Author's Note: Happy Halloween, everyone!
It was the afternoon two days before Halloween and the bulk of the Lin Kuei had squeezed into Grammy Maggie's mansion to build a haunted house for the trick-or-treaters, and then to go trick-or-treating themselves. While the other apprentices and Elites helped the Grandmaster and the Masters in other parts of the house, Morgan and Olivia - aged eleven and nine respectively - were busying themselves making candy and caramel apples in the kitchen.
Livy, who was carefully drizzling brilliant red syrup onto red apples, glanced over her shoulder at her older cousin. "Hey," she began, "how's that caramel coming?"
Morgan smiled. "Oooh, good enough to roll around in." The young Cryomancer joined her side and tried to stick her finger in the warm brown goo, prompting the other girl to slap her hand and shove her away. "Hey, get away from there, you don't need the sugar."
"Oh, put a stick in it!" she teased as she threw a popsicle stick at her.
As they playfully shoved one another, five-year-old Tommy walked into the kitchen with his twin, Jamie, followed by Alex and Sherman, Nightwolf's orphaned son who was nearly an Elite. He spotted the goodies on the dinette table right away. "Oh, caramel apples!" he happily cried as he sat down by the platter.
"Hey, leave those alone," Livy reprimanded. "You don't want to end up fat like Morgan." Her quip made her cousin glower at her, unamused.
"Halloween's not for two whole days!" Jamie whimpered as he slumped down beside his twin. "That's torture."
"Do you have something against torture?" Aunt Kailyn now asked as she and Anya entered as well, both escorting the Detectives Kabal and Stryker, who always tried to stop in to say hi whenever the Lin Kuei visited Maggie. Morgan liked them. They were funny. As they sat down, she watched her mumma as she reached into the refrigerator and grabbed the carton of creamer for the coffee Anya was now brewing for her guests.
"These are for the trick-or-treaters!" Livy told him.
"What trick-or-treaters?" Sherman, who was seventeen, scoffed. "No one even goes out anymore because all the cheapskates in this neighborhood turn out their lights and pretend they're not home."
By the pot of bubbling caramel on the stove, Kabal chuckled, "You know what we used to do to people who did that? We'd soap their windows."
Sherman and Alex's eyes brightened. "Cool!" Alex cried.
"Yeah, and then we'd hide on the rooftops and bomb their cars with eggs," he added.
"No way," Sherman now breathed, mesmerized by this revelation.
"And then you get a dog. Take this brown paper bag-"
"More coffee, Officer?" Anya abruptly cut him off as she elbowed him and flashed him a look.
"Haha," he cringed as he looked at her. "Uh, yeah. Sorry."
Now Sammie hopped into the kitchen from the back yard on one leg, her brown curls bouncing. "Momma, I've got an owie!" she said matter-of-factly to Anya.
With a playful smile, the nurse crossed her arms and looked at her toddler. "So, what do you want me to do about it?"
"Come on, Momma!" she yelped.
"Meh," she said, playfully sticking her tongue at her daughter, before she lifted her onto the counter.
Stryker took a sip of his coffee from his mug and then leaned on the counter with a smile towards the three-year-old. "What are you gonna be for Halloween, Sammie?"
Ferociously, the toddler flexed her biceps as Anya dampened a gauze pad with rubbing alcohol. "Ninja Warrior, Master of Death, just like Daddy!" she bravely cried before her mother wiped her scrape with the disinfectant. "Ow!" she then yelped.
"Some warrior," the nurse teased with a smile.
The detective laughed and then looked at Sherman and Alex. "And what are you guys going as?"
Sherman scoffed. "Oooh, maybe I'll be Batman!" he sarcastically replied.
"And I'll be a vampire!" Alex added.
Anya placed a band-aid on Sammie's knee. "Oh, I guess you two are just too mature to dress up now."
Alex shrugged. "If I want candy, Aunt Anya, I'll just go through your purse. You're always good for some chocolate."
"I'm probably going to Cassie Cage's party," Livy announced, and Morgan's heart suddenly fell.
"But...you love Halloween," she asked in confusion, putting her spoon down on the stove and turning to face her best friend. "We always spend it together."
The young Cryomancer shrugged. "Yeah, but that doesn't mean we have to. Besides, it's going to be totally legit! Cassie's dad is supposed to take us to the Blood Manor in a party bus!"
"Well...do I get to go?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, Morgan," she apologized, "but I don't think they'd appreciate me inviting people without asking them."
"So ask them!"
Livy squirmed. "No, Morgan, that's rude," she murmured softly, urging her with unspoken words to just drop it.
The Hydromancer frowned and an awkward silence hung over the air, prompting Kabal to suddenly pull his phone from inside of his trench coat and look at it. "Hey, Kurtis, remember Shelley Osmond?"
"Oh, yeah," Stryker agreed, swallowing another swig of coffee. "She was scary."
"Who was she?" Tommy asked them, his interest piqued.
Kabal looked at him. "Oh, she was just this crazy woman over on Elm Ridge who looked like a vampire. She had this long, black haggy hair and some cape thing. And she used to jump out from her front porch and scare the neighborhood children half to death."
"Too bad she never did it on Halloween," Stryker quipped.
Morgan crossed her arms, knowing full well this was a joke, but not about to ruin it for everyone else. "Hey, Special K, didn't she wind up in an insane asylum for beating up a kid or something?" she asked the detective. "I saw a news article about her on TV."
He nodded. "Yeah, kid, we know the beat cops who arrested her. But I uh, I just got a message that she was just released."
