Chapter 20
Despite Zach’s and Blue demands, there was no sudden trip back to Green Brook to investigate Blue’s memory. According to Lady Gray and Andrew, there wasn’t enough time. Plus, Blue’s new memories had given them new routes for research, at least according to the two older exorcists.
What this actually meant was several days of Blue trying to recite every single little detail she could recall from the memory. The large crowd from the end of the memory was a no go, not unless they were ready to mess with a group they weren’t ready for. So instead of focusing on that, they focused on any detail they could find from the start of the memory, to the last look out the window.
And the worst part was, it worked.
Between an updated bus route map which wasn’t there, and a building under construction, they’d managed to narrow down the date of Blue’s death to a space of two months almost exactly ten years ago. Which meant the giant pile of folders had to be gone over again and narrowed down to just the people who went missing during those two months.
By the time they were done, the three young exorcists were staring at four files in front of them.
“Okay, we take this two by two.” Beth said as she walked up and picked up the two the left. Zach followed her lead and took the two to the right. “We only have four Asian girls from the ages of twelve to fourteen left to go through. One of these three has to be Blue.”
“Yeah… I suppose.” Zach glanced over at the ghost in question who was glancing between the four folders. Her focus was iron, like she was trying to figure out which of the files was hers via staring alone. After a while, her focused softened just enough for her to notice Zach’s eyes on her. She rolled her eyes at him.
“Zach, for the last time, I’m fine.” She placed her hands on her hips and snarled at him.
“Blue, how are you fine? You saw yourself die, no one can be ‘fine’ after that.” He pointed out with words his mouth had gotten used to saying.
“I told you, I don’t know!” If Blue had a physical mouth, it would be just as used to this conversation. “I agree with you, I should be freaking out. I don’t know why I’m not. But when I think about my death, I don’t feel anything.”
“That still doesn’t make any sense,” Beth grumbled as she gave the ghost a tired glance. She’d lost a good chunk of sleep over this very issue, and she’d been sure to let Zach and Blue know. “Ghosts are supposed to obsess over their deaths. It’s literally supposed to be the reason for your entire existence. How do you not want to go after the people who did this to you? You should be chomping at the bit to tear them limb from limb.”
Blue just shrugged, and flew towards the two files Zach was carrying.
“Can we just pop these open already?” She crossed her arms as Zach did as he was asked. It was time to start reading each of the four files aloud to see if any of them unlocked any more memories from Blue.
An hour later, they had managed to narrow it down from four to three.
“You know the report could have started with ‘and then the girl made it back home after being missing for a week’. Would have saved us a whole lot of time,” Zach groaned as he placed Aoi Yamada’s file on the table, away from the other three. Nothing in any of the files managed to trigger anything in Blue, but at least the other three were about girl’s who were actually still missing.
“So what now?” Blue demanded as she looked at the three remaining files. “Do we just… investigate the last three?”
“Well one of these is going to be a lot harder than the other two.” Zach felt his eyebrow twitch as he looked at the file describing the case of a twelve year old whose family had moved back to Korea after the disappearance of their only daughter.
“How do you not speak any of these languages?” Beth gave Blue a set of judging eyes. “You’re like, either a first generation or second generation American. How do you only speak English?”
“I don’t know!” Blue threw her arms into the air as both Zach and Beth braced themselves as the blast of ghostly energy poured over them. “How many times do I need to say it? I don’t know why I can only speak English, I don’t know why my death doesn’t freak me out. How many more times are wo going to go over this?”
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There was a an awkward silence in the air as the two living exorcists stared at Blue, then to each other, then back to Blue. A silent agreement was made to not bring it back up again.
“Okay… so we have two files here, one family who lives in Fort Lauderdale, another one in Hallandale. How do you want to investigate?” Beth asked while looking between the two files.
“Well maybe we can…” Zach was suddenly interrupted when the door slammed open. The three of them turned as Andrew stomped into the room with Lay Gray quickly following after him.
“Sorry about this,” Andrew said as pushed the remaining files to a corner before putting a laptop down on the table. He turned it on and reached up to a cable dropping down from the ceiling. The one the three younger exorcists had been told to ignore due to how important it was.
He plugged the wire into the laptop with lady gray looking over his shoulder as the other three stood and floated off to the side. They watched silently as a window appeared on the screen. Rows and rows of blue text flew across the black screen before a series of ones and zeroes took their place, forming an image.
