Eighth Thor / Being Human Crossover: Chapter Thirty-Six

[coneycat_fic]

Notes: In case we need some.

Warnings: None needed.


Chapter Thirty-Six

It transpired that Clint the spy could move nearly as quietly as Loki, which was one less thing to worry about. The two quietly bypassed the rooms where, in the days when this was an active funeral home, the deceased would be prepared for human rituals of burial or cremation. Loki did not turn his head toward the refrigeration room that had once served as a prison for Mitchell, George, and Jane.

He also tried not to think about the unsettling details of these human rituals, reminding himself that, cultural differences aside, the shape of Midgard acted as a considerable barrier to the sort of funerals he was accustomed to in Asgard. You could hardly send a flaming ship off the edge of a world that did not possess edges.

And it was perhaps better if he did not continue that train of thought.

There were voices ahead of them, raised in anger or excitement. Loki held up a warning hand to Clint. The agent came to a halt, watching Loki narrowly. Loki gestured to him to stand still, then raised a finger to his lips. Clint nodded, and waited as Loki eased forward to investigate.

As he moved closer the sound of voices increased in volume, and he could pick out at least four different speakers. They were coming from a large room at the front of the building, one of the "viewing rooms" that opened off the entry hall where once Loki had killed several vampires. He recalled this incident without a trace of guilt, but certainly hoped such actions would not be called for during this covert mission.

As he reached the open doorway of the viewing room, he turned back to Clint, made the gesture for silence one last time, and then beckoned him forward. Clint rolled his eyes a little at the first signal, but came forward soft-footed and joined Loki in peering into the room.

From where they stood, in the doorway that took up most of one wall of the room, they could see to their right a set of large folding doors, which presumably could be opened up in the event of a really large funeral to give into the viewing room beside it. The left-hand wall was solid, with a door that led into the small business office next door. At the back of the room was an arrangement of chairs, for the comfort of those attending a funeral or wake.

The vampires had clustered there, some of them seated, while others walked back and forth before them. Loki led the way to the left-hand wall, at a safe distance from any doors or furniture, and the two of them stood quietly listening.

"How do we know he isn't coming back?" demanded a burly, bald-headed vampire as he paced.

"Does it matter if he does?" was the reply from a vampire who resembled a silver-haired, elderly woman. "I tell you, Wyndham was planning to call in the other Old Ones, and you know what will happen then."

A young-looking vampire with a bristling-short haircut folded his arms. "So you're saying that either we go along with you or we'll be made to?"

"Yes," was the flat reply from a tough-looking vampire in a dark suit. "Herrick used to say-- "

"Oh, shut the fuck up about Herrick," snapped the young-looking vampire. "All his big talk just got him staked by a fucking ghost. And what did he accomplish? We're still in the shadows, Mitchell isn't back with us, and his alien pal would as soon see the lot of us dust as not."

"I thought Wyndham had a plan to bring him in on our side," added the burly vampire, aggressively.

"Don't see any sign of it, myself," said the young one, warming to the argument. "I have to pass a playground every day on the way home from work, and today I was warned off by those damned rhinoceroses again, same as ever."

"Yes, but have you seen him?" countered a second dark-suited vampire. That brought the two objectors up short.

"What do you mean?" the young-looking vampire asked, looking suddenly a shade less sure of himself.

"I know the spells are still in place, but the sorcerer himself isn't. Seth-- "

"Oh, Seth-- " sneered the young vampire, but he sounded rather uncertain.

"Before he left with Wyndham, Seth sent me to keep a lookout on Mitchell's house," the dark-suited vampire went on, unperturbed. "They're all gone, Mitchell and his little dog-- " this term, Loki knew, applied to George rather than Scamp-- "and the ghost. And the wizard. Gone. There's a human staying there and working at the school. Kind of suggests someone wanted to get Loki out of the way, doesn't it?"

"Maybe he's not as powerful as we've been led to believe," the female vampire suggested. Loki resisted a sudden impulse to drop the glamour and rain down fire upon them all.

