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For the longest time, Valerie had been jealous of other kids' soul marks. Paulina had gotten a golden glittery line across three of the fingers on her left hand that had just shown up one night. It stayed like that for a month before fading away, so it couldn’t have been too bad of a cut. Dash had a deep red patch on the palm of his hand that had been there as long as Valerie could remember, probably a pretty bad burn. Star probably had the clumsiest soulmate of all of them, she always had new lines on her fingers or blotches on her knees and elbows, but they never stayed for long.
Growing up she’d been upset because she never got any marks, which meant she didn’t have a soulmate, or at least, she didn’t have one yet. Maybe she would have a kid someday, and they would be her soulmate. Mikey and his dad were platonic soulmates. This thought had never comforted her though, because she wanted a romantic soulmate, and the older she got the less likely it seemed she was going to get one. She had enough going for her at the time that not having a soulmate didn’t affect her, but she heard what some people said to kids like Danny Fenton who didn’t have one either.
Valerie stopped wanting to ever see a soul mark on her own skin the day she saw the last soul mark that would ever appear on her father. She’d just started middle school, and Dad had been cooking dinner when she’d seen a large green mark appear running up his arm. She’d screamed, because none of her friends had ever gotten a soul mark that big. When Dad had seen the mark himself, he’d pulled down the collar of his shirt to see where the mark ended. After that he’d just yelled at her to call mom while he ushered her to the car. No one answered the phone. The marks on Dad’s skin lasted long enough for them to see Mom one last time at the hospital before every one of the marks he’d ever gotten faded from his skin forever.
So maybe Valerie would have been better off if she’d never gotten any soul mark. She’d had all of two years to be glad she’d never gotten one when it appeared on her hand. She’d been reviewing each syllabus for each of her classes in her bedroom after the first day of school when she’d noticed the toxic green sunburst on her palm. She’d had all of a minute to freak out about having a baby soulmate, with apparently crap parents, before she’d noticed the lines spider webbing away from the sunburst and disappearing beneath the sleeve of her sweater. She’d first pulled off the sweater and then seeing how much further it went, her shirt and her pants. All in all, it went from the palm of her left hand, up her arm, branched across her chest and a little up her neck but most of it went down to her right foot where it terminated in another starburst. All in all, it lasted about ten minutes before it faded completely.
In the end, she’d just felt numb to the whole thing. She’d had a soulmate for ten minutes. Somewhere out in the world a baby had been electrocuted to death. In what world did that make sense? It didn’t. What favors had the universe done in finding her a soulmate? It hadn’t. Valerie went to school the next day as if nothing had happened. Effectively, nothing had. She was able to pretend like nothing had happened up until later that night when the mark appeared again. It lasted all of thirty minutes. Numerous google searches for intermittent soul marks turned up nothing, so Valerie was a freak. She started wearing a light turtleneck and leggings to cheer practice. When she found out that a portal to hell had been opened up in their town about the same time her soul mark first appeared she’d concluded that it must have something to do with the ghosts, but she had no clue how, and once Phantom had wrecked her life she’d just been too busy hunting ghosts to worry about it.
Other soul marks would show up from time to time, either in conjunction with, or separate from the electrical burn, but it was only the electrical burn that she ever saw more than once. It didn’t matter though; she was ignoring it all. If she could break up with a nice guy like Danny, who also had never had any soul marks, so that she could focus on ghost hunting, then she wasn’t going to let her crazy soul marks distract her either. At least, she didn’t let it distract her until the two intersected and everything clicked into place when Valerie met Danielle and found out that she and Vlad were both somehow humans and ghosts at the same time.
Valerie had been chewing on this information for a few days. It was the transformation; it had to be. That’s why the soul mark (the death mark?) kept appearing and disappearing, while other marks showed up and disappeared quickly and often. Whoever her soulmate was, they got into a lot of fights and ghosts never held onto their injuries. She gave thought to the possibility that Danielle was her soulmate, but dismissed it. She’d seen the girl’s midriff and there was no electrical burn scar.
Still though, none of it made sense. How could someone be alive and dead at the same time? How could a ghost turn into a human? And why did she only connect to her soulmate when they died? She needed answers, and she obviously couldn’t go to Vlad about it. Vlad, who had used her, and tricked her, and sent her after a little girl so he could melt her down for an experiment. Was that how this had all started? Had Vlad turned himself into Plasmius? Had he turned Danielle part ghost? And what was their connection to Phantom? Vlad had always encouraged her to go after Phantom. Was Phantom… No, she needed answers, but she wasn’t going down that pathway.
