Here it is! The theme song is "In the End" by Black Veil Brides.
Chapter 83: In the End
"Wait, you're saying there's someone in the book?" Tony asked.
"Like a demon?" Rowena suggested.
"No, like a human," Loki explained.
Natasha frowned. "Is it Pierce?"
"I don't think so," Loki ran his hands over the book, looking thoughtful. "You said that when he-" he licked his lips, "when you infiltrated his hideout, it seemed like he was speaking to someone who wasn't there."
She nodded. "Arguing with someone, sounded like."
"I could try to speak with them," Rowena suggested. "I thought I sensed... something when I touched it, made my skin crawl. But it didn't speak to me, or seem like a sentient presence."
"No, and you're very lucky that you didn't try to. Although I suppose, being a Kvedjar you're probably naturally resistant to possession," he added absently. "Mr. Stark is probably too hard-headed for anything like that to work on him, fortunately," he joked.
"I'm sorry," Rowena interrupted. "What is a Kavedyar? Should I be insulted?"
"No," he said quietly, and he frowned. "A Kvedjar is a very rare kind of summoner. Typically summoning requires a lot of personal energy, especially if the spirit being summoned is unwilling. For a Kvedjar, though, it is nearly effortless, and comes naturally, untutored."
She blinked rapidly. "It fits, yes, but I've never heard of anything like that. Wouldn't it be in some culture's lore somewhere?" her voice was strained with yearning. How long had she searched to try and understand what she was?
He looked up at her, pity in his eyes. "They're not... I've only read about them in some very old, very well-protected books. It's a dangerous thing, you see. A child, able to summon any spirit they can think of. If they don't come to a nasty end when they summon an angry spirit they can't control, once they are discovered by the surrounding community they are usually either expelled or..."
She swallowed thickly. "Go on."
"Killed, or worse, used as a tool by a cult," he said shortly.
"Wow," she laughed humorlessly. "And here I was all torn up about how society viewed me as a crazy weirdo."
He quirked an eyebrow. "Quite. However, I think that your skills might be just what we need to take care of this little problem..." he tapped his fingers on the grimoire. "Tony, are we currently being monitored by SHIELD?"
"I have a recording in progress, but it's not live," he explained. "We were assigned this task, though, so Fury will be expecting updates hourly."
"Can you feed him false information?" Loki suggested.
Tony snorted. "Just because you're the god of lies doesn't mean you've got a corner on the market," he scoffed.
The corner of Loki's mouth quirked. "All right. For safety's sake, you'll need to stay outside the room, and we'll need to make sure that no one happens by accidentally."
"I can run interference," Natasha offered. "Convince anyone who shows up that they're not supposed to be here."
"You're not supposed to be here," Tony pointed out. "You're supposed to be on vacation."
She shrugged. "They don't need to know that. We're aiming for a delay, not total secrecy, right?" she looked to Loki.
"A couple hours and it won't make a difference whether they know," he agreed.
"Let's get to it, then," Tony suggested. "I'll be in the lab across the hall if you need me." He hurried for the door.
Natasha followed at a more sedate pace, pausing near Loki. "You have everything you need?" Her voice was serious, but there was a note of concern that marred her all-business facade.
He gave her a long look. "Yes, thank you," he said softly.
"You be careful," she warned, glancing at the grimoire.
Natasha was not one to show her feelings on her face, but over time Loki had learned to read her. He could see written there anger, disgust, and-surprisingly-fear. Whatever was in this book was responsible for what had happened to her, and for that he would bring down upon them whatever destruction and suffering he could possibly muster. He wanted to tell her this, to show her that he would make it right somehow, but he knew she would see it as unnecessary. So instead he said, "I will."
She touched his upper arm, briefly, and then left.
When the door had closed, Rowena smiled. "She loves you, you know," she said softly.
He smiled a moment, and though it was small, it was genuine. "Yes." He glanced back towards the door she had gone through. After a moment, he turned back, and plucked something out of the air. Rowena recognized it as her summoning square. "We will need to duplicate this on the floor," he explained, and then summoned some chalk as well.
They set to work copying the intricate design on the concrete floor. They made the shape first, and then one by one Loki quizzed Rowena as to the meaning and purpose of each of the symbols in the points of the star. Most of them he recognized, and kept the same, but some he elected to substitute with runes he was more familiar with.
