#and shes pretty old for a ghost (died like some centuries before being bound to a doll)

[voidedjuice]

As promised, the Sharon & pals very old art recap:

The very first proper digital drawings of all of them. Airi is the oldest, with hers being from the may of 2016, with Sharon lagging behind at the march of 2017. Aalis is the "youngest" at the june of 2017.

Airi used to have her totally own thing, but I merged her into Sharon's project later on. Airi's gone through the hardest design revisions, while Aalis is like 99% the exact same as when i first doodled her sometime before that drawing.

Old art dump

Sharon's old refs (the only one of them who's had that privilege :( sad)

Most of the lore present is old and outdated + i ended up doing some retcons between drawings as well (recycling Aalis' surname for Sharon, changing her name from Charon to Sharon (esl mixed up those names initially/changed it bc it was a bit on the nose for her profession and role in the story)

[ieattaperecorders]

Notes on Causality - Chapter 4: Gerry

A favor for an old friend.

Read on Ao3

As he fell away for the final time, he felt that all-consuming fear, and his only thought was to cry out for his mother. But with the last vestige of his stubborn will, he refused. She would not claim his last moment. He was silent.

And so Gerard Keay ended. But there would be no rest for him. 

The recitation came to an end, the agony of being pulled through his own demise faded into dull awareness. He remembered himself, the negative space where a person had once been. Gerard had never liked ghost stories. He liked them less now that he was one of them.

The man holding the book was a stranger. He was old, though probably not as old as Trevor. His hair had been black once but was far more salt than pepper now, and his face was creased around the forehead and mouth. A pattern of scars on his face and neck made Gerard think instinctively of filth, and of burrowing things.

So. Either this was someone who’d taken the book from the Van Helsings, or more likely someone they’d threatened into using it so they didn’t have to look at him directly. Pricks.

“. . . Are they dead?” he asked tiredly.

“You mean the hunters?” the man shook his head. “No, I sincerely doubt I would have been able to manage that. But I took pains to cover my tracks.”

“You stole the book from them?"

“Well, it was stolen to begin with, wasn’t it?”

“Hmm,” Gerard tilted his head, smirking grimly. “Condolences to your family, then. Aren’t many in the world who can cover their tracks enough for those two.”

“I’m well aware,” the man sighed. “I’ve done what I can, nothing left but to wait and see now.”

They were in a small bedroom, inside what was probably a cabin. Gerard saw dark wood walls, oil lamps, and a tattered rug that bore some kitschy pattern he couldn’t be bothered to identify. Any view there might have been through the window was obscured by white-out snowfall. There was a fire in the fireplace, not that he could feel it.

“Who’re you, then?”

“My name’s Jon. I used to be the Archivist, until I took your father’s way out.”

He gestured towards his face, and Gerard finally noticed the scars crossing over his eyes -- false ones, probably. The implications sank in.

“Hard to tell how much time’s passing in here,” he said. An echo of an emotion, something that was almost sadness. “But unless you’re a hell of a lot older than you look, I don’t think you’re Gertrude’s predecessor.”

“No. No . . . I was her successor.”

“So she’s dead?”

“I’m afraid so,” Jon said. “She died holding a can of petrol, daring a man to shoot her.”

The thought warmed something in the absence of Gerard, and he smiled. “. . . Good.”

For a moment, he pictured Gertrude standing on a chair to disable the alarm in his hospital room so that he could light the cigarette she’d snuck in. A phantom ache came from where the IV had been in his arm. The hole was still there, still unhealed. It would never have the chance to be otherwise.

He took another look at Jon, tired resignation coming over him.

“So . . . ‘used-to-be-Archivist,’” he sighed. “You went to the trouble of getting the skin book from a pair of homicidal maniacs. I’m guessing you have questions.”

“Not really. I assume you want me to burn your page, I suppose I just wanted to talk to you first. Tell you what’s coming, and confirm that it’s what you want.”

“. . . It is,” he said adamantly. “Being like this hurts , there’s no real life in it. Whatever else there is, even if it’s nothing? I’ll take it.”

“I understand.” Jon paused. “I . . . if you want, I can let you go. Get it done right away.”

To his surprise, Gerard hesitated. He didn’t know what made him do so. Maybe it was fear, the thought of facing a second end, one that would hopefully be final. Maybe it was reluctance that he sensed in Jon, what was left of him reflecting the emotions of the living like the moon to sunlight. Or, hell, maybe now that he knew it would all be over soon he just wanted to linger a bit longer. He didn’t know, and he supposed it didn’t matter.

“Nah. I’ll stay a while. Got all eternity to not exist, right?” he shrugged. “Don’t suppose you’ve got a cigarette . . .”

“Sorry. Quit some time ago. And you couldn’t smoke it anyway, could you?”

“Guess not.” Something occurred to him, and he frowned. “Hey, how’d you read it?”

“What?”

“My page. You said you took my dad’s way out, right? He had to blind himself, and the book’s not exactly in Braille. How’d you read the page?”

“Oh! That’s uh . . . sort of a long story, actually.”

There was a pause, during which it became clear that he wasn’t going to follow that with anything.

“Well, summarize then,” Gerard said. “I’m not going anywhere.”

“All right . . . I’ve actually met you before. I lived through a, hmm ---” he sighed, looking annoyed. “Well, Melanie insists on referring to it as an alternate timeline, which I really don’t care for. But I have to admit it’s a useful way to conceptualize it, so . . . .”

“Right, right,” Gerard waved a hand. “The whole ‘it’s not really this but we’re calling it this’ thing, I got it.”

“I was trying to continue Gertrude’s work of stopping rituals, which is how I met you originally. I burned your page that time as well . . . which, incidentally, did not go well for me. They did notice it was missing.” 

