Chapter Twenty-eight

917 Maple Street
Amity Park

As the power died, the wind began to die as well, and Maddie was able to raise her head over the wall in time to see the Fright Knight lunge for his sword and pull it from the ground.

Above him, the black dragon shrugged. "Take it. I have no further use for it."

"I do not suffer betrayal lightly, Aragon!"

The dragon laughed. "Betrayal? Whom have I betrayed? I owe no allegiance to you! I suggest you take it up with Master Plasmius if you have a problem with his plan!"

"His plan?"

"Of course his plan! He wanted the town defenseless so he can take it as he chooses. Who else could accomplish that but me? These humans, so weak and frail in their reliance on technology."

Even through his helmet, Maddie could feel the Fright Knight's fury coming off him in waves. With a shrill whistle, he called his horse to him. She came, snorting in what Maddie would have sworn was a rage equal to her master's, but he simply mounted her and the two of them disappeared in a swirl of ghostly purple light.

Aragon laughed again and looked down at her and Danny. "You have five hours to surrender or the skeleton army will sweep through this town and destroy everything in it. Everyone who does not bow to Vlad Plasmius, Master of All Dimensions, and his Grand Vizier, Prince Aragon, will be eradicated." Then he, too, was gone, this time in blue flame.

Beside Maddie, Danny swallowed. "This is bad. This is really, really bad. It isn't like in the mall or City Hall. It's not just his own limited range. It's the terms of capturing the whole town. Amity Park's completely without power, without technology of any kind." He ran his hand through his hair, pulling it back from his forehead in helpless frustration. "God, I hope Tucker was right about Technus's lightning rod, 'cause if the hospital's generator isn't running, a lot of people's life support just..." He closed his eyes. "No lights, no cars, no weapons, no cell phones, no—"

And then, even with the eerie green glow of the smoky dome above them the only illumination, she could see him blanche as his eyes flew open again. "No ghost shields. Anywhere. Not even at FentonWorks." He looked back at the verses Maddie had written. "'The master takes back his due in the end...' He's going after Dani!"

Reaching back to shove the note into a side pocket on his backpack, he turned to fly off, but Maddie put her hand on his arm to stop him. "Wait, Danny! Something's not right. That poem—"

"Mom, I don't have time for riddles! He's been threatening to come after 'what's his' ever since we rescued Dani, and no way he's gonna wait five hours. I've got to get home, get her someplace safe."

"No, Danny, you have to listen to me. This isn't just about the electricity or the weapons or the shield or taking over the town or even Dani. It's about the sword. 'With but one purpose he wields the knife / Caina waits him who quenched this life.' I know what that means!"

"Later, Mom. I have to protect Dani first. I failed her before. I won't do it again."

"Danny, I am your mother! You have to listen to me! The sword is the key! We have to—" But before she could finish or stop him, he was gone, shooting off in the sky towards home, and she was alone.


Sweeping aside the two skeleton warriors guarding the door as if they were Halloween decorations made of plastic, the Fright Knight kicked open the door to the old house's study. As he knew he would, he found Vlad, in human form, sitting in the ancient and rotting velvet-upholstered chair, looking as if he wanted nothing more than to smoke a pipe and read some Dickens or Lord Byron. A single oil lamp on the table beside him illuminated the room.

Maddeningly unruffled, he folded his hands in his lap and smiled. "How did it go? Are all my pawns in place?"

"I AM NOT YOUR PAWN!" The Fright Knight pulled out his sword and brandished it in front of him.

Vlad didn't so much as flinch. "Of course you're not. You're my knight." His eyes darkened. "That still means you move as I tell you."

"I am the master of the Soul Shredder! If you wanted me to claim this town for you, I would have done so, but no one takes my sword from me! Least of all that pathetic, sniveling milksop who can't even keep his own sister in line, let alone an entire kingdom!"

"But he has his uses. Stripping Amity Park of the technology it relies on is a tactical advantage."

"No one wields my sword but me!"

"What's all this 'me, my, mine?' There's no 'me' in team." Vlad frowned. "Well, actually there is, if you rearrange the letters. But I'm the only 'me' in this team. And as it so happens, I have need of your sword right now." He held out his hand as if he'd asked to pass him a butter knife.

The Fright Knight gripped the hilt tighter. "I surrender my sword to no one."

"Really? Are you sure about that?"

Vlad's eyes glowed red, and then he evaporated into green smoke. The Fright Knight spun around, trying to get a bearing on the green mist, but it was everywhere, surrounding him, filling the air with a burning, electrical charge that sent pain coursing through his limbs, his chest. He slashed at the fog in vain with his sword, but the blade could find no purchase, nothing solid. As the lightning inside him intensified, he dropped to his knees, unable to bear the pain any longer. The Soul Shredder slipped from his grip and clattered to the floor beside him.

Instantly, the pain stopped, and the green mist coalesced into solid form, and then Vlad was human again, standing above him, triumphant. Bending down, he picked up the Soul Shredder. "Now, that wasn't so hard, was it? I'm glad you saw reason, Fright Knight. You're a valuable servant. I'd hate for you to wind up like that useless Hotep-Ra."

Rage, fiercer than any ectoranium charge burned through the Fright Knight, but he said nothing.

Vlad, taking that as submission, twirled the sword in his hand and smiled. "Good. Now, return to the Ghost Zone. After the skeleton warriors invade Amity Park, I want you to lead the charge on the Far Frozen." When the Fright Knight didn't respond, Vlad's eyes glowed red again, but this time he remained in human form. A warning only. "Do you understand?"

