Hiya!
Argh! School. Is. Too. Much. Work! Argharghargh…*headdesk*
Disclaimer: YES! I got them! I got the ownership papers for Danny—(papers spontaneously implode due to practical improbability) (The Ghost Writer appears yelling about the responsibility of an author, not abusing one's powers and something about reaping consequences before popping out). I don't know what he was on about,/was there really such a need to shout?/Oh no, I seem to be speaking in prose/Please hurry to the chapter and end my woes.
Enjoy!
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The Soul Sepulcher
-By Sholay
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Chapter 23 — Breaking and Entering
"Okay, so what's this big plan of yours?" Jazz crossed her arms and looked up at the ethereal form of her brother. The siblings stood—or, in Danny's case, floated—before Amity Park's Museum of Natural history, a few feet away from the phosphorescent bubble that surrounded it, keeping out both humans and ghosts alike. The ghost-human shield curved sharply up from the ground in a towering arc that peaked several stories in the air; and it glowed so intensely that, in spite of the late hour, the nearby trees, grass and sky were alight in toxic green.
Jazz herself was haloed by nephrite, a look that greatly resembled Danny's own hazy glow.
She watched as he fiddled with the belt around his waist, immediately recognizing it as their mother's. Before she could ask him what he was doing with it, Danny spoke up.
"Remember I told you how that stone I found in the Ghost Zone amplifies my power?" He asked.
Jazz nodded. "Yeah."
"Well…" Slipping a hand into one of the pouches, he drew the stone out. Caught between his thumb and index finger, the gem shone like a fallen star.
Jazz stared. Her eyes tracked the stone until Danny closed his fist around it. "Is that why you took Mom's utility belt?" She wondered, raising an eyebrow.
The hybrid shrugged. "Sorta. My ghost form doesn't have any pockets and it was easier to stash it in the belt while I was carrying you."
"So then, when you're… human," It was distinctly disconcerting to describe her brother's strange state as something not entirely human and Jazz stumbled over the word, "and you put stuff in your pockets then what happens to it when you turn ghost?" She wanted to know.
Danny just stared at her like she'd grown an additional head.
"You do know how random you sounded just then, right?"
"Hey!" She cried indignantly. "It's a valid question!" But Danny was already turning away, studying the crystal in his hand and the ghost shield. He had a little smirk on his face though, which was how Jazz knew he was purposely ignoring her question.
'Boys.'
Danny raised a finger and pointed it at the museum. Jazz watched in muted fascination as her brother's finger lit with unearthly energy that was then directed toward the dome. The energy did not reflect back, instead it was absorbed into the shield, a fact that seemed to interest Danny, who leaned forward with an intrigued 'hmm'.
Jazz, however, was still thinking about how he'd fired off that ghost beam with such ease. Once, she'd asked him how exactly he manifested his powers: the whole idea of a ghostly super-powered teen had completely blown her mind. Danny however, had responded with an infuriating 'I just do it' or 'I just concentrate and make it happen.'
It was so frustrating that her brother got all these amazing powers and didn't even bother to figure out how they worked!
"Okay Jazz, I got it." Pulled out of her thoughts, Jazz looked up at the determined look on Danny's face. "When you touch the shield you feel just a hard surface right?" She nodded. He neared the shield and barely grazed his fingertips over it. There was a loud crackle and Jazz jumped, eyes widening at the sparks that leapt up to meet his hand. Danny simply grimaced.
"I feel a little shock," He said. That was little? Jazz wondered. Danny, oblivious to her thoughts, continued, "Which probably means it reacts to my energy and I might be able to break through it if I hit it hard enough. I want to get this right on the first try though. And I can't tire myself out before even getting into the museum." He paused for a second of thought. "If I fire an ectoblast through this." He held up the crystal between his thumb and index finger. "Then I should be able to blast a hole widen enough for you to use the… Fenton Jack." Jazz nearly giggled at the pained look on her brother's face as he forced out the name of their father's invention.
"Right. Got it." She nodded, though secretly she wondered if he was just pulling this theory out of thin air. It followed logic by only the slimmest margin—still, his idea was the only one they had at the moment. And they didn't exactly have the luxury of time on their side.
