Jazz eyed the screens with no small amount of trepidation. "Are you sure this is a good idea, Mom?" she asked as Maddie brought a swivel chair over and sat down in front of her little spy station. "Isn't this, you know, immoral?"
"Normally? Yes, Jazz. It's definitely immoral," Maddie admitted with a smile, turning the chair with one leg so she faced her daughter. "But where Vlad is concerned? It's fine."
"And what are you hoping to find out?" Jazz asked slowly, though her concern wasn't for Vlad at all; Danny was over there, which meant there was risk of their mom discovering his secret too.
"Oh, just whatever he might be planning. Or hiding," Maddie replied, her voice cheerful. She'd clearly made up her mind long before Jazz questioned her and there would be no changing it now. "I just want a little more insight, is all."
Jazz briefly fumbled for an excuse to step out and use her phone—she had to warn Danny, make sure he didn't do anything even remotely suspicious around their dad—and decided she might as well stick around to play subtle interference if possible. "Um, should I get popcorn...?" she asked, doing her best to force a smile that didn't come off as suspicious.
"Why that's a lovely idea, Jazz. Maybe I'll make up some other snacks for us while Jack's still driving." Maddie went up to the kitchen, leaving Jazz alone in the lab for the time being.
Jazz briefly considered sabotage, before deciding that Maddie would very likely notice if some piece of equipment wasn't working and again settled for warning Danny instead. She got her phone out and tapped out her message as quickly as possible: [Mom put a bug on dad, be careful what you say & do around him.]
The reply was almost instantaneous: [Huh? YOu mean she's SPYING on us?]
[Yep. Will try to interfere but can only do so much.]
[Great. Thanks for the heads-up Jazz. Will keep that in mind.]
Danny put his phone back in his pocket and prepared to break the news to everyone. "Soooo..." he began, and everyone's attention snapped to him. "I've got some bad news."
"Oh what now?" Vlad grumbled from where he stood by the scanner, already deeply annoyed at having to spend 'quality time' with Jack on top of tutoring Danny.
"So my mom put a bug on my dad, and she's gonna be watching and listening to everything that happens around him," Danny said quickly; no point in dragging things out, after all. They needed to act quickly before his dad arrived.
Vlad stared at him in horror for a few moments. "Maddie's spying on me!?" he said finally.
"Oh come on! You've been spying on the Fentons for how long? You don't get to complain," Tucker said dismissively. The bug hunts had become a little game for the three and Tucker easily had the highest bug count, but they all had to admit the assumption of being spied on all the time was a very unpleasant one to live under.
"Alright, everyone out of the lab," Vlad said, pointing toward the door. "We have to get up there and make it look like we've been studying, I do not want Jack getting in here under any circumstances." He ushered the three to the door, leaving the harpoon gun in the scanner. At the threshold Vlad plucked Amorpho from Tucker's shoulder and placed him on a nearby table. "You stay here," he said, his tone suggesting there would be trouble if he got any argument on the matter. "I don't want Jack or Maddie asking questions."
Amorpho gave Danny and his friends a pleading look.
"Sorry, Amorpho. Vlad's right," Danny said, though it was almost physically painful to say Vlad was right about anything. "You'll be safer down here."
"Okay." Amorpho slumped down on the tabletop with a miserable expression on his little squirrel face.
"And don't touch anything," Vlad added as he pushed the three out the door and closed it behind them.
They hurried up the stairs and—after grabbing paper and pencils on the way—out to the dining room, where the long table would give them more than enough room to spread out during their studies.
"And you two, did you call your parents and tell them you'll be away tomorrow?" Vlad asked as the three claimed adjacent chairs to one another.
"We told them we'd be studying over here with Danny," Tucker replied with a smirk. "And that we'll be staying the night too."
"So you can just add us to your list of responsibilities while you're at it," Sam added with a smirk of her own.
Vlad pinched the bridge of his nose and turned away from them, taking his phone from his pocket and speed dialing someone's number. "Good afternoon, Miss Gray," he said when the other party answered. "I have a little escort mission for you tomorrow if you're available."
The three froze; Valerie was still a wild card when it came to hostilities toward Phantom, so getting her mixed up in this wasn't exactly ideal. Another, slightly smaller annoyance to Danny was that Valerie was already busy with her move and this would be putting more work on her. He still hadn't told Sam and Tucker about Valerie becoming his neighbor, which was a piece of news that would have to wait for now.
"You'll make it happen? Fantastic! Yes, we'll discuss payment tomorrow. Thank you for being available on such short notice. Ta!" Vlad turned in time to catch their rigid expressions and smiled. "Is something the matter with calling in backup?" he asked with the sort of smug cheer that declared he knew full well what the problem was.
"What? You're suddenly questioning our competence now that you'll get in trouble if something happens?" Sam crossed her arms over her chest and sat back in her chair.
"You're competent enough, but there's nothing wrong with stacking the deck, so to speak," Vlad said with a wave of his hand. "So no complaints about who I picked for the job?" he added with a smirk.
"Complaints? No," Sam replied. "Concerns? Yeah."
"She's not exactly friendly toward Phantom," Tucker added. "Or Plasmius."
"Oh please, she won't even be here long," Vlad said dismissively. "She's hardly a threat."
"It's fine, guys," Danny said, turning to his friends. "Besides, we're having to work with Vlad right now, and it's not like Valerie's worse than him."
"I'm right here, you know," Vlad said, hands on his hips.
"Also we're supposed to look like we've been studying when my dad gets here," Danny added. "We should probably get on that."
"Good thing I downloaded the study material a couple weeks ago." Tucker took his laptop out and set it on the table. "Where should we start?"
Danny sighed; this was the last thing he wanted to be doing at the moment, and the last place he wanted to be doing it in. On top of that the rust felt like it was burning now, enough so that it almost overpowered the sharper pain from the cut itself. "Math, I guess. It's my worst subject."
"Let's take a look at what we're dealing with." Vlad leaned in to read the screen, and stopped when he noticed the funny looks the three were giving him. "What?"
"It's just weird seeing you be helpful," Danny replied.
"Oh please, we worked together just today, and last week! I even let you borrow a book!"
"Yeah that's not gonna magically fix how I feel about you."
"I still expect to get that book back, by the way," Vlad said, giving Danny a glare.
"I'll bring it back after this is over," Danny said, more to keep Vlad from holding something over him than anything else. "Let's just get to studying."
Despite Danny's sour attitude Vlad managed to break down one of the more difficult equations in a way he understood, something the boy was grudgingly grateful for. It was a small victory but one he would happily take after the day he'd had, especially now that Jack was at the door. The exhaustion was already weighing on him as he deactivated the ghost shield and let Jack in.
"Vladdie! Thanks for having me over!" Jack said, as obliviously enthusiastic as ever. "I didn't know you wanted to see me that much. We're gonna have a blast!"
That gave Vlad pause—had Danny said Vlad actually wanted to hang out on the phone? Contradicting it might make Maddie suspicious, and the ice under his feet was treacherously thin where she was concerned. "Yes, well, tutoring Daniel comes first, Jack," Vlad said, careful to keep the bitterness that even now clawed at the inside of his chest out of his voice. "I'm sure you'll be a huge help."
"Oh yeah, check out this little friend Maddie gave me," Jack said as they stepped inside, pointing to something small and metallic on his right shoulder. "Isn't it just the cutest?"
