Monsters : I Bring the Fire Part II (A Loki Story)

by C. Gockel

  Pulling the nail file out of the seam she blushes. “Of course, I know you’d never do that.”

  Loki says nothing, but he draws back a step. Amy hazards a glance at him.

  One eyebrow cocked, Loki purses his lips. “You know, Amy, sometimes I think you’re very clever.”

  Smiling, she turns back to the gadget in her hands.

  “Other times,” says Loki, “I think that you are just a child with breasts.”

  Amy scowls, then shakes her head. “Ha, ha, ha. Very funny.”

  He sighs, but she’s not really paying attention. The device is coming apart. Other detectors may have fancy electronics and gizmos inside, but this one is surprisingly low tech. There are just two glass plates in the top above the handle; sandwiched between them is what looks like agar. On it is a light blue substance covering the plates in an irregular pattern. Well, it is light blue most of the time. Now with Loki around it’s glowing and almost white.

  Loki steps close again.

  Holding the plates up to the light she says. “See that, it looks organic. Now to grab a sample...”

  As she preps a slide, Loki leans in so close his nose is inches away from the mystery substance. The plate flashes brightly, and he pulls back.

  Amy grabs a Q Tip, swipes a bit of the mystery substance off a plate, dips the Q Tip onto the slide she’s prepped, and puts on the cover. Slipping the slide beneath the scope, Amy peers into the lenses and focuses. And then she backs away from the slide and puts her hand to her mouth.

  Loki looks over to her, his eyes slightly wide. “What is it?”

  Shaking her head, Amy stares at the long thin bacteria on the screen. They look like blades of pale blue-colored grass with striations crossing them horizontally. “I thought it would be something exotic — that’s why I wanted the monitor, so I could take pictures...”

  She thought she might have to spend hours trying to find a near relative.

  She bites her lip. “But this is so obviously Cyanobacteria. What species I have no idea, but definitely Cyanobacteria.”

  “Cyanobacteria,” says Loki slowly. “Does it have another common name?”

  “It’s most commonly known as algae...blue green algae,” Amy says.

  Loki blinks. “Little organisms that float on water?”

  “Yes,” says Amy. “They feed on sunlight.”

  “These don’t feed on sunlight,” says Loki looking down at the glass plate. “They feed on magic. Light is their waste product.”

  Amy’s eyes go wide. “Like midi-chlorians! Like in Star Wars! ”

  Loki turns to her and blinks. “What are midi-chlorians? And what do these little organisms have to do with your country’s space defense system?”

  She didn’t make him watch Star Wars! She’ll have to remedy that later. But now she’s bouncing on the balls of her feet, incredibly excited.. “You’ve got little organelles in your body that feed on magic and they allow you to convert it into energy!”

  Loki scowls. Then he snickers. “A fine hypothesis, but no. Not right. Trust me, I don’t shit light.” He snickers. “Or fart rainbows.”

  At that he doubles over laughing and has to sit down on a chair. “Though my wives would have preferred it if I did!”

  Amy stares at him. What is with men and potty humor?

  Getting annoyed, Amy puts her hands on her hips. “So how do you use magic? And why can’t I?”

  Loki straightens and wipes his eyes. “Oh, because you lack the proper neural tissue in adequate quantities. It’s called...it’s called...”

  He looks away. “Well, you don’t have a name for it...I suppose that makes sense. You might not have discovered it since you have so little of it.” Turning, he gives her a look that is almost sympathetic. “Your species is retarded.”

  Deciding to let that insult drop in the interest of science, Amy takes a step closer to him. “Where is it? In the frontal cortex? In the brainstem? Maybe in the subventricular zone?”

  Loki stares at her. “In my species it is everywhere there is neural tissue.”

  “Is it part of white matter?” says Amy. “Gray matter?”

  His mouth drops a little, and then he shrugs. “I don’t really know. Biology isn’t my thing.” He smirks. “I never did get into the soft sciences.”

  Amy’s eyes go wide. She wants to say something biting about maybe if he knew a little more about biology he might be able to heal things instead of just blowing things up. But something tells her that would go badly. Instead, she just stands glaring at him, nearly blind with rage.

