To those who hate cliffhangers, I'm not sorry for the last chapter. Well, maybe a little. But not a lot. Making all of you squirm a little is fun. Plus it was the best place to stop. But at least I have another chapter for your enjoyment and to get you past that horrible cliffhanger I left you with last time.
I am happy, however, that everyone seemed to like how the chapter turned out. I was hoping that people would like it. Thanks for all the wonderful feedback.
As the newest caseworker for the deceased, we wish to welcome you to your new job and hope that you enjoy this highly rewarding task. Remember that just because you are dead does not mean that you cannot find fulfillment in your afterlife by assisting other ghosts navigate through the challenges of their hauntings. Your exact duties and responsibilities will be listed below.
In addition, a new recruit has recently joined us and it has been decided that he will serve as your assistant. You are responsible for ensuring his behavior remains professional and helpful. Even with his status as a poltergeist, some complications in regards to his name, and some of his past history in regards to working alongside others, we are confident that you will be able to handle him.
-Excerpt from an in-office note addressed to Juno Daelman
"Ma'am? Number 9,998,383,750,000 doesn't seem to be in the Waiting Room."
She resisted the urge to rub her temple in frustration. Of course he was missing his appointment. He makes a giant mess among the living and dead, she cleans it up and smoothes things over so that the higher ups didn't rain horrible punishments on his insane head, and she even sends someone to drag his sorry hide out of the gullet of a sandworm, but he couldn't even manage to sit still for two years.
She'd hoped sticking him in the Waiting Room would buy her some time before his next disaster, letting her bosses cool down a bit and forget about his latest exploit. She'd hoped it would keep him out of trouble. She'd hoped to at least delay his next stupid stunt for awhile. But that would be far too easy.
He just couldn't stay out of trouble and, as always, it was somehow her job to handle him. At first, it was because she was the newest caseworker and the more senior members didn't want to get near the poltergeist that was somehow recruited. Then later on, it was because she kept him as an assistant for decades when everyone expected an explosive and chaotic fallout after a week. Now, it was because she had experience and, on the rare days he felt like being less troublesome than usual, he sometimes listened to her. It wasn't exactly fair she was continuously responsible for that annoying headache of a ghost, but she'd long since grown accustomed to that. Life wasn't fair, so why should the afterlife be any different?
Twisting the cigarette between her fingers, she blew out a cloud of smoke reluctantly. She'd have to handle this. She couldn't just let him run amuck after his wedding stunt without at least trying to force some sense into his head. And there was no way to predict what kind of chaos he'd caused in the last two years.
"Push back my appointments or move them to another caseworker," she ordered. "Then pull the most recent additions to his file. I better figure out what mess I have to clear up now."
Tucker was really growing to hate Sanduleak. First he decided to throw him across the pavement twice. Then he threw the boy at the other ghost, treating him like an inanimate object. And now, after tackling the creep to stop him from stabbing Lydia, Sanduleak threw him, Danny, and Sam back onto the glass-covered blacktop. Explaining away all the cuts and bruises to his parents later wasn't going to be fun.
Landing on his back hard, Tucker rolled to his side in time to spot Sanduleak trying to slash or clobber Lydia with his weapons. She was barely dodging his strikes, the boy wincing in sympathy with each near miss. She only slowed for a fraction of a second, yelling out a word that the boy could barely understand. And that slight hesitation was all that Sanduleak needed, his cane making contact with the side of her head. The force of impact spun her around and she crumbled to the ground like a sack of stones.
"No!" shouted Danny, blasting the poltergeist as he tried to follow up with the knife.
The quick slash to the throat was barely prevented as Sanduleak was knocked back. Lydia didn't move, lying limply like a ragdoll in a way that made Tucker's chest clench. Danny placed himself between the still figure and the swiftly recovering murderous ghost. The teenager was breathing hard, though Tucker wasn't certain if that was due to exhaustion or anger.
"Stay back," he growled. "I mean it. Just stay away."