'It's already been… God, has it only been two days since Sam and Tucker were taken? Still… two days are two days too long…'
Jazz then watched as Danny held up the crystal in the palm of his hand. She about to point out how dangerous it would be hold the gem and shoot a beam through it at the same time; but then Danny slipped his hand out from under the stone and she gasped as it remained floating in the air, suspended on nothing.
'Is Danny doing that?' She wondered in awe. A glance at her brother confirmed that he didn't seem very surprised that the stone was now floating four feet off the ground.
Danny sent her a look.
"Ready?"
She held up the jack. "Ready."
But when Danny threw up his hands and sent a thick beam of green energy at the stone, Jazz was in no way prepared for ground shaking blast that shot out the other end.
The stone acted like a bullhorn would with sound, and the energy that Danny funnelled into it was amplified many, many times over, before shooting out in a blinding flash of white light.
Jazz cried out, instinctively crouching into a ball and shielded her eyes as the beam—impossibly bright and about the width of a school bus—struck the ghost-human shield with a resounding boom.
"JAZZ!" She heard Danny bellow over the screeching energy. "Do it! Do it NOW; I can't hold this!"
Throwing herself to her feet, Jazz forced her eyes open in time to see Danny's ectoblast fade away. He wobbled a bit, but Jazz didn't have time to worry about that as the hole he'd punched in the ghost shield was rapidly closing.
Leaping at the shield, Jazz thanked the stars that the Danny had aimed low enough that the rift opened onto the Earth. She slammed the gadget onto the soil and then jacked up the metal bar as far as it would go.
The rift shrank and the shield pushed down on Fenton Jack but, showing once more that their parents truly did know what they were doing, the jack somehow kept managed to maintain an opening just high and wide enough for someone to crawl through. Jazz grinned at their success and then turned back to her brother, who was holding his head with a somewhat dazed look on his face.
"You okay?" She asked.
"Yeah. Woo… head rush." His eyes came back into focus and he grinned at Jazz. "You got it to stay open! Awesome! So, you know the plan right?"
Jazz shifted. "I don't know, Danny. I really should come with you…"
Danny's expression turned from airy to serious in an instant. "No, Jazz. We already talked about that. If you come then I'll just be worrying; I won't be able to fight properly."
"I'll be there only to back you up. It's silly to think you can handle everything all by yourself all the time. Danny, I saw this ghost, it's huge. I've helped you in the past before, haven't I?—And don't you dare bring up the thermos incident because you know I've improved my aim."
"It's not about that," Danny countered, running an agitated hand through his hair. "Look, I'm not saying you can't help. I'm just saying that there's a… a limit to how much you can help." Danny winced even as he said these words, as though preparing himself for an indignant outburst.
Jazz though, couldn't find the will to get angry at her brother: much as his words irritated her pride, she understood what he was saying. Instead, she switched tactics.
"Still, I could help getting Sam and Tucker out while you distract the ghost."
"Jazz, from what you told me, the ghost is probably keeping them under the museum. How am I supposed to fly down there, find Sam and Tucker and then fly all three of you out while simultaneously fighting off whatever is bound to be chasing us?"
Jazz stalled. He had a good point.
"Besides, I need you to make sure the way out stays open." Danny pounded in the final nail, pointing a gloved finger at the modified car jack. "What if someone comes by and gets curious?" He spread his arms—shrugged.
Jazz pursed her lips and didn't reply. With brotherly ease, Danny read the expression and flashed a triumphant grin—which he quickly smothered when she shot him a glare.
"So now that you're on stake-out duty, do you have any—" Danny abruptly cut himself off with a loud gasp and Jazz frowned, starting towards him. An odd look crossed his face, but before she could ask anything, she blinked and Danny had disappeared.
"Danny?" She called in shock.
"Yeah?"
She spun around and there he was: a vaguely troubled furrow in his brow as he stuffed something into the pockets of his utility belt.
"What was that? You just disappeared and reappeared over there. You can't do that… Can you?" With Danny, one couldn't rule anything out. Maybe he simply turned in visible and flew over really quickly?
"Huh? What do you mean?" Danny sent her a quizzical look but, abruptly, realization dawned on his face. "Oh! No, it's nothing I just turned invisible." He shrugged and couldn't meet her eyes, a sure sign that he was lying. She bit back on her instinct to nag an answer out of him; instead, she sucked on her tongue in displeasure.
