Chapter 11:

The four of them raced down the road, huffing as they went. Danny felt his phone buzz in his pocket, and he took it out. It was a text from Sam. "You okay?" So much had been going on that he'd forgotten to check in with his friends for a couple days. "Yeah," he managed to text. "Busy," he added. Typing while moving was hard. He'd call back later, when it wasn't during school hours and he also wasn't running across the city of Arcadia.

"So, uh," asked Danny, "are we almost there?"

"Almost," said Toby. "I wish Claire hadn't lost the staff. Then we could just use the shortcut." Claire gave him a dirty look over her shoulder. "But uh, yeah, it's not too far away!" finished Toby.

Danny wondered what Trollmarket was like. The way Jim described it, it was probably full of life, until it was destroyed. How long ago did that happen? Some of the information they gave him happened hundreds of years ago, and it was hard to keep track of the timeline. Jim talked like he was there when Trollmarket had still been alive. He wasn't that old… like 15? Maybe 16? A little older than Danny was. You wouldn't make a kid much younger than that into a knight sworn to protect all of man and trollkind. But then again, if there was magic involved, anything could be true… Danny realized Jim might even be older than he looked, if there was magic involved.

He wondered what "the staff" was. What "the shortcut" was, and why they couldn't use it now. It was probably also something related to magic. To be honest, he was still really lost. But one of the easiest ways to learn is to do, to see whatever it was in person. He hoped there'd be some answers in Trollmarket. He turned his head to the right to look at his reflection in the window of a passing shop, but just read the giant words "STUART ELECTRONICS" instead.

Ahead of Danny and Toby, Jim and Claire were talking to each other. Danny and Toby had shorter legs than they did, so of course they'd be in front, but… "Hey, what are they talking about?" asked Danny.

"Not sure," said Toby. "Ever since the Darklands, ever since Merlin-" he stopped like there was something he wasn't supposed to say. "There's been some intense stuff happening here, Danny." Toby huffed for breath as they turned a corner, and a bridge showed up in the distance. "I don't know what they want me to share, because a lot of it has been… kinda traumatic. It's not my place to tell you their problems. But they've had a few secrets, a stronger connection than ever, after certain events went down. I used to be able to tell what Jim was thinking whenever I looked at him, because we're best friends." Toby smiled, then dropped the grin. "But to be honest, there's stuff that happened, and it's just for them to know. Kinda annoying, but it's important to respect that, you know?"

"Yeah," said Danny, a little bitter. "It's important to respect boundaries." It really was important to respect boundaries, but the way Toby said that made him feel like they didn't trust him. I mean, they were the ones with more secrets than him at this point, since they knew he was part ghost, to some extent. There was so much under the surface of what they were doing that Danny could tell was there, but they kept the door on it all closed. Maybe he'd be able to knock and get let in. He hoped that he'd be able to do that soon.

"Alright!" called Jim. "This is it: the canal!"

They'd reached the bridge, but the other three weren't getting on it. Instead they went to the right of it, walking carefully down the slope. There was a concrete dip underneath the bridge, like an artificial riverbed. But there just wasn't any water, just abandoned trash bags lying around.

"I've never seen one of these," Danny said, focusing on his footwork as he went down the slope. Steep inclines made him a little nervous when he was going down. "What is it for?"

"Flash floods," said Claire.

"Yeah!" said Toby, excitedly. "Because of the California heat, this area can get droughts easily, and when it rains, it doesn't seep into the ground a lot of the time. To be specific, the floods happen mostly because of a lack of biodiversity in the area. The less nutrients in the ground for plants, the less plants to catch the water. Plus, it makes the amount of minerals in the dirt higher, which makes it hard and dusty. Just generally bad for absorbing rain and stuff. We have some forest areas here, sure, but there's desert not too far away as well…" Toby looked up. Claire and Jim were looking at him. "Sorry, that's too much information! I've just been taking an Ecology class and we've had a unit on watersheds. The stuff is really interesting. Anyway!" Toby sped up ahead of the rest of them.

"Well," said Danny, "that's all good to know, I guess. So, uh… where's the entrance to Trollmarket?"

Jim came closer to Danny, breathing a bit hard. "It's the wall over there," he said. "We don't have it marked because then just anyone would be able to find it. But it's down here." He looked up at the sun, standing straighter. He looked like he was recharging in the sunlight.

