Fic: Run for the Light, part three

[walktheboat]

When Loki was seventeen, his guidance counselor decided he needed a career path.

“What is that?” Thor asked, glancing up. He had stripped his Glock and the pieces were strewn on the kitchen table. His fingers, calloused and heavy-knuckled from years of training, were surprisingly deft as he fed a bore brush through the barrel.

Loki heaved his backpack onto the table. He hadn’t managed to close it properly and papers slopped out, sliding onto the table. Thor leaned a little closer, gun barrel still in hand. He gave Loki a bemused stare and picked up a pamphlet. “‘Want To Be A Therapist?’” he read aloud. The shiny pamphlet was one of many.

Loki sank into a chair and rolled his shoulders. His backpack was usually heavy with books, but today it had almost tipped him over backwards. “The guidance counselor at school is trying to figure out what I should do with my bright future,” he said.

Thor looked highly amused. He was nineteen now, out of school and smug about it. “I remember she tried to do that for me once. Gave me a quiz to take.”

Loki fished a packet out of the pile and held it up. “Like this one?”

“Ha! They’re still giving out that quiz? I can’t believe it.”

Loki opened the packet. “‘What is your ideal career,’” he said, then cocked an eyebrow at Thor. “What were your results?”

Thor’s grin widened. “You really want to know?”

It had been a long time since Loki had trusted that grin. Not since he was ten and Thor offered to take him snipe hunting, and then left him tied up in some backwoods in Montana for an hour.

“Never mind,” Loki said. “I’m sure it told you that you’d be an awesome assassin.”

Thor scoffed. He’d finished with the brush and was now wiping down the gun with a rag dipped in solvent. “Not even close. But I am curious to see what your results are.”

Loki picked up a pencil and began studying the packet. The first question said, ‘On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate your people skills?’

Thor mused, “You’ll probably end up as either a male nurse or an accountant.”

The used rag was just sitting on the table, a few inches from Loki’s hand. He could have picked it up and whipped Thor in the face with it. But then he had the sneaking suspicion that if he did that, his people skills might rate in negative numbers.

For the next few days, Loki worked his way through the quiz and the pamphlets. The brochures about accounting, nursing, and dog-walking were swiftly tossed into the garbage (where they were almost immediately retrieved by Thor, who spent an hour following Loki around reading them aloud).

Everything Loki was good at simply wasn’t taken into account by the quiz. The quiz didn’t want to know if Loki could bluff his way through any situation-legal or otherwise- by simply looking confident and flashing a fake ID. Hell, the quiz didn’t want to know that Loki could make a fake ID. The quiz’s many sections didn’t include how fast he could translate ancient Sumerian, recite an exorcism, or whittle a stake. And the quiz didn’t take into account that its taker might not be entirely human. When it asked him if he’d mind working in a cold environment, he found himself laughing.

He returned the quiz on Monday to the guidance counselor, and a day later he had his results.

“Well, this is kind of terrifying,” Thor said.

Dad, who’d been breezing through the dining room on his way to the garage, paused. “What’s terrifying?”

“Loki’s just been told his ideal career.” Thor snatched the paper from Loki’s hands and held it up. “Apparently, he needs to go into politics.”

Dad offered up a brief smile. “Well, he’d probably be a good politician. Either that or law. Thor’s going to need a lawyer eventually,” he added, as he pushed the door open.

“Hey,” Thor said indignantly. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Loki looked down at the table. It was covered with college brochures, all detailing various political science programs throughout the country. (Again, courtesy of the guidance counselor.) He picked one up and ran a finger over the glossy page. Loki stood and walked out of the dining room. Thor laughed and called after him, “Where are you going? Off to plan your diabolical take-over of the world?”
Loki didn’t hear him. He was still thinking about Dad’s endorsement of his supposed future. Naturally, Dad wouldn’t care if Loki did something other than hunting. Dad already had one son carrying on the family business.

By the next morning, all the brochures found their way into the garbage can.
() () ()

Loki spends the rest of the night doing internet searches on Coulson. He’s pretty easy to find online, and local news articles have already been popping up all over. Loki spends hours reading differing opinions on Coulson’s budget cuts, on his personal life, on everything from his suspected (but never proven) bribes and the kind of dog he walks every morning. It’s a wealth of information, too much actually, and Loki has to sort through all of it.

When Thor returns from the bar at about two in the morning, he finds Loki sitting at the desk. “You really know how to have fun, don’t you,” he says dryly.

Loki doesn’t bother looking up. “I think Coulson is definitely a possibility. Local asshole, high profile-all of the usual trademarks of a trickster’s victim.”

“All right.” Thor flops down onto his bed and pulls a paper napkin out of his pocket. It’s folded to look like a tropical flower; on one of its petals is a phone number. Typical. “You should sleep. I’m still wired.”

Loki doesn’t think he can sleep but he knows that if he protests, Thor will simply badger him until he gives in. Without bothering to take off his shirt or jeans, Loki falls into his bed and rolls over. Part of him is glad they have a direction and a focus. They know where to begin now. They can find the trickster. If only Loki was sure he wanted to find the trickster.

And so the next morning, the stalking-(“Stakeout,” Thor corrects)-begins.

Luckily for them, the state capital isn’t far away. It is only a half an hour’s drive to Salem and the two of them find the capital buildings easily.

