Safe.

It was a foreign word to Danielle Parker, one that had the young witch's eyebrow arching as she was finally pulled away from her thoughts and into the conversation she had been rather diligently avoiding for the past few moments. A finger shifting to mark her place, she looked up and sent a somewhat amused glance in her friend's direction, lips pulling into a wry smile despite her irritation at having her concentration broken.

"Safe?" she parroted then, a little snort escaping her as the word hung in the air for a moment. "Since when is that a possibility?"

From where he stood across the room, the dark-haired man let out a loud breath of air, his expression quite clearly lacking any amusement. "You know what I mean."

At that, the witch couldn't help but lift both of her brows, lips pursing as she feigned ignorance. "No, I'm not really sure that I do," came her teasing answer, her gaze flickering around the room as if the answer might just jump out at her. "Or am I missing something? What, did our Evil Overlord go soft while I wasn't looking? Did he decide to offer amnesty? Oh! do I get to pass Go and collect two hundred dollars?"

Even from the distance, she could see the way the man's jaw clenched in response. "Danielle."

She took the opportunity to mimic the little huff of air he had given earlier, the smile fading from her lips as she muttered something under her breath about him being no fun. "What do you expect me to say, Zach?" she countered. "Yes, fine, I know what you mean, but that doesn't mean that I agree with you."

"Dan—"

"No, no!" came her quick interruption. "Don't you 'Danielle' me! You're the one being unreasonable here." Feeling the need to emphasize her point, the brunette lifted the leather-bound book she had been reading and gave it a pointed shake. "There's a reason I'm looking for tips on how to cast a stronger cloaking spell, you know. Going out and calling more attention to myself? Yeah, that's not really what I need right now, in case you didn't notice."

The sour expression on her friend's face made it clear exactly how little he appreciated the sarcasm. Still, he took a moment and seemed to collect himself, before crossing the room and sitting down on the only other chair in the sparsely decorated living room. "I know," he asserted then, tone noticeably gentler. "That's why I'm here, Dani. Yeah, you don't need to call any more attention to yourself, but there's already a spotlight aimed at you. If you want to hide in the shadows for a bit, you're going to need to do something about the demon you've got on your tail."

For a long moment, the witch only held her friend's gaze. "Spotlight is a bit of an overstatement, don't you think?"

"Not really."

Pursing her lips, the young witch let out a sigh and leaned back into the firm cushions behind her. She took another moment to consider her old friend, paying careful attention to the way he was sitting, shoulders visibly tensed and foot tapping quietly in agitation. She didn't remember having ever seen him so clearly worked up.

But she supposed she couldn't blame him for being so tense, given how close of a call it had been the last time he'd visited, when she'd very nearly gotten the both of them killed.

She hoped he wouldn't blame her for being more cautious this time around.

"Zach, I appreciate the concern," she told him carefully, "I really do, but I think you're overestimating the threat here. I'm always going to have to worry about someone or something looking for me. That's just the way it is; I'm a witch. Having a demon after me isn't anything new, and it's not something that's going to ever go away."

"I'm starting to realize that," came the solemn response.

But despite the relatively depressing mood that their conversation had taken on, Danielle offered a small smile as she held her old friend's gaze. "Not all of us are lucky enough to be warlocks, able to blend in with the evil community and live a relatively normal life."

He made a noise of disagreement, his head giving a quick shake before he dropped his head to look down at the ground. "Lucky," he parroted, the word sounding bitter on his tongue.

Her smile only grew, however, for she immediately recognized the conversation's parallel. "You know what I mean."

But to her surprise, the man before her didn't sit there and try to fight back a chuckle like she had expected. Instead, he simply lifted his head and fixed an angry glare in her direction, the intensity of the look enough to kill her own amusement before he even spoke. "You think I'm lucky to have to do this? To have to walk around every day pretending to not give a damn about the fact that everyone around me is plotting to go after rogue witches? You think I'm lucky to have to worry every goddamn day if they're going to find out about you, because you went off and did something stupid and got caught?"

It took the witch a moment to process her friend's obvious anger, but even when she did, she was still at a bit of a loss over what to say. "Zach—"

He cut her off before he could continue, a single palm raised to ask her to wait. But instead of adding more to his rant, he simply ran his other hand over his face, a loud sigh escaping him as he pinched his eyes shut. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be." Quietly, she shifted in her seat, leaving the book behind and moving down to the other end of the sofa so that she was sitting closer to him, so that he was able to see the sincerity she was trying to nonverbally convey to him. "Zach, you're my best friend, and I am truly, deeply sorry that our friendship has put you in harm's way more than once. I can't imagine how hard it is for you to have to live such a double life, and I'm sorry that I haven't been a very good friend lately; I should've paid more attention to what you have to go through every day. I shouldn't have convinced you to come along with—"

"Don't apologize for that," came the gentle interruption, though the warlock before her still hadn't lifted his face from his palm. "You wanted to protect an innocent, and you didn't know that there would be other warlocks there. …You didn't know."

