Chapter 790

America was a nation of immigrants. People from every corner of the world had settled there, and while many eventually adopted local customs, others held tightly to the traditions they had brought with them.

For Evenson, that meant business.

Clap. Clap. Clap.

"From Libo to Libo, in mid-August the geese fly south... One cry, and another sorrow..."

Evenson’s voice rang through the funeral hall with impressive solemnity. He had just reached the most dramatic part of the chant when someone slapped him on the shoulder.

Who was being so disrespectful at a funeral?

He twisted slightly without looking back.

"Hey, hey. Knock it off. Show some respect."

Clap. Clap. Clap.

Three more slaps landed on his shoulder, considerably harder than the first.

"All right, who the hell—"

Evenson turned around, ready to complain.

Then he stopped.

"Melinda? What are you doing here?"

Standing behind him were Melinda May and Phil Coulson.

Both were dressed in black suits and oversized sunglasses. Their expressions were stiff enough to crack glass. Worse, after getting Evenson’s attention, they had immediately taken several steps backward, as if terrified that someone might realize they knew him.

Evenson stared.

Of all the places to run into these two, a funeral had not been high on his list.

Then he suddenly understood.

"Wait. Melinda, are you related to the family?"

The more he thought about it, the more convincing it seemed. Melinda was Chinese-American, and judging by the funeral customs, the deceased’s family appeared to have a similar background. The black suits and grim expressions only strengthened his conclusion.

Evenson immediately adopted a sympathetic expression.

"My condolences. Seriously. Remember to give them my name later. I can get you a nice seat at the banquet."

"Stop cursing me!"

Melinda nearly jumped out of her skin.

Everyone in her family was alive and well. She had no idea how Evenson had managed to reach that conclusion, but if they weren’t standing in the middle of a funeral—and if the idiot in question weren’t Evenson—she might have kicked him through a wall.

"All right, all right." Coulson hurried between them. "We’re here because we need you. We have a mission. Come with us."

"I seem to remember that I’m not actually a member of your team."

Evenson sat cross-legged on the floor and resumed chanting as though Coulson hadn’t spoken.

"We agreed that unless I receive a direct order, I only provide assistance when I’m available and willing."

Coulson frowned.

"What exactly are you saying?"

Evenson gave him a sidelong look.

"You really need me to explain that?"

He gestured vaguely around the funeral hall.

"I’m not available."

"We have a mission!"

Coulson’s head throbbed.

"And it’s urgent."

"Then bring me a written order from Nick Fury."

Evenson extended one hand.

"I’ll leave immediately."

Coulson almost laughed.

A written order?

How exactly was that supposed to work?

On this date, due to an emergency, the SHIELD Special Operations Consultant was forcibly recalled from his efforts to communicate with the Buddha and various other deities in order to deal with a matter involving the Norse gods.

How was that supposed to be filed?

Some poor agent fifty years from now would read the report and assume everyone involved had been hallucinating.

"We haven’t seen each other in a while," Evenson continued, "and you can’t just show up and ruin my business. Do you know how hard it is to get a funeral contract?"

Melinda stared at him in disbelief.

"I genuinely don’t understand how this family manages to do business."

"They’re entitled to their traditions."

Evenson shrugged.

"If they want to follow the old customs, that’s their choice. It’s not like the government lets them cover the entire street in white funeral cloth."

"I’m not criticizing their traditions." Melinda planted her hands on her hips. "I respect them. Remembering your roots is a good thing. But they hired a blond-haired, green-eyed American to conduct their funeral rites."

She pointed at him.

"Do you realize how ridiculous that looks?"

"I take offense at that."

Evenson looked genuinely insulted.

"You can ask anyone in New York. How many people can conduct funeral rites in both Chinese and Sanskrit, are willing to work a funeral like this, and charge a reasonable rate?"

He spread his hands.

"Besides me, obviously."

"Enough." Melinda pinched the bridge of her nose. "How much did they pay you? We’ll reimburse you."

Evenson’s expression didn’t change.

"Reimburse me?"

"Yes. Whatever they paid. We’ll cover it."

"I also made the yellow canopy and the funeral scripture quilt."

Coulson covered his face.

"We’ll pay for those too."

"Fine."

Evenson finally smiled.

"I’ll finish these three passages of the sutra, then I’ll come with you."

Coulson crouched down in front of him.

"Can we pay extra for expedited service?"

Evenson looked at him.

"We’re dealing with a situation where people’s lives are at stake. Can’t you put this ridiculous job aside for a few minutes?"

Evenson’s expression immediately hardened.

"Watch your words."

He gestured toward the funeral hall.

"The living should show respect for the dead. Someone entrusted me with this responsibility, and I intend to finish it."

In another man, that sort of dedication might have looked noble.

Melinda knew better.