Vlad was out; she would never trust him again. Who the hell knew what Jack or Maddie Fenton would do if they knew about humans who could turn into ghosts; they had certainly always given off more mad scientist vibes than Vlad ever had. She wouldn’t ever put Danielle in danger again, so she couldn’t risk her secret. Unfortunately, there weren’t many ghost experts around. She dismissed her initial thought of asking Danny. She’d broken up with him. They might still be on friendly terms, but she didn’t have any right to bring her problems to him. Besides, when they’d dated, they’d both thought that neither of them had a soulmate. If Danny found out that she had a soulmate after all, he’d probably think she had used him as a practice relationship, a sore spot for a lot of people without soulmates.
Her resolve to not ask Danny lasted until the next day at school after a night of looking at the green starburst on her palm, and a ghost fight at lunch that had her wondering if she was shooting at a human long enough for the ghost to get a good shot in at her wrist. Luckily, her long sleeves hid the injuries she got as the Red Huntress as well as they hid the soul marks that popped up time after time.
“Hey Danny, do you have some time to talk?” Valerie had caught Danny by his locker at the end of the day. “I have some questions about ghosts and I didn’t know who to ask.”
It was best to be direct, rather than let him think she wanted to talk to him for romantic reasons. Never mind that she still felt that way about him; she still got butterflies in her stomach whenever he smiled at her. Why couldn’t he have just been her soulmate?
Like he usually did when he saw her since they broke up, he smiled at her like he was excited to see her, and there went the butterflies. “Hey Val! Of course we can talk. I mean, I’m no expert, but I’d rather you learn from me than from my parents,” Danny said.
“Difference of opinion?” Valerie asked.
Danny shrugged, shouldering his backpack and shutting his locker. “Just a minor thing about ghost sentience.”
“They can’t be, though, can they?” Valerie asked.
“Some of them can be,” Danny said. “Not all of them are. Let’s just say there’s a lot of different sorts of ghosts.” He started walking towards the exit. “Let me text Sam and Tucker real quick. You’re working at the Nasty Burger this afternoon right? I’ll walk you there.”
“Sure,” Valerie said, and by the time they were out the doors Danny had shot off a couple of quick texts.
“So I’m guessing you didn’t come to ask me about ghost sentience,” Danny said.
“No, but, there’s different sorts of ghosts, right?” Valerie said. “That’s what you were talking about, like different species?”
“Definitely,” Danny said. “I don’t have it all figured out yet, but it’s definitely fair to say there are different ghost species.”
“I thought you kept away from all this ghost stuff,” Valerie said.
“Haha, yeah, I do, I just observe from afar, but there’s a lot to observe, you know?” Valerie was always finding new depths to Danny Fenton. “I’d rather be working on my Doomed ranking, but my parents are obsessed with dissecting ghosts, so I’ve gotten myself a hobby.”
Valerie wasn’t going to think about that. She just shot at the ones that showed up causing trouble. What the Fentons did with ghosts was outside of her purview. Though now all she could imagine was the massive Jack Fenton with a knife standing over Danielle strapped to a table. She suppressed a shudder. IF ghosts could be sentient, maybe she should care. She’d worry about defending the town first, though.
“Are there multiple ways someone can become a ghost?” she asked.
Danny shook his head. “The basic principal’s the same, though the exact conditions present at the time of, you know, when they die, and who they were in life, sort of determines how their ghost forms.”
“If I ask you a weird hypothetical, you wouldn’t talk to your parents about it?” Valerie asked.
“The list of things I don’t tell my parents about is extensive,” Danny said. “I don’t mind adding something else.”
“Okay,” Valerie said. “So hypothetically speaking…”
“Hypothetically speaking,” Danny parroted.
“People can be resuscitated when they die,” Valerie said. “So could a ghost form before they’re resuscitated?”
“Ghosts don’t form that quickly,” Danny said.
“But could the process start?” Valerie asked.
Danny looked shifty.
“Hypothetically? I don’t know. If someone died, and there was a thin spot between here and the ghost zone, and enough ambient ectoplasm collected before the thin spot dissipated, and the person had a reason to stick around, and some other stuff, and then they got resuscitated? Maybe, but even if the process started, I don’t think it would finish. Hard enough to tell if it’s ever happened. It’s hard enough to match the dead to who they were in life, so even if it had happened, it would be hard to prove it. Why, Val, you haven’t had any near death experiences lately, have you?”
