by C. Gockel
He looks heavenward, and says bitterly. “Oh, Amy, flattery will get you nowhere.”
Swallowing, she brings up something more positive. “And in our myths you’re sometimes described as part of a trinity with Odin and Hoenir, which would make you very powerful, too.”
Loki freezes. For a moment she thinks she sees a tinge of blue in Loki’s skin. Then he shakes himself. “Cera doesn’t want destruction, she wants revolution.”
“Close enough,” mutters Amy.
He raises the milk carton at her and tilts his head. “Exactly. When I figure out how to get her out of your custody, she and I will get along just fine.”
Amy shakes her head. “Cera will destroy you.” Fenrir starts to whimper at her feet.
Loki just snorts.
She clenches her fists in frustration. “Why do you have to make things hard? Is destroying Odin reason enough to destroy yourself?”
For a heartbeat Loki just stares at her. And then the carton of milk goes hurtling past her and crashes against the apartment door with a splash. Amy’s eyes follow it and she gasps.
“Yes!” Loki screams. Amy turns back to him; he is full-on blue.
x x x x
“This is your urgent matter?” Putting the goblet down, Loki rolls his eyes. “I can’t go troll hunting with you, Thor.”
Smiling, Thor leans across the worn wooden table in the public house. “It will only be for a few nights.”
Loki looks around. The other patrons are eyeing them curiously. They are common people and not so accustomed to see Thor, son of Odin, in their midst.
Thor, in his cunning, probably brought Loki here because the big oaf knows Loki is disenchanted with the court. This is the sort of honest place filled with honest criminals they’ll find themselves in if they go troll hunting.
Loki looks down at some rude runes carved into the table. If rumors rippled like breezes before Aggie’s death, now they are a full blown whirlwind. Baldur declared Loki’s wife should have been named Angrboða, bringer of sorrows, instead of Anganboða, bringer of joy — and of course it stuck. Thor says it’s because Baldur was drunk at the time and it was grief talking.
Loki’s jaw clenches and the dead candle at their table suddenly leaps into flame.
Thor lifts his eyebrow at the candle and turns back to Loki, his smile replaced by a look of concern. “It would be good for you to leave for a while.”
Taking out a knife, Loki begins to scratch at the table. “It’s out of the question. Right now Odin has me trying to arrange a contract with the dwarves to get the south wall repaired — and he’s not authorized me to pay them a reasonable amount...” He brings his knife down with a thwack.
Thor grins. “So did you know there is a story among the humans on Earth about how you managed to get the wall built in the first place?”
Loki stabs the table again and begins to absently carve a rune. “Yes, Thor, I am aware of the story of me turning myself into a mare and getting raped by a giant’s horse —”
“And giving birth to Sleipner!” says Thor, gleefully bringing up Odin’s eight-legged, world-walking steed.
Loki narrows his eyes and makes a silent oath: humans will tell the tale of Thor dressing himself up as a woman to get Mjolnir back. Turning his attention to the tip of his knife he says, “And even if there wasn’t the matter of the wall, I cannot leave Helen.”
Thor shrugs. “But surely Sigyn wouldn’t mind watching her...”
Loki blinks to where he has carved, ‘Baldur will die’. Frowning, he scrapes it away quickly. That is the sort of sentiment that will get him killed. He looks to the window where the sun is just setting. “Speaking of Sigyn, I have taken advantage of her kindness long enough,” he says rising from the table.
Standing beside him, Thor sighs. “Can’t you go? These things are always so much more fun when you’re along...”
Ignoring him, Loki strides out of the public house, leaving Thor to pay. Thor catches up to him, and together they enter the royal grounds and head towards Frigga’s palace, passing Tyr and his wife, Vord, several months along in a pregnancy, on the way. Tyr doesn’t acknowledge Loki — and Loki snorts. The man also barely nods at Thor. Keeping company with Loki isn’t winning Thor any friends in the court, especially after Thor’s outburst at Anganboða’s funeral. But there is little outward hostility towards the hammer wielder. Thor was right, his hammer is more important than Baldur’s beauty.
As Vord and Tyr pass, Thor says in a perplexed voice, “Vord was eyeing you funny, Loki.”
