“Wait,” said Smithy. “What shark and Viking?”
Denzel eyed him for a moment, trying to work out if he was being serious. “In New York,” he said. “The big ghost shark and ghost Viking we fought.”
“Who, us?” asked Smithy.
“Yes,” said Denzel.
Smithy continued to look blank.
“Have you been sniffing the memory dust?” Denzel asked. “We got recruited into the Spectre Collectors. We got sent to New York. A load of ghosts appeared, including a shark and a Viking. There was a big monkey.”
“It’s not ringing any bells,” Smithy said.
Denzel sighed. “We had a pizza.”
“Wait. Yes. Now I remember,” said Smithy. He nodded encouragingly. “Continue.”
“How do you know about all that stuff?” asked Denzel, turning back to Tabatha.
She shrugged and smiled at him. “I keep my ear to the ground,” she said. “I know a lot of things.”
Denzel got the impression she wasn’t about to explain further, so he flipped open his notebook, ready to start writing.
“OK, so. Question One. Are you a good ghost, Tabatha?”
“Sometimes,” Tabatha replied.
Denzel scribbled in the pad. “Are you a bad ghost?”
Tabatha’s eyes twinkled. “Sometimes. Though never on Tuesdays.”
Denzel stopped mid-scribble. “Why not Tuesdays?”
“On Tuesdays, I save the world,” Tabatha said, quite matter-of-factly.
Smithy stared in wonder. “What, every Tuesday?”
“Most Tuesdays,” Tabatha said. “And not always this world.”
“What do you save it from?” Smithy wondered.
Tabatha made a little weighing motion with her hands. “Depends on the Tuesday.”
Denzel had a horrible feeling this interview was already starting to get away from him. He looked down at his notes until he found what Tabatha was being charged with. Unfortunately, he couldn’t even begin to think about how to pronounce it. It started with ecto and ended with diaphantomism, but everything in between may as well have been a string of gibberish.
The good ghost/bad ghost questions hadn’t really helped figure out Tabatha’s motives. He had no choice. He’d have to dig deeper, and that meant going off-script.
“So,” Denzel said, his mind racing as he tried to come up with some more questions. “Ghosts.”
Tabatha and Smithy both looked at him. From their expressions, they were clearly expecting some sort of follow-up, but Denzel had already drawn a blank. He raised his eyebrows and stared expectantly at them.
“What about them?” asked Tabatha.
“Um, what do you think of them?” Denzel asked.
Tabatha’s eyes met Smithy’s. It was, Smithy thought, the greatest moment of his afterlife.
“Some of them are all right,” she said. “Some of them aren’t.”
“Why are you still asking her questions?” Smithy wondered. “You heard her, she saves the world every Tuesday! She’s obviously good.”
Denzel leaned in closer to his friend and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Yes, but she doesn’t really, does she? She’s just saying that.”
Something solid clonked Denzel on the head. He looked across the table to find Tabatha wielding a little walking cane with a shiny gold fist on the end. He rubbed his head where the knuckles had rapped him.
“It’s rude to whisper,” Tabatha said.
“Where did you get that from?” Denzel demanded.
Tabatha folded the cane in half, then squashed both ends together between her palms, vanishing it like a magician’s wand.
“Where did I get what?” she asked innocently. She leaned back in her chair. “And no, I’m not ‘just saying that’. I save the world every Tuesday. Fact.”
“How? From what? And why only Tuesdays?” Denzel demanded, still rubbing his head.
Tabatha counted on her fingers. “That varies. That also varies. And because Tuesdays are dangerous, obviously.” She snorted. “Everyone knows that.”
Denzel’s face made it very clear that he still wasn’t buying it. Tabatha sighed.
“OK, take last Tuesday,” she said, jabbing a thumb back over her shoulder as if that particular day was right behind her somewhere. “Remember when those Void Hippos trampled all over the timestream?”
Denzel and Smithy exchanged glances.
“No,” said Denzel.
Tabatha flashed them a beaming smile. “I rest my case,” she said, and something inside Smithy melted when she winked at him.
“She saved the timestream, Denzel!” Smithy yelped. “From Void Hippos!”
