Here, Ava paused, as if she wasn’t sure if or how to continue. “Whether our innate abilities would have manifested with or without his interference remains one of my biggest questions, but perhaps that’s not the issue. Perhaps we should be asking why he chose mortals in the first place?”
“Why not gods or fae or halflings? Why does he need any mortal help at all?”
Odin glanced his direction, and Mir felt the full weight of that look, as a sense of foreboding flashed through him, that half-grasped feeling he’d had, standing at the edge of that basin, realizing there was a reason the Orobus sent Sydney back to him.
Revenge.
So he gave Ava the answer. “Because he wants revenge on us. And if we fall in love with a mortal, or if we love at all, then that gives that thing control over us.”
Ava’s dark eyes cleared, her face tightened before she finally nodded. “Very, very clever. A leash and an unbreakable one at that. Did you know in medieval times, a ruling family would often hold their rivals’ children hostage for much the same reason? Such captivity offers quite a bit of leverage.”
Odin had leaned forward, his eyes rapt and focused completely on Ava. “What do you suggest, then?”
“Celine knew what she had to do,” Ava murmured as if to herself. “And she did it.”
“Come again?” Odin said, his voice loud. “What do you mean by that?
“Celine stole the stone, she defied him from the beginning as best she could. And when the time came, she did it again and stole a whisper of his power, enough that, to my understanding, she can now track the thing?”
So that’s how she did it.
“So if Sydney fights his hold over her, and if she keeps fighting him, what are her chances of winning?” Mir asked, his mind calculating her options, his brain going at full speed, only to slam into the image of Sydney’s blank, empty face, those soulless, black eyes staring out of it.
“As a human, I don’t know,” Ava admitted. “Celine possessed the stone. Somehow, she stole it from the Orobus and brought it out of the dream. With it, she had some nascent powers.”
“I brought something back out of the Underworld with me.” Ava glanced away. “A touch of that thing’s dark power. And it’s growing. But after being stuck down there for so long, I can’t say I’m fully…human these days. Which might be why I can control it.”
“Sydney’s not fully mortal.” Odin’s hands were loosely linked, his body seemingly relaxed, but underneath all of that, Mir felt his tension building. “She’s something more than mortal, and she is still fighting, so factor that into your calculations, why don’t you?” He offered Mir an apologetic shrug, as if to say, Sorry, she brings out the worst in me.
“Define something more than mortal, will you?” Ava snapped. “Or are you unable to be specific?”
Feeling like he should sit between them in the back seat to keep them from bickering, Mir broke in, “She’s a witch.” At Ava’s undignified snort, he added, “No, really, she is.”
“Witches and wizards. Broomsticks and cauldrons. I fail to see…”
“She’s for real. Syd locked down the Orobus. Inside a cage of magic,” Mir explained. “Along with Hel, about two hundred Dark Elves, and three Frost Giants. For about thirty minutes. Then she pulled the Orobus through a doorway into another realm.”
“Vanaheim,” Odin added.
“Probably Vanaheim,” Mir corrected.
“This wall,” Ava said slowly, “she made it out of magic? How does that even work? Can you see it? Is it still there?”
Mir shook his head. “It held for about a half an hour after she went through the doorway before it failed. Whether from her disappearance or from the stress of all the creatures coming through the gates…”
“Creatures through the gates?”
“You really need to get out more,” Odin pointed out.
“You really need to fuck off,” Ava shot back.
Mir rose and took a couple of steps so he was positioned between the two of them. “My only objective here is to get Syd back. I don’t give a flying fuck about your baggage.” He pointed a finger at Odin. “Or about yours.” He turned his digit to Ava. “What I do care about is my woman out there, scared to death, inhabited by that fucking monster, fighting for her sanity, possibly her life. So help me or get out of my way and stop wasting my time.”
He swore they had the decency to look chagrined, and Ava went and sat next to Odin on the couch. As far away as she could get, but still she sat.
