Ghost Slayers

Chapter Thirty-six

By Relm

After work Val had a satisfied smile on his as he headed to his car. This was a scary sight as the English professor rarely smiled. Usually he was angry about something. So it was more common to see a frown or a scowl on his face.

Those that saw the professor kept their distance. If Val was smiling something horrible was bound to happen. Why was Val so happy? He had a date tonight.

Though one could argue that the only reason why Val was happy was he thought he was stealing Xellos' date. And that was true to a certain degree. But it had also been a long time since Val had been on a date.

Val was a handsome man but he usually scared the women he met. His only hope for a social life was blind dates. However most people chose not to offer to set Val up on a date. You would have to hate your female friend a lot to set her up with him.

There was a bit of a skip to Val's step as he got to his car. He tried to imagine what his date would look like. In his mind Gracia was tall with long lustrous hair and sexy bedroom blue eyes and Val wasn't far off with his picture.

Val also imagined he would so dashing and charming that he would make Gracia swoon. He even had his outfit picked out in his head too. He decided he was going to wear his dark gray suit, pale yellow dress shirt and his gray-silver striped tie.

In Val's mind there was no way he mess things up. He was a sexy beast after all.

...

Amelia nervously looked back and forth between the clock and her co-workers. Since deciding the bullet was a dead end the rest of the Ghost Slayers joined Amelia in the office.

"Why do you keep doing that?" Lina snapped at Amelia after watching the youngest Ghost Slayers' eyes dart around for the last ten minutes.

"Doing what?" Amelia wondered while giggling nervously.

"You keep looking at that damned clock!" Lina barked.

"She's nervous because her sister is going to be going out with my step-brother tonight." Filia explained. "And she should be nervous, because I'm probably going to end up killing her for it." She glared daggers at Amelia while stating this. Filia knew that the date was going to be a disaster. And how could it not? Naga was the most annoying woman in the world. And even though Filia acted like she didn't like for her step-brother the truth was she really did care for him. 'That big chested bimbo better not hurt Val!'

Lina unconsciously shuddered thinking about Naga. "That's nice and all but we have other things to worry about. Like Xellos' car."

"What about it?" Xellos retorted almost defensively. He couldn't remember his car but that didn't stop him from feeling like he needed to defend it.

"It's sitting in the University parking lot. You're supposed to be home sick. If someone sees it and realizes it shouldn't be there that could cause us problems. We need to move it."

"How are we going to do that? We don't have his car keys." Amelia protested. "You're not meaning to break into the car and hotwire it are you?"

"No." Lina rolled her eyes. In a pinch she could steal a car easily but she had put those days behind her. "Xellos empty out your pockets."

"Miss Lina even if he has his keys won't they be transparent like him?" Sylphiel questioned her boss in confusion.

"Remember Zel's newspaper? I bet if he puts something down what he was attacked with it be physical again once he let's go of it." Lina explained.

Xellos frowned as he looked at Lina sceptically. "If I do that you will have my car keys."

"So?"

"Then you would take my car."

"Well that's the point; we need to move your car."

"What if I don't want you to drive my car?" Xellos retorted stubbornly while crossing his arms across his chest.

"For crying out loud! We're trying to help us and you're not even going to let us drive your car, which you can't even drive in your current state as it is?" Lina exclaimed in annoyance.

"Well I don't want anyone to ruin it." Xellos huffed.

"Do you even remember what kind of car you drive?"

"No." Xellos admitted. "But I know it's a nice car."

"How the hell can you know that?"

"Because I would only own nice things." He rationalized smugly.

Filia felt her blood boil at that comment. Though Xellos didn't remember the name of his car and wasn't meaning as a jab at Filia she still was irked by it. Xellos may have a car with licence plate 'FILIA' but he sure as hell didn't own her. That being said Filia still had to bite her tongue to prevent herself from snapping at that comment. Instead she chose to bark orders at the ghostly professor. "Empty your pockets!"

The notable anger in Filia's voice tipped off Xellos that his car was a sore spot with the blond ghost slayer. This made him both curious and amused. "Oh? Is there a reason you want to drive my car?"

"No I don't care about your stupid car!" Filia fumed.

"I'm sure she's sleek sexy and fun to ride." Xellos wiggled his eyebrows suggestively.

This made Filia want to scream. She tried to hit Xellos with a phone book but it just went through him. "GRAAAH!"

"My my, so hostile. You must really hate my sexy baby. I have no idea why, I'm sure she purrs like a kitten when you turn her on." Xellos couldn't remember why Filia would get upset for him saying this but he knew he should say it.

Filia was ready to tackle Xellos but Lina and Sylphiel were quick to stop her. It's not like the blond Ghost Slayer would have really hurt the ghostly professor but there was a good chance Filia would have either hurt herself or destroy the room. That left Lina and Sylphiel desperately trying to hold her back.

"Filia stop this now!" Lina screamed. "It's not like he remembers his stupid car! He doesn't know why saying this crap would annoy you he just knows it does! You can't even hurt him!"

"Please Miss Filia stop this!" Sylphiel pleaded with Filia.