Vlad leaned a little closer and found that the 'friend' in question was a robotic jumping spider, its eight green eyes watching him keenly. So not only was Maddie spying on him, she was very openly telling him to watch his step. In truth he found her challenge to be more than a little thrilling, perhaps today wasn't as much of a lost cause as he thought. He might even improve his standing with her if he could play the part of the dutiful host. "Cute indeed," Vlad said with a small, knowing smile. "I see that Maddie's engineering prowess is as impressive as ever."
The spider twitched a leg, then jumped at Vlad's face with all the speed and agility of an actual jumping spider.
Vlad jumped back on the pure animal instinct of not wanting a small potentially-venomous creature to land on his face. The spider landed neatly on his lapel instead, then jumped right back to Jack's shoulder where it turned around to watch him again. Impressive indeed. He'd have to make sure it didn't stick around after Jack left.
"Hey look at that, it likes you!" Jack said, giving the little spider a gentle pat with his index finger.
"Yes, apparently so," Vlad said. He moved to Jack's left side so the spider couldn't jump on him again and led his latest guest to the dining room.
Jazz readjusted herself in the swivel chair and drummed her fingers on one of its arms. "Why did you tell dad about the Specter Spyder? Shouldn't it be a secret?" she asked, looking over at Maddie. "You had to know he'd show it to Vlad when you gave it to him."
"Well it'll guarantee that Vlad behaves, and knowing your father he'd swat it the moment he noticed it if I didn't," Maddie replied simply.
"True," Jazz admitted. It would certainly be par for the course for her dad. She fidgeted a little, then sat back in her chair; Vlad was a threat and a nuisance, it was true, but spying still didn't sit right with her on an ethical level. There was another matter that was bothering her, too. "This thing's gonna jump off when dad uses the bathroom, right?"
"Of course, sweetie. We don't need to see that, so we'll be perching on someone else whenever it happens."
Danny set his pencil aside and stretched out his arms. He'd made progress on his studies, against all odds—Vlad was actually a decent teacher when he applied himself, a fact that Danny found uniquely annoying. To think he could've been getting better grades this whole time if Vlad had just been normal about his parents. Everything would be so much easier if the man could just get over himself.
"I'm gonna go stretch my legs," Danny said as he stood. Ever since Jack's arrival Vlad had split his attention between tutoring, entertaining Jack, and baking of all things. Vlad passed it off as a favor he'd promised to a friend when Jack asked about it, and Danny hadn't gotten the chance to ask where the spider wouldn't overhear, which left it as a bit of a mystery. Either way, this was a good opportunity to snoop around. "You guys wanna come with?" he added, turning to Sam and Tucker.
"Sure," Sam said, having already caught on to what Danny wanted to do by the smile she gave him.
"Sounds fun," Tucker added.
"The ghost shield stays up so no going outside," Vlad said from the kitchen doorway. "I can't have anything getting in here while you three are under my care."
"Fine, we'll stay inside," Danny said, doing his best to play up his disappointment. He rolled his left shoulder—suppressing a wince when the pain flared from fabric being dragged over the rust—and left the dining room with his friends. "Be back in a bit."
It was after the passage of around twenty minutes, as Vlad grabbed the stirring spoon before Jack had a chance to lick it, that he realized he'd made a critical error in letting Danny and his friends just wander around in his mansion unsupervised. The alarm on his office had just gone off by the way his watch buzzed, meaning that someone other than him was in there, and he couldn't duplicate himself to go kick the three out. He froze for a split second as he considered his options: he couldn't just tell Jack to go get them—who knew what the oaf would blunder into in the process of doing so—and he didn't trust Jack to be left alone in the kitchen either. That meant they had to go together and hope the three teens hadn't wandered far.
"Jack," Vlad said as his attention returned to his immediate surroundings just in time to notice Jack sticking his finger in his mouth after having swiped a bit of frosting from the bowl. He did his best to shove down the sharp ridge of aggravation that lurched up upon seeing that and continued, his voice kept carefully level, "I think your son is trying to procrastinate on his studies."
"Well they have been gone for a while," Jack admitted. "Should we go look for them?"
"Just what I was about to suggest," Vlad replied. "And Jack, I hope you washed your hands before sticking your finger in that frosting," he snapped, possibly with a little too much sharpness—even if the hostility flew over Jack's head, Maddie would certainly notice.
"Of course I did, Vladdie," Jack replied jovially, rinsing remaining sugar off his fingers at the sink and slipping his glove back on. "I'm not some barbarian." He chuckled.
Could've fooled me! said the loud, angry thought that Vlad did not allow anywhere near his mouth. He was going to conquer Maddie's challenge, but by god Jack was making it difficult.
"So where do you think those kids wandered off to?" Jack put a hand to his chin, clearly at a loss.
"I have a few ideas," Vlad replied. He set the mixing bowl aside and led the way, not even bothering to remove his apron as he left the kitchen.
The rust burned around the two spots he'd been hit, as it had done for some time now. Such an embarrassing state of affairs, forced to play babysitter like this. Had he known those ghost hunters could sense invisible ghosts he wouldn't have tried to ambush them earlier. Then he'd at the very least have one less cursed injury to worry about.
Growing anxiety scratched at the back of his mind. There was precious little ghostly power left in him even now, the rust had seen to that. He hated being vulnerable like this. It reminded him of all the worst periods in his past and the resulting anxiety would make eating impossible thanks to gut-twisting nausea if it persisted too long. He just wanted this to be over.
They checked the library first, for the sake of appearances, and Vlad was surprised to find the three there rather than in his office. Had someone tipped them off that he was looking for them, or had they found what they wanted already? He would have to do a thorough examination of everything in there as soon as he was no longer playing host, a dauntingly long time away given what they could've gotten into.
"Alright, break time's over," Vlad said as he and Jack walked over to the couch the three were sitting on. They each had a book in their hands, every one of them to do with Ghost Zone lore—Danny must've remembered where Vlad pulled the other books from during the incident with Nocturne. "Back to your studies."
"Whatcha readin' there, Danny?" Jack leaned in to get a closer look at the book in Danny's hands, which the teen then tipped to give Jack a better view of the cover. His face lit up when he saw who the author was. "Hey, that's a John Fenton Nightingale book! That brings back old memories," Jack said, a little teary-eyed as he straightened. "Remember those journals we found when we were kids, Vlad? Those were the days! We had so many adventures together."
Vlad froze as an unusually vivid memory of the attic from Jack's childhood home forced itself to the front of his mind. They'd found the journals in a trunk along with other items belonging to JFN, like some hidden treasure. It had been all the two could talk about for weeks back then. "I remember," he said quietly. It was odd, he'd shoved those memories down to a place where they couldn't bother him years ago, yet here they were bubbling to the surface again. A bitter longing settled in his chest as he thought about how simple things had been back then. Those were the days, indeed…
"Mind if I borrow this one?" Jack asked as Danny passed the book to him, missing the smirk Danny shot at Vlad as he opened it. "Or maybe we can read it together!"
"Can you promise that you'll bring it back in one piece? That book was extremely hard to find." Vlad said, completely ignoring Jack's offer.
Jack paused to think about it. "Well you know how those little accidents can happen," he admitted.
"Then the book stays here," Vlad said. "But if you want to read it while you're visiting, that's fine." At least it would keep Jack out of his hair for a while, stop him from trying to swipe tastes of the baking projects and getting in the way. He could almost thank Danny for picking the perfect book to accomplish that.
