In the Balance

by C. Gockel

  Being tough didn’t work, so Amy switches tactics. “I am not from this universe. In my universe things with Loki went very differently; he didn’t work for Odin at all...and half of Chicago got destroyed, but it wasn’t his fault, and now I’m here and everything looks okay—better than okay—but then I find out my favorite comedian is dead and you say Loki is Odin’s butcher?”

  Bohdi’s gaze slides upwards to hers. Swallowing, he says, “That sounds too crazy to even make up.”

  “Because I didn’t...And you’re in my universe too...and...in the other universe I visited...”

  “Other universe?” says Bohdi.

  But Amy doesn’t answer him. Better not to say what happens when Loki gets too much power. “Steve was there...” she says eyes sliding away and then quickly back to Bohdi. “What happened to Steve Rogers here?”

  Bohdi’s already wide eyes widen further at the question, and then he shakes his head. “If you mean the former ADUO agent, he was one of the first people Odin put to death.”

  “Why?”

  Bohdi shrugs. “Well, our source says Odin mistrusts anyone he hears...”

  Amy straightens. In her universe Odin had ‘heard’ Steve too—and then sent his raven spies to harass and keep an eye on him.

  Smirking, Bohdi says, “I think Odin doesn’t like competition.”

  “What?” says Amy, her chest going tight. She shakes her head, and then she says, “And what’s going on in Beijing?” All she knows is there was some sort of ‘misunderstanding’ in Loki’s words.

  Bohdi stares at her a moment, and then he laughs. “You really are from another universe.”

  “Tell me, I need to know!” Amy says, forcing herself not to shout.

  Huffing a breath, Bohdi gives a bitter smile and says, “The Chinese were going to neutralize the Asgardian threat here in Chicago with a nuclear strike...”

  Amy’s eyes widen in her mouth gapes.

  Bohdi shrugs. “...According to Odin anyway.” He chuckles. “But Odin sent their nuke right back to them.”

  Stumbling backwards, she leans against a shelf and pulls Mr. Squeakers to her, all the breath rushing out of her lungs. The devastation a nuclear strike would cause in Beijing...it’s too immense to conceptualize...to believe...It takes her a few moments to find her voice. “How?” she stammers.

  Bohdi shrugs. “Magic. Odin controls Cera, so he controls everything...”

  Amy looks away; she can’t quite believe him.

  Voice a little hushed, Bohdi says, “Isn’t that what he does in your universe?”

  “No,” says Amy, shaking her head. Her eyes are unfocused, her body cold despite her coat.

  Scratching at his wig, making the dreads jostle, Bohdi looks down. “But our source says Odin has been waiting to intervene since the industrial revolution and Cera just gave him an excuse...”

  “Waiting to intervene?” says Amy, stepping closer again.

  Bohdi blinks. “We were getting too close...”

  “Too close to what?” says Amy. She’s inches away from him, and she should step away, but she can’t. Even if she doesn’t know Bohdi well in her world, at the moment he feels like an island of familiarity in a world that is suddenly strange and wrong.

  Shrugging, Bohdi says, “Too close to being a threat to Asgard’s supremacy.”

  Amy’s brow furrows. “Who is your source—”

  A beeping from Bohdi’s pocket cuts off her question. Amy’s eyes widen as he pulls out a magic detector. She hasn’t seen one since she was in her world.

  “I have to go,” he says.

  Amy nods and pulls Mr. Squeakers to her chest.

  Bohdi starts to walk past her and then stops. Licking his lips nervously, he whispers. “Do you want to come with me?”

  In her own universe, Bohdi has an earnestness and a sweetness about him. Maybe it’s just his ridiculously long lashes, but she gets those vibes from him here, too. She wants to say yes.

  A shout rises in the quiet of the library. “Amy!” It’s Loki. She’d left him a note on his counter telling him where she’d gone and what she was doing.

  “Run!” Amy whispers.

  Bohdi hesitates for only a moment, and then with a hasty nod, he runs.

  A shadow at the other end of the aisle catches Amy’s eye. She turns to see Loki. He’s wearing his armor, and it’s stained with mud and other things that look suspiciously like blood.

  “Who are you talking to?” he says, voice low and threatening.

