Thank you again for all your reviews! I'm sorry I couldn't get back to you all this time, but I'm struggling a bit and writing this chapter's taken all my energy! So I'll tell you all here that I love you instead!

o

Chapter Sixteen:

What Samhain Brings

Efanna silently wriggled her way under Loki's arm as they sat on the sofa watching the fire. Loki didn't bother to push her away. He knew why she sought such physical closeness from him. Although he would never admit it, Loki understood the comfort such an action could provide. Efa looked up at him and he could see the shadow of the pain that still haunted her white eyes after the previous night's Vision.

Neither broke the silence as they watched the clock on the mantle slowly tick away the remainder of the day. There was a certain heaviness to the atmosphere. The sense one gets during the calm before a storm. They were all aware of it, even the dog, who had spent the evening staring fixedly into the distance with his ears pricked, as though waiting for something to suddenly emerge. Although it was warm in the room, and Efanna's cheeks glowed from the heat of the fire, Loki often noticed her shiver, and whenever she did so, her dog let out a small whine.

As the clock crept towards the last few minutes before the midnight hour, Efanna stood up suddenly and paced to the seldom used door that connected the kitchen to the cottage's garden. Loki followed to find her standing just beyond the threshold in the light of the newly waning moon, her arms wrapped around her torso. There was not even the slightest breeze to ripple her hair or the long, flowing dress she wore.

"Can you feel it?" she asked without turning her head, her voice hushed.

"Feel what?" Loki asked from the doorway. There was certainly something nagging at his senses, but he did not know this realm like Efanna, and wanted her explanation as to what she felt was wrong.

"I don't know," she whispered, "Just… something. The air doesn't feel right. It's too still. It's like, somehow, the world itself is waiting for something."

She turned back to him and he saw her fingers were gripped tight on her arms.

"I don't like it," she admitted.

Loki's brow furrowed. From what he knew of her, he did not think Efanna the type to scare easily and yet she was clearly unsettled.

"I sense something," he agreed, "But in this form, without my magic, I cannot say what."

Efanna nodded slowly, placing one hand around the charm about her neck. Then she walked back towards him, locking the door behind her and moving to stand in front of the clock above the fire as the hands slowly moved upwards. Loki watched her carefully before crossing the room to stand next to her. Looking down he saw her eyes were distant, fixed on the clock but somehow staring through it as the final seconds of the day passed.

The moment all three hands met at the top she let out a sudden gasp and collapsed. The skin under Loki's fingers as he caught her was as cold as ice.

o

An icy mist. Freezing, pallid, dense. Within it shapes move, indistinguishable in their frozen shroud, but with purpose, with a sense of triumph.

Loki's form emerges from the fog, blue skin and red eyes. The image splits; in one instance he extends a hand, in the other he turns away.

Reflections of faces flicker as the mist swirls. Efanna, Loki, Thor, Natasha, Clint, Bruce, Tony, Steve. They are cold, dead, frostbitten and then full of life and energy, of rage and battle.

The mist creeps across valleys, hills, fields, rivers, roads, towns, cities, deserts, oceans.

Two possibilities fight for dominance.

In one, a group of lost souls stand together. To protect the Earth and the ones they love, or die trying. A ray of warm sunshine breaks through the mist.

In the other, the mist envelops the Earth and everything turns to frost in its path until no life remains except that of the creatures in the fog.

Efanna woke with a gasp in Loki's arms, her lungs burning with cold, the feel of his skin like fire against hers. Within seconds she was shivering and pressing herself against Loki, desperate for the warmth he held that her body seemed to have lost. She felt him move her towards the fire and simply lay limp in his arms until it no longer hurt to breathe and she could once again feel her fingers and toes.

When finally she could move she turned to face him, wondering whether she could answer the question in his green eyes. That Vision was different. They should not affect her in that way. She should not have been touched by the cold of the mist she had Seen.

"What happened?"

Loki's tone was urgent and Efa could tell he knew something was amiss. His green eyes were locked onto hers.

"I don't know," she mumbled, her voice raw in her throat, "There was a mist, and cold, a cold that somehow enveloped the Earth until it could rival Jötunheim."

Loki's eyes hardened at the sound of the planet he descended from.

"Was that all?"

"No… There were forms in the fog, some sort of creature that I couldn't make out. And… There were images… They flickered so fast I could barely catch them. You were there, and me, and the … others. In some we fought, in some we fell."