"Aw, thanks bud!" Jack said. "Alright kids, time to get back to studying."
The three returned to the dining room without complaint. Vlad got the latest set of bakes in the oven and turned his full attention to tutoring Danny. The momentum they'd built up earlier screeched to a halt thanks to Danny losing steam—hardly surprising given the rusting curse and the fight—which was disappointing but not unexpected. They wouldn't be making much more progress.
"That should be enough for today," Vlad said as the oven timer went off. It was time to get dinner going anyway, since he had to play the part of their dutiful host. "And no wandering off. Dinner will be ready within the hour."
It was after Vlad had set everything out to cool that his cats worked up the courage to come out of hiding and demand their own dinner. Seeing them was a breath of fresh air after what he'd had to put up with. He gave each of them little head scritches just the way they liked and prepared their food.
And of course their meowing drew in an audience.
"I didn't know you had cats, Vlad," Jack said with a grin as he watched. "What're their names?"
"This one's Marty," Vlad said as he put the food bowl down for his slender white shorthair. "And this one is M—" he froze for a split second; he couldn't tell them he'd named one of his cats Maddie, the real Maddie might skin him alive for that. "—Magotha, or Maggie for short," Vlad said as he put the other food bowl in front of his longhair cat.
"Magotha, that's a cool name!" Jack said.
"Yes, she's a very dramatic cat, you see. I thought it would be fitting for her." Vlad silently congratulated himself on the spur-of-the-moment lie. Now he would just have to make sure he didn't slip up and call her Maddie by accident with his guests around.
Dinner came and went without incident, and before long Vlad's guests retired to the various extra bedrooms of their choosing. They were tired enough that they didn't snoop this time, as evidenced by the fact that no alarms on his office or lab entrance were tripped. He cooked into the early morning hours to finish the courtesy gift for Beatrice, then went straight to bed as soon as he'd packed everything away.
The nightmares returned as soon as he drifted off.
Jazz found Maddie back at the little spying station in the morning, already sifting through the overnight recordings while Jack was still asleep.
"I just don't understand what's going on," Maddie muttered as she tweaked visual settings on the footage.
"Something wrong?" Jazz asked as she sat down with her tea.
"This weird feedback started up part way through the night," Maddie replied as she continued to fiddle with the settings. The static that rippled across the screen seemed to have a vague pattern but never resolved into anything distinct. "It's the audio too, but I just can't identify what the sounds are supposed to be. No ghost activity to blame, either."
Sleep had been surprisingly sound in the first half of the night, until the nightmares showed up in the early morning. Danny had woken up and gone back to sleep several times, only to find them waiting for him time and again. The ones he could see clearly were always in some hospital he'd never been to, and the feeling of sheer terror that underpinned otherwise mundane scenes was enough to twist his gut into a knot.
Everyone looked tired as they sat down for breakfast, and Tucker was downright jittery.
"You okay, Tucker?" Danny asked.
"Dude, I kept having hospital nightmares last night!" Tucker replied. "And I've never even been to that hospital before!"
"Huh. I was having nightmares about some weird hospital last night too," Sam said, eyebrows raised with growing shock.
"Mine were there too. So we all had the same nightmares?" Danny asked.
"What, so your nightmares haven't been constant ever since Nocturne pulled his stunt?" Vlad grumbled as he set two platters of eggs Benedict on the table, followed by a platter of fresh fruit, jam, and toast for Sam.
Danny blinked up at him in surprise. "No, they haven't. Our dreams have been pretty normal."
A fearful expression flashed across Vlad's face before he got himself under control. "Lucky you, then," he said as he took his seat at the head of the table.
That little revelation stuck with Danny through breakfast, as he watched the one-sided banter Jack was attempting with Vlad. Strange nightmares in this house specifically, and Vlad had been having them constantly ever since Nocturne's attack? The First Dream was still unaccounted for, and it had to have fallen out of the crown on Vlad's property. It was a lead he'd have to follow up on when he had time. And energy. A morning of bad sleep was tiring enough without the rust sapping his strength on top of that. Right now he had to focus on making it through the day and getting better once the cure arrived.
Valerie arrived shortly after breakfast and it fell on Danny to distract Jack long enough for Vlad to get everything to the back door where she and the Specter Speeder were waiting. Vlad gathered the boxed results of his baking spree and waited for Danny to make his move.
"Hey dad," Danny said as he picked up the book Jack had been so engrossed in yesterday. "Can you tell me about John Fenton Nightingale? Is he like an ancestor of ours, or...?"
"I'm glad you asked, Danny!" Jack said, with a level of enthusiasm that suggested he would be answering Danny's question for an extended period of time. "You see, our ancestor John Fenton Nightingale was a witch hunter back in the 1600s—"
"Uh, weren't those all fake accusations, though?" Danny couldn't help but ask; it had been a big topic with Sam in the days after the Infi-Map incident with Vlad and he wasn't about to forget it anytime soon.
"What? No, no, he didn't fight those fake witches, Danny! John went after the real ones!"
Vlad hurried past with the mountain of baked goods and led Sam and Tucker toward the back of his mansion, navigating partially by memory when he couldn't see what was in front of him. He stopped halfway upon realizing that he needed to get the containment unit for the blood blossom from his lab—the last thing he needed was to have contamination in places he didn't expect—and changed direction without warning with the expectation that Sam and Tucker would keep up.
Amorpho was still on the lab table where Vlad had left him, but he didn't pay him much attention as he dashed to a storage unit, found the container he needed, and ran back up to surface level.
Vlad passed the containment unit to Sam—"For storing blood blossom, make sure you seal it," he told her when she asked—and took up the boxes again. Luckily one of the two had the presence of mind to open the back door for him as they approached, and Vlad breathed a sigh of relief knowing that a good chunk of his work was finally over.
"So are you gonna tell us why you baked all this stuff?" Tucker asked as Vlad loaded everything into the back seat of the Specter Speeder. "And why we're taking it with us?"
"What? Surely I told you..." Vlad said as he looked back at Tucker.
"Nope, we got out of the lab and you just started baking once we got to the dining room," Sam replied.
"Beatrice expects a courtesy gift when you visit her, and baked goods are her favorite," Vlad said, patting the largest bundle of boxes. "Also," he paused and took a sealed letter from an inner breast pocket,along with a folded set of instructions. He handed the letter to Sam. "Give this letter to her when you get there, it'll explain the situation. And this is the way you get to her." He gave the coordinates to Tucker. "They must be followed in exactly the order I have written, no shortcuts."
"Any details on what I should expect?" Valerie asked, having been content to observe until now.
"The journey there should be no issue, but there might be pushback from hostile ghosts as you get closer to the grove," Vlad replied. "Oh, and don't attack Beatrice, she is very powerful and you will need her help."
"And Beatrice looks like…?"
"Oh, very tall, brunette, lots of muscle, she'll be wearing a tusked bear head," Vlad began. "She's ghostly in nature but she isn't hostile to humans, so again, don't attack her."
"A ghost is gonna help us find blood blossoms?" Sam asked, raising an eyebrow.
"She keeps it out of the hands of those who would use it to hurt other ghosts," Vlad replied.
"But she gave it to you before?" Tucker asked.
"I gave her my word that it would be used for medicinal purposes and I kept it," Vlad said, getting a little testy about being questioned like this. "What I do without it is none of her concern."
The two gave him a look that suggested they didn't really believe him.
