“And nothing you want to have on your conscious,” Loki added. “Tell us we can trust you, and we are out of here. If not…” He and Mir exchanged a long look.
“There’s other places we can send you. That’ll keep mortals safe.”
“I’m good,” Ava said, her voice icy. “I’ve got it together. I slipped,” she admitted, “for a minute, after Odin boasted he’d killed her. After he…practically gloated she was dead, there was a moment when I lost it. But I’m good now. Steady.” Even the air in the room seemed to pause, waiting.
“Good,” Mir said. “You got a place in mind to go?”
“Yeah. I do,” Loki said. A place no one knew about, except for him.
“Don’t tell me. Just get there and Fen will find you in an hour. I’ll do some digging around and see who else is willing to go with us. Then we go in and bring your woman back.”
“She’s been down there almost a day.” Loki snarled.
“I can count as well as you. I know how long it’s been.” Mir’s voice grew somber. “And I know how Hel’s going to react. We’ll get there as fast as possible. But if Odin catches you, then nobody else will be able to help you two. So get the fuck out of here.”
Once they arrived at the decaying building, he went in first to make sure Hel hadn’t had the foresight to leave a few surprises for them. A couple of Grim, lurking in the shadows. She had not. Then again, planning had never been one of her strengths.
“What is this place?”
“Your sister’s newest apartment.”
Ava looked around in disbelief, blinking with surprise and curiosity.
At the knives. The Kevlar. The bloody, crumpled clothes. Unopened boxes piled in the corner. The broken bed, which at least brought a hint of a smile to Loki’s face.
“I don’t understand what this is.”
He stood motionless, seeing the whole shitty place, dusted with the residue of the woman he loved all over it and whispered, “I know you don’t. I didn’t either, not really. Not at first.” He continued to stare at the tiny, cramped room, everything still in complete disarray. “But I do now.”
“She moved here, right before…” His throat closed off for a moment. “Hel’s demons tracked her to her last place. I was watching to make sure she stayed safe. But that night she was hurt so badly I almost lost her. Point is, nobody knows about this apartment, except Morgane, me, and now you.”
“You’re going to stay here. You’re going to wait. I’ll text everyone where to meet, then be back to get you. Mir as much as said he would go, and Fen, too. Tyr will show up eventually. Don’t know who else, but we’ll travel faster with just a few of us, anyway. As for you…”
He took in the emotions warring across her face. Rage. Fear. Hope.
“Let’s see how you’re holding up when I return. If I think you’ll endanger any of our lives, then you stay here, understand? I think I can trust you? Then you go with.”
Ava’s eyes gleamed in the dim light of the single bulb on the ceiling. “Whatever, but know this. She was my sister long before she was your lover.” Her voice grew soft, almost threatening. “So think long and hard, Loki, before you try to cut me out of anything.
“Because I’ll step over you to get to her.”
36
Loki spent almost an hour wasting time.
Precious time, waiting to go back to that room to face Ava. Deciding whether she was brave, fiercely loyal, or a complete liability. Even now, hand on the doorknob, he still hadn’t decided.
Fen was lounging in the single, wooden chair, tipped back against the wall. Mir was hunched up on the counter. Tyr glowered from a dark corner. Vali looked…bored. Ava, picking her nails, lifted her head at his entrance. Loki took it as a good sign nobody hung suspended in midair, writhing in pain.
“Thought you’d gotten lost,” Ava said blandly, chewing on her thumb.
He grunted out a response, setting food, energy drinks, and bags of Mickey D’s on the counter. She was dressed in some of Morgane’s fighting clothes, which hung loosely on her thin frame, but he nodded in approval at the Kevlar. It would offer some protection.
“Odin thinks we’re on patrol,” Vali offered while Tyr scoffed, rifling through the bags.
“Odin thinks no such thing. He knows exactly what we are doing. The fact he is not here, right now, stopping us, means we are free to continue doing it.” Loki snorted. “He’s most likely hoping we all die in the process.”
