Vladimir adored Danica-Danny, he really did; but neither as a daughter nor as a lover. She was something else - an equal grounding force, a living-moving picture, a tether reminding him to be human. Despite the many times he'd forgotten, lost in an eternal hazy confusion, Danny would always bring him back to the surface, of where she was.
Vladimir was Time's plaything: time and time again his mind was dragged away, his precious attention-span siphoned, as he but a puppet – a vessel out of structured flesh, doomed to Time's teasing decay – but Danny was always waiting in the Middle – far from a Timeline's Beginning and End.
It was important for Danny.
To tell him.
To remind him.
What Vladimir was.
A person?
The idea made him laugh.
But it's what Danny insisted he was.
And so he was.
A thing with blood, meat, and bones; and only two eyeballs.
A human was infested with pesky elusive things called desires and feelings.
It was hard sometimes to remember, what a human-person was, when he sat motionless, seated in a throne-chair atop a dusty, forgotten moon. It had long been stained a wine-red from his meddling. It was a pretty color.
His name was "Vladimir," he reminded himself periodically.
He took a wooden pipe that had always served him well, carved just yesterday out of oak and polished red with ochre. The substance which smoked from his pipe was whatever blend he desired, and today, just as all-tomorrows-of-yesterday, was the petrifying hum-wisp of dried blood blossom.
He adored blood blossom – it was the precarious high of opium instilled with Medusa's glare. The blood blossom smoke didn't let him move, and thus he rendered himself catatonic and was metaphorically severed from his body – overkill to give himself the excuse to daydream – Danny would look for him otherwise – pester him to play a game or some such.
But Vlad just wanted to dream, to think with the freedom of a king.
A book, dusty and leather-bound went unopened on his petrified lap.
For as long as he clicked his teeth, and inhaled against his pipe – Danny would not bother him in his private moon-space. She always hissed, snarled, and feigned away from the bitter-sweet caramel smell of blood blossom.
He didn't understand her disgust and fear.
It was his favorite thing.
Besides her, Danny-Dearest.
He tasted dreams between his lips, and crushed each like candy between his bitter-old yellow teeth.
His free-time was Endless, but always precious. He never forgot the dreams he collected, writing them gently across the squiggles of his mind – his cherished, most private-dairy.
Vlad leaned back into his throne-chair, carved out of cold lunar rock, made soft by the numerous layers of animal furs piled high against Vlad's sweaty, scalding-skin. The throne-chair atop the Moon had been made by Danny once-upon-a-time, but not once in hundreds of decades did Vlad ever see her sit on the damn thing.
So Vlad had decided he'd do the job for her.
Earth was currently rotating in front of him, the surface of the planet shifted from Earth's signature blue-green to an uncomfortable gradient of red-gold before his very eyes. Time ate against the delicate Earth-surface each time Vladimir blinked – his power akin to an Elder God's habit of blinking through time like a movie reel.
But he was small.
Weak.
A tasty morsel.
Compared to such Elder-Ones.
So it was a slow reel.
But Vlad still watched in fascination as the surface of Earth changed, the view as soothing and splendid as a campfire after a long day's work.
Across the Earth's surface, Vladimir saw as how the Sahara desert expanded and contracted, the view as striking and unsavory as a banana slimemold. Time fluctuated at the speed of millions of years each time Vladimir saw fit. He could open his eyes and gaze upon dinosaurs, and the next, he could see a land as dry and dull as Mars.
He was god of Past and Future, but never the Present. Danny would fetch him for such duties.
But today, that moment, felt different. The Earth's surface ceased turning at a blur.
His dream was interrupted.
Vladimir spotted Danny on planet Earth's surface. She had chambered herself inside a log cabin – a paranoid woodland princess she was; yet she still found dreams of her own atop her prized, icy mountain peak – one of the tallest on the planet.
Then he came to a realization as he mused on Danny
He spotted the Present for once without Danny beside him, and he choked in surprise.
Vladimir's pipe fell from his lips, and his unread book fell onto the Moon's surface. For once he wasn't going to waste his chance to be in the Present and so he raked towards the light.
Whatever was calling to him was not Danny, across the suffocating ink of space the message was a desperate flashing beacon of green, which resembled the nostalgic laser-signals of alien civilizations. Vlad had not seen one for a very long time.
A green portal of ectoplasm ripped open, right in front of him.
