You can blame my cabin mates for how this turned out. Dear lord, it was a crazy first week! (I was surprisingly able to write quite a bit of the past couple of chapters and the next one during that time.)
Most of this chapter was edited very early this morning as I was chatting with that group so… yeah, I don't doubt that there's a few things wrong with this. I did go back over it and I didn't see any, so hopefully… :D
Life has pretty much revolved around camp this past month, so nothing exciting is really happening with me.
Next week, the chapter will be posted on Tuesday due to some complications. Mostly me being out of town on the weekend. The chapter's written but I'll be focusing on my math class for that evening. I thought I'd be kind and let you all know ahead of time.
Summary: Samantha Manson, or Sam, has many things to deal with; her parent's disappointment, she knows all of the police force by name and face (and not because she wants to), moving to a new city, her grandmother's slowly dying, her Necromancy is getting stronger, she has no instructor to teach her, and she's not exactly the most popular girl in school. As she learns about this new city, she learns of its mysterious secrets and as to why so many haunts happen there. While trying to find out how to help this city, she finding that she slowly crushing on a kind of cute geeky boy whose parents hunt supernatural things. AU. She eyed the yellow tape, daring it to keep her from the school grounds. After a moment, she decided to ignore the forbidding warning of the black DO NOT CROSS letters.
Disclaimer: I do not hold any legal rights to Danny Phantom or to any of the characters you are going to read about. This story, however, is my own original idea, with a nod to Meg Cabbot's Mediator series and Kelly Armstrong's Darkest Powers trilogy for inspiring me somewhat.
Do Not Cross
Chapter 14
Distraction
"By the way, my name's Rose Hathaway. I'm seventeen years old, training to protect and kill vampires, in love with a completely unsuitable guy, and have a best friend whose weird magic could drive her crazy.
Hey, no one said high school was easy." Richelle Mead, Frostbite
"Sam?"
Jazz's voice caught Danny's attention. Tucker, sitting across from him, also looked up and over to the two girls. They both saw Sam looking unusually pale, sitting on the ground, and Jazz standing over her, looking confused.
"What happened?" Tucker asked, sliding out of his chair. Danny followed his lead.
"She read this." Jazz said, holding out the paper. She handed it over to the them, Danny grabbed it. He held it up for both him and Tucker to see.
His eyes widened at the words. He crumbled up the paper and walked over to a desk, setting the ball in an ashtray, that laid on the wood surface. He dug out a box of matches and struck one. He set the paper aflame and watched as it burned down to ashes.
Sam had told him and Tucker where the matches were. They had all agreed to only reveal things to one another and then burn whatever they learned. It was the safest thing they could think of. None of them had magic like Mr. Lancer. Heck, even Valerie could masquerade information in her state. For the moment, it was the best they could do.
He looked over at Jazz. She had no idea what those words meant or how ridiculous they sounded. But also how completely possible it was for someone like Katherine Magnusson to be alive. Their world was a strange one, after all. Nothing was ever as it seemed for them. Dead people could come alive at any moment. This was his new normal.
Danny walked over to the table and picked up Sam's tea. He could smell the pungent brewed tea leaf that he had grown familiar to associating with Sam. It was her favorite type that she specifically had made just for her liking. He never really drank the concoction before being around her. He found that he quite liked it.
"Here, Sam." he said, holding out the cup to her. "Drink this. It'll help you focus."
She took it from him and downed its contents in one go, puckering her lips when she was done.
"That needed a little bit more sugar in it." she said.
He chuckled. She was back to normal. Mostly. He caught the haunted look in her eyes and he knew that they were thinking the same thing:
How could Katherine be alive?
Jazz watched as the teens got back to work with… whatever it was they were doing. Really, she had no idea what was going on. Things were fairly normal up until she decoded what Sam had shown her.
She looked over at her brother and his friend. They had taken the rest of Sam's notes and burned them. What they did with the ashes, she didn't know. Danny and Sam brought them out of the room and took care of them. She thought she heard running water, but she wasn't positive.
While they were out of the room, and Tucker was facing away from her, she opened one of the books on the table. It was an old thing, the leather cover cracking in a few spots. It smelled of old paper and mold. She found it comforting.
She opened the cover, revealing yellowed pages and handwriting in black ink. The script was elegant, airy and easy to read. But the words…
Jazz scrunched her brow.
"To my dear descendents," it read. "This book is for you to pore yourself over and learn about your ancestry. This is for you to learn our ways and about our world. It is a way to connect to those who came before you.
"This book is your history. This book is your future. This book can make you rise above all others, or it can make you fall. Use this book with caution, for we, and others like us, are ones who are most feared. We are the Necromancers.
