The Resistance Kids and the Haunted House

by starwenn

It's Halloween 1949, and the Resistance Kids have three concerns - figuring out whether the house they're holding their Halloween party in is really haunted, bringing together their boss and mentor Hank Solo with his estranged wife Leia Organa-Solo, and keeping their rivals the First Order Gang from interfering with the first two.

The Resistance Kids and the Haunted House

Rating: PG (violence – comic and otherwise, mild language)

Pairings: Han/Leia, Finn/Rey

Disclaimer: The franchise belongs to George Lucas and the Walt Disney Company.

There were a lot of things Rey Rider loved about living in the Bowery in 1949. She liked the apartment she, Jessika, and Kaydel lived in. Finn, Snap, and Poe were right next door. Old Maz was downstairs to chaperon, push for the rent, and make the best damn pecan pie in New York. Ok, so the place consisted of three rooms and a barely closet-sized bathroom, the kitchen was attached to the living room, and she had to share a room with Kay and listen to her talk about her dates in her sleep. It beat the corrugated tin shack she lived in when she was working for Unkar Plutt, after she immigrated during the war.

Oh, and Baby. She could never forget Baby. Baby was a plump little corgi pup, the cutest and most playful dog in Manhattan. She was technically Poe's, but she sort of belonged to the whole group. Rey found her shivering and cold in an alley one day, after she'd gotten lost from Poe. Three bigger dogs were trying to pick a fight with her, but Rey chased them away and brought her to Finn, then Poe. Baby gravitated towards her ever since.

The Bowery was beautiful today. The battered storefronts and tenements were never going to win any awards, but nothing could look ugly in a fresh blue sky, with bright orange paper pumpkins and russet brown leaves in the windows. It was late October, just three days before Halloween, and the smell of burning leaves and apple and pear kuchen being made in bakeries was in the air. She took a deep sniff before stepping into Solo's Garage.

Working for Hank Solo was by far the best thing about coming to New York. She'd always loved mechanics. Nothing made her happier than tinkering with a car engine or repairing a toaster that was on the fritz. The brick garage was old and filled to the brim with parts of vehicles probably dating to the first cars sold in the late 1800's.

Hank Solo was a great guy. He was really laid-back. There were a lot of things he didn't mind. He didn't care that she was British, Finn was black, Jess' family was from the Philippines, or that she and Jess were girls. He didn't care where you were from or who you were, as long as you could fix a carburetor.

He and his huge Russian buddy Charles were legends in the Bowery. They were both originally from Chicago. They were passing through with a load of opium before getting caught in local gang wars. Hank said losing the opium almost got him killed, but it was the best thing that ever happened to him, because he met his wife, Leia.

Hank looked over his shoulder as she hurried in. "Nice of you to join us, kid." He tossed her a rag as she pulled on grease-smeared coveralls. "Here. The Falcon's coughing again. Probably her radiator. Better check her out."

Rey rolled her eyes. "The Falcon" was the truck Hank and Charles drove to New York with their fabled opium shipment in 1917. It apparently hadn't run well even then. Nowadays, it was really a piece of garbage, but Hank would never get rid of it. "She's a classic," Hank would boast. "She made the Kessel Run through upstate New York in just twelve minutes. Cops haven't caught her yet."

Finn waved her over. He, Snap, and Jess were already hard at work, up to their elbows in grease and transmission fluid. "Hey, Rey." Finn had the most infectious grin in the Bowery. There was something so adorable about it. You couldn't help grinning back. "Where have you been all morning? Hank's been askin' about you."

All four of them were as different as could be. Rey was short and feisty, with brown hair she usually tugged back into three loose buns. Jess was pretty and exotic, with her tanned skin and almond-shaped eyes. Snap was a big guy, with longish brown hair and a scruffy beard. He had a plump, round face that made people think he was a pushover...until they met his fist. Finn was another big guy, with deep cocoa-colored skin and large brown eyes that shined when he was working on a car or talking to his friends.

"I took a walk down to the end of Canal Street." She peered into the hood. "Wrench please, Snap."

"All the way down there?" Snap handed her the requested tool.

"I went to see that old house Mr. Ematt was talking about at his real estate agency." She started twisting lug nuts. "Remember when we went there last week, and he told us about the old Skywalker Manor? He said someone just bought it, but he could probably talk them into letting us have our Halloween party there."

Finn winced. "Didn't he say that place was haunted?"

Jess grinned as she poked her head out of a Chrysler Saratoga that needed it's engine cleaned. She had a streak of grime across her high cheekbones. "In that case, it would be perfect for our Halloween party. We wouldn't need to hang sheet ghosts on the walls. We'd have real ones."

"Yeah!" Snap leaned into the Falcon next to Rey. "Doesn't it have a huge fireplace? We could tell stories around the fire and roast marshmallows."

"We'd have to clean the chimney." Finn wiped off his hands with a no-longer-white rag. "And find wood somewhere. And a metal screen. I don't want to burn the house down. Mr. Ematt would never let us hear the end of it. Especially with the housing shortage going on."

Jess slid under the Chrysler. "I wonder why no one lives there?"

"It's too big." Hank came over to them, a pile of tools his his arms. He tossed one to Jess' disembodied hand when it stuck out. "Too big and too old for most people. No one's lived there since Andrew Waller and his wife Patricia died."

Rey shivered, and only partially from the chilly wind coming in through the drafty, cracked windows. "How did they die?" She banged on the side of the radiator with her wrench.

Jess slid out, her ears pricked. "Was it gruesome?"

"I don't know the details. I got most of the story from Leia and Ol' Benton Kenobi, before Kenobi died in a gang fight." Hank leaned on the cherry-red hood of a 1933 Buick. "Waller was a cop about 50 years ago. He caught Patricia with his best friend Kenobi, jumped to conclusions, and attacked her. Kenobi apparently gave him a good sock in the chin...but forgot the fireplace was lit. His buddy landed in the fire and ended up burning almost his entire right side off."

He frowned. "Patricia was pregnant. She went into labor early. Her twins survived. She didn't. They eventually gave the kids to loving families who'd protect them from their father."

"Wow." Snap grabbed a can of oil. "Now that's spooky. Do you think they're still there?"

Hank put up a hand. "Don't get ideas, kid. There ain't no such thing as ghosts."

Finn shivered. "I don't know about that. I swear our apartment building's haunted. I keep hearing noises in the middle of the night."

Jess went back under the Chrysler. "Finn, our apartment building is old. 1800's old. Before radio and the movies, even."

"Right, mate." Rey smacked him lightly on the shoulder with a towel. "Old buildings make noise. If you think that's bad, you should have seen the orphanage I used to live in when I was in England. It dated to the 1600's. I swear, it creaked and coughed more than the Falcon on the Manhattan Bridge."

"Besides," Snap added, wiping his hands on a rag, "Poe walks in his sleep when he's nervous. You know he's been crazy these past few days about getting a job with Mrs. Solo. She's his idol, man."

Jess finally emerged from under the Chrysler, her face streaked with grease. "I wonder who could afford to buy Skywalker Manor? It's a big place. I doubt it was cheap."

Finn looked up from helping Hank wash the Buick. "Did Ematt tell you? And why would they let us have our party there?"

The girl shrugged. "Some new science business called Starkiller Industries bought it. He said they're going to demolish the place anyway. As long as we stayed out of the boarded-up areas, we had free reign. I guess they figure we couldn't do anything worse to it. "

"Starkiller Industries?" Hank raised an eyebrow. "I think I've heard of them. They're developing new drugs and ways of helping people with brain problems."

Snap shivered as the fall breeze blew in from Canal Street. "I heard the Nazis did some seriously scary stuff to people's minds. They'd hypnotize them, or something, and would make them kill people."

"You've been listening to I Love A Mystery in the dark again." Finn polished the chrome on the Chrysler. "It's getting to you, man. No one can do that."

"I'd keep an open mind, if I were you." Hank tossed the rag into a wicker hamper. "I heard the Nazis experimented with a lot of crazy stuff during the war. Some of it sounded like it was out of Flash Gordon, but it was real."

Rey sighed. "They're probably just looking for an office building that's away from the grind."

The others looked at each other doubtfully. Hank rolled his eyes. "We have to finish these cars. The owners will be around before closing. And Rey, you need to get on the Falcon."

"Get on that thing?" A warm, familiar voice filled the air. "Hank, you couldn't make that heap jump-start with five cables and a battery the size of the Empire State Building."

"Poe!" The kids all leaped from around the cars and gathered around their friend. Poe was the group's leader and older brother figure. Rey hadn't seen him look so happy in ages. He was even wearing a natty new suit. His wild black curls were slicked back under his brown hat.

Baby the corgi trotted behind him, her orange collar nearly matching her burnt orange and white fur. She sprinted over to Rey and jumped on her legs, barking happily. "Hi, girl." Rey patted the dog. "How are you? Happy for your master?" Baby gave another excited yip. She was just happy to see all her favorite people in one place, especially her very favorite, Rey.

"Well, did you get it?" Finn gave Poe one of his huge grins. "Did you get the job?"

"You are looking," Poe stated proudly, "at the new junior investigator for Mrs. Leia Organa-Solo herself, only the greatest lady to have ever been a police commissioner in this burg." Hank snorted but said nothing, concentrating on the Buick.

"You got the job!" Finn hugged him. The others gathered around.

"Congratulations!" Jess patted him on the shoulder. "I knew you could do it!"

Snap gave him such a slap on the back, Poe almost ended up on top of the Falcon. "You'll be a great investigator."

"I even have my first assignment." Poe's chest puffed out to three times its normal size. "Mrs. Solo wants me to help find her brother, Mr. Luke Waller, the former Chief of Police. He's been missing for three years, ever since a bunch of hooligans called The Knights of Ren burned down his Home for Wayward Children. He resigned after that and left town. No one's heard from him since."

"I heard about that." Jess shook her head. "My mom told me about it. She was friends with Mrs. Solo and Mr. Waller. It was horrible. A lot of kids died."

"Yeah." The small, curly-haired young man looked up at Hank as he shut the top of the Buick. "You know, Mr. Solo, Mrs. Solo was asking about you."

"I'm sure she was." Hank went to the grimy old porcelain sink and washed his hands.

"She wanted to know if I'd seen you." Poe took Baby from Rey. The puppy licked him on the cheek. "She said you haven't called her in a while."

"I haven't." The older man wiped his hands on a towel hanging by the sink. "Leia doesn't want to see me."

"That's not what she told me." Baby pushed her nose under Poe's chin, trying to get his attention. He absently scratched her between the ears. "She misses you. You and Ben."

Hank hesitated, but finally just shook his head. "She doesn't miss me. We split up for a reason."

"Aw, come on, Hank," Finn protested. "She's your wife!"

The older man rolled his eyes. "Not anymore. We broke up after our son went in reform school."

Poe set Baby on the floor and took her leash. "Have you signed the divorce papers yet?"

"No."

Rey stuck her chin out. "Then she's still your wife."

There was an awkward silence for a few seconds before Hank glared at the kids behind him. "Don't you all have other things you could be doing? Like fixing cars?" One look at the older man's angry face sent the kids scurrying towards the hood of the Falcon.

Finn gave Poe one of his big grins. "Are you still going to come to the Halloween party?"

Jess nodded. "Our Wizard of Oz group wouldn't be right without its Scarecrow."

"Wouldn't miss it." Poe laughed when Baby threw in her own bark. "And Baby's dying to be Toto and try to snitch all the candy, even though I've told her a thousand times that chocolate's not good for dogs."

"You're invited too, Hank," Rey added. "You and Charles."

"Thanks." He poked into the Falcon, messing with the wiring. "Wouldn't miss it. Charles is with his wife in Hoboken right now, but I'm sure he'll be happy to get the invitation."

Poe gathered Baby's leash. "I'll see you guys later. I have to go interview Detective San Tekka. He's been on the force longer than anyone else in the 34th Precinct. He swears he knows something about Luke's location. He was a friend of the family for years."

"You be careful, Sam Spade." Finn tossed the polish-covered rag in the hamper. "Don't let all those bad guys sell you a lead Maltese Falcon."

"Or fill you full of lead," Jess added from under the hood of the Saratoga.

"I'll be fine. I know what I'm doing." The smaller man tipped his hat. "I'll see you guys tonight for dinner at Maz's."

Rey waved at him from under the Falcon's hood. "See you then!"

They always hung up their tools and closed the doors at 6, as soon as rush hour was over. The moment the hands on the Ford truck clock on the wall pointed straight down, Hank would turn the sign in the door to "closed," lock all of the doors except for the one in the back, and take the hamper of greasy rags upstairs to be washed as well as he could in his tiny apartment. The kids shelved the tools, swept the floor, and gathered their things. Hank would give them all a half-joking "Get outta here, you little rascals," sending them into the back kitchen area to get their coats and purses before heading out the back door.

Dr. Kalonia's office on Canal Street was three doors down from Hank's Garage. They always stopped and picked up Kaydel Ko Connix on the way home. Kay was a cute-as-a-button blond...but while her face and body said "young Betty Grable," her mind had more in common with Florence Nightingale. Kaydel wanted to be a nurse and was saving for nursing school. She did office work for Dr. Kalonia, the only female doctor in the Bowery, and claimed to be learning a lot.

Today, she came bouncing down the steps and into the bright late-evening sunlight. "Hi, guys," she gushed. "You'll never guess what Doc and I did today!" The sun glowed on the gold hair, pulled back into fancy curls and hidden under her brand-new earmuffs, made from real rabbit fur. Kay thought they were so stylish, she seldom took them off. "She showed me how to inject penicillin into a patient. I thought the kid was going to cry, but he didn't. He was really good."

"That's great, Kay!" Rey turned to the others as they made their way further down Canal, past flophouses and at least six different restaurant supply stores. "Hey, why don't we go look at the Skywalker Manor? We'll need to know where to put up the decorations."

The others all stopped in their tracks. Snap's eyes widened. "Now?"

Jess's dark almond-shaped eyes slid up to the rapidly dipping orange-gold sun. "But it's getting late!"

"The Skywalker Manor? On the end of Canal?" Kaydel pulled her wasp-waisted tan coat further around her shoulders. "But it's haunted!"