“I live in Amity Park,” Valerie said. “But that’s not what I’m getting at. Could someone become, like a living person who’s also a ghost?”
Somehow she knew that Danny was feigning surprise after she asked the question.
“Huh, well, no, I don’t think that could happen naturally. Um, the ghost, if one formed, would appear in the ghost zone. There wouldn’t be any reason for them to be attached to the person it came from.”
It couldn’t happen naturally. The way he said that, the way he reacted, he knew something. It was good to know that it couldn’t happen naturally. Her theory that Vlad had created Danielle was probably true, and the likelihood that any random ghost she fought could still be human was pretty slim. Though Danny thought they could still be sentient.
“Can ghosts have soulmates?” Valerie asked.
“Hah, um, maybe? There’s romantic and filial relationships in the zone, I don’t know if they have the same bonding that humans can have, though. If my parents are correct then ghosts don’t have souls. If I’m correct, then ghosts are ectoplasmic transformations of our souls, either way they’re not exactly the same, so I can’t exactly say that the phenomenon can exist for ghosts.”
Definitely not the concrete answer she was looking for. A solid no would have been nice.
“You said, ‘If my parents are right’ earlier, too, when I asked about ghosts forming. What if they’re wrong? You talk like you think they’re wrong.”
Danny swallowed. “Um, well, then under the conditions you described, no, I don’t think there’s enough time for there to be an ectoplasmic transformation of the soul and to resuscitate someone before they’re brain dead. Even if the process started, it would need to complete in the Ghost Zone, that’s why ghosts only form in places where the barrier’s thin enough for the proto-ghost to slip through.”
“It couldn’t happen naturally,” Valerie said.
“Nope,” Danny said.
“But unnaturally,” Valerie prompted.
Danny laughed nervously. “I wouldn’t know anything about that. I may disagree a bunch with my parents, but please believe me when I say that they don’t do experiments on humans. At the very least they have those ethical standards.”
Vlad didn’t seem to have any ethical standards. She already knew it was possible. That wasn’t what she really wanted to know.
“But hypothetically, if someone had a human brain, and a ghost core, somehow, would they be more ghost or human.”
“They’d work together,” Danny said. “Like, they’d be synced up, like the left and right brain. Remember, though, the ghost core, in this theory, is a transformed soul, so it would have the same relationship with the brain. So the brain would be dominant. It’s definitely influenced by the core, but it’s the brain that makes decisions.”
It really seemed like he’d thought about this before. She’d known he was smart, in spite of what his teachers thought, and now she was wondering how her time as a hunter would have gone if she’d been getting his input from the beginning. She didn’t know how much she could press without risking Danielle’s secret though.
“Tell me about Phantom.”
Danny went more pale than usual.
“Huh, what? I don’t really know anything about Phantom.”
“You observe ghosts though, he’s around the most. Is he sentient?”
“Oh, right,” Danny said, showing relief, he even brightened a bit. “He’s definitely sentient, and my parents keep trying to make him fit into their models, but they can’t and they just won’t admit it. Every time they think they know what his obsession is he does something that doesn’t fit. Not that ghosts only follow their obsessions, but they’ve never even gotten close. Besides that, they ignore evidence that doesn’t fit with their models of how ghosts work. Phantom’s sentient, and he wants to protect Amity. Um, maybe he hasn’t always been great at it, but he’s trying, and I bet things would be a lot better if the other hunters worked with him instead of shooting at him in the middle of a ghost attack.”
Valerie had just let Phantom go when she’d had him dead to rights. She’d worked with him before, but every truce had always been very temporary.
“Could Phantom be different from most of the other ghosts in Amity?”
“Different like how?”
Phantom and Danielle were cousins. He didn’t really act like any of the other ghosts.
“Different like there’s still a part of him that’s human,” Valerie said.
A light sheen of sweat covered Danny in the late autumn air.
“Um, well, if you go by the theory that the humanoid dead are the ectoplasmically transformed souls of humans, then most of them are ‘part human,’” Danny said. He froze after that, like he was holding his breath to see if she would leave it at that.
“But could Phantom be more human than most other ghosts?” Valerie asked. “More like a hybrid.”
“I mean, he probably isn’t, but, what would you do if he was?” Danny asked.
It had been easier to hate Phantom when she didn’t think he could be the product of some horrible experiment that Vlad had done on kids, when they hadn’t worked together to save Danielle.
“I think I’d want to talk to him,” Valerie said.
