Chapter 8: Ghost, Witch and Devil

Kammy jerked awake as a bright light suddenly filled her cell. After the humans overpowered the Koopas, they had thrown the leaders into the dungeon, where they chained them to the walls by their wrists and ankles. At first, they had even taken Kammy's clothes, having learned that the Magikoopas could pull potions and other weapons out of their sleeves. However, she suspected the few human anthropologists that were observing the invasion finally got through to the military leaders, since her glasses and the tattered remains of her clock had later been returned.

As the humans had realized, Magikoopas' clothes functioned as amplifiers of their hammerspace abilities, however centuries of being covered had left them with a societal need for modesty. Kammy gathered that enough captive Magikoopas had protested and resisted the humans because of their uncomfortable nakedness and their blindness, and so their bodies and eyes were given their due coverage. The sleeves and pant legs had been ripped from the cloaks, however, and Kammy's arms and toes were quite cold. She was just glad that dragons and their descendants were warm-blooded, unlike the turtles the humans initially believed they had risen from.

Kammy barely had the strength to raise her head and see who was entering her cell. The humans had drugged her; it was a smart move on their part – if she had the energy, Kammy would have succeeded in pulling some small objects from her hammerspace hours ago. All she needed was to spread her fingers far enough apart so that there would be room between the tips to materialize something, and while she was sure she had achieved that a couple times, the tranquilizer was suppressing her energy and she couldn't summon anything forth in that space. It was frustratingly hopeless.

Before her stood Admiral Griggs, who silently sized her up as some orderlies dragged in a wooden table behind him. They pushed it against the wall next to the door, placed a bulky package down on one end, a battery on the other end, and then retreated. The door locked behind them.

"Tell me where the King of the Koopas is hiding," said Griggs.

"No," responded Kammy.

"Tell me where he is."

"No!"

"Tell me-"

"NO!"

"Fine," snapped Griggs. He turned to the table and rolled open the package, revealing an array of sinister torture devices that Kammy could barely see from her vantage point. "We have ways of making people talk, you know. I've been given special permission to do whatever I see fit in order to ensure that our world is protected from you monsters – all off the record, of course."

"You're making a mistake – we have no interest in your world!" insisted Kammy. She had told the humans this more times than she could count, and still they did not listen to reason. Not even the scientists seemed to take what she said as the truth, though they could have been faking for the sake of the military stooges watching over their shoulders.

"You keep saying that… And yet, I don't believe you." Griggs' voice was deathly calm as he attached a pair of large alligator clams to the battery with a sizzling crack. "Now, I'll ask you again, where is King Koopa?"

"I won't tell you. No matter what you do to me, I won't tell!"

Griggs eyed Kammy coolly over his shoulder. "We'll catch him one way or another, all you'll be doing by keeping silent is delaying the inevitable." He turned around to reveal the two metal rods in his hands; they were connected to the battery on the table via coiled red and black wires offering more than enough slack for Griggs to cross the room to his prisoner. He knocked one rod off another and the sparks illuminated the cell almost as much as the lightbulb hanging from the ceiling. Griggs smiled. "They say this much voltage would render a man unconscious with a single blow, but you beasts are much more resilient, and I trust you won't succumb so quickly."

Kammy ripped her eyes from the rods and glared at Griggs through her tinted glasses, bracing herself for the pain as he approached her.

"My momma always taught me to respect my elders, though, so I'll give you one last chance: tell me where your king is."

"No."

"Very well then, don't say I didn't warn you." Griggs transferred both prods to his left hand, their rubber casing clicking together so that there was still an inch separating the metal. He raised his arm, preparing to strike Kammy, but before he could act, another voice filled the room as Kamek materialized beside his sister.

"NO!"

Without thinking, Griggs' right hand yanked the gun hanging from his left hip and the Admiral emptied two shots into Kamek's silvery form. The bullets passed through the ghost and shattered a couple blocks in the wall behind him. "Shit!" Griggs swore in frustration as he realized he had just wasted two of his custom-made bullets on someone who was already dead. The bullets were meant for a handgun, but shattered upon impact like the birdshot he used for hunting ducks back home with his trusty rifle. Griggs wasn't one for taking prisoners, and he found birdshot made sure that when he shot someone, they died.

But, unbeknownst to Griggs, the bullets did affect Kamek. Unlike most objects, which simply slid through his form, the bullets carved holes through his energy as they went. It took a moment before more energy swirled in to fill the tunnels, and even then, Kamek still felt what had been taken from him, as if the bullets had sucked out part of his soul itself. While he kept his face blank, his mind reeled at the true blackness of human weaponry; if it could do this to the undead, it was no wonder the living stood no chance.

"Who are you and what do you want!" demanded Griggs. "Are you her dead husband or something? Because she's gonna be the one paying for those bullets!"

"I'm her brother," said Kamek, hoping it would mean something to Griggs. "And I will not stand by and watch you torture her."

"And how do you hope to accomplish that?" growled Griggs. "You have no power – not over men."

"True," said Kamek. While ghosts usually could possess people, the Earth humans could resist them because of the cursed weaponry they carried. It was sheer agony to occupy one of their bodies, and the control could not be maintained for long. "I am not here to fight you – I know that will only cause Kammy more pain."

"What are you doing?" hissed the old witch.

"I'm saving your life," said Kamek.

Kammy's eyes widened. "No… No! Don't do it Kamek! Don't tell him!"

"I know where the King and Queen of the Koopas have gone," declared Kamek.

"Really?" Griggs' bloodthirsty eyes lit up.

