(I moved Sorcerers a day early! Sorry guys! I found out I'm super busy for the next week! Got to Love those sports practices...)

Chapter 12

The girls headed out of the cabin and met with Louis. "Mama Odie said you could give us a ride; can you?" Heather questioned.

"I can do that!" Louis said happily.

"We need you to drop us off at the Haunted Mansion. Dr. Facilier is-"

"The Shadow Man!?" Louis asked, panicked and scared as he interrupted Heather.

"Yeah, that's him. We need to go over there and stop him," Sophie replied. Now that she saw Louis up close, she wasn't worried about him anymore. He obviously wasn't a fierce gator... in fact, he seemed more worried than her!

"I'm not going to mess with the Shadow Man. And you shouldn't, either!" Louis said, backing away.

"Do you just want to wait for the shadows to come and get us here, then?" Sophie said sarcastically. When she saw the fear in Louis' eyes, she continued. "Yep. The shadows are on the island, and they're looking for us. My guess is that they won't leave until we defeat Facilier."

"But the Shadow Man is powerful... and scary," Louis shuddered.

"So are we," Sophie said firmly. "Not scary... I mean powerful. We're Merlin's apprentices. We can handle Facilier." We hope... she added silently. Louis still didn't look convinced. "Mama Odie is going to go help Merlin. Do you really want to be here without her when the shadows show up?" Sophie continued, trying a different tactic.

"Mama Odie's going away?" Louis exclaimed, even more panicked. "I'm not staying here without her!"

"Then won't you take us? You don't even need to go near Facilier. You just need to get us across the water," Sophie said coaxingly. Reluctantly, Louis finally agreed. He walked into the water and the girls climbed on his back. Then he carefully swam them across the murky river.

When they hit the docks, the girls got off of his back. Louis said his goodbyes and swam back. Heather was shaking; she was pretty nervous as they walked towards the Mansion. "You ready?" she asked Sophie worriedly, looking as scared as if she'd just encountered a few mice.

"We've dealt with Pain, Panic, Horace, Jasper, and Cruella already. How hard can Dr. Facilier be?" Sophie replied. "I mean, I know that he has magic powers, but so do we. And Merlin's been training us hard. I think we're ready for this. I hope we are, anyway. Besides... you've improved so much lately; you don't have anything to worry about," Sophie added with a forced smile.

"Yeah, I guess so..." Heather said, still worried. "Let's keep our guard up. This battle is gonna be one for the books... or at least the spell books."

Sophie couldn't help but laugh. "Maybe after this, they'll name a spell after US!" she added, trying to keep the mood light.

"Yeah..." Heather said seriously. She usually took to lightening the mood but for some reason, she had a bad feeling about this villain face-off. Especially since they had reached the entrance to the ride.

Sophie fell silent when they reached the front of the queue. When she was a little girl, she had been afraid to ride the Haunted Mansion. The eerie music and dark, shadowy spaces used to give her the creeps. When she finally conquered her fear and tried it, she discovered that it wasn't scary at all. But today, something felt different… it felt scarier than ever. As she and Heather entered the queue, Sophie found herself clenching her sweaty hands into fists. Since when was she afraid of the dark?

"So... Mama Odie said Facilier was in the graveyard. I guess that means we'll be taking the scenic route," she whispered to Heather.

"Looks like it..." Heather said as she started to walk into the queue. She'd never really been into the interactive queue yet, and was worried that they had no idea what they were up against. "Remember, we're dealing with Voodoo, not Magic, This isn't gonnaa be easy, we'll need some interesting spells..."

"I didn't think of that!" Sophie said, stopping in her tracks. "What if our spells don't work on him? I mean, they were useless against the shadows. And we don't have Mama Odie this time..." Sophie gulped, feeling unusually uncertain. She had been feeling so well-prepared, but she didn't know anything about voodoo. That wasn't exactly in her normal day-to-day repertoire. Everything she knew about magic came from Merlin and the spellbook... and as Mama Odie had said, Merlin was no voodoo expert. And if Merlin himself couldn't handle it, that didn't bode well for them. But Sophie didn't want to show her concern, especially to Heather. So she took a deep breathe and pushed her worries away. "But I'm sure it's nothing we can't handle," she continued flippantly, and not at all convincingly.

"Good Point! Merlin trained us, right? We're ready!" Heather said trying to reassure herself. The Queue stated to get more foggy the closer they got to the building. Heather was starting to shake a bit, but not terrible.

"How ya'll doin'?" A deep voice came out in the fog. The fog started to clear and started to form the shape of Dr. Facelier. Heather got a chill down her spine, she felt the shadows again.

"Me and my friends weren't expecting you." He bagan as meanacing shadows came from behind him. "But I'm sure they'll give you two a warm welcome." He said smiling evily.