“Really?” Danny asked, he seemed excited. “Any particular reason?”
She couldn’t tell him that she was the Red Huntress.
“I think I need to hear from him what happened the day my Dad lost his job.”
“Oh! I mean, like I said. He hasn’t always been the best at catching ghosts.”
“I think I’d want to hear that from him, or whatever he has to say,” Valerie said. Maybe she also wanted to know if there were any other humans out there with ghost powers. Maybe she wanted to know if Phantom was human too. Maybe she wanted to see the palm of his hands without the white gloves of his hazmat suit.
The Nasty Burger was a block away.
“Can I offer you a milkshake for letting me pick your brain?” Valerie asked.
“Val, if the answer to ‘do you want a Nasty Shake’ is ever ‘no,’ please assume I’m an imposter. Like seriously, there was a ghost that did that once, big headache.”
“I feel like you shouldn’t live directly over a portal to the Ghost Zone,” Valerie said.
“It has its perks,” Danny said cryptically. “Is your wrist going to be okay for work?”
Valerie tugged the sleeve of her shirt down lower. “How’d you know about that?” she asked.
“Oh, haha, you seemed to be favoring it,” Danny said, tugging down the sleeve of his own shirt. He’d also started wearing long sleeves sometime early in freshman year, before they’d ever dated, just like her.
She didn’t even think about it, she just reached forward and took his hand in one of hers and pulled up the sleeve of his shirt, just enough to see the dark purple soul mark she knew she’d find, right where she’d been shot during lunch.
Danny snatched his hand back and tugged the sleeve down quickly. He didn’t say anything.
“Phantom,” Valerie said.
Danny went white as a sheet of paper. “I have to go, um, help my parents with something. I forgot, they wanted me home right after school.”
He ran so fast away from her she seriously wouldn’t have been surprised if he actually flew, which he could actually do.
Danny had been insistent that a person couldn’t ‘naturally’ become part ghost. That becoming a ghost transformed a person’s soul. Did it make them into someone so new that the universe would pair them with someone? Had his parents experimented on him? Had Vlad? Valerie may have put the puzzle together, but nothing felt too much clearer.
Danny clearly knew they were soulmates…
God, Danny was her soulmate. Phantom was her soulmate. What the hell was she supposed to do with that?
Danny knew, though. He knew that the mark on his wrist meant that hers had been hurt. How long had he known? Probably for as long as she’d been the Red Huntress. He’d seen her get injured often enough. He’d always get so angry if any ghost got a shot in at her. He’d probably known when they’d been dating. She never knew why he’d forgiven her for being horrible to him when she’d been an A-lister. Was that why…
She said she’d talk to him. Danny had been excited that she wanted to talk to Phantom. If she hadn’t just completely spooked him off, then hopefully she’d get a chance to ask him directly. Deciding that life changing revelations wouldn’t get her out of trouble for being late for work, Valerie unrooted herself from the street corner where she’d seen her own soul mark on Danny’s skin and went to clock in.
She had even less patience for annoying customers than she normally did and wound up getting a verbal warning from Mark before she left for the evening. She was disappointed that neither Danny nor Phantom were waiting for her when she left. With a thought she activated her suit and started flying before pulling up her ghost scanner. She got the fuzzy sort of reading that indicated a ghost fight over near downtown. Too much interference to get any of the ghost’s ecto-signatures, but they weren’t any small fries. It was a Friday night, the area was going to be busy. Valerie took off as fast as she could.
The first thing Phantom said to her when she got on the scene was, “At least shoot him first.”
“Is that a dragon?!” Valerie asked, even as she shot an ecto-rocket at it. Garnering it’s attention, she had to dodge out of the way of a blast of fire.
“Hey!” Phantom said. “I’m the one who helped dethrone you, I thought we had a thing here.” He had his own stream of fire to dodge after that. Luckily, both of them were higher up than the dragon, so all of the fire was going up into the sky rather than towards the businesses below. At least one fire had been started already, though.
“How do you dethrone a dragon?” Valerie asked.
“You take his magical amulet and Sam convinces his sister to start a feminist revolution,” Phantom said.
Valerie saw a golden amulet on a chain around the dragon’s neck.
“Are dragons sentient?” Valerie asked.
“Sure,” Danny said. “But this one’s also an asshole.”
“Keep it busy,” Valerie said.
“Too easy,” Phantom said. He started firing small rapid shots at the dragon’s head, egging him on.