It was signed by Katherine.
She frowned. Was this the same Katherine that was in Sam's code? But that wasn't possible. This book was old. As in, it should be in a museum old. Why would Sam have it?
A thought struck her. Danny had mentioned something about "Necromancers" earlier that evening. What was it he had said?
"They can summon the dead and send them back."
She scrunched her nose. Necromancers weren't real. They were a part of cults and other organized religions. …Right? She really had no clue. Religion wasn't something that her family talked about very much, not that she had much interest in any of them. To her, it was all a system of belief for people who needed something to believe in. There wasn't any real evidence that any of them were correct anyway. Besides, they were used to motivate people into fighting in wars with useless causes.
Jazz went back to the book. She flipped through the pages. There were many interesting things in there; fairies, dwarves, werewolves, vampires… All nonsense. All fictitious.
She read another passage.
"…are creations of those who have died, usually Soothsayers or Faeries. Because of this, they are hunted by their own kind…"
Was she even supposed to be reading this book? More than likely not. What if they caught her reading this book?
She peeked up and saw Tucker was still reading. She sighed. She was safe for the moment. She went back to flipping through the book. There was a lot of unusual things in it, she decided.
Danny and Sam came back, Danny holding the ashtray. He set it back down on the desk. The two of them returned to the table Tucker was sitting at, still poring himself over the large tome he and her brother had been reading earlier. She wondered if it held more on the subjects of the one she had opened in front of her.
She bit her lip, closing the book slowly so they wouldn't hear it or see it. She buried it back under the books that had been on top of it. Deciding that she didn't want to sit still, lest she fall asleep, she got up and walked around.
Most of the shelves were lined with books without titles. Many of them were as old or older than the one hidden on the table. Jazz began to wonder if all of the Manson books were ancient or just the ones in this library — presuming there was another library, something she didn't doubt.
A scrape of a chair on the ground made her turn around. Danny looked a little shifty as he stood up. Tucker and Sam looked at him, confused.
"Um, I have to go wash my…" Danny said. Jazz saw the look he had. It was the one where he was listing things off in his head as he tried to make up an excuse. He was going to lie? To her? "Socks."
Yep, he was going to lie to her. When did he start lying to her?
She shrugged it off and acted as if nothing weird was going on. This was probably normal for them.
They were quiet for five minutes until a yelp and a thump echoed through the house. All three of them looked up and to the door, none of them quite sure what to do. Sam stood up.
"I'll go see if he needs help washing his… socks." she said.
Jazz and Tucker looked at one another, and he shrugged.
"Hee hee." he said nervously. "Crazy kids."
Danny groaned. He did not know this ghost. It wasn't like the Box Ghost or the Lunch Lady. This ghost was wearing advanced armor technology. He did not appreciate being blasted, either. Whoever this ghost was, he was a hunter.
He charged at the ghost, who was ready for the assault. Danny was once again hit backwards by an energy blast from a wrist rocket. He managed to avoid collision with a wall by going intangible. The ghost followed him through.
"Well, Soothsayer," he said, "you are proving to be an easy target. Do you have anything to say for yourself?"
"Yeah! Eat Fenton Wrist Ray."
Both Danny and the ghost looked up in time to see Sam shoot the little device off. He wondered when she had gotten it. He had no doubt that she stole it from his parents, not that they'd really mind…
The wrist ray packed quite a punch, knocking the ghost back. The assailant slammed into the wall, leaving a good dent.
Danny winced, smiling. She always came in the nick of time.
"Great save." he said, offering her his fist. She pounded it with her own.
"Thanks." she said. "Always here to save my knight in shining armor."
"Are we still going on about that?"
"What? Oh, yeah. I'm never going to let you live that down, just so you know."
Before Danny could react, both he and Sam were caught in a net. They ended up in a heap of tangled limbs sliding across the floor in the oddly glowing lattice.
"Ha!" the ghost cried victoriously. He lifted his wrist and spoke into a device. "The Soothsayer and the Necromancer have been detained. What's my next move?"
"Deliver them to me." came the reply. "You know why I want them and what I want for them. Deliver them to me and I'll let her go."
The voice on the other end sounded familiar but he couldn't quite place where he had heard it before. He knew it hadn't been that long ago. He wondered where… He shook his head. He'd have time for that later.
Danny tried to fire off an ecto-energy beam with his finger but it just bounced back, zapping Sam in the arm. She hissed and slapped a hand over the tend spot.
"Shit." he said. "You okay? Let me see it."
The spot was red but it didn't look bad, no different than an oddly placed sunburn. He gently touched it. She jerked back at his light touch, he noted, but she eased back into it just as quickly.
