Chapter 13.
We were all back in the conference room and I was nursing my fourth cup of coffee, I was starting to feel less and less like a perpetually exhausted tree sloth as the caffeine did it's thing. I had one foot up in the seat of the chair as I swiveled back and forth idly, studying the contents of the cup in my hands like the dregs held the secret truth of the universe. Maybe I was looking for truth in it, maybe I was looking for an answer. Loki sat back and shifted a bit as we all looked at the building plans for the third where house that was located in the heart of a Florida business district. Tilgun sat on the floor with his legs crossed and his arms on the table, tapping the surface quietly as he looked at the screen. Thor looked at all of us cautiously, disbelief randomly crossing his face as he looked at everyone in the packed room.
Bruce filled both Thor and Tilgun in on what we were facing, and our ultimate endgame.
Thor took it pretty well.
"Three floors, three teams," Fury said as we listened. "This one has to be very controlled, there are factories nearby and they will most likely be occupied. However, I want every trace of this virus destroyed. Just like the last two times, leave nothing behind. And I mean nothing."
I nodded and Fury looked at me and gestured for me to take the floor, he sat down in a vacant chair and crossed his legs as I set my mug down and collected my thoughts. I stood up and nervously scratched my hand, walking over to the keyboard and typing in the commands for the information I found. I was terrible at public speaking and did not know exactly where to start at. Loki cleared his throat and I looked at him to see him mimicking my nervous tic. I gave him a very subtle middle finger back and he snorted in amusement at my response.
"I had Friday run a search on the Dargumiin, and found nothing on how to destroy it in modern versions of the legend. But, I did find a translation of an Akkadian Tablet written in Cuniform dating back to the thirty-sixth century B.C. It held the complete legend of the weapon, and it was it one of the most intact relics we have from the time frame. An exciting find really." I said and displayed a photograph of the tablet on the monitor behind me, Tilgun shifted and glanced at Loki. They both shared a nod and their faces returned to me. Loki leaned forward to look at the tablet and frowned.
"A strange relic, can you read it?" Loki asked me and I shook my head.
"No. This language has not been written on this planet for a millennia. It is actually an example of the first written language." I replied and he returned to studying the clay tablet over my head.
"Great." Tony said sarcastically. "You found an ancient tablet no one could read, bravo Princess. Ten points from Griffindor."
I shifted quietly and looked down, unsure of where this sudden attitude toward me was coming from. I became utterly annoyed with him and pressed my lips together, both Tilgun and Loki glared at Tony. Steve turned in his seat and shot him a look of complete annoyance.
"Stark. Shut up." Fury said and looked back at me. "Please continue Ms. Hawthorne."
Everyone turned back to me and I nodded, taking in a deep breath. I let it out to steady myself and to keep my nerves from showing, no sense in loosing my mind in front of everyone. Thor scanned the tablet image and arched his eyebrows at me.
"What does it say Lady?" Thor asked me helpfully and smiled.
"I ran it through a translation program that I wrote while bored and waiting for Friday to come back with the research. Friday is now able to translate fifteen ancient languages by the way. I wrote it mostly...well, because the translation the Cairo Museum sent with it was...Horrible. The entire legend stated the the Darragumiin is not really a sword, but a Crucible of sorts. A forge for life and death in tandem with the other elements, that creates and destroys at the will of the person who possess it." I said and pointed at the passage that described the weapon in detail.
"The word Dargumiin is Sumerian in origin and literally translated to "Holder of Souls". It is a container for the souls of the Gods and Goddesses. Which is why it is seen as a weapon, it can be used to summon, and control all of the Gods, and even kill them. Which is why Baron Samedi wants it destroyed so bad, whoever holds it can command all the Gods and Goddesses to do their bidding." I paused and looked around the room as Thor glared at me and frowned. Loki raised his eyebrows in concern and Steve crossed his arms in thought.
"Is there anything on how to destroy this thing?" Steve asked and I sighed, hesitating and not really wanting to get picked on again by Tony, who was sitting back and rolling his eyes at me.
"Yes and no." I said and Tony sighed at me. I ignored him and went on with my line of thought.
"The tablet talks about how it takes a great force to strike the Dargumiin, making it fracture. Essentially destroying the vessel and releasing all the souls in it. But it does not say what the force is exactly."
