Chapter 281: Capture

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"Go home," Danny told the ghosts. "Or, um. Wherever you feel safe. Where there aren't a lot of people you're going to freak out."

Stars and Ancients, he felt like a moron. Could the ghosts even process that? Many of them were animal ghosts, and while animal ghosts could be incredibly intelligent, a majority stayed closer to the level they were during their lives. That wasn't taking the double-brainwashing into account.

Nevertheless, the ghosts started moving, the illusion of Freakshow, and several ghosts, flickering into nothing as the ghost holding the cup let it fall to their side.

Predictably, the real Freakshow, Sam, and Pamela were nowhere in sight.

The most probable direction, Danny decided, was Amity Park. Freakshow wasn't going to come out here and do this just to do… whatever this was, with the lake monsters.

Danny started to move in that direction, but paused, noting that Clockwork was staring at something with a rather absent expression on his face.

"Grandfather?" he asked. Had he accidentally gotten Clockwork with his stupid mind control power as well? "Are you okay?"

Clockwork jolted. "Hm? Yes, my apologies. I had just seen something interesting." He paused again, then raised an eyebrow. "Daniel, where did you tell all these ghosts to go?"

"I told them to go home," said Danny.

"They do not appear to be heading back to the lake," observed Clockwork.

No, now that Danny thought about it, they weren't. In fact, they were headed in what was more or less the opposite direction, towards Amity Park.

Oh. They weren't going to their homes. They were going to his home. Amity Park.

Fantastic. Another thing for Danny to worry about.

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They reached shield and touched down. Freakshow walked over to it, and put his hand on it, feeling it over. It seemed… gross, somehow, the way he touched it, but Sam was glad it didn't let him through, almost seeming to push back against him.

"Good, good," muttered Freakshow. "As expected, as expected." He motioned at the ghosts, who began to set down some of the bowls and cups he had collected from the Arkwright House, along with a few other things Sam didn't recognize at all.

He poured water from the lake into one bowl, then took a bottle of water from inside his overcoat and poured it into a chalice. Then, indicating that Freakshow had something freakish going on with his coat, because there didn't seem to be any way he could carry that much stuff in it and still have it hang the way it did, removed a quart bottle of pomegranate juice from it as well and poured it into one of the other cups.

He took the vessels, and began to pour them into one another, slowly, methodically, in what seemed to be a pre-planned order. In some of them, he emptied little packets of dust. When some of the dust drifted into the ghosts, their skin blistered, painfully.

Then he beckoned at the ghosts holding Sam.

"The younger one," he said, the silver of a knife flicking between his fingers.

The ghosts obeyed, pushing Sam forward. There's a gap. She could, conceivably, run and reach the barrier, get past it into Amity Park. Leave her mother.

Sam pulled the hidden knife out of its sheath and rammed it down on Freakshow's shoulder.

There were two problems to this: One, it turned out that the knife wasn't actually a knife, but some kind of folding hand shovel. This was fine, since it still had a sharp edge, and Sam was more than willing to bludgeon Freakshow to half or full death with any number of digging and/or gardening implements, her anger at him going far beyond mere knives and shovels. Two, and, somehow, Sam hadn't been expecting this, Freakshow had told his bodyguard ghosts to shield him with their bodies, if need be.

Mundane shovels, sharp or not, didn't do much damage to ghosts.

Freakshow shouted at her. Pamela lunged forward, somehow getting free of her shirt before the ghosts hauled her back, away. Sam was rammed into the ground, tasting dirt, grass, and who knew what else. Small stones scraped against her teeth. By the time Sam was even remotely paying attention again, Freakshow's shouts had turned into another one of his self-important monologues.

Well, that plan had gone absolutely nowhere.

The shovel fell to the ground, the ghost having phased through it. It was, just barely, in arm's reach.

So were Freakshow's ankles.

Sam didn't really think about what she was doing. She just did it.

Freakshow's furious screams had a lot more anger in them, this time. A lot more insults, too. The ghost pressed down harder on her back. She was starting to have a hard time breathing.

A razor edge of pain went down her arm, followed by an enraged shriek that sounded vaguely like her mother.