Efanna's mind reeled as she considered what she'd Seen, but there was something else pressing on her awareness, urgently, demanding her attention. She saw Loki was about to question her further but she jumped to her feet as her senses cried out at her.

"Can you feel it?" she asked for the second time that night. This time though her voice was demanding rather than hesitant.

The atmosphere that had so disturbed her before had changed. It was oppressive now, she could feel it closing in around them, heavy and insistent and cold.

"Feel what?" he asked cautiously.

"Don't play stupid with me, Loki!" she snapped, unnerved by her Vision and the change she could sense in the world, "You may not have your magic but you still have your mind! If I can notice the change then you must be able to. Tell me what you feel and what you think has caused it. Your knowledge in this matter far exceeds mine."

Loki considered her for a moment, his eyes serious.

"There is a … presence here on Midgard that I had not felt previously," he answered slowly, "In this form my senses are weak and without my magic I cannot tell you more, but I can tell that it is there. What it is and why it has suddenly appeared I cannot say."

He trailed off into thought and Efanna watched him intently, her own mind racing as she tried to understand what had just happened. She noticed that Pip now stood alert, his fur on end and his hackles raised.

"We both felt something before, and we both agree that it has now changed," Loki mused aloud, pacing back and forth in thought, "I think the timing of your Vision was also significant. You will agree the nature of it was different too – your body temperature is not normally affected so. Although we were both distracted at the time, I would be willing to wager that the moment this … presence changed was the same moment at which your Vision struck."

"Midnight," Efa whispered, "Midnight on Samhain."

"Exactly. Given what you told me about Samhain, how it is the time when 'the veil between worlds is at its thinnest', I think you put it-"

"You think something crossed into this world from another."

o

"… And this current bout of cold weather continues, with temperatures once again struggling to rise above freezing for most of the country. There are road closures across Britain as heavy snow continues to fall throughout the north of the country and across Wales, some reaching as far south-"

"This is not normal weather for the beginning of November," Efa said, turning the TV off.

"I can only imagine that somehow, whatever it is that entered this realm has caused some change in the atmosphere which is disrupting local weather patterns," Loki theorised.

"It's a very widespread 'local' – it seems the whole northern hemisphere's suffering the same sudden cold snap. Well, at least we don't have to worry about the ice-caps melting anymore…"

Efanna sat flicking through various news and weather websites on her laptop as the snow drifted down past the window. They'd already had a good eight inches over the last four days and it didn't look likely to stop. The skies had clouded over by the time she and Loki had finally made it to their beds on Samhain and they hadn't cleared since. Efa looked up from her armchair to see Loki standing at the window, watching the snow fall with a sour look on his face.

"To change the weather systems of half the planet… That takes a significant amount of power," he muttered, half to himself, "Are you sure your Visions have told you nothing else of these creatures?"

Loki turned to her and fixed his eyes upon hers. Efa sighed.

"No, just the mist, I can never See past it," she told him, "Only what's left when it's gone…"

Her voice trailed off as she remembered the attacks she had Seen. Bodies deformed and blackened with frostbite, buried in snow and ice; men, women and children. She would See several of these attacks a day. They had started small, just a person or two, wandering alone in the hills or mountains in the coldest parts of the world, but they were becoming more violent. More and more people were being attacked at a time and they were spreading south, towards more closely inhabited regions. The worst she had Seen had been an entire village in one of the more remote regions of Alaska.

"Do you know of any creature that could do this?" she asked carefully.

"You mean, do I think it's the Frost Giants?" Loki countered with venom.

"I mean what I say Loki," she told him firmly, "If you think it's Frost Giants then tell me, but I ask if you know of anything else."

Loki's gaze remained hard and his jaw clenched. Efa set aside her laptop and went over to him, reaching up to put one hand on his cheek.

"You know I won't think any differently of you if it is Frost Giants, Loki," she assured him passionately, "You know I love you anyway. Nothing could change my opinion of you."

She held his gaze and watched as his eyes gradually softened, even if only slightly.

"I do not believe it to be Frost Giants," he told her finally, "The attacks you have Seen do not match their style of killing. And I know of no way they could produce this 'mist' you mention so much."

He sighed and turned away, back to the window and the drifting snow.

"There are no creatures in the Nine Realms which fit your description, but there are worlds beyond of which even Heimdall knows not. These creatures could easily be from one of them, as the Chitauri were."

"You think they could be working with Thanos?" Efa asked. She noticed Loki flinched at the name.