"And even if it isn't, we'd probably need a flash light to figure out our way around," Finn added.

Rey crossed her arms stubbornly. "If you're all going to be bloody chickens, I'm going in by myself."

"I'll go with you." Finn stepped up with her. "Hank would never forgive us if a ghost killed his favorite mechanic."

"We'll all go." Jess flanked Rey's other side. "Buddy system and all. If one person sees something, the others will yell."

The sun was nearly down by the time we made it to the end of Canal Street. Skywalker Manor was one of the oldest remaining houses on the block. Most of it was flophouses, bars, tattoo parlors, and very old homes that had been made over into cheap apartments. For some reason, Skywalker Manor had remained untouched.

Skywalker Manor might have been beautiful, fifty or sixty years ago. If you squinted. Rey thought it looked more like an ancient castle from the English countryside with gingerbread trim. Peeling greenish paint gave it an eerie glow against the fading late-afternoon light. Smashed cathedral windows showed jagged, dusty edges. Dark turrets and towers stabbed into the blue sky. Two long bits of trim hanging off the porch looked more like the teeth of a monster, ready to devour all that entered. Every single object in sight was covered in dust, cobwebs, or broken bits of wood.

Snap gulped. "Who wants to go in first?"

Jess bit her lip. "Maybe we should shoot for it."

"For heaven's sake!" Rey stomped up the steps. "We only have so much time here. If I let all of you decide, we'd be here all day!"

Finn jumped as a car backfired behind him."Rey, wait!" He bounded in after her, his heavy steps nearly rattling the remains of the porch.

The main living room was just as spooky as the outside. The cobwebs had been cleared, probably by the real estate people, but it still had a desolate, abandoned look. There were only a few sticks of furniture, most of which appeared to have been chewed on by rodents with exceptionally large teeth. A huge fireplace gaped open to moth-eaten Oriental carpets and once-beautiful bookshelves filled with musty-smelling books.

Finn shuddered. "This place feels like The Room That Time Forgot. It's like an episode of Inner Sanctum." He jumped as the front door swung open. "And there's the creaking door!"

"Pipe down, Finn." Jess rolled her eyes as the other three stepped gingerly into the room. "It's just us."

"Well," Rey started, "it could be worse. We'll just need to do a little dusting." She reached over to inspect a beautiful stained glass lamp. To her surprise, it switched on when she turned the nob. "At least it won't be dark in here."

Kaydel strolled around the room, her wrists behind her back, her big blue eyes taking everything in. "It might not be so bad, at that. It certainly looks the part of a haunted house."

Finn was checking the walls. "I don't see any mice. Maybe they already moved out, or we scared them."

Snap was about to peer into the fireplace when suddenly, a fire seem to come up all at once! He jumped back quickly. "Whoa! Ok, the fireplace works."

Jess joined him. "How did you do that?"

"I don't know." Snap rubbed his arms nervously. "Suddenly, this doesn't seem like such a good idea."

Rey was about to reach for a book on the coffee table when it seemed to jump into the air! She leaped back. "Uh...that book just moved."

Kaydel let out a screech. She'd run into a what appeared to be a curtain of bats! "Get 'em off of me!" She hurried across the room, as far away from the bats as possible.

Rey raised her eyebrows. "Something funny's going on here."

Finn gulped. "I don't see what's so funny about it."

Jess went up to the bats. "Wait a minute." She pushed the bat. It swung into the others like a pendulum. "Kay, these bats are fakes. It's hard to tell in the dark."

"Oh, thank goodness!" Kaydel let her breath out in a great whoosh! "I thought they were going to give me rabies or something."

"This is probably a fake, too." Rey yanked at the floating book. It came into her hands after some pulling. She showed the others the thin wire tied around it. "It's all magic. Illusions."

Snap waved his hand at the fire. "That's not an illusion! I can feel the heat from over here."

Jess nodded. "The light Rey turned on isn't an illusion, either."

Finn shrugged. "At least we know the fireplace and the lights work."

Rey's eyes dropped to the book in her hands. "Guys," she said, "this is a photo album, or some kind of scrapbook." She blew the dust off it as Jess and Snap gathered around her. She read the name in faded gold script on the cover. "'Patricia Amidala Waller.' Hey, this belonged to..." She stopped reading, her eyes wide.

"Andrew Waller's wife. The lady who died." Snap looked around nervously. "Do you think her husband attacked her in this room?"

Jess shuddered. "Maybe. Hank didn't say which room it happened in."

Finn was inspecting some of the framed pictures on the walls. Most of them were typical paintings of fruit baskets or people in fancy dress. One, though, was of a man in a black suit, his heavily scarred and burned face covered in pipes and a mask that looked more like it belonged to a robot from a Ray Bradbury story than a human.

"Who's this good-looking guy?" Finn grinned and took the photo off the wall. "And what horror movie did he walk out of?"

Kaydel shuddered, peering around his shoulder. "That's Darren Veder, the most corrupt police commissioner in the history of New York City. He was in charge of the police in the first two decades of this century. You name a crime – graft, kidnapping, theft, racketeering, arson – and he probably had a small piece of it."

Jess looked up from the scrapbook. "My mom told me he and his boss killed each other in 1920. His boss shot him in front of his own son. He managed to toss his boss out the window of a 12-story building before dying in his son's arms."

Finn quickly hung the photo back on the wall. "Man, I wouldn't want to get on that boy's bad side!"

That was when they all heard the noise. The eerie moans and cackles, crackles and pops, seemed to fill the whole room. Snap's face went pale. "Did all of you hear that?"

Rey nodded, putting the book down. "It's coming from that door." She pointed towards the door at the very end of the room. It was barely a door at all, more a rectangle cut into the wall, with an ornate, tarnished brass handle.

"Um, Rey," Kaydel started, "someone put that door there for a purpose, and I'm not sure you should, you know, open it."

"Oh please. It's probably just a closet. I'll bet there's nothing in there scarier than a broom." Rey cautiously tip-toed to the door. The others followed closely behind her. They all watched intently as she placed her slender finger on the door. The soft, slightly tanned fingers grasped the knob...they turned it...she pulled the creaky door open...

All five screamed at once as a white, floating apparition drifted into the hall. It had two ragged eyes that seemed cut into its round, balloon-like head. Wisps of cloth sailed along behind it on the breeze blowing in from the windows. "Abandon all hope," it screeched, in a voice that sounded like a cat being stepped on, "all those who enter here! Flee! Leave! Or ye shall face the consequen...sequen...sequen..."

"Wait." Rey ducked into the closet. She came out, dragging a tall, slender boy with heavily pommaded red hair by his ear. An old gramophone record player could be seen skipping behind him. "I knew it." She yelled into the room. "The rest of you can come out now. We know you're playing a dirty trick."

"Owww!" Armitage Hux finally managed to dislodge his earlobe from Rey's grasp. "You didn't have to be so rough!" He spoke in a rather snooty British accent that was quite different from Rey's more clipped tones. "It was just a joke!"

"Yeah," muttered Jess, "a bad one."

Gwen Phasma came out of another door, nearly laughing her head off. "You all should have seen yourselves!" Somehow, the blond girl managed to tower over everyone and everything, even while doubled over with guffaws. "You really fell for it!"

"Except Rey." Baby-faced David "Dopey" Mitaka emerged from the porch. He was covered from groomed head to meticulously shined oxfords in cobwebs. "She knew what we were doing. I told you she's the only one who isn't that stupid."

"Hey!" Jess glared as more kids began to emerge, from other rooms and under furniture. "We're not stupid!"

"You're the ones who are stupid," Kaydel added angrily. "Playing around in an old house! We could have all gotten really hurt. Did you even get permission to be here?"

"Who needs permission?" Tasha Umaro, one of the older members, tossed a crowbar in her gloved hand. "We go where we want."

"You traitor!" Jerry "Zeroes" Zukowski shoved his fist at Finn. "I ought to slug you right here."

Finn dodged him. "If you think that'll make me join you guys again, your jockey shorts are too tight. There's no way I'm going back. I have real friends here. People who care."

Gwen sneered at him as she managed to straighten all six feet, five inches of her. The wide-legged gray pants and loose man's jacket she wore only made her look even more intimidating. "How very touching."

Hux rubbed his ear. "You know this is the First Order Gang's territory. You're not supposed to be here."

Rey rolled her eyes. "Since when did you care about some rotting old house?"

"Since it belonged to my grandfather, until a few days ago." Even Rey stepped back as Kylo Ren strode into the living room. "The guy who bought it knew him personally. He used to work for the city."

Kylo Ren was the head of the First Order Gang. He always wore all-black, including a black leather jacket that would have cost Rey at least three months' salary. Like Phasma, he was above-average tall, with a deep voice that sometimes tried for raspy and menacing, but usually sounded obnoxious. A knife with a garnet-trimmed handle rested in a black case on his hip. He hid behind a black motorcycle helmet. No one in the Bowery had ever seen his face.

"Your grandfather?" Rey crossed her arms. "Then your name is Waller?"

"It's my uncle's name." She swore the brown eyes under the mask were glaring at her. "And Grandfather Andrew's. Professor Snoke told me he was the greatest police commissioner in the history of New York City. He really cleaned up the Bowery."

Snap and Jess exchanged confused looks. "Professor Snoke?"

"I know who he means." Finn turned to the other kids. "He's the head and chief scientist of Starkiller Industries. He's the one who gives the orders and does a lot of the really big experiments. He used to teach at Columbia University, until they fired him for unethical practices and crazy experiments." He shuddered. "On humans. New York hired him to help battered police officers after he left Columbia, then fired him for the same reasons."

"Yeah, and this is his place." The tall boy in black jutted a finger over his broad shoulder. "So hit the pavement, dorks."

"Wait a minute!" Rey pushed to the front. "We were told by Starkiller Industries that we could have our Halloween party here!"

"Yeah!" Kaydel put her hands on her hips. "We have more right to be here than you do."

That was when they all heard the wailing. A long, low wail seemed to emerge from every crack and crevice. The wail was followed by the sound of cackling, and then a long screech, like nails on a chalkboard.

Phasma tried to look tough. "It's just the wind." But even she moved a little closer to the others.

This was followed by thumping, pounding against the once-elegant wooden stairs. Rey had to listen carefully to make sure it wasn't her heart drumming in her chest. There were more creaks, and another groan, and the sound of a dog howling.

"Er, someone nearby owns a dog." Hux nearly jumped when the howling became louder. "A rather big dog."

The last screech nearly rattled the windows. It was followed by long laughter, the most evil, insane laughter Rey ever heard. She suspected that if she ever heard the Joker from the Batman comics laugh, that's what he'd sound like.

The laughter was too much for Mitaka. "I'm sorry, Ren, but...I'm gone!" He dashed out the door before Kylo could grab him.

"Uh, yeah." Snap started after him. "I, uh, left the oven on."

Finn gulped as more screeching was heard, followed by a strange, almost demonic caterwaul. "I need to iron my underwear."

"It's getting late anyway," Jess added. "I promised Maz I'd help her with her apple pies."

Kaydel nodded. "So did I."

Rey rolled her eyes. "Jess, you don't bake."

Phasma leaned against a chair. "I can't believe you're all buying this! This is kid's stuff. Absolute nonsense. I...I..." The moment the chair seemed to lift into the air, she was out the door as fast as her long legs could carry her, followed by most of the First Order Gang.

Rey turned her not-amused hazel eyes to Kylo Ren. "Don't look at us, doll face." He put up his leather-gloved hands. "We only set up jokes on the first floor. And I know for a fact that none of us can laugh like that."

Her hazel eyes widened. "So, if you're not doing it, and we're not doing it..."

It only took one exchanged look of shock for the two of them to race out the door after their friends.

Rey was the last person out the door. As she looked up, she swore she saw someone watching her from an upstairs window. The figure was silhouetted by the rapidly fading light. The shadows were too dark to make out any facial features...but she thought she saw something flash gold and red. A black-gloved hand reached out and pulled down the cracked shade, obscuring any other views.

"Guys!" Rey hurried to catch up with the others. "You're not going to believe what I just saw..."

He gazed out the window as the kids took off down Canal. Normally, he loved kids...but he couldn't let anyone know what he was doing. Even the local hoodlums. Especially the First Order Gang. He recognized "Kylo Ren." He'd know his nephew's voice anywhere. What was that boy up to now?

"Threepio," the small man with the gray beard said, "I want you set the lights back on schedule. No one can know we're here. I'm going to make the school work this time." He sighed. "I don't want any other kids to end up like Ben."

"Master," the faintly electronic-sounding British accented voice began, "why don't you at least contact your sister? I have heard that she's quite concerned about your welfare."

"I will. When I buy this place and re-open my school."

Threepio took the record of spooky sounds off the player. "Master, there are men residing in the basement. I believe they're doing some kind of...experiments, or something of that sort. I have heard them talking. Something with human minds. This is of no concern to me, but I thought you might like to know, being human and all..."

A small hand covered in a black leather glove went over the robot's rectangle-shaped voice box. "Thank you, Threepio. I'm trying to find out more about them. I need to call the real estate agency and see if I can buy this place from them. I think Mother would have wanted to this old mausoleum to be a school. I've read about all the fun she and Father had taking care of Ashoka and Rex and the rest."

"Very well, sir." The mechanical man bent over to gather a basket of laundry. The sunlight glinted off his one red arm. "I'll take this out to have it done."

"Thank you, Threepio." He looked up as the robot made for the door. "And Threepio?"

"Yes, Master?"

"Try not to be seen." The man gave him a sunny grin. "And if you are seen, tell people you're dressed as a robot for Halloween."

"Yes, Master." The robot left with the old wicker laundry basket.

The next day, while the other Resistance Kids were working at Hank's or filing patient records at Dr. Kalonia's office, Poe was meeting with his boss, Mrs. Leia Organa-Solo herself. Leia was a small woman, barely five-one in her stocking feet, but she was known for tenacity. Her gray-brown hair was wound around her head in a thick braid. She wore a fashionable purple wool jacket with a nipped waist and a black pleated skirt that was just long enough to show off her still-trim legs.

