I Bring the Fire Part III: Chaos

by C. Gockel

  Hearing the door knob engage, Loki sits back quickly, just in time for Steve Rogers to walk into the room. Loki smiles at the man.

  “Ms. Lewis is in stable condition,” says Steve. He tilts his head. “Can you understand me without magic?”

  Loki grins. He has been in English-speaking countries long enough to have picked up the language. Instead of answering the question he says, “Come to play good cop, Steven?”

  Steve fixes Loki with a glare that would cause spontaneous combustion if Steve were a magical creature. “I’m not playing anything. I’m trying to keep you from setting the building on fire.”

  Loki’s lips quirk. Steven isn’t fooled by the magic shackles, then? He remembers the brief flicker of connection he’d had with Steve in the penthouse. And Odin heard Steve, too. Steve looks the part of the stooge, even if at the moment he’s wearing combat gear instead of his trademark suit. And yet, beneath Steve’s bland, regimentally lemming-like exterior, there buzzes a cunning independent mind. What in the world is he doing working for ADUO and a real stooge like Jameson?

  At that thought the door handle turns again and Jameson steps into the room.

  Loki grins again and waggles his eyebrows. “Oh, look, the party has arrived.”

  Jaw twitching, Jameson moves to stand by Steve. “We know that you are responsible for the recent attack on our city and the opening of the gates. Your magic is shackled, and we have a magically shielded transport vehicle on the way. We will see you locked away from your magic permanently. No nation will be your advocate. If you want any mercy at all, any leniency, you had better start cooperating.”

  Loki looks at Steve and rolls his eyes. And then turning back to Jameson he says, “Oh, you found me out! Where do you want me to start?”

  Jameson’s eyes widen just a fraction, and his jaw drops minutely, as though he’s surprised by how easy he’s gotten Loki’s cooperation. Regaining his poise, he says, “Let’s start with the positions of the gates.”

  Loki tilts his head, opens his mouth, and invents random locations off the top of his head. Jameson smiles as Loki rattles on.

  By contrast, Steve looks like he’s swallowed a live frog whole. “Sir,” Steve says, when Loki’s paused for a breath, “I think we should take a break and discuss this information before we—”

  “Agent Rogers,” says Jameson, “we are just getting started.”

  Steve’s cheeks hollow inward, as though he’s biting them. Refraining from casting a knowing smirk in his direction, Loki adopts his best look of slightly fearful innocence, and Jameson starts asking more questions.

  Loki lies. Sometimes he hesitates a bit just for effect, and he is careful to tell the truth on those trick questions he thinks they must know—like his association with Ron Kalt, for instance. It is an amusing game trying to keep the lies and half truths and outright truths all straight. He seriously begins to wonder if after razing Asgard, he should consider becoming a novelist.

  “How did you get Agent Lewis out of the building during the attack?” Steve asks; it’s the first question he’s asked since he entered the room.

  Loki purses his lips. “Through the back stairwell.”

  “It was on fire,” says Steve.

  Loki shrugs. “As Mr. Jameson already explained, I started the fire. It wasn’t hard to put out.” The words roll out of his mouth without any effort.

  Steve’s eyes narrow.

  Beside him Jameson says, “Why did you help Lewis escape?”

  Loki’s jaw goes tight. He should say, Because I couldn’t let tits like that go to waste. Instead he sneers. “Haven’t you heard? I’m the good guy.”

  “Is she involved in this scheme of yours?” Jameson asks.

  “No!” says Loki, too quickly and too loud. Will they hurt her if they think she is? Will he feel her agony in his head? He feels a cold prickle of sweat upon his brow.

  “Where have you been since the initial attack?” Jameson asks.

  “At home,” says Loki.

  “Doing what?” says Jameson.

  Loki should say, Well, Mr. Director, when a man and a woman like each other very much...

  But he can’t form the words.Glaring at Jameson, he rocks the chair back and forth. The squeak has gotten louder.

  Steve puts his hand on Jameson’s arm, and Jameson brushes it away, eyes locked on Loki. “Perhaps I should remind you of your situation? You have no country, no people. The rules of the Geneva Convention do not apply to you.” Leaning down on the table he smiles at Loki. There is a slight sheen to his forehead. Loki lifts an eyebrow. The man is getting an almost sexual pleasure from his perceived power. Pathetic.