"I doubt it. If they were, I would know of it by now," he answered darkly, "And I suspect you would have Seen him in your Visions."

"Well that's something at least," she muttered before the room before her swam and reformed.

It is dark. The snowflakes drift lazily through the sky to settle on the freezing courtyard where the old Land Rover is parked. Beyond the billows of snow an ominous mist creeps up the lane.

There are two figures and a dog in the courtyard, and a third figure who is not always there. When Loki and Efanna stand alone the mist envelops them. When Iron Man is at their side it is driven back.

Efa woke as Loki was laying her down on the sofa. She took a moment for her Vision to settle in, but the urgency of it overtook her. This was going to happen soon. They had only hours until the mist would be at their door and neither she nor Loki could do anything about it. They needed Stark.

"Well this is going to be interesting," she muttered, just as Loki was about to ask her what she'd Seen.

"What is?" he asked cautiously, but Efanna ignored him for a moment, jumping up and running to get the seldom used phone that sat under the stairs.

She cast back through her mind, using her mother's tricks and shuffling through her memories until she found the one that she wanted. Then she keyed in the number her memory showed her, wincing at the thought of how much it was going to cost. Just before she pressed 'call' she turned to Loki, who was watching her suspiciously.

"Loki," she said, trying to make her voice as calm and earnest as possible, "Please, whatever happens next, just trust me, okay?"

She winced slightly at his expression. He was not going to like this.

"Please?" she repeated, pleadingly. Loki simply raised one eyebrow at her.

Efa sighed and pressed the button, keying in a particular code as soon as the line connected. It rang three times before her call was answered.

"Who is this?"

Tony Stark's voice sounded suspicious. Not that surprising really.

"There's no point in me telling you that, you don't know me anyway," Efa said hurriedly, "Just go put your suit on, I need your help."

"Not until you tell me who you are."

Efa sighed with irritation. She could feel the time until her Vision ticking away and of course, Tony just had to be awkward.

"Efanna," she replied, only a little snappily. She risked a glance at Loki, whose gaze was getting stonier by the minute as he realised whom she was talking to.

"And who's she when she's at home?"

"I told you you wouldn't know, just put the suit on will you?"

"Look, I don't know if you realise the situation here," Tony drawled from the other end of the line, "You see-"

"I've just called one of the most secure numbers in the world, which only members of 'The Avengers' know, or at least they would if you'd gotten around to telling them already, but as it is, it's pretty much just you, me, Pepper and Jarvis and I shouldn't even know it at all so how the hell am I managing to call you?" Efa rattled off at high speed.

"Uh, yeah," he replied, sounding surprised, "You mind telling me how you did get this number?"

"You gave it to me," she told him offhandedly.

"I pretty sure I didn't sweetheart, like you said, I've not even given it to who I'm supposed to yet."

"Yeah well, you haven't given it to me yet."

"I thought you said I had."

"You haven't given it to me yet; well you sort of have, but from your point of view you haven't, from my point of view you did years ago, and from out joint point of view you are going to sometime in the future. Fairly soon I think."

There was a pause from Tony's end of the line.

"You realise that that makes absolutely no sense, don't you?" he asked.

"It makes perfect sense," Efa replied, "You just don't understand it yet."

"O-kay," Tony started, quite obviously thinking she was insane.

"Look, just put your bloody suit on will you?" she asked with another worried look at Loki, "Surely the fact that I've managed to call you on this line means I'm worth checking out anyway, and if you don't get going right now there won't be anything to check out anymore."

"What d'you mean?" he asked, for the first time starting to sound serious.

"You know this recent cold weather and those attacks S.H.I.E.L.D. are checking out? I know you know about them, you're bound to have hacked their system. Well I can give you information on them. Come and get me and I'll tell you anything you want to know, that's as long as I know it in the first place; but if you don't come and get me right now then there won't be anything to come get but a blackened, icy corpse."

"How do you know all this? Where do you get your information?"

"I'll tell you when you get here, just get a move on will you? Oh and tell S.H.I.E.L.D. to send a jet too, your suit isn't really built to take passengers."

There was another pause and Efa knew Tony was checking out several things on his many computers and making his decision.

"Fine," he answered curtly, "But this better be worth it sunshine. Where are you?"

"You mean you haven't already traced my location from the phone line? I'm disappointed, Stark, I would've thought you'd've had that done within seconds."

Efa heard him make a noise that sounded half annoyed, half impressed.