"Or maybe Doom did get him, and the rest of them ratted. Regardless-- he's not here. And there's something else you should know," said the first dark-suited vampire.

"What's that?" asked the burly vampire, who also appeared rather less belligerent at the moment.

The dark-suited vampire bared his teeth in the sort of smile one imagined rising toward a surfer, with a fin on top. "You're the last two."

"We're what?" asked the burly objector, startled.

"You're the last. Wherever Ivan's gone, Doom and Wyndham are the ones behind it. We've been paying some visits around town, and everyone else has seen sense." The two dissenting vampires glanced at each other out of the corners of their eyes, and their antagonists didn't miss the gesture. The silver-haired woman pressed home the advantage:

"You can try to stand up against the rest of us if you want to, but when the Old Ones come you'll be held to account for it."

Loki began to wish Mitchell had said more about the vampire culture to his housemates, and most particularly these Old Ones.

"Take a little time to think about it," the first dark-suited vampires suggested, with synthetic sympathy.

"Only not too much," said the other, a complacent look that was nearly a smirk beginning to quirk at his mouth. "You might have been counting on Ivan being able to stand up to Wyndham, but Ivan is gone, and the Old Ones are coming. Think fast, gentlemen."

Even allowing for the fact they were dead, the dissenting vampires looked distinctly unwell as they took their leave. Loki found himself tempted to go after them and find out what they decided to do, but the right choice seemed rather obvious. It would be more valuable to know what the main body of the community was planning.

In that he was doomed to disappointment: there were no useful recaps of their plans, such as happened in films when the heroes stood behind a door. Instead, one of the dark-suited vampires merely remarked,

"If Ivan ever comes back, he'll have a lot to answer for."

"I never thought he was such a timid creature," the other agreed.

"Not so much timid as lazy," corrected the woman. "But his being lazy suited the cowards among us a little too well. And that won't go over when the Old Ones come. Especially not if it's true Mr. Snow will be with them."

All three looked at one another with expressions of unease that made Loki feel distinctly nervous, then took their leave of one another and departed in three different directions. Fighting down a sense of nearly overwhelming anxiety, Loki gestured toward the fire exit and led Clint from the building.

When they were safely back inside the little black car, Loki permitted the glamour to dissipate so that, if anyone chanced to be looking at them, it would appear they had been in the car the whole time. He was fumbling with the ignition key when Clint broke the silence.

"Well, that didn't sound good. What do you know about Old Ones, or this Mr. Snow?"

Loki shook his head. "Nothing. Mitchell does not often speak of the vampires. I know nothing of the Old Ones, and the name 'Mr. Snow' is completely unfamiliar to me."

Clint's expression was decidedly sour as he said, "Might have been nice of Mitchell to give you a little bit of a heads-up, considering you're the first line of defence here against the vampires rising against humanity."

He did not add that Loki had been seriously remiss in not making it his business to learn all there was to know about a potential vampire threat, but the rebuke was there for Loki to hear. It was perfectly just, and so he silently accepted it, and started the car.

"We had better get over to the hotel and see what we can do about Ivan," Clint offered, which was perhaps a peace offering. Loki nodded agreement, and they set off.

~oOo~

"Tony, do you know if there's an atlas anywhere in the house?" George asked, and flushed when the rest of the group looked at him. "We're asking Loki to track down Doom, but what if he doesn't know exactly where Doom is when he finds him?"

"Are you sure an atlas will help?" Bruce asked gently, and then looked apologetic when George flushed and both Nina and Loki glared. Once again, Tony thought Loki's reaction, at least, was probably a good sign.

"Well, if you've got a better idea I'm all ears," George replied patiently-- and then flushed again, possibly because his close-cropped haircut did make that particular feature look, well, awfully prominent. Nobody laughed, possibly out of fear of Nina, and George amended, "No, really, if there's a better plan and I haven't thought of it, let's hear it."

Tony, for one, thought it over pretty hard, but didn't come up with any especially great ideas for translating a vision by Loki into map coordinates.

"Fine," he shrugged, "we'll try it. The TV room used to be the library-- don't look at me like that, Steve-- and the books that were in there are all kind of scattered around the house. Let's see what we can find."

