It started out with a panicked phone call from Grace. It hadn’t quite come out of the blue, but it wasn’t one that Danny had expected to get either. He’d mostly thought that her reluctance to go back to her mother’s home lately had more to do with feeling displaced by hew new baby brother and the fact that she found her mother’s style of magic far more stiff and uncomfortable than what Grace was learning from the local mages. Still, there had been no indication that anything was really wrong.
Then the phone call had come. To Steve because Danny had once again lost a phone due to the insanity that was Five Oh.
Steve had answer the phone with a smile.
“Hey, Gracie. What can I do for you?” The dropped off his face within a second. “Let me put you on speaker, sweetheart, so your dad can hear too.”
“–something is wrong with Mom’s magic. It feel’s all dark and icky, and I don’t know where we’re going, but they’re taking Charlie, so I said I’d come along. And he won’t stop crying. Every time Mom or Step-Stan comes near him him he cries, and Step-Stan feels like magic now, but not like our magic. It feels wrong. We just stopped to get gas so I called you. I don’t know how long until we leave again and–”
“Take a deep breath, Grace.” Danny instructed. “Are you wearing your necklace from Nana?”
“Yes, Danno.”
“Good. Keep your phone on too. That way we can track you both magically and electronically. Steve and I are going to come get you, and we’ll take things from there.”
Steve was already heading for HQ. Between the magical and mundane resources they had, finding Grace shouldn’t be too hard. Danny was more worried about the part where it sounded like both Rachel and Stan were dabbling in dark magic. Rachel should know better. Stan might be completely unmagical and ignorant of how things like that worked, but Rachel’s family had been a part of the British magical community for centuries and had been heavily involved in its policing.
Of course that had been one of the things that Rachel had complained about was the fact that Danny was involved with both magical and mundane police work, but he still wouldn’t have thought she would have gotten mixed up In anything that would distress Grace to this degree.
“Mom and Step-Stan are coming back, Danno!”
“All alright, Monkey. Hang up your phone, but keep in on and with you. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
He hung up with a sinking feeling, even as they pulled up in front of the Iolani Palace.
“Danny?”
He looked at Steve. “I didn’t even realize that something was going with Rachel. I knew that Grace wasn’t happy with her and Stan, but I thought it was typical sibling now that Grace is no longer an only child.”
His partner patted his shoulder. “We’ll find her, Danno. Between the four of us and our connections, they won’t be able to hide her from us.”
That didn’t exactly comfort him. The real question was would they find Grace in time. It almost sounded like Grace was incidental to Rachel’s plans, but even so, Danny didn’t want his daughter to even be near dark magic. And they had no idea what they were going to find when they found her.
But Steve had been right as well. Between Danny’s magic and Chin’s technology, it was easy enough to locate Grace. It was harder to figure out where Stan and Rachel were taking her. They were still on the move, and as far as Danny could tell there was no clear destination. Kono was frowning at a map.
“Chin, didn’t one of the Aunties mention that there’s some sort of spring out this direction that Elementals tend to congregate around?” she asked.
The man nodded. “I think you’re right. If Rachel planning some sort of ritual, it would be an ideal spot.”
Once again Danny found himself more than grateful for Chin and Kono’s vast knowledge of the island. It meant they made good time and didn’t attract a lot of attention. Unfortunately, by the time the arrived, they found Rachel’s car, but no sign of Grace. The locating spells indicated that they needed to head in to the wilderness.
And as much as he was loathe to stop, Danny knew that they needed to take a moment in order to prepare. He at least needed to see what elementals he could summon to aid them, and he knew Chin would probably want to do the same. This far inland, he doubted Steve and Kono are likely to summon their own, but with Steve, Danny never knew.
The good news was it was pretty easy to find the path Rachel and Stan had used. It was hard to be stealthy with children in tow. The bad news was as they were traversing the trail a wave of magic burst over them. Their shields kept any harm from coming to them, but it made Danny break into a run.
He burst through the trees into a clearing where he found Grace backed up against a tree, biting her lip in concentration as she held her shields around her. Her eyes flew open as he made his entrance and her shield dropped.
“Danno!”
Danny wrapped his arms around her. “Are you okay?”
She nodded, burrowing closer. “Mom wouldn’t let me go any farther than this, and I could feel something happening, so I had my shields up in time, but I don’t know about Charlie.”
Danny and Steve traded a look. Chin and Kono were right behind them. Grace would be safe enough for now.
“Stay with Chin and Kono, Monkey. We’ll be right back.”
The two of them headed into the next clearing. Neither Danny nor Steve were expecting to find bodies, but that was exactly what was waiting for them. A circle of bodies dressed in dark robes, amongst them both Rachel and Stan. But there in the middle of the circle was Charlie, eyes wide and watching the sylphs that danced around him. Sylphs that Danny was all too familiar with. Steve holstered his gun as he stared at the little blond boy.
"Somehow, I think Rachel might have been wrong about Charlie being Stan's son."
Danny crossed his arms over his chest. “Let me get this straight. My daughter mentions that I have a tattoo, and you decided that the best time to try an interrogate me about it was in the middle of a firefight? You deserved to get shot.”
Steve winced as the EMT tightened the bandage on his arm. “Danno...”
“Oh don’t, Danno me. You’re going to let the nice EMTs take care of you, and then you’re going to go back to HQ and do all the paperwork.”
It’s driving Steve absolutely crazy. The knowledge that somewhere on his body Danny is hiding a tattoo of some sort. It’s been three weeks since Grace let that fact slip, and Steve still hasn’t been able to figure where that tattoo is or what it might be of. It had gotten to point where other people were noticing too.
“Are you ogling Danny’s ass for a reason, boss? You seem a bit distracted.”
Steve blinked at Kono. “Do you think he’d get a tattoo there?”
Kono blinked at him. “What?”
“Do you think Danny would get a tattoo on his butt? Grace says he has one, but I’ve never seen it, so it has to be somewhere like that.”
Kono just shook her head. “I don’t really think Danny’s an ass tattoo kind of guy. Of course, I didn’t think he was a tattoo sort of guy, so who knows.”
Steve just sighed.
“Have you thought about just asking Danny about the tattoo?” Kono asked. “I mean, I don’t mind you ogling Danny, but if I get shot because of it, I’m not going to be very happy.”
He snorted. “Right. And Danny’s just going to spill the beans about his secret tattoo that I only know about because his daughter told me.”
Danny has the feeling that he might be making a fool of himself. Still, it wasn’t like anyone would know. His new tattoo was going right by his old one, where both would be out of sight. And it wasn’t like his new tattoo was obvious or anything. People would only recognize the scattering of stars as the constellation Pisces if they knew what they were looking for, and they’d also have to know that that was Steve’s sign. And it looked quite nice wrapped around Grace’s North Star compass rose.
Both tattoos were simple in style and done in black ink. The compass rose had the some of the words from Amazing Grace etched around the outside, but the Pisces was just a collection of black stars. Simple and understate, it suited Steve. And Danny had to admit that he liked the fact that the tattoos representing two of the most important people in his life were together. Not that he would ever tell Steve that. In fact, it would be a blue moon before Steve found out about his tattoos in general.
