Chapter 17:
Wren POV-
I followed my parents down into the lab, and Jackson followed me.
"I should be back by three. If I'm not back by four…" I heard my dad say as we crouched at the entryway to the basement. Then I heard the jingling of keys, "You know what to do," he continued.
I couldn't see them from where I was, but I guessed that he had handed her the keys to the Spector speeder.
"What about them?" I heard my mom ask in response. Again, I couldn't' see her, but I guessed she was talking about Jackson and I.
"Make sure they stay here," my dad ordered. No surprise there.
"I need to go now," my dad said after a long sigh.
"You better not die, or I will kill you," my mom told him. And knowing her, she probably wasn't kidding. She actually might hire a ghost to hunt him down after he died and repeatedly kill him. I can imagine he'd reform and then get shot. Reform then get stabbed. Reform then get strangled. For all eternity. And my mom would just say "This is what you get for dying."
"I won't, I promise. Close the portal immediately after I leave and make sure that Wren doesn't get the bright idea to follow me," I scoffed quietly. He was right, but still.
"Okay, I'll see you at three," my mom asked hopefully, with a kind of fear that I have rarely heard from her.
"Three," I heard my dad agree. The coolness left the room and I knew he had left. Then, I heard the doors to the ghost portal with a dull thud and my mom sighed.
"Wren. Jackson. You two can stop hiding now," she called.
"How does she always do that?" Jackson wondered throwing his hands up.
"Talent," my mom said, appearing at the bottom of the stairs, "Now, are you going to goback upstairs like you're supposed to, or are you going to wait down here with me?" she asked, already knowing the answer as we walked down toward her. She sighed, "That's what I thought."
Danny POV-
There was no trap set for me right when I came through the portal. In fact, I met nothing. No one. Not a soul (pun intended).
Why is that weird at twelve o'clock in the morning?
Well, for one thing, ghosts don't sleep so they are always doing something. And also, even though I don't always have altercations with ghosts when I come into the ghost zone (although it does happen pretty frequently) there is always some lost soul drifting about, trying to find a place to call their own. Tonight? Zip. Zilch. Nada.
One thing about the Ghost Zone is that it is always changing, which, usually, makes it incredibly hard to navigate. However, Clockwork's tower is the one exception to the changing scenery. It is always stationary, and always visible from anywhere in the Ghost Zone, which definitely made my job a little easier.
However, just because it can be seen, doesn't exactly mean that it's close.
Right now, the tower was just a blip in the distance. And, without a constant system of measurement in the Ghost Zone, that could be anywhere from 8-120 miles (13-193 km).
'Well,' I sighed, 'I better get flying.'
The flight took probably about 30 minutes, but it felt even longer because, like I said, there was no one around, giving the entire ghost zone a stagnant feel, like it was waiting for something. And, that's never a good thing when I'm involved.
Clockwork's tower is, essentially just a giant grandfather clock surrounded by giant, fragmented clock gears, and hallways sticking off of the frame at obscure angles, with a pair of heavy wooden doors at the base.
'Should I even bother knocking?' I considered as I floated down to the doors at the base, 'He already knows I'm here.' The doors were probably just a formality anyway, so I decided not to knock and followed the long winding staircase up to the top of the tower.
It would have been nice to have just phased through, but, unfortunately, I couldn't. The Ghost Zone, behaves, for ghosts, like the normal world behaves for humans. Meaning that ghosts can't pass through objects.
I guess not being able to phase through things is supposed to preserve some sort of privacy, otherwise you would have ghosts in other ghosts' houses all the time, but, at the moment, it was just annoying.
Finally, after ten flights of stairs, I made it to the top room of Clockwork's tower.
"Would it be too much to ask for an elevator?" I questioned.
Clockwork, who had been floating in the center of the room, ignored me.
"So, are you enjoying spending time with your children?" he asked, changing into an older form. I don't know why he bothers asking questions when he knows how I'm going to answer them.
"Because I enjoy the conversation," he sighed, answering my unspoken question.
"What should I do about Vlad?" I stated.
"You did not come here to get my opinion, because even if I do give you good advice, you will inevitably end up ignoring it at some point. But I suppose, it's not your fault, it is human nature to act upon impulse despite my better judgment," he continued.
"So…you're not going to give me advice?" I questioned.
"No, I, am not," he replied, before floating into another room.
"What? Seriously?" I looked around the empty room in confusion. Well that sure was a big help. I flew all the way here for nothing. I almost went back down but I suddenly heard a voice from the stairs.
"Clockwork," the voice called, "Would it be too much to ask for an elevator?" the owner of the voice finally climbed the last stair and stood in the room. It took a few seconds for him to scan the room before he noticed me.
"Well…this is awkward," he chuckled nervously rubbing the back of his neck.