20. Awakening

. . .

Loch Ness, The Boleskine House, Scotland

Death was on display in the modified basement cell, the basement itself a newer addition to the old manor's structure. The cell was a central open space barred on all sides from floor to ceiling, with only a narrow few bound together into a makeshift but durable door. The iron bars were set close to one another but she could slip her small, young-looking hand through to touch the free air. Her watchers were smarter than to risk her contact, however, and kept well out of arm's reach.

Instead they took turns sitting around her in a circle, nineteen points in an erratic star to keep Death contained in ways both physical and magical. So she sat as well, in a calm, cross-legged position in the heart of her cage, staring them in the eye when they chanced to lift their faces. She knew the name of every one, and when they looked into her serene face, they knew she knew. None looked back for long. None cared to see the judgment written there.

There was a single thin window set in the top of a wall and through it she could see the light of the sky turn soft and orange – the hour of the gloaming, rolling warmly over the Highlands. Twilight, and that hour as sacred to her on any world as the dark time before the dawn. She allowed herself to watch the sky richen and turn to evening's purple, and still she heard the heavy footsteps of Belasco as he approached. His voice was hot steel. "You must be livid, my Lady."

"Do not call me that," said the girl in her soft English lilt, the chill underneath giving each consonant the taste of frost. "You've no right, and the words sound wrong from you. Thief."

"Escapee. It sounds better." By the sound of his words, he was drawing closer to the cell. Too close, for mortal's care. "Are your accommodations satisfactory?"

She did not answer.

"I can't hear you, Death. Can anyone?"

She spun up from her seat as quick as a cat, her brown arm and hand flicking out to catch empty air as he danced back and away from the cage. "Why are you so afraid, Belasco? Take my hand." She stretched her palm out to him, again as serene as if she'd never moved. "You do fear me. You hold me here, but you know you do not yet hold all of me." She smiled into his eyes, the expression cooly regal. "As we speak, I am watching the last star explode in a galaxy that I long since swept into my domain, its light guttering out into the blackness of the anomaly that killed it. I am holding a day-old child whose lungs cannot keep the air. I am standing above continents and kings and Gods and in the end they all know my name. I am here, but I am also everywhere."

"For now. For now, you are bound in young flesh by old rules, trapped by your own whimsies. And I am well-warded in my place of power. Even if you should touch me, you cannot touch me. My will makes that so." Belasco smiled back at her, but he did not drift close to her grasp again. He stayed several meters away. Beyond him, the keepers of the nineteen-pointed star were on their knees, faces pressed into the hard earth of the basement to honor their terrifying leader. "And who is afraid? You fled here, took this fragile little shell for your own shaping. I know what and whom you run from. Isn't my solution the better one, really?"

She snorted at him, nostrils flaring in disgust. "You misunderstand me, as so many do."

"Educate me." He stretched his own hand out, the expression on his mad face contorting into an insulting attempt to humor her. "What did you hope to accomplish here, in this child's form?"

"You could never understand."

"Would he? The sorcerer you tried to call out to. Did you mean to warn him and buy yourself some more strength to stand against me? Is that how you knew I was close? Bit weak a man, in my educated opinion. Barely as interesting as that old fool, Strange. Your broken friend was all flash and fire, but no ice for the lasting." He grinned, his teeth white and sharp, looking for a reaction in her that didn't come. "Trapped and gone, like all my other challengers. If you can indeed still commit your duty from here, do let me know when his soul-tether weakens and snaps. It is inevitable. There are few ways to save someone from that fate, and only I hold the Key to the door I threw him through."

Death studied his face, silent.

"Tell me, will you grieve for that withering soul?" He leaned forward, approaching the dangerous fringe of her touch. He was still grinning, the soft corners of his lips all but tearing in his hateful delight. "Are you even capable of such things, you thin little wraith? Do you care for any of us when we pass through your realm? I know you spared me not a thought as I fell and burned, my own broken star in the black of your night. Your face did not turn to see me. I remember. Have you nothing except for the nothingness you give?"

She turned away from his purple, florid words in a dismissal, her spine straight and noble. She did not react when he took a risk and slapped at the bars of her cage. "Tonight, lady Death. In the dark heart of the eve, in the hours before your legends are strongest. We'll see an end to this tonight, and in that, a new beginning. A new and stranger aeon, incomparable to all that came before."

Salima listened to him go, the nineteen wards resuming a soft murmur that was intended to mask both her and the power building underneath the manor and its nearby terrain. When the door at the top of the stairs slammed shut again, she whispered for her own ears, "I wasn't running."

. . .

