The Samhain Chronicles: Ch. 10

Danny's palms began to sweat as he stood before the mystery woman, his eyes darting back and forth between her and Penelope struggling in her grip. "I don't know who you are," Penelope grunted, "and I don't care! Daniel is not going with you, and that's-" Her eyes widened as she trailed off abruptly with a choking gasp. The woman's arm had pressed tighter to her throat, cutting off her defiant chirps.

"Not now, Sweet Thing," the woman shushed her mockingly, "Mummy and Daddy are talking." Danny curled his hands into fists, growing more angry and alarmed by the moment as Penelope's face started changing in hue from a deep pink to a sickly purple.

"Stop it," he demanded, "Ye have me, so let her go!! Please, she can't breathe!!"

The woman pursed her lips in thought then gave a decisive nod, "So ye do care for her, then. I must say I'm disappointed in ye, Danny; truly, your standards have lowered since last we met." Penelope gagged silently, her eyes slowly starting to roll back, as she tugged at the woman's arm in a futile attempt to break her inhumanly strong grip. The red head then sighed and moved the Daringer away with a flick of her wrist, stroking Penelope's cheek with her fingernails, "Don't worry, she won't die. Not yet, anyway. It's a fool who disposes of such a valuable bargaining chip." In a single fluid moment she tossed the pistol onto Danny's bed and whirled Penelope around, then - to Danny's horror - sank her teeth into the side of the smaller woman's neck.

"What are ye doing?!" He shouted, then stared in awe as a purplish-black aura began to surround the two women. Penelope's mouth dropped open in a silent scream when the woman bit her, then within a few seconds her face grew exceedingly pale and gaunt. Her eyes closed and she sagged in the redhead's arms with a moan, then the strange woman instantly ceased her savage gnawing on Penelope's flesh. To Danny's relief and confusion, there was no visible wound there on the smaller woman's thin, ghostly white neck, just a bit of faint bruising from the redhead's teeth. The mysterious woman licked her lips with a satisfied hum and released Penelope, letting her slump to the floor like a rag doll.

"Mmm... What an exquisite little morsel," she giggled, "I see now why ye like her. Not much to look at, but her energy is absolutely delicious!"

In a brief moment of heroism (or perhaps stupidity), Danny grabbed the pistol off the bed and dove to the floor, scooping Penelope's limp form into his arms. She was still breathing, albeit barely, and her skin was as cold as ice to the touch. He could feel her pulse fluttering faintly under her skin, every other beat wavering or skipping altogether. Overcome by fear, anger and grief, Danny aimed the pistol at the redhead shakily, trying to seem threatening, "W-What did ye do to her?! If she dies, I swear-"

The redhead waved him off nonchalantly, completely ignoring the firearm pointed at her, and lounged on the bed with her long legs crossed, "She'll live. Lucky for ye, she has such a strong spirit, and lucky for her, I wasn't actually all that hungry. Besides, with her dead there's no telling where ye might run off to next. Think of it as the old carrot and the stick routine."

Danny shook as he gripped the cold metal pistol in his hand, but he couldn't bring himself to pull the trigger. This was the first time he had ever held a firearm in his life to tell the truth, and he honestly didn't have it in him to use it, even on a woman as cruel and vile as the one on his bed. "She's innocent," he growled, dropping the pistol at last as his skin began to prickle and burn with his growing anger, "She doesnae e'en have anything to do with this! Have ye no regard for life at all?! Where... Where is your humanity?!?"

The woman stood and scooped up the pistol again, humming pensively as she tucked it away into the small handbag hanging from her wrist. "Humanity," she repeated, tasting every syllable thoroughly as she tapped her chin, "Hm... ye know, the funny thing about that?" She cracked her neck with a soft groan, and a pair of curved onyx horns sprouted from her temples. As the twin black spires curled backward over her skull she stretched her back; a long, barbed tail snaked out from underneath the hem of her dress, and with a series of sickening cracks and pops a set of enormous red, leathery bat wings emerged from her back. "In order to have 'humanity'..." she grinned, showing off her teeth as they grew into razor sharp points, "...ye really need to be human first."

