At six-thirty, for the second time that day, Darcy drove to Puente Antiguo, this time to meet Sean for dinner.

When she left the house, Loki was sitting on the front steps, reading Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park and eating an apple empanada. The activity was so normal that she could almost imagine he was a movie extra, still in costume, taking a break between takes. If movie extras are smoking hot.

"Looking for ideas for new pets?"

"The velociraptors sounds delightful," he replied, "though a rampaging triceratops might pack more damage per pound." The book, a hardback, was brand new and not one of hers. She wondered where he'd stolen it. Knowing Loki, he had opened a mini-Bifrost into a Barnes & Noble.

Just as she reached her car, he said, "Darcy."

"Yeah?"

"Do you have your weapon, the Taser?"

"You know it."

He nodded and went back to reading.

***

Sean rented a house in Puente Antiguo, on Eagle Road, two blocks from Route 8. The exterior stucco was sand-colored, with long blotches of gray plaster striping the walls like pale veins, the start of crack repair that had never quite been finished. The exterior of the next door neighbor's house was missing chunks of stucco, and the porch one sneeze away from collapse, so by comparison, Sean's place was well maintained. The landlord had opted for a thick layer of crushed red lava rock instead of lawn with a narrow cracked concrete sidewalk that led up to the front door.

He was sitting on his front steps when she drove up, posture filled with the same gangly grace as Loki, and Darcy felt an electric frisson run up her spine at the resemblance. Except Sean was dressed in ordinary clothing, a light gray Henley shirt, blue jeans and hiking boots, and his smile when he saw Darcy was warm and open.

As he settled into the passenger seat, she asked, "How was California?"

"A long drive away," he said wearily. He hated to be cooped up inside anything very long, which was why he drove rather than flew to San Diego to visit his mother and younger sister. "And San Diego is as big and polluted as Los Angeles."

"Still haven't convinced them to move to Montana?" asked Darcy as she turned left on the main road and drove northwest. At this hour, the road was almost empty; the tourists had headed back to their hotel rooms in Santa Fe, and the locals were settling in at home for dinner, or to drink themselves to sleep.

"I probably never will," he replied. "Moira's art is selling well, and where better to sell driftwood sculpture than a coastal city. Maybe I can just get her and Mom to move up the coast, someplace like Oregon."

She smiled sympathetically, although she didn't understand his aversion to urban areas. Big cities were fun, with lots of stuff to do, concerts, clubs, cultural events. "Maybe she'll meet a nice country boy, fall in love, and he'll sweep her away from the big city."

Sean tilted his head, blue eyes focused on left edge of the car seat, his slightly too long hair falling over his forehead. He flicked at a spot of lint on the dark blue fabric with long graceful fingers. "Maybe, but Moira's pretty committed to the idea of single. She says no mortal man is a match for her." He leaned his head back on the chair's headrest, turning to Darcy with a grin, showing a rare flash of teeth. He had great teeth, but rarely showed them. "Moira's such an artist, melodramatic, theatrical."

Darcy shrugged. "The only not-mortal guys I know are Thor and Loki. One's got a girlfriend and the other likes to break cities." Considering Sean's opinion of big urban areas, the second could be a selling point.

Sean's mouth settled into a frown. "Pass. I'd rather she stayed single and lived in a megapolis forever than hook up with either of those two."

Izzy's Diner shared a small parking lot with a Laundromat, a pet store and a nearby bar. The lot was full, although there were only a half dozen people in the diner and less than that doing laundry. The rest of the vehicles must have belonged to the evening's future drunk drivers. Darcy parked on the street a block away.

Sean took her hand as they walked to the diner and she felt a hard spark of attraction from his touch. Her crush on Loki didn't diminish her interest in Sean. If anything, unrequited feelings for her grumpy roommate amped up her libido, making Sean more attractive.

In Izzy's, they sat by the window and Esther Yazzie, one of her neighbor Carlos's many cousins, brought them a menu and took their drink order. Esther was eighteen with a three-year-old son at home and a second expanding her belly to huge proportions, but she had a ready smile on her round, mahogany brown face, dark brown eyes sparkling with good humor.

"The usual?" she said when she returned to take their food order, pen and order pad in hand.

"Are we that predictable?" Sean favored her with his quiet closed mouth smile and her cheeks reddened with a blush.

