Roll the Dice, Kid

7, 14, 17, 1

"Do you know how to tell if somebody's alive, or, hypothetically, not?"

For a split second, it was as if the ground had flipped upside-down; this falling, standing still. Words trapped themselves in a thick throat. A pair of ghostly, impossible eyes implored him with questions to which there must be no answer. Danny froze, drunk by panic. A sound, a kind of background hum, coming from everywhere, jarring his bones; chasing geese up his arms and spiders down his spine. His mouth fell open. Nothing fell out.

Then a thin, needle-shaped shot of violet energy streaked over his shoulder and struck Dash squarely upon the nose, knocking him out cold. A bundle of flesh and blood pooled over concrete. "My oh-my," steam spilled from behind midnight sunglasses as Vlad's leather-lined shoes made gentle taps, "what a mess you've made."

"It would be really great if you didn't go around making everything worse," Danny rumbled, dropping to his knees and trying to push the incognizant victim on his side, a high-school routine very much welded into the teenage experience, "what was that even for?"

"I've changed my mind," Vlad pulled a small tin box from his blazer, "I'm going to help."

"How is this helping?"

"You can breathe now, can't you?"

Danny paused. Certainly, moments ago he was much like a fly caught in a web, trapped in a thought that wasn't so much of a thought as it was a bodily disorientation. Where did it come from, where did it go? A rustling of leaves and poignant smell; Vlad rolled a thin paper cigarette, the end of which caught fire of its own accord when he brought it to his lips, "let's get something clarified. Tonight you are going to actually listen to me, and do what I tell you to."

Danny's regular regimen of defiance began to rise to the surface, "your conception of time, reality, and space is on the verge of oblivion," words billowed from smoke between from teeth, "you've drifted into dangerous waters, Daniel. Without me, I'm afraid you won't last the night."

Danny's eyes narrowed, "you don't even know what's going on,"

"I know more than you."

"Like hell."

The pin-and-needle stinging of a ghost's twisted aura, reaching out, coiling around his throat, burning; Danny's eyes watered, Vlad grinned, "this isn't a forest for playing games, is it?"

"Let him go." Tucker's even, controlled voice broke through; he remained steady as ever, pointing down the barrel of a two-and-a-half inch blaster, "final warning."

"What's the point of bluffing when everyone knows you're going to lose?" Vlad's dragon-mouth asked, spitting fire's vapor, "am I supposed to be intimidated by that thing?"

"Yes." Two voices responded simultaneously, and Tucker added, "it's a Maddie Fenton original, and it's totally my color."

The pins-and-needles sunk in, pushing through muscle, spitting, fizzing; some landed on the delicate region of his spinal column, others sank into his shoulder bones. Buzzing. "how about you stop being such an insufferable pain in the ass and have your hound lower his hackles?"

"I'm going to vomit all over your Gucci boots," Danny admitted, green.

"You're going to what now?"

"I'll stop being a pain, stop it!" Danny clapped his hands over his ears, as if that might somehow protect him from the invisible forces pressing against the cavity of his inner-ear, nauseating, "I'm sorry and I need your help!"

The sensation vanished. Wind whipped through the valley, carrying with it an alpine bite, "these are Haider Ackerman loafers," Vlad said as his wood-finished heel came down, "for your information."

"Thanks," Danny grumbled, not without bite.

"You'll need to load this corpse into the car," Vlad said, pulling out his keys and pressing the unlock, gesturing to Casper-High's most famed high school quarterback, injuries from the last season aside; "suppose it'll be easy enough to –"

"Who? Dash?" Danny blinked, "he isn't – no, she's inside."

"This isn't...?"

"Why would you think it's – "

Smoke. The stifle of a cigarette on concrete. Vlad very literally disappeared. A whoosh, air filling a vacuum, and silence as Danny stared at the wafting tobacco that remained. "Ghosted." Danny sighed, "and he's always saying I'm the rude one."

Tucker tucked the blaster and stepped off the curb, crouching next to Dash and checking his pulse, "it's...slow," he announced.

