Fic: Gives You Hell (CSI:NY, het, AU, FRT-13)

[kathierif_fic]

Story Title: Gives You Hell
Author: Kathie
Fandom: CSI:NY
Pairing/Characters: Danny Messer/Lindsay Monroe, Don Flack, Mac Taylor
Gen, Slash, and/or Het: hints of het
Summary: Danny has hidden his true nature from his wife, Lindsay, but when someone tries to kidnap their daughter, all bets are off and Lindsay gets the eye-opener of her life when she finds out that magic, ghosts and demons really exist.
Word Count: 14,884 words
Disclaimer: Not mine, no profit made.
Warnings: AU, supernatural phenomena
Author's Notes: written for fantasybigbang. This couldn't have been done without the help of the usual suspects, and I love you for doing all the things you do! More notes at the end of the fic.



It was, Mac thought with quiet satisfaction, a calm day at the New York Crime Lab, a day when reports could get finished, tests could be done and results could be double-checked without too much stress. Surprisingly, there hadn’t been any major new cases today, and even if the day was still young and all hell could still break loose any second now, and probably would, it was almost peaceful right now.

He allowed himself a satisfied smile and adjusted the microscope slightly. He definitely wouldn’t complain if the day remained this peaceful, he added mentally as he stared at the fiber under the microscope.

The door was pushed open behind him, and words filtered through to him.

“…definitely not.”

Lindsay Monroe Messer, Mac thought, definitely sounded less than enthusiastic about something, and there was a hint of steel in her voice that indicated that Lindsay expected that her wishes would be obeyed or at least respected.

“Come on, baby.” That was the voice of Danny, and Mac frowned slightly. It sounded suspiciously as if Danny was whining, and for various reasons, Mac just didn’t like that tone of voice at all. It set his teeth on edge and made him instinctively want to lash out at something.

“Why not?” Danny asked and crossed his arms over his chest, an unhappy frown etched deeply into his forehead.

“Why not what?” Mac asked and turned away from the cotton fiber under his microscope. As interesting as it was to listen to Lindsay and Danny, it probably was for the best to let them know they weren’t alone before either of them said something they didn’t want the entire crime lab to know. Gossip spread quickly through the lab, carried forth by the techs, quicker than humanly possible. It almost was like magic, how quickly everybody working here knew what was going on; and it wasn’t just limited to members of the crime lab. Nowadays, Mac usually heard it from Don Flack first when Danny and Lindsay had a little discussion in the middle of the trace lab, especially if it was about something as mundane as Danny forgetting to buy milk or baby food, again.

Lindsay whirled around to face him. “Mac!” she said, surprise coloring her voice. Her face turned a pale shade of pink as she blushed. “I didn’t see you there, have you been here for long?”

Mac simply raised his eyebrows, silently pointing out how ridiculous her question had been, and Lindsay flushed even darker. “Yeah, right,” she murmured and snapped on a pair of gloves.

“It’s about Lucy’s birthday,” Danny drawled and leaned his hip against the side of the table, careful not to disturb any of the chemicals there or the evidence that was laid out. His arms were still crossed, and the frown was still on his forehead, as well.

“What about it?” Mac asked and leaned back in his chair, his trace analysis momentarily forgotten.

“We are not going to have Lucy’s birthday party at the lab,” Lindsay firmly said. “By the way, do you have a present, Mac?”

“You wanted to have Lucy’s birthday party at the lab?” Mac asked, surprised by her words. He hadn’t expected that.

“Yes.”

“No.”

Both parents had answered at the same time and were now glaring at each other fiercely.

Mac shook his head slightly. “Why not?”

Lindsay didn’t turn her attention away from her husband. “Come on, Mac,” she said, “I want my daughter to have a normal childhood.”

Danny threw his hands in the air. “Because almost getting kidnapped and killed by an insane psychopath because of a weird fixation is part of a normal childhood,” he scoffed.

Lindsay grew still and silent, and Mac watched as the realization of what he’d just said and what it meant for Lindsay slipped over Danny’s face.

“I want her to have a normal childhood,” she repeated, her voice trembling slightly, but her back was ramrod straight, and then, she turned on her heel and left the trace lab without another word.

Danny sighed.

“Open mouth, insert foot,” he murmured. “Great job, Messer.”

Mac chuckled quietly. “You should probably go and fix that,” he said and nodded in the direction Lindsay had stormed off to.

Danny nodded glumly. “Yeah.” He took a step toward the door. “It would’ve been the easiest thing to do, you know?” he then said and turned again, to face Mac. “She’s going to work all day; I’d pick up Lucy and bring her over, and the cake, and it’s not as if she’d remember it, anyway. She’s just two, you know.”

Mac shrugged. “You never know what she might remember,” he pointed out carefully.

Danny exhaled sharply as his shoulders slumped. “You think she’s right?” he asked hesitantly.

“I don’t know, Danny,” Mac answered. It was the truth. “Maybe she is. Maybe not.”

“Really helpful.” Danny shook his head and half-turned again. “Oh, by the way, you do have a present for her, right?”

“Yes, I do.” Mac was taking his role as godfather to Lucy Messer very serious, and he ‘d spent an entire, very uncomfortable lunch break in a small toy shop with a young shop assistant trying to find the perfect present for a two year old girl. He wasn’t going to tell Danny and Lindsay how stressful it had been – the important thing was that he had a present; a present that Stella had told him was adorable and age-appropriate, when he’d called her and told her about his adventures in gift-shopping.

“All right.” Danny shrugged when Mac didn’t offer any more details about the gift he had picked. “I…I should talk to her before I go and pick up my little girl.”

A happy grin spread over his face at the thought of his little daughter, and Mac couldn’t help but smile a little, as well. Danny’s joy was just that contagious.

“Just her and me today,” Danny added before giving Mac a wave and pushing open the door. “See you tomorrow, Mac.”

“Have fun,” Mac replied and returned his attention to his fiber. The cotton had been drenched in something, he just had to figure out what it was.

Maybe it would help him catch the killer of a young woman and make the streets of New York a little safer. Encouraged, he set to work.

~*+*~

Danny sighed a little as he slung the kitchen towel over his shoulder and surveyed his handiwork. The kitchen was spotless once again, no sign of the epic food fight he and Lucy had had over dinner remained. All traces of mashed potatoes and carrots had been cleaned up while Lucy had been sitting on the floor in the living room and was quietly playing. Danny couldn’t see her from his current spot, but he could hear her, squeaking and laughing happily, a few sounds that could be constructed as syllables and even some actual words occasionally thrown into her babbling.

He had made sure she was free of any mashed vegetables before he had set her on the ground, although he really wasn’t sure how much of the food had really ended up in her stomach. As far as he could tell, most had it had been smeared over the table, the rest of the kitchen furniture and into his hair. He needed a shower before he could go to bed that night.

Shaking his head, he decided that it could wait until Lucy was in her own bed and asleep. Right now, he wanted nothing more than sit down with her, play a little with her and when she was getting tired, he would get her ready for bed and then he could still take that shower and watch some TV before Lindsay came home, and hopefully she would be in a better mood than she had been all day long. Danny had apologized for his insensitive words before he’d left the lab, but he wasn’t sure if it had been enough.

Maybe he should have bought her flowers on the way home, but he’d already balanced Lucy, her bag, and the groceries, and he only had two arms, after all.

He shook his head and wiped the towel one last time over the table before hanging it over the back of a chair and stepping out of the kitchen.

He was grinning and definitely not expecting the wooden block to hit him in the stomach as soon as he entered the living room, but there it was, leaving him doubled over and gasping, more from shock and surprise than from actual pain.

“Hey,” he gasped, “No throwing toys!”

The block fell to the ground when he straightened, and Danny bent down to retrieve it. The wood was polished and warm under his fingers – these blocks had been a present from Sid, and Lucy loved building things with them only to smash them down with a joyful cry, preferably when there was something on TV that Danny wanted to watch.

He straightened again and froze.

Lucy was sitting on the floor in front of the TV, just like Danny had expected it. She was grinning widely, her eyes closed to small slits and her mouth opened in a smile that, under normal circumstances, would have made Danny forget about anything else going on around him.

Anything else, but not this.

The wooden blocks Lucy had been playing with were hanging in the thing air, almost motionless except for the occasional wobbling.

“Lucy…” Danny said, bafflement and shock toning his voice down until all there was left was a soft whisper.

Lucy squeaked and waved a little, chubby arm at him, and one of the blocks sailed slowly toward Danny. He caught it out of the air and swallowed against the sudden tightness in his throat.

This, he hadn’t expected when he’d told her to play with her blocks, but with sudden, sharp clearness he knew he had to do something, right now, about it.

He had to make a call.

He didn’t remember moving, but the phone was suddenly in his hand, his thumb hovering over the keypad.

This, he knew, counted as an emergency, but Mac was probably on a crime scene with Lindsay, and if Danny called him now, Lindsay would find out what was going on.

Lindsay couldn’t find out.

If Lindsay found out about this, everything would be over. She would know he’d lied to her, and she would take his precious, precious daughter way from him and he would never see her again.

