The Banished Gods Box Set: Books 1-3

by L. A. McGinnis

  “Let me guess,” Mir said slowly. “You’re the neighbor?”

  A shallow nod. “Lived next door for forty years now.”

  “And you truly believe Sydney Allen killed her father?”

  “Know it in my bones.” The man’s voice was lined with certainty. “Robert would’ve never even seen it coming, not from her. He put that girl on a pedestal, he did. Got her out of more than one spot of trouble, when he should’ve let her…”

  “What kind of trouble?” Mir interrupted, in no mood to let the havering continue. “How much trouble could a sixteen-year-old possibly cause?”

  The man’s eyebrows lifted as if to say, Seriously, you even need to ask? “She ruined the crops for four years straight, caused a drought in the mid-nineties that lasted a full year. Killed the line of old maple trees in the center of town, those dated back to the 1800s. And she burned down the family’s house.”

  “Looks like it’s still standing to me,” Mir noted drily.

  “Well,” the man hedged, “not the entire house, mostly the garage, but only because Rob got control of it in the nick of time. Trust me, the girl was a menace. It’s to be expected, you know.”

  “And why is that?” Mir was on the verge of just ghosting out, right in front of the old man, secrecy be damned. He was tired of wasting time when he could be out hunting for her.

  “Because of how she was born, you know. Killing her mother and all.”

  His particles dangling in the air, Mir gathered himself back together as that last phrase left the old man’s mouth. “Sydney’s mother died giving birth to her?”

  “Of course she did, why else do you think Rob brought her up alone? Alison was a gifted witch. Took every precaution, but even that wasn’t enough. That child stole away her power, the second she entered this world.”

  Mir fought to keep his mouth shut as the man continued, his tone condemning, “I told Rob he was a fool, should have given her over to the coven for raising, but he’d have none of it.”

  “She was a baby, to even insinuate Sydney had any control over…”

  “That child was damned from the moment she was conceived.”

  Mir’s hands fisted.

  “Her parents were forbidden to marry, forbidden to have children, so when they did, the price had to be paid. Shame it was Alison who paid it.” He paused, his eyes distant. “And Rob, in the end.”

  This was bullshit, and he was learning nothing that he needed. He was about to vanish. Well, wipe the old wizard’s memories and then vanish, when the man’s next words stopped him cold.

  “Of course, had Rob or Alison listened to the prophecy, none of this would have ever happened in the first place.”

  “Oh? And what prophecy is that?” Some little podunkey mortal wizarding bullshit from a hundred years ago, no doubt, cooked up between a couple of old, jealous witches looking to cause trouble.

  “The prophecy concerning a door that opens between worlds, and the girl destined to open that doorway. We keep careful records, in all of our covens, tracing bloodlines going back a thousand years. We knew if Alison and Rob had a child, the likelihood they’d produce the heir to this prophecy was around…” The man closed his eyes and tilted his head back, calculating. “Approximately ninety-four percent. Pretty high for chance, don’t you think?”

  “Who are you?” Mir asked instead. “You’re not the neighbor.” Not just the neighbor.

  “Oh, I’m their neighbor, like I said, been right next door for forty years. I’m also the coven’s High Priest, or was, until it turned into a democracy in the early nineties. Now the title’s mostly a ceremonial.” Something sparked faintly in those brown eyes. “What I am, and this part will interest you, is the wizard who rendered that girl harmless. A task performed after her father was killed but by her request.”

  “Which was the only way you could truly bind her,” Mir muttered.

  “True.” He offered a shallow nod. “With her express permission.”

  “She was grieving,” Mir pointed out, his anger building. “And she was a minor.”

  “In our world, sixteen is plenty old enough to make decisions. And she requested the binding in front of a full gathering of the convention. Which was performed in accordance to our rites and traditions.”

  “When?” Mir asked. “When did you do this?”

