"Why did you save me?" he called out to the entity he knew was listening.
At first, he got no response. Then the mists parted slightly, and a silver mainliner crawled into view. It sat down, looking decidedly abashed. "Because I almost got you killed, niño," she replied. "I don't want Copperfield to have you. You're mine."
"Then why did you lead us down there in the first place?" he demanded angrily. She truly made no sense sometimes.
Again, there was a prolonged pause. "She reminds me of my madre. I expected her to let you up first."
He bit off the angry retort that sprang to mind, not really surprised that Silver was willing to sacrifice his mother. What confused him was why she wanted him alive. The last time they met, she had given him a long explanation of exactly how much his death would mean to her, and assured him that he would never leave Carnate alive.
The mainliner had waddled closer while he was distracted, and he backed away from it. "Won't you talk to me? We can't play unless you talk to me. You know that."
"Go talk to yourself," he growled.
Reality invaded his mind, and with it came the terrifying realization that he couldn't feel his body. After fighting against invisible bonds for a while, he discovered that it was only the remnants of sleep paralysis. He sank back a little ways back into the welcoming darkness, just aware enough to note that he was being held in a wonderfully comforting pair of arms.
What if Silver was waiting for him?
At that disturbing thought, he fought his way back to the surface of his mind again and pried his eyes open. He took a long, shuddering breath and decided that he did not want to move. The pain from the mauler wounds was considerably diminished, but the human contact was simply far too-
Wait, why wasn't the pain as bad as it should have been?
"Um…" he said quietly.
"Is there something you'd like to say, Danny?"
He cringed. Maddie's voice was so quiet, so hopeless. He wasn't sure he wanted to know what she thought about him in that moment, but at least she hadn't pushed him away. "I…was…going to tell you…?"
"So…what did you do with your body, then?" she asked in a choked voice.
Danny pulled away to turn and look at her. Her gaze was fastened on the alleyway entrance where a few gorgers had arrived to celebrate the bounty of dead maulers, but she wasn't actually watching them. Her hood was pulled back, and a glistening line of tears ran freely down her face. He looked down at his all-too-human hands, afraid to speak. She couldn't actually mean what he was afraid she meant.
A few minutes passed, during which the slurping noise of greedy gorgers was all that could be heard. "D…did you hide…it somewhere?" Maddie persisted. "Or were you just completely vaporized by the…the…" She stammered to a halt, unable to continue.
"Mom, I didn't die," Danny said fervently. Of all the consequences he had considered could happen by his never saying anything, this was not one he had thought of. Although he always knew they would accept him no matter what, some part of him had insisted that they would drive him away. Never in his wildest imaginings did it occur to him that his mother would think he had completely died.
Maddie shook her head slightly and finally faced him. "Please don't lie to me," she whispered. "I know humans can't be ghosts."
Danny dropped his eyes again. She was half right, anyway.
They stayed like that for a long time as the gorgers ate their way closer. Finally deciding that it might be a good idea to move, Maddie stood and Danny followed. They edged around the obliviously happy creatures and walked quietly down the sidewalk. He wanted to say something, to explain, but the words wouldn't come.
Maddie wiped her eyes and pulled her hood back over her head. She couldn't believe she had never noticed; what kind of a mother was she anyway?
After that person that had to have been Silver ran away, she had climbed down from the wall to make sure Danny was okay. The ghost boy had very nearly sacrificed his existence for her. With that single selfless act, he had completely changed her opinion of him, and she had found herself praying he was alright. She had been a bit surprised when he collapsed into her arms; it had never occurred to her that ghosts could faint. Then, unable to maintain the disguise while unconscious, a pair of blue rings had passed over him. She'd been holding him and crying ever since.
She knew it happened in the lab accident, when Danny had been caught in the Fenton Portal while it activated. And she thought she knew why he never said anything. They were ghost hunters, after all; the poor boy must have been terrified. Suddenly, the dream Silver had given her made sense, or so she thought. Clearly, it had been a message.
A rottweiler growled at them as they walked by. A few human faces peeked out of a store window. Something screamed in the distance. Something else oozed out of a puddle of blood just ahead and formed into the sickly-looking mainliner. Maddie reached for her ecto-pistol and cursed as she realized she had left it behind. She saw the mainliner pull a syringe out of its back and start to throw it, then she felt something pass through her and found her view blocked by the black and white form of her son.
"Don't you things ever give up?" he demanded irritably. Just as he destroyed the first, a second appeared a few feet away and jumped on top of him. He threw it to the ground and destroyed it as another appeared from the first puddle.