Natasha was not having much difficulty guarding the lab. The lower levels of Stark Tower were not the sort of place that people wandered through aimlessly. She came across two security guards, who knew her on sight, nodded, and continued their routes. Other than that, she only encountered a single newbie who was trying to find a different lab. He didn't seem to recognize her, and when she gave him the correct directions, he smiled, thanked her, and left.
It was a good half an hour before anything of note happened. "Hey, Red," Tony's voice piped up in her ear. "We got a problem."
"What's the situation?" she asked quietly.
"You remember that SHIELD tracking device on your arm?"
Alone, she indulged in an eye-roll. "You didn't block the signal?"
"Of course I did," Tony sounded offended. "But you were here for two minutes and thirty-eight seconds before I got to it. Fury's asking questions."
"What did you tell him?" Natasha asked, trying to think of a plausible reason her tracker would show up for a couple minutes and then dissapear.
"I said I'm looking into it, but then he offered to come help," Now Tony really sounded insulted. "His ETA is ten minutes."
She frowned. "Great. What am I supposed to tell him?"
"You're the spy, you figure it out!" Tony said childishly, and cut the line of communication.
Natasha let out a long sigh, and began running through the options in her head.
"Ok, that's it," Rowena said, standing and brushing the chalk off her hands. "Now, how do you want to do this thing?"
Loki placed the book in the center of the design, careful not to step on any of the lines as he exited it. "You will initiate the summoning, and I will direct it. You're going to be the battery, I will be the processor."
She lifted her eyebrows, impressed with Loki's understanding of modern technology. "Makes sense." Taking a deep breath, she frowned at the book.
"Just focus on its presence," Loki said in a quiet voice. "Don't worry about a name or identity, just remember the sensation when you touched it," he encouraged her.
Luckily for Rowena, that was how she summoned all spirits—by essence and not name. Within moments, the lines on the floor began to glow, channels of energy pouring towards the center, pulling at the book.
Loki made an effort not to look seriously impressed, and failed. He watched as the energy coalesced around the book, rising up and slowly condensing into a human-shaped figure. It refused to resolve, though, and he took this as his cue to join in. Focusing on the resistant spirit, he reached out with his magic and caught it, several runes lighting up green in the dazzling white design. The effect was like barbed hooks sinking into the flesh of a slippery eel, and he heard Rowena gasp as she felt the spirit tug on the lines, struggling. He wrapped his hands around the glowing connection and pulled.
The spirit seemed to sense that he was overmatched, because it gave in and finally appeared. Rowena actually stumbled backwards and fell to her seat, like the winning side of a tug-of-war match. Loki jerked, but held his ground, as he had seen it coming. He locked eyes with the short, balding man in patchy old robes who floated a few inches above the grimoire.
"WHAT IS YOUR NAME?" Loki asked, and his words resonated with power, another few runes on the floor glowing red.
The spirit laughed. "Nice try," he jabbed in Middle English, "But I'm not that stupid. Don't teach your grandmother to suck eggs." His voice sounded like it came from far away, as if he stood at the end of a tunnel.
Loki smiled darkly. "I walked this realm for a millennia before your grandmother was born," he lied.
The old man peered at him, and whatever he saw convinced him Loki spoke the truth. "You're powerful, I'll give you that. But you're still not as powerful as the demon I trapped, what I made give me all that's in this book," he tapped the red leather cover with the toe of his translucent boot.
Loki straightened, his smile becoming more genuine and triumphant. "Then I already know your name, Dr. Faustus."
The spirit let out a string of oaths and curses.
"What?" Rowena blinked. "Not the Faust? I thought he was just a story... I thought, when you said Pierce was like Faust, you were just speaking metaphorically!"
Loki did not break eye contact with Dr. Faustus, but turned the rest of his body towards her slightly. "So did I. But it would seem the legend was born of more than a grain of truth. Isn't that right, Dr. Faustus?"
Faustus seemed to glow with pride. "Yes, I was quite tickled to find that my name had passed into legend," he admitted. "That stupid boy told me all sorts of wonderful tales that had been told about me."
Loki lifted an eyebrow. "Why did you choose Pierce as your emissary?" Loki asked.
Out of the corner of her eye, Rowena could see the red runes glowing again, but faintly. There was power in his question, but it was subtle, alluring. She swallowed thickly as its effects backwashed over the connection between her and Faust. It was the first time she had ever truly understood why he had been revered as a god.
The spirit scoffed. "I didn't choose him," he lamented. "He just happened to be the first idiot to open the book. I had hoped that I would eventually find a more suitable host, someone who would be more interested in my own ambitions than their own petty revenge."
