Bradley, however, was having none of it. "You got yourselves into this mess," he reminded them sunnily. "Now get yourselves out. The closest spirit is at the old Hamish theater outside of town."
Henrietta rolled her eyes, but Georgie felt his stomach drop. "That's the place Ike was gonna check out," he muttered, half to himself. He'd always thought Ike's urban exploring thing was pretty cool, but definitely not when there was some kind of evil spirit out for his blood.
"It could just be a coincidence," said Henrietta, shooting him a glance. It was clear from her face that she didn't believe it.
"No," Georgie said immediately. "Ike's totally a nonconformist."
"I dunno," Evan said dubiously. "I mean, he's definitely nothing like Fetal Libido or Heidi Turner's cousin."
Georgie had to roll his eyes at that. "Do you ever get tired of acting all skeptical at first and then being totally wrong? Ike's not less of a nonconformist just because he isn't goth."
Evan shrugged. "We should work on refining our technique, anyway. I'm still scabbing from last night." He pointedly rubbed at the spot on his arm where the spirit had scratched him. Dylan gave the cuts an uneasy look, like he'd been doing pretty much nonstop since Evan got them.
"Are you sure they won't get infected and turn him into, like, some kind of ghost-zombie?" he asked anxiously, directing the question at Bradley.
"That wouldn't be so bad," Evan said thoughtfully. Dylan socked him on the arm, but made sure that it was the unwounded one.
Bradley rolled his eyes. "You'll be fine. What we need to worry about now is streamlining these rituals into something less, you know, life-threatening."
Henrietta nodded. "Last night was definitely way too close for comfort."
"At least we won't have to do it in front of a live audience next time," said Dylan. Evan shrugged his assent.
"Right," said Bradley, rubbing his hands together. "Let's get to work."
The effect was kind of ruined when Henrietta whacked her brother on the back of the head. "Georgie, call Ike. We're gonna need to use him for bait."
"Nope," Georgie said immediately. "Nope nope nope. Not happening."
"He has to decide whether or not he wants to," Henrietta said sternly. "He already said he wants to help us."
"Yeah," Georgie admitted sullenly. "But he'll say yes."
She just stared him down. Fifteen tense seconds later, he was grumbling to himself and pulling his phone out of his pocket, firing off a quick text and then looking belligerently around the room.
A few seconds later, the phone vibrated again. Georgie read the text and then regarded them all mutinously. "He says he'll meet us there."
Bradley clapped his hands together, then gave Henrietta a wary look when she showed signs of wanting to hit him again. "Awesome," he said. "Let's get started."
A few hours later, Henrietta pulled up in front of the old abandoned theater and killed the engine. "This whole deal is costing me a shitload of gas money," she complained. "I might have to start imposing a fare."
Georgie snorted.
"Whatever," said Bradley, from his place squashed in the backseat. "Like you even pay for it anyways."
Henrietta glared briefly and then climbed outside, slinging the bag over her shoulder. Climbing out after, Georgie let out a low whistle. Ike had been talking about this place nonstop for the past week or so, but he'd been too distracted by the whole ghost problem to really pay too much attention.
Now, he almost wished he had, because the place was really kind of amazing. Run-down, sure, with peeling paint and crumbling columns and a dingy, blank marquee.
Evan took a step forward. "Looks dangerous," he intoned gloomily.
Georgie ignored him completely in favor of taking a moment to just stare, marveling. Then, he caught sight of Ike, standing beneath the marquee and beckoning to them all shiftily. Henrietta locked the car, and the five of them walked over to him.
"You ready?" Henrietta asked Ike. He pushed his glasses up his nose and nodded firmly.
"This still might not work," Georgie sulked. "It might count as him helping us destroy the spirit. I thought that was against the rules."
"I'm not helping you directly," said Ike, with a put-upon air. "Stop being a dick."
Georgie felt somewhat sheepish. "Yeah, okay."
Ike led them down a back alley and through a side-door with a broken lock into the theater, switching on his industrial-strength flashlight to help pierce the gloom with. Bradley had brought at couple along, too, but even combined, the glow wasn't enough to make the whole thing any less creepy.
"So what should I do now?" Ike asked the rest of them once they'd managed to navigate their way to the theater where Bradley claimed the spirit was.
Henrietta shrugged. "I dunno. Climb around on shit. Take pictures. Whatever you would be doing if we weren't here."
Ike nodded and set about his activities, which did indeed look a lot like climbing around on shit and taking pictures.
He'd been at it for about five minutes before Georgie started noticing something weird. He nudged Dylan, motioning for him to point his flashlight toward the walls. Once covered with a ruined tropical mosaic, most of the tiles were now either missing or damaged beyond repair. The murky shadows made it difficult to see anything, but once Dylan swung his flashlight over, throwing everything into sharp relief, Georgie noticed that there was something else coming out of the wall besides mildew.
It was the next spirit, seeping through the cracks like some kind of fast-growing fungus, covering a seemingly huge amount of wall-space.
Freaky as it had been at the time, Georgie suddenly found himself wishing that they were back fighting the first one again, in a basement crowded with faggy vampire kids who could have served as distractions. Instead, they were in a pitch-dark movie theater with no one to hear them scream except for the quietly decaying walls.
