Loki

by Mackenzi Lee

  “Come on.” Theo removed his hand from his pocket and grabbed Loki’s arm, dragging him through the door and away from the woman. Loki glanced down at the leaflet. The text was blotchy from her sweaty palms, but the illustration at the top depicted a skeleton reclining in a scrolled frame, one bony hand wrapped around a curled scythe. The bold, striped letters beneath it read DO NOT LET THE LIVING SUFFOCATE IN A GRAVE. THERE IS STILL HOPE FOR THOSE THOUGHT DEAD.

  There followed several long paragraphs in a font too small to make out without proper study, but it looked like the woman with the sign had a lot to say on the subject. Loki shoved the leaflet into his pocket, then followed Theo and Mrs. S. into the morgue.

  The morgue hallways were so stuffed full of people that Loki had to crane his neck to see into the dimly lit cases, and even then he hardly got a proper view. On each side of the aisle, floor-to-ceiling glass windows separated the spectators from corpses laid out on slabs, tilted so their bodies could be viewed. Cloth had been artfully draped across the bodies in strategic places, with the corpses’ clothes hung on pegs behind them. Dark water dripped from a pipe along the ceiling, presumably cold to keep the bodies preserved. A few policemen roamed on both sides of the glass, though they seemed unperturbed by the spectacle.

  Disgust curdled inside him. Though it wasn’t at all the death; death did not bother him. All lives ended—he and Thor had been taught that from a young age. Warriors gave their lives for Asgard every day. Even those who died old and at peace would have been worn down in the service of the realm. Instead it was the indignity of this, the twisted display, the gawkers, the small children with their noses pressed against the glass, smearing their faces as they gaped at open wounds. They were only humans, but in that moment, he wished he could place each of them in a ship and see them off to Hel.

  “This is barbaric,” he murmured.

  Beside him, Theo was staring at the floor. “At least we have dogs.”

  Mrs. S. stopped at the back of the largest group and waited, one foot tapping out an impatient rhythm. As they moved toward the glass, Loki heard someone behind him whisper to her friend, “I’ve been waiting all week to see the living dead.”

  He whipped around. “What did you say?”

  The girl, short and spotty and still young, started at his attention, but then jutted out her chin defiantly. “That’s what they call them in the papers,” she said. “The ones that’s dead for no reason.” She poked a finger toward the glass. “She should be living.”

  The words rang inside him, the memory of what his father had seen years ago the last time he looked in the Godseye Mirror. Leading an army of the living dead.

  He felt Mrs. S.’s fingers coil around his arm, pulling him away from the girls. “Take a look, we won’t have long.”

  Theo hung back in the crowd, but Loki followed her to the front of the group until they were nearly pressed up against the glass, staring at the woman’s body laid out before them. She was naked, her long hair uncoiled and hanging in limp threads to cover her breasts. In the icy light through the glass, she didn’t look dead at all: she looked asleep. Her skin hadn’t taken on the clammy, pale quality that other corpses did, and there was no discoloration, no sign of sickness or injury. In spite of how reluctant he was to appear interested in this assignment, Loki found himself stepping so close that his nose brushed the glass.

  It was only then that he looked down the row of corpses and realized they were all this way—still as sleep and entirely not-dead-looking. There was no blood, no injury, no visible signs of what had felled them. They had nothing in common but death.

  He suddenly understood how Mrs. S. had been so certain that it was magic that had killed these people. There was nothing natural here. Nothing human, nothing native to Midgard.

  “How many are there?” he asked, his breath fogging the glass.

  “Two more hallways full,” Mrs. S. replied. He could see the hard set of her mouth reflected in the glass. “Scotland Yard won’t allow any of them to be buried. They’re keeping them all here for observation.”

  “Observation?” Loki repeated. “What are they expecting to observe, exactly?”

  “They’re not sure,” she replied. “But because none of the bodies are decaying, some believe that they’re not actually dead. There’s no heartbeat or breath, but they’re not corpses. The police could prove death or life definitively with an autopsy—an examination of a body to determine how they died—”

  “I know what an autopsy is,” Loki interrupted, though he hadn’t.

