She found Tucker waiting for her at the designated meeting place on the curb nearest to the current residence of the wealthiest man in Amity Park, better known as Vlad Masters, the other resident half-ghost of the city.
She raised an eyebrow at him. "I'm surprised I didn't have to drag you all the way out here."
Tucker rolled his eyes. "Did I seem hesitant in the texts? 'Cause I'm pretty sure I initiated this."
Sam stopped in front of Tucker, looking him in the eye with a wire smile. "Only because you beat me to it."
They smirked at each other, recognizing their need for banter to cover the nerves. A habit of Danny's that grew on them both.
Just like the well-oiled machine they were, as if on cue, they began walking to the local billionaire's home.
"So, how are we going to get in?" Tucker asked, looking ahead.
Sam pushed her hands in the pockets of her leather jacket to fight off the chill of the night. "Well, if he is truly friendly like Danny says, then knock."
Tucker side glanced her skeptically, raising an eyebrow. "Knock?"
"Yep."
"This is not nearly as fun as it used to be," he huffed, the cold making his breath visible, curling up in the air as if to emphasize her friend's protest.
"I don't really understand what was so fun about the whole breaking and entering in the home of our best friend's evil archenemy."
"Don't lie. You know it was fun."
Sam barked a laugh, remembering the time Tucker and she busted through the man's top-secret lab with the Specter Speeder. While Danny had his moments, they truly took the cake in the crazy ideas department and put a middle finger up while doing it.
They stopped at the over-extravagant gate, peering up at the large mansion that laid ahead. While Vlad was apparently a new man, his taste for luxury remained the same.
"Still think knocking is a good idea?" Tucker quipped.
She rolled her eyes but didn't answer, turning her attention to the call box. She pressed the button, hearing a loud beep in response to her touch.
"Hello?" Sam was surprised to hear it was the billionaire himself. His staff must have been gone for the night, if he even had staff. The older half-ghost had distinct habits and a much understandable need for privacy.
"Hey, Vlad, it's Sam Manson and Tucker Foley."
There was a breath of pause before the billionaire answered. "Is Daniel okay?"
Sam looked back at Tucker to see the same look of bewilderment reflected back at her. If the man was faking this whole truce, he was doing a damn good job at it.
"Yeah, he's fine. We want to talk to you," Sam said. "About the truce."
There was loud tone. The gate opened in response.
"I'll meet you at the door," the man said before the sound cut out with static following.
Tucker made a motion for ladies first.
Sam smirked, but walked ahead with Tucker soon joining in step with her.
"Trap?" he asked as the door came closer and closer.
"I don't know," Sam said, truly unsure for the first time of the older half-ghost's intentions. She used to think it was without a doubt, especially when she and Danny last talked about the truce at her work, but the billionaire's actions after lead her to think differently. Either this truly was genuine or Vlad was playing the long-game.
That's what lead to their little surprise attack. Both Tucker and she had reservations about this. They both knew how Danny was a bit on the extreme side about second chances and forgiveness, especially after the incident with Dan. But, neither Tucker nor she had the same commitment to such beliefs and both believed it was their duty to protect Danny. That was always their first priority while Danny's was the city's and in some cases the world.
"Maybe we should have brought Valerie after all," Tucker said.
Sam huffed with exasperation. "Your girlfriend would have probably made it worse. I like Valerie, but she still is a little too much shoot first, ask questions later. If this is truly what it is, we don't want to mess this up for Danny."
"She's not my girlfriend," Tucker mumbled, looking to the side.
"I'm still working on it," he added under his breath.
Sam smiled, eyeing her friend. "I thought she asked you out to that party that girl keeps trying to get Danny and me to go to."
Tucker laughed. "Please tell me you actually know what's up with that and not as clueless as Danny."
She rolled her eyes. "Oh, I know what's up. Thing is I don't care. She has no shot in hell."
"That's a bit cocky," Tucker laughed.
"Call it confidence. He is my clueless dummy and nobody else's."
"Well, you're right about that one for sure," Tucker said as they came to a standstill in front of the door.
Sam gripped the hidden Fenton lipstick blaster nervously in her pocket as Tucker knocked.
Almost immediately, the billionaire answered as if he was standing there. She looked at the man, searching for any threats—old habits died hard—and if it was anybody else, Sam would have thought there was apprehension in his expression.
