Chapter 10
Danny, Sam, and Tucker left the shack and Danny directed them to the manor Vlad had purchased. Sam and Tucker kept bugging Danny to tell them about the ghost they were here to fight. He refused to say until they were safely in the manor under the ghost shield.
The drive only took a few minutes. They drove down the long driveway deeper into the woods. The manor was a huge gothic style building that looked like it would make a cool inn. It had old dark shingles and ivy growing up the walls. It was old but looked beautiful and sturdy.
Danny and Tucker set up the ghost shield in silence. Sam went inside and looked around. There were seven bedrooms, ten baths, a huge kitchen, an elegant dining room, a lounge, a main hall, a library, and several rooms set aside for entertaining guests. The chandeliers were huge and ornate and all the light fixtures looked like they were made of bronze.
The whole place was covered in a thin layer of dust. The only furniture left were the beds and everything in the dining room.
Sam found a closet with sheets and pillows and towels but they were so flat and dusty that she left them alone.
The boys finished setting up the shield. They turned the shield on and found Sam sitting in the kitchen.
"So, are you ready to tell us what were up against?" She asked Danny with a raised brow.
He sighed and sat on the counter while Tucker found a stool in the corner.
His friends stared at him expectantly.
"I found who Cujo tracked here and I know where he's staying." Danny was trying to delay saying the name. "I even kinda know why he's here,"
"Tell us who it is!" Sam glared at him with her hands on her hips.
"It- it's Dan."
Sam and Tucker's eyes shot open as wide as they could go and Danny had the terrible feeling they had stopped breathing.
Tucker was the first to compose himself. "Dan? The Dan that tried to flatten us under a building and blow us up? The Dan you became?"
"How is he still alive?" Sam got her voice back but she was paler than normal.
"He never died. Clockwork was guarding the thermos I trapped him in, but he got out." Danny was staring at his hands.
"You said you know where he is and why he's here?" Sam looked about ready to barf.
"I found him in an old, closed down convenience store."
"Why's he there?" Tucker didn't seem as troubled by this as Sam.
"There are two other ghosts living in this town, they live at that store." Danny saw his friends were confused so he started at the beginning.
"Dan stole some equipment from Vlad's lab. He took a stasis chamber and the machine Vlad used to try to melt Dani into ectoplasm. He found a way to use them together so the melter will keep breaking the victim down while the stasis chamber keeps them alive forever. He's using the machines to build his strength. He's taking the life from the ghosts in the store and feeding on it."
"Why does he need to do that?" Tucker was leaning forward in interest.
"When he broke out of the thermos and fought his way past Clockwork he used too much of his power. With his double core he builds power faster than normal and can last in a fight longer, but he's worn out, he needs help to get to full strength again and then some."
Danny was surprised by how much sense this all made to him. 'Well, he was once me, I guess the more I think about it the more I realize it's the same basic thing I would do, except for draining the other ghosts, that must be a Vlad thing.'
Tucker was deep in thought and Sam was regaining some color. She looked like she was about to say something when they heard a car pull up outside.
Danny walked into the entrance hall, followed by Sam and Tucker. The big front door opened and Vlad walked in.
Sam shot him a glare and Tucker scowled. Vlad hardly gave them a glance.
"Daniel, I came to warn you that several humans will be coming in and out, they will be bringing in the furniture I have purchased." He pulled a laptop from the bag he was holding and handed it to Danny. "A gift, you can keep it. I bought it so I could order things online to be delivered here. I have a page up already,"
Danny opened the laptop and a screen popped open showing a beautiful bedroom set. The teens looked at Vlad confused.
"You can each order anything you want from that page, I have unlimited store credit an I'm already logged in. Just order what you want and have it delivered here."
Danny closed the laptop and smiled. "Thanks, uncle Vlad!" He had to fight the urge to laugh when Vlad's jaw twitched. "Why are you being so nice?"
"If I have to stay here with you children I don't want to deal with any of your problems. I am simply setting up insurance." With that Vlad walked out of the room and the three were left alone.
"I don't know about you two, but I am not letting this opportunity go to waste." Tucker pulled the laptop from Danny's hands and started clicking through the site. Danny and Sam sat on the floor next to him and they explored the site.
Sam found a black and purple bed spread and some thick curtains. Tucker went for an orange camo comforter and green sheets. He also got himself his own laptop and a desk. Danny got some simple blue blankets and a desk lamp that made the room light up with stars. They spent hours on the laptop. When large moving men started arriving they moved to the dining room and continue their shopping.
