by C. Gockel
Chaos
I Bring the Fire Part III
Copyright © 2013 C. Gockel
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author, subject “Attention: Permissions,” at the email address below:
[email protected]
Contents
Acknowledgements
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Sneak Peek at Part IV
Author’s Note & Other Works
Acknowledgements
First and foremost, I want to thank my editor, Kay McSpadden. Kay read and reread this story more times than I can count. I also would like to thank Patricia Kirby, Tyler Staiver, Gretchen Almoughraby, and my brother Thomas for not being afraid to tell me when they thought I’d wandered off course. This story is more exciting for their input. Also, thanks, Mom, for the grammar help!
My husband Eric also deserves a word of thanks. His nagging pushed me into self-publishing my stories to begin with.
Last and never least—I owe a huge thank you to my fans. Your emails, reviews, tweets, and blog posts made writing this story worthwhile. I hope you enjoy reading Chaos as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Chapter 1
The smell of rain, alcohol, wet hair and clothing permeates the nearly empty bar. It’s past closing time, on a cold and wet Monday night. Usually the bar is bathed in a soft yellow glow, but they’ve turned up the lights to remind the few patrons left it’s time to leave. Loki is sitting at the bar proper, a plate of nearly decimated french fries and a burger in front of him. A very attractive, very interesting brunette that is just his type is sauntering across the room in his direction.
Giving her a calculated smile, Loki holds up his empty beer mug in the barkeep’s direction. “May I have another?” Loki is distressingly close to sober and beginning to feel the chill of his wet clothing.
Raising an eyebrow as he dries a glass, the bartender says, “Last call was 10 minutes ago.”
The lights flicker. Loki restrains a shiver and an urge to set something on fire. He can’t help but think of Amy’s warm bed—he’d still be there if Brett and Bryant hadn’t interrupted his doze. The brothers’ honorable intentions aside, Bryant deserved the broken arm he got in the resulting altercation. To think that Loki would have to stoop to taking advantage of a woman while she is unconscious. It’s insulting!
As if to make the point, the brunette slides up beside him. She smiles and leans onto the counter, angling her body just so. Loki can see down the V neckline of her burgundy dress. She has astounding gravity-defying décolletage. His eyebrows lift and a warmth much more pleasant than anger washes over him. At the same time he feels something like guilt or regret twist in his gut. He thinks of the time he spent with Amy and her friends earlier in the evening—it had been just the perfect mix of interesting conversation and alcohol, he’d felt comfortable, like he belonged, and if Amy hadn’t passed out...well. He remembers her head on his lap in the cab a few hours ago.
His jaw tenses in annoyance at his own reminiscing. He gives the woman beside him a smile that verges on a leer.
“Are you alone?” she asks. Her words make his skin prickle. She knows the answer, Loki feels it. But maybe she couldn’t think of a better opening, and just isn’t much of a conversationalist? His eyes sweep her body again. She doesn’t need to be.
Dipping a bit of fried potato into ketchup, Loki looks down at his plate and raises an eyebrow. “Are you?”
“I hope not anymore,” she says, and Loki doesn’t roll his eyes at the cliché. Instead he turns to her and smiles with all his teeth, knowing that it makes him appear slightly sinister. She doesn’t bat an eyelash.
“What’s your name?” he asks, angling his body just a little closer.
“Maria,” she says. His skin prickles at the lie, and he raises an eyebrow.
Smiling, she leans a little closer and shows a little more cleavage. “And you are...”
“Loki!” he says brightly.
She blinks, looking a little surprised. Recovering, she says, “Like the Norse god?”
“No,” he almost snorts. “I’m a frost giant—we’re not actually blue like your movies.” Frost giants aren’t blue. Just Loki occasionally, and his daughter Helen. He gives her a brittle smile and knows he is utterly failing to hide his bitterness.
Her eyes widen, and she looks confused, so Loki laughs as though he’s joking. She smiles a little, and her body relaxes.
