Down, down, down, further than before she walked into the doldrums of the vampire manor. Each step felt like forever and a day and it didn't seem like it would ever end. The steps were wooden then stone and finally packed dirt. A glow came from rocks that appeared to emit light as an inherent quality.

"I don't know what this is," Donner told her. "Don't touch them."

It wasn't much, barely enough to see inches ahead, but not a glow-in-the-dark greenish hue. Rather, it was white.

"This keeps getting more freaky," she said, amazed. "Why does this kind of thing happen to me? I don't want to deal with this!"

"The Fates have it out for you," he said drily. "I don't know Luna, but this needs to be done unless you want another fire on the farm or something worse."

Which she didn't, once was bad enough and how did that even happen?

"I'm not sure. Neither of us remembers, but I would assume it was intentional."

"You think Ant or Georgia accidentally set the place ablaze?"

"No, not your family members. It was whoever has been alerted to your unusual abilities. They were casing your house and didn't expect your quick return. I told you it was strange that you were given an appointment for the very next day. Someone wanted you out of the house so they could poke around. When you suddenly returned-"

"But I wasn't even there yet!"

"They set up magic circles that were triggered by your arrival. Like the alarm system your aunt has installed in case of burglars. What likely happened is that you arrived much sooner and closer than expected. Magic circles only have a certain radius of effect. Unfortunately, the rest of their plan was stupid and killed everyone involved."

Careful steps, because it was so dark and Donner didn't want her to fall down the stairs and die if she could help it, made for extra slow going.

"What-?" Her foot touched something and she bent down to pick it up. Roundish. "This is a skull," she said, dully. "Somebody's skull." And she was tired of it being so dark so she called forth some light and saw the entire body. "Whoever this was, they were trying to get out and died on the way."

A person, fallen upon the steps and left for who knew how many years.

"No one's been down here for a long time," she surmised. "I bet no one knew this happened. A missing person's case that was never solved. They snuck into the mysterious abandoned house and didn't get back out."

"They do say curiosity kills the cat," Donner added. "I'm sure they died without finding anything of value. Let this be a lesson to you."

"A lesson? What lesson? I come right back!"

With that in mind, she threw herself down the stairs, much to Donner's horror, and opened her eyes in the waystation once more. "How long do you think we have to stay here? I want to wake up at the bottom of the steps. I'm tired of walking."

While he wanted to express his incredible anger, it was difficult to sustain that level of emotion when he knew it would do no good. Accepting death was not, and never would be, easy for him. Luna faced no real consequences for it, as far as he could tell, but someday he might. Instead, he answered her question. "I don't know. Perhaps, being you, simply wanting it is enough."

"This place is boring without Snowman," she walked to the swing set. "I wonder where he went?"

"Off to do his real job, I'm sure."

She still felt betrayed & confused by the whole situation. What in the world were gods doing playing human? Or something? What was she doing?

"Whatever," Luna muttered as she turned suddenly and ran for the exit. She didn't need to know. Whatever happened at the end of things… Well, she would find out then. For now, she had other things to do.

Like going to school so Donner didn't have to spend the rest of the time-space continuum in her head.

Back to life and she was mercifully at the bottom of a million, billion steps. Dirty from head to toe, but that was okay with her. She wanted to find the portal to get back out.

Donner was quiet.

Too quiet.

"Uh-oh."

Quickly she ran back up a bunch of stairs and threw herself down again. Returned to the world before ultimate death, she found him mid-mental breakdown.

"Donner!" she shouted, grabbing the tall man around the waist. She was taller now, she hadn't realized how much. She could reach the counters without help and everything, but she supposed that was the natural way of the world and people didn't often notice things like that. "I came back, calm down!"

He was about as far from calm as it was possible to be. She'd seen him angry before, but that wasn't this.

He was scared.

She'd never thought she'd see him like this and she knew, immediately, this would be something they didn't talk about. He would pretend it never happened and she would, too. But she would remember. So that it didn't ever happen again, she would remember.

And so would he, since there was no way he could forget it even if it was what he wanted the most in the world.

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She got the feeling he'd never been properly scared in his life. Being afraid to die was one thing. When it happened, he was poised to keep walking like everyone else. He didn't know he was dead until she alerted him and before that, he planned to avoid it.

This was unexpected. All of a sudden, she was gone and he was still here.

Honestly, she was a bit frightened, too, but that wasn't going to help them through this so she kept it to herself.

What helped was repressing.

"Anyway, let's go."

No need to say they would never speak of this again.

Back at the bottom of the never-ending stairs, previous events purposely pushed as far away as possible, she started walking forward once more with a ball of light floating ahead of her to illuminate the path.

"If this is a maze, I'm gonna lose it."

Fortunately, it wasn't. From there on, the way appeared straightforward. It seemed the stairs were the main deterrent.

"But this keeps going forever, too!"

