go_mischief (go_mischief) wrote in newalliance, @ 2015-06-03 12:21:00 |
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Entry tags: | loki |
Who: Loki narrative.
Where: Crime scene, New York
When: 6/3/15
What: Loki learns you shouldn’t disturb demons in their den.
Rating: PG-13, some gore, demons, bad culty things.
The smell was the worst thing.
It wasn’t that Aesir smelled grand. They smelled different, though. Humans, Loki had finally managed to identify, had a musk that was always laced with decay. They couldn’t help it, being the mortal creatures they were, and it wasn’t a bad thing, not even necessarily unpleasant to him. Autumn was ruled with the gentle smell of rot and a world melting into death for Winter. Dirt always had a smell of decay, of millions of bacteria devouring and creating the connections for life. Life thrived on death.
But when humans lived in bad conditions, when they wallowed in their decay--it was most foul. This house was foul.
There was a disadvantage then of having a giant’s sense of smell, and Loki couldn’t imagine if he had the true nose of one. Ikol had told him a giant could sniff out a human or Aesir from miles away. A giant could sniff at Loki and tell he was not Aesir, would be able to sniff the truth of his heritage from him where none of the Aesir had been able to when Loki was a young prince growing alongside golden Thor. Loki’s nose was not so keen, yet he still gagged and put his sleeve to his face to bar the odor the moment he slipped in through the narrow basement window. The tiny window was so layered in dirt it let no light from outside in.
“This place… Perhaps we should not be in it,” Ikol noted, a flutter of wings in the dark.
Loki blinked his watering eyes and swallowed against the sugary coffee trying to fight up his throat. Pure black became grays and shadow, shapes looming out of the gloom and becoming boxes, clothes on the floor, a sink and basin and more. A human would not be able to see much of anything here. Loki though, just as his sense of smell was sharper, had learned his eyes were also much more adapted to the night. Of course, frost giants had very adaptable eyesight, their pupils able to go from pinpoints during their short summer when light glared from snow, to their iris being narrowed away till the eye was nearly solid black and white, greedily taking in the faintest of twilights. Loki couldn't see any color now. This world was black and white to him, but he could always see with only the barest illumination. Only truly lightless pitch black blinded him.
This was why Loki had to be careful when he walked the city at night, sometimes even wearing sunglasses. It was Ikol who had pointed it out to him, after he had walked into the halo of a street lamp and someone had looked at him in a frightened manner and backed away as Loki passed. The godling of mischief had been perplexed until Ikol explained. When his pupils expanded, light would reflect from his retinas like an animal. This made them glow red. Ikol had laughed at him for not realizing, that mocking bird like cawing. Loki had not thought it funny at all.
Neither of them were laughing now, however. There was no humor to this situation. This house was more than just filthy and reeking. This house had evil in it.
So Loki looked to Ikol, whose white patches were now very bright in the dank basement. “I fear you’re right, but nonetheless this can’t remain.”
Ikol flapped after him, landing from box to water heater and on as Loki picked his way through the garbage and worse. “You and I have no power here. The girl should be with us.”
The girl was what Ikol always called L.L., as though he refused to acknowledge she was a real, feeling person with a name. “This would be ill to L.L.’s stomach. It’s risky, but would be even more so with her here.”
“One of the other Titans, perhaps?” Ikol suggested.
Loki shook his head. “They’re not a hard lot, Ikol.” That wasn’t the truth, he realized as he thought over them each in turn, but most of them, yes. Cyclone was so doe-eyed and gentle, she’d probably weep when faced with such human atrocities. The young brain in the group, Cho, was smart and knew such things happened in the world on a daily basis, but Loki doubted that he’d ever been faced with its ugly reality. It was hard to know where Superboy and James stood. It seemed they could go either way, but then would probably become angry, and he wasn’t sure that would be helpful. The Robin--he was different. He’d seen things, being a Gothamite. Enough things had been said that made Loki understand that the Bats of Gotham knew the criminal world more intimately than was healthy. No matter. Loki was truthfully too intimidated by the birdly bat to ask for help just yet. One moment the Robin seemed a goofy teen, then he seemed seven steps ahead of everyone else, and it bothered Loki.
The arrow girls, they would be a bit better, but the other was still hardening to the sights of crime, and the other, the super street smart one he had to admit he nursed a large crush on, had far too many emotional burdens going on currently. She was getting better, but… He hadn’t met the purple arrow girl, yet, only heard of her, and Hulkling… Well, Hulkling was still irritated at him. Loki supposed it was understandable. His old self had ripped his boyfriend’s insides out. Loki’s coming around had caused Billy to retreat from the Titan’s entirely and he’d fallen into a depression. Loki couldn’t say it wasn’t his fault. It was, by his presence alone.
Rose... No. He wouldn't bother Rose. Not after what his older self had done to her.
“And thou art hard-hearted enough?” Ikol asked, the mockingbird only slightly mocking. Loki briefly thought of his nightmares and decided he was, so only nodded. “Perhaps, perhaps not,” Ikol noted. “But thine brother surely is.”
“He’s busy tonight. This was sort of last minute. It would look weird for me to call and ask to pull Donald away if he's with Jemma. She was alarmed by my presence enough.” Loki didn’t want her to retreat from Donald because of him. Thor liked her.
Ikol, however, did not approve of her, and made it clear with what equated to a bird’s snort. He did not approve of Thor’s ‘humanity’, either. From what Loki understood of Ikol’s stories, however, the humanity was a very good thing. Besides, Donald was Thor, in a sense. It was Thor if Thor had grown up as a human with a limp, without the pride of being a prince, a god, a master of storms and nigh invincible. It was two different stories of the same coin, little more, little less.