"Steak and enchiladas?" she said and he nodded.

"Combo plate number two," Darcy supplied with an embarrassed shrug.

After Esther left, Sean laughed and said, "We're in such a rut."

Yeah, like an old married couple, right down to the "no sex" part. Darcy shook her head, laughing too, her eyes roving over his body, stopping on his right arm, where his sleeve was pushed a few inches above his elbow. A scar, harsh and reddish against his fair skin, began just above his elbow and disappeared like an ugly river under his sleeve.

She nodded at his arm. "That's some scar. What happened?"

He cocked his head confused, then followed her line of sight. "Oh. That. Hunting accident. I was just a kid. My dad told me to be sure the stag was dead before I approached it, but, you know, kids." He pushed the sleeve down over the scar. "It gored me with its antlers."

"You hunt?"

"Not in years. I used to go with my father and brothers."

"And Bambi goes, 'Whew!'" said Darcy. "How many brothers do you have?" She knew his father had passed away several years ago.

Reaching for the salt shaker, he spun it on the table's surface. "Four. You know, Irish, big families?" He looked up at her and said, "You just have the one brother, right?"

She plucked the salt shaker from his hand and set it primly next to the pepper. "One boy. One girl. Once my parents had the complete set, they quit."

Her parents were and continued to be utterly in love. Which sounded good in theory, but didn't leave much room for anyone else in the equation, including their own offspring. Darcy and her brother grew up feeling like the unnecessary third wheel in their parents' relationship. As soon as he graduated high school, her brother had moved from Tempe to attend college in Washington state, where he met his wife, a Canadian. They now lived in Ontario with their two kids. Darcy opted for a slightly closer option, the University of New Mexico, but like her brother, had little contact with her parents.

The world was happy to tell her she was insignificant; she didn't need to go home and be reminded by her parents.

***

The sun had set and clouds of insects dive bombed the streetlights by the time Darcy and Sean left Izzy's. Country music twanged from the bar down the street. In the laundry, a woman sat in a plastic chair, glazed eyes on a load of laundry as it tumbled in the dryer. Her two kids played nearby, the girl pushing her younger brother in a laundry cart.

Hand in hand, Darcy and Sean ambled down the sidewalk. As they reached her car, she started to fish her keys out of her purse, then changed her mind.

"Do me a favor?"

"Uh, okay?" he agreed, despite a ghost of wariness in his posture.

"I want to take a look at Andy's apartment." Max's too, but Sean probably didn't know about the second guard's death yet, since he'd been away from work. "Come with?"

He turned his head, giving her a sideways look. "Why would you want to do that?"

A chunk of brown hair fell over his forehead and Darcy combed it off his face with her fingers. "Morbid curiosity?"

He dipped his chin toward his chest, dropping his pale eyes into shadow. "What are you up to, Darcy?"

The combination of unearthly male beauty and intense gaze rattled her composure. She swallowed and said, "Playing detective?"

"You're kidding."

"Never been more serious." She tightened her grip on his hand and met his gaze, imploring with her eyes. "Come on. It'll just take a few minutes? Please."

He broke eye contact, a resigned smile on his face. "Okay, Veronica Mars, let's go."

***

The walk to the apartment complex took five minutes. "What now?" asked Sean.

Darcy studied the complex, completely without a plan, but unwilling to admit it. After months of nearly unending drought, the complex's grounds were barren, even by New Mexico standards. Sunflowers swayed in the light breeze on the corner of one building, surviving off a leak from a swamp cooler, but otherwise the lot was an unending sea of bare earth.

All but four of the apartments had a vehicle parked by the front door. Of those, only two were dark, lights off, without even the blue flicker of a television. A cluster of mailboxes, once bright green, now mostly rust, was position by the road. The boxes were labeled with reflective, stick-on numbers, but had no names.

Assuming that the car-less, dark apartments were Andy and Max's, Darcy marched across the lot, Sean in tow, toward apartment four. A narrow concrete sidewalk ran along the front of each building. The only light came from each apartment's porch light.

In front of apartment four's door, Darcy crouched down slowly, her still sore hip and knee sending little achy warnings to her brain.

"What--?" Sean started to ask, but was interrupted by the door opening. A blast of cigarette-heavy air hit them in the face.

