Chapter Text
Whispers reverberated through the vast expanse of the Ghost Zone.
Hostilities ceased between specters as rumors floated through each phantom door, suspended land mass, and solitary domain.
An underlying buzz of restlessness unfurled throughout the denizens of the dead.
Sam’s funeral was a nice affair. Being goth, she had relished in the beauty of death. She would have been elated to see her parents voluntarily embrace black for once, however preppy the attire.
It was the only comfort to Danny’s guilt as he sat, invisible, in her service. Her mother’s eulogy echoed past the vast ceilings of the synagogue, her demeanor collected despite the circumstance. Danny recognized Sam’s steadfastness in her mother as she spoke, the same resilience apparent in her grim face.
Although he hadn’t been invited, a quick search on his computer told him the time and place. He felt bad knowing the Mansons didn’t want him anywhere near. But he had to be there. For Sam.
He should have been paying close attention to Mrs. Manson’s words. Each resounding syllable slipped past him as he sat on his cold hard bench, far in the back of the temple. It passed him by in a hazy blur as other members of her family walked up to the podium to share their words.
They shared stories from her upbringing, glimpses into parts of her life Danny hadn’t even been aware of. Talked about her love for community involvement. Her passion for animal rights and nature conservation. Her resilience, her fighting spirit, the size of her impact despite her age. How tragic the accident was. How she was too young.
Sorrow permeated the air while family and friends sobbed.
Danny wasn’t allowed to cry. He shouldn’t be here. He didn’t want to be here. She should be alive.
Too soon, the funeral came to an end, and everyone fell silent in mourning. Then, one by one, the funeral-goers trickled out until it was just Danny and a few stragglers.
It wasn’t until one of the visitors pulled the Mansons outside that Danny walked up, invisible, to Sam.
She had been placed in an elaborate, black wooden casket. The black was a nice touch, though it was nowhere near gothic enough for her taste, and the decor around her was woefully barren. Danny had wanted to bring her favorite flowers, but it was inappropriate to bring flowers to a Jewish funeral. So, he simply stood there with Sam heavy in his heart.
It didn’t feel real. Even with Sam right in front of him, hidden under a closed casket.
Tucker’s had also been closed. Danny had attended his funeral earlier in the day. Maurice and Angela embraced him after the service and offered to take him in. It hurt having to turn down yet another offer to escape Vlad’s clutches.
His personal wishes aside, he was undeserving of their kindness, having played a direct part in Tucker and Sam’s death.
“I’m sorry, Sam,” he whispered. Tears flooded into his eyes. It did nothing to alleviate the guilt that ate away at him. Nothing would make up for it. Her, Tucker, and everyone were gone, and there was nothing he could do. Even though he hadn’t conspired to kill them, he had failed to save them. It may as well have been the same thing.
Maybe he was at full fault. Who’s to say he is not the same version of his older self? For all Danny knew, he could be. He didn’t even deserve to be standing here. He’d done enough damage.
But he didn’t want to leave. He fought the urge to crumple onto the ground and throw himself at Sam’s casket and weep.
He should be with her. With Tucker. With everyone. In the ground.
But he wasn’t. He was alive. And he wasn’t supposed to be at his best friend’s funeral. So all Danny could do was stare at what remained of her with tears streaming down to the floor and brace himself in the near impossible task of staying silent.
He couldn’t fall to pieces — he couldn’t afford to stay long. But he didn’t want to leave. He didn’t feel ready, even though he knew he should. He wanted to respect Sam’s parents' wishes as much as possible. That meant not sticking around for longer than necessary.
However, when Danny finally worked up the courage to turn around and walk away, he was met with the sight of Pamela and Jeremy frozen, staring at him.
The trail of tears on his face burned with an icy fervor. Goosebumps erupted on his arms and crept up his neck. When did he drop his invisibility? How long had they been standing there?
Pamela was gripping Jeremy’s arm with a scary force, and both of their faces were hollowed under a combination of grief and shock. Pamela’s shock contorted into a terrifying expression. Each line in her tired face trembled, the whites of her eyes massive in fury. The mascara that had pooled under them accentuated her lividness.
Her low voice pierced into Danny with all the strength of a scream. “How dare you.” Expensive earrings danced around her face as her entire body shook.
Jeremy watched her with fear. He looked more tired than anything else as he placed his hand on top of hers. “Pamela…” he warned.
She ripped her hand away and stepped forward to point a shiny, manicured finger at Danny. “How dare you come here! After everything your family has done!”
Terror laced through Danny, rendering him immovable.
“I knew you were a bad influence! I told Samantha you were bad news. Yet we put up with you! You and your good for nothing parents. Your family’s buffoonery has ripped itself apart, along with everyone around them!”
Her demeanor blurred her put together appearance, giving way to a manic ire. He wanted to run, but the terror she instilled in him rooted him to the spot. The fear, the accusations, and the guilt made his stomach twist and turn.
“We should have put a stamp on it from the start. I truly thought the worst that could come from you was inappropriate music taste or pop culture interests. I would have never guessed that your family’s ghost hunting would kill our Samantha!”
She stalked closer, her wrath growing increasingly evident. Danny’s heart spiked as he cowered under her, the diamonds in her necklace glittering daggers into his wide eyes.
“You all killed my Sammy! You killed her!”
“Pamela,” Jeremy intervened. He gripped her wrist and tried to pull her away, but she refused to budge. “Now really! Where is your poise? You can’t go around saying that. He is as much a victim as our Sammy.”
Pamela yanked her arm from her husband. “No! He is an accomplice!”
“He is a harmless fifteen year old who was born into a bad family.”
“He killed her!” Her shoulders hiked and her clavicle grew taut under the strain of her emotions. “He killed her! And he…” Her pale lip quivered as she stuttered for her words. “He has the nerve to show up to her funeral. Our funeral!”
Searing pain consumed Danny as the synagogue weaved around in his vision. Regret bubbled under white hot fear.
Jeremy glanced at Danny, his eyes glittering. “I can’t say I blame him, Pam. Our approval or not, he was close to Samantha.”
What little remained of Pamela’s composure crumpled and she began to sob into her cupped hands. For a woman as stern and uptight as she was, the sight was beyond jarring.
