For the first time, Paul saw Atticus smile. Not just a smirk, a whole smile…and a derranged one at that.

He raised the sword over his head, and the large diamond on the handle turned black. The sword seemed to be burning with an ebony fire, and it spread to Atticus. His features became more disfigured, his skin paler, and his eyes became the color of jet stones, as dark as an abyss.

"FINALLY!" He bellowed, for the whole underworld to hear, "I HAVE FOUND IT!"

Paul and Little Leota covered their ears, but Alea and Uriah were just staring at him in horror, paralyzed on the spot.

They had failed to keep the sword safe…and now all hell would break loose.

Atticus lowered the sword and turned to Alea and Uriah. He had a sick grin on his face, and a strong wind started to blow as he slowly walked towards them.

"Fools. You'll be the first to go. After all of this tortue you've made me endure, I will finally have revenge!"

Without a second thought, he plunged the sword through Uriah's chest. Paul gasped in shock as he saw it go straight through the man.

Uriah's mouth opened in pain, and his eyes glazed over. As soon as Atticus removed the sword, his skin and muscles dissolved, leaving only a skeleton standing in front of Atticus. A few seconds later, the bones turned to dust and fell lifelessly to the ground.

"NO!" Alea screamed. She glared at Atticus and tried to encase him in another prison, but he merely sliced through it with the sword.

"You imbecile! The sword gives me power over the dead – which you are. There's no way you can defeat me." With that said, he stabbed Alea. She dissolved into dust, just as Uriah had.

He grinned evilly, and turned to Paul and Little Leota.

"So…" he said, voice dripping with malice, "You weren't the real George at all…just some kid. I can't believe I didn't realize that."

Paul and Little Leota nervously backed away, but there was nowhere to go.

"You may be alive in your normal state, but right now, you're inhabiting a ghost's body. And you know what that means?"

Atticus aimed the sword at the two, and a purple beam of light shot out of it, heading straight for them.

"I own you."

George and Leila arrived at the mansion. However, those feelings of uneasiness and fear were now gone…and Leila felt differently about the mansion.

She wanted to go inside, to explore. It was like she was drawn to it.

The two got out of the car, and headed to the front door. Leila tried the knob, and found it was locked.

"You lock it?" she asked him.

"Well…most of the time we just walk through the walls," George explained, "But don't worry, I've got a spare around here somewhere."

He looked around and then down at their feet. Leila realized that they were standing on an old, yellowed rug…probably a former Welcome mat. George lifted it up, and underneath was an old black key, covered in rust.

"There we go," George said cheerily as he unlocked the front door with a loud click. He opened the large door, and the two were hit with a blast of cold air. They stepped in to what appeared to be a sitting room, and closed the door. The room was dark, except for a few candles lighting the foyer.

"Nice place," Leila said, admiring the old yet beautiful detail of the mansion.

"We try," George replied with a smile, and led Leila over to the stretching room entrance.

"This is the only way…for humans, anyways…to get to the next part of the house. I hope you don't get too scared," George said, and opened the secret room.

"Hey. After driving with you, nothing can scare me," Leila said with a smile.

The same effect that Paul had seen earlier was now being shown to Leila, but while Paul had stood there watching nervously, Leila was making sarcastic retorts about George's narration.

Just as the room reached it's maximum limit, the lights went out and the skeleton appeared again. Leila felt a lump in her throat, but stayed calm as she looked at the remnants of George's body.

The room became pitch black again, and Leila and George stood there in the darkness.

After a few minutes, Leila heard George beside her.

"Hmm."

"Hmm?"

"Well…the lights were supposed to come on by now…the room shouldn't still be dark," George said, confused.

"Oh George, when are you going to learn? Death is full of surprises…you can't expect anything," said a woman's voice. George and Leila looked at each other, confused, and tried to find the new voice that had entered the room.

