Clockwork was waiting for us in his tower. That was good; Ammut had decided to tag along, and I really didn't want to explain to the High Observant Council why a soul-eating monster straight from the Pyramid Texts was eyeing them hungrily.
"I see you've made a new friend," my guardian commented. He shifted from elder form into a child.
Ammut's eyes bugged out. Neat neat! Is Clockwork friend-of-master-pups wrinkly or little?
Danni choked. Clockwork arched a brow. Now he was in his intermediate form, much to Ammut's delight. "Did the Devourer say something entertaining?"
"Uh…."
"Can't you hear her?" asked Danni, surprised.
"No. Until your birth, only Pariah Dark could understand her words- though I understand that they are not exactly words."
Oh, good. As long as he didn't ask me to translate the whole wrinkly comment, I was safe. Still, he could ask any second now, so I followed Danni's lead and changed the subject. "She showed us a memory of Pariah Dark being possessed by one of her meals."
Clockwork's eyes widened by a fraction of an inch. If I'd blinked or not known him quite so well, I'd've missed it. My heart sank. Apparently he hadn't predicted that, which meant that Ammut had either been lying or duped. I glanced at the crocodile-hippo hybrid, who was happily snuffling through Clockwork's lair. She'd probably been duped. I really couldn't imagine her deliberately tricking us into unleashing the doom of the Ghost Zone.
"I was not aware of that," he confessed. "I can only see things that have occurred or will occur after my death, and I was human at the time of Pariah's fall. Tell me what you saw."
We did. Then we backtracked and told him what we'd done in Pariah's Keep, just in case he'd given us some privacy and hadn't been watching. When I reached the part where I checked out the Sarcophagus, Danni shrieked.
I spun, ecto-blasts burning in my hands.
Ammut was chewing Dan's thermos. Several thoughts split through my mind: Ammut ate souls, but only the bad ones. Dan had a bad soul. As far as anyone knew, Ammut hadn't had a decent meal in three thousand years.
Oh, crud.
The Devourer swallowed. Chunks of metal disappeared between her jaws.
I said several words that won't be repeated here, just in case there are kiddies reading. Then I charged.
"Drop the thermos!" screamed Danni. That was when I reached her and yanked it out of her mouth.
Aside from Ammut staring at us as though we'd lost our minds, nothing happened. No temporally displaced psychopaths burst out from the scant remains of the thermos, cackling that we were about to meet our doom. No Ghostly Wails split the relative quiet; no ecto-blasts fired at Danni or Clockwork or me.
"…Did that really just happen?" My voice came out in a squeak, but neither Danni nor Clockwork commented. They were too busy staring at Ammut, who gave a little burp and hacked up a small hunk of twisted metal.
What? Had snack. Very chewy.
At the same time, Clockwork commented, "She just destroyed my favorite form of therapy."
I choked. Danni choked. Soon we were both laughing at the top of our lungs, sides aching. It wasn't quite as good as Pariah Dark in an orange jumpsuit, but this was still pretty funny- not to mention a relief. I'd worried for years that Dan would escape, hunt down my families (both the Fentons and my hybrid clan), and kill them all. That I didn't have to worry about that anymore was almost as surreal as Pariah being my father.
When I finally regained my composure (it took a while, since whenever I calmed down enough to take deep breaths Ammut would ask what was so funny, and that just set me off again), I remembered why we were here in the first place and asked, "What should we do?"
Clockwork glided over to his main viewscreen, flickering into his child form as he did so. Ammut followed, still fascinated by his age-shifting.
Images flitted across the screen: my first battle with Pariah, me and Danni standing in the throne room, the Sarcophagus blasted to smithereens, an angry giant smashing us like bugs. More pictures: Ghost Gauntlets, Clockwork in the chamber, Ammut tearing into her master's side in a last-ditch attempt to save him. Sam and Tucker and Jazz walked through the room, holding guns or cannons or even the Jack-o-Nine-Tails. The timelines moved too quickly for me to understand, but Clockwork had been doing this for centuries. He understood perfectly.
"The Destroyer speaks the truth."
Five simple words, but they had the potential to remake the Ghost Zone and human realm both. My breath caught. "You're sure?"
He nodded, a child with ancient knowing eyes. "I saw the criminal's soul leave him. After that, the timelines splinter, and I cannot see for certain what will happen."
Danni's face lit like the sun. She tried to contain her excitement, but it was impossible. Besides Jazz and me, she'd never had a family before. On the other hand, she knew full well that this was bigger than her, than our family, too big to let childish yearnings affect our reasoning. "Clockwork, how can we free him? What's the most efficient way, the least likely to blow up in our faces?"
He told us, and the smile fell from her face and mine.
Jazz's mouth worked up and down, up and down, giving her a startling resemblance to a fish out of water. Finally she squeaked, "That's insane, even for you."
"Yep."
"You're absolutely sure that this is legit?"
"Yep."
She blinked several times. "Okay then. What can I do to help?" She leaned against the wall, arms folded over the Time Medallion around her neck. Around her, the world tinged blue with the power of Clockwork's time-out. Other people in the library were frozen in mid-step, mid-page, mid-breath.
Clockwork told her. Her eyes narrowed. "That's risky, Cephissus."
How in the worlds had she known his name? Danni and I hadn't learned it until just a few hours ago. Still, I had more important things to do, so I told her, "You don't have to if you don't want to."