A total of eight creatures appeared, leaving Danny to look like a very strange pincushion. He sighed and start yanking the needles out, then jumped as his mother started to help. "Does it hurt?" she asked quietly.
He shrugged. "It stings a little, but it doesn't really hurt me. I think this liquid is supposed to be deadly, but…" He trailed off as Maddie nodded understandingly.
"What are they?"
It was an attempt to break the ice and make the moment when they actually had to talk about him easier. He thought about telling her what happened, then sighed and just answered the question. "I don't know. They're just called mainliners. On Carnate, they represented people who had been killed by lethal injection."
They represent addicts here.
Danny whirled around, hoping for some glimpse of his hated adversary. He charged his fists with ectoplasmic energy and yelled, "Get out here, Silver! I know you're here!"
Maddie jerked back, alarmed by her son's sudden rage. This was the first time she had actually been witness to its full force, and it was rather terrifying. Although she knew how he felt, she didn't yet fully understand. And since Silver wasn't as interested in her, she might never have to.
Now, now, niño, Silver chastised. You should thank me. Now, you have no secrets.
He snarled wordlessly and blasted at an obscure flash of white. "Yeah, thanks to you, my mother hates me now! Get out here where I can see you!"
The sound of bright laughter filled the air and their heads. Oh, no. I'm not stupid. I've seen that look on Hermes' face. I will, however, take this moment to inform you that Cobra is trained on your madre's head, so I suggest you calm down a bit, fantasma muchacho.
Cobra and Mongoose. He had forgotten she gave her colts those names. He ground his teeth and dismissed the charged ghost energy.
There now. Isn't that better? Now, if you would like to face me, I would suggest you follow the bouncing mauler.A silver metal mauler jumped out from behind a derelict car and pawed at the ground, then trotted arrogantly into a nearby building. Remember, amigos. There are lives at stake. She laughed again and provided them with the image of Jack and Jazz being burned alive.
Maddie's conviction finally broke, and she sank to the ground sobbing. The remaining members of her family were probably dead by now; her own son thought she hated him for being a ghost; and, to make matters worse, an insane psychic had drawn them into some kind of horrible game. She felt a cool pair of gloved hands push her hood back and make an effort to wipe away her years.
"Mom, don't cry," Danny whispered. He jumped as she grabbed him and pulled him close to her, then reverted back to his human form. Neither of them knew how long they stayed like that, but sporadic gunfire informed them that Silver was keeping the monsters off of them. After a while, Maddie stopped, and Danny pulled her to her feet. "Come on. We'd better get inside. She won't wait forever."
He switched back to ghost mode again and started to float inside, but Maddie grabbed his wrist to stop him. "I could never hate you, Danny," she said. He dropped his eyes, then looked back up and smiled.
"I know," he lied.
The so-called temple of self medication turned out to be an old hotel that had been converted into a haven for addicts of all kinds. A few of them were scattered around the foyer, sitting against the walls, pacing, or just standing around shaking. One or two of them watched the passersby, but most were too far gone to notice anything.
They reminded Danny of the mainliners. They had the same hunched posture, though not as pronounced, the same thin and skeletal frames, the same sickly appearance. He had thought the word mainliner was just a random word the inmate who had named them came up with. Now, he wondered if it was actually another term for addict.
"And so," Killjoy's voice seemed to emanate from the very walls. "Our would-be conquering heroes arrive at last. Oh, pardon me, madam. Our hero and heroine. And speaking of heroin, I think far fewer people would be inclined to taste of its fruit if they could see this most heinous result. Don't you agree?"
Maddie had stopped, surprised and bewildered, to look for him when he first started speaking, but Danny had experienced the phenomenon before, in the halls of Killjoy's asylum. He nudged her slightly and gestured for the stairs. With an accepting nod, she followed him. She might have felt out of her league, but he had done this before.
At the top of the stairs, he flinched as something stuck in his abdomen. "Darn it!" he exclaimed, blasting at the legion of mainliners that met him there. "Would you guys just knock it off? Geez, you're more annoying than Box Ghost!"
Maddie couldn't help but laugh at her son's annoyed expression as she helped him remove syringes. Now that she knew who he was, it was kind of easy to forget what he was. "Are you sure you're okay, sweetie?"
"Yeah, I'm alright," he grumbled. "I've been hurt worse."
"And by your own parents, no less," Killjoy broke in.
"Would you shut up already?" Danny yelled, his heart breaking once again at the look of dismay on his mother's face.
"Now, there's no need for that kind of behavior." The doctor sounded affronted, and Danny rolled his eyes. "I am, after all, only trying to help you."
