Hey all :)

This day is sucking so far. :/

Have fun on the senior trip, feesh. Ily. <3 <3

Please VOTE and COMMENT! :D

Sierra

Chapter Forty-One:

Caomh appears in front of her and Videl so suddenly, Angelique almost stumbles down the flight of steep stairs in front of her.

She and Videl had arrived at the chilly Lake Geneva only an hour after Thea arrived in Amsterdam-because the distance hadn't been far, and the two had already been together in France, Videl had Jaunted them both to a village close to the lake. According to Tony, the rondayven had been hidden in Chillon Castle. Videl and Angelique had had no trouble finding and grabbing the rondayven, which is a shocking red color, sprinkled with white. But just as they are walking down the stairs of the Castle underneath the setting sun, Caomh peels himself from around a lamp post and grins at them.

Angelique immediately feels Videl's hand tighten in hers. She looks up to see his jaw tighten and his amber eyes twisting in fury. She grips his hand, subconsciously thinking about the precious gem hidden in the innermost pocket of the beaded handbag hanging of her shoulder.

"Hello, Videl!" says Caomh cheerfully, "It's been far too long."

"No, Videl, no," Angelique whispers as Videl makes a move forward. "We need to get out of here. Don't provoke him."

"Then he shouldn't provoke me," growls Videl.

"How about you tell your little slut to give me the rondayven," says Caomh in a lilting voice, like there's nothing he would rather be doing than menace Videl, "And we can go on our merry little ways. Well, I can. If all goes well, both of you will be dead in oh, about five or so minutes, give or take." Caomh looks around. Lake Geneva is glittering in the dying sunlight. "It's quite lovely here. Beautiful scenery. Architecture is artistic."

"Videl," Angelique anxiously looks at Videl, who is panting like a tempered bull, "Get us out of here."

Her words fall on deaf ears. Videl lunges for Caomh, and the two young men go falling to the ground, tumbling several steps down.

"VIDEL!"
Her boyfriend is snapping his fangs inches from Caomh's neck, but then the sorcerer flips them over and unsheathes a knife, holding it high above his head.

Ignoring the screams of people around them, ignoring the thoughts of urgency in her head, ignoring how sharp the knife's point is, Angelique runs forward, throwing herself on Caomh. "Stop it! Stop it, both of you!"

Caomh stabs her.

Angelique hardly notices Videl screaming at her. She feels the blade going in and then getting pulled out by a still-grinning Caomh. She falls to the ground, her head hits the stone steps, and then everything goes black.

*

Videl is frozen, staring at the unconscious form of Angelique feet from him. Caomh is still above him, smirking wickedly. "She's a pretty thing, especially with the blood," sneers Caomh, "Mind if I have some time with her?"

Fury at Caomh and fury at himself runs through Videl, and the tips of his fangs graze over the skin on Caomh's neck. Small beads of blood trickle onto Videl and onto his tongue, and the taste invigorates him. He lunges at Caomh, and Neidra's son barely avoids having his throat ripped out from the infuriated Velah prince.

"Can't even protect your girl. Seems familiar," taunts Caomh. "Your brother couldn't protect his girl either. See where that landed both of them? As spirits in the haunting sky."

Videl screams at Caomh, screams at him incomprehensibly. His curls are flying around his face in the lake wind, but all he can feel, taste, touch, and see is Caomh's blood.

He lunges again, and misses again as Caomh dances back, the gleeful player of a sadistic game.

"It's a pity Loki had to save the little girl," says Caomh thoughtfully. "It would have been much more complete if she'd been hanging dead with her parents. Still, all is not lost. I may pay her a visit."

"If you touch Victoire," Videl's words are so choked with his anger that he can hardly speak. "I will tear every ligament from your body, then drain out every single drop of your blood while you scream and beg for me to stop."

"We'll see," says Caomh, delightful. "But why would you care? Didn't you already have a little girl killed? Thea's sister...Leah, wasn't that her name?"

Videl hisses.

"You had Thea kill her. How awful. Yet Thea seems to still care for you, even though every time she looks at you, she has to look into the eyes of the one who murdered her baby sister."

Tears are running down Videl's cheeks. He hates how easily he cries, but his emotions are nothing he can control. His tears are from fury, from regret, for fear for the girl unmoving beside him, but mostly from hatred for the being in front of him.

Caomh is taunting him, getting into his head. The only thing Videl wants is to hold Caomh's bleeding heart in his hand.

Videl looks back at Angelique, still lying still, and then back at Caomh. Every muscle in his body is yelling at him to rip off Caomh's head, to bury his fangs in the witch's veins and taste the iron of his blood.

