2. Hot Zone
. . .
Loki looked between the two men waiting for them at the office of the chief medical examiner, the depths of his total lack of amusement completely hidden under his calm facade. It must have chilled his aura or something, however, as he caught Strange give him a quick, taken-aback sort of look before regarding the tableau of their new problem. The man in the chair had his palms pressed neatly together atop the thin desk after the clerk showed the sorcerers in, and dark eyes studied him right back behind thick black-rimmed glasses. Loki slid into a chair elegantly, as if the hostility in the air wasn't a physical, fifth presence. "Doctor Laghari."
"Agent Locke, was it? My assistant at the hospital wasn't certain, and I didn't know how to contact your… agency." Laghari spoke with a trace of local Manitoba accent, drawing some of his vowels out. He smiled, thin and brittle. "I hope you don't mind that I took the liberty of asking Superintendent McRae to join us."
Loki didn't look at the cop again. He'd seen what he needed. A thick-necked and humorless looking fellow in an ill-fitting but well-medaled uniform, the exact sort of mundane bureaucratic roadblock he despised. "Of course," he said instead, smooth and frictionless. He pulled his credentials from his suit pocket and tossed them to the cop, still without looking. "There's a card with contact information next to the badge, you're welcome to run this visit by my superiors. I can wait, naturally."
Broad fingers worked their way over the thin leather case, naturally grimy fingernails and scabby knuckles and the thin-eyed arrogant assurance that he was the one in charge here. Yes, Loki could see plenty to annoy him about this particular human. The contact card was scraped out and inspected as if it were a dummy dollar bill.
Loki wanted to utter a dour laugh at the irony. The only things that were fake here was the human-style name - and the man's silent insistence on his own power. "We've just finished our business at the morgue. If we can close matters here, we can move on neatly with our end of the investigation." He left the implication unsaid - the quickest way to get him and Strange gone was to comply. Any other reaction, Loki instantly decided he was going to become difficult.
He had the sense Strange, for all their mutual dislike of each other, would roll with it. Neither of them suffered fools. But making those fools' lives hell, now that could be fun.
"I don't think that'll be necessary, Agent." McRae's voice was one of those boomers, a barrel-voice that rumbled out of the stout chest to give him an extra veneer of that puffed up authority. "We've got the problem in hand."
"Oh, do you?" Centuries of control made the question sound airy and interested instead of showing off the raw sarcasm boiling just underneath the words. Hel, maybe they did have it in hand. He reached out to retrieve his credentials from the cop, pinching them neatly between two fingers as if he would have preferred to dry clean them before he put them away again. "I'd very much like to understand."
"We've got a near-positive ID on the intruder at the morgue. Checkpoints outside the city based on some witness reports. We're gonna have him caught within a couple of hours. I don't think we need you gentlemen from SHIELD to be involved any further." McRae sniffed, satisfied.
Loki smiled back, broad and cheery and pretending not to notice tone. You gentlemen. Right. "That's excellent news, although we were investigating a particular peculiar angle of the matter regardless, and with cooperation from local authorities arranged beforehand. I believe that cooperation was cleared with your own superior, Superintendent McRae. There's still the matter of certain details during the incident at the morgue, and should you acquire this person, we'd like to observe his questioning."
"Well, we've been discussing the matter of your cooperation, and to be frank, sir, we just don't feel you're going to be able to add much. It'd be a bigger help if you stayed out of the way."
To the man's credit, at least they all weren't going to faff around with pretending to be polite for long. Loki lounged back in the seat, his hands resting comfortably on the cold steel armrests. He didn't say anything immediately, he just studied the human and ran through his mental options. The correct and by the book routine from here would be to politely fob off the cop and send the problem up the line. SHIELD had desk riders whose speciality was the slow destruction of such local obstacles.
Regardless, Loki hated routine on principle. He inhaled, ready with a pointed monologue that would tear apart the man's arrogance, explain their own credentials, get across how, when compared with the morgue incident, it was deeply unlikely they were going to catch this man that easily, all the while sneaking in at least three subtle potshots about just how little Loki thought of the human.
