Notes: The second half of this chapter contains another scene adapted from Being Human canon. We're getting down to the end of the story here!
Warnings: None needed. Except, well, Owen.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Annie uncapped a purplish-red marker and sniffed it delicately. "Raspberry," she announced. "And quite convincing, really. Have you smelled this one?"
"I am not sure," Loki's voice came from under the television stand. "Do I even know what a raspberry is?"
"Little red knobbly berry," Annie replied. "I'm quite sure we have raspberry jam in the fridge." She replaced the marker in the package and picked up the brown one. "Cinnamon," she announced, after a moment. "Very cinnamony. What have you got?"
"Do you mean, 'what does this marker smell like?'" Loki asked.
"Ýes. And what colour is it?"
"Green." Sound of sniffing. "It appears to be mint."
"Ooh," Annie said. "These are really nice markers. Pretty colours, too."
"If you like them, I will buy you a packet," Loki promised.
"You're so good to me," Annie teased, uncapping the pink marker (watermelon) and drawing a heart on the notepad by the telephone. "Where did this lot come from?"
"I may have borrowed them from the storage cabinet in the nursery classroom," Loki admitted. "I know from experience they are easy to wash off painted walls, and so they seemed most appropriate for this experiment."
"Good thinking." Annie tucked the markers back into their packet and closed it. "Too bad there isn't a grey one, it could smell of rhinoceros." She slid off the sofa to sit on the floor, where it was easier to see what Loki was doing. "Are you sure I can't help?"
"Positive," Loki replied. "I appreciate the offer, but Scamp and the kittens are giving me all the assistance I can manage." As Annie laughed, he added, "Also, the runes involved are rather complex, and easily confused with one another. If one does not actually know how to read them- "
"I might get the order mixed up," Annie completed the thought, to demonstrate her understanding of the magical principle. "And then… it would be like writing a sentence in the wrong order, wouldn't it?"
"Something like that," Loki replied, as he crawled out from under the television stand clutching the green marker. "Only instead of merely being incomprehensible, there is always the chance of something completely unexpected happening- for instance everyone being invisible in one corner of the room."
Annie considered. "Could it be that corner where Mitchell keeps dropping his jacket and things? Because I am getting tired of telling him to pick up after himself."
Loki grinned at her and held out his hand for the markers. Annie tossed them to him, and when Scamp looked up with bright eyes, waiting for her turn to be tossed something, Annie rolled the red plastic ball across the floor toward the entryway. Scamp hurried after it, wagging her tail, with Philip and Elizabeth scuttling after her.
Loki stood, stretched, and considered the markers. "Yellow for the more visible areas, I think? The spell does not require that the markings be obvious to the casual viewer."
"Good idea," Annie agreed, leaning back against the sofa. "Do you need a chair to stand on?" She waved one hand. "I can easily get you one."
Loki laughed. "I would appreciate that a great deal," he replied, and watched in impressed amusement as a chair crept slowly out of the kitchen and nudged against his leg. "Your control over your power is most impressive," he congratulated.
"I'm kind of impressed myself," Annie admitted, with a half-embarrassed little smile. Loki moved the chair to a corner of the room, stepped up on it, and continued to write on the wall. Scamp came back with her red ball, trotted past Annie to the open door to the basement stairs, and after a moment came the sound of the ball bouncing down the stairs and the ghost dog scampering after. "Clever girl," Annie congratulated her in a croon, and ignored the yelp of surprise that came from Mitchell, downstairs doing laundry.
It was a very peaceful late Saturday morning. Loki had returned from New Mexico just as the sun began to rise, to find Annie sitting up in the lounge watching Pride and Prejudice with the sound turned down. Mitchell was still asleep, while George had apparently gone off with Nina shortly after Loki had left for New Mexico the night before, and had not been heard from since.
Annie was obviously wide-awake, and Loki knew that, even if he went to bed, there was little chance he would sleep. He had therefore made tea, brought it out to the sofa, and listened as Annie, clutching her slowly-cooling mug and wiping her eyes frequently, had told him all about her encounter with her family. When Annie was finished with her story and had answered Loki's questions, she had asked him to explain why his own eyes were so red. And so he had told her about both the final family secret, and his recent conversation with his brother.