There was a snippy edge to Jon’s tone, and Gerard smirked, unable to shake the feeling that he was on the receiving end of a cross-timeline ‘I told you so.’ 

“Better luck this time. Maybe the Van Helsings have gone soft,” he said without conviction.

“Oh yes, clearly they’re winding down to retirement,” Jon’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “Regardless, things got pretty bad in those years. And, um . . . the world ended.”

“. . . Fucking hell.”

“More or less, yes.”

“Was it as bad as we thought it’d be?”

“Worse. Whatever you imagined, it was worse,” he said grimly. “Eventually, I found a way to pass my own memories onto my past self, and with that knowledge I’ve changed the course of events so that none of it ever happened.”

“Hence the world still being here.”

“For the time being. It took a long time to find the Hunters, even longer to put a plan together to get the book from them without leaving a trail. By the time we’d worked out what we’d be doing they’d moved on and we had to find them again, and so on,” he waved his hand. “But eventually . . . well, here we are.”

“Huh.” Gerard paused. He ran all that over in his head again. “Didn’t really answer my question, did you?”

“Oh, right,” Jon laughed softly. “Well. As it turns out, holding the book and reciting from memory is good enough. If that hadn’t worked, I’d have had to call my husband in here.”

“. . . Where is here, anyway?” Gerard looked around at the small room. “It feels strange. Couldn’t quite tell at first, but this place isn’t normal, is it?”

“It’s not, no. We found an artifact of the Vast, a snow globe that traps you inside if you look at it too long. Time passes at a different rate here . . . minutes become decades, hours multiple centuries. You don’t age or die, but you feel the passage of time, and you’re only released if the globe is broken. By then if there’s anything left of you you’ll return to a world you barely remember, a blip in your memories that are now eons long.”

“Right. And you’re here on purpose?”

“A friend of ours was holding it when we went in, she’ll have let it go the instant we disappeared. A few milliseconds for reaction time, then a second or two of freefall before it hits the concrete floor. Time enough to erase any trail that the Hunters might follow.”

Gerard frowned. “How does that work? Won’t it be just a second for them too?”

“Well, yes. But whether they find us has more to do with us than with them? You know how these things are.”

“Inside-out dream logic, yeah.”

“While we’re here we’re not running, and we’re in the grasp of another power that will greedily consume any fear we feel. If our theory's correct, when we return our tracks will be obliterated, and any breadcrumbs eaten by birds.”

“Yeah, I get it. What d’you think it is about the Hunt that makes everyone go for the fairy tale metaphors, anyway?”

“Couldn’t say. We should be here a few months, maybe close to a year if it doesn’t break immediately and Tim needs to use the baseball bat,” he smiled wryly. “We brought quite a few board games.”

“Sounds like a cozy holiday.”

“Yes! We’re trying to think of it that way,” he smiled, perking. “It’ll still be rough near the end, I’m sure. These things don’t come without consequences, you can’t throw yourself into something touched by the Vast without a taste of the horrors of eternity. But we’re good at keeping each other grounded. And I consider this worth it.”

“Unless something goes wrong and you’re trapped for all eternity.”

“True. It would definitely not be worth that. No offense.”

“None taken. Eternity’s a long time.”

Gerard tried to think of the last time someone had done something for him, with nothing to gain for themselves. Then he started to wonder if it had ever happened. 

Something in him became still, then. Quiet, and cold.

“I . . . think I’m ready to go.”

". . . All right,” Jon hesitated, as if he might say something else, then nodded. “All right, then. Goodbye, Gerry. I dismiss you.”

Something flickered in him, and then he felt himself fade. The room slipped away, and he was once again nowhere and nothing. 

He felt himself being torn from the book, felt leather split, waxed linen strain and snap as he was pulled from the binding that held him. There was a moment of breath, there was relief, and then there was only the fire.

It was nothing like being burned alive, and he would know. The pain was more insult than injury. What he felt instead was a frightening dissolution. Whatever was left of him – his thoughts, his memories, his feelings – he felt them disappear as he was being burned away. 

The fear of his own end, the terror he had been bound in for so long threatened to return and drag him into oblivion screaming. But as the last vestiges of what had once been Gerard Keay were consumed, his mind drifted away from itself. He thought instead about Jon, about the last person he would ever speak to. 

He didn’t think much, really. Just wondered if his plan would work, if he and his husband would escape the trap they’d put themselves into voluntarily. If they did this sort of thing all the time – burning Leitners and making enemies of Hunters – or if it was even remotely possible that they’d done it all for him.

Then Gerard Keay was gone. For good, this time.

---

Martin dropped the quartered logs in a pile next to the door, pausing to stomp the snow off him, take off his boots and brush the worst of it off his clothes. The endless snowstorm being what it was, he supposed there wouldn’t be much wandering around outside. Cabin fever was the whole point of this place.

The sounds of muffled conversation from behind the bedroom door had stopped just before he went out to the woodshed, and they hadn’t started up again. He decided to give the door a knock.

“Come in,” Jon’s voice came from beyond. “I’m . . . it’s done.”

Opening the door, Martin was greeted with the sight of Jon knelt in front of the fireplace, wrapped up in the soft flannel blanket from the bed. The book sat on the floor beside him, and he was shifting the logs with a long, metal poker. He turned in Martin’s direction and smiled. Lit by warm firelight, nestled in the blanket and one of Martin’s old jumpers, he made for a remarkably homey sight considering where they were.

“How’d it go?” Martin asked, coming to sit beside him.

“I think . . . Well. I hope that he got some peace, in the end.” Jon reached a blanket-swaddled arm across Martin’s back, pulling himself closer and drawing the warmth around him. “Thank you for doing this. It . . . means a lot.”