"I'm going to talk to Lor San Tekka again today." Poe leaned over in her chair. "I think I'm onto something really, really big. San Tekka told me he had some kind of map or clue to Mr. Waller's location. If I can just get this piece. I think it'll make a big difference in this case."

"I hope so." Even Poe noticed how haggard Mrs. Solo had been looking lately. He knew she'd been through hell and back in the past decade. Her son Ben, once a promising young member of the police academy, was arrested for burning down several major police departments and correctional facilities...including taking part in the destruction of Luke Waller's school. Luke took off shortly after. Hank moved out after Ben was sent to reform school. Ben had since gotten out, but Leia hadn't heard from him in months.

With all that, Leia kept pushing on. She was one of the officials who insisted on the removal of Professor Roland Snoke for unethical practices after reports of police officers killing people and themselves after taking part in his "experiments" filtered back to her. She was instrumental in ending the gang wars that had rocked the area in the early 1900's, too. After she quit the police force, she opened her own detective agency. Poe could only hope to be half as strong as she was.

"San Tekka claimed he actually saw Luke in the Bowery." Poe leaned over her desk. "He said he was willing to tell me or give me some kind of a clue to where. Some old house, I think."

She handed him a photo. "This was the last picture we took of him, before he vanished." Luke Waller was a handsome man, smaller than typical, with fine features for a man who was likely in his fifties. He had short gold hair streaked with gray and a big, sunny smile. He wore suit trousers with the jacket of a World War I fighter pilot.

"What happened to his hand?" Poe tapped the gloved appendage.

Leia frowned, her face looking far older. "My father cut it off around 1917. He arrested Hank and me in what was then known as the Cloud City Club on false charges. Luke came looking for us. He sliced off his hand as a warning to anyone who would dare to defy him." The older woman shrugged. "Losing limbs seems to run in my family. Father lost an arm in the Battle of San Juan Hill. He had to have it reconstructed."

Poe rubbed his own wrist. "Ouch. Now I'm glad I got out of the last war with all my limbs intact."

"I wish I knew what Luke was doing." Leia shook her head fondly. "It isn't like him to be so quiet. Usually, the problem is getting him to stop talking. When we were younger, he was such a chatterbox. He used to drive Hank crazy. You should have heard him imitate half the residents of the Bowery. He was an amazing mimic. I always thought he could have gone into radio, if he hadn't been so dead-set on following in Father's footsteps."

Poe chuckled. "I think he'd get along well with Finn. Finn can be a talker, when you get him going." He coughed. "Mrs. Solo, I saw your husband at his garage yesterday. Finn and two of the girls in our group work for him. I think he wouldn't mind seeing you again."

Leia sighed. "I do miss Hank. Him and Ben. I miss him coming home and seeing him every day, grimy from being in the garage. I miss bouncing around in the Falcon. Charles still comes in to say 'hi' every now and then, but Hank is never with him." She shook her head. "We always argued. We've been arguing ever since we met. But that last one, after Ben was sentenced to reform school...it ended with Hank walking out. He thought we were being too easy on him. Ben should have been in jail, he said. I said there's still good in him."

"You know," Poe started slowly, "Mr. Solo is going to be at our Halloween party on Canal Street, at Skywalker Manor. I'm going to invite you, too. Maybe it'll give you a chance to talk to him."

"Skywalker Manor?" Leia's eyebrows went up in surprise. "I thought they tore that eye sore down years ago."

He shook his head. "Apparently not. In fact, I heard Starkiller Industries bought it."

"Hmm." Leia leaned back in her chair, her face furrowed in concentration. "I wonder why they would buy the old family homestead? Surely there are houses in better shape in far nicer parts of the city if they want to set up offices in New York."

The young man grinned. "Do you want me to look into it, Mrs. Solo?"

"No, you concentrate on finding my brother." Leia reached for a small, leather-bound black book. "I still have connections in this town. I can find out more about this myself."

"All right." He stood, taking his hat from the rack near the door. "The party starts at 6 tomorrow, Mrs. Solo, as soon as the little guys are done trick-or-treating. The Resistance Kids are going as Wizard of Oz characters. I'll be the handsomest scarecrow there."

There was a twinkle in Leia's brown eyes. "I'm sure you will be." She waved her hand. "Now, you run along. Tell Lor I say 'hi,' and if he knows where my brother is, to make sure to smack him over the head for me for running out." But she was grinning.

Poe couldn't help grinning back. "I will."

Detective Lor San Tekka met Poe by the docks near the Manhattan Bridge. The warehouses were grimy and probably not the safest, but the elderly detective said what he had to tell him was important. He didn't want anyone on his regular beat to hear it.

"Did you bring it?" Poe looked around furtively.

San Tekka pulled a wrinkled piece of paper out of his pocket. "I have part of it. If you want the rest, you'll need to talk to ol' Artie Baker. He and Chief Waller were best friends, back in the day. Artie always knows where Waller is." He quickly scribbled something on a slip of paper. "This is his address. He's a mechanic and an inventor, of sorts. Lives on Hester Street. Doesn't get out much."

"Thanks." Baby let out a bark. He wished the silly dog hadn't followed him here, but she wouldn't leave him. He was afraid someone would try to steal her, or she'd get run over. "I've got to get this to Leia fast." The smaller man swept the puppy into his arms.

They both stopped as they heard footsteps and gunfire. "Go!" San Tekka shoved him onto a fire escape. "I can handle these hoods."

"But..." Baby growled as a knife embedded itself into the warehouse wall between them. It was a familiar knife, one he'd seen several times before. One that had a garnet-studded handle and a long, sharp black blade. "You be careful, Detective."

"Don't worry about me, son." Gunfire rocketed over their heads. "Get going! Now!"

He didn't need to tell Poe twice. The younger man raced down the street, Baby whimpering and yipping over his shoulder. Poor thing didn't like that noisy gunfight! Her owner wasn't a fan of it, either. Leia Organa had to get that message!

He had just made it to Canal when he saw the three youths in white and black zoot suits on his tail. Poe dove into an alley, letting the trio run past them. "Baby," he insisted, pulling the papers out of his pocket, "I want you to get this to the Kids. Or at least Rey. They'll bring it to Leia or Hank." He wound the paper around her orange and white collar. "Don't lose it, ok?"

Baby yipped and rubbed him. "I'm sorry, girl, but you have to go. Go get Rey!" She barked happily at the mention of her second-favorite human in the entire world. He pushed her into a hole in the wooden fence at the end of the alley she just fit under. "Get going! Rey! You have to find Rey!"

He got her just in time. The boys in white and black streamed into the alley, all holding guns on him. He put up his hands, grinning. "Hi, fellas. I have no idea what's going on here. I was just talking to a nice old man. How about we discuss this over a root beer float at Ackbar's Soda Shoppe?"

The largest responded by slamming him hard in the gut. "Maybe not," he gasped as he dropped to his knees.

He saw the heavy black boots walking up the alley before he felt the gloved hands yank his hair forward. Kylo Ren breathed heavily in his face for a few minutes before he got sick of looking at a black visor. "Ok, so who talks first? Do I talk first? Probably better me than you. You usually sound like you smoke ten packs a day."

A gloved hand smacked hard across his cheek. "The First Order Gang wants something from you, Dameron."

Poe glared at him. "Nice try, but the Organa Detective Agency won't be intimidated by the likes of you."

Ren nearly dropped him. "Organa?" There was what he believed was a snort under the visor. "Mother. I had heard she had some foolish idea of becoming a detective."

"She's a damn good one." Poe struggled in the two goons' ham-sized arms. "Don't you even think of touching her. She's got enough problems without you showing your ugly puss around her office."

"I wouldn't touch her. None of my gang would ever touch her. As long as she keeps to her business and stays out of mine." He backhanded Poe again, this time across the lips. "Take him to the Starkiller Manor. Snoke was asking for some...experiments. His mouth might actually be useful for something."

"Experiments?" Poe struggled. "There's no way I'm gonna cut open by some mad scientist!"

"Oh, this works a little...differently. Snoke's more interested in that sharp little mind of yours." He gave Poe's curls one more good yank. "Take him away. And find that dog. He must have sent the map with it."

Poe could only hope as they lead him away that Baby was on her way to the other kids...and that he hadn't put them in as much danger as he was.

Finn was worried. Poe hadn't come home last night. No one had seen him at all since he went to Mrs. Solo's office yesterday afternoon. Snap called Mrs. Solo, and she hadn't seen him, either. Even worse than that, Lor San Tekka, the guy Poe was supposed to be interviewing, had been killed the night before in a shootout by the docks.

Hank brought the New York World-Telegram over with the news as they were working on the Falcon the next morning. "Didn't your buddy say he was interviewing this guy?"

Finn grabbed the paper first. "Oh man." The others all leaned over his shoulder. "What if he's a wet spot on the pavement right now?"

"We should go out looking for him." Jess pointed to a slightly blurry photo of two men, one of whom was obviously about to run away. "I think that's him. He might be lost, or hurt somewhere."

"Aw, come on, guys." Snap shook his head. "Poe's lived here for most of his life. He knows this town like the back of his hand. He's probably hiding from the bad guys and will show up when the heat's died down."

Rey nodded. "I don't think we should worry just yet. If he's hasn't arrived by the time of the party tonight, then we'll worry."

"I guess so." Finn returned to the Falcon's engine. "I still don't like it. Something doesn't feel right. What if the cops want to talk to him? After all, one of their own died last night."

"And who would have killed Lor San Tekka?" Jess poked a finger at the front page. "The newspaper only says it was a local gang. San Tekka was one of the nicest cops in the area. He never hurt anything worse than a jelly donut."

"I only hope Poe's ok." Finn banged on the radiator. "He's my best friend. He got me out of the First Order Gang and offered me the room with him and Snap. I sorta owe my life to him."

The bell on the back door rang. The group looked up as big Charles strode in. He was a huge old Russian with a grizzled gray-brown beard and long graying hair. You could barely see his blue eyes under all that hair. He carried a shivering Baby. "Hello, children," he said in his thick, booming accent. "I think this mite belongs to one of you. I found her huddled in the alley behind the garage."

"Baby! Oh, you poor girl!" Rey jumped up and gently took the frightened puppy out of Charles' hairy arms. "Let me check you over." She gently rubbed her fingers around the dog for bumps, cuts, or bruises. Baby seemed to be ok, just scared. She was pressing her fingers around her collar when she found the scraps of paper.

Her eyes widened as she read it. "Ohhh...ohh!" She turned on her heel to Hank. "We have to get to Mrs. Solo's office!"

"Leia?" Hank looked over her shoulder. "What's so important?"

The others crowded around her. "Only someone who might know where Chief Luke Waller is."

"I know Artie Baker." Hank turned the sign on the front door to 'closed.' "Charles and I can take you there. He's an old buddy of ours."

Jess washed her hands. "I think we should go to Mrs. Solo first. She ought to know that Poe's probably in trouble."

"Don't forget the party." Rey tucked Baby under her jacket. "We have to set up for that around 4."

"Maybe one of us ought to call Mrs. Solo." Finn grabbed his jacket. "It might be kind of shocking to have all of us in there at once."

"Nahh." Hank pulled on his own brown leather jacket. "She's been subjected to worse things. Did I ever tell you about the time we drove from here to Buffalo in a snow storm, trying to out-run her dad? The Falcon must have broken down twenty times on that trip." He sighed, his eyes far away. "She kissed me under the hood, when we were working on the engine together. It was our first kiss."

"I remember that." Charles laughed, his booming guffaws rattling the shelves. "It took you long enough, Solovich. I thought you were never going to do it."

Finn grinned as the kids climbed into the back of the truck. "Could you tell us about it on the way to Mrs. Solo's place?"

"Why not?" Hank plucked the keys off the back table. "It all started when Darren Veder invaded Echo Base, what we were calling the 39th Precinct at the time. He was the most corrupt Chief of Police ever in New York City. He didn't like how we were taking out his rackets..."

Leia wasn't surprised to see her soon-to-be-ex husband, his massive best friend, four young adults, and a puppy crowd into her office. The Kids happily noted that Leia couldn't take her eyes off Hank...and he couldn't do anything besides stare wistfully at her. "Mrs. Solo," Rey began, "we have news about Poe."

The older woman's still lovely mouth turned down. "I heard. I've made calls all morning, trying to locate him."

"We haven't been able to find him." Rey handed her the paper. "But we did find this. Baby had it on her when she showed up at the Garage this morning." The puppy barked at her name. The girl scratched her between the ears.

Leia unfolded it and read it, then dropped it into her purse. "Artie Baker was a close friend of Luke's, going back to the late teens. He knew my father before that. He knows everything that goes on in the Bowery. I could call him and see if he would mind us appearing on his doorstep. I thought he died years ago."

It only took one tense phone call for Leia to convince this Artie to let them come. All she needed to do was mention Luke's name, and the next words out of her lips were "we'll be right over." She looked up at six hopeful faces. "He's open. He said we can come, but not for long. He's working on something big, and it's very hush-hush."

"Oh, wow!" Snap opened the door to let the kids out first. "I wonder if it's something for the government?"

"Maybe he's creating a secret ray gun or a laser," Finn added, "like in the movies?"

Rey rolled her eyes. "You boys have seen way too many Saturday afternoon serials."

"Shhh!" Jess put a finger up to her lips. They all poked their heads in the office – even Baby. "I think Hank and Leia are going to make love!"

They stood at opposite ends of the office. Hank got a little closer first. "You changed your hair."

Leia had a little smile on her face. "Same jacket." She ran her perfectly manicured nails down the battered leather.

"No, new jacket." Hank's loving smile changed to concern. "Leia, I saw him. In the newspapers. I saw our son." He took her hand. "He went back to that gang of his. He was one of the ones who killed Lor San Tekka last night. I didn't want to tell the other kids. They're upset enough about Dameron."

"I don't want to lose Poe the way I lost you, Luke, and Ben. Poe's a good boy. He doesn't deserve that." She gathered her purse. "I'll meet all of you on Hester Street. I have to stop somewhere first."

"All right." Hank went to open the door for his wife...and had to jump aside as four bodies and one dog toppled in. He gave them his famous little smirk. "Hear anything interesting, kids?"

Finn rubbed his knee. "Man, warn us the next time you want to leave!"

