The Last Shifter (a Loki romance)

Chapter 139

Thor didn't say a word to either of us until we were on Earth, standing where the Bifrost indicated it had left Odin when we banished him: in front of the Shady Aches Care Home. Which was now being demolished.

"I swear, I left him right here."

"Right here on the sidewalk or right there where the building's being demolished? Very planning."

"How were we supposed to know? Can't see into the future, we're not witches"

"No? She's ancient and you dress like one."

"Hey!" Loki and I both protested.

"I'm young for my species!" To avoid being identified for as long as possible, I'd taken the form of a petite woman with red hair and brown eyes.

"I can't believe you two continued to lie to me! After telling me about everything else–or was that all a lie too?" My breath caught in my throat.

"We stayed on Asgard for the pregnancy. But we truly do not know what went wrong during labor." Loki covered for me, lacing his fingers in mine, squeezing.

"Hi." A pair of trembling college students approached Thor, "Would you mind taking a picture with us?"

"Oh, sure." They both squealed and one held up her phone. Loki rolled his eyes and I tried to use his body to make myself less visible to them.

"Sorry to hear that Jane dumped you." Jane. I hadn't thought about her in ages! Hadn't spoken to her since she was about to go on that talk show for the Nobel Prize nomination! I still didn't know if she'd won! God, what a terrible friend I'd been! Once upon a time, I would've been the first to know that she'd broken up with her boyfriend. And now I was finding out through some random girl. I squeezed Loki's hand harder. I had to get in contact with her again. As soon as this was over.

"She didn't dump me, you know," Thor said to Loki, "I dumped her. It was a mutual dumping!" Bull. Loki seemed to know it too, and patted Thor on the shoulder. I let go of his hand and stood directly in front of Thor.

"What happened."

"Wh-what do you mean?"

"With Jane. What. Happened."

"Oh, um..." Something started sparking. I looked around for the source, only to find it to be a perfect circle around Loki's feet. Magic.

"What's this? What are you doing?"

"This isn't me." Loki sounded just a little scared. Then, he was just...gone! The circle became a hole and Loki just...fell in! We heard only the start of his yelp before the circle closed and left only a slip of paper in its wake.

"Loki." Thor poked the paper with his umbrella–a disguised Mjolnir. He knew more basic magic than Loki or myself had given him credit for.

"You can see through Loki's lies now, but you can still be a real idiot sometimes." I picked up the paper. On it, in elegant, slanted script, was an address. 177A Bleecker Street. I handed it to Thor.

"Let's go. It's not far from here."

The address belonged to a large building with older architecture near the downtown area. At first glance, it looked like just another building, but my supernatural senses were telling me that this was no run-of-the-mill place. The windows were not only tinted and textured, but many had curtains drawn. I really didn't like this. Thor, heedless of the danger, went and pounded twice on the heavy door. Before his fist could land a third time, everything went dark and his fist hit nothing but empty air.