were watching with similar interest, if not outright curiosity. War was a strange thing. Knowing your enemy’s moves was a boon in war. And at the moment, they could do nothing but watch. So that’s exactly what they did, lined up outside of a blood circle, as the Goddess of the Grave battled two Frost Giants to the death.

  Theirs, not hers.

  Obviously.

  She didn’t even break a nail. At least, that’s what Freyr said almost admiringly until Odin told him to stow it as dolmen number three shuddered to life, a faint, shimmering light growing beneath the capstone. Even Hel stopped hacking away as the doorway opened, raising her sword in a defensive position that had Tyr grunting his approval.

  As a steady stream of Dark Elves began to flow through the opening, and Hel began her slaughter anew, bodies beginning to pile up in front of her. One elf got past her, hit the wall hard. Fell back. Then another. And another. Tentatively, Mir placed a finger against the shimmering veil. The energy zinged him back, but it barely stung now. Sydney’s energy was fading, whether from her going through the portal or the barrage of bodies, who knew? “The wall is failing, get ready, those bastards might break through at any moment.”

  As the bodies piled up in front of Hel, so did Mir’s questions. Where had Sydney gone? Where could she go? And what the hell was she thinking, taking that thing through with her?

  “Get your mind in the game, Mir. We’ve got work to do.” Tyr’s gruff voice cut through his bullshit. “We have to close that door.”

  Fenrir drew alongside them. “If that door opens up to Svartlheim, there are countless elves on that world, and once Sydney’s circle fails, they’ll flood in until they clog this one up.”

  “How did Sydney create this wall in the first place?” Tyr wondered.

  “With her blood. She created a circle, using her magic bound with her blood. The iron binds the magic to it, like an interlinking chain. You pull it tight with a spell of containment, and it holds. It’ll take enormous force, from within or without, to break it.”

  Twenty or more elves flung themselves against the walls, which were beginning to bow. Several more of the creatures pressed their hands against it, sending spiderwebs of blackness through the shimmering field.

  “I think the force is sufficient,” Odin gritted out. “We need other options.” Already, bodies formed a small hill in front of the open portal, forcing the elves to climb over, only to be pinned against the side of the magical circle or be cut down by Hel, who was splattered with black blood. She didn’t look happy about it.

  The next dolmen over, dolmen number two, shimmered to life, the shadows of dark forms shifting as the veil between worlds thinned, began to open. And that’s when Sydney’s circle collapsed completely, whether from the solstice phases changing, or the sheer magical stress, it shuddered and disintegrated, leaving a stream of black elves racing for the gods. Odin and Loki met them halfway, while Mir kept a close eye on Hel, still hemmed into the middle of the stones by a barrage of the little fuckers.

  Mir grabbed Thor and Vali and pointed them toward dolmen two, which had yet to open fully. “Get in there and turn this dolmen towards the other one. Push them together. We need to do it before number two opens all the way.” It took all four of them, Fen lending his great strength to shift the dolmens together, pushing the stones as close as possible. They’d just smashed them together when the other dolmen shuddered opened, and they knew the m
oment it did because that’s when the real screaming started.

  “How long did Sydney say this shit show was going to last?” Vali panted.

  “Ten hours.”

  “I’m never going to make it ten hours.”

  “Don’t have a choice. We make it or we die trying.”

  “How long does each of these doorways stay open? The one Sydney went through barely stayed open for a minute.”

  “I have no way of knowing. Sydney was the expert.” Mir shut his eyes wearily. “And she’s not here to ask, is she?”

  Chapter 26

  Sydney kept her eyes closed.

  Her body ached in ways it had never ached before. As if something vital had been ripped from it, and she’d never be quite be the same again.

  She’d had no intention of conjuring up her father.

  No intention of undoing the vow she’d made twelve years ago when she’d denied her heritage and her magic.

  But everything had clicked into place the second she’d seen Hel and the Orobus inside that circle of ancient stones. She’d just…known what to do, the moment she’d seen them all together. As if tonight was predestined. As if she’d been put there for a reason, as if things were exactly as they should be. Pieces on a chessboard.

  She’d been born with magic in her blood.

  Like her arms or her hair, it was a part of her, something that could not be removed. Intrinsic to her very being. Just as she’d known what to do tonight, she’d always known she was a witch.

  Until seven years old, she’d embraced her power every bit as much as she’d embraced her red hair. Her magic felt like a gift back then, as if her powers held a certain wonder, that with it, all things might be possible.

  Of course, she had been seven.

  And then she’d burned down the house. Well, the garage actually, but the incident had been traumatic enough she’d found ways to hide her magic. Push it down somewhere deep inside of her. Tried to cut the channel between that infernal, humming energy that powered her. But it always found ways to worm its way back.