Hello again, dear readers. Thanks for all the follows and whatnot, those are awesome. And they make me motivated to write.

Wandering Fox: You're a guest so I couldn't respond how I would normally, but thanks for the review! I am most definitely not rushing, but that's mostly because life is extremely hectic right now. I'm curious to see which of the subplots you've noticed.

AND back to the story. Enjoy!

CHAPTER 6

It took less than five minutes to leave. Loki collected everything he deemed important enough to keep – more than he expected, certainly – and vanished the pile to a small pocket dimension. Despite the wards he had put up around his domain, he didn't feel comfortable leaving his stuff for anyone to find. It would take a bit more seidr than he wanted to use now to retrieve it, and while he was at it he might as well figure out what other pocket dimensions he had but could not yet access – but it was a quick solution. The small living space was pretty bare, after that, and Loki was momentarily surprised at how well he had fitted into the hasty world of the Midgardians. Much more easily than Asgard, certainly, where he had had to claw his way to respect.

It was relatively simple to leave the building and find a serviceable pathway. He was not strong enough yet to use one of the paths that crossed through reality, but Loki could still sense and travel the ones that were already anchored within it. They took longer, and he would have to remain on Midgard the entire time, but it was better than having to tread on the ground. It took some walking before he found one headed in the right direction, but he found it sprouting from the sidewalk a block or so away. Mode of transportation confirmed, Loki rolled his neck and began walking. It was as disconcerting at first as it always was, walking into thin air, but once he spread out his senses Loki could see the faint glow beneath his feet and relaxed. He took a moment to get oriented and be sure of his direction, then Loki took a deep breath and began to run.

The lone drunk slumped against the alley across from him shook his head and went back to sleep, not wanting to deal with hallucinations of crazy people walking into the sky.

Loki had been running for just over two hours when the path suddenly changed direction. Undeterred, Loki backtracked a few meters and jumped down to another path that was conveniently crossing under the first. The second path was almost at its end, so Loki slowed to a walk, carefully making his way to the ground. Once firmly on land, he shuttered his magical senses once more to conserve energy. There was no seidr around aside from the paths, anyway, and he was close enough to where he needed to be to find the town on his own.

Tall, bushy green trees surrounded him, and he vaguely recognized the forest he had been in after he first met the mutant family. The ground was no longer covered in snow, but was wet and soft. His boots and jeans were splattered with mud as he walked, and although it rankled Loki, he elected to conserve his still recovering seidr instead of putting a shield over his clothing.

He wasn't a pampered royal anyway – a little muck shouldn't bother him.

It was another half hour of walking before Loki made it to the town and the mutant's home. Loki, used to the clutter but overall neatness of his own home, winced when he saw what had become of Lillian and Samuel's home. It was still dark outside, but light spilled out of the open doorway, illuminating the blood streaked across the front porch and the scuffed up dirt in-front of it. The door itself was hanging off its hinges, barely clinging to uprightness. Loki felt a spark of worry deep in his chest, but squashed it immediately. He didn't worry. Why should he? The only reason he was helping these mutants was the life debt he owed their matriarch. He was Loki Silvertongue, and he cared for no one except himself.

The inside of the house wasn't much better than the outside. The small table was cracked in two, and more blood speckled the tile beneath it. There was a pan impaled in the wall, scorch marks over an exploded microwave, and no less than five dead birds littering the floor. Loki swiped one finger through the blood on the floor, sniffed it, and let his seidr begin to work tracking it's signature.

Every life form had a signature, and, once properly trained, it was easier than most other magics to simply follow the trail the signature left behind. It was one reason why blood was so dangerous.

Once it had a good fix on the trail, Loki extended his senses once more and stalked after the trail, silent as a panther on the hunt. The trail was clear, being only a few hours old, and soon Loki found himself on a long, silent highway. He fell into an easy lope, long legs eating up the distance in a way that had been trained into him since his first hunt on Asgard. Several miles later – Loki was unsure how many, because he had long since fallen into the meditative state induced by the repetitive motion of running – the trail veered off the main roads and onto a gravel one. Not five minutes after that, the gravel petered off into dirt. The blood signature led off the road a few feet, from which direction came the acrid smell of decomposing flesh.
Someone had dumped a body – not one of the mutants – and doused it in some sort of acid. Loki sneered in disgust and turned away, but not before noticing the rather deep looking bite mark – more of a tear than anything – on the man's shoulder. Samuel had definitely done some damage.

