For Mia,
Creator of Tabatha and Saku.
(But, just so we’re clear, no, you’re not getting paid.)
Denzel Edgar hadn’t signed up for this.
OK, technically he had signed up for it when he’d agreed to join the Spectre Collectors, a centuries-old secret society dedicated to protecting Earth from supernatural threats. He’d known there’d be a certain amount of “ghost stuff” involved, since that was pretty much the whole point of the organisation. He just didn’t think it’d be anything like this.
Denzel sat on an uncomfortable plastic chair directly across a table from a large, semi-transparent man. The way the man was staring at him was making Denzel deeply uncomfortable. What was making him even more uncomfortable was the fact that the man was holding his detached head under one arm.
Wait. No. Not “man”. Denzel silently scolded himself. “Don’t think of them as men and women.” That’s what Boyle, one of the longer-serving Spectre Collectors had told him. “They’re not people, they’re ghosts.”
And yet, if you ignored the fact that he was holding his head under one arm and was partly see-through, the ghost across the table looked like a man. Denzel and his fellow new-start, Smithy, had become quite vocal on the subject of ghost rights since joining up. Granted, this was mostly because Smithy himself was a ghost, but whatever their motivation, the two friends felt it important that all ghosts be treated fairly.
Which, unfortunately, was why Denzel had ended up in here.
“Art thou going to say something?” asked the headless ghost on the other side of the table.
“Button it, punk!” spat Smithy. He was sitting beside Denzel, straddling a chair that he had turned the wrong way and chewing on a little wooden cocktail stick.
For some reason – Denzel wasn’t sure why – Smithy was wearing sunglasses, and a little cardboard badge he’d made for himself that read “Bad Cop.”
“I’m sorry?” asked the headless ghost. He was dressed in Elizabethan-era finery, with a large white frilly collar around his neck stump.
“You heard me,” Smithy growled. “Now, less of your lip or we’ll throw the book at you.”
Beneath the ghost’s arm, his head frowned. “Which book?”
This caught Smithy off guard. He shot Denzel a sideways glance.
“I don’t know yet,” he admitted, then he narrowed his eyes and glared at the ghost. “But a big one. Like a cookbook. Yeah, a big hardback cookbook full of cake recipes. Would you like that, punk?”
“Not really,” the ghost admitted.
Smithy slammed his hand on the table and jumped to his feet. “Answer the question!” he roared, his voice echoing around the room.
In the silence that followed, Denzel quietly cleared his throat. “Um, he did answer the question.”
“Did he?” asked Smithy. “Oh. Sorry, wasn’t listening. I was too busy thinking about cakes.” He sat down and nodded politely to Denzel. “Continue.”
Denzel smiled graciously, then flipped open a little notebook that sat on the table between him and the ghost.
“So, Mr… Um… Cassian De—”
“Do not speaketh my full name!” the ghost yelped.
Denzel jumped in fright at the sudden shout, then frowned. “Why not?”
The ghost shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Because names have power, and I’d prefer you not to use mine.” He smiled awkwardly. “Just ‘Cassian’ will be quite acceptable.”
Denzel scribbled a little note next to the ghost’s name, then continued.
“So, as you know, you were recently captured by the Spectre Collectors, having been caught in the act of…”
Denzel looked down at his notes. The words “Spectrothramorphic Transmogrification” were written there, but there was no chance of him getting through that without at least a week’s rehearsal.
“…being a ghost,” he finished.
“Guilty!” said Cassian’s head.
“So you admit it?” Smithy barked. He cracked his knuckles. “Shame. I wanted to beat it out of you.”
Denzel leaned back in his chair a little and whispered to Smithy. “We already knew he’d done it.”
“Did we?” Smithy whispered back. “When?”
“Since Samara and Boyle caught him,” Denzel continued.
“Oh. Right,” said Smithy. He leaned in a little closer. “Do you want me to beat him up anyway?”
Denzel shook his head. “No.”
Smithy wiped a hand across his forehead. “Phew. That’s a relief. He’s terrifying.”
