Chapter One

They were still in their night clothes, but it didn't matter. The only thing they were worried about was getting out of this house as quickly as possible. It had been a mistake moving here, she just hoped it wasn't too late.

The house was everything they could have dreamed of and she should have known then that it was too good to be true. It was in a good neighborhood, it was large, and best of all, inexpensive. The family of four had moved in and life seemed to be going great until strange things started occurring.

She looked up the history of the house and found that out of the five families who had stayed here, all but one was brutally murdered. Not only was the killer never found, but the wives of those four families were never found either.

For the one family that had survived, the wife went missing soon after they had moved from the house and no one had seen her since.

Through research and lots of begging, she finally found the information for the family that had survived and contacted them. The father told her to leave as quickly as possible. "He wants you." Were his last words to her before he hung up, abruptly.

She didn't know what he meant or who the father was referring to, but she decided to trust his words and her gut feeling and move. However, moving wasn't as fast or as easy as she thought. They had spent so much money on this house, and they would be hard-pressed to find another house so soon. Regardless, with each passing day the urge to leave this house had gotten stronger and stronger and she eventually found out who "he" was to her horror.

Grabbing a luggage that was hastily filled with things like clothes and shoes, her, her husband, and two children ran downstairs towards the front door. When she went to turn the doorknob, it was locked, and it wouldn't budge. Her husband moved her out of the way and twisted it as hard as he could but it still wouldn't unlock. He kicked the door, but it remained firmly in place.

The woman grabbed a chair and threw it at the windows but the glass didn't shatter either. That's when they heard it.

It was a loud chilling laugh that caused all of them to freeze into place. It seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time, and she felt tears welling in her eyes.

She grabbed the chair and tried to throw it again and the glass still didn't break. In a burst of rage, she beat her fists against the windows and cursed her frustration.

Knowing the end was near, she turned to hold her family and found they were gone. Her eyes widening, she backed up, disbelief and shock mixing together in her mind.

"No!" She screamed, as tears streamed down her eyes. "Give them back! Give them back to me, Loki!" The laughter rang louder and she covered her ears and dropped to the floor, sobbing.

"It's not too late." The voice said calmly, and as she looked up, she found that Loki was standing right above her. There was a smile on his face as he glanced down at her on the floor.

Quickly standing up, she attacked him or at least tried but Loki was too powerful. She doubted anything could hurt him. He was not of this world.

His large hands captured her wrists, "This is your last chance to save your family." He whispered.

Staring up at him and knowing he was serious, she resigned to her fate. "Okay." She said in a hushed voice, nearly cracking in its sadness and grief. Loki let her go before holding out his hand, expectantly.

She stared at his hand for a long time. Thoughts swirling in her head about resistance but then she thought of her family, her husband and her two sweet boys and she couldn't allow them to suffer. She would do what she had to do.

She placed her hand in his and he smiled. "I knew you would make the smart choice." He teased.

"Will you let my family go now? Can I at least say goodbye to them?" She asked, quietly.

Loki sighed, closing his eyes. He opened them again and told her, "You have five minutes. They are in the basement."

She quickly dropped his hand and ran towards there, nearly tripping as she rounded the corner. She opened the basement door and went downstairs.

There, her husband and two boys were, looking confused as to how they even ended up in the basement in the first place. She ran and put her arms around them all, tears starting to flow. She kissed her husband Sam. "I love you. I love you so much."

Then she turned to her boys and got down on her knees. "Mommy is about to go but she loves you all so much and wants you to be happy."

"Don't go." One said, pleading.

"Oh, I wish I could stay but I have to. I love you all so much." She kissed them on her forehead and embraced them tightly.

"Time is up." Loki said at the top of the basement.

In a fit of rage, Sam ran towards Loki with murder in his eyes. The moment he reached the bottom step, Loki made some sort of hand motion and the husband went flying. His body was lifted by some unseen force and he was slammed harshly into the wall, head first. As he fell to the ground, the wife could see that his nose was bleeding and blood was pouring out of his mouth as well. He wasn't moving.

The wife ran to him, but an unseen force stopped her as well. It didn't throw her into a wall or cause her any bodily harmed, it just held her in place.

"You said you wouldn't kill them." She sobbed, outraged.

"And he isn't dead." Loki replied. "Come along now. He will wake up in a few hours and take your sons elsewhere and continue to live a happy life."

The unseen force let her go and with hesitancy and reluctance, she walked up the stairs toward the god who was calling for her.

He grabbed her hand again and led her out of the basement. Her mind was going a mile a minute. She was thinking of ways to hold this off and even escape. She saw his powers and knew that he was practically invincible but every force in her body told her to try to escape one last time.

"What happens now?" She asked, curiously. Her sobbing had died down a bit, but a few tears here and there still escaped her.

He stopped walking and turned to her. He rubbed her cheek affectionately and kissed her forehead. It took everything in her body not to squirm under his touch.

Taking her face into his hands, he said, "Now, you become my wife."

"Why me?" She wept. It wasn't fair at all. She had always been a good person. She had never hurt anyone, lied to anyone, or bullied anyone. It wasn't fair that everything she got would suddenly go up in flames.

He gently wiped her tears away. Usually, he wore a smirk or grin on his face but here he seemed deathly serious. "It's what sustains me." He said.

"Isn't there some other way?" She asked.

"No."

