Paint it Another Colour

Chapter 35

"You did what?" Loki hauled on the steering wheel of his car, narrowly avoiding hitting someone else and cursed into the phone. "How?"

"He was just sort of... there" Egil shouted triumphantly from the other end. "Idiot thought I was Emil."

"What?" Loki laughed and slammed on the breaks, screeching to a stop at a set of red traffic lights. "He's known Emil for what? Centuries?" He hesitated as Egil started humming 'Centuries'. "Shut up."

"Okay" Egil said quickly, shutting up.

"But seriously, he's known Emil for centuries" Loki continued. "How did he confuse you both? Your eyes are red, his are purple. Your dress codes are completely different, your hair's a bit darker and you're a bit shorter."

"Thanks for reminding me" Egil huffed.

"For Thor's sake, you have an eyepatch" Loki shouted as though Egil had never spoken. "How on earth he managed to do that I've no idea."

"It'll be the last mistake he makes" Egil cackled.

Loki glared at the windscreen. "No it won't" he snapped. "Because you're not going to kill him."

Egil huffed from the other end. "Why?"

"Because he could be useful" Loki said. "You know, he could know where meeting buildings are."

"But you heard what James said about Matthew" Egil complained. "He said that every time he'd insisted that no one knew. That they changed every time, and all they knew in advance was which country it was in, although that rarely happened."

"So we get him to tell us which countries the next ones are in" Loki nearly crashed into someone else again. "I mean come on, the entire world'll be there. One of us is bound to notice them."

"We have the Turk though" Egil tried. "I mean, he could know the same stuff."

"Turk?" Loki frowned.

"Yeah" Egil sounded like he was grinning. "Sadaquat, Hermes and Ghazi brought back Sadaquat's counterpart. Something like Sadik I think, but I dunno. He probably knows more. I mean, Matthias seems pretty dumb if I'm being honest. He doesn't look like he could tell you what to put into a history exam."

"So?" Loki growled. "Who needs history when you're experiencing it right now at the present? They say you need to know about the past? Well I do. Ten seconds ago I was talking to you. I still am now. There you go, history."

There was a short silence from the other end. "Okay then. But can I kill him?"

"No" Loki shouted. "You're not killing anyone yet alright? You can kill him later I promise, just be prepared coz Markell won't be happy."

Another silence. "I hadn't thought of that" Egil admitted. "He'll kill me"

"Yup" Loki let out a silent sigh. In reality, he didn't want anyone to die. If possible, Matthias would stay in the mirror for as long as possible. They could experiment on it. See what happened through certain feats. Maybe see how many people they could cram into the same space. Them successfully capturing Matthias in the mirror was a huge turning point in their research. Soon, they'd find a way to get rid of everyone without harming anything. They'd already figured that the smaller the nation, the less of an impact it had on the country. It hurt the counterpart sure, but barely impacted the country itself. That was what they'd been looking for.

"Oh well" Egil said, the smile back in his voice. "I'll deal with that. If I kill Emil first he won't be able to actually kill me will he."

"He'll make you wish you were dead" Loki jabbed the windscreen as though it were Egil.

"I can deal with that" Egil laughed. "And anyway, you wouldn't let it happen."

"What makes you think that?" Loki snapped. "I hate you."

"Exactly" Egil laughed again. "In the immortal words of Shakespeare, 'there is a fine line between love and hate'."

"Shakespeare never said that" Loki rolled his eyes. "You're making things up."

"He probably did at some point" Egil said. "It's just that no one wrote it down see. And besides, what was Romeo and Juliet about?"

"Lo..." Loki growled. "Shut up. Stop pretending you're clever."

"But I am" Egil cackled.

"But you're not" Loki took a deep breath.

There was a rustling sound on the other end of the phone like Egil shrugged. "You've hurt my feelings now" he said in a hurtful way. "I'm gonna go kill him to make myself feel better."

"Wait" Loki shouted, slightly panicked. "We need him."

Egil just laughed, again and put the phone down. Loki fought the temptation to hurl the phone through the window. "Idiot." He glared at his phone for a moment before sighing and reaching behind him to chuck it onto the back seat. As he did so, there was a loud beep from in front of him. He jumped, cricking his neck in the process. He reached one hand to rub the sore spot and glanced up just in time to see the lorry that was screeching across the junction collide with the front of his car. Glass exploded, burying itself into his face, past his arms that he threw up in a weak attempt to protect himself. He lurched forwards, slamming his head into the wheel, the seat belt slicing a thin line in the side of his neck. So much for safety; the airbag didn't even deploy. Somewhere, he could hear shouts and smell the faint scent of fire. It was next to him, right next to him, and for a second, everything was alright, because the fire was there, right next to him. Then it caught onto the cloth on his arm, spreading up, lighting his hair, burning as it went, and despite the pain and the urge to scream that he held down, Loki smiled.

***

Tino watched as Berwald rummaged through various piles of rubble and stones and sighed.

"Leave it Ber" he said. "There's nothing left here. It's all gone. I think Emil would've picked up anything when he came before with Vladimir anyway."

Berwald nodded and slowly let down a broken picture frame, the picture dust strewn beyond recognition. Matthias had asked them to go and search Lukas' house, just in case he knew of some sort of way to get rid of the counterparts no one else did, or something like that anyway. He'd been slightly too drunk when he'd said it, so it had come out a little too slurred to understand properly.

They hadn't seen him since, but weren't worrying about it. Matthias would often vanish for days on end without telling anyone, and then just casually crop up again, like nothing was wrong, like nothing had happened.

Carefully, stepping over everything so as to not disturb the resting fragments of long gone objects, Tino and Berwald started to make their way out of the house.

"There's nothing here" Tino mused, picking his way around a festering table. "But, Matthias seemed so sure, so desperate that something was here."

"He was drunk" Berwald grunted. "He does that sometimes. I wouldn't've counted on it really."

"But still" Tino gently opened the front door and lay it back against the wall, a neat, circular shaped hole where the handle rested. "It's weird."

"This whole thing it weird" Berwald pointed out as they came to a stop outside the house, glancing back up at it before starting down the street. They had barely got ten paces from it before something fell inside. The chimney, still sitting proudly, undisturbed, fell straight through the roof, slamming into something else as it fell, the roof collapsing inwards with it. Next went the walls, caving inwards like something from a cartoon with huge clouds of dust billowing from it, various bricks flying out in various directions, nearly hitting the two, before Berwald pulled Tino further away from the safety hazard.

When the dust had cleared, all that was left was a pile of rocks, bricks and the odd piece of glass sticking up here and there.

"I don't understand" Tino said. "It seemed sturdy enough a second ago."

"Something happened" Berwald muttered, frowning. There was a roaring noise a little away from them.

Tino turned to Berwald to ask him what he meant, but before he could, the wave lurched over the row of houses behind them, crashing over their heads.