"Did I do it? Did I silence her in time?" asked Sanduleak, a desperate and frantic look on his face now.
Too fast to spot in time, a mass of metal slammed into the ghost, wrapping around him like snakes. Only when he spotted the tires still attached did Tucker recognize it as a bike. At least, it used to be a bike. In less than a second, it was coiled tightly around Sanduleak and warped beyond the capability for anyone to ever ride again.
"No," snarled a rough, gravelly, furious voice.
Tucker turned and nearly jumped out of his skin. The other ghost, the one who was previously lying in the gutter like a pile of trash after that last impact, was upright again. Actually, he was more than upright. He was floating a few inches off the ground. His eyes were locked on Lydia's still form before slowly turning towards Sanduleak. And while he was still tired-looking, the hints of pain were gone. All that remain was completely and utter fury.
Before, Tucker had wondered about his title. The Ghost With The Most what? Power? Impressive reputation? Victories? Dates? Visitors to his website?
Now he knew. The Ghost With The Most Terror-Inducing Appearance When Seriously Ticked Off and Who Can Probably Make You Regret Ever Being Born.
"Be—" started Sanduleak before the other ghost crossed the distance instantly to grab his throat, silencing him.
"Two words," the blond ghost snarled, glaring at the terrified poltergeist in his grip as if he wanted to eviscerate him. "Sandworm bait."
He practically hurled Sanduleak away in disgust, the ghost and mangled bike vanishing before he hit the ground. Tucker didn't know where he went or how bad a sandworm might be, but he had a strong feeling that Sanduleak was getting off easy at the moment and would receive a more appropriate retribution later. As angry as the blond poltergeist might be with him at the moment, the murderous ghost was clearly of secondary importance and an unwanted distraction that could be dealt with at another time.
As he turned away from where he tossed Sanduleak, Tucker could see the instant the blond ghost shifted his attention back to the girl. The boy could feel his racing, pounding heart slow as the unbridled fury evaporated, leaving the poltergeist far less terrifying.
Tucker knew he wasn't exactly the guy who watched all those emotional chick flicks that always seemed to end with the audience in tears, but he wasn't a complete idiot when it came to empathy either. The look on the ghost in that instant heart-breaking and flew directly in the face of everything the teenager expected after all the talk about the infamous Ghost With The Most. There was too much dread, worry, and guilt in that expression. The poltergeist wasn't levitating and looming anymore. He was approaching the girl with a mixture of desperation and hesitation, as if he needed to reach her and was scared of what he might see upclose.
"Lyds?" he croaked, crouching beside the girl. "Come on, Babes."
Tucker could understand the trepidation in his voice. She was so still. There was blood from numerous small scratches caused by the broken glass, similar to the injuries that marked the other humans present. The worse was the spot on the side of her head where Sanduleak hit her. It was already a mess, blood matting her hair and making it impossible to see how bad the damage might be.
They should call someone, an ambulance, but Tucker couldn't bring himself to interrupt the ghost and his palpable distress. The poltergeist didn't even seem to notice his witnesses and none of them were prepared to draw his focus. They were practically frozen as he gently reached towards the prone body, but not quite touching her.
"Lyds, don't you dare," he said quietly. "I did not just go through that mess for some sorry excuse for a poltergeist to…"
Even if Tucker ignored the age differences and reminded himself that everyone called her the "Mortal Bride," the ghost still didn't look at her like a potential love interest. He also didn't look at her like she was a damaged prized possession. The expression was more how Jazz looked at Danny when he was hit hard during a fight and didn't immediately fly back into action. Or how Danny looked at his two best friends when things got too dangerous for non-ghost-powered people. The poltergeist truly cared about Lydia. Just not as a bride.
"Lydia, please," the ghost said, a hint of resignation and sorrow creeping into his voice.