Danny sat there quaking in absolute horror and disbelief at the creature standing before him. She was still incredibly beautiful, yet at the same time grotesquely repulsive to look upon. The mere sight of her churned his stomach and made his skin itch and burn, and the longer he looked upon her the more he deeply despised every part of her being. She radiated a suffocatingly dark aura as she stepped forward, which threatened to overwhelm his senses completely. He recoiled in fear and disgust, keeping Penelope cradled close to his breast. "K-Keep away," he shouted, "Not a step closer!! Don't ye dare touch her!!" He vaulted over the bed, trying to keep as much distance between them and her within the cramped confines of his apartment, but there was really nowhere to go to get away from her. He pressed his back to the corner, groaning as his flesh began to burn from the inside out. The woman stopped in her tracks at the sight of him, doubled over in agony over Penelope's unconscious form, then gave him a pitying look.

"It hurts," she cooed, "I know. If ye come with me, I can take away the pain forever. Don't ye want that, Danny Dearest?" She bent forward at the waist and offered her hand to him, her cerulean eyes almost glowing with a warm, hypnotic light. "Come with me, Daniel," she purred softly, "come with me now...and all your pain and trouble will end. Ye have my word." For the briefest of moments, he almost believed her; he was in terrible pain, and he wanted her to take it from him desperately.

He found himself reaching for her hand, but at the last moment her horns and wings came back into focus. He shook his head as he yanked his hand back, breaking her spell, and closed his eyes tightly with a scream: "I said KEEP AWAY!!!!" As the bellow left his throat, a brilliant golden light filled the room. The creature before him hissed and screeched in agony, and when he opened his eyes he saw the light was radiating from his scars. He staggered to his full height with Penelope cradled in his arms bridal style as the creature cowered in the opposite corner, covering her face and clawing at the air.

"Nooo!!" she howled, "It burns!! IT BURNS!!!" In retrospect, what Danny did next was most incredibly foolish, but he acted in the moment without fully considering the logistics or consequences of his actions. While the creature was still writhing on the floor in agony, he dashed to the balcony doors and threw them open wide. Without hesitation, he then climbed to the top of the railing and took a swan dive off the fifth floor balcony. His majestic wings popped into existence all on their own and flapped open wide, catching him at a moment's notice and propelling him forward and upwards into the velvety night sky. He looked down at the courtyard with a nervous chuckle as his wings gave a little wobble in mid-flight. He honestly had no idea how they worked, but he trusted that they knew what to do to keep him aloft, and in turn tried not to think about it too much.

Suddenly from behind him he heard a loud "pop", and felt a sharp, intense ache in his side. His wings floundered a little from the shock of the mysterious pain, but once they stabilized he glanced back over his shoulder. The red haired woman was standing on the balcony, her hair loose and her skin looking severely sunburnt but with a smile on her face. In her hand she held her small pistol, from the barrel of which a small wisp of smoke curled. With a groan, he examined his aching right side and nearly plummeted to the earth in a dead faint. A crimson blossom was spreading across his oblique, staining his shirt from ribs to hip bone alarmingly fast.

He sucked air through his teeth and adjusted his grip on Penelope as he flew, both to keep from getting blood on her and so that he could apply pressure to the wound with his hand. After flying like that for a few minutes over the city, his wings began to wobble and flutter dangerously. He realized then that even if he hadn't been injured, the brilliant light he'd summoned had sapped all his strength and he wouldn't remain airborne for much longer. "Help," he muttered weakly, his vision starting to go in and out of focus, "I need help..." As he scanned the rooflines, looking for a safe place to land, he spotted the roof of Dr. Horace's Victorian home in the distance. He turned his wings into a banking glide to change direction, focusing on the house with all his might.

The stately old house looked completely dark and quiet like most of the other houses on the street the closer he flew to it, save for a single light burning in the upstairs study. Unable to stay in the air any longer, he crash landed onto the widow's walk outside the study a second later. As he lay sprawled on the small balcony, moaning loudly for help, the floor to ceiling windows opened and the old therapist stepped out. "Danny?!" He gasped, tying the sash of his robe in utter shock and confusion, "What in blazes-?!"

Danny held onto his injured side, gasping and trying with all his remaining willpower not to cry, as he clutched Penelope desperately to his chest with the other. "D-Dr. Horace..." he mumbled, "...help..." When Dr. Horace crouched down over him, his vision slowly tunneled inward and everything faded at once to black.