Hank rolled his eyes. "Warn me the next time you decide Leia and I are a peep show!"

Rey cuddled the warm, furry body in her arms. "Are you ok, Baby?" The little corgi barked and nodded, almost as if she understood. Rey looked up at Hank and Leia. "Your son is a killer? Is that why he was in reform school?"

"We'll explain some other time." Leia looked at her watch. "I have to get going." She ducked out the door before anyone else could ask questions.

Snap made a face. "It was just getting good! Aren't you going to kiss her?"

"Maybe later." He shooed the group downstairs. "Come on. Let's catch Artie before he gets cold feet."

"You should kiss her." Charles brought up the rear. "I've said that for years. One good kiss, and she'll be back in your arms. You're just damn afraid, Solovich. Ever since you walked out, you been afraid. Maybe it's time you stop running away."

Hank glared at him as they made for the stairs to the garage. "Shut up, Charles."

"Yeah, mate, I know Luke." Artie Baker was the smallest and oldest man any of the Kids had ever seen. He barely came up to Rey's knee, and Rey was pretty short. "Known him for years. Ever since he came here from Omaha, seeking his fortune. Don't think he was expectin' to find it as a cop, but he was a good one."

Artie's place was filled with junk in every possible size and shape...and every last bit of it looked like it was being made into a robot. "Luke wanted me to make a bunch of these for the force, before he left. He said they'd help with smaller tasks, like giving out parking tickets."

"You haven't changed a bit." Leia pushed a pile of nuts and bolts aside and settled gingerly on the torn plaid couch. "You're still the biggest pack rat in New York City."

"I like this one." Jess leaned over a robot that looked like a little black box and squeaked like a mouse. "It's cute."

Finn looked up – and up – at a tall turquoise robot with a medical symbol on its chest. "I think Kay would like this one. He could give injections to really tall people."

Rey inspected a small, squat blue and white device that had a million tools on small arms. "This one looks like a Swiss Army Knife on wheels!"

"This is my favorite." Artie patted the dome-shaped Swiss Army Knife. "I call him R2-D2. He only looks like a Swiss Army Knife." He pressed a button. A red light flashed on his dome, and a small drawer popped out. "He can also carry secret information and signal to other robots about approaching danger."

Rey had her arms around him, her eyes shiny and hopeful. "Can we keep him, Hank? Please? He'd be great around the Garage! Think of what all those tools could do for cars!"

Hank tugged the girl off the robot. "Sorry, kiddo, but he's not a pet."

Artie was inspecting R2. "He's blinking." He ran his hands over the shiny white and silver dome. "He only does that if there's another robot in the area. None of my robots are activated."

Leia was inspecting the small paper that came out of the drawer. "Skywalker Manor." She shook her head. "Do you really think he's there, Art?"

"He's there, miss, if he's anywhere." Artie opened a panel in the back of the robot and pushed a few wires aside.

Rey stuck her head in. "This is fascinating!"

Artie took a wrench and twisted a bolt inside. "You like robots, miss?"

"Well, I like building things." Finn peered over her shoulder. He liked messing around with cars, but not to the degree that Rey did. He couldn't understand a word Rey and Mr. Baker said for the next ten minutes.

Jess looked at a clock on a coffee table. "I think it's time we got going. We have to get ready for the party."

Leia looked up from the paper. "Isn't that party of yours at Skywalker Manor?"

"Yeah." Finn finally tugged Rey reluctantly away from R2. "Maybe we'll see Mr. Waller there tonight!"

"I get first crack at him." Leia gathered her purse. "And by 'crack,' I mean I'm going to crack him in his jaw so hard, that idiot will be eating his dinner through a straw for a week! He could have told me where he was. I've been worried sick about him for three years."

Hank grinned and put his arm around Leia's shoulders. "If you get first crack, I call second. I love the guy like a brother, but he shouldn't have taken off. We needed him here."

Leia shook Artie's hand. "Thanks again. I'll get Luke to call if or when we find him."

"Please do that, Leia." Artie patted his head. "You know where R2 and I will be."

The kids watched the two as they headed for the stairs. "Hey, do you have a date for this shindig the kids are cooking up yet?"

"Uh, no." Leia grinned up at him. "I was just invited yesterday morning. I don't even know what I'm going to dress as yet."

"Mind going with me?" He gave her that lopsided grin. "Charles will be there, too. I could get him to bring his wife Malla, and we'll double-date."

She finally gave him a grin of her own. "Why not? I'll be doing business and pleasure. Maybe by the end of the night, Luke will be joining us."

"The three musketeers, together again." Hank took her arm. "Some things never change."

His wife kissed his cheek. "Thank goodness for that!"

They were too busy looking into each others' eyes to notice that they had an audience. "Would you look at that?" Jess nudged Snap's arm. "They'll be living together again before you know it!"

"I knew it." Charles might have been beaming somewhere under that woolly beard. He hugged Leia and Hank. "That is more like it, you two."

"We should do something special for them at the party." Finn leaned over Rey. "Maybe we could do a slow dance just for them, or set up a fancy Halloween dinner in a separate room."

Rey nodded. "I wish Poe was here. He's such a romantic. He'd probably be great at coming up with ideas."

Finn frowned at the mention of their friend. "I hope he's ok."

Rey squeezed Finn's shoulder. "If he's not home by the time of the party, we'll call the police as soon as it's over, ok?"

"All right." Finn rubbed his stomach as they climbed into the back of the Falcon. "I can't help it. I have this feeling in my gut like something's wrong. I don't know what it is. Some kind of...force, I guess."

Rey put her hand on her slender middle. "So do I. It's probably just nerves about the party tonight."

"Yeah. That's all it is." Finn groaned as the Falcon started. "I hope."

As they bumped down Hester Street, Finn swore he saw a golden figure, one that glowed metallic against the afternoon sunlight.. He was tall, with one red arm, and moved stiffly. His eyes even flashed red. Must be some kid practicing for Halloween tonight, he told himself. That's a great costume. He really looks like one of Artie's robots!

All of them except for Poe met at the front of their apartment building a few hours later. Rey was glad Kaydel got off early. She'd been able to help her apply the green makeup she was using as the Wicked Witch of the West. She wore an old black dress she found at a thrift shop and a tall hat made from cardboard. The long broom with the cornstalk bristles belonged to Maz, who wanted it back intact by the end of the night.

Jess tugged at her braids. "Where's Hank? I thought you guys said he was coming with the Falcon." She had Baby in her slightly dented wicker basket.

Finn zipped up the jacket with the thick fur collar and hood he borrowed from Poe. With the hood up, it really did make him look something like a lion. Jess had drawn whiskers and a cat's nose with makeup. "Did anyone call the cops? Poe still hasn't appeared."

"We will after we get home." Snap shrugged into his silver jacket and tipped his silver-painted funnel hat at the right angle. "He might already be at the party."

"Could someone help me with this?" The sequin-covered tiara and old pink prom gown Kay borrowed from a friend of hers was barely visible behind the boxes of orange crepe paper and construction paper pumpkins and ghosts. "You'd think we were decorating the Majestic Theater on Broadway, instead of the living room of some old house!"

"Here, let me take a few." Finn pulled two boxes off the top.

Kaydel's blue eyes peered over the remaining boxes. "Thanks, Finn. I needed that."

The sound of the Falcon backfiring could be heard throughout the Bowery. Most people usually thought there was an explosion, or a Russian invasion, or something. "Here she comes!" Rey pushed Kaydel and Finn out of the way. "She's getting here someday!"

The Falcon finally just sort of rolled to a stop. A familiar head with thick silver hair and a big lopsided grin poked out. "You kids need a lift?"

"Funny, Hank." Rey raised her eyebrows at Hank's battered brown fedora and the old khaki bush shirt under his usual leather jacket. "Who are you supposed to be?"

Hank pulled out what looked like an authentic bullwhip. "I'm Indiana Jones, the archaeologist who finds all those lost treasures."

"Oh wow, I've heard about him." Snap helped Finn and Rey load boxes and containers of food and Kaydel's portable record player into the back. "Wasn't he the guy who went looking for the Ark of the Covenant, years ago?"

Kay dropped her boxes next to Snap's, dusting her hands off on her pearl-pink bodice. "I heard he went looking for the Holy Grail, like something out of an ancient history book."

Leia poked her head out the passenger side door. Her thick gray braids were topped by a wreath of fake pink and white flowers . Rey could glimpse a soft white nightgown with a high waist and a floaty skirt under a leaf-trimmed wrap. "Are you kids ready to go? We're going to meet Charles there. He had to get his costume from some friend of his."

Jess pulled a blanket over Baby, who shivered in the chilly October wind. "What are you supposed to be, Mrs. Solo?"

The older woman smiled. "I'm Thumbelina, from the Hans Christian Anderson story. That was always one of my favorite fairy tales."

Kaydel sighed dreamily. "Oh, I love that one! I like the end, where she marries the fairy prince."

Hank shoved the last crate in the back. "Are you kids coming, or what?"

Rey pulled her black knitted shawl tighter around her. Dark clouds gathered around Canal Street. She could hear pipes banging together in the distance. "We're coming, Hank."

The older man sniffed at the wind. "There's a storm brewin'. It's a good thing you kids are too old for trick-or-treating. This ain't gonna be a good night for getting' candy outside."

Finn was the last one in. He was checking the sidewalk to make sure they hadn't forgotten anything. As he looked around, he swore he saw a tall, thin man made all of gold – with one red arm – shuffling stiffly down Canal Street. He was fussing over Master wanting his clown costume cleaned for tonight.

"Rey," Finn started as she put out her hand, "I think I just saw a robot!"

"A what?" Rey stuck her head out. "I don't see anything."

The man was gone. The sidewalk was empty.

The skeletal old man stared sharply at Kylo. "Did you lock the door, Ren?"

"Yeah. No one's gonna come in here without our say-so."

Phasma stood at attention in her armor. "And if they do, we'll be ready for them."

Hux tugged his tan wool jacket around his shoulders. "We should get upstairs. I hear voices."

"Yeah." Mitiaka pulled up his fancy black skirt. "I think there's people at the door."

That was when they heard the laughter. The strange, cackling laughter. It was what they'd heard the other day. Kylo wasn't going to let it scare him this time, though.

"What is that?" Thiasson rubbed at the fake wrinkled skin. "We've heard it a couple of times since we got here."

"Don't say it's the wind." Umaro tugged at her black and blue velvet skirts. "The wind doesn't sound like that."

"It's this old house." Rubber gloves snapped as the old man tugged them over his bony fingers. "Old houses make noise."

Mitaka shuddered. "Not like that! That's like...like...like a call of a killer clown or something."

Phasma lifted her metal visor, rolling her eyes. "You boys read too many horror comics."

Kylo was reaching for a black velvet cape when a familiar voice reached his ears. "Dad..." He whispered. "What's he doing here?"

"Most of the Resistance Kids work for him." Mitaka played with a ribbon on his old-fashioned, high-necked yellow blouse. His boyish face was covered in pale makeup. "He's sort of like a mentor to them." He straightened the wavy brown wig.

Hux could have sworn he saw Kylo turn even whiter than usual as he reached for the old breathing mask on the table. A woman's deep, throaty voice reached them. "Mother?" He groaned. "Not her, too! Why can't she just stay out of my way?"

"Do what you want with the children." A long, dead white arm covered in deep purple veins reached for a strip of metal on wires. "I'll tolerate their merriment as long as they don't disrupt my experiments. Bring the adults to me. They may be useful."

"I'll deal with Hank Solo." Kylo turned to the rest of the First Order Gang. "You guys handle the others. Don't hurt anybody, unless they're really asking for it. What happened with Lor San Tekka the other day was bad enough." For the first time since Hux had known him, he actually sounded scared. "Besides, if I let anything else happen to those kids or Hank Solo, Mother will kill ME."

"Good." The bony fingers waved in their faces. "You're dismissed."

He turned to the operating table as the First Order Gang trooped upstairs. The young man laying on the table was bruised, battered, and disheveled, but to his surprise, more angry than frightened. His brown eyes glared daggers. The arms and legs flailed wildly, despite being tightly strapped down to the cold steel table. He tried to yell under the thick towel being used as a gag.

"Oh, don't worry, Mr. Dameron." The bony man placed the wired metal band around Poe's forehead. "I won't harm you. I'm just going to re-adjust your mind."

Rey groaned as she dropped the crates of paper chains on the splintered remains of the porch. "Why is the door locked?"

Kaydel looked up from trying to heft her portable record player and not stumble over her pale pink Glinda gown. "Maybe someone forgot to unlock it."

"It wasn't locked when we were here the other day." Finn put the box of cookies and cake on the crate of paper chains and crepe paper. "Maybe it's just stuck."

Rey tugged at it, then Leia. The older woman shook her head. "I'm afraid it really is locked. We'll have to find another way in."

Charles shook his head. He looked more imposing than ever in the uniform of a pre-Soviet Russian officer. "I've tried. The back door is stuck. I think it's warped. And the door to the basement is locked as well."

"I have this." Hank came back from the Falcon with a bent wire. "Watch and learn, kids. This is your first lesson in how to pick locks."

"I don't know if this is a good idea." Kaydel looked around nervously, expecting to see cops around every corner. "Isn't this breaking and entering?"

"It's only illegal if you're not supposed to be there." Leia gave the girl a reassuring grin. "Who do you think taught me how to do it? Hank is the master at this."

"We'll be fine." Jess held Baby's leash, trying to keep her from sniffing at every single crack and crevice on the porch. "It's not like we're trespassing."

Most of the kids leaned over Hank as he jimmied the lock. "Ok, so you need to keep pushing it up and down. Not too hard. It'll break." He nearly bonked into Rey as he turned around. "Want to give it a shot, kid?"

Rey's face lit up. "Sure!" She pushed the wire around a bit, then Snap. Finn was the one who finally got the wire to make that tell-tale 'click.'

Hank slapped him on the shoulder as the other kids filed in with the boxes and record player. "And you get an 'A' for the course, kid. Where did you learn to jimmy locks?"

"Kind of a requirement with the Force Order Gang." Finn's face fell. "We used to break into warehouses and empty buildings all the time. Broke into a few stores sometimes, too, but I never stole anything. I couldn't bring myself to do it. I felt sorry for the shopkeepers who were just trying to make a living. I was stealing because I thought I had nothing else. I wasn't like the others."