“Here’s the rundown. The Orobus came through the Cloud Gate four weeks ago. Turns out there was a secondary entry point in the Field Museum, which no longer exists, by the way. A circle of ancient stones used last night during the solstice. One door sucked Sydney and the Orobus through. Another gave us three Frost Giants, and one a shit ton of Dark Elves, and we never found out about the rest of them because we managed to lock them down. Hel’s on the loose with a cadre of demons, the Orobus is fuck knows where, and Sydney’s back on Earth, but that monster infected her somehow.” Mir spread his hands out helplessly. “That’s where we’re at. Any ideas?”
“She locked the Orobus down, you say?” Such intensity gleamed in her eyes, “And Hel?”
“With a magic circle.”
“Explain to me what that is.”
“A magical circle is a closed circuit of power, created by a couple of things. Blood, a spell of containment, and raw magic.”
“So what you’re telling me is that this mortal girl locked down two very powerful beings with essentially nothing but some words and her blood? Shit, you should have started with that.” Ava surged up off the couch. “How long was she gone before she came back?”
“Nearest estimate? About five hours.”
Odin nodded in agreement. “Yeah, about five hours.”
“Shit.” Ava breathed.
Mir raised his eyes to hers. “Yeah. So now you see the problem. She took Tyr hostage in order to draw me down to the circle, my best guess is to kill me. But instead, she warned me off and gave us time to get Tyr away, get ourselves back here.”
“So who is she?” Ava lifted her hands and shot them a duh look. “Who is she?” Her voice grew louder. “If she’s a witch, and she’s powerful, then where did she come from? Where are her people, her family? Who trained her? You said it takes a spell to create the circle? Then she’s been trained, right? Did she go to Hogwarts or what?”
Ava shook her head. “You figure out where her people are, where she came from. I’ve got to see this circle.” She quickly looked to Odin as if she’d had an idea. “What about getting into her head? Have you tried?”
“That’s my department,” Mir snapped. Resentment simmered; he was not going to be relegated to research, not when this was Sydney, for fuck’s sake.
“And what did you find?” Ava’s voice got quiet. “You looked, didn’t you? And what did you find?”
“A wall. An impenetrable wall. One that even I couldn’t get through.”
“All right then. You find out about her past. Odin and I will figure out how she’s connected to this circle of stones.” A cool brush of wind and instantly the sun flickered as the smothering darkness lifted. “It was soooo nice talking to you two. You should drop by more often. As a matter of fact, Odin, why don’t you give me a little tour? I heard Chicago’s changed so much these past few weeks.”
Mir opened up his mouth to ask her what the darkness was. How she, of all people, was controlling it, but she held up a hand. “Go do your thing, Mir. A couple of hours online should do the trick. I know how clever you are with a mouse.”
Mir descended the steps two at a time. Two hours? He’d need a quarter of that. In fifteen minutes, all of Sydney Allen’s secrets would be his.
Odin watched Ava circle away from him the moment Mir left the room. As if with his leaving, the space shrunk down, pushing them closer together than they should be. Certainly closer than they were comfortable being. The last time he’d be
en in a room alone with her, he’d whispered incalculably cruel things in her ear.
Right after he’d killed her sister.
As she whipped her head to him, he knew she remembered that moment just as clearly as he did.
He was a bastard. A heartless, cold-blooded bastard.
Or rather, that’s who he’d allowed himself to become, these past three thousand years. Because he hadn’t been strong enough to be otherwise. Because it had been the easy path. Because…
“We need to get a couple things straight, you and I.” Gods, she was beautiful. Arresting was more like it. She sucked him in, sunk her claws into him deep, and did not let go. She never had, not from the moment he’d first really looked at her, alone at that table in the kitchen, waiting for a sister who would never show up. Some words must have come out of his mouth because she nodded.
“Fine, then. I’ll work with you, long enough to get Mir’s girlfriend back. But that’s what this is. Cooperation to achieve a goal.” Eyes burning with hatred, her voice remained pleasantly cool. “Make no mistake, I despise you. And I always will. But for Mir, I’ll do this.”