Jeremy pulled her close and Danny, on the verge of losing his own composure, slipped away, crashing against hard, wooden pews as he scrambled to escape. As soon as he rounded the corner, he transformed and took off. He shot intangibly through rows of marble and wooden scaffolding, breaking past the roof of the synagogue and into the sky.
Pamela’s outrage and Jeremy’s dejection burned into the back of his eyelids. Danny’s blood pounded relentlessly in his head as he fought to climb in altitude, pushing his speed to the absolute limit. The wind whistled against his ears as he broke past a layer of clouds that drenched him in freezing moisture. He kept flying, higher and higher.
Her words thrashed around in his ears, a never-ending assault that followed him no matter how fast he flew. No matter how far he tried to get away. The worst thing about them was that they rang true. Hearing her articulate his innermost doubts solidified the cold hard truth.
He did kill Sam.
He did kill Tucker.
He did kill Mr. Lancer.
And he did kill his family.
Danny wanted nothing more than to cloister himself into the bathroom and wallow after Sam’s funeral, but he was on a tight schedule with his own family’s funeral tomorrow, and subsequently, his flight to Wisconsin after. He had only a few hours to pull himself together for another outing to Fenton Works with Vlad.
Several hours wasn’t enough. By the time Vlad knocked on the door, Danny couldn’t bring himself to answer or leave. In the end, Vlad phased in and dragged him out.
It was torturous, having to be around his arch-nemesis at the lowest point in his life. It took everything in him to perform a semblance of mental normalcy, an effort he couldn’t have pulled off if it weren’t for Vlad’s presence, for better or for worse.
That said, Vlad clearly knew something was up in the way he kept glancing at Danny, who tried to ignore it. He stared hard out the car window where his reflection looked back with pitiful, red-tinted eyes.
Danny rubbed them and exhaled, eager for the car ride to be over.
He shouldn’t have shown up to Sam’s funeral. He’d never seen both Sam and Tucker’s parents look so disconsolate. He couldn’t even blame Sam’s parents for their outburst. It was deserved, and it was stupid of him to want to seek closure. He didn’t deserve closure.
His situation was already deplorable. But being trapped in a car with Vlad after experiencing that was a new low. Danny didn’t want to have to interact with him, but Vlad seemed to have other plans.
“Daniel.”
Danny ignored him. He didn’t want to speak, his voice would undoubtedly come out shaky. And he obviously looked like he’d been crying. Pathetic.
“Daniel,” Vlad repeated, his voice taking on a more threatening tone.
There was no ignoring Vlad. Danny steeled himself as best as he could.
“Mmhm?” It came out short and forced. He refused to turn around.
“Show me your hand.”
The strangeness of the request finally pulled Danny’s attention out of the trenches and toward Vlad. “What?”
Vlad didn’t acknowledge Danny’s question. He stared at him, waiting.
Fruit Loop. Danny held up his hand. Vlad leaned in to inspect it, then pulled out a tape measure. Danny watched, perplexed, as Vlad wrapped it around his first finger.
His curiosity prompted him to ask, “What are you doing?”
“There will be friends from your parents' ghost-hunting circles at the funeral. It would be prudent to build a device that cloaks your ecto-signature from their detection.”
With everything going on, Danny had completely forgotten about his parents’ friends and the danger of being in their vicinity. Danny’s parents usually dismissed the way their machines picked up his ecto-signature, writing it off as an error or interference from the ghost portal. But he doubted their friends would ignore it. And, due to the nature of his family’s death, and the fact everybody would be visiting Amity Park, the most haunted town in America, they would likely be on high alert.
“Don’t you need one too?” Danny asked.
Vlad released Danny’s hand and held up his own. An inconspicuous black ring glinted in the sunlight streaming through the car. “I don’t understand how you were able to get this far without a cloaking device. How you managed to hide your abilities from Jack and Maddie is far beyond me.”
There was an opportunity there to dump on his dad that, for some reason, Vlad didn’t pursue. Danny didn’t dwell on it, he had more pressing things to worry about.
“Why a ring?”
“Accessibility. The device is on a smaller scale, therefore it works by suppressing your core. The downside is that you won’t have full access to your abilities while it’s active, so you press this button with your thumb to deactivate it. I developed a variety of models, but the ring was preferable due to its inconspicuous nature.”
Even with a cloaking device, the idea of having to go to his family’s funeral with a bunch of ghost hunters put Danny on edge. He turned his attention back to the window where his uneasy mind dwelled on what was to come.
“I will need to use your parents' lab to build the device. Understand?”
“Yup,” Danny answered resentfully.
The walk into Fenton Works was a little easier this time. Vlad had guided him through the brunt of his packing, but Danny had a few more suitcases to fill before he could leave. Everything was sorted into neat piles on the carpet of his room. All he needed to do was figure out the jigsaw puzzle of making it fit.
He kneeled down and began the pattern of picking up and placing down his possessions. He tried not to think about all of the things he was leaving behind. Where the suitcases would be going. How today was the last day he’d see his home.
His room.
His family’s belongings.
Pick it up. Put it down. And don’t think about it.
Eventually, Danny was relieved to see that the end of his packing grew near. He shoved his last couple hoodies into his already stuffed suitcase, sat on top, and jiggled the zipper impatiently until it reluctantly closed.
Just like that, it was done.
He exhaled, stood up, and stretched to relieve his stiff back and neck. The floor was cleared, save for his packed bags, yet the room still felt lived in. The glow-in-the-dark stars on the ceiling remained and his models were still on the dresser
In any other circumstance, he would have brought them with him. But aside from a couple picture frames, he was forced to leave everything of significance. They were too painful.
Unable to stomach looking at it anymore, he tore his eyes from them, pushed open his bedroom door, and shut it firmly behind him.
The picture frames along the dark wall of the hall seemed to glare into him. Danny trained his eyes to the floor and padded down the stairs. He didn’t look back up until he passed the steps of the lab, where he was met with another jarring sight.
Vlad had turned nearly everything off. All of the plugs were pulled out and cast openly on the floor. Every little light and monitor had been dimmed, and the usual noises emanating from some of the louder machines were gone. The background processes from his parents’ longer experiments had been halted, and some of their more dangerous inventions had been locked away.