"And what are your ambitions?" Loki led him on.
"Why, immortality, of course," the spirit spread his hands wide. "I managed the first step, to escape my dying body, by pouring my soul into the grimoire I had written. But this is hardly an existence worth having, only being able to influence someone who reads the book, and only if they are of the correct temperament. I had to find a way to get another body."
"Then why not possess Pierce in full? That is what you attempted on me, is it not?" Loki growled.
He chuckled. "Can you blame me for trying? Here at last was a truly immortal body, one which would never run the risk of the old devil calling in his debt. And what's more, it was already well-used to powerful magics, and would require no training. But alas, you seem already familiar with possession, enough to notice it's subtle pull."
"That I am," Loki ground out.
"But there's something more. Something I haven't seen before. I might still have managed, if I expelled your spirit first, but it would not budge. It was tied down to something, some kind of connection, newly forged but still very strong..." the old man mused.
Loki touched his sternum unconsciously, and smiled. "I came prepared," he lied again. "Tell me, before you came across me, what was your plan to get the demon you summoned off your back?"
Faust frowned and pressed his lips together, perhaps noticing for the first time that he was being compelled to speak. But the spell was too far advanced for him to resist it now. "I was dedicating souls to him, in the hopes that he would see them as the fulfillment of my debt."
"The virgins?" Loki asked.
"They were suitable to the boy's plan as well as mine, but any old soul would be sufficient to my cause. After all, this," he tapped his insubstantial chest, "isn't exactly as pure as the driven snow."
"So if you were to come across a victim that wasn't suitable to Pierce's design, you would have instructed him to do what?" Loki managed to keep his voice even, light.
Faust frowned, seeing through it. "There was one such soul, yes. Tainted, it was, scarred and old. How he mistook it for a virgin is beyond me." His eyes glinted with recognition. "You already know what I tried to do to her," he realized.
Loki took a step forward so that he stood at the edge of the spell's design. "Yes, I know what but you will tell me to whom it was that you tried to sacrifice what is mine." He growled the last word.
The spirit raised his ghostly white eyebrows and chuckled. "Oh, she's yours now, is she? I didn't see your mark on her then, or I would have let her go," he taunted.
Loki held up a hand and clenched it, making all the runes in the spell glow so brightly Rowena had to put a hand to her eyes. "YOU. WILL. TELL. ME." Loki's voice filled the room.
"Me... Mephisto, was the name he gave me," Faust choked out.
All at once the spell faded to the dimmest of glows. "There," Loki said cheerfully. "That wasn't so hard now, was it? Thank you, for your cooperation." The corner of his mouth twitched as he used Natasha's favorite line.
Faust frowned. "You're letting me go, then?" he sounded shocked.
"Yes of course," Loki said courteously. "I certainly wouldn't keep you here, you've long overstayed your welcome."
The spirit seemed immensely relieved, until Loki turned to Rowena and said, "Do you think you could manage one more summoning? You've called my daughter before, remember?"
Rowena caught on immediately and shared his deadly grin. "Of course, how could I forget?"
Natasha took a steadying breath as she heard the distinctive sound of Fury's approaching footsteps. She had ruled out a takedown—for all her work building SHIELD's trust, she was still seen as a potential threat, and Fury would not hesitate to use lethal force if he thought she had turned against them. Beyond that, it would make all future interaction with him strained and awkward.
There was no defensible explanation for her presence except for the truth, or at least some version of it, and so that was the weapon she would use. Sometimes the truth could be far more effective than a lie, anyway.
"Agent Romanoff, what the hell are you doing here?" Fury started as soon as he rounded the corner. "You're supposed to be on furlough in Antarctica. That's a hell of a long way for a quick visit to the office."
"I was in Antarctica, sir," Natasha drawled, sounding irritated, "Until some idiot decided to mess with powerful magic they didn't understand. So powerful, sir, that all the way in Antarctica Loki could tell something was wrong. We decided to investigate it."
"Why didn't you just call it in?" Fury asked, calling her on protocol.
"Loki is our best expert on magic, sir. I didn't think there was a better agent to investigate it. I was going to call it in when we arrived, but then," she gestured to their surroundings, "obviously you already knew."
"Then why didn't you report to me when you arrived? Why try to hide your tracking signal?" Fury pointed out.