They headed towards the backyard and she shuddered. With each step she took, she noticed her body grew colder and colder. There was a heavy weight in her left robe pocket. She had placed the gun there as she and her husband were quickly packing their things. They had bought it to protect themselves against any intruders, but she never imagined she would be thinking of using it on a god, or demon, or whatever Loki was.

She only knew that he felt real. His hand in hers, their fingers entwined together was real, and so she hoped the effect on his body would be real as well. It was her last chance and her last hope, and she would make it count.

As they exited the house and stepped into the backyard, Loki led her towards the far back where some large oak trees were. She had loved these trees the moment she first saw them but now they filled her with dread.

Each step she took, she felt a weight in her stomach sink deeper and deeper. Glancing at him subtly, she slowly reached into her robe pocket and wrapped her hand around the gun. Taking a deep breath, she turned towards Loki, aimed the gun at his chest, and fired.

The sound was loud and deafening. She aimed at his chest for a few times before moving towards his head. Loki's body shook and jerked with each bullet that pierced him, but she didn't stop firing until all of the bullets were gone.

Loki's green eyes locked onto her face and he said, "You will regret that." Before his body fell to the ground and lay still.

For a moment, she didn't move. She just stayed there and continued watching him, expecting him to jump up and move again but he remained there, on his back, with bloody gaping holes in his body. With one last long look, she turned away from him and went inside of the house to be reunited with her family again.

She slammed open the back door and ran into the house, calling her family's name. As she ran back into the basement, they were there, and she sobbed in relief and happiness.

Her husband was slowly waking up and he groaned a bit.

"Oh my god, you are okay." She practically shouted, happily throwing her arms around him in a tight embrace.

He looked at her. "Not for long." He said, coldly. "And neither will you be."

She slowly backed away from him, noticing how his voice had changed and noticed the hate that was being displayed in his eyes. He didn't let her back away for long as he stood and followed her.

"You chose poorly." He said, wrapping his hands around her throat and squeezing tightly. She tried to beat at him with her fists, but he didn't budge.

Before long, she felt herself growing weaker and spots started appearing at the corner of her eyes before she blacked out completely.

X

When she woke up, she was still feeling groggy. She tried touching her neck but found that her hands were tied. Panicking slightly, she then realized that her legs were tied as well. Becoming fully aware, she opened her eyes and found that she was tied to a chair. But not only was she tied to a chair.

Her two children were also tied to chairs with a coil of rope lodged into their mouths.

"Awake at long last." Loki said.

She turned towards where she heard his voice and saw her husband, except it wasn't her husband. It was Loki inside her husband's body.

He was grinning at her wickedly. "You thought you could fool me and just when I had decided to be merciful as well." He sneered.

She wished she could talk, to beg once more but there was rope in her mouth as well.

"Your family could have gone on to have a nice life. Your children could have grown up to be wonderful adults and have families of their own, but your selfishness ruined that. Now, "He licked his lips. "Now, you will be forced to watch them die by my hands. Or shall I say… your husband's hands."

Stepping away from her and moving towards her children, she noticed Loki had a large kitchen knife in his hand. He moved to stand by her oldest son. "How should it be?" He asked. "A slash across the throat or a stab in the heart?" He was eyeing her son as if he was actually considering how best to kill him.

It looks like Loki decided, because he grabbed a handful of her son's brown hair and stretched his neck out. "Say goodbye." He said, before running the blade across her son's throat.

Red hot blood burst out of her son's throat. It flowed like a river as it gushed everywhere. Her son's blue eyes remained wide until his eyelids closed, never to open again. She was shaking. Trying as best as she could to get out of her bonds, but they were too tight.

Loki moved on to the next child.

This time, instead of slashing his throat or stabbing him in the heart as she suspected, this time he jammed the knife into her youngest child's neck. The blood didn't come spilling out as much as before, but she heard the terrible sound of her dear child drowning on his own blood. His throat rapidly moving around the knife lodged in.

Loki didn't take the knife out. He kept it in there and moved back towards the woman. "This didn't have to happen." He whispered, softly in her ear. "You could have come with me and this could have all been avoided."

He stepped back out of her view and she heard a gun being loaded. "Now you will come with me except your whole family will be dead."

She closed her eyes, prepared for death to take her, hoping that maybe she would be reunited with her two children again. The shot rung out, making her jump, and she slowly opened her eyes. Her husband's body fell to the floor with a large thump. The bullet had gone through his skull, and blood ran down his face, his handsome face that she had loved so much, and pooled around his head.

As he fell, Loki appeared in his normal form again.

The ropes around the woman's body fell off her but she made no attempt to run or scream and fight. She was frozen. She had lost everything and everyone she ever cared about. What did she really have to live for if she did escape?

She felt Loki pick her up but even then, she didn't move or shake or fight. She simply lay there and allowed him to carry her off into the backyard and towards the oak trees.

X

Two Years Later

Elaine sighed tiredly as she set the box down in the master bedroom. She was excited about moving into a new house, but the actual moving part was exhausting. Still, she was happy to have a fresh start.

Her family had moved into a rather large house. Five bedrooms, four bathrooms, a basement, and an attic. A house this big would usually be out of their pay range but it was sold for cheap.

She automatically suspected something must be wrong with the house but after inspecting it three times, she saw no issue. The house looked new. It had no holes in the walls or stains on the carpet. The floors didn't creak. There wasn't anything wrong with it at all.

Perhaps they just simply had good luck, she thought.