"Over here!" called Toby, who had made it to the other side of the canal, under the bridge. He slapped the side of the canal with his hand. "If you have some kind of magic trick to get us in that would be a cool thing to do right now!"

They all gathered around the wall. "Okay," said Danny. "I need you all to grab hold of me. Everyone needs to be touching me for this to work. And you can't let go." He held out both of his arms, and Claire, Toby, and Jim, all grabbed him. "Everyone ready?" he asked. They all nodded. He took a deep breath. Okay.

He concentrated on the feeling of becoming invisible. He thought about becoming intangible. He thought about the way it felt, the way his breath felt like it just passed through him when he did it. And then, with a slow exhale, he extended those feelings beyond himself, to the other kids. He'd never done this with three other people hanging onto him before. He looked up to check his progress. It looked like it worked! He couldn't see anyone. "Okay," said Danny, "I'm going to start walking through the wall now." Carefully, slowly, he led them forward. He wasn't sure how thick the concrete was, or if it was possible they could move too fast and leave something behind. It was a good idea to be safe about it.

After a few very long seconds of carefully shuffling forward, they'd all broken through to the other side. Danny kept up the intangibility until everyone had let go of him of their own accord.

All solidly standing on the ground again, the kids moved to the staircase. "Thanks for the help, Danny," said Jim as they started to descend the glowing stairs. "We wouldn't have made it this far without you."

"Oh, it's no problem," said Danny, slipping on the polished stone, but catching himself. "I skip class to walk down magic staircases all the time. No big deal."

The other kids chuckled. Danny smiled, a real smile, and he realized it had been a while since he'd done that. Maybe these weirdos were cool, even if they had their secrets. He laughed softly, and suddenly his breath felt cold. He saw it blow away in a cloud of condensation, as if the air were cold. But it was California in the last few months of school - definitely not cold enough for that.

He tensed. "There's a ghost down here," Danny said. Vlad must have found his way in. How angry would he be that Trollmarket was empty? "If it's who I think it is… we might be in for a fight. I'm goin' ghost." He closed his eyes and transformed into his ghost form, hair turning white and clothes changing from his usual t-shirt and jeans into the full-body jumpsuit he wore while ghost fighting.

He looked over at the others, who were staring at him. "Wow," said Claire. "You can just… do it on command. How does that work?"

"It's so cool," Toby whispered, eyes and mouth as wide open as they could be.

Jim looked surprised, and interested. He opened his mouth to say something, but closed it again, expression changing to something darker. Danny wasn't sure what that meant, but it didn't seem like a good reaction. Did he do something wrong? He felt his face get hot. Claire stared at Danny a bit more, his new outfit and hair, before suddenly turning back to Jim. "We have to focus," she said. She was trying to gather the group together, but it sounded like it was aimed at Jim the most, even though he hadn't said anything. "Armor up."

Jim took the amulet out of his bag. "For the d-" he stopped, sighed. "For the glory of Merlin," he started again, "Daylight is mine to command." Suddenly, he was surrounded by a blue light. When it died away, Jim was wearing a suit of armor and holding a sword.

It was Danny's turn to be in awe. "Wow," he said, searching for the words. "That armor… Being the Trollhunter must be really cool! I wish I had some armor like that. Maybe I'd have to patch up my suit less." He'd spent way too many nights staying up sewing the holes ghosts cut in his jumpsuit.

"Yeah, maybe," said Jim. He didn't say anything else, and his expression was blank, focused, with a touch of an edge behind it. He turned to Toby. "You got your hammer?"

"Yep!" said Toby, pulling something about the size of a wrench out of his backpack. He pressed a button and it grew to a warhammer that was longer than he was tall, glowing and made of crystal at the head.

"How can you lift that thing?" asked Danny.

"Magic," said Toby with a smirk.

"Dang, you guys really have a whole arsenal," said Danny. "I'm not sure how effective all this will be against ghosts, but let's give it a go! We can definitely defend ourselves with all this." Or, at least, he hoped they could. He didn't really know what was down the rest of the stairs.

"Let's get moving," said Claire. "If you don't mind, I'd like to stay behind you guys, because I don't have a weapon anymore..."

They continued to advance, and the silence pressed down on them like a weight. Angry ghosts aren't usually very quiet. The stairs were pretty long, and Danny's mind started to wander again. He kept his eyes trained on Jim, since he seemed to be the leader, and tried to follow what he motioned for, but Jim seemed mad, or distant. Granted, the current situation wasn't the most joyous one, but Claire and Toby seemed to like Danny okay. He was still worried he'd done something wrong, but he couldn't figure out what it was. He decided to try and ask later, when they were done with the ghost hunting.