Odin inclined his head gravely. “Mir will appreciate it. As do I. There are some details you should know, Ava.”
“Like what?”
“As in Sydney is the person who set up the dolmen circle in the first place. She’s an expert in her field, which may be why she was chosen, or as you pointed out, came about because she was chosen. Either way, she’s familiar with the stones. There’s also something that won’t turn up in Mir’s research, but you ought to know.”
She braced her hands on her hips and didn’t even bother with words, just a faint nod for him to continue.
“She pulled the Orobus through the doorway to save us. She was fully aware of the risks and of her choices when she created the circle to protect us. And she had no intention of ever coming back.”
“She hoped to seal the doorway behind her?”
“That’s my thought,” Odin said. “Her containment spell was also a spell of protection. It would follow, as her hand was still bleeding, her intent would have been to seal the door behind her once she’d isolated the threat. He must have stopped her.”
“All right,” Ava said as if to herself, “then she’s defiant. Which means she’s got a good chance at breaking free. I need to see this circle of stones. When can you get me down there?”
“It’s not safe,” he protested, thinking about Tyr and that near miss.
“Fine. Then I’ll walk down there myself.”
Her stance as well as the jut of her chin told him she was going, with or without him, and led him to point out, “It’s freezing cold and there’s snow on the ground. If we’re going to go, then you’re going to dress for the weather.” Indeed, she had on yoga pants and a tank top, and while no one would hear any complaints from him, she wasn’t stepping a foot outside without a coat and a hat. And boots, if he could round them up.
“I’ll borrow clothes from my sister. And I’ll meet you in the—what’s that place called—oh yeah, the War Room, in half an hour?”
“Fine.” He inclined his head again. “I’ll be waiting.”
Chapter 30
Mir lied. It took him twenty minutes.
But only because the story he was looking for was buried beneath a headline about the 2008 Fourth of July parade grand marshal. On page six of the Colville Chronical, Washington’s leading, local, award-winning newspaper, the article outlined the odd events leading up to the storm that blew through the area the week before. And beneath that was another article, this one about the sudden death of one of the town’s most respected citizens, Dr. Robert Allen, PHD.
Mir scanned the article, less interested in the storm than the man. What he was really looking for was a mention of the daughter.
He found that in Dr. Allen’s short obituary posted three days later, “…predeceased by his wife, Alison, he leaves behind a daughter, Sydney Eleanor Allen…”
Twelve years ago, that’s how old these articles were. Twelve years ago, and she’d already lost both of her parents. From the report, it sounded like her father was killed instantly, some sort of lightning strike. Except…
As Mir scanned the article, it appeared the doctor was inside the house, his daughter with him at the time of the accident. The storm blew in suddenly, and as Mir pulled up the weather reports for that day, in that area, he found clear skies with no reports of rain.
Syd would have been sixteen or close to it.
And after that night, she would have been alone.
Five minutes later, he had Google Earth up and was staring at a street view of her house, then zoomed out to view her neighborhood, the town, and the surrounding area. Total apple pie Americana. But somewhere in that town, somewhere in that neighborhood, somebody knew what happened that night. To Dr. Robert Allen. To his daughter, Sydney. Maybe even to her mother, Alison.
An hour later, Loki reluctantly tasked to monitoring the bank of cameras feeds in his stead, Tyr in charge of that evening’s street patrols, Mir finally stood in the middle of Main Street, USA. Otherwise known as Colville, Washington. Sydney’s hometown.
It was odd, coming from a burning, dying city to this place.
So alive. So…normal.
And unlike the snowy, freezing May the Orobus had brought to Chicago, here the trees were in full bloom, birds were singing, and the sun was shining. Mir jammed his hands into his pockets and headed for Hickory Street and the house formerly known as the Allen home. He found it boarded up and ramshackle, a derelict in the middle of an otherwise manicured and respectable neighborhood. Dodging the prying eyes, he strode down the cracked sidewalk and disappeared along the decaying picket fence hemmed in with the remnants of last year’s brambles. It was a small matter to ghost himself inside the house, bypassing the tattered yellow police tape still hanging from the doors.