"Don't gimme that look." Danny sulked; lacking pockets into which he could shove his hands, he settled for crossed arms as he scuffed his foot on air. Jazz simply raised an eyebrow, which made him visibly grimace.
"Oh you're giving me the eyebrow now?" He raised his hands in surrender. "Look, I… It's nothi—Okay, so it wasn't really nothing. But I-I'll tell you about it later. Right now I kinda have a big creepy museum to ransack before sunrise. We can talk more later, 'kay?" He didn't even seem to be aware of his rambling. "Just, before I go in, take this." Patting down the utility belt, Danny found what he was looking for in one of the front pockets. Reaching in, he pulled out a short stick and tossed it to Jazz. She caught it, rather ungracefully, but managed not to drop the Jack-O'-Ninetails.
"You won't need this?" She inquired.
He gave a non-committal tilt of his head and shoulders. "Eh. I never use the thing. But I know it's one of your favourites." She pinked and he sent her a lopsided grin. Swooping down, he landed before the glowing dome and paused. Jazz saw his hands clench and frame stiffen as he drew in a deep breath.
"So you're really going in this alone?" She asked again. She really did hate being left behind every time.
"Sorry Jazz," Were the only words he offered. He got down on his belly, using his knees and forearms to worm his way through the hole held open by the Fenton Jack. He stood up on the other side and flashed her a wide grin through the swirling green of the ghost-human-shield. "I know what I'm doing; I fight ghosts all the time. This one's no different. Besides, I gotta save Sam and Tucker and maybe give a little payback of my own." He added, raising a glowing fist.
But if it was his intention to act cocky he was failing miserably. His grin was forced and his eyes were too wide.
Rather than point this out, Jazz said instead, "If anything goes wrong call me and I'll get Mom and Dad. I don't care if you want to keep your secret. You won't have a secret to keep if you're full ghost."
Danny gave her an appeasing smile and snapped off an exaggerated salute before turning and jumping into the air.
Then he was gone and all Jazz could do was wait. Wait and worry.
'Experience or not, Danny's just a kid. What sort of a sister sends her kid brother off to God knows what kind of danger?'
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There was a twitch in Danny's right eye that refused to go away no matter how much he squinted.
Passing intangibly through the front doors of the museum, Danny touched down in the centre of the main hall.
The skeleton of some large dinosaur leered creepily with its eyeless sockets and brown teeth. The central help desk was lit, but devoid of life. No guards, no movement no sound in the vast, eerie room. Taking a few steps forward, his shoes caused a pattering echo. It was dark, but the dim glow of backup and security lights were enough that Danny didn't have to conjure a ghostly torch. He was glad for this. He had a feeling he'd need to conserve all his energy for what he was about to do.
'Going to do… Still have so much to get done…' The task seemed monstrously colossal as it loomed over him. 'Find Sam… find Tucker… don't get eaten…'
Then, he shook his head.
'Wow, haven't even started the fight and already I'm psyching myself out.' Danny laughed off his nerves, doing a little jig to work the stiffness out of his arms and legs. 'Pull yourself together Fenton. You gotta save Sam and Tucker.'
Fingers going to one of the pouches on his mother's utility belt, Danny stroked the outline of Clockwork's medallion through the material. The Time Master had appeared to Danny right before he'd entered the museum. Jazz had seen Danny disappear from one spot only to instantly reappear in another—disappearing from the time stream tended to do that—but she hadn't guessed the truth. Oh she was suspicious, but what was new there?
Jazz still did not know that the creature they were facing was no ghost and that it had been the very same monster that had razed Amity Park over twenty years ago. And Danny had no intention of enlightening her to either point. Besides, it wasn't like he was jumping in completely alone; Clockwork had given him a way to call for help:
"So this is your choice?" Clockwork had asked Danny once he'd unfrozen the hybrid from the halted time stream.
It had taken Danny a moment to realize time had just stopped, and another moment to understand the question, but when he did he nodded decisively. "I won't let Legion get this stone. So I'm going to save Sam and Tucker." His eyes strayed to his sister: frozen with a frown on her face and one hand outstretched.
Clockwork considered him for a moment before pulling out a time medallion from his cloak.
