Chapter 861

Frigga seemed to be having a very good time.

After hearing Sif explain the current state of Asgard, Evenson honestly couldn’t think of a better way to put it.

He had never been able to neatly classify Asgard’s political system. As far as he could tell, it was a strange hybrid of the Roman Empire and a medieval feudal monarchy.

Now, thanks to Frigga, it was making a spectacular leap toward centralized government.

And that was before accounting for the fact that Frigga had apparently read the Book of Lord Shang and taken its ideas to heart.

Evenson wasn’t sure he wanted to imagine what would happen when Asgard’s famously martial armies—already weakened from centuries without a major war—were suddenly given a merit-based military rank system.

And if Frigga was serious about implementing all of this, then abolishing the traditional feudal arrangements among Asgard’s vassal kingdoms was probably only a matter of time.

"Frigga... I mean, the All-Mother... Your Majesty..." Evenson struggled to settle on the right form of address before asking Sif, "If she’s already implemented all these reforms, why is she still sending you to Earth looking for books? Does she think the laws aren’t aggressive enough?"

"The All-Mother’s wisdom is deeper than any of us can comprehend. How could we possibly presume to understand what she sees?" Sif straightened, clearly intent on defending Frigga’s dignity. Then she sighed. "Since the All-Mother began ruling directly, Asgard’s taxation, military recruitment, and administrative control over its territories have all increased dramatically. The reaction from the court has been... rather intense. I suspect many of the nobles feel they’ve already been pushed to their limit."

"Is there really anything more extreme than that?"

Evenson shrugged.

Of course there was.

He could list several without even opening a book.

Asgard’s current hereditary aristocracy could be replaced with a merit-based examination system. Frigga could then stand on the palace balcony and declare that the heroes of the Nine Realms had all been gathered into her court.

Then there were tax reforms, land reforms, and the delightful prospect of making the nobility subject to the same obligations as everyone else.

If Frigga tried implementing all of that at once, Asgard’s nobles would probably revolt on the spot.

Better to take things slowly.

"Let’s answer your last question first," Evenson said after a moment. "The All-Mother asked when we could accompany her to retrieve the shipment. My answer was simple: whenever she is ready. We’ve already made all the necessary preparations. We’re just waiting for her order to join forces."

"I see."

Sif nodded.

That completed the primary reason she’d come to Earth.

"I’ll report that to the All-Mother."

"Good."

Evenson nodded as well, then glanced toward Coulson and the others. They had been waiting patiently while he and Sif conducted their private conversation, but their patience was clearly running thin.

"Now," Evenson said, "let’s take care of the official business."

"I understand your mission here involves pursuing someone," Coulson said. "Can you tell us who?"

"Lorelei."

Sif had three objectives on Earth.

The first was to discuss Evenson’s cooperation with Frigga. The second was to locate several books Frigga wanted.

The third was the excuse Sif was using to conceal the other two.

She was supposedly here to capture the escaped Asgardian criminal Lorelei.

Since that was merely a cover story, Evenson mentally filtered out most of Sif’s increasingly dramatic description of Lorelei’s crimes.

"Lorelei caused a catastrophe throughout the Nine Realms six hundred years ago through the use of her powers."

There were some security issues.

"She commanded armies, destroyed kingdoms, and killed kings."

She had gathered a few criminals and beaten up a village chief.

Sif had little choice but to exaggerate. Unfortunately, the SHIELD agents had no idea that most of what they were hearing was inflated propaganda.

May asked, "What kind of powers does she have? Super strength? Super speed?"

"Magic."

Sif’s expression tightened. There was an odd mixture of disdain and reluctant frustration in her voice.

"She twists the wills of men and uses them to accomplish her goals."

"Huh. Sounds like a succubus."

Evenson grinned.

As a Warlock, he knew exactly what she was describing.

"She is not a succubus. She’s an enchantress."

Sif gritted her teeth.

"Her voice is extraordinarily seductive. Against weak-willed men, she can use her voice and physical contact to break their resistance with ease."

"That’s a succubus."

Evenson nodded solemnly.

Ward looked intrigued.

"Does her power only work on men? It doesn’t affect women?"

"A weakness men are born with."

Sif said it with such contempt that May actually looked rather pleased.

Then May turned toward Evenson.

"Speaking of which, I remember that when you filed your original paperwork, the woman working at your shop, Sarah, was apparently a succubus."

She paused.