"Well, guess we'll head out," Sam said as she put the blood blossom containment unit in the back with the baked goods.
"Yeah, this route's gonna take a while," Tucker said, having already punched the coordinates into his PDA. "Any explanation for why we're supposed to do it like this?"
Vlad sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose; they were wasting time, and even Jack's rambling wouldn't last forever. "Think of it like a spell, or a key to a dimensional lock," he said. "Going directly to the final coordinates will get you to a very different place than properly following the route will."
"Huh, that's pretty cool, actually," Sam said.
"So should I sit in the back, or…?" Valerie asked.
"Nah up front's fine, the back's kinda crowded," Tucker replied.
Vlad returned to the back door and left them to it, reactivating the ghost shield behind himself.
Once he was well inside Vlad put a hand against the wall and let out a long sigh. He wasn't sure how he'd make it through the rest of the day, he was spent already. The anxiety was still there too, putrefying in the pit of his stomach. After a few moments he forced himself to adhere to his usual perfect posture and started toward the dining room. Time to see what Jack and Danny were getting up to in his absence.
Vlad arrived just in time to catch the end of Jack's rambling.
"—and that's why siphonophores are the weirdest thing in the ocean!" Jack said, with all the finality of a long winded college professor finally reaching his point.
"O-kay...?" Danny said, in a tone that suggested even he had no idea how the conversation got to this topic despite being along for the whole ride.
Jack sat back in his chair, satisfied with knowledge well-delivered, and noticed Vlad. "Hey, Vladdie! We missed ya!"
Vlad doubted that, given how absorbed Jack had been in talking at Danny, but he let it slide. "Just making sure Daniel's friends had all their things together," Vlad said as he joined them. "Shall we get back to studying?"
By the look on Danny's face that was the last thing he wanted to do at the moment. Vlad wasn't looking forward to it either, but it was either that or dedicate all his time to hanging out with Jack, which while a valid excuse for keeping Danny around was not something he wanted to do. He still had enough strength to resist the inevitable for now.
They took up the materials they'd printed out the night before, but in the end it proved futile. Danny lacked focus thanks to the pain and exhaustion he was undoubtedly dealing with, and Vlad was fairing just as badly if not worse. So that left hanging out with Jack Fenton as the only thing to keep Danny around until his friends got back with the blood blossom.
"Hey, why don't we read to each other? Just like old times!" Jack suggested when Vlad reluctantly asked what he wanted to do.
"I'm a bit too tired to be the reader at the moment..."
"That's fine, you can just listen to me!" Jack declared, clearly assuming that he was doing them both a favor with this.
Perhaps Vlad would be able to discreetly get a little sleep, at the very least.
The first ten minutes of the trip passed in awkward silence with Sam at the controls while Tucker sat in the middle acting as navigator. Valerie brushed a stray lock of hair off her shoulder and looked out the window beside her, unsure of how to resolve the uncomfortable atmosphere inside the cockpit; though Sam and Tucker were courteous enough toward her she always got the sense that they distrusted her. The reason for that distrust made sense now that she'd figured out Danny's secret. They were only wanting to protect their friend from someone who might hurt him, and she couldn't blame them after what she'd done.
"Is Danny doing okay?" Valerie asked, finally breaking the silence. "As okay as he can be, anyway." Vlad had mentioned a curse and needing her to help get a cure over email, but it gave her no real clue about how Danny was doing in general.
"He's hanging in there," Sam said, her voice a tad stiff. "The curse thing is weighing him down though."
"What about you guys? How'd you all get wrapped up in this?"
"We were with Danny when a couple of ghost hunters attacked us," Tucker replied. "They busted into his house and trashed his parents' ghost portal, then tried to go after Vlad's. They both got cursed while playing defense so we gotta get the cure while they rest."
It was impressive the way the two were able to weave around the fact that Danny and Vlad had ghost powers while describing the events. Had Valerie not been aware already she would've assumed the two were playing defense with the typical ghost weapons instead. "So other humans did it?" Not an unheard of incident, but Valerie was far more used to ghosts causing problems than humans doing so.
"Yeah, and we don't know where they even came from either," Sam replied, letting a little frustration into her voice. "They didn't talk at all while they were fighting, it was creepy."
"You think they might be from the government…?"
"I dunno, they kinda had too much individuality to be with the government..." Sam replied.
"Yeah, these guys were completely different from the Guys in White," Tucker added.
"So what've you guys been up to, other than this stuff?" Valerie asked, in an attempt to steer the conversation in a less bleak direction.
"Kinda the same old stuff," Sam admitted with a shrug. "It's definitely nice being on summer break though."
"Yeah, lots of arcade time, hanging out, the usual," Tucker added. "There's a new game coming out soon that we're gonna play together."
Tensions eased a little as the conversation continued on this more mundane route, to Valerie's relief. It was going to be a long ride, might as well make it more pleasant.
It was going better than Vlad expected. Perhaps it was exhaustion lowering his standards for entertainment, or that the present situation was distracting him from the pain of his shoulder and side, but the annoyance and barely-contained anger he tended to feel around Jack had faded to background noise.
They'd moved to the library some time ago, bringing tea and the less-than-perfect results of Vlad's baking along with them, and Danny and Vlad sat on opposite ends of a couch while Jack pranced around in front of them during his reading. Jack was enthusiastically narrating another JFN book, doing his best imitation of a New England accent—with some decent success—and delivering it with such gusto that one might think John Fenton Nightingale himself had come back from the dead to share his life's work with the people of the present.
Jack had always been a passionate reader when the books in question held subjects he was interested in, and his narration always overflowed with that enthusiasm, creating an irresistible magnetism for anyone listening in. He'd even won a few weak chuckles from Vlad throughout, something that got surprised glances out of Danny.
Even the asides were fun, for though JFN was—at least according to Jack—one of the lead ghost "researchers" of his time the science had obviously moved forward over the centuries, and whenever he came upon one such inaccuracy he would launch into a tangent that corrected it. In said tangents he dropped the accent and took up his normal cadence again, speaking with the force and momentum of a tidal wave. It was hard not to get swept up in it.
Vlad hadn't realized how much he'd missed it. Even when they were young, Jack was a strong reader and the two spent many a night passing a book back and forth to read aloud, pages flying under their fingers as they enjoyed it together. It was something they'd taken up again once they reunited in college, one reading while the other kept his hands busy with a needlework craft. The college library had given them so many more options to explore, they'd even tried genres outside their normal interests to see how they liked them.
The bitter ache in Vlad's chest intensified.
Can't we just be friends again?
It was the inner voice, loud and direct and unmistakably his own, that finally freed Vlad from the mire of memory. The anger rushed back, hot and razor-sharp. Ridiculous. Those happy days only made what came later even worse, when Jack threw him away like a broken toy after the accident. They'd been so close, but in the end Vlad found out how much he really meant to Jack.
But the bitter ache, the longing, remained despite the surge of anger. Vlad took a deep breath in an attempt to ease it, but it did nothing to help.
Absolutely not. He's only trying because I'm worth something now. He'll leave again the moment I become a burden to him, just like he did back then. Back when he left me to rot in that hell—
The memory rose up to envelop him before he realized what was happening. There was the sharp pain of a scalpel parting the flesh on his abdomen as they prepared to tear another piece from his body, all in the name of their wretched search for answers. He couldn't move. They only wanted him paralyzed and had neglected to put him to sleep for the procedure. The helpless terror of knowing he would have to feel and endure every moment of the operation until they'd sated their present curiosity was overwhelming. It all came rushing back in an instant, crashing down on him like a towering wave.
