I Bring the Fire Part III: Chaos

by C. Gockel

  “What else did Thor tell you?” Loki is whispering to the female. His eyes flick up to Cera but other than that he doesn’t acknowledge her presence.

  Cera wasn’t awoken by Josef yesterday. Loki is engaging in genetic exchange behaviors. Here. On Earth. While Cera has been so worried he’d left her. How cruel! And he’s doing it with the female he speaks with too often. The one without any magic. The one beneath him. She is a problem, Cera’s not sure why, she just feels that way. Cera knows a very effective treatment for all problems. “Kill her!” Cera whispers. “Kill her, Loki!”

  Loki’s hands go to the female’s neck. His fingers wrap around her throat. His eyes slide back to Cera and narrow. With a smirk he bends his head and kisses the bones of her spinal column. The girl makes noises that signal receptiveness to genetic exchange.

  Cera flares in indignation. Loki isn’t as nice to her as the frost giants who had tried so hard to rescue her. The frost giants would do anything Cera said.

  Eyes leaving Cera, Loki whispers, “Tell me, Amy, what did Thor say?”

  Ending her receptive noises, she says quietly, “He said that you threw a grenade into a crowd of civilians.”

  Loki kisses the back of her neck again.

  The girl turns in the water. “But I know you would never do that.”

  Cera swirls in impatience. During a revolution, civilians will perish. It’s a fact. One that Josef knew well.

  Loki shakes his head. “Amy, in those moments, after my sons disappeared, I was so desperate to follow them.” He bows his head. “I thought I threw it at Odin...but it is possible that I...missed.”

  Cera stops her swirling. He’s lying. Not only does Cera feel it, she knows it. Odin, the Preserver, wouldn’t be hurt by a grenade. But when Odin touched Cera, she saw how put out he was by the death of those ‘innocents’.

  The girl closes the space between herself and Loki. “It wasn’t your fault,” she says, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. “It wasn’t your fault.”

  Loki pulls her into his lap. “Thank you, Amy.”

  Their mouths touch. The receptive noises begin again. Cera settles into the corner, prepared to be very bored, but unwilling to let Loki out of her sight.

  And then it hits her. Loki used words to change the girl’s mind, to deceive her, to make her like him, and to fulfill his biological imperative. Josef was very good at doing the same. In her corporeal prison Cera pulses with light. In the bathroom, watching Amy and Loki, her non-corporeal form pulses with magic.

  Cera’s thoughts turn, as they often do when she is bored or feeling empty, to her Josef. Before Josef, Cera was nothing, just a piece of rock that fell into the Siberian tundra. But then Josef touched her....and for a moment she was the glory that was him. She saw his life and his struggles, absorbed his language, wisdom and desires. Josef wanted to free his kind from the tyranny that is religion, and the ineptitude and tyranny that was the Tsars. He wanted to destroy the pettiness of the bourgeois, and redistribute the wealth of the factory masters. So good. So noble. So selfless.

  But Josef was human and not magical and he could not be part of Cera. He’d put her down, and she’d been put into darkness for a long time. Then the God people got her, thinking they could use her for their revolution, but their revolution was tainted by dreams of God.

  As soon as one of the God humans had touched Cera with naked hands, she became angry and somehow sent him to the empty place Loki calls the In-Between. Then Odin had touched her, and then the other bad humans who didn’t believe in revolution had wrapped her in Promethean Wire. Trying to escape, Cera had fused part of herself with the wire, and now everything that touches the wire also goes to the In-Between...she doesn’t really know how or why, like she doesn’t know how or why branches of the World Tree rip through space-time around the place she is in and places she has been. Or why, of late, the World Tree around her seems to be budding branches at a furious rate.

  Loki will know. And he will explain perhaps—not that Cera always understands. But at the moment he won’t talk to her at all. She knows this from previous attempts to engage him during encounters with other females.

  Water and soap spills over the bathtub as the banality that is genetic exchange begins in earnest.

  Cera pulses. She dislikes this female more than the others. She doesn’t understand the why of that either. She hates not understanding things. She swirls around the room a few times. If she thinks about it logically...Didn’t Josef have many females? Yes, he did. And sometimes he had ‘special’ females. Loki’s dalliances with this one should make Cera happy—even if they don’t—because this is one more way Loki is like Josef!