“You’re welcome,” Martin kissed the top of his head. “But it’s not just for you, you know. It’s a good thing we’re doing, setting them free. It’s the right thing to do.”

Jon nodded, nestling into him. "Did you take a look at the other pages?"

"Yeah. There's only a couple in English, so I figure we'Ll do them first, then I'll start breaking out the books and tapes we brought. If reciting it from memory worked, I might not even have to properly learn Sanskrit if I can pronounce it. Could be fun to try anyway, though."

"I'm still doubtful there'll be anyone who wouldn't rather have their page burned."

"Maybe, maybe not. Seems rude not to ask. And it's not as if we're on a tight schedule here."

"True enough," Jon smiled. "Time is something we'll have lots of. And . . . you're right to want to give them a choice. Even if they choose staying bound to a skin book for eternity."

"Mmm," Martin tried not to think too much about what the pages were made of, knowing he'd need to be handling them. "Anyway . . . looked around the place a bit while you were having your reunion. Whole cellar full of canned goods downstairs, easily a year's worth."

"I doubt they'll ever run out . . . fear of starvation would just distract from the dreadful creep of the endless aeons, after all."

"Mmm. Can always count on you to dispense these little nuggets of sunshine."

"Sorry. Too grim?"

"S'fine."

"We won't be here that long. A few months, a year at most. The others will get us out."

Martin looked into the fire. Any trace of the page thrown into it was long gone now. He hoped that whatever came next for Gerard Keay, it was kinder than what he'd been through.

"Well, if they don’t," he said, wrapping an arm around Jon. "I can't think of anyone I'd rather slowly go mad with than you."

"Nor can I."

[bellemorte180]

Winners of the Wanderlust Betting Pool - @donlrose​

Thank you so much to everyone who participated in the Wanderlust Betting Pool. In return, @klavscaroline​ and I decided to make a mini drabble and edit of their choice for the winners.

Prompt: Anything along the lines of mates where Caroline is a lone wolf and comes across Klaus pack. At first, she's hesitant to trust him but can't deny the mates bond. But give them a happy ending, real life is depressing enough.

Written by @bellemorte180 | Edit by @klavscaroline

Caroline looked out over the busy streets of New Orleans. After years on the run, Caroline never thought she would ever find a home again. She had been alone for so long that she was beginning to believe that she was a freak. That she had some mutation that lingered in her genes; or a punishment for the death that was caused at her hands. Seeing that her parents were dead, she supposed that she would never get the chance to ask them. When she first turned at the full moon, she was angry at their death and at them for leaving her so unprepared.

“What are you thinking of?” Klaus asked as he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her middle. Caroline leaned back into embrace; feeling his lips touch the top of her head. How her life had completely changed in the last six weeks. She went from being alone, bouncing from city to city, to belonging to a pack when she did not know others like herself existed. She resisted at first, not understanding what was happening around her or why she felt this electric draw to a man who was cursed in the same way she was. She wanted to touch him, run her fingers through his hair and that instinct put her on edge; so she bolted. “I can hear the wheels turning in that beautiful head of yours from across the room.”

“I’m thinking of my parents and wondering what they would have thought of all this.” Bill and Liz Forbes died when Caroline was five years old. It was a strange accident that could not be explained, and Caroline was taken in by Grayson and Miranda Gilbert. They were the only family that she knew. She had a family but all of that was stripped away during the first moon transformation she experienced. The Gilbert’s threw her out of the house; even if they didn’t blame her for Elena’s death but they could not abide by the fact that she turned into a wolf at the full moon. They called her a monster. “I know that the Gilberts would be ashamed, because apparently I terrify them, but I wondered what my birth parents would say. What they would think of all this. If they even knew at all about the gene.”

“They may not have.” Klaus answered her honestly. “The gene has been lost in many families over the centuries, or so I’m told. If not, a single person kills someone else, even by accident, there is a chance that they wouldn’t know until…”

“Until you get really drunk and push your sister into a pool as a joke; forgetting that going headfirst into the shallow end could break someone’s neck.” She looked down at her hands. Elena’s death still tore at her conscience. She loved her like a sister and to be responsible for her death was not an easy thing for Caroline to get over; sometimes she feels as though she deserves the curse put on her. “Is it wrong to feel as though I don’t deserve you? Or is it wrong to be happy?”

“Caroline.” Klaus turned her in his arms and leaned down, kissing her lips gently before placing his hands on her face. “When I was fifteen years old, my father was teaching to shoot a bow and arrow. My finger slipped and I ended up killing my father’s friend. I felt guilty for a long time, especially when the curse was triggered but don’t let the fact that we are mated make you guilty. It’s a gift, one that I refuse to let go of.”

“Yeah. You made that abundantly clear when you refused to accept my rebuff towards your advances.” Caroline teased. When Klaus had all but stated that he wanted to claim her as his mate, she did not know what that meant. She had thought it was some caveman ritual that would lead her to being barefoot, pregnant and completely dependent upon him. Not even knowing Klaus then, she ran for the hills. It took him the better part of three weeks to explain the werewolf world and what having a mate meant to them.

It meant having a partner.

Equality.

The sex was just a bonus.

“You didn’t make it easy that is for sure.” He leaned down and kissed her gently again. They broke apart and Caroline leaned against his chest. She closed her eyes as she listened to the sound of his heart beating against his chest. It was a sound that Caroline found soothing. “I suppose that is why I like you. I suppose our wolves knew what they were doing when they bounded us together.”