  Apparently, completely unaware of Loki’s utter lack of fear, Jameson continues. “If I ask you to speak, Loki, you speak. If I ask you to sing, you sing. If I ask you to dance, you dance.”

  Without turning to Steve, Jameson says, “Agent Rogers, Ms. Lewis is a citizen, but by cooperating with Loki, a confessed terrorist, doesn’t she cede some of her rights?”

  Loki’s vision goes red and his skin goes hot. He always fucks things up, doesn’t he?

  He thinks he sees Steve shaking his head, out of the corner of his eye. Maybe Steve even says something, but it is a jumble of, “it won’t come to that” and “she’s one of ours.” Curling his hands into fists, all Loki can focus on is Jameson. And then, without even conscious thought, Loki’s fingers are sliding against a thin piece of metal tucked into his wrist guard.

  “Very well, Mr. Director, I’ll dance and sing for you,” Loki says, the words slide off his tongue as he slips the very non-magical, infinitely clever, dwarven key pin into the cuffs.

  Jameson smiles just a fraction. Loki wants, no needs, to grind the fool’s face in his own stupidity and arrogance. Loki needs to make him hurt.

  The speakers in the room begin to crackle. “Sir, he’s...”

  Grinning, Loki stops rocking as the cuffs clang to the floor.

  “...doing something to the cuffs,” the disembodied voice says.

  With a shout, Loki lifts the magic-blocking helmet from his head and flings it across the room. Cera’s voice cries out, “Loki!” Steve and Jameson both reach for their weapons, but before they’re even drawn, Loki’s hopped up onto the table. The air in the room around him shimmers with heat. He thinks he hears someone say, “The door is too hot!” and Jameson and Steve both pull their hands away from their weapons in pain.

  Loki should pick their weapons from their pockets, shoot them, and then make the men outside the doors see illusions of him instead of each other. He should let them kill each other, just as he did to the SWAT team.

  But he needs to mock Jameson in front of all his little cameras for all his lackeys to see. With a wink, he casts an illusion of black pants, black jacket and striped black and white shirt over his armor—just like the character Amy was watching on the computer. His hair is already black, his skin full blue, but he doesn’t bother to change it. With a whoop, Loki stands on his tiptoes on the table that is his stage. Winding his hips, he spins an arm and shouts. “You should've heard those locked-up jailbirds sing!”

  Loki hadn’t even realized he’d remembered the words. He’s about to laugh when the building rumbles and the table bucks beneath him. Loki barely keeps his feet. For a moment his heart is in his throat. Some other Midgardian magics? His eyes meet Steve’s, and he sees they are as wide and fearful as his own. From the hallway, someone says, “Earthquake!”

  “Loki! Was that you?” Cera shouts.

  Loki jaw drops in amazement. No. There must be a mistake.

  “Don’t do that, don’t do that again!” Jameson says. His voice is pleading.

  Loki’s eyebrows lift. It was probably just a random coincidence, but if he can make Jameson simper and whine a little more—Loki grins. Popping up onto his toes again he lifts his arms in the best impersonation of that ridiculous man from the video he gives his hips a shake. As the whole world shakes with him he laughs aloud in shock.


  Jameson shouts.

  Steve scrambles to keep his feet.

  Loki hops off of the table before he’s flung off, staggering against the wall as the world trembles in aftershocks.

  “Loki!” Cera screams. Her voice is loud and so clear...

  Loki sends a projection to her and gasps. The ceiling above her has sunk, and the Promethean Wire around Cera is open like a cracked egg.

  Smiling at Steve as the aftershocks ripple away, Loki raises a hand in a wave and steps into the In-Between. He steps out of the In-Between within the shattered sphere of Promethean Wire, right next to Cera. He hears the shouts of the humans guarding the World Seed and weapons being raised, but his hands are already on her.

