“So? Can I know now?”

Hellen chuckled as she looked at his eager expression. She said in a reproachful tone, “Lock the door properly, see if everything is alright. I am not going to run away. See if the gate has been locked in safely.”

“I’ve already checked, don't worry. Can you please tell me now?”

There was no one on this side of the town at this point of time. The road was empty, darkness was seeping in. In a few dozen minutes the street lights would start flickering to turn on. Hellen still made sure to look around before she explained,

“The ghosts, well, there’s nothing much to be honest in this. It’s simple, apart from their abilities which sets them all apart. There is a different set of abilities which are common in all ghosts as a whole. Basically, each ghost you meet will have 1 unique ability, that is, different from all ghosts and another ability which would be one of the two, which is common in all ghosts.

“It is phaseless and enhanced mental defense. A ghost will always have either of the two abilities along with one unique one. Enhanced mental defense is as its name suggests, it would have heightened mental defense, supers who have mind oriented abilities are less suited to dealing with these kinds of ghosts. As for phaseless, these kinds of ghosts have the capability of temporarily transforming its body such that it would phase through any kind of thing. For these kinds of ghosts, supers who have physical oriented abilities are less suited to dealing with them.”

Aiden listened to her with rapt attention while carrying a bunch of supplies he would need while staying over at his neighbor’s house. Hellen continued,

“You geddit? If we can see how the ghost travels, it would be easier for us to determine which ability it has. It would actually be pretty bad if we happen to be up against the phaseless kind of ghost. We don’t have any mind oriented nor physical oriented supers among us, but we can still do physical attacks. It is what we will be depending on. So it would be pretty bad if we’re up against a phaseless ghost since we would have more work on our hands to time our attack with precision so that it actually lands on it.”

Aiden narrowed his eyes, deep into thought as he nodded to her explanation. The more he learned about who he was up against, the more difficult it felt. The more despair emerged in his heart. He knew he had a trump card now, an ability, but still, ghosts had two. Every ghost had two. Plus they were fucking immortals, immortals who healed themselves, you could never hurt them and retreat to plan and return, employing a wheel tactic. The ghost would have already recovered by then, resetting all their hard work.

Hellen unlocked the gate of her lawn and proceeded to check her plants before unlocking the door to enter her house. It was only 7 in the evening, the reason they had dinner early was in case dealing with the ghost took time. Considering that, Hellen only filled small bowls with dry fruits to munch on and placed them on the table while informing Aiden to eat them if he felt like.

She checked the state of her house, visiting several rooms before she explained to Aiden, “I’ll take out the equipment needed to proceed with our information gathering. If you think of anything in the meantime you can let me know. If you want anything else just take it, don’t be shy.”

Aiden had already grabbed a few almonds, grinding them in his mouth as he listened to aunt Hellen. He replied, “Why don’t I help you with the cameras?”

Hellen gave him a wide grin, a smile too sweet if he were to think about it and said, “Of course I’ll be putting you to work. I simply want to find where I kept everything first. It’s been years since I last did it, you know. I’ll call you when I am done finding all the equipment. Make yourself at home in the meantime.”

She quickly turned and walked away upstairs after saying her piece. Not even a minute had passed did Aiden hear her voice again from upstairs, “Aiden? Can you please pass me the broom? It should be in the kitchen. Just throw it upstairs.”

He did as she instructed. A heavy thud was heard as the broom landed somewhere upstairs. But he still heard aunt Hellen reply, “Thank you.”

Almost instantly, the feeling was back. The exact same feeling he had back in the alley when he chanced upon a murder. It was the second feeling to be exact.

The first was of a void being opened up inside him. The same void which was filled as soon as he got the ability, the feeling of an empty lunch box filling up. And as soon as the void was filled, he had the second type of feeling. The feeling of spending money to fill the void.

Aiden stood still near the stairs, deep in thought.

