Loki

by Mackenzi Lee

  “Do you take snuff?” Theo asked, flipping the latch.

  “No.”

  “Probably good.” He shrugged. “I haven’t got any.”

  Loki frowned. “What?”

  Before Loki could react, Theo flipped the case open and blew a coarse black powder, like charcoal from a dying fire crushed underfoot, into Loki’s face. Loki inhaled before he could stop himself, and felt the burn as the powder coated his throat. He coughed, then coughed again harder, the dark haze hanging in the air from the powder somehow turning thicker. His vision flickered. “What was that?” he managed to choke out between coughs.

  Theo had already tucked the silver case back into his pocket and was reaching for a hook beside the door, stripping off his own jacket to replace it with another that looked like part of a uniform. This couldn’t be the group that was meant to welcome him as an ambassador of a foreign land—this was a trap.

  Loki fumbled for his knives, but his magic was becoming harder to reach. A blade slid into his hand with painful slowness. At the sound, Theo looked up from his buttons and frowned. “For God’s sake.” He put the tip of his cane to Loki’s chest and, before Loki could swipe it away with his blade, pushed. It was not a hard push. Certainly not hard enough to fell an Asgardian. But Loki’s legs gave out with very little persuading, and he tipped backward, landing hard in the open crate behind him. A cloud of straw fluttered up around him, settling on the fabric of his suit. The knife slipped from his hand and skittered across the floor.

  Theo snatched it up and tucked it into his boot, the motion too smooth for it to have been his first time handling a weapon. He shoved his cane beneath the handle of the door, then limped to the box. Loki fought to sit up, though his limbs all felt gelatinous and like they were taking too long to understand what his brain was asking of them.

  Theo watched him struggle for a moment, like he was debating what to do next, then fumbled in his pocket for the case again. He tossed the remaining contents into Loki’s face.

  Loki’s muscles went slack, and he fell back into the box. He blinked slowly, and when he opened his eyes again, there was a slam overhead and everything went dark. Was he unconscious at last, whatever that powder had been finally consuming him? But then he heard a hammering, and the darkness was interrupted by a small line of light, a crack between panels as the lid was nailed into place above him.

  He couldn’t get a spell gathered, nor could he make his knife appear again in his hand, though he would have loved dearly to stab it upward through the lid of this box and try to guess where it had landed by the sound Theo made. He was still not entirely conscious when he heard voices, and then the box was tipped—tipped the wrong direction, so that his head was pointing downward and he slid the length of it, landing hard. The strength of the blow was almost enough to knock him back to sense.

  Outside the box, he heard Theo yelp. “Oh, no, that’s the wrong way up!”

  “He’ll be fine.” The box thumped again and Loki felt his teeth rattle together. Wake up, he tried to command himself. Move! Think! Fight!

  But all he could do was lie there, a knot at the bottom of what may be his own coffin, as he was carried forward to who knew where.

  The effects of the powder got worse before they got better, or perhaps it was just the disorienting feeling of being upside down in a dark, confined box that had him so properly dead to the world. He didn’t know how much time passed between Theo knocking him out and when the box was at last deposited with a heavy thud. Or how long after that it was that he heard the crack of a crowbar against the lid, breaking open what Theo had nailed into place. The powder must have mucked with his senses more than he had realized in the dark, for he couldn’t see anything. Only a few snatches of conversation flashed through his consciousness.

  “—used all of it?!”

  “I had to!” He recognized Theo’s voice, but not that of the woman he was conversing with.

  “Do you know how hard that is to come by?” the woman said. “That was enough to knock out a Frost Giant.”

  “How do you know what it would take to flatten a Frost Giant?” Theo asked.

  A third voice—another man’s, this one deep and gruff. “They’d be knocked out by the smell of your pits.”

  “Piss off,” Theo snapped.

  Then Loki heard the clatter of the crowbar tossed aside, and the heave of the lid. It hit the floor with a wooden crack. He could feel the faint press of light against his eyelids, but he kept them shut. Someone grabbed his wrist, and he wondered if they were checking for a pulse to make certain he was still alive. He could feel the straw against the back of his neck, feel someone’s touch on his skin.