"Get to the portal, close it, and vanish yourself out of here." He was shaken and trying not to be. It was bad enough that it happened, but knowing that Luna knew, and was trying to be helpful by keeping it to herself, was making it worse. "Annoying as it is, be grateful it isn't worse."

"How will I know when-"

"You'll know."

He was right.

"Wow. That looks… like a portal and I think I've seen one before."

"When in the world would you have seen a portal?"

"When I lived with Pink in the city apartment. I got a book out of another room and I think Ink Pen ate the person who lived there. So I was looking through the book, it was full of squiggles and stuff and I knew how to read, but I couldn't read that. I shook it around and the squiggles fell out and a big, black hole was suddenly on the floor. I dumped water into it and threw in the bottle. After that, I held the book down to the floor and, like, scooped it up. The book was different on the inside then, still no real words though. I have that book at home. I think you must have seen it before. Have I ever told you about this?"

As usual, she had no idea what anything she did meant.

"I don't recall that particular story, but fine." He was going to let that go for now. "Later, we will look at that book. For now, close this portal. You did it before, do it again."

"But I knew how that one opened. I don't know about this one."

"No, you don't know how that one opened either. It wasn't just shaking the book, there's a lot more involved that you had nothing to do with. You happened to get a hold of the conduit and the conditions were right. There's one for this, too. It's around here somewhere."

She tossed her ball of light into the center of the room and watched it float to the ceiling, expand, and give her the ability to see the whole space at once.

It was a full circle and the portal itself was surrounded by a stone wall with a swinging gate; the gate stood open in front of her.

"Why is it open?"

Because someone else was here. Behind the wall. Hiding.

"Perhaps the person whose skeleton we saw on the stairs made it all the way down & left it open." He didn't sound sure about that.

"Yeah right," she told him in her head. "I had to die twice to get down here. They didn't make it this far."

"Someone may be dead, rather than hiding, on the other side of the wall."

"There's one way to find out," Luna said aloud as she strode toward and through the gate.

There was no one.

"This," she paused as she inspected the area, "does not feel right."

No, not at all. Something was certainly amiss. "They could be cloaked," Donner said. "Neutralize any other magic in the area. Think of it as canceling a subscription service."

"But that's hard! Ant had to go through a call center and it took hours!"

That was the last time he tried to describe something in a way she would understand. "Do it!"

So she did, an act easier for her than it any right to be as usual, but still there was nothing.

Her light went out.

"Why-"

She was pushed.

Into the portal.

And out into space.

Where she died because you can't breathe in space.

"Motherfucker!" she shouted on the bridge. "Who was that?!"

"I don't know," Donner was perturbed. "Someone who meant to get rid of you. But were they there purposely or was it incidental?"

"Could they have been guarding it? Another vampire? They wouldn't know what happened above. Forget them, how do we get back? If we end up in space again I'll die immediately! Can I hold my breath and live? I need about a second, I think."

"That's not exactly the problem. It's the vacuum that will kill you. I believe you can survive for a few minutes, but you will be unconscious almost instantly. Space itself wasn't what killed you, it was going through the portal. I haven't done much research in this area."

"That's for the best," she said. "If I don't know I can't do it, then I probably can."

Like the cartoon coyote running off the edge of a cliff and standing over open air, until he realized where he was. As long as she didn't think it was impossible, she could do it.

Back into space, Donner flipping out in her head that she had better hurry the fuck up, she teleported back to the edge of the portal and died again before rushing right back out to catch the person who murdered her.

Accidentally leaving Donner behind in the process again, which was unfortunate, but he would have to wait a gosh darn minute.

It was a man standing by the portal's edge.

He looked like her.

"Oh shit."

Did this mean Ji-hun got to her first? Or did she win that race?

"Bye!" She fell backward into the portal, to space, and the bridge. Donner was markedly less frantic than the last time, which was good, but he was still very angry. She didn't give him a chance to say anything though. "It's my dad!"

He blinked, vitriol evaporated.

"I went back to space myself. He killed me! My own dad!"

"He would," Donner said, "and then you came back alive. He'll never let you go now."

"He can't hold me down!"

"He can. Magic bonds are strong and he will have the law on his side. No doubt he'll try to talk himself into your life the next time he sees you."

"There's nothing he could say to me to make me like him. He killed me. He didn't know I'd be back!"

"I didn't say he'd try to make you like him. He won't care about that. I don't know if he was there for you or not, but now that he knows you exist he'll go after your aunt and cousin. He'll use them against you."

"Does he know I'm his kid?"

"He will at least suspect it. You look too much like him and if he has any sense, he'll go to the Annex to find out. If he's here, he must have already been informed that a child exists. They won't withhold the information and he'll be told that you're already looking for him."

"So what do I do with Ant and Georgia?" Anxious.

"Hide them."

There wasn't much time.