The theme song for this chapter is "Scarlet" by In This Moment, which is kind of my new favorite band. They get a bit too screamy at points, but this song doesn't.
Chapter 65: Hocus Pocus
Clint and Loki sat staring at the warehouse the town car had led them to. The jeep was parked in an alley which afforded them a view of the entrance. Two men stood guard outside it, and Clint was watching them through his binoculars.
"I don't like this," Loki murmured at last.
"What, being stuck here with me? Not really my favorite hobby either," he bitched.
"No," Loki frowned, trying to assess the link between him and Natasha without the use of his magic. "Something feels off about the spell. I feel sluggish, like it's draining me."
Clint lowered the binoculars and gave Loki his full attention. "Why would it do that?"
"If she is truly unconscious, the connection may be pulling energy to help her wake up," he reasoned. "I could tell more if I switched, but She doesn't much care for appearing in the middle of a mission."
He shrugged. "Can't much blame her, besides, I would know you were lying." He sighed. "Look, even if she really is knocked out, you gotta trust that she can take care of herself. She's way more experienced at this than either of us put together. She can get out of anything, trust me."
The corner of Loki's mouth twitched, but he resisted the urge to relieve Clint of that illusion. "I still don't like it," he grumbled instead. "It goes against everything in me to let her go in there unprotected."
Clint stared at him, surprised at the depth of emotion in Loki's voice. It was an emotion he could relate to well.
Before he could speak, though, the radio crackled and they heard Trent issue a series of orders that neither of them much liked the sound of.
Snick, snick, snick. The sound was the first thing Natasha was aware of. Snick, snick. It sounded familiar, and she tried to name it. The next thing she was aware of was the brush of cold metal against her leg. Snick, snick, snick. Scissors, she thought, and opened her eyes just a little. The room around her was still blurry, but she saw in front of her a small altar with a dish of black liquid on it. She could feel, now, that her hands were bound together above her head. Whoever had done it was an idiot, because her wrists were touching instead of tied separately. Given enough time, she could get out of it easily. Unfortunately, her ankles were also tied to something, apart, and if she dropped she might hurt herself badly. She tried to pull on them to see how tightly, when the snicking sound stopped.
"Awake, are we?" came a voice. The inflections were the same as Trent's, but the tone was all wrong. The smooth tenor had risen to a creaky alto.
She opened her eyes fully, and saw before her the pimply, bespectacled face of someone who might have been Trent Ashburn's little brother. Maybe... if all the good genes had gone to one brother and... Natasha stopped the wandering path of her mind, trying to focus. It was then that she realized where the sound of scissors was coming from. Her shirt and bra were missing, and there was a cut halfway up the left side of her pants. She let her fear and confusion show through - after all, it had worked on Loki - and played it up a little.
"Trent?" she asked.
He made an odd snorting sound that was probably supposed to be a laugh. "The name's Pierce. Kyle Pierce. Most people just call me Pierce."
Who does he think he is, James Bond? she wondered. Because he sounds more like Forrest Gump.
"Trent is my alter-ego. Wearing his face is fun, but it itches." As if to illustrate, he reached up and scratched at a zit. "Appearances can be deceiving, you know." After delivering this earth-shattering revelation, he bent down and resumed cutting up her pant leg. "You're lucky. Most of the girls don't wake up until I'm done. You get to see the fireworks show. Not that you'll remember any of this, of course."
"What are you doing?" she demanded.
"It's part of the spell. Don't worry, they go back together when it's done. But I get to enjoy the view in the meantime," he waggled his eyebrows at her.
Ugh, Natasha thought, and tried to see how her feet were bound, but Pierce was in the way. As he continued to cut the fabric of her jeans, she realized that he was going to cut through the waistband-and therefore the wire Stark had made for her. She had to get as much info out of him as quickly as she could.
"Why are you doing this?" she let her voice sound panicked.
"You know those explosions in New York last month?" He glanced up to see her expression. "My work," he crowed.
Wow. This kid is an idiot. How the hell did he plan all this himself?
"Do you know how many places I applied to work? Fourteen! And none of them would take me. I'm going to MIT next fall, and I need the money, you know? Well, not now. Now I can get all the money I want. But that still didn't give them the right to snub me." By now he had finished cutting all the way up one side, and bent down to start on the other.
Eбать-копать! she thought. Fourteen?! Here they had been thinking that he had already attacked all of his intended targets, but now she realized he must be limited to five each time. Looking at the altar before her, she spotted a pentagram symbol on it, with small stones on each point. Two of them were red, and the other three clear.