They come prepared. Loki has a picture of Coulson, two stakes, a map of the city, and a (fake) press pass. Just in case. Thor takes their car in circles around the capital buildings, until Loki points out his window. “There,” he says. “That’s his car.” He has memorized Coulson’s plate numbers and his car make and model-a Honda Civic of all things.

“You know,” Thor remarks, as they pull into a parking spot across the street, “if you weren’t a hunter, you’d probably be a good spy. All your hacking and deciphering and sneaking.” He gets out of the car and Loki follows. The day is warm enough that sitting in a car, even if there are trees casting shade, will be impossibly hot. There is a park close by, with a few cherry trees in full bloom, and carefully mown grass. Thor settles onto a bench and pulls out a digital camera. It is less obvious than carrying around a pair of binoculars, and the zoom function will let him keep an eye on Coulson’s car. If you want to follow someone, Loki knows, it’s best to rely on basic human habits. Driving to work. Using the same car. Navigating the same routes. Humans are simple. It’s best to treat them as simple prey.

Loki pulls out a book about tourism and tries to look harmless. If they look like gawking tourists, no one will pay them any attention. They switch off with the camera and tourist book, one of them always keeping watch. Occasionally, one will get up and bring back coffee or a snack from a local shop.

Coulson is apparently a workaholic. He doesn’t appear until seven in the evening. The air has begun to cool and the sun sinks behind the taller buildings, casting long shadows. “There,” Thor says suddenly and Loki looks up. An older man in a suit is walking toward the Honda.

“Show time,” Thor says, and the two of them rise to their feet.
() () ()

When Loki was twenty-one, a fellow hunter found out what he was.

It was a simple case of bad luck. Loki and Thor were hunting on their own and there was an infestation of tanuki in Washington.

Loki’s solution: bear traps.

“We can’t kill them,” Thor said firmly, drawing his brother away from the lethal bundles of metal and wire that Loki had gravitated to. “They’re not evil. Just annoying.”

Tanuki weren’t powerful. More like supernatural raccoons, really. They ended up migrating from Japan and creating little eddies in reality, tweaking luck and changing odds. Strange things happened around them, and they tended to knock over garbage cans and leave the contents strewn in people’s yards. But they weren’t evil and Thor wasn’t about to go hunting them.

“You just like them because they’re cute,” Loki said darkly. Thor would never admit it, but he had a soft spot for all things furry and big-eyed. If were-rabbits had existed, Thor would have been dead a long time ago.

“You just hate them because you’re allergic,” Thor replied. It was true. The last time they’d encountered tanuki, Dad had been forced to leave Loki (nose dribbling, coughing, with red-rimmed eyes) in the car.

They ended up compromising with traps that wouldn’t kill the little beasts. “We’ll relocate them in the wilderness,” Thor said as he carried two of the traps, one under each arm. Loki also carried two, along with a packet of hot dogs to slice up and put inside each trap. (Also, Loki suspected Thor was just hungry.)

“They’ll come back.” Loki dropped his traps in the trunk of their car and shot Thor a glare. “They’re attracted to civilization.”

“Not if we put them out really far.”

Loki crossed his arms. “Fine. But if I see you trying to put a leash on one and bring it back to our motel room, all bets are off.”

They ended up going camping near the spot where most of the sightings occurred-in some rainforest near the coast. The trees were huge and spongy with green moss. Clouds hung heavy in the air, blocking out most of the sun and threatening to spill over. There was an old, austere quality to the forest. Loki ran his hand over a tree trunk-it must have been well over five hundred years old. The place was technically a park, but it didn’t have the traveled quality that most parks eventually took on. The paths looked clogged with undergrowth and there were no obvious places to camp. Loki found a small grove and decided it was as good a place as any.

Loki erected their tent while Thor began setting traps. When he returned, he found Loki hoisting their food into a bag hung between two trees. “I thought you were only supposed to do that in bear country,” Thor said.

Loki gave the rope a yank. It felt sturdy enough. “Food attracts animals.”

Thor grinned. “Like tanuki.”

“I’m not inviting those furry little bastards into our campground.”

“Furry little bastards, eh?” A voice rang out from somewhere behind Loki. Loki turned and saw him. A man stood between two trees. He was asian, probably in his thirties, with three scars descending from his hairline to his brow. He was smiling. He strode into the clearing with the kind of confidence that usually indicated someone was well-armed. Loki’s eyes roamed over the man-a slight bulge at one calf, so he was definitely carrying. There was a pentacle on a chain around one wrist, and a hex bag on a string around his throat. Suddenly, the scars made sense.

“You’re a hunter,” Loki said.

The man gave him a nod. “So are you. Heard about the tanuki, right?”

“Yeah.” Thor took a step forward and positioned himself just in front of Loki. “Who are you?”

“Name is Hogun.” The man had a rough voice, but he wasn’t reaching for a weapon or otherwise threatening them. “I didn’t think anyone else would be in the area to deal with the infestation.”

Thor appeared to accept the name and explanation. “I’m Thor and this is Loki. You don’t have to worry about dealing with the tanuki. We can handle it.”

Hogun unslung a pack from one broad shoulder. Loki hadn’t realized until then that Hogun was carrying what looked like a sleeping bag and a tent. “If you don’t mind, I might as well stay here for the night. I don’t mind working with others,” he added.