"We could hit it with an RPG, and that could be what destroys it, or it could just bounce the kinetic energy off it and hurt us. It could be that Thor just hits it really hard and it breaks, I really need more time to figure that part out. I set up Friday with the search parameters, it should be complete in about four hours." Fury looked at me and I glanced at Tony. He looked bored and like he was about to fall asleep, I looked down at my feet, and thought about how I should have tried harder to find more information.
"Please keep us informed as to what you find." Fury said and I nodded back at him.
"I have more, there is a ritual Leonie will have to perform. If we interrupt it, maybe she will not be able to summon the Dargumiin, my contact at the Cairo Museum is going to copy the text and send it to me. We could plan around that, or even..." I started to suggest and noticed that I had lost Banner as well by that point. I walked back over to my chair and sat down quietly, feeling like the fifth wheel at the party.
"The four of us have been through a lot over the last forty eight hours. She is obviously exhausted, cut her some slack Tony." Steve said and Tony opened one eye at him. I looked down and felt every set of eyes in the room gravitate toward me.
"When Hermionie has something useful to add, I will cut her all the slack you want. Until then, I am going to keep pushing her. That entire load of crap she just spewed was completely pointless." Tony replied and Banner looked at Tony completely annoyed. Tilgun looked angry at Tony as well, and the temperature in the room dropped perceptibly.
"I find Loki's mate to be clever." Tilgun said and Loki sighed at the statement as everyone suddenly looked at me.
"Cultural differences guys, I am not offended." I said quickly and stared at the top of the table. I was fighting too much in my head to care anyways. I just hoped none of it showed, I did not want anyone in the room thinking I was falling apart right then and there.
"How long until you get your satellite images from the GPS coordinates we got?" Steve asked, taking charge of the group and I looked up at him.
"About another forty minutes, give or take." I said and he nodded back at me. "I thought it would be a good idea for us to know what we are walking into there, I did a google search on the coordinates and found it to be a location in a preserved Swamp in Louisiana. I know I am repeating myself Tony, but Steve was not there. Nothing clear showed up on Google, so I took over a SHIELD satellite to do a flyover. It could be an empty field, it could be a homeless camp like The Jungle in Seattle."
"The Jungle?" Steve asked and I sighed.
"Along I-5 in Seattle, there is a section of undeveloped hillside under the former Amazon building. The locals call it The Jungle, because that is where all the homeless tend to converge and is really overgrown, the cops don't know how many people are in that section and even the sane locals avoid that area. You have too many factors, hiding places where you could run into trouble, crazed transients, and wild animals creating a health hazard. Because it is under the I-5 and I-90 interchange, they can't get a clear image form the air of what is in there either. It is basically a logistical nightmare, so no one really goes in there. We got lucky because I can get an image of what we are walking into, I just thought it would be a good idea for us to know. To be sure." I finished and looked around me. My knowledge of everything criminal was showing again, and I tried my best to not feel like a freak among the law abiding citizens at the table.
"That is some good thinking." Steve said and I nodded back across the table at him. Loki glanced at Steve and I pretended not to notice that he was concerned by the praise. I thought about the whole messed up situation and how I now just wanted to be very far away from it. I was getting tired of fighting for my own survival and it was starting to show. Fury stood back up and started pacing back and forth in front of us with his hands behind his back. He turned and looked at me and he nodded.
"What if you can't destroy this container?" Fury asked and I looked down at the table and thought about it, coming up with a whole lot of nothing.
"Wing it, it guess." I replied and Tony snorted at me. I glared openly at him, very tired of all the crap he was flipping me.
"You have any better ideas? Because from where I am sitting, you are to only one here who has actually managed not to put their ass on the line. You aren't the one who had one of those things nearly take a chunk out of your ass. I am really open to suggestions if they are actually helpful, so if you don't shut your cake hole and settle your five dollar ass down, I have no problem making change." I said and the room got quiet. Loki looked at me with a mixture of shock and impressed approval, he slowly sat back in his chair and an impressed smirk crossed his face as he crossed his arms.
"Look Princess. We are all fighting the same crap here, but you were supposed to be the one with the answers. So far you have given us a mixture of Jack and Shit." Tony said and I stood up and glared across the table at him.