“I suppose waking up naked next to you in the woods during a full moon kind of forced me to accept the fact that you were not just giving me lines to get me into bed.” Caroline told him and Klaus snorted at that. During her travels, she had seen all sorts of men try and pick her up and get her into their bed. However, Caroline was not that kind of girl so when Klaus pretty much said that they were fated to be together, she assumed it was just another pick-up line and a bad one at that; she never actually considered that he was serious. When she woke next to him, naked and in the woods, not only did she realize that he wasn’t lying about them being mates but the pull she felt in her bones to him began to make sense. “Being with you now, it makes me wonder why I resisted for those first few weeks. Especially, when I was so excited to find people who were like me.”

“You were a lone wolf for years, Caroline and one who did not understand what was happening to her. It’s natural and understandable that you would be resistant.” Klaus soothed her worries. She thought on his upbringing and compared it to hers. He was raised with wolves his entire life. His mother abandoned him on his father’s doorstep days after his birth because she didn’t want to raise a wolf child. His father, Ansel, never provided a name or address for his mother; just that she didn’t want him. It explained why he bonded so closely with his wolves and why they mattered so much to him. “You’re not alone anymore, Sweetheart. You have a family.”

“I do, don’t I?”

“Yeah you do.” Klaus’s smile was wide and his dimples creased in his cheeks. “I played in those streets as a kid. This city is filled with wolves and I always felt like I belonged here. Our children, when they come, will never suffer the uncertainty that you felt if they ever trigger the curse. Their lives and the one we will build together will be filled with laughter, love, and music. Genuine beauty. I promise you.”

“Are we…making plans?” Caroline asked. It was such a foreign concept to her. For years she traveled from one place to the next, never knowing what the next few years would bring her; haunted by Elena’s ghost that she felt followed her everywhere. In the span of a few weeks, she had a family and a life that she could build.

“Yes Sweetheart, I believe we are.”

[ladylynse]

Hey, you doing more of those writing prompts? If so, "Ghosts, demons, evil Sorcerers... what's next? Elemental spirits? Every single mythical creature of human legends? Gods and deities?" SuperPhantomRC9GN crossover thing (throwing a bit of a challenge here, so feel free to drop one of the trio if you can't come up with something)

To be honest, @azthedragon, I’m a little surprised you wanted Supernatural in there when you aren’t overly familiar with it, but here you go! Enjoy.

Lessons:[FF | AO3] Frankly, Dean had his doubts that Phantom and the Ninja were ever going to take this seriously.

“Ghosts, demons, evil Sorcerers…. What’s next? Elementalspirits? Every single mythical creature of human legend? Gods and deities?”

Dean glared at the kid in the ninja costume. He and hisghost friend were sitting on Sam’s bed in the motel room while Dean sat on hisown bed, surrounded by weaponry, and Sam was at the table with the laptop andthe journal. “You laugh, but gods are even bigger di—”

“Dean!”

Dean rolled his eyes at Sam’s admonishment. These guys wereteenagers. A little foul language wasn’t going to scar them for life. And theyhad superpowers, or near enough inDean’s book. A ninja. A ghost. Both of whom he’d shot at before getting theirstories straight, but Dean was past the point of hunting something just becauseit could be considered a monster. Not all of them were evil. The ninja kidmight not be a monster, but the ghost definitely fell firmly into thatcategory. And if he started icing people, well, Dean would pay him a visit atthat point. Until then, he could keep doing what he was doing, as far as Deanwas concerned.

From the sounds of it, Phantom and the Ninja—the two stillrefused to give actual names; it was annoying as hell—had worked togetherbefore. Fine. Dean didn’t ask questions about that kind of thing. He and Samhad come to Norrisville on a demon hunt, found a little more than they’dbargained for, and hadn’t quibbled when the so-called town hero had offered tofill them in.

(In all fairness, Dean had been pointing a gun at the Ninja’shead at the time, but considering the kid had pulled a Houdini with thosestinking smoke bombs before, Dean had known he’d be able to do it again, evenwith Sam flanking him.)

Dean hadn’t really thought they needed backup that wasn’tCas, but the Ninja had insisted on calling in a friend—“It’ll be fine; it’s theweekend, so it’ll be easy for him to get away.”—and Castiel hadn’t been pickingup his damn phone anyway. Sometimes, Dean wondered if the angel pretendedignorance for convenience’s sake.

“Y’know, in all fairness, I kinda have dealt with elemental spirits before,” Phantom mused. “IfFrostbite doesn’t count, Vortex or Undergrowth probably does. I mean, they’renot dead humans like Desiree or Ember, so I guess you could call them elementalspirits. They can control certain elements, anyway. I just mostly ended updealing with the bad guys the same way as I do every other ghost.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of the Tengu.”

“I thought you said the Tengu was a bird demon.”

“Well, if it is, then it’s a different kind of demon thanwhatever this was.”

“And you’re thinking the fireball thing.”

“Yeah, and—”

“But you know the Tengu’s real.”

“Sure, but these shoobs don’t. I mean…not necessarily. And—”

“Can we get back to the point?” Dean snapped. “This isn’t africkin’ joke. People’s lives are on the line.”

“Dean’s right.” Sam’s tone was all gentle and placatingdespite the glare he was sending in Dean’s direction. “We’re not exaggerating.You deal with ghosts all the time,” he said with a nod to Phantom, “and you—”here he looked at the Ninja “—apparently have been dealing with a warlock—sorry,sorcerer—for years.”

“Centuries,” corrected the Ninja, as if Dean was really goingto believe he’d been around that long. He’d metwitches and warlocks that were centuries-old and had had enough dealings withangels and demons to know the type. This kid? Definitely not even in histwenties.

Sam was not dissuaded. “The point is, now you’ve run intodemonic possession. We told you how to deal with that—”

“I have already forgotten that ritual,” interrupted theNinja. “I mean, what was that, Greek?”

“I think it was Latin,” Phantom said with a shrug. “I dunno.I was going to ask Sam about it when I get back. She probably knows. I’m prettysure I’ve seen her doodling that symbol.”