As Tucker's throat tightened at the idea that Sanduleak succeeded in his plans for her after all, the poltergeist finally touched her blood-matted head gently and a pained moan renewed the hope in all those gathered. Tucker exchanged looks with Danny and Sam, but the blond ghost's gaze never left the girl. The trio allowed themselves to edge a little closer and spotted the exact moment Lydia returned to proper consciousness.
"Ow…" she groaned, reaching gingerly towards the swelling and bleeding lump on her head. "That hurt." Eyes still closed, she mumbled, "Didn't die, right? Wouldn't hurt this much."
"No, but you're lucky I haven't had a pulse in centuries because that would have certainly stopped it," said the poltergeist, his scolding tone not hiding the intense relief in his voice at all. "Do you really want to end up as a ghost at your age? Stuck in the middle of puberty forever? No, Lyds. You're avoiding that until at least you're ninety and you're definitely going out with more style than getting hit by some smug serial killer ghost with the creativity of a kumquat. Because there's no way I'd associate with someone who gets killed like that. I have a reputation, Babes. You have to have better standards than that."
Her eyes flew open at his rather speedy rant, a smile erupting on her face at the sight of the poltergeist. All the smiles Tucker had seen on her before, which were rare and far apart, were weak things. It was as if she couldn't scrape together enough positive feeling to manage anything better and that a heavy sadness was weighing her down. The loss of her family could account for some of it, but he suspected not all.
This smile, however, wasn't like the others. This was a real, complete, and truly happy smile. Even the blood and forming bruises couldn't disguise the uninhibited joy. And it was apparently caused by the presence of the guy who looked like an animated corpse.
"Beej," she said, looking like she wanted nothing more than to tackle him in a hug if it wasn't for the fact she had a bleeding head injury. "Are you all right?"
"Asked the girl almost murdered by a psycho," interrupted Sam, kneeling next to Lydia to help her sit up slowly. "You scared us to death."
"Speak for yourself," said the poltergeist, trying to draw a flimsy cloak of indifference around himself in a transparent attempt to save some dignity. "I'm already dead."
"I heard you say my full name," Lydia said, seeing through the attempt without any trouble. "You never use my full name. And you said 'please.' You were worried."
Looking oddly vulnerable for a second, he muttered, "Can you blame me? I can do a lot, but I can't fix the living. And I kind of like you keeping a heartbeat for a while longer."
"And I prefer you not hurting yourself. Aunt Melinda caused enough trouble without making things worse on yourself. And don't tell me you were fine because that fight would have been over in five seconds if you were. Not to mention you looked like death warmed over instead of just death."
"Not my fault I didn't have time to find a proper loophole around your crazy aunt's restrictions. Jack the Ripper isn't exactly known for his patience."
"What exactly did you do to get him annoyed with you?" asked Lydia.
"Hey, don't blame me. How is it my fault that he was always a creep and an idiot? He tried to make a deal without sharing all the facts. I didn't like what he was up to and he refused to back down when I told him to knock it off. So I put him in time-out. He just overreacted."
"Considering how much you hate being trapped, you have no room to talk."
While certainly tinged with honest concern for each other, there was also a familiarity to their argument. There was no sharp bite to their words. It reminded Tucker far too much of how he, Danny, and Sam would behave around each other, mixing worry with teasing and fighting as easily as breathing. It was a way of reassuring each other that they were all right. It was the weird paradoxical behavior of best friends.
Cautious about interrupting, Sam said, "We probably should get you to a hospital, Lydia. You're awake and talking, but that hit looked painful and it did knock you out."
The pair gave Sam a rather amusing look, one of pointed disbelief at her suggestion. Lydia even managed to raise an eyebrow without wincing.
"Are you kidding? How are you going to explain all of this to the doctor? Not to mention that going to a hospital will get my aunt involved and I'm not going near her unless I absolutely have to," she said, trying to hide what was a clear hiss of pain.
"And I approve of any plan that includes keeping Lyds away from that ugly hag," added the poltergeist. "So no hospital trip."
