- Disclaimer: Matantei Loki Ragnarok belongs to Kinoshita Sakura.

Curse of the Cat's Bell

written by Kurosu

- Chapter Three.

It all happened within seconds, after Loki telling her that the stranger they were chasing was not the culprit and her head turning towards him as she made the sharp turn around the corner and smacked in to a solid chest of a very large man, causing the fedora to fall to the ground. The mishap exposed her kitty ears briefly, but Mayura had no time to process it when she found a heavy fabric thrown over her head. The texture and thickness was familiar between her fingers, and she peeked out from beneath Loki's coat to see a few people staring at her oddly.

The large man asked if she was all right, and Loki responded, with an arm around her, pressing her head against his chest, his coat still shielding her appearance from curious eyes, "Ah, don't worry about it, sir. She's a bit clumsy and never listens to me."

He nodded and walked away, along with everyone else, and the attention finally died off, leaving Loki to peer down to her flushed face and pinch her cheek with much disapproval, "Now, will you listen to me?"

He could almost see the droop of her ears as she nodded in a defeated manner. He sighed, letting go of her, and walked over to the fallen hat and picked it up. He lifted his coat up from her and returned the accessory to her head, once again hiding her ears. He took his coat back from her and helped her up with his free hand, because it was not proper for a girl to sit on the ground like that.

"But Loki-kun," she started, dusting the dirt and debris off the back of her skirt with both hands, "how do you know he's not the one?"

"First, when we met him, he didn't recognize you at all. And then when you accused him, he was genuinely surprised."

When she was back on her feet and appeared recompose, he extended his hand to her again, and she didn't hesitate to take it, neither finding the gesture between them out of place. They resumed walking side by side, and she suggested thoughtfully, "Well he could just be a good actor?"

"I know," he grinned, noticing the sudden appearance of a cat out of the corner of his eye, "but nothing gets pass me."

During the interaction between the stranger and Mayura, he had observed the man carefully and found each reaction, from facial muscles to body language as honest as could be. There were also other factors to take note of, "Did you notice what he wore?"

"Um, not cargo pants?" she asked, looking up to the blue skies.

He sweatdropped, as they walked by two more cats watching them, and he tried to brush it off as a coincidence that he was seeing so many felines in one day. He focused on her again, "Right, he wore a pair of nice slacks and a very expensive, brand name polo. His shoes were neat and clean, almost new, and his headphones, those were expensive too. With all of that to take in to account, I doubt he would be selling little trinkets on the streets."

"He just cleaned himself up today!"

"Really, Mayura, he's not your mysterious, peddling bum," he tried not to laugh at her attempts to debunk his keen observation skills, "I certainly didn't detect anything out of the ordinary about him."

"So, we're no closer to figuring it out," she hummed sulkily, "But I really thought it was him. He was very handsome."

If she bothered to be more aware of her companion, then she would have seen the annoyed twitch of his right eye and the appearance of a throbbing vein on his forehead. He looked away from her and saw a cat sprinting across the road towards their side, asking, "Are you talking about that guy? Or the peddler?"

"Both?" she let out a small laugh, "But no, really, I'm pretty good at remembering faces."

"When you want to, right?" he glanced at her slyly, and she blushed.

The whole while he had been trying to not let Mayura's sudden preference in older men cloud his thinking process, now that they had eliminated the mortal suspect from the situation. If he accepted this as a random situation, then what he would need to deal with was the actual cursed item itself. He would need to do some research on it, locally, if it was indeed an item from this country, and tried not to think it was even Asgard-related, which would be more trouble for him.

"Hm, Mayura," he started, "let's go to the library."

"Huh, why?"

"We have to take a different approach to the curse now. Instead of finding the person behind it, we'll investigate the bell itself."

An hour later at the town's main library on the other side of the district, since her school's library was normally closed on the weekend after noon, Mayura sat in front of a computer with Loki next to her, both peering at the monitor. She had brought up the internet browser, hoping to do a broad search of all the databases of information in the world at once, and typed in a few keywords in the search engine.