"How slow?"

"Like yours," Tucker replied, frowning, "a beat every two seconds, half the regular resting heart rate."

"He's an athlete," Danny reasoned, opening the car door; a shield stung his fingertips, proving the car had ecto-proof coating, "he's not supposed to have a quick heart."

"He could be possessed."

"Didn't sound like it..." Danny crouched and got his hands below Dash's shoulders, he pulled, but the ectoenergy roving at max-capacity under his skin wouldn't extend out to shift the gravity of a planar object. Although he did focus hard enough to see his own arms vanish, which wasn't exactly what he was going for, but –

"Danny?"

"Still here," he grumbled, letting go; his body re-entered the spectrum of visible light and he hadn't moved Dash by a single inch, "can you help me lift him?"

"Powers still haywire?" Tucker asked, joining him.

The ground froze beneath his feet, he twisted his shoe to break out of thin ice, "dot com, net, and gov, Tuck." Like a fly that couldn't be swatted, some echo faded in and out of his hearing. Danny grunted, hauling with all of his might, barely dragging the football player; Tucker's assistance was now vital, as his built muscle structure revealed itself in his ability to lift and pull, "ghost hunting made you strong."

"Made you weak." Tucker teased as Danny let go of shoulders and went to help lift manageable legs, "but you still have the superpowers, so."

"You want um? You can have them."

Tucker made a face that suggested he'd rather eat a barrel full of stale black licorice, but had a sense of politeness, "I'm good."

The finished arranging him in the backseat with grunt force, and as he closed the door he felt the electric fizzle of a ghost shield snap over the door. He stopped and gave the forest a wary eye. Despite being able to see the deep leaves and shrubs within, silver-stained by moonlight, he was not comforted by the limits of his vision. When he tried to look at with extra-sensitivity, the shadows of trees just turned into a black muck. Dizzying. He shoved his hands in his pockets and stomped up to the convenience store, "let's just see what the fruitloop's up to,"

"Uh, dude, before we go in there,"

Tucker caught his elbow. Danny gave pause. A hand reached up and snapped something off of his hair. Tucker pulled back and held the smallest of icicles, still clinging to a few strands of black hair. He tossed them, "it's getting worse."

"It's fine."

They shared a look, the kind that understood that everything was not fine, but to say so was to lose a battle. His best friend only smiled, in the saddest kind of way, and he pushed open the door, "If you say so," a cheery bell chimed. They stepped in and stopped in their tracks, in the place where once a corpse lay, now was nothing. No blood staining tile. No stringent smell. Danny almost suspected that the gas station had once again changed its face in the passageways of time, if it weren't for the man and the mop. The mop, suds, and bucket, disintegrated into a mix of fine powder and steam that scarcely left trace upon the floor, and then Vlad stepped over to the counter and recovered his coat, "I checked the security footage," he said, leaning against the register and holding out his palm. A fridge in the back of the store opened, "you're quite a clean hack. Pity if you waste that kind of talent." A beer passed over the shelves and landed in Vlad's outstretched hand. He opened the bottle with a savage display of teeth, "should come work for me sometime."

Tucker replied stoically, "pass."

"You'll reconsider when you see the healthcare plan," Vlad replied flippantly, settling his gaze on Danny, "well, boy? Are you going to thank me?"

Danny stepped into the space where a corpse had been and stared at the comparison between his blood-stained sneakers and the perfectly clean linoleum, "where is she?"

"About forty feet below the mantle. Can't be too careful."

"That deep?" he imagined the cold, feelingless descent to the bottom of a mountain, "no one's going to find her."

"Yes, well, that is kind of the point, isn't it?"

Danny shook his head, imagining the fossil, uncovered in thousands of years when the earth has shifted and the ground has spit itself back up, but by then this era will be a shadow of history, "her family will never know...you can't just..."

"Oh no. Nonono. No," A vampire with hollow eyes. The kind of eyes you're only ever supposed to see in addicts dead-set on a fix. Vlad gestured with the neck of the bottle, "you boys commit murder," he let that sink in, "and now you get to deal with your problems like adults and bury them, you understand? Comments, questions, concerns? Keep them to yourself, because I don't care."