Fitz stayed by Loki's side, studying Doctor Strange as he hovered above the alley street in a mystic trance. The Doctor's arms were akimbo, moving gently in fluid patterns and his face was turned to the sky with his features locked into deep concentration. Around him, the great red cloak shifted in the air like a bizarre cocoon. He was in communion with the Vishanti, or so he claimed that was his goal before beginning his ritual. From time to time the black brows furrowed together, as if struggling through an argument. Fitz thought it didn't look like he was winning, and he tried to ignore the worm of fear burrowing through his guts.

Across from Fitz sat Coulson, who rubbed at his forehead while staring down at the phone laid on one of his thighs. The screen of it was filling with data and geological imaging from Stark as he remained in an observation holding pattern a few miles out from the Boleskine place. Nothing about it looked good. There'd clearly been some new additions since Belasco grabbed the place in the last decade or so. A basement, and a handful of tunnels leading to the nearby graveyard. That went over well with everyone, particularly the doctor who muttered something about meddling in domains not meant for mortal man and a few other florid opinions. Base was running tactical options, most of which involved getting moving and into position while the going was good, but still they held firm. They waited instead.

None of them intended to leave Loki until they had to. It was unspoken, but clear. Fitz's hand squeezed Loki's shoulder now and again, unable to think of anything else to do to help.

He started a little, rocking back on his heels when the Doctor dropped gently to the ground and came to Loki. The man's eyes were open but unseeing, a filmy iridescent sheen over them as he passed a hand over the fallen agent's face without touching. "I don't understand," whispered the sorcerer from somewhere far away within himself. "They-"

Loki's bone-white hand snapped up and grabbed Strange's arm around the wrist, pushing it away from his face with less force than he might have used in another time. Fitz gasped, startling Coulson into attention as closed eyes winced and then began to flicker open. Loki squinted against the fading light. "Gods," he whispered. The sound of his voice was rusty and disused, as if he'd been gone for a great deal longer than they knew.

Strange pulled back from the prone form. With a single blink, his eyes refocused back to the here and now and he looked down at Loki, openly startled. "I don't understand," he said again. "The Vishanti denied me outright. Said this was not their hour. How, then?"

Loki shifted on the ground, muttering under his breath. He coughed twice, then tried to pull an elbow under himself to get upright. His body wasn't fully his own again yet, his legs fighting him with rubbery muscles. On instinct, Fitz reached out to help and, to his surprise, found that his assistance was taken without argument. Together they got him seated again. A pale palm passed across his own face, which was unreadable even as Coulson leaned in to check him worriedly. A bit to his own bemusement, Loki's other hand gently waved him off as if to say I'm fine, stop your fretting.

Strange was still stunned, his cloak pulling in close around him. "How? What God comes to your aid if mine own pantheon won't?"

"Same as forever, Strange. The only God I can ever seem to rely on." came the hoarse voice. Finally the sharp eyes flickered up to regard him. They were the same, and yet the doctor took another step back, seeing something else begin to kindle there in the depths of the green. Something a shade brighter. "Myself."

"Loki?" Coulson fumbled with the phone, sharing a glance with Fitz. They didn't see what Strange could, but there was something else in the tone.

"Yes." The thin, familiar smile. "Only me." He turned to Coulson, marking the worry still plain there. The smile evened out, becoming grim. "I note evening draws close. What's the situation become while you all sat here fretting at me?"

"Well, Belasco grabbed our mutual bestie Miss Death out of the hospital up the street and booked it up into Scotland. Stark's been monitoring the scene and it looks not so good." Coulson added a few more details to round out his quick brief, Fitz interjecting with what he personally saw. Strange folded his arms against himself, his face tight.

"So, everything is freshly terrible and we're ticking down the seconds to dread horror. I suppose it was too much to hope for that I might wake up to kittens and pleasant sunshine instead." Loki shrugged with benign resignation, looking up at the the doctor. "Now, tell me something new. Preferably like how you're going to get us close to this manor in short order sans terrible tiny English cars with no damned legroom."

"I can tell you, or I can merely proceed to getting ready to do it. I think that might be preferable, considering." Strange lifted an eyebrow as Loki struggled to his feet without the need for further help. "You have something more?"

"I suppose I might." With his back to Strange so that he could regard the two SHIELD agents, Loki gave a dry but honest smile. One that seemed young and awkward on the thin face. "Thank you. For worrying." He stopped, silent for a moment while he mustered the rest. It was clear that it was not easy for him as his voice remained sharp gravel. "And for not leaving me there on the ground when you really ought to have."

Coulson's face said he was having a hard time absorbing the rare moment of open sincerity. "So... when we get back, we're having you scanned for deep brain damage right away."

Loki lifted a single finger to prove that Strange was not the only surprising figure among them to know a popular human gesture. That, at least, seemed much more fitting to his nature and proved out the returning of his health.

Then Strange's red cloak stretched to fill the alley and they were gone with a blink from the clasp's strange golden eye.