  As he lifts her, Cera’s spherical form pulses with light and magic. Loki cannot contain a sigh of awe. She is a creature of time and space, and though she has the mass of billions of stars within her in another space, in this space, she is light as a feather but rippling with energy. He feels as though the magical neurons in his fingers are flooding with power, producing a wonderful, buzzing sensation. Blue light rises up all around him, and it takes a moment for him to realize it isn’t just from Cera—it’s from him. He hears screams and more shouts. The buzzing travels up his hands to his arms and it’s wonderful...and yet. Brow furrowing, Loki tries to put Cera down and finds he can’t, the light of her sphere is slipping into him, the sphere of her physical form vanishing.

  He remembers Amy’s words, “Thor says it will control you...”

  His eyes narrow as Cera’s magic slips up along his spine. Damn.

  And then he blinks. No, he doesn’t blink, They blink.

  “We are one!” It is Cera’s voice. No, Their voice. They are all Cera’s power and all Loki’s acquired wisdom—and his feet!

  Someone beyond the cracked sphere is screaming at them. They hear guns jostling. They are safe from guns except for Their left arm—unarmored since they lost the pieces of plating in the chamber of the elf queen months ago. Quickly, They imagine armor composed of magical energy that will send any bullets that strike it into the In-Between. The magical energy spills over into the rest of the armor and makes it shimmer and glow.

  A few of the agents rush towards them. They send the agents into the In-Between with a thought, and then they can only pause and marvel at what They have become.

  They feel tremendous, like They are soaring. They are beneath the Board of Trade but not confined here. Their mind casts projections across the globe; and They see everything. And everything is very wrong, not like Josef’s dreams at all.

  Chicago, despite the building above them being sunken, and tilted, still resembles something akin to the cities of the Aesir or Vanir. There are a few hundred of these temples to modernity across the globe. The modern cities are cruel places, mocking the billions that live no better than the peasants of Loki’s or Josef’s memories. In some ways these peasants are worse off, their poverty more grotesque compared with the ostentatiousness of modern affluence.

  They see timid measures to ameliorate the wretchedness of the miserable billions, but they are piecemeal, laughable, mere acts of decoration, hampered by vanity, greed, hundreds of different languages, nationalism—not to mention the hundreds of different governments and systems of governing.

  They will fix this. They will organize it under one system, one language, one nation. Unified They can redistribute the wealth of the few into the hands of the many. And the new world will be led by Them...for Josef! And it will all start right now.

  “A lot like a Tsar—or Odin,” a treacherous voice in their mind whispers. They still, uncertain of its source.

  “Loki.” The Girl’s voice interrupts Their thoughts; it tugs low and uncomfortably in their gut. For a moment They splinter and are two beings again.

  “Cera, I still hear her. She is still part of my—our—purpose,” Loki says.

  They are momentarily confused. But it is Loki’s memories that impart this information, and Loki is old and wise. They trust him.

  x x x x

  Steve’s jaw drops as Loki disappears. And then his brain springs to action and he runs to the door, ripping his jacket off and using it like a pot holder to grasp the scorching doorknob. Loki can appear invisible, but he’s still here.

  The door doesn’t move. No invisible force pushes Steve out of the way. Steve curses under his breath, the memory of blue Loki doing a rather good Elvis impersonation in the front of his mind. Damned trickster gods.

  “What are you doing?” Jameson says, his voice high pitched and frantic.

  Steve is about to answer when the earpiece for his phone starts to beep. Grappling the cooling doorknob with one hand, he answers it.

  “Agent Mitchem here,” a woman’s voice says. “Loki just took Cera.”

  “What?” Steve says.

  The agent’s voice wavers. “Loki just—”

  “How?” Steve says.

  He hears the woman take a breath. “The ceiling collapsed on top of the containment sphere. The sphere cracked, and then suddenly Loki was just there. We opened fire...but he was gone with the...thing...a moment later.”

  From the hallway comes Thor’s thunderous voice. “Open the door!”

  Steve drops his hand and backs out of the way just as the door crashes to the floor. Thor stands in the entranceway with his hammer. Steve blinks. After a brief altercation with Jameson earlier, Thor had returned to Amy’s bedside.

  Agents trailing behind him, Thor stomps in. Glaring at Jameson, Thor says, “Loki has the World Seed.”

  “How do you know?” says Steve.