'That's my cue, to be an actor, in this dull play.'
But wherever that thought came from, Vlad did not remember.
The chime was a cascade.
The bell did not stop ringing.
The gears on the walls hissed and clicked like a bad omen.
Clockwork was holding a hand outward towards the massive brass bell, as if calming an alarmed animal.
And perhaps he was.
"They're here," he said to still-air, in a voice sounding too alive and present for a ghost.
The bell ceased ringing and was supernaturally still, something unseen gripping it tight.
Danielle's eyes were wide with fear, not helped at all by Desiree pacing back and forth behind her, her tail lashing, puffed and raised with fear.
It was hard to scare a ghost, yet all three within the tower seemed anything but calm. Clockwork held no weapon in his hands, his staff conspicuously absent, so he crossed his arms with head bowed, deep in thought.
Dani wanted to ask what was going on.
Why had the ringing started?
Why had the ringing stopped?
Who was here?
Her bleeding palms stung, unable to keep her hands from becoming fists, clenching the wounds in a hot lucid pain.
She refused to cry, feeling sweat and tears mingle as they dribbled down her chin – evaporating into the no-air chill of Clockwork's tower. Whipping her forehead, she felt her skin become slick with her own blood.
That's when she was noticed.
She felt hands on her shoulder, a reassuring bliss spread across her hiccupping breath.
"Desiree, w-what's going on? Who's here?"
'I feel sick,' she wanted to say.
Instead she collapsed to her knees and felt white-grey rings stretch across her waist.
She blinked and was human, flesh and bone.
She blamed her weakness on the blood dripping from her palms.
But it was hard to breath.
To her surprise Desiree bent down and picked her up.
"Clockwork said there was a chance you'd have to leave. It is a very powerful wish."
Clockwork sighed, from a place Dani could not see from the crook of Desiree's arm.
There was a shuffle, and a noise, and the familiar hum of a portal manifested in front of Desiree
"You two go, I have to deal with this. Desiree take her to the location discussed, and wait."
Desiree moved with haste and carried Dani through the portal – it was a bad predicament if Clockwork told her to wait.
She had to go back.
Danielle was placed onto a park bench next to Amity Park's Nasty Burger, and she could only watch as Desiree slipped back through the portal into the Ghost Zone.
And she was left alone.
With a dagger in her pocket
Curiously, stained with her own blood.
Vlad should've been finished chopping wood hours ago.
Vlad's favorite steel axe was missing from the cabin door.
Danica-Danny had lingered outside to spot him, but had been disappointed. She kicked up a pair of muddy boots against a dusty kitchen table.
"Unless he stole an orchard again," Danny mused.
It wasn't the most outlandish idea. Vlad was a "do everything or do nothing," man – he never put half-effort into anything, especially the mundane.
It was nearing the end of winter and the harsh coating of snow was melting. It was also the perfect time to steal trees, when their roots would thaw – no one noticed when a hibernating skeleton of branches went missing, even if it would produce fruit come its season. Danny's eyes wandered to a pantry shelf, stocked with nothing but empty canning jars. Though she loved the cold and snow, she couldn't wait to fill up the cabin with harvested provisions again. A necklace of seeds hung nostalgically from her neck.
She tossed a dented, can of sardines between her hands, debating if she was hungry enough to open it. It had been forgotten all season, having fallen underneath a floorboard – nothing like a hearty case of botulism to appreciate already being dead.
There was nothing to see out the windows of frosty glass – a blizzard raged outside and Vlad was not back yet. He did not tolerate snow like Danny did, but he still chose to live with her on a mountain peak, to build a wood cabin, and to insist on chopping wood, to heat the little hearth he loved in the corner so much. He loved it so so so much. Danny never dared to ask why. And Vlad didn't ask Danny too many questions either.
It was better that way – safer that way.
And with Vlad, it was simply more comfortable to be around him if she didn't ask too many questions – didn't make him think too hard – didn't make him linger on his motives. He was a dangerous, angry and crazy man who liked to skin too-many-animals and to chop wood for hours.
Yes, it was safer if she didn't ask questions. Apart of Danny always laughed when she thought of it, how she shared a cabin with an occasional "homicidal" killer; she was already dead. Why bother to worry?
