(A.N.) Ah! So, I discovered this comic a while ago and I'm absolutely crazy about it. My biggest fear is that I didn't do these amazing characters justice. Anyways, in this story, Adelaide has still not been caught, so Hanna, Ellipse/Zombie, Toni, Veser, and Conrad are all still together, hoping to work together to eventually catch her and not…get…killed. Adelaide may or may not play a part in future chapters, I'm not sure. Anyways, enjoy the story!
"You brought…a whole entourage with you?"
The client, appraising Hanna, tilted her head as she surveyed the group of five. Accompanying Hanna was Ellipse, Toni, Veser, and Conrad. Altogether—a paranormal detective, his zombie-esque assistant, a werewolf, an irritable teenager, and what many, many consider a pathetic excuse for a vampire.
"Well," Hanna started to explain, "currently we're all under threat-of-death if we don't manage to catch a certain sassy bat, so for now we're stuck together. But besides," he added, as he cheerfully put his arm around Conrad. "We're all buddies, aren't we?"
"No," Conrad said plainly in response. He lifted Hanna's arm off his shoulder. "We're really not."
"So, what do you need help with?" Hanna asked the young lady client, unfazed by Conrad's comment. The client looked to be in about her early twenties. She had long, platinum blonde hair, all the way down to her hips. Strands of it partially obscured a muddy brown eye. She was very tall, almost reaching Ellipse's height, and she was slender.
"Nearby," the young woman started, "there is a disturbance in a nearby shop. A fortune-telling friend of mine owns the place, and she's been trapped in the upper part, she has delivered me a text message on the cellular phone to inform me of such. A beast of sorts inhabits there, and it has been residing in the lower section of the shop. I do not know the specifics of the beast's nature or appearance, but I know it is a threat and that it is not fond of leaving. I was hoping you and your…friends…could eradicate it."
"This friend of yours," questioned Toni, "she didn't get a glance at it? Not a clue of what it could be?"
The client shook her head. "None, as I have told you."
"Alright…" mused Hanna, tapping his chin. "Well, there's nothing we can't handle. Are you going to accompany us, Miss…um…?" Hanna's question drifted off as he realized he hadn't caught the client's name.
"My name is Morgan," she informed him. "And I suppose I will. The shop is just a few buildings down from this apartment." The six of them began traversing out the door.
"Is your fortune-teller any good?" Veser questioned Morgan as the gang walked out.
"She's fairly reliable," Morgan replied, breezily.
Veser snorted at that. "Except when it comes to giant monsters crashing into her shop?"
"It certainly does not happen every day."
"Something screwy usually does," Veser commented, dryly. "And Hanna has a track record of screwing it up even more."
Morgan gave him a faltering look. "Is this supposed to make me feel glad I hired you?"
"Just giving you the facts," Veser said simply, with a shrug.
"Well stop doing that!" Hanna exclaimed from the front of the pack, as they continued traipsing down another flight of stairs.
"What the hell do you want me to do, then?" Veser hollered back. "Lie to her?"
"That would be preferred!" replied Hanna.
Veser faced Morgan and said, very calmly, "You're in completely capable hands."
The six makeshift detectives stopped once Morgan told them to. The shop was two-stories, and very plain. It was navy blue in color with a flat roof. There were four windows, and in between the top two was a hand-made sign that read: "Foresight."
"So how do you propose we go about doing…?" Hanna flailed his arms around, gesturing in the general direction of the fortune-teller's shop, "this…thing…?" Veser picked up a large, nearby rock, hoping for the chance to smash open some window, while Ellipse sighed and walked over to the front door, jiggling the doorknob.
"It's unlocked," he said quietly, as he turned back towards the five others. "Shall we just take the direct approach?"
"The beast has been residing in the back room," Morgan informed them all. "If we are quiet, it shall not know of our arrival."
"Aw…" Disappointed, Veser dropped the softball-sized rock he had been holding, right onto Conrad's foot. Conrad let out a few expletives.
"Jeez, man," Veser criticized Conrad's sailor mouth. "There are ladies present." Toni grinned a bit at that.
"Let's stop torturing the poor guy," she suggested, awkwardly patting Conrad's shoulder. "And just get this over with." Hanna eased the door open, ushered them all in, and slipped in the back, letting the door gently close behind him.
Inside, the floors were a light, lilac purple, with the faint glimmer of white stars etched into them. The whole placed glowed with an eeriness that seemed to inhabit any place the gang checked out. The walls were a glowing, strange hue of blue. In the center of the barren room was a wooden table. A strange object sat in the middle, a metallic circle, resembling a choker necklace, somewhat. Three curved pieces of metal jutted up from the ring, creating a small triangle.