Valerie swapped her blaster for a shock lance and swooped down close and under it’s belly. Flying back upwards, she skimmed along its neck and snagged the amulet on the lance, giving the dragon a shock as well. She reached a snag when she got to the head of the dragon.
“Hold on,” Phantom said.
She couldn’t see what he did, but suddenly something impacted with the other side of the dragon’s skull. It’s mouth snapped shut and Valerie got the amulet from off the dragon’s neck. Then the thing started shrinking.
“Yes!” Phantom said. “It’s back to the dungeon with you Aragon.”
The dragon wasn’t just shrinking, it was transforming, and soon in its place was a humanoid ghost that looked like he belonged at a renfair. Valerie started shooting as she saw Phantom pulling out his thermos.
“Your parents have a dungeon?” Valerie asked as ‘Aragon’ shrieked in indignation.
“Well, yes, but also no,” Phantom said, sucking up the ghost. “I’d never put a ghost in my parent’s dungeon.”
Far below, Valerie could hear cheering from the Amity Park nightlife.
“I should go put out that fire,” Phantom said. “Good working with you Red.”
“We’re not done talking, Danny,” Valerie said.
“Okay, okay, just exnay on the Anny-day when we’re down there.”
Valerie followed him down and watched him ice over the awning over Dale’s Trattoria, and an old once-white Ford Focus that was probably never going to drive again. There was some sporadic applause after that.
“So where’s this dungeon?” Valerie asked.
“Mattingly,” Phantom said. “Close to the time-locked lands in the ghost zone. Hopefully, though, this creep didn’t cause too much chaos there when he escaped and Queen Dora’s sent some guards to come collect him, `cause the Specter Speeder’s on the fritz right now and I do not want to fly all the way there tonight.”
“What if you had some company?” Valerie asked.
Phantom looked at her in surprise.
“So we can talk,” Valerie said.
“Talking without shooting?” Phantom asked.
“That’s generally implied when people say they want to talk,” Valerie said.
Phantom grinned. “I’m sure the Fenton’s would want to ask me a few questions while they cut me up; can’t be too careful with ghost hunters.”
Valerie felt a bit sick.
“Talking without shooting,” Valerie offered.
Off in the distance they could hear the screech of wheels.
“Speaking of the devils, here they come. Guess I’m in luck, I won’t have to sneak into the lab. Come on, and careful with that amulet, it’s pretty dangerous.”
Phantom took off, speeding over Amity as the Fenton’s ‘Ghost Assault Vehicle,’ sped by in the opposite direction below them. Even without Phantom leading the way and the HUD in her helmet providing navigation, Valerie had no trouble spotting the large neon signs of Fentonworks up ahead. She was almost surprised when they used the front door instead of sneaking in.
“Danny, is that you?” Jazz Fenton’s voice called out from their kitchen. “Mom and Dad just dashed off; there was a call from the hotline.”
“Already taken care of,” Phantom said.
Jazz walked out of the kitchen and spotted the both of them.
“Oh! Phantom! And company. What are you doing here?” She started edging towards a cabinet next to the couch.
“She knows,” Phantom said, and then he transformed into Danny, just as Plasmius had transformed into Vlad and Phantom’s cousin had transformed into Danielle.
Jazz gave up all pretense of edging towards the cabinet and she lunged for a drawer and pulled out an ectoblaster and pointed it at Valerie. “What are you doing with my brother.”
“Woah, hey,” Danny said. “We’re just talking.”
Jazz frowned.
“I thought your parents stuff doesn’t affect humans,” Valerie said, eyeing the blaster pointed at her warily.
“It would work on your suit,” Danny said, without elaboration. “Come on Jazz, I’ve got a long flight tonight and I want to get out of here before Mom and Dad get back.”
“You haven’t had dinner yet,” Jazz said. “And also she’s hunted you. She’s a hunter.”
“So’ve Mom and Dad,” Danny said. “And like half my allies fought me in the beginning.”
Jazz frowned, Valerie let her helmet retract.
“You dated a hunter!” Jazz accused Danny, the blaster finally pointing at the ground and vaguely edging towards Danny now.
“She’s really awesome,” Danny said, blushing madly and not looking at Valerie.
“We’re going to have to unpack this when you get back.”
“We really don’t, Jazz, we don’t have to do that.”
“Just grab a muffin on your way out. How long do you think you’ll be?”
“If I have to go all the way to Mattingly with Val, it’s probably going to be a few hours.”