Before she could think of anything else to ask him, there was a louder snick as Pierce cut through the waistband of her jeans - and the wire.
Out in the jeep, Loki and Clint cringed as there was a loud squeal, and then the radio went silent.
"What was that?" Loki asked.
"Wire must have been damaged somehow," Clint reasoned.
Loki did not like the sound of that. "I should go in," he argued.
"What, and those guards are just going to let you by?" he rolled his eyes.
"I'll think of something," Loki argued, getting irritated.
"You can't lie," Clint reminded him unnecessarily.
"I can still bluff, and," he reached into the back seat and pulled out his walking stick. "I can always use this, instead," he suggested with a grin.
The archer seemed to waver for a moment, but hesitated. "Not yet. Not until we're sure she needs our help."
Loki sighed, exasperated, and stared up at the roof of the car.
Pierce finished pulling the remains of Natasha's panties away, and grinned. "Good to see the carpet matches the drapes," he joked.
The sooner I can get my hands around his scrawny neck... she thought to herself. He was leering at her and for a moment she thought he might actually touch her. A sound of rustling paper came from behind her, and he scowled.
"Yeah, yeah, I know. No touching the sacrifices," he whined, and turned away from her. Only now could she see that her feet were tied to a bar which stood up from the ground by two supports. It would not work well if she wriggled her arms free.
He said a few words over the altar. They sounded like Latin, and even though she did not understand them, Natasha could tell he was pronouncing them badly. She rolled her eyes, once more amazed that such a loser could have successfully committed such a heinous act. With another few words, Pierce turned back, though, a knife in his hand and a strange glint in his eye, she thought maybe he was just insane. That would explain it.
"Now," he grinned, pointing the tip of the knife into her navel, where a scar would not show. "This is going to hurt you more than it hurts me," he joked.
Natasha resisted the urge to laugh. If she had a dollar for every schmuck who said that before torturing her, she could take Stark out to dinner. The laughter inside her died, though, as she felt the point of the knife slowly start to dig into her skin. It wasn't very sharp, she realized with dismay.
Suddenly, Loki doubled over, clutching his stomach.
"What?" Clint asked, alarmed.
Loki looked up at the warehouse, then at Clint. "Someone has just performed blood magic on her," he said in a low voice.
It was all Barton needed to hear. "Go," he said.
Once the channel in the middle of the knife had filled with her blood, Pierce had turned, uttered some more hocus pocus, and let the blood fall into the dish. At first, nothing happened. He held his arms outstretched, as if expecting something spectacular. Instead, the black liquid started to bubble and smoke. He snatched out the stone, which was now black as well, and turned.
"You little whore," he said accusingly. "So, you'll put out for one guy, but not the other, huh?" He waggled a finger at her.
Natasha said nothing. What could she, in the face of such flawed logic?
"No matter." He chucked away the black stone and pulled another clear one from a container beneath the altar, putting it back in it's spot. "I'll just find something else to do with you," he looked her up and down, leering again.
Once again, it sounded as if paper was being rustled around behind her, and this time Pierce went to investigate with a sigh. "No, that one's boring," he whined, as if speaking to someone else. "Can't I just fuck her? What's the point of being a sorcerer if I can't get some? You said if I did what you asked I could have any girl I want. Well I want her."
Natasha couldn't help but think he sounded like a child whining for candy. Inwardly, she dared him to get close enough to try it, and see if he didn't get a surprise.
"Oh don't give me that bullshit about conserving my sexual energy again. It's bad enough you won't let me fap, now you-" he stopped mid sentence and she could hear pages being turned.
Was there someone else in the room with them? Natasha listened closely but could only hear Pierce's mouth breathing, only his clothes rustling as he moved. As far as she could tell, they were alone.
"Hmmm... that does look interesting," Pierce said grudgingly.
Outside, Loki sauntered up to the guards. "Excuse me, but could I use your telephone?" he asked, laughing. "I left my cell at home, and I really need to contact my girlfriend." There. All of that was true.
The guards turned to face him, but said nothing. How could they, when their identical, lumpy faces had no mouths? Golem, Loki thought, and twirled his walking stick. "Oh well, I'd rather kill you anyway," he sneered, and slammed the ball bearing down on the pavement, coming back up with naginata in hand.