Picking up another french fry, Loki says, “Maria, why don’t you tell me about yourself?”
As she begins to talk Loki lets his consciousness drift over her. He doesn’t sense any electronic surveillance devices. Just her cell phone. She’s hiding something, but maybe she’s just married or otherwise unavailable and out for a little fun? His eyes drift over her curvaceous figure. He could have fun with her.
And then she starts talking about her university training as a CPA. It’s not philosophy or quantum physics or even witty. It’s all true, and Loki wishes she’d lie, because frankly, she’s putting him to sleep.
“I’m boring you, aren’t I?” she says, sounding sincere and concerned.
“Oh, no, go on,” says Loki, eyes dipping to her décolletage again.
Leaning closer to him, Maria says, “Accounting isn’t very exciting, but it is secure. My parents were so relieved when I chose it as my major. I was such a rebel when I was younger.”
She looks down and sighs. “But sometimes....”
His nose itches a little. Something just isn’t quite right. He looks at her wide, full lips. He could have fun trying to find out what’s wrong. “Miss the excitement of your rebellious youth?” he asks, taking a sip of water and wishing it was something harder.
She smiles. “Sometimes.”
Leaning closer, he lets his hand barely skim the soft delicious curve of her side. “I might be able to provide some excitement,” he whispers.
Biting her lip, she says, “We can’t go back to my place...”
Loki’s mouth opens, he’s about to suggest a hotel when she says, “Maybe we can go back to yours?”
She smiles, and there is something so sweetly predatory about it—something that promises sex without commitment or emotional entanglement. Something that seems just the thing to take the illusion of belonging off of his mind. How can he not indulge ‘Maria’?
Loki pretends to look contemplative, and then he whispers, “How about we go to mine?”
The predatory smile stretches wider.
Loki smiles right back. Oh, this will be fun.
x x x x
Acting Assistant Director of ADUO’s Midwest Division, Agent Steve Rogers is standing behind his desk, hands on his hips. His office in the Chicago branch of the FBI’s Department of Anomalous Devices of Unknown Origins is very crowded. Across from Steve, flanked by his own operatives up from DC, Stuart Jameson, Executive Director of ADUO for the entire U.S., tilts his head. “I’ve just caught Loki—and I’m going to keep him. And get some real answers.”
“What?!” Steve sn
aps. His voice is too sharp and too loud.
Jameson has that annoying look of someone who is trying not to smile. “In the past few months you haven’t made any progress in locating Loki’s residence or bringing him in. I’ve managed to do it in under two weeks. We’ve been having a very talented agent, one with unique assets case him at the bar near Lewis’ house. Loki’s invited her home. Soon we’ll not only know where he lives, we’ll have him in custody.”
Tensing, Steve says, “I heard the words Guantanamo being hefted around a few minutes ago.”
“That’s where we’re sending him,” Jameson replies, a smug smile sneaking across his lips.
Steve wipes his jaw, eyes trained on the director. When Jameson had come up from DC with his men, he said he wanted to bring Loki in for questioning. Steve never thought he’d succeed—but if Steve had known the stakes were so high...Steve’s fists ball at his side; he would have found some way to discreetly warn Loki.
“With all due respect, Sir, we still need his cooperation.” Steve brings his hand down a little too heavily on his desk. “Sending him to Gitmo isn’t the way to get that.”
“We have Gerðr’s cooperation. That is more than enough,” says Jameson, referring to the frost giant sorceress in ADUO’s custody. “Loki is too unpredictable.”
“Gerðr can’t leave the magically sealed cell she’s in without losing her mind!” Steve says, his voice rising.
Jameson gives him a hard stare.
Steve drags his tongue across his teeth. Of course. Jameson likes her that way. ADUO doesn’t control Loki, Jameson hates that. And Jameson knows Loki wants something ADUO ‘has’. Loki wants Cera, the ‘World Seed’, the pulsating ball of magical power underneath the Chicago Board of Trade Building. According to Gerðr, Cera is a sort of limitless magical battery, and that it would be very bad if Loki got her.
