She had rouge on her cheeks, blue and gold glitter eyeshadow, thick eyeliner and mascara, red lipstick, a beauty mark on one cheek. She wore fishnet stockings, a teddy with silk boxer shorts that barely covered the top of her thighs, and six-inch heels.
Lia threw herself down, wrapping her arms around her sister, and Maia clutched at her, staring at her like she wasn’t sure if Lia herself was real.
“Lia?” she said, her voice tremulous.
“Yes. Yes, yes, yes. We’re getting you out of here. Now. I promise.”
“Is that guy really with you? He said he was.”
Lia’s head turned, her eyes finding Loki where he continued to smack Ernie’s head into the wooden stud through the hole in the sheetrock.
“Yes,” she said, her voice holding a fierce kind of approval, what verged on full-blown pride. “Yes. He is definitely with me.”
Lia was still crushing her little sister against her when Loki’s voice rose.
His words were loud, but utterly calm.
Something about them immediately relaxed the worst of the terror in Lia’s chest, even before she made full sense of his actual words.
“Yes, I am with her,” Loki called out, his voice as hard as metal. He turned, meeting Lia’s gaze from across the room. “I am sorry you had to see this, my darling, but do not worry, little elf!” Loki glared at the man slumped below him, now bleeding from the head as he leaned against the bedroom wall. “This enormous piece of dinosaur excrement did not touch your sister, despite how it may appear. He certainly wanted to. He certainly was working his way up to it… weren’t you, you sack of mouse testes?”
Lia’s voice shook.
“Are you sure?” she said, gripping Maia tighter.
“I am very sure. This is him escalating things, apparently, after clumsy attempts to woo her. Your sister tells me this is the first time he’s gone this far, however.”
“This far?” Lia said, her voice growing shrill. “What is this far, exactly?”
“He photographed her. He gave her the clothes and instructed her to paint her face… but that is all. We got here in the nick of time, it seems.”
Loki turned, glaring at Ernie, who was still slumped against the wall, holding his bleeding head in one hand.
He was blubbering like a giant child now, snot running down his face.
“He had it all worked out, though, didn’t you, my disgusting pile of rotted Fangor vomit?” Letting out a low growl, Loki kicked the large man in the gut. “He was thinking about it. He was plotting. He was planning how to hurt this poor little mouse. Weren’t you? Weren’t you? You giant sack of maggot-infested boar entrails?”
Loki kicked him again, and the man threw up his hands, whining as he pushed himself backwards, scooting down the wall with his butt and legs, trying to get away.
Loki’s words finally reached her mind.
Or maybe Lia just finally believed them.
She turned to Maia, staring into her face.
“Is that true?” she said. “Tell me the truth, Maia. Is what you told Loki true?”
Maia nodded.
She looked past Lia, her eyes finding the huge man scrunched against the wall. The man was still crying quietly as he stared up at Loki, fear in his eyes.
“He’s been creepy for a while,” Maia said, looking back at Lia. “But he didn’t touch me.”
She looked at Lia’s dress then, which was now visible under the open leather coat.
“What the heck are you wearing?” Maia demanded.
Lia flushed, drawing away so she could pull the leather coat closed, buttoning the front.
“Go get changed,” Lia said, climbing back to her feet and pointing at the walk-in closet. “Fast as you can. We have to go. Now.”
Maia ran for her closet.
Once she’d disappeared inside, Lia looked at Loki.
“Gregor’s downstairs,” she said. “He pulled up with his whole entourage right before I came up here––”
“I know, pet. I know.” Loki held up a hand. “It’s quite all right.”
“Where are the rest of them?” Lia demanded. “The guards? I saw all of them on the roof, then nothing.”
“They’re taking a little nap right now, lover. Never fear. They won’t wake up until we are long gone.”
Lia scowled. “What about the gunshots I heard?”
“One guard made it down here early,” the god said with a dismissive wave. “I was a little preoccupied, and didn’t hear him. My own fault, really.”