But then, instead of rushing Caomh, Videl rushes to Angelique, sliding on his knees next to her in an instant. Before Caomh can throw a dagger at him, Videl has enveloped himself and Angelique in black mist.

Videl has chosen to walk away from his anger. But it is only temporary. He knows it, and the devil inside viciously hopes that Caomh knows it too. The angel in his heart that had temporarily given up for Angelique is really the devil in disguise.

*

In the early morning, as Thea sleeping deeply in a hotel room in Amsterdam, curled up in blankets with a pillow thrown over her head, Loki is sitting in an inn in Tangier, Morocco, rather wishing he had a pillow of his own to cover his head. For the past hour, ever since Jack and Peter have woken up, he's been subject to never-ceasing chatter as the boys get ready.

The room is quite small, as Loki had brought them to the outskirts of the city, in the more traditional section of Tangier. The walls are an orange and white clay-like material, with natural cracks and places where paint has come undone. There are two beds, small and squeaky, with thin sheets, and there's a sink in the corner, not in the bathroom.

Loki can hear Jack singing from inside the bathroom, very loudly and purposefully out of tune. Loki groans and leans back against the wall, thumping it several times. Amara hasn't helped much. She's remained silent, and is now sitting on the other bed, running her fingers through her long black hair.

"This is lovely," crows Jack a few minutes later. He and Peter finally walk out of the bathroom, both shirtless. "Us three guys, plus the lovely Amara, off globe-trotting into an escapade to help save the world! Isn't this simply splendid?"

"Splendid," says Loki sarcastically. "Where are your shirts?"

"Oh, those," says Peter, "It's a lot warmer here than Iceland. We only had long-sleeved shirts, and I don't think it's such a grand idea."

"Really," says Loki shrewdly, "Well I don't personally think it a fine idea to go capering about the streets of a quiet city stripped down. Imagine all the chaos you would cause."

"Bloody good chaos," says Jack, crossing his arms. He unfurls his light brown wings, which span almost the entire small room. As Amara wrinkles her nose and stands to get away from the feathers, Jack continues, "Imagine, we could distract all the ladies, so that's half the population. Probably some of the guys too."

Loki's eyebrows raise dangerously high.

Peter leans toward Jack and says in a conspiratorial whisper, "Do you really think you should be saying stuff like that in front of your girlfriend's father, whom, I may remind you, is a very powerful deity?"

Jack gives Loki a pitying and innocent look as he folds his wings back. "He knows I don't mean it, right Loki, old pal?" Jack looks at Amara. "Loki and I go way back."

Loki fixes Jack with a steely look. Jack smiles cheesily.

Rolling his eyes, Loki says, "I've already discussed with you the basics of the plan, but two thirds of you, you young males, have rather thick skulls, so I will review it one more time."

Jack looks skeptical, but to Loki's satisfaction, seems to think he's in too much hot water to begin with to say anything else.

"The rondayven is hidden in the window of the cafe, right below and across from this building. Amara, you will be responsible for Jaunting Jack into the alleyway, and the two of you will start to make your way toward the cafe. Your role is to be customers. Nicely behaved customers, assuming that's not too hard for you, Jack. This will give Peter the opportunity to sneak inside and upstairs to where the rondayven is. I will be the lookout just outside the cafe, having approached right before Peter enters the cafe. Peter will give me the rondayven on the way out of the building. Is this perfectly clear to everyone?"

Three people nod, two of them very quickly, and Amara tosses her mane of black hair behind her shoulder.

"Good," says Loki. "Go now. With shirts on."

*

The plan works well, almost perfectly. But as this is life, nothing works out perfectly, not even when thought out by a thousand year-old tactician.

The problem doesn't arrive until after Jack and Amara are inside the cafe, chatting casually and conversationally, and until after Loki positions himself against the wall of the cafe, leaning against the wall and listening to the oriental music playing around him, keeping an eye on everything that moves, and until after Peter walks inside the cafe wearing sunglasses.

Loki surveys every person that walks by the small block of buildings. With the exposed telephone wires crossed over the roofs, sometimes mixing with the hanging laundry, People, mostly citizens of Tangier wearing natural colors and long fabrics of cotton, mill around, speaking in an entanglement of Arabic, French, and some garbled English.

Loki almost misses her, the girl in the shadows. She is wearing a gray hijab that obstructs most of her face,and walking slowly, hiding behind two large men. But she turns slightly so that her face, long and angular and tan, is suddenly visible. In one instant, Loki spots the silver in her eyes. In the next, he realizes the girl is only a few years older than Thea.