  Josef was a bank robber. Loki robbed banks—and lately he trades derivatives, which he assures Cera is essentially the same. Josef could spin words in clever ways to get what he wanted. So can Loki. Josef knew that innocents had to die to achieve his aims. So does Loki. Josef didn’t believe in God. Neither does Loki. Josef’s dedication was to revolution. So is Loki’s—though the revolution he desires is unfortunately in another realm.

  But unlike Josef, Loki is magical and when he touches Cera they can be one—she can already almost convince him of the rightness of her wants. She felt him thinking about abiding Cera’s wishes when he grabbed the female’s neck. When Cera and Loki are one they will be perfect. But Cera will let him have his females, or female, because that is what Josef would have wanted. Cera will even let Loki have his Asgardian revolution—Josef would believe in freeing the Nine Realms from the oppression of Tsar Odin.

  But that will be after the revolution on Earth. Cera and Loki will make this world perfect. They will wipe out hunger, social injustice, and social hierarchies. They will destroy the proletariat and let the workers rise—but only if the workers obey, because the workers, Cera knows from Josef, are often stupid and don’t know what’s best for them. The ultimate goal of the revolution is equality for all. Except of course, for the true believers who will run everything. Because some humans are more equal than others. That is the wisdom and the truth of Josef, and Cera believes.

  Chapter 7

  Amy almost falls asleep. Loki’s arm is over her, his chest pressed against her back. She’s warm and exhausted, the bed is unbelievably comfortable. Daylight is creeping through the curtains in the hotel room, but all she really wants to do is shut her eyes—just as she’s done for the last...day? Day and a half? She’s not really sure. All she knows is that she’s in Paris and hasn’t left the hotel, has barely left the suite she’s staying in with Loki, and has hardly even turned on the television.

  Her eyes open wide. But what she did see on the television was jammed airports, train stations and freeways. She swallows. Sitting up, Amy peels the blue arm off her waist. Loki raises one sleepy eyelid at her and smiles. His eyelid slides shut and his expression softens.

  Amy narrows her eyes at him but smiles just the same. She runs a hand through her hair. She’s never been with someone where the experience has been so...consuming. She knows at some level this is a mistake, probably the biggest she’s ever made. She frowns. It’s not just that Loki isn’t quite a good guy—it’s that she has this awful feeling that no matter how much she braces herself for it, this is going to end and her heart is going to shatter.

  They don’t talk of the future; just magic, food, embarrassingly loud Americans in the hotel restaurant, the concierge who bears a striking resemblance to a short skinny Gerard Depardieu...and they talk about sex, of course.

  Sometimes they even talk of the dreams Loki projects in the room—a little. He dreams of people doing ordinary things. Other times he dreams of wolves and monsters, or of people turning into wolves and monsters—sometimes friendly monsters. There was an enormous sea serpent with an almost human-like forehead and great big eyes. Even with seaweed curling between its long sharp teeth, Amy somehow couldn’t escape the feeling that it was friendly. Sometimes Amy opens her eyes and feels the bed below her but looks down at landscapes as
though she’s flying. And one dream was just an eerily silent explosion of stars.

  Taking a deep breath, Amy rubs her eyes. She looks through the door of the suite’s bedroom. In the other room are bags of clothing Loki asked the concierge to procure for them. Loki concocted a story about them turning around at the airplane gate just before their return to Chicago. The lie has generated a lot of sympathy for them—and free food. Very good, Michelin-star-quality free food.

  Amy swallows as she looks around the suite. The hotel is a 5-star affair located by the Arc de Triomphe—not that she’s seen it. She bites her lip. She left her office mates in the middle of a state of emergency, and not that she should go in—the email expressly ordered her not to, but she should at least check in...in case anyone cares.

  She blinks at the unopened bags of clothes. This is a 5-star hotel. They do anything for you here. Making an executive decision, she hops out of bed and walks to the bags.

  She’s just finished putting on a pair of shoes, almost giggling because they’re ballet slippers, not heels, and Loki will be so disappointed, when his dream begins.