At least, Danny hoped they had been locked away, and not taken by Vlad.
Then, there was the portal, with its doors left open, and the chasm on the inside of the mechanism, usually hidden under the veil of a swirling vortex, bared for all to see. Danny hadn’t seen it like that since…
It was so deep he couldn’t see where it ended. But he knew what the end of a dormant portal looked like. He’d never forget.
A drilling noise pulled Danny’s eyes from the portal. Vlad was hunched over one of the counters with a pair of safety glasses and his sleeves rolled up. The end of a soldering gun stuck out from his silhouette, twiddling around while sparks intermittently shot out.
Danny walked up to him, careful to leave a decent distance between himself and the workstation. Between the sparks and Vlad’s arms, Danny could make out a small ring, similar to the black one Vlad wore, but white.
Vlad must have sensed his presence. Without looking up, he asked, “Done?”
“Yeah.”
Another wave of sparks showered down from the counter. “Have the chauffeur pack everything in the car.”
Danny emerged from the lab into his vacant home. The fridge was empty. The ghost detection system and the ops center had been disarmed. His family’s belongings from their last morning were still laid out — he’d insisted on leaving them be.
And, when he opened the door, there was no warning beep from the doorway ghost sensor.
Although he didn’t say anything, the chauffeur was one step ahead. He marched into Fenton Works while Danny stared hard into the deep black of Vlad’s car.
He wouldn’t be coming back for a while, if ever. And he was unable to look at his old home while the chauffeur began loading his suitcases into the trunk.
After all, it was his fault that it was now empty.
Gravel stung into his arms. Danny could see their eyes wide in terror. He was too beaten and exhausted, but he had to get up. There were only seconds before—
“No, no, no, NO! NO!”
Gasping for air, Danny ripped back his sheets. He kicked them down and wrapped his arms around himself, his hands struggling to scratch away the lingering heat from his dream.
Their eyes flashed in front of him, clear as day. Flash. Boom. Massive sheets of metal catapulted toward him. Again. And again. His evil older self’s laughter rang in his ears, his face gleeful with victory. Boom.
Danny’s heart raced away, pumping so hard that it hurt. It felt like it was trying to run away from him. Out of him. He wanted to run away. Get away. He couldn’t.
Boom. The scorching heat from the blast burned fresh on his skin. His chest throbbed, where the time medallion had been removed. Fatigue weighed heavily on his sore muscles.
They looked so confused. So scared.
Boom.
A man’s shadow traced the limits of his vision.
Danny backed into the headboard and curled up tight. No. He didn’t want to see any more.
A distant hand settled on his shoulder. He violently flinched. The mattress dipped to someone’s weight.
A voice emerged, distant yet close. “Breathe. In five, out seven.”
Boom.
“One, two, three, four…”
Danny breathed in and exhaled. Breathe. Hold. Exhale. Hold. Every breath in was a gasp for air. Every exhale was forced and shaky.
All he could do was lay on the ground and stare at them. He had fought with everything he had. He was useless. He failed himself. He failed them.
He killed them.
Boom.
Breathe. Hold.
Exhale. Hold.
The hand on his shoulder gripped him hard.
Painfully hard. Enough to force the fog to begin to lift.
Each breath grew easier. Sweat stung through his back. His heart struck against the cage of his ribs and his stomach had contorted itself into deep knots.
Gasping for air, Danny straightened up and leaned back into the cold headboard with his forehead facing the ceiling. He gripped his knees like they were his lifeline. Adrenaline coursed through his veins.
Severe nightmares plagued all three nights of Danny’s hotel stay. Unfortunately for Danny, his bed was next to Vlad’s, and Vlad was a light sleeper.
Danny yanked off Vlad’s hand, fell forward, and ran a jittery hand through his sweaty hair. “I’m—I’m fine. I’m okay. It’s all good. Just another nightmare.”
Although it was dark he could feel Vlad staring, his form rimmed by moonlight slipping between the blinds.
“Nightmares aren’t usually this persistent, nor this intense.”
Danny felt clammy, nauseated, and he wanted to be left alone. “Alright, fine. My freakout is over, so you can go back to sleep now. Isn’t that what you want?”
His heavy breaths filled the silence that followed as Danny struggled to regain a steady rhythm. For a while, Vlad’s silhouette remained immovable. The intensity of Vlad’s gaze ate at what little was left of Danny’s dignity.
Before he could blurt out something inflammatory to make him go away, Vlad sighed defeatedly, stood up, and went back to lay in his own bed.
Although Danny was exhausted, it was impossible to go back to sleep. The remnants of his nightmares returned whenever he closed his eyes. He gave up and opted to stare into the dark ceiling. It wasn’t much better.
It was hard enough living through the aftereffects. Why wouldn’t it go away? Every day, every night, he was transported back into hell. Vlad was always there, watching him fall to pieces. He was the last person Danny wanted to break down in front of. Repeatedly.
Strips of moonlight brightened into the light of day. It was not long before Vlad woke up again and pulled Danny out of bed.
In a sleep-deprived stupor, Danny dragged himself through the motions of getting ready on auto-pilot. The horrible reality of the day hung over his head like a dark cloud, but somehow, he didn’t feel present in it.
It wasn’t until he approached the bathroom with his suit in hand that he was snapped back into the real world. Hung outside the bathroom door under a plastic cover was an undoubtedly brand new dress suit that was just his size. Vlad must have gotten it for him.
The one his parents gave him was better than any kind of suit Vlad could. Without a second glance, Danny pushed the door open and closed it behind him.
As he pulled it on, the image of his dad sewing on the couch flashed by. He used to insist on tailoring Danny’s suits since he was a child. It used to be something Danny rolled his eyes at. They always turned out a little janky. But now…
Danny turned around and stared at himself in the mirror. The faded black of his old suit brought out the dark circles under his eyes. And, although it didn’t look too small, it was starting to feel like it. He rolled his shoulders a few times to try to ease it out and tugged on the bottom to smooth out the wrinkles.
It didn’t help.
