I Bring the Fire Part III: Chaos

by C. Gockel

  She wants coffee but has no desire for company. Looking out the window, she takes in the gray dreary sky, and the soft mist of rain. She decides to take a service hallway and stairs through the building to the alley and then to the coffee shop next door. The route is a little meandering, but she won’t even need to take her coat.

  Passing through security, Amy steps through the fire doors that demarcate the plain, unadorned service hallway from the offices proper. Just beyond the doors, there are barrels that look like they contain cleaning supplies and a mop that she has to navigate around, but the hallway is otherwise empty. She is almost to the next fire door that leads to the stairwell when she hears what sounds like fireworks.

  She freezes in place, and then all the gears in her brain start working. It’s gunfire. Heart beginning to race, for a moment she actually thinks about going back the way she came—and then catches herself. The best thing for her to do is to get out of the building and out of the way. She turns towards the stairwell fire doors and then she hears a snap and a crackle behind her. On instinct she ducks her head. There’s an explosion so loud her ear drums throb and something sails over her with a whoosh. She hears the sound of metal scraping across the floor...but what strikes her most is the heat. Amy opens her eyes. The barrels she took for cleaning supplies are alight with green fire.

  With a quick breath, she sprints towards the fire doors. Just before she collides with them, she slides to a stop, puts out her hand and gingerly touches the metal. Gasping, she pulls her finger away. The door is scorching hot. Looking back the way she came, she sees foul smelling smoke rising to the ceiling, but she can make out the wall of burning green beyond that. It’s the door or nothing.

  Pulling off her sweater, Amy wraps it around her hands and pushes on the door. It doesn’t budge. Something in the building gives a loud groan. Amy closes her eyes. Louder than the roar of the flames is her own heartbeat. She should be terrified, but she is just insanely pissed.

  Taking a ragged breath she hacks as the smoke stings her lungs. The hallway smells like heat, chemicals and burnt dirt and hair. Dropping onto the floor Amy pulls her cell phone out of her purse; of course she gets an all circuits busy signal. Swearing to herself, she puts the phone down and puts her head in her hands. After being assaulted by a serial killer, going to Alfheim, losing everything, and finally putting her life back together just a little, she is going to die alone, in an empty hallway.

  “Fuck,” she says, closing her eyes as the heat around her begins to sting. “Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  Pulling her hair, she screams in sheer frustration. This is all Loki’s fault. Ever since she ran into him her life has been upended. Of course, he did save her life...if only she hadn’t seen that freak flare of flame in the woods of Mark Twain National Park, she wouldn’t have run off the road...

  She starts laughing. Freak flare! Loki probably did that, too.

  A piece of something falls from the ceiling. Covering her head with her hands, Amy does the only thing left to do. She opens her mouth, prepared to say something venerating and nice. Instead what comes out is, “Loki! Get your ass here now and save me!”

  Chapter 3

  Loki is packing his suitcases for Visby when one of his apparitions spies Thor stepping out of the magically shielded room in ADUO’s headquarters. In his penthouse Loki narrows his eyes. Another apparition had seen Huginn and Muninn at The Bean scolding Thor for being on Earth.

  Putting his fingers in the loops of his jeans, he stares out of one of the floor-to-ceiling windows of his Chicago abode. What is Thor’s game? His lips form a tight line. More importantly, what is Odin’s game?

  He stares at the cityscape before him, his mind a blank. He can just make out ADUO’s roof from his north eastern window. Loki’s penthouse is just across Wacker Drive on Van Buren. He is barely outside of Chicago’s infamous Loop, the city’s financial hub, shopping district, and location of its most important museums and theater district. The Loop is bordered by the Chicago River and Wacker Drive on the north and west, and by Roosevelt Street to the south. A few faux Greco-Roman buildings dot his view, but mostly the skyline is a homage to every architectural style of skyscraper from every decade since 1885. Some of the buildings are reinforced brick or concrete structures with ornate moldings, stained at every window and corner with the runoff of polluted rain. Other buildings are encased in glass and reflect the sky—Loki thinks of them as giant moving canvases. Bright, clean, new buildings; older soot covered buildings textured with elaborate motifs—Loki likes both. The patchwork is in stark contrast to homogeneity that marks the architectural illusions of Asgard.

