InsaneJournal

And the Children Shall Lead (2/4)
Title: And the Children Shall Lead
Chapter Title: Control
Rated: hard R
Pairing: Jack/Maddie
Fandom: Danny Phantom
Danny Phantom belongs to Nickelodeon and its associates.

-----

This story is a dark fantasy involving vampirism, vore, blood, evil, and death. Emphasis on dark. It is a sequel to And the Children Shall Inherit the Earth.

It was written the middle of 2007.

-----

Lancer ducked into the faculty bathroom and leaned over the sink, hand clamped over his mouth as he fought not to throw up. Ugh, blood. Again with the blood. Why in the nine levels of Hell did he need to drink blood?! He only drank it because he needed to, because if he didn’t his insides tore and he coughed up blood anyway and the voice…

If thee dares to vomit I will make thee lick it up off the floor! snarled the voice.

Lancer nodded and tried not to, desperately tried not to. He gagged once, only once before some semblance of control returned. He let his hand fall from his mouth and his eyes raise to the mirror.

He looked terrible. He was pale and clammy, anemic even with all the blood the voice made him drink. Dark bags lurked under his eyes, eyes dull with pain and exhaustion. The hairs in his goatee were going gray. A single drop of dried blood trailed down his lips to his chin and neck, barely stopping above his collar before it had dried. Interview with a Vampire, he must have been dripping blood while he drank in the cafeteria!

And someone saw…

Mother will not betray us.

“Mother?” Lancer asked in question.

She is our mother, the voice explained, slightly confused. Does thou not have a mother?

“I have a mother,” Lancer defended. “I just don’t know why you call her ‘Mother.’ She’s a 14 year old girl.”

Thou will understand soon, Lyonell. Samantha Manson is our mother. Father Undergrowth chose her.

Lancer shook his head and turned the water on. He tried to wash the trail of blood from his neck and face, same as he tried not to think about the voice. Maybe if he ignored it he’d miraculously stop being crazy.

-----

In the classroom that afternoon Danny had resumed his whisperings of pod people and vampires. Tucker looked bored but doggedly interested for the sake of friendship, Sam just wasn’t listening. Mr. Lancer was ignoring them as he lectured on and on about Mongol hordes. The Mongol hordes drank blood, he thought to himself as he lectured. What I’m doing isn’t all that strange then. People used to do it all the time.

…but then people also used to burn books because they were written before their religion claimed the world began. Damn.

Danny turned back to his notes and picked up the sheets. He hissed and dropped them, gripping his hand and its paper-cut finger. Lancer’s nostrils flared as the scent of fresh living blood reached his senses. Before he could catch himself he’d crossed the room, grabbed Danny’s hand and was about to lick the blood seeping from the tiny cut.

“Um… Mr. Lancer?” Danny asked nervously. “Can I have my hand back?”

Lancer dropped the hand in shock and backed away. He could feel the eyes on him, everyone staring at him like he were insane.

Maybe he was…

“Class is dismissed for the day,” Lancer said quickly. “Just… go to study hall or something.” He all but ran out the door to his office. He sank down into a chair and let his head fall into his hands. Oh hells, what am I doing?

He grabbed the phone and dialed a number he knew well enough. It rang and rang, he was about to hang up when… “Mrs. Fenton? I’d like to have a word with you after school today. It’s about Danny…”

-----

“I’m concerned about young Daniel,” Lancer told Maddie after small talk and cookies. They sat in the Fentonworks living room sipping tea, he’d asked her to speak with him about Danny’s weird behaviour, about his “pod people” and “vampires”. “He seems to be showing… concern about certain persons. Specifically about whether or not they’re themselves.”

“Is that so bad?” Maddie asked.

“Well, no,” Lancer admitted. “But the way he’s going on about it. You don’t show sincere concern by whispering about ‘pod people’.”

“‘Pod people’?” Maddie echoed, showing a slightly forced amusement. “And tell me, Mr. Lancer, who does he consider to be ‘pod people’?”

“As far as I can tell?” Lancer took a sip of tea before continuing. “You.”

