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kathierif_ficTBC from part1.
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.
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.