Hiya!

Special Thanks to Kalida9 on DeviantArt (also known as MidnightResWri here on FFDOTnet) who made a Fanart for this fic! Your rendition of the Creature never fails to gives me the creeps: amazing job! :D Find it here (take out the spaces and replace the DOTS with periods): www DOTasnada DOTdeviantart DOTcom/favourites/#/d4zo6bw

Disclaimer: I cannot claim ownership. Nope.

A shorter chapter this time.

Enjoy!

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The Soul Sepulchre

-By Sholay

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Chapter 31 — Detention and Spiked Starbucks

The rest of the school day passed in boring monotony for Danny.

A quiet lunch was spent under the indifferent eye of Mr. Falluca. At the very least, Danny hadn't been alone: Tucker had shared in his misery and a few other students serving lunchtime detention had joined them. Most of those students were part of the fringe groups in the school: unpopular kids, truants and rebels. When Danny had walked in the room, a number of them had greeted him with wide grins and whispered words of praise for 'working that jock over'. He'd even hesitantly slapped a couple of high-fives.

It was a bizarre experience.

After lunch were afternoon classes. Tucker and Sam had wanted to know what Danny had talked about with Vlad. But Danny put off that conversation, offering the plausible, though not entirely true, excuse that he didn't want to get into trouble for talking during class. Relaying his whole conversation with Vlad would take too much explaining for them to cover in underhanded note hockey.

That, and he didn't really like discussing Vlad with his friends.

Finally, classes were over and Danny was standing in front of Mr. Lancer's room, heaving a long-suffering sigh. One more hour of detention to survive and he'd finally be free for the day. He shifted from one foot to the other, swallowing nervously and trying to delay the inevitable. Maybe he could still ditch…?

Then the door opened and his decision was made for him.

"Mr. Fenton." Lancer said, looking at Danny appraisingly. "Good to see you on time, for once." He stepped aside, gesturing for the teen to come into the classroom.

"Please put your things at one of the desks… One of the desks in the front." Mr. Lancer shot Danny a knowing look as the boy made to escape to the back of the empty classroom. With a sigh, Danny moved up to the front and dropped his backpack under the desk closest to the window. It was at the front of the classroom, but still the farthest one from Mr. Lancer's desk.

Seeing the gesture for what it was, Lancer still ignored it. "We will be joined by another student."

"Dash?" Danny assumed.

"No. Mr. Baxter has practice and was excused from detention today."

Indignation flashed across Danny's face. "Figures." He grumbled.

Lancer continued. "The student is an upper year, Mr. Williamson. He will be coming in late as he has an appointment with the guidance counselor before attending his detention."

"You got a new one?" Danny commented blithely.

"Yes…" Mr. Lancer frowned, remembering the Spectra incident. "And you can rest assured that Mr. Greebie comes to us with the highest qualifications."

"Mr. Greebie?" Danny echoed, raising a disbelieving eyebrow. "His name is honestly Mr. Greebie?" That was hardly even one step away from creepy. The guy had to be a ghost. Or evil. Or an evil ghost.

"Yes, Mr. Fenton, that is the man's name. And I've met and talked at length with him myself and I can tell you that he is a very pleasant and intuitive person. In fact, if you choose, I'm sure we could make arrangements for you to serve some of your detentions in sessions with him instead of in a classroom."

"Uh… no thanks." Danny declined. "I think I'd actually prefer to stay in detention."

Lancer sighed. Looking down to his desk, he shuffled around the papers laying on the top: the upper year AP English in-class essays he'd collected that afternoon. Putting a hand down over the top paper, he stared at it.

Danny was fidgeting nervously from his position near the window. He hadn't sat down yet—he was too anxious for that. But gradually he was relaxing. It looked like Lancer was going to ignore him and start grading papers. Maybe… maybe he wouldn't bother bringing up the incident on Sunday—

"Mr. Fenton."

—and he wasn't a teenaged ghost hunter with superpowers. Brilliant. Wonderful.

"I've been pondering how to approach this topic for the entire day and I've decided that the best way to go about it is just to tackle it head-on."

He should've taken the guidance counselor. Really. Maybe it wasn't too late? He'd take Creepy Greebie, Spectra Number Two, over this conversation with Lancer any day.