It came unbidden, word vomit, "that's right, you only care about yourself."

Electrified. The temperature plummeted, and that hollow gaze unfeelingly watched his collapse, "what was that?"

The discomfort was palpable, and this particular wave of spectral energy carried with it the dull echo of screaming at the end of a long tunnel. Tucker, ever the faithful one, pulled out the micro-blaster, but it turned white-hot and he dropped it with a yelp; it rolled under a shelf and out of reach.

"What did I say?"

Full-scale nausea threatened to overturn his already empty stomach. Bile threatened his throat."Tostopbeingapain, jeez! I'm sorry!"

The pop of lips leaving a glass. Malicious, invisible ectoenergy sizzled as it dissipated. Danny was left winded and more exhausted than ever. Vlad drank and curled his nose at the bottle, as if he suddenly realized he wasn't enjoying a vintage bordeaux, "you're more sensitive than usual."

"Am not."

"Little liar."

"I'm completely fine."

"So that's why your hair is freezing over?"

Why did he have to give his hoodie to Dash? Danny ran a hand through his hair, breaking ice apart as he did, "it's styled."

"Bullshit." He accused, "how your parents buy all of the lies you feed them, I will never know. Now let's go over the facts; you're out of your depth, your powers are malfunctioning, and you need help." Vlad lifted his eyebrows, "and I didn't just come here for the shitty beer, did I? Now, you're going to tell me everything that's transpired tonight, starting with the vagrant in my backseat."

Summer heat rolled off the blacktop in waves, reflecting the daytime sky in a rippling mirage. A woman split it in half, her white-leather sandals clapping up dust. Her dark skin, soft pastel pink skirt, and wisps of black hair matched a wastelandish backdrop as she marched to the only house on the entire block. Her lips glinted with fresh gloss, her teeth stark white, "hey you."

Dash leaned on the porch rail, eyeing the set of brown paper bags hanging from her arm, "aren't you supposed to be here tomorrow?"

"Nope. It's Thursday."

"Already?"

"Losing track of summer this early?" she asked airily, climbing the stairs, "let's go in, it's hotter than an oven out here." Dash opened the door and stepped aside, Paulina breezed in, a bubble of bright color and warmth in a house whose main feature was a white tortoise accenting even paler walls. Dash followed her into the kitchen, wondering when the last time anybody walked into his house with such purpose. Was it as far back as Andrew being alive, or as it further, to when his father still lived in the master bedroom upstairs?

Paulina removed her sunglasses, cleaned them, and placed them carefully into a case, "I came to teach you how to make tomatillo salsa."

His face burned, "...right. Salsa. Totally."

The kitchen, a mess of unwashed pans that remained on the stove, and a sink piled high, and a dishwasher full of a dirty cycle, was not the best place in which to do recipe-making. Paulina immediately set to fixing the atmosphere, turning on the faucet and processing plates, "we have a dishwasher."

"Pfft," she neatly arranged plates on a drying rack, "is your mom home?"

"She's upstairs," he said, low.

Paulina stopped cleaning, but left the water running, and leaned across the counter to activate a fan that added ambient noise. Then, she faced her best friend and pulled him into her arms. Dash remained stiff for a long time, melting slowly into it like very frozen ice cream. Eventually, his shoulders fell, and he hugged her back, shaking, "there there," she whispered, "it's okay."

He nodded, but he didn't feel okay. "I hate my stupid life," he admitted quietly.

"It won't always be this hard."

"He's gone, Paul, he's done with me," he spoke into her glossy hair, "I'm too much of a fucking loser to win him back, I can't even – I can't just – ugh!"

"Hey, hey," Paulina pulled back, took his hands, and squeezed them, "you don't have to come out for anybody, okay?" she placed a palm over his heart, "that's for you to decide, when you're ready, when you're safe."

He scowled at the staircase, "I'm never safe."