When the sky outside was completely black they decided to close the computer. They had each bought enough stuff to fully decorate their rooms. "How much do you think all that cost?" Danny asked.
"A lot, probably more than I've ever seen in my life." Tucker said with a huge smile. "All I know is that when this is all over I'm bringing all this stuff home with me."
They laughed and decided to check out the rest of the house now that the sound of heavy furniture being moved around had quieted.
Vlad has some good taste. The house was decorated in a way where everything was obviously modern and expensive but it perfectly fit the old gothic style of the house itself. There were a lot of reds and bronze and dark wood.
The layer of dust was gone and every room was beautiful. He had left the bedrooms alone except for the one he chose until Danny and his friends got their furniture. The kitchen now had state of the art appliances and it was fully stocked.
The three decided to have dinner. They hadn't eaten since the shack.
"I see you like the kitchen at least."
Sam jumped a little, Tucker almost dropped the sausage he had grabbed, and Danny laughed. Vlad walked through the door and stood in front of the wine cooler. He was in his ghost form and he grabbed a bottle of red wine through the door before floating over to get a glass.
"Yeah, it's nice to have food in the fridge that won't riot against me." Danny said sarcastically. He noticed Sam was still avoiding direct eye contact with Vlad. He made a mental note to ask about that.
"You should know the things you ordered will be arriving shortly. I will not be supervising the progress this time, I will be too busy building a lab. Don't let the movers break anything." He glared directly at Danny then phased through the floor into the basement.
Danny grabbed a water bottle and a bag of chips and walked over to Sam. "I wanna talk to you alone for a bit, lets eat in the lounge, ok?"
Sam nodded and Danny shot a glance at Tucker. "You ok on your own for a bit?"
"Yeah, you guys go have your romantic veggie dinner or whatever, I'll make sure the movers get our stuff in our rooms safely." Tucker found some bacon and was searching for a frying pan.
Danny laughed and he led Sam out of the kitchen. They sat on a couch with the chips and fruit and Danny turned so he could look Sam in the eyes.
"You've been acting weird since I told you Vlad was helping me, what's wrong?"
Sam stared at the plum in her hands and sighed. "I just hate the idea of you having to work with him, it's only worse now that I know who you're up against." She looked into his eyes and Danny was shocked to see tears there. Sam never cried, not when Freak Show pushed her off a moving train, not when their parents had been taken, not when she had thought Danny had died. If Sam was crying, it was bad.
The only thing Danny could think to do was hug her. They sat there with Sam crying on his shoulder for who knows how long, their hunger forgotten.
Sam's tears eventually stopped and turned into hiccups and Danny pulled back to look in her eyes.
"I promise nothing is going to happen to you or Tucker or anyone."
"It's not us I'm worried about! This is exactly why I hate this, you never worry about yourself! What if something happens to you? What do I do then?" The tears didn't come back but she sounded so sad Danny could feel his heart clench.
"I'm sorry," Danny said when the silence became too uncomfortable to stand. "I didn't know I did that…"
"Well you do. I just want you to be more careful about how you fight. You keep going home after battles with dislocated shoulders and broken wrists and bloody gashes, I am amazed that your parents haven't figured something's up."
Danny gave a sad chuckle. "They just think I'm the poster child for troubled teens."
Sam grabbed his hands and forced him to look at her eyes. "Just promise me that if there's a possibility you won't make it out of this fight alive and intact, you will turn around and run. I don't care what will happen if you leave, if you won't make it out in one piece you need to run."
They sat like that for a while. Danny looked at their hands. "I can't, I just can't promise that. There are too many 'what ifs'. I'll run if I need to, but not if that means something bad will happen."
Sam sighed. "I guess that's the best I can even hope for," she hugged him. "it's more than I expected, to be honest." she laughed but it sounded sad and beaten. "You have that stupid hero complex and it makes you reckless, but I think that's one of the reasons I fell for you." Her eyes started to flutter shut. Her arms were around Danny's waist and her head fit perfectly against his chest.
Danny sent a clone to check on Sam's room, to see if the bed was ready at least. When the clone came back Danny changed into Phantom and phased himself and Sam into the room. He got her into bed and under the covers then left to find his own room so he could lay down and hopefully black out for a few hours.
Drama and openly wasting Vlad's money, what's not to love? I should be posting more regularly now, i finaly have my own computer instead of using my parents' laptop when they don't need it.