"Daniel, why don't you come up here and take a seat?" Mr. Lancer gestured to a very conveniently placed chair situated on the opposite side of the teacher's desk.

Swallowing, Danny approached the seat and looked down at it as though it was going to attack him. Glancing up, he saw his teacher's expectant gaze.

Without taking his eyes off Lancer, Danny gave in and slowly sat.

Nodding, Mr. Lancer lowered himself into his own chair with a muffled sound of relief as he took the weight off his aching feet. There was something about Mondays that made the 8-hour work day just seem inexplicably longer than every other day. Taking a moment to compose himself, he loosened his tie and took a sip of the coffee in his mug. He grimaced. Lukewarm.

Once he was ready, he looked up and saw that Danny was staring at him. Immediately, when their eyes met, Danny's gaze skittered away to the side. The teen was nervous, Lancer could easily tell that much from the incessant leg-bouncing and the way Danny was perched like a bird on the edge of his seat. As Lancer studied his student, Danny's eyes would flick back to his and then quickly away again. The boy's face was starting to pink under the scrutiny and Lancer decided he'd waited enough time.

"Daniel," He said, making a point to use the boy's first name despite how awkward it felt—His 'Hip for the Un-Hip' book had told him that first names were 'the shortcuts to getting students to trust teachers'. "You can relax. You're not in any trouble… At least, no more than you are already in." He amended with resigned amusement.

The words seemed to help: Danny did relax enough to halt the distracting hopping of his knee, but Mr. Lancer still saw a hint of panic in his wide blue eyes. There was something else though, something Lancer couldn't yet identify.

"So… Daniel. Is there anything you'd like to tell me?" Lancer decided to give his student the opportunity to take the lead.

Danny's head titled to the side as he regarded the elder man bizarrely. Then, to Lancer's surprise, Danny laughed.

"Sir, no offence, but did you actually expect me to answer that question with a 'yes'?" Danny asked, one eyebrow quirking upward.

Lancer sat back, somewhat taken aback. It was interesting to see Daniel Fenton this sarcastic and animated. It was actually refreshing, considering he only ever seemed to see the boy in varying states of exhaustion. "To be honest… No. I didn't."

"So… why don't you ask me what's really on your mind, sir?" Danny leaned forward, putting an elbow on the desk and his chin in his palm. Suddenly, quite unlike the nervousness from before, Danny appeared calm. Accepting, even.

Lancer wasn't entirely sure what had brought about this sudden turnaround. Nonetheless, he would 'roll' with it, as the kids said.

"Very well." Lancer nodded. "Yesterday, when I passed by your house during my morning jog, I saw you and your sister getting out of a cab. I was very alarmed by the state you were in. And I want to ask you what happened."

"I was tired. My parents had me doing a lot of chores because of my suspension and I also had a lot of homework. Me and Jazz were out really late—she told you why." Danny's voice, confident through the beginning of his explanation, hiccuped only briefly at the mention of his sister. The teen turned a shifty eye on Lancer and paused.

"Your… Uncle was in town…" Mr. Lancer remembered hesitantly. The odd look left Danny's eyes and that was when Lancer realized: Danny had been waiting for him to fill in the blank. How clever. Lancer berated himself for practically handing the boy his excuse.

"That." Danny waved in his direction with a hand as he leaned back in his seat. "So yeah. I wasn't in the best condition. I was tired… and sick… tired and sick."

Mr. Lancer waited, but when Danny didn't look like he would be offering any more information, the teacher frowned. "Mr—Daniel. You know that's not what I was asking about."

Danny's eyebrows arched. "Sorry, Sir?"

"You had—you had these—!" Mr. Lancer gestured with spread fingers up and down one side of his neck. "You had these things on your neck! Claw marks!"

Danny blinked at Lancer uncomprehendingly. "Huh?"

"You had cuts running across your neck, boy! I saw it, and I know you know what I'm talking about! I want to know how you got them!" Lancer cried with agitation. Danny was being too confident, too clever. And now he was feigning complete ignorance. This was not at all how the conversation was supposed to go.

"Mr. Lancer…" Danny frowned at his teacher. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"The cuts—!"