Awkwardly, Danny raised his hand as if he was in class, "Uh, I feel like I missed something. Why do we hate Lydia's aunt?"
"Because she's a crazy old woman with a powerful artifact who thought it was a great idea to mess with Lyd's mind and kick me to the curb," growled the ghost, his hand migrating to the girl's shoulder.
"And almost exorcised you," the Goth girl added sternly.
"We'll explain later," Sam told Danny, earning a slight frown.
Hoping to shift topics slightly to something a little safer than the secrets they kept from their best friend, Tucker said, "You know, I don't think we ever had a proper introduction. I'm Tucker, that's Sam, and the one who can fly and blast things with his hands is Danny."
The ghost tilted his head, looking mildly amused. Tucker had to admit that the situation was pretty surreal. A bunch of scratched up and battered teenagers, a halfa, and a poltergeist were all hanging around the middle of a dark street, about to do introductions like they were at some kind of deranged tea party.
"I've already met Danny-boy," said the blond ghost. "We had a slight misunderstanding where he thought I was looking for his girlfriend."
"She's not my girlfriend," snapped Danny, telling Tucker everything he needed to know about that misunderstanding.
Rolling his eyes, the poltergeist muttered, "Sure. Whatever story makes you happy, pal." A little louder, he said, "Recently, people call me the Ghost With The Most. It has a nice ring to it, right? Though some of the ladies prefer to call me 'Amazing' or 'Stud'."
"And if they don't mind summoning him and his giant ego, they call him 'Betelgeuse,'" Lydia remarked.
"'Betelgeuse'? Your name is seriously 'Betelgeuse'?" asked Sam
"Gah! Watch it with the B-word," yelped the ghost. "I just got here."
Danny frowned, "Isn't that a star?"
"Betelgeuse," said Tucker, his voice becoming monotone as the leftover effects of his time using the Cramtastic Mark 5 study aid kicked in. "Also known by its Bayer designation Alpha Orionis, it is the ninth-brightest star in the night sky and second-brightest in the constellation of Orion. Distinctly reddish, it is a semiregular variable star whose apparent magnitude varies between 0.2 and 1.2, the widest range of any first-magnitude star. The star is classified as a red supergiant and is one of the largest and most luminous observable stars. Its distance from Earth is at 640 light-years. Less than 10 million years old, it has evolved rapidly because of its high mass. In August Derleth's short story "The Dweller in the Darkness" set in H. P. Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos, Betelgeuse is the home of the "benign" Elder Gods. In Jean Louis De Esque's poetic works, Be—"
"Okay, okay, stop with the lesson before you say it again," interrupted the blond ghost, snapping Tucker out of his study trance. "The next guy to say the B-word gets worms in their shoes. And that's if I'm feeling nice about it."
"Just call him 'Beej' like I do," Lydia advised tiredly. "It sounds better than using his initials. It kept reminding me too much of the Bee Gees."
"Only after I told you the right way to spell it. Before that, it probably steered your thoughts in a different direction," he smirked.
"You taught me your name with charades," she muttered. "Don't blame me if I got it wrong."
"It isn't easy to do a specific star in a constellation with charades, Babes. Maybe if I was dealing with an astronomer…"
Tucker had to ask. He didn't want to interrupt and risk poking at what he suspected was a touchy topic, but he wanted to know. He could no more ignore his curiosity on the topic than he could avoid keeping his software upgraded.
"What exactly is going on with the 'Mortal Bride' thing?" he practically exploded.
Both Lydia and Betelgeuse grimaced and the ghost dragged his hand across his face. There was definitely a story involved.
"First, I didn't know she was a child at the time. I was out of practice guessing ages with the living," he grumbled. "Second, it would have been like one of those green card marriages. It was just a way to get out. And third, it was two years ago. We're past that. No weddings in the future. So drop it."
Holding his hands out defensively, Tucker said, "Got it. Sorry."
"Who in the world invented that dumb nickname anyway?" muttered Lydia before wincing again, her hand going back to the lump on her head.
