When the universe starts to slow, Hoenir doesn’t recognize it at first.
Mimir, Sigyn, Valli, Nari, and all of Hoenir’s extensive friends and pets have already been frozen in time for months, so their stillness doesn’t alert him. When Odin thrust Gungnir into the ground, Hoenir’s hut was surging with magic, about to leave Asgard on its way to Muspellsheimr. The spells of the hut and staff had crossed. The hut made the journey, but it and everything in it had been frozen by Gungnir’s magic upon arriving.
Hoenir sighs. Except for himself. Sipping his tea, he glances out the window at Gungnir. He’s given up trying to tear the thing out of the ground and end the spell. The magic of the preserver is splendid at preserving itself. But Odin’s magic had worked against the Allfather this time. The hut is frozen in one of Muspellsheimr’s flaming pits, where Heimdall never thought to look, and Odin’s ravens can’t fly. And while it has certainly been lonely, freezing Hoenir’s hut in time did have some advantages. Hoenir looks to the door that leads to his velociraptors’ pens. He hasn’t had to feed them since his imprisonment began.
Of course, Hoenir’s own appetite is another matter. He looks down at his waist, thinner than it’s been in millennia. He’s been rationing his food—not that he can die, but he doesn’t like to be hungry. The paunch had taken too much energy to maintain, and using magic to age himself, slow his metabolism, and thin his hair had been too much of a bother.
He looks out the window, past the columns of frozen fire that surround his house. His breath catches. The fires beyond his prison have stopped, too. He feels the hairs on the back of his neck rise, and also a presence he knows well.
“Hoenir?”
He feels rather than hears Loki say his name. He looks up and only sees his ceiling.
He feels Loki’s sense of betrayal. Or maybe it is just the weight of his own guilt. No matter how Hoenir tells himself that the deal he’d struck with Odin was the only way to save the Nine Realms and Loki …
Or maybe you just like to keep Loki close, a wicked voice in his mind whispers. Hoenir shakes his head, and Loki’s presence fades, leaving Hoenir feeling empty and very, very tired. Not for the first time he envies Loki his ignorance, and the fresh starts he’s had over the centuries.
Taking a long draught of his tea, Hoenir stares down into his cup and swirls the leaves. He cannot be with Loki, but he can watch. In the dregs of his tea a picture begins to form of the whole of the universe. His eyebrows go up, the universe itself has stopped, not just one branch of the tree—everything. Loki has Cera then. Breath catching and hands shaking, Hoenir swirls the cup again.
He sees the city of Chicago but where there should be buildings there is dust and rubble with Loki as its focal point, his skin full-blue, his hair black. Hoenir’s eyes mist at the sight. Whenever Loki starts to turn blue it means his magic is surging, and subconsciously he suspects a transformation is near. The picture starts to blur. Hoenir swirls the cup again, this time without ceasing. The picture shimmers and wiggles, and sound emerges.
“Amy,” Loki whispers, black eyes staring at a point in the sky. “Move.”
Squinting and shaking the cup, Hoenir sees the girl moving forward in Loki’s apartment. She wears the raiment of convalescence of her people. She is clutching an immobilized Ratatoskr to her stomach. Hoenir’s been watching Loki’s courtship of her; it is oddly comforting to know Loki misses him, too. The girl is so much like Hoenir himself, or how Hoenir was.
Hoenir’s brow furrows. Her face is drawn and pale, but she is pretty, in the way new life is. She is definitely Loki’s type, too—curvaceous, not thin and androgynous as is the fashion of her people. Hoenir is jealous of her. Odin may prefer to be male, Loki may not care one way or another, but Hoenir, or that part of the universe that is part of him, would prefer to be female—in other lives the babies that Creation has had! With time, Hoenir could change himself; but Odin’s punishment would be severe. Hoenir sighs. He has been stuck stitching creatures together, or animating bits of this and that.
In the scene in his cup, Loki says, “I don’t have much time. Don’t let me forget next time who I am, what I am.”