"You weren't expecting us? And you call yourself a voodoo master? We were expecting you, and we're just apprentice sorcerers! I think your reputation is a bit inflated," Sophie said mockingly. Maybe this wasn't going to be as hard as she had expected. But as the shadows crept closer and closer, Sophie's smile faltered. As Facilier stood there, leaning nonchalantly against a tomb, looking entirely cool and confident, she began to wonder if he was just toying with them. That expression, so calm and smug, as if he knew that the girls had no hope of success, seemed to eat away at Sophie's mind. She couldn't think of anything-no spells, nothing. She could hardly remember what she was doing there in the first place... and for a girl who never stopped thinking, it was highly disconcerting. Suddenly Sophie felt an icy chill. She looked down to see a shadow grabbing her ankle, and it broke her out of her reverie. "You like cold? I'll give you cold," she said, her voice shaking without her knowing why. "When freezing foes of ill repute, wear long-johns 'neath your supersuit!" she shouted, reciting the Frozone's Ice Blast spell. Immediately, cold streams of fog shot out of her hands. The fog was supposed to turn to ice on contact with her enemies, but it blew straight through the shadows, freezing a gravestone instead. She spun around and tried the spell again, this time aiming for Facilier, but he seemed to disappear. Then she heard his voice behind her, laughing. "Is that all you've got?" he said with a heartless chuckle. She turned around to find him standing in a different place, as casual as could be.

"D-D-Dang it!" Heather said getting the chills and the snapped her voice back to normal. "How about a taste of one of my pals?" Hather then began to chant Tiana's Hot Sauce Spell loudly. "This tasty topping has some minuses, most encountered by your sinuses!" Hot Sauce Spalttered all over the area, again, it passed through the shadows, and it also amused Dr. Facelier. "Oh man," He said snapping his fingers, as more shadows moved in towards Sophie and Heather. "Looks like I'll have to take my suit out for dry cleaning."

"Not a bad idea, using a spell from his movie. Not like it worked... but you might be on the right track." Sophie whispered to Heather. Then she turned to Faciler. "You like frogs, right? How about you try this one on for size?" Taking a deep breath, Sophie shouted the Prince Naveen's Army of Frogs spell: "Don't disturb their lily pad. Too late! You've made them hopping mad." Dozens of frogs appeared out of thin air, lauching towards Facilier and the shadows. But they weren't any more affective than the ice or the hot sauce, passing harmlessly through the shadows and somehow evading Facilier all together. Sophie looked around in dismay. The graveyard was now full of hopping green frogs... but they were no closer to defeating Facilier and his gang of shadows. Facilier chuckled at Sophie's disgust. "You're fond of frogs, girl? I'll have to remember that. But in the meantime..." He snapped his fingers again and the frogs vanished in a puff of green smoke.

Since nothing was working, Heather was started to worry. She tried to mask it with anger toward Dr. Facelier. Hero, Animal, Mystic, and Princess Spells were useless. There were still a few options, but nothing really looked promising. Fairy Spells might work on Magic but wouldn't work on Voodoo. Monster, Toy, Warrior and Machine spells were always something tangible, something you could touch that would harm you. As the two started to learn, the shadows were a different type of matter all themselves. They had no feelings, no emotions. All they knew it that they were feared, and only Mamma Odie could handle them.

Sophie gave her the expression to try something, anything. As the shadows moved in closer. She looked at the rivers of America and said. "If one sharp point will leave you sore, Three will poke you even more!" King Triton's trident it came out of the rivers and into Heather's hand. It started to glow and feared the shadows a bit. But when the glow died down and it zapped towards Facelier, it showed no effect on him, or any of the shadows. On a good note, you could see the spells weren't duds, because after the trident electricution, Facelier's hair startedd to come out of his hat, looking like a mix between an afro and a crazy person. Long story short he didn't look amused, at all. Looking like her was going to do soemthign aweful to her, but then shook it off.

"I'd like to stay a little longer, so you two could make me laugh with more of some little spells of yours, but -" He stopped mid-sentance and took something out of his jacket.

"He has a crystal piece!" Heather whispered to herself.

"The Crystal!" Sophie gasped simultaneously. She and Heather looked at each other, each thinking the same thing. This just got a lot more serious. It was one thing if Facilier was causing trouble for them-that was irritating, but there wasn't any long term damage... so far. But if he gave Hades a piece of Crystal, that would be a major problem, not just for them, but for the whole Kingdom, maybe even the world! Merlin certainly wouldn't be happy. They had to stop him... but what could they do? The spells weren't working. Sophie's mind started racing. But before she could come up with an idea, she heard Facilier continuing. "I have an appointment that I can't miss. I've got a little trade to make with Hades, and my friends here are honored guests," he added, gesturing at the shadows. Then, jauntily doffing his cap, he did a mocking little half-bow, saying, "Thanks for the entertainment, but we've got to split. See ya!" Then there was a puff of black smoke, forcing Sophie to close her eyes. When she blinked them open again, eyes watering and coughing, Facilier and the shadows were gone.

Heather coughed when the smoke came and turned away, when she turned back Dr. Facelier was gone. "This ain't good." Heather said. She ran up to where Dr. Facelier was standing, he was gone, no trace, no clues. She looked up to Sophie and said "We gotta find him before he gives Hades that crystal. I don't have a clue how, but we've got to find him!"