Loki watched with fascination at the mortals' impressive technological advances, as weird as it was, and he could never comprehend such things like how humans would never fully understand the concept of gods and existence of magic anyway.

Within nanoseconds, a screen of results appeared, and Mayura sweatdropped upon seeing that there were over 72 million hits. He then suggested adding a few extra words to it, and she was amazed that the number jumped down to 125 thousand, which still didn't help much. She tried localizing the search, but nothing came up for the area.

"Hm, what if the bell belonged to a famous cat?"

Mayura included the words in the next search, and Loki immediately noticed the fifth result that had Freya's name in the concise summary.

"That one," he pointed to the line, and she clicked on the site, bringing up some information on the Norse goddess named Freya. He shouldn't have been surprised it linked back to one of his fellow immortals of Asgard and doubted that Freya would find the generic image of a woman with long, blonde hair did her justice. He put that aside and skimmed through the supposed facts, a few he already knew about, like the owner of the Brisingamen necklace and the name and location of her hall.

He half paid attention to Mayura's words, "You know, this goddess reminds me of someone..."

He nearly laughed at the part about Freya's husband, because if she actually had one, she wouldn't be stalking him so much and continuously declaring her love for him. He shook his head and sighed, wondering how these mortals came up with such information about the Norse pantheon. He finally came across the one information he was looking for, concerning the purpose of their search, about the two cats that Freya owned, which he didn't know about.

Sure, he knew that Thor had two goats, but they were best friends and had quite a few adventures together. Now he felt a bit guilty that he didn't get to know Freya and the other gods like he would want to, thought it wasn't too late when some of them were on Midgard with him.

"Loki-kun," her voice brought him back to the present, "it mentions a pair of bells - one gold and one silver - but nothing else about them."

She sounded put out in the end, but he couldn't blame her when the site offered no other information, nothing pertaining to a curse either. But it was enough for him, because he knew the exact source to go to, silently cursing Odin in the back of his mind. He knew from the beginning that the Allfather was the cause all of the trouble - who else in the Nine Worlds had the guts to go against Loki.

"It'll be fine, Mayura," he tried to reassure her, "Let's go home. I'll get you back to normal by tomorrow, I promise."

He sounded so confident in his words that she looked at him for a moment and then smiled, nodding, her worries disappearing, as they stood up to leave. They were unexpectedly stopped right outside the entrance by a cute kitten, who scurrying up to Mayura and began mewing at her. She knelt down to pet it, but Loki's tug of her sleeve told her that her attention should not be on the little creature.

She looked up and saw a bunch of cats lingering a few feet in front of them. They were eyeing her like she was the most appetizing fish they had ever seen, very disturbing, and she let the kitten go and scooted subconsciously closer to Loki, who was mumbling, "I thought it was strange cats were suddenly appearing everywhere we went." He glanced over to her, "You're probably releasing some sort of pheromone."

"Eh? I smell?"

He sweatdropped, "Yes, and it's attracting these... male cats."

She grabbed his wrist and dragged him back in to the library to get away from the cats. They ran right by the reception desk, and the librarian scolded them on their lack of adhering to the rules about running inside the building. Mayura quickly apologized, zooming towards the other exit.

"This is crazy!" she exclaimed minutes later, still running and dragging Loki down the sidewalk, but she felt the heaviness from the boy and knew this escape method by foot was not going to last much longer for him. She stopped and knelt down, her back facing him, "Get on, Loki-kun."

He was able to catch his breath, blinking at her, but she insisted with a smile, "Trust me, Loki-kun."

The pack of pheromone-crazed cats were not too far behind, so he nodded, and with some embarrassment, he quickly climbed on to her back. As soon as he wrapped his arms around her neck, she tucked her hands underneath his legs and suddenly shot forward like a panicked gazelle. He was surprised his extra weight didn't deterred her from running and noted that she had even sped up, leaving behind the noisy cats in the dust.

One group was left behind, but many more emerged from the nearby streets, but she was able to lose them with her speed, turning down a few more smaller roads to hopefully lose more of them.

