Fic: The Adamant Blade (Chapter Three)
Steve stared up into the darkness and wished he could sleep. Danny was in the bed across the room, sacked out and snoring the snores of the exhausted. But Steve's brain wouldn't stop whirring. He was bone tired too, but so much had happened since yesterday, or possibly the day before depending on the time, and he needed to process it. He just wished his brain would process it in the morning.
He thought he'd mostly dealt with the whole ghost thing because it was kind of easy to get his head around, although there was no way to be sure until he saw Danny interact with one. He'd seen his own dad, after all, and accepting ghosts were real was a lot simpler than admitting he might have been hallucinating at the time. If it was just about ghosts, he thought he'd probably be asleep by now. But it was so much more.
Once Mellet had left, Steve had expected Danny to dismiss the idea of Jersey Devils, even though the notebook was obviously Heather's. Instead, Danny had buried himself in the journal and it was up to the massed ranks of the Williams clan to fill him in on a few truths.
Ghosts and vague premonitions were just the tip of the iceberg, Danny's mom had explained, as he sipped a beer and she drank her nightly glass of red wine. To give her credit, she'd tried to ease him into it gently, but there was only so much beating around the bush you could do until you had to say the words no sane person should have to hear.
Magic was real and Danny was pretty damn good at using it.
It still made no sense, really, not when he tried to fit it into the things he knew about Danny. His partner was a down to earth, skeptical kind of guy, who rolled his eyes at the mention of religion or any kind of belief. And yet, according to his own mother, he was one of the most gifted wizards in the world. She hadn't used the word wizard, explaining that even before Harry Potter, practitioner was the word chosen by those in the know. Unsurprisingly, the world J.K. Rowling described wasn’t an accurate representation of real magic, and was a bit of a sore spot with Danny, as Grace loved the movies. Steve filed that away for later, and tried to assimilate everything Mrs Williams was telling him.
Magic was real, so were things that could be summoned, even if everyone was pretty sure they weren't really demons in the fallen angel sense. Spells weren't a single shouted phrase, instead they were complex things that had to be learned over many years, and then built and shaped from the power a practitioner could pull from within themselves. Really big spells, major works Mrs Williams had called them, required a lot of time to form before they were cast. This made them kind of hard to use in the spontaneous situations that he and Danny usually operated in.
Vampires, werewolves, elves, trolls and practically every other kind of supernatural creature he'd heard of, didn't exist, at least not in the form described in books and movies. 'Most of the stories come from idiots doing something stupid and the magic turning on them,' she'd told him, her face reflecting just what she thought of people who fooled around with things they didn't understand and couldn't control. He shuddered at the idea of what could go so wrong that it made people believe in werewolves.
There was a kind of magical network that policed the 'weird shit' as Mr Williams called it, much to the displeasure of his wife. Danny had dealt with his fair share, but preferred to focus on his normal police work. Heather, meanwhile, had thrown herself fully into the stranger side of things, opening her psychic detective agency. Bethan and Matt took after their father, and hadn't inherited the abilities from their mother. But even they had acted as willing volunteers when they could, facing down some pretty frightening stuff alongside their siblings and friends.
Once Mrs Williams had explained how everything worked, how much planning was needed to do pretty much anything magical, Steve felt some of the residual anger at Danny for not using all his skills on the job fade. Steve hadn't mentioned seeing his dad's ghost to anyone, especially Danny, because he didn't want either the sympathy or the mocking. So he certainly understood why Danny hadn't told anyone about it while using as much magic as he could.
“Will you quit thinking,” Danny said from across the room, his voice muffled and sleepy. “I can hear your cogs turning from over here.”
“Sorry,” Steve said, even though he knew he'd done nothing to wake his partner. “Jetlag, I guess.”
“Right,” Danny scoffed, rolling over to face Steve. “And finding out the world's full of weird shit is nothing to do with it?”
“May be just a little,” Steve admitted with a quiet laugh. Danny could always see through him, even if this time it was pretty obvious.
“It's been a lot to take in,” Danny said, leaning up and resting on his elbow. “And I know you're a super special SEAL, able to leap tall tales in a single bound, but you've got to have some questions.”
Steve did have questions, that was true, but they needed to sleep. Tomorrow they were going to see the medium called Marie, over in Brooklyn. Danny thought she'd be able to help, especially now he'd worked through the journal. “You can answer them in the morning.”