  Then he heard Theo’s voice right over top of him. “So that’s him, is it? Loki, Prince of Asgard, Lord of Darkness and Mischief and Chaos and Everything Evil?”

  Had he had his wits slightly more about him, he would have protested soundly against that last honorific, and particularly the certainty with which it was delivered. He was a prince of Asgard, but Lord of Darkness, etc., had never been inked on his birth record.

  A few short, ringing steps, heels on stone. Then the woman’s voice. “I don’t believe that’s his preferred title. But yes, that’s him.”

  “Bit smaller than I was expecting,” said the third voice from what seemed a few feet away. “Sort of like you, Bell.”

  “Can it, Gem,” the woman said. “Get him up.”

  Loki still wasn’t certain how much of a hold the powder had on him, but he wasn’t prepared to go anywhere limp and helpless and without a fight. He opened his eyes, springing up at the same moment. Theo, who had been leaning over him, reeled backward with a cry of surprise. Loki’s limbs still felt liquid and wobbly, but he had enough control and enough focus to grab Theo with one arm around his neck and press him to his chest, making sure Theo was between him and whomever it was he had been delivered to.

  He summoned his dagger to his hand, raised it to Theo’s throat, and found...nothing. His hand was empty.

  He looked up. He was standing in a dingy coffin-shaped room, narrow and low-ceilinged and lined with more crates and cases like the one he had been so unceremoniously tossed into. The only illumination came from a few lanterns, their light swirling as moths collected around their frames, and one small window set at the crook of the ceiling. Through its small, grimy panes, he could see boots passing by on the street. On the other side of the box he had been carried in, staring back at him in surprise, were two people, one of them a big-shouldered man with hair so close-cropped it looked painted on. The breadth of his shoulders would have intimidated even Thor. He had snatched up the crowbar that must have been used to pry the lid off the crate and raised it for a fight. Beside him, with a cautionary hand thrown out to ward off that fight, was a woman, her graying hair pulled back into a tidy bun. She cut an immaculate figure in wide-legged black trousers that Loki thought for a moment were a skirt until she took a step forward. She was so thin she looked like a skeleton with flesh rolled thinly out over her like pastry draped over the top of a pie. She was regarding Loki with a careful gaze, but no fear.

  He reached for his dagger again, shaking out his arm that wasn’t clamped around Theo’s throat. Nothing. Theo clawed at Loki’s grip, trying to pull himself free, and Loki almost let him go. His grand plan of taking a hostage and using his life as a bargaining chip against whoever his captors were had backfired entirely, as he had no weapon.

  Or any spells. Something had happened between the Norse Wing of the museum and here that had knocked the glamour off his clothes—he was in his Asgardian tunic again. He fumbled for something else, to conjure another weapon, or at least summon something on the ground to his hand that could do enough damage if swung around with great enthusiasm. But he couldn’t find a drop of magic in this bone-dry air. It felt like thirst in the desert—worse for how incurable it was. He almost gasped for it.

  “Well, that was”—the woman folded her arms—“dramatic.” Her voic
e had a clipped, formal accent to it, in sharp contrast to the big man’s haphazard vowels and slurred consonants.

  “Who are you?” Loki demanded. “And where am I?”

  “First, let Mr. Bell go and then we can have a proper conversation.”

  “Not until I know what you want with me.” He flexed his hand, desperate for a knife, and he actually growled with frustration when it failed to manifest. It felt just out of his reach, like his fingers brushing the edge of a cliff as he fell.

  “If you are attempting some sort of conjuring, you can desist,” the woman said. “Unless you wish to exhaust yourself.”

  “Why can’t I use my magic?” Loki demanded.

  “We have placed restraints upon you,” the woman replied.

  “Restraints?” Loki held up his free hand and noticed a metal band around his wrist. They must have clamped it on him while he was mostly incapacitated. There was one around his other wrist as well, and he recognized the metal at once—it was Asgardian, the same chains they used in the palace dungeons to keep prisoners from using magic. And if they were the same as the ones in Asgard, the wearer couldn’t remove them. He cursed under his breath.