It took a full minute for the image to form from the text, a map of the state of Florida and the surroundings islands. As well as what appeared to be a large smudge off the coast.
“Is it finally time, has it begun its approach?” Lady Gray muttered as Andrew pressed a few keys to make a small black window appear. He typed into it and pressed ‘enter’, closing the window as the map changed. The smudge was gone, replaced with what looked like a childish cartoon ghost made of ones and zero.
“We don’t have time for this!” Andrew sprang out of his chair and tore of his jacket. He let out another yell as he threw it onto the ground. The three younger exorcists looked to Lady Gray, expecting her to chide him or explain what was going on or do anything at all.
Instead she was standing in stunned silence, her eyes locked onto the ghost on the screen. Eventually, she moved, but only to reach out and grab the edges of the screen.
“After all of these years, I finally have you in my grasp. Things will end differently this time, I swear it.” Despite her whisper, she was loud enough for everyone else in the room to hear.
“Okay anyone want to explain what’s going on?” Blue demanded as the two adults finally noticed they were there.
“Oh right, almost forgot you three were here.” Andrew admitted before turning the laptop towards the three of them. They huddled in close as Andrew began to explain, pointing at the cartoon ghost.
“This thing represents a major spectral threat coming our way. It’ll reach us in three weeks’ time. We’re going to have to be ready for it when it gets here.” He gulped and looked over at Lady Gray, who was still enraptured with the screen. “It goes by many names. The Phantom Storm, the Horrorcane the…”
“I refuse to refer to the thing that killed my brother by anything but its proper name, the Nightmare made Manifest.” Lady Gray broke out of her stupor long enough to growl out at Andrew. She took a second to compose herself “The Nightmare made Manifest is… well the best way to describe it would be a ghost tornado. It’s a swirling mass of rampaging ghosts, ever moving and a constant threat.”
“Don’t like the sound of that one bit,” Zach grit his teeth as Lady Gray kept going.
“No one knows where it came from, but it spends most of its time out at sea, swirling around. But every so often, it comes to shore, rampaging through the land and scooping up stray ghost to make itself stronger.”
“Is there anything we can do about it?” Zach’s words caused Andrew and Lady Gray to awkwardly glance at each other for a moment. Zach tensed up, preparing himself for the worst as Andrew began to speak.
“Well it depends on who you mean by ‘we’. If you mean exorcist in general, then yes. In fact with stuff like this,” he gestured towards the laptop, “giving us a heads up and time for exorcists to gather, we’ve managed to weaken and debilitate the Nightmare made Manifest over the last ten years.”
“But if by ‘we’, you mean ‘the people in this room’, that’s a bit more complicated.” Lady Gray’s eyes fell on Zach and Blue with a soft frown. “The Nightmare made Manifest absorbs any ghost who strays to close to it. And while Blue has proven herself to be anything but a typical ghost… I don’t think either of you want to take that chance.”
“I suppose your right,” Zach looked over at Blue who had her eyes closed, like she was thinking the whole thing over. After a second she opened them back up and let her arms fall to her side.
“Yeah you guys are probably right. I’ll make sure to keep my distance from it when it shows up… where is it landing anyway?” Blue asked as they all looked back at the laptop.
“We don’t know. Even with all the information we have, theirs’s still a range.” Andrew explained as he gestured towards the Florida coast on the map. The younger exorcists got closer and noticed that a stretch of coast was made from zeros instead of ones. A pretty long one too.
“As far south as Key West up till the border of Broward and Palm Beach?” Zach’s voice grew in volume until it hovered between the border of talking and yelling. “That’s almost the entire South Florida coast! It could hit us anywhere!”
“Yes, and when it does, it will be vital the three of us are ready for it,” Andre pointed at Beth. “You, more than the two of us.”
“Wait me?” Beth pointed to herself as the two adults nodded. “What do you need me for?”
“Well as cruel as it is to say… we don’t. We need your camera,” Lady Gray pointed toward she unattended Camera Obscura before thinking it over, “and I suppose your skills at using it too.”
“What lady Gray is trying to say,” Andrew quickly cut in before things could go any further, “is that the Camera Obscura is a powerful anti-ghost weapon. If you use that thing on the Nightmare Made Manifest at full power, you might be able to shave off huge parts of it. Parts big enough to cause structural damage, maybe give us a chance of destroying this thing for good.”
Beth stood there shocked for a several moments as she took in the four sets of eyes looking at her. She took several deep breaths before sitting down.
“Oh,” her voice was soft as she shrank into herself.