  By this point she’s not even fazed. She will just patiently wait through it and then head down to the lobby. The room around her goes hazy and she’s standing in a stable—more precisely, in a the stall of a mare and a foal that can’t be more than a day old. Thankfully, neither the mare nor the foal sees her...or she’d probably wind up taking a hoof to the gut. She shakes her head and smiles to herself. Of course the hoof would pass through her.

  Tilting her head, she turns her attention to the foal. It’s hard not to. Even if it is an insubstantial illusion, it is incredibly cute. The mare is a chestnut brown, but the foal is gray with just a hint of black in its mane and fluffy tail. Beyond that it’s got the usual great big eyes, and long ungainly limbs that make foals so charming. Amy ducks her head...and it’s a boy.

  She hears the scamper of feet and a bang at the stable door. Before she’s even raised her head a scratchy, immature voice says, “Those are strange clothes to be wearing in a horse’s stall.”

  Amy looks up to see the face of a child peeking over the stable door. A pair of blue-gray eyes set into too pale cheeks are peeking out at her from underneath a mop of almost-blonde ginger hair. The eyes sweep down her body, and back up again, but they don’t quite reach her face. Instead they stare openly at her chest.

  She blinks. That kind of gaze is disturbing coming from a little boy. She tilts her head. It’s also kind of familiar. Rolling her eyes, she says, “Loki?”

  The child blinks up at her. “Not that they aren’t nice clothes.” His eyes drift downward again. “They are...they are....”

  “Form fitting?” Amy supplies. They are very nice clothes. A creamy dun cashmere sweater that hugs her curves, belted at the waist. Brown slacks that fit her just perfectly. She raises an eyebrow. Even the bra fits her well; it’s a bit lacey but surprisingly comfortable. She wonders when Loki got a chance to get her measurements. The bra she’d worn in the fire is sitting at the bottom of his washing machine in Chicago.

  “Yes...form fitting,” he says. He tilts his head. “How did you know my name?”

  Amy shrugs. “Lucky guess.”

  His eyes narrow. “You’re lying.”

  Amy sighs. “Yes, I’m sorry. But it’s difficult to explain—”

  “Loki? Loki? Ah, there you are!” A man’s voice says. A moment later, not one man’s face but two come into view. The first man appears to be well into middle age. He has long hair around a balding pate. His face is a bit chubby and the lower half is completely obscured by a beard. His eyes are large and green. He looks a bit befuddled and very, very kind.

  Amy’s eyes widen. The other face appears to be younger. It has a full head of hair, and a beard, but it appears to be only a head—mounted to the top of a staff.

  “Mimir!” Amy whispers.

  The boy turns to Amy. “Of course it’s Mimir. He comes everywhere with Hoenir.”

  Amy looks sharply at the chubby older man. This is Loki’s best friend?

  The head on the staff blinks. “Who are you talking to, Loki?”

  Pointing in Amy’s direction, the little-boy version of Loki says, “The girl in the stall.”

  The head and the man exchange looks. Clearing his throat—and how that is possible, Amy’s not sure—Mimir says, “Ah. Yes. What do you think of Sleipnir’s great grandson, Loki?”

  Loki turns his face to Amy, his brow furrowed. Shrugging, she says, “Only you can see and hear me. It’s probably better just to play along.”

  Loki’s face pinches at that, but he turns to Mimir and says, “He only has four legs. I promised Sigyn he would have more legs and that I’d show her, and now he doesn’t and she won’t want to see him.” The last words are followed by a harumph.

  Hoenir blinks at Loki, concern writ large upon his brow. Mimir’s lips purse. “Ah,” he says.

  Amy looks at Mimir, at Hoenir, and then at child Loki. “You know,” she says, “I think Sigyn will still like to see the little guy.”

  Loki turns his head sharply towards her. “You do?”

  “Sure,” says Amy. “He is really...” She stops, suddenly aware that she hasn’t been speaking English—and that the language she’s been speaking doesn’t have a word that quite translates to ‘cute.’ Tapping her chin, she says, “He has really big eyes and soft fur. She’ll like him.”

  “I guess being a girl, you’d know,” says little Loki. “Wait here, and I’ll go get her!” His face disappears from the stable door and he takes off down the corridor of the stable at breakneck speed. Hoenir, Mimir and Amy watch him go. “He definitely prefers girls this time,” says Mimir, sounding almost sad. “I suppose it’s for the best.”