A woman, probably in her late fifties, stared at them irritably. Her long hair had probably been dark brown and curly when she was younger, but now was iron gray and frizzy. She wore dark blue sweatpants and an oversized Green Bay Packers Jersey. Her feet were bare, with large bunions and desperately in need of a pedicure.

"What the hell are you doing?" she asked, the question directed mostly at Darcy who still crouched on the door's stoop.

"I've, uh, lost my contacts."

The woman stared at her and after a beat said, "Honey, you're wearing glasses."

"Well...yeah, exactly."

Sean cleared his throat politely and held a hand out to the woman. "Hi, I'm Sean O'Malley."

Pulling her attention from Darcy, the woman faced Sean. "Hey, I know you," she said. "You're that kid who rented Cici's house, over on Eagle Road." She took his hand and did dainty finger shake. "I'm Carol, Cici's cousin."

He nodded, eyes wide, exuding effortless boyish charm. "Sorry about, uh, creeping you out, but we were looking for a friend. Andy Valenzuela?"

"Young guy, works for the military installation that supposedly don't exist?"

Darcy straightened. "Yeah, wink-wink, nudge-nudge."

Carol smiled. "I haven't seen him since Sunday." She pointed across the lot to an apartment on the end. "He lives in number sixteen. Now that you mention it, that's kind of weird. I mean, that's his truck." A shiny red Toyota Tacoma was parked in front of the apartment.

Her eyebrows crawled upward, dark eyes going wide. "You don't think he's been murdered? Like that other guy?" She craned her neck out the door and to the right. "Did you hear about that? The cops said he was frozen solid."

"Frozen?" said Sean, glancing at Darcy, blinking in shock. "Who?"

"Another one of them boys from the place that don't exist. Max Padilla. A shame, he was a cutey." Grabbing a chunk of her hair, she gave it several nervous twists. "You don't think Andy's over there, now? Dead? Frozen?"

Darcy stared blankly into the darkness of Carol's apartment. She didn't know where Andy's body was now, but it definitely wasn't in his apartment.

"I'm sure someone would have noticed, but is there a super?" she asked. "Somebody with a key? Maybe we could take a look?"

Carol shoved her hands into the sweatpants' pockets, the left emerging with a pack of cigarettes, the right with a lighter. She lit up, took a long drag and exhaled, an expression of bliss on her face. Darcy struggled not to cough and Sean looked ill.

At length, Carol answered, "The complex is owned by Eddie Perea. The state representative." After another luxuriant suck on the cigarette, she leaned against the doorway, emitting a toxic cloud into the night air. "He lives in Raton, so he's not around much. For emergencies, we're supposed to call his cousin, Mark King." Her nose wrinkled like she'd gotten a whiff of dog poo. "Of course, half the time, Mark's drunk off his ass, which is why Eddie came down this week."

"What apartment did Max live in?" asked Darcy.

"Six."

Sean apologized once more for lurking on her doorstep, and they left, leaving Carol to her future emphysema and whatever she had been doing in the dark apartment.

The parking spot in front of Max's apartment was empty, his Big Dog motorcycle nowhere in sight. Darcy bent down and held her palm over the concrete. Something prickled her skin and her heart leaped. Unfortunately, when she turned her hand over, she found that the cause was a spiny burr that had snagged her skin and not a nifty ability to sense magic. Gingerly, she pulled it free of her palm.

"You going to tell me what you're doing?" asked Sean.

"Checking for magic."

"Magic? Are you serious?"

Darcy looked up at him, amused. "You work for SHIELD, a place that employs super soldiers and thunder gods, and you don't believe in magic?"

"Okay. Point." He rubbed the back of his head. "Though, technically, only Steve Rogers is on payroll. Thor's an unpaid consultant."

"And Loki is Jane's unpaid Igor. Why do you think I hit SHIELD up for their food bill?"

He gave her an appraising look. "So you can, what, sense magic?"

"Not exactly." She stood up. "Jane and Loki are supposed to build me magic detector, so I can investigate properly."

His distinctive cheekbones got rounder as he obviously wrestled back a laugh. "'Investigate?'"

She smacked his shoulder. "This is serious!"

Holding up his hands in surrender, blue eyes still shining with mirth, he said, "Okay. So SHIELD probably went over this place with a fine-toothed comb. What do you think you'll find?"