He leaned in closer still. “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but he hasn’t got a head! I mean, how does that work? How is he speaking? How does he hear what we’re saying?”
Denzel flicked his gaze back to the ghost across the table. Cassian gave him a friendly little wave.
“His head’s under his arm,” Denzel pointed out.
“Is it?” said Smithy, much louder. He looked round at Cassian. “Ha! So it is! I didn’t notice. It’s right there!”
Denzel frowned. “How could you not have noticed?” he asked, then he sighed and shook his head. “Forget it. Doesn’t matter. The point is, Cassian, you were doing ghost stuff, and it’s our job to figure out if you’re a good ghost or a bad ghost.”
“Art thou serious?” asked Cassian. He glanced around at the drab little interview room he was being held in. Various enchantments and symbols had been scrawled on the walls to stop him escaping through one. “I was always under the impression that the Spectre Collectors were a ‘catch first, asketh no questions ever’ organisation. I assumed that my fate was already sealed.”
“It would’ve been, until we came along,” said Denzel. “We’ve convinced them that every ghost should be given a fair hearing.”
“But I wish we hadn’t!” Smithy spat, slamming his hand on the table again for good measure. “Scum like you, you make me sick.”
Cassian’s eyes slowly went from Smithy to Denzel. “Is he all right?”
Denzel smiled weakly. “Yeah. He wanted us to do Good Cop, Bad Cop. He’s the Bad Cop.”
“Don’t tell him!” Smithy protested. “You’ll ruin it.”
“You’re literally wearing a badge that says ‘Bad Cop’ on it,” Denzel pointed out.
Smithy opened his mouth to offer a counterargument but came up short. Denzel had a point there.
“OK, yes, I’m Bad Cop,” he admitted.
With a growl, Smithy reached across and took the notebook from the table. “Enough talk! Let’s get down to business. We’ve prepared some questions to help us figure out your true motives. Answer them honestly, and we’ll get along just fine. But lie to me, and I’ll break you. I will break you. Understood?”
Cassian nodded to confirm that he understood.
Smithy cleared his throat and read from the top page. “OK. Question One. Are you a good ghost?”
“Yes,” said Cassian.
Smithy scribbled with the pencil.
“Question Two. Are you a bad ghost?”
“No,” said Cassian.
Smithy scribbled again.
“Right, then,” he said. He smiled broadly, his aggressive Bad Cop persona vanishing. “Great! That’s that settled.”
Cassian’s severed head blinked in surprise. “Is that it?”
“Yep,” said Smithy. “All done!”
“Unless there’s anything you want to add?” Denzel asked.
Cassian thought for a moment. “No. No, I think that’s everything.”
Smithy handed the notepad back to Denzel. As he took it, Denzel had a niggling suspicion that their questioning might not have been as probing as it possibly could have been, but this was their first
ever interview, and they hadn’t really known what to expect. They had another interview lined up in the cell next door. Maybe he’d come up with some more questions before then.
“Well, since you don’t appear to be a threat to anyone, then you can leave,” Denzel said.
“I can?” gasped the headless ghost. “Oh, that’s wonderful news.”
“I just need to read this,” said Denzel, flipping to the next page of the notepad. He blushed a little, embarrassed by the formality of it all. Still, rules were rules.
“By the power vested in me as a member of the Cult of Sh’grath, also known as the Messengers of the Allwhere, also known as the Seventh Army of the Enlightened—”
“And so on and so forth,” added Smithy.
“And so on and so forth,” Denzel agreed, skipping the rest of the paragraph. “I, Denzel Edgar, pronounce you, Cassian Deploop, a free ghost.”
The final word had barely left Denzel’s lips when Cassian exploded. At least, that was how it felt at the time.
In reality, he didn’t explode. Technically, he turned inside out. Which, in many ways, was worse.
A bubbling green liquid erupted out through a hole in his neck, twisting and thrashing as it became a giant gooey blob. Teeth and eyes and snapping pincers all appeared in the slime. Three different mouths formed in the gelatinous folds, and all of them spoke at the same time.