  “Mrs. S.,” Theo said, his voice hoarse, and Loki realized he had been tightening his arm around Theo’s neck without meaning to. He relaxed his hold and Theo gasped, though his fingers were still digging sharply into Loki’s arm.

  “We were planning to have you bound more securely when you woke,” the woman—Mrs. S.—said. “To prevent exactly this sort of confusion and in hopes we might have a reasonable discussion first.”

  “I don’t think there’s much room for reason when one party is bound,” Loki replied.

  A small smile tugged at her lips for the first time. “Clearly you’ve been wearing the wrong bindings, my dear. Now, why don’t you let Mr. Bell go and we can all introduce ourselves. No one will be tied to anything.”

  “You’ll take these off me?” Loki asked, holding up one of his hands to refer to the restraints.

  “Not just yet,” Mrs. S. replied. “But I think we can all agree that so long as they stay in place, you holding Mr. Bell is rather pointless.”

  “I can fight you without magic.”

  “I’m sure you can, my dear. But this will all go much smoother if you don’t prove it.”

  “Do you have more of the blackout powder?” the big man—Gem—said, his fist flexing on the crowbar, like he was ready to use it if the answer turned up negative.

  “I should,” Mrs. S. mumbled with a dark look at Theo. Even Loki thought that criticizing a man currently being held hostage was a bit of a low blow.

  “It wasn’t my fault!” Theo choked. “He’s stronger than you thought!”

  “For God’s sake,” Mrs. S. muttered. “He’s turning blue. Your Majesty, please release my associate. This is an unseemly show of force for a man of your standing.”

  “How do you know who I am?” Loki demanded.

  Mrs. S. quirked an eyebrow, and reluctantly, Loki let his arm fall from around Theo’s throat. Theo staggered away, catching himself on the edge of the box when his bad leg gave out. Gem picked up Theo’s cane from where he had dropped it and tossed it to him.

  Though none of them were particularly threatening, apart from Gem—though he was threatening in the same way as Thor, so it felt familiar—Loki was suddenly very aware that he was outnumbered, in an unknown place, unarmed, and unable to access any source of power. He’d never been cut off from his magic before, and that alone made his skin itch. His eyes darted around the room, searching for something he could use as a weapon if they came at him, but the best instruments had already been claimed, namely Gem’s crowbar and Theo’s cane. The room was bare but for the straw-lined crates strewn around, and rooting through them in hopes of finding something pointy didn’t seem like the most effective use of his time. He flexed his hands absently. He knew how to fight unaided by spells, but not having them there if he needed them was creating a logjam in his brain. He couldn’t seem to think up any plan that wouldn’t require magic.

  “Your Majesty,” Mrs. S. said, “Would you like to sit down?”

  “On what?” Loki asked.

  Mrs. S. shrugged. “I’m simply being polite. Though I’m happy to have Gem squat into a bench formation if you need it.”

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “We are representatives of a vast secret organization called the Society for Hospitable Activities from Remote Planets.”

  “You’re the SHARP Society,” Loki said.

  Mrs. S. gave him a small bow. A ring on her left hand flashed. “We are.”

  “My father said you knew I was coming.”

  “We did.”

  “So why did you knock me out and take away my magic?”

  “We manage interdimensional threats, and you are an interdimensional visitor of unknown power,” she replied. “One cannot be too careful when dealing with someone like...you.”

  “What do you mean, someone like me?” Loki demanded. “I’m here on behalf of my father.” Surely Odin hadn’t told them what a delinquent he was, but it seemed the only explanation for how far and incorrectly his reputation had preceded him. He was certain they wouldn’t have knocked out his father and dumped him in a box if he had showed up himself.

  “You’re a foreign being on our planet. Forgive us for taking precautions.”

  “You are absolutely not forgiven.”

  “I would remind you,” Mrs. S. said, “you are a guest in our realm.”