Even though he had lost the magical trail, Loki was by no means an unskilled hunter. It was relatively easy to discern the most recent tracks – by foot and by tire – and follow them instead. Now that they were on dirt instead of pavement, and the ground was still wet from the melting snows, the tracks were obvious. Loki followed them further away from the civilized path, across a large field, and through another short stretch of wood. The wood was ripe with traps and sensors, but Loki could feel them if he extended his senses once more and danced through the maze of technology without tripping a single one.

Behind the wood was another field, this one with close cropped grass instead of the knee length stalks of the previous. In the middle of this field, a large gray compound rose from the ground, it's hulking form startling in the rural surroundings. It was surrounded by a tall fence topped with razor wire, and even in the pre dawn darkness bright spotlights swept the grounds around it.

Loki had seen worse, had easily conquered worse – but this time he did not have full access to his seidr.

As he made his way back through the woods and across the previous field, Loki thought up a plan. First, he needed to be certain that the mutants were indeed in that particular place. Then he needed a way in. Since he couldn't sneak in invisible to mortal and technological eyes, as he normally would, and he doubted he knew enough of earth's technology to remain unnoticed within one of their hidden fortresses, Loki would have to go the most dangerous route. It would be easy enough to allow himself to be captured once he broke in, after all, and he highly doubted the mortals would recognize who they were dealing with – especially if he expended the energy to slightly change his face. Because they would not recognize who they were dealing with, it would be child's play to break himself and the mutants out. His higher metabolism would swiftly dull the effects of any drugs that managed to affect him, and their mortal restraints wouldn't be able to stand up to both his strength and his seidr.

Even better, he could finally let some of the simmering anger he had been suppressing out – surely no one would care if he destroyed this place. Explosions happened all the time, according to the news reporters. It was just one measly building after all, nothing like that disaster that had happened in New York.

Loki shook his head, shoving that thought down before it started festering again. He didn't think about New York. It made his head hurt, like he was constantly missing something extremely important.

Plan in place, Loki set about cultivating his 'mutant' personality and collecting materials. It was nearing dawn, so he began his trek to the nearest town. He needed a computer, some explosives, and a whole lot more knives if he was to do this properly. If he was lucky, he could get what he needed within the week.

The shadow that had quietly slipped over the fence just before dawn didn't pause when the light fell on him. Instead, the light exploded. Everything was bathed in darkness again, and by the time another search light found the intruder the seven guards that had begun converging on the man were dead.

Two more quickly fell with knives blossoming from their chests, and a third seemed to choke on nothing.

Mutant was shouted through earpieces, and every guard in the entire compound holstered their guns and pulled out darts and syringes. A chance at studying another mutant, according to their commander, was worth much more than their own lives.

The intruder obviously had a temper and an abundance of arrogance, because instead of doing the intelligent thing and retreating when obviously outnumbered, disappeared into the compound.

The guards chased him through the building for an hour, finally cornering him as the sun broached the horizon in a three way intersection. The mutant, although apparently skilled at fighting from afar, couldn't hold his own in hand to hand. Once someone managed to get a needle or three into him, suppressing the green mists that were devastating their forces, he was easily subdued.

No one noticed the softness of some of the walls in places the mutant had passed, or the gasses that began to seep into the building.

It had been child's play to learn much of the layout of the compound while leading the guards around, but the moment Loki realized how they intended to restrain him, he began to struggle for real.

Never-mind that getting captured was the plan, never-mind that their little drug hadn't even affected him – he had sworn that no one was ever going to collar him again. Not while he was alive, at least.

He didn't dig into the can of worms that was why, seeing as he didn't really remember a prior experience, but he well remembered the last incident where his throat was covered and hadn't intended to repeat it.