“The point—”

“Point is, you know other monsters are real,” Dean cut in. “Soit would save guys like us—” he gestured to himself and Sam “—a helluva lot oftrouble if you dealt with them when they cropped up on your home turf.”

Phantom caught Dean’s look and crossed his arms. He still refusedto say where he was from. Also annoying as hell. But that feeling hadn’t reallygone away for this entire hunt.

“Demonic possession doesn’t seem to be too different from ghosts,” allowed Phantom at last as he uncrossedhis arms and leaned back on the bed. “Just write out that stuff for me againand I’m sure I can figure it out if I need to.”

“Little more different than when someone’s stanked,” agreedthe Ninja, “but I can wing it, and it’ll look super bruce when I do. Howardwill totally think I’ve wonked his cheese. It’ll be great. You guys cool if Idon’t tell him I got the info from you?”

If Dean still had even a fleeting thought that God actuallycared, he might pray for strength. He and Sam had never been that idiotic. Reckless, sure, until their cockinessnearly got someone killed, and that was gone in both of them by twelve even withtrying to keep Sammy away from the worst of it. But these two….

Frankly, having seen them in a fight, Dean was pretty surethey’d be dead if they didn’t have superpowers. Or, in Phantom’s case, if he weren’talready dead. The Ninja’s attacks were sloppy, often leaving himself open, andhe usually forgot to watch his back. Not to mention the fact that he announced each attack. Phantom was morewasteful in his actions, expending too much energy at once and not caring if hegot hit as long as he managed to get a hit in, too. He didn’t have much of asense of timing; his typical strategy seemed to be to pour pure power into anattack and hit something for all he was worth.

Dean, being very human and not wanting to die (again) orwatch Sam die (again), had questioned their partnership often over the last twodays. Still, he had to admit that watching Phantom and the Ninja work togetherto create the Devil’s Trap—combining ice and fire powers—had been a satisfying,especially after that lowlife demon had managed to crack the concrete floor Samhad spray-painted the first one on earlier. But that demon was Crowley’sproblem now, and Crowley was not going to be pleased to hear that some uppitycrossroads demon thought he could garner favour by playing fast-and-loose withthe rules.

Crowley might take every loophole for the opportunity itwas, but he didn’t break the rules of his contracts. Broken contracts meant thesouls were no longer bound and no longer destined for a date in hell in ten yearsor whatever the agreed upon time period was. Apparently, the demon had thoughthe could get around that with a separate verbal agreement, but that sort ofthing didn’t hold up. Something about double dealing. Or maybe not sealing thedeals appropriately. Frankly, Dean hadn’t cared. He’d just sent the sonnovabitch back to hell where he belonged.

It would’ve been an easier task if all the other,non-demonic possessions hadn’t been happening at the same time. What the Ninjahad called stanking and the Phantom had not-so-helpfully explained as just astrong form of magical possession. But the Ninja didn’t seem to think Sam andDean would actually be able to help him get rid of the warlock, no matter what theysaid, so it had been Sam’s bright idea to at least educate these guys so they’dknow what to do if anything else showed up.

Dean was already regretting agreeing to this.

“Look, just listen, okay? We’ll run you through the basics.Don’t worry about trying to memorize it all right now—”

“Definitely wasn’t going to happen anyway,” said the Ninja,to which Phantom nodded his agreement.

“—because you can contact us if you run into something andneed a refresher or some backup.” Sam got up from the table and handed each kida business card. “Our numbers are on the back. The front, that’s a friend ofours, Jodi Mills. She’s the Sheriff in Sioux Falls. South Dakota,” he added atthe blank looks on their faces. “If you can’t reach us, phone her. She’ll putyou in touch with someone who can help.”

Both kids pocketed the card, though Dean didn’t see where. “Anyway.Enough chitchat. On to business. First up: vampires. It’s pretty straightforward. You just—”

“Drive a wooden stake through their heart,” said Phantom. “Everyoneknows that.”

“That’s actually a popular misconception,” corrected Sam. “Truthis, you—”

“Garlic,” said the Ninja immediately. “Lots of it. You cangarlic them to death.”

Dean heaved a sigh and met Sam’s eyes, knowing hisexpression conveyed exactly what he wanted to know. Do we have to do this? But he knew Sam’s answering expression well.That was a yes. Well, morespecifically, Dude, if we don’t, we’rejust going to regret it later, so suck it up.

Dean rolled his eyes before looking back at the kids. “Youcut off their heads,” he said, overriding Phantom’s offer of ‘crucifix’. “Ilike a machete, but anything’ll do in the pinch. Sword, sickle, garrote, ice…thing.”Phantom was good with that ice; chances were, he could make something strong enoughand sharp enough to do the job if he tried. “But if you’re trying to take downa vamp nest, you’ll wanna get your hands on some dead man’s blood.”

“On what?” the Ninja repeated. Phantom looked surprised butdidn’t seem as disturbed by the idea, maybe because he’d have an easier timegetting some in the first place.

“Dead man’s blood,” repeated Sam, even though Dean wascertain the repetition was unnecessary. “Preferably, more than one syringe full.It’ll knock them out cold, usually for a couple of hours.”

“Uh huh,” the Ninja said slowly, “and when you say nest, do you mean more of a cave, forwhen they’re bats? Are they more vulnerable at that point, being bats?”

Sam winced. “They can’t turn into bats, either. They do have a retractable set of teeth, sowhen they bite someone, expect more than two puncture marks.” Sam went on toexplain more of the signs, what to watch for, and Dean had to admit that thequestions slowly got less inane and more intelligent as Sam started working hisway through the most common monsters and the kids genuinely started to listen.