"That…that's the thing that held her crystal ball," Morgan realized. Her eyes swept the floor. "The glass. The ball is broken. Watch your step."
Toni gave the girl a hard-to-read look—mostly, curiosity mingled with suspicion.
"Maaaybe…" Hanna remarked, as he tiptoed his way around the room, "maybe your friend is a bit on the supernatural side. Do you think she might actually dabble in magic? She might've made a mistake with it."
"I…I do not know if she has any actual powers," Morgan responded. She seemed fixated on the broken glass, and rooted to the spot she stood.
"Morgan," Toni spoke up suddenly. "Is the staircase in the back room? The one that leads to the second floor?" It took a moment for Morgan to snap out of her trance and nod at Toni's question. Conrad sighed and reluctantly transformed into a bat, fluttering his way across the room, for lack of a better verb choice.
"The glass didn't spread out too far," Veser informed the others. "Most of it is just by the table."
It was a tedious effort, but all managed to make it across without stepping on any stray crystal ball shards. They all stood in front of a door that read in plain, engraved letters: "DO NOT ENTER."
"Five…four…" Hanna counted down, his hand on the doorknob. "Threemorenumbers, LET'S DO THIS!" He threw open the door, his hammer and his marker wielded, ready to kick some magical ass.
The second room was clearly the fortune teller's personal room. It was a tidy little kitchen, an oven here, a fridge there. A small staircase led up to a second floor.
However, there was no sign of anything out of the ordinary.
"Err…" Hanna paused. "Olly-olly-oxen-free?"
No response.
By now, it was not just Toni giving Morgan a speculative look.
"She would not break her own crystal ball," protested the client, clearly agitated at their suspicions. "I am going upstairs to find her. Please wait here."
"There's a chance," Ellipse pointed out, closing his eyes for a moment, "that the beast is simply hidden."
"True! Be on your toes!" Hanna agreed, darting around the room like a really bad ninja.
"Can we just leave?" Conrad complained, as he materialized back into his human self.
"Fortune-telling is a sham, anyways," agreed Veser.
"I'm not so sure," Toni disagreed, frowning as she stared up the staircase. "I think something's really going on here. If not, then we should at least make sure Morgan's friend is okay."
"Damn you and your ethics," groaned Veser.
Nobody argued further; the five of them stayed downstairs a while longer, with no response from above.
"Okay, that's it," Toni declared, as she began going up the staircase. "I'm gonna go find them." She swung around the railing, and put one foot on the first step, when the mother-of-all screams stopped her cold.
"NO!" Morgan screeched, as she stumbled down the staircase. Her hair was a mess, her eyes were wild, and her skin was an ashy color. "All of you, you have to get out of here NOW! MOVE, before—" Her voice choked up; the sentence went unfinished.
"Before what?" Hanna asked, holding his hammer at his side, confusion splayed across his face.
Another girl walked down the staircase. Her hair was a curly red mess, and her eyes were big and green. She walked in a very herky-jerky fashion, like a badly-handled marionette.
"Five bucks says she's possessed," Veser said dryly.
"So not the time," Toni managed to chew out. Ellipse put a hand on Morgan's shoulder, lightly shaking her, trying to move her back into a coherent state. Morgan burst forward suddenly as if being pulled by a rope. Her hands moved about, clawing at thin air, as she screamed and twisted in the grip of the invisible force.
By now, even Hanna knew something was really, really wrong.
Toni, Veser, and Ellipse soon had a strong grip on Morgan, but it wasn't enough. Morgan twisted around like a rag doll, finally shaking free of them and moving, against her will, through the open door. The mysterious force pushed her to her knees.
Meanwhile, the redheaded girl stood motionless, her gaze unfocused.
"Is this the fortune-teller?" Hanna asked Conrad, who gave him a how-the-hell-should-I-know look in rebuttal. "Well, I doubt we're gonna get an answer by asking her…but I think she is, so we should probably opt for the non-maiming spectrum of things." Hanna glanced at the girl. "In full honesty though, she's starting to creep me out…"
The girl walked by them without another word.
"Oh jeez, I'm sorry!" Hanna called out. "I didn't mean it like that!"
"Can you tone down the idiocy?" Conrad groaned, fisting his eyes. The redheaded girl walked into the other room, past the area where Ellipse, Veser, and Toni, were still trying to help Morgan to her feet. It was not use; she was stuck to the ground, a total deadweight.