Stryker now looked at his phone as well. "Yeah, I got that message too."
"Well, do you think she'll come back to Long Island?" Alex wondered, his expression taking on one of concern now.
"If she's truly insane she will," Anya spookily said.
Sherman just scoffed. "Don't listen to them, you guys, they're just goofing on you."
Stryker crossed his arms and raised an eyebrow. "Yeah, we're just...goofing on you," he agreed, his tone ominous.
As he said it, the Grandmaster came into the kitchen looking not at all like he usually did. He'd traded in his usual black training clothes for a pair of jeans and a white t-shirt beneath a plaid, long-sleeved one that had been left completely unbuttoned. The sleeves were rolled up to his elbows and he looked like, for now anyway, a handyman. He kissed his wife on the cheek. "Hey, Ahn, Tomas and I are going over to Burlington now to pick up some supplies. Do you need anything from the hardware store while I'm there?"
Anya chuckled but puffed up her chest and pulled up her jeans to make herself look like a man. "Uh, yeah," she said in her deepest voice. "Bring me back a big old tabletop saw, you know, and a couple of power drills, will ya?" She then pretended to spit on the ground.
The Grandmaster now laughed at her goofy impersonation. "Oh, you want to be a wise guy, eh?" he said as he wandered to the table. "Then I'm stealing one of your caramel apples!"
Livy squealed and jumped on his arm. "Daddy! No!"
"Aw, no, Kuai Liang, those are for Halloween!" Anya moaned as he picked up Livy and threw her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. She giggled in delight before he put her back down.
Tomas's eyes lit up. "Halloween?" he said in a lilted voice thick with his Czech accent. "Halloween? Did she say Halloween?" He crouched over like a hunchback and giggled like a madman as he hobbled to Sammie, who was still sitting on the counter. He promptly tickled her, and she giggled.
"Uncle Kuai, do you remember some psycho named Shelley Osmond?" Alex now asked the Grandmaster.
Kuai Liang, who had wandered to the pot of caramel now, dipped his finger in. "Yes, didn't she have a couple of hit songs in the 70's?" he joked as he tasted the gooey concoction.
"Honey, you know, the one they came and took away? It was in the news," Anya told him. She flashed him a knowing look.
"Oh, yeah, she was a real psycho!" Tomas added, his face splitting into a bright smile. "Wasn't she the one who was always trying to bite her face?" He promptly started trying to bite his face, making the twins and Sammie giggle. Even Morgan couldn't help but smile at her stepfather. He looked silly.
"Well, that was when there was still hope," Stryker told him. "But you know what happened to her after that?"
Tomas awkwardly scoffed. "Well, of course I can remember what happened after that. She went-" He promptly cringed as if he had the willies.
"She escaped," Alex prompted him, suspiciously raising his eyebrow at his father.
"Yes, she did," the Grandmaster agreed, nodding his head.
Sherman whipped his head around at Kabal. "No she didn't, you said they just let her out!"
"Oh, well, uh, we just didn't want to scare you," the detective quietly told him.
Stryker nodded in agreement. "Yeah, uh, that's right. You know, there's an APB out on her."
"Is that right?" the Grandmaster asked, crossing his arms.
Anya suddenly gasped as she looked out the window. "Kuai Liang, there's a woman in our backyard!" Predictably, all the boys raced to the back window to look out and possibly see the crazy woman walking around out there. Morgan exchanged a knowing look with Olivia and then all of the adults, who were smirking above the other kids' heads.
"She's behind the garage!" Tomas now muttered. "I better go out there."
"No, Táta! No!" Morgan cried more than a little melodramatically.
"Where'd she go?" Jamie worriedly asked.
"Yeah, where'd she go?" Alex echoed him. As he said it, all of the adults plus Morgan and Olivia lunged at them and grabbed them, screaming bloody murder. As expected, every last one of them, even Sherman, shrieked and jumped a mile in the air. Disgusted, Alex scowled at all of them. "She ate her face, yeah right!" he yelled before storming out of the kitchen.
Sherman returned to his spot at the table. "Aren't you guys all just a little old for this junk?" he demanded to know, clearly embarrassed to have been jump-scared like that by them but putting on a good front.
Morgan high-fived Livy and smugly smiled as she said, "Yeah, but we are just so good at it."
"Oh, that's right," Kabal said as he leaned against the sink, clearly proud of himself for his role in the prank. "When it comes to horror, these two girls are the champs!"
Tomas scoffed as if that was the most ludicrous thing he'd ever heard. "Excuse me, did you say champ?"
"That's right, Táta," Morgan beamed, "I am the fair maiden of fright. After Livy, that is."
"Get out of here! Kailyn, would you set our daughter straight, please?"
Kailyn, who was now holding little Danika on her lap, smiled and looked at her oldest daughter. "Oh, Morgan, I think Tomas might have won last year when he ate his own eyeball."
"You guys are so weak with this Halloween stuff every year," Sherman grumbled.
"Halloween?" Tomas asked, reverting to his Igor voice and walk once more. "Did he say Halloween? I can't stand it, I'm losing my mind!" He grabbed Sherman's hand and pretended to eat it.
"Igor! Store!" Anya barked at him.
"Fire, bad!" he responded.
"Pain, ass!" she countered.
Tomas promptly stood up straight. "All right, all right, we're going. Come on, Renfield," he told the Grandmaster as they walked through the mudroom to the garage. "Try not to eat any bugs on the way. You know how they make you bloated."