He couldn’t let that happen.

Danny took a deep, calming breath, to push back the panic that threatened to press his chest together and prevent him from getting enough air into his lungs, and dialed another number.

Right now, he needed a favor, a huge favor, and there was only one other man, besides Mac, who he trusted with this new-found knowledge about his daughter.

“Don,” he greeted, his voice almost not trembling at all. “How soon can you be here?”

This, he thought while keeping his eyes focused on the display in front of him, couldn’t be real. It had to be an illusion. He had been hit in the head by one of Lucy’s blocks, a block that had been thrown with the angry force of an almost two year old and that hadn’t been levitated by said child. He’d been hit in th head and now he was suffering from a psychotic break, that was all.

Tentatively, he reached out, but it felt real; all he could feel around him was reality.

Genuine reality.

He sighed softly and sat down, cross-legged, in front of his daughter.

“I’d hoped you’d wait a little, you know,” he said quietly. “Would’ve been a lot easier to protect you that way.”

He looked down at the single wooden block and the cell phone he was still holding in his hands before shrugging and letting go of them. They remained floating in mid-air, as if he’d never moved his hands away from them in the first place. Funny, he thought, he couldn’t even remember hanging up on Don.

Lucy squawked happily and crawled into his lap while grabbing at his phone, and Danny pulled her little body close to him and took a deep, carefully measured breath.

“Don’t worry, Lucy,” he promised, his lips pressed into her hair and against her skull. “Daddy’s taking care of you. I promise.”

She made a questioning sound and reached for his phone again, and Danny chuckled quietly and moved it away from her curious fingers.

He didn’t even bother using his hands for it. Instead, he used the powers of his mind for this task.

The phone vibrated, and Danny shook off the daze he’d fallen into and grabbed it, his thumb pressing down on the keypad to accept the call without checking the caller ID first.

“Listen up, Messer.” Don’s voice sounded tinny through the phone, without losing any of its urgency.

“I’m listening,” he promised and pulled Lucy tight against his chest with his other hand.

“Good. Don’t hang up on me again,” Don ordered. “I’ll be with you in twenty, you hear me?”

“I hear you.”

“No matter what, I need you to remain calm. Don’t do anything rash, okay, Danny?”

“Okay.”

“Promise.”

“I promise, Don. Just…hurry. I have bad feeling about this.” He didn’t elaborate on the phone what exactly it was that was giving him this bad feeling at the pit of his stomach, but then, he didn’t need to. Don knew him well enough to read his voice like an open book, and even if he didn’t know why Danny had called him so urgently, he knew that it had to be important.

“Twenty minutes,” Don repeated before ending the call.

Danny sighed and sent the phone floating through the air again. All he could do now was wait for Don to show up – wait and think about what would probably happen next, what he had to do to keep Lucy safe, to keep Lindsay in the dark about their daughter.

It was a good thing, he thought with dark amusement, that their wedding vows hadn’t been about being honest, but about being faithful and about him protecting her. Those were all things he could provide his wife with, but if she would find out about this particular part of his life, he wouldn’t even know where he should start his explanation, if she even let him come that far. It was too complicated, too big, and the easiest and best solution would be, and was, to never let Lindsay find out in the first place.

“This is our little secret, yours and mine,” he told Lucy. “Don’t tell Mommy, all right?”

A knock at the door made him look up. “I hope that’s your uncle Donnie,” he murmured as he climbed to his feet. “That was fast, though…he must’ve flown to get here…”

A suspicious frown started to form on his forehead. There was no way twenty minutes had gone by while he’d been sitting there and staring into thin air, panicking about the thought that Lindsay might find out about levitating toys and everything connected to that.

Pressing his forehead against the blessedly cool wood of the door, he concentrated for a split second before looking through the spyhole.

He didn’t recognize the man standing on the other side of his door, and he was sure that he’d never seen him before, in his entire life. Wide-shouldered and muscular under the ratty trenchcoat he was wearing, he looked like a member of a football team. His hairline was receding, and he had his head lowered and his shoulders hunched up, as if he was freezing or trying to avoid getting unwanted attention.

Danny almost snorted at that. The man looked like any other member of a religious splinter group, and Danny wasn’t the slightest bit in the mood to talk about religion right now.

A glance behind him made sure that nothing was floating around the apartment anymore, not in his line of sight anyway, and Danny was already reaching for the door, to open it and tell this man where he could shove his message, when the man suddenly lifted his hand to knock again and a huge wave of uneasiness fell over Danny.

Something wasn’t right here.

The man suddenly froze, his hand still lifted into the air, halfway to the door, as if he’d heard something that had made him stop and reassess his plan. For a split second, Danny allowed himself the wild hope that Don had, against all odds, already arrived, but the man lifted his head, his attention focused entirely on the door in front of him, and every muscle in Danny’s body froze when he saw the man’s face.

The skin was reddened, the way it was when it was getting cold or after exertion or fury. The thing that had made Danny freeze was the man’s eyes.

They were black, the pupils nothing more than two pin-sized glowing red points in their darkness.

A demon, he realized with the part of his brain that was still capable of acting and reacting rationally, a low-ranking demon, bust still, a demon straight from hell, standing in front of his door.

No surprise the guy seemed to be freezing – after the fires of hell, New York in fall was cold, Danny thought, but it quickly became unimportant as he realized why the demon was staring so intently at the door.

He knew Danny was there.

A slow smile curled the demon’s thin lips upward as he balled his still raised hand into a tight fist and pulled it back, his intent obvious. He wanted to break through the door to get to Danny.

Danny whirled around on his heels and rushed back into the apartment, only vaguely aware of the blocks that had risen back into the air, until he reached the closet in their bedroom.

The box he wanted was at the back of the closet, out of sight, and it had a fine layer of dust on it. It was just an ordinary shoe box, a price tag still stuck to one side, and Danny opened while his heart beat a sharp staccato rhythm against the inside of his ribs.

A baseball, an old, broken dream catcher. A ring. Photos of himself and Louie, growing up. He ignored the sharp pain the memories of his brother still brought him. Silver bullets, a little silver cross on a chain, and there, at the bottom of the box, two small bottles, a cross drawn on the label with a thick, black marker.

He grabbed them and broke the seal on the first one while still balancing Lucy on his hip.

The sound of splintering wood made him hurry back into the living room – more space, his brain supplied, which meant a better chance to survive this whole thing for long enough to get Lucy to safety, somehow, even if he didn’t know yet how he could do that. He didn’t even know if there was only this one demon, or if a second one was waiting for him to do something, to swoop in and finish the job – he didn’t even know what the demon wanted from him, in the first place.

However, now wasn’t the time to worry about these questions. He could do that later, if he survived the demon’s first attack.

The blocks clattered to the floor, and Lucy began to cry softly, but Danny couldn’t stop what he was doing to soothe her now. He held her tightly against his side, protecting her with his entire body if necessary, and took control of the wooden blocks himself.

“Greetings, humanling.” The demon bowed his head in a mock-greeting as he stepped into the room. He was grinning, thinking that Danny was unarmed, harmless and easy to overwhelm, and he didn’t even try to appear human anymore.

Reality flickered around him, and the horns became visible; long, curled in on themselves, like the horns of a Capricorn, and Danny took a deep, calming breath and slowly released it.

“What do you want?” he asked harshly.

Sharp, pointed teeth glinted in the light of the lamps.

“Her.” The demon held out a clawed hand, pointing it at Lucy. “If you hand the squishy thing over, I don’t have to kill you.” He tilted his head to the side. “if it helps,” he added, his smile widening, “I’ll try not to kill her.”

Danny knew better than to believe his words, and he refused to listen to the demon even one more second. Everybody knew demons lied, after all.

Wooden blocks crashed into the demon’s solid frame at high speed, all of the fury and fear Danny could muster up behind the forceful push. It wasn’t enough to hurt him, or even knock him off his feet, but the attack had been surprising enough to make the demon stumble back a step. Danny threw a potted plant after the blocks and darted closer as soon as the demon lifted his hands in front of his eyes to protect them from the soft soil.

Danny managed to toss the holy water into the demon’s face and retreat to the other side of the room without getting injured by the demon’s claws, and he watched, chest heaving and muscles coiled tight, as the demon howled and stumbled back, steam rising off his skin where the holy water had come in contact with it.

“This is not the last you’ve seen of me, or my kind,” the demon growled, his hands still covering his face, and stumbled out, almost crashing into the wall as he went.

Danny was too stunned to do more than just stand there, his fingers still clenched around the smooth glass of the bottle, almost half empty now, and around the body of his daughter. He had to get moving, had to get out of the apartment and to a safe place, had to bring Lucy out before the demon showed up again; he had to clean up the mess and fix the broken door…but he couldn’t move a single muscle in his body. Vaguely, he was aware that he was shaking almost violently and that Lucy was crying again – he was sure that she had stopped crying before, but right now, she was sobbing with heartbreaking intensity, snot smeared over her entire face.