Evenson was dangerous.

Some of his magic required souls as components, and several of the people helping him today looked suspiciously gentle and harmless for what they actually were.

As far as Melinda was concerned, this wasn’t a funeral.

It was a demon gathering.

And now Evenson wanted to finish the ceremony?

What exactly does he plan to do—make sure the poor guy never gets to the afterlife?

A young man dressed in mourning clothes approached them.

"Master, who are these two?"

He looked over Coulson and Melinda, clearly unfamiliar with them. Then his eyes lit up.

"They’re dressed like gangsters. I didn’t know your shop offered this many services. Do you even provide a full gangster escort?"

Melinda closed her eyes.

This was getting worse by the second.

The family had no personal grudge against Evenson. In fact, there was a rather complicated reason he had ended up involved with them in the first place.

The family name was Lei, and they operated a martial arts school in New York.

After Bruce Lee had exploded onto the American scene, Chinese martial arts had become enormously popular. The Lei family had capitalized on that interest and opened a Wing Chun school.

Normally, none of that would have had anything to do with Evenson.

Then Lily Grant came to America.

Evenson had previously convinced Clea’s senior apprentice, Lily Grant, to come to the United States and establish herself there. Unfortunately, expecting Lily to sit quietly inside the New York Sanctum had been hopelessly optimistic.

She was practically a martial arts addict.

Whenever she had free time, she wandered through New York’s many martial arts schools.

That was how she found the Lei family’s establishment.

Their sign proudly advertised them as The Authentic Wing Chun School.

Lily stopped.

Authentic?

That was an awfully bold claim.

Naturally, she became interested.

So she made a few inquiries.

Then she nearly laughed herself unconscious.

The school’s secret technique was supposedly called the Three Hundred and Sixty Hands of Wing Chun.

Three hundred and sixty?

Even the famously intricate Bagua systems she had encountered only had dozens of formal techniques. Wing Chun traditionally revolved around a relatively compact collection of core forms, with the Baat Jaam Do and six-and-a-half-point pole completing its weapons curriculum.

Where had three hundred and sixty techniques come from?

Had all those martial artists Lily had once encountered in the Huguang Guildhall been frauds?

Eventually, she figured it out.

The school had simply split individual techniques into dozens of variations.

One technique became ten.

Ten became twenty.

Twenty became fifty.

And once the number of techniques went up, so did the training period.

And, conveniently, so did the tuition.

As for whether students actually became better fighters afterward...

Well.

Lily had once put it rather elegantly:

Every punch I throw is an act of mercy.

It was an embarrassment to the martial arts.

And Lily hated that kind of thing.

Her ancestor, William Grant, had despised frauds who exploited martial arts for money. As one of his direct descendants, Lily had been furious enough to storm into the school and demand an explanation.

The school owner, naturally, wasn’t willing to apologize.

He was protecting his business, after all.

And when he saw that Lily was only a woman in her thirties, the argument escalated.

Before either side realized how far things had gone, they had signed a death contract and agreed to settle the matter in the ring.

Bajiquan had always been notorious for its brutal striking power. There was a reason traditional practitioners were reluctant to casually demonstrate its techniques in competitive settings.

Lily expected the school’s owner, given how loudly he advertised his abilities, to at least possess some genuine skill.

He didn’t.

Not even close.

One Pao Men Ding Zhou later, the man was on the floor.

The ambulance arrived.

It couldn’t save him.

Lily’s reputation spread overnight.

At least she had managed to restore some dignity to Chinese martial arts.

Honestly, the whole thing could have been the plot of a modern martial arts novel.

And now Evenson was stuck handling the funeral.

He sighed inwardly.

Lily is technically my student. I never expected one of my apprentices to kill someone, leaving me to arrange the funeral afterward.

If you’ve developed a grudge and become a vengeful spirit, though, feel free to come find me.

I’ve never captured a ghost before.

It had taken three complete funeral sutras before Evenson finally agreed to leave with Melinda and Coulson.

At first, the family refused.

The funeral wasn’t finished. How could the priest simply walk away?

That problem was solved when Coulson produced his SHIELD credentials.

Evenson, meanwhile, remained perfectly composed.

"Honored mourners, SHIELD has recently encountered some particularly troublesome supernatural matters. They have summoned this humble monk to subdue evil spirits. The fate of the three realms is at stake, so I dare not delay."

He clasped his hands solemnly.

"Please forgive my departure. But rest assured, after this humble master has personally recited the rites, the deceased will make his journey peacefully and without disturbance."

He paused.

"And if he doesn’t, tell him to come back and file a complaint."

And so Evenson’s reputation as SHIELD’s resident exorcist began to spread.

After removing his robes and washing his face, Evenson boarded the aircraft with Coulson and Melinda.