  Rising up from the flat plain that is Illinois, the vertical lines of the Loop contrast with the rest of Chicago, and even the state. Beyond the center, the city sprawls outwards, the buildings becoming progressively shorter, and the streets more and more tree lined—and perhaps, coincidentally, out of sight of the movers and shakers of the financial district, the streets become more and more crumbling. In Loki’s neighborhood the sidewalks and streets are relatively smooth. Where Amy lives the streets are filled with potholes, and the sidewalks buckle above massive tree roots. Amy attributes the poor state of Chicago’s infrastructure to Chicago’s endemic corruption and curses it frequently. Loki’s just amazed that the corruption changes hands occasionally.

  Smiling he bounces a bit on his heels. Instead of a professional poker player, perhaps he could become an alderman...

  Loki’s jaw tightens. This city is not his.

  Shaking his head he turns back to packing. He is catching a plane to Visby in the afternoon, saving his magic for a world walk to Vanaheim the following day. His chest tightens and he takes a breath. Thor is here...and Thor won’t let anything bad happen to Cera or Chicago.

  At that moment, in ADUO’s headquarters, one of Loki’s apparitions sees Thor accidentally breaking a styrofoam cup in his hands, burning himself on the hot liquid. In his living room, Loki fights the urge to let his apparition become visible, to make sport of the big oaf. His fists clench. That is just the sort of distraction he has to avoid. With a sigh he quietly pulls all of his apparitions out of ADUO’s HQ.

  Stuffing a sleeping bag into his duffel, Loki catches sight of his hands. His skin is blue again. He doesn’t correct it, it’s easier not to, and he’s found that when he is blue Cera’s whining is easier to tune out. Straightening, he looks out towards ADUO’s offices again. He hasn’t heard much from Cera all morning. Just a plaintive grumble of “You’re right. The lightning man is an idiot,” and nothing more for hours.

  Raising his head, and glancing out the window, his eyes widen. There is smoke rising up from the direction of ADUO. Straightening, he sends his apparitions back to the building. In his penthouse he walks to his window and puts his fingers to the cold glass. ADUO’s offices are under attack, men with guns are flooding in through the main security checkpoint. Concentrating, Loki sends more apparitions through the building. The main exits are blocked by green fire. His nostrils flare—it’s elven fire. But the queen of the elves would never attempt such a thing, nor would she allow her people to carry guns. Magic bows and arrows, the occasional crossbow, yes. Guns never. She is such a Luddite.

  He blinks. It’s Dark Elves! When he went to Alfheim with Amy the elves in the dark lands were carrying guns. Now they’ve come to Earth—how they’ve managed to magically hide their pointed ears and perfect complexions he can only wonder. He’s not detecting illusions around them. But obviously, they want Cera.

  He snarls. And Cera most likely knew about it. He taps his hand against the glass. There are hundreds of them! Maybe they know a way to get through the Promethean Sphere protecting Cera? He smirks. If they get her out it will be that much easier to steal her.

  In ADUO’s headquarters, one of Loki’s apparitions sees Agent Steve Rogers shout, “We’ve got to fall back to the tunnels! This is a diversion. They’re after Cera!”

  Smirk widening, Loki prepares to let one of h
is apparitions become visible to Steve.

  x x x x

  In the glow of green fire, Steve sits behind an overturned table and slides a new clip into his Glock. Every magic detector in the building is beeping, and Steve’s nerves are lit with the noise of gunfire. AK-47s would be his guess from the scant glimpses he’s caught and the sound. All of the usual exits from ADUO are blocked. His brow furrows, but the stairway to the tunnels that run beneath Chicago’s streets where Cera resides should be clear. And green fucking fire is really a tell-tale sign that this is all about Cera.

  Looking around the room, he sees Jameson and his agents are tucked behind the cafeteria counter. Closer to Steve are Brett, Bryant, and Thor behind overturned tables of their own.

  Tapping the headset in his ear, Steve gets a no-service tone. Swearing, he hits a button, switches to a reserved channel and says, “Tunnel security, report!”

  An agent’s voice barks back, “Sir, we just started taking fire, from the north, east and west! The tunnels are full of them. We’ve fallen back to reinforce the perimeter around Cera. Two men down!”