"Why didn't you consult Loki on this project? Is this Phase 2 all over again?" she demanded. She had objected at length, through the proper channels, to the whole concept of Phase 2. She had seen, first hand, what an arms race could do to people. She was the product of such a tactic. But her objections had been overruled, and she had shut her mouth, her position in SHIELD not yet firm enough for her to risk any more than that. It had rankled.
Fury stared at her, seeing all this with his one eye. "No," he said softly. "I wasn't willing to risk the chance that Loki would turn on us once he got his hands on another extremely powerful magical object with possessive abilities."
She frowned. "You knew it could possess people? And you didn't inform Stark or Bryardie?"
"I hand-picked them for this mission because I knew they were the least likely to be vulnerable to its effects," he said soothingly.
Tony made sense, as Loki's attempt to possess him had failed, but why Dr. Bryardie, she wondered? Something clicked together in Natasha's mind. She remembered Loki's words to describe the fate of Rowena's kind, used as a tool by a cult. Fury knew what Rowena was, knew that she was what Loki had called a Kvedjar, and would therefore be impervious to possession. And he had used her for that, just as he used Natasha, and Clint, and Steve, and Coulson's death... The list went on, stretching out in a great web of influence, with Fury in the middle, tugging the strings so things fell out the way he wanted. He was the spider, not she.
Fury seemed to see some of the revulsion on her face, because he sighed. "Natalia, I do what I do for the good of the world. Somebody has to."
She let out a soft laugh. He had chosen the wrong moment to use her real name. "That's what they said in the Red Room, too," she argued.
"So the method and the means are similar," Fury spread his hands. "I won't deny it. But what is different is the results. And that's what really matters, isn't it?"
Natasha just stared at him, still blocking his passage down the hallway. She wanted to believe him, wanted to believe that her work for SHIELD was better than what she had done for the Red Room. What he said made sense, but was it the truth?
Suddenly, she realized it wasn't important. At least not at the moment. Loki had requested that she keep the area near the lab clear not just for secrecy, but for the sake of safety. "I'm afraid I can't let you pass, sir. It's not safe."
Fury's compassionate look disappeared. "Well then we're gonna have a problem, Agent Romanoff."
The room grew dark as Hela's presence entered it, the lines of the spell flickering as her figure appeared behind that of Faust, much taller this time. Her figure reached nearly to the 15-foot ceiling. Rowena, kneeling at the base of the spell, cowered.
"Why do you call on me again?" she demanded in a large, booming voice. "Once I shall tolerate for the sake of amusement, but this time you had better have good cause," she warned.
Loki put on his most charming manner. "Sweet Hela, I would not dream of bothering you again without a reason. I asked this girl to call you for your own benefit. Here-" he gestured to the quivering form of Dr. Faustus. "I give unto your keeping this mortal spirit."
Hela turned her steely gaze upon the apparition, examining him. "He bears the mark of Mephisto. I cannot claim him as my own."
"Not permanently, no, but he has long evaded his end of a bargain made with Mephisto. Imagine how grateful he will be when you bring him this long-lost due?" Loki argued.
Faustus let out a small wail, but quieted when Hela glared at him.
"You need not give him over right away," Loki pointed out gleefully, "and what you do with him while he is in your care is your own business." There was a sharp edge to his words that suggested he knew precisely what that business might be.
Slowly, one corner of Hela's mouth inched upwards. "I accept this gift, Father, but don't expect anything in return."
"Of course not," he frowned. "Can a man not give his daughter a gift out of the goodness of his own heart?"
Hela laughed, and the sound took years off Rowena's life. "If that's what you want to call it." Without another word, she reached out and grasped Faust with one large hand. He screamed, and the sound diminished as he shrank down to nothing more than a pinprick of light in her palm. Then she, too, disappeared, the light of the spell guttering out as she sank through the floor.
There was a moment of silence in which the book appeared to age and decompose, the spine breaking and falling to one side.
"That was... she... he... why was she so TALL?" Rowena asked. She felt very dizzy and faint, and was glad she was kneeling.
Loki spared her an amused look. "Frost giant," he reminded her.
"Oh, right," she said faintly.
He stepped over the spell, ignoring the scorched chalk lines. Kicking the book open, he could see that some of the pages were still legible. Standing back, he snapped his fingers and the book burst into flame. He watched it burn with a look of satisfaction on his features.
Then, the door burst open and Fury stormed in. "What in the blue fuck is going on here?!" he demanded.
Loki turned to face him clasped his hands behind his back. "We have neutralized the threat, sir."
If Fury was surprised by Loki's choice of protocol behavior, he didn't show it. Instead he went with it. "Report," he ordered.
