Heya!

Alrighty! So, short chapter this time, mainly 'cause I just came back from the States and now I'm off to Portugal in… a day! Goodness, you guys are lucky I'm updating at all! XD

Disclaimer: Danny Phantom is the property of Butch Hartman. I also don't own Apple or the American Museum of Natural History… Though I'm not sure if I really need to disclaim that last one…

Enjoy!

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The Soul Sepulcher

-By Sholay

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Chapter 12—To Respectfully Err

Danny and Vlad locked eyes in silent combat: one pair blazing with intense dislike and the other sparkling with mocking amusement.

"Danny? Who's at the door?" Maddie's voice called from within the house and Vlad looked up expectantly; easily forgetting Danny at the prospect of glimpsing the tall red-headed woman. Danny glowered darkly.

"No one, Mom." He said, staring straight into Vlad's colourless eyes as he placed his palms on the door to slam it shut.

Vlad's foot shot out at the last second, jamming the door open and Danny looked down at the impeccably shiny shoe with resignation. He wasn't surprised Vlad had stuck his foot in the threshold… He'd just been hoping the older halfa would, for once, take the hint and leave.

Pipe dreams.

Vlad's long, spidery hands curled around the doorframe, easing it back open. Danny looked up and crossed his arms, his eyes falling half-mast in deep annoyance.

"Daniel," Vlad tsked. "Such rude behaviour from a young man. You must have learned it from that crude barbarian, Jack. Well, I suppose even years of neglect and insalubrity can be reversed given the proper reeducation. Now son, a kind host should always invite their honoured guests into his house." Vlad's smirk crawled across his sly face.

Danny was busy trying to figure out if he had time enough to turn ghost and blast Vlad halfway down the street before his mother showed up. Reluctantly, he decided it wasn't a good chance to take.

"That rule is only for guests." Danny was settling for a verbal repartee. "You're more of an infestation."

The teen took great satisfaction in watching the smirk melt right off Vlad's face. But before the older man could appropriate a response, Maddie appeared in the doorway behind Danny.

"Vlad!" Maddie looked surprised. She pulled her fingers through her chin-length hair. "I didn't realize you were here; I thought Danny said there wasn't anyone at the door!"

"Yes, well, Daniel is quite the little mischief maker isn't he?" Vlad looked down his long nose at Danny, then back up at Maddie. "And he's home on a school day! Has he gotten into some trouble, Maddie? Anything you need my help with?"

'Opportunistic little—' Danny grumbled mentally. He was more than miffed that Vlad was talking about him like he wasn't even there, and even more miffed that Vlad would use his suspension as a chance to hit on his mom. 'Of all the nerve!'

"Ah—no, no it's nothing. Nothing you need to worry about." Maddie looked vaguely uncomfortable and Vlad appeared momentarily thrown by her apparent disinclination to confide in him. 'Yes!' Danny pumped a mental fist. 'In your face, Plasmius! Take that, Mom doesn't want you; never has, never will!'

"But you came all this way," Maddie continued speaking. "Was there something you wanted? Do you want to come in?"

'No, no, no, no!' Danny stared in mortification at his mother, who was literally inviting the enemy into their home. She looked honestly concerned though, as any good friend would be. Vlad, taking Maddie's invite in completely the wrong way, beamed brightly and brushed past Danny to follow Maddie into the family room.

"Why, thank you so much Maddie! And might I add: you look particularly ravishing today."

Danny cringed as the smarminess practically dripped off the man's voice. Staring at the now empty doorway, Danny gave the door a half-hearted shove to close it, all the while bemoaning his mother's good nature.

Dragging his feet, Danny moved to join his mother and Vlad in the family room. Passing the stairway, he let his eyes trail the steps going upward unhappily for a second before hardening himself: as much as he didn't want to be in the same room as Vlad, there was no way he was going to leave his mom alone with that fruit-loop.

Entering the room, Danny was just in time to see his mother stoop to swipe up the empty tea cups, remnants from their earlier talk. It reminded Danny that they'd never gotten to finish their conversation, which caused a small stab of regret—wrapped in a blanket of guilty gratefulness—within him. He had wanted to tell his mother his secret… but was also thankful that he hadn't. It was a confusing feeling.

"Oh, Vlad, I'm sorry, but we just finished the tea…" Maddie stood, holding the two cups in each hand.

"No problem." Vlad said smoothly as he slid into an armchair. Even the way he sat: legs crossed neatly, hands on his knee—touching as little of the seat as he could—seemed to insult Danny's family. Vlad's crisp, tailored suit seemed horribly out of place on the ten-year old, faded, sagging couch. "I am sure Daniel wouldn't mind making us some more."