  Amy turns to look at the head, but he’s already fading away, along with Hoenir and the stable. A moment later and she’s standing in the hotel room again. Loki has entered the second stage of sleep. Nodding to herself, she heads to the door.

  Ten minutes later Amy sits in a plush chair in the lobby, a laptop she borrowed from the concierge on her knees and a smile on her lips. She never wants to Motel 8 it again—this place has everything and they’ll bend over backwards for you! Fumbling a little with the French keyboard, she makes her way to her email login page. She’s just about to enter her username and password when the elevator door dings and a woman comes into the lobby screaming.

  Everyone in the lobby turns to look at her.

  “This hotel is haunted!” she says very loudly in English with an American accent. Amy winces.

  “Madam?” says Pascal, the nice concierge who loaned Amy the laptop.

  “Do you understand me?” the woman says, volume escalating. Amy winces again. In the little time she’s been here, she’s noticed an annoying American habit of talking louder instead of slower when they think they aren’t understood.

  “I speak English, yes—” says the man.

  Cutting him off, the woman yells, “There are ghosts in this building—”

  “There are no such thing as ghosts, Madame,” the concierge says stiffly.

  “Well, I saw two on the fourth floor! They passed right through a wall!” the woman shouts.

  “Fourth floor?” says Amy, standing up quickly and snapping the laptop shut. That’s where she and Loki have their rooms. A very horrible idea begins to form in her mind.

  “You’ve seen them, too?” the woman says.

  “Nope,” says Amy, handing the laptop hastily back to Pascal. “Gotta go!” She looks at the elevator, thinks better of it and runs for the stairs. When she gets to the hallway it is thankfully empty. With a sigh of relief she opens the door to the suite....and finds a spidermouse dangling from the ceiling right in front of her nose. “Mr. Squeakers?” says Amy. She reaches out to touch the creature, but her fingers pass right through. She stares at her empty hand. Loki is dreaming again.

  Lifting her eyes, she sees the grand suite transform into a very rustic kitchen. There i
s a rough hewn table, on top of which is an egg the size of a football but oblong like a pill. Next to the egg is a baby hadrosaur, the size of a rottweiler, munching on a head of lettuce. An enormous stove sits beyond it, and something that looks like a sink the size of a bathtub mounted on very high, metal legs with bird feet at the bottom. Over the sink is a window that looks out onto mist. From beyond the kitchen she hears masculine whispers, one voice lower and more urgent, the other slightly light and laughing.

  Amy sighs and leans against the door. She’ll just wait it out. Behind her comes a knock. Amy winces.

  “Madame? Are you alright, Madame?” Pascal’s voice comes through the door. The hadrosaur on the table chooses that moment to drop the head of lettuce and let out a huge, “Ronnnnnkkkkkk!”

  “Madame?” says Pascal.

  “I’m fine,” says Amy.

  “Madame,” Pascal says, slightly hesitantly. “We have a strict no-pet policy.”

  “Ronnnnnkkkkkkkkk!” screeches the hadrosaur, hopping from the table and waddling towards what looks like a wastebasket on the floor.

  “Madame, I must insist...”

  Turning around quickly, Amy opens the door just a few centimeters so Pascal can’t get a clear view. “We’re watching Jurassic Park,” she says through the crack. Behind her she hears footsteps and bites her lip.

  “Ahhh...” says Pascal. He looks over her head, his eyes go wide, and he flushes. Returning his eyes to her, he says, “Of course, I’m sorry to interrupt,” he says, and turns quickly away.

  Shutting the door, Amy closes her eyes and quickly wills it not to be a unicorn, pink-haired goddess, friendly sea serpent, or dinosaur that made him back off so quickly.

  Turning around she finds none of those.

  Instead she sees two men, neither of whom she recognizes, both without shirts. They have their arms around each other in a gesture that is obviously intimate. One has skin so dark it is nearly black, with hair and a beard so blonde they are startling. His body, even from Amy’s incomplete view, is all hard angles, muscle, sinew and bone. He’s wearing loose trousers, a corner of white peeking from the front pocket. Amy blinks. The book?