Thor turned and faced Loki. “What do you think?” he said in an undertone.

Loki leaned up onto his tiptoes and glanced over Thor’s shoulder at Hogun. The hunter was already unrolling his tent. “Can’t see the harm. And we could always take him if we had to.”

Hogun dug into his large backpack and withdrew something else-something metal, with teeth and wires. A bear trap.

“Oh hell,” Thor said at the exact moment Loki said, “He can stay.”

Hogun set up his tent about fifteen yards away from Thor and Loki’s, which obviously made Thor feel better. Thor had watched Hogun with narrowed eyes and a line etched between his brows. In fact, he had yet to let Hogun out of his sight.

Loki, who’d just finished setting their own traps, returned to the campsite to find Thor glaring at Hogun’s green tent. “He’s collecting firewood,” Thor reported, as if rattling off the position of enemy forces. Loki noticed that Thor was holding the small mallet they’d used to set their tent up. He kept twirling it, like it was some sort of knife, all the while glaring at Hogun’s tent.

“You going to beat him to death?” Loki asked, keeping his face serious.

Thor’s jaw worked. “I don’t like him.”

“I’d noticed.” Loki couldn’t resist poking a little fun at his brother. “You sure you don’t want a t-shirt? ‘Make Love Not Pelts’?”

“There is a difference between hunting and outright killing,” Thor said, and Loki was surprised by the note of earnestness in his voice. “I hunt things that can hunt back. Trying to kill something like this-it’s well, it’s sort of dishonorable.” Thor noticed Loki’s stare. “What?”

Loki looked away. “Nothing.” He just wasn’t used to Thor surprising him.

That night, Thor insisted on watches. Their tent was a medium-sized one, with enough room for two people to fit comfortably inside. Loki was sitting on his sleeping bag when the tent’s zipper whirred and Thor came inside. “Fire’s out,” he said, “and Hogun’s in his own tent.” He crouched down so that his head didn’t brush the ceiling. It had been a while since they’d camped; the tent smelled of dust and there were a few dead spiders in the corners. It reminded Loki of when they were children, camping in the backyard with this very same tent, roasting marshmallows and pretending they were out in some wilderness. One time a neighbor’s dog had wandered through their yard and Thor had been convinced it was a werewolf. Dad came out the next morning to check on them, and found his two sons clinging to one another, sitting in the dead center of the tent, sure they were about to die. Thor had been holding a flashlight as if it could’ve been used as a weapon. The memory made Loki smile.

The next morning, they checked the first of the traps. “You have got to be kidding me,” Loki said flatly. The slices of hot dog were gone, but the trap remained untriggered. “Sneaky little bastards.”

Hogun made a disgruntled noise. He’d set up his own (lethal) traps last night, too, but they had apparently also been avoided.

“I’m going to the creek,” Loki said. Loki had set up on of Thor’s traps there on the basis that every animal needed to drink eventually.

“I’ll check the one next to that giant-ass tree,” Thor replied, and headed off in the other direction. Silently, Hogun began walking in the direction of the coast, probably to check on another of his own traps.

The forest was beautiful in the morning light. The huge trees were draped in moss, and an old abandoned bridge led over a couple of fallen rocks. This park felt old, abandoned, but seemed to flourish without a human’s touch. It made Loki think of how the whole northwest must have looked before people showed up.

He heard the trickle of the creek. Loki slowed his steps-an old hunting habit-and moved onto the balls of his feet, creeping closer. As he walked up and over the ridge of a small hill, he saw the trap. Its silver stood out amidst the greens and browns, and it’s hard, angular surface screamed “man-made”. Loki peered down at it. Empty. But the slice of hot dog was still there.

Loki noticed something else-another trap. One of Hogun’s. It had been set up on the opposite bank of the creek, its sharp teeth glinting like knives in the morning sunlight. Loki was about to turn away when he saw something move.

It was brown, so at first he’d mistaken it for just another rock. But rocks weren’t fuzzy and they certainly didn’t get up and start walking. Loki slid into a crouch. On the other side of the creek, a tanuki was wandering out from behind a boulder. It moved with an odd shuffle and it looked impossibly furry. Sort of like a cross between a Chow and a fox. Loki watched as it meandered to the creek and drank from it. Then the tanuki seemed to notice the slice of meat sitting dead center in the middle of one of Hogun’s bear traps. It edged closer, black nose in the air, as it examined the trap.

Then it scurried atop a rock-just above the trap-and extended one paw to the meat. It snatched up the meal without triggering the trap. “So that’s how you do it,” Loki murmured.

It must have heard Loki’s voice, because suddenly the tanuki leapt into the air in a startled movement. It must have forgotten everything but the outside threat, because when it landed on the ground, it was too close to Hogun’s trap. The metal snapped forward like a pair of mechanical jaws, and the teeth just caught the edge of the tanuki’s tail.

The creature ran for it, its paws skittering along the edge of the creek. Any second, the trap’s chain would run out of length and the tanuki would probably injure itself trying to escape.

