Chapter 13

“I can’t believe him,” Blue grumbled as she floated around the room in a large circle. Zach laid down on his bed, watching her fly. It helped distract him from his twin problems.

The first was what Andrew told them the day before. That he would handle the research on his own. He already knew what he was doing, and something like this was too important and too time sensitive to try and teach someone new the ropes at the same time. Being told they would only get in the way of helping their friend stung, but not as much as the second problem.

When they had gone up against the ghost dogs, all Gestalt could do was punch and kick. Effective at the time, but kind of limited. If they went up against a ghost that could actually handle a punch, they were doomed. They needed to figure out another way to hurt them that wasn’t just a punch to the face.

Plus the idea of having to get close to every ghost they fought just sounded like a bad idea. The only reason Gestalt had managed to avoid getting roasted by the ghost hound was that trick with shield they’d improvised…

“Blue,” Zach announced as they sat up on the bed. “I know what we’re going to do today.”

Blue stopped in place and looked at Zach from across the room, an intrigued gleam in her eyes. She floated over to him as he started to explain his idea. Ten minutes later, she was smirking as they walked out of his room.

“Zach, where are you going?” His mother asked from the kitchen table. He looked over at her as he felt his brain thrust into overdrive.

“Going out for a walk by the beach. Going out to Green Brook must have given me a walking bug or something.” He lied as easily as he breathed. It wasn’t even all a lie. He really was going to a beach.

“Oh, are you going to come back home for lunch?” She asked as she walked over to the kitchen and pulled out a bit of cash from her purse. “If you aren’t, use this to buy yourself something for lunch. Try to not get anything too big, we’re having a roast beef for dinner.”

“You got it mom, thanks,” he took the money and walked out the door.

“You’re getting better at that, not sure if that’s a good thing,” Blue pointed out once she was sure they would be out of earshot.

“Same, but I can’t exactly tell her where we’re going,” he explained as they reached the bus stop and got to waiting. Once it arrived, he hopped on and started the journey towards Broken Beach.

Broken Beach was a strange location. It was unconnected to any major roads, had more rocks along its shore then sand, and the current made sure the water was always filled with trash. It was a garbage beach with nothing to do there. Or at least nothing legal. At night the location became a hotbed for things criminals wouldn’t want seen in the public eye. But during the day, the whole place was simply empty.

Empty, and filled with loose trash that no one cared about. It was the perfect place for what Zach wanted to do. Zach and Blue came to a stop as they reached the Broken Beach and gave each other a single nod. They fused into gestalt and locked eyes onto the first piece of plastic they saw.

They’d already managed to use their ghost energy as a makeshift shield, could they do anything else with it? They willed the energy towards the plastic water jug at their feet. Blue had already managed to pull this off a few times, so Gestalt should be able to…

They smirked as they could feel their energy wrapping around the jug as it started glowing blue. They took a deep breath as the jug started lifting off the ground. Gestalt narrowed their eyes before trying to move their arm. Their hand went up, and the jug shot up to match it.

They tired moving the jug around them, alternating between using their arms and keeping them down. Using their arms felt easier and more natural, but keeping them free had its own advantages. It would just have to be something to practice the future.

Once they were sure they had levitation down, they had another trick to try. They brought the jug towards their head and willed a bunch of ghost energy on one side. It didn’t take long for a blue ring to form.

Gestalt’s eyes narrowed as they locked onto a tree at the entrance to the beach and released all of the ghost energy at once. The jug shot through the air, smacking the tree as a loud crack filled the empty beach.

Gestalt let out a whistle as they walked over to the impact site. The impact was easy to spot, there was a spot on the tree where the bark had been cracked off.

“I guess we have at least one ranged option, let’s see what else we can do.” Gestalt looked around for another piece of plastic to use when they noticed something off. Specifically about the Marble and Blue Flame Heart. It was still stable, but the flames looked a bit weaker and the marble had lost some of its luster. Was this from using their ghost energy?

“Looks like we’ll have to pace ourselves,” they said as they looked around the beach, “this is the last place we want to be if we pass out.”

What followed was a few hours of switching between resting and training, followed by a quick lunch break. Weirdly enough, the Cuban sandwich did more to restore their ghost energy than all the resting at the beach. Once they were done with that, it was back to the Broken Beach for a bit more training. By the time they were done, they had a few more tricks in their arsenal.

More than worth it, even if the forced separation at the end left Zach on the ground.

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“I think we should save that one for a last resort,” he groaned as he got to his feet.

“Yeah, you’re right,” Blue clutched her head as she floated around aimlessly.

“So… anything else you want to do? We still have a lot of time until we have to go home,” Zach pointed out as Blue finally recovered.

“Well, we did just learn yesterday that I’m not from the county you thought I was from. Maybe we can try researching for deaths again?”

Zach blinked as he suddenly remembered that they had indeed gained valuable information in the quest to find out the truth about Blue. With everything else that had come up in the meantime, it had just sort of been forgotten in the shuffle.

“Oh yeah, we should probably see what we can find out with that,” he said as the pair started leaving the beach. “Hopefully we don’t have a repeat of last time.”

“Oh come on, what are even the odds of running into another exorcist while at the library?” Blue pointed out, clearly never having heard of the concept of tempting fate. Zach had, but as they got off the sand, he figured the odds were low enough anyway.

Two hours later, Zach was almost hoping an exorcist would show up.

“How do we still have nothing?” He asked, staring blankly at the screen. Any passerby would guess he was talking to the machine instead of the invisible ghost floating over his shoulder. Good thing too, because he needed to get out his frustration, at least a little.