“What are Void Hippos?” Denzel asked.
“Does it matter? She stopped them!” Smithy continued. “We have to let her go!”
Denzel was less sure. “Let’s not rush into it,” he suggested. “We don’t know enough about her yet.”
From outside in the corridor, there came a thump and a roar.
“What’s that?” Tabatha asked.
“The guy next door,” Denzel explained. “We said his name and it turned him into a big monster.”
Tabatha nodded sagely. “Ah. Yeah, that can happen. They’re powerful things, names.”
The door to the interview room shook. A raised voice – Boyle’s, Denzel thought – shouted, “Stand down!” in quite an angry way.
Denzel and Smithy’s chairs creaked as they turned to look in the direction of the sound. That was why they were looking straight at the door when it exploded off its hinges and a blubbery lump of green goo forced its way inside, shrugging off a couple of Spectre Collectors who had jumped on to its back.
Its countless teeth bared when it saw Denzel. Four Hulk-like arms sprouted from its blobby body, the thick fingers balling into fists as the monster hurled itself at the boys.
“He is coming!” hissed a multitude of voices from the thing’s many mouths. “He is coming!”
Denzel tried to jump clear, but the Cassian-blob was too close, moving too fast. He cried out in panic as a slimy hand clamped down on the top of his head, and then all he could see were teeth as the monster lunged.
KER-SPLAT!
The creature exploded, and several hundred litres of green gunge splattered across Denzel, Smithy and the rest of the room. In that order.
For a moment, Denzel just stood there, frozen to the spot, his breath coming in deep, panicky gulps.
At last, he turned slowly to find Tabatha on her feet, her cane held in one hand. The forefinger of the little golden fist was extended. Denzel and Smithy both watched a curl of smoke rise from it, before the finger tucked back into the fist and a thumb raised instead.
“You’re welcome,” said Tabatha. She folded the cane up until it vanished, then sat down and nodded in the direction of Denzel’s slime-coated notepad. “Saved your life,” she said, her big, broad, beamer of a smile returning. “You might want to write that down.”
“I don’t like it,” said Boyle. He, Samara and Denzel were in one of the underground complex’s security rooms, watching the camera feed from the interview room where Tabatha was being held. Smithy had stayed behind to “keep an eye on her”. He seemed to be taking this literally, as he’d done nothing but stare at her for the past six minutes, and showed no signs of stopping.
“To be fair, you don’t like anything,” Samara said. “And she did save Denzel.”
“I had it under control,” Boyle insisted.
“It didn’t feel very under control when that thing had my whole head in its hand,” Denzel pointed out.
“We would have stopped it,” said Boyle.
“What, before it had cracked Denzel’s skull open like an egg, or after?” asked Samara. She turned to Denzel, ignoring Boyle’s continued protests. “What did you say her name was?”
“Tabatha,” said Denzel. “With an A.”
“Tabitha always has an A,” said Boyle.
“T-A-B-A-T-H-A,” Denzel recited.
/>
For some reason, this just seemed to annoy Boyle more. He tutted and shook his head, but said nothing.
“She said she saved the timestream from Void Hippos last Tuesday,” said Denzel.
He had been expecting them to laugh at that, so the serious glance they shared surprised him. “What?” he asked. “She didn’t, did she?”
“Hard to say,” said Samara. “Dangerous things.”
“Void Hippos?” said Denzel.
“Tuesdays,” Samara corrected. “But yes, also Void Hippos.”
Denzel’s jaw dropped. “You’re not seriously telling me that Void Hippos exist?”
“Of course they don’t exist,” Boyle snapped. “She’s delusional.”
Denzel pointed to Samara. “What, her?”
“No, her,” said Boyle, gesturing to the screen, where Smithy was still staring wistfully at Tabatha.
Samara smirked. “Yeah, sorry. I was winding you up. Never heard of Void Hippos.”
She clicked her tongue against the back of her teeth a few times, then nodded. “We should keep her around though. Study her a bit more.”
“What?!” Boyle spluttered. “You want us to keep another ghost around the place? Spectre Collectors doesn’t mean we collect them for fun! They’re not stamps! We’re supposed to lock them up.”