Without really thinking, Loki slapped his hand against the water. A frost extended out from between his fingers; it was like watching one of those nature shows when they fast-forwarded through the seasons. Ice formed atop the creek so quickly that the tanuki didn’t have time to injure itself. It’s paws were caught up in the ice. It made a low noise, half a growl and half a whine, as it tried to free itself. Loki looked around. The creek had completely froze over. He might have overdone it in his moment of panic. Newly formed mist drifted over the creek and frost had iced over some of the moss on nearby boulders. Loki stepped carefully onto the ice and crossed the short distance to the trap. He reached down to the tanuki. It was writhing now, desperate to escape before the big bad human could hurt it. Loki knew how dangerous trapped animals could be. Some part of him reached out to the creature; he wasn’t sure how he did it, but then his hand was on the back of the tanuki’s neck and it had gone still. Maybe it was because Loki wasn’t entirely human.

Maybe the tanuki recognized a fellow supernatural creature when it smelled one. Loki had no idea. All he knew was that he managed to unclamp the trap’s grip on the tanuki’s tail and unfreeze the water around the creature’s paws.

It was panting, but its breath slowed as Loki stroked its head. “Hey, boy,” he said. He was taking a guess as to the thing’s gender, but hey, he had a fifty/fifty chance of being right. The tanuki craned its neck around and began sniffing Loki’s fingers. He picked up the tanuki and it let him. “Come on,” Loki murmured.

Loki straightened and realized he was staring down the black barrel of a rifle. It was nestled against Hogun’s shoulder. Loki opened his mouth to explain that the tanuki really was harmless, but then he saw where Hogun was aiming. Not at the tanuki, but at the center of Loki’s own chest. “Jötun,” Hogun said hoarsely.

Loki couldn’t defend himself; his arms were frozen around the tanuki and his own gun was back inside the tent. Loki hadn’t expected to need it for this hunt. These were just mystical raccoons. As much as Loki might have complained about them, he never seriously feared them. Hogun’s fingers were steady on the rifle. Loki saw the way his finger hovered over the trigger, ready to pull it. It suddenly hit Loki that he could very well die now. A fellow hunter might shoot him.

And then Thor was suddenly looming in the corner of Loki’s vision. He barreled through the trees and Loki saw the familiar black form of Thor’s Glock in his older brother’s hand.

“What the hell are you doing?” Thor said. His voice had gone hard and commanding, and Loki realized that Thor sounded a lot like Dad when he was pissed.

The tanuki squirmed in Loki’s arms, but he didn’t relax his grip on it.

“Jötun,” Hogun snarled. “I know their kind.”

“He’s not Jötun.” Thor edged a step forward.

“Half-breed. I’ve seen what they can do.” Hogun’s eyes narrowed and the scars that ran from hairline to brow suddenly seemed to become more prominent. They were spaced close together, part of Loki’s rational brain noted. And the marks had a broad, rounded look to them. Not deep enough to be the result of claws. But human fingernails might draw marks like that. Or… half-human fingernails, if they’d been sharpened by ice. Loki’s stomach turned over as he realized. “Close enough,” Hogun said.

In a voice Loki almost didn’t recognize, Thor said, “You touch him and I’ll end you.”

Hogun’s eyes flicked to Thor and then back to Loki, as if judging how fast he could aim and take a shot at Thor. The panicked part of Loki’s mind was tamped down by a predatory urge to throw the tanuki at Hogun. The animal would probably attack and it would certainly throw Hogun off-guard. Loki could kill him if Hogun was distracted. All it would take was a swift touch to the ice, and he could form it into razor-sharp spikes. Sure, the tanuki would probably end up as collateral damage but some things were inevitable…

“Traitor,” Hogun snapped at Thor. “Protecting a monster.”

The words snapped Loki out of the battle haze he’d almost let himself sink into. He blinked hard and forced his thoughts to take a more human shape. But the urge to take down the threat, whatever the cost, still lingered and at that moment Loki couldn’t have argued with Hogun’s interpretation of the situation.

Thor didn’t reply, but took another step forward.

Hogun spat a curse at them and the barrel of his rifle drifted downward until it pointed at the ground. “He will kill you eventually,” Hogun snarled at Thor. “You will wish I had put him down myself.” Then he turned on his heel and stalked away, back toward the camp. The sound of his footsteps faded and Loki found himself holding very still. The tanuki looked up at Loki with wide, brown eyes.

He and Thor remained quiet for a long time, waiting to see if Hogun was about to return. When it was clear he wasn’t, Thor approached Loki. His feet slid on the ice, but he managed to get to Loki’s side. He glanced down at the creek and then back at Loki, a question in his eyes.

“Only way to save the beast,” Loki said, with a nod at the tanuki.

Thor swallowed and his adam’s apple bobbed convulsively. Fury was still written across his face, but it faded as he looked at Loki. Speech seemed to have deserted him, so Loki took up the conversational slack.

“You were right,” he said.

Thor finally managed a word. “What?”

Loki shrugged and held up the tanuki. It sat, docile, in his arms. “They’re pretty cute, after all.”

They never teamed up with another hunter again.
() () ()

Most people do not look to see if they are being tailed.

Coulson, luckily, is “most people”. He drives with a cell phone attached to one ear, despite traffic laws that prohibit such actions. He chatters away into the phone and keeps to the speed limit, driving away from the capitol and into a less populated part of town. Parks give way to industrial buildings and a few apartment complexes behind barred gates. They are obviously in a less prestigious part of town.