He flipped up the hem to expose the uneven stitching left behind by his dad, coarse and worn as he ran his fingers over it. Tears twinkled away at the edges of his vision. He screwed his eyes shut and fixed his jaw tight, determined to will them away.
It was only fitting Danny said goodbye in this suit.
When he left the bathroom, Danny could see that Vlad had already finished his morning routine. He sat at his makeshift workstation at the kitchen bar with the ring hooked to his laptop. Absurd amounts of wires spilled over the counter and under all of the bar chairs.
Perhaps it was the intensity of the nightmares, but Danny’s stomach hurt. A lot. And he couldn’t parse if it was the anxiety or the fact he was hungry and had barely eaten or a combination of all of the above. He clumsily navigated over the cluster of wires to the kitchen counter where an assortment of breakfast items were laid out, courtesy of the hotel.
A granola bar was the only thing that looked palatable. Danny tore open the packaging and chanced a small bite. It was dry, bland, and it made him feel worse.
He forced himself to take a few more bites.
The clacking of keys came to a stop as Vlad stood up from his laptop. He reached over the kitchen bar and, before Danny could grasp what was going on, plucked a hair from his head.
“Ach! What the—”
The hair was dropped into a metallic disc that lit up and began to whir. “I need it to finish programming the ring.”
Nursing the sore spot on his head, Danny glared at Vlad, who had already resumed typing. He could have at least given a heads up.
“We leave in fifteen. I suggest you hurry it up,” Vlad warned.
Eating would take forever. Danny tossed the mostly uneaten bar into the trash and steeled himself for the one task he couldn’t postpone any further.
He picked up his black tie from his suitcase and walked to the mirror. The daunting article sat limp in his hands — it had been a while since he was asked to wear one.
Danny hooked the tie around the back of his neck and pulled it beneath the flaps of his collar, hoping to jumpstart his memory. Like clockwork, his hands worked through the first couple of motions. Then, they reached a roadblock.
Out of his periphery, Vlad appeared at the edge of the mirror, rummaging through one of their bags on the counter. Danny noticed Vlad stop and stare as he struggled with his tie. He tried his best to ignore the man and look like he knew what he was doing.
It was a losing battle. Danny grimaced as he struggled to unloop the strange knot he had trapped his fingers through. He pulled them out and impatiently yanked at the tie. It made the knot worse.
Vlad watched him begin the process again before leaving him be. Danny tried to remember what his dad had shown him. He kept getting lost after step six. He redid it again and again, past the point where his memory grew hazy.
It wasn’t often that he had to wear a tie, and as a result, he’d always have to ask his dad for a refresher. He wished his dad were still here to… to…
Vlad reappeared and his patience seemed to be wearing thin. He spun Danny around and gripped the tie.
“Give me that. We’re going to be late if we don’t head out soon.”
Vlad began fixing the tie before Danny could object. Danny turned his head in defeat and glared at the wall while Vlad tugged it into the correct knot with practiced ease.
Everything about this was humiliating. Having his archnemesis help him with his stupid tie. Having him talk Danny down from midnight meltdowns. Being adopted by him because he failed as a hero. And worst of all, garnering his pity. His habitual scathing remarks were nowhere to be seen. Even his exorbitant arrogance was gone, replaced by glances that gave off the slightest inkling of commiseration.
One last tug and the tie was secured. Before Danny could dart out of the bathroom, Vlad raised Danny’s hand and jammed a white ring into his palm. “Put it on, we’ll need to test it.”
On the outside, the ring appeared simple. It was sleek and metallic, save for the small slide button. But past the surface, Danny caught a glimpse of the maze of compact circuits inside.
Vlad took a few steps back and produced a device that pulled Danny’s attention from the ring.
The Fenton Ghost Detector.
Anger flooded throughout Danny, pooling into a supernatural heat that pulsed into his pupils. Vlad undoubtedly had stolen it from his parents’ lab.
Vlad paid no mind to Danny’s bright green eyes. He flicked the detector on. It chimed as it booted up.
“For obvious reasons, I don’t own handheld ghost detection devices. I brought it for testing purposes. The rest of your parents' work is undisturbed.”
“Are you planning on putting it back?”
Vlad rolled his eyes. “Yes.”
The green in Danny’s eyes subsided, but his glare remained.
“Oh for the love of — just put it on.”
His gut told him not to. He didn’t entirely trust Vlad’s word and in the past, his inventions always served to hurt or incapacitate Danny.
But Vlad had no reason for that anymore, right?
He has his half-ghost son now.
Despite their past, despite his distrust, Danny had nothing to lose anymore. He let go of his lingering anger and slipped the ring on.
“Activate it,” Vlad instructed.
His thumb found the button and flipped the switch. A trickling sensation emanated from the device and traveled from his arm into his chest. The pleasant, underlying feeling of his core dampened as the device began to muffle it.
Suddenly, it was like someone had knocked the air out of him. Danny exhaled, breathless, as he gripped his chest and fought the urge to double over.
“You’ll get used to it,” Vlad said flippantly. He pressed a few buttons and the ghost detector began to beep as it searched. As Vlad walked slowly toward him, Danny rubbed at his chest and focused on trying to breathe.
Vlad kept walking until he was right in front of him. He held the device just inches away from Danny.
It continued to beep steadily.
“You’re clear. Let’s head out.”
In the elevator, Danny hooked his finger in the tight space between his neck and collar. His other hand rose to his chest, over his muffled core. And, on top of it all, his suit constricted his arms. It was like he was being strangled.
The feeling seemed to worsen when the car peeled away from the hotel, although Danny’s lingering frustration was replaced with a somber air. Amity Park passed Danny by, drowning him in melancholy. The funeral was Danny’s last chance to say goodbye to his family. To Amity Park.
In some ways he needed to leave. But in other ways, he was not ready.
Vlad’s urgent voice pulled Danny from his thoughts. “Don’t look out the windows.”
When Danny was about to ask why, the beginnings of a decimated landscape entered his periphery. Danny’s eyes flew down to his lap and his heart pounded clean through his chest down to his stomach. Seconds turned into minutes, and the minutes felt like hours. Flash. Boom.
His hands found the edge of the seat and gripped the cold leather.
