A/N: Thank you guys for your thoughtful reviews, I really appreciate the input! I hope you like this new chapter. It's really meant to be the end of Act 1 for Raz. Sort of a launching pad for the rest of the fanfic. What do you think about Loki and Raz's motivations? DO they seem realistic?

"I wish I'd brought a book."

I'd been waiting outside of Crawford Hall for at least two hours. Ten minutes ago, Dean had pretended to lose his patience and storm in. Sam and Bobby were sneaking in the back, so that it appeared that Dean was alone. Knowing Loki- it was probable that their little ruse would work. Despite his capricious nature, he was fairly easy to trick, himself. He wasn't very cautious, for a liar. Maybe it was because he had nothing to worry about.

'But what if he does?'

Maybe he'd seen through me those first times, and had prepared. Maybe he had been spying on me, and knew what my plans were. Maybe the stake would have worked if I was sneakier... What if the boys actually killed him tonight? My back felt tense all of a sudden.

The idea seemed… unfair, somehow. Loki was my nemesis. Our problems were ideological; we disagreed with each other because we had opposing world views. His principles demanded that he kill the scum of the Earth, and mine demanded that I do my best to stop him. Also, he really, really pissed me off. I wanted him gone, personally. He made me fungry, and I didn't like it.

It seemed like the Winchesters just wanted to kill him because he was a 'monster'- they didn't care about why.

"...it's like you haven't even stopped to think about it. Me? I doubt I'm doing the right thing, even now, but you? You don't. It's like you're following some celestial rulebook on how people should behave, and you never even question it."

You know, Loki and the Winchesters were a lot more similar than they thought.

"Let's get out of here before the authorities find that body!"

Speak of the devil.

Sam, Dean, and Bobby were legging it down the steps towards my seat, looking frazzled. I was on my feet in the time it took for them to clear the stairs. I realized I was nervous.

"Did you kill him?" I blurted feeling breathless. Sam and Dean stopped, as if they'd forgotten I was waiting. Bobby just shook his head and hurried to the car. The Winchesters shared a glance.

"Raz…" Sam began. "Did you know how powerful that thing was?" There was a trap in that question, but for the life of me, I didn't know what the right answer was. I gulped.

"Yes?"

It was clearly the wrong answer.

"And you didn't tell us?" Dean was looking like the first day I'd met him. It seemed like I was back in the 'gank zone'. The injustice of that bothered me.

"You didn't need my help. Sam made it expressly clear that he didn't want me involved." Sam had the decency to look slightly guilty at this. "And you told me to 'sit this one out'. After telling me you'd help me get starting hunting, I might add!" Dean's glare softened imperceptibly, but didn't stop. He wasn't the type to let guilt show. There was a long silence.

"Did you at least kill him?" I relented with the tired realization that neither Winchester was going to apologize on this. They weren't willing to admit they were wrong. ("...you never even question it.")

"You guys are breaking my heart." Bobby hissed from the backseat of the Impala. "But can we do this somewhere else?" Dean barely spared me a glance before storming over to the car, but Sam lingered a moment, looking sheepish.

"We killed it, (I flinched- it didn't feel that long ago that I had been an 'it' to them)for sure this time. All his illusions vanished when we stabbed him." I nodded my head, not sure of how to feel on that one. Sam shifted his weight, looking awkward. "Do you need a ride?" He offered- but he and I both knew the answer. I shook my head, slowly.

"I think it may be better if I do my own thing."

"You're going to involve yourself in this stuff no matter what I say, aren't you?" He was shaking his head, smiling. It looked like he'd given up- but hey, at least he was a better sport than Dean.

"Come on, you guys! Get in!" The older Winchester called. I smiled, relieved that while he was mad, I was still allowed in the car.

"I was already involved." I answered Sam firmly. He nodded his head in acceptance. He could understand that.

"Take care of yourself, Raz."

"I will."

That was all there was to say- it was time to go our separate ways.

"Isn't she coming with?" I heard Dean question his brother as the giant folded himself into the passenger door. The car door slammed, muffling Sam's reply. There was a moment where it seemed like Dean was arguing with Sam, gesturing at me angrily. He probably didn't like the thought of me staying behind at a crime scene. Finally it seemed like Sam had calmed him enough to rev the engine and get out of park. With one last glance from the brothers, and a little wave from Bobby, the big black death machine roared to life and went fishtailing off into the sunset.

Just like that, I was on my own.

In this life, there's no time for goodbyes- everyone dies eventually. I took a deep breath, and turned my back on the road. Crawford Hall loomed above, making my heart thud in my chest. Did I want to go in?

No.

But I had to.

Have you ever seen a stage after the players have all left? The sets are gone and the seats are empty. It's wrong. It doesn't feel right. Theaters are where life is blown up, exaggerated- made colorful! Theaters are all about telling lies- lies that hold up a mirror to the world and say "This is how silly you look.". All stories are lies- but that doesn't mean they are not true.

Loki had been a liar, but he had taught me something true- he had made me feel guilty for something I had done, showed me exactly what the consequences of my actions had been. I felt grateful for that, even though I had disagreed with him.

But now the stage was empty. The color was all gone. Curtains drawn.

"Fitting that you should die in a theater." I said to his corpse, not quite yet accepting that it was empty. That he was gone. I was seated next to him, staring at the stage. I couldn't look at his lifeless face a second longer. It was… wrong.

"I should have been the one to kill you, you know. You pissed me off long before you'd pissed them off. It was my right." I accused- as if he had any choice who killed him. Loki's magic was fading. First went the cheesy blackboard with the ABCs on it- shimmering away into nothing. Then the pillows on the water bed- slipping back into non existence. Then the bed itself, fading into purple. Finally the lights turned off, without Loki's magic to sustain them. When something dies, it takes a while for the world to realize it.

