by C. Gockel
She walks by Fred’s perch. He’s been here since Fenrir decided to knock down the cage and have Fred for lunch. Thankfully, Fenrir doesn’t have opposable thumbs and couldn’t open the cage. But it terrified Fred...and got pigeon poop all over Amy’s floor. Right now the cage is covered with a cloth so Fred can sleep, but she finds herself talking to him anyway. “Another exciting day at the office!” Fred does not respond as she passes by and heads into the first examination room.
Mopping up the clinic isn’t so bad most nights, but tonight she’d rather not have time to think. It’s been 7 days since she last saw Loki. 7 boring days for her — but exciting for everyone else at ADUO. No one will tell her what’s going on; but the office was a whirlwind today. She hears whispers of ‘Guantanamo’ and ‘Afghanistan’ and wonders when they started worrying about normal security issues — especially when two new trolls have popped up on the south side in the past three days, and someone on the news was swearing they saw a griffin over Lake Michigan.
She’s just wringing out the mop and is about to take her first swipe at the floor, when she hears the backdoor of the clinic slam. That door is an emergency exit only. Chill going up her spine, she straightens. “Dr. Terry?”
There is no answer. Amy’s grip on the mop tightens. She peeks out the door at the back of the examination room. It leads to the pharmacy, lab, operating room and boarding area in the back. She swallows. The back door of the building is in the boarding room. She hears the animals in their kennels start to whine and mew.
Amy’s eyes go to the pharmacy. Maybe someone is here for the drugs? She pulls out her phone — and for a moment is paralyzed. Should she call the police or ADUO? The ADUO agents are across the street. All she has to do is...
Through the boarding room door a shadow stumbles forward. Amy almost hits speed dial, but then the shadow’s eyes meet hers. It’s Loki, his hair and eyes are black again, and he’s completely blue.
He grins. “Hi.”
Amy puts her phone away. He’s wearing a t-shirt and jeans, a black leather coat thrown over one shoulder. What catches her eye is his left arm; it’s hanging at his side, and he’s holding his elbow with his right hand — as though to keep it from bending.
Questions about where he’s been drop away. Going forward quickly, Amy looks at his arm...it looks unmarred from the front but Loki looks pointedly backwards and Amy walks around him. Just below the edge of his t-shirt his skin isn’t fair or cerulean, it’s an ugly shade of dark purple.
“What is this?” Amy says, not touching it.
Loki straightens. “Miss Lewis, have you ever extracted a bullet?”
“Several. From a cow, a horse, and a pitbull.” She wants to know who shot him, but it’s secondary. “I don’t see any point of entry, just the bruising.” Which looks three shades of evil.
“I healed it,” he hisses.
Amy walks around to his front. “It has to come out.”
He meets her gaze. “Obviously.”
She tilts her head. “ADUO has a trauma center —”
Scowling he says, “No ADUO, no hospitals.”
For a moment she stares into the black of his blown out pupils. Comprehending what he’s saying she shakes her head. “No, Loki, no.”
“I have confidence in your abilities,” he says through gritted teeth.
She narrows her eyes. “It’s not my abilities I’m worried about.” It comes out harsher than she intends and she swallows. “I don’t know how anesthesia will react to frost giant physiology...”
He smiles. “I’ve lived through much worse.”
Amy stares at him. Of course he has — but she doesn’t want to hurt him.
His smile softens. “Do you think, Amy, that if I walked into ADUO that they would let me go? And if I walked into a hospital, and ADUO found out...” his voice drifts off.
Amy opens her mouth. She wants to say Steve needs Loki and is willing to work with him. But she’s heard things whispered in the halls of ADUO: how furious Director Jameson is about their cooperation with Loki, whispers of how if it weren’t impossible to arrest Loki there would be a warrant.
Her jaw hardens. They’re idiots and wrong. “Okay.” She takes a breath and nods her head. “This way. I think you’ll fit on the surgery table. I’ll get the supplies.”
Rolling his eyes, he follows her lead. “All you’ll need is a sharp knife. I’ll be able to patch myself up just fine when you’re done.”