"Your hands are cold." she said, as if surprised.
"Yeah, that's the thing about being a Soothsayer. I'm part dead, remember?"
"Jeeze," the ghost said, "are you two lovebirds done flirting?"
"We're not lovebirds!"
.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.O.o.
The ghost took them to a house hidden in the forest. It was slowly crumbling and was long abandoned. Danny felt something tighten in his chest. That kind of building was always where bad things would happen in the movies, and his life, since becoming a Soothsayer was something directly out of a movie.
He gulped and tried to give Sam more room, but — seeing as how they were flying in a net carried by a ghost — it wasn't an easy task.
"Stop making the net sway." Sam mumbled.
Danny looked over to her. Her face was tinged a little green.
"What's wrong?"
"I'm not a big fan of heights. Never have been, never will be."
"…It's because you're short, isn't it?"
"What does that have to do with anything?" she snapped.
He made note that when she wasn't feeling all too well she was easily angered.
"Pretty much a lot of things." he said "You have a longer way to fall than a tall person, so you'd be a bit more afraid of heights. Plus, you can't fly."
She tried to punch him, but with the little given space they had, she made do with a slap on his cheek.
"When we land, I'm doing to rip your limbs off." It wasn't just an empty threat, either.
"Really, you two are constantly flirting." the ghost said. "Don't you ever shut up?"
"Let me out of here and I'll rip your ears off so you don't have to hear us." Sam said. She reached up and swiped at him, missing by a lot.
"Stop swaying the net." Danny told her. "You're afraid of heights. What if the rope holding us snaps."
That got her to stop moving. She turned to him, her face even more green and her eyes very wide.
Before either Sam or the ghost could react, Danny grabbed her wrist and set off the wrist ray, severing the rope holding them up. The ghost gaped as they fell. Sam didn't have any time to scream.
Danny looped his arm around Sam's waist and untangled them from the net. He flew them away from their destination. Before they could get very far, he was zapped in the back, slamming both him and Sam into a tree.
Dazed, both teens groaned. They would both be feeling that later.
"That was stupid of you." the ghost said, landing nearby. His joints groaned as his knees compressed. "You weren't going to get very far."
"I hate going old school but," Sam said, whipping out a black painted jar. She chucked it at the ghost, "eat pig's blood!"
The glass smashed on his head, drenching him in blood. The ghost did not look amused.
"As Necromancer of Amity Park, I, Samantha Marie Manson, banish thee into the eternal depths of Hell where you will not receive fair trial for your actions." she said.
The portal ripped open and a clawed hand pulled the ghost back to… wherever it was they went. They still didn't know if where she sent those ghosts was the Ghost Zone or whether it was Hell.
"You carry pig's blood around with you?" he asked, wheezing.
"Started to." she said. "Instant portal to… Deadsville."
"Hardy harr harr."
"Come on. I don't want to hang around here without a coat."
"Want to fly back to your house?" he asked, offering her his arms.
"I wouldn't be leaving so quickly if I were you."
They both turned to see a ghost floating above the dried grass. He was dressed in a strange outfit from the 80s with his dark hair slicked back into what appeared to be horns reminiscent of Maleficent from Disney's Sleeping Beauty. His eyes were piercing red. And the smirk on his face was frightening.
"Who —" Danny started. The ghost finished the question.
"Am I?" He chuckled. "Call me Plasmius."
"You wouldn't happen to have any more blood with you, would you?"
"Nope." Sam said, preparing herself for a fight. "And we don't have a thermos."
"Perfect."
"What's taking them?" Jazz asked.
"Maybe they're making out?" Tucker suggested.
"Puh-lease. Neither of them are ready for that kind of relationship yet, least of all with one another."
"You sure?"
Jazz looked at Tucker, his eyebrow was raised. She caught on and smirked.
"How much you want to bet?"
"Twenty bucks?"
"You're on."
It had been Sam's idea to run, to lead the ghost into town and to his parents' house. There was ghost fighting equipment there and a thermos.
They skidded as they turned, winding and weaving their way through the streets and alleyways.
"How much further?" Sam panted.
"If you let me fly us there," Danny said, still in ghost-form, "we would be there by now."
"I am not flying again tonight. We fell one too many times."
"I wouldn't let you fall."
She glared at him and almost ran into a lamp post. If it hadn't been for his quick thinking, she would have been knocked backwards. He would have let that happen to her if the chase was under more normal circumstances and a ghost wasn't after them.
They continued on, Danny changing back into his human-form when they were on his home street.
"What?" Sam heard Plasmius gasp.