"Don't tell him! Please!" begged Kammy.

"Where are they?" shouted Griggs. "Tell me or I'll kill her!"

"Don't do it Kamek!"

"I won't let him kill you," said Kamek.

"No, Kamek, please, NO!" wailed Kammy desperately.

"TELL ME!" roared Griggs.

"They've flown north!" Kamek's voice echoed around the room as Kammy fell into horrified silence. "To a town known as Westpole. Bring me a map, and I'll show you where they are, what flight paths they took, and where they'll go when they find out about this invasion."

Admiral Griggs sneered victoriously. It had been King Bowser who led the initial invasion on Earth, and while he didn't yet know it was Bowselta who killed his brother, he knew the only way he could get his revenge was by killing the Koopas. "Well, thank you very much… ah, 'Kamek', was it?"

The Magikoopa ghost nodded. "Promise you won't lay another finger on my sister, and I'll tell you everything you need to know."

"How could you do this?" gasped Kammy, her voice barely a whisper as she stared up at Kamek.

"I promise, she won't be harmed further. I'll give you a moment to talk – I know how important family is." Griggs knocked on the door, which one of the guards then opened for him from the outside. Usually, he would have demanded that Kamek come immediately, but as the Magikoopa had predicted, the Admiral felt some compassion for a brother who would linger beyond the grave to protect the one he loved from their own death. He still planned to kill Kammy as soon as Kamek's usefulness ran out, but perhaps he'd just have her shot – quick and easy. "Be in the map room in five minutes – it's your castle, so I trust you know where that is."

"I do," said Kamek as the door closed behind the Admiral. He looked at Kammy, who was hanging weakly from her bonds. "I'm sorry..."

"No you're not," she whimpered, before shaking with rage. "No you're not! How could you do this! Why, Kamek, why? How could you? Just because you hate Bowselta you'd-"

"This has nothing to do with her!"

"Yes it does! It always does! You've destroyed so much – you've destroyed yourself because you hate her, and now you're throwing away this world's last hope of-"

"'Last hope'?" repeated Kamek incredulously. "There is no hope! They've captured the freaking Mario Brothers! There's no hope in hell that Bowser, Bowselta and eight Koopalings, in their one airplane, could stop an army that has done so much! It's over: we've lost!"

"You're wrong!" howled Kammy, tears streaming out from behind her glasses. "You only did this because you want Bowselta dead as much as that- that monster does!"

Kamek shook his head furiously. "I did this because I love you!"

"If you loved me, you would have known that I'd rather die than see them killed! I love them! I love them as if they were my own children – and grandchildren! I love them more than you could ever know, more than you could ever understand!"

"You heard Griggs," snapped Kamek. "They're gonna catch them sooner or later, and knowing Bowser and Bowselta, they'll come charging south the moment they get wind of the invasion. They're gonna throw their own lives away – they don't need you to throw in yours as well!"

"You're wrong!" screamed Kammy, even though she knew, deep down, that he wasn't.

"…I don't want things to end this way either," said Kamek softly as his sister sobbed before him. "But there's no way around it… I just couldn't sit by and watch you suffer… not again." Kamek thought back to when they were children and he was powerless to help his sister as she battled the plague that had taken their parents' lives; it was a miracle that she survived, but it took its toll. "And I do understand how you feel… I always thought that it was unfair how you were the one who caught that plague: you would have been a great mother."

Kamek's words were meant to comfort her, but all they did was fill Kammy with a burning hatred. Reminding her of the sterility the plague had left her with was adding insult to injury. Kamek had gone too far. "If they were my actual children, would you still sentence them to death?" She looked up at Kamek, before raising her voice from a growl to a shriek. "WOULD YOU?"

"What? No! I didn't-"

"You didn't what? You didn't think that I'd see through your lies? You're not doing this out of the goodness of your heart – hell, we both know that you ripped your heart out long before Her Fieryness blew it away with the rest of your body. So, why don't you stop wasting my time pretending like you give a damn about me, or about love, or about anything! Go tell that murderous pig where the last of his opposition is hiding and then the two of you can have your revenge! That's what it's all about, isn't it?"

"No, I-"

"You can tell yourself you did this to save me as much as you like, but it's a lie and you know it! Griggs will kill me the moment he gets what he wants from you, and there will be nothing you can do to stop him. I'm too dangerous to even be kept locked away – not that that's a life I'd care to live anyway, so really, once you two have killed the Koopas, I'll be looking forward to joining them!"

"Don't say that!" gasped Kamek, a shadow crossing his silvery face. "Trust me, death is… horrible."

"But what you've done to me is worse," hissed Kammy. "Now go!" She turned as far away from her brother as the restrains would allow, squeezing her eyes shut as if that could stop the tears from cascading down her face. She had always hoped her brother could put his hatred aside and accept Bowser and Bowselta for who they were; she had always hoped the two of them could be a family again, but now she knew it was all in vain. "And don't bother coming back afterwards, because I never want to see your face again!"

Kamek floated before her at an utter loss for words. He cast around for something – anything – to say to make it better, but he knew that anything he said would just hurt his sister. He had lingered as a ghost for nearly nine years because he made a promise to himself, to Kammy and to their parents that he would protect her, but now he was truly dead to her. The battle between Kamek's love for his sister and his hatred of the Koopa Queen also died in that cell: he had lost Kammy, so all that was left for him was Bowselta Koopa. He had made a deal with the devil, and now he had to see it through. The ghost turned away from his sister and floated towards the corner in the direction of the map room, but as he vanished into the darkness, one word finally came to Kamek:

"Goodbye."