At some point, Vlad gave him the all-clear, but Danny kept his head down for the remainder of the drive. He didn’t look back up until the brakes squeaked to a stop.
Aunt Alicia was already there setting everything up for the wake. Although Vlad was financing the funeral, it was gearing up to be a down to earth affair, something Danny was relieved to see. The sight of her in a sensible black blazer and slacks was even more odd than the blouse and jeans she had worn to the hospital. She had even gone through the trouble to accessorize.
“Danny!” She rushed to set down a massive bouquet of flowers and embraced him. “Glad to see you out of the hospital.”
Danny wanted to squeeze her back, but his limbs felt weak. Her hug was fleeting, anyway. She let go of Danny to shake Vlad’s hand, and this time, Vlad was prepared for her stern grip.
“Again, thank you so much for financing all of this.”
“Really, it’s nothing,” Vlad deflected. He glanced at the ornate ring on the second finger of her outstretched hand. “That is a beautiful ring. Forgive me for asking, but is that sapphire? It appears quite genuine.”
“I’m not sure.” She raised the ring up as if to inspect it. Sticking out from a thin gold band was a large, brilliant blue, teardrop gem. It looked out of place on her worn hand. “It’s been passed down in the family for generations. I’ve never had it appraised.”
Danny stared deep into what was the culmination of his mom’s side of the family. He wondered if his mom had received any family heirlooms before her estrangement. But the question fell at the tip of his tongue, his voice lost in the chasm of his nervousness.
“Maybe I’ll have it looked at,” Alicia mumbled. The ring dropped as she clapped her hands together. “Well. There’s a lot to do, and I could really use your help, Danny. Do you feel up to it?”
Danny tried to swallow the stubborn lump in his chest. He didn’t want to go into the funeral home. He didn’t even want to be here. He wanted to run back into the car, back to the hotel, to the hospital. The explosion. Clockwork. Before all of this happened.
He wasn’t ready. The funeral shouldn’t even be happening in the first place. If he had just done his job.
“Danny?” Alicia repeated.
Vlad’s hand bumped into Danny’s back, startling him. Aunt Alicia was a few steps further than she was before. He must have been stepping away without realizing it.
“What can he do?” Asked Vlad.
Aunt Alicia watched Danny with slight concern before hesitantly answering. “The er… bouquets. They’re set out front. If he could just place them on the center of each table in the venue…”
“Go on,” Vlad prompted, giving Danny a nudge.
Aside from the fact his heart was jumping into his throat, Danny couldn’t help but feel embarrassed of the somewhat fatherly display Vlad was putting on, in front of his aunt, nonetheless. Eager to put distance between himself, Vlad, and the weirdness of the interaction, Danny hesitantly obeyed. He tried his best to ignore the look Vlad and his aunt exchanged as he walked away, feeling like a ghost of himself.
The sweet aroma of flowers fell short of Danny’s appreciation when he picked up the two closest bouquets to the propped door and timidly entered. It was a nice venue — as nice as it could get for a dark occasion. The tables were closest to the wall opposite the entry, and Danny made a beeline for the nearest one. He tried his best to avert his eyes as he placed down the bouquets, focusing hard on aligning them as perfectly as possible.
He knew he would have to look up again to find his way back to the door. But nothing could have prepared him for when he finally did.
Not too far from where he was standing were pictures hung on the wall.
Mom, Dad, and Jazz were beaming down at him from beneath their floral arrangements. Each of them above a closed casket.
They were in there. Right in front of him. Or, at least, what was left of them.
A cold sweat flashed through him. It was like a switch had violently flipped and he wasn’t quite in his body anymore. But he was. He was standing in front of his family.
The remnants of it.
Everything felt numb as he helped his aunt set everything up. All of his tasks grew into one big deadening blur. He didn’t remember loosening his tie. Vlad had to redo it.
Sooner than he would have liked, visitors began to pour in for the wake. There were people Danny recognized and others he didn’t. All of them came up to him and Aunt Alicia to express their condolences. A few mentioned seeing Danny as a baby, and commented on how big he had grown. How he has his mom’s face and his dad’s kind eyes. They asked him how he was doing and gazed at him like he was a poor starving child while he caught glimpses of ghost hunting equipment.
It felt patronizing. He quickly grew tired of hearing how sorry they felt and how he didn’t deserve it. Granted, when the Foleys approached him, they shared a lighthearted story about his parents. It was a welcome distraction to the overwhelming wave of sympathetic misery that was beating into him.
After exchanging goodbyes with some of Jazz’s favorite teachers, Danny excused himself for a drink. He was trying to keep his words to a minimum but he could feel that he was talking himself dry. He held his head low as he made his way toward the refreshments table in hopes that his overgrown bangs would shield him from conversation.
All that was offered was coffee and water. Danny picked up a paper cup, filled it with water, and took a sip. It was room temperature.
His stomach hurt, his chest felt like it was being strangled, and he felt lightheaded and exhausted. He was tired of talking to people, tired of being around Vlad, and tired of dealing with a reality that didn’t feel real. A timeline that shouldn’t even exist.
He drained the cup. It did nothing to drain his woes.
When he lowered it, someone was standing expectantly in front of him. He had half a mind to turn away, until he saw who it was.
“Hey, Danny,” Valerie greeted. Unlike everyone else, she was looking at him normally. It was still a sympathetic gaze, but it wasn’t as annoyingly overreaching as everyone else’s.
“Hey.”
Danny crumpled the cup and tossed it into the small wastebasket next to the table. He hadn’t felt like saying much aside from acknowledgments and pleasantries. Everybody that came up to him had a lot to say. But Valerie didn’t. She was waiting for him to say something.
Danny wanted to express how much the gift basket meant to him. How much he appreciated the gesture. But as he peered into Valerie’s expectant eyes, he found himself at a loss for words.
“Um… The gift basket… Thank you.”
Her smile was soft and kind. “I wasn’t lying when I said everybody has been thinking about you. Everything…hit Casper High really hard.”
It was strange for Danny to hear that. He and his friends had never really felt cherished at school. And Danny knew that after Valerie’s dad lost his job, she had also lost her trust in the community.