“Next time?” Amy says.
Loki shrugs and smirks.
Realization dawns on the girl’s face and in Hoenir at the same time. Hoenir’s eyes widen. Loki knows he will transform. And knows enough to know that he will forget nearly everything—he almost always flubs the transition. Loki will only be bound by the oath Hoenir saw him make to destroy Odin and Asgard. Sucking in a breath, Hoenir tilts his head. Loki is binding himself to this girl, too.
“No, you can’t die!” she says.
The image goes blurry, or Hoenir’s eyes fill with tears, he’s not sure which.
“I won’t be the destroyer, Amy. Not this time,” Loki says, and Hoenir’s concentration snaps. He finds himself gasping for breath. All that he has done for Loki, it hasn’t been in vain. And all that he kept from Loki hasn’t damaged him irreparably. But Hoenir won’t be able to help him next time.
Gulping in a breath, Hoenir looks out the window at Gungnir. The spear has Hoenir pinned here like a butterfly. Dropping his head in frustration, sorrow, and anger, Hoenir suddenly feels a subtle shift. Hearing a rattle beyond the hut, Hoenir looks up and sees Gungnir quaking in the ground. And then Hoenir feels it, the universe starting to move again, its momentum working against Odin’s magic. Hoenir scrambles to his feet. Hesitating just a moment, he walks past the still figures of Valli and Nari, out the door, and through columns of frozen flame. Just as he reaches the spear it shatters into three pieces. Heat instantly whips around him as the flames spring to life. In wonder, Hoenir picks up the remains of Gungnir and moves as quickly as he can back into the safety of the hut.
“What’s going on?” says Nari, as Hoenir shuts the door.
“Where are we?” says Sigyn. “Why are the windows filled with flame?”
“Where are the Valkyries? I want to see how they stand up to an M16,” shouts Valli.
“Well—” says Mimir.
“Ragnarok,” says Hoenir. The end of the world. His voice comes out, shaky and dry. It’s been so long since he’s used it. But he needs it now; and the bargain he made to Odin is over.
There is silence in the room. Hoenir looks up at the startled faces. “Loki is free,” Hoenir says. Or will be departing his most recent host very soon.
“Oh, dear,” says Mimir. Of course, he is the only one besides Hoenir who understands.
“Mimir, explain,” says Hoenir; it’s a cruel thing to ask, but Hoenir can’t bring himself to do it.
Detaching the blade from the tip of the spear, Hoenir stares at the pieces for a moment. They still contain some of Odin’s magic. He tips his head in contemplation. Odin will be seeking the new Loki—and the Allfather will seek Hoenir too.
Hoenir turns the pieces of Gungnir over in his hand. Loki always seeks a host that’s personality and circumstances are compatible with chaos, just as Odin seeks a host compatible with order and preservation, and the piece of the universe inhabiting Hoenir seeks a body compatible with creation.
Hoenir inspects one of the pieces of Gungnir’s staff. This new Loki will find his way to the girl. He thinks of her staring out of Loki’s window. He’s seen her many other times, studying her veterinary journals, washing Fenrir—even at the talk on REM sleep. She is so like Hoenir …
An idea blossoms in Hoenir’s mind. A way to save Loki from Odin, this time, for real. And a way to hide from Odin and shed that part of him that has made him uncomfortable in this skin for over a millennia. It’s been a long time since Hoenir has really wanted something, but suddenly he wants to meet Miss Lewis very much.
Mimir clears his throat. Snapping from his trance, Hoenir hands the tip of the spear to Sigyn; to Nari and Valli he gives each a piece of Gungnir’s staff. He’s sure they’ll find them useful.
Clutching the last piece of Odin’s weapon, Hoenir steps from the room into his workshop, leaving the others quiet and probably in shock. Looking quickly around at the pieces of other spears, arrows, and swords he’s collected, he sees nothing that quite works. Hoenir goes quickly to the back, opens another door, and steps into a warehouse-sized room containing bric-a-brac from every realm he and those before him acquired through the millennia. He needs something innocuous … and an innocuous being to wield the weapon he will be creating. His eyes fall onto a flower print umbrella and his eyebrows jump.