"Wow, so perceptive as always Tony. Really, I am the only one of the two of us who actually seems to have a complete and unflinching understanding of the current level of shit we are in." I said and cut him off before he could say anything more.
"I am the one who did the research, and read how completely bad the Dargumiin really is, and if this woman gets her hands on it...you can kiss all this stuff that is oh so very important to you goodbye." I said, picking up the file folders and papers on the table and tossing them back down in front of him.
"Can you fucking comprehend that? Or should I draw you a schematic?" I hissed at him and Tony shrank back into his chair and everyone looked from him to me as I took measured breaths and stared him down. I was not going to let this billionaire asshole treat me like I was a complete idiot, and I was sure as hell was not going to let him get the better of me. Thor shifted and I turned on my heel to sit back down in my chair.
"I died protecting this planet from your cuddle bunny over there, what did you do?" I turned and pinched my lips together and glared at Tony. Loki pinched the bridge of his nose and I let out a very long breath.
"I died on a Beach in Oregon saving lives, and from what I understand you were ready to bury me." I said calmly, and I turned back to the window. "You need to really let that shit go, because if I can, it makes me the better person. I am really getting tired of your bullshit Tony, you think you are the only one with guilt, and who is above their sins. You are no better than any of us, you just refuse to humble yourself to ask for the forgiveness you seek. You live in a glass house, stop throwing rocks."
The room went dead quiet and I crossed my arms as I turned back around and looked at the shock on Tony's face. I walked back to my chair and sat down heavily.
"Princess..." Tony started and I put my hand up to stop him.
"I forgave you for that, but I will not be told I am not doing enough." I said, ending the argument. Steve shifted and I looked at him.
"I got nothing." Steve said and I gave a half hearted laugh.
"If you two are done, is there anything more to add to this before we call it?" Fury asked and rested his hands on the table. I sighed as Steve looked at Tilgun and frowned, he was probably thinking the same thing as me at that point.
"I think we are going to need a bigger transport to the next destination. No offense, but Tilgun may not fit in the jet with all of us, and with our equipment." Steve said and everyone looked at the Frost Giant and nodded.
"Don't worry about that." Fury said and sat back. "I pulled some strings with some friends in the Department of Defense, The Army will be arriving and providing the transport." Tilgun blinked at us and I inwardly wondered how we were going to be traveling. Images of military planes and transports popped into my head from news coverage from Iraq, but nothing seemed large enough to carry all of us at once and land in a parking lot. A chirp from the phone in my pocket grabbed my attention, and I fished it out of my pocket to check the screen.
"My satellite images just came in." I said and everyone looked at me, Fury pointed a warning finger at me and I looked at him over the phone. Suddenly very nervous at what he had to say, and I did my best not to flinch.
"Next time ask permission before you hijack a multi-million dollar piece of SHIELD property." He said to me and I grinned back at him smugly.
"What fun would that be?" I said and put my phone in my pocket, feeling like a smart ass. "Frankly, I like watching people try to figure out how much of a problem I am going to be."
Tony snorted across the table at me and Thor laughed a bit as well at my joke. Steve looked up at the light fixture and sighed openly.
"Just be warned Ms. Hawthorne, you are toeing a very thin line there." Fury said and I looked at him and sighed.
"I get it, but I really want to know what is going on with this site. Google maps shows nothing, but my gut says there is something." I said and shrugged.
"Go with your gut." Steve said and I nodded.
"You all have five hours before your ride gets here, I suggest you use those hours well." Fury said and I rolled my eyes as I stood up and looked around the room. I started walking toward the door as every one watched me.
"I will be in the Lab, I want to see what is in the swamp. Hopefully it is more than just alligators."
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
We all stood around the satellite image in the Lab and stared in disbelief at the church, complete with steeple in the middle of the swamp. I zoomed in further, seeing three cars parked around the building and found the top of a persons head near the red hatchback. I was waiting for Friday to come back with any results on how to destroy the Dargumiin, when I started a secondary search on any settlements in that part of the Atchafalaya Swamp that may explain the church existing.
"This keeps getting weirder and weirder." Steve said and I nodded in agreement to him.
