Chapter 29

The last few weeks until the Nightmare made Manifest went by like a blur for Zach. He called the rest of the exorcists on the first day back. Both to let them know he'd make it back to town, and to get an update on Beth's progress.

They were glad to hear he'd made it back with no trouble, and had good news. After all of their work, they had a powerful configuration for the Camera Obscura to show for it. They'd tried it out on a job a few days ago, and had annihilated the ghost in one shot.

The only issue was that too many shots would burn out the camera, requiring extensive repairs before it could be used again. They had spent the last few days trying to figure out how to minimize the damage.

He'd wondered about telling them about the whole psychic, but the last thing any of them needed was a distraction right now.

Aside from a promise to see them one last time before the Nightmare made Manifest hit, he wasn't planning on seeing them until after it was either destroyed or back out to sea. Which meant he had plenty of time to look over the book's his grandpa had left him.

Or at least it would if he wasn't constantly distracted by three factors. The first was Tyler. The girl had decided to make it her job to make sure Zach didn't bury himself in books for the rest of the summer. Maybe telling her about the books had been a mistake, but he wasn't too upset over getting dragged out of his house every few days to meet up with people.

It have his a break from his research and helped out with the second factor. Ever since the incident with Aoi, Blue had been worryingly quiet. She still spoke, and she laughed and had fun on their outings when she didn't know he was watching, but the difference was noticeable.

She only ever spoke when he went out of his way to speak to her, and if he wanted to hear her opinion on something, he needed to fight get anything other than agreement with whatever he said. It was honestly a little disturbing. And it also wasn't going away with time.

The only silver lining to this whole situation, as narrow as it was, was that her newfound passiveness had helped with the third factor.

Specifically that grandpa had stayed an extra hour on the first day to help him explain everything to his parents. Dad had already known that Mom had minor psychic powers, and both of them had known he might get them one day. But learning that he'd already had them for almost two months now had come as a shock.

Learning that they'd been holding a house guest the whole time had been even more of a shock. Zach had found himself arguing with his grandpa as they tried to explain ghosts and Blue, and by the end of it his parents hadn't been sure who to believe.

As such, it had become his first priority to find a way to make Blue visible to other people. He'd tried to just pour psychic energy into her, but that just resulted in her getting thrown through a wall into the next apartment. He was pretty sure it had something to do with pouring the right amount of psychic energy into her at the right rate, but he was still figuring it out.

Until then it was still a question which left his brain buzzing. The sooner he figured it out, the sooner Blue had other people to talk to and the sooner she could pull herself out of her trouble. He thought about it all the time. When he woke up, when he was doing stuff around the house, when he sat down for breakfast…

"Zach, stop staring at your coffee, your starting to stir it with your mind." He blinked at his mom's words and took note of the cup of coffee in front of him. She hadn't been joking, he really had been making it spin around with his mind alone.

He pushed it forward out of range with a sigh.

"You alright there Houdini?" Both mother and son stopped to look at the man sitting at the head of the table.

"Houdini was a magician dad, not a psychic." Zach droned as Taylor just ate into her breakfast.

"Close enough, I have to expand out if I want to keep this up," Lucas smirked as Zach was faced with the worst part of telling his parent's he was psychic. Having to deal with his dad using every other famous psychic in history as nicknames for him.

And now that he was out, it looked like he had switched out to magicians after running out of psychics.

"I can feel how much you're enjoying this, that's the worst part." Taylor muttered while looking at her husband. "Zach a bit of advice, don't bother learning empathy if you don't have to. Unless you're getting a job selling things, it's not worth it."

"I'll keep that in mind mom." He nodded his head before opening his palm towards the fork on the table. He took a second to focus on it before it came flying into his hand. He closed his fingers around it before dropping his psychic grip. "I think I'm going to just focus on learning telekinetic tricks for now. Feels like I'll get the most bang for my buck with them."

"Just don't get too used to them." Taylor chided as she looked at the fork which was now stabbing into some scrambled eggs. Almost like she was deciding if she should say anything about it or not. "Just don't break anything in the house in the process, or yourself. Okay?"

"You got it mom." He gave her a thumb up with his free hand before getting back to eating. Or at least trying to eat. It was hard to find an appetite at the moment. The Nightmare made Manifest was arriving tomorrow. Which he had yet to tell his parents or grandpa about. With any luck, none of them would find out about it.

"So what are the plans for today? Going out to see those ghost hunting friends of yours?" Lucas smirked at the way Zach winced.

"For the last time dad, don't call them that. Exorcism and ghost hunting are different jobs and they don't like it when you call them ghost hunters." Zach knew this was a losing battle. His dad was going to this no matter what he did. Might as well roll with the punches. "And yeah… heading over there right after breakfast."