  “—but none of the families of the dead have granted permission.”

  “Why does it matter if there’s an autopsy?” Loki asked, trying to say the word with confidence, but it felt strange in his mouth.

  If his pronunciation had been questionable, Mrs. S. didn’t comment. “Because of their unusual state, it’s the only way these people can be declared officially dead and then buried. And since there’s still some debate as to whether or not they’re actually dead, the coroner can’t legally perform an autopsy without the family’s consent. But no family wants to be the one to volunteer their darling brother or sister or mother or father to be cut open and taken apart if it turns out there’s a way to revive them. So no autopsy, no burial. The bodies just pile up here on display. Groups like that lot outside”—she jerked her thumb over her shoulder the way they’d come—“have got to all the families and convinced them not to authorize an autopsy, because they think they’re not actually dead.”

  “You mean the protestors?” Loki asked.

  Mrs. S. nodded. “I don’t know how things are done on Asgard, but here it’s preferable not to put a living person in the ground—if they weren’t dead already, they would be then.”

  “Yes, I believe that is universally true across the realms, except for a few subterranean dwellers who bury their dead in the sky.”

  Mrs. S. laughed softly. Loki could still see her faint reflection in the glass separating them from the body. “Each time I think I have learned the strangest things about this universe, something stranger unveils itself. Sky funerals.” She rubbed a hand over her chin, and he could tell she was picturing it, her mind unspooling.

  “How did you find out about all this?” Loki asked.

  “We have a man on the inside of the police force,” Mrs. S. replied. “He tips us off. And it’s our responsibility to know these things.”

  “Your responsibility by whose authority?”

  “Your father’s.”

  “And what does he give you in return?” He turned back to the glass. “You’re wasting your time working for aliens, Mrs. S.”

  “Well, will you be wasting it with us a bit longer, Your Majesty? I noticed you’re not back in Asgard.”

  “My travels have been delayed.” As much as he didn’t want to admit it, to this woman or his father if he was ever allowed back in his realm, he was intrigued. Whatever magic it was that had a hold of these people, he hadn’t seen it before.

  “Have they, now?” Mrs. S. asked, and he ignored the amusement in her voice.

  “So I suppose I’ll stay and investigate this with you.”

  Her reflection smiled. “How very generous, Your Majesty.”

  The SHARP Society office was located at Number 3½ Finch Street, like it had been forgotten until the last minute and then squashed into what was meant to be an alley. Hardly large enough to house a vast secret society. It had fewer windows and a narrower front door than the shops on either side. At its back, a factory belched black smoke at intermittent intervals. In the pale light of the early dawn, Loki could see a small hanging sign that read B. A. SHARP, ANTIQUITIES.

  Though a bell over the door rang when Theo led Loki in, the shop looked deserted. Glass cases and shelves were bare, their corners collecting dust and cobwebs. The counter had begun to mold where a drop of water from a leaky pipe overhead kept up a steady stream. “Is the shop itself meant to be the antiquity?” Loki asked.

  �
��What?” Theo looked up from fumbling to light a lamp. “Oh, no, it was Mr. Sharp’s. We only use the back room now—our office is through here. Come on.”

  Theo led him around the counter, through a musty velvet curtain that smelled like the water had once been dripping on it before taking over the counter.

  This was barely an office. Loki was beginning to suspect they were barely a society.

  The back room, in contrast to the shop, was packed. Books were stacked to the ceiling. A heavy round table crowded into the center was sagging beneath the weight of papers and crates and one very rusty sword. A workstation had been shoved into one corner, wires and gears littering its top.

  As Theo took off his coat, Loki picked up a ring with an obviously fake jewel. The stone was pried away from the setting and propped up to reveal a set of miniature gears.

  “Don’t touch that,” Theo said quickly.

  “What does it do?” Loki asked.