Jack's voice was muffled now, too weak to shake Vlad from the memory that had so thoroughly infected his perception of reality. The surgery lights, blinding even when he had his eyes closed, were blotting out the library before him and growing brighter by the second.
They were peeling back the skin over his diaphragm now...
Vlad's powers coiled under the rush of panic and prepared to activate. Doing so would only cause the rust to progress faster, but he was too overwhelmed to stop it. He could already feel his consciousness preparing to wrench itself free of his body. It was a defense mechanism he'd stopped needing over a decade ago, but his very being still remembered it well.
His consciousness arched back, his body sagging against the arm of the couch with eyes half open and staring as he projected himself away. His senses dulled and the library swam back into view once he was out, its other two occupants having noticed that something was very wrong with their host. Vlad watched dispassionately as they rushed to his body, then started to wander away.
"Vlad? Vlad, wake up!" Jack's voice was stricken with panic as he held Vlad up by his shoulders. He gave him a barely-restrained shake and looked to Danny. "What's wrong with him? Danny, did you see anything?"
"I—I don't know, he started looking kind of upset and then—" Movement in his peripherals caught his attention and he snapped his head up to check. A figure slowly walked away from them along the shelves, barely an outline and only visible to Danny because he looked for it. Was Vlad using his ghost powers? But why? He had to know the rust would get worse if he did! He was even enjoying himself for a while, why try to get away from Jack now?
Danny wasn't sure how to stop it, if that was even possible. This wasn't your standard duplication, it was something else, like Vlad had pulled himself out of his own body. He couldn't go after the figure, that might draw unwanted attention, so what—
The rust continued its relentless march. Vlad was nearing the farthest entrance to the library when the two patches met over his diaphragm, clashing in a ridge of agonizing fire and wrenching the last of his power out from under him. He slammed into his body as if thrown and cried out in pain, doubling over with one hand clutching his chest as Danny and Jack jumped back.
He needed air, desperately, but lingering adrenaline burned through any oxygen he pulled in, and his breaths were shallowed by the rust draped over his ribs, every breath dragging it against the fabric of his shirt and making the pain even worse. Vlad stayed where he was as he fought to get his breathing under control, the one blessing being that the flashback had been shaken loose by present circumstance and fallen away like drifting cobweb.
"Vlad, what's wrong?" Jack asked, his voice still partially-muffled as Vlad's senses tried to re-orient themselves to the present. The panic was evident despite the partial disconnect. "I'll call an ambulance, they'll make sure you're alright—"
The surge of fury upon hearing that gave Vlad a temporary reprieve from the overwhelming pain and exhaustion. "Jack Fenton," Vlad snarled through labored breaths as he lifted his head and looked Jack in the eye. "If you put me in the hospital again I will never forgive you!"
Even Jack was able to recognize the anger in Vlad's voice. He stared down at Vlad, brow drawn with worry and hands partially lifted from his desire to do something—anything—to help. "What should I do?"
"Just let me sleep." Fury could only get him so far, and now that the rush was gone Vlad couldn't hold the fatigue back any longer. He laid himself out on the couch and surrendered to his exhaustion. Dreamless sleep rose up like a black ocean and took him from the library as soon as he closed his eyes.
"Dad." Danny took Jack's near arm in both hands as he looked up at him. "You okay?"
Jack looked down at Danny in momentary confusion. "Why're you asking me that? Vlad's—" he put a hand to his head and looked away. "I don't know... Not really," Jack said, his voice quiet.
"Maybe you should sit down." Danny tugged him toward one of the easy chairs, only for Jack to pull him into a hug instead. He returned the hug despite how it agitated the rust, burying his face in his father's jumpsuit for a moment as the shock continued to fade. They'd just witnessed something happen to Vlad, and Jack probably thought it was a heart attack or an equally serious medical event. He had to be terrified right now.
"That's a good idea," Jack said as he released Danny. He picked up one of the easy chairs with little effort and set it across from the couch Vlad was on, bringing a second over for Danny before settling into the first. Jack looked down at his hands after a few moments, his fingers partially-curled. "Did I hurt him...? I didn't shake him that hard..."
"I think he just needs some sleep," Danny said sincerely. "He said he was having nightmares this morning, right? So he probably just needs to rest." He paused to consider what he wanted to do next—he still needed to wait for the cure, and he didn't want to risk the ghost hunters possibly jumping him while he was at home. At least under Vlad's ghost shield he was safe for now. "Should we keep an eye on him?"
"I won't leave him like this," Jack replied resolutely, chin in his hands as he watched Vlad. "You don't have to stay if you don't want to."
"I'll stay," Danny said, and he could tell that Jack was relieved to hear it, however much his father tried to hide it. A memory drifted up to bother him, of Vlad's words just before he broke Nocturne's dream. They seemed sincere enough at the time, but they still just didn't fit. Jack wasn't some heartless monster who would ditch a friend like that. There had to be more to what happened.
Danny settled into the other easy chair and checked his watch: almost noon, hopefully the others were having a better time than he was.
It was a strange route, to be sure. They flew about in the Specter Speeder in a seemingly random pattern, looping here and backtracking there, until finally they neared the final coordinate on the list. Despite expectations there was no apparent change to their surroundings, no flash of light or warping of space. They found a clearing with a cottage and garden at its center below and went in for a landing.
"Looks pretty normal," Sam said with a hint of disappointment to her voice. She'd been hoping for something more magical, given the expectation Vlad had set up for them.
"Maybe that's a good thing?" Tucker asked as he pulled the first bundle of boxes out of the Specter Speeder.
"Wonder where Beatrice is." Valerie looked around the clearing, but it was empty save for them. "Guess we should knock?"
"Ooh, something smells good!" Someone called from the other side of the Specter Speeder, near the forest's edge. "Is that you, Vladibear?"
The woman who lifted up the Specter Speeder with one hand could only be Beatrice. She was exactly as Vlad described, built like a weight lifter and wearing a red plaid shirt, dark blue jeans, and the aforementioned bear head hanging at the back of her neck like a hood and its hide resting over her shoulders like a cloak. She also had tusks, which Sam couldn't help but instantly admire. Beatrice frowned when she saw the little group. "Where's Vlad?"
"He sent us to get blood blossom for him, and he told us to give you this," Sam said quickly as she retrieved the letter from her backpack.
Beatrice put the Specter Speeder down and accepted the letter. "So he's gotten himself into trouble again, that's just like him," Beatrice said with a sigh. "Thank you for coming all this way, and for bringing such wonderful treats. I'll take you to the Bloodmoon Grove right away."
Once Beatrice's gift was stowed away in her cabin—with little help from the three, Beatrice was easily strong enough to carry everything in one go—she led them into the forest and down a barely-visible trail. Valerie brought up the rear, suit activated as she kept an eye out for hostile ghosts, while Sam followed just behind Beatrice with the containment unit's strap over her shoulder. Tucker was engrossed in his PDA's GPS feature as he walked between Sam and Valerie, watching with fascination as the tracking jumped around to various coordinates.
After around half an hour of hiking they came to a sheer rock face covered by leafy vines. A sort of expectation hung in the air, as if there was something more to it lurking just below the surface. Sam watched Beatrice approach the wall with open anticipation.