And after that it had seemed like a good idea to just curl up together on the sofa and watch Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy find their happy ending. They were still there when Mitchell came down, looked at them for a moment, then disappeared into the kitchen and came out a few minutes later, with more tea and a plate of buttered toast to share with Loki.
Thus fortified, Mitchell had gone to begin the laundry, and Loki had gotten to work on the spell he hoped would help Annie.
"I really wish I had found this enchantment a few days earlier," Loki fretted as he carefully inscribed lemon-scented runes above the basement door. "We might have been able to arrange to find some mortal to test its efficacy for us. As it is, we will not know whether it will work until- "
"Until we try it," Annie said lightly. "Well, I don't know who we'd have tested it on, anyway. It's not like we could just ask someone round and spring me on them."
"If I had been thinking, I could have consulted Agent Coulson on whether it would be safe to ask assistance of the SHIELD office in London. We at least know that Agent Cray, if he is posted there still, is aware of supernatural activity in our household."
"Well, he certainly knows there's a werewolf in the house," Annie agreed.
Cray knew it because, some months ago, Loki had tried to feed him to George. Had not, admittedly, tried terribly hard, but certainly the incident would have stuck in the agent's mind. Subsequent events, fortunately, had created a certain amount of goodwill between the agent and the Bristol household, so there was at least the possibility Cray would have agreed to make the trek there to help, had he been asked in time.
But he had not, and Owen was due later this same evening, so as Loki wrote on the walls he found himself worrying about whether this untested charm would even work as it was intended.
Well, there was nothing else for it but to try.
Loki had only just found this spell when Thor had sent him the text containing the invitation to New Mexico. Loki had read it through a few times, had thought about it at work the next day, and then had made what preparations he could before leaving on his trip- including the little matter of borrowing the markers.
The spell involved inscribing runes (it was not necessary to use fruit-scented ink, but Loki thought chalk would be a less reliable medium, and leave the lower runes vulnerable to rubbing off on kitten fur) all around the room in which the confrontation was to take place. Loki had placed them at the top and bottom of each corner of the room, and also at strategic points between. Infused with his energy, there would be a sort of circuit activated, one that would wrap the space in a magical field that would render visible that which had been invisible to the mortal eye.
"All right," he said, when the final rune was in place (drawn above the front window that had the coloured glass, Loki standing on the sofa in his sock feet to do so), "as the old people say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. Let us see if this even reacts in the way we hope." He stepped down from the sofa.
"Just a second," Annie said quickly, as Loki started to lay his hand on one of the lower connecting markings. "I'll go get Mitchell so he can be here, too."
"There may be nothing to see," Loki called after her, as she leaned through the basement door to call down.
"You'd think after nine hundred years of successful magic, you'd have more confidence," Annie rebuked him.
"There have been quite a number of failures and disasters as well," Loki pointed out.
"Well, that's how we learn," Annie shrugged.
"And it has certainly not been- " Loki began to protest that he was not casting successful spells nine hundred years ago, but reconsidered: if one included involuntary shapeshifting, he supposed he had, after all.
"Did I miss anything?" Mitchell asked, as he and Scamp appeared in the doorway a few moments later.
"Not yet," Loki replied, took a deep breath, and reached up his outspread hand to the central rune inscribed halfway down the wall by the kitchen door. He closed his eyes, breathed evenly, felt power gather itself just below his heart and then begin to flow up his arm and out his palm and fingers.
"Ooh," Annie said softly, and after a moment Loki opened his eyes.
Annie, Mitchell, and all three pets were looking up with wide, fascinated eyes at the runes glowing all around the room, sparkling gold as the magic set itself. On the very edge of his hearing, Loki was aware of a low humming sound, as the room glowed with light. Gradually, it faded, leaving behind only the faintest scent of artificial fruit, perhaps a sign the spell retained the memory of the children's markers. Surely that indicated the magic was going to work?
After a long pause, Mitchell looked at Loki. "That's got to be a good sign, right? The way it lit up?"
"I hope so," Loki replied.
As he spoke, Scamp turned toward the entryway, ears alert. At the same moment, the kittens scampered toward the front door.