Lia bit her lip, folding her arms. “And the gunshots?”
Loki shrugged, glancing at the wall behind him. Lia’s eyes followed the direction of his pointing finger, seeing two bullet holes, one roughly Loki’s chest-height, and the other roughly the height of Loki’s head.
“Were those meant for you?” she said accusingly.
Loki shrugged again, smiling.
“He missed.”
Before Lia could answer that time, Maia opened the closet door.
She emerged wearing blue jeans and a pink T-shirt with a beaded heart on the front. Lia exhaled in relief as she watched Maia shove an arm into a dark-blue, zip-up, hoodie sweatshirt, holding a washcloth in her other hand.
She’d obviously been rubbing the washcloth on her face.
The yellow terrycloth was already smeared with red lipstick and rouge, beige foundation, black eyeliner, and baby-blue glitter eyeshadow.
Looking past her little sister, through the door of the closet, Lia realized she’d forgotten a bathroom lived on the other side.
Maia finished hiking the sweatshirt up on her shoulders, stomping down on her heels to get her Vans to settle on her socked feet. Once she had her clothes fully situated, she rubbed the washcloth on her face a few more times, scrubbing her skin more vigorously before she tossed the cloth down to the carpeted floor.
“Let’s get out of here,” Maia said, sounding impatient. “Can we go? You came to rescue me, right? To get me out of here? So we should go. I could hear people downstairs.”
Hearing the irritation and impatience and worry in Maia’s voice, Lia felt another huge surge of relief. It sounded so much like her, so normal, so teen-agey, she felt that fear that had terrorized her chest slowly start to calm down.
Loki said the guy hadn’t touched her.
Maia said the same.
She believed them.
Her sister was okay. She was going to be okay.
Even as the thoughts ran through Lia’s mind, Maia turned, looking at Loki. Despite her scream earlier, and the fear Lia saw in her sister’s eyes when she first came into the room, Maia clearly saw Loki differently now.
Lia could see it in her sister’s eyes: Loki was now solidly in the friend/ally column.
Maybe it was seeing Lia, hearing from Lia’s own mouth that Loki was on her team. Or maybe it was a combination of that and what Loki had done to Ernie.
Whatever the reason, Maia’s fear of him was completely gone.
Lia followed the direction of her sister’s stare.
Loki grinned at her, winking.
He directed his words at Maia, however.
“But of course, my little nunchuk… of course! We are absolutely, one hundred percent here to rescue you! And we can leave whenever you wish. Didn’t your big sister tell you? When it comes to the Winchester women, I live to serve…”
10
Distraction
Maia took to the idea that Loki could make them invisible far better than Lia would have expected.
Lia’s younger sister barely asked either of them any questions.
More than anything, she just seemed to want out of there as quickly as possible, and given the small amount she’d seen, Lia could scarcely blame her.
Whatever her thinking, Maia followed the God of Mischief confidently, without question, seeming to trust him implicitly.
Truthfully, Lia found Maia’s trust in Loki a little disorienting––not only because of the scream, bu
t because of the god’s near-constant teasing and the fact that Loki was a complete stranger to her. Maia did everything Loki told her to do, without hesitation, without complaint, without any visible doubt. She didn’t make a sound as she crept after him down the carpeted corridor in her Vans, then down the carpeted stairs.
Within minutes, the three of them were back in the mirrored foyer with the large front door, with the windows composed of glass bricks.
That’s where things got a bit more complicated.
Lia, who took up the rear, glanced around nervously as she heard Gregor and his entourage talking downstairs in the living room.
The front door was open now, and guarded by two men on the front step.
Five more of Gregor’s men milled in the foyer, and Loki pulled Maia easily sideways when one of them lumbered up the stairs, either to use the bathroom or to check on Maia. The three of them ended up crouched by a potted palm tree, with at least six enormous, male bodies standing directly between them and the car waiting for them outside.