"Since Lorelei’s abilities sound so similar, why don’t you bring Sarah in as a consultant?"

"Absolutely unnecessary."

Evenson shook his head immediately.

"There are countless succubi in the Twisting Nether. But if you want one who dislikes men and is still a virgin, then mine is exactly what you’re looking for."

May’s expression froze.

"Oh."

She slowly patted Evenson on the shoulder.

"Well... that’s actually true."

Her face twitched.

"On the bright side, I suppose you got lucky."

She paused.

"I don’t know why I suddenly want to laugh."

"Go ahead."

Evenson rolled his eyes.

"When I first summoned Sarah, I cried."

"So Sarah won’t be useful for this operation."

That was true enough.

But not because Sarah was incapable of helping.

Evenson simply had no intention of dragging her into this mess.

She already had another assignment.

A few days earlier, Malik had called him with information from one of his agents inside Hydra-controlled SHIELD.

Alexander Pierce had apparently been devoting nearly all of his attention to a ship preparing to leave port.

The Lemurian Star.

There was a good chance the ship was connected to Project Insight.

That alone wasn’t particularly surprising.

The interesting part was the second piece of information.

Someone had placed a contract on the ship through the dark web, offering a substantial sum to elite mercenaries willing to hijack it.

A detailed investigation had followed the money through seventeen shell accounts before it finally reached a holding company.

The registered owner was a man named Jacobovich.

The problem was that Jacobovich had died six years earlier.

His last known address was 1435 Hurst Avenue.

Nick Fury’s mother had once lived at 1437.

The two addresses were next door to each other.

There were only two possible explanations.

Either two neighboring families had somehow produced a SHIELD director on one side and a terrorist capable of uncovering Pierce’s secret plans on the other...

Or Nick Fury himself had placed the contract.

And if Fury had already realized there was something wrong with Project Insight, then why shouldn’t Evenson help him?

More importantly, why shouldn’t Evenson send his own people onto the ship to learn exactly what Project Insight was supposed to do?

Only a North African mercenary group had been willing to accept the job so far.

That was understandable.

The Lemurian Star belonged to SHIELD. No matter how much money was being offered, a mercenary had to wonder whether he’d still be alive to spend it.

So why not spare them the trouble?

Kill the mercenaries quietly.

Take their identities.

Put his own people aboard the ship.

Evenson had thought the logic was sound.

If Nick Fury was sending people to hijack the ship, his objective would obviously be to recover information about Project Insight.

Which meant he’d need someone he trusted.

Coulson?

Certainly trustworthy.

But there was an entire mercenary team aboard the ship, and hostages were likely to be involved. Recovering the information while resolving the situation without casualties was well beyond what Coulson’s small special-operations team could reasonably accomplish.

That left three candidates.

Black Widow.

Hawkeye.

Captain America.

As for Evenson himself, he’d known from the beginning that Nick Fury didn’t trust him enough to make him one of his inner-circle operatives.

Fury relied on him heavily.

That wasn’t the same thing.

Hawkeye had once been someone Fury trusted absolutely, but Clint now had a wife and children. The responsibilities of a family changed the equation. He probably wasn’t the ideal choice for a mission like this.

Which left Natasha Romanoff.

Still single.

Still free of the complications that came with a family.

And there was another clue.

Natasha had deliberately distanced herself from Sarah recently, which strongly suggested that she’d become involved in something highly classified.

Putting everything together, Evenson was nearly certain that Black Widow would be involved regardless of who else Fury sent.

And on Evenson’s side, Sarah was the person who knew Natasha best and had actually fought her.

So Sarah was the obvious choice.

There was also the fact that ever since Natasha had begun avoiding her, Sarah had been miserable.

She’d taken to drowning her sorrows in alcohol.

Evenson was beginning to suspect that if he didn’t let the two women meet again soon, Sarah was going to drink him into bankruptcy.

That was why the alias Jill Valentine, Umbrella’s head of security, had gone back into action.

Sarah was currently traveling around the world with a team, hunting down every mercenary group interested in accepting the contract.

In other words, she was rather busy.

She had no time to worry about this little side investigation.

"So how do we stop her?" Coulson asked.

By now, he genuinely seemed concerned about Lorelei’s abilities.

Sif reached behind herself and produced a metal collar.

"With this."

She held it up.

"It prevents her from speaking. She was forced to wear one of these while imprisoned."

There was a suspicious amount of satisfaction in Sif’s voice.

Evenson leaned closer.