"Clues." She started to dig around in her purse. Wallet, tampons, Taser, fossilized stick of gum, condoms, cell phone, Swiss Army knife...little LED flashlight. "Who needs a Boy Scout; you've got Darcy."

She walked over to the apartment's window, shining the light inside. The window was filthy and covered by cheap plastic blinds, which were tilted open. The flashlight picked out a cheap plaid sofa, coffee table, and a small kitchen beyond. A short hallway probably led to the bathroom and bedroom. No sign of evil wizards with insta-freeze magic wands.

Andy's apartment was the same, except his couch was lime green velour, and his truck, with a bumper sticker that displayed the American flag and the words, "These colors don't run," waited like a big metal dog for an owner who would never return.

"They must have known their killer. There was no sign of a break-in," said Darcy.

"Not necessarily," observed Sean. One hand on the rough stucco, he leaned against the building, attention on Darcy. "Let's say it was Loki–-"

"It wasn't," said Darcy.

"I know. But let's pretend it was. A guy like him, with that kind of power, could pick the lock with magic. He could probably, uh," he blinked rapidly, clearly searching for the right words, "mesmerize somebody into doing anything."

Darcy shivered and nodded in agreement. Andy and Max weren't mall cops. Either the killer was a super-bad-ass or he had a way to subdue highly skilled soldiers without a fuss. Grim determination to find whomever killed them welled up inside her like hot lava.

"Let's go, Darcy. You're just freaking yourself out." He surprised her by putting his arm over her shoulder, and she let herself be led away and back down the street toward her car. At about five eleven, Sean wasn't as tall as Loki, but he smelled just as good and there was no awkward armor between him and her hand around his waist. She snuggled against his side and they walked in silence through the town.

Up ahead, two people, white men in their late thirties, were approaching from the opposite direction. One wore a cowboy hat and the other, a John Deere cap. Judging from their unsteady pace, both were just one beer shy of alcohol poisoning. Darcy and Sean moved to the side to let them pass. Her nose stung with the combined stench of alcohol and stale cigarettes.

"Hey, Missie, you looking for a real man?" said the guy in the cap, a greasy leer on his face.

"Stupid, meet booze," muttered Darcy.

"What did you say?" Both men stopped, and John Deere's leer morphed into a scowl.

Knowing the type, she didn't respond and she and Sean continued on toward the car.

"Hey, I know you!"

At the sound of footsteps, Darcy and Sean stopped and turned.

Darcy's would-be suitor was in the lead, jaw thrust forward, posture aggressive. As he neared, she saw that his eyes were hazel, the whites yellowed and reddish with prominent blood vessels. He was a walking redneck cliché; the John Deere cap on his head, a stained T-shirt with the image of a deer in a gun's sights, faded blue jeans, pushed down by a beer belly, and scuffed cowboy boots.

"You're one of those girls. You live with him--Loki."

"No," said Darcy. "He's not–-"

"We know damn well who he is," said John Deere, nudging his buddy, who nodded in agreement. "We worked for SHIELD, before...they let us go." Taking a step closer, he glared at Darcy. "What's it like to live with a killer? What's it like to betray your own kind to screw the devil?"

Normally, Darcy would have had a sharp retort, but her conflicted feelings for Loki robbed her of snark. All she could manage was, "Hello, this is your liver, I'm dying here."

Her eyes moved up and down the street, seeing no one else in the vicinity, the beginnings of unease crawling up her spine. She debated pointing out the obvious. If her black-haired roommate was Loki, then the blond was Thor. And Thor would cheerfully pound John Deere and his pal into the consistency of mashed potatoes if they hurt her or Sean.

"Let's go, Darcy," said Sean, giving the men a contemptuous look.

"Did you just look at me, pretty boy?" John Deere's drunken glare blazed at Sean.

"You really want to go home and sober up," said Sean, his tone bored, and once again Darcy was struck by how much he reminded her of Loki. He slid his arm off Darcy and took a step toward the rednecks.

"I really want to kick your ass," was John Deere's response. The guy had at least fifty pounds on Sean, although most of it was in his gut. It was like redneck Sumo wrestler meets elf. He took a swing at Sean, who dodged the blow with ease and lifted his fists to fight.

"Bust his pretty face in," encouraged Cowboy Hat, not that the drunk needed any. John Deere started toward Sean, then stopped, a stupid expression on his face, if it were possible for him to look stupider. His eyes rolled back in his head and he fell to the ground in a twitching heap.