"No, I didn't," she conceded, unable to argue that she should have known or that she should have listened and not gone after the demon. For while Danielle might have regretted dragging her friend into that whole mess and putting his life in danger, she simply couldn't bring herself to regret having saved the innocent witch who's life had been in danger. She would never regret that. "But I'm trying to be more careful now, Zach," she redirected. "That's why I don't think it's a good idea to go after this demon. It's safer to lie low and not risk drawing unnecessary attention to myself."

At that, the man before her finally turned his head and looked up at her, brown eyes flickering over her features before blinking closed as a brief, humorless laugh escaped him. "All due respect, but a better cloaking spell won't do a damned thing if you're already dead. I'm all for caution, Dani, but letting this demon get away? That's not caution; that's suicide."

The woman made a noise of disagreement. "I've vanquished two demons in the past year," she reminded him, recalling each of those moments vividly, just as she also vividly recalled the close calls that ha followed, when He had found out someone had vanquished his lackeys. "It's a miracle they haven't caught me yet, Zach. …And you know what they say, third time's the charm."

He didn't so much as crack a smile. "That's not funny."

But Danielle had to disagree again, another wry smile pulling over her lips as she thought about the well-timed line. "Come on," she countered, "that was a good pun!"

"The demon's getting close, Dani."

Another sigh, and the witch couldn't help but wonder when her friend had lost his sense of humor. Had it been the near-death experience from a month ago, or had it happened more subtly over the years?

"Danielle."

"Yes, yes," she responded. "I know. But I really don't—"

"Come on, Dani," he interrupted before she could voice the objection he'd obviously been expecting. "I'm already driving myself crazy over here. I need you to take this threat seriously."

She didn't take the threat seriously — she didn't even pretend to take it seriously because there was nothing at all special about this particular demon that was after her — but she did take her friend's worry seriously. Sighing, she sat up a bit and rubbed at the back of her neck. "Why are you so worried about this one demon, huh? It's not as if there won't be someone else to pick up where he left off, and it's not as if I'll be terribly safe after going out and making my presence known."

The man seemed to sense the shift in the witch's thoughts, for he looked up at her with a much more focused expression, lips still drawn in a tight line. "This one's different; he's a bounty hunter."

Danielle let out a scoff and rolled her eyes. "Lower level," she recited, "energy balls, nothing special. That's not enough to get you worked up."

"This one's different," her friend only stressed again, expression pointed as he refused to move on the point.

And after a moment's consideration, the brunette decided that that was as good of an answer as she was going to get. With an air of self-sacrifice, the woman threw her arms up in the air and fell back into the couch in defeat. "Alright, fine. I'll deal with the bounty hunter, but only after I fix this cloaking spell."

"Dani—"

"Who are you and what have you done with Zachary?" came her tired objection, still not used to seeing her friend so worked up about going out to vanquish a demon.

And perhaps he realized how out of character it seemed, for he seemed to settle down a bit in response, his head dropping as he glanced at the floor. "I'm just trying to help you."

"You're trying to get me killed," she joked, only for her amusement to die once again when she saw the way her friend flinched at her words. Right. Only too late, she realized that it might've been a bit soon for the death jokes. The guilt that flooded her finally broke down her the last of her resolve, however, and before she knew it, she was up on her feet and brushing down her jeans. "Alright, you want to do this now? Let's do this now. I should have a basic potion lying around here somewhere that'll do the trick."

There was a moment's hesitation before the warlock got to his feet, his expression the epitome of seriousness as he gave a single nod, and held out his hand, glass vial resting in his palm. "I already took the liberty of making you one."

The witch let out a chuckle at that, shaking her head at exactly how well her friend knew her. With a smile, she took the vial and wrapped her fingers firmly around it. "You didn't doubt for a second that you'd be able to convince me, did you?"

A solemn smile, and the overly-serious man stepped backwards and out of the way. "I was counting on it," he admitted, one arm raising in gesture toward the apartment's exit.

The leaving process took a moment, what with Danielle needing to double-check all of the wards before finally lifting the crystal that lay directly in front of the door, and in doing so, breaking the protective 'cage' that prevented evil beings from crossing in or out. A moment later, when her warlock friend had crossed through the threshold, the crystal was replaced and the door pulled shut. A final turn of a key, and the woman held out her arm.

Obligingly, the man rested his hand beneath her elbow. "Ready?"

"Ready."

Her fingers tightened around the potion just a second before she felt the familiar internal tugging of a warlock's blink. The transportation was over within less than a second, but for a moment, Danielle wasn't sure if something hadn't gone wrong, and she hadn't somehow gotten stuck in the middle of a blink; the world was pitch black around her, after all, and she had never had trouble seeing upon her arrival before.

It took a second before she recognized the absence of her friend's touch on her elbow. "Zach?"

His voice sounded several yards away when he responded. "I'm sorry."

"You're what?" Somewhat cautiously, the witch turned her head in the direction of the voice and ever-so-slowly inched her toes forward, feeling the need to test the floor to see if she was even on solid ground. It appeared that she was, for she felt something stable and firm through the padding of her shoe. "Zach, I can't see. I don't know—"

"I'm so sorry, Dani," the warlock's voice interrupted to repeat, tone somewhat emotional, "but I didn't have a choice."