“In the morning?” Danny asked, clearly amused by Steve's suggestion. “And in the mean time I have to lie here and smell your circuits burning? I don’t think so, babe. How about I answer your top three questions now? Then you can turn off your brain and get some sleep.”
“I'm fine,” he argued, even though he wished he could stop his mind racing. “I've worked on less sleep.”
“I know. You're superman,” Danny said fondly, and Steve could see his smile in the dim light that seeped in around the edge of the curtains. “But humor me here.”
Steve knew he would never win the argument, no matter how tired Danny was, because the other man had decided Steve needed fixing and he never once let that go. Trying to sort out all the things he wanted to know, he put them in order. There were huge gaps to fill, and he knew once he got some answers, there’d be even more questions. So he tried to find three, easy to answer things he could ask.
“Is the Jersey Devil real?” he asked, because it seemed the most relevant. Possibly.
“No,” Danny said with more finality than Steve expected. “Not like all the legends anyway. Deborah Leeds did not give birth to a devil, although from what I understand, more than one of her brood was the sort of child the gang intervention unit would be interested in these days.”
“How do you know that?”'
“Is that your next question? Cos it's kind of dumb?
“No!” Steve snapped, because he wanted to know, but it wasn't going to keep him awake if he didn’t get an answer right now. “This is like getting three wishes. I'm trying not to wish for a Longboard or a smaller nose or something.”
“You wish you had a smaller nose?” Danny asked, sounding genuinely baffled.
“No, but that’s the sort of stupid thing people wish for by accident, isn't it? In fairly tales.”
“Your brain is a very strange place,” Danny said, sounding like he was genuinely surprised by the fact, despite regularly pointing it out to Steve.
“If it's not the Jersey Devil, what's Heather been investigating?” Steve asked, not rising to Danny's bait, even though he would have enjoyed the argument that would have followed. Danny needed sleep and he wasn't going to keep him awake longer than he had to.
“You talked to my ma, right?” Danny asked, shifting in the bed so he could sit up and move his arms. “And she told you about summoning demons?”
“Yeah,” Steve said, propping himself up on his elbow.
“Well, it's a demon,” Danny said, like that should answer all Steve's questions.
“But what are demons?” he had to ask, because just calling something a demon didn't really help at all. All he knew about demons could be written on the back of a postcard and it was all wrong according to what Mrs Williams had told him.
“Is that your third question?”
“If it has to be,” Steve said, more than a little frustrated by his lack of knowledge.
“Babe, you're such a goof,” Danny said with a grin, and Steve couldn't help but grin back. “Demons are things that live in dimensions outside ours. Don't ask me about the physics of why these dimensions exist, because I was never that hot at math, and I have no idea if even Stephen Hawking knows how demon dimensions work.”
“You think he knows they exist?” Steve asked, wondering suddenly if the government knew about the existence of demons, magic and ghosts. “Maybe it's why we can't come up with a grand unifying theory. Because everyone's trying to ignore demon dimensions.”
“Nerd,” Danny said, pretending to disguise it as a cough.
“Yeah, that's me,” Steve agreed, with a grin. “President of the chess club, living in fear of getting swirlies from the jocks.”
“If we come up against a demon, please don't try to study it,” Danny said, suddenly serious again. “In fact, I need you to promise me that you'll avoid contact with any demon, or anything else we have the misfortune to come across.”
“You think I'm just going to stand back if you're in danger?” Steve asked, almost amused that Danny thought he could keep him in the background. “You told me to not go off on my own, that my problems were your problems. You think it doesn't work the other way?”
“This isn't an international terrorist,” Danny said, turning to face him. “This isn't anything you have any training for. At all.”
“I know that, Danny.” Steve sat up too, because arguing about the big things in life shouldn't be done lying down. “But there's just no way that I'll be able to back off and let you deal with things on your own.”
“But...”
“And you wouldn't be able to either, if the roles were reversed.”
Danny sighed, settling back down in the bed. “Yeah, you're right. Just promise me you'll try to follow my instructions. I know you ignore me about police procedure, because you think you know better, but for this, you have to listen to me because you have zero experience about this.”
“Yeah, okay,” Steve agreed, also sliding back down the bed. “And I don't ignore you, I just disagree and don't have a chance to tell you because you never shut up long enough.”
“You're such a comedian,” Danny grumbled, snuggling back down in the bed and pulling the covers up over his shoulders. “Ask your third question.”