She released him, and addressed the bags, which proved to be full of tomatillos and onions and cilantro, "you will be when you get to film school, right?"

He looked away, shrugged, "I – I don't know, my project is kind of busted. I'm running out of time and I just...I don't think I can do it all alone."

"You're not alone," Paulina said, pulling out a bag of green chilis, a stray handful of limes, coriander, and revealing what hid beneath all the vegetables; a pink, lace-covered journal, wrapped in a towel to keep it safe from any stray juices or water, "you've got a video project to finish. And you won't run out of time if you cheat," she said with finality, giving the journal to Dash, "it's time I showed you a little bit of old-fashioned movie-magic, muchacho."

He stared at the book, an item he had only ever heard of, but knew immediately what it was. "This stuff really works?"

She grinned, and went back to the dishes, "the spells in there have summoned Phantom himself." She said proudly, placing a bowl out to dry, "now get a cheese-grater and get me some of that lime zest."

"Wait. We're actually going to make that?"

She gave him a stern look, "i'm not letting my best friend move to Los Angeles without a basic understanding of salsa. Now hurry up and wash your hands,"

In the stillness that followed a long winded explanation, a boy closed his eyes and tried to ignore needle-like pangs in his gut. For a breath, he transported himself to a place far away, a plane bathed in starlight, floating among the comets and asteroid-rings, lost in clouds bursting with color and echoing with the hymns of galaxies. Gravity, brevity, brought him home to earth. His stomach rumbled. A slow clap pulled him to the conversation at hand, where mockery replaced comfort, and the most annoying sub-human on the face of the planet grinned at him with self-assured indemnity, "bra-vo."

"Can you not?" Was that his voice? So soft, the devil hardly heard it.

"I can't congratulate you? For making such a tremendous mess? Well then who do I thank for this – this delightful pleasure? Which I am, truly, blessed to witness," he exposed his overly sharp teeth. It was not a smile.

"Me?" It is difficult to glare at somebody whilst seated on the floor, but he did his damndest. A bag crinkled. Tucker pressed another corn chip into his palm; although his gut twisted, Danny made himself eat, "I didn't do anything."

"Oh, but you did."

"Didn't."

"Did."

"How?" Tucker interjected diplomatically.

"Finally, somebody has sense," Vlad leaned against the concessions counter, arms folded, sunglasses still occasionally gathering ominous glow, "talking to you is less like leading a horse to water and more like hurling it directly into the river. Daniel, it's a good thing you have attentive friends, as I'm afraid you'd be lost without them."

Crunching. The crinkle-pop of a bag opening. An annoyed glare, "shocked you know anything about having friends."

Tucker let out a soft, disappointed sigh, before they were both wrapped in the sting-biting discomfort of casper-the-unfriendly-ghost aura. "Are you going to pay attention?"

Danny gestured lamely, keeping a moderately calm composure despite the pallor flush across his cheeks, "you have the floor."

"So where was I?" With a final swig, Vlad finished off his short-stemmed Modelo and dropped it; before reaching the floor, the room's ectoenergy flushed into the bottle, which transformed it into a smooth, fine dust which powdered the linoleum in microscopic glass. Tucker covered his mouth and nose. [Glass particles are extremely dangerous to lungs.] "now, where to begin? The forest is playing tricks, water is appearing in places it shouldn't, your abilities are growing less reliable by the minute, and – what else? Ah, yes; there's a vacancy expected at Camp Algernon's Summer Camp for Boys. What a delightful puzzle."

"A vacancy?" Tucker asked.

"Can you not gloat." Danny added, "for five minutes?"

"Yes, and absolutely not. Let's begin," he paced, "the thing is, this forest is particularly hungry for death. It sucks up localized ectoplasm, in ways you've already encountered, tipping us off balance," Vlad tipped his head, and Danny only knew they made eye contact because there was a dull red shining through sunglasses indicating precisely where his pupils were, "some moreso than others, hmm?"

"Your eyes are glowing."

"At least I can control my faculties," he smarted with a snarl, "then again, I haven't gone and made it exponentially worse, have I?"