“Shh,” he murmured helplessly and forced himself into action. One wave of his hand, and the box of Kleenex was floating close, and Danny started to wipe Lucy’s face and clean up the worst of the mess, but he was still working on autopilot.

When he heard steps behind himself, he reacted before his brain could catch up with his instincts.

“Whoa, Messer!” Don stepped back quickly and lifted his hands slowly. “It’s just me.”

“Sorry,” Danny murmured, too exhausted to be embarrassed, and finally dropped the bottle of holy water. It was empty now anyway, the rest of the holy water now darkening Don’s jacket and shirt.

“What the hell, Messer?” Don asked, a bewildered expression on his face. “What happened here?”

“Capricorn demon, stomping in here and trying to take Lucy,” Danny murmured and stumbled to the couch. He needed to sit down now because he didn’t think his trembling knees would keep him upright for much longer.

“Huh,” Don said and looked down at his wet clothes again. “And you managed to fight it off with holy water and a fern?”

“Don’t forget Lucy’s blocks,” Danny added. Lucy’s sobs had finally calmed down to an occasional hiccup every now and then, and he looked up at Don with a small frown. “I know it sounds ridiculous…”

“Huh,” Don said again and crossed his arms over his chest. “Not if you surprised him. What’s more interesting is – what is a class-two-demon from hell doing in your apartment in the first place, Messer?”

Danny shook his head numbly. “Lucy,” he murmured. “She…I caught her levitating those damn blocks, Don. Levitating, man.”

“Levitating, as in, telekinesis?” Don asked and came to sit next to him.

“Yeah.”

“A skill usually developed a little later than two years?”

“Yeah.”

“Does Mac know?”

“No.”

“Were you planning on telling him?”

“Don’t know. Yeah.” Danny ran his hand over his face. His fingers were still shaking almost violently, and he didn’t fight when Don closed his own fingers gently around them, stilling the tremors.

“We should tell him now,” Don said quietly. “Come on. I’ll drive. This is something Mac needs to know.”

Danny didn’t protest.

~*+*~

“Mac?” Don still had his hand on Danny’s elbow, guiding him and making sure he didn’t stumble, as they reached Mac’s office.

Mac looked up with a little frown that only deepened when he saw Danny and the state he was in.

“What happened?”

Danny shook his head and sat down heavily. “Lindsay?” he asked hoarsely.

“She’s at a scene,” Mac answered. “Do you want me to call her?”

Danny shook hi s head and closed his eyes briefly. “Please don’t,” he said softly. “I don’t her involved in this.” He looked up at Mac. “She can’t find out. Not like this.”

“Find out?” Mac asked and came to sit next to Danny while giving Don a puzzled look. His voice was pitched low and soothing, the voice he used when talking to the victims at crime scenes, Danny thought, and it made him realize just how shaken he probably had to look.

But then, a class-two demon had just attacked him in his own home, and he’d survived the attack without getting injured – he was allowed to fall apart a little, although Don had done his best to keep the pieces together, once again.

“Danny just had an encounter of the third kind,” Don jumped in with an explanation when it was obvious that Danny wouldn’t answer. His hand brushed against Danny’s briefly, a soothing touch that made Danny immediately feel better. “Capricorn demon, trying to grab Lucy.”

Danny felt another tremor run through him at Don’s calm words, despite the other man’s calming touch and despite knowing that he was safe with Mac and him. They would protect him and Lucy, plus, he had fought off a demon on his own, he wasn’t exactly helpless…

Mac squeezed the back of his neck, and the panic welling up in him slowly dissipated again.

“A Capricorn demon?” he repeated questioningly.

Danny nodded and finally looked up. “Yeah,” he confirmed, his voice rough. “He looked just like that guy over there.”

His muscles tensed again as he nodded toward the man in the dark trench coat who just made his way toward them. Mac recognized him immediately, but he didn’t know how the demon had managed to get on this level – it was protected, in more than just one way, with spells so complicated and intricate that some of the demons that were allowed in the lab sometimes asked to leave early because of migraines.

“What the hell?” Don murmured. He’d seen and recognized the demon as well. “Someone must’ve promised these guys heaven and hell for Lucy.”

“Or they are pissed off because of their friend,” Danny found himself answering.

Don gave him a sideways glance. “Well, I could understand that,” he quipped, “Holy water is a bitch to get out of clothes.”

Mac snorted and stood, to await the demon.

“Humanling,” the demon greeted as he pushed the door to Mac’s office open. “Step aside.”

Mac shook his head. “You know I can’t do that,” he pointed out calmly and took a step toward him. “But you can tell me who sent you and what they want.”

Again, reality rippled, and the demon’s human appearance fell away, like a layer that was slowly being peeled off. The curled horns on this one’s head were much bigger, and Danny had the sinking feeling that it wouldn’t be as easy to get rid of this one as it had been with the last one.

However, Mac didn’t seem to be impressed.

“Who sent you?” he barked at the demon, his eyes focused on the creature.

The demon shook itself, like a wet dog. “Nobody paid us,” he replied, “But we were promised a reward. For the little squishy thing.”

“What kind of reward?” Mac asked and took another step toward the demon who threw his head back and laughed.

“That is between him and us,” he pointed out, “and none of your concern.” His hands moved, fast enough to be nothing but a blur, and sharp claws whistled through the air. However, Mac had anticipated the attack and was already moving out of the way. He wasn’t attacking the demon, like Danny would have done, and was taking a step back instead.

“If I match his offer, will you let us be?” he asked.

The demon snorted. “You will not be able to match his offer, humanling,” he said. “He has the key.”

He reached out for Mac again, but at the last second, he changed his attack and its direction. His claws brushed against Mac’s sleeve, and the sound of ripping fabric was loud in the office. The demon charged again, carefully staying out of Mac’s range, and slashed in his direction again, aiming for Mac’s throat.

Before he could make contact,, the air in the room suddenly shifted, and the demon froze, mid-movement. He growled once he realized what had happened – instead of fighting him physically, like Danny would have done, Mac had taken the fight to another level and had him pinned with the power of his mind alone.

“What did he promise you?” he asked again. His teeth were clenched tight, and sweat was starting to form along his hairline.

The demon managed a grin. “He promised us home,” he snarled and squirmed. Mac still had him pinned, but it became increasingly difficult to maintain control and he was running out quickly. The more the demon fought against the invisible grip, the sooner he would be free.

Mac felt the burn of sweat in his eyes, but he didn’t blink. His muscles started to tremble, and he knew that he couldn’t fight this demon for much longer. It was an old one, experienced and patient, and it was determined to fulfill his job and get his reward.

Mac grunted softly. The demon’s smile turned malicious.

“You’re not bad, for a humanling,” the demon admitted, his voice turning into a low, raspy growl. “I would take your deal if there was any chance you might be able to keep your end of it.”

He shrugged, the movement small and almost imperceptible, and Mac knew he was seconds from breaking free.

“Danny. Run,” he ordered sharply – something he should’ve done before, but he had needed to keep all of his focus on the demon and Danny, who knew what was going on, had kept silent to avoid distracting Mac.

He heard movement behind him, the shuffling of Danny’s feet as he moved toward the door, and suddenly, Lucy made a questioning sound – a sound that broke the last straw of control Mac had over himself.

The demon rushed two steps toward him, his claws reaching for Mac, when suddenly, a wave of heat brushed past Mac. He felt the small pinprick of the tips of sharp claws penetrating his skin as they reached his chest, but instead of burning pain, he only experienced an unbelievable heat.

The demon burst into fire in front of him, a look of surprise on his face, and then, all that was left of him was a cloud of ash and smoke.

Mac swallowed thickly. “Danny?” he croaked.

“It wasn’t me,” Danny answered. His voice sounded dazed.

Don coughed and waved a hand in front of his face. “Lucy,” he said. His voice was quiet, but in the sudden silence of Mac’s office, late at night, it was almost deafening.

Mac pulled his shirt away from his chest and inspected the damage done to it. Seven little puncture holes were in it, right over his chest, where the demon’s claws had been.

“Did you just send the demon back to hell?” Danny asked the little girl still in his arms, disbelief and amazement coloring his shaking voice. “That’s Daddy’s little girl, right there.”

Mac coughed and sat down behind his desk. “Daddy’s little girl almost set my lab on fire,” he pointed out dryly.

Danny shrugged. “There was a demon in there,” he answered. “She was only trying to save your life, Mac.”

Mac took a deep breath. The whole absurdity of the situation almost made him laugh out loud, but he managed to keep a straight face, no matter how hard it was.

“There usually are demons in the lab,” he pointed out and pulled open a drawer of his desk. The power Lucy had displayed was alarming, and Mac had a strong suspicion that it was the reason why these Capricorn demons were interested in her – no, he corrected himself, why the mysterious stranger who had sent the demons was interested in her. “Adam, for example. Don’t encourage this kind of behavior, I don’t want Adam to be burnt to ash.”

“There was another presence. A bad presence.” Danny looked down at Lucy. Her head was drooping exhaustedly, and Danny held her against his chest protectively.