  “An hour after she killed Rob.” There was a hint of self-satisfaction in the way he said it, as if the cat had gotten the cream.

  “You were waiting for this, weren’t you?” Mir didn’t bother hiding any of his disgust nor his rage. “You knew she was struggling to control her magic, she was a child, she was powerful, and she made a mistake.”

  “I didn’t force her to do a thing. It was free will.” The man’s smile turned predatory. “And you, of all people, should understand the ramifications of that.”

  Sydney had been set up. Or at the very least, manipulated.

  Perhaps it was time the High Priest knew what that felt like.

  “Why me, of all people?” Mir tilted his head curiously. “Who do you think I am, exactly?”

  “One of the Otherworldly. A being not of this earth, and you do not belong here.”

  “Tell me about it.” Mir snorted. “I’ve been trying to get off this pathetic hunk of rock since the moment I was banished here.” He took a step forward, felt the frail barrier of magic the man had erected between them snap like a spiderweb. “Problem is, I’m stuck.”

  With half a thought, he pulled out of the man’s head the memory he needed, before winding a simple spell around the wizard. “And now, so are you. Do you know what a taglock is?”

  The mortal’s face paled as Mir’s voice softened to a threatening whisper, “Answer me, Declan Ambrose.”

  “My…my name is Lordes,” he mumbled. “You…you cannot possibly... No one knew that name. Nobody. I made sure of it…”

  “Well, now I do. Now tell me what a taglock is.”

  “You’re going to use my true name to attach a curse to me.”

  Mir nodded. “That I am, Declan. Think of it not as a curse but a trade, per se. I want you to break the dampening spell you put on Sydney. She needs full access to her powers. And you’ll convene a full coven membership to undo the binding. I know the spell is attached to one of you, and I want it undone.”

  The man threw back his head and howled.

  “Now that would be a trick. If it could be done. Curse me by whatever means you’d like. Because that binding cannot be undone.” His eyes turned beady. “I bound the spell to her father’s spirit. And I highly doubt he’s coming to the meeting.”

  “Binding powers to a non-living thing is impossible.”

  The man’s eyes roamed around the room, finally resting on the charred gash. And that’s when Mir knew. “Her father wasn’t dead when you did it, was he?”

  “I was the first one to arrive at the scene. I left one of my coven members with Robert and took the girl to the meeting hall. Dropped a few hints here and there, and between her fear and regret, it was easy enough to have her ask me to bind her powers to her father. Once Rob passed over, the thing was done. Now, there’s no magic I know of that can unbreak it. All for the best, really.”

  Mir was really starting to hate this guy. “So in the end, you got your way.”

  The man narrowed his gaze onto Mir. “In the end, I lost my best friend but kept his daughter safe. As well as the rest of the world. If you want to call that getting what I wanted, then go right ahead.”

  “I call it manipulating a child into doing what you want and using her dying father to further your agenda.” Not to mention leaving her unprotected in the world.

  The man merely shrugged. “Semantics.” Which pissed Mir off even further. And yet, somehow, the man remained alive.

  “I could kill you.”

  “You could,” the man conceded, “but you won’t.”

  No, he wouldn’t. It would be pointless. And if there was any way of undoing the dampe
ning spell, this sorcerer might hold the only key. Which meant the man had a free pass.

  For now.

  On the verge of vanishing, Mir offered, just as the coolness of the slipstream touched his face, “For your information, the world is far from safe.”

  Her world was shadow and smoke.

  Woven together with gossamer threads, almost too thin to be seen.

  The threads, she realized at some point, were the lifelines of mortals, tangling and crossing. And at times, simply running out.

  Not that it mattered. Not anymore.

  Trapped in a dreamlike existence, Sydney wandered the smoldering city. Her corporeal body existed somewhere outside the natural world, while her mind was bound up tightly within an iron cage from which she could not break free, her will the puppet of the monster who’d stripped her bare and sent her back here for…something.

  She tried to remember what.