Despite his goal of keeping his seidr hidden, underestimated, the renewed fear had it sparking out in retaliation.

A second needle pierced his neck, and he focused on reeling it all back in. He had never let his fears get in the way of a scheme yet, and he wasn't about to now. He knew he could escape it easily, anyway.

The second's distraction was all his captors needed, and the collar snapped around him with an ominous hiss.

Loki's breath hitched immediately, and he had to put most of his concentration into keeping himself from hyperventilating.

Despite his best efforts, his vision kept tunneling, and in his peripheral vision his captor's faces kept flickering from human to gray-scaled alien.

Suddenly, their path changed. A sharp turn to the left, thirty seconds of chaos, and Loki was left alone with the sharp clang of a cell door.

As if that could hold him. Loki sneered at their arrogance, stalking forward, but was brought up short by the restraint about his throat. Almost instantly, he was back to drowning in barely restrained panic. He closed his eyes, trying to stave off the memories, but the darkness only seemed to make it worse.

Heat – suffocating, boiling, burning from the inside out.

The sharp crack of a whip – close enough to make him flinch, and a herald of things to come.

A vice around his throat – only growing tighter as he fought, until even calm he could barely fill his lungs half-way.

The sharp tang of blood on his lips, a reminder of his failed attempts at silence.

Something touched Loki's shoulder, and he flinched violently. Whatever it was drew back sharply, and Loki tensed, knowing that whatever followed could only be pain.

It wasn't though.

Surprisingly cold hands gripped either side of his head, chasing away the fire licking at his skin.

"Lukas. Lukas, look at me!"

Loki found himself drawn to the sound, wanting to keep the cold near him. It was still too hot. One of his hands was drawn away from his throat and pinned between someone-else's knees. The hand still on his face pressed into his cheekbone, providing a grounding point Loki could draw himself back too, out of the ever-burning fire.

His world slowly filtered back into focus, and Loki blinked, realizing for the first time who was kneeling in front of him.

Samuel, the mutant vampire.

His pupils were black and his fangs long and sharp, even though it was almost daytime. His skin was pale – much whiter than the last time he had seen the man – and Loki could feel a slight tremor in the abnormally cold hands.

He looked awful.

"Have fun?" Samuel asked, with a raised eyebrow.

"What?" Loki asked, still reeling from the memories.

"Never-mind. You good now?"

Loki sneered, unhappy that anyone had seen him while he was weak. He needed to pull himself together, and quickly. It irked him that his breathing was still much quicker than normal, and he pointedly ignored the metal that encircled his throat.

"I am perfectly well, thank you. You, however, don't appear in good health."

"I'm not." Samuel grimaced. "I have to drink to survive, you know, and with the drug I don't even have relief during the day. I haven't been able to since I got here." He shrugged. "I'm basically starving to death, right now, except with different symptoms."

"No talking, Freaks!" The cell door clanged as a passing guard slammed his baton into it. Samuel spun towards the sound and honest-to-goodness hissed. The guard jerked back, startled, but a moment later gathered his courage and stepped closer.

"Don't threaten me, you little blood sucker," The guard growled back. "Or next session is gonna be a lot more painful."

"Oh, it will be, when I rip your throat out." Samuel sneered back.

"Finnegan, don't talk to the subjects," a second voice barked, and a short, plump man strode into view. He wore a long white lab coat, and was scribbling rapidly on a clipboard. "You start to humanize them, and then we'd have to kill you."

The guard gulped. "Yes, sir. I'll ignore them."

"Good." The lab-coat, Dirk, finally glanced up from his clipboard. "It'd be a shame to waste such talent." He nodded decisively once, and, thinking the same thing, both Loki and Samuel stood and backed away from the cell wall. Or at least, Loki stood. Samuel sort of scrambled up and tilted sideways until he managed to stumble into the wall and support himself.

Loki's breath hitched as the movement shifted the collar, but he was in control now, and knew that he could free himself if necessary. He just needed to figure out where Lillian and the others were first.