Samara and Denzel both frowned.
“You collect stamps?” asked Samara.
“For fun?” Denzel added.
“Shut up,” Boyle grunted.
“You do know what fun is, yes?” Denzel asked him. “You do understand the concept?”
Boyle crossed his arms over his Vulteron uniform. “I don’t trust her. And I don’t think we should be keeping more ghosts around the place. Especially crazy ones.”
“She might be crazy, but she’s powerful,” Samara said.
Boyle narrowed his eyes. “All the more reason to lock her in Spectral Storage. We can’t just leave her to wander around the place.”
Samara tucked her thumbs into the rope-belt that was tied around her tunic. Lots of little bags containing magical powders and potions hung from it.
“The Elders put Denzel in charge of deciding ghosts’ fates. It’s up to him.” She raised her eyebrows. “Denzel? What do you say?”
Denzel groaned inwardly. It was absolutely right, he thought, that ghosts should be given a fair chance. For centuries, the Spectre Collectors had just assumed they were all bad and locked them away, but Smithy had proved that being a ghost didn’t automatically make you evil.
Yes, a lot of the time it did, but not always, and that was the point.
While Denzel thought all ghosts should be given a fair hearing, he didn’t like being the one doing the listening. Deciding their fates was a big responsibility, and while some of them – Stabby, the octopus-ghost with knives for arms he’d met yesterday, for example – obviously had to be locked away for everyone’s safety, some cases were less clear-cut.
He’d almost set Cassian free, and look how he’d turned out. Sure, Tabatha seemed nice enough right now, but what if she turned into some crazy green blob like he had? Wouldn’t it just be safer to let Boyle sling her in Spectral Storage?
On the screen, Smithy sighed dreamily. Tabatha smiled awkwardly at him, then shot a sideways look to the camera and quietly mouthed, “Help.”
Denzel groaned again – outwardly, this time.
“Fine. Let’s not lock her up quite yet.”
“Good,” said Samara. She stuck her tongue out at Boyle, then gave Denzel a playful punch on the arm. “You and Smithy can look after her.”
With that, Samara turned and strode off along the corridor.
“Wait, what?” Denzel called after her, but before he could hear if she answered, Boyle prodded him in the chest.
“You’d better not mess this up, Denzel,” he warned. “Anything that spook does is now your responsibility. She goes on a murderous rampage? Your fault. She cracks open Spectral Storage and floods the place with ghosts? That’s on you.”
Denzel swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “Please don’t say that.”
“Here, hold this,” said Boyle, thrusting a closed fist in Denzel’s direction, thumb down.
Denzel eyed the hand warily. “What is it?”
“Just take it,” Boyle growled.
Cautiously, Denzel cupped his hands under Boyle’s fist. The bigger boy opened the fist to reveal nothing at all.
“That’s the fate of the world,” Boyle told him. “It’s now in your hands.”
Denzel gazed down at his empty cupped palms. “I don’t want it in my hands.”
Boyle backed away after Samara, raising his arms as if in a gesture of surrender. “It’s in your hands, Denzel. It’s too late. It’s in your hands.”
Denzel remained frozen to the spot, his hands still cupped in front of him, his eyes wide in panic. “Can you take it back?”
“No. Now, get Smithy and his girlfriend, and bring them to the briefing room,” Boyle ordered.
“What? Why?”
“Because that ‘He is coming’ thing people keep saying to you?” said Boyle. “We think we’ve figured it out.”
Denzel had stood rooted to the spot for a full two minutes, wondering where he should put the fate of the world, before realising that Boyle had been speaking metaphorically, and that he wasn’t actually holding anything at all. In hindsight, that should’ve been obvious, but when you were surrounded by invisible ghosts, magic and insanely advanced technology all day, it was sometimes difficult to know what was real and what wasn’t.
In the end, and just to be on the safe side, he’d put the fate of the world in his pocket. Then he’d rounded up Smithy, given Tabatha the good news that she wasn’t going to spend eternity in ghost prison, and invited them both to join him in the briefing room.