Despite the hour of the night, the man was still dress in his usual pantsuit but with the jacket missing from his person. His sleeves were rolled up, looking less tidy as if they were rolled up with haste rather than precision the man tended to favor.
He opened the door wider to let the two in, ushering with his hand. "Please, come in, we can talk in my study."
The three stared at each other for a long moment. They were seated in the study in front of the large stone fireplace. Tucker and Sam occupied the small leather couch while the older man sat opposite of them on one of the two leather chairs.
Sam took a breath. "I guess I better start this." She glanced down, realizing she had her hands clamped tight together in her lap. She forced herself to relax, looking at Vlad in the eye. There was no point in showing her own hand in this, not so soon. "I want to know if your intentions with this whole truce are for the reasons you said. I want to know if you are speaking the truth."
"I figured that was probably it," Vlad smiled. It was strange to see it on the man's face. It wasn't the usual creepy, sinister smile, not even the other just as equally used smug smirk. There was something different about this expression, almost gentle-looking. "Though I am surprised it took a much shorter time than expected for Daniel to accept my intentions behind the truce were genuine, I knew it would probably take even longer for his friends to be won over. If ever."
"Yeah," Tucker interceded before Sam could answer. "Forgive us if we don't buy it. There are still a lot of bad memories, mainly the ones where you're either trying to kill Danny or coercing him to abandon his family and friends."
Vlad looked down, dragging his hand tiredly across his face. His hair was slightly rumpled and the bags under his eyes truly made the man looked aged. "I'm sorry," he said quietly, his voice filled with pain.
"What?" Sam asked, not because she didn't hear the man the first time, but because this was never something she expected. Sure, Vlad has always shown interest in Danny, even care, but never shown even acknowledgment for the two of them. It was a shock the man even knew their names, let alone offered an apology.
Vlad looked at her, then Tucker. "I'm sorry. None of you deserved what I did."
It was silent then. Tucker was probably struggling just as much as she was with the shock of it all.
Vlad looked at the fireplace, the light of the flames playing with his sharp bone structure, throwing shadows along the edges of his cheek bones. At that moment, it was nearly impossible to connect the image of his arrogant ghost half to the human in front of her.
"I know I don't deserve forgiveness," he said, his words quiet but cleared. His gaze still focused on the open flames. "I'm not doing it for that. I'm doing this to help. I want to help both Daniel and you two."
He looked at them with a tired smile. "I've already told Daniel this, but I owe you the same. While out there in the dead of space, with no one, it just hit me. Everything hit me. I can't explain this correctly. I don't think I ever will have the right words to do so, but I will try.
"It was like everything I repressed, every human emotion other than malice, came at once. The loss of who I was and the loss of my friends and grief and pain of everything I've done." Vlad's eyes tightened. "I don't ever want to go back to that. I've renounced my ghost half. I don't want to be that, not anymore."
"What do you mean you renounced your ghost half?" Sam questioned, edging up in her seat.
He fixed his steel grey stare on her. "I mean that if I could, I would get rid of it completely."
Sam's heart jolted. She didn't want to think what would happen if he did. Her mind instantly jumped to the incident with Dan. She knew these situations were entirely different, but she still couldn't help the warning bells sounding off in her head.
He must have seen the alarm on her face. "However, I do not intend to act on that. I do not see it working out for anybody."
"You really are different," Tucker said. Sam looked over at him. He looked half relieved and half disbelieving.
"Yes, I am," Vlad said with conviction. "I don't want to be anything of what I was. I want to be what I should have been all this time. I see, now, I've wasted so much time, missed so much. I have a family now…or I think so…the Fentons."
He looked to the side, almost seeming embarrassed. "I understand now. It wasn't what I originally wanted—with them, but it is something different and just as fulfilling if not more."
"So, this isn't just about Danny?" she said, trying to piece together what the man was implying. The way he was talking about the Fentons as if he actually regretted resenting Mr. Fenton.
The older man looked at Sam, then away, rubbing the back of his neck in a familiar way. "At first, it was. I wanted to not only make up every injustice I've done to him, but to also make a connection to the only person like me. Then, I realized in order to truly help, I had to make amends with all aspects of my life. The Fentons and you two came after that." Vlad gave his cupped hands a small smile. "I didn't realize how much I missed it."
"I believe you," Sam said. She didn't really think about her words, it was just something her gut was saying. Even though she was a natural skeptic, in this case, she felt like she had to follow both Danny and her own instincts.
Vlad looked at her then, there was such disbelief in his face.