The light from the early morning sun kissed his cheek playfully, awakening him from his deep slumber. He thought for a moment the events of the last few nights had all been part of a hyper-realistic fever dream, but there were two very obvious signs that what had happened was frighteningly real. First was the set of gauze patches taped to the front and back of his right side in the neighborhood of his kidney; secondly were his wings - still firmly attached to his back - tucked neatly around his body like a form-fitting sleeping bag. Cautiously he touched one of the dazzling appendages, just to make sure it was real, and marvelled at how they glittered in the sunlight and cast rainbows all around the room.

"They really are something, I must admit," a friendly voice chuckled off to his left, making Danny turn toward the sound with a start. Dr. Horace smiled from the easy chair against the wall and stood, stroking his whitening auburn beard pensively, "Sorry, my Lad. Didn't mean to frighten you. Do you mind if I-...?" Danny looked down at his wings and shook his head, groaning as he sat up off the couch he'd been reclining on. Dr. Horace breathed a sigh of awe as he reached out a hand and gently stroked the crystalline feathers, "Extraordinary... They seem so fragile, and yet at the same time stronger than steel. I have never seen their equal in all my years." He ran his fingertip along one of the edges of Danny's longer feathers, then suddenly yanked his hand back with a hiss, "Ah! How careless of me; I should have guessed they'd be sharp."

Danny sat there a moment, still gathering his wits and brushing away the cobwebs left behind by sleep, as he unfurled his wings a little more. As they folded up neatly against his back, he found they were surprisingly warm against his scarred skin. He wet his lips as he looked up at his trusted friend and therapist, "Dr. Horace... is this...? I mean... A-Are they...real?"

Dr. Horace nodded as he sucked on his injured forefinger, "They seem quite real to me, Daniel. Remind me to offer my apologies to Miss Whitehall later, for not believing her...and, to you too, of course."

Lightning struck Danny's brain as he was reminded that he hadn't flown to Dr. Horace's alone, and he began looking around the study for her. To his dismay and deep alarm, the cozy, dark-paneled room seemed only to contain himself and Dr. Horace. "Penelope," he called out, grunting as he heaved himself off the couch, "P-Penelope... Where are ye?!"

When he swooned where he stood, Dr. Horace gripped the younger, taller man around the waist to steady him. "Easy, Lad," he chided, "I put her downstairs in the spare bedroom. She's in bad shape, but resting comfortably for now. You may see her later, when she awakes." He helped Danny sit back down on the couch and pulled a small patchwork throw blanket off the back, wrapping him in it as he had many, many times in the past. Danny appreciated the gesture and would have liked to lie on the couch all day, but his instincts - which he'd started to trust implicitly - told him that doing so was a luxury he could not afford. He tossed the blanket off and held the arm of the low, sage-colored couch, preparing to stand again, but the searing pain in his side prevented him from doing so. His other hand magnetized to the bandage on his abdomen as he breathed through gritted teeth, and a groan left his throat when he felt a small wet patch beginning to seep through it.

"There now, look what you've done," Dr. Horace tusked, shaking his head as he reached for the first aid kit on the coffee table, "It took forever to get the bleeding stopped in the first place. Just lie still, Danny, and relax. You must take it easy and allow yourself to heal, recover your strength." He snapped on a clean pair of latex gloves and gently peeled the front bandage off, revealing a small puncture wound about the diameter of a pencil eraser. "I may not be a medical doctor," the aging therapist sighed, "...but I believe I can recognize a gunshot when I see it. You're lucky, though, if you ask me; the bullet looks to have been small, and based on the matching wound on your back I'd say it was a clean through-and-through. I imagine it stings quite a bit, however." His vibrant emerald eyes studied Danny's face with deep, almost fatherly concern, "The only thing I cannot fathom is who would be shooting at you...and why. Daniel, what kind of trouble have you gotten yourself into? I heard about the incident at the school yesterday morning. Was this related, in any way?"

"Yes," Danny nodded, gripping the arm of the couch tighter as Dr. Horace dabbed at the wound with a bit of cotton wool dipped in iodine, "...b-but it was different. There was a woman...who wasn't a woman...but a monster! She...h-had horns, and-..." He suddenly pushed Dr. Horace's hand away with a cry of pain, pressing his palm against the wound directly.

Dr. Horace frowned at his patient, "Daniel, please! I know it hurts, but stop acting like a child. I have to clean it first, so that it doesn't become infected! Come on now, don't fuss."

