Chapter Twenty-Nine
(Brief lyrics in this chapter are from the song "RemEmber" by Ember McLain.)
From my back, Excalibur began to glow and created a force field around me. What?! The force of Ember's magic, sent me and my force field flying over Danny and landing on the cutout's head. Unfortunately, Danny got the full force of the love wave. His eyes widened and glowed pink for a moment. The force field around me vanished and I stared down at the road below me. My heart got lodged in my throat as the cutout shifted under my weight. One wrong move, and I would fall to my death! Or at the very least have serious injuries.
Danny blinked, his eyes returning to their glowing green colour, and looked at me with an absent-minded, goofy, dreamy grin. Uh-oh!
"Well, I think I'll leave the new couple alone," said Ember, "Ciao, babies!" She became intangible, and disappeared through the roof, laughing evilly.
"New couple?" all of us girls said simultaneously.
"What the heck is she talking about?" Sam demanded.
Danny began to crawl closer to me and the cutout teetered, practically giving me a heart attack.
"Uh, Danny? Now would be a real good time to fly me off this thing," I nervously said. He didn't listen and came ever closer.
"Danny, stop!" the others shouted rushing toward us.
The cutout began to slowly tip over with the extra weight.
"Danny, wait! What are you doing?" I screamed.
He continued to crawl towards me with a dreamy, empty stare.
"Wow. I just never realized you're really pretty when you're about to fall off a building," he dreamily said to me.
"What?!" Sam shrieked coming to a halt.
Can't worry about that now! "Danny? Get back! Danny! Danny, stop! Don't come any closer!"
"But you're over there and I'm over here. I wanna be over there!" he said gesturing to me.
Great logic, Danny! Just completely ignore the fact that I'm about to fall off a building!
The expression on his face suddenly registered in my mind, "Wait, I know that look. That's that same, longing puppy-dog stare you give Sam!" Or the one Tulio gives me... Whoa! So not the time to be thinking of that!
"Who's Sam?" he asked and from behind him, Sam gasped. I shot her an apologetic look.
Danny moved even closer, causing the balance to tip further to my side. I began to panic as I started sliding off. Suddenly, the cutout balanced out and I looked past Danny to see Alyss and Catherine each sitting on the cutout's legs.
"A little help here," I called out to them.
"We can't move unless you want to fall to your death," Catherine pointed out.
"Sam?" I said nervously. Danny was really starting to scare me, and there was no way to escape from him.
Sam slowly crawled onto the cutout and inched her way to Danny. Unfortunately, that caused the cutout to wobble again.
"Aralyne!" a voice shouted below me, but I was too scared to look down and see who it was.
"We can't hold it anymore!" Alyss gasped, sweat now forming on her brow.
The cutout tipped, and I slid right off the end, screaming. I shut my eyes as I tumbled through the air, expecting to land on concrete. Instead, I landed in a pair of strong arms, and instinctively, I clutched onto the person's shirt. Slowly, I opened my eyes to find myself staring at a masculine chest beneath the shirt, and looked up into Tulio's face. He had a worried and almost scared expression, and I felt myself flush.
"Look out below!" Catherine shouted. Tulio and I both looked up to see the cutout toppling off the roof, and he ran out of the way just in time. It landed in the middle of the street with Danny and Sam hanging onto it for dear life. Thankfully, neither one of them seemed injured. Alyss and Catherine joined us moments later, flying from the roof as bluebirds.
I scrambled out of Tulio's arms and ran to Sam. She and Danny looked disoriented, and I hoped to use that to my advantage.
"Someone take Danny home, please. I'll help out Sam," I said hauling her to her feet. At first she glared at me, but then it faded and I quickly walked her home before Danny noticed me. And surprise, surprise, Tulio followed us.
"What is going on?" he demanded, "I leave to my house for a couple of hours and find you falling off a roof!"
"Not my fault!" I snapped at him, then explained what had happened. When I got to the part about Danny being under a spell to fall in love with me, neither Sam nor Tulio looked happy about that.