Sean's grim expression shifted to confusion, his eyes following the Taser's metal leads back to Darcy's hand. "You zapped him?" Fists still raised, he stared dumbfounded at the pile of slobbering Bubba at his feet.

"He totally deserved it." The Taser was new and she'd been dying to try it out, but a certain god of mischief had been actually nice to her lately, leaving no available test subjects.

The three lifted their gaze from the unconscious idiot at the same time, with Cowboy Hat's beady eyes narrowing as he caught sight of the weapon in Darcy's hand. At that moment, she realized the minuscule flaw in her fabulous plan. The Taser only had enough juice to knock out one drunk.

Cowboy Hat started toward Darcy and she shrank back. "You little cun--"

"I wouldn't do that Mr. Edwards," said a strong female voice behind them.

Sean, who had already moved between the drunk and Darcy, didn't turn, his attention fast on the belligerent cowboy. But Mr. Edwards stopped, blinking pig-like in the glare of a flashlight. Turning, Darcy saw Pam Johnson, one of SHIELD's guards. At five ten, blond, blue-eyed and broad shouldered, Pam would have looked at home on a battlefield next to Thor. In full body armor, she was just as imposing, a heavy black flashlight focused on Edwards, her other hand ready on the pistol at her waist.

Squinting in the light, Edwards raised an arm to ward off the glare. "This is none of your business."

"You sure?" She tapped a finger on the Desert Eagle, her demeanor calm.

Macho pride revved up by alcohol warred with good sense in Edward's eyes and for a second it looked like pride might win. Then he backed away, palms out. "Okay, okay, don't get your panties in a twist."

With a confident swagger, Pam moved to stand beside Sean. Reaching down, she yanked the Taser's prongs from the groaning, semiconscious drunk. "Get him out of here."

Casting one last dirty look at Darcy and Sean, Edwards bent and hauled his buddy to his feet. John Deere opened his mouth, bleary eyes on Darcy and said, "Germongle paper rock scissors." The two continued slowly down the sidewalk, before turning and disappearing behind Izzy's Diner. Pam watched them go, hands on her hips.

"We probably should have called the sheriff's office except," Pam eyed Darcy's Taser, "I can't remember. Are stun guns legal in New Mexico?"

Darcy blinked, an innocent expression on her face. "Of course." She had no idea.

Pam grinned. "And we probably don't need him babbling the 'L' word at the cops."

"He said he worked for SHIELD," said Darcy. "An agent? Guard?"

"Peter Edwards owns Edwards Heating and Cooling. In the interest of good public relations, SHIELD hired him and some other local contractors to do work on the facility. From what I've heard, Edwards is a genius with HVAC systems."

"He's the one that set up the arctic freeze air conditioner?" Darcy shook her head, and started to wind the metal leads around the Taser.

"It worked initially," observed Pam, "But after he showed up for work drunk one too many times, his contract was cancelled. The system started malfunctioning right after. No one's been able to fix it since."

"Loki did," said Darcy, absently.

"Did he?" Pam shrugged. "I guess magic is good for something besides murder."

"I remember now," said Sean, his blue eyes silver in the streetlight, gaze on the street beyond and an approaching vehicle's headlights. "His buddy, the one Darcy Tased, must be Mark King."

To Darcy, he explained, "Money makes the world go around; everything goes through accounting. Edwards listed King as an employee."

The three watched as a white van with "Edward's Heating and Cooling" painted in faded black letters on its side drove by slowly. "Just what the road needs," said Pam, "Another drunk."

The SHIELD guard turned and walked back several feet where she scooped up two large, white plastic bags from the sidewalk. "Frito pies, burritos and burgers for the night shift," she explained. "I'm on dinner detail."

"Thanks for the rescue," said Darcy. "Next time, I'll bring two Tasers."

"Yeah, thanks," said Sean, showing no signs of resenting being rescued by a woman, which pleased Darcy.

***

In her car, just as she turned up Eagle Road, Darcy said, "D'oh!"

"What?" asked Sean.

"Mark King." She stopped the car in front of Sean's house, sliding the gear shift into neutral.

"Oh!" said Sean. "You think it's the same Mark King."

"How many can there be in a burg this size? And he's friends with a guy who's a 'genius' with refrigeration."