"Up here, dear," the voice said helpfully. All of a sudden, one of the paintings – the one of the woman on the tightrope – became illuminated by a purple glow. Here eyes were bright and staring down at Leila and George.

"So glad to see you've brought the girl! It's about time someone came here to set things straight!" the painting said, her two dimensional mouth curving into a smile.

George looked completely confused.

"What?" Leila hissed to him, "They don't usually talk?"

"We don't usually have much to talk about!" a gruff voice replied to Leila's question. Another painting was now revealed by the eerie light – the man on the dynamite keg.

"Nobody comes and visits us anymore," the man said dolefully, completely unaware that the spark had now started slowly moving towards the keg in the painting. Leila turned to the tightrope girl and realized that she was sinking lower and lower towards the alligator's jaws.

"I know!" the girl replied with a sigh, "Except for those foolish mortals who think that they're going to solve the mysteries of the mansion…and they usually aren't very good conversationalists."

"It's pathetic, that's what it is," a new voice said. The woman sitting on the grave suddenly sprang to life, and joined the conversation. "You'd think that with 999 ghosts here, at least one would be willing to come visit us."

Leila noticed that the eyes on the bust of the man the old woman was sitting on had started to move, but the woman seemed to not notice.

"I blame the construction crews!" Three voices called out in unison. George and Leila whirled around and saw that the final painting, the three men in quicksand, had come to life as well. The whole room was now bathed in the purple light.

"It's their fault no ghosts come visit us! They just walk through the walls, and completely ignore this room!" they all said at once, but soon, the lowest man's mouth had been engulfed by quicksand and could no longer speak. The other two seemed oblivious to his predicament.

"How is that construction's fault?" The tightrope girl asked, the aligator below her licking its lips.

"They…er…made the walls too thin!" The two remaining sinking men shot back.

"Now now, let's not bicker and argue," the old woman said calmly. The axe jammed in the bust's head was slowly removing and positioning itself behind the unaware woman's head.

"Er, George…I think this room is going to get very messy in a minute…" Leila whispered worriedly to him.

"Well at least things have gotten shaken up around here! Atticus coming back and all," the man on the keg said.

"Oh yes! And did you hear about what happened this afternoon?" the tightrope girl said excitedly.

"What?" Asked the top man in the quicksand picture – he was now the only one above the sand.

"George and Little Leota were pulled into the Underworld with him!" The old woman said with big eyes, "Can you believe that?!"

George gasped.

"Wow! Who's going to take over the tour?" The dynamite man asked.

"George..." Leila said, looking at the paintings. Each person in them was very close to their demise.

"Y-yes?" George stammered, still in confusion about the news he just heard.

"I think we might want to shut our eyes now."

But there was no need; the lights suddenly flickered off, and the two heard a series of sounds.

A high pitched scream, a splash, and large chomping sound; a gurgle and desperate cry for help, something about sand; a sickening crunch from the axe; and last but not least, a large explosion. The room was filled with a burst of light, and George and Leila ducked as bits of splintered frames fell to the ground loudly.

The lights snapped back on, and the door opened; the room was a complete mess, paper and wood everywhere.

"Er…Prudence can clean that up," George said, staring at the mess in the room. He grabbed Leila's wrist and the two left the bizzare stretching room.

On a whirlwind tour through the house, George took Leila to Leota's room. She was at first surprised to see them, but her shock was soon replaced by amusement.

"Oh, George…" she said with a chuckle, "I could not have picked a better body for you."

"Ha. Ha ha. Very funny," George said sarcastically, "Now what's this about me going to the Underworld?"

Leota's smile vanished.

"Oh…you heard about that?"

"Yes, I heard about that. What happened?"

Leota reaccounted all that had happened while he was away, and when she finished, Leila was staring at the floor in confusion.

"So…Paul's in the Underworld now? Can't you get him back?" She asked quietly.

"I don't know if I can…but you might be able to," Leota said.