Steve’s not so sure. Cera may be trapped in a sphere of magical dampening Promethean mesh, but ADUO has less control over Cera than they do over even Loki. Cera is somehow opening world gates, and letting all sorts of nasties through. What’s more, the Promethean mesh around Cera is growing and anything and anyone that touches it gets sucked into something Loki calls the In-Between. Steve has no idea what the In-Between is, but nothing, and no one, comes back. When the mesh reaches the floor of the Board of Trade will Cera consume the whole building or just destabilize the foundation? Either way, they’re going to have to evacuate the building within days—and then who knows, the rest of the financial district?
Loki wants Cera in order to destroy Asgard. On bad days, Steve just wishes Loki would steal Cera, take Cera to Asgard, and have at it. Let Odin deal with Cera and Loki both.
Steve straightens. That isn’t what Jameson needs to hear. He needs to believe Loki is on their side. Steve takes a breath. Actually...
“What about Prometheus?” Steve says using the codename for the source of the magical mesh that can seal-in, or seal-out, magic. Prometheus also gave humans a type of Cyanobacteria that eats magic and produces light as a by-product. The FBI’s tech guys use the bacteria in their magic sensing devices.
Stepping around his desk, Steve says, “The reports say Prometheus said Loki was, and I quote, The Good Guy.”
It’s second-hand intel—Steve’s never spoken to Prometheus himself, and Prometheus definitely has a flexible definition of “good”. Just in the last 24 hours Loki has broken one of Steve’s agent’s arms, stolen a very nice car from a man with connections to the mob, and wrecked same car causing a four-car pile up during rush hour while Miss Lewis was in the passenger seat. Loki and Lewis escaped the scene...where they went afterwards Steve has no idea. Miss Lewis is still passed out in her home and unavailable for debriefing.
Mischief aside, Loki has been helpful. Besides rather gallantly escorting Miss Lewis home this evening, Loki has helped save the city from wyrms and trolls, and through Miss Lewis, been a resource when trying to understand just what is going on now that magic seems to be back on Earth to stay. He also saved Steve’s life. And unlike Gerðr, who never misses a chance to insult humans for their ‘magical retardation,’ Loki seems to genuinely like humans. Steve doesn’t trust Loki, but without him the city would fare worse. Which is why Steve always insisted that he not be arrested.
Jameson stands stock still for a moment, his jaw going hard. And then he says, “We haven’t heard anything from Prometheus in several months. For all we know he could be Loki.”
Steve blinks at that. “But that doesn’t make sense...” If Loki was Prometheus wouldn’t he be insisting more that he was the Good Guy, instead of disappearing? “When was the last contact?” Steve says.
“You don’t need to know,” says Jameson.
Steve opens his mouth, about to snap back, when one of the agents who’d followed Jameson up from DC steps into the room. “Director, Agent Hill’s in a cab with him. She’s got her phone on her. We’re tracking them by satellite.”
Jameson turns to Steve. “See, that wasn’t so hard.” With that the director turns on his heels and marches out of the room.
Sinking into his chair, Steve spins towards his computer, trying to hold in his frustration. He barely sees the report on the screen of the freak storm coming to Chicago. He shouldn’t, but he feels personally let down by Loki. Loki never made it this easy for Steve to trace him—Steve never wanted to apprehend Loki, but he did want him watched. Still, whenever Loki went anywhere with Lewis, he’d always managed to lose her phone so she couldn’t be traced. Is the man...frost giant...whatever, losing his touch?
x x x x
Loki and Maria step out of the bar into the chill Chicago night. It’s still drizzling, and almost cold enough to snow. The streets shine with reflected lights from the few cars on the road. Loki hails a cab and one pulls over faster than Loki would have expected on a Monday night. They slip in, and Loki idly notes there is only one other car moving on the road behind them.