"But… I'm not hurt, sir." And, to prove the point, Danny twisted his head first to one side and then the other, showing his pale, unmarked neck.

"But… but I saw…" Lancer's mind easily brought up an image of three parallel, bloody gouges cut into that same neck—from ear to collarbone. It wasn't possible! Sure, the glimpse he'd gotten of the lacerations had been brief, fleeting. But he was sure of what he'd seen! Maybe it hadn't been as bad as he'd thought… And Lancer had noticed earlier today that Danny didn't seem to have any injuries… But he'd thought that the injuries were just smaller than he'd remembered, or that they'd recovered remarkably well. Or maybe that Danny had covered them with something. But for there to be no marks at all… It wasn't possible!

Lancer stared.

"I'm sorry, sir…?" Danny shrugged helplessly.

"I…" Lancer was confounded. He was certain he'd seen blood and jagged cuts torn into Danny's throat yesterday morning. Yet he saw nothing now, and Danny seemed to have no idea what he was talking about. Was it possible Lancer was mistaken? Had he imagined the injuries… Maybe it was some side effect of his new diet? Or perhaps the he'd eaten some bad meat the night before?

Baffled, he reached out, grabbing his mug—though what he really wanted to grab was Danny's neck to pull the boy in for a closer inspection—and took another sip of his coffee. His reaction was exactly the same as before: he winced at the lukewarm drink and set it back down. Honestly he'd just tried the coffee and discovered it was tepid. Was he becoming that absent-minded?

He looked at Danny, who was looking back at him with a worried expression. Maybe he was getting absent-minded, Lancer fretted, scratching at his temple.

"I… perhaps I was… mistaken…" It was difficult for Lancer to admit these words but he couldn't see any other explanation. He could not dispute what his eyes were telling him now. There was nothing wrong with Danny's neck.

It was brief, sharp, fleeting: a flash of something, in Danny's eyes that made the boy's lips tighten upward. Then Danny sniffed, turning aside and scrubbing at his nose and mouth and, as he did so, wiped the strange look clean off his face.

"Well… uh… Is-is that all you wanted to ask, sir? I have a bunch of stuff that I kinda want to get done…?" Danny stood, pushing the chair back and shifting. It was interesting. By his words, Lancer would think that Danny was nervous, but the expression on the teen's face was curiously unreadable.

Lancer sighed, but nodded. He had a sinking feeling that he'd somehow messed up his chance to get any useful information from this conversation.

Danny smiled gratefully. Before moving away, the teen glanced down at Lancer's desk.

"That's a nice mug. It's funny." Danny remarked offhandedly.

"Oh?" Lancer picked it up, looked at the writing on the side 'I have a spelling checker. It came with my PC. It plane lee marks four my revue Miss steaks aye can knot sea.' "One of my previous students thought it was witty."

Danny chuckled. "Tucker has one. It says 'There are 10 types of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't'."

It took Lancer a little too long to work out the meaning of that one but once he did, he smiled. "That sounds like Mr. Foley."

"By the way, do you like your coffee hot or cold?" Danny asked randomly.

Lancer looked up at the boy oddly. "Hot, usually. Especially since I most often drink coffee in the mornings. But sometimes I mix it up. Why?"

Danny had his hands hooked on the edge of Mr. Lancer's desk, and he drummed his fingers on the underside of the wooden tabletop. "No reason. Just curious." With a mysterious smile and a flourish, Danny pushed away from the table and made his way back to his desk in the corner near the window.

Lancer waited long enough for the boy to get settled and pull out a sheet of paper to work on his homework before starting in on his grading.

Five minutes later, Mr. Lancer was ready to eat his pencil. Why hadn't he become a University professor so he could pass this work onto hapless TAs? Of course, there was that small issue of getting a PhD… But those only took, what? 7 years?

The door to the classroom banged open and both Danny and Mr. Lancer looked up at the newcomer.

"Welcome Mr. Williamson. Good of you to join us." Mr. Lancer nodded at the tall, gangly teen slouching in his doorway.

Mr. Williamson, or 'Spike' as he was known colloquially around the school (Lancer assumed it was because of those ghastly spikes the boy often had his hair styled up into—Honestly, liberty spikes hadn't been fashionable since the '80s), grunted and trudged into the room.