Sam sighed, looking to the side. Even though she believed the man, there was still unease in the pit of her stomach. Again, old habits died hard. "I wanted to believe Danny about you, but I had to see it for myself."
Vlad looked at Tucker, then, the question in his eyes.
Tucker was still tensed from the conversation with his arms flexed across his chest. Her friend looked at Sam, trying to gauge if she really believed what she said. She returned his gaze with her head high.
He exhaled, his body unwinding slowly, as if the air released from his body took the tension along with it. He gave Vlad a scrutinizing look. "If the lovebirds believe you, I guess I believe you too."
"Tucker," Sam growled. She always hated that nickname, especially since he was the one that coined it.
"Wha?" he protested, blocking a hard-thrown elbow from her. "It's not like he hasn't heard it before."
"I think everybody has heard it with your big mouth."
Tucker looked at Vlad with a sly grin on his face. "You really sure you want in, Vlad? Not too late now to turn back to the dark side."
Vlad chuckled, "I think I will take my chances if that is okay with you."
Sam grinned at Vlad. She wasn't exactly relaxed, but she was starting to get the feeling with time it may come to that.
She looked past Vlad, finally taking notice of the mess that was his desk. She raised an eyebrow at him. "Working late?" She motioned behind him.
He turned back, giving his desk a grimace. "Yes, and getting nowhere, I might add."
"Nowhere with what?" Tucker asked, his interest peaked.
"The ghost attacks, trying to find the connection or at least the source behind the energy spikes."
Sam got up from her seat to take a closer look at the desk's contents. There was a huge map of the city with tags indicating the various ghost attacks and locations of the energy spikes. There were a few stacks of papers on top of the map, showing various diagrams. One paper had the energy readouts of the spikes.
She stared hard at them. She was just as worried as Danny about this. They both felt like this was only the beginning of something really bad for all of them. "You think they are mini portals?"
"No, that usually has a different energy signature," Vlad answered, standing from his seat and meeting Sam on the other side of the desk. "Besides, mini portals usually lag for a much longer time in this world due to the instability of the tear in this plane it creates. It usually needs a counterforce to close it. We haven't been finding anything when we get to these sites."
"Huh, that makes sense," Tucker said, joining them. "Usually those portals close after something or someone goes through them or like what Danny did with the thermos that one time."
Vlad gave Tucker a questioning look. "What did he do with the thermos?"
"Reversed the polarity of the portal by turning the thermos on it," Tucker supplied.
"Pretty clever," Vlad smirked at Tucker, then looked back at the slew of papers taking over his desk.
His eyes widened slightly. "Reverse," he muttered, grabbing the papers with the energy spike details. His eyes were roaming over it so fast, Sam wasn't sure he was actually reading it.
"What?" Tucker said, leaning closer to the man to look at the paper.
"I don't know how, but this seems to look like the same situation."
"Reverse polarity?" Sam asked, not following.
The man looked up at her. "The way portals work is they usually find weak spots in between the two planes—the Ghost Zone and the human world—and create an opening. There are a couple theories why, but the most accepted one being the instability of the Ghost Zone's natural environment overcoming the barrier between the two worlds and forcing a hole into the world at this weak point. These energy spikes look reversed of that process. It's not natural."
"Natural?" Tucker questioned.
The man smirked, "Well, I suppose not supernatural would be the more correct term." He looked down at the paper, then spread out the readouts on the desk, showing each of the instances where the same energy spike was shown side-by-side. All of them looked identical. "This looks like the reverse of that process, ripping a tear into the Ghost Zone instead of the other way around. As if the weak spot is being created on this plane and tearing into the Ghost Zone."
"You think it's a new ghost doing all of this?"
Sam shook her head. "It would be pretty noticeable if one was going around doing this. Especially since we've been going on patrol regularly. Something would have caught our eye eventually."
Vlad shook his head, staring at the map. "There is still no rhyme or reason to the locations either. The only consistency is the systematic way the spikes look identical, but there are no set of ghosts associated with these types of tears either." The man gave an irritated growl. "We figured out one answer and still nowhere and no leads."
Tucker chuckled, clapping a hand on Vlad's shoulder, a feat that was easier since Tucker easily had at least three inches on the man's six-foot-tall frame. "Welcome to the heroes' side, where everything is confusing and we just make it up as we go."
Sam rolled her eyes. "No, you and Danny try to make it up. The rest of us aren't boneheads."