"Okay, you got me on that one," Tony admitted, "I've got your location, and I've gotta say you look like you're in the middle of nowhere, but anyway, if I leave now – ETA … roughly 17:20 GMT."

"Right, about four hours," she confirmed, comparing that to the sense of time from her Vision, "You should just about make it in time. Is S.H.I.E.L.D. sending the jet yet? I'm sure you've already patched this call through and they're not as fast as you."

"When I get there you and I are going to have a long talk, missy."

"I look forward to it," Efa said, about to hang up before adding, "Oh yeah, and watch out for fireworks, it's bonfire night, though I'm not sure if there'll be that many displays with this weather."

She hung up before he could reply and slowly turned to face Loki. There was probably more warmth in the snow outside than in his gaze.

"Remember what I said about trusting me?" Efa asked cautiously.

Loki walked towards her, his movements careful and slow, as though he was very deliberately restraining himself. He raised one hand and wrapped his fingers around her neck, but didn't squeeze. At least not yet.

"Explain," he demanded, his tone as dark as his eyes.

Efanna ignored the hand around her neck and reached up to touch Loki's face. He tried to pull away, but couldn't without letting go of her, so he gave in and let it rest there.

"I'm saving our lives," she told him, "My Vision – what I Saw – these creatures, whatever they are must have found out about us, or me. They're coming here. It won't be long before they reach us. Neither of us can do anything to defend against them, not as we are. I Saw two possibilities, one where Stark was there, one where he wasn't. If he comes we live, if he doesn't we die."

"And S.H.I.E.L.D.?" Loki questioned. He kept his hand at her neck, but his tone and eyes had lost their edge.

"They were already investigating, and we both knew it was only a matter of time before we became involved with them," Efa explained, "And you'll note that I said nothing about you. I'm not just handing you over to them. If you wanted you could leave, although I really hope you don't. We need you, Loki; I need you."

Loki considered her for a moment and she almost wished that she hadn't offered him the chance to leave. She didn't know what she'd do if she lost him now. Slowly his fingers uncurled themselves from around her throat and he stood back.

"You know I have nowhere else to go," he said slowly.

Efanna breathed a sigh of relief and stepped forwards to hug him. After a moment she felt his arms meet around her back.

"Thank you," she whispered, "I don't know what I'd do without you."

He looked down at her at that confession, his green eyes puzzled. She gave him a little smile and placed her hand back on his cheek.

"I'm afraid there's something else I need you to do," she told him, "And you're not going to like it."

Loki's eyes hardened again.

"What?" he asked her.

Efanna bit her lip and hesitated before she said, "I need you to call for Thor."

She felt Loki's grip around her stiffen and bit her lip harder.

"What need have we for Thor?" he asked, his voice angry, "You have already called on the man of iron."

Efa stroked his cheek gently.

"The battle that lies ahead of us," she told him, "It is beyond every one of us alone, and if we do not all stand together there is no hope and Earth is lost – with us upon it. We need everyone Loki, not just Thor, but you and I as well."

"What use am I, in this mortal form?" Loki asked bitterly, "And why should I want to save this pathetic world?"

"Because if you let it die then you will die with it," Efa told him sadly, "But I hope you might find more reasons than just that."

Loki looked into her eyes for a long time, and although she could not define what was going on within their green depths, Efa knew the strength of the emotions he felt. She kept her hand on his cheek and took it as a hopeful sign that he did not remove his arms from around her back.

"Why must I call for him and not you?" he questioned finally.

"Heimdall is watching you; he will pay more attention to your plea than he would mine, as will Thor."

Loki fell silent once again, but Efanna was glad he was at least considering her request.

"Please?"

Loki sighed and Efa smiled.

"Very well," he agreed reluctantly, "I cannot guarantee that he shall come however."

"I can."

She gave him a squeeze and a small kiss on the cheek to say thank you. He looked perplexed for a moment and then turned from her, raising his head and voice to the ceiling, and beyond that, the universe.

"Heimdall!" he cried, "I know you are listening! Tell Thor that he must join me here, on Midgard. Tell him he must hurry and that his precious Earth will fall if he does not!"

So, the Avengers are on their way! Or at least one of them is. We have now reached stage two of my PLAN! so things are all change from here on! As ever, let me know what you think, your reviews are what keep me writing when my various health problems rear their ugly heads (more than usual)!

Oh, and do any of you have any good ideas for nicknames that Stark might give Efa (both before and after he knows of her Visions)? I suck at nicknames!