  “It shoots darts tipped in a sedative. Or, it will, once it works. It’s temperamental.”

  “Where did all this come from?” Loki asked.

  “Me, mostly.”

  “You made it?”

  “Some of it. I was an engineering student once. I was going to be an engineer as well, but that plan was rather...ruined.” He shrugged. “It’s probably all silly compared to what you have on Asgard.”

  “Yes.”

  Theo cast Loki a glare from where he was piling kindling into the stove. “You’re not supposed to agree with me.”

  Loki shrugged. “You said it.”

  “Yes, but mostly in the hopes that you’d raise some kind of protest. No, it’s so impressive, worthy of Asgard, and you’re wonderful and brilliant and handsome, Theo.” He struck a match from a pack on the table and dropped it into the stove. It smoked, struggling to catch the kindling. “Asking too much, I suppose.”

  Loki picked up a set of tarnished gold gauntlets that looked more like something from his homeland than from Earth. “What do these do?”

  Theo glanced up from a second match. “Nothing. They’re antiques Mr. Sharp found on expedition.”

  “Mr. Sharp. The mysterious purveyor of the empty shop.”

  “Not so mysterious,” Theo replied. “Mrs. S.’s husband. He was an archeologist—collected Norse artifacts for the British Museum. They both were. Him and Mrs. S. He was the one who first made contact with your father and Asgard, entirely by accident, after he found the fairy ring near Brookwood.”

  “Mr. Sharp,” Loki repeated. “Your daft society name makes so much more sense now.” Theo snorted. “You should petition to change it, so you have something less embarrassing to put on your calling card.”

  “Not handing out many calling cards these days.” Theo blew on the stove, then added, “And it’s not much of a secret society if you go handing it about.”

  “Have you considered putting it to a vote?” Loki asked, running a finger along the grimy windowsill. “The many, many other members of your clearly enormous secret organization may be more likely to show up to your offices if you had a more fetching name.”

  He glanced at Theo, who was chewing on his lip, staring intently down at his matchbook.

  “It’s a tribute, the name,” Theo said.

  “A tribute?”

  “To Mr. Sharp.”

  “I assumed. What happened to him?”

  “He died a few years back,” Theo replied. “Before I met him. You can’t conjure fire, can you? Now that I’ve taken the cuffs off.” He tossed the third blackened strike match into the stove. “It’s bloody cold in here, and I can’t get this to catch.”

  Loki considered him. Considered saying no. Theo did a dramatic shiver and chattered his teeth. “Fine.” Loki crossed to the stove, rubbing his hands together partly for showmanship and, partly because it was indeed frigid in the tiny back room, gathered a flame between his fingers and dropped it into the belly of the stove. The kindling roared to life, bathing him and Theo in a rosy, warm glow. Loki pressed his hands to the top of the stove, then glanced at Theo. “What?”

  “That’s...” Theo ran a hand over his chin, and Loki suddenly felt strange, the way he always had on Asgard whenever his powers would manifest. But then Theo finished, “That’s brilliant.”

  “It’s a simple spell.”

  “Yes, well, some of us can’t do spells at all.” Theo hung his cane on the back of a chair at the table and sank down into it, shifting the rusted sword off the stack of papers in front of him.

  “Did you make those cuffs as well?” Loki asked, baiting him, taking the seat across from Theo’s and kicking his heels up against the stove. “The magic-suppressing ones.”

  “No, those came from Asgard,” Theo replied. “Your father sent them to Mr. Sharp so that any magical beings he detained could stay detained. Apparently, there were a few incidents.”

  It seemed to Loki that if you were enlisting humans to fight powerful magical beings on your behalf, the least you could do was arm them with the proper weaponry from the start, but before he could voice the thought, Theo pulled a stack of papers from the bottom of a tottering pile and began to fan them out over the table between them. “So, here are the police reports—”

  “Hold on.” Loki clamped a hand over the top of the first report just as Theo reached for it, and for a moment their hands were smashed together. It was inelegant and unintentional—the brief feeling of skin on skin startled them both, though only Theo shied away, rubbing his hand like it had been burned.