On the morning of Halloween, Morgan was in the kitchen fighting to tease her blond curls into a crazed mess. She'd had a fabulous idea for how to prank Tomas and scare the life out of him, one that was simple but genius. So she fought with her rainbow striped hair pick to make herself look like Albert Einstein. In moments, her hair stood on end like she'd just been electrocuted.
"What are you doing?" Alex wondered after he walked in and stared at her in curiosity for a long moment.
She looked at him with a blank stare. "I've got a date," she sarcastically replied.
Now Livy came into the kitchen and opened the fridge. "That's not a very good look for you, Morgan," she teased as she pulled out the carafe of orange juice and sat down at the table.
"It's the perfect look, now scram," she retorted as she grabbed a can of Aqua Net and started spraying the puffy golden halo into place. She was still more than a little put out by her cousin's decision to ditch her on this, the holiest of holidays, and she'd been pretty snippy with her the last few days. "Get out of here, go hide, there's no time to explain." She shoved her brother and cousin out of the opposite doorway just in time for Tomas to walk in, towel drying his downy white hair after his morning shower.
Before he could see her, Morgan stuck her hand in the toaster and began thrashing around violently, pretending to be electrocuted. The towel obscured his vision and he walked past her into the laundry room, completely oblivious. "Have you seen Maggie's car keys, Morgan?" he called as she, refusing to admit defeat, continued spasming. Suddenly, he looked up and realization hit him. "Oh, my God! Oh, my God!" he yelped as he ran to her and grabbed the toaster. A piece of toast flopped to the ground, and he looked at it before he slowly picked it up, looked at her, and took a little bite of the corner. "Thank God. I just hate burnt toast."
Morgan squealed in frustration. "You aren't playing fair, Táta!"
He smirked and said, "Is there any coffee?"
"No!" she yelled, crossing her arms and pouting.
Immediately, Tomas screamed as if he was terrified and then strutted towards the table to grab a banana from the fruit bowl.
"How'd you know I didn't really get fried by the toaster?" she demanded to know as Anya walked in and started brewing a pot of coffee. Livy, Tommy, and Jamie followed her and plopped down around the table, waiting for breakfast.
Tomas smiled and faced her. "Because, my darling daughter, the lights didn't flicker. When you get electrocuted, you complete a circuit. And your body sucks up enough charge to create a shortage in the rest of the house."
She frowned. "Oh, well, thank you for the science lesson, Bill Nye."
Now Connor walked in wearing his pajamas still. "Good morning," he greeted his family.
Tomas gasped. "Oooohhhh, a fresh brain!" he cried in his Igor voice as he leapt to his youngest son and doubled over like a hunchback. "An unused brain." Like a chimpanzee, he started picking at the golden-haired boy's head.
"Well, he is your son," Anya quipped with a smile.
Tommy, now huddled up beside Livy at the table, leaned over her fresh bowl of cereal and began to drool fake blood from his mouth into it. "Ew! Tommy!" she yelled.
"They cut out my tongue!" he lisped.
Anya looked at her five-year-old son in abject horror, unable to take her eyes off him for several long moments. She wasn't alone. Tomas and Morgan were curling their lips and wrinkling their noses in disgust.
Livy glared at him and pushed him away. "You are so gross," she growled and then carried her bowl to the sink.
"Gross?" Anya repeated. "You're disgusting and I'm proud to be your mommy. Now clean up this blood and finish your breakfast," she ordered him as Tomas now climbed under the table. She looked at him, puzzled. "What are you doing down there?" she asked him.
"The backstroke," he sarcastically replied as he opened a toolbox on the floor beside him, withdrew a screwdriver, and began fiddling with the bolts beneath it.
Maggie now hobbled into the kitchen on a cane, escorted by the Grandmaster, who was carrying a boom-box with him. "Happy Halloween, everybody!" she happily greeted them. Morgan saw that she wore a burnt orange turtleneck and a black cardigan sweater with pumpkins printed on the pockets.
"Happy Halloween, Grammy!" Tommy and Jamie replied as one.
Tomas peeked his head up from under the table, saw the Grandmaster, and promptly shrieked in fright. Kuai Liang glowered at him, unamused. "Very funny, Tomas," he replied. "I got you something. Sounds from the haunted mansion." He handed him a CD.
The cyber-ninja studied it. "Oh boy, moans, screams, and rattling chains." He looked at his best friend as he got to his feet. "Oh, I get it, you taped your date with Anya last night."
Anya chuckled while Kuai Liang scowled. "Yeah, how'd you guess?" she mischievously smiled as she curled her arm around her husband's.
Morgan pointed to the boom-box, not quite understanding what the adults were talking about. "What's this?" she asked the elderly woman.
"The speakers are detachable," Maggie now explained.
"So what?" she wondered.
"So, you put the speakers in the windows," she told her.
Tomas' eyes went wild with crazed laughter. "And then we can haunt the entire neighborhood!" He held his screwdriver to his neck and pretended to tighten a bolt. "I'll go get the extension cord!" he yelped and then ran off through the mudroom towards the garage.
Anya looked at the Grandmaster, shaking her head with a smile. "He's so scary. Come on, let's go get dressed. We've got a lot to do today."
When they were gone, Maggie looked at Morgan. "How's your costume coming, Babby?" she wondered.
Excitedly, Morgan's eyes lit up. "Oh, it's the coolest, you want to see?"
"Yeah!"
"Awesome! Walk this way, Grammy." Morgan led her to the mudroom where Tomas had just vanished through and found her cape that she'd sewn herself and the matching hat right where she left them. Quickly, she put them on and modeled for the elderly woman.