Fen met his stare. “Yeah, well, last time was a cluster. Let’s try to avoid that tonight. The Dagda said he’d lead us through the Tuatha entrance to the Underworld. Said something about it won’t be a walk in the park.” He shot a sideways look at Ava. “Not sure a mortal will make it,” he added.
Tyr threw Fen a sandwich from across the room. “Where are we meeting?”
Fenrir smirked, swallowing the burger in one bite. “Guess.”
Loki felt his gut tighten. “You’ve got to be kidding me?”
“Nope. So we’d best get a move on.”
Loki gazed across the room at Ava, who returned his gaze as intently. “You good to go?”
“I won’t be left behind.”
He only nodded and heard her small, breathy sigh of relief. Loki wondered if she was aware tears were running down her face, but knew she would only be angry if he pointed it out. So he ignored them. Hanging back, he lowered his voice, “Wasn’t planning on leaving you behind. But this is not going to be easy.”
“You’re telling me it was easy getting out the first time?”
Swigging an energy drink, Fen chuckled. “Easy peasy.”
“Bullshit.”
“None of it’s easy. The issue is whether a mortal can get in through this doorway. The Tuatha de Danann are a different sort of immortal, and their portals are not as user friendly to lesser races.”
“What do you mean user friendly? And I’d cool it with the lesser races talk if I were you.”
Fen grinned at the lethal fire in her voice, even as he lifted his bottle up to her in a salute.
“All I meant to say is there’s a good chance your mortal body won’t make it through the magic of the portal.” Fen shrugged. “By lesser, I meant not as durable. By user friendly, I mean it will tear you limb from limb.” Fen watched Ava blanch whiter and whiter with his every word. “That’s all I was trying to say. Not slamming your mortal body in the least, it’s just not as long-lived or as tough as ours.”
“Enough, Fen. She’s going. If I don’t think she’ll make it, she waits for us on this side. But we’re not leaving her. We made a deal.” Fen studied her again, his gaze taking in the determination, the stubbornness.
“Whatever you say, Dad.”
Fen blinked, the blue flecks in his eyes sparkling as he offered her a final out. “Are you sure, Ava? I’d come right back here to the apartment and pick you up, the second we returned with your sister. You’ll be safer here too,” he tacked on for good measure.
“I’m going. If I can’t get in, then I’ll wait. Besides, Morgane went down there for me. Brought me home.” She smiled grimly and squared her shoulders, scrubbing the tears from her face. “Can’t have her holding that over my head for the rest of my life, can I?”
“No, indeed you can’t,” Loki murmured, ushering her out in front of them and following her down the hall, the hollow, metal stairwell, and out into the empty parking lot. Without breaking stride, he reached the street, looking for a flash of yellow. Whistled. “We’re close, only about twenty minutes from where we need to be. When were we supposed to meet them?”
Mir eyed the cab as it pulled to the curb. “Just before nightfall, according to Fenrir.”
“Quite a few of us going on this little rescue mission. Tyr, Vali, and Fen are the muscle. I’m the brains, obviously,” Mir continued conversationally.
“Which leaves the question of why exactly the girl’s going at all?” Ava practically growled in response to Mir’s query.
“Be
cause Ava wants to go. Because Morgane loves her more than anything else. Because while Hel’s busy with me, Tyr and Vali, Fen and Ava will be freeing Morgane from the dungeons. And I need you, asshole,” he raised his eyes to Mir, his voice thickening, “because she has been down there, tortured in her mortal form for over a day. If I know my daughter, Morgane will need every bit of magic you can spare to keep her alive.”
Loki’s eyes flashed. “And you are damn well going to keep her alive. Once she is free, and I know she’ll make it out of there, I will deal with my daughter.”
Ava made a small sound of approval.
Loki let the others get in the car before grabbing Ava’s arm, halting her. “There’s a chance this won’t work. There’s a chance…” Everything else, all the fears that had followed him all day became lodged in his throat, until he could barely manage to breathe.
Ava clasped her hand over his, where he gripped her arm tightly. “We are going to get her out. She is going to live through this, Loki. You were wrong about just one thing.”