"There's no where safe out here," Loki sweatdropped, seeing that they weren't going to get rid of ths cat problem so easily, and the only place that was deemed secure would be the agency, where he always had protective wards up, "We need to hurry home."

She nodded and made a dash in the direction of the agency, and within minutes, they came upon their own neighborhood, less people around now, but a few of the local felines appeared at the slight scent of Mayura in the vicinity. She had no choice and jumped straight in to the air, very high for the average human, but she wasn't one at the moment and landed nimbly on the tall brick wall.

"Are you okay, Loki-kun?" she threw the question over her shoulder.

A momentarily stunned Loki only grunted out an affirmative reply, "You surprised me."

She laughed softly and glanced to the ground, where a few cats peered up at them, mewing for her. She then leapt down to the ground on the other side of the wonderful barricade, in to someone's yard, but didn't bother with that fact. With their pursuers left behind, Mayura continued their journey home, taking several shortcuts bounding from one yard to the next and using the edge of the various fences as a pathway.

He was certainly amused by her method and wondered if the curse was really that bad to keep, because having a useful Mayura was a positive outcome. She had become reliable, with sharp senses and quick reflexes, and her movements were fluid and graceful. She was careful to make sure he didn't get sick from the bumpy ride, and he didn't have a problem at all, since she wasn't a car. His entire focus was on her lovely profile of determination that he didn't think about anything else, the nice feeling of being that close to her, his arms around her neck and his chin resting on her shoulder.

Upon realization of his train of thoughts, he inwardly groaned, wanting to slap a hand to his head, but Mayura's voice interrupted him, "Don't worry, Loki-kun, we're almost there!"

"Right," he murmured.

In a few more minutes, they could see, in the distance, the familiar exterior of the backside of the detective agency since they were approaching it from an alternate route. Her foot braced the solidity of the ground before propelling herself in to the air, taking a giant leap over the brick perimeter and safely landed in to the backyard of Loki's property.

Very impressed by her strength and grace, he opened his mouth to express his rare compliment, but she had already taken a step forward, one foot slipped across the grass, and she went falling forward, flat on her face, yelping in surprised. The fedora tipped forward, sliding off her head on to the grass, and the pair of sunglasses slid down her nose at an odd angle, adding a comical feel to her befuddled expression. A sweatdropping Loki, still on her back, was speechless, mouth agape, and figured it was best to not say anything either, forgetting the whole thing ever happened.

Having heard her scream, Yamino and Fenrir ran out from the house and were shocked to find the pair had returned unexpectedly and coming through the back way, though they did not have a gateway that connected the backyard. Yamino managed to get out, "What happened, Loki-sama? Mayura-san?"

"Long story," he sighed.

"Welcome home, Loki-tama! Mayu-tan!" Ecchan greeted them, having been house-sitting for half the day, and even though Mayura still couldn't see nor hear him, she still glanced in the shikigami's direction as if she sensed him.

"We're home," he announced, and she soon found Loki's hand in front of her, after he stood up, offering her aid up from the ground, and she gratefully accepted the help. At least they made back to the agency safely, a little messy for one person, that a quick wash couldn't fix, which they both would need after so much running in one day.

She couldn't help but smile at him, "It's good to be home."

Her words brought a smile to his face too, happy that she considered his agency as her home - she did spend a third of her time at his place. Her tail, finally making its appearance, also expressed the joy with a slight sway back and forth, "But I could sure use a bath right now."

They started to head towards the house, as Loki took his outer coat off, nodding in agreement, and she yawned, "And a nap too."

"Why don't you go first, Mayura," he suggested.

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, there's a few things I need to do."

"Okay," she smiled, "Want a bath too, Fenrir?"

Loki blinked and then glared at the puppy, who had yet to respond but knew he had to decline for his health. He whined and ran off, rounding the edge of the house, leaving a pouty Mayura with drooping ears, "I guess that's a 'no.' See you in a bit!"

They watched her bounce in to the house, and Loki took off his coat and handed it to Yamino, who asked him, "Did you find anything, Loki-sama?"