"Oh, that is very cool, Babby!" she praised. "You're so talented!"
Morgan beamed. "Yeah. I am going to be the Wicked Witch of the West!"
"That is a great cape! Where did you get the hat?"
The Hydromancer's mood immediately soured. "From Livy. She decided not to dress up at all this year so she gave me the hat she was going to wear." She sadly looked at her feet.
The elderly woman nodded in understanding. "It's too bad she isn't into Halloween anymore. She was always the Halloween Queen."
"Well, every day is Halloween for Livy, Grammy. Besides, all she cares about when we come to Long Island anymore is hanging out with Cassie Cage in Manhattan."
Maggie smiled in reassurance and patted her arm. "Don't worry, Morgan, you're still her very best friend. And you're cousins. You're bound by blood. That means more than anything."
Morgan forced a weak smile. "Thanks, Grammy." Then she gave her a quick hug, loving the way that the old lady squeezed her back.
Suddenly, Tomas bolted into the mudroom from outside with a bloody rag wrapped around his hand. "Morgan, quickly, I need a clean rag!"
Morgan gasped in horror. "Táta, what did you do?"
"What does it look like? I cut myself!" He ran into the kitchen, keeping his hand buried against his chest, maintaining pressure.
"You want the first aid kit?" Maggie urgently asked him.
"Yeah, you better get it," he grimaced as he paced around the kitchen like it would alleviate his pain. "Where's Anya?" he muttered as the old woman hobbled off to the nearby cupboard where she kept a small first aid kit.
Morgan winced, her heart pounding in her chest as she grabbed a clean tea towel from the stove and gave it to him. "Oh, Táta, that's a lot of blood! What happened?" She touched his arm, knowing she couldn't heal him like her Aunt Anya could, but hoping to help him regardless. It didn't work; he wouldn't hold still and he pulled away to take another lap around the kitchen bar.
He grimaced again. "I don't know. I was cutting something on the band saw and it was kind of dull." He sucked air through his teeth and doubled over in pain.
Morgan stayed close on his heels and reached for the towel. "Oh, let me look at it! You're gonna need stitches!" As she said it, a geyser of blood shot up from the towel in a thick, gory stream, prompting both Morgan and Maggie to scream in terror. The young Hydromancer stumbled back to avoid getting splattered, covering her mouth in shock. The elderly woman's jaw was slack with horror as well, and she clutched the first aid kit tightly to her, looking from Morgan to Tomas and back again.
Her stepfather smirked, straightened, and then uncovered his hand to reveal a blue bulb syringe full of fake blood. "I am the Master," he coolly told her as both she and the elderly woman continued to look at him with their jaws on the floor.
Morgan, who had been speechless, now smacked him with the towel. "That's not funny!" she yelped.
"The Master," he repeated with a smile as he strutted out to the mudroom, heading back to the garage again.
Maggie was not impressed. "That is the sickest thing I have ever seen in my life," she said as he walked away.
In response, Tomas squirted blood through the kitchen window at them. "The Master."
"This is a sick household," she said, shaking her head in disgust.
Morgan scowled, wanting vengeance. "Yeah, and it's gonna be a lot sicker before I'm done with him. 'Cause this time, Grammy, it's personal."
As the morning turned to afternoon, angry gray clouds rolled over Long Island, threatening rain. Alex was standing at the mudroom door, watching the storm come in, mesmerized. He turned around, smiling at his family.
"This is so great!" he cried. "Maybe we'll get thunder and lightning like in Frankenstein."
On cue, Tomas stiffly extended his arms and buzzed with his mouth. "It's alive! It's alive!" he yelled in his Igor voice.
"And I'm married to it," Kailyn joked from her spot at the kitchen table.
Suddenly, the landline phone sitting on a pedestal just inside the kitchen began to ring, prompting Livy to sprint for it. "That's probably for me!" she cried as she reached for it. Alex beat her to the punch, however, and picked it up, making a face at her as he did.
"Hello?" he asked.
"That's for me!" the young Cryomancer whispered, reaching for the receiver at the same time as Tomas. Alex silently handed the phone to the girl, who promptly pressed it to her ear and said, "Hello?" before speaking in hushed whispers to whomever had called her.
Tomas looked at the others, who were milling around the kitchen table. "Hey, you guys, did Jeff Gurule call today?"
Morgan tilted her head up to look at him. "Isn't he that military guy who's gonna help us make the emergency bunker in the Temple?"
Her stepfather nodded. "Yes, he was supposed to call here this afternoon and speak to me about some changes in the plans if he could get through." He cast a wayward glance at his niece and began to shout, "I might be able to talk him into installing a state of the art security system if some people would get off the phone!"
"No," Kailyn said.
"No, what?"
She looked at him. "No, he didn't call."
"Oh."
Suddenly, Livy slammed the phone back on the hook, her face a scarlet thunder cloud of anger. But in spite of that, Alex couldn't resist teasing her. "Oh, that is the geekiest costume I've ever seen!" he joked. "Where did you get the hideous mask?"
She scowled at him. "Drop dead," she hissed. Immediately, the boy dropped like a sack of potatoes on the kitchen floor. Morgan stifled a giggle at his impeccable timing while her cousin continued glaring daggers at him. "Good," she finally snarled and then stomped to the fridge.
Alex's face fell into exasperation. "Good?" he cried. "That was great! I fell right down. That was the perfect death."
Anya, sensing the brewing battle, cleared her throat and stepped to her nephew. "Alex, you need to look a little more...bludgeoned."