Danny's head shot up and he looked sharply at the empty cups in his mother's hands, then at Vlad. Vlad looked at Danny, his face a perfect mask of gentility, and Danny realized he couldn't refuse. Not without looking petulant and childish.

Maddie's gaze met Danny's. Since that vacation gone wrong—where they'd ended up stranded at Vlad's chalet in Colorado—Danny had come to realize that his mother did understand Vlad's insufferable nature, probably even more than Danny did himself. It wasn't that she was oblivious to the man's self-important nature, his derogative comments toward Jack or his flagrant advances toward her… It was that she dealt with them in a manner much different from Danny. Where Danny would explode with anger and attack Vlad head on, Maddie would let it all slide off her, taking all of Vlad's comments in stride, preferring friendship to enmity.

Perhaps she thought she could change Vlad… or maybe she used his attention in ways that would benefit her… Either way, Danny did not approve of, but did respect, his Mother's decision. And as he looked at her now, her eyes begged him not to start a conflict with Vlad.

And he couldn't refuse.

Danny took the cups, almost roughly, from his Mother's hands and strode into the kitchen. Only once he was safely out of sight did he let the scowl he'd been hiding finally spread across his face.

Vlad was going to drive him to an early grave.

He was halfway there already.

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"Hey Sam! Didja know that the museum's land area alone spans over three acres… that's one million square feet of space! They have, like, fifteen to twenty buildings that make up the entire museum!"

"…Yeah, so?" Sam raised a fine eyebrow, not impressed.

"Sam, you don't get it!" Tucker was typing away on Sam's Mac, pausing intermittingly to fiddle with the mouse. "That's unbelievably huge! You know the American Museum of Natural History in New York?"

"Uh-huh," Sam said hesitantly.

"Our museum is a little over half as big as that!"

"Half?" Sam sounded even more unimpressed.

"Yes! Half!" Tucker rolled his eyes at the screen. "That might not sound like a lot to you, but trust me, it is. Especially for a little town like Amity. Why would we need such a big museum? It's not like we've got that much history…"

"I hafta say, it didn't look all that big from the outside." Sam said, slowly becoming interested; she peered over Tucker's shoulder to look at the screen.

It was Sam and Tucker's second day on museum research duty. They were in Sam's posh, master bedroom, where the long, blood red curtains had been pulled open—at Tucker's insistence—to admit the sunlight. Currently, they were plugging away on her new Apple computer which sat on an ornate, cherry wood desk. The computer was decked out in fancy bat stickers and curled around one corner of the monitor was a fuzzy black spider: a gift from Danny, who had laughed and told Sam that the computer was 'too white for her' and needed some 'Goth-ifying'. Their first day of research had been long and dull, with minimal results. But now, on day two, it seemed like they were getting somewhere promising.

"Well, here's the amazing part. You see here where it says that there are over fifteen miles of corridors and the approximate room count is near the thousands?" Tucker highlighted the relevant area. Sam read it then nodded. "Okay, well, later on, it goes on to say that most of this area is, in fact, underground."

"Underground?" Sam repeated, frowning. "Why would they need so much space underground?"

"That's exactly what I was wondering." Tucker clicked a few things. A black screen with nonsensical writing in white came up; and Tucker typed in some things rapidly before hitting ENTER firmly and sitting back. Another white screen came up, loaded, then filled with information. "Look here, it says here that a series of tunnels runs under the museum… like a subbasement or something." Tucker clicked on a link and a sketchy, hazy map came up: filled with random squiggles, showing tunnels which ran over one another, crisscrossing and splitting randomly in all directions.

Sam squinted at the map. "This thing makes no sense."

Tucker nodded "Of course, it's incomplete. These tunnels are so old no one really knows how big they are. Actually, in the old days, whenever there was an exhibit they didn't want anymore… or got too run down or something… they used to brick it up and forget about it. That's where a lot of these little alcoves come from, I'd bet. Like a… catacombs for ancient exhibits or something." Tucker chuckled at his own joke.

"Ok… I admit, this is cool info and all… and someday I'd definitely like to check it out… but what does all this have to do with our problem?" Sam turned her eyes on Tucker.

"Right, I was getting to that." Tucker brought up another map, this one a simple floor plan of over-ground levels of the museum. "Right here was where Danny fought that ghost." Tucker moved the pen cursor over the area, circling it in vibrant red. "And here," He moved the cursor over to the map of the subbasement. "Is the corresponding area underground." He X-ed the area.