  “Because a moment ago Miss Lewis, her bed, a doctor, nurse, and your medical machines disappeared,” Thor says.

  “Gone?” says Steve. “How?”

  “I do not know,” says Thor, his voice very level, his eyes still on the Director. “Mr. Jameson, I think now might be a good time to apologize.”

  “Apologize?” says Jameson, his voice shaky. Lifting his head, he says, “For what?”

  “For ordering the attack on Loki’s home and shooting his woman,” says Thor with narrowed eyes.

  “I was justified in that,” Jameson says. “And I won’t...” His eyes widen, his mouth hangs open, but no sound comes out. He looks down at his feet. “What’s happening to me?” he wails.

  Bewildered, Steve looks him up and down. Nothing appears to be wrong.

  “So...so...so cold,” says Jameson.

  “Magic,” says Thor.

  “Can you do anything?” Steve says to Thor.

  Tilting his head, Thor says, “I see it surrounding his limbs. Perhaps if we amputate them quickly—”

  “What?” Steve shouts, running over to the director. Grabbing the director’s arms Steve notices Jameson’s hands are coated with frost, like a window in winter. A chill nips at Steve’s fingers, through Jameson’s sport coat. “Get a thermal blanket!” Steve shouts at one of the agents milling in the room. As the agent darts off, Steve shouts at another, “Get over here and help me get him undressed.” Trying to yank off Jameson’s coat that has gone stiff as cardboard and feels blisteringly cold, Steve shouts at the other two agents remaining. “Strip to your skivvies! We’re going to treat him like he has hypothermia.”

  Thor looks heavenward. “Loki! He was an idiot! You’ve made your point.”

  With a grunt, Steve starts ripping off Jameson’s shirt as the other agent pulls off the jacket.

  “It’s too late,” says Thor.

  Steve’s eyes slide to Jameson’s. The director’s open eyes and inside of his open mouth are coated with ice, lacey patterns of frost trailing over his cheeks. Steve puts a hand to Jameson’s chest. Stepping back, Steve shouts, “He has no heart beat. Get him to medical!”

  He meets the eyes of the agents in the room. “Now!”

  The two agents who were stripping, now down to their t-shirts and slacks, pause and then run forward. The agent attempting to undress Jameson tips Jameson into their arms. Th
e director falls, body stiff as a felled tree.

  Steve backs away as they carry the director out of the room. His hand goes to his mouth. When at last he can speak, all Steve can say is, “How?”

  Beside him Thor says, “Loki now has a source of infinite power and now he’s infinitely powerful.”

  Steve turns slowly to Thor. Thor is gazing upward, hammer in hand, and his brow furrowed. After a few long moments, Thor nods his head as though he’s confirmed something to himself. “Loki is fighting Cera’s will.”

  Steve stares at him in disbelief. He gestures to the door where Jameson was just hauled out of the room like a log. “How can you say that?”

  Lowering his eyes to Steve’s, Thor says, “Because we aren’t dead.”

  Chapter 12

  Amy hurts. She can’t even tell where she hurts most, because it feels like the front of her body is prickling with a hundred different needles. She takes a breath and the pain in her neck makes all the other pain disappear. Wincing, she opens her eyes and finds herself staring at the familiar whirls of plaster of Loki’s bedroom ceiling. What isn’t familiar is the beeping that sounds suspiciously like a heart monitor, the IV drip in her wrist, or the face of the white-coated middle aged woman with a stethoscope sitting next to her.

  Amy blinks. No, wait, the woman is one of the doctors from the trauma center, but Amy can’t remember her name. There is a slight sheen of sweat on the woman’s brow, the corners of her lips are turned down, and her eyes are a little too wide. She’s frightened. Amy’s eyes slide to the side. A young man she recognizes as a nurse paramedic is by her side as well.

  Amy opens her mouth. The voice that comes out is a cracked whisper. “What happened...how...”

  She tries to sit up but stops as every nerve in her body seizes up with pain.

  The doctor puts her hands on her shoulders. “Don’t get up. You received multiple superficial wounds to your abdomen from exploding glass. None were deep, but you do have a lot of stitches.”

  Amy sinks down into the bed, the memories coming back. “They opened fire...”

  Why did they open fire?