“I warned you! I warned you not to say my name!” three distinct voices cried. “Now you leave me no choice but to destroy you!”
Neither Denzel nor Smithy had stood up yet. They were both so transfixed by the horrifying transformation happening in front of them that it hadn’t occurred to them to move.
That changed when the blobby Cassian-monster smashed a fist through the table, breaking it in two.
“Um, we should probably run,” said Denzel.
“I like that plan,” Smithy agreed.
Grabbing his friend by the hand, Smithy raced for the closest wall and threw them both towards it. Rather than slip through, they hit the wall with two short, solid thunks.
“Stupid enchantments,” Smithy grumbled, rubbing his forehead.
He and Denzel both turned to find Cassian now almost completely filling one half of the room.
“Ugh, he’s terrifying,” said Smithy, pressing his back against the wall.
“Yep,” Denzel agreed.
“It’s like someone crossed a bogey with a load of lions,” Smithy pointed out.
“Yep,” Denzel agreed again.
“Here, what would you rather, right? Be eaten by a giant bogey crossed with a load of lions, or eat a giant bogey crossed with a load of—”
Cassian wasn’t prepared to offer them the option. His gooey green body grew a set of kangaroo-like legs and launched him across the room, all his many mouths opening wide to reveal all his many, many teeth.
Denzel and Smithy both raised their fists, closed their eyes and began punching frantically at thin air. They were both swinging wildly when they heard a short, sudden hiss, which was followed almost immediately by an angry shout and a heavy thump.
Opening one eye each, Denzel and Smithy saw the Cassian-creature being pinned down in the middle of the room by what looked like an explosion of shaving foam. He writhed on the floor, but no matter how hard he struggled, he couldn’t pull himself free of the fizzing white foam.
The door to the interview room opened. Two Spectre Collectors entered – a boy in a blue and silver uniform, and a girl in a long, flowing red robe.
“Samara! Boyle!” Denzel gasped. “Thank God.”
“Don’t thank God, thank me,” said Boyle, the boy in the uniform. He pointed to the ceiling, where a small nozzle dripped a final few blobs of the foam on to Cassian. “That was my idea.”
“I made the foam,” Samara pointed out. “So it was a joint effort.”
“But I invented the delivery mechanism,” said Boyle. “So it was mostly me.”
Sneering, he nudged Cassian with the toe of his boot. A string of sticky green gloop stuck to it.
“Oh, and in case you were wondering?” Boyle said to the helpless ghost. “Freedom revoked. You’re totally going to the vault.”
Cassian’s many mouths sighed. “It’s a fair cop, I suppose.”
“There is no Fair Cop,” Smithy growled. “Only Bad Cop and Good Cop.”
He thought about this.
“Although, Good Cop is probably pretty fair, I suppose. Compared to Bad Cop, anyway.”
He turned to the others to ask their opinion, and saw Boyle glaring at him.
“Don’t you two have to be somewhere?” Boyle demanded.
Denzel took Smithy by the arm. “Uh, yes,” he said, sliding along the wall towards the door and shrinking under Boyle’s glare. “Come on, Smithy. That next ghost isn’t going to interview itself!”
Denzel and Smithy stood by the door of Interview Room Two, Denzel’s hand resting on the handle.
“I don’t think we should do Good Cop, Bad Cop any more,” he said, not yet opening the door.
“I agree,” said Smithy.
This caught Denzel off guard. “Really? I mean, you do? I mean, great.”
“We should be Bad Cop and Worse Cop,” Smithy suggested. “You be a bit mean and aggressive, and I’ll set them on fire.”
Denzel stared blankly back at him.
“Not actual fire, obviously,” said Smithy.
“Oh. Good,” said Denzel, relieved.
“Ghost fire.”
“Right,” said Denzel.
“Which is worse.”
Part of Denzel was interested to know what made being set on ghost fire worse than being set on actual fire, but a much bigger part of him didn’t want to find out.
“Let’s just be ourselves,” Denzel suggested. “And we’ll see what happens.”