Beatrice's hand glowed deep green as it brushed the vines, which drew back to reveal a hidden passageway.
"Who's there?" Valerie called behind them, her attention on the surrounding forest.
Their attackers dropped on them all at once, seeming to appear out of nowhere. There was no uniform to speak of between them; a few smaller groups shared similar design inspirations—musketeers, knights, plague doctors, so on—but each looked different. Every one of them was armed with a unique weapon.
"Them again! Get behind me!" Beatrice pulled the bear's head over her own and transformed into a massive beast. She roared, bearing fangs and tusks, and bowled through the first wave of enemies.
Valerie followed with a barrage of lasers from her suit, careful to avoid hitting Beatrice while sweeping over their enemies. Tucker put his PDA away and activated the Fenton Peeler he'd brought with him. Sam joined him with her own, once the containment unit's strap was off her shoulder. She hit the nearest attacker with a blast from the Fenton Peeler and knocked him back, his fantastical musketeer outfit falling away to reveal a set of normal clothes underneath.
The de-costumed attacker gave Sam a shocked stare for a moment, then jumped away and ran for cover in the forest with his ghostbound sword still in hand.
"Tucker, hit as many of these guys with the Ghost Peeler as you can!" Sam called as she dispelled a knight's costume. "It works on them too!"
"Yeah, if I could just hit one!" Tucker yelled back as he wrestled with one that was dressed as a bobcat-themed luchador.
Sam fired on them, but the luchador jumped away just in time to avoid getting hit.
Beatrice did battle with what appeared to be the leader, a woman dressed in white crane robes and armed with bladed fans that she could use as wings. Wind blasted through the clearing with every sweep of a fan, flinging branches and other debris high into the air.
Sam pulled Tucker to his feet and warded off another attacker with a missed shot.
"Behind you!" Valerie's attack came down from above, knocking the same musketeer Sam had shot earlier away.
"Thanks, Valerie!" Sam followed up with a shot from the Fenton Peeler while the man was down, again dispelling his outfit and forcing him to flee. So the Fenton Peeler was effective but only stripped their powers for a limited time, just their luck.
A whistle called out over the battlefield, shrill and echoing. The attackers stopped and immediately fell back, melting away into the forest from which they'd come. Last to leave was the leader, who stared Beatrice down before jumping back with a single beat of her fan-wings.
"What was that about?" Sam asked after a few moments of stunned silence.
Valerie landed beside her and deactivated her suit. "I'm not picking up movement out there, they're gone."
"Yeah but it's not like we were crushing them out there," Tucker added as he deactivated the Fenton Peeler. "Why'd they leave?"
"They got what they came for." Beatrice lumbered over to them, still in her beast form as she looked down the passageway. She brought a paw to her snout and lifted it, transforming back into her humanoid form. "They've been trying to get into the grove for weeks, and it looks like they just succeeded."
"Wait, who are those guys?" Sam asked. She began to follow without thinking, then dashed back to grab the containment unit before catching up to the others as they entered the passage. Their attackers had to be humans, given what happened when they were hit with the Fenton Peeler, and their weapons were certainly similar to what they'd fought just the day before. "Are they ghost hunters?"
"Yes, though I don't know where they come from. They just started turning up a few months ago, always trying to get into the grove." Beatrice turned and sealed the passage behind them, then knelt and examined an upturned stone. "I didn't sense them today, so I figured it was safe to take you three..." She stood and continued toward the grove. "Let's see how much they took."
Bloodmoon Grove lived up to its name. Though it was noon beyond the passage entrance, in the grove it was deepest night. The moon loomed high above, stained dusky red by a lunar eclipse and lending an eerie glow to the landscape below. Blood blossom grew everywhere, its flowers giving off a subtle light even under the bloodmoon's glow.
Beatrice entered the grove, to the surprise of Sam and Tucker, and looked over the foliage. "There." She pointed to several holes at the near edge of the grove, where whole bushes must have been dug out of the ground.
"How are you able to be in here?" Sam asked as they followed here over to the holes.
"Being part astral has its benefits," Beatrice replied as she knelt and examined the holes. She sighed. "They must be trying to propagate it elsewhere. This does not bode well."
"Can we track them down?" Tucker asked.
"With space twisted as it is in this area, it would be impossible to track them," Beatrice replied. She stood and brushed the dirt off her jeans. "Let's collect your blood blossom and head out of here, we shouldn't keep Vlad and your friend waiting."
Beatrice took a heavy set of gloves and hand clippers from a back pocket and selected choice blossoms from among the bushes. Sam followed her with the containment unit, which was soon filled with the crimson flowers and sealed.
"Thanks, and sorry about what happened," Sam said as she put the containment unit's strap over her shoulder again.
"It's not your fault. More of them probably would've made it through if you weren't there," Beatrice replied. She took her gloves off and stowed them and the clippers away, then started for the grove's entrance. "It is worrying, though. They remind me of something my grandpa used to talk about..."
They continued down the passage in silence, as Beatrice was lost in thought. She opened the passage entrance again and they stepped out into the light, the humans present pausing to let their eyes adjust as they did so.
"What's that?" Valerie walked over to a stand of grass next to the cliff and picked something up. It was a medallion bearing a symbol Sam had never seen before, with a four-pointed star superimposed over an arc that appeared to mimic the Earth's horizon. "You guys seen anything like this before?"
Beatrice held a hand out for the medallion and Valerie passed it to her, her face troubled as she looked down at it. "A long time ago, before I came into being, there was a group of humans who trapped ghosts in earthly objects and used them in battle. It's been a long time since any word of them surfaced, though. The organization collapsed thanks to infighting from what I heard."
"So that group might be back?" Sam asked. "Do you remember what they were called?"
"The Order of the Twilight Horizon was the one my grandpa would tell stories about," Beatrice replied, her voice grim. "Perhaps enough of them survived to preserve the order, or someone else stumbled across their techniques." She put the medallion in her breast pocket, looking thoughtful. "Be careful. The Order used to attack other ghost hunters too, if they didn't like their methods. They liked having a monopoly on such matters."
"That definitely sounds like the guys we ran into yesterday," Tucker said, sharing a worried glance with Sam.
"You've seen them in your area too?" Beatrice asked.
"Just two of them, but they were definitely targeting ghost portals in the area and they had ghostbound weapons," Sam replied. "And they were also chasing a ghost, he thought they were gonna bind him too."
"He was probably right," Beatrice said. "Either that, or feed him to one that was already bound."
The thought sent a chill down Sam's spine. Ghosts could be annoying and dangerous, true, but she wouldn't wish what was basically cannibalism on any sapient creature.
They made their way back to the Specter Speeder and were relieved to find it and Beatrice's cabin undisturbed.
"Mind if I snap a pic of that medallion?" Tucker asked as they reached the Speeder. "I wanna see if it's turned up on the web at all when we get home."
Beatrice took it from her pocket again and passed it to Tucker, who placed it on the ground for a good, clear picture before giving it back to her.
"Good thing I packed a lunch," Valerie said as she checked the angle of the sun; it was a little over two hours past noon now and breakfast felt like it had come and gone ages ago. "I have enough to share if you guys want some."
"Let me send a little something with you too," Beatrice said, giving them a warm smile. "I don't get to show off my foraging skills very often." She disappeared into her cabin for a few minutes, when returned with a basket filled with jerky, dried fruit and mushrooms, nuts, and berries.