“I’ll tell Mom and Dad you’re doing a sleepover at Tucker’s and I’ll hit you up on your Fenton Phone when they go to bed, IF you let me interview you for half an hour tomorrow.”
“Ten minutes.”
“Thirty minutes,” Jazz repeated.
“Fifteen, or I’m doing the whole interview in pig latin.”
“Twenty-five,” Jazz conceded.
“Twenty and I’ll introduce you to Frostbite.”
“You have a deal,” Jazz said.
They shook hands. Siblings were weird. From outside Valerie could hear the screeching of tires and the sound of trash cans being knocked over.
“Time to go,” Danny said.
“Grab food real quick,” Jazz said. “I’ll stall a bit.”
“You’re occasionally the best,” Danny said, crossing the threshold into the kitchen.
Valerie followed after him and he tossed her a muffin, already shoving the cap of another one in his mouth. There was a big bowl of spaghetti sitting on the table that was probably going cold. With his mouth full, Danny just gestured to the open blast doors to the basement where the Fenton Portal lay. They went down to the lab and Valerie heard the front door opening behind them and a shout of alarm from Jazz that a ghost had just flown upstairs.
“Oh, oops,” Danny said as the lab came into view. He rushed over to one of the stations, which looked a bit like a child’s concept of a chemists lab with a bunch of beakers and tubes. The end result was some form of ectoplasm dripping slowly into a now overflowing flask. Danny swooped in and swapped in an empty flask, peeled the paper off of the rest of his muffin and used the spongey cake to sop up what had spilled before popping that into his mouth.
“What?” Danny asked with his mouth full after he caught her staring.
“That’s, um, healthy?” Valerie asked.
Danny nodded, poked his thumb into his chest, and swallowed what was left in his mouth. “For me it’s like taking my vitamins but it’s also an energy drink.”
Valerie thought about how late she would be getting home that night. Her dad would figure that she was out hunting, but for herself, she had been hoping to get to bed at a somewhat decent time that night. She wouldn’t mind some coffee. She’d dealt with worse, though, so she just nodded and walked over to the portal. Danny approached a panel on the side and a quick hand scan opened the heavy doors that covered it
Danny transformed into Phantom. For the first time she noticed the thin jagged lines just barely creeping up from the neck of his jumpsuit in the same place Valerie would have green soul mark etchings on her own skin if she were to deactivate her suit and pull down the collar of her top.
“This should be pretty straight forward,” Danny said. “But if we get separated, the portal excites the ectoplasm around it to about fifty-two hundred hertz, so you should be able to find it with your tracker. So does Vlad’s, by the way, if it’s a real emergency.”
“Do we need to worry about leaving the portal open?” Valerie asked, activating her board.
“Nah, I can close it on the other side.” Phantom said. “Come on.”
He flew through the open portal. Valerie followed him in and after making some inputs to another panel on their side of the portal, they flew off, Phantom taking a slight lead.
“So,” Phantom said. “You have questions.”
She did, but suddenly she just wanted to ask, “Who’s Frostbite?”
“He’s a good friend,” Danny said. “He’s the Chief of the Far Frozen.”
“Is he one of those allies you fought before you became friends?” The thought of ghosts having friends was weird.
“Actually, when we met we fought together against Pariah Dark’s armies.” Phantom turned his head towards her. “Was that what you really wanted to ask?”
“Ghosts have chiefs?”
“And queens and kings, and councils, and some just do their own thing, there’s a lot of different cultures in the Infinite Realms.”
“Do your parents know?” Valerie asked.
“That I’m Phantom? No, they aren’t just pretending to hunt me.”
“No, I meant do they know that ghosts have societies in here, but also, are you okay?”
Phantom laughed. “No, they don’t know, I’d have to tell them I’d been exploring the Ghost Zone first. Also, I’m doing alright.”
“Does anyone know about you besides your sister? Sam and Tucker, I’m guessing.”
Phantom nodded. “All the ghosts that frequent Amity.”
“They know?”
“The ghosts… I don’t know, it’s like beating up a teenager’s fine but outing him just isn’t fair play. Or maybe most of them don’t understand the position I’m in as a halfa living with ghost hunters. I don’t know.”
“Here I thought ghosts would use you against me, but they won’t even use your biggest secret against you,” Valerie said.
“That’s why you broke up with me?!” Phantom asked.
“You’d just blown up my suit, like it was nothing,” Valerie said.
“Yeah, which means I was always holding back when you were in it,” Phantom said.