Danny closed his eyes, ignoring the therapist's command. He knew Dr. Horace was right, of course, but the pain took away all his sense of logic. He was hurting, and he just wanted the hurt to stop. While he was still focusing on that thought, he slowly began to realize that the pain was actually going away. Curiously, he opened his eyes and looked down, astonished by what he saw. His hand had begun to glow with a soft blue light, removing the pain and replacing it with a cool, tingling sensation throughout his injured flesh. When he realized he could feel the torn tissue knitting itself back together, he pulled his hand away with a gasp. To both his and Dr. Horace's ultimate shock, they witnessed the wound close up right before their eyes, leaving nothing but a tiny, pink circular scar behind.

Dr. Horace cleaned away the last traces of dried blood clinging to Danny's skin, then removed his glove to touch the scar bare-handed. "Incredible," he murmured, "Daniel, that is utterly remarkable! You certainly are full of surprises, my young friend!" Danny rubbed his temple, feeling a mild but unexpected dip in his energy as the wound on his back closed up a moment later. The slight dizzy feeling passed quickly though and he stood, peeling the bandage off his back as he did so.

"I have to see to Penelope," he announced, taking a few wobbly steps toward the door. Dr. Horace, again, steadied him, but didn't make him sit down again.

He smiled proudly up at Danny and patted his shoulder with a chuckle, "I feel I owe you a great, sincere apology, My Boy. All these years, I thought you were an exceptional young man..." he gently stroked one of Danny's wings again reverently, "...but never, in my wildest imaginings did I expect this. You, Daniel, are far more special than I could ever have imagined. Think of the raw potential - the power - you possess! Why, you could change the world as we know it forever!"

Danny pulled away from Dr. Horace, still trying to wrap his head around what just happened and the events of the night before. "I don't want to change the world," he snapped, "and I certainly have no desire to be special in any regard!! All I wish is to live in peace, with the woman I care for most!" He started pacing in agitation, knocking over furniture and knicknacks with his wings that fluttered and flapped in reckless abandon, "I'm not e'en sure if all this is really happening! First the Phantom speaks to me face to face, then the business with Kane and my... m-my wings... and that hideous creature-! Dr. Horace, I think I may be experiencing a severe psychotic break!"

Dr. Horace ducked under one of Danny's wings to keep his face from getting sliced, then caught a Ming vase as it was bumped off one of the end tables, "Daniel, calm down, for pity's sake!" Once he had the vase tucked safely in his armchair, he grabbed Danny by the biceps and pulled him around into a warm embrace. "I'm sorry," he murmured, petting Danny's back gently to soothe him, "It was never my intent to upset you so. What you have experienced are clearly not delusions, Daniel...that, I believe for certain. I haven't the foggiest what they are, but it's clear that you are not insane." He pulled back to smile sheepishly up at his patient's face, "You must forgive my overexuberance. It's not every day that an honest-to-God angel crash lands on one's balcony."

Danny's throat tightened at the thought, and he sank down onto the edge of Dr. Horace's desk. "An... An angel?" he whispered, "No... No, that cannae possibly be so. I don't...feel like an angel. Not even a little. But it's clear that I'm not exactly human either!" He looked over at Dr. Horace, tears brimming in his eyes, desperate for some sort of explaination, "Dr. Horace... If I am...wh-what ye say I am...then why was I made to suffer so?" He looked at the scars on his bare torso, tracing the ones on his left forearm with a trembling hand, "What horrible offense could I have committed - as a mere child - that warrants a punishment of this caliber?! Surely, a truly benevolent God, if He exists, would never have allowed-..." When Danny trailed off, swallowing back a sob, Dr. Horace wrapped his arms around his patient with a heavy sigh, allowing Danny to sniffle quietly into his shoulder.

"The answers you seek, Danny, I am ill-equipped to give," he said somberly, "but what I do know - what I've always known - is that you are exactly what you were always meant to be."

Danny sniffed and rested his cheek on the therapist's shoulder tip, "I am? What... What is that, then?"

Dr. Horace pulled back with a smile and dried Danny's face with his handkerchief, "To me? Hope, light and joy made flesh. Your past is a tragic yet-to-be-solved mystery, my Dear Boy, but at the very least it brought you to me... and ever since the day we met, you have been every bit the son I always craved but could never have for myself. Does that answer your question?"

Danny managed a little smile as his wings faded away, feeling at once calm and sure of himself again, "Aye...it does." He hugged the older man tight enough to break bone as a warmth began spreading through him, "Thank ye... Da'..."