“Me?”

“Well, you and your husband,” he clarified. “He still just considers me a vampire. I must say, Mrs. Fenton, that your son will make an excellent internet conspiracy theorist someday.”

Maddie sputtered and laughed nervously before falling silent and contemplative.

I’ve made her suspicious, Lancer thought to himself.

Her suspicion is irrelevant. She is one of us.

“One of us?” Lancer asked aloud. He didn’t seem to realize he was doing it.

Yesss… Her swathe is older than I but weaker… She doesn’t feed hers like thou does me.

“Well it’s not like I have much of a choice.” Lancer took a sip of tea and finally it dawned on him that Maddie was staring at him in fear. “The Tempest,” he swore softly.

“Are you sure Danny’s fears are so unfounded?” Maddie asked slowly.

“I’m not the first person he suspected,” Lancer countered. “You were the pod people before I was the vampire.”

Maddie sat in thought. She didn’t really think she and Jack were the only ones in Undergrowth’s pen. She remembered Danny’s friends being there, maybe others… Maybe even Mr. Lancer… “Mr. Lancer,” she began delicately. “Have you given thought to the possibility that you might be… infested with something?”

Infested? The nerve…

“It would explain a few things,” Lancer said, deadpanned.

“We have a way to find out…”

-----

Night dawned and grew, evolved into darkness and moonlight and Lancer stood in the basement laboratory gazing at his own x-ray. Tendrils invaded the image of his body, spines stabbing into organs and glands. Vines snaked through his limbs down to the fingertips. And the brain… It pulsed with the invader’s flesh, tendrils wrapped around nerves and synapses.

“No wonder I’ve been hearing a voice,” Lancer whispered. “It’s that… thing inside me.”

“You can hear it?” Maddie asked.

“It’s because I’ve been feeding it,” he continued. “It stabs me with those thorns if I don’t. It’s growing fast, faster than yours. Yours will be speaking to you soon enough.”

Maddie shuddered. “But I don’t want it to…”

Lancer turned to her, eyes glazed over as though possessed by something, something floral. “Whether you want to or not, you will hear our call. You’re one of us, Madeline. You and Jack, Tucker, James.”

Maddie backed away from him, fear rising in her mind. Step… step… step… Suddenly she fell to one knee and grabbed her head. She gasped in sudden sensation, fell to the floor and curled in a ball. A silent scream caught in her throat as Lancer stood before her, eyes flashing with glee.

Hello said an innocent little voice inside Maddie’s mind.

-----

Jack woke up in a half-full bathtub and looked confused at his being there. He made his way down the stairs to the ground floor to see Maddie curled up in someone’s arms. Wait, what the hell? “What’s going on here?!” he demanded.

Maddie lay curled up in Lancer’s arms. She looked up at Jack with scared eyes. “Jack…” she said quietly. “Hold me.”

“Maddie?” Jack asked. “Wait, huh?”

“The plants within us,” Lancer murmured. “They speak in our minds. Madeline’s just woke up.”

Jack looked confused. “Plants waking up? What?”

Maddie wriggled out from Lancer’s arms and crawled into Jack’s. “It’s speaking to me,” she whimpered. “I’m scared.”

Jack wrapped his arms around Maddie and held her close. He gave Lancer a questioning look.

“You didn’t think you were the only hosts, did you?” Lancer asked calmly. “There’s myself and two others. Children. We should contact them before their swathes learn to speak and they start to panic. If only to keep our swathes safe.”

“Why would we want these things safe?” Maddie asked sullenly. She ignored the voice in her mind that protested with a Hey!

“Because without our swathes we die,” Lancer explained. “Would you really want to do that to Danny and Jazz? Force them to grow up without parents because you were uncomfortable with being hosts to something more than human?”

Jack shook his head and pulled Maddie closer. “We couldn’t do that.”

Lancer stood up. “I thought so. Now if you don’t mind this has been a very trying day. I need to force my host to feed me.” He left Fentonworks to hunt.

End Chapter 2