Sean rubbed his chin. "It's an interesting coincidence. But neither guy looked like the type who'd do magic." He wiggled his long fingers when he said "magic."

Darcy purse her lips and shrugged. "Is there a type? Long beard, a staff and robes?"

Sean bent his head forward and pushed his fingers through his shaggy hair. He looked at her, expression weary and a little sad. "I don't think you should be messing around in this. Whoever killed Andy and Max--"

"--is dangerous. I know."

"I don't think you do." He shook his head. "Just promise me you won't do this alone. Take Jane, or call me, but don't do this by yourself."

Before she could respond, he leaned toward her, one hand on her chin and kissed her. It was brief and over too soon, but nothing about it suggested inexperience. If the rest of Sean was a virgin, his lips weren't. His mouth was warm against hers, the kiss filled with exquisite hunger. When he backed away, she almost grabbed him and dragged him back.

"Be careful." And then he was gone, walking up his front path and then disappearing into his house.

***

Halfway home, on the roughest part of the road, the combined effect of adrenaline and lust wore off and Darcy's hands started to shake. Sean's kiss, though amazing and long overdue, she could handle. But the attempted violence on her person, even though averted by 50,00 volts of electricity and a SHIELD guard, left her feeling violated and vulnerable. She shuddered, her body remembering another incident, long ago, the memory itself repressed deep in her mind.

The lights were all off in the house, but someone had left the porch light on. She tromped up the stairs, her mission clear: first, alcohol; and then the cozy safety of her room and the oblivion of sleep.

In the house, she made her way through the living room, maneuvering around the lumpy shapes of furniture, to the kitchen where she flicked on the light.

A half empty bottle of red wine sat on the kitchen counter, Loki's doing probably, since Jane preferred white and Thor, beer. Flipping open the cabinet door, she pulled out one of their five remaining wine glasses. There had been a set of eight, but Thor broke two (accidentally), and Darcy, the other. She tugged the cork from the bottle and started to pour, the task made difficult by her shaking hands.

"You're trembling. Why?"

Startled, she jumped, her hand jerked and the tip of the bottle hit the rim of the glass. Red wine splattered on the tan countertop. "Dammit! Loki!"

"What happened?" His hand closed around her upper arm, pulling her around.

The action triggered an old muscle memory, forged out of fear and brought to the surface by overworked nerves. She jerked away, punching at his hand. "Don't touch me!"

She froze, back against the counter, staring at him. Rather than a herd of cattle's worth of leather, he wore close-fitting black pants, a shirt in a shade of green so dark it was almost black and a heavy black over-tunic. Except for a little bit of gold embroidery around the shirt's high collar, it was all very simple.

"What did Sean do?" he said, the words devoid of emotion, and somehow vibrating with menace. He watched her, still as a statue, jaw hard, pale face grim, a predator about to pounce.

"Nothing! It wasn't him, okay?"

"What wasn't him?" There must have been magic in his words, because they vibrated in her skull and down to her toes like the bass from a huge woofer at a rock concert.

Sucking in a deep breath, like a swimmer coming up for air, she then exhaled, muscles relaxing slowly. Her nerves still shivered, in part because of the powerful magical being before her who was about a pin drop from coming unglued. "Stop looking at me like that. I admit it, you're scaring the pathetic mortal. Does that make you happy?"

He flinched slightly and then closed his eyes. "No," he said through bared teeth.

A little thrown by his answer, she said, "Well, then, don't do that." With a wary glance his way, she pulled a paper towel off the roll and mopped up the little red puddles. When she finished, she balled up the used towel and tossed it at the nearby trash bin. It soared anemically and fell a couple feet short.

His green eyes moved from the wadded-up paper towel, to Darcy, to the towel and back. "You display a lamentable lack of comprehension of basic physics."

"Is that Loki for 'You throw like a girl'?"

Instead of an answer, he made a lazy gesture at the paper towel and it hopped obediently in the bin.

"Yeah, well, you do magic like Harry Potter."

"Nonsense. I don't need a wand."

"I remember a big scepter thing. Compensating, much?"

The sound of a door squeaking open interrupted their un-witty banter, and Thor appeared a moment later, blinking sleepily at them from the living room. "Jane and I heard angry voices," he said. "Darcy, you're home. How was your...date?"

"Like a really weird chick flick." With rednecks and Tasers.