  Seemingly oblivious to the violence in her glare, Loki wanders over to the plate again. “But these little critters — they do eat magic. They’re from Vanaheim. I’ve heard of them, though I’ve never actually seen them...”

  There is a flash of light from the plate, and Loki takes a deep, strangled breath. Amy looks over with alarm. He’s trembling.

  “Loki?” she says, moving quickly to his side. He starts to fall backwards and Amy whips a lab stool around for him to sit on.

  He falls onto it, his weight pushing it back and its feet scraping the floor.

  “Loki?” Amy says again. But he’s staring into space seemingly oblivious. And then his pupils blow out wide until there is no color at all in his irises. The skin around his eyes and his fingers starts to turn blue — and then the blue spreads across his face, and up his arms, like a wave rolling over sand. Where the blue meets his hairline, his hair begins to turn black; where it meets his clothing, the t-shirt and jeans turn to his armor. He’s actually wearing his sword. Some pieces of the plating on his left arm seem to be missing and she can see his limbs are turning blue, too.

  He stares ahead. Perfectly still. And Amy catches her breath. He just looks so...magical.

  x x x x

  He is with a man and a woman, young, familiar and unfamiliar. They are by a river, beneath the stars; and from the constellations Loki knows they are in Vanaheim. The man turns to Loki and says, “No ale shall pour, unless it is brought to us both.” They have no torches, and no fire, but it doesn’t matter because the slow water of the river is glowing.

  And it would be mesmerizing if the woman weren’t more so. She is, he supposes, beautiful. But there is more to it than that. The softness of her form is an oasis Loki wants to dive into. Her eyes are soft, too, as soft as her magic, pale and gold — but abundant, full, and generous. As generous as her lips that are spilling into a smile. She turns, goes to the river, and brings back three crystal goblets full of the shining water. In her hands the water in the goblets swirls as bright as the sun. She passes one cup to Loki and one to the other man. “In lieu of ale,” the water fetcher says.

  He is almost afraid to take the goblet for fear the light will dissipate. But the light only grows brighter as he tilts it to his lips...almost bright enough to burn through the dark velvet magic that swirls around the other man, his eyes piercing, his face smiling, his own goblet a star in a dark night.

  x x x x

  A hand touches his cheek. The woman with the pale gold magic...

  “Loki?”

  Loki blinks, and Amy pulls her hand away as though she’s been burned.

  “What happened?” she whispers, her brows drawn together.

  His jaw tenses. He’s hallucinating now? As the Midgardians say, oh fuck.

  He rubs his face with his hands. “I think I’m just hungry.” Although he actually doesn’t feel particularly hungry. He doesn’t have that horrible gnawing feeling in his stomach at the moment. And his head is clear.

  He meets Amy’s eyes and smiles.

  Her brow relaxes, her lips turn up, and her chest heaves as she takes a breath. “You should have said something! We’re right by Little Italy. We can find a place where you can eat enough for an army.”

  She’s wearing the most atrocious heavy black sweater that makes her look boxy and fat. But still, his memory can supply the details of the outline of her breasts, the narrow curve of her wais
t, the gentle slope on her side as her belly flows to her hips. He feels a buzz underneath his skin and his body goes hot; it’s almost a shock. He’s felt so dead for so long, and now, suddenly for no reason he can quite account for, he is, in the local vernacular, extremely turned on.

  He stares at Amy and remembers her blushing at the restaurant when she thought he was praising her. It would be so terribly easy...

  “Loki,” she says, holding out a hand towards his face.

  Catching it in his own hand, he kisses her palm.

  She gasps and takes a heavy breath. He looks up at her. Her lips are wet and parted, and she brings her other hand up towards his temple but doesn’t touch him. The look in her eyes is as though she is under some sort of spell. It’s been too long since anyone has looked at him like that.

  With a gentle exhale of breath, she puts her hand to his temple and whispers almost reverently, “You’re blue.”