  “I’m here on behalf of my father, the king of Asgard,” he snapped. “I have a right to be in your realm.”

  Mrs. S.’s mouth twitched. “How very colonialist of you. You are a guest of the SHARP Society—”

  “That’s a daft name, so you’re aware,” Loki said. “SHARP Society. It doesn’t mean anything and the S is redundant.”

  “It stands for the Society for Hospitable Activities—” Mrs. S. began, but Loki interrupted.

  “Yes, I heard you the first time.”

  “We picked an acronym and worked backward,” Theo murmured.

  “Perhaps you could find something more accurate. You could call yourselves the Society where Hospitality is Ignored Totally. Or, for short—”

  “Regardless of those trivialities,” Mrs. S. interrupted, “we at the SHARP Society are dedicated to observing and intervening as necessary when beings from other realms travel to our planet. And though you are our guest, it is still our responsibility to keep you in check while you’re here.”

  Loki wanted to protest that he had thus far done nothing to prove he needed any kind of “keeping in check” and also that he was here to help them, not make more trouble, but it was a circle he was tired of running in.

  “Has your father informed you why you’ve been summoned here?” Mrs. S. asked.

  “Summoned seems like a rather grand word,” Loki replied. He wanted so badly to sit down on the edge of the crate—his legs were still wobbling beneath him—but he was determined not to show any weakness. “I’m here as a favor.”

  “Quibbling over trivialities is so much less amusing than you seem to think,” Mrs. S. replied. Her voice was fraying. He was testing her patience. Good. “We have requested help from Asgard because of a string of inexplicable deaths here in London.”

  Loki threw up his hands. “Easy, I’ve already cracked it.”

  A moment of silence, then Theo asked timidly, “Have you?”

  “Yes.” Loki folded his hands before him, as if he were about to deliver devastating news, and said very seriously, “You humans are being murdered by...other humans.” When none of them laughed, Loki did it for them. “You think an interdimensional being dropped in on your pathetic realm just to murder a few humans? No offense to your fragile little lives, but I could wipe out whole continents if I chose to. Most hospitable aliens have better things to do with their time.”

  “Our people are dying, and a magician is to blame,” Mrs. S. s
aid. “You cannot look past that.”

  “You have no proof of that.”

  “But once you see these corpses, you’ll understand that their deaths were not caused by humans. There’s magic involved.”

  “Looking at corpses. Tempting.” He rubbed his hands together. “But I think we’re done here.”

  He started for the door, but Mrs. S., Gem, and Theo all stepped in together, barring him. “We need aid from Asgard,” Mrs. S. said, and for the first time, he heard a slight fray of desperation in her voice. “We cannot fight a sorcerer without Asgard’s help.”

  “I don’t think you’re going to have to,” Loki replied. “This city seems like the kind of place where plenty of people die completely unaided by magic. So if you could show me the way out, I’ll be getting home.” Gem glanced at Mrs. S., then started to reach for the box again, but Loki interrupted, “Absolutely not, I am not going anywhere in a coffin.”

  “I’ll take him back to the fairy ring,” Theo said.

  “Are you sure?” Mrs. S.’s eyes flicked to his cane, but if Theo noticed, he didn’t acknowledge it.

  “Gem has to be on patrol soon. I’ll go.”

  “Just directions to the surface will suffice,” Loki replied. He wasn’t keen on spending more time with these humans than was necessary. “And take these off, please.” He thrust his wrists to Theo, nodding at the cuffs.

  Theo glanced at Mrs. S. for direction. She still had her arms folded, and he was beginning to wonder if her eyes were permanently narrowed. “Not just yet.”

  “If I can’t glamour my clothes, I’ll look like a damn fool walking around your city streets.”

  “We’ll risk it, for the safety of Mr. Bell,” Mrs. S. said.

  “Don’t worry,” Theo added. “You’ll be far from the most foolish-looking man in London. Come on, follow me. This place can be hard to get out of.”

  Loki snorted. “You’re a hobby detective squad, not the secret police.”