"I'm just wondering about the choice of venue, a church? Anyone else see the irony here?" Tony said and I sighed at him.
"Hallowed ground. It makes perfect sense to me." I said and scratched the back of my head. Loki looked at me and raised his eyebrows.
"Please Elaborate." Loki said and I pointed at the Churchyard. Zooming in on the remains of a cemetery along the side of the building, and pointing out the graves.
"That is a graveyard." I said and pointed down at the land. "In the past, many sects of Christianity blessed the ground before it could bury any dead there or build any houses of worship. It was meant to protect the souls laid to rest, and to keep demons at bay. The church is also sitting on the same blessed Holy Ground, and it is at the intersection of Ley Lines. If you subscribe to that theory."
"Ley Lines?" Bruce asked and I sighed.
"At the risk of sounding even more like a walking encyclopedia of the weird, Ley Lines are invisible lines on the globe believing to have spiritual power or resonate with higher psychic energies. It is a part of the numerous New Age beliefs that these lines are a source of Occult power or even Psychic Energy, in some instances they resonate with higher magnetic fields around them. It is all Pseudoscience though, actual science can not prove them real using instrumentation." I said and looked around, Thor glanced up at me and crossed his arms.
"And this relates to all this that we are looking at how?" Tony said and I glared at him, still pissed at him for earlier.
"Some people believe that intersecting Ley Lines can cause a hotbed of paranormal activity, even cause places built on them to be haunted on a massive scale. It makes sense to me to raise it there, you have that much latent energy combined with the Holy Ground, and a whole lot of bad vibes from the Voudou Rituals practiced there. I am actually surprised she can't perform the ritual without the human sacrifice." I replied and looked up at Tilgun who was blinking down at the structure on the screen. I moved to the side so he could look closer, and he shook his head.
"Mortals are strange." Tilgun said and I snorted derisively in response, Loki laughed a bit at his observation himself. I yawned into my hand and rubbed my face as Tony shifted the image, zooming it out to show the main drive.
"Now that that has been explained in the weirdest way possible." Tony said and looked at the image. "Is this road the only way in or out?"
"Yeah, if you are driving up to it, but there are other ways in. You could boat in, hike these paths to the East of it, or fly in if you can." I said and pointed out a couple of paths cut through the brush by hikers, Thor looked down at them and ran his fingers along them. He studied everything in front of his carefully, his brows knotting in thought.
"Anything else we should know about?" Steve asked and I shook my head and glanced around at everyone.
"Why are the graves this way?" Thor asked and pointed out the stone mausoleums built around the church, Tony shrugged and Steve looked down at them.
"Basic geology of the land there. The water table in New Orleans and much of the surrounding area is really high, so high that you can't inter the dead below ground. They have to be put into tombs and stone structures called Mausoleums. If you bury a coffin, it will eventually pop back up to the surface in a strong rainstorm." I explained and everyone nodded at me in unison, but openly weirded out.
"You really are an encyclopedia of the weird." Tony said and I groaned at him.
"I think the important thing now is that we stop the virus before it gets out." Steve said, changing the subject and I internally agreed with him and was grateful that he took the attention off of me for a bit. We all stood around, and waited for Tony to say something rude, but it never came.
"You know, everything about Leonie making that virus still seems really wrong to me." I said and Tony looked at me.
"Still think there is another player in the game?" Steve asked and I nodded.
"Look at that building, there is no way there is a research lab in there. That alone screams that there is someone else with their hands in the cookie jar here." I said and Tony agreed with me and crossed his arms. I picked up a random black hoodie I found laying on the table behind me and put it on, pushing the sleeves up my arms.
"Even in a Lab, this thing took time." Stark said. "The R and D alone must have been an insane amount of money. Someone had time and a whole lot of pocket change to put into that."
"How much would you guess?" Steve asked as Thor, Loki, and Tilgun watched our conversation closely. The three of them following it the best they could, but still looking a bit lost.
"Stark Pharmaceuticals will spend millions developing new medicines for the host of nasty Flu bugs that pop up every every year thanks to nature alone. To develop something as complex, and scary as this could be in the hundreds of millions. Whoever came up with this, has resources that rival mine." Tony replied and I shivered at the amount of money someone would put into ending the world. Something popped into my mind from the beginning of this nightmare and I looked at Steve.
