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Danny tossed the bowling ball up and down as he strolled up the lane. Behind him, Sam and Tucker were jeering, and he was determined to prove them wrong.
“Try to keep it out of the gutters this time,” Sam said, smirking when Danny glared back at her.
Sam’s parents, tired of having to rent out the entire bowling alley every time they wanted to spend some time with their daughter, had one built beneath their mansion.
It was almost as big as the public one but a thousand times nicer. Sparkling lights and TV screens with obnoxious bowling animations. They’d gone all out to preserve the atmosphere. They’d even had a full concession stand put in. One of the staff usually worked there if the family was using it but Sam had asked to have it just for them for the day.
Good thing too, one less person who had to bear witness to Danny’s atrocious skills.
They’d come here nearly every other day since the installation last month and Danny still hadn’t won a single game. He’d only scared out a second place three times. Four if you could the time he had one of his clones steer the ball into the pins. Nobody did.
Every time he stood here he got a little pit in his stomach. Not because their prodding actually hurt him. No, he was just a sore loser and this was basically a guaranteed loss. Still, he pulled back, aimed, then whipped the ball forward, making sure to imitate the form he’d watched over and over again on YouTube the night before.
He stared, drilling holes into the ball as it rolled down the lane, biting back a grin when it touched the first pin. One by one the pins fell down in a slow-motion cascade, ending with Danny cheering and pumping his fist into the air, jumping a little too high for a human.
“Booyah! Strike! Did you see that? That’s what I’m talking about baby!” He yelled, doing a little shimmy and he turned around.
First strike in the building. His at least. Both Tucker and Sam had gotten theirs during the first game, but he was there now, joining them in the Hall of Champions.
His friends looked even more starstruck than he imagined. Their jaws were literally hanging open. Sure, he’d expected some awe, disbelief, even some cheating accusations, but this was a bit much.
“Oh, come on. It’s not that surprising,” Danny huffed. This sucked. He didn’t even get to gloat. “I’ll do it again next turn. Gonna win this time.”
That was a softball at Tucker. Mathematically he was screwed. They were already halfway through the game and unless they completely bombed their parts, he had an infinitesimal chance of winning.
Tucker didn’t correct him though. Instead, he said, “Danny, you’re glowing.”
Oh, shit.
He looked at his hands, then the rest of his body. Crap, Tucker was right, he was glowing. And, too late, he noticed that now-familiar tug. Judging by its strength, the tug had been there for at least a minute. It had been lost in the excitement of a stupid strike.
“Okay, listen. I can explain. I’m fine, I promise, just-” And then he was gone, sucked away by the tug.
His transformation washed over him, stinging more than usual, a side effect of the forceful change. A blink later he was standing in a barn.
Danny smiled when he saw the boy waiting for him, all prim and proper as he was the last time they’d met. He kept himself stiff as a board yet Danny could see the twitch of muscle beneath the skin, the need to fidget just a hair's breadth away from the surface.
Robin looked surprised and if Danny had to guess it was because of his appearance. He chose not to take offense to that. He knew he was looking pretty rough, Skulker’s last hunt had taken three days to get through and Danny hadn’t gotten a wink of sleep the entire time.
The boy was quick to offer an explanation for the barn, blushing a bit in embarrassment. Danny waved it off, he didn’t need a grand show of a summoning. Plus, this was better than some of the creepy basements he’d been thrust into.
No, he saw something much more concerning. "Robin, what- man, what happened to your face?"
"Don't worry, I'm fine. I had a spar with a teammate earlier." Teammate. Huh. Danny had never gotten hurt like that sparring with his team, but he guessed that was one of the upsides of not being fully human anymore. Training didn’t tend to leave marks that lasted more than a few minutes.
The meeting this time went a lot better than before. He got some good information, got to talk to Robin a lot more than before, and didn’t send him into another anxiety attack. Frankly, Danny considered this a win on all fronts.
As he disappeared, poofing back into the bowling alley, Danny found himself excited for their next meeting.
The first thing he felt was hands. Two pairs of hands grabbed him and pulled him into a tight group hug. Tucker and Sam, each burying their face in one of his shoulders. Sam was definitely crying, but he could feel Tucker’s fear and panic just as much as he could hear hers. A steady thrum through the ectoplasm that touched them.
“I’m sorry,” was all he said as he powered down. Tucker swatted the back of his head but didn’t let go, just hugged him even tighter once he was done.
The two of them stepped back a minute later, eyes red-rimmed and cheeks puffy. He’d make fun of them if he weren’t the cause.