They’d tried everything they could think of. Death records, news stories, police reports. There was nothing about a dead Asian girl from the ages of thirteen to fifteen who could have been Blue. They had even tried expanding the search further north to Palm Beach County, and there still wasn’t anything turning up.

“Maybe I was a tourist?” blue pointed out only for Zach to shake his head.

“No, if you were a tourist, I would have picked up on it by now,” Zach whispered as he glanced around the room. Once he was sure he wouldn’t be overhead, they kept whispering to Blue. “You’re from South Florida, I have no doubt on that.”

Blue shrugged her shoulders as Zach went back to trying to find any records of her existence.

They went for another hour until he heard someone walk up to him. He turned back expecting to see a librarian. Instead of the librarian, standing behind him was a collage aged woman with her brown hair in a ponytail. She was holding an old instant camera in her hands. The camera had a strap attached which reached around her shoulder.

“Hello there, do you mind if I take your picture. I’m a photography student and I just think you’d be a great subject.”

Zach and Blue starred at the camera holding woman. At her overeager grin. With the way she was clutching the camera like her life depended on it. And most importantly, the way her eyes kept looking over at Blue.

“You know what, I didn’t think we would actually meet another exorcist at the library.” Zach turned to Blue as the woman let out a nervous yelp. A couple of nearby people all turned and shushed at her.

“Hey it’s not like we were actually making any progress,” Blue pointed out as the woman starred at the pair, her camera slowly dropping to her side.

“Are you… is she your undershadow?” She asked as Zach got up from his seat and turned off the computer. Blue followed after him and a second later, the camera holding woman followed behind him.

Zach left the library and quickly found a small bench in the park next door to the library. Zach took a seat with Blue floating next to him while the suspected exorcist stood in front of him.

“So… apparently we’re something called an evenshadow,” Zach explained as Blue nodded her head.

“Never heard of that before. So the two of you have some sort of equal partnership or something?” She asked.

“I guess. It’s not much of an agreement, I just kind of hang around him.” Blue said as the exorcist gripped their camera, as though they were ready to bring it up at any time.

“From what my… would we call Andrew our mentor?” Zach trailed off as he thought of the older man who’d been helping them out. He was teaching them, but was he really a mentor?

“I mean… I think it’s a little early to be calling him that.” Blue pointed out and Zach found himself agreeing.

“Okay, so from what this guy who’s been teaching us about ghost said, our situation is kind of unique.”

Zach then told the exorcist mostly everything. How the two of them met, Gestalt, learning about how ‘weird’ they were, the whole process. The quicker this exorcist understood they were no threat, the better off they were.

“Okay, I think I understand…” the exorcist glanced between the two of them. “So you’re not in any danger?”

“None unless you start pointing what I assume is an anti-ghost camera at us,” Zach said as the exorcist leaned back and relaxed her shoulders.

“That’s good. This would have been my first time fighting a ghost on my own,” she laughed nervously as both Zach and Blue looked down at the camera. “Sorry to freak out on you guys like this. Name’s Beth. I’m an exorcist in training.”

“So was Zach right? Is that some sort of anti-ghost camera?” Blue pointed at the contraption as Beth held it up for the two of them to get a better look.

“Yeah, my grandpa made special anti-ghost cameras back in the day. He called them ‘camera obscura’, and this was one of his last ones before he passed.” She pointed the cameras at a tree and clicked on the trigger. “When it takes a picture of a ghost, it shaves off a bit of the ghost’s essence and traps it in a photo. If a ghost has been weakened enough, it’ll just end up trapped period.”

“Creepy,” Blue made sure to float away from the sight of the camera. “So what, do you just have a whole bunch of ghost photos lying around?”

“Yeah I have a few, I just keep the photos in an album until the ghost fades away.” Beth explained as she reached into her bag and took out a tiny album. “But I keep a few on me, just in case I need them.”

“What would you need them for?” Zach asked as Beth opened the album to a photo of an old woman growling at the camera, an axe in her hands.

“If I run into trouble, I can drain the ghost in a photo for a stronger shot.” She tapped the photo on the table. “I caught this piece of work a few weeks ago. Apparently, a little girl snuck into her backyard to get back a ball and got ripped apart by her dogs. She trash talked the girl and the her brother lost it and killed her.”

“Talk about a nasty story.” Blue shivered as she looked down at the photo.

“Yeah, and now I carry her around as an anti-ghost weapon.” Beth placed the album back into her bag and got to her feet. “Well, it was nice meeting you two, but I need to head back in. My mentor and I handling a case right now and I need to help out with the…”

“Beth, are you there?” The voice of an older woman called out from the library’s entrance. The three of them looked over at the door at a woman in a long black dress wearing sunglasses. She saw the trio and Zach could see her narrow her eyes at Blue behind her sunglasses from all the way over there.

She walked over to them as Andrew walked out behind her.

“Kid, what are you doing here?” Andrew asked as the two adults walked over to the table.

“I was following a lead on Blue’s death.” He pointed back to her.

“Then why are you talking to an exorcist?” He pointed at Beth who chuckled nervously.

“That one’s my fault. I thought he was being possessed and tried to help him out. He had to explain the whole evenshadow thing to me.” She explained as the older woman sighed.

“Luckily for you Beth, we’ve already wrapped up our investigation.” She explained as she produced a folder full of documents. “We’ll be going after the ghost of Jackson Smiles tonight.”

“Is that…?” Zach glanced over at Ryan who nodded his head.

“The ghost clown at the hospital. I hope you’re ready kid, because this one’s going to be an all hands on deck situation.”