Which opened, to reveal George removing his coat as he walked in. He glanced down at the kittens and then behind himself to say, "Watch out, the cats are- "
"I see them," Nina replied, leaning down to scoop up Elizabeth as she also came through the door. It was perhaps the influence of someone small and purring in her arms that caused her to smile in a perfectly friendly way. "Good morning. I don't think we've met. I'm George's friend Nina."
Loki's heart bounded painfully in his chest as he realized she was looking at, and speaking to, Annie.
"Morning," Mitchell said, eyes wide, and then spluttered, "Excuse- laundry- gotta- " and incontinently fled through the open door down the stairs to the basement.
"Hello," Annie contributed, her tone also slightly manic. "Lovely to meet you. I'm Annie. Loki's friend. I'm, erm, a friend of Loki's." She clutched his arm as she spoke, positioning them so that Loki was between Nina and herself.
"Yes," Loki agreed stupidly, while inside himself a most inconvenient triumphant voice was gleefully calling out, It worked, itworkeditworkeditworked. "Annie is... a friend of mine." He was conscious of being engulfed by an embarrassed flush, his ears so hot he was surprised that steam did not issue forth from them. Nina glanced down at Scamp, who flattened her own ears and wagged her tail in greeting. Loki did not feel up to offering an explanation for her presence.
As he stood there like an idiot, he realized that Nina's friendly smile had shifted. He felt a stab of panic at that, realizing he was behaving like a rank amateur, as if there was indeed something strange about Annie's presence in the room. He was a better liar than this, should be able to adjust more quickly to a situation- and ordinarily he could, but ordinarily he had engineered the situation himself and felt in control of it. At the moment, all he could think was, George is going to kill me. And with good reason, though the last thing he would have done was to deliberately use Nina in a test of his spell, and especially not without consulting George first. George would be furious, and Nina-
Was looking amused, the friendliness shaded into understanding, and Loki realized she had drawn her own conclusions about the manner of friend Annie was, why she was here so early in the day, and why she and Loki were so self-conscious about the situation.
As misunderstandings went, this one could hardly have worked out better. Embarrassing though it undoubtedly was.
George, who- unseen by Nina- had been opening and closing his mouth like a fish, suddenly recovered his powers of speech.
"Nina, would you like a cup of tea?" he asked, in a high voice. He cast one look at Loki that suggested they would speak of this later, and then smiled awkwardly down at Nina as she turned to him.
"I'd love one," she replied. George gestured toward the kitchen. Nina walked through the bead curtain, and George followed, still making what is the meaning of this faces back at Loki, who said heartily,
"Well, I think it is time I saw Annie home. I hope to see you later, Nina."
George made a snarling face behind Nina's back and disappeared into the kitchen. Left behind, Loki picked Annie up and twirled her around in silent triumph, Scamp leaping in a circle around them. Then, for Nina's benefit, Loki said in the most normal voice he could muster,
"There is a very nice tea room not far from here. I wonder if I could interest you in a cinnamon bun?"
"That sounds delicious," Annie replied, loudly enough to be heard in the kitchen. Holding hands like a pair of children, she and Loki fled from the house with Scamp at their heels.
~oOo~
George took considerable smoothing down, later, requiring liberal applications of Loki's best manner and Catherine's best baking. Even at that, it was a careful process.
It transpired that George had in fact sent text messages to both Mitchell and Loki, warning them of his impending arrival home with Nina. Since he had not known of Loki's experiment, one could only assume he had been hoping to avoid any embarrassing and inexplicable scenes involving Loki disheveled on the sofa, embracing someone Nina was unable to see.
"Really, George, anyone would think we have no self-control whatsoever," Loki rebuked- not entirely fairly, on the recent evidence- and passed him another cinnamon bun. George accepted it, grumbling, and Loki choked down his own amusement as he continued, "I really do apologize. I did not hear my mobile, and Mitchell's must have been upstairs in his room."
"It was," Mitchell said. "I chucked it in the chest of drawers last night, after I got the text from Owen saying when he'd be round today." He wiggled his fingers, in a gesture that indicated his hands felt dirty after taking the message- or perhaps were just sticky with cinnamon sugar- and picked up his own bun.
Loki turned conciliatory. "Surely no harm has been done? The conclusion Nina reached was a perfectly understandable one, and will not lead to further awkward questions."
"Except about why she can only see your girlfriend when she's in the lounge," George retorted.