Doctor Strange shifted, then leaned forward to regard the medical examiner with a fixated look. Then, as Loki maintained a straight face, he began to vocally barrel over the other doctor before Loki could get his own mouth open. "SHIELD cooperates not only with the CDC of the United States but with the Public Health Agency here. As a medical liaison with the organization, I'm familiar with the structures of this cooperation. Now, my question to you, Doctor Laghari, is have you cooperated with the PHAC in this matter? Have you been in contact with the micro lab over the incident in the morgue?" He didn't wait for an answer, seeing what he needed on the doctor's suddenly pinched face. "My god, man, they're literally across the street from the incident! You didn't even open an examination with them to ensure there was no contamination vector from the protein consumption, much less any pathogen issue that might be the cause of whatever - since we don't know - it was your cameras caught?"
Loki blinked as fast as he was physically capable, a microexpression that found its much grander echo in the poleaxed look on the medical examiner's face. "Er," said Laghari, uselessly.
"Protein consumption?" asked McRae.
"The cannibalism," said Loki, his voice flat.
"Do I need to impress on you how little Winnipeg needs a Gloria Ramirez incident of its own? Oh, that would look delightful on international cable news. But far more importantly, your attendant could be sick. Your security could be sick. We don't know what happened, and we can't afford to be lax." Strange leaned back, satisfied with his brief but effective rampage. "Certainly we can't and have no desire to interfere with law enforcement, but if you'll let us do our jobs, I'm certain we can help clean up the mess."
Laghari looked defeated, sneaking a glance at McRae, who had small patches of red crawling up his neck. "We're not handing over the footage," said McRae, defiant.
Laghari jumped back in to try and calm the impending explosion. "But I'll re-open the investigation on our end, work with your team and do another medical check on the body, with NML on board. Meanwhile, owing to your advisory… McRae, I think might be useful if these agents reminded in the loop."
The red patches on the bull neck grew bigger and more radiant. "I don't think-"
"Of course our involvement will be strictly observatory, unless otherwise requested," said Loki smoothly, seeing where the tactical landmines lay. The cop couldn't argue non-involvement, not easily. He'd set it up himself. "As for the footage, well, we'll let our various other departments fight that one out. No need for us to get in a pinch. Our people will be in contact in that regard."
"I'm still not happy with that," said McRae.
"I realize, Superintendent." Laghari was all business now. "But I think it would be best. For the public health, of course."
"I'm not going to sit here and have my people involved with a bunch of weird ass SHIELD nonsense, where they sit around and chase some aboriginal bull-"
"Superintendent, that's enough." Laghari inhaled, not noticing the matched set of fresh poker faces. "Gentlemen, I'm sorry this turned out to be more, ah, confrontational than expected. We'll be in touch - on better terms next time, I expect."
. . .
Loki hit send on a detailed email back to the team waiting at SHIELD's secure base, glancing up at Strange and his cup of slightly better quality coffee from his phone when he was done. "Someone will get that recording out of them. I suppose it just won't be me. That might be better for everyone involved, really. I was becoming annoyed, and no one ever seems to enjoy it when I become annoyed with them."
"I'm not going to apologize for stepping over whatever verbal murder you were going to commit on that idiot cop." Strange threw the empty styrofoam into a nearby bin with a decent dunk.
"I'm not going to ask for one. I'm not so arrogant I can't admire a decent assault from another corner. Was a good blindside. It worked, which is, I suppose, the important part." Loki put his phone away inside the jacket pocket of his suit. "What was that McRae going on about at the end?"
"Exactly what he said. Bullshit." Strange rolled his eyes, still irritated enough with the encounter that he was forgetting how much he disliked being around Loki for longer than five minutes at a stretch.
"Is that your professional medical opinion?"
"It is, actually. I know what he was going to veer onto. SHIELD's had a reputation for years. It's not just you, you know. There's a lot of corny pop culture history to the organization that civilians pick up on, SHIELD just had the bad taste to put you in charge of a portion of it. The men in black. Secret helicopters. Area 51. You and SHIELD entire could be the new Mulder and Scully. Or the old Mulder and Scully? I guess that show's back. All that nonsense, anyway. I suppose looking back with what I know now, some of it may even be true. You tell me. Anyway, so this walking waste of time sees us roll up on a corpse that got a nosh, and I can tell he's a man that wouldn't be out of place on a SWAT team in Ferguson, if you catch my drift. Winnipeg's other grim little problem that we used to hear about in that Jersey ER."