“But…” That was when Valerie realized that Danny had been with her when her suit had started attacking the both of them. Phantom had already known that Technus had taken over her suit.
“Okay, what about the mayor?”
“Vlad? He’s just a fruit loop creep with no morals and a lot of power.”
“No, the Mayor you tried to kidnap.”
“Red, if I’d tried to kidnap Mayor Montez, I would have actually kidnapped him. There was a group of ghosts going around overshadowing people.”
“The jewel heist?”
“Asshole sorcerer who figured out how to control ghosts so he could fund his crappy circus.”
“Axion Labs?”
“I’ve told you, I was just trying to get Cujo back to the Ghost Zone.”
“That dog kept showing up, though, even at our home when we were moving out. Look, I know that the A-listers… that I was horrible to you back then. I remember that, like, a day before that dog wrecked Axion Labs, we had a run-in and I told Qwan to beat you up. I know that was messed up. I’m sorry, I just need to know.”
“He didn’t catch me,” Phantom said. “And if I’d decided to go ruin people’s lives for stuff like that, don’t you think I would have wrecked Dash’s long before yours?”
“I don’t know, I just need it to make sense.”
Phantom sighed. “Cujo was a security dog in training at Axion. They weren’t just training those dogs to bark at intruders, they were training them to attack. It’s really expensive to ‘retire’ those sorts of dogs if the trainer doesn’t take them, so when they decided to replace the program with your dad’s system, they just… well, you know, Cujo’s a ghost for a reason.”
“The dog wanted revenge?”
Phantom shook his head. “Cujo was a puppy, he didn’t understand what was going on. It’s not like he gained any understanding when he became a ghost.” Phantom sighed. “You want an answer that makes sense, or maybe you want an answer that fits the magnitude of what happened to your life, but as far as I could tell, Cujo was looking for a dog toy he had before. The alarms at Axion spooked him and he fell back on his training. Then, I’m pretty sure your dad had taken home some boxes from the security office, and Cujo could smell stuff from the kennel. In the end, Cujo found the toy he was looking for and he went back to the Ghost Zone on his own.”
“My dad lost his job, and our house, because a dog was looking for a toy?”
“Well, another way to think about it is some executives decided to kill a bunch of dogs because it would be cheeper, one of those dogs came back as a ghost, and then they scapegoated the guy, who hadn’t been hired to protect against ghosts, because his security system didn’t protect against ghosts.”
They didn’t talk again for a while as they flew through the eerie green haze of the Ghost Zone. Valerie glanced around at the passing islands and doors while she thought about it all. Everything had been easier before Vlad had sent her after Danielle. At least, she’d thought things had been simple back then. Things had never been simple, she’d just been too single minded in her hatred of Phantom and the rest of the ghosts to realize what a mess everything was.
Suddenly Phantom put a hand out in front of her and Valerie saw a couple of dots approaching them from ahead on her ghost scanner.
“Let’s not shoot first,” Phantom said.
Two ghosts came into view dressed as knights, the both of them speeding towards them. They slowed down as they approached and the one in the lead raised a hand in greeting.
“Sir Phantom,” the lead ghost called out. Valerie was surprised to find that she sounded like a woman. “We have come to warn you of Prince Aragon’s escape. My Lady, the Queen Dorothea, was concerned that he would look for you for revenge before attempting to reclaim the throne. We will offer you what assistance we can.”
“I already got him,” Phantom called out, holding up the thermos. He started approaching the two. “Is that you, um, Dame Arathin.”
“It is I, and my page, Jon.”
“Good to see you,” Phantom said. “This is my companion, the Red Huntress, she removed the amulet from around Aragon’s head.”
“We are well met,” the knight said to Valerie. Valerie just nodded her head.
“I don’t suppose you brought anything to haul Aragon back to Mattingly, did you?” Phantom asked.
“We have brought sufficient shackles, and a casement for the amulet,” the knight’s page said. He sounded young and eager.
“My Lady shall wish to thank you, if you will be able to accompany us to Mattingly,” the knight said.
“Unfortunately,” Phantom said. “Aragon has already interrupted other commitments tonight, and we will be trying to return home as soon as we can. Though, the Christmas Truce is coming up soon enough and I understand Mattingly is hosting for the first time in a long while. I will look forward to speaking with Queen Dorothea then if I do not manage a trip to your kingdom before then.”
“I will tell her of your plans to attend,” the knight said. “Come Jon, the shackles.”