"Take this." The elder ghost had said. "My power, like that of all ghosts, is muted by the influence of Legion. However, if you call me with this I will be able to come to you. Only use it in time of desperate need."
Danny had taken the medallion gratefully. "Will I succeed?" He couldn't help but ask.
"That, my young charge, is something only you can answer."
Clockwork hadn't yielded any further explanations. The ghost merely raised his staff, disappearing back into the Ghost Zone before unfreezing time, leaving Danny to deal with his bemused sister.
She had looked worried. Worried and upset—probably because she'd known he was lying to her. Jazz always knew when Danny was lying. It was irritating.
Having run out of memory to reminisce without feeling like he was unnecessarily stalling the inevitable, Danny came back to the present. He took to the air and sped off through a shadowy archway, heading in toward the cursed room where he'd first met the Hound.
The cavernous halls of the museum were maze-like and endless. Dozens of exhibits flashed by: rooms of glittering gems, glass walls caging beasts with beady eyes and bared teeth. The bestial statues and open sarcophagi of the Egyptian exhibit were especially eerie in the dead silence and dim lighting. Danny flew quickly. He had a strong impression that the shadows were moving with him, and that he'd heard the mummy take a dusty breath. But he stifled these fears, forced his eyes forward, and flew even faster.
Despite having been there only once, Danny found the anthropology exhibit with relative ease. It was like a hand on his mind had guided him there.
Ropes and yellow police tape barred the entrance. Danny barely even spared them a glance as he flew into the room, intangible.
The moment he hit the threshold, Danny fell instantly out of the air, landing on his hands and knees as he coughed harshly. The very air suffocated him. An unnatural cold permeated the place with a frigid chill that made goosebumps rise on his arms even though he was still in ghost mode. He held his hands over his lower face, drawing in a breath through his mouth. He gagged, but forced the breath down and after that first inhale the rest were easier. He stood.
The room was just as he remembered: giant windows that ran wall-to-wall, floor-to-ceiling, were covered with heavy curtains, granite pedestals were overturned, broken into pieces that littered the ground. A crude tapestry hung across one wall, depicting a morbid ritual. Pale moonlight slanted in through the gaps in the curtains, bathing the destruction in an ethereal glow.
Yet the room was completely empty. No Sam, no Tucker, not even the whisper of wind that had preceded the Hound.
Nothing.
Danny landed on a spot of tiled floor that wasn't covered in rubble and looked around.
Why was it so quiet? Where was the Hound, the epic fight? The muscles in Danny's back stiffened as his hands clenched into trembling fists.
No wind. No sound. Save for a lingering chill and a feeling of deep paranoia, the room was perfectly normal.
Danny clenched his teeth, stared around himself with simmering eyes. He was tempted to shout out his presence to the air, but at the very last moment his throat constricted, seizing his voice before it could pass his lips.
A thrill of fear cinched his heart. He didn't want Legion to find him. He didn't want to fight that monster again.
'There. Go there.'
Danny's eyes were drawn to a spot of dark metal—iron or pewter—on the ground near the other end of the room. Floating over, he landed on one knee near the thing. It was circular and bulged outward, with strange writing around which were seven spherical depressions.
On a whim, Danny took out his phone and snapped a picture of the lid. He'd watched enough mystery movies to know that cryptic, fancy writing was always important.
'Through it… Through it…'
Danny followed the thought: leaning over and putting his head straight through the metal lid.
Opening his eyes on the other side, Danny was met with utter black and the musty smell of old paper and dust. Steeling his nerves, Danny phased himself completely through the lid.
It was like being dropped into a giant ink jar. His ghostly aura allowed him to see his own fingertips but nothing beyond that. Blinking, he floated awkwardly in the vain hope that his eyes would adjust. The utter pitch black seemed to press in on him—suffocating him.
'I wonder if Mom packed a flashlight in here?' He rummaged through the utility belt strapped to his hips. Eventually he hit paydirt in the form of a slim headlamp. Mentally thanking his mother's foresight, he wasted no time in pulling the strap around his head and switching the light on.
A circle of yellow was illuminated before him and he realized he was floating among the rafters, nose centimetres away from a long plank of wood.
Descending, his hands were raised defensively as he twisted his head around. Amongst the shadows, he could make out many thick pillars of stone. Far below was a brown, plain-looking floor.