"Yeah," he agreed, "and I need a scar. Can you do scars? I mean bloody, drippy, oozy, ugly scars."
"Yeah, I can do scars," she said before looking at her oldest daughter. "I'll do your makeup too, Livy, if you want."
Tommy, not to be outdone, said, "Oh, Livy won't be needing makeup, Momma. She's already ugly enough as it is."
Immediately, the Cryomancer whirled around and glared at her little brother. "Why don't you shut your thin-lipped little mouth?" she snarled.
"Makeup!" Anya yelled at the boys as she gathered them to her and shoved them out of the kitchen.
That didn't appease Livy, who furiously slammed the fridge door. "Where are the apples?" she yelled. "Didn't we buy like a hundred apples today? Can't I even get an apple in my own house?"
Morgan frowned. "They're for the apple bob later on," she said slowly, uncertainly. This attitude wasn't like Livy.
"Well, that's just great!" she shouted.
"Geez, and I thought I was gonna be the Wicked Witch," the young Hydromancer muttered as she snatched a small gala apple from the bag on the counter and gave it to her cousin. "Here," she said. "And why aren't you getting ready for your party?"
That proved to be the wrong thing to say. Her face darkened and she snapped, "I'm not going, okay? I don't even like Cassie or any of her little snotty Hollywood friends anyway."
"So you didn't get invited?" she quietly asked, suddenly feeling sad for her cousin.
"Who said I wasn't invited?" she growled as the Grandmaster now walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water.
Morgan quickly looked away. "I'm just guessing," she softly said.
Livy puffed out her chest. "Well, I'm glad I'm not going," she haughtily said. "Just because their parents are movie stars, they think they're so cool."
Her father, who had overheard the conversation and made some quick deductions, now wandered to her and patted her back. "Hey, we could always use more bodies at the haunted house, Livy. Even if they are alive."
She slammed her hands on the table and rocketed out of her chair. "Forget about it, okay! I'm not interested!" With that, she stormed out of the kitchen with her father yelling her name after her.
And now, Morgan, who'd had enough of her cousin, stormed after her into the living room. "Hey! Hey!" she yelled at her until Livy stopped and faced her. "Hey, just because you got your evening ruined doesn't mean you have to go ahead and act like a brat and ruin mine!"
The Cryomancer rolled her eyes and crossed her arms. "I hate Halloween," she sighed.
Morgan scoffed. "Oh, since when? You're more into Halloween than I am. And besides, you don't even know what Halloween is."
She lifted an eyebrow. "Well, why don't you not tell me?" she snidely replied.
"Okay, I won't!" she snapped back as Livy started to walk away again. But she still followed and yelled, "Halloween is the one night of the entire year when the veil is lifted between the living and the dead. And the dead return from Hell to walk the earth. And we have to dress up like ghosts and goblins and stuff to fake out the evil spirits or else they might carry us back to Hell with them."
Finally, that piqued her cousin's interest. "So why do the dead people come back?" she asked, the snotty tone in her voice softening.
"For the candy!" Morgan cried like it was the most obvious thing in the world. It prompted a little smile from her cousin. "There's no chocolate in Hell. That's why it's Hell. Well, they have some chocolate, but it's really crummy chocolate, like it doesn't have any caramel or nougat or a creamy center or almonds."
"Morgan," Livy groaned, unsuccessfully trying to stifle her growing smile.
The Hydromancer put her hand on her shoulder. "Do you want to go and get dressed?" she asked. "Or do you just want to go straight to Hell?"
About an hour later, Morgan was completely dressed in her witch's costume. Tradition dictated that Halloween witches have raggedy black dresses and tall conical hats, and green-painted skin with ugly prosthetic noses with big hairy warts on the end. She did not disappoint on that front. She had done a spot-on job of recreating the Wicked Witch's costume from The Wizard of Oz, including the long, black wig styled into an intricate bun at the nape of her neck. She gazed at herself in the tall living room mirror, proud of her handiwork. All that was missing was her twiggy broom, and that was stacked neatly in the mudroom next to all the other Lin Kuei children's swords, pitchforks, and scythes.
As she was modeling in front of the mirror, making faces at herself, her stepfather proudly waltzed in with a strange funnel-shaped piece of plastic. "I've beheaded the washing machine," Tomas triumphantly told her.
Morgan raised an eyebrow and popped a piece of candy from the giant bowl on the coffee table in her mouth. "What did you do that for?" she wondered.
He wickedly grinned. "You'll see, my pretty, you'll see." He looked around the living room at the decorations at the same time his stepdaughter began choking on the chocolate. "Okay, I think we've got everything down here," he obliviously remarked. "I've got the jack-o-lanterns, I've got the dishes of candy all laid out here in the front room." Now he noticed that she was still coughing. "Are you okay?" he asked her.
She shook her head and clawed at her throat. "No," she croaked and continued her struggle.
As if he hadn't heard her answer, he continued: "I got the garage cleaned up, the games are set up, the apple bob is ready to go." He looked at her again as she leaned on the back of the couch and barked like a seal, trying to breathe. "You sure you're okay?"
"No!" she managed to gasp. She pointed to her throat to indicate that she was choking. Why couldn't he see her distress?
As if nothing was wrong, he started chuckling. "You should see it, Morgan, Connor and Danika made the cutest little fake spiders. I'm so proud of them. What a chip off the old block they are!" He didn't even notice her barking and choking getting worse. "Well, it's getting dark out, I better go," he cheerfully said. "Connor, Danika, let's get ready!" he called to his two youngest children as he jogged up the staircase, leaving Morgan to collapse on the floor.