Sam grinned, happy that she wouldn't have to eat light if Valerie's lunch packed too much meat. "Thanks, Beatrice." She paused, wondering if what she was about to ask might be too forward. "Hey, could we visit again sometime? Like just to hang out? We can bring your basket back then, too."
Beatrice gave her a sincere smile. "I'd love that, actually. I don't get visitors very often."
The three bid farewell to Beatrice and piled into the Specter Speeder, in high spirits despite the uncertainty that loomed over them. Whoever that group was, they would deal with figuring it out once they got home.
Danny put his phone back in his pocket and breathed a long sigh of relief. Sam and Tucker were back with the blood blossom, which meant this ordeal was finally nearing its end. He walked back into the library and found his dad exactly where he'd left him, watching over Vlad from the easy chair. "Hey, dad?" Danny said as he approached. "Why don't you get up and stretch your legs? I'll keep an eye on him."
For a moment Danny wondered if Jack had heard him, but then Jack slid out of the chair and straightened. "Yeah, alright," he said, his voice weary.
Once Jack was out of the room Danny knelt next to Vlad and shook his shoulder. "Vlad. Hey, wake up. Sam and Tucker got the blood blossom, you need to let them in," Danny said, keeping his voice low.
A sharp inhale declared that Vlad was awake, and he opened one eye to look at Danny. "What?"
"How do I turn off the ghost shield?"
"It's on my watch, I'll do it." Vlad was struggling to stay awake even as he spoke, his open eye threatening to roll back up at any moment. He struggled to lift his right arm, eventually pulling it across his abdomen with his other hand and holding the button combination with his eyes closed.
There was a distant sound of fizzling energy just beyond the windows.
Danny texted "shield down, I'm in the library" to Tucker and sat in one of the easy chairs. Vlad was already asleep again, his forearms still resting over his abdomen.
Jack returned before Sam and Tucker arrived and sat down in his own chair again. "Did he wake up?" he asked, pointing to Vlad's arms.
"For a little bit. He's still really tired, though."
Jack nodded, then returned to his vigil.
Danny met Sam and Tucker at the door, and was surprised to find Valerie had come with them. He quickly revised what he was about to tell Tucker and Sam and brought them up to speed. "Okay, so the curse hit Vlad really hard while you guys were gone. I don't know if he'll be able to make the cure."
"Maybe he has instructions somewhere?" Tucker suggested.
"Check the lab?" Sam added, sharing a sidelong glance with Tucker.
"Yeah, that would be the best place to check," Tucker said, picking up on what Sam might be hinting at. An opportunity to check what Vlad might be plotting didn't come up very often, after all.
"I'll make sure my dad doesn't interfere," Danny said. "Wanna hang with us, Val?"
"Sure," Valerie said, giving him a smile.
Amorpho had not fared well in the hours he'd been down in the lab. The rust progressed much faster for him than for Danny and Vlad, and his body was almost completely covered in it when Sam and Tucker found him. The two shared a worried glance, then continued on to the mainframe's primary terminal.
"Cameras?" Sam asked as Tucker connected his PDA to the terminal.
"Checking now..." Tucker replied. "Huh... Just one pointed at the ghost portal in here. We're good to go." He gave her a thumbs up.
Sam scanned the rest of the room and spotted some documents and equipment on a table that hadn't been there before. She walked over and picked up the top page, finding a detailed set of instructions for creating the decursing salve. "Wow, he must've snuck down here while we were asleep." Sam checked over the equipment and found that Vlad had assembled everything that would be needed for creating the salve, though whether it was for his own sake or for anyone who might have to create it in his place only he could say.
"Hey keep looking, I'll make the salve," Sam called over her shoulder. She had to admit that she was more than a little excited about this, creating what were basically magical—or perhaps in this case anti-magical—remedies wasn't something she got to do every day.
It took a little under an hour to make the salve, much to Sam's relief. The instructions laid everything out so thoroughly that it was nearly impossible to mess up, and she wondered how many other remedy recipes Vlad might have tucked away somewhere. She took pictures of the instructions and everything used in the decursing salve now that she was done, this was too valuable a cure to pass up as long as it worked.
Speaking of...
Sam took one of the filled jars—the recipe made enough for two, and one of them was coming home with her—and turned to where Amorpho lay. "Hey, Tucker." She waved him over when he looked up from the terminal. "I'm gonna see if this works on Amorpho."
"Already?" Tucker hurried over. "That went faster than I thought it would. Think you got it right?"
"I know I got it right," Sam replied proudly. "Making this stuff was a blast and I followed everything to the letter." She took a q-tip from a nearby jar and dabbed it into the salve, then looked for the place Amorpho had been cut by the harpoon. "Man, it's hard to see with all the rust in the way..."
"Let's try this." Tucker pulled a lamp over and turned it on, the direct light just barely revealing the injury on Amorpho's arm.
Sam carefully spread the salve onto the cut and leaned back.
The rust disintegrated as it fell away and left nothing behind, receding until Amorpho was free. He opened his eyes and lifted his head, looking dazed. "What's going on?"
"I just made the decursing salve and it was a complete success," Sam bragged, holding the jar up for him to see. "How do you feel?"
Amorpho shifted to his humanoid form and slid off the table to float beside them. "Much better!" he replied, his lower eyelids lifted in a smile. "Thank you both for everything. Now I can go home and avoid returning to the human world for... A while. Possibly forever. I'll play it by ear." Amorpho laid a hand over the still-fading cut on his arm and turned to them. "Pass my thanks on to Phantom as well. He put himself in harm's way to help me and I won't forget it."
"You're heading out already?" Sam asked. She'd expected Amorpho to stay at least a little while, but his present plan made sense given what he'd been through.
"I'd rather not linger. I'm very weak right now, so the longer I stay here the riskier it is."
"Take care, dude. And be more careful next time," Tucker said.
"I certainly will, and you take care as well. Thank you again!" Amorpho gave them a small theatrical bow and flew through the ghost portal without further delay.
"Alright, let's get up there and get the curse off Danny too," Sam said triumphantly.
"Just gimme a sec to disconnect." Tucker hurried back over to the terminal and tapped a few final commands into his PDA before unplugging it. "Guess what I found on there," he said with a smirk as he turned to her.
"Tucker it's Vlad, it could literally be anything," Sam said, with a tad more impatience than she intended.
"More recipes for anti-ghost medicine," Tucker said proudly.
"Awesome!" If the other recipes were as fun to make as this one then she was looking forward to every one of them.
"Oh, and some super-encrypted files that look suspicious, I won't be able to open those until I get home, though."
"Double score." Today was looking like it would end on a high point, which was more than welcome after how the previous day turned out. "Let's take care of the rest of our patients and get outta here."
They found Danny and Valerie at the opposite end of the library from Jack and Vlad, where the two would be able to converse without disturbing Jack's vigil. Sam waved them into the hall where Jack wouldn't be able to see them, and Danny lifted his shirt off the injured shoulder so Sam could spread the salve on it. As with Amorpho, the rust fell away into nothing and left only the initial cut behind.
Danny rolled his shoulder with a smile and put his shirt back on. "Finally. Thanks, guys. Getting cursed is the worst."
"So now we just need to distract your dad for a bit and we'll be good to go," Sam said. The thought of simply leaving Vlad to his fate had crossed her mind several times, but she would be the first to argue that she and her friends should be better than that. They would be keeping their end of the deal if she had anything to say about it.