Don grinned. “A bad presence?” he asked, his eyes sparkling with amusement about Danny’s choice of words.

“Yeah.”

“Adam without coffee?”

Danny chuckled, but he quickly became serious again. “What now, Mac?”

“Now?” Mac pulled a bottle with painkillers and a small charm out of his drawer before he finally found what he was looking for: a small cardboard box. He hadn’t looked at it in years, but he knew exactly what he was holding right now.

This was something he couldn’t have forgotten.

He could feel his fingertips tingle where they rested against the box.

“Now we find out who wants Lucy and why,” he said and opened the box, to lift the bracelet out.

It would probably fit more than twice around Lucy’s wrist, but it was the best kind of protection he could come up with on such short notice, and he had a feeling that she could use it.

“What’s that?” Danny wanted to know with a nod in the direction of the piece of jewelry, but he let Mac slip it over Lucy’s right hand and close the fastening of it without protest.

“Protective bracelet,” Mac murmured. “It’s pretty strong…” He swallowed. “It belonged to Claire,” he then explained with a small, almost embarrassed smile. “I know, it’s not perfect, especially for someone as young as Luc, but it’s the best I can do right now.”

Danny shook his head slightly. “For a first charm, it’s a hell of a gift, Mac,” he said quietly. “Thank you.”

“Yeah,” Don agreed and shifted slightly. “It works, too. Perfect shielding from any outside influences.” He glanced at Lucy and frowned uncomfortably.

“You still have to be careful,” Mac said firmly. “Very careful, Danny.”

“I know.” Danny swallowed against the dryness in his throat. “I’m going to be careful, Mac. I promise.”

Mac managed a smile. He knew how protective Danny could be, especially of things that were very important to him, and his daughter definitely ranked highest on that list, even higher than his own safety. Mac had no doubt that Danny would do everything in his powers to keep Lucy safe from harm, and he had the suspicion that father and daughter would clash about that once Lucy reached puberty.

“I’m going to go and ask some questions,” Don promised and patted Danny’s shoulder gently. “See if anyone knows anything about this thing. Some guy trying to steal kids, people won’t stand by and let that happen. Not if they hadn’t…you know.”

Danny shook his head. Don’s words had left him confused and baffled, and he didn’t really know what Don was trying to say, but he knew that Don would activate some of his contacts and do his part in keeping Lucy safe, and he was glad and thankful about that.

“The folks won’t be happy,” Don said with a small grimace. “As far as they are concerned, kidnapping children is their prerogative. Keep me posted on what comes up on your end?”

Mac nodded, and Don left the room quickly. He had work to do and people to talk to.

It was going to be a long night, and if they didn’t find out who was behind these attacks soon, it was going to be a long couple of days, as well.

~*+*~

“You ready to pick up our daughter and go home?” Danny asked with a small smile that only felt half-forced on his face. He’d managed to get Lucy into her bed, the lock on the door fixed and the living room cleaned up the evening before, and he’d even finished all of it before Lindsay had come home, tired and irritable after a day of sifting through evidence. To his great relief, Mac’s charm had worked and no other demons had attacked him or Lucy, and so he had felt comfortable enough to let her spend the day in her preschool, just like any other day of the week. It certainly helped to keep Lindsay in the dark, and he was pretty sure that someone would’ve called him if his daughter got kidnapped by men with horns on their heads.

Lindsay nodded. “More than ready,” she said with a small smile of her own. She waited by the elevators while Danny grabbed his jacket from the locker room, and Danny took the time to check his phone for messages from Flack, but so far, there hadn’t been anything. Neither Don nor Mac had found out yet who had been behind these attacks from last night.

It left Danny restless and uneasy, checking every few feet that he wasn’t being followed by broad-shouldered men in trench coats. It was getting bad enough that Lindsay started to give him curious and worried glances.

She didn’t protest when he reached for Lucy as soon as he laid eyes on her and cradled her tight against his body, as if he needed to protect her from something. However, her gaze fell onto Lucy’s wrist and the tangled bracelet slung around it.

“Hey,” she said and reached for it. “What’s that?”

“Hmm?” Danny asked distractedly, caught in another glance over his shoulder, to make sure they weren’t followed. “Oh, that. Present from Uncle Mac.”

“It looks expensive,” Lindsay pointed out and brushed her fingertips against one of the pendants on the bracelet. It twinkled in the sunlight with the glint of expensive metals.

Danny made another non-committal sound at the back of his throat. “It belonged to Claire, he wanted Lucy to have it,” he revealed reluctantly and turned slightly away from her, but Lindsay simply turned with him.

“Danny, this is too expensive for her to have it,” she protested. “She’ll lose it, or break it.”

“Nah, she won’t. Don’t worry.” Danny took another step back, but Lindsay didn’t give up so easily. Her fingers were already on the delicate clasp, and before Danny could say a single word, she had taken the bracelet off of her daughter’s wrist.

“What are you doing?” Danny asked, an incredulous tone in his voice, and Lucy made a whimpering sound, as if her favorite toy had been taken from her.

“She’s too young to have something this valuable,” Lindsay argued and closed her fist around the bracelet. “I’ll give it back to Mac. He shouldn’t have.”

“He wanted her to have it,” Danny managed to press out from between clenched teeth. His heart was suddenly beating a hard staccato rhythm against his ribs, and sweat was breaking out over his body as he became acutely aware of the fact that Lucy now was unprotected and very detectable for everybody looking for her using magic.

“But Danny,” Lindsay said, trying to reason with him. “She’s simply too young for this! We can keep it safe for her until she’s old enough, if you don’t want to give it back to Mac.”

“Fine,” Danny wheezed. “Give it to me, I’ll give it back to Mac.”

Lindsay shrugged and dropped the bracelet into Danny’s open palm, and he hastily closed his fingers around it and pressed his closed hand against Lucy’s back, hoping that it was enough to keep her safe, to keep her hidden from too curious, demonic eyes.

It wasn’t.

Seconds later, he saw the first dark-grey trench coat, stretched almost impossibly wide across a set of broad shoulders, quickly followed by another one coming from another side.

Danny was now faced with the prospect of squaring off against two Capricorn-demons at the same time, while keeping his daughter and his clueless wife safe.

There was no way he could keep Lucy safe and keep it secret from Lindsay, he realized with a sinking feeling. His cover was about to be blown, unless a miracle happened.

He waited exactly two heartbeats for this miracle to happen before he decided that he was on his own.

He shoved Lucy into Lindsay’s arms and wrapped the bracelet back around Lucy’s wrist, not listening to Lindsay’s protest. His only concern right now was to keep Lucy safe. If it meant Lindsay thought he was nuts, he couldn’t change it now – she would most likely demand a divorce anyway, he thought uncomfortably, as soon as this situation was over. Lindsay wouldn’t understand, because she didn’t know about demons and kidnapping elves and magicians.

Yet.

Cursing under his breath, Danny reached into the inner pocket of his jacket. He had promised Mac to be careful, and he had promised Lucy to take care of her, and he intended to keep both of these promises.

Lindsay, he thought while his fingers slipped over cool metal and glass, was about to get the eye-opener of her life, simply based on the fact that Danny couldn’t protect her and Lucy while fighting off two demons, and she could fire a gun. He would prefer not to tell her, but he didn’t have a choice anymore.

He simply needed her help. Her opinion of his qualities as husband were unimportant right now – as long as Lucy was safe, everything else was only of secondary concern to Danny.

“Here,” he ordered and pulled the goggles out of his pocket. He handed them to her and took Lucy back. “Put these on!”

The demons were getting closer, and Danny realized that he couldn’t fight them in the middle of the street, in the middle of the day, when people were watching him, and running away wasn’t an option. The demons had already seen them and would follow them, wherever they were going.

Without a second thought, he pulled Lindsay, who was still staring at the goggles in her hands perplexedly, into the next alley. It wasn’t perfect, but it gave them at least marginal protection from unwanted attention, plus, the demons could only attack them from one side – the front.

“Put on the damn goggles,” he repeated, his voice low and urgent. “And then shoot everything that doesn’t look human.”

Lindsay gave him a confused look, but she finally put on the pair of goggles and pulled them down over her eyes. Her surprised gasp and the instinctive move to grab her gun as soon as the first demon came around the corner proved to Danny that the goggles still worked, even if it had been ages since he’d used them the last time.

He pulled out his own weapon – a can of hairspray.

“Danny,” Lindsay murmured and took a step back. “What…what is that?”

He chuckled humorlessly. “That? A demon,” he answered as calmly as he could.

“A demon?” Lindsay repeated disbelievingly, but there was no time for further discussion. The demons were coming closer now, and Danny found himself thinking that he was sick of them, with a sudden sense of disgust and fury. He wanted his normal life with its secret corners back instead of standing here, in this alley, with his wife and kid and trying to fight off demons again.

It was getting old, fast.

The first demon was slowly, but steadily, coming closer, a triumphant grin on his face.

It quickly turned into an expression of shock as the bullets pierced his shoulder and leg, and then, he found himself engulfed in a cloud of hairspray and fire.