"Looks like you were just a trickster, after all."

At first I hadn't believed. I was sure that the reason my slaying attempts had failed was that Loki was not, in fact a trickster. So, of course the stake method wouldn't work. I'd come in to the theater and find him there, grinning like he wasn't a murderous psychopath. When I came to find a bloodied corpse and what looked like a porno set, I still didn't believe. After all, the weird porno set he'd created was still around. I'd sat patiently, waiting for him to appear, for our game of cat and mouse (but who was the cat?) to resume. But the curtains were closing on his act, and the set was being taken down.

Loki was dead.

"I'm sitting next to a corpse." I told no one in particular.

Gross.

They say that it's impossible to choose not to feel something- that it's bad to bottle things up, but I don't believe that. I believe that your feelings are hungry animals, and that you can feed them with indulgence, or starve them with self control. I believe that everyone has a choice in how they feel, think, and choose, but that we tell ourselves we don't. Humans are afraid of free will. We refuse to believe that we have it, so that we don't have to face the fact that our misfortune is of our own devising.

'I lost my temper', people say- as if your mood is an out of control car and you're just the passenger. 'I couldn't help it.'

I would not mourn the death of a murderer. Loki had not been a monster, but he had been a killer. It's not that I didn't feel that loss, somewhere in the back of my mind. He had amused me as much as he'd angered me, but I would not allow myself that pain. After all, I planned on killing him myself, if I'd gotten the chance.

But that didn't mean I wasn't feeling… lonely. It had been nice, living a normal life for a while, but there was no denying that I had been thrilled to have the supernatural enter my life. Loki had been the first 'creature' I spoke to. He had magic. He understood.

Secrets are slippery things. They're the cousins of lies. They can be the worst. They can be great. Sometime the only thing better than having a secret is having someone to share it with- and sometimes the only thing worse is having nobody to share it with. Most people go through life hoping that they're special. Loki and I knew we were. It was a curse. It was a blessing. It was everything in between.

And now I was alone again.

I looked back on my year and a half of school. Had I ever not been alone? No.

I had always been a liar, and nothing had changed. I was now just a liar who didn't want to go to school. School was for people who wanted to live normal lives.

But a mirror had been held up.

'Look how silly you are'.

I would never be normal. And I now knew this;

I didn't want to be.

It didn't take long to pack up my apartment, to shove all my clothes in a bag and drive away. I had barely existed in this life to begin with. It had been an act on the stage, a lie that was true. I had told myself a story so good that I'd believed it myself.

But a better liar had showed me the truth, and closed the curtains on my tale.

"Thank you, Loki."

My empty apartment gave no response.

"That was close." 'Loki' told his doppelganger. The doppelganger didn't reply. He just sat there, being dead. He wasn't talking about the Winchesters, of course. They were absolute muscleheads. No. It was that creepy chick, Raz. He'd had the eerie feeling that her murder attempts were some sort of sick experiment(What a psycho!). Like she'd been learning more about him every time. "Jeez, can't get a word in edgewise with you here." He joked to his silent double. He was mostly glad to be rid of the strange little immortal. She annoyed him, with her clever questions and piercing green stare. Nobody likes being seen for what they are, and when she looked at him, he knew she saw a liar.

Loki flopped into the seat that Raz had occupied a few minutes before, unwrapping a chocolate bar. He could make them without the wrapper, somewhere in his mind he knew that, but they were tastier when treated like a present.

He had dealt closely with supernatural creatures before- he'd even had a swing with a few lovely goddesses. Sigyn had ended up being a bore, Kali had been too… destructive. Even his brief fling with Skadi had ended in an uncomfortable couple of days with serpent's venom. He was more powerful than most deities could even comprehend- but he was still susceptible to magic.

Vampires and Werewolves may be predators, but they had been human once. On some level they have a respect for humans, even as they brutally slaughter and eat them. Pagans on the other hand, were a vengeful lot. They fucked and fought and killed like no other creatures. To them, humans weren't anything but cattle. Scum. They never wondered why Loki did the things he did. They never asked him if he was 'sure' he was right- because to them, he was right.

The point was that the pagans had never questioned what he was. Not like the little… creature? Human? Whatever. Nothing had investigated him so closely before. So methodically. And he'd let her. By all rights he should have skipped town the second she surprised him with that stake to the heart. Better to let them believe him dead, then wonder why he wasn't. But, despite himself, he stayed. None of the previous humans had ever tried to reason with him first- usually, they stabbed first, asked questions never. He found the attempt... aggravating. Aggravating enough to stick around and try to argue with her.

Back in the Viking days, he'd been notorious for having to get the last word in.

All of this should have been a passing blip of insignificance on his radar... And yet... Whatever Raz was, she was human first, and she nearly got to the center of things. His job had been the execution of justice since time immemorial- but tricksters were more about irony than justice. The two could easily be misconstrued for the same thing, but she had noticed the difference.

"Yeah but you're also a thing with a freaky boner for justice."

Too close to the truth. He hadn't been lying when he'd said justice wasn't his shtick. It wasn't. He had been running to escape that life for millenia.

Because there wasn't going to be justice. Not for anyone.

He took a contemplative bite of his Snickers. He couldn't shake the feeling that he'd abandoned a puppy, or something. There had been something childlike about the... Raz-creature's demeanor. The curiosity... the questions... It reminded him of a newborn, in a lot of ways.

"This really was the only way." He told himself. "Otherwise, I'd have had to kill her."