Recognizing him as a threat, the golem stepped forward to attack. Loki just smiled. He'd been itching for a fight for some time.
Pierce held the knife poised, the tip his tongue sticking out between his lips in concentration as he squinted at something behind her. "Ok, so it's up..." he sliced the skin over her sternum in a shallow cut, and she hissed in pain. "...then across..." he shifted his grip on the knife to make another cut perpendicular to the first, and she bit down on a whimper. The blindfold was not helping.
He grinned. "Oh yeah, you think you're a toughie, don't you?" he teased. "Just you wait. This is a very complicated sigil." He placed the tip of the blade for another cut, when suddenly an alarm started to blare. He jumped, poking her with the knife badly.
"Shit," his eyes darted around the room. "Oh shit," he repeated. He dropped the knife, darted behind her, and she could hear a large book being slammed shut and then picked up. The door in front of her was unlocked, and then opened. Without another word, the creep left.
"Well great," Natasha sighed, and began the process of trying to get her feet on top of the bar they were tied to.
Loki had decapitated twelve golem so far, and started to worry. The resources necessary to create an army of the clay figures were considerable. Fortunately, they seemed to have been made recently, as they still held some moisture. If he could get a hold of them, he could freeze them solid. But it took time which he did not have. The burning in his chest told him something unpleasant had happened to Natasha. Someone was going to pay for that.
With a cry of frustration, Loki flipped over one of the guards, and began to run. He could fight them on the way out, he reasoned. He had only the tug of the spell to guide him towards Natasha, which told him a general direction, but not how to get through the maze of hallways. At last he came to a reinforced door, slightly ajar. He threw himself through it, turned, and slammed it shut, locking it.
"Loki?" Natasha asked hopefully. She had felt him coming closer, the rune on her ankle warm under the ropes with the echoes of his anger.
Loki turned and felt his breath catch. For a moment, he could not move. Then he cursed, and rushed forward, carefully avoiding the altar. He used the naginata to cut through the ropes binding her feet to the bar, and then dropped it so he could reach up and lift her arms off the hook she hung from. She fell against him, and he clutched her tightly and sunk to the floor.
"Loki." It wasn't a question this time, and he pulled back far enough to see her face, lifting the blindfold. "Thanks," she said, and held up her hands. "Help me with these?" Her voice was only a little shaky.
He began working at the sloppy knots, cursing under his breath as he did so. Natasha chose to remain silent, surprised by his anger. Once her hands were free, Loki's cool fingers soothed the irritated skin, numbing the pain as they turned slightly blue. She sighed in releif, and Loki's eyes flitted to the half-drawn sigil between her breasts. The cuts had already begun to heal.
"Are you alright?" he asked, voice rough with emotion.
"Sure," she joked. "Never better."
His hands had returned to their normal color, and he slid them around to her back. Leaning down, he carefully kissed the angry lines, smearing them a little and hating himself for loving the feel of her blood against his lips.
Natasha buried her hands in his hair. This was not the time or place, she knew, but she could feel through the link how badly he wanted to make her his again. She wanted it, too, wanted to erase the memory of Pierce's sweaty palms with the touch of Loki's strong, subtle fingers. But she knew it was only a matter of time before someone - possibly Clint - tried to break down that door.
As if in response to her thoughts, there was a loud bang on the door. Loki jerked his head up and glared at it, nearly growling.
"Loki, we have to get out of here," she said softly. "Do you have a plan?"
He stood slowly, looking from the door, to the altar, to her, and then back to the door, coming full circle. "Yes," he lied.
A/N: Fun fact: The term "Hocus Pocus" was originally a blasphemous mispronunciation of the Latin words spoken by a priest to turn the bread into the body of Christ during the Eucharist, "Hoc est corpus meum." It likely became associated with magic in the medieval period, when satanic rituals and other "dark arts" were largely based on desecration of the Eucharist (and not, as is popularly believed now, on Pagan rituals).
I want to say thank you again to the several people who left me very thoughtful and detailed reviews in the last couple of days. This story went down in ratings pretty sharply (which means that several people actually un-followed the story) and I was pretty bummed. But then you guys came along and made it better!
Right now I'm super busy trying to study for an insurance exam so I can start a new job in a week. My buffer is almost nonexistent at this point, and I don't have a lot of time to build it back up. I may have to go to a once-a-week posting schedule, at least temporarily. But I think since I've been loyally posting twice a week since November this is probably excusable.
Again, thank you for all your wonderful comments!