A few minutes later, the umbrella has a piece of Gungnir’s staff in its shaft. It also has a thin new wrist strap attached, a tiny bead of shiny glass threaded in it. The strap isn’t special, but the bead is something Hoenir has designed to counteract human magic detectors. Clutching the umbrella, Hoenir goes to another door at the back of his workshop. Before opening it, he leans his forehead against the rough wood and murmurs some words just to focus his mind. Behind the door a brand new branch of the World Tree sprouts. Creating new pathways between the realms is a gift Hoenir has, something Loki will never be able to do, and Odin can only do piddling well.
Turning the handle of the door, Hoenir steps through and is immediately assaulted by the smell of antiseptic. His eyes blink under the glare of fluorescent lights. Upon a bed, under a thin blanket, lies an elderly woman he’s seen only from afar. Her eyes are open and she stares at the ceiling. Hoenir walks over to her, but she does not acknowledge his presence. Laying his hand upon her forehead, he closes his eyes and concentrates, a familiar prickle sparking through his fingers. When he opens his eyes, the woman is staring up at him, her gaze sharp and bright.
“Hello, Beatrice,” he says. “I’m Hoenir. Friend of Loki. Your granddaughter is going to need your help.”
Beatrice’s eyes widen. Sitting up quickly, thin legs and bare feet peeking out of a worn lavender nightgown, she says, “What are we waiting here for?”
Hoenir smiles. He knew this part would be easy. Handing her the umbrella, he says, “You’ll need this.”
x x x x
Steve stumbles north along LaSalle Street between the rubble of ruined buildings. It’s been nearly an hour since Loki disappeared. So far there are no reports of him re-materializing anywhere.
Thor says that he can feel that the threat of Cera is gone from this world. The powers that be on Earth are taking that under advisement. In Chicago, right now, all anyone can do is try to clean up the mess. The word is that the Red Cross is mobilizing rescue teams from around the world, and the Wisconsin National Guard is moving in to cover the refugee camps at the airports. Soon there will be sniffer dogs and field hospitals, and the Guard to help with any marauding trolls. For now there are just FBI agents, police, firemen, and civilians wandering up and down the street looking for survivors to send to hospitals and ADUO’s very overtaxed trauma center.
Pausing by an overturned cab, Steve scans the sky for a moment. There is no sign of his feathered friends; he’s not sure if that makes him relieved or worried. Dropping down to a squat he looks in the cab’s window. Inside there is a pile of dust lying on the ceiling that’s now the floor. It takes a moment for Steve to realize the pile is human shaped.
“I think I found someone!” Steve calls.
He hears feet running towards him. Standing, he tries to open the door. It’s locked. Picking up a brick, he bashes in the window, scrapes away the glass, and thrusts his hands into the blanket of dirt covering the driver. Steve’s breath catches as his hands come into contact with warm skin.
“He’s alive,” Steve calls, pulling him out. Other people—none he recognizes—have their hands on either side of the driver, helping Steve.
“I don’t feel a pulse,” someone says.
“Call for an ambulance, they’ll have an AED,” a woman says. A man responds, “I think they’re all busy.”
“CPR,” says Steve.
“Pound the dust out of his lungs first,” says one of his companions.
They roll the guy they’ve pulled out over on his side and pound on his back. A little bit of dirt comes out of his mouth in a cloud.
“Mouth to mouth.” Someone says.
Rolling the guy back onto his back, Steve finds himself kneeling in the dirt across from a woman he doesn’t know in a fireman uniform, taking turns performing mouth to mouth resuscitation and pumping the chest of another stranger in the middle of a wide open plain of rubble that was LaSalle Street.
He doesn’t know how long they stay there.
Someone kneeling beside them clutches the guy’s wrist and says, “He’s gone.”