There was silence for a few moments.

"There's… a black dot…?" Sam cocked her head, trying to see what Tucker was telling her.

"A door! That's a door, Sam! Somewhere in that room where Danny was is a door to the subbasement of the museum!" Tucker slapped his hand on the desk, looking up at Sam in triumph.

"So you think… whatever ghost thing that attacked Danny that day…"

"Came from that basement!" Tucker turned back to the computer. "It's the perfect hiding spot, I mean, that basement has been practically forgotten over the years… it would be the perfect hiding place… AND it would explain Dash's cat's murder. Danny said he didn't sense a ghost, but maybe that's because the ghost just came out to do… whatever it did… then went right back? Danny would've had no idea."

"… Speaking of Danny…" Sam's voice got low and Tucker looked at her, wary of an explosion. The violet-eyed girl had been short-tempered ever since that argument with Danny. And, frankly, he didn't have the patience to sit through another rant. "No don't worry," She sent a wry smirk at Tucker, seemingly reading his thoughts. "I'm not gonna bring up that again. What I mean is, Danny would have done all this research too… He's always looking up stuff like this. But if he'd found this." Sam nodded at the map of the subbasement. "He would have told us. Definitely. So why didn't he find all this info?"

"Other than the fact that Danny has the research ability of Technus on last year's model of Portals XL?" Here, Tucker gave a chuckle, but when he got no response from Sam except a dry look, he quickly sobered. "Right, well… Let's just say that if Danny did do any research, he'd've probably gotten as far as we did yesterday: y'know, those out-of-order water fountains."

"Okaay…" Sam gestured for Tucker to continue.

"What Danny wouldn't've done is search the museum's actual database." Tucker dropped his head to the side, swinging around to look at the screen before bringing his head up again. "Danny wouldn't've been able to do this." And Tucker clicked the mouse, once again bringing up the black screen with white writing.

Suddenly Sam understood.

"You… hacked into the museum's database?" She asked incredulously.

"Not hacked," Tucker raised a finger. "Hacked is such a… crude word. I prefer to call it… quality analysis. And Rosalina was a great help with all that." Tucker gave his PDA a fond look. "I wanted to see if their security is top notch. Now that I know it isn't, I can send them an informative, but polite, letter stating precisely where they went wrong."

"Yeah, yeah, you can save the drama. Danny isn't here, so you don't need to exaggerate all your melodramatic, nonexistent hero-isms." Sam leaned over Tucker before taking the mouse and pressing on 'PRINT'. The laser printer beside them whirred to life as the subbasement map and the floor-plan were printed out.

"You… you're still planning to go, aren't you?" Tucker scrutinized Sam, whose profile was turned to him. "Even after Danny said you shouldn't."

"You're coming with me, Tuck." Sam grabbed the papers and stuffed them into her backpack. Before Tucker could say anything, she continued. "And yeah, we are going. I don't know what's up with Danny recently, but he's not acting normal. We can check on him after we come back, but right now I think this is more important. Tuck, that monster in that museum killed Dash's cat. I'm sure of it. It's the only thing that makes sense. Now, we've got to go take it down… otherwise who knows what… or who… it'll attack next. We're saving lives. And if Danny can't see that…"

"Sam," Tucker looked shocked. "You can't just shut him out like that—"

"I'm not shutting him out forever." She gave Tucker a piercing, violet-eyed stare. "Just out of this trip."

"What… What if, you know, we run into the ghost? How're we gonna fight it?" Tucker asked hesitantly.

"Honestly, you're such a scaredy-cat." Sam rolled her eyes. "We've got enough ghost-hunting equipment lying around to handle one ghost. And if you're that scared we can take a cell, so you can call Danny if anything goes wrong. Which it won't."

"Sam… doesn't this feel kinda… wrong?" Tucker spun the leather swivel chair until he was facing Sam fully.

"No." Sam wasn't meeting Tucker's eyes. "What's wrong is how Danny's acting. He thinks he can just say whatever, and we'll just agree; no questions. Well, that's not the way I work. But you know what? I can understand why he thinks like that. I know Danny's only trying to protect us and that he really does think he's doing the right thing… And that's what makes it so annoying!" Sam's voice grew progressively louder and more impassioned as she spoke. "'Cause I know he's not doing the right thing: his protectiveness is stifling! But I can't tell him that because it just never seems to get through his thick head. He'll just get all sad and hurt…" Sam's voice dropped off at this last sentence. Now she grew quiet, breathing deeply and staring avidly at a 'Dumpty Humpty' poster on her wall. Tucker watched her, thoughtfully, silently.