It shouldn’t take multiple deaths for the school to come together like that.
“Look,” Valerie said. “I know you’re probably tired of talking about what happened. But I want you to know, I get it. When my mom passed away it was really hard on me and my dad. I still really miss her, but I just want you to know that it gets better. Even if it feels like it never will.”
“Thanks.”
She’d never mentioned her mom before. A vague feeling of kinship hit Danny.
“So…what’s going to happen?”
Danny focused hard on the plastic blue spigot on the water cooler. He didn’t want to say he was going off to live with Vlad. It felt like admitting defeat. But he didn’t know what else would happen from this point.
“I’m moving in with my…godfather.” The words left a bitter taste in his mouth. “In Wisconsin.”
Valerie’s eyes widened. “You’re leaving? When?”
“We’re flying out after this.”
She appeared simultaneously surprised and crushed, and it took her a few moments to process. “Wow.”
Danny nodded.
Valerie placed her hands in the pockets of her trousers and rubbed her heel against the carpet. Her brow was slightly furrowed, as if she was thinking about choosing her next words carefully.
She eventually asked, “How do you feel? Leaving Amity Park?”
He didn’t want to get too into it. “It’s painful. Being here.”
She nodded slowly. “I get that. My dad and I moved here after what happened with my mom. Sometimes you need a change of scenery. There’s nothing wrong with that.”
A silence settled between them, but it lacked awkwardness. It was more a silence of understanding and solidarity. Danny appreciated that Valerie didn’t shove words into his mouth, or throw spiels at him on what she thought about…all of this. He appreciated that she seemed to understand he didn’t want to say much. She was simply here to show support, and that was it.
One of his parent’s friends was approaching them. Valerie noticed.
“Well,” she said, “I shouldn’t hold you up. I’ll see you after the service?”
He didn’t want her to go. He wanted to stand in silence with her for the rest of the wake. But she was already turning away.
“Yeah.”
As they neared the end of the visitation, Danny should have felt at least mild relief to soon be free from all of the polite conversation he was forced to endure in light of the worst tragedy he’d ever experienced. But relief became the furthest thing from Danny’s mind when he caught a glimpse past Mr. Faluca’s shoulder while being spewed sentiments of pity.
Valerie and Vlad were chatting in the far corner of the venue, leaning over just slightly enough that the average person wouldn’t have batted an eye. But Danny could tell something was up. He could tell they were talking about something confidential. Something Vlad didn’t want anyone to overhear.
Danny tried to ignore it. He tried to tune into his one-sided conversation with Mr. Faluca. But the longer they stood there, the more weird it seemed.
What was so important for Vlad and Valerie to discuss? They should barely know each other. Vlad was in his forties and lived all the way in Wisconsin. What would they even have to talk about?
Danny tried his best to fix a polite expression on his face so as to not offend Mr. Faluca, but it took a great effort. The conversation between them looked deep. Suspiciously deep.
Was it possible Vlad was still plotting things? Like when he gave her the Ring of Rage to hide it from the Ghost King? He’d used her as a pawn in the past.
In all honesty, Vlad didn’t seem terribly affected by the events that spurred the funeral. Nor did he really let on what he thought about all of this. Danny was willing to bet Vlad was secretly enthused about it, considering how badly he wanted his dad dead and Danny as his son. And, if Vlad was sad about his mother’s death, then he was really good at hiding it. Danny wouldn’t have put it past Vlad to take this as an opportunity to set a new plan in motion. Whatever that would be. It was the only reason Danny could come up with to justify Vlad’s strange behavior.
Mr. Faluca rambled on and on. Danny nodded intermittently, watching Vlad and Valerie as intensely as a hawk. Now they were both…laughing?
The laughter died down, and Vlad reached out a hand that Valerie met with a firm shake and a nod of her head. Then, she finally walked away. Clearly, Vlad and her had just struck up a deal of some kind.
It was enough to make Danny’s blood boil. Whatever Vlad was planning, he wanted Valerie far, far away from it.
Danny cut off Mr. Faluca mid-sentence to excuse himself, weaving fixedly through the crowd of black. Vlad caught sight of him and watched expectantly as Danny marched up to him.
Danny glanced around to make sure nobody would hear him before he threatened, “If you are plotting anything that endangers Valerie…”
“Now what makes you think that?” Vlad asked.
“Why else would you be talking to her?”
He smoothed the wrinkles on his suit, his face uninterested. “Well, a wake is a social event…”
“And you and Valerie go so far back, huh?”
Vlad regarded him seriously for a moment, as if he was mulling over something important. Then, he rolled his eyes and sighed in a way that told Danny he thought this was mildly annoying.
“Since you will be absent from Amity Park and the threat of ghost attacks are still looming, I took it upon myself to hire Miss Gray as Amity Park’s newest residential ghost hunter. You’re welcome.”
Whatever Danny was expecting, it was not that. There was the possibility he was lying, but more importantly, how did he know about…
“Ghost hunter? How do you know she is a ghost hunter?”
Vlad crossed his arms. “You haven’t figured it out?”
There was nothing derisive about the way Vlad said it, but that old calculative glint was in his eye. It was strangely welcoming. Lately, their interactions lacked the familiarity of their usual dynamic. Whatever the reason, the topic seemed to have brought back some of Vlad’s old tendencies.
Danny narrowed his eyes, unsure of where Vlad was going with this. “Figured what out?”
Vlad took a second to carefully survey their surroundings. When he deemed it safe, he leaned in and lowered his voice to a hush. “You’ve never wondered how she acquired such high-end ghost hunting equipment?”
Of course Danny had. The lack of overt Fenton branding meant it hadn’t come from his parents. And all of that high-tech gear had to have cost a fortune. While it was perplexing, Danny didn’t have enough information to worry about its origins and was more concerned about dodging her blasts.
Who else had the research and technology that rivaled his parents? And the money to throw it all away? The answer was obvious, yet completely out of left field, and the realization hit him with the force of a train.
“That was you ?!”
Vlad shot him a small smirk.
“I… you…” Danny stammered, unable to figure out where to begin. “Why Valerie? Of all the people you… you had to give it to the one with a neurotic grudge?” He stepped back, struggling to grasp the magnitude of this revelation. He’d spent half his time chucking ghosts back into the Ghost Zone, and the other half being chased by Valerie. And it was all because of Vlad?