Most of Howard's old books had ended up divided among the guest rooms, which at least meant they didn't have to search through boxes in the storage rooms. Within half an hour, Nina had found an atlas and a guide to the Highlands-- both of them showing signs of incipient disintegration-- in the room next to Bruce's. Aware they were probably unwanted, the Avengers still followed Loki almost to the foot of the staircase to his bedchamber.

And that was where he stopped, wearing the stony expression that probably meant he was terrified, and glanced at Annie.

Who smiled at everyone and said nicely, "There really isn't room enough for everyone in Loki's room. Can you wait down here and we'll let you know what he sees?"

"When you find something, can you cast an image of what you see?" Natasha asked Loki directly. "Between ourselves, depending on where Doom is, we might recognize something useful."

"I should be able to do so," Loki replied cautiously, flexing the fingers of his right hand in a tense gesture he was probably unaware of.

"That would be very helpful," Natasha said neutrally.

"Seriously, how far is he likely to have gone?" Bruce asked. "Doom, I mean. If his allies are here in Britain he'll have to confer with them-- unless he trusts them a hell of a lot more than I'm willing to believe he does."

Nina opened her mouth as though to ask a question, probably about those allies, and behind her George looked panicky. Tony had just realized she didn't know about the vampires when Natasha stepped in smoothly:

"Loki, if there isn't space for us all in your bedroom, can you scry in one of the rooms down here?" Tony mentally applauded her for providing him with an out, even though everyone in the room knew perfectly well the real problem was that Loki didn't want a bunch of Avengers in the room he considered a safe place. Tony, who also didn't stick his hands into badger dens, was perfectly willing to respect Loki's privacy. As long as, you know, he wasn’t up there plotting to kill them all.

Which admittedly didn't seem particularly likely at the moment, but it was probably worth remembering they were dealing with a completely different Loki. Not that forgetting was likely when they looked at the lined, tired face.

Loki considered the idea for a moment and then nodded stiffly and turned to Annie.

"Perhaps you would assist me in gathering what I require?"

Annie seemed to understand this was as close to a polite request for help as he was able to manage. There was a time when Tony had been a little worried about Annie's eagerness to accommodate other people, but since she'd had it out with the ex-- with her murderer-- she seemed to have developed a little more balance there. At the moment her smile was compassionate as she agreed, and the two of them went upstairs together.

The formal living room had plenty of room for everyone without crowding. Steve and Tony, under direction from George, set up a low table near one of the couches, while Bruce drew the curtains. Loki and Annie returned with a goblet of water and a candle-- which certainly did not take two people to carry, and therefore drew attention to the kind of assistance he'd felt he needed from Annie-- and arranged them on the table. Natasha withdrew quietly to sit on one of the hard, formal sofas on the far side of the room, and the other Avengers joined her. Annie, George, and Nina settled onto the couch nearest Loki, and they all waited in silence for him to begin.

Loki lit his candle and then sat on the floor so he could look at the flame through the glass and water. From the ceiling above them, JARVIS spoke.

"Sir, do you wish for me to-- ?"

"Yes," Loki replied abruptly, eyes pinned to the flame before him. Above their heads came the sound of some rather ominously familiar music. Tony was so used to making smartass remarks to their Loki that he almost forgot and blurted something.

Instead, thank God, he managed to restrain himself. As Loki frowned at the candle flame, Tony eased his Starkphone out of his pocket, made sure it was set to silent mode, and activated the function that let him text JARVIS. He'd developed the app so he and Pepper could quickly request data during board meetings at Stark Industries. Okay, Tony sometimes also used it to make JARVIS look up the answers to trivia questions. And he suspected Pepper and JARVIS sometimes used it to commiserate with each other when Tony was being difficult, but that was neither here nor there.

springsteen? he texted now.

YES, SIR. IT AIDS HIM IN CONCENTRATION.

darkness on the edge of town? WHY???

BECAUSE I DO NOT HAVE A COPY OF BORN TO RUN LOADED IN MY SYSTEM, SIR.