And Dani didn't need to know anything more to figure out in that second what had happened.

A feeling of cold dread washed over her. Her heartbeat rapidly increasing, she glanced anxiously around her, even though she figured the effort basically useless, given how dark her surroundings were. Another hesitant step, this time in the direction away from where the warlock's voice had come from, and the witch held one hand out cautiously in front of her. Eyes still darting around uselessly, she tried her best to bite back all of the emotions that were practically bursting inside of her.

"Why?" she managed to ask, only to get no reply. "Zach?"

A slight roaring sound answered her second call, and Danielle had just enough time to spin around and get her hand up in front of her face to stop the speeding ball of flames that had appeared out of the darkness, a protective blue barrier appearing in front of her hand just a fraction of a second before she would've been hit. The fireball bounced back immediately, illuminating a few feet around it as it moved, before it crashed against what appeared to be a cave wall and burned out.

It hadn't produced enough light to reveal who was behind the attack, but that didn't turn out to be necessary, for a noise of pleasant surprise sounded from behind her.

She spun around blindly, only to hear a chuckle in response. "So the warlock wasn't lying after all."

As quietly as possible, the witch attempted to step to the side without drawing any attention to her movements… though with how loudly her heart was pounding, she half expected her attacker to be able to hear her, anyways. She didn't say a word.

"The witch with the gift of Deflection," the faceless voice called out with what sounded like amusement, the volume remaining the same as before and seeming to indicate to Danielle that he hadn't moved any closer. "You know, He has been looking for you for a while."

And oh, did she have a response for that! But she kept her mouth firmly closed, biting back the retort that came to mind and instead continuing to focus on silently moving to the side. Though she didn't have the slightest clue where she was, she figured there had to be an exit somewhere… the trick would just be staying alive long enough to catch sight of the way out when a fireball flew by.

The pounding in her ears made it almost impossible to hear her attacker's next comment. "Although, I'm having a hard time believing that you are the witch who has escaped our grasp for so long… This is almost going to be too easy."

She'd almost moved another step by the time another fireball appeared and sailed straight toward her, but she was quick enough to deflect it with ease, sending it hurling back. At about the same time that her mind processed the fact that she had again not managed to catch a glimpse of her attacker, she also realized what exactly had just happened: the fireball had sailed straight towards her.

Whoever it was attacking her, he could see in the dark.

She was screwed.

Panicking a bit, she moved to step blindly to the right, but before she knew what was happening, a grip appeared on her shoulder at the same time a blinding pain exploded in her abdomen. Her assailant hissed something into her ear before pulling back and leaving her to fall to her knees and then to the ground, but the words didn't process in her mind.

An athame. She hadn't seen that coming.

That had been the plan all along, though, hadn't it? Deflection was a powerful gift, one that had always protected her in the nick of time, but it was one that she had to voluntarily activate. Blindness… well that had to be the only real way to render her gift completely useless; if she couldn't see what was coming, she didn't stand a chance. It was a clever plan.

It was a plan that clearly had been intimately crafted, that had been intricate enough to get her out of her warded apartment and thought out enough to play on her one biggest weakness.

It had been Zach's idea — she didn't need someone else to tell her that; there simply wasn't anyone else who would have known her well enough to know how to best her. Of course, she didn't doubt that Zach coming up with a plan had, itself, been a part of a bigger plan, undoubtedly carried out by someone who had threatened the warlock beyond any sense of morality… but that didn't take the sting out of the realization.

And it sure as hell didn't take the sharp, shooting pain out of the blow.

A shaky, pain-filled gasp of a breath escaped her as the witch lay on the floor, her mind struggling to work at all. She needed a way out.

"Let it be known, witch, that your death came at the hands of Vrymar."

She wasn't getting anywhere without some major magical assistance, however, and she didn't exactly have anyone to call on for help.

Another fireball appeared several yards away — apparently this Vrymar had paced away at some point after stabbing her — and it bounced almost tauntingly over the hand of a demon who was clearly relishing the momenta bit too much, his mouth still running despite the fact that he lacked even a single person to pay attention to his little victory speech.

She had to do something.

"Parker witches, hear my plea," she managed to mutter under her breath, eyes pinching closed as the pain in her abdomen seemed to only grow. "Betrayal I could not foresee. But evil—" It took nearly all of her willpower to keep focused through the searing pain, and to keep her words quiet despite the nearly overwhelming urge to scream, "—cannot win tonight… So help me change this wrong to right."

But help how?

She didn't even know what she could ask for that would get her out of this situation. Light? Mercy?

Safety.

Had she not been in immeasurable pain and under a major time constraint, she would have laughed deliriously. Safety. She needed to be safe.

"Help me move through time and space," she continued quickly, words flying through her mind as she tried to match the rhyme. "To safety's comforting embrace."

And before she knew it, light engulfed her, even as blackness started to creep in around the sides of her vision and her consciousness started to fade.

She thought she heard a shout, but she couldn't be sure.

A muffled, far-off feminine cry of "Leo!"

Nothing. Sweet, sweet nothing.