  Mr. Squeakers protests his tone with a little hiss in her hand.

  Amy says nothing.

  “No matter,” says Loki. “I see where he’s gone.” What is evidently just an illusion of Loki walks through Amy, evoking the now familiar tingle low in her belly and a frustrated squeak from her mouse.

  Amy hears the sound of a wildly beeping magic detector in the direction Loki’s double is going, pounding footsteps and a door slam, and then more footsteps. Amy takes off in that direction, passing through Loki’s double as she does. She turns down a hallway to see what must be the real Loki opening the doorway to a fire exit, Laevateinn—her Laevateinn—glowing blue in his hands. An alarm immediately goes off. Jaw dropping, Loki shouts. “He’s gone! He’s completely gone!”

  Amy’s body sags and she breathes out a long sigh of relief.

  Turning quickly towards her, he says, “I’m still not done with you.”

  The sound of racing footsteps makes Amy turn. Two library security guards come charging down the aisle just as Loki grabs her by the wrist. They look at Amy, and then at Loki, and then they hold up their hands. “Sir, we’re sorry, sir!” one of them says.

  Amy feels her skin heat in fury. Trying to yank her wrist away from Loki, she shouts at the guards, “You’re not going to do anything?”

  They pale noticeably, then back away. Squeezing Amy’s wrist too tightly, Loki lets out a growl and lifts Laevateinn too close to her nose. She sees the Adam’s apple of one of the security guards bob as he swallows, and then there is only the cold and darkness of the In-Between.

  Chapter 7

  The blanket of cold and black falls away, and Loki releases her wrist. Gasping, Amy trips forward into Loki’s living room, Mr. Squeakers still clutched tightly in her hand.

  Heaving for breath, burning at the way she was manhandled in the library and the way the guards did nothing, Amy spins towards Loki.

  Before she can say anything, Loki screams. “What do you think you’re doing!” His face is red, he’s waving one arm, and his knuckles are white around Laevateinn’s handle.

  Her eyes fall on the blade, and she remembers Bohdi’s words. Odin’s butcher. Her gaze lifts up to Loki’s. Fear prickles along her spine, but more than afraid she’s aghast and disgusted. “What are you doing?” she shouts back. “Frightening people...killing people...”

  Lips curling in a sneer, Loki takes a step forward. Mr. Squeakers hisses in her hands and he stops.

  Amy keeps shouting. “That’s what you do for Odin, isn’t it? You killed those political prisoners earlier this week...”

  Loki’s eyes widen, as though he’s in some sort of shock. And then he snaps, “For killing Odin’s enemies, I got to kill Malson as well. You should be pleased!”

  Amy stares at him. He looks both furious and confused. Her thoughts are collecting into the train of a fragile narrative she’s afraid to know, and yet has to know. “How many people have you killed?” she whispers. And how many have died while he stood by and did nothing?

  Stepping forward, Loki drops his chin and speaks through clenched teeth. “I am under an oath to Odin.”

  Mr. Squeakers gives a hiss, but Loki doesn’t even lay his eyes on the mouse.

  Amy straightens. She feels numb. Voice soft, almost to herself, she says, “So you’re just obeying orders.” As though that would make it right.

  “I am doing what I must do to save Valli!” Loki says, free hand fisting at his side.

  Amy stares at it. That
hand touched her with such tenderness...he couldn’t be a murderer...could he? She follows the hand with her eyes as he lifts it to rub his face. For a moment she sees something like shame, but then his face hardens and he says, “Odin has my oath that as long as he does not harm my children, I will obey him.”

  Running a hand through his hair, Loki looks down. “Even that wasn’t enough to save Nari.”

  Amy feels as though her heart has stopped in her chest. Voice quiet, she says, “How many people have you killed, Loki?” How many lives were worth the life of one?

  Raising his head, he says, “You’re not a parent...You don’t understand.”

  “So you would kill however many children of others that it takes to—”

  “I don’t kill children!” Loki screams.

  Amy stumbles backwards, bumping against the back of the couch, and squeezing a hissing Mr. Squeakers. She hadn’t meant children in the sense of adolescents, she meant it in the larger sense of the word, but the way he interprets it...she feels the breath rush from her lungs.