"No, you're not." Hank put an arm around the young man. "You're a good kid. You should be proud of yourself for getting' out of there."

"Yeah." Finn's big, dark eyes followed Rey as she and Leia hauled pitchers of punch and apple cider into the living room. "I just wish Rey would notice me. I mean, she notices me. She's a great friend."

"But you want her to be more." Hank smirked at the youth's surprise. "You think I haven't seen you mooning over her whenever you work on engines together? Trust me, boy, I went through this with Leia. At least you two aren't arguing over every single little thing."

"I'd take that." Finn shrugged. "I don't think Rey notices anything that isn't a car part."

Hank put an arm around his employee as they headed inside. "Let me tell you all about how I got Leia. It all started when Luke, Charles, and I rescued her from her dad's old office downtown. It was really more like a fortress of death..."

Rey was glad everything was going so well. They'd managed to get most of the decorations up with a minimum of fuss. Finn did insist he saw something gold walking around on the upstairs landing, but that might have been the late-afternoon sun flashing on the chandelier as they dusted it. Any spooky sounds the house made were drowned out by Kaydel's record player spinning Russ Morgan's version of "Cruising Down the River."

It was just starting to get a little stormy as the guests arrived. Rey didn't have a chance to do much of anything other than hand out drinks and snacks for a while, then hold onto Baby's leash so Jess could dance. She'd never seen such an array of costumes. Kay's friend Pamich had somehow managed to get a WAC uniform off her older sister. Pamich and Kay brought in most of the kids from the neighborhood, who were dressed as everything from Frankenstein to Bugs Bunny to the Bowery Boys from the goofy "B" movies.

Officer Statura, the older Asian cop who worked their beat, dropped by. Leia gave him a hug and introduced him to the kids. "I've known him for a long time." She smiled. "I gave him one of his first jobs in the police commissioner's office when he came to America."

"Just making sure everything is all right." His smile was tight-lipped. "It's Halloween. I know they've discouraged kids from pulling too many pranks in the neighborhood in the last decade or so, but damage can and does happen."

"It'll be fine." Leia sipped her punch. "The kids all seem to be having a good time. Even Hank's behaving himself." She gave him a small smile. "As least, as well as he ever did."

Hank popped over, finishing off a cat-shaped sugar cookie. "Hey there, Officer. Did someone steal the pumpkin off a porch?"

Leia smacked his arm. "That's not even funny tonight, Hank. You know how hard these kids work on their jack-o-lanterns. Remember how Ben used to throw himself into making his?"

Hank chuckled. "And somehow, the smile always came out crooked. And I'd have to help him with the nose. He couldn't get the triangle straight."

"And he'd insist on putting the candle in himself, even when I told him he was too young." Leia laughed. "He was always stubborn."

"Look where he got it from." Hank gave her a sugary kiss on her cheek.

"If anything goes wrong, I'll be outside, keeping an eye on all the ghouls and goblins out tonight, at least until the rain starts." The officer tipped his hat at Leia. "You have a good night, Mrs. Solo." He nodded at Hank. "Mr. Solo."

Finn nudged Rey as Hank pulled Leia gently into his arms. Rey had been paging through the scrapbook they were looking at a few days before. "We've gotta put on something more romantic than 'Riders In the Sky.' I like Vaughn Monroe as much as the next guy, but we don't need spooky right now. We need declarations of love."

"Right." Rey picked out Jess' cast album from South Pacific, the hottest show on Broadway. They'd listened to it so much, she knew just where to put the needle. After a few tense minutes, Enzio Pinza's warm baritone finally boomed "Some Enchanted Evening." She tucked the scrapbook into her pocket, to finish reading later.

Leia sighed as she leaned into her husband's warm, safe arms. "You know, no matter how much we fought, I always hated watching you leave."

"That's why I did it." Hank kissed her on top of her head. "So you'd miss me."

"I did miss you." The small woman sighed as the music swelled. "You don't know how many times I wanted to go down to the garage, just to say 'hi,' but..."

"What's past is past. You're here now." He pulled her head into his chest. "You know, the scariest thing about tonight was the thought you might have turned me down. I thought I'd never see you again. I love you, Leia."

She gave him a tiny smile. "I know." For a moment, it was as if the rest of the world didn't exist. It was just them, Enzio Pinza, and their feelings for each other.

Finn pulled Rey onto the scuffed dance floor as they watched the elder couple dance. "See?" He grinned. "Easy as pumpkin pie. I'll bet they'll be making out in the nearest closet before the end of the night!"

Rey grinned. "Five dollars says they'll be making out in a closet before the end of the song."

"You're on." Finn wasn't a great dancer, but he could move well enough. It wasn't easy. The dance floor was pretty full. He could see Snap with Kaydel and Jess with a boy dressed as a vampire and Pamich with some friend of Poe's. "I wish we could find Poe. I'm really nervous about him. Something bad happened to him. I know it."

"We'll tell Officer Statura about him being missing as soon as we're done with this dance." She somehow managed to blush under her green makeup. "You know, you're...not bad, really. At dancing. At a lot of things."

Now Finn was blushing. "I'm not? Really?"

Once Rey finally said it, it was like the dam burst. "You're amazing with cars. You picked that lock earlier like it was nothing. You're...you're the sweetest, nicest boy I ever met. I don't care who you used to be with. You were never meant to be with the First Order Gang. You were meant to be here, with us, on the Bowery."

"Wow, Rey." Finn's grin lit up the whole living room. "You...you really...do you really...I mean..." Snap had to smack Finn on the back as he passed with Kaydel to get him talking straight. "Do you really think that?"

Rey nodded, feeling almost shy. "Yeah."

Finn could see Hank and Leia out of the corner of his eye. Leia was leaning on Hank's shoulder. He grinned and gave Finn a thumbs up. Finn nodded at Rey and gave Hank the same.

"I'm glad he finally told that girl he's crazy about her." Hank smirked. "He's been mooning over her ever since I hired him. Can't say I blame him. She's a cute kid, and a real genius with mechanics. I haven't had anyone this good with carburetors in years."

"I think most of these kids will be all right. Even Poe, when we find him. Shara and Kes would be so proud of how he turned out." She let Hank stroke her thick braid. "I just wish Ben was here, too."

"We'll find him, Leia. He'll turn up when he's ready." He'd barely noticed that the record had already moved onto the boisterous chorus number "Bloody Mary." He looked down into his wife's eyes. "Leia...I didn't think you wanted me home...I thought you blamed me for what happened with Ben and Luke, and everything..."

Leia's velvet brown eyes twinkled merrily. "All I want right now is for you to kiss me."

Finn couldn't help stopping to nudge Rey. "Look!" He could see Hank and Leia smooching out of the corner of his eye. "They'll be in the closet before you know it."

"I think they're adorable." She smiled mischievously at him. "Speaking of the closet..."

She had just reached up to give him a kiss when the a loud thunder crack shook the house. The lights flickered twice, then died. Some kids screamed as a second peal of thunder roared overhead.

"Don't anybody move!" Hank moved over to where he'd last seen Rey and Finn. "Did you kids bring any flashlights?"

"No." Rey shrugged. "We didn't think we'd need them."

"I have a flashlight in my truck." Hank turned to his wife. "We're going to run out really fast to the Falcon."

"In that mess?" Leia indicated the sheets of rain splashing on the window. "Oh no. No one's going out in that! There's got to be candles or flashlights around here somewhere."

Baby had been sniffing around by the fireplace. She'd never seen anything like it before. A part of the room that had fire in it...and no one got hurt! Besides, it smelled funny. She felt wind coming out from behind it. A draft, her humans would have called it. It made the fire flicker and dance. She'd just nosed into a crack in the wall when the flames seemingly rose half-way up the chimney!

She did not like this at all! She smelled humans who weren't her humans. She smelled dust, and old, dead things. She scurried over to Rey, her second-favorite human in all the world besides Poe, and barked at her as loudly as she could.

Rey leaned over and scratched her ears. "What is it, girl? You smell something?"

Finn saw the ghosts first. "N...no..." His eyes widened, and his mouth dropped open in horror. "Rey, look! It's them! From the scrapbook!"

There were screams from the room as two figures seemingly emerged from the flames. The taller one had wavy gold hair and a scar over his right eye. His left side sported a suit and cravat from the last century. The left side, however, was a nightmare. His face was bright red and covered in puckers and blisters, as if he'd shoved his head into the fireplace. The suit was in rags, burned off completely over some parts. The "woman" with him was a tiny thing, with long brown curls, a ruffly yellow high-necked blouse, and a tan skirt.

"Yoouuu," moaned the man, "are trespassing on my prooopperrty! You must go awayyy!"

"Or we'll make you like usss." The "woman" lifted her skinny arm. "This home belongs to Andrew Waller and his family!"

"I'm a member of his family!" Leia rolled her eyes and stepped up to them. "And I don't believe in ghosts."

Hank nodded. "Something screwy's going on here."

Baby continued to bark. She tugged at the "woman's" skirt. It finally tore, revealing a young man's boxers and oxfords underneath.

"That's what I thought." Rey grabbed the wig off the smaller one. "Dopey Mitaka."

Snap grabbed "Andrew's" arm. "Tommy Thanisson," he growled. "Members of the First Order Gang."

Another figure emerged from behind the fireplace. "I am going to burrrnnn youuuu, just like I burrned my beeeeest friend," the man in the brown wool suit moaned.

Jess saw the red hair under the moth-eaten bowler hat right away. "Knock it off, Hux. We know it's you. We'd know that carrot top of yours anywhere." She knocked the hat off, revealing the familiar shiny, gingery locks and annoyed brown eyes.

"I can't believe the lot of you!" Leia glared at them. "I know about half your parents. Rest assured, they'll all be hearing about this." She turned to Hux. "Especially yours. What would Mayor Bristol Hux say if he knew his only son was running around with gangs?"

"He wouldn't care." Hux turned up his nose. "He never cares about what I do. He's only interested in running his city."

Charles grabbed the red-haired boy's collar. "I think it's time you all went home."

"In this weather?" Mitaka jumped as a smaller purr of thunder broke over the house. "We'd get soaked!"

Baby barked again as the thunder roared and lightning lit up the room. A figure emerged onto the landing. Finn had never seen anything like it. It appeared to be a cheap imitation of the same outfit Darren Veder wore in the painting on the wall. He even had a black breathing mask like his, his scalp ragged and wrinkled.

"Leave this place," it rasped. One long, black finger pointed at the group. "You have dared defy Daren Veder, the greatest leader ever seen in this city. I am the man who brought down the Imperial Mob and the Black Sun Syndicate. I am the terror that drove the Rebel Gang out of town. Fear me! You must all fear me! I will kill you all..."

"Benjamin Bail Solo, knock it the hell off!" Hank was already stomping upstairs. Charles, Rey, and Finn followed. "I know it's you. I helped you make that damn Veder costume when you were twelve!"

"Dadddd!" whined a much less intimidating voice under the mask. "You ruined my entrance!"

Rey put her hands on her hips. "You're ruining our bloody party!"

"No, I'm not." They could almost hear the smirk under the mask. "I'm making it a lot more interesting. Besides, I told you. You shouldn't be here."

"These kids have every right to be here." Hank and the kids reached the landing. Leia and the others watched from below, too surprised to move. The storm continued outside, the wind shrieking against the roof, the rain coming down in buckets. "You, on the other hand, should be going home. Your mother and I have been worried sick about you."

"Oh yeah?" "Kylo Ren" snorted. "It's not like you ever noticed me. You were always busy with the garage and racing and Charles. Mother was always busy with work. You don't care about anyone but yourselves!"

"How could you say that?" Rey started towards him. "Hank's been nothing but good to us!"

"Yeah, to you. To you, and to every kid in the Bowery." His dark brown eyes, much colder than his mother's, bored into his father's. "Every kid but his own." The think lips managed a smirk at Rey. "You're not bad-looking, for a British doll. You ought to join our gang. I could teach you things you'd never dreamed possible. It would be a lot more interesting than hanging around with a dried up old man and a traitor."

Finn had to hold Rey back, while Hank took Finn's shoulder. "I don't need you for a teacher!" Rey put up a fist. "I wouldn't send a black cat to be taught by you!"

"Ben, take that damn mask off." The older man took a step closer. "Unless you were knocked into a fire lately, you don't need it."

Rey had no idea what she'd see when Kylo...when Ben pulled off the mask. She was not expecting a fairly decent-looking fellow with a long jaw, soft, pale skin, and the thickest, waviest black hair. She couldn't help feeling a little jealous when she noticed he had no hint of helmet-hair.

"Come home, son." Hank put out his hand. "Come home. I want it. Your mother wants it. We'll figure something out, find you a better school. You can work with me in the garage again."

"What, and just spend the whole afternoon arguing with you?" Ben rolled his eyes. "Dad, I hate cars! I hate fixing things! I'm not interested in that. Professor Snoke has these amazing theories about mind control that could revolutionize the science community..."

"Professor Snoke is a quack and a fraud. The entire NYPD knows it, son." He took Ben's hand. Rey, Finn, and Charles all held their breath. "Just come home. Come back to us."

"No, Dad. Not this time." Rey let out a screech when Ben slammed his fist into his father's jaw. Hank crashed into the railing. No one expected the splintered railing to give way. Hank barreled right through it, crashing onto the couch below.

Finn lunged for Ben, his own fists flying. Ben got him with a gloved hand straight in the gut. The younger man collapsed to his knees, his breath gone in one big whoosh.

Rey let out a growl that many of the party guests mistook for thunder. The tiny young woman tackled the taller boy as hard as she possibly could. They went tumbling to the remains of the oriental rug. "You ass!" She pummeled Ben, her sharp fists raining down like the storm outside. Ben put up his hands to shield the worst of her blows. "How could you? How could you hit your own father? How could you hit Finn?"

"He deserved it!" Ben whined. "He was never there! All I wanted was his and Mother's attention!"

Rey grabbed him by his shoulders, shaking him like a rag doll. "Hitting him in the face is not the way to get anyone's attention! This is an old house. You'll be lucky if he didn't break his neck. You're a bloody fool is what you are!"