He walks towards her. At first, she tries to play innocent and coy, but then, evidently seeing that he is on to her, she turns and begins to run. Loki glances back at the cafe, and then takes off after her.

The girl is quicker than Loki expected, and she makes use of the narrow Tangier streets, ducking in and out doorways, under arches, around fruit stands, ducking around groups of musicians playing stringed instruments in the corner.

He catches her right in front of a bakery that is emitting deliciously warm smells. He grabs her by the elbow and, despite her tugging, pulls her into an empty, quiet alleyway and throws her to the ground.

She hardly gets the chance to sit up before Loki is crouching over her, shaking her shoulders. "Why are you here?"

The girl throws her head back and cackles. Loki knows this is not the girl's laugh, but her puppeteer's. The silver in her eyes are shining, but Loki is surprised to see them flicker blue once or twice, so quickly, he almost thinks he imagines it.

Loki presses the girl to the ground and puts his hand on her forehead, staring daggers into her eyes. He begins to whisper in Asgardian, his words short and harsh.

The girl lets out a moan, then a scream of pain.

"Why are you here?" Loki demands again.

She snarls at him, but the sound is cut off when she screams again.

"Why? How does Neidra know where we are?"

She is frothing at the mouth, and her eyes are darting between blue and silver craze. Loki slaps her, and she twists, trying to get away. He ignores her attempts and speaks the Ancient Language even quicker and more forcefully. The more he speaks, the more she screams. He keeps on relentlessly, her cries of pain doing nothing to his steel heart.

And then, with a gasp escaping from her lips, the silver runs out and her eyes snap to a sky-blue.

Her voice is panicked, "Wh-what's happening to me? What happened? Who are you!?"

Loki stands and helps her get unsteadily to her feet, keeping ahold of her elbows. "You were bewitched by a sorceress. Now look at me and tell me where Neidra is, and what her game is."

Her lips quiver. "I c-can't talk. She'll k-kill me."

"Oh yes," says Loki dangerously, "But so can I."

The girl's eyes fall on the dagger, partially unsheathed, hanging from Loki's belt. She looks up at him and gulps. "Pl-please d-don't-"

"You have nothing to fear from me if you cooperate," says Loki, "I can have you hidden, until Neidra is dealt with. Tell me now, girl, where she is and what she is planning."

The girl has no sooner opened her mouth when Loki hears a sinister crunch of a blade against skin and bone. The girl sways, hanging limply in Loki's arms. He looks down. Blood is pouring from her open, gaping mouth, and the hilt of a poisoned silver knife is sticking out from her heart.

"Why did you do that?" asks Loki coolly, setting the dead girl at his feet as Neidra appears from the opening of the alleyway.

Neidra smiles serenely. "Come now, Loki, is it a crime for a woman to keep a secret?"

Taking his dagger from its sheath, Loki regards Neidra, privately praying that the rest of the group has the presence of mind to have Amara Jaunt them and the rondayven away when he doesn't return.

"Perhaps not, but it is a crime to murder innocent girls," he retorts.

Neidra, her silver eyes glowing, says in a low voice, "You, your daughter, and your friends are causing me much annoyance."

"Is that so?" asks Loki, "I'll attempt to pretend to care and let you know how that goes."

Neidra scowls. "So you have found the locations of the Twenty-Five, have you?"

"How many people have you possessed?" counters Loki.

She replies as if she hadn't heard him. "I find it curious though. I travelled to London, a dreary Midgard town it is, to interrogate the two men who hold the keys to these twenty-five locations. Upon my arrival, however, I found them dead. Tell me, Loki, how pleased was your precious daughter when you killed them to keep them silent?"

Loki doesn't respond.

Neidra smiles. "She doesn't know, does she?"

"She has no need to."

"Regardless," says Neidra, tossing her hair. "It's grown to be a bit of a bother to me, all of you running amok on this lowly planet. Chasing you is growing so tedious."

"That was the plan."

"Pitiful plan. You know how irked I get when I don't get what I want."

"Oh yes," says Loki, "That must be why you threw a colossal, decades-long tantrum when you found out I didn't love you."

"How dare you."

"How dare I? It's quite simple. I just abhor you."

"You are trying to distract me, aren't you?" asks Neidra suddenly. Her eyes are blazing. "So your little friends can seize the rondayven."

"And they're already long gone," says Loki, only half sure this is true.

She glares. "You have not seen my worst yet, Loki."

"Gracious, I should hope not. You're doing a pathetic job at being intimidating at the moment."

She doesn't reply, just vanishes with a short scream of fury, leaving Loki in the alleyway with the body of the dead girl.

What do you think? Please VOTE and COMMENT!