  “Because Odin hasn’t ordered you to...” she whispers.

  Loki only glares at her, saying nothing.

  What had Loki said? That his oath was to obey—but not unquestioningly. Her mind spins. Loki can obey...but only up to a point. Odin has to know it. She shakes her head, “That would break you...he’d lose you then...and now he’s got you on a tighter leash than he had on you in the cave.”

  Loki grinds his jaw. “We aren’t talking about this,” he says.

  Swallowing, Amy whispers, “I think we are.”

  “No!” shouts Loki, stepping towards her and raising a finger at her chest. “We are talking about the fact that you left when I specifically told you to stay here!” He’s so close she can feel his breath on her face, and smell the dried blood—and other things—on his armor. Her stomach rolls but she doesn’t give into it.

  Mr. Squeakers gives a ferocious hiss. Loki’s eyes go to her hands, and he takes a step back, but his face twists. “Were you at the library to meet up with that fugitive?”

  Amy stares at him a moment, not connecting his words to the meaning.

  “Answer me!” Loki shouts, his free hand lifting like he wants to swing at her, but won’t...or...Amy gives Mr. Squeakers a little pat behind the ears...or can’t.

  Understanding comes to her suddenly. Fugitive. He means Bohdi. Shaking in fury and fear, she says, “No, I went to the library to re-apply to vet school. I just happened to meet him there.”

  Dropping his hand, Loki turns and paces a few steps from her. And then he turns back to her. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he says.

  Amy straightens, a weird sort of calm coming over her. She stares at him a moment, trying to take it all in—the man who cares for her, who makes her tea and toast, who wraps her in his arms every night—kills people without conscience? She can’t quite believe it.

  If what Bohdi says is true, Loki would have to see humans as lesser beings. Her eyes squeeze shut. But Loki doesn’t think that...not in her memories...

  Maybe what Bohdi said about Loki killing political prisoners was a mistake. Maybe Loki just saw the prisoners as more Malsons, and deserving of death. That’s still wrong, but understandable from his perspective. Maybe there haven’t really been others...besides armed combatants, but that is different...and...Ron’s words, At least they don’t make us wear Stars of David, come to her mind and she grits her teeth.

  Voice soothing, Loki steps towards her. “You won’t do that again, will you?” His frame is silhouetted by the light in the foyer; he moves with unconscious grace. Like a snake.

  Amy lets out a careful breath of air. “Which part?” she says, tilting her head and avoiding his gaze. “Leaving the house, applying to vet school, or talking to fugitives?”

  Loki’s jaw hardens. “Any of it.”

  The vision Amy had of making a life here, with him and the baby, shatters in that instant. She squeezes her fist so hard, her nails bite into her palm. Even if Bohdi is wrong, even if he lied, her life with this Loki is over. Feeling a slightly hysterical laugh building in her chest, she puts her hand to her mouth. She’d been right all along, this life, this universe, this Loki that adores her, they are all too perfect.

  Perhaps taking her stifled laugh for a sob, Loki puts an arm around her shoulder, carefully taking the side of her that doesn’t hold Mr. Squeakers. “Haven’t I been good to you?” he whispers, his breath caressing her ear. Ordinarily it would make her skin heat, but now it is like the touch of a stranger on the ‘L’ train. Amy has to struggle to keep from snapping her head away from him. She has to think.

  “Haven’t we had fun?” Loki murmurs.

  Amy does her best to keep her body from stiffening. Does he actually think she will stay with him?

  Apparently not catching on to her unease he says, “Soon you’ll have a baby to take care of; that will be more than enough for you. Veterinary school is just a silly dream.”

  Amy’s lips twist into a half smile. Silly dream. It’s the only thing she’s wanted to be since finding a bag of kittens at the side of the highway as a child. Her mother had chased her out of their trailer because she had a boyfriend over. The kittens had been similarly inconvenient to their owners. Hungry and dehydrated, as soon as she opened the bag they’d crawled into her lap and pressed themselves to her, their love and affection instant, and uncomplicated. Nursing them back to health had given her confidence and made her feel needed by someone.

