Sam POV
"Where are they?", I hear an all too-familiar voice behind me. "I want those babies. They're going to make me King of Asgard..."
Magnus turns around to face him. Loki takes one look at Magnus's face and stops mid-sentence.
"I warned you!", he shouts, "I warned you both! I said don't be intimate...but you did...and now you lost her and it's all your own fault. Now give me my grandchildren."
"Don't you want to say good-bye to your daughter?", Magnus asks, low and dangerous, motioning to the operating table where Alex's body still lies.
Loki swallows hard and doesn't do more than glance at the table. "No, I don't. I said good-bye when she was still alive. Now give me those..."
"You see, you could have helped save her", Magnus says.
"How could I? I told you I couldn't...", Loki answers.
"Oh but you could", Magnus corrects. "You know you could."
"How would I know it?", Loki asks, "This is a circular conversation, give me my..."
"The only way she could have lived is if a blood relative who loves her chose to die in her place. Now, if it was just someone who loves her, I would have done it already, but it had to be a blood relative. I sent Gunderson to find her father. I knew it was impossible", Magnus goes on, sounding like madman. He looks like one too. "But Halfborn, he doesn't know how to fail, that's the berserker in him. Since we can't find him fast enough, that leaves four choices—Sam, the twins, and you."
Loki flinches. "How would I know that? How did YOU know that come to think of it?"
"Magnus, I'll..." I start.
"Don't even think about it", he orders and I fall silent. This voice of his—hard, angry, furious, and... hopeless. I hate the sound of it.
"Loki you're going to do this", he informs the god.
Loki cackles, but it sounds hollow. "She's already dead, you moron! What good would it now?"
Magnus's bright blue eyes turn stormy gray, and he twists the pocket of his hoodie in his hands.
"Don't provoke him", I advise Loki.
"You want me to be afraid of a demigod?!" Loki howls. "Like he could best me..."
"Cuz it's never happened before, right?", Mallory offers, and Loki's green eyes blaze.
"The flyting was a fluke", Loki says, "You cheated, which I frankly thought was beneath the son of a god. That's not what a flyting is or how it works..."
"I don't give a damn about a flyting!", Magnus roars, and Loki jumps. "I want my wife back!"
"You married her?", Loki asks.
"Not yet, soon, but we were already married in our hearts."
"Aww, isn't that sweet. I suppose you're a widower in your heart then. Best I take the kids, you're in no shape to raise them", Loki says.
"If you come near my kids, I'll kill you!", Magnus roars.
Loki laughs and then smiles. "Please try little Mango Cheese, please, please. I still haven't gotten even with you for that flyting. Am I to take it then you intend to stand in my way?"
"We all are", I say, standing next to Magnus.
"Yeah", Mallory adds, joining us. TJ is with her suddenly.
"A little pack of demigods, oh what I am to do?", Loki laughs, then moves his arm, and a gust of wind tosses us across the room. We separately slam into walls and fall to the floor. Loki is howling with laughter.
"Ow", Mallory complains, standing up, and getting her wild red hair out of her eyes, "Asswipe", she adds. I stand up too and narrow my eyes at my dad.
"I'm never going to let you give my niece and nephew to Surt!", I shout.
"You stupid little girl, I'm only going to pretend to give them to Surt. The prophecy says they can kill him, so he wants them, but my grandchildren are worth a thousand Surts. Surt will offer me unconditional rule of Muspellheim in exchange for them, they'll destroy him, and I'll raise them to be my own creatures. That prophecy also said they could one day destroy Odin. They'll destroy him for their loving grandfather, and I'll be King of the Gods."
Everyone freezes.
"Odin?", I ask, "Where did you get this information? No one can kill Odin." I try to sound confident, but it doesn't sound like a lie, even the way he said it...
"They're the most powerful Norse demigods ever born, with "deity DNA" from both sides, from the light and the dark, from the creator of life and warmth and from the creator of darkness and death...they can rule both sides", Loki confirms. "Of course I don't know which they're likely to take to...but I have a feeling one will master the light and the other the dark. They can rule all 9 worlds. And I will rule them."
"Not while I'm alive", Magnus growls.
"Funny, that's exactly how I saw it too", Loki says, and attacks Magnus, knocking him backward.
Magnus lifts his hand, and Loki flies backward. The look on my dad's face...
"How...how did you do that?", Loki howls, confused.
"I grew up without my mother and now you've cursed my children to the same fate!", Magnus yells.
"Your mother." Loki smiles. He walks toward Magnus and presses the palm of his hand to Loki's head.
Magnus POV
I'm six. I'm in the mountains by a stream, and see the brilliant sunlight glinting off the scales of tiny blue fish just beneath the surface. I feel a masculine presence I can now identify, seeing it all again.
I look around and see a woman in her 30's, short blonde hair and brilliant green eyes, always smiling. I still see her in my dreams. "You see all this Magnus? He created all this just for us. I know you don't understand now, but you will." She inhales deeply. "The air- it smells like him—strawberries, roses, and sunlight. The scent of summer."
My mother lifts me in her arms and I feel the warmth of the sun on my face and shoulders. I can feel him here, watching over us.
Then the scene turns dark. "Run!", my mother screams as I hear wolves growl on the other side of our apartment door. Blue light floods into our apartment. "I said, run!"