"Yes, it's very interesting," he grinned, "Yamino, please give Reiya-chan a call and have her come over for a bit."

"Reiya-san?"

He nodded, "And also prepare some relaxing tea for Mayura. She will need a nap after her bath."

From the sly smirk on his face, Yamino knew what Loki's intentions were and was happy to oblige his father's requests.

After a nice, warm bath and a set of clean clothes, Loki felt like a brand new person again, entering the study, and no sooner when he sat down in the chair, Yamino appeared with a tray of freshly brewed tea and cake and a happy Fenrir at his feet. He also informed of his completed tasks, having stopped by Mayura's room first to give her chamomile tea with a mixture of berries and lavender to ease her in to relaxation. He recalled with a soft smile that it didn't take long for the girl to doze off, and he helped her in to bed, thinking she must have been exhausted from the day, though he was slightly curious about her adventures with Loki.

"Reiya-san should be arriving soon," he stated, pouring the steamy tea in to the cup, and placed it in front of young detective.

'I'm so hungry, daddy!' Fenrir whined to his father, scurrying to his side, and Loki picked him up in to his lap, just as a sweatdropping Yamino put a slice of cake on the desk. 'Jormungand wouldn't feed me!' he had fully turned on his innocent, sweet son guise, while his brother glared at him.

"I'm sure Yamino was busy," Loki grinned and picked up a fork. Being the awesome doting father, he scooped a piece of cake with a lot of frosting and held it in front of Fenrir, who was just too happy to chomp on it. "Good?" the boy asked rhetorically and then took a bite of the dessert himself.

'Yes, daddy. Very delicious!' he beamed.

He fed the puppy a few more times, and the slice of cake and soon a second piece disappeared between the two of them. They requested for a third one, and at that rate, dinner would be ruined if Yamino didn't stop them, but he couldn't dare tell his father and brother that when the two were staring at him with eager eyes of happiness that sweet, delicious food could only bring them.

Then, the doorbell rang.

And Yamino thanked the interruption. Believing that their guest had arrived, he quickly stood up and excused himself to answer the door, leaving the unguarded cake on the coffee table. With Fenrir in his arms, Loki hopped out of his chair and made his way over to the couch. He set the puppy next to him and proceeded to grab another slice of cake, so when Yamino returned with little Reiya, both surprised to see the boy with frosting smeared on the side of his mouth, and Fenrir was already pigging out with the rest of the cake, eventually swallowing the rest of it in to his mouth. He then rolled on to his back and patted his budging stomach, letting out a small burp.

They sweatropped, and Yamino announced, "I'll bring up some cookies."

After he left, Reiya blushed and sat down next to the boy finishing his cake, "I was happy you asked me to come over, Loki-kun!"

He licked the last of the frosting from his mouth and fingers and rewarded her visit with a boyish grin, "Sorry about the short notice, but it was important." He looked at her, thinking for a moment which made the girl's heart flutter, mistaken his stare for unexpressed affections, and continued, "Actually, I wanted to speak to Freya."

She blinked, her mouth opened to speak, and in the next second, there came a poof, and the blonde goddess appeared from the obscured smoke, surprising the poor detective with a glomp and sending a round-bellied Fenrir rolling off the couch, "Loki~!"

She puckered her lips and prepared to kiss him, but he turned his face to the side and pressed his palms against her cheek, his struggles were very admirable against a very determined, persistent goddess who continuously sought out his love. He was flattered, but he only ever saw her as a friend and a sister, so it was very awkward when she displayed her romantic affections towards him.

Fenrir, trying to get on his feet again but failing miserably, glared at Freya who was totally acting like a creepy pedophile towards his father, while Loki tried to explain, "It's about Mayura."

Still wanting to claim his lips, she huffed out, "Don't speak of another woman when you have me!"

On other days, he would just endure Freya's overbearingness, but today was not the day to try his patience, not when Mayura's well being was at stake. "Freya! Stop this!" he demanded, a rather harsh tone, almost reminding him of the time he used it on Mayura when she had snooped around in his office, but at least it worked and caught the goddess' attention.