Some months after Aggie’s death he had a brief tryst with Vord. It was stupid. He wants to hurt Baldur but can’t. Hurting Tyr, by sleeping with his wife when he was off hunting wyrms, felt like the next best thing at the time. It was petty and unproductive — the baby in her belly isn’t even Loki’s and she’d hopped right back into her husband’s arms on his return. Loki shrugs noncommittally at Thor’s comment and keeps walking.
They meet Sigyn in Frigga’s hall. Helen is asleep on her lap, and Sigyn is singing to her softly, face aglow with Helen’s blue magic. Fenrir is lying at their feet.
It makes Loki’s chest tighten. Just because he is a father does not mean he has escaped his duties as Odin’s retainer. Finding someone to care for Helen has been difficult. One nurse left her to scream in her bed all day. When Sigyn heard, she offered to help with Helen’s care — and she does it well. Today Sigyn has tied Helen’s hair up into elegant braids. Helen’s face is clean; there is a ghost of a smile on her features.
“Lady Sigyn!” Thor says — it’s a whisper, but nonetheless the sounds seems to reverberate through the room.
Sigyn looks up and smiles at Loki. The whole court thinks they are lovers. They could be, and he even wants her, but does nothing. He doesn’t know precisely why.
“It was my fault that Loki was detained,” says Thor, dropping a fist on Loki’s shoulder and nearly knocking him over. “An urgent matter of troll hunting.”
“Thank you for watching her today,” Loki says, trying to end the topic of trolls. He goes to take Helen from Sigyn’s lap.
Standing, Helen in her arms, Sigyn says, “Don’t. You’ll wake her. I can carry her; she weighs nothing.” She kisses Helen's head and it hits Loki like a physical blow.
Loki nods, and they walk towards the exit of Frigga’s great hall together. Fenrir lopes at their side and Thor falls into step with them, too, going on about trolls again, though Loki and Sigyn both roll their eyes.
They are nearly at the foyer when Fenrir begins to growl. A servant opens the front door and Baldur comes in, Tyr beside him.
Smiling at Thor, Baldur says, "Brother!" Thor nods back. Thor doesn’t smile back, and that is odd. Not that Baldur has given Thor any reason to trust his smiles again, but everyone but Loki forgets Baldur’s cruelties when Baldur turns on the charm.
Baldur’s eyes slide towards Sigyn. His smile widens. "And Lady Sigyn - it has been a while."
"Yes," says Sigyn. She is unsmiling, too. Loki tilts his head.
Stirring in Sigyn's arms, Helen's eyelids flutter.
For a moment Baldur’s smile slips, but then he smiles again and bows. "But trust me, Lady, I have not forgotten you, all your beauty, or any of your charms."
Baldur's none-too-subtle allusion to his conquest of Sigyn makes Loki bristle — and Baldur sees it. He smirks at Loki.
“Baldur, Brother,” says Thor suddenly. “You look ill.”
Sigyn tilts her head. “Your complexion is off...”
Baldur’s smile drops completely. Loki should restrain his own smirk, but can’t quite manage it. The crown prince excuses himself and goes to find his mother. Thor thankfully leaves not long after that.
Sigyn is still carrying Helen when they reach Loki’s home. They put Loki’s child to bed and Loki offers her a drink, just to be hospitable. He is pouring blue elvin wine into a glass when Sigyn says, "You know I was showing her runes today — I do believe she understands them."
&
nbsp; Loki says nothing, only turns away to pour wine into his own glass.
"I believe when the time comes, we should consider getting her a tutor," Sigyn says.
Smiling a little mirthlessly to himself, he says, "We?"
Sigyn comes up very close behind him. "You know it can be we if you want it to be."
Glass in hand, Loki turns back to her. Sigyn is more traditionally Asgardian than Aggie. Her hair and skin are golden, her eyes are wide and clear blue, her cheeks pink. She's soft, curved like a fine instrument, and her body has beckoned his for a long time.
But his tongue seems to form words of its own accord. "You're cast off by Baldur and now you're interested in me again."
Sigyn's face goes hard. "That was a long time ago, and as I recall very soon after you were cutting off Sif's hair."