Tony scrambled in the door. Looking from Rowena kneeling on the floor, to Loki, and then to Fury. "Where's Natasha?" he interrupted. "How did you get past her?"
Fury turned to glare at him. "I have my ways."
"You bastard, you used one of her trigger words, didn't you?" Tony demanded.
"What?" Rowena's head snapped up as she was picking herself up of the ground. "I thought they had all been deconditioned?"
"Mostly," Fury agreed, "which is why she'll be here in," he glanced at his watch, "four, three, two..."
Natasha walked through the door stiffly, every inch of her seething with rage. "It's alright," she said through clenched teeth, glancing at Loki and then glaring at Fury. "He did what he had to."
"Correct," Fury agreed. "Which brings me back to your report, Loki?" he turned back to face the sorcerer and the nearly extinguished book.
Loki ignored him, giving Natasha a long, inquisitive look. Only when she nodded, relaxing slightly, did he turn his attention to the SHIELD director. "Mister Stark and Doctor Bryardie's experiments were causing disturbances that I could sense at the Aerie," he began. "This means any other magic user-in on Earth would have been notified as well. Not exactly covert. I used the summons Dr. Bryardie had initiated to return here, and then used the same spell to bring Agent Romanoff. In the process I discovered that there was a malicious presence within the book. Dr. Bryardie and I summoned it, interrogated it, and then exorcised it."
Fury glanced at Rowena, who nodded curtly. Loki's response was completely true, even if the concise delivery left out a few pertinent details.
"And the grimoire?" Fury gestured to the smoking ashes.
"Destroyed in the process," Loki lied smoothly.
It took an enormous effort for Rowena not to glance at Loki, but she would not give him away. It certainly answered her question concerning the loss of the ruby pendant. In an odd, distant way, she was proud of him.
Fury stood there a moment, processing the information. He turned to Tony. "And your recordings will support this?" he asked.
"Duh," Tony said, not really feeling the militaristic attitude that prevailed in the room.
"Well then. All I have to say," Fury turned back to face Loki, "is congratulations." He waited a moment, smiling at the various confused looks. "You passed the test, Loki. You are now officially a member of the Avengers Initiative."
There was a long moment, where they all just stood there, and then Loki grinned. "Thank you, sir."
"Drinks! Time for drinks!" Tony shouted, laughing, coming forward and clapping Loki on the back. "You too, Tsarina, you look like you need it," he said as they walked back towards Natasha.
She sighed, but fell in step with them. "Tony, you know I can't get drunk," she reminded him wearily as they made their way out the door.
When it had closed, only Fury and Dr. Bryardie remained in the room.
"Is it true, what he said?" he asked seriously.
Rowena smiled. "Close enough."
"You were wrong about Agent Romanoff," he told her.
"Oh?"
"You told me she wouldn't choose Loki. She didn't even blink," he sounded genuinely surprised.
"I said she would choose her duty over Loki. You are not her duty, sir. It's more complicated than that," Rowena explained.
"Yeah, well, she made me be the bad guy all the same," he lamented.
"I do wish you had informed me this was a test ahead of time," she frowned. "I would have handled it differently. Perhaps we could have avoided that particular confrontation."
Fury gave her a long, hard stare. "I'm not clairvoyant either, Bryardie." At her perplexed look, he shook his head. "You knew it was a test the moment I did," he admitted.
"Oh," she blinked. "Well then. It's a good thing he passed, isn't it?"
Fury looked at the pile of ashes on the floor. "A damn good thing," he agreed.
A/N: TADA! *Cue Exit Music*
That's it folks! I may post little one-shot tidbits that happen afterwards at some point but as of right now, this is all I had planned to write. Keep following the story, though, because I do intend to announce important things.
Thank you all so very much for sticking with me through the last year and 5 days. As of right now, this story is 220,654 words long and has 67,257 views, 301 reviews, 128 follows, and 101 favorites. I never imagined it would ever be this popular, and it means the world to me that you all enjoyed it so much.
I love every single review I got (no one ever flamed me, I'm shocked! But very grateful) and I tried to respond to the more in-depth ones when I could. I will continue to do so as time and real life allows. Thank you, thank you, thank you. It's been a blast.
I now intend to start work on an original novel that I can actually sell (ha ha). The protagonist and antagonist are very loosely based on Natasha and Loki, respectively. If you want to know more about it, follow me over on my tumblr, TheHappyMediumsTeapot, where I will be dropping little snippets and goodies ever so often.