"Fine!" Filia growled as she shook off Lina and Sylphiel's hold on her.

"Give us the keys Xellos." Lina glared at Xellos.

Xellos just smiled but chose to not oblige.

Lina looked to Zelgadis pleadingly hoping he'd know what she wanted without saying it out loud.

Zelgadis got the message loud and clear and he rolled his eyes in response. He didn't say anything as he walked over behind Xellos and shoved him down to the table.

"HEY!" Xellos protested. "I do not like being manhandled!"

Zelgadis ignored Xellos' protests and proceeded to search through the professor's pockets. It didn't take Zelgadis long to find Xellos keys and quickly tossed them on the table.

The keys made a strange noise as they hit the table. Or rather it was a lack of a noise. They were transparent as they hit the table surface but acted just how a set of keys would react just no sound.

Everyone in the room watched in silence waiting for something to happen. For a couple moments it seemed that the keys were going to stay in the state they were and not change. Lina was just about to make a comment when keys started to change. Within seconds it changed consistency becoming real solid metal keys.

"It worked!" Lina exclaimed in joy. It was nice to finally have something go right for once.

Xellos frowned in confusion as he pulled an identical set of keys out his pocket. He looked at the transparent set in his equally transparent hands and the now solid set on the table. "This is unexpected."

"Not really. That happened to me with the newspaper." Zelgadis explained while pulling out the same newspaper he had on him when Lina and company zapped him the first time. It was possible that when Zelgadis was attacked he had that newspaper on him. That didn't exactly make much sense as Zelgadis had been reading in the library when the book grabbed him. And what he had been reading wasn't the newspaper. But during his loop he did have the paper when he was zapped. "I've been trying to do the crossword puzzle but I'm stuck. I would like to try another one but this stupid paper is the only thing I can hold."

Xellos was still sceptical about Zelgadis' explanation so he threw the set of keys he had in his hand and threw them on the table. The landed next to the first set and disappeared. Xellos then searched his pockets once more and found another identical set of keys. "Very strange..."

"So who is going to drive Mister Xellos' car?" Amelia wondered.

"I think I should decide as it is my car after all." Xellos huffed with his arms crossed.

"Sylphiel you're driving." Lina decided.

"Excuse me I just said I should decide!" Xellos protested.

"And I don't care. It's not like you remember much about us, but I'm pretty sure you'd want the safest driver driving your car. Amelia would be too scared to drive the car, Filia would want to crash it and I'm too tired to drive. So who would pick?" Lina raised her eyebrow at Xellos.

Sylphiel timidly raised her hand. "What if I'm also too afraid to drive the car?"

"Sylphiel!" Lina scowled.

"Well it's a fast car... I've never driven a car like that." Sylphiel replied meekly shrinking in her seat.

"You're driving, end of story!" Lina stated rather forcefully. "Amelia you go with her so you can drive her car back."

"But we were both just at the university!" Amelia protested while groaning.

"I don't care! Geesh! What's the point of being boss if no one is going to listen to you when you give orders?" Lina grumbled.

"Don't worry Miss Lina we'll get the car." Sylphiel reassured her boss. "But I'm going to drive as slow as possible so it might be a while."

"Whatever as long as you get the car here."

"They should probably check the car for clues." Zelgadis suggested.

"Yeah what he said." Lina added on.

"Alright we're going. We'll see you guys later." And with that Sylphiel and Amelia went towards the stairs leading down leaving the remaining Ghost Slayers and ghosts still in the office.

"So what are we going to do about them?" Filia asked Lina while motioning to their ghostly friends.

"I don't know... Something tells me leaving them alone would be troublesome." Lina mused.

"Excuse me! I'm not a trouble maker!" Zelgadis exclaimed in disgust. There was no way anyone could accuse him of being a bad 'ghost' – he had tried to be good and do everything he was told. It wasn't his fault that he got scared a couple times and that a poltergeist decided to possess him.

"You're right, you're not. But I can't say the same for Slimer and Xellos." Lina glared at the two troublemakers. "If either one of them scares you you'll end up popping up next to me."

"I wonder where I'd pop up if I got frightened..." Xellos pondered the notion while getting far too close to Filia. "Perhaps to my darling Filia?"

"I am not your anything!" Filia screamed while trying to swat her ghostly irritator.

"Yeah definitely not leaving them unsupervised..." Lina concluded. "I'm going to stay."

Filia snapped out of her rage to stare at her boss with concerning eyes. "That's not a good idea. You should go home and rest."

"I really don't feel up to driving or doing anything. So I may as well stay here." Lina explained. "I am hungry though so I think I'm going to order some food."

"Okay but remember... we haven't gotten those cheques cashed yet." Filia reminded her in a chiding voice.

Lina frowned in disgust. She had actually forgotten about that. Given their cash flow situation she really shouldn't be ordering food. But it couldn't be helped. "Well maybe Zel and I can do that ghost scheme that that teller was accusing me off." Lina mumbled to herself as she grabbed the phone and stack of take out menus.

"What scheme?" Filia wondered.

"Oh nothing!" Lina laughed nervously. She fanned out the menus for Filia to see. "Pick the one you think will be the cheapest."