"Wild ghost chase?" Tucker suggested.
"Wild ghost chase," Danny agreed.
"Should I take the lead?" Valerie offered.
"I'll let you know when we're done," Danny said, giving her a grateful smile.
Valerie gave him a thumbs-up and led the group back into the library. She hurried to Jack and said something to him.
"But there's no way a ghost could get in here, Vlad's ghost shield is still—" Jack stopped short when he looked out the window and noticed that the subtle ripples from the ghost shield were gone. "Great googly moogly the ghost shield's down and a ghost got in!" he cried as he jumped to his feet.
"It went that way!" Valerie pointed toward the nearest entrance to the library and the two dashed away at breakneck speed.
Incredibly effective, though Sam was a tad suspicious of how quickly Valerie caught on to what they needed.
"Hey, Vlad, we got the salve." Danny shook Vlad by the shoulder as he spoke, and for a moment Sam wondered if they would have to get his shirt off themselves when Vlad stirred.
Vlad pushed himself into a sitting position with his left arm, his right arm limp and hanging at his side. He was clearly exhausted and barely able to keep his eyes open, his fingers clumsy as he pulled out the bow at his neck and undid the first few sets of buttons on his suit and shirt. The rust was visible the moment he pulled his shirt away from his neck. Rather than take his shirt off entirely Vlad shifted it off his right shoulder instead, revealing the deep cut that the rust had spread from.
Sam daubed some salve onto a clean q-tip and spread it over the cut. The rust fell away as it had before. Vlad lifted the hem of his shirt next, revealing the other even deeper cut on his side. This too was freed from the rust when Sam spread the salve over it.
"Excellent work," Vlad said as he fixed his shirt and coat with both hands. "I appreciate that you three didn't simply leave me to die after getting what you needed."
"Well we're better people than you," Danny replied. "And my dad would be totally depressed if you died, so you're lucky I love him more than I hate you."
Vlad's eyes narrowed at the mention of Jack and looked as if he might say something, but in the end the words never materialized. "I take it you three will be leaving soon."
"Just one more thing to do before we go," Danny said. "We're taking that harpoon gun with us."
Vlad stared at him for a few moments, then his usual smirk returned. "Don't blame me if it goes missing, then," he said with a humorless chuckle. "You have to know they'll be looking for it."
"We'll take care of it," Danny said with a glare. He then took his phone out and texted Valerie, letting her know it was safe to end the imaginary ghost hunt and lead Jack back here.
Danny hesitated as he reached into the scanner. He knew that touching the weapon would be unnerving at the very least, but curiosity drove him on. His fingers closed around the stock.
A prison of wood and steel closed in around him, so close that he couldn't move. The prisoner's voice muttered to itself, lonely and miserable and longing for freedom. They just wanted to go home...
He jumped away, dropping the harpoon gun as he moved. It clattered to the floor and lay there as if nothing had happened.
Sam and Tucker were at his side in an instant.
"What happened?" Tucker asked.
"You okay?" Sam added.
Danny brought a hand to his mouth as he stared down at the harpoon gun in horror. He was breathing heavily, the sensation of being trapped having shot a wave of panic through him. "We have to free whoever's in there," Danny said once he'd calmed enough. "We can't just leave them like that."
"Maybe Clockwork could give us some clues?" Sam suggested. "I doubt he'd want other ghosts to be stuck like this."
"Yeah. I'll ask him." Danny looked around for gloves, but Tucker picked up the harpoon gun before he could find a pair.
"Don't worry, dude. I got you," Tucker said as he straightened with the harpoon gun held carefully in both hands. "We're not just gonna let you hold this thing again."
They returned to the library and found that Jack was still making sure Vlad was okay enough to leave alone, something that Vlad was plainly annoyed by but too tired to stop.
"Got a fever?"
"No."
"A headache?"
"No."
"Stomach ache?"
"I'm fine, Jack!" Vlad snapped. "I'm just. Tired. Okay?"
"Well alright, but if you need anything just give me a call!" Jack swept Vlad up into a hug before he could get away and squeezed him tight for a few moments. "Let's do this again soon, I had a great time!"
Vlad brushed himself off like an offended cat and subtly put enough distance between himself and Jack to prevent another surprise hug. "We'll see if my schedule allows it," he said, in a tone that suggested it very definitely wouldn't.
Sam and Tucker elected to take the Specter Speeder and the harpoon gun back to Fenton Works as the group left the library. Danny didn't need to ask why—he knew his dad was an absolute terror on the road and couldn't blame anyone for wanting to skip out on that, and the sooner the harpoon gun could be locked down somewhere the better. He stayed behind to make sure Vlad didn't try anything, though the chances of that were slim as it was.
Danny ended up having to drag his dad to the door when Vlad's continued insistence that he was fine wasn't enough to get Jack to disentangle himself. Jack even caught Vlad in another bone crushing hug—Vlad was too tired to dodge and glowered at Danny for laughing—before they said their final goodbyes on the doorstep. Valerie remained behind, to Danny's disappointment; she still needed to settle payment matters with Vlad before she returned to move preparations. He waved to her as she and Vlad stepped back inside.
Vlad returned to his lab once Valerie had received her payment and gone on her way. The ghost shield was back up, which meant nothing was getting in, but he was still anxious all the same; while the rust was gone the weakness it left behind remained, and he needed a few days at best to recover. He couldn't afford to have any unwanted visitors from the Ghost Zone, regardless of how much its ambient energies would accelerate his recovery. Vlad activated the shut-down sequence for his lab's ghost portal, having already turned the one in his library off.
With the immediate worry seen to, Vlad's attention drifted to earlier events. What was he thinking earlier? Become friends with Jack Fenton again? Never. It had to be sheer exhaustion weakening his resolve, there was no other explanation. The flashback, too, had to have happened for the same reason. Once he was well rested he wouldn't have to worry about such thoughts any longer.
Down in the deepest depths of Vlad's mind, in the places he could not intentionally reach, the Outsider settled with a satisfied smile and shattered another mental wall with a flick of its tail. Everything was going so nicely, and it had only just begun. The current host had originally been a stopgap, a way to hide the First Dream and itself until a more suitable one could be found, but upon further observation it realized that this was possibly the best host it could ever find: resources and wide influence over the rest of his species, ghost powers, and a lifebinder besides. A lifebinder, of all things! Such entities were rare even in ancient times, and yet here one was now, his mind vulnerable and his body ripe for the taking once he was hollowed out.
Humans were... Different from ghosts. More messy, at least from what it understood from this host. The man was walking pile of fears and contradictions, all but a very few of them locked up tight where they couldn't bother him. Well, they had been locked up tight. The Outsider was making short work of that. Humans said among themselves that one could be their own worst enemy, and once his inner judge was fully unchained...
Living with himself would not be tolerable for long.
Between its many foreclaws the First Dream's pieces took root. It would be fully ingrained before long, and nearly impossible to remove without obliterating the host entirely. The mental leakage could prove a tad troublesome in the meantime, but the powers it would afford once the Outsider was in full control were too good to pass up. Reality would bend and break at a mere thought and none would be able to stop it, not even entities as powerful as Clockwork.
The Outsider's grin showed countless sharp teeth and spread to every last one of its many eyes. Yes, opening up many rifts would be all too easy in this body, and soon enough others of its kind would flood this wonderful little universe and plunder everything it had to offer.