Strewn all over and stacked in chaotic order were innumerable boxes, crates, draped objects. Wrapped paintings leaned against pedestals crowned by gold vases. Mannequins, both naked and clothed, were piled up: random limbs sticking out bizarrely. All of it reminded Danny of a prop house in a theatre—except many times larger, and many times creepier.
Also—Danny's eyes caught on the tusked skull of some large animal that leered at him through empty eye sockets—these weren't props.
He swallowed.
Picking a direction, he flew forward and eventually found himself at a wall of sloped concrete. Looking down, he saw that the wall opened up into a cavernous hallway. Swooping down, he floated through the archway and into the much narrower corridor.
The ceiling was high, but the walls closed in around Danny. There was a distant echoing of water dripping somewhere and the smell of dusty mould was thick in the air. 'Dusty' was an understatement; Danny could see the motes drifting so densely that he had to resist the urge to cover his nose when he inhaled. To his left and right he could see more arching gateways set into the walls. Some of these were bricked up, but others opened up into more rooms, all filled with more random objects from old museum exhibits. Sometimes he caught sight of the labels on the crates—CHIROPTERA, MONOCOTYLEDON, PACHYDERMATA.
'What is this place?' He wondered as he passed a room of murky, fluid-filled jars. 'A glorified grave for old museum stuff?'
As he flew, he drifted gradually downward until he was gliding only a few feet off the ground. Staying close to a hard surface calmed him somewhat. The light from headlamp only illuminated a very thin area of the room, everything else remained pitch black.
Eventually he came to a fork in the hall: the right path lead to a single room stuffed with enough boxes to make the Box Ghost weep with joy while the left was a continuation of the hall. Danny went left.
The next time the path split, his choice was not so easy: both forks led down into a hazy gloom impenetrable by his light. Something was telling him to take the left path again though, so he listened.
Again and again, like a maze, the hall split and turned off into different direction. Danny yielded to instinct. Left, left, right, middle, second from the right… He eventually stopped even trying to remember the path. After he found Sam and Tucker he could just fly them through the ceiling, anyway.
'Left… go left. Now right. No, don't turn here…' It was so quiet he could even hear the buzzing of the headlamp on his forehead.
Plick
Plick
The sound of dripping water was getting louder, and the hair on his neck stood up with anticipation.
'Does it know I'm here?'
A low moan made Danny jerk in the air and instinctively turn himself invisible. He listened carefully.
Uuhnng…
Uuhnng…
The guttural sounds were getting louder and Danny had no intention of being around when whatever-it-was showed up. In an instant he had turned and fled down the hallway.
Uuhnng!
Forgoing caution for speed, Danny tore around the bends of the halls, a rift of dust rising in his wake. Something was following him. In his mind's eye, Danny saw a flash of yellow, clawed hands reaching for him and poured on even more speed.
Uhng!
A shadow fell over him and Danny veered to the right, turning intangible just in time to phase through a wall. He ended up in an entirely different room and halted. Invisible, he stifled his erratic breathing with one hand over his mouth as he forced his back against the wall, nearly melding into it. He took a deep breath, held it. And listened.
…Nothing.
Letting out a sigh of relief, Danny looked around himself for the first time.
The dripping was loudest here. Directing his light upward, he saw that the ceiling was not that high, and it was lined in rusty pipes. One pipe had cracked and was leaking steadily onto the floor. A layer of dampness coated everything. Looking closer at the pipes, Danny saw that they extended over the wall, curling downward. He followed one of the larger pipes then froze when the green light glinted off something metallic.
Chains. Metal bindings that lead down to two pairs of wrists. Danny's breath caught as he followed those wrists down to two familiar faces.
"Sam! Tucker!" He couldn't help his cry of joy as he swopped down to his best friends. His feet landed with an odd, echoing splash in the shallow water and he placed his hands on the cheeks of his friends. "C'mon guys, wake up." He pleaded. But Sam and Tucker were cold as stone and unresponsive. In a fit of panic, Danny's hand flew to Sam's neck, shaking badly as he search for a pulse. He nearly sagged as he found it: strong and stable. Switching to Tucker, he sighed in relief at the pulsing beat he felt under his fingers.