The Fright Knight clenched his fists, but gave a slight incline of his head and forced his voice into as submissive a tone as he could feign. "I understand perfectly. Master."


Manson Residence
Amity Park

When the power went out, the first thing Sam thought was that Aragon must be attacking somewhere nearby. City Hall, maybe? But why didn't the Ghost Alert go off?

Down the hall, her grandmother cursed in Yiddish. "A broch! My scooter has to die right when we have a blackout?"

Sam sucked in her breath. The scooter's death confirmed it wasn't just a normal power outage, and her grandmother was stuck virtually immobilized very near where Aragon must be mounting an attack. Grabbing a candle and matches from the ample assortment on her nightstand—being a goth had its perks—Sam dashed down the hall to her grandmother's room.

"You okay, Grandma?"

"I'm fine, bubbeleh. My scooter just picked the exact moment the power went out to die, too."

Sam lit the candle and placed it on her grandma's dresser, then stuffed the box of matches in her skirt pocket as she knelt beside the scooter. "I don't think it's a power outage. It's a ghost attack. You know that whole thing about me using that amulet to turn into a ghost dragon that Mom and Dad were having kittens about last night? All of that was to fight this other ghost dragon that works for Vlad. He has this power to kill any kind of modern technology—electricity, car engines, anything you couldn't use in medieval times."

"The power didn't go out last night."

"Not here, no, but down by the mall it did. His range is kinda limited, so he must be nearby. We gotta get you somewhere safe."

Her grandma waved a hand at her. "Feh. I can take care of myself, Sammy, you know that. Just go into my closet and find my wheelchair. You know, the one I use sometimes when the scooter needs to recharge?"

Smiling, Sam patted her grandmother's hand, then made her way into the closet to look for the wheelchair. While she was pushing aside some sweaters to get at the chair, she heard her mother call out from down the hall. "Sam? Where are you?"

"She's in here with me, Pam," her grandmother called back.

Her mom appeared at the doorway just as Sam was dragging the wheelchair out of the closet. "Oh, good, you're here. I thought—"

Sam glared at her mother. "You thought what? That I turned into a dragon again to get the power back on? I don't even have the amulet anymore. Danny took it away from me because he was just as unhappy as you were that I did that, remember? No, of course you don't, because that doesn't fit your tidy little Danny-is-the-source-of-all-badness view of the world."

Her mother sighed. "Samantha, do we really have to do this now? Obviously that ghost dragon is attacking somewhere nearby—"

"I know that. Why do you think I'm getting Grandma's wheelchair out for her? I thought it might be nice if she could not be stuck in the middle of a ghost attack with no wheels."

"Put a sock in it, both of you." Her grandmother leveled a stern look at the two of them. "Sammy, you promised to respect your parents a little more, and Pam, you need to trust your daughter knows what she's doing a little more. Now, if this is some sort of ghost attack and we can't call for backup, what are we going to do about it? Where's Jeremy?"

"Getting together some weapons. Thank goodness I went over to the Fentons to get those crossbows and that ax this afternoon. Almost makes getting covered in green slime worth it."

Sam unfolded the wheelchair and set it up near the scooter so her grandma could slide into it without aggravating her bad hip. When she was settled in, she looked up at Sam. "So what do we do now? You're the expert."

"We figure out what Aragon's attacking and get you in the opposite direction."

"Sam? Pam? Mother? Where is everyone?"

"We're in your mother's room, Jeremy!"

Sam's dad appeared at the door, huffing under the exertion of carrying the two crossbows, a battle ax, and three baseball bats that her mother had brought from FentonWorks earlier, plus a fencing sword and a pair of cutlasses that Sam recognized from a display that hung in his study. Dumping the load on the floor, he leaned against the door jam. "Here's everything I could find. You girls all okay?"

"Fine, Dad," Sam said absently as she moved toward the window to see if she could get a bead on Aragon. Pulling back the curtain, she peered out. Her grandma's room faced the side of the house, but by leaning out, she could see the street, which looked odd without streetlights or the sign from the shoe store across the street to bathe it in its usual yellow and white light. Instead, everything was sort of an eerie green, probably from Aragon's green clouds of backwardness.

Except... Aragon's clouds blocked light. They didn't glow. And the street below was definitely lit, as if by a row of green lights. It kind of reminded her of when the Ghost King—

Oh, crud.

Swallowing, Sam leaned to the side so she could look up at the sky. Instead of the green, fog-like clouds that should have been present if Aragon were attacking, the sky glowed a sickly, mottled green, almost like a ghost shield.

Or a dome from the Fright Knight's sword.

So not good. But if the Fright Knight had captured the town, why had all the technology died? There still should've been clouds from Aragon, or the power would still be going. Unless...

The incantation sets the terms of the capture.

Sam scanned the skies for any sign of light on the horizon. As far as she could see, there was only darkness and the glowing, green dome, which confirmed her fears. "It's the whole town. They did it together."

"What?" her grandmother asked.

"New plan." Sam backed away from the window and turned to face her parents and grandma. "The blackout isn't local. It's the whole town. And we're completely covered in one of those domes, like with the Ghost King."

Her mother and father both moved past her to get a look out the window. Her dad then turned to her. "What's it mean? How do we get rid of it?"

"I'm not sure. We're gonna have to hook up with the others and come up with a plan together. We need to get to FentonWorks. We need Danny."

And for once, her parents didn't argue.