The stench of something otherworldly still stained the house. Permeated its rafters and drywall. And the long, blackened gash that cut through the wall from the first floor disappearing up into the second, leaving a three-foot-wide opening, left no doubt in Mir’s mind what happened twelve years ago.
Sydney had happened.
“You shouldn’t be in here.” The voice behind him was old. Wavery-old, the syllables breaking, marking the effort the man was taking to push the words out.
“I’m looking for answers.” Mir didn’t turn around because he was here to get answers, damn it, and if someone had followed him inside the house, then chances were…
The binding spell that hit him was a good one, he’d give the old man that. Winding its way around his flesh like barbed wire, cutting into him with fanged teeth, the spell packed a bite. For a mortal spell, cast by a mortal sorcerer, using the normal capacity of mortal power. The question was, why bother? His boot heels ground tracks into the soot packing the floor as the wizard dragged him around to face him, and by gods, he was not disappointed.
The sorcerer was a behemoth of a man. Or had been, once. Now his thin, reddish-gray hair was sparse, his skin sagging where it used to be robust, his clothes hanging from a skeleton. But those eyes of his, dark brown and glittery, were shrewd. And didn’t miss a trick, as the teeth of the spell cut in deeper.
“This is private property, clearly marked on the outside. And you… You are not welcome here.” The man stumbled over his words the moment he got a good look at Mir’s face. Which, coincidentally, was the moment the spell began to dig in for real. A whisper of Mir’s magic formed a barrier between his flesh and the man’s binding spell before any actual damage could be done, and the man made a mistake he could not undo.
Mir was merely saving the man from himself.
Or at least, that’s what Mir told himself right before he blew the man’s spell to bits, plastering the walls with a glittering residue of magical detris. “I came here,” he said calmly, “to find out everything I could about Sydney Allen.” He knew his eyes must be glowing with an unh
oly light from the way the man stumbled a step back. “And you, my good wizard, are going to tell me everything you know.”
“Sydney Allen is dead.”
“She is not.” Not yet, Mir thought. Not if I can help it.
“Not literally dead,” the man corrected, his face sheepish. “Figuratively.” He searched Mir’s face and then continued, his voice quieter, “To everyone in this town, she is a pariah. This house”—he gestured to the wreck around them and the dust swirled—“will never be inhabited again. In fact, this eyesore’s slated to finally be demolished in a month or two. And that girl has been gone for years now. I hardly see what your interest would be in her after all that time.”
“I don’t give a fuck about you or this town. I want to know what happened the night her father died.”
The man backed up another step.
“And it’s either going to be you telling me or you pointing me to someone who can.”
The man’s furtive gaze told Mir what he needed to know. There would be no pointing required. Still, it was a good five minutes of bullshit before they got to the meat of the thing. Wasted time, in Mir’s opinion, that would have been better spent getting his ass back to Chicago and searching for the woman in question.
“…and then, when she turned sixteen, or was it seventeen? Anyway, after Robert spent years, years, I tell you, training her, the girl just snapped.” His dull eyes drifted over to the charred gash and stayed there. “Called up a thunderstorm out of nowhere, called it up and then hurled lightening at her own father. Killed him instantly. Rest of the coven, they might’ve been content to call it an accident, but I saw it for what it was.”
“Which was?”
“Murder. That girl killed her father. Out of spite, or rage, or whatever, she killed him by her own hand. Always was an odd kid, setting fire to something, couldn’t seem to stop causing mischief. Sayin’ things no child should be sayin’.” Those dim brown eyes sharpened a bit as they landed on Mir. “Wasn’t never right, the way everything seemed to go wrong around her.”
The Banished Gods Box Set: Books 1-3 Page 68