Loki had reached the door at the top of the stairs. It creaked quietly. The smile was only slightly better upstairs. Loki scanned the dilapidated kitchen with counters full of dirty dishes and rotten food. Then he leaned over to look in the living room. There was the police tape and a large black stain in the middle of the carpet. Terribly ironic. A young woman's blood, Loki knew. She’d been locked up since she was 14, died at 17.
No, this was nothing he wanted to weigh on the Titans. He knew the full story, the hows and whys, had investigated it thoroughly and put the pieces together from the news clips. They didn’t need to know all the gruesome details. Loki felt his chest clench. I’m really not hard-hearted enough for this. But he pressed on, stepping through the kitchen to avoid the bloody stain, ignoring the fleeing and crunching of roaches under his feet. Then down the hall to the bedroom. Each step became harder to take, malevolence thick in the air.
Loki reached for the handle. Ikol was on his shoulder now. “Your hands are shaking. Steady.” Loki clenched his fingers into fists, breathed in and out slowly, reaching for the blankness of his mind, the meditative state, then opened the door.
There was no furniture in this room. the windows were covered with foil. Some long candles were toppled on the floor that was covered in bloody markings. The demon-wraith glared at him, pale and ragged with a long face that was mostly teeth. It was bent forward so it barely didn't scrape the ceiling above, its rags disappearing into something ethereal before they touched the floor below. Its long claws were clutching a small soul.
Ikol gave a worried warble. ...Oh no. Loki’s eyes were already looking to the floor, and there another small chalk outline, and this went through the circle drawn on the floor. The forensics couldn’t know, couldn’t see what was there. The demon probably hadn’t manifested enough on the physical plane. So they’d scrawled right through it and broken the barrier ring. Yet the demonly creature had stayed.
Loki wouldn’t be here if he knew the thing could move from the ring anytime. It was a very bad thing. The demon-wraith was instead remaining in place, enjoying its meal and in no hurry to leave this place of hatred and misery. Loki had hoped to simply reverse the summoning circle and send it away. Now there was no such hope. It would feast here and grow.
So no wonder why it grinned at him while he kept his face carefully placid. It had a frightening grin. “Little godling,” it greeted in a voice that sounded like wind over ice crystals, hollow, cold, and crinkling with frozen water. The language was old and caused Loki’s spine to shudder at the rasp of underworldly words. “Have you come to make me offers? I’m nearly done with this one.”
“I have not,” Loki said, voice steady. “I have come to send you away.”
“I think not,” the wraith noted. It followed his eyes to the small soul it held. It was still ‘alive’, but wouldn’t be for long if Loki could not get it from the monster. “You desire this? You will have to trade me something tastier.” Its hollow eyes fell on Loki with intense hunger.
“I think not,” Loki repeated, standing still, his tongue easy with the lie of aloof steadiness. He didn’t feel aloof or steady at all.
Ikol was not feigning the steadiness, flapping his wings. “Do not try to bluff this creature, master. This thing can devour you, and it would become terribly powerful. Leave this place! Let it eat and we shall deal with it another day.”
Am I so full of misery that it would be so filled by me, or is it just because of my giant blood? Loki wondered. He looked at the patterns of the floor, frowning, looked to the pathetically squirming soul, silent in its pain.
The wraith cackled. “When I’m done, you will not be able to evade me, I think. I have time, time to feast and become strong on this plane, and then I will find you.”
“Why aren’t you leaving your circle?” Loki asked. It was unusual. Things freed into a plane where they wanted to roam would usually shun a place where they might be easily sent back with the right markings or magic.
The wraith seemed to shrug, lifting the soul to its mouth for another bite. It was not going to answer. Loki palmed a piece of chalk in his hand from his satchel, then darted forward.
The wraith backhanded him. Hard. It wasn’t the strike itself, or the wall cracking under his back that made Loki feel out of breath. It was that the hand had partly passed under his skin, and it had made him feel deathly cold, chest aching then warming as blue skin manifest unseen under his shirt. Loki straightened, glaring and clutching his chest. Despite his giant blood bubbling up to protect him from what would certainly have been a nasty case of frostbite, it still ached.
“So you can leave your circle.”
“Yes, but I think not now. I am in no hurry.”
Loki’s eyes hardened. He reached inwardly for the seidr within him, the magic that was hard for him to grasp, that tried to slip away from him and then bit him when he did twist the small amount to his will. He snapped his fingers, and a flame leaped to his hand. “I think not,” he repeated back, tone hard with controlled anger. “You’ll only be truly strong enough if you finish your meal. The only reason you’re not moving is because the inner circle is keeping her from moving on, from escaping your grasp.” He held the flame forward. It made his eyes glow red where it reflected off his retinas. “I am cleansing this place before you get the chance, demon.” Then he blew on the flame.
The wraith shrieked the entire time as the house went up in flames. The soul slipped free of its grasp as the fire ate up the remainder of the spell, nothing holding it any longer. Years of absolute misery, hate, torture, and abuse went up in smoke, leaving the wraithly demon with nothing to feast on.
Loki was running long before the wraith stopped shrieking and left the burning house. Most people felt a chilly wind and merely huddled in their coats and beds and wondered at the strange sound of the wind. For those with ears to hear, its voice was hissing and shrill with promises to eat a god.