"Fury said that someone inside Leonie's group leaked this information to him through another source." I said and Steve looked at me concerned.
"He did, I remember that." Steve said and looked at me. "When I wasn't vomiting."
"What are you getting at here?" Tony asked and I smiled at him.
"What if the second ghost organization leaked it on purpose, what if this was all a way to get Leonie stopped and to get us focused on her, away from them. Or what if this is just a bit of Saber Rattling to get our attention?" I asked them and Tony sighed.
"Why would they tell us that they had a virus and are using it to wipe out the world?" Steve asked and I shook my head.
"But they didn't kill everyone. They only killed a few." I said and everyone looked at me.
"I don't get it, why use the virus at all?" Steve said and I rolled my eyes.
"Because even Loki knows you don't kill everyone, just a few if you want attention brought to your cause. You kill a select few to get your statement made, and you pretty much tell everyone else at the same time that you are the new big bad on the block. You are essentially waving your arms in the air without risking too much exposure." I said and Loki shot me a look that told me he was not at all amused at my analogy.
"No offense Loki." I said and put my hands up. "This virus may be linked to the Bokor, but it was also a message. An extremely loud message at that. Whoever made this infection wants us to know that they have more hidden away, and they are not afraid to use it in the future. We are just now seeing the bigger picture here, what if this person also wants us to stop Leonie. Shouldn't we also be asking why they want her stopped?"
"You may be right on this theory." Loki said and Thor nodded. "That is my jacket."
"I'm borrowing it, I got cold." I quipped back and Tony rolled his eyes.
"I really do not want to know what else they have up their sleeves, but I do want to know who baked this up. Also, Loki, say goodbye to the hoodie, her girlfriend game is strong." Tony said and both Thor and Loki gave him a confused look at his last statement.
"Didn't Fury say that an intern received the email with all the attachments?" I asked Tony and rubbed the back of my neck.
"He did actually." Steve said and I looked at him.
"We may need to talk to this intern, they may know something we don't. Maybe even give us some insight into this whole nightmare." I said and Steve nodded, agreeing with me. Bruce nodded at Steve and started making phone calls as he walked away.
"We should. It may also help us track down the group behind it." He said and I smiled.
"Now kids, let's not go opening a new can of whoop ass when there is already an opened one in the refrigerator." Tony said Steve and I gave him an incredulous look.
"I really think this is all lumped into the same can of Whoop Ass Tony." I said and rubbed on extra sarcasm.
"Whoop Ass?" Tilgun asked and Tony looked at him.
"Fight, Tilgun." I said and he nodded. "Seriously though, this is all the same, the virus, Leonie and her plans, all of it. Just different names for the same thing."
No one spoke for a few minutes as Steve and I looked at one another. Tony sighed, knowing that we were going to talk to the intern who received the emails one way or another. It was just a question of when at this point.
"I really hope you know what you are doing." Tony said and sighed. "We have enough on our plates as it is, I really don't think fighting a war with two separate factions is a good idea right now."
"Then we don't. We take care of the immediate problem first, and then return to the secondary. Seeing as how we still need to talk to this person eventually though, let's just do it while we have the time. This person may not know anything, they may know something, we have to try. Maybe they can give us more information while it is all fresh in their minds though." I said, feeling flustered and not hiding it at all.
"I agree with the lady." Thor said. "Take opportunity when it presents itself."
I looked at everyone and found my self growing frustrated as they stood back, Thor looked at me and I smiled at him. He and I had a pretty good understanding, and he would always have my back if I needed it. Steve looked like he agreed with me and I tried to continue hiding my total frustration with the situation, a person can only explain themselves so many times before they just give up.
"Just be careful with this Princess, I am tired of running damage control for you." Tony said and I sighed.
"Then don't, I can fight my own battles. I really do not remember asking you to cover for me anyways, you just took over the job." I shot back and everyone looked at me, seeing that I was serious.
"Fury says he can have the intern in the conference room in fifteen minutes. Also, three more victims were found, putting the total at seventeen. This is getting worse by the minute, I really hope this does not end in a mess for all of us." Bruce said and everyone looked shocked, I looked at Tony and he rubbed his face with both hands as he thought.
