The house was dark and still. At last. It had been the slowest day of Danny's life, waiting until his parents went to bed before he could go find Ronan and Julia. He had no idea what would happen, or even if this would work. The stairs creaked as someone walked down them, and Danny went invisible.
"Danny?" Jazz whispered, looking around. "Did you already leave?"
"Not yet," he replied, fading back into view.
She smiled and walked over to put her hands on his shoulders. "I just wanted to say good luck," she said, and ruffled his white hair. "You'd better come back."
He feigned irritation as he fixed his hair. "Of course, I'll be back. It's those two ghosts that are going to need luck." He flashed an egotistical grin, became intangible, and fazed through the wall mural.
Looking after him, Jazz saw that not only were both figures present again, they had been joined by a third.
The first thing Danny was aware of was the fact that he couldn't breathe. It was very uncomfortable, but it didn't seem to be hurting him. He took a few steps forward; it felt like he was moving underwater. Then he realized why.
Pale light filtered down from above to illume the floor of the Sound. A school of fish darted through the dappled moonlight to draw his attention to what, at first, looked like seaweed tangled in debris. Moving closer, he saw that the debris was actually a pair of human skeletons, one male and one female to judge by their tattered clothes.
Her father had dumped her body here along with her lover's. He must have tried to convince everyone that she had run away, but someone had found out anyway. Their bodies became tangled in the seaweed and so never floated to the surface. The heavy chains wrapped around them both couldn't have helped matters, either.
And here they stayed for decades, not trying to get revenge, not trying to kill, but simply trying to live again. That was how it started, at least, according to Jazz's theory. They didn't actually intend to reenact their deaths; it was a compulsion they couldn't resist whenever they possessed someone. Over time, they must have grown bitter and began doing it on purpose, trying to make others suffer as they had.
The world's greatest tragedy never told.
Danny turned to find his quarry. The burning in his lungs was becoming increasingly painful, and he was no longer certain that he couldn't drown like this.
"So you did come," said the voice of Ronan.
"We've been expecting you," Julia finished. The two marids floated into view, holding hands; they looked no different than they had on land. Danny opened his mouth to make some wisecrack about them not messing with his sister and found that he couldn't talk underwater like they could. Instead, he looked at them angrily and gripped the strap of the Fenton Thermos. They laughed.
"He thinks he's going to beat us, Julia."
"Let's show him otherwise, lover."
Danny mimed gagging as they kissed and fired an energy blast from each hand. Ronan and Julia were facing each other, but they turned their heads and gestured towards Danny. He didn't see the energy coming at him; all he saw was that something demolished his attack before slamming him into a rock. He went intangible and fazed through the rock to the other side.
He had thought he knew what to expect coming here. He fought them once before after all. But that was on land, where he was in his element. Now, he was in theirs.
He started to peek around the rock and came face to face with a leering cadaver. Ronan grabbed him by throat and slammed him against the rock again. "Since you seem so eager to share our fate…" he began.
Julia, naturally, finished. "…We'll be more than happy to oblige."
Danny struggled in Ronan's iron grip. This couldn't be it; he refused to die down here after all he'd been through since that fateful day all those months ago. He grabbed the restraining wrist in both hand and fired twin energy blasts at pointblank range. Ronan howled in agony and released him.
"Ronan!" Julia cried, rushing to his side. "Did he hurt you?"
As Danny rubbed his throat, he noticed something. They were so wrapped up in each other that they were no longer paying any attention to him. He grinned, and if it was a little evil, didn't they deserve it?
He went invisible and shot forward, fists outstretched, to crash into the already injured Ronan. Julia yelled again as her beloved was pummeled by the invisible boy. She couldn't attack without knowing exactly where Danny was, or she risked hitting Ronan.
Ronan twisted and turned, simultaneously trying to attack and defend. They had long since stopped trying to use power and were simply duking it out, a difficult feat when you can't see your opponent. He finally caught a lucky shot against the side of Danny's ear, and the boy went visible again out of pain. In retaliation, he fired an energy blast that solidly connected with Ronan's head and weakened him enough to be captured in the Fenton Thermos.
Julia sat crumpled on the bay floor and wept. Danny was half-tempted to pity her until he remembered what she tried to do to Jazz. He captured her alongside her lover and shot towards the surface. He wasn't sure if he could get back through the mural now, and he didn't want to waste any more time. His lungs felt like they were about to explode.
After what felt like eternity, he hit the surface, coughing and hacking up water. He hovered there for several minutes more just reveling in the ability to breathe air, then looked up at the sky. It was still as dark as it ever got here. He felt like he should say something, something witty, something intelligent. Sadly, the only thing that came to mind was "Thank goodness it's over."
It was a quaint little house in a quaint little neighborhood, with the obligatory white picket fence and twin ten-years-old boys playing with a German Shepherd puppy in the front yard.
"And you say your sister knew my Katy?" asked the woman known as Elizabeth Cadwell. She and Danny were sitting on the porch of the little house, watching the children. At least, Danny was watching them.
"Um…I think so," he answered uncertainly. He had spent the past two days trying to come up with a logical explanation for why he knew Kat. "I…uh…found a picture of them…together…and I was just wondering."
Mrs. Cadwell chuckled slightly and adjusted her sunglasses. "You know, Danny. Right after Kat died, a lot of people showed up trying to tell me that they heard messages from her. Psychics…mediums…whatever they want to call themselves, it's still just mumbo-jumbo. I have two boys; I always know when they're lying to me."
Danny bit his lip, unsure of what to say to that.
"But you seem like a good boy," the woman continued. "At least, you're not trying to tell me you're friends with her ghost or something."
Danny laughed nervously. "Oh, no…heh. That would be ridiculous."
She turned her head slightly in his direction, but decided not to comment. Instead, she turned forward again and gripped her walking stick a little more tightly. "She was about five when it started," Mrs. Cadwell began in a faraway. "Her father was always in that basement of his, inventing something or other. I used to blame myself for what happened. If I hadn't started that affair with Keith, they might both still be alive.
"But I did, and I told Nick I was leaving him. He was so angry; he went straight down to his basement and started throwing things around. Kat started crying and followed him down, and I went after her. I don't really remember much of what happened, just this blinding light that gave me these." She tapped her sunglasses and sighed.
"After that, Kat would start sliding into comas. At first, it was more like she just blacked out for a few minutes, but they got longer as she grew up and the intervals between them got shorted. Towards the end, she had to stay in the hospital. She would be in those comas for days on end. The last one…the doctors said her brain had stopped functioning, that she would never wake up. We waited for months, but they were right. She was only fourteen, and we had to…"
She broke off there, but Danny already knew what she was going to say. After a few moments, she sniffled. "I have hated her father for that for so long. He took her life from her. I'm sorry; now, I'm rambling."
"It's okay," Danny said quietly.
Mrs. Cadwell turned sightless eyes in his direction again. "I trust that's all you needed?"
Danny nodded, remembered she couldn't see it, and said, "Yeah. Sorry, I didn't realize it was that bad."
The woman stood and looked down at him. "You know, the very last thing Katy said to me was that she would never die. She was so serious, I almost believed it. Goodbye, Danny."
Without another word, she walked into the house, leaving Danny to gaze on at Kat's little brothers.
A/N: There's still the epilogue, so nobody freak out. I am going to explain about Vlad.