"Maybe I’m reading too much into this, but I detect some personal history here."

He lowered his voice.

"What did she do?"

"Absolutely nothing."

Sif smiled brightly.

"Her powers generally only work on ordinary Asgardians, so they’re useless against members of the royal family."

She paused.

"As for the fact that she used to be Thor’s girlfriend and that they had a history together... I never paid any attention to that."

Evenson nodded.

"That definitely sounds like personal history."

So that was why Sif had chosen a fugitive-hunting story as her excuse to come to Earth.

Now it made sense.

"How do we find her?" Coulson asked.

"Our military satellites detected something."

Mackena pointed toward the display.

"About an hour before Ms. Sif arrived, there was an energy fluctuation similar to the Bifrost. The source may have been in this area."

"You detected it?"

Sif nodded.

"Lorelei escaped through one of Loki’s hidden passages. The energy signature of those passages is very similar to the Bifrost. It may be the same phenomenon."

"If this woman once ruled a kingdom, she’s probably not the sort to settle for a quiet life."

Coulson straightened.

Then, apparently determined to recover some SHIELD dignity, he continued.

"We’ll search everything within a hundred-mile radius of the site. Unusual gatherings. Home invasions. Weapons theft. Anything that suggests someone is building up resources."

Nobody objected.

The team’s attention shifted to SHIELD’s integrated information system.

Coulson began explaining how to use it to Sif.

"These are all the police reports from the last twenty-four hours. You just need to—"

Sif waved a hand.

She started searching herself.

Coulson blinked.

Then he seemed to relax.

"Looks like you learned quickly. I forgot you’d spent some time living at SHIELD."

"No."

Sif shook her head, looking slightly embarrassed.

"This is an obsolete system. Asgard and several of the other realms stopped using it years ago. I merely had to remember how."

"You’ve been to other realms?"

Coulson couldn’t quite hide his curiosity.

They had an actual extraterrestrial sitting in front of them. Naturally, he had questions.

"Do you know anything about people with blue—"

A red alert suddenly flashed across the screen.

Sif’s attention snapped to it.

"An armed jewelry robbery. And a local motorcycle gang was defeated by a strangely dressed woman and taken to a bar."

She studied the report.

"Lorelei is building an army."

Then she noticed something else.

"But it appears she has finally learned a method that possesses at least some honor."

The gang members hadn’t been enchanted.

They had been beaten into submission and gathered together afterward.

By Asgardian standards, that was apparently a significant improvement.

"Then let’s go take a look," Coulson said.

He reluctantly shelved his own question.

"The police should already be there. Hopefully nothing unusual has happened."

They weren’t disappointed.

The team soon landed nearby and drove toward the bar.

Since there was a possibility that the people inside had been enchanted or coerced, SHIELD’s agents carried their usual tranquilizer weapons rather than lethal firearms.

Evenson stepped out of the vehicle.

The towering cacti surrounding them stretched toward the sky.

He looked around.

"Personally, I think this sort of thing should be left to the Texas Rangers."

Coulson ignored him and approached the police surrounding the bar.

"What’s the situation inside?"

No one answered.

The officers stood completely still.

Too still.

One of them slowly turned around.

The movement was wrong.

Not stiff.

Not merely unnatural.

It was as though invisible strings were pulling a puppet into position.

When the officer finally faced them, Coulson’s expression hardened.

The thing standing there was no longer human.

Its skin had shriveled tight against its body. Dark fluids leaked from ruptured flesh. Its face was twisted into something that belonged in a horror movie, not a police uniform.

"Uuugh..."

The thing groaned.

Then the other officers slowly turned as well.

Every single one of them had become the same.

Zombies.

They raised their guns.

Sif’s companion, Sigrun, suddenly stepped forward.

"Helagar!"

Her voice cracked across the street like a battle cry.

Hatred burned in her eyes.

Her shield snapped into position as her flail unfolded in her other hand.

She looked ready for war.

"What the hell is going on?"

Evenson stared.

He’d expected a simple fugitive hunt.

Something they could wrap up quickly and go home.

Instead, they had zombies.

His gaze flicked toward the bar.

There was something else.

The space around the building felt wrong.

Distorted.

And strangely familiar.

Then—

Bang!

Something shot through one of the bar’s windows.

Evenson turned just in time to see a blackened sword spinning through the air.

It slammed point-first into the vehicle beside him.

Evenson stared at it.

Then he sighed.

"Oh, shit."