"Yeah, again, gloating," Danny replied with a headache.

"Oh, pity you. Now listen, do you recall the time I used a fragment of your core in a stabilization experiment?"

He froze. His body ached. He remembered with crystal-clear clarity the look on Danielle's face as it melted into a puddle of noxious goo. He suppressed a shudder, his stomach twisted and he tasted the bile of regret at the back of his throat. A spark of random ectoenergy flashed and froze several bags of cured meat. The florescent lights flickered. "Yes," he said, strained, "I do remember burning your house to the ground."

"An unfortunate day," Vlad gave the cash register a melancholy look, "but I did prove my theory."

"Fuck your theories, you killed her!"

He waved, unconcerned, "contrarily, I tried to solve it." Vlad always referred to experiments in the unfeeling manor of a snake devouring unhatched eggs, "but even with your core separated from the source, stabilization was still impossible. The project failed."

Danny very much wanted to reanimate savory snacks into salty projectiles. Shelves began to tremble. Tucker felt the vibration like a tiny earthquake, and gave his best friend's shoulder a reassuring nudge. His head started to spin, feeling drained and off-balance, Danny lost his control over the shelves. They stilled, and what came out was more whine than commentary, "a peach cobbler, Tuck. Overcooked with burnt, crusty edges."

"Sugar-free ale-mode," Tucker nodded sagely.

Vlad stopped, looking between them with suspicion; he placed his palms together, "are you following yet, Daniel? Have you pieced it together?"

"Frankly, sounds like you just want to throw hands with a seventeen-year-old." Danny replied with evident exhaustion, shoveling another corn chip in his mouth, "aren't you a little old for that?"

"Would you like to continue floundering in ambiguity? I could just leave you here, right now,"

"I'm listening. You killed Danielle. Way to go. Want a medal? It's not relevant."

"It is, you idiot."

Danny shoved more chips in his mouth, ignoring the gut-pinch of having gone too long without food. "What does it have to do with right now?" Tucker once again mediated, careful not to step on any toes, "the theory."

Vlad remained in a glaring contest for a couple more seconds before he shifted from one foot to another and met Tucker's gaze, "The theory proved that no matter how similar core shards are, they cannot harmonize one unto another unless if it is a whole-transfusion. That is to say, a ghost cannot simply become part of another ghost without the key-harmony of the central core. So in order to make the clone survive, I would have had to of used Daniel's entire core." Vlad sighed, leaning back against the display counter, "it's a shame that even with the restorative power of our innate necrotic abilities, there's no harmonizing split cores."

"Woah, wait," Tucker blinked, "what do mean necrotic abilities?"

"Oh, you know," Vlad shrugged, "necromancy. Resurrection."

Danny stopped chewing.

"A pesky power, really," he continued, "more of a party favor than a gift. Abysmal side effects. Worst dysphoria of your entire half-life. Hilarious at funerals."

"Resurrection?" Danny repeated, squinting, "that's...what like, like Pariah Dark's spooky scary skeleton army?"

"Not quite. In our case the freshness of the death is quite vital. But many ghosts have this power, it just only pertains to other ghosts, whereas in the case of you and I, it's a little...different."

Danny squinted, "what do you mean? How?"

"It's about the formation of the ghost, Daniel," Vlad says, "most dead don't have the emotional energy built inside of their death to break free of the cycle, to become their own being. Most that die simply die, and that low-ambient ectoenergy remains on the surface of the earth. In order to get into the ghost zone, a large collection of ectoenergy must pool together in order to create a portal. It can take thousands of years, and then at one point all the local espiritas merge together into one creature, a Spirit, which will create the gateway between worlds and cross over, but that's beside the point," Vlad said, "the point is, when death is rather recent, it will still have that spark of Life inside of it, and that spark is powerful. It's the most powerful moment in a ghost's entire formative existence, because of the mixture of Life and Death kinetic energy. This is why you never see a ghost anywhere near the recent dead; that spark is strong enough to latch onto a core that gets too close. Rather than becoming ambient fuel, a little parasite can quickly manifest off shared ectoenergy from another ghost."