“Good thing these things aren’t the sharpest crayons in the box,” Danny muttered as soon as the second demon burst into flame, as well. “You all right?”

Lindsay shook her head and lowered her gun. “You owe me an explanation,2 she told him, a dazed and shocked expression on her face.

Danny nodded. He’d feared as much. “Right,” he said and pushed the can of hairspray back into his pocket, only to pull out his phone, to call Mac. “I’ll explain, I promise,” he said, holding his hand up soothingly. “But the short version…” He frowned, unsure how to go on.

“There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy?” Lindsay suggested. She was still wearing Danny’s goggles and was staring at him as if he’d grown horns as well. It made him uncomfortable, even if he knew with relative certainty that even through the goggles, he looked normal.

“Most of them are between hell and the sewers, but yeah, basically…” he answered before dialing Mac’s number. “What?”

“Nothing,” Lindsay murmured and quickly averted her eyes from him. She didn’t look back up at him during the call or after, until Danny touched her arm and guided her back to the bustling streets.

He had time to figure out what to tell her until they reached Mac’s apartment.

~*+*~

“Okay. You promised me an explanation,” Lindsay started impatiently, as soon as the door had fallen shut behind them.

Danny toed off his shoes and let Mac take Lucy out of his arms before guiding Lindsay into Mac’s living room and sitting down with her.

“This isn’t easy,” he started hesitantly. “Lindsay, I’m…I’m a magician.”

“A what?” She stared at him disbelievingly.

“A magician,” he repeated patiently.

Lindsay started to shake her head slowly. “The kind of magician that pulls rabbits out of a top hat?”

“The kind that pulls demons out of hell, if not careful,” Mac interrupted from the door. Seconds later, he handed Lindsay a steaming cup of tea.

“There’s that,” Danny agreed with a small grimace.

“Great.” Lindsay cradled the cup in her hands and glared at Danny angrily. “When were you planning on telling me all that?”

Danny exchanged a quick glance with Mac that told her everything she needed to know. “I wasn’t,” he admitted, his voice pitched low.

“This is all on a need-to-know basis,” Mac explained calmly. “And you didn’t.”

Lindsay swallowed her anger and fury. “What changed?” she asked.

Mac didn’t blink. “Lucy,” he told her evenly.

Lindsay found herself unable to look Mac in the eye. “I don’t understand,” she admitted helplessly and looked into her cup.

“Your daughter,” Mac explained quietly, “inherited a powerful gift from Danny. She has magic powers, Lindsay, and she is growing up to be a magician, just like her father.”

Lindsay shook her head. “This can’t be happening,” she whispered. “I’m dreaming this.”

“Lindsay, you’re not dreaming,” Mac said. “We are telling you the truth.”

“But…you believe in science, not magic,” she protested helplessly.

Mac smiled. “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic,” he replied.

“Clarke’s three laws,” Danny said. “Look it up when you’ve got some time on your hands, baby.” He shifted. “And how else are you going to explain the demons attacking us in that alley?”

Lindsay didn’t answer.

“We need to figure out who is behind these attacks and what they want with Lucy,” Mac pointed out. “In the meantime, a hiding potion should keep Lucy safe. Danny, you know how to make one?”

Danny nodded, and Mac smiled. It was nothing more than a brief, almost unnoticeable twitch of his lips, but it helped making Danny feel better.

“You want a tour of a real magician’s magic lab?” he offered Lindsay. “And not just anyone’s magic lab, but Mac’s?”

Lindsay glanced at Mac. “You too, huh?” she asked and received a small nod in return. “Mac’s magic lab?” Her voice sounded weak, even to herself. “Sure, why not?”

Danny grinned and rose. He offered her a hand up and guided her into Mac’s kitchen.

“It’s behind the fridge,” he explained and waved his hand before touching a fingertip to the heavy fridge. It moved soundlessly aside, revealing a clean room with a sturdy table in the middle of it behind it. Bottles, glasses and boxes were neatly lined up on shelves along the walls. One wall was covered in shelves which contained old-looking books. On a small pillow in the middle of all these books, a human skull rested and grinned at them.

“Hey, Aiden,” Danny greeted cheerfully, and the bottles of chemicals along the walls to his right rattled almost violently.

“Aiden?” Lindsay asked. “As in, Aiden Burn, who got killed…”

The bottles rattled again and Danny shrugged. “What can you do,” he said, “a violent death can turn you into a ghost, and she couldn’t stay at the lab, so Mac offered her to live here, and it works out perfectly. For both of them.”

“Of course.” Lindsay nodded, as if any of the things she’d learned this day made perfect sense, although she had the suspicion that she was only so accepting right now because she felt so horribly overwhelmed by everything that had happened. Her entire view of the world had been taken and turned upside down.

“Wait.” She frowned as her mind backtracked to a certain point. “Hell really exists?”

Danny nodded. He had in the meantime moved to the other side of the room and had grabbed a dark garment off one of the hooks there.

“Yeah, hell exists. And it’s not a nice place to visit, trust me,” he answered and put the garment on. It almost looked like a normal lab coat, but it was made from another material than cotton, something dark and slick-looking. Long tubes were wound and integrated along its sides and sleeves like artificial veins. The material clung to Danny’s upper body, almost like a second, dark skin, before flaring out into long coat tails, and under the lights of Mac’s lab, it almost looked like a coat made out of latex.

Lindsay snickered. Even to her own ears, it sounded slightly hysterical. “You look like something out of a comic book,” she managed to gasp out between giggles.

Danny lifted a hand to point at her. “Wait until you see Flack,” he grumbled.

“Flack’s in on this too?” Lindsay’s amusement disappeared as quickly as it had come. “Is he a wizard, too?”

“Magician, and no, he isn’t,” Danny answered, but he sounded hesitant.

“Then why does he know and I didn’t?” Lindsay asked. She couldn’t help but feel betrayed by this – why had Don Flack been told, and she hadn’t?

Danny shrugged and grabbed a pair of gloves that seemed to be made out of the same material as his coat. “He was born into this world, has known about it all his life,” he said evasively while wriggling his fingers into them. He connected the artificial veins of his coat with these on the back of his gloves, and when he noticed Lindsay’s curious look, he explained, “dragon skin. It offers absolute protection from all kinds of chemicals. Plus, it makes you look like a superhero.” He grinned and grabbed a thick tome off the shelf. “Now, for that potion and spell…”

He was apparently more than capable of dealing with this potion on his own, and Lindsay was hopelessly overwhelmed by the simple idea of a potion alone, so she decided to leave him alone and find Mac and Lucy.

They were in what seemed to be Mac’s office. Lindsay leaned against the doorframe with crossed arms and observed as Mac folded the plush carpet back, to reveal a big copper circle integrated into the floor. It was surrounded with scuffed chalk-marks that had been half-wiped away. Mac placed Lucy’s blanket in the middle of the circle and put her on top of it before stepping back with an indulgent smile.
“No pentagram?” she asked, slightly surprised.

Mac smiled. “If I wanted to talk to someone from hell, I’d draw one,” he explained. “The circle offers another layer of protection from any kind of magical detection and lets her have a peaceful nap.” He nodded at the little girl. Her eyes were starting to close, and Lindsay had no doubts that Lucy was safe with Mac.

“I was wondering,” she said slowly, “if I could go back to the apartment, pick up some stuff, you know? Lucy’s stuff, I mean.”

Mac shrugged slowly. “You should be fine,” he said hesitantly. “It’s only Lucy they are after…and you haven’t been attacked before…not by demons.” He shrugged again. “If you’re careful, you should be safe.” He sounded doubtful, but apparently, he was not trying to stop her – Lindsay didn’t know if he’d sensed the need in her to be alone, to bring some sort of order back into her thoughts, or if he had any other motivation, but she would take what she could get.

“Okay, then,” she decided. “I’ll be back in a couple of hours.”

Mac made a soft sound, careful not to wake Lucy, and Lindsay smiled softly as she pulled the door closed behind herself. She had a lot of things that went in circles inside her head, confusing knowledge that didn’t make any sense to her, and she really needed some quiet time to work through it, but one thing was certain – Mac adored Lucy and would do everything in his powers to keep her safe.

She pushed her hands deep into the pockets of her coat and brushed her fingertips against cool smoothness – the goggles Danny had given to her.

Taking the subway home, she sat down and pulled the goggles out, to inspect them more closely. On first glance, they almost looked like old-fashioned pilot’s goggles. The glass was almost opaque, like sunglasses, and they had a green tinge to them. Like the dragon skin lab coat, thin tubes and wires were worked into the goggles’ frame in a complicated pattern.

They looked, she thought amusedly, vaguely steampunkish, and a second, closer look revealed little signs along the edges of the goggles – not signs, she realized, but little symbols and what looked like runes.

With a shrug she put them back into her pocket. She would ask Danny about them later, when she would return them to him.

A sense of forewarning befell her as she turned her key in the lock, to let herself into the apartment. She nervously reached for her gun as she pushed the door wide open and took a careful step into the apartment.