  A few feet away Thor stands up, bullets ricocheting harmlessly off his armor. With a yell, he throws Mjolnir though the air. The hammer takes out a few of their assailants, knocks through a wall, and comes bounding back into Thor’s hands. Thor gives a triumphant shout.

  Steve is about to chew him out, but Bryant beats him to it. Pausing to awkwardly push a new clip into his Glock with his broken arm, Bryant shouts, “That could have been a load-bearing wall, you idiot! Stop throwing that thing around or you’ll bring the whole building down on top of us!”

  Steve is too busy firing at a dark shadow moving through the green flames to see Thor’s reaction.

  There is a momentary lull in the shooting and Steve shouts, “We’ve got to fall back to the tunnels! This is a diversion. They’re after Cera!”

  In his headset, he hears Jameson say, “We can’t get out! We’re trapped back here. You’ll have to do it.” They’re actually in a better position for it than Steve and his boys—but there are a few of ADUO’s cafeteria staff workers, medical personnel and Stodgill back there, too. Steve doesn’t argue. Turning to Thor he says, “Stand up! You’re our cover.”

  Thor tilts his head and narrows his eyes, but he does as Steve requests. “Behind him!” Steve shouts to the two brothers. “Go to the back exit to the cafeteria. Move! Move! Move!”

  The four of them retreat through the secondary door, Brett and Bryant behind Thor—Steve crouching to the side. Fortunately, some of Jameson’s men have more experience than the Director. As soon as Steve and his guys start their mad dash, they cover them, shooting in the direction of the entrance where lithe shadows are emerging from behind green flame.

  The tunnels beyond the cafeteria are empty, but as they pull into the main office area they find the cubicles consumed by flame, and a group of shadows struggling to open the tunnel door. In front of them, Thor lowers Mjolnir, lightning cracks through the room, and the dark shadows tumble. Squinting his eyes in the smoke, Steve and his men approach the door. Their attackers are holding AK-47s. A few of the men he can tell instantly are dead, but he hears a few moans. Kneeling down beside one, Thor says, “Curious. These appear to be elves who have cut off their ears.”

  “Open the door! We’re going down!” Steve says. As Brett punches in his code and holds up his hand for thumbprint scan, Steve curses under his breath. Lewis had said she and Loki were attacked by dark elves with guns. Jameson had refused to let Steve see the ballistics report to confirm it.

  The door opens with a whoosh. There is the sound of gunfire below. “Thor’s point!” Steve says. “I’ve got the rear.”

  Thor grins. “I’m going to see Cera after all,” he says, and then bounds towards the opening with a yell. Which is exactly the moment Jameson’s voice starts to crackle in Steve’s headset. “He’s a possible security risk! What are you doing?” Steve grits his teeth. Ignoring the director, he backs towards the door.

  And then it hits Steve that he didn’t see Amy Lewis in the cafeteria. He scans the sea of burning cubicles. Shadows start to come forward out of the flames, Steve slips behind the door to the tunnels just as bullets embed themselves in the wall around him. He can hear the echo of more gunfire ringing from the tunnel below. Steve grinds his teeth. The girl’s on her own, his primary responsibility is to see that Cera is safe. With a snarl of frustration he lets loose a few bullets before he closes the fire door.

  Activating the locks. he turns and finds himself alone on the stairwell landing. He hears Brett, Bryant and Thor below. Steve slips the clip out of his Glock, takes a step forward...and almost runs into Loki. Or more likely through him.

  Stopping short, he curses. Loki beams and raises his eyebrows. “Hi, Steve.”

  It’s the dumbest thing in the world, but Steve can’t help but notice what Loki, or his apparition, is wearing. It’s a pink t-shirt with an upside down rainbow triangle on it.

  Following the direction of Steve’s gaze, Loki says, “Do you like my Bifrost shirt?”

  Steve is furious at Loki for his flippancy, and his damned distracting shirt. There is a reason agents all dress the same. He’s also furious at himself for being distracted. Narrowing his eyes, he barrels in Loki’s direction. Sure enough, Steve passes right through him. The illusion of Loki catches up and matches Steve’s pace down the stairs.

  “You here to help?” Steve says, feet pounding down the metal mesh stairs.