"She is moving faster." Tony said and I looked down at the church, hating the woman in it and behind every thing that was happening currently. I wanted to stop her so bad at this point, I could feel my hands turning into fists.
"We don't even know if she is at this church, when is the next satellite flyover?" Tony asked and I looked up at the wall clock.
"Another six hours. We can still hit the church, skip the where house and go back to it." I said and Steve shook his head.
"No, they could release any infected in Florida if we hit the church first, we stick to the current plan. We need to be smart about where we go next, and can't really afford to make a mistake here." Steve said and I sighed, crossing my arms and looking at him.
"I really hope we are not making a mistake with this." Tony said and I glanced over at him, he took in a long breath and he pulled up a floor plan of the where house and we saw all three floors appear on the screen. Each floor was a rabbits warren of offices and storage units, each sectioned off area a possible hiding spot for whoever or whatever.
"You know," I said sighing and looking down at the floor plans. "The more we go into these places, the more it looks like I am not going to live long enough to get my shit together."
Tony laughed at my joke and Loki glared at me and sighed. I cringed a bit, knowing that he was upset because he hated when I talked about my own mortality in a caviler fashion. He would have to just get over it though, this nightmare was not over, and I needed to crack jokes in order to stay sane.
"Not funny." Loki said tersely and I flinched, he had already lost too many people in his life, so I did not flip him any sass back about it.
"Hogworts can take the top floor, Cap and I will take the second, and Thor and Tilgun can take the ground floor. Banner will hang back in the chopper in case we need him." Tony said as he pointed at the different levels, I raised my hand quietly and gave him a quizzical expression.
"Chopper?" I asked and Tony smiled at me.
"Fury arranged for the Army to pick us up in style. A CH-47 Chinook is coming to take us where we need to go, think of it as the worlds most expensive Uber." He said and I ran a search on the capacity of the aircraft and nodded. Fury was pretty smart in his choice. The twin props of the Chinook not only made it fast, but also able to transport extremely heavy loads. The cargo space as well was what we needed for Tilguns height, and the extra equipment we needed.
Call me selfish too, but my claustrophobia actually felt relieved at the fact that I would not be back in the slightly cramped jet.
"Ever fly before Tilgun?" I asked and he looked at me and then back down at the screen.
"No, the Jotun are not capable of it." He replied in his deep voice and studied the helicopter on the screen, I smiled at him and he looked at me.
"Welcome to Earth. Thor must be excited, he gets to meet some of our warriors." I joked and Thor smiled brightly at the thought. Loki noticed the grin, and shook his head as he laughed.
"Fury is also providing the party favors again, he wants it just like the last time. A nice clean burn. Nothing of the infection is to remain for future study. Are we clear Princess?" Tony said and I nodded at him. I looked down and tried not to think for five seconds. Nightmare images of a dead world filled my head, and I pushed them away.
"My biggest fear is a Government that views this as a weapon. Play with fire, and eventually you do get burned." I said and sighed. Thor looked at me and Steve nodded.
"Correct assumption Lady." Thor said and Steve made a sound of agreement. I pulled a wheeled office chair over and looked at everyone in the room as I sat down and sighed. Bruce looked at me and shifted on his feet as I put my hand up to my head.
"Something to add Princess? You look like something bothers you." Tony asked me and I looked up at him.
"I really don't know which is worse," I said. "The person who thought this monster up, or the people who want to use it as a weapon in war."
"Well, sometimes the best weapon is one you don't have to use. The one you only show off to keep the peace is someone out there gets too uppity." Tony replied and I looked at him and sat forward.
"A world enslaved in the pursuit of peace is not a free world. It is a world held in fear and oppression." I said and looked at Tony. "You also forgot one thing Tony."
I shifted and rested my elbows on my knees as Loki looked at me and made a face that said he was interested in what I had to say.
"And that is?" Tony asked me and I looked up at him.
"Frankenstein was killed by his monster, eventually the creation will be the downfall of the creator. Eventually everything that was made by man will either work against us, not aid us." I replied and Loki looked at me in surprise, he did not hide his approval at my statement and I sat back in the chair.
"This is the way the world ends, not with a bang but a whimper." I said and sighed.