They reached the bottom of the stairs. "Now what?" asked Danny. He really didn't know the place very well. It seemed like there was only one way to press forward, but the others were hesitant.

"Now," said Jim, "we keep moving."

"Is there something wrong?" asked Danny. Why even pause at all?

"We haven't been down here…" Claire started explaining, but trailed off.

"...Since Gunmar took the Heartstone," finished Jim. "It's just a bitter memory. Let's keep moving." They all nodded, and they cautiously walked down the corridor. It opened up to a huge cavern that seemed to have housed hundreds, maybe thousands, of homes, but most of them were in ruin now. They made their way through old debris from battle, watching, and listening.

Danny's breath turned cold again. Quickly, he turned around, and there was the ghost - standing right behind him, watching with angry eyes, tense with emotion. "UH-" he started, but the ghost spoke in a low voice that made them all jump.

"WHAT are you doing here? In my domain?"

"Your domain?" questioned Jim. "This is Trollmarket! It's nobody's domain but the trolls', and it's been destroyed since then anyway!" Anger filled Jim's voice.

Danny looked at the ghost. Its angry eyes glowed bright red, blue skin dark in contrast. When the ghost huffed his breath, a piercing hanging from his nose danced around. His hair was long, green, and greying, with streaks of white. The cape he drew around himself was white on the outside, red on the inside, and was attached to armor that rested on his shoulders. In fact, the armor covered his torso and forearms as well. It had engravings that danced across the surface, with a pink light shining from them.

"I don't know who this is," said Danny. "Parts of him are really familiar, like he borrowed parts from Vlad, but it's not Vlad. He's too short, doesn't look enough like a vampire. Those tusks? Not Vlad's, I can tell you that much."

"Does it matter if we know who he is?" barked Jim. He was lifting his sword to fight.

"I mean, it might," said Danny. He addressed the ghost. "Who are you?"

The ghost looked at its hands, which were wearing dark gloves underneath the armor, and said, "I don't know." For a moment, the ghost seemed sad. Then its body tensed again, pointing a finger at Danny. "DO YOU KNOW WHO I AM?" the ghost demanded.

"Why would I know who you are?" Danny yelled back, anger rising in his chest. He was thinking of doing something, but he couldn't remember what it was. All he could think about was how mad this ghost was making him. "Let's take this guy down," he said, looking over at Jim.

But Jim wasn't listening to Danny. His eyes looked too wide, and his hands held too tightly to his sword. "Did you hear me?" asked Danny. Jim's head turned, and suddenly the extreme anger in his face was directed at Danny.

"JIM!" yelled Claire and Toby at once. They saw what Danny saw: Jim's eyes were glowing yellow, with red pupils. Those were not the eyes of a human. His two friends rushed forward to calm him down.

Danny turned back to the ghost. "What did you do to Jim?" He held up a fist, powering up an ecto-blast. He made a move to punch, but the ghost dodged with insane speed. Danny couldn't even see the ghost's movements. It was almost like he teleported. "Stay still!" All he could see was the ghost, all he could think about was being able to hit it, but every time he swung, he missed. It was making him so angry, he could always fight ghosts no problem! Even Vlad, even massive Undergrowth, even powerful Nocturn. Even when the rest of Amity Park was asleep or trapped, even when his best friends and his family had fallen under the control of several different ghosts, he prevailed. He'd gone to the future and undone the deaths of everyone he cared about, and stopped himself from becoming evil. And yet he couldn't hit this one stupid ghost that was just hanging out in a cave? "RAHHHHHH!" he yelled in anger, breath ice cold.

He stopped. Ice cold? He realized it suddenly felt like he was breathing in a freezer. Every breath was freezing his insides, not that it bothered him much in his ghost form. Cold breath meant a ghost was nearby, but this was a lot very suddenly. How many ghosts could there be? Losing all his steam, Danny looked around, and saw the eyes of a hundred ghosts all around them.

"What the-" Jim started, still huffing in anger. Claire and Toby stood protectively around him.

"Crap," said Danny. "That would be… the rest of the ghosts that escaped the other night."

"What are they all doing here?" asked Toby.

"I don't know," said Danny. "But these ghosts… don't exactly like me very much."

"That much is true," said the mystery ghost, chuckling. Before he knew it, there was a fist in Danny's face.