She laid there for a moment, thinking about why he didn't help her. Finally, frustration overwhelmed her and she screamed. "Táta, I hate you!" she yelled at the top of her lungs.
She heard a little chuckle at the top of the stairs and then his voice proudly announced, "The Master."
"Morgan!" she then heard her mother call for her from the bedroom down the hall.
"I'm coming! I'm coming!" she called back as she got to her feet and went to her parents' room at the end of the hall. There, she found her mother twirling a silvery wand.
"Trick or treat!" Kailyn happily said. She had come to love the Earthrealm holidays, and Halloween had proven to be one of her favorites, second only to Christmas. This year, she and her oldest daughter had both decided to be characters from The Wizard of Oz; right now, the Tetrach wore a silky pink dress with silver sequin trim and a tall pink crown on her soft blonde curls.
Kailyn cheerfully said, "Greetings, I'm Glenda the Good Witch of the North!" Then she bent over slightly and whispered, "Do you think this is too much?"
Her daughter smiled. "I think it's way too much, Mumma, but that's why I like it." She tucked her hand in her mother's and led her to the living room.
"Ooh, everything here looks so spooky!" she said in an unusually high tone of voice.
"Oh, I cleaned up a little!" Morgan said.
Anya now solemnly stepped down the stairs and clasped her hands together. "There's been an accident with the children." As she said it, several of the Lin Kuei children appeared in various costumes, with varying degrees of grotesque or pretty makeup. Morgan saw mermaids and soldiers and vampires and devils and even a mummy. At the end of the parade, Sammie and the twins came down the stairs in costume as well, with Sammie as her chosen ninja warrior, Tommy as Michael Myers, and Jamie as Leatherface. Morgan had no idea how they even knew what these movie slashers were about given that they were forbidden to watch scary movies like that, but their costumes were amazing regardless.
"Oh, you guys look great!" she praised her cousins.
Tommy now looked at their younger cousin. "Hey, Connor, I thought you were gonna be Jason for Halloween."
The little Hydromancer sadly looked at his mom and then back at the twins. "I'm supposed to be a pirate. Yo ho ho." He couldn't be more unconvincing if he tried.
Jamie nodded his head in understanding. "Well, what do you say we go to the driveway and set fire to some worms?" he said, trying to cheer him up as they led him towards the mudroom.
"Hey, no!" Anya called as she went after them. "No animal cruelty!"
When she was gone, Livy now appeared at the bottom of the stairs wearing a flight attendant's uniform and a plastic set of gold wings. One arm, however, was missing. The stump that peeked out of her blouse was bloody and stringy and completely disgusting. The sight of it made her older cousin giggle. "How do I look?" she asked, beaming and laughing too.
"Oh, it looks like you lost a wing," Morgan snickered.
In her best customer service voice, the Cryomancer pointed with her good arm to the left and said, "Emergency exits are that way...and that way." She flopped her mangled arm to the right.
Both girls started giggling together, and Morgan hugged her around her amputation. "So are you feeling better now?" she asked as they started walking arm-in-arm to the kitchen.
"I guess so but I hate Cassie and her bratty friends," she replied.
"Well, no need to worry, dearest cousin," the other replied in her eeriest witch voice. "I've already cursed her. She will have chronic morning breath, chapped lips, and a bad hair day every day for the rest of her life!"
About an hour later, the haunted house was set up, manned by the teenagers and Elites who weren't already tasked with taking the littler Lin Kuei around the neighborhood. The Masters, of course, were there, and even the Grandmaster was getting in on the fun. It wound its way through the first level of Maggie's mansion, each room holding a different theme, and at the end, the elderly woman alongside Kailyn and little Danika passed out candy to the children walking through. Morgan hoped it would be fun for the kids. She and the others sure worked hard to pull this off. The doorbell rang, but instead of sounding the usual chime, it let out an eerie cackle to scare people out of their skin.
Sammie insisted on being the one to open the door for people, so as she did, she was met with a chorus of "Trick or treat!"
The toddler, her face hard in earnest, mouthed along to the tape her Uncle Tomas had recorded to greet their guests. "Welcome to the Tunnel of Terror! Hahaha. Please, join us." The cyber-ninja's voice was reminiscent enough - at least to the non-discriminating American ear - to the vampiric accents found in Romania. But he had deliberately pitched his tone to make himself sound even more like Count Dracula, prompting the group of kids to shiver as Sammie let them inside.
Now it was Morgan's turn to shine. "Good evening, I'm Blair, your tour guide through the Tunnel of Terror!" She cackled and led them through the living room, which had been decorated like a mad scientist's lab. "This is the Master's laboratory where he does his research," the Hydromancer explained. "Ah, there's the Master now, or is it just one of his experiments?"
On cue, Tomas turned around on his spinning stool with a fake axe lodged in his head. "Got an aspirin?" he asked as he pointed to his head. "I've got a splitting headache!" he yelled as he lunged at the children, who screamed.
Morgan quickly ushered them into the dining room - other kids from the Lin Kuei grabbed at them as they passed - where a ghoulish feast had been laid out on the table. At the center of the black draped table was a large covered platter. "I wouldn't go too near the chef if I was you, you might end up being the main course!" As she said it, she lifted the cover off the platter to reveal Anya's head surrounded by garnish. She shrieked, making the kids shriek too before she led them into the kitchen where Sherman, dressed up like an evil chef, stood at the black draped kitchen table stirring some slimy green concoction.