  Loki goes cold. For the first time, he notices the hand holding hers. Why didn’t he see it from the first? He is as blue as...as...Helen. But he isn’t blue; why is this happening?

  Dropping her hand he closes his eyes, concentrates, and lets his skin wash back to its normal color. He makes the Midgardian clothing reappear, too.

  “Better?” he whispers.

  Tilting her head, Amy, says, “You know, if you’re naturally blue, because you know, you’re an alien — it’s okay. I don’t mind, it’s kind of —”

  Wrapping his hand around the hilt of Lævatein he clenches his teeth. “I’m not blue!”

  She jumps back.

  Closing his eyes, he says, “I’m sorry. I’m...I’m just hungry.” And it’s true now.

  “Okay,” she says. “I’ll just clean up. I mean, you can go if you want...”

  He takes a deep breath and tries to look benign. “Actually, I would prefer your company. I get rather bored eating alone all the time.” And that is also true.

  “Oh, okay,” she says. “Just a minute.”

  He smiles as kindly as he can and walks to the corner of the lab and stares at the window. It’s dark now, and he sees little beyond his own reflection. His ginger hair is back, his eyes are light blue.

  Cera swirls around him. “What happened? I thought you’d left...Did you learn anything?”

  “Dah,” he mutters under his breath.

  Humans have access to Vanir magical devices and have adapted Vanir species to their own technology. But how?

  He narrows his eyes at the mist. The Vanir are after the World Seed.

  Chapter 4

  The night is cooler when they leave the restaurant in Little Italy. Loki’s hunger is sated, but he feels a growing prickle of worry. The Vanir are coming. They have to be...and he can do nothing about it.

  Thankfully, Amy has been asking interesting questions that have kept Loki at least partially distracted. Questions like why Loki hasn’t managed to bring hundreds of exotic germs to Earth and wiped out half the population by now; and why Earth germs haven’t affected him. The answer to both, is, of course — magic! Magical creatures predominantly get magical diseases, that humans are immune too, and visa versa.

  Now, as Amy wraps her arms around her she says, “When we create virtual images with computers, it takes a lot of computing power. I can kind of imagine how you turn magical energy into light to create illusions...But how can you maintain the illusion without focusing on it?”

  Pleased with the question, he says, “Well, there you’re wandering from science into philosophy.”

  “No, no, I think we crossed that line long ago,” says Amy.

  He raises an eyebrow. “Fair enough.” They are talking about something she can’t see, hear or touch. Still, it’s nice to talk about science and magic without being accused of being deviant and argr, unmanly.

  Holding out a hand, he lets an illusion of flame shoot up. “At first you need concentration, but at a certain point, magic itself takes over.” He pretends to catch the imaginary flame, gives it the shape of an owl, and sets it upon Amy’s shoulder.

  “Oh,” she says, eyes widening, but she doesn’t shriek or shirk away.

  Loki scratches the imaginary fire owl behind its illusory ear and begins to walk again, letting the owl remain on Amy’s shoulder. She grins at it, her eyes alight with undisguised wonder.

  He looks down the dark street. “The belief held by Hellbendi, the most prominent of the magical scholars, is that magic wants to be used, that in using it, we give it access to a larger conscious it wishes to be part of. We give it purpose, an outlet, and in return, it keeps our imagination in motion.”

  “That sounds like a whole lot of conjecture that can’t be tested,” says Amy, scowling a little.

  “You humans haven’t figured out how gravity works, but you know that it does,” Loki counters.

  Amy perks up; her eyes widen. “Do you know how it works?”

  Loki blinks. “No. Most of our science is wrapped up in the workings of magic. In some ways we are even further behind your species in understanding the basic mechanics of the unive —”

  He feels a buzz of electricity beneath his skin and stops. The fire owl, figment of his imagination that it is, hops to his shoulder.

  “Is something wrong?” asks Amy.

  Loki looks to their right. Across the street there is a park with a large black statue of a man in Renaissance-esque attire standing atop a fountain. Around the statue are three large embankments of concrete, filled with plants and trees.

