Seeing Red

No More

"'She needed Danny,'" he said.

"'He's safe,'" he said.

Neither of them should have been so complacent. That ghost should be tasting anti ghost goop and a Mother's rage.

Just as Vlad should.

Flirting with her was bad enough but then turning around and patronizing Danny, mocking him until he was silent. She wouldn't mind going to jail if he were to one day disappear.

Only that wouldn't help her son in the least. Danny who just couldn't play those kinds of games, who tried to use a ghost as a way out. She had been much too complacent in that regard as well. Both of them had.

When Danny had come back home she was as happy as the day he had been born. Until he beat her to hugging all the life out of him and never letting him go.

Except his embrace communicated suffering and invisible scars. He looked up at her mortified when he realized what had happened.

Note to self, toning down reactions might be a good little experiment. After all what was she there for if not to comfort her son?

Only that minute realization paled to what dominated his lively blue. What she saw was someone broken into sand, who shouldn't have been able to put himself together again but somehow managed it. If not in an off putting Frankenstein sort of way.

She did her best to assure him, taking Danny in her arms telling him in a soothing, controlled voice that everything would be okay. She promised him that they'd do what they should have done a long time ago. His Father was going to talk to Vlad right now.

She felt him tense and then completely pull away looking near dead with how pale he'd gotten.

*********************

Danny couldn't describe how much he'd wanted this. To just be comforted and almost believe that everything would be okay. He'd almost believed it.

Thought all this mess would finally be over without death or drama.

He couldn't let that conversation happen. His Mom was bad enough but if it was Dad confronting Vlad then he'd know for sure Danny had spilled, and if not for that alone than about their other secret. The one that for so long had kept a brittle peace between them. 

Danny thundered up the stairs slamming the door to his bedroom. He put anything heavy he could think over the doorway so his Mom couldn't get in even if she broke it down.

His head swirled trying to come up with anything that could make Vlad concede. He had nothing that would appeal to him except a white flag and becoming his creepy little minion.

There really was no other option now was there. Maybe he didn't have to pull the string. If Vlad hadn't come up with some magical con then he was just as vulnerable as any other citizen to Hell Girl.

Curling a fist over his doll he transformed and phased through the window.

Danny found his Dad waiting at the steps of City Hall. Looks like he'd camped out for at least a few hours. His ears let him hear an argument between his goliath father and a uniformed guard. He was insisting to see "Vladdie" about an urgent personal matter, one that couldn't wait.

Like Danny the guard must have sensed all the force behind his speech as he urged him with hands raised that the Mayor was too busy to take personal calls.

Until the man himself slinked into the light.

His silken voice eased the employee's concerns and with a wary eye he left the two men alone.