Finally we got the the Manson mansion and Sam went inside, insisting she was fine, but I knew she wasn't. Her boyfriend had basically forgotten she existed to focus on me... again!
"Great," I muttered raking my hair back out of my face as Tulio and I stood outside the mansion, "On top of Siren creating zombies, I now have to deal with Danny flirting with me, again, as well as a psychotic pop teen idol ghost trying to take over the world!"
"No one ever said life was easy," Tulio said as we walked through Nesidy.
"Shut up," I snapped.
Shortly after Catherine and Alyss dropped off Danny at his house and left, Jazz arrived home. And their parents didn't look to happy about it.
"What is the matter with you kids?" Jack demanded of his children.
"You need to be preparing for another attack from Siren!" Maddie added.
Danny dreamily leaned against the wall. "How can I worry about Siren? All I can think about is Aralyne."
Jack and Maddie stared at him in surprise.
Jazz, on the other hand, had other things in mind. "What's wrong with you? Why aren't you thinking about Ember?"
"Well, I'm thinking about putting you both in the Fenton Stockades," said their father.
"Jack, we can't lock the kids in some medieval containment device," Maddie said.
"Oh, all right. We'll just ground them like every other parent," Jack pouted.
"I'm going to Ember McClain's midnight concert tonight," said Jazz grabbing her ghost brother by the arm and dragging him upstairs, "and there's nothing you can do about it!"
"You and your brother are not leaving this house, young lady!" Maddie exclaimed, blocking her path.
Jack said in a singsong tone, "Fenton Stockades!"
They all ignored him, and Jazz shoved her mother aside to go upstairs, dragging Danny along behind her. She dumped him in his room and went to her own, to stare at Ember's concert ticket. She had been lying in depression and misery on her bed for hours when a drumbeat began to play. Her eyes widened when she recognized the tune, and eagerly looked outside her window. Night had fallen a while ago, but she was still able to see Ember's van drive on by with music blaring from the megaphones up on the vehicle's roof.
"Yeah! Whoaaoooaaaoooaa!"
Jazz reached under her bed and grabbed a grapple gun. Shooting it out the window, the line tightened and she jumped out of her bedroom.
Other teenagers had the same idea to sneak out and follow Ember's van down the street, cheering.
For the past several hours, Catherine, Alyss, and I talked about what should be done about Ember. Of course, Tulio was there and the girls quickly filled him in on what had happened.
"There's nothing we really can do about Ember," I sighed, resting my chin in the palm of my hand, "I mean, come on, she's a ghost! The only person who can beat her is Danny."
"And what are we going to do about Sam?" Catherine asked.
"I think it would be best if we didn't involve her in this one," Alyss suggested, "You saw what happened when Danny fell under Ember's spell."
"I know! I feel so bad about that," I groaned. Stupid Ember! "Anyways, let's go get Danny before Ember sets her plan into action."
The four of us left the inn and rushed over to the Fenton's.
"Do you think his parents would let us in?" Catherine inquired.
"Probably not," Tulio said gazing up at the two-story building.
I looked up to see Danny's bedroom light was on. "Looks like we're going through the window," I said with hands on hips, studying the building. There was a water drain leading up the side of the building right beside Danny's window. I rushed forward and began climbing the drain.
"Be careful," Tulio said from below me and I rolled my eyes. Just once couldn't he leave me alone and mind his own business? Catherine and Alyss flew by me in their bluebird forms and I was also aware of Tulio right at my feet.
When I finally reached the window, I peeked inside to see Danny sitting cross-legged on his bed surrounded by a bunch of pictures. Upon closer inspection I realized they were photos of me! The first was a picture of me in a black T-shirt; a photo of me standing next to Belle; there was a picture of me with a plaid tank top shortly after my hair had been cut; a picture of a wary Danny looking up at me giving him the bunny-ears; and the final piece with me in two pigtails and purple dress holding a cup of punch. Creeeeepy!
I shook my head and knocked on the glass.