The boy muttered something about Killjoy helping himself off a cliff as he led the way down the hall. Maddie sighed. "He's right," she said quietly, ignoring her son's denials. "Jack and I have been trying to hunt you down since the day you…" She broke off, still unable to say what she thought to be true.
"Mom, I'm not dead. Really."
"You should tell her the truth, my boy," Killjoy remarked, ever the meddler.
"I already know the truth," Maddie responded. She was beginning to wonder why her son so fervently denied being dead. Was it possible he didn't know that he was?
They went through the door at the end of the hall and into a very disturbing room. The walls were lined with Rorschach inkblots that all managed to look like horrible monsters, and on a couch against one wall rested the body of an addict that appeared to have been the subject of the doctor's earlier lobotomy. They moved past it toward the stairs on the other side of the room.
Suddenly, the door at the head of the stairs slammed shut, followed closely by the one behind them. Danny huffed angrily. "Killjoy, let us out!"
"All in good time, my boy. All in good time. But for now, I think a little group therapy is order, don't you?"
A clattering noise behind them heralded the appearance of a pack of slayers. Before they had any kind of chance to react, one of the creatures lunged forward and succeeded in impaling Danny through the stomach. He cried out as it pinned him to the wall and got stuck there. An attempt to go intangible and escape met with the realization that these things didn't need him to be tangible to hurt him. Or this one didn't, at least. There was a strange blue glow surrounding it, and it was quite a bit larger than its fellows. All of this, however, the boy would notice later. Right then, his attention was more on not passing out and turning human again. He didn't he would survive.
Maddie ducked and rolled as one of the creatures tried to swing at her, then noticed a rifle leaning against the wall. She spared a moment to be grateful that there were only two of the normal ones as she dashed across the room. One of them jumped up to clatter across the ceiling; she ducked as it swung its legs down to skewer her, then shot it in the head. It dropped to the ground, stood there for a second, then did something that could only be described as throwing a hissy fit. It stomped its legs and waved its arms, and succeeded in looking like a spoiled child that just got its candy taken away. Then it charged towards her, apparently able to see her even without its eyes.
She was busy fending off the attacks of the remaining normal slayer, but the sound of knives against the hard wood floor alerted her in time to dodge out of the way. The creature speared its brother and finished it off for her. A second shot took it out as well, and she turned attention to the slayer captain.
It hauled against the wall that imprisoned it, screaming it fury. Danny, paler than even a ghost should be, simply hung there with his head down and his eyes clenched tight. Maddie quickly moved to a position where she could shoot the creature without hurting her son if the bullet went through and fired. The ricochet grazed her cheek and embedded in the wall behind her. She moved again and fired at different place, this time angling her rifle so that the ricochet went off in a different direction. She continued to fire at different places on the creature's body until a click announced that the weapon was empty, then dry fired it out of simple despair.
"Get off of my son!" she exclaimed furiously as she began beating the slayer with the rifle barrel. It screamed and gave one last heave against the wall, then tumbled over backwards. Danny hit the ground with a pained gasp, and his transformation rings appeared around him. He managed to force them away, but barely. If that thing could affect him even intangible, the twin wounds it caused probably wouldn't heal simply because he transformed.
The slayer captain disentangled itself from itself and advanced slowly towards Maddie. There was a kind of intelligence in its eyes that its inferiors lacked; it wanted to savor the fear of the weak thing that tried to hurt it.
Danny pried his eyes open to see his mother's predicament. He raised a shaking hand and blasted the creature over and over, completely using up what was left of his energy.
Maddie's back hit the wall; she closed her eyes in fear. She didn't want to die. The slayer captain screamed and something thudded to the ground. She opened her eyes again to see the creature writhing on the floor as it died, and edged around it to reach Danny.
He held his arms across the wounds and didn't move when his mother arrived. His breathing was shallow, and there was human blood mingled with the ectoplasm that oozed between his fingers. Maddie didn't know how, but he had been telling the truth. He was still alive. "Mom," he gasped. "I…" His voice trailed off as he finally lost the battle with his transformation rings and reverted to human form.
"Danny!" Maddie exclaimed, certain that this time he really was dead. Her fears were somewhat alleviated when he drew a shuddering breath and laughed slightly.
"I'm okay," he said dully. He really didn't think the damage would heal when he changed back, but the worst of it seemed to have mended.
"I trust you've resolved your differences?" Killjoy said suddenly. "My, how I have missed our little sessions. It does the heart so good to see that I have truly helped another patient." He went on at great length, as his captive audience tried to tune him out.