"Mr. Fenton, meet Mr. Williamson, who'll be sharing the last half-hour of detention with us. Mr. Williamson, Mr. Fenton."

Danny and Spike exchanged looks, but otherwise said nothing to one another. Turning, Spike headed to one of the desks at the far end of the classroom, the numerous belts and chains on his pants jingling as he walked.

"Mr. Williamson, I would prefer if you sat in the front—"

Spike tossed his backpack roughly under a desk at the back of the room and then dropped into the chair. He leaned back and stared at Mr. Lancer defiantly, as though daring the teacher to come and make him move.

Mr. Lancer didn't bother. Spike was a lost cause. Arguing with the boy would get him nowhere. Danny, though, was eying the interaction between Lancer and Spike. It was clear from the twinge of resentment edging his tightened lips and narrowed eyes what the younger boy was thinking. Danny was criticizing Lancer's obvious double standard.

Looking away from those accusatory icy eyes, Lancer dropped his gaze back down at his table, still heaped with unmarked papers. Again, he sighed and decided to brave his lukewarm coffee, if only for the hit of caffeine.

Raising the mug to his lips, he was very surprised to find his drink pleasantly chilled. How had it gotten so cold? It wasn't nearly cold enough in the room. How had—?

Then remembering his conversation minutes before with Danny, he looked over at the boy. Danny, once he saw Mr. Lancer looking over at him, quickly ducked back down and continued scribbling on his paper.

Of course, Mr. Lancer thought, it wasn't possible for Daniel to have made the drink cold. That was just ridiculous. Maybe he'd just placed it directly under the air conditioning? Lancer glanced upward but the vent was a good foot to his right. Or maybe… Mr. Lancer knew that it often got cold when ghosts were nearby. Maybe there had been a ghost in the room?

It was very strange. But that certainly did not stop Lancer from enjoying his now inexplicably iced caffe Americano.

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Danny grinned to himself, laughing impishly as he left Mr. Lancer's classroom, his detention finally complete.

He'd gotten away with it! He couldn't believe it!

Lancer had had him made with those disappearing injuries and yet the man had practically backtracked on his own memory!

And then, when Danny had all but exposed himself by icing the man's coffee, Lancer hadn't even suspected him!

It was great!

Actually, Danny wasn't sure what had come over him. It had been an impulsive act to chill Mr. Lancer's drink. He didn't usually use his powers so blatantly in front of people—Sam would've given him an earful, definitely—but something mischievous had just come over him.

He'd wanted to test it out. That was what had happened. Lancer had let him off the hook for the super-healing and Danny had wanted to see how far the man would go to ignore the facts before him.

It was something Vlad had said a while ago… Something that had stuck in Danny's mind and that he'd remembered while talking with Mr. Lancer: 'Humans, Daniel, are surprisingly inflexible, and surprisingly imaginative in their inflexibility.' And, though Danny was loathed to admit it, Vlad was right. Lancer would have accepted any 'normal' excuse, no matter how unlikely, rather than consider that his student could have supernatural abilities.

All this time, Danny had been so afraid of exposing his secret when, in reality, people were so patently oblivious that they'd practically do his work for him! As long as they didn't actually see him doing something, their minds would make up their own excuses for him.

Danny slammed open the school doors and jogged down the steps, hopping the last couple nimbly. The sky was cloudy, but it was still light out and the temperature was pleasantly cool.

Hitching his purple backpack higher onto his shoulder, Danny grinned. Finally! Monday was done he could meet up with Sam and Tucker and they'd go back to his house—

"Hey, you. Fenton."

Danny turned. There, slouching at the top of the steps was none other than Spike, his fellow detainee for the afternoon.

"Yeah…Spike?" Danny answered awkwardly—good mood spluttering in the face of this unexpected factor. After all, they didn't really know each other. The only thing Danny knew about the elder teen was that he was a deathrocker: apparently just a touch of goth and just a touch of punk and—to Sam's disdain—not serious enough about either. Whatever that meant. And he was Jazz's old 'project'.