Charles and Kaydel were tending to Hank, after Leia and Snap helped him off the remains of the couch. "I'll take care of him, Leia." Charles waved her away when she ran over. "You and the kids separate those two young ones upstairs. Rey has every intention of turning your son into a bloody pulp. Finn could probably use some medical attention, too."

"Ben!" Leia hurried up the stairs. Most of the party followed her, including Jess, Kaydel, and the remaining First Order Gang.

Hank was starting to come to. "What happened?" He rubbed his bruised eye, wincing at the pain.

"You got a good sock in the face from that whelp of yours, then went over the railing." Charles gently ran a cigar-like finger over Hank's eye. He let out a whimper that matched his son's upstairs. "I think you and Ben are both going to need ice. I will see if there's any in icebox in kitchen."

"Thanks, buddy." Hank leaned against the fireplace, putting his hat down on the mantel. The storm continued outside, the thunder still roaring. "Damn," he muttered. "Is that the thunder, or is my head?" He wished he had a good, frozen steak. His head was throbbing, and his back was sore as hell. "Charles, where is that..."

A bony hand popped out from behind the fireplace and grabbed hold of his mouth, cutting off his shocked cries. Another reached for his arm. Skeletal fingers clutched what looked like a thick needle between its fingers.

"Don't worry, Mr. Solo," it whispered. The fingers pushed up the sleeve on his jacket and shirt, ignoring his dazed struggles. "This is just a light sedative. You'll barely feel it. Your son told me you'd be just right for my mental experiments." The raspy voice sounded like an echo of death. "When you awaken, that strong mind of yours will be under my control."

Those words were the last thing Hank remembered before the needle jabbed into his bare arm and he blacked out.

It took Snap and Jess to drag Rey away from Ben. Rey was still screaming, shouting obscenities at Ben at the top of her lungs. Hux and his boys went to tend to Ben. Ben's nose was gushing blood, and his right eye was nearly swollen shut.

Leia smirked. "I always knew you had more in common with your father than you wanted to believe, dear. You both get shiners in the same places."

Ben groaned. "Mother, please. Make me feel worse, why don't you?"

"You didn't have to hit your father at all, never mind like that." Leia crossed her arms. "If you didn't want to come with him, a 'no, I don't want to come home now' would have been sufficient."

Kaydel nodded. "You're lucky that fall didn't kill him! That would have been murder!"

"If they knew Dad, it would have been justified." Ben winced as Mitaka clumsily pushed his handkerchief over his nose. "Like my honker isn't big enough. If it's broken, you're paying for it, Rider!"

Rey was still trying to get out of Snap's arms. "You should pay for hurting your father and Finn and ruining this party!"

"Your gang killed Lor San Tekka, too." Jess hit Ben over the head with her basket. "And I'll bet you have Poe somewhere!"

"He's in the basement." Ben rubbed his head. "He's helping the Professor out with a few experiments. Snoke said his mind was perfect for his work."

"What?!" Now it was Leia who grabbed her son's arm, yanking him to his feet. "You've been helping that madman?"

The taller young man yanked his arm away from his mother. "He's not a madman! He's a genius! He wants to help create the perfect worker!"

"He knows what he's doing." Hux helped Ben to his feet, then turned to the others. "He's going to make the world a better place through science."

Jess rolled her eyes. "You sound like a bad newsreel."

Charles banged up the stairs, his blue eyes frightened under all the hair. "Leia, Hank's gone! He was there, leaning against fireplace, then not. I have searched all over downstairs for him, but he is not to be found." He handed Ben a bag of ice. "Here, young pup. You are in luck. The other young ones brought ice with them for the drinks."

"Thanks, Uncle Charles." Ben pressed the ice against his bruised eye with a whimper.

Finn gulped nervously. "Where could he have gone?" He jumped when the thunder broke a bit less violently than a few moments before. "Maybe ghosts took him!"

"Finn, there are no ghosts here." Leia turned to the youngsters behind her. "I think we should split into two groups. I'll take Finn, Jess, and Ben and his friends and see if we can get Poe out of the basement. Charles, you take Rey, Snap, and Kaydel upstairs. The rest of you, search the main floor. If a door is locked or boarded up, stay out of it. It's probably blocked for a reason."

The dark-skinned youth winced as more white lightning lit up the skies outside the windows. "At least things couldn't get any worse."

The words had barely left Finn's lips when they heard that laughter. The same cackling, evil screechy-clown laughter that had scared everyone out of the house the first time. The laughter was followed by a strange creak, a clanging sound, a moan, and a shuffle...

Leia and Charles were the only ones who didn't look utterly terrified. "I know that laugh." Leia rubbed her chin. "I've heard it somewhere. It's so damn familiar!"

"Why don't we figure that out later?" Kaydel gulped. "I think we should really go look for Mr. Solo and Poe now."

"Uh, yeah." Finn tugged at the fuzzy collar of his Cowardly Lion jacket. The laughter was now accompanied by rattling chains and more creaks and screeches. "I really want to find Poe, man."

Ben's skin was even whiter than usual. "And we, uh, have places we need to be." He and the First Order Gang raced down the hall the moment they were distracted.

"Oh, wonderful. Now we've lost my son, too." Leia turned to the remaining kids. "Let's get going. We'll meet back here in about an hour."

Rey was going to kill Ben Solo. Or Kylo Ren. Or whatever his blasted name was. The party was going so well before he and his friends had to play their stupid ghost prank and he decked his father. Had he no respect for his elders at all?

The spooky sounds continued. "I know that laugh." Charles was stroking his bushy brown beard. "I know it well. It sounds like Chief Waller."

Snap scratched his silver-dyed beard. "Chief Waller? I thought Andrew Waller was long gone."

"No, his son." Charles's very white half-moon smile emerged from somewhere in his beard. "Luke Waller. Leia's brother. The one who's been missing."

"I wonder why he's here?" Kaydel jumped at the sound of a tree scraping a window.

Charles shrugged. "Why not here? I suppose he has decided it is as good a place as any in this city."

Rey leaned her ear against the door. "I think this is it." She got a good, firm hold on her broomstick with one hand. The other went on the door knob. The creepy sounds, the rattling chains and the scraping and whirring, continued.

Her fingers were about to turn the knob when it opened on its own. A golden figure stepped out. None of them had ever seen anything like it. It was tall and sort-of human, but made all from shiny gold metal...except for his right arm, which was a brick red color. They all jumped and yelled as a jagged white streak from outside shined on its polished surface.

"Hello there," it said in a perfectly pleasant, if slightly tinny, British accent. "My name is C-3PO, human-robot relations. My master has asked me to step out to find out what all the noise is, and to please end it, if possible. You're disrupting his work."

Charles raised his bushy eyebrows. "Who is your master?"

Rey was inspecting his backside. "This is amazing!" She opened a panel in his back, pushing her fingers around. "I've never seen anything like it."

"Stop that!" C-3PO actually seemed to start laughing! "That's ticklish!"

Kaydel couldn't help giggling. "I didn't know robots were ticklish!"

"Threepio?" A voice called from one of the rooms. "Did you find them?"

"Yes, Master. I found some of them, anyway." He turned to the others. "I'm sorry, but you'll really need to try to keep the volume down on your merriment. Thank you. Have a pleasant All Hallow's Eve."

"Oh, no." Charles grabbed Threepio's arm. "You're going to show us to your master, Golden One. Or I will tear those metal arms out of their sockets."

"He can do it, too." Snap grinned. "You should see how mad he gets when he loses at chess!"

Threepio took one look at Charles' barrel-shaped arms and reached for the door. "I see your point, sir." He poked his head in. "Master, there's people here who wish to speak to you."

They all jumped back when the lightning revealed a rather scary-looking clown standing over a record player. He wore a bright purple and green suit, had a curly bright green wig and a powdery green beard, and wore the requisite white and red makeup. Rey couldn't help noticing he had a leather glove over his right hand, which held one of the new 33 1/2-inch LPs. "Who is it, Threepio?" he said in a surprisingly soft voice.

"It's the clown from hell!" Snap screamed. "He's going to melt our faces off!"

"Don't hurt us!" Kaydel raised her wand, made from a wooden dowel and a glittery star. "I have a wand, and I'm not afraid to use it!"

Charles' eyes may have widened somewhere under all his hair. "Luke?"

"Charles!" The clown hugged his friend. "I thought I heard you out there. Where's Leia? What happened to Hank? I heard all the racket you were making."

"Why didn't you say you were here?" Charles just kept holding him. "Leia and Hank have been so worried. Taking off like you do, without so much as a how-you-do for five years..."

"I'll explain everything as soon as I can." Rey wasn't sure what she'd been expecting. Luke Waller was small and fairly slender, with big, bright blue eyes and a sweet, crinkly smile under the make-up. He would have looked like a rather nice old man if it wasn't for the clown outfit.

"If you're Luke Skywalker..." Rey held out the scrapbook to him. "This belongs to you."

Kaydel nodded. "We found it downstairs."

"Thank you." Luke took it from her. "I was looking at it earlier, but I forgot where I left it." He opened the scrapbook, showing Andrew beaming at a very pregnant Patricia. "Andrew and Patricia Waller are my parents, and Leia's. Mother was pregnant with us when she died. Benton Kenobi told me there were complications with the birth after Father attacked her. They were able to save us, but not her."

"Waller never got over it." Charles nodded. "Ben told us the rest before he died. Ben knocking him in the fire was a mistake. He only meant to hit him on the chin, but Waller tripped over a stool and ended up with half his body cooked medium-rare. Ben hated himself for what he did for the rest of his life."

Kaydel straightened her huge cardboard crown. "Dr. Kalonia told me that when I mentioned Skywalker Manor to her a few days ago. She was a medical student when they brought Andrew Waller in. Worst burns they'd seen in decades. He lost a lot of skin and blood. They had to graft it on, and somehow, it didn't really fit. His right lung was damaged, too. That's why the mask."

"Father was taking kickbacks from men like Simon Palpatine for years." Luke showed them another photo. This one was of a young, handsome blond man shaking hands with a slender older man with wavy silver hair and a fancy suit and waistcoat. "After his accident, he chose to let most people believe Andrew Waller died from the burns. He took up the name Darren Veder and became Palpatine's right hand."

Snap nodded. "We know the rest. He ended up being a real jerk."

"He repented in the end, broke free of Palpatine's control." Luke finally set the scrapbook on a small wooden table next to the old canopy bed. "I was there. Palpatine threatened me when I wouldn't take the same bribes he was, then threatened Father. That was a mistake. It ended with Father tossing Palpatine out a window."

Rey tapped the scrapbook. "Does Kylo...Ben know about this, about the bribes and everything?"

"No." The man in the clown outfit shook his head. "I told Leia it was a mistake to not be honest about his grandfather. He's convinced Darren Veder was a big shot. I don't think he knows all the damage and death he caused, or how corrupt he really was." He turned to Charles. "We have to find that Snoke. He was one of Palpatine's hired boys, years ago. Palpatine put him through college, then got him that Columbia University job. I'm wondering if he used that mind control he was studying to manipulate Father."

"We're missing Hank and our friend Poe." Rey tucked the broom under her arm. "They're down in the basement. We think Snoke may be trying experiments on them."

That was when Kaydel nudged Rey. "Rey!" she squeaked. "I think we found Poe...or something like him, anyway."

Snap was staring out the door. "You've got to see this. He looks like a ghost!"

Rey followed the others into the hall, just as a figure emerged from the darkness. He was draped in white and the palest green, giving off a soft glow. Poe's face was bruised and a bit battered, but it was his eyes that worried her. The vacant brown orbs focused straight ahead. There was nothing in them that resembled their friend's usual warmth.

"What happened to him?" Snap grabbed his friend's arm. "Poe?" He waved his hand in front of his face. "Hey buddy? What's going on?"

"Mind control." Luke's voice dropped to a low growl. "That's what I heard downstairs. I've wanted to call the cops on them for days, but I can't find them. The only people who knew all the secret tunnels in this house were Father, Mother, Ben Kenobi, and Father's ward Ashoka Tano, and they're all gone now."

Threepio tapped Luke's shoulder. "That's not quite true, Master. It seems we're being followed by a young lady who appears to be quite...otherworldly, I should think, although such spirits are not known to exist in real-life."

She seemed to just materialize in the hallway, to just be created from the darkness. She wore a thin black and purple velvet gown that showed off every bit of her curves. Her white face and heavy makeup and sleek black hair almost flickered in the black light of the musty hall. "Good evening," she purred. "Our great leader is expecting you."

"Great leader?" Luke stepped in front of the Kids. "You mean the mad scientist in the basement. Where is he?"

Snap shook Poe's arm. He just stood there, silent and still as a statue. "And what did he do to Poe?"

"You are all doomed!" She pointed to Luke. "Our great leader is no mad scientist. It is you who are the unbeliever."

"This is ridiculous." Luke reached for the creature's arm, but she vanished into a closet, her laughter echoing down the hall.

Rey ran after her, poking her head into the closet. She emerged with a look of disgust on her face. "Blast it! She isn't there!"

Kaydel rubbed her pink-clad arms. "I don't like this. What if there's vampires out there, too?"

"Now you're all just being silly." Rey turned to Poe. "Can you hear me?" Poe didn't respond. "Whether you can hear me or not, can you at least take us to whomever did this to you, or do something besides stand there with that weird look on your face? You look like a glazed doughnut."

Poe started down the hall again, the greenish-white robe trailing behind him, his finger outstretched. "Well, it's obvious that he wants us to follow him." Rey shrugged. "I don't think we have much of a choice."

Luke shook his head. "I think we'll be fine. You stay here, Threepio. You may upset the remaining guests."

"They'll be upset enough when they see Poe like this." Rey frowned as he started down the stairs. "I'm not sure I like this. Poe, where are we going?" The short, curly-haired man didn't answer. "You know, you look rather like a child playing ghost with a bed-sheet."

Luke ran his fingers across Poe's robe. "Phosphorous. A chemical that can make certain things glow under the right light, or lack of it. This is more like a kid's prank."

Kaydel snorted. "The First Order Gang again, I'll bet."