Her stomach falls at his words. She’s really going to do this, without anesthesia. She looks over at him. His blue face is blank.
Loki jokes about pain.
She suddenly knows what to say. “That’s a shame.”
He raises an eyebrow at her.
She forces herself to smile. “I do the best stitches.”
He actually looks a little relieved when he smirks at her.
x x x x
In the end, all she needs is a sharp scalpel and forceps. Loki shows her exactly where to cut, and he somehow temporarily stops the blood flow and helps her hold the tissue back; she doesn’t even need clamps.
His stillness as he lies on the the cold operating table is more eerie than his blue skin, and Amy can hear her heart beating in her ears. Oddly, she’s more worried about Dr. Terry coming in than about the surgery. The vets often let her practice on rescue animals that are brought in, she’s done things like this more times than she can count, and Loki isn’t trying to bite or kick her.
Loki has his head turned the opposite direction. “It’s right —”
“Between the brachial artery and the humerus. I see it.” She narrows her eyes at the slightly reflective surface of the bullet. The brachial artery crosses down the front of the arm. The bullet came in at an angle from behind and is lodged right where the artery passes next to the humerus. He’s lucky it didn’t hit the bone or the artery.
Reaching in with the forceps she says, “You’re going to feel pressure.” When she operates she sometimes feels like her hands aren’t really her own; the unsteadiness she feels in her life in every other way disappears. Now as she grasps the base of the bullet with the forceps, her grip is sure and firm. Pulling it out in one smooth motion, she holds it up in the light. “It’s out.”
Loki gasps and presses his head against the table. Before Amy’s eyes, his tissues begin to mesh themselves together.
She looks at the bullet smeared with blood. It is long and wicked looking. “Did the very bad things do this to you?” she whispers.
“No, they don’t have guns. That was just an unfortunate misunderstanding. Some Mujahideen drug runners I think.”
Amy looks at him with alarm. Afghanistan. Guantanamo.
He rolls over on his side and leans on his arm. And now that the imminent danger is gone, it’s as though he is suddenly there, all sky blue, 6 feet and 5 inches stretched out on the operating table, feet sticking off the end, his hair now dark and dishevelled, his eyes black. It strikes her that the last few times she’s seen him in his more human guise he’s had a furrow between his brows and has looked tired, but now his face is completely smooth.
He looks good. She’s suddenly aware of all 5 feet 5 inches of awkwardness that is her. Swallowing, Amy looks down at the bullet in her hands, grabs a piece of gauze, and begins wiping away the blood.
“You did that remarkably well,” he says, sitting up on the table and slipping to the floor.
She raises an eyebrow in annoyance. “Of course I did.” Did he think she’d be unnerved by a little blood and raw muscle?
He takes a step closer. “It’s kind of sexy when you’re so...” Smiling, he tilts his head and drawls. “....competent.”
Amy promptly drops the bullet. She fumbles but it’s Loki who kneels and catches it before it hits the ground.
Standing, he narrows his eyes and presses it into her hand...and then doesn’t let go.
She’s dressed in scrubs, she is not at all sexy, and he’s being mean. “Don’t want to keep it as a
souvenir?” she says, trying to ignore how quickly her heart is beating.
Leaning down, he whispers near her ear. “Thank you, I think I would.”
He squeezes her hand, releases a bit, and then lets his fingers pulse feather light on hers. Her body goes hot, her mouth drops and her limbs feel like they’ve turned to wet noodles. And suddenly some thoughts in Amy’s brain crash together at once. He kissed her palm when he was blue in the micro lab, and after Alinea when she swore he was going to kiss her, his eyes had blown out to completely black like they are right now. “You’re flirty when you’re blue!” The words just pop out of her mouth — embarrassingly breathily.
Pulling back, he stares at her a moment and then drops her hand and gazes down at his own. Looking somewhat disgusted, he says, “That might explain why the taxi driver was so frightened...”
She silently curses herself; why did she open her mouth?
He lifts his eyes. “But it doesn’t frighten you. In fact...” He tilts his head, and his black hair falls to the side. She wants to touch it, but of course stands stock still.