Dean wasn’t sure the kids believed them, of course. TheNinja had outright laughed when Dean had said Cas was an angel, evenconsidering they were hunting a demon, and that crack at gods and deities madeit clear the Ninja had never met any of them. (To be honest, Dean wished hehadn’t met a bunch of them, either, since none of the experiences had exactlybeen fun, but that was beside the point.) But it would be something, and if itmeant someone lived, then that was surely worth this pain and suffering.

“Um, yeah, definitely gonna have to veto you on that one.Salt does not work on ghosts.”

Probably.

“You wanna test that theory of yours, kid?” Dean asked. “I’vegot a bag of rock salt in the trunk. We can find out pretty quick.”

“Oh, I would bet money on this.” Phantom was grinning. “Howabout, um….”

“Dinner at McFlubbusters,” piped up the Ninja immediately.It was probably his favourite place—or at least one of them—and chances were hehad forgotten that he was currently wearing a mask.

Still, Dean agreed to their terms. (Sam just sat thereshaking his head, so Dean didn’t plan on letting him order dessert. Not that hewould, anyway. He still did not appreciate the sanctity of pie.) He and Samwere due for a free dinner, anyway, even though he had doubts about whetherPhantom or the Ninja would be able to cough up enough between them to cover onemeal. But sometimes, it really is the thought that counts.

(see more fics)

[augment-techs]

10) A dead phone, a map, a bowl of cereal + LOSH (Timberwolf and Lightning Lad bc there's never enough of their shenanigans!)

“Explain to me why we’re watching this again?”Timber Wolf remained in his comfortable position upon the sofa, absently grabbing more dry yogurt and wheat cereal that he and Phantom Girl had been eating since Garth had eaten the last of the popcorn the week before when he was trying for a romantic evening with Imra watching chick flicks and snuggled under a blanket like two pillbugs. He waited until after the leading woman of the movie dived into the water to look for the corpse before answering so he knew he wouldn’t interrupt any dialogue.“Bouncy said this was the one movie from the early 21st century that could objectively be called a good bad horror movie. I found it in the old archives and since absolutely nobody except Bouncy has even glanced at it in over ten years, it felt like something we could do for Halloween.”Tinya scooted a little closer to Brin, the other giving off heat like a radiator, and tried to pretend that she wasn’t mentally rolling her eyes at her boyfriend’s idea of a lark; her eyes too focused on the really beautifully dark background and activity on the screen as both main leads were in a morgue with a doctor, looking over the victim that had apparently been autopsied before she died; organs in perfect little bags laid out on metal slabs and a tube of lipstick being pulled out of the stomach. A little note wound inside.“Wasn’t she bound the entire time?”“I…think so.”“Then how did she manage to…?”“Maybe this sort of thing was hand-waved back then? Or the ghost did it.”“Sure, why not; if she can get a guy to try and stop a train by just standing there, why shouldn’t this be possible.”“I don’t think that really counts since he was pretty far down the death tunnel by then. For all we know, he thought it might not have even been real. Or trying to end it more quickly.”Tinya grabbed some of the baubles of yogurt that were steadily diminishing as they got to the last twenty minutes of the film; the part that Bouncy swore up and down was a show of divine brilliance. She kinda believed him since, while she and Brin rolled their eyes at the bit about the sentient internet and the naked, dead German kids, Bouncy hadn’t lead them astray about anything else.They’d both probably savor this later, despite not having a trace of candy anywhere in the vicinity of headquarters, “Then I agree with his old writing buddy; Polly-Dolly was fucked up.”It was a win, truly, that she could get Brin to burst out a snort when the screen showed the murderer’s personal home, complete with maps of old nuclear power plants converted into landmarks and the multiple skin-stripped and obviously taxidermized corpses of other victims. 

[daemonvols]

Chapter Seven

An Evening with the Undead

 Years ago, Grandma Rose had told me, “These geists, they are not your friends. You should have human friends, flesh and blood and tears friends.”

She may have been right. At the time, however, like any child, I had not wanted to hear such talk. I was four years old and had just lost what I thought was my best friend.

    Greta Helgenmuth had the honor of being the first burial in the CPF in the fall of 1840. I have to infer from the records and newspaper articles that Greta was not well-loved by anybody, most particularly her four children. Her obituary listed her name, maiden name and family and the husband who “preceded her in death.” The mourning party consisted of my ancestor Jacob Baumann, caretaker, the Reverend Dieter Bruner, minister, and Jasper Lund, her attorney. No one knew where Greta had hidden or invested what the children believed to be a huge amount of money, so she was placed just on the edge of the Potter’s Field nearest the main cemetery.

    Reverend Bruner read the Lutheran burial service. The attorney shook his head and, according to Jacob’s journal/burial record, confided Greta’s final words: “I will haunt this place until the last descendent of those ungrateful little bastards has died. See if I don’t!” Since her children believed the idea that ghosts had to have some physical remnant to “come home” to when they haunted, they burned down the family house and sold it for cow pasture. Greta had to stay in the CPF.

    Jacob recorded conversing with “Die Hur” three times. His sons and grandsons wrote of her as well down the years. Grandpa Dov used the oral tradition to tell me of his conversations with the fading spirit and recorded her somewhat biased account of her illness and her ungrateful children.  In particular, he told me of one night, he relieved Grandma Rose from walking the floor with their colicky granddaughter by taking me out into the CPF for some air.

    “Your spawn, gravedigger?” he reported Greta saying.

    Grandpa Dov told me Greta touched my tight little belly and I shivered, then slept. He thought she might have found a soul mate, whatever that meant. She found something in me because until my fifth summer, if my grandparents looked into my bedroom on a summer’s night and found me gone, they could always find me sleeping beside Greta’s grave, my hand clutching the sod over her.