"What're you talking about?"

"It's more of a who, really."

Tucker released a gasp, "Dash."

Danny blinked several times, and if Vlad gave further explanation he did not hear it. His heart gave a beat, a breath of space between what was and what can't be. All over again it was as if the Earth had slipped from underneath him and he was falling, down, down, down, faster and faster, until gravity forgot itself and it was just the illusion of wind against fragile skin. Danny closed his eyes and imagined for a moment that he was back at school, sitting in Mr. Lancer's third period; he sent his pencil spinning, flying, and it disappeared under a neighboring desk. His vision blurred, and as he blinked, water raced down the side of his cheek. He looked at his blood-stained sneakers.

"You can't tell me you didn't notice?"

That tone of mockery, victory, smug correctness. He knew exactly why Vlad had come. "No," he said, "Dash is fine." Racing in sand that slipped under his feet. The panicked swell, the rush of the water; Dash, soaked, stained, listing on the shore. Everything had seemed so dark, so indistinct, and then came the lights, that rush, that flood of energy from his core to his bones. That song, that hymn of power in the blood. It rushed still inside of him, a storm that he had little more than a sailboat's control over.

"He's projecting your ectosignature in every cardinal direction,"

"No." Danny repeated, shaking his head, "he's just a human, and an idiot."

"I could say the same about you."

"Glad we're finding some common ground."

"Wouldn't call that common."

"Dash isn't dead."

"We are unique," Vlad continued on, unperturbed, "in that our ectosignatures are harmonized to living, breathing ecosystems. Budding espiritas that connect to it replicate and feed off of that signature, make themselves copies of a hybrid, but it's not...alive. Not really. A ghost-hybrid's energy is derived from our living human halves; the corpse you've awakened is completely reliant on ectoenergy, thereby making it a ghost with human skin. See the difference?"

"You're not hearing me."

"That's because denial gets you nowhere, Daniel."

"The spider!" Tucker burst, enraptured, understanding sparking, "I get it!"

"So?"

"So, how does a salt shaker work on a ghost?" Tucker asked fervently, "unless you already have ghost powers?"

A bag of cured meats on the shelf burst. Danny swiped jerky out of his hair, "it's not like that."

Ever the opportunist, Tucker consumed some of the meat that had fallen in his lap, "why can't it be?"

"Because Dash isn't dead!" Danny snapped, jumping to his feet, "don't you get it? He asked for my help, and I walked away! If he's dead...it's my fault. I did this. "

And of course he knew the truth. He knew it the moment his fears fell out of his mouth. He remembered taking possession of Dash in the cabin. How it felt like slipping on an old, leather jacket that fit his elbows just right, and how he had heard something in there, some kind of echo...a buzzing, a humming, some kind of reverberation. Like an ectosignature. But instead of a mixture of sounds and smells and emotions and wounded-flashes of someone else's memories, it was just...a symphony. A harmony. A song. He could even hear it now, rising from the background cobwebs of his own mind. It was the kind of thing he considered insignificant at the time, having little to no affect upon the grand scheme.

Dash, dead?

Is this it,? Was this the reason? Why his hands hadn't stopped trembling? Why the shelves were shaking, why he had no control? When had his eyes begun to glow, his hair to float? When had Tucker grown so concerned? He's nodding, agreeing, understanding; always agreeing, understanding, as if he knew what it was like to walk in these shoes. As if he could even guess. As if he had the right to understand something so unidentifiable, so exceptionally overpowering as standing to live inside of his own head, "– over this before, you're not responsible for what other people choose to –"

"My actions." Danny said sternly, his feet finding solid ground, his hair falling into the same mess it was always caught in, and his hollow eyes growing dull and sandbag-stained. "My choices. I didn't help when I was needed. That's what this is about."

"Other people's choices! Other people's actions!" Tucker pointed, "you're not the pivotal factor in everybody's fate."