Thor keeps a fair distance between their car and Coulson’s Honda. Loki has the camera trained on the car, and he watches as Coulson hangs up on one caller and speed-dials another.

As they drive, they pass a billboard advertising for a local university. Seeing it sparks a memory in Loki. Brochures, a quiz, an ephemeral future that he could never really hold onto.

“You never told me what your results were,” Loki says suddenly.

Thor glances at him before wrenching his gaze back to Coulson’s car. “What?”

“Your quiz results. You know, back in high school. When the guidance counselor was trying to figure out what college was right for you.”

Thor has to think about the question for a second, and then his eyes light up. “Oh. Yeah.” He doesn’t say anything more and Loki has to prompt him.

“Well? I was supposed to be in politics-what were you?”

Thor seems to be hesitating.

“What?” Loki says. “Come on, I’m sure your result wasn’t actually ‘assassin’.”

No answer.

“Was it?” Loki asks.

“No,” Thor grumbles. He twists his hands around the steering wheel in a way that almost makes him look like he’s fidgeting. “Doctor.”

Loki turns to stare at Thor. “What?”

“Doctor, all right?” Thor says, sounding as if he is revealing a horrible secret. “The stupid quiz wanted me to be a doctor.”

Loki begins to laugh. It is utterly ridiculous and yet somehow not so. The idea of Thor sitting through years of medical school is laughable, but the idea he wants to help people isn’t. It makes sense, actually. Loki is sure that in a different world, Thor would have been trying to save patients that no other doctor would touch. He would have barreled through usual medical procedure, doing what he thought was best in the name of helping people. He’d probably have been a surgeon, because anything other than the most challenging work would have bored him. He would have been amazing.

Thor looks highly affronted. Loki tries to turn his laughter into a cough and presses his hand to his mouth to hide a smile. “I can see it,” he says, once he has control of his voice again. “You in scrubs.”

“Shut up.” Thor looks as if he’d like to be holding a scalpel at this moment, if only so he could stab Loki with it.

“No, really,” Loki says and his smile fades, becomes softer and fonder. “I can see it.”

Thor gives him an evaluating look, as if trying to judge whether Loki is mocking him or not. His own mouth twitches into a reluctant smile. “And you’d have probably been one scary politician.”

Loki raises his eyebrows.

“It’s a compliment,” Thor tells him. “Your enemies would’ve pissed themselves and hid under their desks every time you walked into the White House. Or Senate. Or wherever.”

Their conversation ends when Coulson abruptly takes a right turn into what looks like a train yard. They have almost completely left the city behind and Loki can’t think of anything out here that would require the senator’s attention. But Thor turns into the drive and parks behind an abandoned train car. Maybe they’ve stumbled onto some kind of dirty politics. Maybe this is where Coulson accepts his alleged bribes. Maybe Coulson is simply out here to get away from his family, or admire the rusted bits of unused trains. Loki doesn’t know. All he does know is that this would be the ideal place for a murder to happen.

Silently, Loki pulls two stakes out of his backpack. He hands one to Thor and grips his brother’s hand tightly around the wrist for a moment. “Remember,” he says. “All the way through the heart.” Thor nods. His face holds none of its previous levity. He understands what could go down right now. He is a hunter.

They emerge from the car in one simultaneous movement, so practiced that neither really has to think about it. They close their car doors quietly and begin walking in the only direction Coulson could have driven. The evening settles in around them and Loki glances in every growing shadow, half-expecting to see a trickster peering back at him.

Loki hears Coulson before he sees him. The man is talking to someone-most likely on his phone, since Loki cannot hear any answering voice. Loki peers around a train car and sees the senator. He has parked his car and rests against it, one leather shoe tapping the gravel impatiently. Loki is right; Coulson is talking into his phone.

Thor holds up two fingers and points at Coulson. Loki understands. Thor wants to circle around so that they could trap someone if they had to. Loki nods, pointing at himself and gesturing at the ground. He will stay here. Thor gives him a nod and begins creeping to their right, ducking behind train cars and keeping out of Coulson’s line of sight.

Coulson appears to be waiting for someone. Loki crouches and holds his stake between his sweaty palms, watching the senator. He’s not sure how much time passes, but the sun sinks even closer to the horizon and a blue cast begins to fill the air. Night won’t be too far off. Coulson checks his watch over and over, and soon he is pacing. He is so intent on his own waiting that he never notices the man creeping out from between two train cars.

Loki knows immediately he is right about everything-the trickster’s choice of victim and the method of Coulson’s death.

The trickster is going after Coulson, a politician who voted to cut funding to a local homeless shelter. So of course it’s a homeless man that edges out of the shadows.

In the dim light, Loki can just make out a glint of silver in the man’s hand. A knife.

The flash of adrenaline and fear is like tossing a match on gasoline. Loki’s body burns with it and he finds himself gripping the stake with both hands, his fingers gone damp and hot. He is drawn tight, ready to snap into action, as the homeless man totters closer to Coulson. Some would call it justice. It has just enough irony to be perfect. And some part of Loki knows-just knows-that only preternatural intervention could have arranged a situation like this. There is no karma or golden rule. Just monsters who find it amusing to play with the threads of reality.

