Chapter 282: Breather
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Sam sat down, feeling unbelievably worn out. Her mother came over to sit down next to her. She didn't say anything, but just put her hand on Sam's shoulder in a low-energy half-hug. She stabbed the shovel into the ground, wondering what it would have felt like if she had managed to stab Freakshow like that.
Danny peeled off a pair of duplicates to direct the empty-eyed ghosts through the shields and to the humans waiting on the other side. The third iteration of him came over to Sam.
"Are you okay?" he asked.
"I'm fine."
"Just asking because you've got blackberries or something growing from where you put that." Danny pointed at the shovel where, indeed, blackberry vines were curling out of the ground.
"Huh," said Sam. "Would have sworn I was too tired to do that. Would have gone after him with them otherwise."
"I can carry you guys home, if you want," said Danny. "I'd have to come back to take care of Freakshow, but, like…"
"That would be lovely," said Pamela.
"No," said Sam. "I want to see this through."
"Are you sure? It's just, you know, hostage situation."
"It wasn't my first. Not even my first with this particular loser. Any idea what he was trying to do with all this stuff?"
"Not really. Grandfather?"
"I do believe he was going to try hijacking your shield to power his spell," said Clockwork, looking over the cups, goblets, and bowls on the ground. "It is a rather interesting set up," he continued. "He was most likely about to attempt a blood sacrifice. To put it in somewhat technological terms, he was going to use Samantha's 'credentials' to create a backdoor for himself." He hummed to himself. "It is a good deal more complicated than that, of course."
"Well, that's just great," said Sam. "Would it have worked?"
"No," said Clockwork. "Daniel's shield works on different principles than the ones Freakshow seems to have assumed. But it would not surprise me if he originally intended to go through several rituals in an attempt to get through the shield, rather than just this one."
That was really wonderful. Sam rubbed her eyes.
"Are you sure you don't want to go home?" asked Pamela.
"I'm sure," said Sam. "You can, though."
Pamela shook her head. "No, I'll stay with you."
"Okay," said Sam. She looked up at the shield, then beyond it.
Mr. Weston seemed to be in-charge of the group, but she also recognized Helga, Hobson the butler, Spike from school, and The Beholder (yes, that was his legal name) from the Skulk and Lurk.
… This was a weird group. This was a really weird group, and considering who Sam usually hung out with, that was saying something.
Actually, if she thought about it, Spike and The Beholder being together wasn't all that strange. It was the other three that made it weird.
"Kind of a weird place for a butler," observed Sam.
"Yes, well," said Hobson, "I wanted to model my life on Alfred Pennyworth, so…"
"He was part of the special forces before he was a butler," said Danny, brightly. "He worked for MI6 for a while, too."
"How do you even know that?" asked Sam.
"I know lots of things."
"It was a bit embarrassing for me, honestly," said Hobson, receiving a ghost from one of Danny's clones. "I wanted to be Batman's assistant, but I missed the superhero right under my nose. A failure of a butler, really."
"I don't think that's really part of a normal butler's job description," commented Sam.
"It isn't," said Pamela.
"You did give me some good advice, though," said Danny, brightly. He sighed and looked around. "Wow, it's much quieter now that Freakshow isn't messing things up."
"I think the noise was more because of the ghosts throwing lasers around," interjected Sam.
"Yeah, so much for the military barricade or whatever," said Tracey.
"Well," said Danny, "they might have been scared off by the giant lake monsters. But I sent them away, so…"
"The military?" asked Mr. Weston, surprised.
"No, the lake monsters. Didn't you see them? Or, they might have taken the shortest route. So, they'd be… over there?" He pointed, then drifted up. "Yep, I can see the taller ones over the trees."
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Nate regrated everything.
First off, he regretted having the same first name as Nathan Spengler, who was now a minor celebrity, having been to the Ghost Zone and back, and therefore someone Nate felt the need to compete with. He regretted turning eighteen and graduating high school last spring, which meant he was an adult that could be asked to volunteer for stuff like this. He also, most recently, regretted volunteering for this stupid patrol thing in an effort to get his name rights back from a guy who was younger than him.
He wanted to go back in time to when he was but a simple pizza delivery boy who could get excited over a ten-dollar tip. He wanted to go back in time to when the giant ghost monsters entering town weren't somehow his responsibility. He wanted to at least go back far enough to the point where he wasn't on a team with Shelly Makamoto, Connie Jones, Harriet Chin, Tiffany Snow, and Lance Thunder.
Whose idea was it to put all the crazy news people on the same team, anyway? He just wanted to talk.
"This is great!" shouted Harriet Chin, pointing a camera up at the actual real-life kaiju dear god why did that exist and why was it here?
"I know, right?" said Shelly Makamoto, peering out from beneath the doorway they'd sheltered under. "I don't think we've seen one that big since, what's his name, Vortex!"