  Loki’s eyes narrow. He feels the bend and curl of magic. His eyes dart to the red mist of Cera snaking through the trees. She feels it, too.

  The magic feels tethered to a consciousness; it is the same sort of energy he feels near a World Gate, but shifting and flickering. His eyes widen. Is someone creating a new branch of the World Tree? It’s something he’s only seen Hoenir do; Loki can’t manage it himself.

  He looks at the terrain. The embankments form a fence of sorts between the statue and the parkland beyond. And between them are openings that function as gates. World Tree branches are drawn to human gateways...

  There is also a fence about 100 paces away beyond a small copse of trees. It surrounds a field. There are two openings in the fence that he can see from here. He closes his eyes and sends his consciousness around the park. There are three more gates about another 600 paces to the north-east, east and south-east.

  He scowls. Fantastic. Loki can only destroy a branch with his physical form, he can only destroy a branch after it materializes, and there are 6 places where the branch is likely to emerge.

  Someone is coming. His jaw tenses. The Vanir. They won’t want Earth — they were the first to believe in non-interference with mortals. But they will want Cera, and then Asgard back.

  He puts his hand on Lævatein’s pommel. They can’t have Cera, and only he is allowed to take Asgard.

  Loki smirks with a sudden realization. He has a small army at his beck and call.

  “Call Steve, Amy,” Loki says, eyes still on the forest.

  “I didn’t bring my phone,” she says. “They can track it.”

  Loki scowls and hands her the temporary phone he picked up downtown.

  She stares at it. “Uh, no, you know, they can worry about me for a little while. I don’t like thinking about my boss unless I’m getting overtime pay.”

  “Overtime pay?” says Loki, looking quickly to the gathering magic and then back to her.

  “You know, work that’s above and beyond 40 hours a week...The FBI gives it to its hourly workers; they give danger pay, too.”

  Loki stares at her, and then turns his head to the magic. He has a few minutes...

  Struck by inspiration he smirks. He can quash the Vanir or anything else that comes through this gate and repay his debt to Amy.

  Thrusting the phone in her face he says, “Dial Steve!”

  x x x x

  It’s close to 9:30 p.m. on a Wednesday, and the brownstone-lined street of the residential
section of Little Italy is very quiet. Steve checks the sky. Not a raven in sight.

  Aside from Steve, Bryant and his brother Brett, the street outside of Amy Lewis’ apartment is empty. Generally, the FBI does not tolerate cronyism, and having a pair of brothers in the same department would never fly. But ADUO is special. Not in a good way. In Brett’s words it’s special in a “hold the place together with spit, bubble gum and duct tape” kind of way. Steve’s working on fixing that, but he’s dealing with layers of bureaucracy, and getting to the surface will take time — even with a slowly growing ball of something nasty under Chicago’s Board of Trade.

  “She just disappeared again,” Bryant is saying.

  “Yep,” says Brett. Steve has never heard Brett say more than Yep or Nope, but when it comes to making tech work with spit, bubble gum and duct tape, he and Bryant are both masters. Brett came out here to test a more sensitive magic detector.

  Bryant shakes his head. “We kept up with her until she cut through the neighbor’s lot there. Couldn’t quite see her behind the building, tried to move into position. And then —”

  “Poof.” Brett says in a dry voice. Drawling in the same West Virginia twang as Bryant, he adds, “I don’t think this detector is as sensitive as Ericson makes it out to be.” He holds up something that looks more like a radar gun. “Maybe I can reread the manual and make some special modifications myself.”

  Steve blinks. Those are as many words as he’s ever heard Brett say.

  “Witness protection program,” says Bryant. “Really, you have to convince her.”

  Bryant, on the other hand, never shuts up. Steve is spared the rest of Bryant’s commentary by his phone ringing.

  He glances down at the unfamiliar number. He picks up. “Agent Steve Rogers here.”

  Loki’s voice rings in his ear. “Steve, so lovely to hear your voice.”

  “Where is she, Loki?” Steve says. Bryant and Brett move closer.

  “Where are you?” Loki’s voice says. And then from behind him he hears more clearly. “Oh, look, I found you.”