"Okay, that's it. Even if you don't want to go to the hospital, we need to have someone take a look at that," remarked Danny gently. "Not to mention that, with our luck, someone is bound to have noticed the disturbance. And Valerie showing up to investigate and attack us would probably be the perfect way to end our day. So maybe we should get out of here."
"It isn't that bad," she said, touching the injury gingerly before checking her hand. "I even think most of the bleeding has stopped. See?"
For a moment, the dangerous look crossed the poltergeist's face again. Tucker felt a chill go up his spine. The way Betelgeuse stared at the blood sticking to her fingertips and the swelling lump on the girl's head left the boy with no doubts that the ghost wanted nothing more than to strangle Sanduleak with his bare hands. Or whatever the ghost equivalent of horrible violence on someone for nearly killing their friend might be. Then the ghost shook his head slightly and the look was gone, his clear desire for vengeance set aside for more immediate concerns.
"You have a head injury. You kind of need to take those seriously," said Sam, slowly helping the girl to her feet. "And unlike Danny, all those cuts and bruises won't be gone in a few hours or overnight. Downside of being human."
"So if we're not taking her to a hospital and we're not taking her to her aunt, what are we going to do?" asked Danny. "Mom and Dad would ask a lot of questions and probably run a lot tests if they suspect ghosts are involved."
"And my parents would just call an ambulance," said Tucker. "You do look like you were hit by a car and we're not much better."
"My parents would do the same thing," Sam added. "Though it would probably also include some useless comments about how I should get some more appropriate friends who don't get into this kind of trouble."
Danny continued, "Jazz would help if I asked. And she wouldn't need a lot excuses or explanations."
Betelgeuse stood up next to Lydia, though Tucker thought he might have wobbled slightly with the movement. The ghost gave the girl an inspecting look before crossing his arms in front of his chest. The boy was still trying to figure out what was up with the striped suit, but it almost gave the ghost something that might resemble a look of authority if the observer was far-sighted.
"Up to you, Babes," he said. "Where do you want to go?"
Lydia opened her mouth, but didn't immediately answer. Her expression crumbled as she finally allowed her pain and sadness to materialize. She wasn't crying, but her eyes looked a little wet as she closed them. Considering her day, Tucker didn't blame her at all for the delayed reaction. Actually, considering how recent her parents' deaths were, she was definitely entitled to some kind of reaction.
"I want to go home," she whispered, her voice cracking slightly on the last word.
Any movement almost imperceptible, the ghost was suddenly closer to the girl. The sleeve of his strange suit brushed against her scratched up arm, Lydia leaning towards him gratefully.
"I think I can handle that," said Betelgeuse gently.
The ghost offered an arm that Lydia accepted easily, nodding to him and blinking away the earlier hints of moisture from her eyes. The girl grabbed Sam's arm with her free hand while Betelgeuse slung his other arm across Danny's shoulder in an overly-friendly and annoying manner.
"Someone grab the boy in the hat," the poltergeist ordered. "Its field trip time."
Uncertain what was going on, Tucker grabbed Sam's hand and hoped for the best. The poltergeist looked rather smug as he gave Lydia a short nod.
"Knowing that I should be wary," the girl recited, "still I venture someplace scary."
Betelgeuse closed his eyes, a look of concentration on his face. Something was about to happen and Tucker was betting it would be impressive.
"Ghostly haunting now turn loose," said Lydia. "Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse."
With those final words, the dark street vanished from sight. Or perhaps the more accurate description was that they were the ones who vanished. Tucker really hoped this was a good idea.
There are two variations on the little incantation Lydia sometimes used in the cartoon. Did you know that? The second line in both is the one that shows the biggest difference. The one that Aunt Melinda used says "still I conjure something scary." The other one, the one that was used in this chapter, says 'still I venture someplace scary." One sounds more like a summons while the other sounds more like the speaker is traveling somewhere.
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