Yes! It feels like money. Well, something equivalent to it anyway. But instead of spending it. It felt like I earned it this time. What caused it? What helps me earn this money? Is it of any use? Let’s see what all I did.

Aiden recollected everything he did today, trying to remember every small detail he might have missed. Ultimately though, he settled upon the stupid thought left.

Could it be because she said thank you?

When you eliminate all the options you think are not viable, the only one left has to be an answer no matter how implausible it may seem. He thought for a bit and shouted,

“Aunt! Do you want anything else? Should I bring you a duster too?”

A loud reply was soon heard, “I don’t have a duster!”

“I can bring it from my house!”

“Why would you go back there again?!”

“To bring the duster!”

“No idiot! Why would you go back just for a duster?! I am not in such dire need of it! The broom works just fine!”

“Aunt! You forgot something! If the ghost comes into your house before all the equipment is in place it would be useless! We would get no information! The ghost follows me, remember? It’s important that I go back!”

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By this time, a series of footsteps were heard as he saw her on the top of stairs. She looked at him dead serious in the eye and said,

“Fuck! How did I not think of that?” She heaved a sigh and continued, “I’ve gotten rusty.”

He offered no reply to her and simply informed that he was leaving. He hadn’t even turned around when he heard her speak again,

“Wait, what will I need a duster for after I am already done finding all the equipment and setting them up to see the ghost which would follow you as you return? Idiot!”

“Uh —” His mouth opened, and closed again. If duster becomes useless, she won’t thank me for it right? He then continued in an unsure voice, “I can bring you chocolates?”

Hands crossed beneath her breasts, she looked down at him and completely ignored the peace offering as she said, “A nice trick you found to escape work. Smart indeed.”

Aiden had no reply to that as fell into thought again, How do I get her to thank me?

He looked at her and said, “How about I help you with finding too? Then quickly set it up together after which I can leave and return. We’ll have to be quick though, if the ghost attempts its last 2 help for the day now while I am at your house, then the surveillance we later put up can only be used tomorrow.”

Hellen didn’t offer any response, resulting in a silent environment before she snapped in frustration, “Fuck.” She then glanced at him and asked, “You said you were still being helped when you moved to another house. When did you move?”

“In the morning.”

“Did you hear anything after you moved in the house? Because look, if the ghost has phaseless ability, you would naturally not hear anything as it would simply phase through the walls to enter the house and hide somewhere. But if it has enhanced mental defense instead, it should still use the conventional methods of entering, like doors or windows. Last thing, at the new home or your original home, did it start smelling somewhere? As you know, ghosts have the form of a rotten corpse, so the foul smell of decay naturally accompanies it. Try recollecting.”

“Hmm nope, there was no sound. It could be that it silently entered through windows or doors, no? We live in huge bungalows, with multiple points of openings. It wouldn’t be strange if I couldn’t hear it. As for the smell, I don’t know much about the house I moved in, I only used the living room, the common bathroom and kitchen, there was no smell in these rooms as far as I remember. Same for my house, I keep the entire house clean, so at least for the 4 days during which I kept getting help, there was no foul smell anywhere.”

Hellen’s eyebrows wrinkled as she muttered, “How could it be? Are you sure you’ve checked your entire house? No smell anywhere? Could its range be higher than I guessed? It doesn't need to be as close as I thought for it to use its powers?”

Aiden quickly interjected, “Wait! The attic! I never enter the attic, it's just originally smelly and dusty in there. Even when my parents were there, we never bothered to clean the attic. I heard they’ve kept the old furniture in there which was of some sentimental value to them and some spare things like curtains. But since no one entered and cleaned it, we opted to bring in new stuff. We were planning to hire someone to clean it but it never came around to actually doing it. Could it be hiding in the attic?”

She carefully listened to him with rapt attention and replied with another question instead, “Does your attic have anything like a window? Or is there only a door leading to it? Was that door to the attic unlocked when you returned from that house the next day?”