Phantom released the ghost from his thermos and it was disoriented enough that the four of them didn’t have any trouble forcing him into the shackles. By the time that was done, though, he had become cogent enough to start running his mouth and Valerie was about ready to shoot him in the face.
“Does this mysoginistic creep ever shut up?” Valerie asked.
“Unfortunately, I can not say that Prince Aragon ever does,” the knight said.
“May I?” Phantom asked.
“Of course, Sir Phantom.”
He floated up to Aragon and slapped his hand over his mouth, pulling it back to reveal a patch of ice over the ghost’s mouth. Aragon looked very indignant.
“I know he’s a fire core, but that should last until you get back home,” Phantom said with satisfaction.
“Thank you, Sir Phantom,” Jon said.
“Please give the Lady Samantha my kind regards,” the knight said.
“Of course,” Phantom said. “And my kind regards to Queen Dorthea. I’ll look forward to seeing you at the truce, Dame Arathin, and Page Jon.”
“Um, it’s been a pleasure,” Valerie said.
They watched the two ghosts fly away.
“Sir Phantom?” Valerie asked.
“I helped overthrow her oppressive brother,” Danny said. “I’ve been knighted.”
“Of course you’re a knight, why not?"
Phantom laughed. “By the way, you might just score an invite to the Christmas Truce now,” Phantom said.
“Is that what it sounds like?”
“Everyone likes a party. Grudges shouldn’t get in the way of that. Everyone gets together, no one fights. Think you could manage?”
“Well if ghosts can manage it, then I can,” Valerie asserted, before realizing she’d just accepted that she’d go to a ghost party. She wasn’t even questioning if it was real. Would the two of them go together?
“Does Vlad come?” Valerie asked.
Phantom looked at her in shock. “Why would you think that Vlad would come.”
“Because he’s part ghost like you,” Valerie said.
Phantom shook his head.
“I saw him transform, just like you and Danielle. What? Are you protecting him?”
“He can’t know that you know,” Phantom said.
“I’m not dumb, Phantom, I know he’s powerful and I know he’s dangerous. But he used me. He sent me after a kid he wanted to murder. Don’t think I’m not going to figure out a way to deal with him.”
“He’s ruthless,” Phantom said. “In a way that you aren’t. That’s what you need to worry about.”
He started flying back.
“Then help me,” Valerie said, keeping pace. “Or, at least, help your cousin, so she’s safe from him.”
“You think I wouldn’t help you for your own sake?”
“I’ve shot you a lot,” Valerie said.
“So’ve my parents,” Phantom said. “I’m bad at keeping grudges. Besides, we’re soulmates.”
It was the first time either of them had directly acknowledged it.
“Wait,” Valerie said.
Phantom pulled up, turning to face her.
“Is that alright?” Phantom asked, frowning. “I know I’m not exactly the sort of guy anyone would ever dream of having for a soulmate, but-“
“You’re the only guy I’ve ever wanted to be my soulmate,” Valerie said.
Phantom looked at her in shock.
“I didn’t want to break up with you, I was just scared. I didn’t want a soulmate for the longest time, but I thought if I had to have one, I’d want it to be you.”
“As complicated as everything was, I was pretty psyched when I realized it was you,” Phantom said.
“Probably not so psyched when I broke up with you,” Valerie said.
“Not psyched then, no, but I guess I never thought it would be easy.”
“I guess it won’t be easy,” Valerie said, holding out her hand, a green starburst hidden by her suit.
Phantom looked at it in surprise, the totality of everything that stood between them probably going through his mind. A moment later, though, Phantom’s hand took her’s, a pale white starburst covered by his white gloves. “But it’ll be worth it.”
Phantom suddenly went a bit rigid and Valerie thought they were about to be attacked by a ghost, but he just put a finger up to his ear.
“Major Tom here,” he said. Then, “already?”
Valerie waited while he listened to the person on the other end, who was probably Jazz.
“No, no,” Phantom said. “I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth, I ran into a couple of folks from Mattingly, so I’m on my way back. Talk to you later, I guess I’m crashing at Tucker’s tonight.”
Phantom smiled at her. “Looks like my parents turned in a bit early, tonight. We can head back now without worrying about them being in the lab.”
He held out his hand. She took it, and they flew home together. She didn’t have all the answers yet. She didn’t know how she’d deal with Vlad. She didn’t even know if things could work out with Danny after everything else. But she knew she liked holding his hand. She knew she wanted to try making things work. She knew that the next time she saw a soul mark appear on her skin that it wouldn’t be a joke from a cruel universe.