Then, everything went cold. There was frost on the grass, clinging to the folds of her shirt, and probably her pants, too, although she couldn't move her head far enough to see it.

Danny, it seemed, was here.

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It took time to reign in the small army of ghosts. Danny's direct control of them had slipped when he sent them off, and he had to tie it back on. He felt like he wasn't doing this right, using this power right, but he didn't exactly want to learn how to do it right, and he didn't have time for that, right now.

So.

He gave the ghosts more detailed instructions, and when he was satisfied that they wouldn't accidentally crush anyone… or any buildings… he let them go again. His head felt bruised and he was out of breath.

"Hey, um," said Danny. "How do you feel about doing the 'time heals all wounds' thing?"

"Hm," said Clockwork. "How do you feel about experiencing a hundred years compressed into a minute?"

"Not stable enough?" asked Danny.

"Not enough to risk something so delicate and small scale," said Clockwork. "Larger time periods may be easier to grasp."

"What about the guy back there you trapped in a time loop?"

"Oh, that happened?"

"Grandfather," said Danny, "I think you need a vacation." He paused. "Some time off."

Clockwork sighed.

So faintly that even Danny had trouble hearing it, a scream whispered through the trees. Danny's head snapped around, his bones moving in ways they really shouldn't, and he was off.

Intangibility meant he didn't have to weave through the trees. A correct direction meant he didn't have to waste time feeling along the outside of the shield – a good thing, because Freakshow hadn't taken the shortest path from the lake to the shield, and Danny's line was almost a tangent with the curve of the shield. Clockwork, being Clockwork, kept up with him easily.

They reached Freakshow. Sam and Pamela were there, too. Danny's relief lasted for only a moment, and then, as much as he had literally seen red earlier, he was metaphorically seeing red now.

He threw most of the ghosts in the clearing aside with an unusually focused and accurate burst of telekinesis and lunged for Freakshow.

Freakshow grabbed a vessel that had been balanced on a particularly gnarled tree root and threw it at Danny. Danny reflexively went intangible, but the liquid did not pass through him, instead seeming to cling.

It hurt.

It hurt a lot, actually, like blood and acid and fire. Like blood blossoms turned liquid. Is that what he had in there? Blood blossom extract?

Whatever. Danny had experienced worse. Much worse. This wasn't going to stop him from tearing Freakshow limb from limb.

Only Danny's massive amount of self-control was going to do that. One of the mind-controlled ghosts was holding Sam by the neck and—

They suddenly stopped, their eyes clearing. They dropped Sam and fled from the scene shrieking. Danny moved to stand between Sam and any other threats, and started looking for ways to remove Pamela from danger, too.

Sam, being Sam, wasn't entirely on the same page.

She picked something (was that a trench shovel? Where did she even get that?) up from the ground and smacked Freakshow across the face with it, leaving a large, bloody gash. Freakshow screamed.

The part of Danny that would have been at home in a horror film drank in the fear and pain.

He flickered forward, wrapped gloved hands around Freakshow's throat, and drove him to the ground. Not as hard as he would have been if Freakshow was a ghost. He was aware of the need to be gentle with the man. He was still human. Unfortunately.

"Release them," hissed Danny.

Freakshow laughed, manic and afraid. "No," he said, throwing the controlled ghosts at Danny. They came at him and rammed into the bright green shield Danny summoned with a thought.

"Release them," repeated Danny, this time with a shake.

"And… what," wheezed Freakshow, "would… you… do to me… then?"

"Allow me," said Clockwork. He hit Freakshow across the face with the end of his staff. There was a loud crack – probably one of Freakshow's teeth, judging by the blood – and Freakshow passed out. The ghosts came to a stop, lowering their hands. "As expected, he had to actively instruct them."

"Huh," said Danny. He looked around at the still-controlled ghosts. That was still a problem. "You up to portals?" asked Danny.

"Accurate ones?" asked Clockwork.

"Phantom!"

Danny turned to the oddly-distorted voice. Several of Amity's human citizens had gathered on the inside of the shield. They were, to a one, armed and armored.

"Can we help?" asked Mr. Weston.

"Actually," said Danny, "yes."