“I’m wrong about a lot of things.”
“My sister doesn’t love me more than anything. Not anymore. I saw the way she looked at you,” she said confidently. “But I appreciate you taking me along, just the same.” She grinned up at him, though her eyes were still lined with tears. “But if this goes south? I’m not making any promises to you or the others. I’ll give you as much warning as I can, but if Hel has hurt her? I’m loosing everything I have on her and fuck the consequences.”
“Fair enough,” Loki said, releasing her arm, guiding her into the backseat next to Fen, and taking the front. “Lincoln Park. Drop us off at the corner of North and Clark, in front of the History Museum.”
After the cab dropped them off on the sidewalk, Ava looked at where they were while Mir lit a cigarette and sauntered away. “I don’t understand, why a museum?” she asked, confused, glancing at the letters engraved into the marble placard on the building. “What is this place?”
Loki gestured to the others to go ahead and hung back a moment before following. “This used to the city’s main graveyard. Back when there was no city. Back before everything. Actually,” he clarified, rounding the southwest corner of the building, “we’re walking across what once was Potter’s Field, where the indigent were buried, a hundred or so years ago.”
“This used to be a graveyard?” Ava glanced behind them. “Actually, now that you mention it, something about this place does feel weird.”
“It was a long time ago. When we first came over from Europe, we moved westward, and this seemed as likely a place as any to settle, when it was still a small town. A few years in, Odin erected a back door here, an escape hatch of sorts, in case we ever needed it. With the Dagda’s permission, of course.”
“There’s a door here, leading to the Tuatha de Danann’s world?” Ava shook her head, looking around, as if trying to see if anything had changed. “It’s the air,” she murmured. “It feels thicker here. Heavier, somehow. As if we’ve been submerged. Can’t you hear it, like everything’s gone quiet?”
“Yes, we’re getting close. Once we’re through the Tuatha doorway, that will lead us to the Underworld.”
The trees cast shadows across the steps when they rounded the white marble building, following the scent of Mir’s cigarette smoke, heading for the raised dais of the Lincoln Monument, the open sweep of steps crowned by a solitary, blackened statue.
“Why here?” Ava asked.
“Because in places like these the veil is already thin, so it’s easier to create a portal between worlds. Besides, this area has always remained fairly isolated, which will work to our benefit tonight.”
Loki cut to the right, stepping off the concrete into the grass then under the trees. Mir and Vali stood waiting. “Tyr’s already gone ahead. Scouting it out.” Mir nodded to Ava. “You sure about this?”
“Jeez, is this the theme of the night? I’m going.” Frustration thrummed through every single word.
Mir held his hands out in defense. “Suit yourself.” He stepped toward the trees, where the faintest glimmer of what looked like moonlight seemed to hang in the shadows. One pace. Two. And disappeared.
“I fucking hate this, you know that? This had better not be anything like last time,” Vali muttered before following him, quickly poofing into nothingness.
Fen repeated the disappearing act, leaving only Loki and Ava. “Should I stick my hand through first?” she asked, stepping closer, eyes wide as she took in the shimmering wall that appeared in front of them. “Would that make this easier? Like testing the water or something?”
“It’s going to either kill you completely or not at all,” Loki tried to look encouraging. “And there’s no way to know for sure except to go through. Magic is a weird, unpredictable thing. Its rules are not always known to us, not even to those of us who think we make the rules.” He watched her curl her fingers back against her palm, doubt on her face as she took in the shimmering doorway.
“What I can tell you is this. You have already been through this door. You have survived this realm. And you returned stronger than when you went in. Fear is a weakness, Ava, don’t give it power over you.” He gazed at the door. “Besides, think about how you can gloat once you bring her back. You’ll be even and she won’t be able to hold anything over your head.”
When Ava stepped through, the smile on her face was blinding.
The doorway left a sticky sort of residue all over her, as if glue had dried in her hair and on her face, and she couldn’t quite get it out. But she was through and alive and ready to kick some ass. And now she was here, she definitely felt a firm, definite tug from the dark writhing thing inside her. The urge was stronger here, dragging her onward. Toward something.
