Chapter Twenty-six

FentonWorks
Amity Park

Chewing on the end of a pen, Maddie she read over the latest spectrocity readings from several of the full skeleton warriors they'd captured at the mall last night.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the yellow-and-black striped doorway to the Fenton Portal with the three steel bolts slid in place across it and had to push down the knot of anger that rose up in her throat. With a slight turn, the Portal was out of her peripheral vision and she could concentrate more fully on the report in front of her instead of fuming over the Gestapo-like invasion of her home.

Again.

But unlike the first few times they'd done this, she now knew what was at risk every time those ghost-hating government agents got too close. And that risk had doubled, now that they were harboring not one, but two "unauthorized spectral entities"...

Let's dissect the ghost!

We can't completely vaporize it. Don't you want to at least examine the remains?

Once a filthy ghost, always a filthy ghost!

Spectrocity readings, Maddie. You aren't that person anymore, and Tucker and the city attorneys will handle the Guys in White.

Spectrocity readings. They were conclusive. Whatever was causing the skeleton warriors to reactivate the ectoranium samples, it wasn't intrinsic to them. Long-term exposure to some environmental agent was the cause.

But what environment? The chemical composition showed signs of the same kinds of elements that made up the ectoplasm-charged atmosphere of the Ghost Zone, but there were large quantities of elements she couldn't identify. It was almost as if there was another dimension within the Ghost Zone.

Was that possible? Frostbite often called the Ghost Zone the "Infinite Realms," but different realms didn't necessarily mean whole different dimensions.

There were all those random purple doors, though. Where did they lead? Some back to the human world, some to other realms in the Ghost Zone. Could one of those doors lead to another dimension within a dimension? And if there was such a dimension within the Ghost Zone, what did it have to do with the skeleton ghosts? According to the pages Sam had copied from that book, the skeleton warriors came from Pariah's Keep, which was just a regular section of the Ghost Zone.

But was there more to them than that? Something niggled at her, and she reached into her work cabinet and pulled out the binder where she'd put the photocopied pages from The Legend of Pariah Dark. Didn't she read something about the Fright Knight commanding a legion of skeleton warriors back in the days of Pariah Dark? She flipped through the pages, searching for the passage.

A sharp trill pierced the air, and Maddie jumped. Their home/business phone ringing. Shaking her head at being so easily startled, Maddie picked up the handset off the charger on her workbench and thumbed the power button. "FentonWorks."

"Maddie? It's Angela Foley."

"Oh, hello, Angela. What can I do for you? You looking to stock up on the no-tech weapons Jack's been working on, or is this a social call?"

"Neither. We got an anonymous call on the hotline reporting a ghost sighting in a house not too far from you. You know that older neighborhood at the other end of Maple Street?"

Maddie raised her eyebrows. "A hotline call?" They'd set up that hotline in the early days of the raids, before they'd been able to get Ghost Alert sensors installed across town. The Foleys had volunteered to field the calls along with other monitoring duties. The line had fallen out of use, however, since the Ghost Alert went active, as the alarm usually warned the town about the presence of ghosts long before anyone sighted any.

"If someone spotted ghosts, why didn't the Alert sound? Was it only one or two ghosts, too few to trigger the alarm?"

"We wondered that, too. Thought maybe it was one of our allies or possibly even Danny himself—people can be kind of jumpy these days. So Maurice and I took a spectral scanner down there to check it out. We're about two blocks away right now, and it's definitely not just one or two ghosts. We're getting a pretty big reading, consistent with the skeleton warriors. Maybe a couple dozen of them. Maurice went up the block to see if he could get a more accurate reading."

Maddie frowned. "Skeleton warriors? If there were more than ten, they should have triggered the Ghost Alert. Why didn't they?"

"We were thinking a couple of possibilities. It's... it's almost like they've set up some kind of base there. Maybe a few of them stayed after the raid last night? Or maybe they've been there all along. Maddie, what if that portal Danny's so keen on finding is in that house somewhere?"

"If there's a portal there, that's really bad news, because that means Vlad has more than one. Tucker found one earlier today under the Nasty Burger. Danny went and checked it out this afternoon. It's shielded, so we can't get in or shut it down, but it almost certainly was built by Vlad."