"Would you like to try some of our delicious intestinal stew?" he asked the children before a hand suddenly reached from inside the pot and grabbed his chef's coat. "No, no! Let go of me!" He started beating the hand with his wooden spoon.
"Come along! Come along!" the Hydromancer urged her group to go into the laundry room. Other Lin Kuei apprentices, hidden in the shadows, reached for them, grabbed at their feet, or jumped in their path, shrieking.
In the laundry room, Connor, the saddest pirate, promptly popped out of the washing machine, startling the kids and making them scream, and pointed to the mudroom with his cutlass. "That way, that way!" he cried.
Now they were met by Livy, who pointed towards the detached garage with her amputated arm. "The emergency exit is this way!" she yelled.
Outside, the Grandmaster chased after the kids with a chainsaw missing its chain. It made the loud, terrifying sound, but couldn't actually cut anything. But they didn't know the difference and they shrieked as they sprinted towards the garage with their poor mom in tow. Once they were gone, Morgan ran to her uncle in the corner. "Hey Uncle Kuai, can you help me to think up something to really scare my Táta? I don't want anything just gross. I want something to really scare him but he sees right through anything I can come up with."
The Grandmaster smirked. "Tell him you have a boyfriend."
Morgan rolled her eyes. "I don't want to kill him, Uncle." As she said it, the doorbell rang again. It was Alex's turn to be a tour-guide. He was dressed up as a vampire.
"Oh, another customer!" her uncle joked.
She looked at him. "Try to think of something for me, okay?" She paused and then looked at his lumberjack outfit. "And scaring kids with a chainsaw? You're demented!"
He smiled and bowed his head at her. "Thank you, Morgan, that's the nicest thing you've ever said to me."
The Hydromancer giggled and then stealthily found her way back to the front as Alex took his group of kids through. She hid by the door just as the doorbell rang again, and Sammie repeated her part again.
"Welcome to the Tunnel of Terror! Hahaha. Please join us!" the three-year-old mouthed.
Morgan stepped out, expecting to see a group of kids, but was startled when she saw an adult man by himself instead. He wore a suit and tie and carried a briefcase. She frowned in confusion. "Oh, hi, little boy," she said as she looked towards the stool where her stepfather was sitting. "You look just like a grown up businessman."
Now startled himself, Tomas whirled around and then jumped to his feet. "Oh, Jeff!" he greeted, shaking his hand. "How are you? Morgan, this is Jeff Gurule, here about the Temple construction."
"My flight just got in," Jeff told him. "I thought maybe you'd like to go over the plans. Is this a bad time?" With a faint smile, he pointed to Tomas' head. "I mean, you've got an axe in your forehead."
"Oh, I've got the plans in my bedroom, I'll be right back," he said and then rushed off to the room he and Kailyn shared.
Morgan, meanwhile, looked up at him. "Nice to meet you, Jeff, come on in," she said, trying to be polite.
The balding man looked around at all the decorations. "Wow," he breathed. "This is really great. You guys really went all out. I'm impressed."
The Hydromancer raised an eyebrow. "You go for this sort of thing?" she asked in a little bit of confusion. She never would have guessed it judging by his suit and tie. He looked so stuffy and formal.
Jeff's face split in two. "Oh, yeah, I love it! I used to design the haunted house up near Ft. Albany."
Now it was Morgan's turn to smile. "Oh, I loved that haunted house! My parents wouldn't take us because it was too scary for us. They were afraid it would give us nightmares. But me and my cousin Livy snuck in anyway. It was amazing!"
He chuckled. "I'm glad you approve."
A thought suddenly occurred to her. A thought of the wickedest sort. An evil grin spread across her face. "Hey, do you want to help me scare my stepfather? I'd really like to get him. He's been getting me all week and I want payback. What kind of sport are you?"
He nodded, now grinning as well. "You lead, young lady. Let's see what kind of a spookster you are."
Now Tomas returned to the living room and motioned for them to follow him to the kitchen. As they walked through the dining room, Morgan asked, "Jeff, did they feed you anything on that plane?"
He shook his head. "No, and I'm really hungry too."
"Oh, are you?" she said evilly. "How about some of this?" Immediately, she lifted the lid on the giant platter to reveal Anya's screaming head.
Jeff jumped a mile and stumbled back.
Mortified, Tomas yelled, "Morgan!"
But she would not be deterred. She quickly ran ahead of them into the kitchen. When they entered a moment later, she yanked Jeff by the hand to Sherman's pot and shoved her fellow Lin Kuei to the side.
"Hey!" he yelped, puzzled.
She ignored him and shoved Jeff's head down. "How about trying some of our dead man's stew?" On cue, Fernando's hand shot through the pot and grabbed the man's paisley printed tie.
"What are you doing?" he yelled. "This is a $50 tie!"
"Morgan!" her stepfather yelled at her.
"Well, here, let me just rinse it off for you!" she jeered at Jeff as she grabbed him by the tie and dragged him to the sink, promptly rinsing it off.
The color had drained from Tomas' cheeks. "Morgan! Have you lost your mind?"
"That is it!" Jeff screamed at them and pointed to his tie. "Look at this! Look at this!" he exclaimed, furious.
"Oh my God!" Tomas yelped. "What are you doing, Morgan? Stop this right now or you're doing burpees for a month!"
"You've ruined it!" the businessman moaned. He took a step and his wingtip shoe hit a patch of green slime from the stew. Dramatically, he fell to the ground on his back and groaned.
Tomas stood there for a moment like a statue, his jaw comically slack. "Oh, my God," was all he could think to say.