“She’s fourteen!” Danny exclaimed. “Why would you give a kid, especially Valerie, a highly powered suit and a flying jet sled with guns?”
Vlad cocked his head, “As if you don’t have the same thing, albeit through different means.”
“I — that’s different, and you know it. I can take a hit. But she’s —” Danny realized his volume was growing louder than it should. He gave his surroundings another careful glance and lowered his voice back down, “— fully human.”
“That hasn’t stopped her. She’s faced the Fright Knight and Pariah Dark! Specters who are nearly as old as the Ghost Zone, and yet here she is.” He gestured in the direction behind Danny, who twisted around to see Valerie at the other end of the venue in light conversation with her dad. “Lively as ever.”
Danny turned back around to glare at Vlad. “She got hurt during that.”
“So did you.”
The light chatter of the wake contrasted the intense way they were measuring each other before Danny realized Vlad had successfully deflected him.
“You didn’t answer my question.”
“My reasoning is irrelevant. Amity Park will be protected by someone in your absence.”
This was pointless. Vlad wasn’t going to fess up, and it wasn’t worth pushing any further at his family’s wake, of all places. Especially with ghost hunters crawling everywhere. With everything that happened, Danny didn’t want to care anymore. But underneath the apathy and grief surrounding his circumstances, he wondered why Vlad would care enough about Amity Park to bother in the first place.
Danny tucked his chin and mumbled, “I don’t really care what happens when I leave.”
“Is that so? You seem to care about Valerie.”
“What does it matter to you?”
The muscles in Vlad’s jaw worked under a set, unreadable expression as he stared Danny down. Maybe Vlad actually was plotting and didn’t want to say. Or maybe there was something else he didn’t want to disclose. Or he didn’t even know the answer to that himself.
Danny couldn’t tell past the veil of Vlad’s guarded eyes.
Suddenly, Vlad glanced past Danny and reached for him, gripping his shoulder and pulling him around to his side before Danny could protest.
“What—”
“Wait,” Vlad coarsely whispered. He nodded discreetly to their left.
Two men in immaculate white suits roamed nearby, scanning the crowd with ghost detection devices. Danny’s breath caught in his throat as he watched them point their scanners at him and Vlad. He stood as still as a statue, scared that any kind of movement would set them off.
The green, blinking light at the end of the scanners glared into Danny. For something so far away it felt terrifyingly bright. What if the ring Vlad gave him stopped working? What if the GIW’s devices could somehow pick up their ghost halves?
One of them looked up from the scanner and whispered into the other’s ear. Why weren’t the two agents moving away?
Danny gulped, his throat clicking loudly against his anxious ears. The relentless pulse of his pounding heart threatened to give him away.
Vlad said the device suppressed their ghost halves. Did that mean the detectors could still pick up on trace amounts? They tested the ring against his parent’s inventions, not government issued ones.
The two agents nodded to each other. Then, they dropped their scanners and pointed them at a different section of the crowd.
Danny didn’t believe that they didn’t pick anything up. That they truly left. Until, finally, they were irrefutably far and disinterested.
Lightheaded from holding his breath, Danny finally allowed himself to breathe. He fisted his hands and glared at the back of their blindingly white suits. “They barely know my parents. What are they even doing here?”
“I believe the government suspects paranormal involvement in the incident,” Vlad said. “They turned the wreckage into a work site. They approached me earlier to request funding in an undisclosed —”
Mid-sentence, Vlad’s breath hitched and his hand shot up to clasp his chest. Shortly after, what felt like a massive chunk of liquid nitrogen pushed violently against the veil of Danny's ring. Several coughs tore through Danny’s throat, his breath icy across his tongue, though his ghost sense refused to form.
“Oh, fiddlesticks,” Vlad muttered.
A cacophony of alarms rose above the clamor surrounding them, bringing all conversation to a screeching halt. Every ghost hunter scrambled to pick up their blaring scanners while the rest glanced around in confusion. One of the GIW agents was already thumbing through a heavy book.
Screams rose in the far distance.
Danny’s head weaved in panic as he struggled to grasp what was going on. It didn’t make sense. Here? Now?! How were there even ghosts nearby?
“Vlad,” Danny hissed. “I thought you shut down the portal.”
“I did.” Vlad was staring intently in a fixed direction, almost as if he could see past the walls. “Perhaps closing the portal aggravated the seams between our realm and the Ghost Zone.”
A piercing BANG shook the foundation of the venue. The ear-splitting sound made Danny jump. Hard. It pierced into his bone and deep into his nerves.
Flash. Boom.
Bits of popcorn ceiling crumbled, smattering across what used to be clean carpet. White and gray, like the rubble of the Nasty Burger.
Danny reached for the cold bundle in his chest and tried to draw out his transformation. He couldn’t. Something was blocking it.
Flash. Boom.
He couldn’t reach his powers. Raw panic ebbed away at his concentration.
BOOM.
Jagged chunks of drywall and concrete exploded toward the crowd, leaving a massive crater in the wall of the funeral home. Gleeful cackling arose behind the destruction, then, all hell broke loose as ghosts began to stream through the hole. Screams erupted around them and everybody scrambled away.
Danny and Vlad darted away in opposite directions as the stampede approached them like a rumbling wave. He reached for his ghost half again to no avail.
That’s right. The ring.
Danny jammed his thumb against the ring, twisting it around until he finally found the slide button and pushed. The suffocating weight under his chest released and Danny finally felt free to breathe. To reach for the cold within him. He turned intangible and pulled his ghost half to the surface, just in time for the crowd of people to run through him.
Wanting to get away from the chaos, Danny shot into the air.
Massive holes spanned from the ceiling to the wall where enormous crowds of ghosts swarmed inside and out. Most people were struggling to push their way out the doors while the ghost hunters huddled in designated safe spots, prepping their gear. Not too far from them, Danny could make out Valerie in a heated fight with her dad.
Another BOOM rattled throughout the space. More ghosts streamed in through the hole. They swooped playfully over the crowd of people running away, drawing out their screams as if it were a fun game.