"Tucker found the portal?" There was a pause. "Oh."

Maddie knew that oh. It was the oh of a mother who didn't know what else to say because she was the last to know something about her own child.

Maddie knew that oh well.

Wincing in sympathy, she tried to explain why she would know that Tucker had made such an important find when his own mother did not. "I think he said he went there for lunch and something reminded him that Vlad owned the Nasty Burger for a short time, so he and Valerie did some snooping around and found it. Of course he knew Danny would want to know right away, so he came straight here."

"Of course."

Maddie tried again. "Tucker must be awfully busy now that he's mayor. He not home much?"

"Well, no, but not just since he was mayor. You know him and Danny and Sam, the Three Musketeers, always running off somewhere together. I always figured they were hanging out complaining about school and their parents. Never dreamed they were being like actual musketeers, protecting the town and fighting off invaders. And now that I know... I guess I thought I'd hear more about what's going on, but..." She trailed off.

Maddie sighed. "You're not alone, Angela. Things are a little better now, though. I do have a general sense of what's going on in his life much more than I did before. But let's face it—they're teenagers. We're the last people they're going to share anything with."

"Do you ever wonder if we're doing the right thing, letting them take on so much responsibility? I mean, if I'd have honestly thought for a second Tucker's harebrained scheme to get appointed mayor had a shot at actually working, I think I might've nipped it in the bud."

Maddie thought of Danny and the dark circles under his eyes from too many sleepless nights worrying about Vlad and the war in the Ghost Zone. Or how he sometimes almost looked stooped from the weight he carried on his shoulders. How Danielle's... illness, for lack of a better word, very nearly broke him in a way nothing, not any horrible experience Vlad or any other ghost had ever put him through in the nearly three years since his accident—some of which he still was probably keeping from her and Jack—ever had.

Yes, Angela. I wonder that all the time. It's what gives me sleepless nights.

But that wasn't the answer she gave. "Well, they're almost seventeen. In a year, they'll be graduating high school and going off to college, and we'll have even less influence on them than we do now."

"Until they need money."

Maddie laughed. "That's true. I guess they'll always need us in some way." In truth, it was a comforting thought. "But I guess what it comes down to for me is that I'd rather my kids learn how to take on the really big stuff while I still have enough influence and even veto power to guide them through it than to try and fight all their fights for them or shield them from everything until they're gone without ever having learned how to fend for themselves." She sighed. "At least that's what I tell myself every single time I let Danny go off into the Ghost Zone instead of locking him in his room like I want to."

Angela was silent for a moment before speaking again. "Tucker's always chosen the battles he's taken on. Being mayor, fighting ghosts, all of it. That's what's hard sometimes, knowing I've got that veto power and never being sure when I should use it and when I have to let him decide for himself. But I know Danny hasn't always had that luxury."

And whose fault is that? "Maybe he would have if I'd erred a little more on the protective side, kept him away from that portal." Away from Vlad.

Why didn't I keep him away from Vlad?

"Maybe," Angela said. "And maybe he would've never gotten the chance to live up to his full potential. Tucker either, for that matter." She paused. "And, of course, all of that would be moot anyway because we'd all be asteroid dust."

"Well, there's that." Maddie couldn't help but smile. She'd started out encouraging Angela, and now Angela was encouraging her. "But I thought you weren't sure letting Tucker do all that was the right thing."

"I'm not. Probably never will be. But at the end of the day, I'm pretty damn proud of him. Mayor at sixteen. Imagine what he can do when he's old enough to be president."

"Or find a loophole in the age requirements."

"If there is one, he probably will find it." She chuckled. "Oh, wait. Maurice is coming back." Maddie could hear her carrying on a short discussion with her husband before she came back on the line. "Definitely skeleton ghosts. Maurice saw two of them going into the house. I think you're gonna wanna get someone a little more battle-ready down here. Nine-seventeen Maple Street."

Maddie frowned. "Nine-seventeen Maple Street?" Maple Street was the cross street that their corner lot butted up against, but that address was several blocks away, where the neighborhoods were a little more suburban and the lots much larger. It wasn't the fact that her house was along the same street that bothered her, however. "Why does that address sound familiar?"

