Cameron Daily ran Amity Park Police Department's Cult Division.

Phrasing it that was, honestly, pretty generous. Ninety percent of the time it was him and his computer monitoring Amity Park's religious social media and the Amity of Amity Park community forums. Most of the time, the cults were harmless splinters of more established religions. Just people trying to come to terms with the whole 'ghosts are real' thing.

Hell, technically speaking, he was part of a cult. An extra dimension full of super powered and extremely violent dead people of various moralities wasn't part of standard Episcopalian cosmology.

Anyway, most of the time his job was fairly laid back. Low effort, low responsibility. He did, however, have the ability to rope other people in if it looked like something bad was about to go down.

Something was about to go down.

Now, whether it was bad or not, he didn't know, but since it was happening at midnight in the graveyard, he was going to play this cautiously. Especially since the cult in question was one of the Phantom cults.

Not to be judgemental, but the Phantom cults caused at least half of the cult problems. From kidnapping Danny Fenton that one time to starting a fight with the more established churches over putting a religious statue of Phantom in Amity Park… okay, that was at least half on the Christians, but still. The kidnapping thing still stood.

Plus, and he was saying this as someone who looked into a lot of cults, some of the Phantom cults were just downright creepy.

Okay, anyway. Time to call in help.

"Hey!" he shouted across the room. "Paterson! Collins! McGee! I need your help with something!"

"I'm not interviewing any more cultists!" said Paterson. "I'm out!"

"Stakeout and I'll buy you pizza!"

"Changed my mind. I'm in!"

.

McGee thought he was okay with stakeouts. He was a detective. Undercover. It was one of the tools in his box. Part of the package. A stereotype, even. He'd gotten used to them long ago.

But stakeouts in the backseat of Collins's car were something awful. There was never enough room. Ever since the Fentons had come out with the 'Fenton Freshener' the vehicle had smelled perennially of limes and ozone, which went poorly with the oregano on the pizza. There was always the chance that a ghost might come along.

Having Daily squeezed back there with him only made it worse.

"Having us stay out all night because a teenager called in a tip seems like overkill."

"Not just any teenager," said Daily, "Sophia LaMar. She's connected. I've also got red flags on a bunch of social traffic and some of the Amity of Amity boards. This is the real deal."

"I thought you kept getting kicked from the Amity of Amity boards."

"Yeah, that's because I was accessing it from the police station. Apparently they have something programmed to weed out the GIW. I monitor the Amity boards from home, now." He made a face. "I still sometimes get kicked, those guys are really insistent on not being monitored by law enforcement, but–"

The door opened, making everyone jump.

"Move over," said Danny Fenton, prompting Daily to scoot further into McGee's space.

"How do you do that?" demanded McGee. "Do your parents know where you are? It's eleven."

"Don't you get tired of reacting that way?" asked Danny, sliding into the seat Daily had just vacated. "Do you know what's going on?"

"No. You?"

"Just that some of the cult kids were really antsy about something, and the occult side of the Amity forums kept talking about how special the date is." He made a face. "I don't get it. It isn't like there's a planetary alignment or a meteor shower or anything. It isn't even a new moon or a full moon."

"Not all special dates have to do with astronomy," said Paterson, playing with her binoculars. "Any other messages?"

"Phantom he's going to be out here tonight, in case whatever is going on is more magic ritual than graverobbing. He'd like you not to shoot at him if he has to go fight the cultists over some kind of slavery spell or something."

"And if it is graverobbing?" asked Collins, putting his coffee in the cup holder.

"He'd rather you guys take care of it before they start digging."

"Sure thing."

"Great. I can't hang aroun– Oh, is that the new jalapeno and pepperoncini pizza from Spectral Slices?"

"Triple cheese," said Daily, apologetically.

"Ah, well. You should try the ghost chili one, it's to die for." Fenton climbed out of the car. "Have a good night!"

McGee waited for him to be a good deal away. "Why does no one else think a teenager hopping into a car in the middle of a stakeout at almost midnight weird?"

"We do think it's weird," said Paterson. "But he is a Fenton."

"Yeah," said Collins. "You have to make allowances." He leaned forward. "I see something."

"Oh, they're wearing robes. That's cute," said Paterson. McGee would have to take her word for it, because in the back he could see approximately nothing. "Probably a bad sign, though."

"You're telling me," said Daily. "Robes mean rituals, ritual action, means they're serious about this."

"Aren't all cults serious about what they do?" asked Paterson.

"Sure, but it raises the stakes. Do you know how hard it is to get teenagers to stick to a dress code? Mom couldn't even stop my sister from going out in a crop top. Did you know–"

"Cameron," groaned Paterson, "we're trying to focus on the cult."

.

Danny watched the cultists from above. He… Okay, at first he'd thought that it was kind of fun, having cults. Like a sort of fan club. It was always nice to be appreciated.

Now, though? Some, most, even, were still like fan clubs, but others were… pushy. Always wanting things he couldn't give them. He tried to minimize interactions with them.

He didn't like the idea of one of those messing around with his grave. Which. You know. Contained his dead body.

Luckily, they didn't seem to be breaking out any shovels or knives or weird books or chants. Maybe they just wanted to say some prayers?

One of the cultists took out a large folded sheet from under their robe. Were they having a picnic or something? The cultists unfolded it.

Danny had just enough time to see the circle sewn into it before he was suddenly in the midst of the cultists, floating above the circle.

"Oh my gosh," he said. "Was I just summoned? Was that what that was?"

The cultists start to celebrate.

.

"Oh no," said Collins as a very familiar dot of light appeared in the middle of the graveyard. "Looks like things just went wrong."

Paterson dropped her binoculars. "Did he just get summoned?"