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The rest of breakfast was spent on pleasant conversation and a couple of laughs spent between the family. But for as much as Zach enjoyed, something felt missing. And he knew what it was.

About twenty minutes later, he stepped out of the apartment to find Blue floating by the entrance, waiting for him. Blue had never liked watching people eat and enjoy other things reserved only for the living, but it had gotten worse recently. Now she just left the apartment whenever it was meal time.

"Hope I didn't make you wait for too long," he joked as she took her new usual spot by his side. Ever since their meeting with Aoi, Blue had stopped floating along next to him. Now she always made sure to float a few feet behind him. He always tried to wait for her to catch up, but she would always stop and just wait for him to start moving again.

It had been too awkward to bring it up, so he'd let it be. Just another thing to wait for until it went back to normal. There were way too many of those these days.

As Zach made his way through the streets of South Palm, he found himself missing the old Blue.

It didn't take too long to find the familiar motel room he'd visited many times now. He knocked twice, waited four seconds, and then knocked two more times. He took a step back and waited until four more knocks answered back. With that, the door opened and he walked in, sure that the only people present were him, Blue and Beth.

He had no idea when he and the young woman had started doing this little code knock but it was useful. Being around their mentors was stressful, and the atmosphere when it was just the three of them just felt different. So it was nice to know ahead of time if either of them were around.

And also apparently a brand new person he'd never met before.

"Oh hello there," he greeted the man… teen… sitting on a chair in the corner. He was dressed in an old looking white suit and pants. Well, old as in they looked like they would been worn a hundred years ago, the clothes themselves looked like they were sown yesterday. Propped onto the wall next to him was a long cane with some sort of clear stone stained blue at the head.

"You must be the Zach and Blue we've all heard so much about." He reached up to his blond hair, and hesitated before pulling his hand back down. Zach glanced back and spotted a white hat with a yellow stripe on the coat rack. "It's my pleasure. My name is Carrow Brightstone. Newly independent exorcist and warrior on the front lines against all which bump in the night… present company excluded. I am one of the exorcist summoned to face off against the Nightmare made Manifest."

Blue felt nothing as he winked at it. Well, there was a slight urge to roll its eyes, but that was easily suppressed like most things these days. Last thing it could do was be rude to new people. Too big a risk with the way things were now.

"Wow you really can't turn it off, can't you?" Beth smirked as he turned to the two of them. "Listen, just ignore him when he gets like this. Lady gray didn't try to mold my personality, but he wasn't as lucky."

"Preposterous, I was plenty lucky with my mentor." He scowled before taking his seat again. "Good thing you arrived when you did, we were both dying of boredom."

"Well he's not lying there," Beth admitted as she sat down on her bed again. The Camera Obscura was on a small table right next to it, as though she'd been using the bed as a chair. "Andrew and Lady Gray took all the other exorcists with them out for one last little meet up before the Nightmare made Manifest reaches us tomorrow."

"Wait all of them, how many showed up?" Zach asked as Beth's eyes went wide and sparkly.

"I can't believe how many showed up. There are seven exorcists fighting this thing, not counting you and Blue." Zach fought back a flinch. That number was nowhere near as high as he'd been expecting. "This has to be the most exorcist I've ever seen in one place before. And the rest of them say there's only ever been a small handful of gatherings bigger than this."

Looked like exorcist were even rarer then Zach had imagined. But if he remembered that they were a small group within an already tiny group… it started making more sense.

"So what did you find out on your trip south?" Beth suddenly asked. Blue's eyes going wide.

"I think I'll wait this all out outside." It said before rising up to the ceiling.

"Everything okay with her?" Zach sighed and shook his head.

"We found out some pretty crazy stuff down there. Some stuff that kind of changes the way we think of ghost. I'll tell you the full story after the Nightmare made Manifest is taken care of, but the important part is…"

As Zach told them about meeting Blue's living half, the ghost in question floated over the building, unable to hear what was going on inside.

"This is all too much," it whispered before curling up into a little ball. "I want to die again. I don't want to exist as a stupid photograph."

It started crying, sure that no one else could see or hear it. It had been harder and harder to find places to do this without anyone noticing. But each time it did, the hurt in its heart lessened just a little bit. So she just floated there, who knew how long.

But wouldn't it be easier to just give up?

Blue's head snapped upwards towards the sea. It could feel it, that thing in the distance. What was it called again?

Why not just give in? Let go of all your desires and regrets, and fly free?

The ghost pulled itself out of its ball and let its arm dropped to the side. The voice… it was talking sense. But it was so far away. It couldn't get to the voice promising everything it wanted… not while still chained to Zach.

Then I will come for you.

And for the first since learning the truth, the ghost smiled without feeling like a liar.