Yet she couldn’t take her eyes off the newcomer talking to Tyr. He was devastatingly beautiful. His eyes were a rich golden brown, with elegantly pointed ears below a gold and silver woven band, his golden brown hair pulled back into a long braid down his back. As if he were made purely of light, he shimmered.
“That’s the Dagda,” Fen whispered in her ear. “They say you shouldn’t look at a Fae male for too long or you’ll go blind. They’re pretty damn shiny.” When she turned to stare after him, he winked and strode away, motioning her to follow.
As they walked, there was a muffled discussion about weapons. Of Mir’s magic. Loki’s fire. Tyr and the golden Dagda kept their heads together most of the time. Loki posed a question here and there, but she felt he was mostly being polite. She was only half listening anyway, so focused on this nagging, infernal pull, so urgent it threatened to yank her off the path they followed.
Then the world turned foggy, the air around her molasses-like and thick. Her feet slowed, dragged down by something she could not see. She halted in front of another shimmering doorway, sensing the gaping maw was just on the other side.
“This is where I leave you.” The Dagda’s voice was layered harmonics, each word an orchestra of melody. He turned to Fenrir. “Remember your oath, wolf. You have until daybreak to leave our lands.” And like that, he simply vanished.
Ava’s breathing turned shallow. Tyr, Mir, and Vali strode ahead and vanished as well. Loki took her arm, pulled her, and like before, she felt that infernal drag against herself and then she emerged into a dim, bleak landscape. Fen popped out right next to her. On this side, the coiling, dreadful tug inside of her turned into something truly agonizing as her breathing shallowed out.
“How are you feeling over there?” Mir’s carefully worded question brought her head around. “You need to keep it together. Long enough for all of us to get in there, find your sister, isolate Hel.” His words seemed to stall for a moment. “My best guess is, Morgane’ll be in bad shape. You’ll have to keep it together,” he repeated, his brow furrowing.
“We all need to keep it together,” Ava warned. The scent of brimstone heavy with sulfur leeched through to her senses. Its familiar tang offered a gruesome remin
der of the years she’d spent here. “You forget, Mir, I was imprisoned in this place. For a long, long time. So before you shake your finger in my face and treat me like a child, let me remind you, everything Morgane is going through? I’ve endured before.”
A flash of something that might have been respect shone in his steel-blue eyes.
“Still. Control yourself. Until we find her. Then you can burn the place to the fucking ground, and that bitch along with it, I don’t care. But we get Morgane out first. Understand?”
Ava bristled but agreed, her breathing steady. “Will do.”
The walk to the back entrance to the Underworld was a dark blur of rock and shadows growing steadily colder with every step. Once they passed through, a few demons fell beneath Tyr’s sword, his lazy, almost halfhearted swings felling them like cordwood. As if this were a game. As if there weren’t a million more where these came from. Loki stalked out in front, every inch the avenging male. They pushed along, faster and faster as he set the pace, until Ava’s feet were tripping over the jagged rock, trying to keep up, the odor of the place encrusting the inside of her nose.
Charred flesh and screaming.
That’s what the stench would always remind her of. Of the few times she’d slept up there in the real world, the smell leached back into her consciousness and roused some sort of waking nightmare, so real she swore she still lay curled on wet, cold stone. Only to wake up in a soft bed overlooking the city.
Gooseflesh rose all over her.
Willing her feet to move faster, she caught up with the rest of them as they emerged onto a shallow ledge, overlooking an open plain where far below, a raging black river tore at the banks, a shiny gold bridge spanning it like a gossamer thread.
“We aren’t going in that way. We don’t have anything to offer Modgud, and I don’t want to give my daughter a heads up.” Loki gestured to a honeycomb of black holes down along the bottom edge of the ridge, right below their position. “There, we go in through there.”
Queen of Swords: The Banished Gods: Book One (The Banished Gods Series 1) Page 21