Everything seemed to be fine, she told herself after a first sweep of the place. She was overreacting, a normal way of dealing with all the things she had been through on that day alone.

Fantastic things.

Unbelievable things.

The sound of steps made her whirl around and duck down instinctively. In the still open door to the apartment, she saw first a shadow, then the silhouette of a man, looming before the threshold.

Lindsay swallowed nervously. The man hadn’t seen her yet, but he was cautiously peeking into the apartment, and she remained behind cover and took a step back, to hide in the shadows.

Pressing herself against the wall, she felt Danny’s goggles cut into her side, where they still were in her pocket.

The world had been different when seen through them, she remembered. People had been different. She shuddered slightly as she remembered the demons that had attacked them – Capricorns, Danny had called them. They had looked like ordinary people, but with the goggles on, she had seen the red eyes and the claws, and of course the big, curled horns growing out of their skulls. It couldn’t hurt to take another look now, to find out if this man was just a demon in disguise, as well.

Her hands shook slightly as she pulled the goggles over her eyes and dove into a green-tinted world. The apartment looked the same, but yet, different – the floors were covered in the same kind of runes as the goggles.

Danny, she thought as she closed her fingers more tightly around her gun, better had a damn good explanation for all this.

Lindsay had to fight her instincts to turn around and run away as fast and as far as she could, and it didn’t matter that she loved Danny and Lucy – Danny had lied to her and had kept the truth about a vital part of himself from her, and she didn’t know if she could forgive him that. She still wanted to run away and forget everything she’d heard about magic and demons and all things supernatural – all the things that were supposed to be fairytales, to be told to little children to teach them a lesson.

She wanted her normal life back, where her biggest worry was that Danny had again forgotten to buy milk.

Her train of thought was abruptly stopped when the man stepped into the apartment and sniffed loudly.

“I know you’re here,” he said pleasantly, his voice smooth and honest-sounding. “Why don’t you come out and we talk about…things, you and me, no trouble.”

He sounded genuinely nice, Lindsay thought, like a man who only had her best in mind. A man she could trust. Come to think of, she realized, he sounded a lot like Mac.

Slowly, she lowered her weapon and straightened.

The man smiled at her. His eyes were dark and deep, an inhuman shade of raven black framed by long lashes. His teeth were pointy and sharp in his smiling face.

A small voice in Lindsay screamed at her and tried to tell her that she was in danger, but she easily managed to ignore it. As long as the man was smiling, she was safe and everything was okay, wasn’t it?

“Come on,” the man cajoled, “give me your gun. You want to give me the gun, don’t you? I know you want to give me the gun.”

Lindsay nodded numbly. Of course she wanted to give the man her gun, even if he was a stranger who had broken into her apartment and who had teeth like a rabid dog; a man she didn’t even know the name of.

She frowned in concentration. “What?” she asked roughly while staring fixedly at the stranger. “What do you want?”

The smile widened a fraction, if possible.

“I just came for your daughter,” he said, his voice sweet like honey and smooth like an expensive drink. “You want to give her to me, right?”

Lindsay started to nod, but before she could say a single word, the words themselves penetrated her mind, and she froze mid-movement. Realization trickled like cold water along her nerve endings and into her mind, and it woke Lindsay from the daze she’d been in. She blinked confusedly and quickly brought her gun back up.

“Go to hell,” she hissed.

The stranger’s face twisted from the friendly smile into an angry grimace, and he growled and took a menacing step toward Lindsay. He took another step, and another, and he only stopped when her finger squeezed the trigger of her gun and red bloomed on his shirt from the bullets that had pierced his chest. He glanced down and frowned.

“What a waste of blood,” he commented with a shake of his head and took another, swaying step toward her.

Lindsay gulped. She had hit him twice in the chest, she thought, panic rising in her, and he should fall, probably even die, not casually walk toward her.

“But you know what?” the man continued, “I’m going to get that back – from you!”

He took yet another step toward Lindsay and reached out with both hands.

Suddenly, there was the sound of hurried steps behind him, but before he could do as much as turn around, a razor sharp blade flashed in a wide arc through the air and decapitated him neatly. The head fell slowly toward the ground, but before it hit, it exploded into a cloud of dust, just like the body, and Lindsay stared in utter disbelief at the winged, tall figure that was now standing in front of her.

He was male, and he looked like something out of a fairy tale, or a Disney movie. Huge, powerful wings fluttered behind his shoulders. They were dark and the feathers had an almost gleam to them. The man’s hair was cut short, and he was wearing what looked like a hockey player’s gear for protection. His ears, she realized, were long and pointy.

In his hands, he held a machete – no, Lindsay corrected herself, he was holding a honest-to-God sword, ready to strike again.

It took her a second too long to realize that she knew him, but when she did, her gun dropped from her hand and she sank into a chair as her knees gave out under her.

“And what the hell are you?” she asked, the edge of hysteria in her voice unmistakable. “God’s Angel of Justice?”

Don frowned. “What? No!” he exclaimed sharply.

Lindsay stared at him with wide eyes. “You have wings,” she felt the need to point out the obvious. “And a sword.”

Don shifted his shoulders in obvious discomfort. “The wings are borrowed,” he answered.

“And the sword?” She didn’t ask where he’d borrowed the wings – the situation was bizarre enough already. When Danny had said that Don knew about the supernatural world because he’d been born into it, she had expected anything but this – she’d assumed that maybe his sister was into magic, like Danny, like Mac, but she hadn’t ever imagine anything like this.

However, it explained Danny’s words about Don looking more like something out of a comic book than him.

Don glanced at the sword in his hand, as if he saw it for the first time, and gave her a quick smile. “It’s actually a kitchen knife.”

“A damn big kitchen knife.” Lindsay shook her head and buried her face in her hands.

“It’s enchanted.”

Lindsay only shook her head again. “That doesn’t answer my question,” she snapped at him and stared at him through her fingers. “What are you?”

Don shrugged calmly and made the sword disappear. “Homicide detective, trying to avoid having to investigate the murder of a friend – murder by vampires suck,” he explained with a faint grin.

Lindsay gave up. She pulled off the goggles, and suddenly, Don looked like the man Lindsay had worked with for more than seven years. There was no trace of wings or hockey gear, only jeans and a striped shirt under a dark coat.

It was getting too much for her to handle.

It was…overwhelming.

Lindsay whimpered softly.

~*+*~

“Hey.” Danny sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulders. Lindsay didn’t move, and she didn’t ease her grip on the mug of tea Don had made her. “Flack said you’re not doing so well.”

Lindsay snorted and finally looked up. “It was a little too much,” she admitted in a low voice. “Demons and vampires, and…whatever he is?” She shook her head. “That was too much for one day, I think.”

Danny pulled her close and pressed a kiss into her hair. “He looks impressive, huh?” he murmured, “just like something from a comic that fell straight into our lives. Boom.”

“Or a Disney movie,” Lindsay found herself agreeing. She felt the vibrations of Danny’s chuckle against her side, and it made her relax slightly, despite everything else.

For a moment, they sat in silence, but then, Lindsay shifted. She just had to know.

“Have you ever…” she started hesitantly, trailing off when she realized she was blushing, and bit her lip.

“Have I ever what?” Danny asked and looked at her curiously.

Lindsay shrugged. “Pulled a ten foot rabbit out of your hat.”

“Um.” He shifted uncomfortably. “No, not exactly…”

Whatever he’d done, eh was embarrassed about it, she realized, but now, her curiosity was really piqued. Besides, she wouldn’t let him lie to her anymore.

“But?” she urged.

“You know those urban myths about the alligator in the New York sewers?”

“Yeah?”

Danny shifted again. “Yeah,” he admitted sheepishly, “that was me. Only, it wasn’t an alligator. Was a dragon, a young one. Thankfully.”

“What happened to it?”

Danny didn’t answer, but Don did, with an amused twinkle about Danny’s discomfort in his eyes that quickly was replaced by something else; something that looked a little bit like pain and sadness.

“I think the vampires or the rabid werewolves ate it.” He shrugged slightly. “Maybe the ghouls.”

A frown suddenly appeared on his forehead. “Werewolves…” he murmured thoughtfully.

“What?” Danny asked, instantly alert.

“Demons and vampires track their vics by aura,” Don answered slowly. His thoughts were racing, his body suddenly tense.

“Yeah, but the potion and the spell and the charms took care of that,” Danny pointed out. His arm around Lindsay’s shoulders tightened suddenly.

“Yeah,” Don replied hoarsely. “How do werewolves track their prey?”

“By smell…shit!” Danny swore as he came to the same realization as Don. “We haven’t done anything to mask her smell…”

“…and if someone hires demons and vampires for a job, they’ll talk to the shifters, too,” Don finished the sentence, his voice tight with worry.

“Lucy’s alone with Mac,” Lindsay whispered, shock numbing her once again.

Don nodded grimly. “And we led them directly to her,” he added softly. “Shit.”

Lindsay stood. “I need…” she began, and Danny nodded.

