More spirit cheering, clinking and slurping. They certainly loved a toast!
Emmett clinked his glass to mine. "A lovely toast. I'm never reluctant to toast myself." He lowered his face to mine. "Or us."
I held my breath. Was he going to kiss me? Our faces were so close.
But he only took a sip of ecto-vino and laughed.
Two figures emerged from the wall, stumbling and singing, their arms flung around each other's shoulders. I recognized Max Pollander's cowboy hat and Arturo Benavidez's black hair and easy smile. When they caught sight of me, they rushed over.
"Heather Despair!" they cried, pumping my hand and hugging me. Max was pretty good at it—he almost felt solid. But Arturo fell through me and left me feeling frozen.
"Kind of late, aren't we?" Emmett sniffed at the pair. "And where are my protégée's family members?"
"We stopped for a few beers," said Arturo. "Max doesn't like to travel through liminal spaces when he's sober."
Emmett huffed. "You smell like a brewery," he said. "I suspect you drank one."
I held my nose. I'd never liked the smell of beer—it reminded me of Bruce. "How can spirits get drunk?" I asked.
"There are lots of ways," said Emmett. "These two managed to imbibe enough alcohol to remind themselves of the experience. That's usually enough."
"Sham will be here shoon," Max informed me. He held one finger right before my nose. "Valente did not feel well."
I nodded. "I know. Something's wrong in his haunt and we're trying to figure what."
"Is Able here?" Arturo shaded his eyes with one hand, like the room was too bright, and scanned the crowd. "Is your father here yet?"
"I haven't seen him," I said, "Do you think he'll come?"
"Sham will bring 'im," said Max. "He's a good shon, that Sham."
He started to yodel a country song and Arturo led him away.
Emmett and I greeted a few more guests, then a loud crash startled me.
There stood Max and Arturo, leaning on each other, and holding punch glasses. The remains of a punch bowl lay on the floor in front of them.
"Perfect," said Columbia. "Just what I'd expect from bringing a haunting ghost up here." She whirled down to pick up the remains of the bowl, pushing Max to one side.
"He didn't mean no harm," said Arturo, steadying Max to keep him from falling. "He gets nervous traveling."
"All forgive me!" shouted Max. Then he growled, "'Cept the All ain't around anymore. No thanks to the cruxing spirit council!"
"Do you have a bone to pick?" murmured Esoterica.
"I doubt even you are ignorant enough to blame the spirit council for the Concealment of the All!" snarled Columbia, shoving chunks of broken glass into her skirts.
Yikes. She kept broken glass in her kriot. I wondered what else she had in there. Alligators? Rusty knives?
"Come, my little protégée," said Emmett. "This is a tiresome old argument and I won't get involved." He took my arm and began to float us toward the dance floor.
"Wait a second," I said, turning to hear what they were saying.
"I blame the spirit council for everything!" howled Max. He wobbled back and forth. Arturo swayed to catch him. "If the council was honest with us, we'd still be breathing. Y'all know what happened to the All. Y'all know where he is, and you let the mortal Coterie pay the price anyway!"
"The All could not save you, haunting one," said Esoterica with a fierce glower. "You condemned yourself when you went up against the Bellum."
"That's uncalled for!" Now Arturo was shouting. "You know Max didn't challenge no one! He was minding his own business when the Turned Against got him!"
"Maybe he should have been better prepared," said Columbia in an icy voice. "Or avoided the friendship of Able Despair."
Max glowed a furious purple. "You know where the All is. What's more, I bet you could summon him—but you won't."
"Dead Town would be safe again. And the mortal world—what about these young ones?" Arturo gestured toward me, my friends. "You want them scattered, destroyed, before they can do any good for the worlds?"
"Honestly," said Emmett, tugging at my hand. "They do this every time. You'll soon tire of it, as I have. Let's dance, Aether."
Reluctantly, I followed Emmett away from the arguing. The last I saw of Max, he was slumped on the floor, out cold, while Arturo watched over him. The spirit council hovered high up in the rafters, their backs turned on Max and Arturo, muttering among themselves.
What did happen to the All? I was worried that Max and Arturo might be right. Maybe the absence of the All really did open me and my friends up to attack.