What? Ammut was horrified by the mere suggestion. If master-pups' almost-sister no help, master no get better. Clockwork-who-is-old-young-baby say she help. She need help! Danni laid a hand on her head, a gentle rebuke. She quieted but fixed Jazz with such a pathetic pair of Cujo eyes that only a monster could have resisted.
"Neither do you," she pointed out. She obviously hadn't seen the Cujo eyes… or she didn't realize how cute the mutant maned crocodile-hippo monster really was. I'd bet on the former; Jazz thinks that yetis and salamanders are absolutely adorable. Normal people find them intimidating at best, nightmarish at worst. "You two are in a lot more danger than I am."
"I'm used to it," I grumbled.
Jazz flinched. "Promise me that if something goes wrong, you'll quit right away. All three of you." She glanced at Ammut. "Um, all four of you."
"Only if you do the same."
The four humanoids obediently promised to make a break for it if things went pear-shaped. Ammut refused. No no no. Won't let master's only chance go. Need help master. She changed tactics. Why master-pups say might not help? Master is master-pups' daddy. Help daddies is good. Makes souls good.
Danni decided to explain. "It's like retreating to fight another day. If this attempt doesn't succeed, we'll try again once we've figured out what went wrong. But if we can't free Pariah, we-" She froze. Her ghost sense had activated, and equally chilly plumes of frost escaped from my mouth.
The Observant appeared out of nowhere, its eye filled with fury. "I knew it," it snarled. "You are hereby under arrest for conspiring to release the mad king." Ectoplasm pooled in its hands, bright enough to destroy the entire library.
The stupid thing obviously hadn't heard our explanation as to why we wanted to do this- that or it didn't care. Couldn't Big Brother have picked another time to start watching us?
My eyes met Danni's. She disappeared with a crack, flying so quickly she'd broken the sound barrier. I encased our unwelcome guest in a hunk of ice. It phased out, but by then I'd already erected a force field. It tried to phase through that, but lightning cracked and drove it back.
Then Danni was there, Jazz's spare Fenton thermos in hand. She uncapped it. In a flash of light, the Observant and its ectoplasmic jail were sucked into the metal prison.
It was a very satisfying and very stupid five-second fight. I'd wanted to do that to an Observant ever since I met them, but they were kind of sort of the ruling council of the Ghost Zone. Now was the worst possible time to imprison them. We were in enough trouble already.
Jazz gawked at us in mute horror, unable to believe the idiocy to which her siblings had descended. "Please tell me I imagined that."
Clockwork took the thermos. "It's stable now," he assured us. "When the Observant escapes, she will believe that she was only held for a moment."
I filed its-her- gender away for later reference. "That's really great," I moaned, "but that won't wipe her memory. She'll still know that we locked her up."
Clockwork nodded. There was a hint of worry in the twist of his tail. "This gives us even more incentive to free Pariah successfully on our first try. He could override the Council's punishment. There is no other way they will let this go."
Fan-flipping-tastic. This day kept getting better and better.
An ugly thought occurred to me. "What if they start another War of Power?"
Danni blanched. Jazz looked sick. Only Clockwork remained calm. "They cannot. Between Ammut's return, our combined testimony, and Pariah's lack of aggression, the Ghost Zone will be forced to acknowledge that he has changed. Besides, I suspect that he will remain incognito for a while. It has been centuries since his last prolonged reign, and he will need to know more about this modern era."
It seemed like good reasoning to me. Everyone knew that Ammut wouldn't serve an evil soul. Clockwork was the Master of All Time, the Seer of the Future. I had defeated Pariah in his last escape and had no reason to help someone who was after my blood. Danni had no direct connections to him, but he would hunt her down due to her relationship with me. It was good reasoning, but that didn't stop fear from twisting my guts.
"Let's go," Danni advised. "If we wait any longer, Danny and I will think ourselves out of this."
Jazz nodded, jawline grim. "You two take the Infi-map to FentonWorks. We'll meet you at Pariah's Keep."
Time was still frozen, but it felt as though it had sped up. It seemed like only a second before Danni and I soared into our father's throne room, clutching the tools we'd need to free him. Clockwork and Jazz were waiting with Ammut at their feet and tail. My guardian held the Skeleton Key.
"Where'd you get that?" I asked him.
"Vladimir had it and several other ancient items in his Colorado mansion. As they are property of the High King and High Observant Council, I relieved him of them."
As long as the Crown of Fire wasn't anywhere nearby, I was fine with that. Pariah was powerful enough; with the Crown and Ring he could quadruple his strength.
We armed ourselves, silent and grim. Ammut watched with barely contained excitement and fear. Think will work? Hope will work. Want work.
"Us, too," Danni told her. Ammut pressed her snout against her thigh. I was beginning to wonder is she was really just a very oddly shaped puppy. She certainly acted like one.
"Everyone knows what to do?" They nodded, just as I'd known they would. "Okay, then." Deep breaths, Fenton-Phantom. "Let's do this."
Clockwork advanced, Skeleton Key in hand, Danni and I by his side. He pressed it into the ancient blood coffin… turned….
The Sarcophagus of Forever Sleep swung open. The Ghost King opened his eyes.
I am going to go back and edit my chapters so they hint at Ammut's existence. It feels like cheating, but I'd do this before sending a real book in for publication, so it probably isn't.
Next chapter is the big climax. I don't know when it'll be up because I haven't really written a lot of action scenes before. Wish me luck.