Snap tugged at Poe's shoulder. "I wouldn't put it past them to beat Poe into splinters, but I don't think any of them can do mind control."

"Why don't we just follow this young man," Luke insisted, "and see where he goes."

Rey looked at the others and shrugged. "I don't think we have much of a choice. He's the only one who may have some idea where this 'Snoke' is."

They didn't see the figure turn around and head for the closet as they followed Poe to the living room.

"This is crazy." Finn tugged at his jacket. "Hank is nowhere to be found."

Jess put her basket aside. "Neither of them are." She tugged at one red high heel. "These shoes are killing me. I knew I shouldn't have borrowed them from Kay. Her feet are smaller than mine."

Baby had spent the last half-hour or so mostly sniffing around the fireplace. She swore she saw the two boys in the dress and funny old suits come out of here earlier, when the lights vanished. She didn't trust a bunch of stones that could hold hot stuff and make mean boys appear from nowhere! Something wasn't right here. She barked as loudly as she could, trying to get her humans' attention.

Finn heard her first. "What is it, girl?" He and Jess followed the little white dog to the fireplace. She scratched at the side, whimpering and trying to tug at the stonework. "Wow!" Finn tugged at the stone...and pulled it out, revealing an entrance. "Jess, Mrs. Solo, you've gotta see this!"

"Holy moley!" Jess peered into the blackness. "Just like in all those crazy Boris Karloff movies."

"What in the world..." Leia raised her eyebrows. "I'd heard this place was filled with secret passages, but I never really saw any of them until now." She grabbed the brown fedora from the mantel. "Hank was wearing this earlier. He wouldn't have left it here. It's part of his costume. We've got to get down there!"

Finn was so grateful when the lights chose to come back on at that moment. "Thank god! We won't have to climb around in there in the dark."

Jess gathered Baby in her arms. "It's still pretty spooky in there, though."

"I'll go first." Leia pulled what, to Finn's shock, looked like a gun out of her purse. "I've lived a good life."

"Mrs. Solo," Finn gaped, "you...you...uh, I didn't know you could shoot."

"Neat-o!" Jess grinned. "You pack some heat!"

"Finn, I used to be a cop. I was one of the best shots in the police academy." She held out the small gun. "Besides, a woman needs some way of defending herself in this town."

Finn desperately wished they had a flashlight, or a candle, or any kind of light source. He would have taken a torch from one of the Universal Frankenstein movies. Even though the lights in the house were back on, it was still dark as tombs in the narrow tunnel. The stairs went sharply downwards, seemingly forever.

They'd been walking for about five minutes when he heard clanking. "Uh...do you girls hear that?"

Jess looked around. Baby gave him a confused bark. "Hear what?"

He just saw the tops of Leia's shoulders shrug. "I just hear our feet."

They started down again. They were nearly at the bottom when he heard it again. "Ok, whomever it is, come out!" All he saw was steps and a suit of armor. A suit of armor he could have sworn wasn't there five minutes ago...

"Hey..." Finn went over to the armor. He knocked on the side of one armor, then opened the visor. "Anyone home?" A hand reached out and grabbed the visor down. He started away...and the armor actually kicked his rear.

"Oh, that does it." Finn turned fast. The armor was following him, but it immediately clattered to the side the second he looked. "I think I know who's in there." He went back to the armor and flung the visor open. "Ok, show yourself!"

"Watch it!" Phasma pulled a lock of pale gold hair from his fingers. "I'd like to keep all my hair in one piece, thank you!"

Jess and Leia had already turned around to see what the commotion was. Leia made a face. "What's this?"

"She's Phasma, one of the Force Order Gang." Finn glared at her. "I think she's trying to scare us."

Phasma glared at him. Those big dark blue eyes could glare very well. Finn darted over to Leia. "We're supposed to be scaring you down here. Snoke wants to see all of you."

"Bring us to him, then." Leia pointed her gun at Phasma's back. "I have about five or six very interesting questions I'd like to ask him, too."

Phasma lead them to a door at the very end of the staircase. It was wooden and heavy, but she opened it easily and poked her head in. "Hello, Professor?" She turned to them and shrugged as well as she could in metal plates. "He's not here."

Leia poked the gun at the flesh between the plates. "We'll wait."

"Watch it, lady." Phasma moved away from the gun. "I stole good trash cans to make this armor!" She finally lead the group into the laboratory.

Finn had never seen anything like Snoke's lab outside of old Universal horror movies. He really expected them to be in black and white, with that wild, evil laughter they heard earlier intoning "It's aliiiive!" Chemicals bubbled in long glass tubes. Shelves were filled with sharp, nasty-looking implements of all shapes and sizes. Baby sniffed around an empty gurney. A thin blue blanket covered the other, which had lumps that rose up and down.

Jess picked up a huge scalpel. "This guy is a brain doctor? What's this for, easy removal?"

Finn sniffed at a beaker of bubbling brownish-red fluid and put it aside, wrinkling his nose and waving his hand. "Well, I can tell you one thing. He's a bad soda jerk. That was the worst-smelling cherry Coke I ever laid my nostrils on."

Leia eyed the gurney. "Wait." She stuffed the gun in the waistband of her dress. "Those lumps are snoring. I recognize that snore." She whipped off the blanket to reveal Hank, who was rather awkwardly sprawled across the wheeled table. A metal strip attached to a huge machine covered in blinking knobs and dials was strapped across his forehead. His wrists, ankle, and torso were strapped to the sides. "Yeah, I know this snore, all right." The small detective tossed the blanket on the other gurney. "I heard it in my ear every night for almost thirty years."

"Hank!" Finn and Jess started on his ankles. Finn pulled at one thick strap. "We've got to get you out of here, boss."

"Yeah." Jess tugged open the other buckle. "This party is now officially over. We need to get to the police. This is loony, man. Mad scientist territory."

"I won't argue that." Leia gently pried the metal from her husband's head. "I may not be entirely happy with him leaving, but no one deserves this."

They made one mistake. Leia was too busy concentrating on Hank to watch Phasma. The blond snatched the gun the moment she had the chance.

"Don't anyone move!" She pointed the gun at Hank. "Hands up, or the bloke in the tan shirt gets it."

Finn made a face as he put up his hands. "You don't even know who he's dressed as?"

Jess smirked. "She didn't see him in the fedora earlier. I'll bet she doesn't read the papers, either."

"You don't know the first thing about firearms." Leia reached for her gun. "You're going to give me that back, before you hurt yourself or someone else."

Phasma ducked back. "You'd be surprised, old woman."

Leia glared. "Who's old?"

Hank let out a moan, finally opening his eyes. He put his hand on Leia's cheek. "Your Worship, is that you?"

She grinned. "You bet it is, Sheep Herder. There's no way we were going to leave you down here."

"Leia!" They wrapped each other in a passionate kiss. Finn whistled. Jess' grin was ear to ear. Baby howled approvingly.

"Damn." Phasma smirked. "Someone might have to convince Snoke to leave your minds mostly intact. You two are a lot more fun to watch than my parents."

Hank waved her off. "Glad you enjoyed the show." Leia and Finn helped him into a sitting position. "Where the hell are we?"

"We're in my laboratory." Another door opened in the wall opposite Hank and Leia, near the narrow window. The speaker was a wrinkled, gray old skeleton in a white lab coat and black trousers. He had a bulbous head with thin black eyebrows, beady black eyes, and long, skeletal fingers. At least, Finn was reasonably sure he was a skeleton. He was too lean and bony to be a living human.

"Mom?" Ben Solo followed behind the walking pile of bones. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask the same of you!" Leia got right into her son's face, at least as much as she could, considering he towered more than a foot over her. "Ben, I love you. You're my son. But you'll be lucky if I don't take you over my knee and spank you right here and now, in front of all these people!"

"Do it!" Finn yelled through his cupped hands.

Jess had her hands on his hips. "He deserves it!"

"Mother," Ben whined, "you're embarrassing me! I'm not five years old!"

Leia glared at her son. "Then act like it!"

"That's quite a display. She'll do nicely. Bring her to the other gurney." Snoke eyed her. "You're feisty, Mrs. Solo. Very feisty...and very intelligent. It'll be an honor to control you."

"What?!" Ben's glare was just as angry as his mother's. "Look, I don't mind bringing you Dameron, or Hank Solo. But I told you to leave Mother alone!"

The older man waved him off. "Mrs. Solo is perfect. Detective, former police commissioner, leader. It takes quite a bit of brain power to be able to perform all of those tasks. Brain power like that will be a pleasure to manipulate. I'll do the young people later, after I've finished with their elders."

"Oh no." Hank snarled at Snoke, managing to curl his fingers into a fist. "You're not putting those skinny tree branches you call fingers on my wife, pal!"

"In a few minutes, you won't know who she is." He turned to two hulking men behind Ben and Hux. "You two, hold onto the two young people. We'll deal with them later." He waved to Ben and Hux. Ben was whispering something in Hux's ear. "Kylo Ren and Phasma, strap Solo to the gurney. Hux, help me with the woman."

Tasha Umaro came in through the side door just as they were starting. "Dameron found the others." She tugged her trailing black and blue velvet skirts into the room and removed her vampire teeth. "He's bringing them here. Waller is with them."

"Luke!" Leia looked up as Snoke grabbed her arms. "That's what I heard before. He could always do a great evil laugh. Used to scare the dickens out of all the boys in his flight squadron with it." She struggled wildly in the old scientist's arms. Umaro went to help, shoving her torso down as they forced her onto the gurney.

"No! Not her! Not my wife!" Hank tried to sit up again, but they gagged him and Leia with cloths from a basket on a shelf. Ben started towards them, but one of the men blocked him. The two men held Jess and Finn, ignoring their kicking and screaming. One reached for Baby, but she easily dashed between his legs and up the steps.

"Forget the dog. It can do us no harm now." Snoke clapped the metal strip around Hank's forehead again, then put a second strip on Leia's. He stroked her forehead, then her cheek, almost lovingly. "There. Now, don't be alarmed. You're both taking part in scientific history. I'm merely changing your brain waves. You thought I was crazy when you fired me, didn't you, Mrs. Solo? Why don't we see how crazy I am when you're under my control...and are my willing spokeswoman?"

Hank screamed under his gag at the same time Ben yelled "Not Mother! You can have Solo, but she...she won't respond to the treatment. She's too stubborn."

"Don't worry." The old scientist ran his fingers through Leia's gray-brown hair. "My machine will take care of those stubborn Solo circuits." Leia struggled wildly, trying to inch away from his icy-cold touch. "Struggling will do you no good, my dear woman. This is top-of-the-line equipment, including the gurneys. My operatives...borrowed...them from the New York Hospital."

Snoke had just pushed a few switches and buttons when that evil laugh suddenly filled the room. The moment it was heard, the lights flickered and died. The machine sputtered out. The only sounds were their own breathing and the rain that continued pattering on the walls.

"For heaven's sake!" He turned to one of his men. "You told me you fixed the generator!"

The piece of beefcake in a cheap suit shrugged. "Sorry, boss. This is an old house. I don't think the wirin's up to your fancy gadgets."

"Well then, you'll have replace the fuses." He indicated a shelf to his right. "They're over there, on top of the phone book and the box of spare beakers."

No one moved. Finn shivered. It was really spooky down there. The only light came from the glowing Bunsen burners on the chemistry set. Leia and Hank continued to struggle. No one else moved. They barely breathed.

That was when they heard the clatter...and saw the figure. A clown more horrifying than anything DC Comics or a circus ever dished out emerged from the stairs. He kept laughing, a sound like metal scraping against living flesh. The clanking chains and rattling bones returned, a bit muffled but still quite obvious.

"Do you all know," the clown hissed, "who I am?" Several people around the room screamed when he seemed to remove his face and his white makeup...revealing a familiar scarred visage and glittering blue eyes. He pulled off his purple jacket to reveal an old-fashioned suit, like the one Andrew Waller wore in the scrapbook. "I'm Andrew Waller. This is my home. You're trespassing on my property. My maiming was an accident...but your treatment of these young people and this older couple is no accident."

"That's a lie!" Ben narrowed his one good eye in confusion. "Benton Kenobi was jealous! He was having an affair with Grandmother. It was no accident."

"It was. One Benton regretted for the rest of his life." "Andrew" picked up the chisel...but Finn saw him wink at Leia on the gurney. "This man was an associate of my former boss, Simon Palpatine. They worked on a formula to control minds, make them do their bidding. Palpatine used it on me for years after my accident."

"This isn't real!" Snoke stepped back, reaching for a chisel. "You're dead! You can't come back to life. Even I know that isn't possible." He raised the chisel, his face a gray, pasty mask of terror. "Let's see just how real you are, so-called Mr. Waller!"

Just as Snoke launched himself at "Waller," a broom handle came down over the head of the man holding Finn and Jess. He let them go, reaching over to rub his sore noggin. Finn jumped as a green face with a feminine British accent whispered in his ear "Routine 10."

Finn knew the code words. The "Routines" were their signal that it was time to fight. The higher the numbers went, the bigger and more elaborate the fight. This was a really big one. Finn socked the big guy in the chin. Rey swatted Ben Solo in the rear with her broom. He jumped a mile, glaring at her as he rubbed his sore backside. Snap managed to wrestle Hux to the stone floor.

Charles threw two of the big men's heads together, looking rather like something out of a Three Stooges short. "I enjoy big fight scenes. This much better than anything in short subjects, and more fun!" He lifted Umaro up and hung her by the back of her dress on the wall, ignoring her squealing and shouts. "That will keep you out of trouble, large miss."

Finn went after Phasma, finally knocking her into a large wastebasket with a clatter. She screamed as discarded apples, old banana peels, wads of paper, chewing gum, and things Finn couldn't even identify spilled around her. "I always knew you were trash, lady."

"Did you have to do this while I'm wearing metal?" Phasma picked a wilted lettuce leaf off her right shoulder plate. "It took me long enough to get these trash cans smelling decent enough to use."

Jess ran over to Poe as he sort of wandered into the room. "What got into you?" She pulled at his sheet. "And what's with the ghost costume? You were supposed to be the Scarecrow!" Baby scampered in next, whimpering at her owner's heels. "What's wrong, girl? What happened to him?"