    Greta passed on before I turned five. Her last descendant, a timid librarian named Gabriel, died at his desk of heart failure that fall. He was a bachelor and “without issue.”  And thus Greta said nothing, did nothing and left no sign: she simply left.

    I did try to follow Grandma Rose’s advice when I’d stopped crying. I did try to find living friends. But the neighborhood children did not like inviting “the girl from the dead place” to play. One even told me I smelled like dead things. And so it went through my school years. Living in a cemetery might intrigue classmates at first. The ones who did not live along Mansfield Road in particular wanted stories, the gorier the better. But, with too much attention, comes the jealousy and the whole business of smelling like death and who did I have to bury to get that dress starts all over again. I thought my grandparents, my romance novels and our “residents” were family and friends enough for me.

    Until I saw Charlie.

    Once Lallie tired of her ceiling beam gymnastics and the food was prepared, I shooed them out to the front porch. Missy and Mischa still hovered there and the two youngsters could benefit from their ghostly experience. Unless, of course, the “ladies” chose that moment to “educate” the youngsters with their decades-old, and in Mischa’s case century-old, ideas on sex and relationships. If the ladies started that one, I’d be two “guests” shy of a party.

    I showered for the second time that day. Then, in my “foundation garments” (Missy’s terminology that always tickled me), I caught myself reaching into my closet for a good dress. I almost laughed at myself: who was I kidding? Charlie would come to meet Derek and Ian and the ghosts. I was like the bread to his curiosity sandwich, a delivery system for the good stuff. I made myself comfortable in clean jeans and one of my light blue business blouses.

    Nine-thirty came with a half-moon and starry sky. I had the driveway light on but turned towards the Potter’s Field away from the house and the porch lights dimmed. The aim was to appear inviting to the living and the dead, but to allow me to see them coming.  I could do nothing about the city street lights, but they were that obnoxious orange that frightened nobody. Not even the criminals that Mrs. Schnosburg believed lurked in every shadow on every block throughout every night.

    Missy and Mischa “sat” on the porch swing. I noted a tear in the cushion behind Missy, but said nothing or she’d tell me again how she was the best housekeeper a man could want, the best cook, the most understanding wife and so on. Any man coming up the front walk and hearing a see-through woman blathering on and on like that would probably turn around and run.

    Lallie and Rin sat off to the side of the front steps, coming as close to holding hands as they could. I admit I envied their closeness, even if it could never again be physical. I watched Lallie put her hands in and through Rin’s, then pull them out and try again and again and again; and I thought I understood what held her here. She still wanted the touching and cuddling and physical pleasures of their relationship. With the determination of her young years following her in death, she had to believe she could have it again, if only they kept trying.

    We heard Derek and Ian before we saw them. Ian was nervous and shouted his tics. Derek hissed at him to stop it, shut his mouth, and pull that tongue back in before he (Derek) bit it off.  That brought them into the reflected light of the driveway where the piles of colored gravel waited.

    OK, you have a question about the gravel. My reading told me, and my experience with some of Derek’s newbies is that, for reasons that supersede all understanding, new vampires cannot tolerate disorder. Those few who lived and were wiser in the old days left pots and pans, books and other items thrown around their houses by night. The messier, the better. If the vampire visited, s/he wasted the feeding time until daylight straightening out the mess and went to their coffins hungry.

    Ian was spell-bound by the mountain that rose up an inch or two over his head. He let a little gasp, first of impatience at the disorder, then of longing to organize it. I came down from the porch. “I need your help, Ian. Those crazy men at the garden center just dumped it all in one place.”

    “Fuckers,” he breathed. “Where do you want each color?”

    I had that planned. “Well, I wanted to put the yellow in the north bed under the bushes, the green in the south, and the blue and the pink on opposite sides of the driveway. What do you think?” His answer was to give me a smile that was almost sweet, if you can call a smile full of teeth that have ripped out throats ‘sweet.’ I left him to it and wonder if there was a bracha of thanks for the man or men who invented those colored faux rocks with their white crystal “icing.”

Derek settled himself in my grandfather’s favorite wicker chair with dark blue velveteen cushions. He had resumed his tailored suit and open-necked white silk shirt with gold cufflinks sporting the monogram “V”. I considered asking him if he’d brought a tie or if he wanted one of my grandfather’s, but I did not. Charlie was already fifteen minutes late – more if you started at nine o’clock. If I gave him the slightest opportunity, as some mishuggener in my family somewhere in the past when s/he had invited Derek into our house, he’d jump right in on how ignorant and desperate I must be to invite a grave robber to my house.

As opposed to inviting vampires and ghosts. I’m only saying.

The guests on the porch sat. Just sat, without a sound. As for the question that arises, yes, it’s awkward having a gathering like this on one’s porch when there is no conversation. I couldn’t offer them food and Derek would have some snide comments about what he would have to drink if I offered that. I sank hard into Grandma Rose’s matching wicker chair with the white wicker table holding the food between us. We listened to Ian giggling and cursing as he scuttled back and forth from the gravel piles in the driveway to the beds.

Grandpa Dov’s clock began to twitter when a shadow came along Bayberry towards the house. He paused to watch Ian dashing back and forth, then let three cars pass by before Charlie dodged Ian to come up the front walk. I shot out of my chair to meet him at the top step and keep him from stepping into Rin and Lallie.

“No parking on Mansfield after six,” he said.

“That’s true.” It would not do to gush about how glad I was that he came. But, in the dim with the soft orange and deflected white lights, he out-handsomed Shackleford.  “This is Rin and Lallie.” Charlie followed my open-hand gesture towards the young ghosts. He jumped back a step. “They’re pretty new to the CPF. No, they don’t shake hands. Come on up onto the porch.”