"George, we're going to wash off the runes when we're finished with Owen," Annie said patiently. "That's why Loki used the children's markers."
George, his mouth full of cinnamon bun, looked from Annie to Loki, and then to Mitchell, who nodded. Hastily chewing and swallowing, he protested,
"Wait, why?"
"What do you mean?" Annie asked in confusion. "You said it yourself, George, it wouldn't be safe. Sooner or later some human would notice they can only see me in the lounge, and that'd lead to all sorts of awkward questions."
"But it's not like we have the neighbours in all the time," George argued. "Mitchell's gotten over that particular bit of foolishness. And... and it would be nice, if you could visit with Coulson or Tony Stark if they came to see us again."
Annie her eyes bright, went over to the werewolf and kissed his cheek. "Thanks, George. Really. Now we know the spell works, we can set it again sometimes. But we can't enchant the whole house without draining Loki like a battery- stop right there," she added, turning to Loki with a severe look on her face- "and we can't leave it set for the same reason."
"I suppose not," George agreed, with a reluctance Loki loved him for. They all knew how continuous spell-casting tired Loki, but all four of them shared the wish there was some real cure for Annie's isolation.
"We'll just have to invite the witches over more often," Annie said bracingly.
"An excellent idea," Loki agreed, wrapping an arm around her. "And now... perhaps we should turn our attention to the matter of Owen."
"Right," Annie agreed, her face going set and hard. It hurt and cheered Loki in equal parts, to see her look so grim. "For the last time," she went on, "let's turn our attention to Owen."
~oOo~
It was just past sunset when Owen texted that he was on his way over to the house. Half an hour passed before Loki, on watch at an upstairs window, saw him coming along the street, his shadow long and shifting under the streetlights.
"Places, everyone," he called, as he came clattering down the stairs, using a phrase he had learned while acting as a stagehand at a school play last spring. Annie was looking rather pale, and he paused beside her. "All right?" he asked, trying for an encouraging smile.
Annie threw her arms around his neck and kissed him hard. Then she let go and took up her station, a few paces inside the lounge, with George and Mitchell flanking her and a few steps behind her. Loki set another charge of magic into the spell on the room, and took his position in the rear, so that they were standing in a diamond formation similar to a flight of aircraft. Loki thought of Spitfires, and hoped Annie was doing likewise.
A moment later there was a sharp rap at the door, then the sound of a key in the lock, and Owen boldly let himself in. Turned to close the door behind himself, and saw Annie standing in the lounge with his three tenants behind her.
Say what you like about him, Owen had practice enough in villainy to retain his poise. He hesitated only a second before tucking the house keys back into his coat pocket, tilting his head on one side, and addressing the group in a tone of easy mockery:
"So- the gang's all here." His glance flicked from Annie to the others, then back to her as he asked, "Who are they- your backing singers?" No one spoke, which did not seem to bother Owen. He did an exaggerated double-take and exclaimed, "Oh, fuck- you're not ghosts as well, are you? I knew I should've got references!" Again, Annie did not respond, but from the set of her shoulders it was apparent she was no longer cowed by Owen.
Who, apparently not recognizing the change in Annie's attitude toward him, allowed his lip to curl in a sneer as he took another step forward, in a posture he clearly intended to be intimidating, and said,
"Can I ask you something? Is the point of all this to make me feel guilty? Is that what we're doing here?" He stopped, about an arm's length from Annie, smiled what was probably the same triumphant smile he had used to frighten her on the night of his "dream," and said coolly, "'Cause it won't work."
His smile widened, eyes gleaming with self-satisfaction and not a single trace of madness. This was Owen revealed, the true Owen, freed from the disguises that enabled him to hide in plain sight among the ordinary kindly mortals of this realm. Looking at him, Loki wondered what sort of people had raised him, whether Owen too had parents, whether they knew he was a predator and congratulated him for it, had raised him to be so. Or whether some disaster in his early life had twisted him, turned him into this creature, bereft of conscience or heart, taking pleasure in the pain he inflicted on those weaker than himself.
Loki wondered whether his parents, too, were ordinary kindly mortals, who watched his progress with fear and asked themselves what they had raised, how it had all come to this, that their son should have grown into this self-aggrandizing and vicious being.