  So many times she’d tried to remember, but she couldn’t. And yet, the tiniest kernel of a memory pulsed inside of her. Stones. It had something to do with stones. But then the memory flitted away, too quickly for her to capture.

  She didn’t know where she was because her eyes did not see, and her body did not feel, but rarely, an image of her surroundings slipped in. A building, a frightened face, the long, gray expanse of water. She knew she was constantly moving, only because the backgrounds changed.

  But still, her body felt nothing. Except something hummed at her center, an energy without limit, a nucleus of magic she’d thought was gone. But try as she might, even her newfound power wouldn’t help her escape from the nameless puppeteer who held her strings. She fought. She struggled. She resisted.

  Yet every night she ended up in the same place.

  Staring at an ancient circle under a bright moon.

  Chapter 31

  The grit against his palm reminded Odin just how easily something could be reduced to nothing.

  Crouched in the dust of what had been a venerated museum, a handful of gravel in his hand, Odin watched Ava carefully pick her way down into the middle of the circle. Once she stood dead center, she froze. For such a long time he finally walked down, trailing his fingers along the dark coppery stains Sydney had left behind.

  He didn’t even think Ava was aware he existed, she was so still. So lost in her thoughts. But the moment he drew close enough to hear, she spoke, the sensual brush of her husky voice making him shiver.

  “Do you know what a lodestone is?”

  He stepped through one of the openings, something inside him squeezing tight as he did so. He felt trapped in here, imprisoned, as if the circle might snap shut around him.

  “Lodestone,” Ava continued, her voice swallowed up by the sheer magnitude of the space they were in, “is a stone that draws iron to it. It’s magnetized, naturally occurring, although nobody knows how or why. This circle is a lodestone. It always will be. It will draw the Orobus back to it, like a moth to a flame, so long as it exists.”

  “How do you know?” His voice sounded diminished, as if the stones were listening.

  “Because whatever’s inside of me wants to be here. Even worse, it wants to stay.” She did a slow spin. “I wonder if Sydney was drawn to them as well?” she murmured, her dark eyes finding Odin’s. “These stones… What are they made of?”

  Odin laid a hand against the closest stone. It was cool beneath his palm, covered in deep scuff marks from the battle. “Sandstone, by the feel. I don’t see any black veining or anything that indicates magnetite. Is there a specific one that feels…different?”

  Ava drifted towards the closest one. It was a smaller formation, the transom tilting dangerously to one side. “This one, maybe. It seems… I dunno, different, I suppose.” Shadows leached from her, pooling toward the opening of the formation like thick smoke. But instead of stopping, they turned, drifted along the bases of the circle, creeping like a spreading flood, reaching as if searching for something. As they reached the opening of the largest of the dolmens, the one that faced the city, they paused, then shrank back as if repelled. “They won’t go through it, for some reason.” She cast him a doubtful glance.

  Odin laid his hands upon the huge stones and focused everything he had on what might lay behind that opening. Nothing. He felt nothing. He sensed nothing, and to his growing frustration, he realized this might just be the way things were going to be. “I’m sorry, I cannot...”

  “It’s okay,” Ava said softly. “Maybe it’s enough that my shadows won’t go near it. At least you know what these other ones do, right?” She looked behind them to the far side of the circle. “The two that are shoved together, which are those?”

  “Svartheim and Nidavellir.” At her questioning glance, he clarified, “Dark Elves came through that one.” He pointed. “And this one housed something equally monstrous, but we never got a good look at them. We pushed them together during the invasion, trapping the invading armies.”

  “And the one across the way?” She eyed the torn up ground in front of the wide opening.

  “Frost Giants. So that one leads to Jotunheim, most likely.”

  Ava worked her way visually around the circle, right to left. “And the next one?”