“I thought that was my last one,” Steve said, trying to decide what his final question of the night should be now he had another chance. Before he was going to be any use to Danny, he needed to know so much more. But all the questions he could think of were so broad he'd end up keeping them both awake until dawn.
“Come on, before I fall asleep again.”
“I don't know what to ask,” he said, hoping he didn't sound as whiny as he felt. “I don’t know what I don't know.”
“I'm sorry to dump all this on you,” Danny said, sounding so contrite Steve seriously thought about getting out of bed and hugging him. Before he could move though, his partner carried on. “Shall I tell you a story instead? One that's classified, as it were?”
“Yeah,” Steve agreed, settling himself down in the bed. He'd heard Danny telling Grace stories, seemingly plucking them out of the air, and weaving a whole world of magic and kick-ass princesses for her to inhabit. The idea of Danny spinning him a tale, even if it was based on a reality unlike the ones he told Grace, felt like the best gift anyone could give him. Realizing he was feeling a little needy, Steve decided he was going to let himself have this one, given that his whole world view had been pretty much destroyed in the past day.
“Okay,” Danny said, settling himself in the bed, staring up at the ceiling. Steve rolled on his side, watching his partner summon up the story. “So, there's loads of things I could tell you, and one day I probably will, but this one's going to be educational, like all good fairy tales at bedtime.”
“They're educational?” Steve asked, wondering what Rapunzel or Snow White were really trying to teach him.
“Yes, at least the original ones were,” Danny said, rolling over a little and facing Steve. “They were supposed to teach people not to mess with magic, or magical creatures, but most of them seem to have turned into telling little girls to be pretty and wait to be rescued. I try to make sure Grace gets some stories with a little bit more Buffy and less Disney.”
“I liked Brave,” Steve admitted, remembering the evening he'd spent on the sofa with Danny, Grace sandwiched between them.
“Yeah.” Danny grinned at him, obviously thinking back to the same evening. “Grace loved it too, that you watched it with her. You know, despite being a mad, oo-rah nutcase, you're pretty good about not treating women as helpless.”
“You've met Kono, right?” Steve laughed, but he was glad Danny thought he was trying his best. The military wasn't necessarily the best place to learn, and he wasn't sure his dad would have been as accommodating as he tried to be.
“Yeah,” Danny agreed with a yawn. “Can you imagine how much she'd kick you in the head if you tried to treat her like a princess?”
“So, story,” Steve said, not wanting to keep Danny awake longer than he had to.
“Yeah, okay,” Danny agreed. “Back before Rachel, I worked a lot of night shifts. And I mean a lot. I didn't mind trading shifts with pretty much anyone who asked, especially if they had kids. I liked being out at night, because demons and the people who want to summon them like a good cliche, and are more active at night.”
“I didn't actively go out looking for the stuff, still don't, but I can't ignore it if I see it. Downtown at night is mostly idiot drunks, minor assaults, robberies and small drug busts. The big stuff was handled by the task force, so us beat cops had time to get to know a few of the regulars, especially the homeless ones. Newark in winter isn't somewhere you choose to live on the streets.
Anyway, I started noticing they were disappearing. I didn't think anything of it at first. They come and go, get into a shelter, try to get clean, die, move away, you know? But they kept not being there and the ones who were left started whispering stories about things that came in the night and stole people.”
“A demon?” Steve asked.
“I didn't know for sure,” Danny said, yawning again. “It could have been nothing, or a human serial killer. Hell, it could even have been someone turning up and forcibly taking people to get them clean. Patrol a big city long enough and not much would surprise you.”
“I didn't tell anyone, and looking back I kind of wish I had, but I know no one would have believed me. No cops, anyway. I should have told Mom or Mack, but I thought I could do it all on my own. I was a cop and I knew about magic, so I figured I could handle anything that was out there.”
“Is this story supposed to be teaching me not to go running off and doing my own thing?” Steve asked with a smirk. “Because I know that one already.”
“No babe,” Danny said with a sigh. “This is a story about just how horrifying the things that go bump in the night can be.”
“Oh.” Steve hadn't expected that answer, which he now realized was stupid. No one he'd spoken to earlier had specifically mentioned demons killing people, although it was implied, and he hadn't really thought through just how bad it could be.
“I decided the best way to work out what was going on was to track the homeless folks and see what happened. I obviously couldn't do that by normal means so I created some magical trackers to hand out to the homeless. I couldn't give them anything they were likely to lose, give away or get stolen, so I used socks.”