Aiden only stared at her for a couple seconds before saying, “I didn’t check. That door has an inbuilt lock which works on keys, so we didn’t bother putting a latch and seal it with the traditional lock on it. I wouldn’t know if the door has been unlocked unless I try opening it without the keys.”

Towards the end, Hellen saw visible fear in Aiden’s eyes. It wasn’t out of place. Dealing with mere help was far more doable than potentially facing a sentient rotten corpse, at least if it was the first time for someone. Aiden still fared much better and had better guts than a lot of people his age as far as she knew though. She advised,

“Look, what we can do is look through all the rooms of my house. I already checked when we entered but we’ll do it again. I’ll also take a look at my attic. Remember, don’t open any window or door, we want to know if it can phase through or not. After that you can just stay here and help me with setting up stuff, but we’ll frequently check the house just in case. If we do manage to find it, no worries, I’ll give you a couple things to choose from to use as a weapon, some baseball, hockey and cricket bats, you can use it against that. If we don’t find it, we can stay in the living room and look at the camera feed now instead of checking every now and then. We’ll then be able to know what ability it has if it decides to follow you into my house after setting up the surveillance.”

Aiden was a little speechless as he heard what she had to say. It made him realize their different perspectives. Aunt Hellen considered ghosts to be dealable with just some bats while he assumed them to be scary, at least scary enough to not be subdued by some bats. But it also gave him some relief. If someone who had experience against them advised that ghosts could be beaten with bats, it definitely had to be credible. It also helped him in reducing the fear he had against the ghosts. Their image in his mind certainly diminished, becoming less scary.

The people you surround yourself with do have an effect on you huh. Keeping that aside, such a mess of a planning process. We went from one thing to another without even thinking about if the plan has drawbacks. So stupid. So messy. But at least finally we have decided on something.

The next few dozen minutes they spent the house searching for the traces of the ghost. Hellen also made a trip to the attic and found nothing there. Once it was out of the picture that the ghost hadn’t moved in the house yet, they did a cursory search outside the house in the lawn. There wasn’t any kind of furniture or objects which could be used as a cover so they mostly only glanced through the garden, and looked behind the trees to come to a conclusion that the ghost was nowhere near the house.

When they were on their way to find the equipment, Hellen instructed Aiden, taking on the role of an experienced teacher guiding a noobie who had just entered the field.

“Always keep in mind, any information could be valuable information against the ghosts. You never know what information could be the achilles’ heel of the ghost. After this preliminary search, we have concluded that the ghost doesn’t immediately follow you. Now there are two possible courses of action for the ghost which could give us more information, 1. If the ghost follows you into my house, 2. If the ghost doesn’t follow you into my house.

“If it is the first, we can therefore guess that the ghost only narrows down the distance when it’s time for it to attempt another help. Since you said you got help even after leaving your house, coupled with this information, we can derive another piece of information. It is that this ghost has two ranges. One for when to attempt a help on you and another to maintain its target on you.”

Aiden interjected, “What good would that be?”

Hellen gave him a glance and remarked, “Let me continue young man.”

Cutting open another cardboard box, she continued while examining the contents inside.

“It isn’t particularly an important piece of info when you’re running away but it would be vital if you’re planning to deal with it. Say, what would happen if I continuously stay within its range of target but outside its range of condition?”

Without waiting for an answer, she continued, “Yep, I could easily move around and force it out of its hiding as it continued maintaining its target on me while the ghost on the other hand would never get to use its ability since it hasn’t fulfilled the conditions yet. Then I can also easily lure it into a trap, say, an open space filled with troops which would riddle it with bullet holes, crushing its heart. Easy.”

With disappointment on her face, she slid aside the box and cut open another box while continuing, “This, is how even the smallest of information can be used to turn the situation around.”

Hellen reckoned it was time to do another search around the house after some moments. Following the previous procedure, they took up different rooms and searched through them when suddenly she heard Aiden’s scream.