Smartass AI.

Tony, making a mental note to make sure Clint never heard about this, returned his attention to Loki, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor, hands resting loosely in his lap. His eyes were fixed on the flickering candle flame, his expression one of calm concentration. He looked more relaxed than he had at any moment with the Avengers present so far.

As they watched, the flame seemed to take on a greenish tinge, and Loki's brows drew together a little. Tony held his breath.

~oOo~

Loki was rather deeply grateful to JARVIS for its-- his?-- assistance in maintaining the atmosphere most conducive to concentration. The scrying effort occupied much of his available power, but he still had sufficient to be able to register the reassuring presence of Annie and the others nearby, and the sounds coming from above him blocked and muffled the worst of the nagging voices in the dark corners of his mind.

The flame seemed to move closer, filling his visual field, until he felt himself floating in its embrace. Everything around him was dark, dark as the void, but he felt no threat. He simply let himself rest.

After what might have been a very long time, he felt himself grope for the bright thread of magic he had followed before. Once again he felt his power touch it, use it as a guide to be followed to its source. Carefully-- very carefully-- he traced the same path, into the windowless and lamplit room, where the power had its source.

Which was not, of course, his main purpose in making this effort. He had been bade find the sorcerer, this Doom, and relay his location, or the information necessary to work that out. He was not supposed to come creeping and peer once again over Doom's shoulder.

That was, of course, one of the reasons Loki was doing so. All those centuries as the tool of the Allfather or his son-- perhaps even of his wife, though Loki did not like to think on that-- and then of the creatures who found him in the void-- it was enough, all of it. His ridiculous longing to belong had somehow lived on, but no longer at the price of obedience to order or whim.

He wanted to see what Doom was up to, what these Doombot soldiers actually were. And so he drew in closely, almost within range of Doom's central core of magic, and allowed himself the time to "look."

Whatever a Doombot might be, it was not a living creature. There was no sensation of anything living in the vast space apart from Doom himself. The caped and masked figure was very busy working at something, crafting something, and as he worked Loki could see movement from the identical soldiers, as though Doom might be testing or adjusting some means of control.

The inhuman soldiers were not yet active, or activated. Doom possessed an army of great size and unknown power, but as yet he was unable to deploy them to his command. That meant he could still be forestalled.

This was worth disobeying orders to learn. Surely the Avengers would see that much.

Heart thumping, Loki began the magical equivalent of backing soft-footed away from the presence of the sorcerer. Now came the difficult part. It was not precisely easy to follow the thread of magic to its source, but it was still infinitely simpler than stopping at some point along the thread to try and look around. In fact, while on his way to what amounted to the anchorage of this magic, Loki had been entirely unaware of any surroundings. This was not at all like following a physical thread to its source, unless that thread shone and dangled through the black silence of the void--

Stop that.

Now, as he groped and felt his way back, he pushed at his magic, dimly aware of his own resentment that his once-considerable powers had been, even temporarily (let it be temporarily), rendered so feeble. Once, following this thread would have been child's play, literally the sort of thing he might have done for fun or practice in his early magical studies. Now, with his powers only beginning to recover and with the calls already made upon them on this day, Loki could feel his head beginning to swim.

He could, of course, let go-- he was not really lost in the void, if he released his grip now he would find himself sitting on the floor under the eyes of everyone. And all he need do was confess his own failure and uselessness.

The idea nearly caused him to lose his grip on the guiding thread. He had little power, and therefore little time, left to spare on this. Loki made himself reach out, felt himself floundering, felt some reservoir within himself emptying--

-- And then, for a brief moment, he could see.

Mountains, steep and yet covered in green, in trees and grasses rather than rock or snow, their peaks shrouded in misty cloud. At their feet, Loki could see glittering lakes, deep and mysterious. It was a wild landscape, a place of power and magic, and the urge to reach out and try to touch that power was nearly insurmountable. It was not like the call of the Tesseract, that beguiled you to disaster yet made to want to embrace your fate. It was simply there, wild and elemental, asking nothing and offering nothing, but vital, somehow alive. Loki wished he could stay and investigate, but--

His metaphorical grip slipped as the last traces of his power faded, and there was a heart-stopping moment of blackness, as though he really had tumbled back into the void.

