EPILOGUE ONE
Ellie Mahoney, a short stocky, squared shouldered woman with greying wavy brown hair, had been helping out at the synagogue food pantry, which was jointly run with a local Catholic and Methodist church. When she and Rosa Angelita returned to the homeless shelter (that her and her husband Mike managed together) that had been a Catholic school. Molly, the Jamaican head cook at the shelter, told her upon arrival of the two men found naked in the alley and the two women made for the nearest hospital, St. Martha's, where Mike and Dalip had taken them.
Ellie made quick inquiries at the nurse's desk as to where the men's rooms were then she and Rosa dashed off as fast as Ellie's flat feet would let her go. In the first room that they came to, numbered 4014, she found her husband Mike sitting in a chair in between two beds. The first bed had been occupied, but now was empty. In the other was the unconscious form of a young man. When she saw the young man's face, his strawberry blond hair, she halted, frozen in place. "Oh God…oh Christ almighty…" she gasped in uncomprehending shock.
Mike rose up from his chair; his facial expression of dread echoed the feeling in the pit of his own stomach when he first saw the near frozen, unconscious younger man. "Ellie, you know as well as I do that's not our Logan. They were through in the DNA testing of all the body par…the dead…our son is dead, dead and buried…"
"Then you explain to me how he could have MY SON'S FACE" she pointed at the prone figure in the hospital bed as tears of sorrow blinded her. Rosa said nothing as the young, Puerto Rican woman gently embraced the older white woman sympathetically. What could she say, for she'd often seen the picture of Logan Mahoney (that always sat on Ellie's tiny bedside table) looking so sharp and proud in his Marine uniform? He'd joined the Marines to be like both his parents, who were ex-marines, and had been killed fighting in Afghanistan. The Humvee he'd been riding in had been following the one that carried billionaire Tony Stark and a rocket, identified as being manufactured by Stark Industries, blew it to kingdom come. All they found were body parts and the Mahoney's lost their only son, their only child, but it was frightening to Rosa to see this young man, who indeed was the exact image of their long dead son.
The Midgardian nurse was bringing Balder back to his and Loki's room after going to what she had called an X-ray room and a strange machine hovered over his leg while the nurse stood behind a glass shielded corner of the room. She explained that they had taken pictures of the bones of his leg to determine the extent of the damage to it. Not knowing if he could trust these mortals Balder decided to play a child-like simpleton, hoping that his charade would forestall any questions about how he and Loki came to be at the school's alley and naked. The nurse was slowly leading him down the hall as he walked with the aid of crutches when he heard the cries of a woman's anguished heart. He saw the man who'd brought them to this great house of healing rise from his chair to speak to the woman and Balder stopped when he heard what she said. He was just as confused as the mortal woman was; Loki looked exactly like her dead son?
Agent Phil Colson walked into the control room when Fitz phoned him to report a rather strange phenomenon that had abruptly appeared on their surveillance monitors. Fitz replayed the anomaly for Colson who asked "Show me where it set down."
With his fingers racing over the holographic key board Fitz tapped into a military satellite and began to trace the energy signature until it showed an old, run down Catholic school and two naked men in a back alley. The two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents watched as people came out of the school building and quickly took the two naked men into the school.
"Do you suppose their two Asgardians?" the young science officer theorized to Colson, "What would they be doing, naked and outside an old school?"
"I don't know" Colson replied with a deadly serious look upon his face "but I'm going to investigate…by myself."
With no further explanation Agent Phil Colson left.
"Where are we My Lady?" Magnus glanced about himself, barely controlling the terror that he felt. Both he and his newfound father, Ake, were waiting on the Lady Amora as she talked to Loki from where they were on Alfheim. When she vanished, she then reappeared seconds later, with a strange metal gauntlet covered with glowing stones of diverse colors. If that were not strange enough, the one called Loki had made them vanish and they were now in some wild and weird place of floating mountains and hills with a gold path of sorts weaving aimlessly through this dark realm. There seemed to be suns or planets, if that's what they were, shining in a black sky. There was nothing, at least nothing they could see, living in this strange realm.
"I have no idea boy" Amora slowly turned about to scan the horizons, "but we three seem to be alone."
"Even if we are not" the young thrall held up a sword he'd picked up from a fallen Einherjar "I will protect you My Lady, to my dying breath."
Amora would have laughed at the way the sword shook in the boy's grip, as she knew he'd never held one in his life before, if it had not been for the serious look on his handsome face. The youth meant what he said though and she would see to it that he would be well rewarded for his bravery and loyalty.
"What shall we do for shelter My Lady?" Ake inquired of his mistress. "This path seems to go nowhere and I see no hall or house wherewith to seek shelter or hospitality or food."
"I think I can take care of that my silly old bird" Amora said comfortingly to her old caretaker as she slipped the gauntlet over her right hand. Making a fist she commanded the road to rise up, expand and curl to form a dome large enough to house the three of them.
The doorway was tall and narrow, for protections sake in case there were dangers unknown. Amora walked into the dome and using the gauntlet fashioned two beds, the larger one for her, and a fireplace built in the middle of the room that blazed a mystic fire for their warmth, whose smoke escaped through an open grating in the ceiling. A few feet away from the fire, arising from the floor appeared a round table and fruit magically placed on it.
"Come now let us eat and sleep without fretting for we shall be safe" Amora smiled at her thrall attendants as she held up the gauntlet, "as long as I have this."