"Aren't I? Isn't that my job? Isn't that the entire definition of hero?" Danny threw up his arms, "what the hell else am I supposed to do? Tell me I didn't do anything wrong, you can't,"

"You didn't do anything wrong." Tucker said evenly.

"Dash is dead!" Danny stomped, "of course I did something wrong!"

"Finally, clarity," Vlad said with relief.

"Not helping."

"If he insists on being responsible, let him."

"Not. Helping." Tucker repeated, getting to his feet so he could place himself between friend and foe. "Dude, look at me," Danny looked anywhere but, "you have done incredible, unimaginable things! And you've helped so many people," he took his hand, "but you can't save them all. You can't get everything. And despite all this extra bullshit," Tucker gestured to indicate not just Danny but every element of their environment, "you're just like everybody else. You're limited. Finite."

"But I wasn't physically incapable of helping, I was just annoyed, and I left him there because of it." Danny scuffed his shoe, "it's no way to act."

"So what? You're not allowed to stand by your emotions? Come'on, that's cheese talk,"

"You're not going to get through to him," Vlad intervened, leaning in, "can't you see his obsession is showing?"

"I don't have one of those," Danny grumbled.

"It's your fear of failure. Obviously." Vlad grinned. Danny paled. His best friend looked at him, and perhaps something slid into place, like the click of fastened seatbelt.

Stricken by the sudden urge to move, Danny walked alone to the drink coolers along the back wall. He studied his reflection in the glass – disheveled, damp, disorderly. He had hollow cheeks. He pulled the cooler door to dispel his self-image and to get a bottle of water. It tasted as warm as the refrigerator air felt. Parched, he drank the whole thing. Water enveloped him, the current tore—the bottle fell and rolled under a nearby shelf. Danny remained, heart thumping, adrenaline coursing, his throat a tight spring-coil. Now his reflection held a panicked child, and Danny liked that even less; he turned from himself. Heavy footsteps. Heavy eyelids. Heavy body. Who was he now, if not a hero? A shadow?

"You know what, V-man?" Danny said, returning without masking his evident exhaustion, "your stupid obsession is your fear of rejection, so, how's it feel to be crippled by that every day, huh?"

The revenge came small and insignificant; Vlad hadn't faltered, and rather than disturbed, he seemed fully energized, even excited, "and yet here you are, begging for my help. The inevitable has occurred. Shocking."

"Psychopath."

"Ghost." Vlad corrected, tilting his head, "but we aren't here to discuss me, are we?"

Danny sighed.

"You have a parasite." A second, much darker lager appeared in Vlad's palm, and the bottle cap popped off without prompting. Vlad drank, making his cheeks somewhat flush, and his breath smell deeply of hops, "you need to dispel it before things get worse for you."

"Its name is Dash Baxter."

"Irrelevant, it's dead."

"So're you but you don't see me calling you..." Danny trailed off.

"Stupid names?" Vlad finished, raising an eyebrow.

"Uh," he flushed, not sure why he needed to be embarrassed, "um, sorry."

"You aren't, but let's pretend, shall we?" Vlad said, eyeing the inner contents of the bottle, seemingly as dissatisfied with this brew as the last.

"So hold on a second," Tucker stepped in, "you're saying Dash is using Danny's energy, and that's why his powers are all messed up? And the forest is doing something too, right? Are they connected?"

"Honestly, I pay well," Vlad sighed, "with a mind like yours, and my resources, think of what you could accomplish— "

"Still passing." Tucker said stiffly.

"You're not so desperate for employees that you need to go picking off my friends," Danny said flatly, slinging his arm around his bestie, "so give it a rest."

"Rest, what's that?" he joked. Danny hated that he almost smiled. "Frivolous formalities aside, Daniel," Vlad moved on quickly, patting down his breast pocket; he frowned, switched the bottle from one hand to another, and pat down the other side, "all you need to do to fix this whole situation," he pulled from his blazer a thin, three-pronged object with a craftsman's embossment on the hilt. It was small, silver, and unforgettable, "is to sever the connection."