“We need another way out,” Lia muttered to Loki. “Whether they can see us or not, they’re going to freak out if invisible people smack into them and knock them down. If that guy went upstairs looking for Ernie, or Maia, or both of them, they are going to freak when they find Maia missing… they’ll probably case out all the airports. And if your brother is there––”
“Yes, yes, my darling girl.” Loki kissed her mouth, smiling. “It’ll be all right. I’ve got the Maia end covered for now. I knocked out the perverted oaf. They won’t see him again until we are gone. And it will appear to them that your little dumpling is asleep in her unicorn bed. I put a bit of a repellent spell on her, as well, so they’ll be reluctant to wake her…”
Trailing, and frowning a bit, he glanced around the foyer.
“We just need a bit of a distraction…” he muttered.
He looked around at the thick-necked men milling in the foyer, some in dark suits and some looking like they were part of a rapper’s entourage, then to their right, down at the sunken living room, where voices continued to rise and fall.
After a few seconds, Loki seemed to make up his mind.
Reaching out with a hand, he flicked his fingers in the area of the living room.
Lia blinked, staring, when a whole human being appeared out of whole cloth. He blinked into existence without fanfare, without so much as an audible pop.
The new man stood in the exact center of the white-carpeted area directly in front of the leather couch where Gregor and several of his people sat.
For a brief instant, everyone in the living room froze, staring at the new person.
No one seemed to blink… or breathe.
It took Lia another blink herself to fully acknowledge the person there as real.
Well… as appearing real.
Basically, it took Lia a few seconds to realize that everyone else in Gregor’s house was seeing the same figure there that she was.
The figure Loki conjured out of thin air was huge, a veritable mountain of muscle and broad shoulders, statuesque height and chiseled features.
His “bigness” contrasted strangely with Gregor’s muscle-heads, in a way that took Lia a few seconds to comprehend. It wasn’t just the clothes, although those were strange enough. It was something in the man’s bearing, in his long, strawberry-blond hair that hung thickly down his back, his inhumanly handsome face, the stern look in his ice-blue eyes.
That, and Loki’s vision didn’t have an ounce of fat on him.
He dressed like some kind of Viking, with a thick, furred, white cape over an embroidered tunic and what looked like deerskin pants and boots. He gripped a silver hammer in one hand, with etched runes decorating the edges and a leather-wrapped handle.
The hammer seemed to glow with its own blue-white light.
Some of the glowing runes reminded Lia of the tattoos on Loki’s upper chest.
It had to be Thor.
She had to be looking at a mirage of Loki’s brother, Thor.
Next to her Maia’s jaw was hanging.
“What the––?”
“Just a little light show, my dear,” Loki assured her, patting Maia’s shoulder. “Don’t be alarmed, my little kumquat.”
Below them, in the sunken living room, Gregor rose to his feet, right as guns rose, clutched in the hands of Gregor’s muscle. Most of those guns were aimed at the giant Viking’s chest, including a few shotguns and semi-automatic rifles.
“How did you get in here?” Gregor snapped.
The blond giant only smirked at him, raising the hammer to his shoulder.
Gregor’s complexion darkened. “What in God’s name are you wearing? Is this some sick joke? Because I said everything I had to say to you at the airport––”
“Back up!” one of Gregor’s goons snarled, walking towards the Viking, aiming an automatic rifle at his gut.
Lia recognized him as Mike, one of Gregor’s henchmen from way back.
“Back the fuck up, buddy… now. Right now.”
Apparently, Maia needed a few seconds to adjust to the scene in the living room, as well. Now she turned her head, staring at Lia.
Then, seeming to see the confusion on her big sister’s face, she turned to Loki.
“Who is that?” Maia whispered to Loki.
Loki turned his smile on her, lifting an eyebrow.
Despite the nearness of Gregor’s men, some of whom were still only a scarce few feet away from them in the foyer, Loki answered Maia in his regular voice. From his casual tone, they might all be watching this unfold on television.