Thor rushes into view his stake at the ready. He is coming at the trickster from behind, but the sound of his footsteps will alert it. Without thinking, Loki throws himself forward, into view, and shouts, “Hey!” It’s a woefully inadequate distraction, but it’s all Thor needs.

The trickster/homeless man swivels around, and the knife in his hand catches the light. He stares at Loki and his mouth twists back into a snarl. He starts forward, hurrying toward Coulson, and the politician has realized that something is going on. His eyes flash between the homeless man, Loki and Thor, and he obviously has no idea who to trust. He is frozen with indecision and fear.

Loki lunges at Coulson and drags him out of the path of the knife, leaving Thor to deal with the trickster.

They’re supposedly killed with a stake to the heart. Thor’s quick reflexes-honed by years of hunting-give him an edge that few other humans would have. He darts out of the knife’s path and throws a kick into the homeless man’s knee. The man crumples and he goes down hard. Thor springs forward, stake in hand, and brings down his arm as hard as he can. It takes a lot of strength to puncture skin, muscle, and bone with a simple sharp stick. But Thor has been practicing such things since he was ten.

The stake sinks into place and the homeless man glitters, fades, and disappears from view. Loki takes a step forward, adrenaline coursing through him. It was too easy. Far too easy.

“What-” Loki begins to say, but then he sees Thor’s eyes widen. Thor is looking at something beyond Loki, something behind him.

A hand closes around Loki’s wrist with a grip like iron. Loki feels the bones in his arm squeeze together painfully and he cries out in surprise. The stake he’s been holding is yanked from his fingers, and when Loki turns, he sees that Coulson has grabbed it from him. Coulson, who is supposed to be paralyzed with fear, has decided that Loki poses a threat to him. He holds the stake all wrong, but when Coulson’s arm descends toward Loki’s chest, one memory flies to the forefront of Loki’s mind-all that research he did on Coulson. The man goes to the gym every other day. He’s not weak. He probably has enough strength to do some serious damage with that stake.

The stake’s point is aimed at Loki’s throat, but then it is turned to one side as Thor drives a fist into Coulson’s arm. The stake goes through the Honda’s window and it shatters. Glass skitters along the ground and settles into the gravel, glittering in the dim light. Loki is ready by now and he brings a knee up and into Coulson’s gut. It’s not enough to seriously injure the man, but it will drive the breath from him, stunning him until Loki and Thor can explain.

But to Loki’s shock, the kick doesn’t even faze Coulson. The man doesn’t seem to feel it. Instead, his fist flashes out and Loki finds himself on the ground, broken safety glass cutting into his palms. He pushes himself up and rolls over, ready for the blow he is sure will come.

Just in time to see Coulson drive Loki’s stake into Thor’s chest.

A scream. Loki isn’t sure if it’s his own or not; his throat feels flayed open.

Thor crumples to the ground, a hand pressed to his own chest.

Red blooms behind Thor’s fingers.

Loki scrambles forward on hands and knees, uncaring if Coulson tries to stab him, too. Loki rips off his own jacket and presses it to the wound, desperate to stem the bleeding. He looks up at Coulson, to scream at the man to call an ambulance.

Coulson should look horrified. Any normal man would. But instead, a slow smile crosses his face.

“Staked by the man you’re supposed to protect,” Coulson says lightly.

Coulson’s form blurs, shifts, and then changes. A mirage, Loki thinks. An illusion. When the man’s face reforms, it is younger. A boyish smile. Sandy hair. A man who has his feet spread in a comfortable stance and his hands resting in his pockets. He looks relaxed and friendly and entirely human. Fandral.

“It’s you,” Loki says.
() () ()

When Loki was eleven, he and Thor used to eavesdrop on Dad’s visitors.

Hunters would occasionally show up at their house, old friends of Dad from back in the day. From what Loki could tell, “back in the day” referred to a time before Mom, before the house, before Thor or Loki. It was a time when Dad lived out of motel rooms and hunted down nightmares with fellow soldiers who thought a permanent life meant weakness and sleeping with a blessed knife under your pillow was only common sense. Many of them were retired by now, and they sported scars and the occasional missing limb. A few were still in the business and they would talk about the current state of things, the way drivers talked about the price of gas or voters about the current political situation. It was all very normal for them.

Even so, Dad always would introduce his sons to the hunter in question, then promptly send both sons to their rooms so the adults could talk.

“I’m pretty sure ‘in our rooms’ doesn’t mean ‘on the stairs to our rooms,’” Loki said, the first time Thor dragged him to the top stair and bunked down, ear cocked in the direction of the living room.

But he didn’t protest more than that, because the stories that floated up to their ears were riveting. Hunters would talk about interactions with ghosts, about the best material to use as witch counter-charms, about ways they’d trapped demons in holy circles, about the many places to obtain holy water, and about Dad’s past. It was one of the few times Loki was offered a brief glimpse into Dad’s past life. It wasn’t much of a stretch to imagine Dad as one of those mysterious hunters, but when Mom’s past came up Loki was floored. He couldn’t imagine his mother, with her long caramel hair and caring smiles, going after a strigga alone or being able to drive a poltergeist from a house. Apparently, Mom and Dad met on a hunt, years ago, and began working together. And then more than working together.

(“Gross,” Thor muttered.)