"Gosh, you guys would get along really well with my wife," said Connie. "I wonder if anyone studies these things, other than the Fentons."
"I'm a weatherman! I don't get paid for this!" complained Lance Thunder.
"Come on, Lance," said Tiffany, "at least nothing's happened to your hair, right?"
"Yet! Nothing has happened to my hair yet."
The ground trembled with the weight of the giant orange lizard monster. Why was it even walking? It was a ghost! Ghosts could fly!
"Hey, look," said Shelly. "There are a lot of little ones, too."
Yes. Nate regretted everything.
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"Although, I think I might hear some cars coming close, now," said Danny.
"These trees are too close together for that," said Clockwork, picking up the bowls and cups and hiding them under his robes. "If they really wanted to keep up good surveillance here, they should have cut them down."
"They did that in some places," said Sam. "Did we not tell you?"
"Yeah, they stopped after you left," said Tracey. "Probably they thought it would be a bad look while you were doing the whole diplomacy thing."
Danny's shoulders slumped. "Honestly, you might have told me. With everything going on, I'm sure I've missed some information." With the last of the ghosts through the shield, Danny picked up Freakshow. "Come on, let's get him in."
"You don't have to bring him back to Mr. President or whatever? From how things were going, I would have sworn he'd have a condition like that."
"Well, yeah, he did, and I am going to, eventually. I've got to, with, you know, what I'm like" said Danny, giving Sam and Pamela a hand up with his duplicates, "and I wasn't sure I was going to do this until just now, but… He was being so stubborn and uncooperative about the whole thing, and he didn't put a time limit on getting Freakshow back. Just that I'd have to hand him over because his crimes all occurred on US soil, so he's a US problem not a ghost problem, blah, blah blah." He stepped through the shield. "Just 'deliver Showenhower to US law enforcement after he's been extracted.' That's all the agreement said." Danny shrugged. "He's still got all these people under his spell. I want to know how to break it."
When the military arrived a few minutes later, all the Amity Parkers and ghosts had already left.
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Freakshow was strapped into a bed at the hospital, stripped and searched. He was dangerous, and no one wanted to take the risk that he had something literally up his sleeve. Or tattooed on his body.
(As a matter of fact, a tattoo artist was brought in from where he'd been working on a harvest team to photograph and then black out several of Freakshow's tattoos. Danny and Sam felt like this was somewhat unethical – It was a body modification – but letting him have potential weapons would have been stupid.)
They went over Freakshow's possessions (using the term loosely, as many of the things he had on him were probably stolen) with a fine-toothed comb, even picking out the seams of his clothing in case he'd hidden something in them. He had, incidentally. There were paper charms in the lining of his coat and little red and gold seeds that both Sam and Danny recognized but couldn't place sewn in the seams.
Beyond the vessels stolen from the Arkwright house, there were desiccated body parts, human and animal, various metal charms and coins, an ancient lightbulb that gave Danny exceptionally bad vibes, various dried herbs and powders, and way more red crystals than Danny was at all comfortable with.
"What should we do with this stuff?" asked Danny, staring down at the mess.
"You could eat it," suggested Sam.
"That was one time," protested Danny.
"It really wasn't."
"You're right, it wasn't." Danny had just felt like he had to say something.
Suddenly, Clockwork loomed over them. Sam jumped.
He tsked. "He put blood blossom seeds and aglaophotis seeds in the same place? That's asking for trouble."
"Oh," said Danny. "That's what they are. Why is it asking for trouble to have them together?" He asked, quickly starting to separate the red and gold seeds from one another.
"The oils don't interact well," said Clockwork. "Of course, blood blossoms are troublesome all on their own."
"What do the oils do?" asked Sam, moving to help and swatting Danny's hands away. "Stop that, you have an allergy."
"They produce noxious gasses."
"Great," said Sam. "That's great."
"And the other stuff?" asked Danny. "Is there anyone in the Realms that deals with… I don't even know what to call this. Dangerous artifacts? Magical flatware? Mortal remains of… I don't even know what animal this came from."
"A good number, yes," said Clockwork. "We Ancients occasionally have an interest, although most of these aren't powerful or unusual enough to require our intervention or elicit our curiosity."
"Okay," said Danny. "So, you said most aren't. You'll take care of the ones that are?"
"If you would prefer that," said Clockwork. "On the other hand, most of these are destructible."
"I hate to destroy stuff that could be useful," said Danny, prodding a coin, "or that people put effort into making, but… yeah, that might be a good idea, if they aren't easy to sort. Which ones can't be destroyed?"
Clockwork pointed at the red crystals. Danny's shoulders slumped.
"Of course it's them."
"Actually, there is one way I know of that they could be safely dealt with."
"What's that?"
"You could eat them."
"No."