Emmett whirled around me, then brushed my neck lightly with his fingers. I shivered at the cool sensation.
"Pardon me," he said in a low voice. "You have sand on your neck."
"Oh, that's just . . . we were digging," I said. "Someone stole Valente's bones and we were searching for clues."
"What the Bellum?" Emmett appeared outraged. "There's no accounting for some ghosts. Do you mean he doesn't know where they are?"
I shrugged. "We found a very shallow grave, but no bones."
"I must say, that is extremely odd," said Emmett. "Stolen bones. Ghosts are quite attached to their remains. I might have realized something was wrong when he manifested as his death form. That's a sign of distress."
"Death form? You mean when he appeared as a skeleton?" I said.
"Something is wrong down there." Emmett rambled on, walking away through the air. I trotted after him. "The spectricity is too high."
"Isn't the spectricity because of me?" I called up to him.
He shook his head. "You couldn't produce that much." He abruptly started waving to some gauzy, gray-cloaked shapes that I took for guests. Then he muttered, "Has to be a powerful being to produce that much."
"Maybe Valente caused the spectricity. Didn't he die in the bus?" I asked.
Emmett snickered. "I should think it would be obvious that he died."
"In the bus, Emmett," I said.
"Yes, I believe he did," said Emmett. "Driving it, I think. Didn't he tell you any of this? Lovely night, isn't it?" He held up his glass to the murky room, the bats, the misty guests.
I nodded impatiently. "Who could have stolen his bones? I mean, you say something is wrong down there. Valente says there's a malvado in the junkyard. And this morning, the mortal police turned on us and attacked me and my friends for no reason!"
Emmett arched his eyebrows and took a giant slurp of ecto-vino. "You'd better interrogate me. It's quite possible that I know something."
"Okay, I will." I pointed my finger at his pale nose and stared into his eyes, although it gave me vertigo. "Who would do that? And be specific!"
"Oh . . ." He closed his eyes, face frozen. I waited. Almost a minute ticked by, then he opened his eyes and said, "I have no idea who. But the spectricity's as high as ever down there. Despite my efforts to remove it. That indicates the presence of great power."
I sighed. Emmett grasped at the air over my head.
"Try not to do that," he said. "It's considered unsanitary."
"What, sighing? O-kay." I folded my arms. "You know what I think? This has something to do with the disappearance of the All."
Emmett scratched his head, causing several curls to spring up. "I don't see how anything's connected to that."
"It's like Max and Arturo said. The All disappeared and they got targeted. My friends and I are the New Four. We could be next!" I said. "Hasn't evil been increasing? You told me that yourself. Birds and dogs and Feeders attacking. Turned Against, roaming the worlds. A malvado in my junkyard. But the root cause is the All."
"The All was not an evil spirit god," said Emmett, crossing his arms. "So you can't blame the All."
"I blame the All for not being there," I said. "He was needed. Where is he now? Emmett, we have to bring him back. Look at this."
I showed him the paper with the poem on it. He read it, silently.
His mouth dropped open.
"Where did you get this?" he whispered.
I scratched at my tickling ear. "You sent it to me in my notebook. The All is mentioned twice. What does make All whole mean?"
"It's nonsense," he said, frowning heavily. "A shade is playing a trick on you. Shades like to repeat spirit lore to confuse mortals."
"A shade did this?" He'd told me of these wayward spirits who got into everything above and below. "But don't they deliver things, too? Maybe there's some truth to this lore about the All."
Emmett grumbled and I overheard "moldy old spirit god" and a few spirit world expletives. He sure did not like the All.
I didn't care. I was certain I was on the right track now. "Tell me the last time anyone heard from the All," I said.
"I can't precisely remember." Emmett tapped his temple with his finger, thinking. "She'd remember. It happened near her river."
"She?" I frowned at him. "She who? Your old girlfriend?"
Emmett froze, one finger in the air, and his mouth dropped open. "Ah, no, indeed," he sputtered. "No, I—Ronnie's a friend, Aether. Just a friend, I assure you."
"Where do you know this Ronnie from?" I asked, squinting at him.