Missy and Mischa rose from the swing to meet him, which sent Charlie grabbing for one of the porch uprights. They circled him.

“Oh, Gracie, he’s a looker.”

“Good limbs. I imagine he’s a good worker, when he works.”

Charlie tried to watch them swirl around him, but he had the poked snapping turtle look on his face again. And I thought he would pass out altogether when Derek extended a cold, long-fingered hand.

“You have a taste for things that don’t belong to you,” Derek intoned. “I can respect that. Sit there.” He pointed to Grandma Rose’s chair. Charlie made a small, strangling sound and sat. “Grace Farmer, there is room for you with the ‘ladies.’”

Maintain the peace, I told myself before I snapped that this was my party and my porch. No family squabbles when a man comes courting, as my Grandma Rose would say. If he was courting. I sat between Mischa and Missy and wished for a sweater.

“There’s some veggies and crackers and dip,” I offered. “Right there on the table.”

“I-I-I’m fine,” he managed at last and shut his gaping mouth. “I had dinner.”

“As did I, so you may cease worrying that anyone here will ‘eat you up,’” Derek managed to sound bored. I saw his eyes flash with some interest. Perhaps he wasn’t quite sated, but he had promised not to feed on my company.

“Gracie tells us you’re a bookmaker,” Missy said. I envied her the ability to sink through a cushion.

Charlie blinked and looked at her. “Shipper. Well, packer. I take the order slips and pack the books for shipping.”

“How intellectually stimulating,” Derek said. Slapping an arrogant vampire goes against my contract and my experience, but the urge was strong.

“It isn’t,” Charlie agreed. “But it pays the bills. Or it did. I’m working for the Graveyard Workers full time now.”

“Bully for you. So we can expect to see you more often?”

Charlie looked at me, only at me. “That depends on Grace.”

Missy and Mischa tittered. If I hadn’t sat wedged between them, they would have executed the Solidarity or some other Girl Power move. I smiled as best I could and made took a visual measure of the distance between the swing and the porch steps.

“There are a lot of things that need fixing up around here,” I began, but the “ladies” went into full ghost-laughter mode. I felt sick.

Derek eyed me. He had shifted into full loco parentis gear. “Grace is not one of them.”

“That’s for me to say, Derek,” I said. “I’m over twenty-one.”

He frowned at me. “In my day, an unmarried woman’s age of consent was thirty-five.”

“In your day, women couldn’t vote.”

He grinned, full teeth and fangs. “And isn’t the world so much the better now they can?”

“It would be, if there were more women running things,” Charlie said. He looked at me again, with that smile that melted my innards. “Men don’t know everything.”

Missy and Mischa sighed with delighted smiles on their white faces. Me, I could have kissed him.

Derek looked ill.

The youngsters looked at this new human with something I would like to think was interest. But twenty-somethings’ interest is short these days. Video games and six-second scene changes and all. Lallie returned to the hand-holding (and missing) exercise. They made three or four more attempts, each time goring each other through the body or the thigh with their hands. She made a frustrated sound like an annoyed cat and lunged at Rin with her lips puckered. I don’t know which of them stopped the motion, but they became one in an exceedingly awkward way: Lallie’s face, complete closed eyes and with puckered lips, bulged from the back of Rin’s head. His samurai ponytail flopped over her short nose. Her bushy dark hair covered Rin’s face starting under his wire rim glasses. It occurred to me that the poked snapping turtle expression must be a male trait; Rin, too, had it mastered.

Missy and Mischa tsk’d and tutted.

Mischa: “Such behavior in public!”  

Missy, without conviction and with a bit of envy: “Aren’t you ashamed?”  

Mischa floated to an upright position. “I see we’ll have to have ‘that conversation’ and right now.”

Missy agreed and raised herself as well. “Come on, children, party’s over.”

Charlie and I watched them drift away past Ian, over the driveway and off into the darker corners of the cemetery. Then I noticed Derek’s close scrutiny of the new gravedigger. Charlie met his gaze only for a moment, then looked down towards his Nikes.

“Too bad,” he said. “I wanted to ask them what their unfinished business was.”

“Their what?” Derek demanded. He leaned forward towards Charlie. I pushed forward in the swing, but the vampire waved me off. He would keep his word. Charlie’s neck, and his blood, were safe.

“You know, they always say ghosts hang around the living because they have unfinished business.”

“And who is ‘they’?”

Charlie’s face darkened. “I don’t know who ‘they’ are! The people that study and write books about shit like that.”

“Oh, them.” Derek sat back, elbows on the chair’s arms and steepling his long fingers in front of his face. If he laughed, I knew I would have to slap him.

“It’s hard to say,” I jumped into the conversation. “Missy and Mischa are pretty scatter-brained, so I’m not sure they could tell you what their unfinished business is.” If they had any.

Some people write the silliest stuff!

“And what about you?” Charlie asked Derek.

“My business is ongoing and hardly a matter of choice.” The man could verbally snag silk.

“I see.”

Charlie looked at me for a long, and for me uncomfortable minute. “Well, I’d better be going, too.” He stood up, started to offer Derek his hand, then thought better of it. “Glad I could meet you, sir.”

If Derek did not appreciate Charlie’s manners, I did. I stood as well.

I walked with him down the steps and the front walk with my insides feeling like a plate of fruit gelatin that had just been knocked sideways. On the one hand, I wanted him to take my hand. On the other, I knew if he did, the gelatin would melt all over that sidewalk. He stopped where our front walk met the public sidewalk and turned towards me.

“Thanks, I, uh, it was a, that is, I learned a lot. Thanks.”

I lifted my face, hoping. He raised a hand and his fingers brushed my cheek. I waited, then closed my eyes. But he had gone, north, into the darkness.

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