The cab pulls from the curb, and Loki gives directions. The driver makes a sharp right up Ashland, and Maria falls against Loki’s shoulder. Their faces are just finger widths apart. Her breath smells faintly of bourbon, and he catches just the barest whiff of perfume. His eyes linger on her full lips.
He turns towards her, his body warm, his mouth watering. She leans in. It should be a delicious moment, but something rock hard presses against his chest and upper arm. Momentarily confused, Loki draws back. He looks down; her coat has fallen open. It was her breasts that rubbed so hard. Suddenly her pert, expansive, gravity-defying décolletage makes sense.
There is one thing on the human internets that Loki has availed himself of as much as quantum mechanics and derivatives trading. Porn. He’d seen the arguments for and against breast ‘enhancement’ but hadn’t really paid much attention; it seemed too barbaric to contemplate—anesthesia, knives, blood, artificial substances inserted under the skin. On Asgard if a woman wanted a different silhouette, she’d consult a healer and grow into a magically enhanced figure over a few weeks or months.
But now what has only been theory is quite literally in the flesh in front of him...and the flesh is disorientingly hard and unyielding. He imagines scar tissue and scabs hiding beneath her bra, and his body goes cold. He leans back and headlights behind them catch his eye. It’s the same car he’d seen earlier.
Maria gives him a pout. Taking her hand, and casually entwining their fingers, Loki says, “So you’re an accountant?”
“Oh, I hold people accountable,” says Maria with a smile.
Loki’s lips quirk at the evasion. “Oh, I’m sure you do.” She trained as an accountant, but moved onto something more interesting, he’s certain. Closing his eyes, he lets an apparition flit invisibly into the car behind them. The driver and passenger are dressed in plain clothes, but the magic detectors they hold give them away as ADUO.
Opening his eyes, he tries to smile innocently at Maria. Inside he is fuming. Not so much at the attempted entrapment, that’s all part of the game he�
��s been playing with ADUO since the beginning. But they didn’t think he warranted an agent with real breasts?
Maria leans in again. Lifting an eyebrow, Loki puts a finger to her lips.
Giving him a hurt look, she straightens and tilts her head, eyes wide. “What?”
“Just admiring the view,” he lies.
She twists her body alluringly and he forces a smile. He’d suddenly rather be tucked behind Ms. Lewis, his hand on her hip, warm and soft and real. Maria would hardly be the most unsavory creature he’s bedded in a thousand years, but suddenly he’d rather not. Still...if it’s a game ADUO wants, it’s a game they’ll get. Eyes on hers, he brings her hand to his lips, as though he might kiss it...but does not.
He’s been in Maria’s position before, he’s seduced on Odin’s behalf. He knows that however trained she may be, no matter how she may even find him somewhat attractive, she still burns a bit at the lack of control. At some level she hates Loki for being the source of her weakness. At some level she wants to control him and to make him hurt.
Loki licks his lips and does his best to look contrite. “I’m afraid, Maria, I don’t deserve your affection.”
Her face goes hard and cold. Her eyebrows rise.
Loki sighs dramatically. “I’ve been a very, very, bad boy, Maria. I think I can only kiss you if you make me earn it.” He swallows for effect and fixes his eyes on hers. “Can you do that for me, Maria? Can you make me earn it?”
Her lips part, and her pupils blow wide. “Yes,” she whispers. “Yes, I can.”
Loki almost feels pity for her.
x x x x
The upscale condo building Loki takes her to just West of Greektown is a beautiful piece of modern architecture, but it doesn’t have a doorman. It’s not Loki’s building, of course—he wasn’t that drunk.
For a moment at the door he looks at the idling cab, and the headlights of ADUO’s tail a half block away. That’s all they think they need to catch him? He almost sighs in disappointment. He could make himself invisible right now and walk away, but it would be too easy.