"Mm."
"So he jumps to the first semi-mystic and in this context more than a little racist assumption that he thinks would bring SHIELD out here. Like we're Bigfoot hunters. Only I will bet you a hundred dollars and an omakase dinner at Shuko he was about to yell at us about the wendigo." Strange sounded suddenly exhausted.
Loki cross-referenced that in his mind and didn't come up with much, except the basic dictionary definition. "I'm… not very familiar with that one."
"Don't bother on account of this. It isn't relevant, although I give him one fifth of a point for being in the right part of the world for the tale. He was probably rousting First Nations kids at a diner up the street last night for fun and had it on his mind. The wendigo is an Algonquin myth with specific regional and cultural ties, not just another wandering ape creature." Strange sniffed at Loki's studying expression. "We did several courses on global mysticism and cryptozoology at Kamar-Taj, how to identify something that defied cultural borders and what was strictly internal lore. Some jackass slipping into morgues for a nosh isn't going to trip and suddenly become a wendigo, whatever the latest horror movie fad might say."
"Mm."
Strange shrugged, then finished with a terse tone that belied his old life as a self-assured, competent, and arrogant neurologist. "Besides, the body would have been chewed up like Jaws, not neatly sliced. Wendigo are not concerned with proper plating. They hunger. That's the entire point."
Loki left his back pressed against the wallpaper and plywood wall, feeling the shoddiness of the construction through his shoulders add to his general irritability. He mentally ran through the few details they had now - the specificity of the cannibalistic attack, the reluctance to hand over the tape, the impending dragnet, and how little he wanted to get right back into the car. "The team will get us the recording from the morgue one way or another. I added a request to try and get Winnipeg's possible ID of our hungry individual out of them, plus a deeper background check on the corpse. Worth a look. Would be better if I knew who they thought they were chasing here, add a cross reference."
"Think they're going to catch this fellow tonight?"
Loki laughed, caustic. "No."
. . .
The young cop continued to lean against the opened driver's side of his car, the puck of the old-style wired radio in his hand as he listened to the static from the console. Being the new kid, he got the oldest tech. On the other side of the highway, he could see the ranking officer with his sleek newer vehicle and his proper walkie-talkies. Same crap job, though. Monitor the Trans-Canada going east out of Winnipeg for the vaguely defined perp.
A louder rush of static. "All units, check in?"
The young cop glanced at the other vehicle as the radio picked up the murmur of other positions chiming in with a response. Officer Eddie was busy fucking around with something in the back seat. Eddie wasn't going to bother. The puck of the radio, sweaty-slick in an unnatural October heat, fumbled around in his own palm before he let his thumb flick to transmit. "Yeah, uh, Highway 1, Officer Panadis checking in. We got nothing out here." Okay, I did see four semis that looked overweighted, a screaming family in an ancient 'bago, and my coworker, who I hate, but that's not what you asked for. He considered getting a new job. Literally anywhere else. Maybe Vancouver.
"Roger." The dispatcher sounded bored. "Next check in at twenty." The static dulled.
Officer Eddie pulled back out of the back of his car with a thermos of coffee, looked at the traffic, then ambled across the street when it was clear. "Thanks for getting that, Ryan."
"Yeah." The younger cop tried to not stare at the thermos in disbelief and annoyance. Officer Chet Lazytown here couldn't get the radio because he was busy playing barista.
"I don't know what the fuck they think we're gonna get. So we got a maybe ID. Chief thinks we're gonna see a fuckin' hearse with a bumper sticker says, 'ASK ME ABOUT MY MEAT' or what?"
Officer Panadis blinked. "Huh?"
Long pull off the coffee. "You didn't hear?"
"I'm the new guy, nobody tells me shit." That much was true.
Officer Eddie looked down on him over the lid of his thermos, eyes half-lidded like he thought he was doing the rookie a favor. "I ain't gonna, either." Another sip. "Besides, way I hear it, it's going to be out of our hands anyway."
