Chapter 111 - Wrong Address

Chapter 111: Chapter 111 - Wrong Address

Thor had been lucky that Loki agreed to help, although luck became difficult to distinguish from poor judgment once his brother not only joined but took over the plan. Since he had no idea what he would do after escaping Asgard, he did not refuse the more experienced Loki’s suggestions.

Thor had taken Loki from his repaired cell, and Lady Sif had removed Jane from the guarded chamber while Fandral and Volstagg occupied half the palace with an argument loud enough to qualify as a minor siege. Hogun had secured their route to the waiting vessel, and Heimdall, whose sight reached across the Nine Realms, had found something else to watch at precisely the necessary moment.

They had crossed the last concealed passage without an alarm and reached Svartalfheim alive. By Thor’s standards, the plan had worked perfectly.

Loki looked out across the barren realm from the mouth of the rock chamber. "Your friends lie with admirable enthusiasm and very little skill. Sif threatened to kill two guards while explaining that she had no reason to be near Jane’s chamber."

"They believed her."

"They believed the sword. There is a distinction."

Jane rested one hand against the stone wall. The false Aether had been quiet during their escape, but its dark pressure remained beneath her skin. "Can we celebrate after this thing is out of me?"

"A sensible proposal," Loki replied. "You should explain the concept to Thor when we survive."

Thor ignored him and studied the empty waste beyond the chamber. They had brought Jane to the realm with high hopes that Malekith would find his stolen weapon. Placing the prize beyond Asgard’s walls and Frigga’s throat. Loki’s plan depended upon the Dark Elf following the Aether’s signal.

The air above the plain darkened as a Dark Elf vessel descended through the cloud cover and held over the broken ground, its engines driving dust away from the rock chamber in widening circles. Smaller craft separated from its underside before the main ship had settled. Armoured figures emerged between the slabs of stone, with Kurse at their centre and Malekith following at his back.

The Dark Elf’s gaze found Jane before it found either prince. Hunger narrowed his face as the counterfeit inside her answered the force reaching for it.

"You brought it to me."

Thor tightened his grip around Mjolnir. "We brought you away from Asgard."

Loki moved before the last word left him, striking Thor between the shoulders and driving him to one knee. Mjolnir left his hand, hit the stone, and skidded beyond reach as Loki’s blade came to rest against the side of his neck. Jane recoiled, but Loki caught her by the arm and pulled her towards Malekith.

"You brought him away from Asgard," Loki corrected. "I brought you the Aether and the idiot carrying it."

Thor stared up at him. Loki’s expression gave him nothing. The plan would fail the instant Malekith saw a brother instead of a traitor.

Kurse struck Thor across the face and sent him rolling away from the hammer. The blow split the stone under him. Thor forced himself to remain down while Loki shoved Jane to her knees before Malekith.

"Take it," Loki urged. "Before he remembers that thinking is not required to summon lightning."

Malekith placed one hand above Jane’s chest, and the false Aether resisted extraction as Lucius had built it to resist every threat. Dark-crimson strands erupted from Jane and lashed across Malekith’s arm, but his power closed around them before they could withdraw. He drew steadily, pulling the counterfeit out through her skin in twisting ribbons until the final thread left her body and joined the mass turning above his palm.

Jane collapsed onto both hands and dragged in a breath without the parasite taking part of it.

Malekith closed his fingers around the dark-red substance and smiled too early.

Loki released Jane and drove his blade through the transformed creature’s back.

The point tore out beneath the transformed creature’s ribs. Loki leaned into the hilt, forcing it farther, and spoke beside the black ridges armouring Kurse’s head.

"Mother sends her regards."

Kurse did not fall.

One clawed hand reached behind him, closed around Loki’s shoulder, and pulled. Loki had enough time to recognise the miscalculation before Kurse drove the same sword through his chest.

Thor abandoned the performance as Mjolnir struck his palm. Lightning answered before he had risen, tearing through the Dark Elves between him and Loki while the hammer carried him across the broken ground. Malekith withdrew towards his vessel with the false Aether gathered around his hand. Kurse held Loki above the stone upon the length of the sword.

Loki’s mouth moved, and Kurse bent closer.

Loki raised one blood-covered hand between them. A small metal pin rested between his fingers.

The black-hole grenade fixed against Kurse’s waist triggered.

Space folded around the transformed Dark Elf. His body compressed towards a point that had no room for its strength, armour, or fury. Kurse held on to Loki, wanting to take down the traitor with him. He would have succeded has Thor not intervened.

Loki hit the ground.

Thor landed beside him and caught his shoulders. Blood spread beneath the torn armour faster than Thor could press a hand over the wound.

"Brother."

Loki’s eyes found him, then shifted towards the vessel carrying Malekith away. Whatever answer he attempted never reached his lips.

His body went still.

Jane reached Thor as the first spatial tear opened across the plain. The Convergence had begun pulling the boundaries between realms out of place. Broken views of streets, sky, and buildings flashed inside circles that appeared without warning and vanished just as quickly.