A being who now smiled at Annie with something more than even ordinary gratification, as he delivered what he obviously intended to be the coup de grace. He leaned a little closer and said, confidentially, "See, here's the thing they never tell you: if you kill someone and get away with it, you're bulletproof." Something complacent and ugly glowed in his smile as he said, self-reverently, "You're a god."
It was once again apparent, the effect he expected his words to have on Annie. He was obviously waiting for her to recoil, to cower before him, to offer him her submission and indulge him with her fear, the sustenance upon which he had fed for so long.
Instead, Annie held her ground, not even squaring her shoulders or raising her chin, as if facing him down took no effort of will or courage at all. As if Owen was nothing more than a mess on a clean floor, something unpleasant that must be dealt with, but- once having done so- Annie need never think of again.
In a voice that was stern, but with an uncharacteristic hint of an arrogant drawl, Annie began to address to Owen the last words she would ever need to:
"There's a question you haven't asked yourself yet. If I exist, what else does?"
It was apparent, from his expression, that Owen had indeed not asked himself that crucial question. Perhaps he was too self-centred for ordinary curiosity. Loki thought of Jane Foster, whose scientific interest also encompassed the humility to realize she did not know all, and who was endlessly willing to learn and to believe more.
Owen, it was clear, had never troubled himself with such questions, and now, suddenly, he looked as though he was giving the matter thought. The exercise seemed to unsettle him.
Annie, her body language clearly reflecting the sudden shift of power in the room, went on speaking, and now her tone registered scorn:
"You think you're the big bad wolf?" Slight tilt of her head. "You should see George on a full moon." George did not move, his expression of cold interest not faltering, but Owen seemed to see a threat in it. Annie went on, "You think you're a cold-blooded murderer? Mitchell was killing eighty years before you were even born." Owen's eyes flicked to Mitchell, and then he blanched in a way that suggested Mitchell had probably given him the black-eyed look, the one that had been the last thing so many hundreds of humans had ever seen.
Annie was frankly sneering as she went on, "You think you're a god? Loki can tell you what a real god would make of you and your pathetic little pretensions." Loki did not move, but a glamour shivered over him, changing his inconspicuous human garb into shining gold and bronze armour, completed by the menacing horned helmet that made him look as one with ambitions to supervillainy. Owen flinched a little at the sight.
After a moment, Loki allowed the glamour to subside, returning the focus to Annie as she took a slow step forward. Owen edged backward, apparently involuntarily. The temperature in the room plunged as Annie glanced from one friend to the next, her expression hard-edged and satisfied, before she turned back to Owen.
"Don't you get it yet?" she asked, with cool disdain, facing down the foolish little man who pretended to powers he could not begin to understand. "I'm just the tip of the iceberg; I'm good cop." She nearly laughed as she went on derisively, "Look at you, so pleased with your grubby little murder. Fact is, when it comes to pure naked evil, you're an amateur." Annie stepped forward again, and Owen's throat worked visibly as he tried to hold his ground, while she prowled around him, circling like a predator. Annie's voice was a taunting lilt as she nearly crooned, "I want you to know- you wandered off the path. This is where the wild things are, and we've got your scent now."
Dropping back to the matter-of-fact coolness that was more frightening than any of Owen's posturings had ever been, she said, "We can find you at the edge of the earth, and create unimaginable tortures..." Owen frankly recoiled from her now, although he seemed frozen in place by a spell beyond any Loki could have cast upon him. Annie paused at his elbow, taking in his suddenly stiff posture, amused and cruel and unforgiving.
"Don't think you can leave here and go take it out on that poor silly Janey, either. Don't think no one will know, if you use her again to make yourself feel powerful or important. You think you're a god- there's a real god watching all this. Oh, no- not the one they told you about in church, back when you were a child, when someone tried to teach you right from wrong, when someone thought you might still be worth saving. Not the one who forgives your sins. This god is Heimdall the Guardian, the All-Seeing, and the thing you need to know about him is, he's a bit like Father Christmas: he sees you when you're sleeping, and he knows when you're awake. He knows if you've been bad or good." She leaned into Owen's ear and spoke with quiet menace: "So be good, for goodness sake."
Owen seemed unable to take his eyes off her, like a mouse frozen under the gaze of a snake. Annie's own lip curled as she studied him, taking his full measure and seeing it for the speck it really was.