"Now to get you out." He told them; and with a flicker of energy, he'd phased his friends out of their restraints. They crumpled limply to the ground, but Danny seized their wrists—one in each hand—and prepared to fly them out.
"You came back."
Danny nearly jumped out of his skin at the unexpected voice. Spinning around, he had to let go of Sam and Tucker, who slumped, boneless, against the wall. Then he gasped when he came nearly nose-to-nose with a woman who looked very familiar. He looked over the woman's shoulder and saw her male partner.
"Y-you… you're that couple I saw the first time I came here." His heart was thumping in his chest, every instinct he had was telling him to grab Sam and Tucker and leave. But when the woman's hand came up to his face and stroked down one side, all thought fled him as he grimaced at the sensation.
Her hand had the consistency of water, yet it left the feeling of worms crawling across his skin in its wake.
"So alive…" The woman gaped at him and Danny stared at her in response.
"What are you?" He whispered. Not ghosts. They couldn't be, his sense hadn't gone off.
"We are the damned." Came the man's voice. And Danny suddenly realized that they were not alone. All around, more people were rising out of the water and shuffling toward him. Danny recoiled, reaching for Sam and Tucker, but another man—with a tall stature and bulk that towered over Danny's gangly form—grasped Danny by the upper arms and pushed him away.
Instantly, Danny went intangible, and there was a series of loud gasps as he slipped right through the man's fingers.
He saw that other figures were moving to surround Sam and Tucker. Some leaned over them, while others grasped their wrists, presumably to chain them up again. All Danny saw though was the way his friends' breathing suddenly became laboured as the not-ghosts' fingers brushed them.
"You leave them alone!" Danny cried and, still intangible, moved to walk through the man between him and his friends.
The instant his body came in contact with the man's though Danny was crying out in anguish and falling backwards clutching his head.
It was like thrusting his hand into a fire pit. He could not pass through these people. A blanket of agony had covered his mind and screams filled his ears until he thought he'd go deaf. There was physical pain, but it was compounded by the mental anguish that tore at his brain.
Completely disoriented, Danny failed to see the people converge on him. And it was only once he felt their hands on his face and arms that he looked up.
They were countless people, of all sizes, of all ethnicities, of all ages. And they poked and prodded him like he was some sort of fascinating creature. One dark man with hands like rawhide passed his hand over Danny's cheek and lips and the teen recoiled at the sent of rotting flesh, only to press up on a girl with platinum hair and eerie blue eyes that stared up at him beseechingly.
"So alive…" They whispered.
"Get away! What are you!" Danny cried, trying to twist away from their grasp and failing. One thick hand passed over his neck and then tightened with incredible strength. Once again, Danny turned intangible, but ended up screaming as he fell through someone else, torment and pain wracking his mind. He fell to the ground and used this as an opportunity to scuttle back as far as possible. He broke through the crowd then immediately scrambled to his feet, holding his hands out in warning. They continued to shuffle toward him regardless.
"We are the damned, the souls of Legion. The doomed ones." Came his response.
"You too, are damned." Said the woman from before. "Join us in our torment." Fingers pulled at his hands in a mockery of the way a parent encourages a child to follow them and Danny yanked his hands away. Backing up, he froze when his shoulders struck a large, broad chest.
A hand clamped down on his right shoulder and stars exploded in Danny's vision as pain sparked down his shoulder.
"See? You bear the mark of Ahriman. You are already one of us."
Danny curled in on himself, holding down his seizing right hand with his left.
"No…"
"Come with us. We will make you immortal." Hands cupped his chin and raised his head to meet a pair of watery eyes that looked like they were drowning in anguish.
"NO!" Gathering his power around him, Danny let both ice and ghost energy explode out in all directions, blowing everyone and everything away.
Hands on his knees, Danny gasped for air. He didn't like attacking these people: their faces were so human. Yet Danny reminded himself that they weren't human, at least, not anymore. Simply glancing into their disturbed, insane eyes made that point very clear. These were tortured souls. They may have been innocent once but now they just existed to drag others into their special brand of hell.
Danny's hands clenched into his fists and he looked up, searching the room for Sam and Tucker. His headlamp had come off in the struggle and now lay dead and useless in the water. Fortunately, Danny's own white aura combined with the pale grey light surrounding the souls and the watery reflections on the walls were enough to see. His eyes softened in relief when he saw them propped up against a crate and he started in their direction.