Spike slowly came down the steps, chains jingling and army boots clomping hard with each step. He stopped in front of Danny and looked the shorter boy up and down. Danny, for his part, got a good look at the multitude of chains and skull pendants around the sophomore's neck.

"So…" Danny started, glancing over the peeling black nailpolish on Spike's fingers, the leather bands on his wrists and the silver rings on his fingers. Well… this guy sure put a lot of effort into getting ready in the morning. "Your last name is Williamson?" He looked upward, smirking cheekily into Spike's pierced face.

"Call me that and die." Spike deadpanned, his face utterly expressionless as he looked at Danny through half-lidded eyes.

"Okay, okay, fine." Danny raised his hands, backing off passively. "I'm not looking for a fight."

"No, but you can bring one, can't you?" Spike's eyes suddenly sharpened on Danny, who frowned.

"What d'you mean?"

"You're the one who busted up the quarterback, aren't you?" Spike said.

Danny grimaced, but didn't bother denying it. "Why?" He asked.

"It was good work." And Spike's lips lifted into an impressed smile that made Danny mentally wince. "You look like a shrimp, but you're a ballsy shrimp. Guess you're not just some prissy goody-goody like your sister."

"What about my sister?" Danny demanded, a warning in both his tone and his expression.

Spike scoffed. "Whatever. I'll be seeing you around, ballsy shrimp." Stuffing his painted hands into the deep pockets of his baggy black jeans, pushing his pants even lower on his emaciated hips, he strode forward passed Danny—elbowing the younger teen roughly in the shoulder as he passed by.

Danny puffed a breath of air out of his mouth as he tracked Spike's walk down the pathway out of the school. Well, that wasn'ttoo bad. His good mood wasn't completely shot—

An ominous rumble came from above. A single drop of wet on the tip of his nose was all the warning he got before the sky abruptly opened up and rain came pouring down.

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End Chapter 31

To Be Continued…

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To my reviewers: I was thinking of dedicating a oneshot to my 400th reviewer (around 5000 words). Whoever is number 400 gets to pick a plotline and I will write a oneshot focusing on that idea. The trick is that if you're number 400 then you have to remind me in either the review or a PM in order to collect. What do you think?

To my anonymous reviewers from the last chapter:

Cupcake: Yes, Vlad is certainly acting as though he has everything figured out :D. We have to wonder though, whether he's ACTUALLY got it figured out or whether he's simply very good at bluffing and working off Danny's signals… ;). To answer your question: yup, Tucker did indeed have the Devil's Mark. After Danny saved Sam and Tucker from the museum, and after Danny ineffectually tried to remove Legion's influence from Tucker by tossing him through the Ghost Catcher, Jazz noticed the black spot on Tucker's cheek. Danny recognized it as the same mark he possessed. After that, Maddie was the one to call it the 'Devil's Mark'. Jack, when he saw it, immediately knew that they had to surgically remove the parasite from Tucker's body. Just a little summary. Hope it helped! :) Thanks as always for reviewing!

some random: Oooh… now THERE's an idea (*grin*). But yes, Sam is acting quite odd, isn't she? Hmm… (*whistles innocently*).

LexxWolfe: Hi there! Thank you for reviewing! I'm really happy that you're enjoying the story :D So yes, you're right, this fic does have a significantly darker tone than the show. I always thought the show could've fulfilled so much more of its potential if it had been directed at 'teens' rather than 'kids'… but then, that perky, upbeat quality is what charms us about DP, isn't it? Hopefully I'll be able to keep some of that innocence while still making the story suitably… creepy (evil grin). That was, actually, my original goal with this fic: to make it creepy and suspenseful, hehe. And… thank you again, for all your kind words :) I've been having some trouble working up the motivation to write and they really pushed me to keep going. So… yes, you're awesome :D

REVIEWERS! Jay Rosie, seantriana, Senside, FirestarterX, MidnightResWri, Magic Cabbage, TheAuthorAnonymous, DPfruitloop, supaherolena02, Ribke D'Crazy, Phanfan925, smallvillephantom14, VampireFrootloopsRule, MsFrizzle, MiraKL, dragondancer123, AwesomeMan327, Cupcake, some random, TexasDreamer01, AspergianStoryteller andLexxWolfe!

Adio!