"Why's that?"
"Somebody got those weirdos, SHIELD, out here on this thing."
Panadis took that in, interested. "You got any more coffee left?"
"No."
. . .
4 miles north of Highway 1, near Oak Lake
Ned eased the door of the wildlife enforcement truck shut without thinking about it, a long-time habit when trying to not tip off poachers that he was getting close. He didn't know for certain that's what the call-in was about, but several nervous reports on the anonymous line about something going on just off the Trans, well, it was at least worth a look. He had a shotgun in his other hand, already loaded. It'd been three years since the last time he'd fired a shot from it, and that had been to scare off a bear. He was hoping it'd be another three before it had to come up again.
He lifted his head, getting a good sniff of the early evening air, clean and crisp, no trace of the highway in it. No fire, either. Off license hunters usually caved and heated up something to eat once they were in the thick. Even if they only tended the fire an hour or so, the woodsmoke stayed in the air when it was sharp like this. But no, nothing tickled his nose.
Hey, listen, I saw I think some guy go into the woods west of Spruce -
-Guy running in from I think the Pine Grove rest area-
-I'm not sure it WAS a guy, like, they were really pale and-
-Shaking or something, I don't know-
-Maybe I saw a bear with mange?-
-It was making this noise, I can't even describe…
Ned peered into the trees off the trail with his hand on the door, stock still, just listening. Could have been a tweaker, sleeping it off with his ass on a tree trunk. Or a drunk guy. Anything.
There was a temptation to get back in the truck and check it out again in the morning. Finding some guy - if there even was a guy - off the main roads this far back into the woods was going to be a pain in the ass. His hand twitched against the window frame, feeling the cold metal. But if it was some drunk idiot out of the city, and he got eaten by a bear on Ned's watch, or died of exposure, or…
"Fuck," said Ned, and he slung the shotgun over his shoulder. He picked a small Maglite off his belt and started to edge his way down the faint trail, trusting his senses to tell him he wasn't about to piss off some wildlife mama as hibernation season started to crawl in.
. . .
Thirty-five minutes later, Ned was hauling ass back to the truck, an empty shotgun still hot in his hands and a wild expression on his face. He scrambled in, locked the door, and stared at the woods, waiting for the thing to follow him.
Nothing.
An eternity of a minute later, still nothing. He didn't blink. His eyes hurt, dried out and burning from the dirt he'd picked up on a spill on the way back he barely even remembered.
His hand shook as he reached for the comms radio. "Ahh-h-h-hhhh… Marie, this is Ned over on Oak Lake trail… ahhhh… I don't know what I saw… but I'm calling for backup to my position. Get city PD on it with me, I don't care, but aahhh, I'm not going back in alone."
"I've got you, Ned. Paging for backup." Always businesslike, Marie at dispatch back at the lodge still took a pause. "Can I get a descrip, Ned?"
He breathed in, shaky. "Tall. Pale. Saw it up against a tree. Eating, I think. Like a little scrap of something." It'd been humanoid, sure, but human? "I don't know, Marie. It looked at me. But I don't know if it saw me. And it was shaking, all over, like ripplin' or something, as if…" He swallowed. "Marie, if it really is a bear with mange, I'm going to be so pissed at myself."
Marie stayed calm on the line. God bless Marie, he thought. "Been on dispatch with you for four years, Ned. You get a mulligan with me, no matter how this turns out. Getting backup to your position. Hang in there."
"I'm pulling back closer to the main roads. I'll try to leave a mark here to set trail." Ned set down the radio and pressed his back harder into the truck seat. He swallowed once, hard and dry, and fumbled down for the bottle of water he always kept in the dash. Get some hydration before he dug for a reflective beacon he could leave, or a flare. He had to look down for a moment, realizing it had tried to roll under the other seat. "Dammit."
He looked up again, and saw something pale waiting between the trees. Roving eyes caught the glint of the headlights. Still tall and shaky - and definitely not a bear.
Ned snapped the truck's ignition with a yell, threw the bottle off to the side, and screeched backwards off the trail at about thirty-five, ripping half the back bumper off when he scraped a fallen tree and not caring. He was out of there, and come morning, he was going to be staying out.