  “You promised to help me contact Asgard if I came with you to the morgue,” Loki said.

  “Did I?” Theo rubbed the back of his neck.

  “I remember it like it was yesterday.” A pause. “It was, in fact, a few hours ago.”

  “Yes, I recall, thank you.” Theo heaved himself to his feet and retrieved a ceramic jug and bowl from a shelf by the workbench, then placed it on top of the police reports. He uncorked the jug, then emptied the clear liquid from it into the bowl. “This one is also from Odin.”

  “Aw, he gave you a jug of water?” Loki pressed a hand to his chest. “He’s thoughtful like that, my father.”

  “No, he gave us a bowl,” Theo corrected. “It works as a two-way means of communication between here and Asgard.” Theo stepped back. The surface of the liquid shimmered, and from his angle, Loki could tell an image had formed, but he couldn’t tell what it was. “Would you like some privacy?” Theo asked.

  “Why? Can you hear both sides of the conversation?”

  “Why?” Theo mimicked. “Are you going to be talking about me?”

  “Possibly. Only disparaging things, I assure you.”

  Theo snagged his cane off the back of the chair, cast a longing gaze at the stove, then called over his shoulder as he pushed through the velvet curtain, “Tell your father I said hello.”

  Loki bent over the bowl, its surface trembling slightly as though the ground below it was wavering. He had expected to see his father’s council room reflected back, or Heimdall’s observatory. Perhaps even the throne room. At the very least, the mapmaker’s offices or the library, the sort of places other dignitaries were shown when they visited or communicated with the Asgardian court.

  But instead, he found himself staring at blank stones that it took him a moment to realize made up a ceiling. It was so wholly unremarkable and unadorned that there wasn’t a chance it could be anywhere significant in the palace. Whatever place Odin had decided to accept communications from the SHARP Society, it was no place of honor. Loki felt a stab of anger at his father again for condemning him to this place, this embarrassment. Working with these humans Odin couldn’t even spare a corner of his council room for communications with. He’d never make contact with someone in Asgard in this dark, hidden corner of the palace. He’d be lucky if a boy emptying chamber pots passed.

  He straightened up, looking around for Theo. He considered going to fetch him, to ask how it was they ever made contact with Asgard if this
was all they had, or if there was some schedule for when a guard on patrol would pass by. Then something flashed on the surface of the water, and Loki dipped back to it, his nose nearly skimming the surface.

  “Thor!”

  A long pause, then the shuffle of footsteps, and a shadow fell over his line of vision, blotting out the ceiling. It was Thor, his hair knotted and stringy with sweat and his chest bare.

  He let out a shout of surprise. “Loki!”

  “Please tell me you’re wearing pants,” Loki replied.

  “What are you doing in a washbasin?”

  Is that where he was? Worse than expected. Odin had banished all communication with the SHARP Society to the changing rooms off the training arena where soldiers sparred. It was somewhere the king himself never went. “What are you doing answering the call of a talking washbasin?” Loki returned. “Are you at the training fields?”

  “The changing rooms under them. You can’t just...” Thor shifted, grabbing a towel from somewhere outside Loki’s line of vision and tossing it over his shoulder like he was trying to cover himself. “What if I had been undressed?”

  “Then I would have been forever scarred,” Loki replied dryly. “Believe me, this isn’t my first choice of location either.”

  Thor rubbed the towel over his head, then tossed it onto the floor. Had he been present, it would have taken a good deal of effort for Loki not to retrieve it. “That won’t dry if you leave it bunched up like that,” he said.

  “What?”

  “The towel.”

  “Did you appear here just to discuss my...grooming habits?”

  “Could you have picked a more upsetting way to phrase that?”

  Thor let out a huffy sigh, cast his eyes down at the towel, then seemed to make a conscious decision to be contrary and not pick it up. “Where are you?” he asked.