"Everyone knows Ronnie." He bobbed his head, his smile blithe and sunny. Butterflies flittered in my stomach, and I smiled back. Then he said, "We shall ask the Llorona."
I gulped. "You don't mean La Llorona, the weeping woman who haunts the river?"
"Yes, that's her," he said.
My butterflies took a dive for my shoes, and now my knees were shaking. Like most kids in New Mexico, I'd been brought up on scary tales of the river witch who dragged children underwater to their deaths. No way I wanted any part of that. I shook my head no. "She steals children and drowns them! I can't talk to her! She's far too scary," I said.
"Ronnie? Scary? She's a bundle of laughs! We hang out all the time," he said, flashing that adorable smile.
"But Emmett!" I protested. "She drowned her own children!"
Puzzlement flashed across Emmett's face. "Is that what she did? Good All, Aether. I supposed I had forgotten."
"She's called the weeping woman because she cries over the loss of her children. And I'm Heather, not Aether," I told him.
"Right you are, Aether," he said. "And to think, she seems so happy! Always laughing. Of course, I can't promise you I haven't done the same myself, at some time or other. Suppose I lost my memory because there's something I don't want to remember?"
I felt sick, imagining the drowned children. "That's all you're going to say? She drowned her children! It's the cruelest thing I've ever heard!" I shouted.
"Yes. But she paid for it. They're all dead now, Aether," said Emmett in the calmest voice.
Did he have to be so casual about death? I turned my back on him, pretending to watch some spirits writhe among the rafters in their miasmic dance.
Emmett spoke softly. "Perhaps my two millennia give me perspective. But how long, exactly, would you have me punish this woman?"
"Forever," I said with a firm nod.
"Forever, and a day." His voice was dreamy. "She's stuck indefinitely, prowling the rivers of the southwest. She can at least be allowed some down time, a laugh with a friend now and then."
"No." I was resolute.
Emmett took my arm, his touch tingling.
"Look, Heather," he said, finally getting my name right. "Even if you disapprove of the company I keep, I urge you to speak to Ronnie. She got a message from the All. She can help."
His black eyes, his face, hovered so close to mine. I froze, my heart thudding, and my protest came out weak. "But she's evil."
He pulled me closer, his cold cheek pressed against mine, and I thought—but no, he only took my hands in his. Then he was dancing me in small circles, playfully. I followed his lead, blushing with confusion.
"How do you know I'm not evil as well?" he said. He spun me around and caught me perfectly, like before. Wow—he could really dance.
"Of course you're not evil," I said.
Emmett flashed that sunny smile again and my heart melted as he led me onto the dance floor.
He chuckled. "You know so little about evil. Have you met our own Classic Evil yet?" Emmett gestured toward the rusty metal chairs lining the far wall. "How about right now?"
A whoosh, and we stood before a tall man, next to the metal chairs. I shrank back. The man had a long, pointy chin and an even longer mustache that he kept twirling. His pinstripe suit made him appear dangerously thin. He cackled to himself, under his breath.
"Who disturbs my villainous plot to destroy wallflowers forever?" he said. His sharp, beady eyes reminded me of a raven's, twitching back and forth. I clutched for Emmett's arm, but it had dematerialized. I was left holding nothing. From the empty air, I heard laughter.
"I'm—I'm Heather Despair," I said to the man, feeling like Little Red Riding Hood introducing herself to the wolf.
The man, impeccable in manner as he was strange in bearing, doffed his hat and bowed low. "Classic Evil, at your most nefarious service."
Chapter Four
Evil Can Dance
A blast of music caused me to jump. Upon a small stage, I saw a record drop onto a turntable, a pair of headphones floating in midair behind it. The headphones bopped in time to the beat. Before I could wonder at this ghostly DJ presence, Classic Evil said, "Curses! It is that vile DJ Spektrixx, laying down some stone-dead beats. How I loathe spectronica music, but nonetheless—would you care to dance with a villain such as myself?"
Emmett was nowhere in sight. Was he trying to teach me something about evil—or was he avoiding the issue with the All?