“What the hell was that,” Sam said. She wasn’t yelling, but Danny knew that was just because she didn’t want to draw attention. The soundproofing on the bowling alley wasn’t great and this wasn’t the conversation to give it another test.
“I got summoned.” Straightforward answers always worked best. Especially with stuff he’d already been keeping a secret.
Tucker sniffed the last of his half-formed tears away and glared at Danny when he gave an apologetic smile in response. “This isn’t the first time it’s happened.” Not a question, but Danny nodded a yes anyway.
“Can we sit down?” Summoning always left him feeling a bit dizzy. Plus the panic of Danny disappearing was going to wear off soon and leave both of them just as tired. Or at least he hoped. He really didn’t want to deal with them being pissed at him the entire day.
They both gave him one final glare, just for glaring sake at that point and then walked away. Sam’s parents had splurged for some great seats, the only thing that was really out of place in the alley. Danny was grateful for it as he flopped down into the soft cushion, sinking in.
“How long has this been going on?” Sam asked after a few minutes. She was worrying her lip between her teeth, a nervous habit he didn’t remember her having before the accident.
“It started a few days after the coronation.” Ancients, was he surprised the first time that happened. It was a shitty little cult in the middle of Arizona who had been just as surprised as he was that the summoning worked. Then there was a group of kids testing out some online summoning circle, then another and another.
“Once people found out the summoning was working it got around. I’m learning to resist them now.” Not making much progress, but he was still learning.
Tucker squinted. “Then why didn’t you resist this one?”
Danny blushed, which only made Tucker squint harder. “The guy is harmless.” A total lie. He’d seen videos of Robin kicking ass. Lots of harm in that adorably polite boy.
“So you know him?” Sam said, surprised. “Is it Wes? I swear to Ancients if it’s Wes.”
Danny snorted. “It’s not Wes.” He wasn’t sure what to say. He didn’t want to reveal too much about Robin, that felt… wrong for some reason. Like he was betraying Robin. And he really didn’t want to do that.
“If it’s not Wes then tell us who it is.”
They did not react well when he said he couldn’t. He didn’t blame them for that either. If they told him they entered a soul-binding contract with someone they just met he would be freaking out too. But they didn’t know Robin. The guy was sweet, even if he was a bit stiff.
“He had a cow,” Danny said in the middle of the rant that Sam was going on. For a split second, he thought she was going to kill him and make sure it was done right. So he added, “I think he’s vegetarian.”
“You think he’s vegetarian,” Tucker repeated. Like he was an idiot.
“Yeah, he cared for that cow way too much. He even let me feed her.”
“Plenty of farmers care for their cows. Doesn’t mean they don’t eat them.” Sam was not thoroughly distracted. Good.
“Yeah, but, I don’t think he was a farmer. There was only one cow.” He was pretty sure one cow didn’t pay the bills. At least not in this day and age.
Sam frowned. Was the cow really gonna be his get-out-of-jail-free card? Robin was already saving him and they hadn’t even gotten into the nitty gritty contract stuff!
“Plus, he didn’t even want anything malicious. He just wanted to ask questions and stuff.” He didn’t need to tell them about the favors. That was a totally different meeting.
Tucker still looked suspicious. Much less swayed by the possibility of his friend being vegetarian than Sam was. “What did he want to know? That he needed to summon the Ghost King for?”
Usually, Danny would agree with him. It was crazy to go through all that trouble just to learn about him. But that was just the weird awkward way that Robin communicated. At least from what he gleamed so far, the guy wasn’t great at making friends. Or maybe he just heard the Ghost King was a young guy now and wanted to shoot his shot.
Danny blushed at that, which was a big mistake.
“Oh my ancients you have a crush.” Tucker said it with such disbelief that Danny didn’t even deny it. He just looked at him with big wide eyes.
He denied it a second later though. “I do not have a crush. He’s just a nice guy. That’s all. He asked me if I eat.”
“This guy is trying to woo the Ghost King,” Tucker said, throwing his hands up and slumping back into his chair.
“There is no wooing going on.”
Sam was staring at him, jaw hanging open slightly. Danny wanted to tell her she’d catch flies but he was pretty sure now wasn’t a good time for that.
“You’ve been letting yourself get summoned… because of a crush!” She was steaming again, ranting about how stupid and reckless he was.
Danny tuned her out and stuffed himself as far down into his seat as he could, pouting. “It’s not a crush,” he muttered.