"Aw, I'm sorry, Jeff," Morgan apologized, for a moment hoping her partner in crime wasn't actually hurt. He had really sold that part of the act.
"That's it, that's the back," he grimaced. "How am I supposed to play in my golf tournament next week like this?"
"Oh, get up you big baby!" Morgan yelled at him.
"Morgan!" Tomas gasped, mortified. "What is the matter with you? What do you think you're doing?" Finally spurred into action, he threaded his arms through Jeff's and lifted him back to his feet.
The man shoved him away as he hunched over the table. "I'm going to be telling the DOJ to find a different contractor to work on the Temple. I don't need this. Just get me the Hell out of this place, and do it now."
"Oh, come on, Jeff, no, wait a minute-" the cyber-ninja trailed off apologetically.
"What difference does it make, Táta?" she cut him off. "You said he was a big jerk and he is!"
"Morgan!" he now furiously snapped at her before he looked at the businessman again. "Jeff, look, I'm sorry, I don't know what the hell she's doing, I don't know what's gotten into her, I don't know what she's doing, I really don't."
Now the Hydromancer giggled. "Trying to scare you, Táta." When she said it, Jeff stood up straight with a Cheshire cat grin and looked at her stepfather.
Tomas, realizing he'd been had, bitterly laughed as they chuckled. "Oh, I see what you did there," he giggled, though his voice was far more ominous than mirthful. "That was good, really good. You totally got me." He sarcastically laughed some more before he pointed to his stepdaughter. "You're dead," he said as he started to walk off towards the mudroom. "You're dead, child. Oh, boy, are you dead! The late Morgan Vrbada."
But she didn't listen to him. She, Jeff, and even Sherman were laughing far too loudly at him.
As the evening was winding down and after she and Livy had gotten a fantastic candy haul, Morgan was busy in the garage taking down decorations and picking up stray bits of trash for Grammy Maggie. Suddenly, she heard a faint clicking sound behind her. Puzzled, she turned to see but there was nothing there but the garage door. That was odd. The baby hairs on her neck began to stand on end. "Hello?" she called. "Livy, is that you? Táta?"
Silence.
From the other side of the garage, something started tapping on the window panes. She jumped, her heart racing a mile a minute. "Okay, whoever that is, that's not funny! Táta, you're not funny!"
Silence.
"You're creeping me out! I'm just a little kid!"
Silence.
"I'm telling Grammy Maggie on you!" she cried, and now she went to the other door and flung it open. Outside in the night, she saw a tall man wearing a realistic Leatherface mask and leather apron silhouetted by a bright light shining behind him. When she appeared, he ruthlessly started his chainsaw and began to creep towards her. .
"Okay, I'm sorry about that thing with Jeff!" she cried. "He knew it was a joke! He was in on it!" He slowly backed her into the workbench. His sheer refusal to say anything back terrified her, and for a moment she wondered if this really was her stepfather after all. An icy finger traced a line down her back at the thought. Her heart leapt into her throat and she flinched, throwing up her hands in defeat as he came within inches of her. "Okay, okay! You win, Táta! You're the Master!"
At last, he turned off the chainsaw. Then he wickedly lifted his mask and winked at her. "The Master."
About an hour later, after most of the kids were in bed and after she had washed the green makeup from her face, Morgan held the kitchen phone to her ear, quietly talking into the receiver to her real father, Fujin, when Tomas walked into the kitchen for a drink of water. "But don't you have to work, Daddy?" she asked him softly, not even asking herself why a god would need a phone. "No, no, I know even gods need time off too," she said. "Oh, well, I'm sure Mumma and Táta and my brothers and sister would love to see you." She paused for a moment and nodded her head. "Oh, so you're gonna come out in a couple of days?"
Now she saw Tomas angrily gesturing at her to tell him no. "No, no, no!" he furiously whispered at her. She knew that her stepfather hated when the Wind God came around, not only because it set off his inner green-eyed monster, but also because he thought Fujin was intrusive and deliberately contrary to how she was raised.
Morgan cleared her throat. "Hold on a minute, Daddy, okay?" She held the phone to her chest and whispered, "What am I gonna do, Táta? He really wants to come to see me. He says he misses Mumma too."
"You tell him no!" he snapped. "He can't come right now. Not with the construction on the Temple starting. I don't need him getting in the way, sticking that big nose of his into my business!"
Morgan frowned and then put the phone back to her ear again. She listened to him for a moment and then said, "Okay, yeah, um, it's fine, Daddy," setting Tomas into a frenzy as he wildly gestured to her no. She looked at him in alarm for a moment but then looked away. "So you're gonna be here for two weeks?" She abruptly paused. "Oh, three weeks? Okay, that's fine, Daddy. Well, um, I look forward to seeing you and I love you too, and I'll see you in a couple of days." With that, she got to her feet and started to walk to the phone cradle.
Tomas was thoroughly freaking out by this point. "No, absolutely not, give me the phone!"
"Bye," she told him.
"No, you call him back, Morgan!" her stepfather snapped at her. "Right now, you call that windbag and you say there's no way in hell that he's staying with us at the Temple for three weeks!"
Now an evil smile spread across Morgan's face. Triumphantly, she raised the phone high and said, "The Master."
Tomas thought about it for a minute, putting two and two together. Fujin hadn't called her. Why would he call her? He was a god, he could just drop in on her whenever he wanted, and had before. This was just another joke. With an expression of awe and pride set across his impish face, he silently dropped to one knee before his stepdaughter and took her hand in his. "Truly, the student has become the Master this day," he said.