"And you see," Sam continued. "The fact that I get all this about Danny will make it even more disrespectful— to him—if I fake-make-up with him just so we can use him as our strongman on our trip to the museum. No. I'm not going to do that. This was my idea and I'm not going to force anyone to come along with me. Not even you Tucker." Sam added the last sentence in a sudden burst of rashness, sending Tucker a challenging stare.

"Well, Sam…" Tucker looked up at her evenly. "All I have to say is: I more or less came up with the entire plan to get into the museum, so I'm as much in on this as you are. And you know what else? I agree with you about Danny; so, until you both either make-up or make-out, I have to make sure I get you back in one piece. 'Cause Danny'll probably kill me if anything happens to you."

There was a soft slap as Sam wacked Tucker over the back of the head; but she was smiling.

"Thanks, Tuck."

"So," Tucker raised an eyebrow. "We doing this tonight?"

Sam gave a sharp definitive nod. "Yup. Now hurry up and grab your PDA—ah, I mean your girlfriend, Rosalina—we're going to be late for school."

Sam leaned to the side, missing the pillow chucked at her head by inches.

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End Chapter 12

To Be Continued…

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There'll be action in the next chapter... yup, yup ;p

MutantLover09: XD Yup, there's Vlad for ya, king of impromptu entrances and bad timing. And also... awesome, You like Jazz! I always thought she didn't figure enough in the show (I don't believe she had any friends… at least none that she hung out with regularly… she spent more time with Danny than anyone else :3). She's actually one of my favorite characters, so I wanted her to figure more in my story… I also didn't want her to be too perfect (unrealistic) so I gave her some issues. XD Right, so, kinda short chapter, but I'm going off to Portugal in a few days, so if you want to stalk me with a bat you're gonna hafta follow me there! Thankies for the long review (and I'm very glad you liked all the introspection in the last chapter… personally, I enjoy writing it, but I'm never sure if I'm boring my readers or not, so yeah (blush) it's good to hear you liked it!)

sciencefreak330: A very, very belated good luck on your exam! I hope you did well on that, as well as your English paper! (English is such a subjective, finicky subject, isn't it? Do you find that they always choose the most awful books for in-class reading? (cough'TheColorPurple'cough).) So, Vlad has officially shoved his way into the fic… poor Danny, he doesn't look like he's handling it well ;D

Velvet Star: Hey again! (Grin) Uh huh, and the suspense just continues! Vlad has entered the building and Sam and Tucker are gearing up for something they'll probably regret doing… oh the fun! XD

Nylah: Heya! Yeah, Danny-Maddie moments are so fun to write! Danny is just so unbelievably nice, isn't he? XD Thoughtful to a fault. I love how you picked up on the little, subliminal connections that I make in the chapters… I mean, I notice them when I write them, but having you pick up on them and mention them is a whole different thing (you know what I mean? ;P). Hope you liked the chapter!

Dragonfire411 (or is it Mystica234?): Hello! And thanks so much for reviewing! I'm glad you like my fic so far! I tried looking up your profile to check out your story, but there wasn't one there! Did I go to the wrong page? Sorry!

Plain English: Hi! Yup! Vlad makes his grand, untimely entrance! What do you think about his character? I had lots of fun writing him so I hope you liked! :D

Thunderstorm101: Heh he, your analysis of Vlad was great, and very accurate! XD Poor Vladdy: fastidious, obsessive and stubborn… he's a great story plot all on his own… too bad Danny's already got his own issues to deal with! XP

inukagome15: Hiya! Thanks for the review!! I'm glad you don't think there's too much horror in this fic. I myself hate horror movies, horror books and anything in general that includes ugly, disfigured sociopaths running rampant, mutilating people and innocent scenery alike, for no good reason. I'm trying to go for suspenseful and creepy more than anything… so you can rest assured that there won't be anything graphicin this fic. Violence, yes, murder, yes… but gore and disgusting things, no. ;P Thank goodness. Moreover, there is a reason for everything that happens in this fic (one more reason I hate horror: there's no sense to it!), so yup! The plot is there, just hidden. And if you can't guess at it yet then I must be doing my job right! (Or horribly wrong! XDD). Either way, you're partially right about everything leading back to Legion… I'll say no more than that! Oh, and I'm glad you liked Danny's witty banter! It doesn't often happen that I come up with sarcastic comments like that, but I'm trying XD Hope you enjoyed the chappie!

See you all when I return from Portugal!

Adio!

Sholay