Unfortunately, the Spectre Collector’s HQ was a vast underground complex, and it turned out that there was more than one briefing room. There were more than ten briefing rooms, in fact, and it had taken almost half an hour for them to find the one Boyle had been referring to.
When they eventually stumbled in, the expression on Boyle’s face revealed just how furious he was at the delay. Denzel wanted to point out that it was entirely Boyle’s own fault for not being more specific, but thought it safest not to.
To Denzel’s disappointment, Boyle wasn’t actually the meanest person in the room. Two other Spectre Collectors sat at chairs around a polished wooden table. They both sneered at Denzel when he walked in, then jumped to their feet at the sight of Tabatha.
“Unauthorised Vaporous Entity!” barked Knightley. She was a Vulteron, like Boyle, and took aim at Tabatha with a blaster pistol.
Beside Knightley, her Oberon partner, Rasmus, waved his arms threateningly, light sparkling around his fingertips. “I sense Class Five Spectral Energy levels,” he warned.
“Is Class Five a good level of Spectral Energy?” Tabatha asked no one in particular. “How does the rating work?”
Smithy shrugged. “Nobody knows.”
“Yes, we do know, and yes, it is,” said Samara. She gestured for Knightley and Rasmus to sit down. “She’s fine. She’s been authorised.”
“By who?” Knightley demanded.
Boyle pointed to Denzel. “By him.”
Knightley and Rasmus both turned slowly in Denzel’s direction. If looks could kill – and in Rasmus’s case, they might – Denzel would’ve been dead on the spot.
“You let a Level Five Spectral Entity roam free?” Knightley spat.
“Inside our headquarters?” added Rasmus, his wispy teenage moustache bristling with disgust.
Denzel shifted uncomfortably. “She’s, uh, she’s fine. She’s nice,” he said.
“Lovely,” Smithy added with a sigh. He smiled longingly up at the much taller Tabatha. She gave him a double thumbs-up in response.
“Thanks for the support,” she said, then she waved to the others. “Nice to meet you. Tabatha Tarrin. Ghost.”
“She saves the world on Tuesdays,” Smithy added.
“Most Tuesdays,” Tabatha clarified.
“From Void Hippos,” said Smithy.
“Sometimes from Void Hippos. Not exclusively,” said Tabatha.
Knightley and Rasmus shot each other sideways looks. They both nodded.
“Not buying it. I’m taking her out!” Knightley barked.
Her finger squeezed the trigger of her weapon and Denzel felt like the world went into slow motion.
A bolt of blue light spat from the end and went streaking in Tabatha’s direction.
Smithy jumped, throwing himself in front of the ghost girl with a long, drawn-out, “Nooooooo!”
Luckily for him, he completely misjudged the timing and landed heavily on the floor, the bolt whistling past above him, still on target.
Denzel let out a little gasp of wonder as Tabatha spun, producing her cane from nowhere. She swung it with one hand, deflecting the blaster bolt up towards the ceiling.
All eyes followed it as it went up, up, up, then the bolt hit the light fitting and with a BANG the room was plunged into darkness.
The emergency lights kicked in less than a second later. By the time they had, Tabatha stood behind Knightley, her cane raised. The hand on the end was making a gun-shape with its forefinger and thumb, and this was now jammed up against the back of Knightley’s head.
Rasmus began to turn, his fingers glowing with magical energy.
“I wouldn’t,” Tabatha warned. She was smiling, and looked really quite relaxed about the whole situation.
Rasmus froze for a moment, then let his hands fall to his sides.
“Much appreciated,” Tabatha told him. She flicked her eyes to Knightley, her smile still fixed in place. “What I don’t appreciate, though, is being shot at for no reason.”
“You’re a ghost,” hissed Knightley through clenched teeth.
“Now, that’s just deadist,” Tabatha told her. “Just because I’m deceased, it doesn’t make me a bad person. What is this, the eighteen fifties?”
She removed the cane from the back of Knightley’s skull. The hand became a fist again.
“Now, I’m going to go ahead and assume this was all just a misunderstanding that we’re going to put behind us, and that from now on we’re going to be the best of friends. OK?”
Rise of the Ghostfather Page 2