She looked at the little hearth, which should've been lit hours ago. She thought of lighting it, to have it ready for Vlad, even if it made her uncomfortable. But only a scattering of twigs and tinder remained, and Danny was filled with an intuitive sense of dread.
Not for Vlad.
Not because their wasn't enough wood to light a fire.
Not because she only had a suspect can of sardines to eat.
But because something lingered on her doorstep.
And it was not Vlad.
A rough knock, and the cabin squirmed and narrowed, as if the sturdy wooden walls had morphed into fudge. It wouldn't've been the strangest thing to happen. The floorboards felt moldy and wet, sticky against her feet, like a pool of melted chocolate.
Knock Knock
Such a simple sound instilled so much fear.
She licked her teeth, icy paranoia steeled her skittish temper. Cold clammy hands reached for a small, steel hatchet, the blade held awkwardly away from her petite figure. Likely it was just a ghost – the creatures never did stop bothering her the day after she died – like a gaggle of eternal solicitors intent on haunting her shadow.
Regardless, she certainty was afraid of whatever could track her at such a high elevation.
'The Guys in White?' her mind offered. The cabin windows offered only blizzard to see, and Danny smiled. Guys in White, indeed.
"Best get it over with," she muttered. She took a moment longer to prepare, slipping on a thick grey wolf coat Vlad had made her for 'better than nothing,' protection.
She stalled to gather any clues to see what she was dealing with. She smelled ozone and copper. 'Maybe, it's really just a ghost.'
The cabin door swung open and Danny's heart sunk, eyes registering the situation with quick, icy clarity.
"Your majesty, I humbly request an audience." The figure was draped in a rippling shadow, tinted with the barest reflection of the darkest purple. Two beady red eyes, packed with ire, with sockets dug too deeply like bleeding scabs – peered up at her from a hood, smiling with teeth too small for the massive hunched figure of blue skin. The cloak it was hiding under, stretched further into the snow, far away from her doorstep, as if the being was tethered by an infinite string. Danny imagined underneath, the cloak was hiding a massive centipede, of endless stabbing legs and screams, topped with mandible-blades of caked filth and rust.
It was rare for her to meet a ghost; especially a new one she hadn't seen at all – rarer still was to meet a ghost who insisted on addressing her as royalty.
It happened occasionally, the title of "Ghost Queen," given to her with no rhyme or reason – it felt like a mockery and each time signaled a bad omen – a very, very bad day.
"I'm sorry, but that would be today."
Danny couldn't find her words, her mouth felt frozen, as if an invisible clamp had melded her teeth together.
"Just listen, is all I ask, Your Majesty." A bellowing gust of controlled wind blew a portion of the cloak open, revealing the figure to have bowed down to his scalp, pressing into the snow and wooden stairs – there was a coiled white beard which made him appear human in skin pressed too tightly against his bones. In his hands he revealed a shimmering cog-medallion of black and gold metal, with teal runes etching an interlocking "C & W." Paying the necklace no mind, as if under a spell, she was surprised to see the man had normal hands, rather than tentacles or dagger-claws.
"I come bearing the most precious of gifts – a child for you and Vlad." Danny couldn't even twitch her fingers or axe – her entire body was frozen, delicate like a figure of glass. She could only watch, blink, as the figure deposited a weaved basket at her feet. She could only speculate as to what monstrosity squirmed inside – she could not look down.
"This necklace will take you to where you need to be."
The figure stepped back, looking to be a tired old man, and at the same time not.
"All your questions will be revealed in time."
The all too normal hands, with fingertips that stretched and cracked, fitted the medallion around her neck – it squeezed tight like a choking cord.
"For now, enjoy the ride, Banshee Queen. "
Danny barely heard the words uttered, her ears occupied by her scream. She was dragged under by unseen mechanisms licking at her feet, fingernails and axe hooked uselessly against mushy floorboards.
Something was scratching, chewing on her legs, and she couldn't turn around to see what – she was drowning in her own sweaty skin, the floor sunk further – kicking deeper, sliding into a basement of termite-infested mud.
A glowing portal opened underneath her, a toxic drooling maw with unwelcoming, spooling fangs. Not a single, scattered thought remained coherent in Danny's head as reality distorted and she tasted the bleeding marrow of her own skull – each particle unwinding, each pushing away from the other in mutual, confused disgust.
A splatter of tortured ectoplasm scorched Clockwork's pristine cloak.