The redhead girl picked up a shard of glass, examining it in the glare of the light.
"Hoo boy." Hanna widened his eyes, seeing where this was going. "That's a problem. That is a really…" he ran into the other room. "Big problem." The girl was walking over to Morgan, but Hanna grabbed her by the hood she had on, and stopped her short.
He didn't really expect the girl to lash out at him with the hand holding the glass. Especially not with that speed. What happened to the brain-dead zombie she had been a few moments ago?
Luckily, Ellipse (he moved fast for a dead guy) managed to intercept the blow, grabbing the girl's wrist and twisting it so she was forced to drop the shard of glass.
"Morgan!" Toni shouted, desperate to catch the attention of the sobbing, hysterical blonde. "What's going on? Did your friend lure you here just to kill you?"
"No!" Morgan cried out. "She…I…I…it's him…" that was of little use, but at least the gang knew there really was a larger force behind this.
As if on cue, everything went to lockdown. A click of the door's lock was heard, as well as the locks on every window. The door leading to the back room slammed shut.
Every one of them was on high alert now.
Hanna pocketed his marker and raised his hammer, gripping it with both hands. Veser clenched his fists, tightening his whole body, ready to tackle anybody at any given moment. Ellipse gently put his fedora aside and stood very still, very alert. Conrad edged closer to Ellipse, hiding behind him just the slightest. Blue wisps of light wrapped itself around Toni, transforming her into her wolf form. The whole appearance of her was phantomlike once the transformation was complete. She was completely bones, no fur or eyes or teeth. Each bone was translucent and tinged green in color. They were like glass, but they were far from breakable.
When something dropped from the ceiling, very quickly, very suddenly, four of the five leapt at it. It was no use; they basically passed through thin air, and toppled over in the directions they had been heading.
They all turned their heads to what stood now on top of the table, where the crystal ball once was.
It was a young man, but his form seemed to be flickering, like bad reception on the television. His hair was strawberry blonde, his skin pale, his eyes blue. He had a smile on his face that was almost pleasant. Hanna frowned as he observed the man's clothes—they were more than outdated. He wasn't from this century, that much was obvious.
Morgan's crying had silenced; the redheaded fortune-teller was standing silent and stoic, close by.
"Now that I've got a captive audience," the young man began speaking, in a voice much clearer than his appearance. A mischievous grin grew on his lips. "It'd be a shame not to give them a show. I wouldn't try to stop her again. I'm in control of her, very much so. I could kill her easier than you may think…" And the fortune-teller was moving, again, and heading towards Morgan—again.
"Annie!" Morgan screamed, unable to even lift her eyes to meet her friend's gaze. "Annie, don't! Please!"
In an act of desperation, Hanna shouted to the ghost imprisoning, "Wait! Wait, wait, wait! What do you want?"
The ghost turned his head, as if only now noticing Hanna. His face grew confused, then interested. "You. I recognize you. I've heard of you. You wield magic, you fried Adelaide…"
Hanna, sensing an opportunity, pitched in, "Yeah, that's right. What…" unsure what to say, he simply repeated his past question, "what do you want? Well, besides killing Morgan over there…"
"Restore me to my humanity," The ghost said, fully serious, as he stared at Hanna. "Bring me back to life. With my body, my powers can come back, fully and completely…"
"Hanna could do that?" Toni whispered to herself, staring at Hanna in shock.
It didn't matter if he could or not, Hanna was nodding, and walking over to the ghost, uncapping his magic marker. The ghost floated down and walked, with Hanna, towards the other room—the door flew open to let them in.
The other waited in silence, unable to say anything. Two minutes passed by like two drudging hours—time was moving as slowly as a near-dead tortoise.
If Ellipse listened closely, he could hear Morgan repeating the same phrase like a mantra: "Don't do it, don't do it, don't do it…"
After about thirty seconds, the control on Morgan seemed to be released, and she managed to stagger into a standing position. However, she didn't dare enter the room Hanna and the ghost resided in. Annie, the fortune-teller, the bind on her seemed to dissipate as well—the light returned to her eyes, and she gasped, stumbling around a bit.
Suddenly, Hanna burst through the door, slamming it behind him—although, what use that would have on a ghost left the mind pondering.
"Not the right runes," Hanna gasped out, speaking quickly. "I didn't do it."
"What?" Conrad shouted, whipping his head towards the door. "He's gonna kill us for sure!"
"Quick binding spell," explained Hanna, in a rush. "Okay, okay, okay—this is the part where we run. Like hell."
And they did just that. Conrad: a bat out of hell, and the others: just very, very disturbed individuals.