  “I think this time I’d just rather see how this plays out,” the apparition of Loki says. The apparition looks down the stairs where Thor stands on a landing, hurtling lightning northward, as Brett and Bryant fire south, taking cover around the corner of the stairwell and Thor’s girth.

  “Oh, look,” says Loki. “Thor is imitating a brick wall. He’s good at that.”

  Thor turns his head and his eyes light up. “Loki! We fight together again!”

  “I’m just here to see you shot at!” snipes Loki.

  Thor nods. “Aye, well I would deserve that.” He turns back to casting lightning down the tunnel.

  “Of course you deserve it!” Loki shouts. “Because of you, my boys—”

  Nodding, but not turning from the fray Thor shouts. “Aye, so it is...But I come to make amends.”

  Steve is about to pass through Loki to take up a position between Thor and the wall, but the look on the apparition’s face makes him stop.

  “Miss Lewis, she’s swearing. She never swears...” Loki’s illusion says, eyes wide.

  Steve freezes and meets Loki’s eyes. “I hear her,” says Loki.

  Once Odin ‘heard’ Steve. It isn’t a physical thing. It’s magical.

  Loki looks down the tunnel and swallows, and then he looks up. “Oh, no. No, no, no...” Without another word, his apparition leaps into the air and through the ceiling and is gone. Steve drops his gaze to see Thor briefly acknowledge Loki’s disappearance with a grunt. Then the giant man turns back to shooting lightning. Steve exhales. Falling to one knee, Steve peers around the tunnel wall, and raises his gun.

  x x x x

  “This is all Loki’s fault...Fuck, fuck, fuck. Loki get your ass here and save me!”

  Loki’s hands curl against the cold glass in his condo. He shouldn’t let his attention leave the fray because of those words, but it does. He lets his apparition slide up through the ceiling, and through the building, searching for Amy, her voice, her prayer, pulling him by along like the current of a river.

  He finds her in a hallway, a wall of green flame before her, rapidly getting hotter and turning blue. She’s lying on the floor, hands over her head, face blackened with soot. “Dammit, Loki!” Amy says before she is taken with a fit of coughing. Loki lets his apparition lie down on the floor next to her, propping its imaginary head on an illusory hand. The apparition grins and raises an eyebrow.“You called?”

  Amy turns her head and says, “You came!” Before he knows what is happening, sh
e tries to throw her arms around his shoulders—and of course passes right through him. “Oh,” she says, with a cough. “Right. You’re not here. Can you get me out?”

  Fading out from under her, his apparition reappears standing in the hall. He sends another apparition through the door near her and feels some of his bravado fade. He can achieve weak telekinesis, even from a distance, but if he unlocks the door she’ll be cooked in the white hot inferno beyond. “You’ve got yourself into a mess here,” he says.

  Amy sucks in a breath. Ugh, too hot...He thinks I don’t know that?

  It takes a moment for Loki to realize that he’s hearing her thoughts, not her words. He still hears her. He’s never had a connection last this long.

  Amy groans and covers her eyes. Her exasperated thoughts tickle his mind. He doesn’t have a plan. Of course he doesn’t have a plan. He’s not a part of some divine trinity, he’d be the God of Goof if he was a stupid god...

  Loki bristles. Is her ultimate purpose in his life to insult him? “A little gratitude would be nice!”

  “Getting me out of here would be nice!” Amy snaps back, and then coughs, curling herself into fetal position. Getting hotter.

  Something in the building groans. Feeling a rising sense of panic, Loki looks up. There is a little spout in the ceiling that should be shooting water, but he doesn’t sense any water in the pipes, and there isn’t enough ambient moisture in the air to create ice. He glances at the flames. Not that it would be much use against the elven fire. His heart begins to race. This is very, very bad. Is her call to him the universe trying to convince him how powerless he is?

  He can’t get me out, can he? Amy’s eyes meet his apparition’s and he feels her willing him not to go. I don’t want to die alone...

  “You want me to stay here and watch you burn to death!” Loki says, his voice rising in anger at the hopelessness of the situation, and at himself. He should leave now, attend to what is happening below, snatch Cera if he can. Odin would be able to leave. Yes, he hears her, but how important can she be? She’s as good as dead.