mischevious

Chapter 22 (Loki)

The following three weeks had been a whirlwind of craziness as our families met one another in person, Tony nearly making a fool of himself when meeting my parents. What kind of human makes a dirty joke about religion to a pair of gods? I mean really?

Okay, it was kind of funny.

"What's the difference between a religious person and a porn star? Porn stars kneel for the first coming, religious people kneel for the second!"

It was so quiet you could literally hear a pin drop as he finished. Neither mother nor father laughed, or so much as cracked a smile at his joke. But I knew on the inside he was sweating even if he didn't show it. I personally was waiting for some sort of divine retribution for that so-called joke. I know, I'm changed and all of that, but bad habits die hard.
Luckily mom hadn't shriveled his cock up to a raisin and cursed his balls to fall off. It would be kind of funny though.

"Are you sure about the two weddings?" Father asked me while we ate in the great hall. "You could always bring everyone here for one and we can make it a day of festivities for everyone."

"That really does sound like a lot of work." Thor mentioned between bites of a chicken leg.

"Yes, well it's up to Abigail. If she has her heart set on two weddings then we will do two of them. If she decides she wants just the one then we can do that. I won't pressure her either way."

"Good, either way obviously your mother and I will be there. Speaking of, are they still with her handmaidens doing the whole food tasting ritual?"

"Everything but the cake, yes. I told her the cake would be something I wish to experience with her, but the rest of the menu is up to her."

"Good man, you're already wiser than you were before."

All three of us had a good laugh at that, full bellied and raucous as my brother actually lifted a glass of mead to me and we cheered together. Heimdall came racing into the room panting. "My Lord there is trouble!"

The three of us looked to him as he stopped just in front of the table and began sucking in lungfuls of air trying to catch his breath. "What is it?" Odin asked setting his glass on the table.

"Something dark, something not of our realm. It's coming, and there are more than I can count. They come to all of the realms, they seek our dead. I cannot see why."

"What could it be?" Thor asked.

"Could Hela be up to something?" I wondered. The dead were her domain and it made sense that she would end up using the dead again to try and take over Asgard.

"I don't think this is her. There was something I saw when I glimpsed the vision. A symbol I have never seen before, a ring with an upside down triangle and five bars set next to each other but slightly apart from the triangle. It seemed to be important that this thing be seen so I can only imagine what it means."

We sat there for a moment and thought before I had a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach. Like a pile of snakes writhing there, unhappy and anxious at what was about to happen. Then it hit me like a thunderbolt. "The women!"

The three of them looked at me as I started to rise from my chair. At that second all of Asgard shifted, shaking like land would during an earthquake, but there was nothing that should have been able to shake Asgard like that. Even when Hela had risen from her prison she hadn't been able to do that, and she had been nearly too powerful for them to do anything about.

THE BLACKEST NIGHT FALLS FROM THE SKIES

A voice filled the air, ominous and filled with dread. Each of us heard the voice before we heard the screaming Asgardian voices filled the room as they ran for shelter as small meteor looking things came crashing into the buildings and then moved on their own. Small devices that appeared to have their own brain, which terrified them all.

"They appear to be sentient." Odin said as we raced to the balcony and watched the carnage below us. It sounded less terrifying than it really was, mainly because I was ready to piss myself as I watched one of the flying devices attack a woman and attach itself to her fingers and then she dropped on the spot. There was a brief spark of black light and then she was dead, and then she was undead.

THE DARKNESS GROWS AS ALL LIGHT DIES

A black fire lit her from within as she turned on her daughter, a young girl of about eight and stalked her backwards to the wall nearest her. And attacked. She took the girl by the hair and lifted her, bit deep into her neck and ripped her veins clear. Blood, hot and red, splashed the wall and woman as it ran down the girl's body before she went limp and the mother began eating her own daughter's flesh.

WE CRAVE YOUR HEARTS AND YOUR DEMISE

"We have to stop this!" Heimdall yelled as we watched more and more of the black devices slam into and through the ground. More and more innocent Asgardians were being attacked by the undead things brought back to life by those black devices.

Screaming echoed throughout the palace and we knew there was more of them than we could hope to face.

Thor began swinging his hammer, Mjolnir. "I'll handle this." he launched himself over the balcony and drew lightning from the sky and channeled it into Mjolnir before sending it into the closest of the undead creatures. There was a brilliant flash and the body was char, nearly turned to ash.

And then began to reform. The woman rose to her feet once again and all three of us stared in shock at the scene. She had taken lightning from the sky, called forth by a god, and that device had not only resurrected her but it had reformed her body.

The doors to the great hall burst inward as two guards were torn to shreds, their precious godblood spraying against the walls and floor as the creatures came running towards us. I recognized them as two of the dead that were kept buried beneath the palace, deep within Asgard herself, laid there by father after they fell, helping to bring Asgard to its position in the nine realms. The same ones who had been resurrected by Hela when she fought us.

BY MY BLACK HAND, THE DEAD SHALL RISE