"So," he said, settling into his seat. "What’s the emergency? You dragged me into this personally, so I assume it isn’t anything simple."

He glanced at Coulson.

"Does this involve an 084?"

"Yeah."

Coulson sounded distracted.

He still hadn’t mentally recovered from the humiliation of nearly participating in a funeral procession with Melinda, only to leave with two red envelopes pressed into their hands.

Evenson headed toward the command center.

"Hey, everyone. How’ve you been?"

Ward and Skye answered simultaneously.

"Quiet."

"We’ve had an incredibly quiet time. No missions whatsoever. We’ve just been resting and recovering."

Evenson’s eyebrow twitched.

Really?

The SHIELD Special Operations team had been sitting around doing nothing?

And they could have made their faces slightly more convincing.

"Really, Skye?"

Skye stiffened.

"You haven’t gotten into any trouble lately?"

"No!"

The answer came far too quickly.

"We haven’t even had any missions. How could I possibly get into trouble?"

Evenson narrowed his eyes.

"You should be careful when things are this quiet."

Skye’s stomach dropped.

"What do you mean?"

Evenson smiled.

"When people have too much free time, they gain weight."

He looked her up and down.

"Seriously. If you put on weight, you won’t be nearly as pretty."

Skye sagged in relief.

"Oh."

She had thought he’d found out.

Simmons immediately seized the opportunity to change the subject.

"This is the suspicious object we discovered."

She hurriedly handed Evenson the plastic model of the metal rod.

"My preliminary assessment is that it may be from—"

"Asgard."

Evenson examined the model.

He ran his fingers over the carved runes, studying the shape.

"If I’m reading this correctly, this is part of a Berserker Staff."

He turned the model over.

"Only part of it, though. Where did you find it?"

"Two people dug it out of a tree in the Norwegian forest," Coulson explained. "They knew exactly where to look."

Evenson scratched his head.

"That’s a big forest. How did they know where to find it?"

"That’s where you come in."

Melinda pulled up the online listing for the book they’d discovered.

"We believe they used this novel to locate the artifact."

She turned the tablet toward him.

"And you sold it."

Evenson tilted his head.

"Did I?"

Melinda stared at him.

"You don’t remember?"

"Not really."

"With the amount of business your little shop does, I’d think you’d remember everything you sold."

"That’s exactly why I don’t."

Evenson grinned.

"If I sold a lot, I’d have to remember. Since I sell so little, I can’t be bothered."

Despite himself, he was beginning to remember the book.

Running a mystical-goods shop meant collecting all sorts of strange material.

The novel had originally been purchased from someone else. It was supposedly the autobiography of an Asgardian who had come to Earth.

Evenson had assumed it was simply some bored writer trying to cash in on Thor’s growing popularity.

The story itself had been terrible.

There was barely anything entertaining about it.

So Evenson had rewritten most of it.

The protagonist had originally been some warrior named Dragon Proudsky, who possessed a bizarre ability that caused anyone who saw him to instinctively imagine him as some incomprehensibly powerful master worthy of immediate worship.

He also had a ridiculous number of wives.

Three digits’ worth.

Every one of them was madly in love with him and perfectly content as long as he remembered to spread his affection around.

In other words, Evenson had taken all the things he’d secretly wanted to do but would never actually do and stuffed them into the novel.

Aside from a few pieces of the original narrative, he’d practically rewritten the entire thing.

Then he’d put it online.

Two years passed.

Nobody bought it.

"Do you know who wrote it?" Coulson asked.

"Come on."

Evenson spread his hands.

"It’s a generic fantasy novel. Why would I track down the author? To offer him a publishing deal?"

Coulson gave him a look.

Evenson ignored it.

What he hadn’t expected was for the novel to contain accurate information about the location of the Berserker Staff.

Which meant the author probably wasn’t some random hack.

The man in question was likely the same individual currently floating inside a glass tank while Moira conducted her research.

Before Evenson could say anything else, Ward interrupted.

"We’ve got another development."

The large screen in the command center switched to a Norwegian news broadcast.

A group of Norwegian pagans had apparently begun causing trouble.

The gods are taking our world from us! We must defeat the gods!

A man identified as Nystrom shouted wildly into the camera.

The footage cut.

Now the camera showed a stretch of asphalt with burning letters scrawled across it.

WE ARE GODS.

Evenson’s mouth twitched.

"Those are the guys who found it, aren’t they?"

"Yes."

Coulson nodded.

"They’ve apparently gained some extraordinary abilities from the artifact."

His expression hardened.

"This just became a much bigger problem."

Evenson stared at the screen.

His expression said exactly what he thought of the people currently proclaiming themselves gods.

We’re dealing with idiots.

And unfortunately, they had just acquired an Asgardian weapon.

That made them dangerous idiots.

...