She dared to peek over her shoulder and saw that he had stopped. She grabbed Danny's arm and halted his running. He jerked her forward, nearly causing her to bump into him.
"What's the matter, Plasmius." she teased. "Never seen a Soothsayer before?"
"Things, my dear," he said, "just got interesting."
A blast from behind the teens caused them to jump. They recognized the sound, though, as one of the Fenton's inventions. It was a pity they had been interrupted. If they had been able to get the ghost to talk longer maybe they would have learned who had sent the other ghost after them.
"Get back here, you ghostly fiend!" Jack Fenton cried out.
"Well, I better be going, ta~!" Plasmius said, saluting them.
"Oh no you don't!" Maddie said, chasing after the ghost and firing, nearly getting him every time. "Darn it. Are you kids alright?"
"We're fine, mom." Danny said.
"What are you kids doing up so early?"
"Um…" Sam said. "I didn't want to be home alone?"
"You could have stayed over at our house." Maddie said. "It'd be perfectly fine with us. You could take Jazz's bed."
"But, where would she sleep?" Danny asked. "I already have the couch."
"You'd sleep on the floor, Danny, to be a gentleman."
Danny frowned and Sam hid a smile behind a hand and a cough. He shoved her playfully. She shoved him back.
"We missed the ghost, Maddiekins." Jack said, sounding disappointed. "If only we had gotten out here in time."
"Is that my wrist ray?" Maddie asked, grabbing Sam's hand and examining the piece of equipment strapped there.
"I, uh, I…" she stuttered. She had never had to lie to a friend's mom before. When she first met the woman, sure she'd have no problem. Her parents? They were her parents, she was supposed to lie to them. It was written somewhere in the children's code. Jazz? To protect a friend, she'd do anything. But a friend's parents? Never. No way in hell could she do that to them.
"I didn't want her to run around Amity unprotected." Danny said, stepping in. "With all the ghost attacks going on and this being one of the newest, I thought that it's be okay. It is okay, right?"
"Of course it's okay." Maddie said. "You're such a good boy, Danny, looking out for your friends. Don't we have such a good boy, Jack?"
"So, how'd this little do-dad work for you?" the man asked, poking his head over his wife's shoulder.
"It worked fine. We were able to knock out another ghost —"
"Another ghost? Where?"
"In the forest —" Sam said, starting to point in the direction they had come from. At least, she thought they had come from.
Jack and Maddie took off, leaving the two teens in the street. Neither of them had time to tell the two adults that the ghost would be long gone.
The sun started to rise, painting the sky orange, red, and pink. Sam hadn't realized how early it was. Had they stayed up practically the whole night again? It would be a long day at school today.
"We should probably get back to your house." Danny said. "We left Tucker and Jazz there all alone. Who knows what they could have done when we were gone."
"Okay. So long as we don't fly." she said.
Danny rolled his eyes, changed into his ghost-form, and scooped her up. She yelped and smacked the back of his head.
"Ow!" he said. "You know, I could drop you."
"I said no flying!" she snapped. And she added pathetically, "Besides, you said you said you'd never let me fall."
Although she didn't get a reply, she thought that she saw Danny smile.
True to his word, he didn't allow her to fall, nor did he joke about dropping her. It was his way of getting her to trust him. And to release her viselike grip around his neck.
He turned them both intangible and through the wall. They wound up in a downstairs tearoom. Danny jumped when he heard his sister's voice.
"Tucker, we've checked every room in this house and we still haven't found them." they heard Jazz say through the door. "What makes you think that they are even down here?"
"Um…" Tucker said. "A wild guess?"
"They probably left the house an hour ago."
Danny and Sam looked at one another. What were they going to do? What could they say they've been doing this whole time?
She looked about nervously and found nothing. She looked up at Danny and, without any second thought, slammed her lips onto his.
Yeah… Fake-out Make-out! XD
I couldn't help myself. This chapter sort of turned up being blatant fluffy shipping for Danny and Sam. I didn't intend for that, honest. It just sort of… fell out as I was writing. (Which reminds me, never type these things when you're slaphappy. You end up with weird notes.)
I've been listening to Nightmares for a Week. Pretty rad band. You should check them out. ;)
For those wondering about Jazz, I get into that later on. To those who forgot who Katherine is, she's Sam's ancestor. (I think I addressed that within the chapter. I can't seem to remember at the moment. Slaphappy sleepy.)
For those who are wondering why this was posted so early in this morning, you can blame DB-KT for keeping me awake. Go bother her for awhile. Especially for the next installment for GRCDP. Poke her needlessly. (She's going to hate me for that. XD)