“Don,” he said, but Don didn’t need to hear the rest. He already was on his way out and up to the roof before Danny even finished the one syllable of his name.

“Flying makes him get there more quickly,” Danny explained as he pulled Lindsay out of their apartment, locking the door behind them with a careless wave of his hand. “Let’s go.”

~*+*~

No matter how much they hurried, they were still too late. When they burst into his apartment, Mac was sitting on the ground, dazed and bleeding from a deep cut in his forehead.

“Demons, vampires, shifters,” he growled as Don pressed a folded clean towel to his forehead. “Who would hire all of them to kidnap Lucy, and why?”

“Someone with a grudge?” Don suggested and lifted the towel away again: The flow of blood had already stilled again and the skin was knitting itself together before their eyes.

“But who?”

Lindsay started pacing the living room. Furniture had been overthrown and broken, and she mechanically started straightening chairs and sorting through the broken pieces as the others continued to discuss in low, urgent tones. She couldn’t do anything here, couldn’t help getting her daughter back, and to fight the feeling of helplessness that threatened to overwhelm and paralyze her, she closed her hand tightly around a broken leg of a chair, until the edges bit into her palm and the pain was enough to distract her.

Her patience for the three men huddled around the kitchen table was quickly growing thin – this was her daughter who was missing, and they weren’t doing anything to try to get her back. Discussing who had a motive to steal Lucy could possibly take hours, hours Lucy probably didn’t have.

Something had to be done.

Now.

~*+*~

Danny looked up when Lindsay stormed into the room. She looked frazzled, ready to break and do something rash, and she didn’t wait for him to say something to calm her down.

“Okay,” she snapped at him, her voice trembling slightly. “You’re the wizard. You fix this. I want my daughter back.”

Danny glanced at the sharpened piece of wood in her clenched hand and her whitened knuckles and lifted both hands soothingly. “Listen, baby, I know you’re upset,” he began, trying to ignore the sharp pain that went through him when Lindsay had said her and not daughter, but Lindsay interrupted him again.

“Damn right I am. I want my daughter back.”

Danny took a small step toward her. “I promise we’ll get her back, all right?” Another step. “Please, just put the stake down. Does any of us look like a vampire to you?”

Hysteria bubbled up in her again. “No clue, since I didn’t even know until today that such a thing existed in the first place!” she snapped, her breathing heavy and out of control. “The way I see it, a stake through the heart doesn’t just stop vampires. Fix this, Danny. Now.”

Danny looked as if someone had kicked his puppy, but Lindsay didn’t find it in her to gentle her tone or apologize for her harsh words. A part of her even felt grim satisfaction about his obvious pain – it had been Danny’s fault, in the first place, that they were in this situation, Danny and his secrets. It was Danny’s fault that her daughter had been kidnapped by werewolves; and that they had been attacked by vampires and demons.

Danny swallowed thickly. “Listen,” he started, “…I can’t.”

Lindsay froze. “What? Why not?” she asked.

Danny shrugged and glanced miserably over his shoulder, at Mac and Don, but they hadn’t moved and were clearly letting Danny deal with the situation on his own.

“Why not?” Lindsay’s voice was filled with cold fury and helpless terror, and her words cut through Danny like a scalpel cut through soft butter. He flinched.

“Technically,” he said as gently as he could, “I’m not allowed to do magic on my own. I’m…the apprentice, you know, and after some broom-related incidents, the Council has decided…”

“Apprentice to who?” Lindsay asked. She wasn’t interested in the background of this, not now, but she finally dropped the makeshift stake.

Danny rolled his eyes despite the seriousness of the situation. “The powerful wizard of Oz,” he snapped, “Who do you think?”

Lindsay’s eyes widened as she put clues together and came to a result, and then, she pushed Danny out of the way and took three quick steps toward Mac.

“Find my daughter,” she ordered, turned on her heel and disappeared in the bathroom.

She just needed a moment alone.

~*+*~

Again, it was Flack who found her. She had retreated to the roof of Mac’s building as soon as she had calmed down enough not to slap Danny, to find her lost equilibrium again, and was now sitting with her back pressed to one of the vents, her eyes fixed on the door, when suddenly, Flack sat down next to her.

She startled and gave him a dark glare.

“Borrowed wings, again?” she asked. It was supposed to sound sarcastic, but the words came out exhausted and weary.

Flack nodded and rested his forearms on his pulled-up knees. He was holding a duffel bag, and Lindsay decided that she didn’t even want to know what was in there.

“Magicians,” he started quietly, “are like Sith.”

Lindsay frowned. “What do you mean?”

“There’s always a teacher and a student. Okay, there are more than just one teacher and one student around, and they are probably not all evil and belong to the dark side, but yeah, basically, that’s it. To shorten their apprenticeship, the student usually has to kill the teacher. Or, to put it in words they understand, to find the limits of the possible is to go a little past them into the impossible. Grow above yourself, find out what you’re capable of.”

“What?” She stared at him disbelievingly.

“You basically told Danny to grow, to go out on his own, and to kill Mac, yeah.” Don shrugged. “As I said, they are Sith. They do have good cookies, though.”

“That’s barbaric,” Lindsay spat, stunned by his words. “I don’t want Danny to kill Mac!”

Don shrugged and stood. “Luckily for all of us, Danny is smart enough to know that.” He glanced down at her and sighed. “We’re about to find Lucy, you want to come and watch?” he offered.

Lindsay nodded dazedly and followed him back into the building.

~*+*~

She found Danny and Mac in Mac’s office. Lucy’s blanket was still in the middle of the copper circle, and Lindsay felt her throat close up at the sight. She swallowed with some difficulty and took in the rest of the room.

Fresh runes had been drawn with chalk on the floor, candles were burning on every available surface, and a map of New York City was lying in the middle of the room.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

It was Danny who answered. “Tracking spell,” he said. “To find Lucy. Works without fail if you think about her hard enough.” He gave her a quick glance. “You okay?”

“Yes.”

Mac kneeled down on the ground and reached for her hand, and Danny took her other hand and guided her to the floor. Their grip was strong and confident, and Lindsay allowed herself to feel calmed by their touch.

“Just think of Lucy and let us do the rest,” Mac instructed. “Close your eyes.”

She nodded and followed his instructions. It didn’t matter that they were magicians, she decided. She knew these people, and she trusted them with her life, and, even more important, she trusted them with Lucy’s.

It didn’t mean she liked being lied to.

~*+*~

“We have a general area,” Mac said as he stepped out of his office, a frown etched deep into his forehead. Lindsay and Danny followed him quietly.

Don was sitting at the table, a bowl in front of him. It was filled with water, but the water wasn’t touching the sides of the bowl – instead, it had formed a ball that was hovering half an inch above the surface of the bowl.

He was chewing, and belatedly, Lindsay saw the half-empty box of cookies next to him.

“Did you manage to find out anything?” Mac asked, just as Lindsay burst out, “Is that a crystal ball?”

Don swallowed. “No,” he said. “It’s just water.”

“Arithmancy,” Mac added. “It’s divination by numbers. Much more accurate than a crystal bll – the water is just a tool, to help focusing.”

“You’re using divination to try and find Lucy?” Lindsay asked in disbelief.

Mac’s lips twitched. “Arithmancy is a science.”

“And what did it tell you?” Lindsay asked.

Don took another cookie. “Run or get eaten by zombies,” he answered. “Which means the shifters worked for a zombie – but I have no idea what a zombie wants with a magician’s child.”

Mac nodded grimly. “There’s only one way to solve this riddle,” he said. “let’s go and find that zombie.”

~*+*~

There was, Lindsay decided, nothing even remotely adventurous and exciting about tracking a zombie to the sewers of New York City. She had insisted to go with them, and Mac had finally given in and had handed her a long knife made from silver and a handful of silver bullets. “Not all shifters are bad people,” he had told her, “these are just for self-protection.” She had promised him not to kill anyone unless attacked, and Mac had nodded, trusting her not to mess this up.

He and Danny were carrying heavy duffel bags slung over their shoulders, and they all followed Don’s steps in the sewers in determined silence.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Don stopped. “We’re here,” he whispered. “The zombie nest is just around that corner.” His lips twitched. “And our Ninja Mutant Hero Zombie is home, too.”

Mac nodded and waved at Danny to take the lead. Danny nodded once and took a step forward, the bag sliding off his shoulder. Lindsay didn’t wait for Mac’s next order and followed Danny, her grip on the knife tightening as the tension in her body ratcheted up another notch.

They took another step, around the corner, and suddenly, they found themselves surrounded by bright lights blinding them.

The zombie had expected them.

The smell, Lindsay realized, was worse than it had been on the way here, but at least it was mostly dry, as far as she could see through the veil of tears in her eyes. It took her a long moment to make out more than dancing spots, but when she did, she felt her blood run cold.

“Shane Casey.”

He’d had better days, that much was obvious, and even without knowing the truth, Lindsay would have been able to identify him as a zombie. His skin was pale with a greenish tinge. His hair had fallen out in chunks and had left bare patches on his head behind, and his eyes were sunken deep into his skull.