“Magic socks?”
“Yeah, I know. But they were likely to keep them. The socks weren't too expensive for me to buy.and they weren't so valuable that it meant they got robbed. And it had the added bonus of keeping their feet warm.”
“Genius,” Steve said with a laugh, knowing he didn't always give Danny the credit he deserved for his smartness.
“A poor genius, then. Even the cheapest socks made a dent in my pay that month, but it was worth it. I created a spell that reacted to other magic, and charged the socks with it. I gave them out in my off hours and waited.”
Danny paused, and even though Steve knew it was only to add some kind of drama to the story, he couldn't help prompting the other man. “And?”
“And nothing. For days. I actually began to think it was all in my imagination. Then, I was patrolling one night, thankfully on my own, and I felt one of the trackers go off. I radioed in I was going on a break, and then went to investigate.”
“I followed it into an alley a few blocks from the Prudential center. It was full of dumpsters and trash, and stank like the city dump on a summer's day. In amongst the crap there was a guy cowering against the wall with a demon hovering over him.”
“What did you do?”
“Not enough,” Danny said sadly, and Steve guessed what was coming. “I shouted a warning, habit I guess. The thing just turned and grinned at me. I'm not sure how I know that because it didn't have a fucking face, but it did, I swear. It was like a cloud of purple needles, swarming like bees, but completely silent.”
“Jesus,” Steve breathed.
“It's not the weirdest thing I've seen by far, but it was creepy as fuck. I took a shot at it. It works, sometimes, but I didn't really expect it to. The thing didn't even react, just surrounded the homeless guy and then seemed to vanish. I thought, maybe, I'd scared it away, and I went to check on the guy. I got about ten feet away and he exploded.”
“Shit.”
“He was looking at me, right in the eye, and he was so scared. And then he just burst apart into a cloud of blood that just hung there in the air, like a frozen horror movie. The needles flew through it, feeding on it I guess, and I just stood there like a fucking idiot, watching.”
“Christ.”
“I know,” Danny said sounding so guilty that Steve wanted to go over and wrap his arms around his partner to try to offer whatever comfort he could. “His name was Gus. He fought in Vietnam, and I suppose he had PTSD or something. He got a bit rowdy if he had too much to drink, but mostly he was a nice guy.”
“You got it in the end, right?” Steve asked, knowing there was no point in telling Danny it wasn't his fault, even though there was clearly nothing he could have done.
“Yeah. Me, Mack and Heather cornered it under Penn Station and killed it with a fire and salt spell.”
“Fire and salt?” Steve asked, wanting to let Danny sleep but unable to let the few loose ends go just yet.
“It's the magical equivalent of burning the fields and salting the earth,” Danny explained, obviously trying to find the right words to describe it to someone who was new to the whole thing. “I bound it with a magic circle and then Heather threw a kind of magical cage over it to stop it sucking in any power once I let go of the circle. Once she had it caged, I imploded the circle. That kills it, at least in this dimension, but it's still kind of out there, somewhere. And someone could call it back if they tried hard enough and fed it enough power. So we cast a salting spell to make sure that couldn't happen. It's like putting a booby trap on the demon, so that if anyone tries to summon it, it'll blow up in their face.”
“Can't you do that with all demons? Stop people summoning them at all?” Steve knew it was probably a stupid question but he had to ask.
“If only it were that easy,” Danny yawned. “You have to bind the demon, which you can't do until it's been summoned. And the really powerful ones can't be bound either. It'd be great if we could stop idiots bringing things here that they can't control. We figured whoever summoned that one had gotten eaten by it, but with no bodies left, we never found out who it was. Just one of those people who turn up missing.”
“Thanks, D,” Steve said, feeling himself settle now he knew a little more about the world Danny inhabited. “Get some sleep.”
“You too, babe,” Danny mumbled, rolling onto his side and closing his eyes. “Big day tomorrow.”
Steve listened to the other man's breathing slow then even out, sleep taking him quickly once he finished speaking. He smiled at the idea that Danny could keep talking even though he was obviously so ready to sleep. Steve wanted to tease him about it, but he'd have to remember in the morning. Or maybe when they got Heather back.
He wondered what they'd have to face for that to happen. But nothing he'd done in his life was giving him anything to speculate and plan from, so he let it go. Focusing on slowing his mind, as he did when doing yoga, he felt sleep finally creeping towards him. He sighed and welcomed it
Chapter Four