"Not this time!", I yell back.
"Magnus, run!"
Explosions, the smell of heat, the smell of burnt electrics, the smell of death...
"You remember don't you, boy?", Loki taunts. "What your mother was like? What her death was like? She misses you. Why don't you go to Hel and join her?"
I hold up my hand. Nothing happens. He laughs. I hold it up again and I feel my mind shut like a steel door. He's out.
"How did you do that?", he says, blanching even paler than he usually is.
I rush him and press my palm to his head, and he's too shocked to stop me.
A bar around 9 pm. It's hot under the starry sky and the air smells like creosote. Cacti grow out of the sand on both sides of the building. Outside, a woman saunters toward the door.
She's tall, and extremely curvy with a small waist but the largest chest and bottom I've ever seen. Her skin is a pure, pale white with emerald eyes perfectly lined with black liner. Copper red curls bounce down her back to her waist. Her red lips are full and sensual. Despite being a different gender and different age and lacking the scars, I'd recognize Loki anywhere, and I can say he makes a much better looking woman than he does a man.
He walks in and sits down at the bar. The bartender is all googly eyed.
"What can I get you, gorgeous?", he asks.
"There was an art show in this parking lot earlier today. I want to know who made the pottery, it's...otherworldly", she says.
"Well I don't know about that, but I could show you something otherworldly", the bartender offers crudely.
A head turns and a short, but good-looking darker complected man stares at her. "Those are mine, senorina."
Sensing he's already lost, the bartender moves on reluctantly.
"You made those pieces I saw this afternoon?", she asks.
"I did. My name is Alberto Fierro...my family has made pottery like that for hundreds of years..."
She smiles. "There are so few real artists left in the world. It seems they all belong to a bygone age."
"Thank you, senorina, now how much do you know about tequila?"
The chitchat seems to go on for hours. "I would never have believed you could drink me under the table, una Hermosa." He unsteadily sets down his fourth shot glass and there are two empty margarita glasses around him.
"I'm not going to lie to you, senorina, I am a married man, that is the truth. I have never been able to capture beauty like yours, not even in my pottery. That is also the truth", he says. "You are exquisite."
"And you are a true artist", she says.
"Let me sculpt you", he says.
The next thing I see, I turn away from, a tangle of white sheets in a cheap motel room in Baja near the beach. Mr. Fierro passed out cold.
His eyelids flutter open in the morning. Holding his head, he scoots out of bed and pushes the bathroom door open to find—Loki as Loki. For the first time, I truly pity Mr. Fierro.
"Deus!", he screams.
"Well, yes, one of them anyway. Oh don't be like that, you got what you wanted", Loki says, "And so did I. You really are an amazing artist you know." He turns and walks out the front door.
Then I see Loki back in chains, scars all over his face, but he's vomiting up everything he ate for the last century. His body starts to morph.
"What? No? It was only once, how the hell did this happen?!" But it's too late. Loki is changed into a woman. Apparently Alex really isn't all that unique. She was not the first gender fluid person in her family; she was not even the first pregnant one.
I see flashes then. Loki getting bigger, getting sick. "You could get rid of it", I hear a godly voice suggest, but I can't tell which one. Loki looks fiercely angry.
"You know you make a pretty woman, you should stay that way", Thor suggests and howls of laughter go up.
Loki trudges away alone. "They turned their backs on us", he says, rubbing his belly. "It will be okay though, I promise."
Then Loki in labor, later holding a baby boy in his arms. Then as that beautiful woman again walking up a bluestone path to the door of an expensive estate in the southwest.
The door opens. "Go away!", Mr. Fierro shouts. "I want nothing to do with you!"
"You don't have a choice. This is our child. Gods don't raise babies", she informs him. "That's your job."
"You can't be here! If my wife finds out what happened..."
"Didn't you hear me?" She hands him the baby. "This is our child. I cannot raise him, I'm not allowed to, and your wife will not send our baby into the system. You will raise him, and raise him well."
"I can't..."
She hands him a very tiny Alex. As she turns away, she brushes away a tear. Then I see her at night, sobbing, wrapping her arms around herself.
"I said NO!", I hear and suddenly I'm not in Loki's head anymore. We're back in the hospital in Valhalla.
"How in the name of all the gods did you do that?!", he screams. "You don't have that kind of power!"
"The same way I found out the rules for saving Alex. I sat on the throne of Odin", I announce.
"You fool", he laughs, "Like father like son. You'll pay just as high of a price for your betrayal."
"How do you think I had the power to reach into your head, Loki? You want to be king of the gods? That job is taken by Odin. But when he's gone, he appoints someone else. Right now, Odin is not king of the gods."
"Who is?!", he howls.
"Guess", I answer, and watch as realization dawns on his face.
"I hate you", he whispers.
"I don't care. I want to talk about Alex. You loved her. You did, at one point, you loved her", I say.
"I don't love anyone but myself!", he shouts.
"I saw too much to believe that, Loki. I think you're the product of a lot of things, including getting nothing but hate and rejection from the other gods. But I can't worry about that. Alex isn't in Nidavallir or Hel yet, but she's bound for one of those places since she died in childbirth. But she's only been dead minutes. It's not too late to keep your child from being miserable for eternity, to bring her back, and let her be a mother. And this time "no" isn't an option."