I might as well dance. Maybe I'd spot Emmett in the crowd. I gave a slight nod, and the tall and foppishly dashing Classic Evil swept me off my feet, spinning me around the room in a mad waltz. He dodged spirit couples, never missing a step as he wove between them. Trenton and Oskar waved at us from the melee, dancing gleefully among the spirits.
The dance was over as soon as it began. We sat panting on the metal chairs, and I felt brave enough to remark, "You don't really seem all that evil."
Classic Evil stuck his face close to mine, so close I could smell his sickly-sweet mustache wax. He said, "Tonight, all is right with the worlds. But let a fight break out, or a heart be broken, or jealousy blossom. I'll be all over it like ectoplasm on a bat's wing, me and my Feeders. We thrive on misery and the longing of desires."
I remembered flying away from the Feeders in the Disenchanted Forest, with their detachable teeth and attraction to fear. Very unpleasant. I wanted to inch away to look for Emmett, whom I might have glimpsed near the web-shaped cake with a fat spider in the middle. But I dreaded insulting Classic Evil. He seemed like such a softie. A weird, annoying softie, but he was one, all the same.
Classic Evil straightened up, twirling his mustache. He grinned a classic wicked grin and laughed a classic wicked laugh. I suspected he was about to launch into a classic evil speech, detailing all the horrors he planned to wreak on this world and the next.
I still felt I was in the presence of classic dorkiness. I needed to excuse myself as soon as possible.
The invisible DJ had dematerialized, and now the Hitchhiking Ghosts were setting up to play. Classic Evil hissed out of the corner of his wicked grin, something like "Do you have spires?" but I couldn't hear him over the band's sound check.
"Did you say spires?" I asked.
"Not spires! Desires!" said Classic Evil. "My Feeders swallow earthly desires, unmet desires, out-of-control, unholy, and unwell desires!" The more he discussed desires, the more excited he became. His chest looked like it needed ice so the swelling would go down.
"Sure. Hey, the Hitchhiking Ghosts are on!" I waved to Bubba behind the drums. "I enjoy a good spectral band, or is it called an ecto-band?"
"So, it is music you desire, eh?!" Classic Evil scowled as I ignored his obviously horrible badness. "Try this on for size!"
&
nbsp; He waved his hands in a cheesy way at the band, and they began playing out of tune.
"How do you like them apples?" He cackled and sneered, twirling his mustache.
"Ah, pardon me, Mr. Evil," I said. "It's not that bad. It's a tad annoying."
"Yes," said Emmett's voice from thin air. "This is the problem he's been having lately."
"Yes," said Classic Evil, while I scanned around to locate Emmett. "This is the problem I've been having lately."
"You mean that you can't be evil enough, and you come off as merely irritating? Maybe a jerk at the worst?" I said.
"It's because there's such an awareness of truly global evil now. Universal, multi-dimensional, all-transcendent evil, the likes of which I can never achieve. My type of evil is out of style." He dropped his wicked grin and curled up on a metal chair, twiddling his mustache.
I felt sorry for him, but then the Hitchhiking Ghosts started playing better. I tapped my foot to the music, glad Classic Evil was momentarily out of commission.
My arm tingled, and there was Emmett, materialized next to me. Gone was his torn suit. He was dressed to the nines in a white tie and tails. I drew in a breath—so handsome!
"Shall we dance?" he asked, and a whoosh took us to the center to the room, deep within the crowd of gyrating, dancing spirits.
"Why did you leave me with that guy?" I shouted over the music. "He was a total weirdo! Not really that evil, though." I glanced back toward Classic Evil, but dancing throngs obscured the wallflower area from my vision.
"Dance!" shouted Emmett. He tapped and stepped and kicked, sweeping me along with him. I felt like Fred Astaire's lamp as he twirled and spun me. Just when I'd gotten the hang of one dance, he'd switch to another. The spirits surrounded us, cheering as Emmett demonstrated the Charleston, the Quadrille, a complicated ballroom dance, a few tango steps, and then back to tap-dancing. The room exploded into motion as the other spirits sought to emulate Emmett's moves. Thoroughly enjoying themselves, they didn't contain their dancing to the floor, but whirled overhead through the air, all the way up to the ceiling.
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