Chapter Fifteen: Old Ghosts
Jake sat silent, the only sund in the room coming from Dave's breathing and the soft hum of his computer. Here was his sister's arch-rival, standing in his room, talking to him! Why would she be here?
"Excuse me," Gina repeated more evenly. "I asked you what you were looking at."
"Um..." Jake stammered, "...I–I was–looking at...this!" He pointed nervously to the computer screen.
"Oh." Gina leaned in, looking at the window. "Verdic ectoplasm? You're a ghost researcher?"
"Um–yeah!"
In the background, Jake heard Dave leave the room, apparently not even aware that Gina was there. But then again, he didn't exactly have the best eyesight. Only Jake knew that Dave wore contact lenses.
Gina was studying the window intently. "Verdic is green... Then those ghost-twins must have this!"
"Wha–the who?" Jake stammered.
"Those ghost-kids that made all that fuss at school," Gina explained. "The ones Ty wrote about."
"Oh–oh yeah. He doesn't like them much, does he?"
"You kidding? He calls them the best hit-collectors since the Maine sank."
"He likes them?"
"Apparently they get the press rolling. He says that the people want 'good, old-fashioned good-guy versus bad-guy stories with no depth.'"
"Well, there's something stupid."
"Yeah. I think they're fine, as long as they don't hurt anyone. The boy's kinda cute..."
Jake raised an eyebrow. "Cute, eh?"
"I'm not some sort of groupie!" Gina insisted. "I was just making an observation, is all!"
"Right, then." Jake replied incredulously.
"Well why are you looking this up, then?"
"It's...for a report I'm doing."
"Ellie doing the same thing?"
"Why?" Jake asked.
"Not for you to know," Gina said simply.
"Why do you have it in for her?"
"What do you mean?"
"You two have been at each other's throats for as long as I can remember. Why do you do it?"
"Well..." Gina paused. "I think it was in second grade. Ellie took paste from me, so I got an 'F' on my art project. I decided to get her back in a fight."
"The one where you sat on her stomach and made her eat a clump of dirt?"
"Yep." she said proudly.
"You know," Jake said, "she still can't get the taste out of her mouth."
Both laughed at the thought of that little scuffle when they were kids. In fact, that fight was what prompted Grandma Maddie to teach Ellie martial arts in the first place. Now, Ellie could probably wipe the floor with Gina and her friends, provided Wilkinson didn't catch her.
"You're pretty funny," Gina snickered.
Jake started to blush. "Thanks."
"You know..." Gina said, "Just because your sister doesn't like me doesn't mean we can't be friends."
"You really think so?" Jake asked.
Gina smiled. "Yep."
Jazz Fenton–in her opinion, the only normal person in her family–sat at the small table in the lounge, sipping at a cup of coffee. She hadn't changed from her pajamas yet, and frankly didn't care right now. She had things on her mind.
Things she would rather not talk about.
Things about the war...
The war was what fueled her resolve to protect her family. What took her fiancé away from her at such a young age. What gave her the burn-scar across her left cheekbone.
In all, the war was what modeled Jazz into the person she was.
Who she was, she never figured out.
Jazz couldn't speak. She couldn't move. Even thought was impossible.
There had been attacks. Massive ghost attacks all over the world. From Egypt, to France, to Costa Rica, to Australia, armies numbering in the millions had struck, bringing down seven countries in under an hour. The people there were defenseless; no army on Earth was equipped to face a threat like this.
A threat that was all too real.
On the television in her college dorm, a shadowy figure with a deep voice and solid green eyes spoke to the world:
"We have no demands. We have no requests. Our kinds cannot coexist in peace while the other remains. Therefore, on behalf of the Ghost Zone War Council, we officially declare war upon the forces of humankind. If you wish to stay as you are, you will fight for your existence. If not, you will experience annihilation. Do not call us terrorists. Do not call us cowards. We are your betters; the betters of all mortals. The world belongs to ghostkind. To us."
After the broadcast stopped, people erupted in screams. The entire college dorm population acted as one organism experiencing terminal stroke: panicking, losing control of its form.
All but one.
Jazz quickly dialed a familiar number on her cell phone.
"Dad?" she asked into the receiver.
"We saw it, Jasmine!" came her father's voice. "We're going to Washington right now! You stay where you are; we never know where these spooks will attack next!"
From a distance, it would seem beautiful. Plumes of rainbow colors connecting giant blimps like streamers at a football game. An occasional explosion of fireworks in ornate multi-hued bursts.
On the outside, it is beautiful. Wondrous.
On the inside, it's different.
On the inside, Jazz Fenton knows this to be a storm. A storm of ghosts led by their world's greatest hunter to overtake the Alps. A storm where people Jazz knows are wounded, captured, or dying. Even gone. From the inside, it's the horrifying feeling that the entire Ghost Zone is trying to add you to its grisly population.
As Jazz thought about this, her Fenton Wheeler Bike sped along the rocky crag, paying no mind to the steep angle at which it hugged the mountainside. It was a giant wheel, jutted with spikes, and sporting a cockpit on one end, and an ecto-artillery gun on the other. The gun fired potshots at the ghost ships in the sky, led by the infamous /iFlying Dutchmani itself. But above all, Jazz couldn't let them take this spot. She wouldn't.
"Angel One to Angel Five," she spoke into the comlink on her wrist. "I'm closing in on the stronghold as we speak."
In the distance before her, Jazz saw a massive moving fortress. This was where Skulker was, and where she and Matthew would be setting the charges.
"Angel Five reporting," came Matthew's voice. "We ready for this?"
"When are we never?" Jazz asked.
To her left, she could see another wheeler, piloted by a good-looking man with a helmet and battlesuit. For the most part, the suit looked like a bulkier version of the hazmat suits her parents wore. Jazz commended them, wherever they were.
As the wheelers sped through the battle, Jazz could see something shiny approaching at breakneck speed. She'd never seen a craft like this, and the ghosts almost never used machines–
To her left, Matthew's vehicle exploded in a rush of flame.
Before she could scream his name, Jazz's wheeler was sparking at the controls. Unbuckling from her crash webbing, she jumped clear from the open cockpit before her Fenton Wheeler Bike became a smoking pile of flame and scrap.
As she lay there on the desolate battlefield, she heard a deep, raspy laugh. A laugh she knew.
Skulker.
As she swam out of consciousness, tears emerged from her eyes...
The tear that came from Jazz's eye at that moment splashed in her coffee cup. She never liked thinking about that day. She might have joined Matthew all those years ago if Danny hadn't gotten her out of there.
The burn scar proved that fact.
The scar had come from a piece of molten shrapnel that had grazed her cheek after the EMP burst destroyed her vehicle. It still stung at times. Times like this...
Forgetting this, Jazz finished her coffee, walking into the foyer. As she went to the coatrack to reach for something warm, she noticed a gift-wrapped box laying at the foot of the door. It was green, and tied up with a golden bow. She picked it up to read the tag:
To: Ellen
From: Uncle Vlad
How cute, Jazz thought. At least Vlad was normal now...