Her arms around him loosened as she looked at him with a hurt expression. He opened his mouth to apologize, but she pulled away and crossed her arms with a scowl, "Why does she always have to get between us, Loki?!"

Loki pressed a hand to his temple for a moment, taking in a deep breath and gathering his thoughts, attempting not to snap at the fact that there was no 'between' us from the beginning. He just had to breech the subject, get the information he needed and be done with the day.

"Mayura has been cursed," he stated, garnering her attention once more. She was still annoyed but a bit of curious shone through her eyes. He didn't want to explain from the beginning, so he went straight to the point, "She... acquired a collar with a golden bell and is slowly turning into a cat."

"Cat?"

"I believe this golden bell belongs to you. Or rather one of your cats."

"Tregul? Bygul?" she appeared thoughtful, "I haven't seen them in ages, but they should still be in Asgard." *

He was happy to hear that nothing else from Asgard had made its way down to the mortal realm, but it wasn't comforting to know that there was that possibility anyway. "The bell somehow appeared in Midgard," he frowned, very certain now that Odin was involved, "How do I break the curse?"

"But Loki, there's no curse."

"What?" he blinked.

"There are two bells," she started to explain, "A golden one and a silver one, gifts made by the dwarves of Nidavellir, and my Tregul should be the one wearing the golden bell. But... they're just regular accessories for my pets. It's trendy to dress up your pets in Asgard, you know."

He sweatdropped, not that he would know about that particular fact, "If it's not cursed, then what exactly is affecting Mayura?" She shrugged, not knowing at all or caring about it, but Loki was going to worry over this until they cured the mortal girl. She disliked her for being a part of Loki's life, but to have him think about her non-stop, she couldn't have that and had to figure something out.

"Well, it may be normal to have them in Asgard," she spoke slowly and uncertainly, "but for a mortal to have it, there is a possibility of strange side effects..."

The explanation sounded plausible, but it still didn't give him a solution to return Mayura to normal. Since this was an item that belonged to Freya and her cats, she was the most likely candidate to remove the object from the girl. He dreaded asking that of the goddess, knowing that she would require something in return for her cooperation, but he had no choice. He could just hope it was nothing to wild and crazy, or he would have to charm his way out of it - maybe?

Loki closed his eyes and sighed, "I guess I should be thankful that it fell in to Mayura's hands."

He was actually very grateful because he got to see a very adorable side to her, not that she wasn't already so, but it was also a sexy and seductive, even though it was all from his dream. That girl was affecting way too much, from constantly thinking about her to going out of his way to save her. If he didn't know any better or didn't have an ego that rivaled Odin's, he would have believed that Mayura unwittingly had him, the popular, handsome, god of Asgard, wrapped around her mortal finger.

He sucked in his pride, "Freya..."

Mayura suddenly woke up and sat up in bed, looking around at her unfamiliar environment, the darkness of the room making it difficult to discern it all. Her mind was replaying the two days' events, and she then remembered that this was the guestroom at Loki's place and let out a sigh of relief, very glad that she was no longer in 'that' room, though the style did remind her much of that particular bedroom.

She felt her face radiating with a strange warmth and pressed her palms to her cheek, sensing the rise in temperature, the evidence of a blush upon recalling her vivid dream. She never thought she would dream of the handsome kami-sama, much less be in a compromising position with him, when he pulled her in to his lap and sneaked a hand under her skirt to play with her tail...

Speaking of her tail, she threw the covers aside and searched for the appendage, having felt something off about herself. Not able to find it, she reached up to the top of her head, expecting to touch the kitty ears, but found nothing there. She turned on the lamp on the side table and jumped out of bed, making her way over to the mirror in the corner of the room. She stood in front of it to examine herself from top to bottom, definitely lacking her kitty ears, and wondered if it really had been part of a dream all along.

She turned herself around just as a sound rapped against the door, followed by Loki's voice. She answered him, allowing him entrance in to the room. The door opened, and he appeared and immediately fell over at the sight of her lifting up the hem of her skirt in front of a full length mirror. He averted his eyes elsewhere, after a glimpse of her lacy undergarment, and shouted indignantly, wondering if the girl had any shame in front of him, "Mayura! What are you doing?!"