Danny turned and smiled at me. "Aralyne! You snuck out to see me! Oh, this is just like Romeo and Juliet except I'm the one on the balcony and I can understand everything we're saying."
"Danny," I called out to him, "open up!" He eagerly jumped out of bed and ran to the window, opening it. I quickly climbed inside, but lost my footing and tripped, falling to the floor. "Ow!"
"You want me to open up? Okay," said Danny as I stood up, "Um, one time, when I was five I really wanted a puppy, but my parents -"
"Will you knock it off!" Tulio snapped climbing into the room. Alyss and Catherine flew inside, transforming into humans.
"We have to stop Ember's concert before she takes over the world!" the sisters said simultaneously. The others noticed the shrine on Danny's bed and stared.
"What is that?!"
"Creepy."
"This is so wrong."
"Yeah, it's freaking me out," I admitted cringing.
Danny came forward and took hold of my hands. "It doesn't matter! Just so long as we have each other."
"Snap out of it!" I cried grabbing his wrists and pushing his hands away, "You don't feel that way about me and I don't feel that way about you."
He glanced down and smirked. "So why are you still holding my hands?"
I released him completely and groaned in exasperation, walking away.
"Does this mean that we're breaking up?" Danny asked in disappointment.
"Will you stop that!" said Tulio, the irritation clear on his face.
"Stay out of this!" I snapped at Tulio.
"So we're not breaking up?" Danny inquired hopefully.
"How can we be breaking up? We were never together!" I yelled at the ghost boy. I shut my eyes and took a calming breath. "Okay. We're gonna have to deprogram you."
"You're beautiful when you think," Danny said dreamily.
"Ember's concert starts in fifteen minutes," said Catherine, "She gets her power when people chant her name. And with a whole world-wide audience she'll be unstoppable!"
"Then we better bolt down to that show and crank down the volume!" said Tulio grabbing my hand and pulling me back towards the window.
Alyss looked up at the ceiling thoughtfully and muttered, "The volume of a sphere is equal to the square of the race of the base times pi times the height."
There was the little randomness I missed from the sisters!
"Wait, it'll be faster if we fly," I said forcing Tulio to stop. Turning to the younger male, I added, "Danny, do you think you can fly Tulio and me to Ember's concert?"
"Like a date?" Danny said excitedly, then frowned slightly, "But, if it's a date, why would you want to take Tulio with us?"
I bit my lip, quickly thinking up of a lie. I hated to manipulate my friend this way, but the job had to be done. With a sigh, I forced a smile and lowered my eyelids flirtatiously.
"Yes, Danny, a date is exactly what it is," I said pulling away from Tulio and walking up to the teenager, "And don't worry about Tulio. He just wants to go to the Ember concert." I wrapped my arms around his neck. "Please, Danny? Do this for me?"
"Okay," Danny said dreamily.
"Thanks!" I exclaimed kissing him on the cheek.
He was beyond pleased as he took hold of my hand. I turned to Tulio to see he was irritated, a muscle in his cheek twitching. I held a hand out to him, and he took it.
"See you there," Catherine said winking at me. I flushed in embarrassment.
Danny flew us out of his house, the sisters following us, and listened. We could hear music playing and followed it out to the woods. The lights shining from the concert were like a beacon gaining our attention. Somehow Ember had created an arena and we watched as all of the teens entered. We snuck past the security guards and landed in the control station.
"Go kill the power. We'll stand watch," I told Alyss when she and Catherine returned to humans. She ran toward the control terminal. When I turned to make sure no one was coming, I found Danny standing before me, gazing at me dreamily. I jumped in surprise and frowned at him. "Uh, can you watch something besides me?"
Danny blinked before taking a photograph of me out of his pocket and stared at it. I smacked my forehead in irritation.
I wondered what was taking Alyss so long and glanced her way.
"Okay," she said examining the control board, and messing with a few things, "cutting off the power. Electrical power equals electrical current times electric potential."
The amps all around the arena suddenly had Alyss's voice. "Electrical power equals electrical current times electrical potential..."
Uh- oh!