There was one hunter that showed up repeatedly. His name was Hawkeye and he had supposedly been Dad’s partner “back in the day”. But while Dad had cut back on his hunting, gotten married and had kids, Hawkeye was still a full-time hunter. The first time he showed up was on Thanksgiving, when Mom had said an old friend of the family was supposed to arrive. Loki was wary of the tall man in front of him. Thor, however, was won over immediately by the gift of a wooden crossbow.

“It’s harmless,” Hawkeye told Mom, while Thor and Loki examined the toy. “Something for them to have fun with.”

(When Mom’s favorite vase was shattered five minutes later, the “harmless” crossbow went in the closet for when the boys were older. Thor was devastated.)

Thanksgiving went off without anymore hitches, and that night Loki and Thor were sent to bed while the adults broke out a bottle of brandy and retreated to the living room. Thor and Loki brushed their teeth, put on pajamas, called “good night”, made a show of closing their bedroom doors loudly, and then settled on the stairs.

The adults talked about boring things-gas prices and politics, mostly-before the subject inevitably turned to hunting.

“…Few and fewer vampires in New York,” Hawkeye was saying. “They’re migrating out of the area and no one can figure why.”

Dad said, “Have our kind been more active there?”

“Nope. I sent a colleague to check the area out, and it’s pretty much deserted.”

“Why does that have you worried?” Mom asked.

“Because,” Hawkeye said frankly, “anything that can make a state full of vampires clear out is enough to make me wary.”

“You’re thinking of South Dakota, aren’t you?” Dad said. “When that sorcerer cracked open a portal.”

“Yep.” It sounded like Hawkeye had swallowed part of his drink. “Vamps cleared out then, too. They’re like dogs-they know when a storm’s coming. Speaking of…” His voice lowered. “I did you one better than that research you wanted. I found a half-breed.”

There was a long pause. “You waited this long to tell us?” Dad demanded.

“What? You wanted me to talk about it at the dinner table? ‘Hey, kiddies, how’s school? By the way, I shot a half-breed a couple of weeks back.’”

Mom’s voice went cold. “You killed it?”

“It was either it or me. Sorry. I tried to reason with it, but it was really far gone. I tracked it through Alaska of all places. There were reports of livestock being mutilated and the curious thing was that it wasn’t wolves or bears or any of the usual predators. They found human tracks near the carcasses. So I did a little backpacking and found it living out in the wilderness by itself.”

“What was it like?” Dad asked.

Hawkeye said, “Looked human enough. Blond girl in her mid-twenties. Tall, lean, wore some old clothes. But she wasn’t human-not really. There was a pretty big creek where I was hiding out, watching her. Instead of trying to find a place to cross it, she simply walked over it. The water froze under her bare feet. She didn’t seem at all bothered by the cold. She found me a few days later and simply went berserk. Tried to slice my head off with one of those ice-blades they can use. Odin, she was feral. Nothing else I could’ve done unless I had a trank gun on me, which I didn’t.” His voice took on a new edge. “I decided to do a little more research after that. There’s a professor in Toronto. He’s from Denmark, so he knew exactly what I was hinting at. I love when I run into believers. So much less work on my part. He told me about a couple of instances. Believe it or not, half-breeds used to be a lot more common. Hundreds of years ago, their kind and humans lived much closer together. Wasn’t too rare for a human woman to be abducted… and children produced.”

Mom sounded both hopeful and hesitant. “What happened to those children?”

“Honestly?” Hawkeye let out a heavy breath. “They were usually stoned or ended up burnt at the stake. They were considered witch-children. Strange things happened around them. There were stories of fatally-ill villagers suddenly getting better, winters lasting too long, of some children going crazy and trying to kill their adopted families-”

“That’s not going to happen,” Mom said, her voice hard.

“Yeah, yeah. He seems harmless so far.” Hawkeye spoke quickly, as if to reassure her. “Nothing strange yet. You never know, he might have avoided inheriting those genes. You could’ve gotten lucky. But, I’d watch out. Just in case, he turns out to be-ah, you know. Dangerous.”

Dad spoke very quietly, so Loki had to strain to hear the words. “I knew the risks,” Dad said. “I accepted them a long time ago. But I think… honestly, I think we might need him. Someday, when being human simply isn’t enough.”

Then the conversation turned to a discussion on local ghost activity.

Later, after Thor and Loki retreated from their hiding spot, Thor whispered, “Did you understand what that was all about?”

Loki shook his head. All the talk of half-breeds made no sense to him. “No idea.”
() () ()

“You’re the trickster,” Loki says through numb lips. He can’t feel himself anymore. It’s as if his body has shut down and is running on automatic responses. He cannot think.

Fandral looks unashamed. “Yep,” he says agreeably.

This is a trap. Loki’s not sure if the trickster was always planning to catch two arrogant hunters, or if they simply wandered into his web in a stroke of bad luck. Either way, it doesn’t matter. Thor’s dying and the trickster is grinning at him and all Loki can think about is that no human can beat this thing. The trickster beams at him, as if it knows all that Loki is thinking.

“This was for us,” Loki says. “You, you did all of this for us?”

Trickster/Fandral gives him a tiny shrug. “Who needs more humbling than the son of Odin?” he says, that faint smile still on his lips. “Tell that old man I say ‘hello’, would you?”