Instead of acknowledging her statement, he continues. "And you'll take me despite my crippled daughter."
Sigyn's hand connects so hard to Loki's cheek that the glass he's holding falls to the floor. Shaking, she says, "Why must you always make things hard! I love you because of Helen! You condescending, cruel, selfless, twisted, brave — "
Grabbing her shoulders, he pulls their bodies together and silences her with a brutal kiss. "I know," he whispers, as he pulls back for air. "I know." Closing his eyes and pressing his forehead to hers, he lets his hands drift to her elbows. Her mouth comes to his again. This time they kiss gently, almost tentatively, as their hands dance over the fastenings of each other's clothes.
x x x x
The milk container crashes against the far wall. He will not be lectured to by a human...even if he’s heard her words before.
Cera is screaming. “The frost giants are not dead! They are gone. She is speaking falsehoods!” He can feel Cera isn’t lying. Nor is the girl. Both believe their words.
Cera came back to him the day ADUO ‘broke’ Gerðr. Her return is both pleasing and annoying.
“Let us leave here,” says Cera, yet at the moment she sounds so far away...
Miss Lewis, on the other hand, seems so close. She is breathing heavily, as though she is frightened or angry. “What do you want?” she says. “To know the location of the gate the giants walked through, right? Right?”
Loki smirks. He wants quite a few things really. He remembers the smell of her hair, and the softness of her skin as he’d pressed a kiss to her forehead a few days ago. He shakes his head.
Taking a step forward, Amy says, “Well, we got it. Steve’s working on a joint project with the Afghanis to bury it under a ton of bricks.” Her hands go to her hips, and Loki licks his lips. She’s quite fetching when she’s mad.
Oblivious, she goes on. “Do you know why Gerðr told us where the gate is? Do you know why she is helping us block her only way home? So that other giants don’t destroy themselves like her companions did! Like she tried to do! So that if you get Cera you won’t take that gate to Jotunheim and slaughter your own people!”
Any more potential competitors for Cera who might have come through the Afghanistan-Jotunheim gate will be blocked. Loki blinks. His cooperation with the humans is progressing excellently. “Well done,” he says.
Straightening, Amy says, “Now. Get out.”
His jaw twitches. He is hungry and tired of eating alone. He smiles. “Why don’t we both get out? Get some food?” He shrugs and flashes his most disarming grin.
“No,” says Amy. “Leave.”
He tilts his head. “We’ll order in then —”
“No!”
He blinks. “What is wrong with you?”
When she speaks her voice is a whisper. “I gave you the information you wanted...I’ve interfaced with ADUO for you. I’m done. Get out!”
He sighs happily. Her displeasure is just a little game — even if she doesn’t know it. “But if I leave how will I repay my debt to you?”
Amy blinks. “Repay your debt?”
Proud of his cleverness, he shrugs with a smirk. “Why, of course! Why do you think I am so often in your company? I arranged with Steve for you to get danger pay whenever I am in your presence. It was the only way I could repay you without them confiscating the payment...or tracing it.”
Her anger washes away and she stares at him for just a moment. And then she swallows. “That’s why you spend so much time with me?”
He’s almost won this game. “Why, Amy...Why did you think I was here?” He leans in close. “Did you think I was, as you Midgardians put it, ‘your boyfriend’?”
He expects a playful slap on the cheek — or even one that isn’t so playful. But backing away she says, “No, actually, I guess I really didn’t think that.” His brow furrows at the not-quite lie.
Her face falls, and for the first time he notices her eyes are starting to well up with tears. Pathetic. Pathetic that she is starting to cry and pathetic that his stomach is starting to fall.
A tear slips from her eye. “I knew you were using me...but I thought at some level we were friends...”
Suddenly he knows what he could say to make this all better. But that would be too much like losing. Loki scowls at the tear. Waving a hand at her cheek he says, “Don’t do that.”
Her lips turn up in a snarl, even as more tears fall from her eyes. “Get out of my house!”
He doesn’t move. “I don’t renege on my oaths.”
Picking up a random book and hurling it at him, she says, “Fuck your oath, I absolve you! Get out of my house!”