Then he was back in the room with the others, slumped forward with his forearms resting on the edge of the table. A moment later Annie was sitting beside him, a hand on his shoulder. He was aware of a bustle of movement that eventually resolved into George offering him a tumbler of water, and the Avengers drawing close.

To Loki's surprise no one pressed him for information until he had drunk some of the water and gathered his wits a little. Only then did Annie ask what he had seen. Rather apprehensively, Loki related Doom's actions regarding his army. No one rebuked him, and he went on to describe his glimpse of the landscape.

"Could you where Doom was?" Tony Stark wanted to know. Sourly, Loki shook his head.

"I could not tell how far away I had gotten, when I was able to see," he admitted.

"Could he have been right there?" Steve Rogers asked. "In the mountain itself, I mean. The room you were in-- did it feel like a cave?"

Loki considered, sipping his water, before replying, "I do not think so. It felt made-- rather like a dungeon." The word was out before he thought, and apprehension gripped him.

"Or a cellar, maybe?" George offered, and Loki clutched at the idea.

"Perhaps," he agreed.

"Can you show us?" asked Natasha Romanov, and once again Loki shook his head. He simply had not the strength at the moment to cast an illusion.

"I will be recovered soon enough," he muttered. Annie patted him and got to her feet.

"I'll go make some tea, shall I?" she said, as she left the room. Neither George nor Nina offered to go with her, which was unusual. Instead, they helped Loki get up and join them on the sofa.

Meanwhile, Tony Stark had picked up one of the books, the one about the Highlands, and was flipping through it. "Hey, Loki, did the landscape look anything like these pictures?" He came closer and turned the book so that Loki could see.

"Yes," Loki agreed, before hastily clarifying, "None of those show the exact place, but the landscape was very similar."

"Okay, so that makes it very likely Doom really is somewhere in the Highlands," Tony Stark said. "And I don't know about you, but I think it's time we brought the war to him, so to speak."

"Beats waiting for the Doombots to start showing up," Bruce Banner agreed. "What do you have in mind, Tony?"

"We could begin with a spot of aerial reconnaissance."

Banner raised his eyebrows. "You in the suit? Nothing like getting the man's attention."

Tony Stark shook his head. "I had something a little more subtle in mind." Turning to Natasha Romanov, he smirked. "I have a proposition for you."

"Of course you do," the spy replied.

~oOo~

"So what are you going to do with them?" Mitchell asked, as he put his suit jacket back on and adjusted his necktie. Thor's mouth twisted and Mitchell warned, "You're not going to hammer anyone. Think of how badly that would reflect on the Avengers initiative."

"Think of how much it would confuse the general public, if two Thors were seen battling in the street," Coulson emphasized.

"You don't want to break the Internet, do you?" Mitchell needled gently, trying to make Thor smile.

"Not the Internet, no," Thor replied grimly, but then relented: "I have no intention of-- "

Before he could finish his sentence, from somewhere in Thor's armour came a voice singing,

"Saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's
And his hair was perfect-- "

"Tony's been messing with your ringtones again?" Mitchell asked, as Thor retrieved his cell phone.

"Possibly Clint," Thor replied, and pressed the talk button. "Hello George."

A small, tinny voice could be heard from the other end of the line: "Hi Thor. We thought we'd better let you know-- " There was a pause, and then another rush of words: "We think Doom's up here in the Highlands somewhere and, um, Loki-- your Loki, I mean-- he's back in Bristol."

"Loki is what?" Thor demanded, voice sharp with surprise. And then his expression became resigned. "Of course he is."

Coulson and Mitchell exchanged a look, and Mitchell made a face.

"Tell George I'm heading straight back to Bristol," he told Thor. "As quick as I can."

"I'll arrange transport for you both," Coulson said, aside.

"Thanks," Mitchell murmured.

"Something fast," Coulson added wryly.