It occurs to Loki that this might not have been about either of them. Maybe Dad did something to piss this thing off. Maybe it’s really trying to humble Dad by taking away two of the things he cared about most. A soft, pained sound escapes Thor’s throat and Loki’s attention snaps back to more urgent matters-like the brother currently bleeding out in his arms. “Heal him,” Loki snarls.

Fandral/Trickster lets out an incredulous bark of laughter. “Pushy, aren’t you?”

“You did this. You can undo it.”

It is impossible to say if Loki is actually getting through to him. Fandral’s smile has become detached, like the faces aristocrats usually wore for old paintings. It is not a true smile, and there is nothing of life in it. “What would be the fun in that?” Fandral/Trickster scoffs. He takes a step forward and leans down. He winks at Loki. “You undo it.”

He brings two of his fingers to his brow in a mock salute, then he vanishes from sight. Loki glances around and around, trying to see if the trickster has rematerialized anywhere close by. But there is no sign of it. The trickster is most likely half a world away, off to play more deadly games.

You undo it.

The words sink in and Loki pulls away Thor’s make-shift bandage and inspects the wound. It looks deceptively small, but the stake must have nicked an artery. There is simply too much blood; it flows out of Thor in waves, staining his shirt a horrible crimson and making it heavy and wet.

This isn’t a broken arm. This is a swift and painful death, either by blood loss or infection. If Loki heals Thor, this won’t be like the time in Ohio.

He’ll probably end up a true monster.

Judging by the look on Thor’s face, he’s come to the same conclusion. Thor looks up and meets Loki’s eyes. They are wide eyes, suddenly swimming with the kind of fear Loki hasn’t seen since he woke up in his brother’s arms, after being dragged from a frozen lake. He grips Loki’s arms so tightly that Loki knows he will have bruises. “Don’t,” Thor says furiously. “Don’t you fucking dare.” His voice is a wet rasp.

“Thor,” Loki says gently, but Thor will not hear it.

Loki considers his options. He can call for an ambulance. He can trust to modern medicine rather than magic. But when his hand dips into his back pocket, it comes back empty. His phone is gone. And after a swift check, Loki finds that Thor’s is missing, too. The trickster, he thinks. It’s taken away all of his options. It probably loves the idea of someone becoming a monster when hunting monsters is their profession.

So it comes down to a choice. It’s a choice Loki supposes he’s always been heading toward: how far is Loki willing to go in order to achieve his goals?

Memories flicker through his eyes, like a film on rewind.

Why? Why did you take me?

You’re not a monster. An idiot sometimes, but not a monster.

I think you gave something to me that you shouldn’t have. That’s what that Eric guy said, right? Jötuns give part of their own life force away when they heal. I think, well, I think you might have temporarily gave away the only part of you that could heal me.

He will kill you eventually. You will wish I had put him down myself.

I just wanted to be your equal.

Jötun. Half-breed. Feral.

But I think… honestly, I think we might need him. Someday, when being human simply isn’t enough.

The answer comes to Loki almost immediately.

Because if Loki is going to be a monster-and he’s pretty sure he’s always been headed down this path-he can justify it as long as his brother lives.

If the world had been a different place, a better place, Loki would have been sitting in some classroom, being lectured on the finer points of political science or law. And Thor would be in some hospital, serving as an intern and griping about how the uniform sucked. But this is not that world. This is not that life. Loki’s hands are sticky with Thor’s blood and his brother thrashes against his touch, sure that at any moment Loki is going to draw upon the darker part of himself. Loki looks down at his older brother and feels something inside his chest twist painfully.

“Loki,” Thor says. “Don’t. You can’t. I won’t let-” He breaks off and, his chest heaves, body goes rigid with agony. He chokes on a breath and when he gags on his own blood, Loki knows that the stake must have pierced a lung. Time isn’t running out-there’s no time left.

Loki musters up a small smile. It’s just like Thor, even when he is dying, to think he is still in charge. “You hear me, brother? There’s nothing you can do,” Loki says, and his voice has gone ragged. He doesn’t want to do this. And yet, part of him does. Part of him wants to feel that rush of power, feel the certainty that accompanies it, the exhilaration. Loki forces it back; if he is going to say goodbye to his brother, he wants to be completely human while he does it.

Loki presses a hand to Thor’s wound, feels that something inside himself shift, and he whispers, “I’m sorry.”

It’s a pitifully small sentence and it cannot hold up under all the weight Loki places on it. He’s sorry because he’s sure that when Thor wakes up-when his wound is gone and so is his brother-Thor will have something entirely new to hunt. Something cunning, something wickedly fast, and something deadly. It would have been Thor’s dream under any other circumstances. An ideal hunt. Only this time, Thor will be hunting something that used to be called Loki.

Loki gathers up all his power, holds it tightly for a moment, and then simply lets go of it all.
() () ()

When Thor was twenty, Dad finally threw him out of the house.

Thor was ready to strike out on his own.

“You don’t have to come with me,” Thor said to Loki. The night was warm and mosquitoes buzzed around the light at the bus stop. “You could always stay at home. You don’t have to do this.”

Loki smiled and took a tighter grip on his duffel bag. Inside were all the belongings he could take on the road-his clothes, a laptop, and his journal. Everything he’d need to be a hunter.

“Yes,” Loki replied. “I do.”

End