"Henrietta," Dylan said in a quiet voice, plainly struggling not to panic. "Now would probably be a good time to start setting things up."
For one terrible moment, Georgie thought she'd frozen; if she couldn't handle it, none of them could. But then, a second later she was scrabbling through the bag for the necessary requirements, not as many as last time. She tossed the canister of salt at Evan, who immediately set about sequestering them all into a half-hearted circle.
Georgie noticed Ike next to him, eyes darting frantically about the room. He looked tense. Georgie could hardly blame him. Without thinking, he grabbed Ike's hand. Ike squeezed it back, for once too distracted to grumble.
Henrietta knelt over, fumbling to light the requisite candles while Evan and Dylan stood protectively over her. "Georgie, north," she barked. "Evan, south, Dylan, west. Ike and Bradley, stay in the middle and try not to fuck things up." She herself went over to stand to the east and started reading a string of incomprehensible words scribbled hastily onto a piece of notebook paper. The ghost didn't appear to like that much, but just as they were really getting into the swing of it, a horrifying new development occurred.
The last ghost had been noisy, and so was this one, in a different way; Georgie could hear it screeching and buzzing and wailing inside of his head. A thousand nails scratching themselves ragged on a thousand chalkboards couldn't compare.
"Do you guys hear that?" said Evan from his post, attempting to shield his candle's flame from the sudden draft that had preceded the spirit's arrival and hold his temples at the same time. "The energy's wrong, I don't feel it gathering like it did last time."
Henrietta looked desperately around. "I don't know how to fix it," she said frantically.
"Concentrate," Ike said, still holding Georgie's hand tight. Sweat was beading on his forehead. "And then brace for impact."
Evan, Dylan, and Georgie looked to Henrietta for confirmation. She gave a slightly manic shrug. "What the fuck, right? Concentrate."
Georgie shut his eyes so tight that spots of white bloomed behind his eyelids, concentrating as hard as he could. He knew somehow to search his body for a focal point, settling on his and Ike's joined hands, even though that was probably pretty gay. He imagined their shared energy building between them and transferring to the center of the group, and he knew that Ike was probably doing the same.
Just like before, the spirit was doing all it could to distract them, literally bouncing off the walls. This time, however, it presented a much more immediate threat; this building was decayed at the foundations, scheduled for condemnation; it seemed perfectly plausible that the spirit could literally bring it down around them.
Whenever he thought this way, however, Georgie could feel his energy waning. Attempting to block out all distractions, impossible as it seemed, he could feel it building back up again, slowly but surely.
After what seemed like hours but could only have been a few seconds, Evan spoke up through gritted teeth. "Alright," he said. "Alright." Georgie wasn't sure how, but Evan seemed to have been decided on as the conduit.
The spirit raged and howled, and Evan narrowed his eyes in concentration, and suddenly everything was still. The spirit hung suspended in the air for a moment, suffused once again with that gray, smoky glow, and then it was gone. At least, Georgie thought it was gone. It was difficult to tell, when they were all of them still in near-complete darkness.
"Let's get out of here," said Ike, giving voice to all of their thoughts.
Next to him, Georgie felt Henrietta nod fervently. They picked their way back towards the alleyway exit, finally spilling out onto the sidewalk and squinting in the midday sun. It was surreal to feel its warmth on their faces, when thinking back to the dank gloominess of the theater. It also sucked, because sunlight was the worst.
"Well," said Ike, at length. "At least I'm pretty sure I got some good pictures while I was being bait."
"Shut up," Georgie told him, but they still hadn't stopped holding hands.
After dropping Bradley and Ike at their respective homes, the four of them piled into their favorite booth at Village Inn and ordered the cheapest possible coffees they could.
Their usual waitress gave them her customary death eye as she poured for them, and Evan watched her go sourly.
"Conformist asshole," he muttered. "If she only knew what we've been laying on the line lately."
"She still wouldn't care," said Dylan, slumping back against the vinyl cushions and taking a sip of his coffee.
"Yep," Henrietta put in bleakly. She was nursing her first ghost-related injury; a bruised temple that was making her feel irritable.
"We need a break," said Evan, looking from face to desolate face.
Dylan nodded emphatically, but Georgie shook his head. "Justice takes no vacations," he intoned. "Henrietta's asshole brother will probably have another one waiting for us when we get back to her house.
"Let's just stay here forever, then," Evan said moodily.
Georgie yawned. "We could just rest for a second."
-Hausinge-
It wasn't a minute after he said that that the four of them drifted off to sleep. Dylan's head rested on Evan's shouder, Henrietta nestled in close to his other side with one arm around Georgie, who had simply fallen asleep with his forehead resting against the wooden tabletop. It seemed like only a few seconds had passed before their waitress was rudely shaking them each awake in turn, muttering something about kids these days and telling them that they had to leave, but it was already nine o'clock at night.
The four of them trooped back out to Henrietta's car.
"You know," said Georgie, once they were on the road. "How sometimes after you take a nap you feel worse than before you took the nap?"
"Uhhhghg," grunted Henrietta, looking about ready to nod off at the wheel.
Georgie leaned forward to pinch her on the arm, just enough to keep her semiconscious for the drive home. She roused herself and glared at him, but there was no swerving off the road, which he counted as a win.
"Yeah."