Author's Note: I own nothing. There's some stuff in here that references the time travel shenanigans from the show. It'll make sense I promise.

20 An Interesting Discovery

Officer Dev frowned at the file in his hand. It was mostly empty. On the cover was a fuzzy photo of Phantom. Her name, or at least the one she'd given to Angelica, was one of the only things they had filled in. Her height, her cause of death, her age, all of these things were guesses. He shook his head as a knock sounded on his door.

"Come in!" He called and the door to his office opened. Kyle slipped in holding two coffees, a folder tucked under his arm. Dev's office was barely big enough for his desk and two chairs but he nodded to Kyle to make himself comfortable and the coroner handed him a cup of steaming hot coffee.

"Ok I have some news and you're not gonna like it." Kyle said between sips of his coffee. Dev raised an eyebrow at him.

"Ok, shoot."

"Remember how you were talking about what ifs the other day at dinner?" Kyle asked and Dev nodded. "Well I got bored so I did some digging. I found some stuff, and it's really weird." Kyle handed Dev the file. He frowned thumbing through it.

"Most of this is old. Why is this relevant?" Dev asked and Kyle flipped the folder to the first page and tapped the photo. It was what remained of an old Chinese scroll. There wasn't much of it left.

"Who does that look like?" Kyle asked tapping the photo again. On the faded scroll were two figures, a blue skinned black haired demon faced man and a woman in black with white hair and startling green eyes. Dev frowned.

"Again not sure what I'm looking at here."

"Well the story that goes that this group of Chinese monks were attacked by a creature they called a blue emo, roughly translates to demon, but this spirit girl showed up and forced the creature to run. The way the monks wrote it the Huanying, which means Phantom, forced the emo back to hell and followed to finish it off, but the gates closed behind her. Neither of them were ever seen again. She look familiar?" Kyle sipped his coffee.

"I mean a little. But really?" Dev asked flipping the page, he frowned.

"This one's my favorite." Kyle said pointing to a few of the photos here. They were carved stone statues of a young girl with braided hair. She was depicted holding a sword in one hand and a scroll in the other. "Now the reports on this one are purely archaeological. According to archaeologists this figure is supposed to be a minor roman goddess, they think she was supposed to be a daughter of Pluto, Hades if you don't know Rome. But after the fires that burned Rome down a few sects attributed those fires to a minor god, they say he was supposed to be a son of Mars, Ares. There's a legend, it's pretty obscure, that this son of Mars was called Umbra Sanctus, Dark Ghost. Legend says he took over Rome." Dev whistled.

"Sounds like as shit time. How does the minor goddess fit in?" Dev knew Kyle to be something of a conspiracy nut and when he was bored there was no stopping him from drawing his own conclusions. He would talk himself out eventually.

"She unseated him, after barely a day. He was tyrannical and angry she beat him so he lit Rome on fire. One story claims he was the spirit of a demigod and she was returning him to the Underworld. Another says she beat him to get back a scroll he stole from the Underworld, it must have been the popular version, cause all of her statues have the scroll. There have been a few of these small statues found in private homes, no temples yet. Some say she was just a household goddess, who defended those who survived the fire. But there was one fresco found." Kyle said flipping the page. The painting was damaged and incomplete, but the figure in it wore a black toga, had white hair and green eyes. Under her was writing. Dev frowned.

"What does it say? Do we know?"

"Here's where it connects back to us. That says Domina Phantasma, which means Lady Phantom." Kyle said a sly grin on his face as realization crossed Dev's.

"No. No way."

"There's one more historical account of her showing up, but it's the one I believe the least. Mostly because it comes from Salem at the time of the witch trials." Dev scoffed at Kyle's words. Kyle nodded. "Yeah, I know. But," he flipped the page, "there's part of a journal entry written by a John F. Nightingale. He worked as a witch hunter in the town, but also specialized in hunting the spirits the witches were supposed to be able to summon." Dev glanced down the page and frowned beginning to read aloud.

" 'And lo a learned man was sent to help us in our righteous quest. He hailed from the colony of New York and was wise in the ways of hunting spirits and witches.' What the fuck am I reading Kyle?"

"There's a summary at the bottom of the page dork." Dev skimmed down the page and found the summary. A boy had been accused of witchcraft and dragged to the stake to be burned. A pale spirit dressed in black had appeared to save him, but was nearly defeated by a flower Nightingale grew to ward off spirits, according to the journal entry. Both the boy and the spirit had been saved by what Nightingale described as a runaway slave girl. He speculated that the boy had helped the slave girl kill her master by summoning the spirit. Dev raised an eyebrow.

"Again why is this relevant?"

"That bit's in the actual text, here." Kyle took the photo of the page and skimmed down it. "Here it is. Blah blah blah. 'The witch called forth a dark spirit to rescue him. She was summoned by the utterance of her name, Dani. With flowing white locks, unholy glowing green eyes and strange black attire she came from hell to serve her master.' White hair, green eyes, black clothes. I'm sensing a pattern." Kyle said sitting back in his chair and sipping his coffee in triumph. Dev shook his head.

"A pattern that doesn't make much sense. If you're right, and that's a massive if, then Phantom has to be older than Rome, by at least two hundred years if not more. Let's say you're right, why come to Amity? The fuck does she want here, especially if she's a legendary millennium old spirit." Dev reasoned. He couldn't believe he was actually contemplating this as a possibility. If someone had told him a year ago that he'd be hunting a ghost through history he'd have laughed in their faces. Kyle wrinkled his nose.

"Yeah that's where I'm stuck. But the most complete account we have of this spirit is the Salem one, even though that one doesn't say how the whole thing ended. So I did some more digging." Kyle grinned. Dev rolled his eyes.

"Do you ever actually do your job Kyle?"

"People don't die a lot around here, I get bored. Anyway. John F. Nightingale, had a daughter who married a man in the same business as her father, a man by the name of Paul Fenton." Dev stared at Kyle.

"You're kidding."

"I'm not. John F. Nightingale has three living descendants in Amity Park, Jack Fenton and his daughters."

"Do you think that's why Phantom's here, to get back at Nightingale's descendants?" Kyle shrugged.

"I mean that's if we buy Nightingale's story to begin with. But according to the website I got this from the pages were sent to one of the witchcraft museums in Salem by Jack Fenton. He might still have the original journal. So if you wanna do some digging about how old Phantom is, maybe start with the Fentons." Kyle suggested, Dev shook his head.

"I'll have to run it by the Captain but it's a start I guess."

"Hey I said I'd help didn't I." Kyle said grinning.

"You're enjoying this just a little too much Kyle." Dev said glaring at his friend. Kyle shrugged.

"Research is fun, I like it. Let me know if you need me to do more!" Kyle said standing. "I should get back to the morgue." He said stretching.

"Yeah, yeah, run back to the dead, while I deal with handing this file of crazy to the Captain. You're gonna make me a laughing stock I hope you know that."

"I love you too Dev! See you for lunch on Wednesday!" Kyle waved as he left. Dev buried his head in his hands. He did not want to hand this to the Captain but he wanted info on Phantom. He sighed. He was never gonna live this down.