He stared at Darcy blankly, shooting Loki a questioning glance. Getting no explanation from his brother, he gave up and said, with a huge smile on his handsome face, "Wonderful!"

Darcy smiled wearily back and Loki said, tersely, "Good. Night. Thor."

"Goodnight, brother," he replied. With a nod at Darcy, he turned for bed.

"I'm not your brother," muttered Loki.

"'I'm not your brother,'" Darcy parroted. She picked up the wine glass and took a sip. "If there was a talking Loki doll, that would definitely be something it would say."

"Stop," he said.

"Stop what?"

"Deflecting."

She leaned back against the counter, gave the wine glass a casual swirl and eyed Loki, who stared back, mouth a hard line. Her heart still drummed at a faster than usual tempo, but she could feel tension easing from her body. The cause wasn't just the wine.

Despite her reaction earlier, she believed he wouldn't hurt her, although she didn't outright trust him. How do you trust someone who, in a jealous snit, would try to kill his brother, especially a brother who was more loyal than Lassie? But she also didn't think Loki was the kind of guy who'd make declarations like, "I could never hurt you," especially to an insignificant, barely useful science assistant, unless he meant it.

And strangely, in his presence, for the most part, she felt irrationally safe.

"Deflecting?" she said.

"Tell me what happened tonight." Muscles tightened in his angular face as though he were in pain. "Please."

In spite of her mood, she laughed. "Don't hurt yourself, your princelyness."

The corner of his mouth twitched. "You might note, my head didn't explode."

Her knee and hip were starting ache, so she set her drink to the side, then pulled herself up to sit on the countertop. Her heel banged against the dishwasher, sending a shock of pain up her leg.

As she picked up her wine, he closed the distance between them. Reaching behind her head, he opened the cabinet just enough to slide out a wine glass. The wine bottle went glug-glug-glug as he poured himself a glass, and Darcy swallowed a huge gulp of wine, hoping to put out the flame of lust that surged through her body.

Taking a very small step back, but still too close, he canted his head to the side. Sitting on the countertop, she was almost his height. After another smaller sip of wine, she told him about her trip to the apartment complex, trying to ignore the homicidal fire that burned in his eyes when she described the encounter with Peter Edwards and Mike King.

She ended with, "And I finally got to first base. Yay me."

His lip curled. "As least the boy made an attempt to defend you. He isn't entirely useless."

"Give him a break. He's an accountant, not a superhero." Swinging a leg, she kicked him lightly on the leg. "So what do you think? Edwards might have the expertise to rig up a freezy gun. Maybe he's one of those humans you talked about. The descendent of mortal-immortal sex. And King has keys to the apartments. Plus, they hate you."

"Who doesn't?" he said almost cheerfully.

Your brother. Me. She licked a fingertip and ran it over the glass's rim till it sang dully. "If I had a way to detect magic, I could snoop around Edwards's place."

He lifted his glass and drained it. Setting the empty glass by her side, he met her eyes. She took another sip, every cell in her body thrumming at his proximity.

"I think that would be ill advised," he said. "Edwards attacked you tonight. Even if he isn't the killer, he's clearly a violent brute."

"So?" she said, trying to sound nonchalant, although her voice cracked a bit.

"So next time there may not be a SHIELD guard to save you." His eyes swept over the kitchen and he gave Darcy a meaningful look. "Fury will know your theory soon enough."

She nodded, knowing he meant SHIELD's bugs. Jane had found and sent several through the garbage disposal this week, but they'd probably already been replaced.

"Mischief, Loki. This is totally your thing."

"Perhaps I'm taking a holiday from getting foolish mortals killed."

"No, no," she whined. "You can't grow a conscience now." She knocked on his forehead with her knuckles. "Hello. Can the real Loki come out and play?"

He clamped a hand around her wrist, holding her arm away from his face. "Careful what you ask for, girl." His tone and eyes turned icy.

She gulped. "If Fury hauls your ass off to a SHIELD holding cell, Thor goes with you. Thor without his Janey-poo is mopey Thor. Imagine that." She waved her free hand like a magician conjuring an illusion. "You and the God of Emo in a small cell."

"You are attempting to appeal to my selfish interests."

"Yep."

He opened his hand, fingers spread wide, releasing her arm. "That would be a wise stratagem."

"I know, huh?" She kicked him again. "So that's a yes?"