  Odin eyed the blackened charring around the one that Sydney had pulled the Orobus through. “That one’s Vanaheim. The one Sydney went through. And supposedly came back through, a few hours later. But these two?” He eyed the two biggest ones in front of them. “We don’t have a clue where either of these lead. Or if they even go anywhere.”

  “The biggest one, it has four sides. Do you know why?” Ava asked absently. “It looks like a little room. It’s different from the rest.” She moved forward until she stood in its shadow. The inky tendrils of black sucked back inside her. Reaching out a hand, she grazed the stone, her fingers rasping on its surface, following the strange markings etched on the inside.

  Ava hesitated for a moment, debating, then moved to her left, to the slightly smaller formation. “What did Sydney do when she was here? How did she make the magic circle?”

  “She cut her hand, smeared her blood on the outer edges of the stones, and Mir thinks she cast a spell. It would have created a blood circle.” His voice turned thoughtful. “Iron and lodestone, you say? It would make sense, since the iron in her blood reacted so strongly with the stones.”

  “And a mortal witch is normally strong enough to trap two such beings, a goddess and a god, within a circle of magic?”

  “No,” Odin admitted. “She’s not.”

  Ava brushed her fingers across the stones again, a wondering expression softening her face. “Do you hear that?” she asked him, turning her head as if she were listening. “It sounds almost like music.”

  He couldn’t hear it, but he felt something, a whisper in the air or a vibration through Ava herself. The place came alive, as if the stones were waking up beneath her touch.

  “It may have been a mixture of everything, that night. Sydney, her magic, the stones, the solstice. Added together, she was able to harness enough energy to trap them inside.” It made sense. And it showed him what the Orobus might want from the girl.

  Sydney was the means to controlling all these doorways. With her, he didn’t have to wait for a solstice, the creature could open and close them at will.

  “So it was a perfect storm that night, everything coming together.” Ava stood, her gaze fixed on the smaller of the two formations. “So where does this door lead?”

  “There are several possibilities. Niflheim or Muspelheim?” Odin shook his head. “This one never opened that night, and as for the other…”

  Ava never took her eyes from the opening in front of her and with a quick, indrawn breath, stepped into the center. Instantly, she began to pant, desperate little breaths, her eyes wild and rolling, the whites around them brilliant as her face paled down to an ashen gray. Leaping through the opening, Odin picked her up in a clean swoop and emerged in two strides into the watery sunlight, Ava’s head
lolling on his shoulder.

  He quickly felt for a pulse, felt it beating like a bird’s wings under his finger. “That was supremely stupid,” he snapped. “You had no idea what might have happened.”

  Her eyes focused for a second. “Niflheim. That’s the doorway to Niflheim,” she told him before collapsing in a floppy mess of arms and legs.

  Chapter 32

  It was night.

  It was night and the moon hung low over the water, casting a long, white band of light leading from the shore to the globe suspended in the sky.

  It was night and Sydney had no earthly idea of what day, or even what year it was. But she was freezing cold, and she was hungry, and somehow she was conscious again. Shivering, she huddled against a toothy chunk of rubble, the edges gleaming white where it had broken apart during the explosion.

  Her mind felt scrambled, but for now, it was hers again. In these rare, lucid moments, she knew she’d best get her bearings and take stock of her current physical state. Something the Orobus seemed to have little interest in. Her stomach was caved in, and her hair was stringy, matted to her head on one side. So she hadn’t eaten in days, from the dizziness she was feeling, and had been most likely sleeping out in the open, from the numbness in her feet. If this kept up, she’d be dead in a couple of days. Sooner, if it didn’t warm up.

  A shifting in the darkness caught her eye, the slightest darkness of a shadow within a shadow and she curled inward, pushing back against the stone.

  A giant wolf loped out into the moonlight, his eyes practically glowing, his head held low and at the ready, teeth every bit as white as the moon, as the marble around her. Time seemed suspended as the thing quested the air, nose raised high for a full, endless minute before finally disappearing again, swallowed up by the shadows like a ghost.