“Kinky Amy,” he says shaking his head. He sounds vaguely disappointed...or disgusted. Which makes her scowl. She wants to protest, wants to tell him no, he looks better when he’s blue. Healthier. More alive. But from the front of the clinic comes Dr. Terry’s voice. “Amy, I’m back!”
The blue in Loki’s skin melts away, the furrow returns to his brow, and there are dark bags under his eyes, too. He puts his hand to her temple. “I have some memories to give you,” he says.
“What?” Amy’s eyes widen, and she pulls back away from his hand. “Didn’t you tell me that you’re not very good with memory manipulation?” It was before she really knew who he was, back before they’d even gone to Alfheim.
“Amy?” says Dr. Terry, this time from the examination room.
Lowering his voice he says, “That’s memory erasure — I tend to take the whole she-bang.” He smiles grimly. “This is memory addition. I need someone at ADUO to talk to the very bad things and find out where the gate is.”
“I don’t think that I —”
She hears the door to the examination room opening to the back, and Dr. Terry’s footsteps. There is suddenly nothingness in front of her, but she’s pulled forward by one arm, a gentle pressure lands on her opposite temple. Something warm and soft falls on her brow. “You’ll be fine,” she hears as the warmth on her brow fades.
“Amy?” says Dr. Terry.
The warmth on her temple and the weight on her arm disappear. Amy takes a stumbling step forward, her vision blurs for a moment, and she puts her hand to her head.
“Are you all right?” says Dr. Terry.
Amy turns around and blinks at her. “I think I just had the world’s biggest headrush,” she says.
“Do you need to sit down?” Dr. Terry asks.
“No, I think I’ll just finish up my mopping.” Turning, she practically runs into the exam room. What was that?
Chapter 10
Amy comes to the office a bit bleary eyed the next morning. No one pays her the least bit of attention. The tension in the air is almost palpable.
Sitting at her desk, she watches Laura walk quickly and purposely from Steve’s office to her own. Brett, Bryant and Hernandez are in the conference room...
Everyone is so busy, she’s not sure she should bother anyone. But Loki tweaked her memory...and okay, she doesn’t know how, she doesn’t seem to have forgotten anything — but if she had, would she remember?
She bites her lip. Approaching Steve’s office she notices that his door is slightly ajar. A woman’s voice, slightly hissy, like it’s a bad recording echoes into the hallway.
“You filthy fuckers of polar bear dung, let me go! You blight on the tundra of Midgard! You slow-eyed pieces of snow weevil snot! Arrrrggggghhhhhh!!!! You again! Get out of my head! Fuck you and your Josef!”
Amy blinks and knocks.
The recording clicks to a stop. “Come in,” says Steve.
Amy pushes the door open. “Whoa,” she says. “Someone’s mad.”
Steve stares at her a moment as though she might be from Mars. “Pardon?”
Amy looks to the side, “Ummm...the recording. I don’t even know what a snow weevil is. Is it a tundra thing?”
Steve puts his elbows on his desk and leans forward. “Amy, we’ve had every linguist in the FBI and a handful who aren’t listen to that recording and none of them understood it. Are you telling me you can?”
Amy pushes a stray piece of hair behind her ear. “Errr...but it’s in English?”
Steve stares at her for a moment. And then pushing a key on his computer he says, “Listen again.”
And then instead of just understanding, she hears it: harsh guttural consonants that remind her of German.
Steve tilts his head.
Amy swallows. “So Loki came to see me last night.”
Raising an eyebrow, Steve motions towards his chair with a nod. “Have a seat.”
x x x x
“There she is,” says Steve. Amy peeks in the window of Steve’s office. It’s four days since the giants were taken into U.S. custody. Three days since all but one of them managed to get themselves killed, either in escape attempts or by banging their heads against their cell walls. And it’s the first day the one remaining survivor has been in Chicago’s ADUO office. Steve’s office is now a makeshift hospital room. The sleeping giantess is in a straight jacket and bound to a medical gurney at the chest, waist and thighs. Her definitely not-blue face is beautiful, heart breakingly symmetrical, framed by pale gold hair. Amy shivers. It’s like some twisted version of Sleeping Beauty.