  No matter how bad things got, how many boyfriends her mother went through—some of them were very nice to Amy, which made their departures that much worse—or how much her mother drank, Amy had the thread of her dream to hold onto. She held onto it when she ran away to live with her grandparents during high school, and held onto it late nights when studying for tests, and during the day working dead end jobs. It’s what kept her sane working as ADUO’s receptionist for half a year.

  Dreams striven for are not silly; they give you the strength to reconstruct your reality. Her eyes slide to Loki. And in Amy’s universe, the skills she’d learned from that dream had allowed her to save her Loki from bleeding to death.

  Fingers entwined in Amy’s hair, gaze meeting hers, this Loki says, “I want to take care of you. I need to take care of you. You’re very special to me. But you have to promise to behave.”

  A bitter taste comes to Amy’s mouth. No rush of memories comes to her, but she just knows that Loki never asked Anganboða or Sigyn to behave. She shivers. “I’m not special to you,” she says.

  She had been special to the Loki in her universe, though, hadn’t she? Even if he didn’t love her. A flashback grips her and for a moment she is the Loki in her universe. One of his doubles is standing above Amy’s body lying on the floor of ADUO’s old headquarters, green elven fire rising around her. She feels Loki’s horror as he watches through the double’s eyes from the safety of his apartment, feels his realization that she will die, and hears her own voice in his head, “I don’t want to die alone.” It was a plea, a prayer, and it felt like an anchor pulling Loki down—connecting him to her and to the universe, making him want to do impossible things. Without thinking he’d stepped through the In-Between to her side, and then stepped through the void once more with her in his arms. He had no Laevateinn charged with Cera’s magic to power the trip through the void. They’d both almost died.

  But this Loki...she meets his eyes. He doesn’t hear her in his head. She hasn’t saved his life. She hasn’t driven him to Alfheim...or saved him from being dragged back to Odin when his presence was discovered there. “The child I’m carrying is special to you. Not me,” she says.

  Loki smiles and pulls his head back, pantomiming the movements he’d make if she had slapped him. Leaning forward again, he says lightly, “That’s not true.”

  Amy smiles sadly. God of Lies, indeed.

  Tugging lightly on her hair. Loki kisses her forehead. “Promise me you’ll be good.”

&nb
sp; Amy’s smile drops. Isn’t she always the good girl? And wouldn’t the definition of good entail finding out what the hell is going on in this universe? ”I promise to be good,” she says. She expects Loki to catch the misdirection, but if he does, he doesn’t show it.

  Hands tight on her head, Loki leans so close his forehead is nearly against hers. Face soft, he whispers, “Promise me you’ll obey me.”

  Amy stares at him, her hands tightening on Mr. Squeakers in her pocket. That is a promise she can’t make.

  Softness dropping from his face, Loki tugs her hair sharply. “Promise me.”

  Head snapping back, Amy gives a yelp at the pain. Mr. Squeakers starts to hiss. Amy feels a tightening low in her gut and reaches down to cradle her abdomen.

  With a gasp Loki steps back, his face livid. His gaze is on her stomach. In her pocket Mr. Squeakers goes silent. Loki’s eyes flick in Squeaker’s direction and narrow, and then they meet hers. They stare at each other a moment. And then his phone plays a very old song it takes Amy a moment to identify. It’s Reptile by The Church.

  A muscle in Loki’s jaw tightens, and then he answers it. “Yes, Skadi?” he says, his gaze still hard on Amy.

  Amy huffs at Loki’s former lover’s name—the one who insisted on his prison being bathed in snake venom when he was locked up for 200 years for killing a servant. She blinks, drops her gaze, and a memory comes back to her. No, Loki hadn’t killed the servant—he’d only cursed his cooking—and then the man had a heart attack. And the Aesir locked Loki up for that death, claiming it was due to Loki’s magic. She looks up at Loki. These are the people he’s playing lackey to?

  Loki switches the phone to his other ear. “Of course,” he says, in Asgardian. “I’ll be there right away. What? The girl. Yes, she’s here. No, of course she doesn’t mind being left alone occasionally.” He pauses, and then says, “Right. I’ll just catch a cab.”

  Snapping the phone shut, he looks at Amy.

  “You’re going out?” she asks lightly, crossing her arms over her chest.

  His gaze is hard on hers, and she knows he knows she’ll try to run away first chance she gets.