Danny wanted to move, to jump in and begin blasting away, but the returning echoes of the explosion kept him rooted in place.
All he was capable of was endangering everyone around him. What made him think he could step in now and make a difference? He’d just make everything worse. It was his fault all of this had happened. It was his fault he was at his family’s funeral. His fault the portal had to be turned off.
Below, several ghost hunters were now making their way into the center of the chaos, guns blazing and unafraid. Danny hung frozen in the air, battling with himself.
He couldn’t stay here, not with the power that he had. Although, it was his powers that landed him in this mess in the first place. It was a cruel cycle.
He could still feel the ring beneath his glove. the urge to re-activate it and slip away hung in the backdrop of his conflicted mind. There were plenty of ghost hunters. Every minute that passed, more joined. They were already engaging with the ghosts, drawing them away from the crowd.
Danny watched as a few ghosts were expertly shot down.
Yeah, they didn’t need him.
An ecto blast hurtled toward him, and Danny nearly dodged it too late. It smashed into the ceiling above him, showering him with sharp bits of rubble. He whipped his head back down to the source, thinking he had been spotted, but found that some of the ghosts had begun to engage with the hunters. They dove around them, sending the ghost hunters misfirings careening in a mishmash of directions.
One of the blasts traveled far, far across the venue, feet above the caskets where his family lay, and shattered Jazz’s picture frame.
Danny gasped and dropped his intangibility. If that blast had been aimed a little lower…
The ghost hunters were too focused on taking out ghosts. Nobody was paying attention to where their blasts were ending up. They probably didn’t care, not like Danny did, anyway.
He wanted nothing more than to leave.
But he couldn’t, not like this. He may have failed his family but they at least deserved to be respected in passing. Danny could at least do that for them.
More ghosts had entered the church, so many that they were beginning to overwhelm the crowd of ghost hunters below. Danny dove into the increasing mayhem, dodging stray toasters and ecto-blasts.
He was so fixated on getting to them that he didn’t spot the pitch-black tendrils headed toward him until it was too late.
“Danny!” Spectra drawled. “You’re alive! Or, at least, as alive as you were before.”
Danny tried to veer away, but she latched onto one of his arms and yanked him back. He yelped as pain from the sudden stop erupted across his shoulder. Without giving him any time to recover, Spectra pulled him close, too close for comfort.
“How’s the old family? I heard they’re not doing too well…” She glanced down at the direction Danny had been heading. “Yikes. Closed casket. What happened?
Danny tried to rip his arm away but her grasp was too strong. She tightened her grip even further, her talons digging deep into his skin, ice cold and knife sharp.
“Let me go!”
Another BOOM hit the air that made sparks of pure panic lance down Danny’s spine. He shuddered violently and Spectra giggled in delight.
“Every time I see you, your misery grows leaps and bounds!”
Danny leaned away from her as much as he could, his eyes darting from her to his family’s remains. He needed to get there. Needed to protect them. Needed to save them this time.
“You know, Danny, the other day, I heard a wild rumor.” She dug a shadowy digit under his chin and pulled him to face her. “They’re saying you killed your own family. Is that true?”
“I…” Guilt trickled under his adrenaline. He could feel Spectra beginning to suck away at it like a leech.
He couldn’t fall for it. Even if he did kill them, he couldn’t admit it to her. He refused to. What kind of son would kill his parents and his sister?
She leered at him, the fierce red in her eyes glaring into his soul. Red, just like the —
Flash. Boom .
His evil older self stood tall and strong, silhouetted in a sea of angry blue flames.
“You’re too late to save them.”
He didn’t mean to. But his older self did.
And even if he didn’t mean to kill them, it was his actions that inevitably led them to their death. Even though he didn’t know that it would. He tried his best to stop it.
“You really did? Didn’t you? It’s all your fault, isn’t it, Danny?”
A pink glow erupted as she fed, and Danny could feel himself begin to slip away under her grasp. He writhed, desperate to escape her clutches, growing weaker by the second.
“No! No! I… I didn’t mean — !”
“Oh, save it. You know what you did. You’re just a freak that hurts everyone around you, aren’t you, Danny?” The edges of her inky form bristled and spiked as she consumed him. Her grip grew stronger, tighter, more painful. Suffocating.
Reality swayed under his heavy eyelids. The chaos around them died to a low dim while everything slurred into a disarray of changing colors. The blurred black mass of her body grew toward the edges of his vision, blotted with blooms of pink.
“Maybe everybody would be better off without you. Maybe you should join your family. In the ground.”
Danny wanted the pain gone. He was tired of it. Tired of living through the aftershock. Tired of constantly reliving the explosion. Tired of ruining everything around him. Pain and death and chaos followed him around like a shadow.
Distantly, she crooned, “I can take away the pain, Danny. If you let me.”
The only thing keeping him rooted to the hell hole that was consciousness was the promise he made to his family in their dying hour. That he would never turn into that.
He couldn’t die. Not if he didn’t want to turn into his evil older self. That would be catastrophic.
But wasn’t that caused by the Ghost Gauntlets? Maybe this was the way to go. Maybe if he just let go of the urge to fight and allowed himself to succumb to the sweet cold…
Everything faded near black, save for a small pinhole of light. The din of chaos around him died down to TV static. For once, Danny felt pleasantly detached as he embraced the tantalizing nothingness that was just inches away…
His fear melted away. His grief dissolved. What was on the other side? Maybe he would see his family again. That would be nice. Or simply relieved from this seemingly long nightmare.
The pinhole turned green. Bright green.
Searing pain erupted across his back as a heated blast sent them both flying. Danny could hear Spectra screeching while lights flashed around in his vision as he tumbled through the air and crashed against the ground.
“Freeze, ghost!”
Groaning, Danny sat up in a pile of debris, his vision doubling. Another blast struck inches from him, igniting a wave of adrenaline. He shook his head, struggling to make sense of the blur of doubled chaos surrounding him.
In the mess of battling ghost hunters, it was hard to make out the source of the two shots. But when a third green blast whizzed past him, his eyes retraced the direction it came from, and he caught sight of Agents K and O with their guns trained on him.