“No,” says Steve, bending to push the contents of his lungs into the body below him.
He hears the exhale of air as the woman pumps the guy’s chest. “Just give us a few more minutes!” she says.
Steve sits up, inhales deeply, puts his hands on the guy’s chest, and the woman bends down.
The person kneeling beside them says. “You’ve done all you can.”
A firm hand falls on Steve’s shoulders. “You’ve got to let him go. There are others out there.”
Turning his head up, Steve sees Thor, his face haloed by the sun. They should be in the shadow of LaSalle’s buildings right now, but those buildings are all gone.
Steve falls backwards, his legs curling up until he is sitting Indian style in the middle of the street. He wipes his face and finds it wet. The firewoman is a shadow on the periphery of his vision, standing and leaving, one of her comrades dropping an arm around her.
Steve’s about to stand up. Thor’s right, they need to keep going, when he looks down at the face of the guy he’s been trying to rescue and recognizes him. It’s the kid, Patel, the one who lied about owning a cab. The one Steve should have told to evacuate—just like he should have put Lewis on the Witness Protection program. He huffs a breath, his ex-wife’s words ringing in his mind. You’d sell out your own mother for the ‘greater good.’ Suddenly feeling very heavy, Steve says, “Just give me a minute.”
Thor probably nods, Steve’s not really looking. He bows his head and sucks in a deep breath. As Thor’s feet retreat, Steve sees a flash of light, hears a squeak, and then a thin reedy little voice says, “Hey, Hommie!”
Coughing some dust from his lungs, Steve turns his head. Two rats are staring at him from a sewer grate set between the side of the street and the sidewalk.
“Yeah, Bro! I’m talking to you!” one of them says.
Steve blinks. And then his eyes narrow. He is so not in the mood for any more magical shit.
The rats scamper out of the grate, and Steve realizes one is actually a squirrel with tufted ears and a fluffy tail. The squirrel turns to the rat and says, “Thanks for the directions, Sweetheart. Catch you later!” The rat turns around and vanishes down the sewer grate.
Turning to Steve, the squirrel says, “Most squirrels don’t like rats. But I never saw anything wrong with a little naked tail.” He winks at Steve. All Steve can do is stare at it.
The squirrel blinks. “Oh, come on Bro! Cheer up! Could have been worse.”
Steve is sitting in a plain of rubble and dying people. Next to him is the corpse of a kid who would be alive if it weren’t for Steve. He doesn’t reach out and strangle the squirrel, but it’s a near thing. “Who are you and what do you want?” he grinds out.
“Chill, Bro!” says the squirrel, holding up a paw. “Name’s Ratatoskr and—”
And Steve has had enough. The squirrel squeaks as Steve’s hand whips around its torso. “I’m not your ‘bro,’ Rat!” Steve snarls. “Unless you want to wind up doing laps on a hamster wheel and picking wood chips out of your pelt in my daughter’s guinea pig pen, you’ll tell me what you want!”
“I just wanted you to like me,” it squeaks. The squirrel's ears go back, and his eyes widen. It’s the sort of big-eyed, scaredy look Steve expects from a dog asking for table scraps—and damned if it doesn’t work. Steve’s grip relaxes a fraction.
The squirrel sniffs. “Steve Rogers, the man Odin heard! Want to say I met you personally—before you achieve great things, or wind up on the gallows.” He shows Steve all his teeth with an expression that isn’t quite a smile. “Or both.”
Narrowing his eyes, Steve squeezes. “You’ve seen me, now what?”
Squeaking, the squirrel twitches his nose. “I promised Lewis I’d let you know she and her grandmother are alive and well and hangin’ at Loki’s place … you know, since cell reception and internet are down. I took a shortcut through Nornheim and then—”
Steve’s brow furrows. “Loki’s place? Beatrice?”
The squirrel bobs his head. “Yeah, I know, something is off.” He looks down at his torso. “I had some fractured ribs, too, but they’re better.” Glaring at Steve, he chitters. “Were better.”