"How?" Leila asked hopefully. Maybe her newfound powers could do something…

Leota was about to respond when she was suddenly interrupted by a large vortex suddenly appearing in the middle of the room. A wind started to pick up, and Leota started to blow away because of its strength. George grabbed ahold of her, and the three watched as a figure emerged from the portal…

It was Atticus.

The three gasped in unison – Leota and George because of the change in his appearance, Leila because she had never seen something so atrocious. He slowly climbed out of the portal, and stood before them.

"Oh, Leota…look what I found!" he said in a mocking voice, and dramatically pulled out the sword.

Leota screamed, and spooked George, who dropped her.

Leila made a dive for the large crystal ball and caught it just in time. Leota didn't even notice she had been dropped, because she was focusing on the long gleaming weapon Atticus now had.

"That's right. You've failed. Your sister and her husband are banished forever. And, I've started my own little army! Take a look at my first troops!"

He put the sword under his arm and held out his palms. Two white spheres appeared in his hands, and floated to the ground in front of him. They started to get bigger, take shape…the glow disappeared, and George and Leota gasped again.

It was Little Leota, and Paul in George's "body" – but they looked like they were zombies instead of ghosts. Their skin was a dull gray, their eyes were hollow and lifeless, and it seemed as though they were just shadows of their former selves.

"Paul!" Leila gasped, although she was pretty sure he couldn't hear her. The zombefied ghosts started to walk slowly towards George, Leota and Leila, and started towards the door.

"There's nowhere to run! I have control over the dead now! All 999 of them!" He swung the sword around majestically and rays of bloodred light filled the room and spread throughout the mansion. One by one, the ghosts became mindless drones. Their bodies, buried in the graveyard, rose out of their graves and began to take a life of their own. Everywhere the three tried to go was blocked off by ghosts and skeletons.

"This is insane!" Leila screamed at George and Leota, who had currently taken refuge in the stretching room. The ghosts and skeletons were pounding on both entrances, trying to find the way in.

"How can we beat them? This is like, 1,998 to 3!" Leila said, panicking.

"Well, not exactly," Leota grumbled, but nobody really heard her.

Fortunately, the stretching portraits could not add any comments to their predicament.

"Haven't you received your powers yet?" Leota asked Leila, annoyed, like that was the obvious answer to everything.

"What? Uh…well, I hovered earlier today," Leila said, recalling the events of the day.

"That's a start," Leota said quickly, as the pounding was getting louder, "Anything else?"

"Well, sometimes I get these…like…feelings about stuff, like auras I guess?"

"Okay…have you tried any incantations?"

"What??"

"Spells! Have you cast any spells yet!"

"No…"

"Well, there's no time like the present. Get rhyming, girl!" Leota said, her eyes wide.

"Uh…" Leila stammered. She had never been good at poetry…

Suddenly there was a loud crunching sound from above, and the three hostages looked up.

George's corpse had come to life, broken off the noose, and was breaking through the ceiling from the attic to get them. Leila screamed as she saw the skeletal hand punch through the brick ceiling with ease.

Leila tried to rhyme the best she could with what she had.

"I'm really scared, and so are they,

Banish the evil spell…away!"

As soon as Leila finished the spell, the skeleton suddenly seized up, and then became lifeless, its arm still sticking through the ceiling.

"It worked!" Leila said in disbelief.

"Of course it did! Now try something else! These ghosts are gonna get in here soon!" Leota said frantically, and George nodded in agreement.

Leila tried another spell, with the help of Leota.

"Release these tortured skeletons

Return them to their rest

So that their spirits may find peace

From the presence of this unwelcomed guest."

The knocking suddenly stopped.

Leila heard the gasps and murmers of the confused ghosts, and heard their skeletons walking back to their resting places in the graveyard.

"I think we're okay," Leila said, leaning against a wall in relief. George, however, still had a worried look on his face.

"Not yet. We still have to deal with Atticus…and get that sword."

Leila remembered and nodded with confidence. This shouldn't be too hard…