She was just too trusting and too comfortable with him, the form of a young boy, to be bother about rules and proper etiquette between them, and that worried him.

"I don't have my ears and tail anymore!" she seemed to pout.

Loki walked over to her and sighed, "What are you talking about?"

She blinked, "Did you forget, Loki-kun?"

He arched a brow in her direction, and she sped through her monologue of their short adventure, from purchasing the cursed bell from a mysterious peddler to acquiring feline-like traits to their investigations on the streets and at the library to being chased by amorous, male cats, which all led her to staying over at the agency. She brought a hand up to her neck and suddenly gasped, feeling around for the choker, the proof that it had all happened, but there was nothing around her neck.

"You stayed over because you were too exhausted to go home," he shook his head, "You must have dreamt it all up."

"No way, Loki-kun!" she huffed, "It really happened! Just a few hours ago! That peddler, the cats..."

"A few hours huh?" he grinned, "It's already eight."

"Eh! What?!" She glanced out the window and at the clock, and it was really night time. She didn't think her nap would be six hours long and had to rethink about Loki's words, but maybe she really was tired, from school, and it was affecting her brain, triggering all the weird dreams. She was beginning to be doubtful, only because Loki was usually right about things and even if something supernatural happened to her, there was a higher probability that it was all in her head.

Loki could see the uncertainty in her manner and expression and took her hand within his own, giving her a reassuring pat, "Dinner is ready, so wash up and come down."

His tone was so gentle and comforting, enough for her to bend to his insistence, and she nodded obediently. With a charming smile, he let her hand go and turned around for the door, coolly leaving the room. When he stepped in to the hall, he closed the door softly after him and leaned his back against the frame, releasing a sigh and all the tension from his small body.

He was very glad that Freya could take the golden bell off without having to wake her up and that he was able to convince her that it had all a dream, though he wasn't exactly sure why he was doing that at all. He should be relieved that she was one of the few to even bother with the abnormal and supernatural and accept it, yet it was also too dangerous for her, a mortal. He wanted to protect her from the dangers as much as possible, but subconsciously, it just might be his fear of her rejection of his immortal existence.

He pushed himself from the wall, preparing to leave, when a loud crash from behind the closed door alarmed him, "Mayura!"

He threw the door open, half tempted to kick it down, and hurried over to her, on the floor, quickly noting the fallen vase from the dresser. He froze in the spot in front of her, staring down at her with apprehension, concerned eyes roaming over her form for any injuries, while she blinked up at him, with curious, crimson eyes. She titled her head to the side adorably before pouncing on him, sending him to the floor. She was now in between his legs, practically in his lap, both hands on either side of his body, leaning her face close to his.

"Mayura?"

Loki could feel the sweat dripping own the side of his face, having her that close to him, and it seemed that she was studying him carefully, first sniffing at his scent and then mewing happily at his familiarity. In the soft light, he caught sight of something glistening around her neck, before receiving a light kiss on the lips, followed by a flick of her tongue, and he wasn't sure if he wanted to curse Odin for somehow getting the silver bell to Mayura or not.

It was going to be a very long night.

* Tregul/Thofnir (tree-gold/amber) and Bygul/Hogni (bee-gold/honey) are Freya's cats' names from Diana Paxon's novel Brisingamen. I couldn't find any names pertaining to them from Norse mythology, so I just used the one from the author because they sounded like names the cats would have.

Notes: Ah yes, I curse myself for another open ended ending...? So the golden bell gives her the physical feline traits while the silver would give her the mind of a cat. You can assume Freya comes back to get the silver bell, lol. In the meantime, good luck, Loki!

I'd like to thank Gin-Na and kdwml for answering my questions! Thank you for the read and review!

If you stop by my profile, I have some future stories/ideas and summaries posted. Please let me know what you think, or if you'd like to submit any suggestions. I will have a short list of what I'll be working on next too. Thanks! -kuro.