He lets it hit him, and she throws another, and another. He’s actually a little bemused; he didn’t think she had this much passion in her.
Picking up her phone she says, “If you don’t get out, I’m calling ADUO.”
For the first time it occurs to Loki that she isn’t really playing.
He rolls his eyes and makes himself invisible.
“I know you’re still here!” Amy shouts. She throws a book at his invisible form and hits him in the stomach.
It falls to the ground with a soft thud and he stands immobilized with fury — fury at her and himself. He knew he was pushing her limits, and he did it anyway. His fingers clench and there is a clicking noise.
Amy’s head turns and she screams. Loki follows her gaze. Every eye on her stove is alight. As she races over to put the flames out, he backs towards the door and then with an angry snarl — at her or him, takes off into the night.
Chapter 12
It’s late afternoon on Monday, nearly a week after Gerðr started talking to Amy. Amy is on the ‘L’ train heading north. She told Steve that she wasn’t coming in today. There are plenty of linguists to talk to Gerðr now, and Amy needs a break.
She looks down at the book in her hand. It is Young Stalin by Montefiore. She exhales sharply. She should have picked up something a little lighter.
In the course of her discussions with Gerðr the giantess commented that Cera had ‘imprinted on a human named Josef.’ Also in Gerðr’s words, ‘Josef seems to have been an exceptional creature for a human.’ The fact that Cera’s first language was Russian...well, with Cera’s charming personality, Amy immediately thought of Josef Stalin. She feels her skin crawl. Stalin was the man who drove Beatrice and her family from the Ukraine and who had made Hitler look like a rank amateur at mass slaughter.
Most of the office thinks Amy’s paranoid. They point out that Cera is a new thing and Stalin died decades ago. Steve points out he was also Georgian...But Amy’s pretty sure by the time Stalin was the Big Bad the language he used most often was Russian. Beatrice understood Russian, and she’d overheard Loki talking to Cera. He’d mentioned Tunguska — a place in Siberia where a meteorite hit in 1908. Amy has wondered if that might be where Cera came from. She and Steve worked out a hypothetical scenario where the meteorite was picked up by the Tsar’s regime and locked up until after the revolution. After Stalin came into power, he had somehow come into contact with it — her.
Amy swallows. She doesn’t know how much Steve believes in the scenario
, but he doesn’t discount it. He says in cases like this it’s best to consider all the possibilities. But there is a possibility he won’t entertain — that Cera is evil. Steve doesn’t believe in evil.
Amy thinks when it comes to Stalin, saying he wasn’t evil is kind of splitting hairs. Steve suggested she read Young Stalin. And okay, she kind of gets where he was coming from. Stalin was a bright young boy, born into poverty under one of the most repressive and simultaneously ineffectual regimes on the planet. He was scarred physically by illness and emotionally by an absentee father and a mother who was probably a whore. He was sent to the most fundamental of seminaries to become a priest — a seminary where boys were spied on, beaten and raped. Most of his peers left the seminary atheists and joined him in the revolution. She sees where he was the product of the perfect storm of genetics and a personal and political environmental whirlwind.
She still thinks saying he wasn’t evil is splitting hairs.
Amy’s phone beeps. Pulling it out she scowls. It’s an email from Loki. He has been sending her little things about odd appearances and occurrences all week. She really wants to ask questions — but she just forwards the emails onto Steve.
She stares at this email’s subject line: Spider Mouse! She opens it up. She should just forward it...
She reads Loki’s message anyway.
Amy, I thought these were just one-offs created by Hoenir. But apparently there is an infestation in DC. So far people are attributing them to genetic experiments. Cute, no? Or do you not like spiders?
There’s a link to an article and a jpg attachment. Amy stares at the attachment; against her better judgement she clicks on it.
...And finds herself staring at the most adorable little gray mouse with eight velvety black legs. He is upside down, and hanging by what at first she thinks is a tail, but then realizes is spider silk.
She types: I want one! And then squeezes her eyes shut. Resisting the urge to send it to Loki she forwards it to Steve.
Her boss responds almost instantly.
Interesting. Wouldn’t have thought Cera’s route to Chicago would have taken her through DC. Hope that your visit with your grandmother goes well.