The object flipped, from prong-facing to pommel-facing, and Danny stared at the gorgeously-etched M at its base. He had a sinking feeling, one that told him the maximus had never been designed to knock hybrids out of their ghost forms, and upon finding its true purpose was all the more sinister, he grew sicker at the thought, "will that...kill him?"

"What part of already dead are you not understanding?"

"That's just – " he shook his head, "rude."

"This isn't rude. This is straightforward. Would you like me to be rude?"

"No." He took the maximus, and though the object was very light, he felt its weight settle deep in his belly. Suddenly, he was glad to have Tucker at his side, that somebody might bear witness to the tragicomic of his life, "do I have to?"

"Would you rather dry up? Drain out? Lose it all?"

"All?"

"That thing is feeding off of you, it won't stop until you stop it." Vlad said sternly, "I told you. Split cores cannot harmonize, only whole-transfusions can. This is an all-or-nothing situation."

Danny stared at the object. He thought of Dash, who insisted despite his injuries and memory loss, on helping the mission move forward despite the obvious danger it posed. He thought of Casper High's dead bulletin board, hanging photographic mementos for the missing faces in blank hallways. He thought of an entire senior year without Dash Baxter; why was he sickened, rather than relieved? "Why don't you do it?"

"I've done enough," a hand fell on his shoulder, a gentle squeeze of reassurance, "just get it over with quickly, son, I'll take care of the rest."

It was that hand on his shoulder, the "kind" edge in his voice, and the word son that filled Danny with sudden outrage. He did not think. The taser crackled like a viper. Biting. A pain-filled gasp, and Vlad hit the ground knees-first. The bottle shattered. Without so much as breathing, Danny's foot followed up on the attack and brought his enemy all the way to the ground. Keys clattered. Dark fingers scooped them up. Two friends exchanged glances that communicated more in a moment than a thousand words; Danny jumped over the hands that tried to grapple him, and they were running, leaping, car doors slamming, an engine flushing, and tires squealing. The Rolls Royce Ghost spit a cloud of dust into the air as it went flying into the bleak night.

Breathing hard, Danny clutched the maximums to his chest and checked the rearview. Illuminated by the gossamer lights of the gas station, a dark silhouette stood in murky contrast with warm light. With a trembling hand, Danny rolled down the window, and waved.

Dash swallowed a gulp of air, balancing himself. He held out a crystal on a string, and made sure his feet were positioned at the proper distance between points of a pentagram. His heart hurt; he didn't want to be alone here. But the pain of a loss long gone had to be set aside; he had a project to finish, a task to spellbook bound close to his chest, his heart beating underneath it. He searched the sky, in hope for a change of wind. The stars beamed so merrily above.

The words spilled trippingly from trembling lips, facing the green flash of a camera in operation. There's always something that needs to be done, and just because he doesn't like it, doesn't mean he can't do it. Dash believed he needed to make something of himself, something tangible and prospective and fashionable. This was the way to get what one wanted, right?

A cold wind blew in from the west. Ice chilled his spine, he shivered, the words faltered. His voice changed, and the words dropped as if into a deep pool; resonating. A drop of water kissed his cheek, goosebumps flushed; it's working.

It's all going to plan.

Everything is going to be okay.

He's going to make it, get to that place, that clear space where finally, he could be himself.

Independent.

Free.

The crystal pendulum swung. His hopes, his dreams, moved with it, flying on a wave of air as cool and free as the past was distant. The stones lined in the pentagram turned vibrant white-blue; petrichor. A taste of salt. A sea spray kissing his neck. The call of some wild bird, long forgotten, and then the rush of the water, an eruption so great that it must have spilled over the edges of the mountains themselves. Liquid air, no air.

He gasped, he gulped.

Tasted blood-iron

he thought perhaps,

perhaps the future,

had come to an end.

A grain of sand,

whittled by sea,

until it was

was no more.

Death's hand,

Death's shadow,

light upon the shore

digging, digging

evermore.

Where did you come from, where did you go? Where did you come from cotton-eye Joe?

-Catalyst

Up next: Mystery Trio No. 3 your last smile in a hospital