“That, my little chicken momo with spicy sauce, is my brother, Thor. Well…” Loki amended, tilting his head.
“…it is his likeness, anyway. Stripped of the more douche-y aspects of his personality, and a great deal less annoyingly full of recriminations and obnoxiously pious lectures. I thought it might be interesting to see how your mobster friends reacted to him. I wanted to ascertain if they’d spoken to him in the airport… which they clearly had. I am also curious if I can persuade them to react to my brother rather more aggressively the next time they see him. Were Thor to, say, show up here. In person, that is. For he definitely will…”
Loki glanced at Lia, quirking an eyebrow.
“…show up in person. As in soon. As in, he is on his way here now.”
Both Lia and Maia turned to stare at him.
Both sisters were frowning, but for different reasons.
“Thor’s coming here?” Lia said, alarmed.
Loki nodded grimly. “Yes. And rather quickly, I fear. I am now concerned he may have help. Rather formidable help.”
“Help?” Lia said blankly. “What kind of help?”
“Help in the form of one of my other brothers,” Loki replied.
Staring out the bay windows on the other side of the living room, the God of Mischief scowled at the thought, right before his eyes flickered back to the likeness of Thor. That likeness continued to glower from the center of the living room, posing menacingly with the hammer as Gregor continued to shout at him.
“…one of my smarter brothers,” Loki concluded with a faint growl.
Maia, unlike her sister, was stuck on something else.
“You want Gregor to shoot your brothers?” she said, her voice openly shocked. “You want him and his goons to try to hurt your own brothers? Why?”
Loki glanced at her, his eyes showing him faintly startled.
“Oh, they can’t hurt my brothers, my little chocolate Ho-Ho cupcake,” Loki said, lifting an eyebrow. He smiled at her, patting her shoulder as his voice turned indulgent. “Your nasty kidnapper-mobster thug and his friends might distract my brothers a bit. Slow them down a little. Give us a bit of breathing room to get out of their immediate orbit… where they won’t have such an easy time tracking me… but they can’t actually hurt them.”
Loki looked rather appalled at the thought.
“Why not?” Maia insi
sted.
Loki looked at her, winking.
He opened his mouth to answer her more fully, then turned his head as movement in the foyer distracted him. His pale eyes followed Gregor’s no-necks as they began to move away from the front door, crushing their way into the sunken living room.
From the living room itself, the voices were getting noticeably more aggressive.
“Get out of here! Take him out, now!”
“Sir… we can’t seem to move him.”
“What do you mean you can’t move him? I want him out of this room, at once! Throw him in the damned ocean, if you have to!”
Lia watched Gregor’s men leave the area of the front door in bewilderment, even as it occurred to her that Gregor was back to yelling at the image of Thor, accusing it of somehow being involved with Lia’s own disappearance.
It was completely bizarre to listen to Gregor yelling about her from less than fifty feet away, totally oblivious to the fact that Lia was standing right there, listening to every word.
“Where is she?” Gregor snapped. “I know you know where she is, you piece of shit. Did you poach my help? Offer her a sweet deal? Maybe promise to put her up in your Viking castle somewhere? Give her half your herd of oxen?”
A few of the goons chuckled at this, looking at one another.
Gregor didn’t sound amused.
“Whatever she’s offered you… whatever sex you’ve managed to get off her… trust me, it’s not worth it. She’s nothing but a lying, conniving whore, just like her mother. That whole family will bring you nothing but heartache.”
Seeing the rage rise violently to Loki’s eyes, Lia clutched at him in alarm.
She did it more in instinct than in thought, but her fingers stopped him, right as he’d been heading towards the living room.
The god halted his steps.
Turning his head, he looked at her. His green eyes glowed with that inhuman light she’d seen on him more than once. Now a cold fury lived there, within that mystical light, a depth of rage and intensity that briefly took her aback.
She touched his face, and Loki blinked.
He was looking at her again.
He was seeing her again.
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