Smithy sucked in his bottom lip as he thought about this. “OK, but you be me and I’ll be you.”
“Or I could be me, and you could be you,” Denzel countered.
Smithy spat on his hand and held it out to Denzel. “Deal!”
They shook, then Denzel drew in a deep breath and opened the door to the interview room. Smithy went through first, and made it almost two whole steps before his entire world turned upside down and inside out, then spun in big looping circles around him.
“Uh…” he said. He said it for quite a long time, until he started to sound a bit like a broken robot.
His jaw had dropped open. His toes had curled up. His heart, which technically hadn’t beaten in centuries, thumped against the inside of his chest.
There, sitting behind the table, was a girl.
No, not just a girl. That wasn’t doing her justice. The girl, Smithy thought. The only girl in the whole wide world.
Sure, logically he knew that other girls probably existed, but right now he didn’t ever remember seeing one before. At least, not one like this.
She sat bright and upright in her chair with her hands neatly crossed on the table in front of her. She was mostly solid, with just a hint of something glittery and sparkling playing across her smooth skin, and had a crop of red hair that made her look like her head was on fire. Ghost fire, if he was being specific.
Her nose swooped down and curved upwards at the end, like a perfect tiny ski slope. Above it, her eyes twinkled with mischief. Below it, her mouth was curled into a little smile that Smithy wanted to frame on his bedroom wall and look at forever.
“But not in a creepy way,” he said aloud.
The girl and Denzel both looked confused.
“You what?” Denzel asked.
“Yes,” said Smithy, still gazing in wonder at the ghost girl in the chair.
Denzel nudged him in the back, breaking the spell. “Shift out of the way so I can get the door closed.”
Smithy stared at his legs in surprise, like he’d only just remembered he had them. They plodded him over to one of the two empty chairs while Denzel closed the door. It locked with a clunk,
securing the room.
Denzel smiled politely at the ghost girl and took his seat. Smithy was standing behind his own chair, leaning on the backrest as if he might fall over at any moment.
“Smithy?” Denzel said.
“Hmm?” said Smithy, still not taking his eyes off the girl. She regarded him curiously with one eyebrow raised.
“Is he OK?” the girl asked.
“HAHAHAHAHA! YES!” said Smithy, much too loudly.
Denzel sighed. “It’s funny. I get asked that a lot.”
“HAHAHAHAHA! YES!” said Smithy again.
He sat down suddenly, throwing himself on to the plastic seat like a finalist in the Musical Chairs World Cup.
Denzel watched him from the corner of his eye for a moment, then opened his notepad. “OK. Sorry about that,” he began. “Tabitha?”
“Tabatha,” the girl corrected.
Denzel frowned. “That’s what I said.”
“With an A,” the girl explained.
Denzel’s lips moved silently. “Tabitha always has an A. It’s got two. Or have I been spelling it wrong?”
“HAHAHAHAHA! YES!” said Smithy, then he slapped himself across the face, looked momentarily surprised, and seemed to relax a little.
“T-A-B-A-T-H-A,” Tabatha spelled out. “Three As.”
“Ah. Right,” said Denzel. He made a note in his pad, then smiled encouragingly. “So, you’re probably wondering what’s happening right now?”
Tabatha shrugged. “I was captured by the Spectre Collectors. Normally, I’d be flung straight into Spectral Storage, but…”
She looked Denzel and Smithy up and down. “You two came along and started something new.”
She grinned broadly, showing off a mouth full of teeth that were just ever-so-slightly crooked, but which somehow made her even more perfect in Smithy’s eyes.
“You know about the Spectre Collectors?” Denzel asked. “About us, I mean? You know who we are?”
Tabatha shrugged. “Let’s just say this isn’t my first run-in with you guys.”
“Then how come you were roaming free?” Denzel wondered.
“Let’s also say I’m good at escaping.”
She leaned closer again. “Truth is, I’ve been keeping an eye on you. Your run-in with the director of this place, the thing with the shark and the Viking…”
Rise of the Ghostfather Page 1