Then she stepped back, finished with him, no longer interested, his fear and his future of no importance to her. In the kindly tone of one offering a last chance she fully expected him to waste, Annie said,
"My advice to you is, find a safe place, with locks, and bad dogs... and never ever turn out the light."
Owen swallowed, and then, from the basement stairwell, through the open door, there came a terrible humming growling noise, the sound of something huge and hateful and hungry. Owen stared, mouth falling further open, and from the corner of his eye Loki could see something emerge from the stairwell.
In her true form she stood no higher than Loki's knee, had flopped-over ears and a delicate, smiling face, her tail curled over her back and her soft fur fluffy-black, except for a white locket at her throat and endearing white toes on her forefeet.
Now, emerging from the darkness, sensing the intended threat to Annie and Annie's anger in return, the black dog was as tall as a large calf and equally burly, her ears carried tensely forward, rough black coat bristling from raised hackles, head up, brushy tail high and wagging slightly back and forth in a posture of confident threat. Her lips writhed back from her teeth, and the growl issuing forth was as loud and deadly as the song of a Merlin engine.
Moving deliberately, she stalked forward, eyes glowing crimson, pinning Owen in place, a creature meant to defend souls from the Devil himself, but more than willing to obliterate this minor annoyance if that was necessary to protect her new home.
Annie glanced casually down, as if this apparition was expected, extended her hand in greeting. The giant black dog moved stiff-legged to her side, and Annie rested a hand upon her head, fingers spread between the creature's ears, elbow bent in a relaxed posture owing to the size of the beast.
Owen whimpered, frozen in place, and the Grim opened her nightmare mouth in a frank snarl.
Annie looked at Owen and spoke her final words in a tone as devoid of pity as the ice fields of Jotumheim:
"Leave now, and don't come back- and just hope we don't take any further interest in you."
Owen looked from the Grim to Annie, swiftly past her to her friends, and back to Annie. He found no comfort anywhere. Annie inclined her head toward the door, and Owen went scuttling backwards as if she had used her powers on him. As he reached the door, Loki remembered something, and gestured. Owen shrieked as the spare keys to the house flew out of his pocket and into Annie's hand.
A moment later he had fled out the door and slammed it behind himself. Loki, whose senses were extremely sharp, could hear his whimpering flight down the dark and silent street, and he hoped every shadow held menace.
Annie let out a breath, and the little dog by her side leaped up with a laughing face, wagging her fluffy curled tail as she scrabbled at Annie's shins with her forepaws. Annie bent gracefully down to ruffle her fur. As she straightened, George let out a whistle.
"Annie," he said, inadequately. "You were- "
"Awesome," said Mitchell.
"Terrifying," said George.
"Wonderful," said Loki.
"All of the above," said Annie, with a mischievous smile. She looked up at the ceiling, called out, "Sorry, Heimdall, we don't really expect you to watch his every move!" and burst out laughing. Loki took two long strides toward her. As he reached her Annie threw her arms around his neck and, for the second time that day, Loki picked her up and whirled her around.
"I thought I'd be scared," she said, into the side of his neck. "Even after everything, I thought I'd be- I always used to be so scared of him. But I wasn't. It was as if... as if he'd never mattered. Not that he didn't matter anymore, but that he never had."
"Of course he never has," Loki said, mostly into the top of her head.
"You were pretty scary yourself," George was saying, in a shaky voice, as though he was unsure whether to be impressed or terrified. He stepped closer and Annie let go of Loki with one arm and threw it around him.
"Yeah, no kidding," Mitchell agreed, moving in to join the general embrace. "I was petrified of you, myself." Annie leaned over to bump her forehead gently against his temple, and all four of them tightened, then broke, the hug. Loki kept an arm around her, and Annie leaned into him with a sigh of relief.
"It's over," she said, letting her head lean back against Loki's shoulder. "It's really- I'm free of him. Free. I don't quite know what to do with myself."
"Sing," Loki teased, jostling her gently.
"Dance," said George, wiggling his fingers at Scamp to make her jump up on her hind legs and spin around.
"Guys?" Mitchell suddenly said, in a choked voice. The other three looked up at him and then, as one, turned in the direction he was looking.
The bookcase in the wall near the entryway had disappeared.
In its place, there was a door.