“What happened?” says Steve.
The squirrel perks. “Well, Loki snatched me, from … errr … never mind. I wound up at his place, watching with Lewis, when Loki tricked Cera into a one-way trip to the In-Between, blew up Cera in a big bang and saved us all.”
Saved them? Steve’s eyes slide to the destruction around him.
Seemingly oblivious, Ratatouille, or whatever, keeps squeaking. “The next moment we’re back in Loki’s place, but with Beatrice and we’re all better. It was seriously some messed up—” he lets loose a stream of squirrel chatter.
Steve looks back at the little animal in his hands. “Where is Loki now?”
The squirrel blinks at Steve like he’s stupid. “Mammalian anatomy is really not suited to surviving a big bang, Steven.”
“Loki’s dead,” says Steve, slowly, filtering through Rat’s chatter trying to latch on to the part that’s the most important.
The squirrel bobs his head. Letting loose a stringer of tsks and squeaks he says, “You can bet Odin is shitting toadstools and on the hunt for Loki and Hoenir right now.”
Steve blinks and says slowly, “But Loki is dead … ”
The squirrel shrugs—which is a thing Steve hadn’t really thought squirrels could do until that moment. “You can’t kill Chaos or Creation!”
“But … ”
“Granted, Loki’ll have a new form, probably a Frost Giant or Fire Giant, they’ve got a lot of natural magic, but you never can tell with Chaos,” says the squirrel.
“Odin wants to punish him … ?” says Steve, his mind racing.
“Nah,” says the squirrel, waving a paw. He narrows his eyes, and for a moment Steves sees something dangerous and calculating there. “But the team with Loki always wins.”
“What?”
The squirrel leans forward and bites Steve. Steve’s been shot before, but this is worse. Pain shoots through Steve’s hand and up his arm. He releases automatically and sees blood running down a tiny glowing cut on the side of his hand. Ratatoskr drops and takes off to the gutter laughing maniacally. There is a flash of light at the opening of the grate, the squirrel disappears, and the light flashes out.
Steve sits there for a moment, and then the light flashes again, and the squirrel’s face peeks out as though through a curtain. “Yo! Hommie!” Ratatoskr says. “If I were you, I’d keep my eye on Loki’s chick, Lewis. Something’s up with her. I just can’t get my whiskers in it.”
Whiskers in it?
Steve lunges toward the light. “Wait!”
But Ratatoskr is already gone.
Steve sighs and then coughs on the dust in the air. Wincing, he pulls himself up on his knees and rubs his eyes. How the hell do you inform your superiors about a run in with a talking squirrel without coming off as crazy? He looks around at the remains of some of Chicago’s most historic buildings. And how do you tell them Loki might have been responsible for saving the world?
Somewhere a cell phone starts to buzz with a text. It takes a moment for Steve to realize it’s coming from his pocket. He pulls out the cell and does a double take at the caller ID. It says the text is from Prometheus.
Tapping quickly to accept, Steve reads, Odin will be watching your world. You need more Promethean Wire. I have left some for you at the Garibaldi Playlot.
Steve types quickly, Can we meet?
But his phone’s screen goes blank. Steve lifts his head. Prometheus is back?
From behind Steve comes the sound of a faint cough, and then another. Steve turns, unsure of where the noise came from. And then the body of the kid, the one everyone said was dead, convulses, dust spilling out of his mouth in a torrent.
Steve’s by him a moment later, lifting him up and helping him cough it out. “It’s okay,” Steve murmurs over and over, a smile pulling at his lips. Maybe he shouldn’t feel absolved, but he does.
The kid finally stops hacking. Grinning ear to ear, Steve says, “Welcome back to the world, Bohdi.”
The kid blinks, his eyelashes flecked with dirt, his face pale with dust. “Bohdi?” he says, eyes wide.
Steve’s smile shrinks. “That’s you?”
The kid stares at him a moment. “I don’t know.”