She swallows. Amy suggested to Steve that Cera was wreaking havoc on the magical matter in the giantess’ brain, and that maybe in a place with Promethean shielding she’d be able to be coherent and less dangerous to herself.
Steve actually thought it was worth a shot. Amy takes a deep breath. Loki, on the other hand, thinks that Amy is bonkers — he has insisted that the giants most likely scrambled their brains in a ‘wonky world walk’ because they’re ‘obviously amateurs.’
She tilts her head. Since his visit to the clinic, he’s been coming to her house every night. She knows it’s because he wants to find out if they figured out where the gate to Jotunheim is; but that can’t be his only reason for showing up. He stays for hours — or they go out for hours. She’s never eaten so well in all her life, and they have such great conversations. Last night they were discussing epigenetics. Amy’s sure there is no way that frost giants, Aesir, elves and humans are simply a product of convergent evolution — according to Loki they can interbreed. Why do all the other races have more magic matter in their nervous systems than humans? Amy wonders if it may be environmental, a switch they can turn on. Loki isn’t positive, but says it’s a possibility because the Einherjar, Odin’s elite guard, are allowed Idunn’s apples and afterwards —
“Amy?”
Amy blinks at Steve’s voice and meets his eyes.
“She’s waking,” Steve says, inclining his head to the giantess. “You’re on.”
Amy takes a breath and a guy with a big gun opens the door. She walks in, two guards behind her, two in front, and two doctors.
The giantess stirs on the table. Her pale blue eyes blink open and widen. She strains at her bonds and then shrieks a string of harsh guttural syllables. “What are you doing to me?”
Without thinking Amy responds in the same guttural language as she unfolds the questions she’s supposed to ask. “Um, hi. We’re really sorry about keeping you, um, tied up. But we don’t want you to hurt yourself. We thought that you might be safe from Cera in here, but we weren’t sure so...”
The giantess stares at her a moment. Her eyes narrow. “How do you speak my tongue, human scum?”
Amy takes a deep breath. She will not be like pretend jailers in those psy experiments in the 1970s who became all crazy and sadistic. This woman just went thro
ugh something horrible, and Amy will be nice and honest. Damn it. “Loki fiddled with my memory,” says Amy.
The woman on the table glares at her, and then she laughs. “Odin’s lackey? And what are you? His slave? His whore?”
Amy’s nose wrinkles. “That’s not nice, and no.”
The woman blinks at her, and then spitting in Amy’s face she shrieks. “I will not fall victim to your wicked mind games, you retarded spawn of a yeti!”
The rest of the ‘interview’ goes about the same.
x x x x
It’s Friday morning. Amy is at ADUO headquarters. She’s had 5 days of unproductive interviews with the giantess. Now she’s sitting in on a surprise teleconference with Steve, Laura Stodgill, and two of ADUO’s new linguists. Director Jameson’s face is hovering on a large monitor in front of them. Everyone but Amy is wearing a dark suit. She’s wearing a great big warm comfortable green sweater over a pair of yoga pants and slippers. Jameson is listening to their progress, or lack thereof.
Fenrir is sitting on her lap, out of view of the cameras. Obviously having Fenrir here is strictly against protocol, as are the clothes she’s wearing, but Amy’s upstairs neighbor Jan is away on vacation, and she is not dumping Fenrir in a kennel.
Also, having Fenrir here makes things more bearable. Whenever Amy’s not been with Evil Not-So-Sleepy Beauty, she’s been in intensive sessions with the linguists trying to teach them Jotunn. In between, she’s slept on a couch, loyal little Fenrir at her feet.
It would probably be a good idea to leave Fenrir outside of the conference room right now — but the call was a surprise. Also, away from Amy, Fenrir barks. A lot. So now Amy is running her hands through Fenrir’s fur as she faces Jameson.
Her phone vibrates and she sees a text from Loki. It’s been days since she’s seen him, and she misses him.
All the text says is, Find out Sleeping Beauty’s name yet?
Amy scowls. He knows the answer to that. Still she types back. No.
And then tilting her head she asks. Do u know it?