He dropped his gaze to the floor, scuffing at a spot on the linoleum with his boot, and shrugged. "It would vex Thor."

"Dude, you so need a career that isn't tweaking Thor." Kick. "You could stop hiding and come with. Then I'd have you and Thor as backup."

"I don't involve myself in the affairs of mortals."

"No, you just blow up our stuff and unleash monsters on our cities."

"You're implying that the two aren't mutually exclusive." His eyes met hers, expression boyish and excessively innocent. They stared at each other and then both burst out laughing.

It was cathartic, a huge release after a week of tension. She didn't know exactly what was so funny, and doubted he did either, but she laughed anyway. Laughter changed his face, all the hard lines softened, cheeks rounded, little lines around his eyes making him terribly human. Any humor he'd shown around Jane was a pale shadow of what he revealed now. He bent his head, rubbing his forehead, shoulders still shaking with laughter.

"Shit, Mad Science, why do you have to be so..."

"So what?" Suddenly he was close enough that her knees were on either side of his waist, his face inches from hers. Her heart started to fluttered in her chest, like a bug trapped in a jar, banging against her ribs.

"Rude, arrogant, evil. Smart, funny, sometimes not-evil..." She downed the rest of the wine in a big gulp. "Adorable."

He looked genuinely confused. "Puppies are adorable."

"So are guys are like Sean, or Thor, or you." Shut up, Darcy. She frowned at the empty glass. What was in that wine?

When she looked up, his eyes stared blankly at something to her left, his expression confused, looking like he was working out a math problem that should have been easy, but somehow wasn't.

Maybe it was the wine or the remnants of the kiss from Sean, but his proximity was getting almost painful.

"Either kiss me or get the hell out of my space before my girl parts explode." Her mouth dropped open, shocked, as the words scurried away like a dog that had slipped its leash, with no intention of returning. Lifting her chin, her face burning, she braced herself for the nasty comment to come.

His face unreadable, he neatly plucked her glasses from her face and did exactly what she asked.

Stunned, she didn't respond immediately. His mouth was warm, but every muscle in her body went rigid as ice. His hand was on her right leg, fingers bleeding heat through her jeans. Almost too late, she realized that Loki probably wasn't interested in kissing statues. Feeling him pulling back, she broke through shock and grabbed his face, pressing her mouth to his.

If she had to guess, she'd say that memories of kissing, like magic, lay on the cutting room floor of his broken brain. His initial approach was hesitant, but not without skill. What his mind forgot, his lips remembered. Sliding her fingers back along his skull, she buried them in his hair, as his clever mouth hinted at other talents that sent heat straight to her groin. She ran her tongue along his lower lip and he took the invitation, his tongue teasing her mouth in an exquisite dance. The kiss was scalding hot, but unhurried, as if he, an immortal, had all the time in the world.

Darcy, a mere mortal, didn't have that kind of patience. She shifted her hands down to his waist, fingers trying to figure a way under his clothes. After a minute of this, he made a growl in his throat and grabbed her arms by the wrists, pinning them behind her back and pulling her to him. Her breasts were crushed hard against his chest, and top of his hips pressed against her inner thighs. At that moment, she forgot where they were, her world shrinking to just the places were her body contacted Loki's, the drumming of his heartbeat against hers, the delicious surrender to passion.

Dimly, she heard a door open, and murmured voices, male, female, then a giggle. Someone, said, with exasperated humor, "Thor," then, "I'll be right back."

Loki obviously recognized the voice when Darcy did, breaking the kiss, panting against her mouth. Their eyes met, then they both looked in the direction of the hallway. With disappointing ease, he disengaged from her and moved backwards.

He stood before her, blinking, looking surprised, and maybe a little guilty. Then in swirl of green mist, he disappeared. A second later Jane walked into the kitchen, a silly smile on her face. "Oh," she said, startled, "Darcy, hi. I didn't know you were still up."

Since, in the absence of Loki, she was about to fall anyway, Darcy slid off the countertop to the floor. Her knees wobbled and she leaned against the counter.

"What's wrong?" said Jane.

Loki just kissed the hell out me. She stared at Jane like the proverbial deer in headlights, her mouth moving, but nothing coming out.

"Darcy--?"

"Nothing," she said, quickly. "Goodnight." Leaving Jane standing perplexed in the kitchen, she fled to her room.