"You dare." The hissing voice stopped him cold and he raised his eyes in dread to one of the many people slowly picking themselves up of the ground.
An involuntary cry escaped his lips when he saw one of their faces.
Eyeballs of the blackest coal stared at him through emaciated faces. Teeth, filed down to points, were stuffed into lipless mouths.
It was like he was once more seeing the evil doppelganger that haunted his dreams.
Except this was no dream.
One of the creatures leapt bodily at him and Danny yelled, crossing his arms in front of him. His power seemed to know what to do for him and a ghostly dome snapped into being around him. The monster ran headlong into the shield, scrapping at the dome and letting loose an inhuman screech. Another creature started beating on the shield and Danny threw his arms out, rapidly expanding the shield and pushing them back once more.
Danny took advantage of them being momentary stunned and belted towards Sam and Tucker. One of the creatures came flying at him but he managed to dodge and brought his leg out in a vicious roundhouse kick, catching the thing in the jaw and tossing it back. But in his distraction, he didn't see a set of claws descending towards him and screamed as they tore over the side of his neck and upper chest. Green ectoplasm oozed from the cuts, but Danny didn't have time to think about it as another monster tried to sink its teeth into his arm.
Picking the lesser of two evils, Danny turned himself intangible. Almost immediately, one of the vengeful spirits came leaping through him and he bit his lip at the awful sensation. Wasting no time, he flew to Sam and Tucker, scooped them up and flew through the wall.
A bloodcurdling screech followed their departure.
Danny continued flying through walls, passing what looked like discarded weapons and broken pottery, then through a room with what could have been models of animals. He hadn't bothered to use his powers to create a light, so he was only able to see the few inches before and around him that his ghostly aura illuminated.
Inarticulate cries of anger followed him at every turn. Sometimes he saw a flash of teeth or a glinting eye. He didn't know how the creatures were able to move so fast.
He swerved and yelled when he came face to face with a lipless, grinning visage. Danny couldn't stop; he went right through the creature with a pained cry and kept going.
Finally he arrived at the long hallway and that was when rational thought caught up to him.
'Straight up,' was Danny's revelation as he headed upward. Relief flooded him as he gained the advantage of altitude.
A triumphant squeal and the scraping of nails behind him made Danny's head snap around. The creature was scampering sideways along the wall. Danny's eyes widened and he was about to speed through the ceiling when a sudden chill made him double over in surprise.
He gasped. Then he coughed.
Incredulous green eyes stared at the blue smoke curling from his mouth.
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End Chapter 23
To Be Continued…
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Cliffhanger of DOOM! Hehehehe…
I didn't get around to replying to reviews by mail, so I'll add a few comments here:
Phanfan925: EEK! I love your penname! And oh, if you were screaming after that LAST chapter… hehehe
smallvillephantom14: I'm glad you enjoyed the last chapter. Danny's Grandmum being a spirit medium was a completely unplanned thing, to tell the truth XD That scene was supposed to have gone a lot different but I'm liking this better… much better (evil grin). I hope you liked this chapter too! It's very Oktober-esque :3
Princess of Rose: Oh wow, thank you! I was a bit worried that the last chapter wasn't exciting enough or that it was too dialogue-heavy, so it's wonderful to hear that you liked it! As for how Jack can be so easygoing… well, as I see it there are two options: either he really IS that well-adjusted or… there's something more underneath that veneer of simpleness ;D
Rogue Alice: Thanks! And I hope you had lots of fun with this update :D
A Spirit of the Stars: Ohmygoodness! Your review was totally AWESOME! I LOVED reading your theories; although I am sorry I can't answer your questions; I'm itching to, but I can't—I'd spoil the story. But I can say that you are a very observant reader…SO, so awesome. I can't express just how much you made my day with this review :D And I hope you enjoyed this chapter (did you read it at night? :3)
Master of Minds: Hehehehehe, oh yes… INTENSE (evil grin).
As usual, you guys are all AWESOME. I hope everyone has a happy thanksgiving (or, if you're not celebrating, like me, then simply a happy weekend =P) and please, please, PLEASE review! I really want to hear all your opinions on this part of the story!
Adio!