"Thor, we have to move."

Thor’s hands remained locked around his brother.

Another portal opened twenty feet away. Through it, Jane saw brick buildings, traffic lights, and people fleeing beneath a familiar grey sky.

"That’s London. Thor, we have to move, now!"

The next blast from the departing craft struck close enough to throw stone across Loki’s body. Thor lifted his brother from the ground, held him against his chest for one breath, then lowered him with care.

Jane took Thor’s arm. He followed her through the failing boundary a heartbeat before it closed.

They fell onto a street in Greenwich.

--

Lucius completed his farewells with considerably less bloodshed.

His Asgardian holiday had supplied a royal title, a residence, several feasts, bespoke Uru equipment, and enough enthusiastic female gratitude to depart feel professionally irresponsible. He left anyway. Earth contained his mansion, his laboratories, and a devastation where he would enjoy watching.

He reached the Bifrost observatory in fresh black clothing and found Heimdall waiting beside the mechanism.

"Champion," Heimdall greeted him.

Lucius enjoyed the title enough to let the formality stand. "Guardian. I require passage to my mansion in Sands Point. I have been absent long enough for someone to form an opinion about the landscaping."

Heimdall placed both hands upon Gjallarhorn.

Lucius did not move towards the centre. He wiggled his eyebrows instead.

"The Guardian watched ten trillion souls. He could follow lives across the Nine Realms, see events hidden beyond ordinary distance, and distinguish danger from the smallest disturbance. Somehow, while Lady Sif and the Warriors Three moved two princes and one Midgardian prisoner out of Asgard, the most watchful man in creation had overlooked all three."

The muscle beneath Heimdall’s right eye twitched.

Lucius gave him a broad, shit-eating grin. "No concern, my vigilant friend. Your secret is safe with me."

"I have entrusted you with no secret."

"Precisely, and your discretion is already improving. Now send me to my mansion in New York, preferably the grounds, because the staff become excitable when seven feet of unexpected man appears in the kitchen."

Heimdall turned Gjallarhorn, and the Bifrost struck before Lucius could decide whether the Guardian’s silence counted as surrender. Light enclosed him, the observatory vanished, and the journey ended with his boots touching an unfamiliar London street.

An explosion rolled between the buildings as Lucius looked towards the dark vessel descending over Greenwich, then at the civilians running past him. A car had lodged nose-first in the front of a shop. Dark Elves advanced through smoke farther down the road, and the air above the intersection kept opening into views of places that were very much not London.

The placement was too exact to qualify as a navigational error. Heimdall had returned the grin with interest.

"Sands Point," he repeated.

Lucius faced the sky and raised both hands in a sequence of gestures that communicated his opinion. Halfway through, he remembered that Heimdall’s greater sight could not find him. The bastard had arranged the insult so he could not even appreciate the response.

A man in a grey coat ran close enough to become useful.

Lucius caught him around the neck with one hand and lifted him until their eyes met. He kept the man’s windpipe open. Gratitude lost some of its sincerity when the recipient suffocated before expressing it.

"Listen carefully. Raise your head towards the sky and shout whatever I tell you."

The man’s gaze moved from Lucius’s face to the hand holding him above the pavement. "Why?"

"Because Heimdall cannot see me, whereas you are wonderfully ordinary."

The man considered the explanation, the burning street, and the Dark Elf vessel in the distance. "Right. What do I shout?"

Lucius loosened his grip enough for volume.

"Heimdall, you smug shitstain of a watcher."

The man stared until Lucius raised one eyebrow.

The civilian threw his head back. "Heimdall, you smug shitstain of a watcher!"

"Good projection. Continue. Next time I am up there, you had better be prepared for a well-deserved ass-kicking, you son of a bitch. Why am I in the middle of a Dark Elf invasion?"

The man shouted every word towards the clouds with the commitment of someone who suspected an unsatisfactory performance review might involve being thrown at the spaceship.

Lucius lowered him gently onto the pavement and straightened his coat.

"Thank you. Your assistance has been noted."

The man nodded once and resumed running.

The nearest Dark Elf was still advancing when Lucius called his armour. Black plates closed around him in one violent motion, crimson light sealed the seams, and the horned skull faceplate locked over his head. Dreadspire arrived in Lucius’s hand as the ragged cloak settled behind him. The Dark Elf stopped, studied the result, and chose another street while Lucius rose above the road and red light climbed the staff’s runic paths.

A portal opened beside a double-decker bus and dropped a six-legged creature across its roof. The animal dug four sets of claws into the metal, screamed at a second portal floating above the road, and received a flock of translucent birds directly in the face. Farther down the street, something covered in blue fur chased three Dark Elves through a tear that showed an upside-down forest beyond it.

Lucius watched the Dark Elf vessel settle over Greenwich while humans, invaders, and misplaced wildlife competed for the same burning intersection.

"Let them solve their own fucking problems."