"It's the old Townsend place. You know, that run-down, abandoned house the school district uses for those Halloween party fundraisers the faculty puts on every year? And according to your scanner, this location has been tagged before, nearly three years ago. Also on Halloween."

Maddie's eyes widened. "Of course! I remember, now. Danny was helping Mr. Lancer with some sort of haunted house, and a huge ecto-storm—" She stopped short, sucking in her breath. "An ecto-storm. That's it!"

"What's it? Isn't that what Danny was talking about the other night, one of the things the Fright Knight's sword could do?"

"He did say that, didn't he?" Maddie slapped her forehead with the heel of her hand. "Why didn't I put two and two together then? That could be exactly the kind of thing that would keep Vlad's ectoranium powered up! And if the Fright Knight's sword can create them, it all fits. Angela, are you getting any other spectral energy readings besides the skeletons themselves?"

"Just what would be normal for a bunch of ghosts. Nothing that looks like a storm."

"But there was one there three years ago, the skeletons are there now, and the Fright Knight can create the storms. There must be a connection." And Danny would know what it is. "You and Maurice get out of there. We'll take care of this."

"Will do. Be careful."

"You, too." Maddie thumbed the power button and set the receiver down on the counter before hurrying towards the stairs. "Danny? Are you home? I need to talk to you!"

"In the kitchen, Mom!"

She emerged from the basement stairwell to find Danny sitting at the kitchen table snacking on lime and vinegar chips while poring over something on his laptop. Looking up at her over the back of the screen, he gave a tired sigh. "Sam is so much more cut out for research than I am. If I have to read one more website about purple sapphires, my eyes are going to bleed. And don't even get me started on how every website out there contradicts every other website. I have no idea how she figures out what's true and what isn't."

"Forget whatever you're researching. I have something more important we need to look into. You remember that haunted house you helped Mr. Lancer with for Halloween a few years ago?"

"How could I forget? That's the first time I met the Fright Knight. Why?"

"The Fright Knight was there?" Even more suspicious. "Do you remember an ecto-storm that flared up around that house that night? Did the Fright Knight cause it?"

He winced, almost looking guilty. "Uh... not exactly..."

"Danny, this is important. According to the tests I've run, whatever effect the skeleton warriors have on ectoranium is because they themselves have had a lot of exposure to whatever energy is the power source. An ecto-storm could be just that kind of energy. And I just got a call from Mrs. Foley saying there are skeleton warriors at that very same house, nine-seventeen Maple Street, right now."

"Skeleton warriors? Why didn't they set off the Ghost Alert?"

"I don't know, but there's got to be a connection between them and the ecto-storm and the Fright Knight."

"It was his sword, but I was the one who caused it. I... sorta stole it from Pariah's Keep that night and woke him up. When I stuck it in the floor at that house, that's what created the storm."

"The Fright Knight's sword creates the storms, and he commands the skeleton warriors, so it makes sense that they'd be reeking of that energy. And that house could be, too. Danny, go find your father. We need to get out to that house right away."

917 Maple Street
Amity Park

Vlad hated this house. It was similar enough to his former mansion in Polter Heights—save for the fact that it was ancient and dilapidated—to make him miss what he'd once had here in the Human World. But if it served its purpose...

The two skeleton warriors who stood together in the doorway to the old study he was currently occupying stepped away from each other and the door, allowing a lanky, long-haired figure to enter the room between them. He bowed his head—a bit too perfunctory for Vlad, but he let it slide—as he stopped before the chair where Vlad was seated.

"You have a report, Aragon?"

The former prince nodded. "I made the telephone call, as you ordered." His lipped curled on the word telephone as if it were some profane thing he'd sullied his hands touching. "Two of the humans are outside now."

"Which two humans?"

"Ones of no consequence. But I overheard the woman call the Ghost Boy's mother."

A smile curled on Vlad's lips. "Did she make the connection?"

"Yes, my lord, exactly as you predicted."

"Then we'll be having visitors soon. You know what to do, Aragon."

"Yes, my lord."

He turned to one of the skeleton warriors at the door. "Summon the Fright Knight. I believe I feel a storm front moving in."