"He's under my control." Snoke laughed. His laugh was almost as evil as Luke's clown cackle. "My boy, attack the girl, then go after the others. Bring them to me."

Poe had a good right hook, but he hadn't counted on a furious Jessica Pava. She went under his fist, then hit him square in the jaw. He hit the floor with a nasty smack.

"Poe!" She and Baby went down to the floor. "Damn, I didn't think I got you that hard!"

Poe rubbed the side of his head. He was still a little dazed, but the empty look in his eyes was gone. "What the hell was that? Jess, what did I ever do to you? Recently, anyway." He gazed around. "Where am I?"

"Professor Snoke's laboratory." Jess giggled as Baby let out a happy howl and leaped into his arms. "If you're all right, we're going to need your help. Rey just announced Routine 10."

"I'll have a headache for a couple of years, and I seem to have lost at least a day, but otherwise, I'm fine." He grinned at her. "I told the First Order Gang it would take more than some mad scientist to intimidate the Organa Detective Agency!"

Jess tugged him over to Leia's gurney. Ben was already unstrapping her ankles. "Unless you want your boss and ours to become mindless drones, I'd suggest you start getting these off." Snap was already working on Hank.

Snoke and Waller were struggling for the chisel. The older scientist tore at Waller's makeup..revealing the face of a middle-aged man in a graying beard, with no scars, but blue eyes that glowed with a fire similar to Waller's. "Luke Waller," he hissed. "The prodigal son, come home to defend his daddy. How touching. You always did rather resemble Andrew. No wonder I was fooled." He held the chisel to Luke's neck. "Now you'll truly resemble your father, scars and all."

The same broom now came down over Snoke's head. He dropped the chisel. Rey glared at him. "I don't think so! You leave that man alone, you nutty professor, you!"

Snap helped Hank off the gurney. "What's going on?" Hank's legs were wobbly, but he did mange to stand. "Where did all of you come from?"

"Upstairs." Snap nodded at the door. "Poe was really acting strange when we found him, gliding like a ghost and ignoring everything we said. He lead us to the fireplace. It was already open. We saw the fedora, and then Baby came running upstairs, and we heard all the commotion down here."

"I was?" Poe rubbed his head. "First Order Gang must have hit me harder than I thought. I don't remember a thing about any of this."

Leia grabbed her gun from Phasma the moment her son helped her to the floor. "I'll take that, young lady." Jess and Rey were tying up his remaining men with rope found on the shelves. Finn had Hux in a headlock. "We're missing one Resistance Kid. Where's Kaydel?"

"She went with my servant Threepio to call the cops." Luke took the chisel from Snoke. "They should be here any minute."

"What? Uncle, no!" Ben rolled his eyes. "I'm not going back to reform school, and you can't make me!"

"No, you're not going to reform school." Luke frowned. "I'm sorry, but you're old enough for jail time. You'll all have a fair trial, but you murdered a police officer, were involved with the destruction of my original school, and were an accessory to kidnapping and likely theft. You'll be out in twenty to sixty years."

"Jail?" Hux wrinkled his nose. "My father's too important. It'll never stick. Besides, I could never stay in such a dirty, nasty place."

"Maybe you can pin the crimes on these children," Snoke snarled, "but I have no desire to face arrest just yet." He threw another beaker in Luke's direction. Luke just managed to miss the bubbling brown liquid, but it gave Snoke the chance to dart out the room through the side door.

"Snap, Jess, go after him." Leia threw a box of fuses into Charles' arms. "You go with them. You know how to fix fuses. If this is the basement, the fuse box has to be somewhere. Don't take too long. We'll all need to give statements to the police when they arrive."

"Kid!" Hank threw his arms around Luke for a huge hug. "Where the hell have you been? We thought you disappeared off the face of the planet!"

"I've been traveling." Luke hugged him back. "I missed you so much. You and Leia. I just couldn't tell you what I was doing."

Leia stuck the gun in her waistband. "I've been wanting to do this for five years." Her little fist shot out, knocking Luke so hard in the chin, he ended up flat on his back on the gurney. "Why in god's name did you take off like that, without so much as a word? Do you know how worried we all were about you?"

Her twin rubbed the back of his head. "All the women around here pack one hell of a punch! I'll have to remember not to upset my female students too often."

"Tell me about it. I don't think I'll be able to sit down for a week!" Ben rubbed his rear and glared at Rey. She stuck her tongue out at him in return.

Hank and Leia had just helped Luke off the gurney as Kaydel arrived with Statura and at least six cops. "Ok, what's going on? Miss Connix told me something about a mad scientist doing brain experiments and kidnapping and murder?"

Luke took Ben's arm. "Officer, we found the people responsible for the murder of Detective Lor San Tekka. They also helped Professor Roland Snoke kidnap Hank and Leia Solo and Poe Dameron for use in illegal experiments involving mind control."

"If I didn't see the equipment," said one cop with a thick Irish brogue, "I wouldn't believe it, lad. Look at all this!"

"Yeah," added a short cop with a nasal voice. "This looks like somethin' you hear about on Escape or one of them other scary horror radio shows."

Hank had his arm around his wife. Finn went to his other side. "Oh, it's real, all right. Their boss drugged me and tried to turn me and Leia into drones."

Poe raised his hands. "They actually did it to me. I don't remember anything from the time Dr. Franken-Snoke turned on the juice to just a few minutes ago."

Statura rubbed his temple in frustration. "I can tell this is going to be a very interesting story. I already have men questioning your remaining party guests upstairs." Two officers helped Phasma out of the trash. Another got Umaro off the wall. Three more lead the goons to the steps, still bound and grumbling. "Why don't we take this to the main floor? We'll get everything sorted out up there."

Ben turned to his mother as a cop handcuffed him. "Mom, you won't really let me go to jail, will you?" His long face fell, and he actually managed to look innocent. "I just wanted you to like me as much as you like your job."

She squeezed his hand. "Honey, I do love you. You're my little boy. You always will be." Ben saw the hurt in her deep brown eyes as she pulled away. "But you're not going to get out of this one. Murder, near-murder, and kidnapping are not the way to get anyone's attention. You need to learn that you won't always get away with things just because you're the police commissioner's son."

"But Mooothhher," he whined. "Grandfather got away with it! He repented in the end."

"He also murdered hundreds of people or ordered their deaths, including a school of young people studying to be police cadets. He let Palpatine control him. He would have had a trial and gone to jail if he'd lived." Leia looked genuinely sad. "I'm sorry neither he nor you ever really learned how to deal with the consequences of your actions. I somewhat blame myself and your father, but you're to blame as well. You're the one who accepted Snoke's orders. I can only hope you'll be able to learn in jail what Andrew Waller never did, that power only goes so far, and you can't keep hurting others without people fighting back."

"Maaaa!" Ben's tried to struggle, but the cop held his shoulder hard. "I'm your son!"

"No." Leia took Hank's hand. "You're Kylo Ren. You need people who can help you be my son Ben again."

Hux glared at him as they lead him upstairs. "I told you this was a ridiculous idea. We should have stuck to stealing candy from trick-or-treaters and left them alone!"

"Snoke wanted more experiments!" Ben tried to kick at him. "You were the one who wanted to do the ghost trick in the fireplace!"

Phasma groaned as they were lead upstairs. "Knock it the hell off, you idiots. I'm not spending the next twenty to sixty years listening to the two of you go at it like children!"

Hank saw Leia's tears. "I know that was hard for you. That's our kid. We made him. But Leia, he's a grown man now. Grown men need to learn to take care of themselves."

"I know." She sighed. "I think there's still good in him. Maybe he'll find it while in jail."

"Sure," grumbled Rey. "And the Cubs will win the World Series someday."

Luke put his arms around the grieving parents as the lights flickered back on. "Looks like Charles managed to fix the breakers. How about we take this back to the living room? I'll explain everything there."

Leia wiped her eyes, ignoring the black mascara streak on her hand. "Including where you've been for five years?"

Her brother nodded. "You'll get to meet Threepio, too. Matter of fact, I should have some cider in the icebox. I'll get that heated up, and we'll have a quiet discussion around the fire."

"Sounds good to me." Hank grinned, but his knees were still a little wobbly. "But first...could someone give me a hand?"

Charles and Rey went to either side of him. "Of course, Solovich." Charles grinned at him. "I'm just glad you're all right."

"Me too." Rey put his arm around her as the others followed them to the door.

Rey had to admit, the living room was rather cozy without the cobwebs, and with the dust and debris from Hank' fall swept away. Even Threepio didn't seem that odd as he served the group hot apple cider and pumpkin cookies. He was more like a golden butler than a robot. The cops were long gone. Statura took everyone's statements, then helped his boys get the First Order Gang to the nearest station for further questioning.

Leia and Hank were together on the remains of the broken couch. Luke sat on an overstuffed, slightly cracked chair next to them. "So," Leia started, "you've spent the last five years looking for a building for your new school?"

"Actually, more like three years." Luke sighed. "I went up to our old cabin in the Adirondack Mountains to recuperate for the first two years. The one we recuperated at after that gangster kidnapped Hank that one time."

The older man had removed his makeup and clown costume. He now wore an old brown robe over his Victorian suit, his gentle round face scrubbed pink. "I finally got bored. I loved teaching. I missed being around children, helping them grow. I wanted to find a place to start my school again, start over. Many parents blamed me for my pupils' death. I was afraid they wouldn't trust me. Not to mention, I didn't want the First Order Gang to catch wind of this school and destroy it, too."

"But why here?" Rey waved her hand at the house.

Leia had the scrapbook open on her lap. She lifted up the book to reveal a black-and-white photo of two rows of kids and young adults standing on the porch of Skywalker Manor. Ben, Andrew and Patricia Waller stood in back. There was mostly boys and young men in short pants and sweaters. One of the few girls wore an Indian sari and striped head scarf.

"Mother and Father took in groups of street children who had no place else to go," Leia began. "Father went so far as to adopt Ashoka Tano, a little Indian girl whose family had abandoned her. They and Uncle Ben taught them about the police life. Most of them went on to the New York Police Academy, including Ashoka. She was the first Indian woman in the NYPD. She served with distinction for years before dying in a gang shootout in 1917."

"Uncle Ben told us they loved it. Mother wanted to use this as a school, but she couldn't get the proper permits from New York at the time." Luke gave them his sunny smile. "I already have the permits. I'm hoping to buy this place from Snoke as soon as I can get the paperwork. With Starkiller Industries exposed for malpractice, it shouldn't be too hard to get this off them."

"What's with Goldenrod here?" Hank poked at Threepio. The yellowish robot pushed his fingers away indignantly. "How'd you throw him together?"

"I didn't." Luke's normal laugh was far more pleasant than his scary clown cackle. "Artie Baker made him for me. I needed someone to help me with my basic chores while I did my research."

"My name is not 'Goldenrod,' sir." Threepio bristled. "My name is C-3P0, human-robot relations. I must say, you are almost as rude as that little tin can Mr. Baker keeps at his home!"

Leia sighed. "Luke, as long as we're confessing things...I've known since yesterday that you were here. That's where I went when Hank took the kids to Artie Baker's. I made a few calls, talked to a few people. Threepio hasn't exactly been discreet. People have seen a golden man walking up and down the streets for weeks now. They all thought he was either a figment of their imagination or practicing for Halloween."

Hank frowned. "Is that why you wanted to go to the party? To confront Luke?"

"That was part of it." She took his hand. "But mostly, I wanted to see you again. I really have missed you." She winked at him. "You still drive me crazy."

Hank's grin nearly split his face. The kids all whistled. Baby howled from Poe's lap. Luke laughed again. "Some things never change, hon." Hank gave her a kiss, which just brought in more whistling and howls.

"I'm glad I found Officer Statura at the deli down the street." Kaydel pulled a musty old knitted blanket around her shoulders. "The thunder's gone, but the rain was still kind of coming down then."

Finn had an arm around Rey. They were on a love seat on the opposite side from Han and Leia. The other kids were all in folding chairs. "All's well that ends well, I guess. Do you think they'll really put the First Order Gang in jail?"

"I hope so." Rey's fingers curled around her broom handle. "Ben could have killed Hank, and they did kill Lor San Tekka. I hope they're in jail for a long time."

"As long as all of you are all right." Leia looked sad at the mention of her son. Hank gave her a squeeze. She smiled at him, then turned to Poe. "Will you be up for work tomorrow? We need to find out where Snoke went to. He may attempt his experiments somewhere else."

Poe grinned back, his arm around Jess. "I'll report first thing tomorrow morning, Mrs. Solo."

Hank shook his finger at the others. "And don't think you kids are off the hook. I expect you all bright and early tomorrow morning, usual time."

"Don't expect him, though." Charles chuckled through his beard. "He'll be moaning and groaning about his injuries until I let him sleep it off."

The whole group laughed. "I'm not that much of a baby, Charlie!"

Leia just kissed his cheek. "Happy Halloween, dear."

Finn gave Rey a little kiss, ignoring the whistling and "oohs" from the others. "You too, Rey. I'm glad...well, I'm glad I said I liked you."

"I'm glad you did, too." Rey squeezed his hand. "I thought you'd never say something!"

Finn blushed. "I was waiting for you to make the first move."

Luke tipped his head back and let loose with his famous clown cackle as the others laughed around them. Everyone just stopped and stared at him. He did look a little spooky, with his fingers curled and held out like a zombie, and the fire illuminating his bright blue eyes. In fact, as Leia would say later, he looked uncannily like his father...

He finally stopped long enough to say "Happy Halloween!" in his own voice before leaning over to grab Leia. She smacked him, and suddenly everyone was laughing.

Rey had to admit, it had certainly been a memorable Halloween. There was still work to do. Hank and Leia certainly seemed happier, but they weren't really back together. And someone had to help Luke with his new school. She wanted to talk to Artie Baker about helping him with his creations, And there was Finn, the sweetest, dearest cowardly lion-boy she'd ever known.

Suddenly, the Bowery seemed full of possibilities. The storm was gone, they were together, and even New York was peaceful outside. She swore she saw a gray face peering into a window, but the moment she looked again, it was gone. She returned to passing the scrapbook around with the others, recalling Halloweens past...and making hopes for Halloweens future.