He had his lips pulled back in a snarling grin, exposing rotting teeth. A line of crude stitches went up his left forearm; his clothes looked as if they had been lying in a grave for weeks or even months. Above his heart, there was a puckered scar covered with several stitches, where her bullet had hit him.

In his hand, he held a gun. It was pointed at Danny. The other arm cradled Lucy tight against his decaying body.

It was such a parallel to the last time she’d seen Shane Casey that her heart clenched in fear in her chest.

She had gone through this before.

She had faced Shane Casey like this before.

Exactly like this.

She knew what to do.

Slowly, determinedly, she lifted her hand that was still clenched tight around the handle of the knife. She had been good at throwing things with a slingshot when she’d been younger, back in Montana, and she was confident that she could take out an eye and cause serious injury to Shane Casey now.

Danny’s fingers, clenching around her wrist almost painfully, crossed her plans and stopped her.

“He’s holding our daughter,” he hissed urgently, fear and pain visible in his face.

“Oh, hello, Danny,” Shane Casey called out cheerfully – at least, Lindsay thought, it was probably supposed to sound cheerful. Instead, it was slurred and almost incomprehensible.

“Shane. Give her back,” Danny replied. His voice was shaking, and Shane tossed his head back and laughed.

“Why would I do that?” he asked tauntingly. “You took away everything from me, Danny! It’s time to turn the wheel of fortune, don’t you think?”

“Shane, please,” Danny started, but before he could add another word, Shane shook his head almost violently. Lucy began to cry, and Danny instinctively took a step closer, his hands reaching out for her, before the reality of Shane Casey’s gun pointing at Lucy penetrated his mind and he stilled again.

“No!” Shane yelled. “Don’t you understand, Danny? You took everything from me! My brother, my freedom, my revenge…even my life!” He grinned again. The swings of his mood were unpredictable and made Danny feel even more out of his element than he already did.

“Now I take everything from you…starting with your daughter and your wife, and, let’s see, your life. This time, this will go differently than the last time!”

A tense silence followed his statement, and then, a chuckle echoed through the sewers.

“Yes, it will.”

Don appeared behind Shane. Lindsay had no idea where he’d come from, how he’d moved from behind them to the other side of the room without being seen by anyone. He used the small second of confusion and grabbed Lucy, pulling her away from Shane’s grip, and then –
He disappeared into thin air, taking Lucy with him, and Shane’s scream of disappointment echoed around them and made Lindsay cringe and flinch.

“This time,” Mac’s voice rang out, loud and clear, “we’ll stop you for good, Casey.”

Lindsay glanced to the side, away from the zombie, and toward Danny and Mac. Both had stepped closer to Shane and were holding shotguns.

Lindsay had seen enough zombie movies to know what was going to happen next. She closed her eyes and turned away, ducking behind Danny, as two shots rang out, loud and final.

When she opened her eyes again, it was over.

Shane Casey was dead.

Really dead, this time.

Lindsay figured that she would need therapy after going through this and learning about magic and zombies and everything else, even if she didn’t know what kind of therapist would listen to her story and not send her to an asylum immediately.

“That’s it?” she asked weakly. “No magic showdown?”

“No.” Mac put the shotgun back in his bag and zipped it. “This is the easiest and safest way of dealing with a zombie. It’s why most Hunters use shotguns, not magicians. You never know what’s going to happen if you use magic without thinking it through.”

“Hunters?” Lindsay asked, but when Mac only laughed, she gave up.

“I think that’s a story for another day,” he told her, and Lindsay had to admit that he was probably right. There had been enough excitement for one day, and although there seemed to be a whole world of supernatural knowledge out there, Lindsay could wait another day before investigating it.

For now, there was only one more thing to do.

“Where is my daughter?” she asked.

“Good question,” Danny added before lifting his voice. “Hey, Flack! Give back Lucy! You know you can’t keep her in Neverland!”

A chuckle echoed through the sewers again, and Lindsay shivered slightly. She wasn’t sure what it was, but something in that sound made goosebumps break out all over her skin.

Suddenly, Don appeared again. Just like before, he wasn’t there in one moment and then he was, materializing out of thin air. Lindsay almost jumped out of her skin in startled surprise, but then, Don shifted and revealed Lucy, comfortably balanced on his hip and with her fingers stuffed into her mouth, calmly and curiously looking at her parents.

“Seriously, what are you?” Lindsay asked as she took a few quick steps toward Don and pulled Lucy into her arms. She was busy checking her daughter for injuries and almost missed Don’s small grin and shrug.

He was not going to tell her, she realized, but she had enough time and patience to wait him out.

Sooner or later, he would give in and tell her the truth about himself.

Right now, however, Lindsay just wanted to go home with her family.

From the corner of her eye, she saw how Danny squeezed Don’s shoulder and murmured his thanks, and she saw how Don nudged Danny and both started grinning, the way they did sometimes when watching TV together or when they spent a Sunday morning playing ball.

“So,” she said as she fell in step with Mac, “you’re Gandalf the Grey?”

Mac gave her an amused glance. “Who said that?” he asked.

Lindsay shrugged. “Well, apparently you’re a powerful wizard, you’re old…” she stopped and bit her tongue.

Mac raised both eyebrows at her. “Old,” he repeated before shaking his head. “I’m more like Dumbledore than Gandalf. More a teacher than...you know. A fighter.” He lifted a finger to stop her from interrupting. “Although I have to say, they are both wizards. I’m a magician.”

Lindsay was silent for a moment. “Flack said you’re Palpatine.”

“He did?” Mac laughed softly. “Well, from his point of view…his people’s point of view…” He trailed off as he thought. “It is my job to make sure everybody abides by the law,” he then explained, before Lindsay could ask about Flack’s people. “Even those that have been here before the law and those who usually live by their own laws.” His voice had a hard edge and a tone of finality to it, and again, they walked in silence for a long moment.

Finally, Lindsay chuckled softly. “You know Dumbledore’s gay, right? And dead?”

Mac raised his eyebrows again and stopped next to a set of iron rungs that led up, to the streets. “The dead part would bother me more than his sexual orientation,” he pointed out mildly. “In the end, it doesn’t matter – I’m still Mac Taylor, and not Gandalf or Dumbledore.”

He took Lucy out of her arms, and Lindsay climbed up the rungs and back into the sunlight.

~*+*~

Mac looked up from his report at the sound of voices coming from the break room – they sounded happy and excited, and he relaxed slightly and stood to investigate.

Normalcy had returned to their lives, but he didn’t believe yet that it would stay this quiet. He kept himself ready to intervene into Danny’s and Lindsay’s marriage, but so far, they had managed to sort themselves out without help.

Danny, Lindsay, Sheldon and Adam were grouped around one of the tables. Danny was holding Lucy in his arms and was grinning proudly. Lindsay was pulling out plates and forks. In the middle of the table, in a big cardboard box, was a birthday cake covered in pink and white frosting and with two candles in it.

“I thought you didn’t want her to have her birthday party at the lab,” Mac pointed out as he joined them.

Lindsay shrugged and handed Don a large piece of the cake. “You know,” she said, “she’s probably not going to get harmed by this, as opposed to all the other things…zombies…demons…”

“Hey!” Adam protested.

“…vampires…”

“Not all of us are monsters!” Hawkes interrupted and pointed his fork accusingly at Lindsay.

“…werewolves…”

“Stella is the most elegant shifter and she’s not evil, either,” Adam spluttered before blushing a dark shade of red. The others nodded in agreement.

“…wizards…”

“Hey! We’re magicians!” Danny grinned and kissed Lucy’s head.

“…or children-stealing, apparently vengeful creatures.”

“Hey,” Flack protested around a mouthful of cake, “I gave her back, and I didn’t even wait the customary seven years to do it!”

Lindsay stared at him wide-eyed, and Mac laughed. Things, he thought, were definitely going to be okay with them, all of them, and Lindsay seemed to have accepted that the world was not just black and white, and that magic existed and it was going to be part of her life from now on.

He smiled as Jo joined them, and then, he pulled out the present he’d picked out so carefully, what seemed to be ages ago now.

It was, he just knew it, perfect for Lucy.

She was going to love it.


~the End.



Notes:

-Clarke’s Laws: Interesting for this fic are the second and the third of Clarke’s Laws, which are:
2. The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
3. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
-misbehaving brooms: Taken from “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
-Children-stealing, apparently vengeful creatures: “The Erlking”, by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.
-More things between the sewers and hell: originally from William Shakespeare, Hamlet (I, 5., 165-167.) Also known from CSI:Miami.
-Gandalf the Grey – obviously from “The Lord of the Rings” by J. R. R. Tolkien.
-Professor Dumbledore – from the “Harry Potter” series, by J. K. Rowling.
-The Wizard of Oz from the “Wizard of Oz” by L. Frank Baum.
-Neverland belongs to the story of “Peter Pan” by J. M. Barrie.
-The concepts of hunters with shotguns is, of course, stolen from the TV show Supernatural.
-Palpatine and the Sith are stolen from Star Wars.