Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

George was too busy making a mess to answer the phone. 

Of course, he heard his phone ring. It was right there in his back pocket. He’d have to be deaf not to hear it. 

But he couldn’t just interrupt the very important task he was given here. Jordon was counting on him, and that was not something to be taken lightly. Charles P. Scene rarely trusted anyone but Dylan in his chaotic ventures. It was almost an honour that he had asked George to do this one specific thing. 

“Careful,” Jordon whispered as George lifted his bowl of pancake batter to the stove. He watched with wide eyes as George used a soup ladle to scoop up some batter. 

“It’s fine, Jord, I got this,” George muttered. He and Jordon had already spilled pancake batter all over the kitchen counter and on the stove itself in their quest to create a perfect round pancake. It was two in the morning, and they had been at this for about an hour. They now had a couple stacks of failed pancakes in various sizes and shapes on the counter. 

The reason Jordon had wanted to make the perfect pancake at one in the morning was because he had been scrolling through cooking sites on his phone and came across a picture of an absolutely perfect, fluffy, round pancake. As soon as he saw it, he asked George to help him make enough pancake batter to make multiple pancakes until they could manage to make a perfect one. George had no idea why Jordon had asked him instead of Dylan, but George chalked it up to the fact that Dylan had decided to curl up in Danny’s bed, and accidentally waking Danny just to get Dylan out of bed was not an option. 

George ever so carefully poised the ladle over the frying pan and poured the pancake batter. 

His phone rang again and he jumped at the unexpected sound. The ladle jerked. A drop of batter splatted on the edge of the pancake. 

Jordon’s shoulders slumped at their latest failed attempt. “Aww, man.”

Jorel walked into the kitchen with his cat, Tiger, in his arms. “Got any more rejects?” Jordon and George has been lucky Jorel was awake when they started cooking. Otherwise, they’d have no way to dispose of the failed pancakes other than to throw them in the trash. 

Jordon pushed a plate covered in slightly deformed pancakes towards Jorel and his feline companion. “Here.”

“Nice.” Jorel set Tiger on the counter and picked up the plate. Tiger curled up next to a puddle of pancake batter as Jorel grabbed a bottle of syrup and drizzled it on top of the pancakes. The guy was vegan, but in the wee hours of the morning when pancakes were present, he shoved his dietary habits out the window. He poured himself another glass of milk to go with his second helping of pancakes, which would no doubt cause some nausea later on since he wasn’t used to animal products. That and the eggs in the pancake batter might result in some vomiting later on. 

Jordon sighed as he picked up their almost empty bowl of pancake batter. “Should we stop making batter from scratch? I think the store bought stuff might be easier.”

George’s phone rang again and he jumped. “Holy fuck,” he blurted in surprise. Why couldn’t whoever was calling see that he was busy?

Footsteps pounded on the stairs. “George, pick up your fucking phone!” Danny’s voice yelled. How he was able to hear George’s phone through the floor and Dylan’s snoring, no one knew. 

George sighed and dug his phone out of his pocket, if only to keep their band mom from yelling at him. He held it up to his ear. “What the fuck do you want?”

The kitchen door opened and a shirtless Danny in sweatpants and bunny slippers walked in, followed by a tired Dylan in a pink onesie. He leaned against the doorframe, eyes half closed from exhaustion as Danny walked up to George and snatched the phone out of his hands. 

“You’ve reached the home of the Undead, this is Daniel Rose speaking. How may I help you?”

“That was quite a rude greeting,” a snooty woman’s voice said on the other line.

Danny wanted to point out that she had, in fact, called them at two in the morning, and literally anyone would be angry at being called that early, but he kept the charming smile on his face as if the lady could see it through the receiver. “I’m so sorry about that, ma’am. You called George’s line, and he’s just tired. He meant nothing by it, I’m sure.”

“Well, I should hope not,” the lady sneered. “You’re the only ghost hunters in Los Angeles, and I would hate to work with a bunch of barbarians.”

“You have a ghost problem?” Danny asked, his interest piqued. He ignored the exasperated sighs of the other four when he mentioned ghosts. 

“That’s putting it mildly,” she scoffed. “You see, my husband died about five years ago.”

She paused, and Danny took that as his signal to show some sympathy. “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said. He really was sympathetic for her, although he wondered if she really was sad about the fact that her husband was dead. Her voice was about as flat as one of the deformed pancakes Jorel was currently shoving into his mouth. He chased it down with a gulp of milk, and Danny knew that they would have some lactose induced vomit to clean up pretty soon. 

“Don’t be,” the woman said. “The man was awful. Borderline abusive. God bless the man who ran him over.” She heaved a frustrated sigh. “The point is, my husband is dead, and he has been haunting me for the last five years.”

Danny furrowed his brow. “If you don’t mind me asking, why are you only calling us now?”

“He only shows up once every year,” the lady explained, a pang of annoyance in her voice. “You see, I host an annual business gathering—a party of sorts—where all of my current business partners and potential future partners are invited. We discuss important matters at these gatherings, but my husband always manages to disrupt them.”

“And you’re sure it’s your husband?” Danny asked. 

“It is,” the lady snapped. “This ghost has written his name on walls and torn apart pictures of us together. Just last year, he took our old rings and set them on fire right in the dining hall.”

Danny nodded as he processed the information. “Definitely sounds like a vengeful spouse. So, when would you like us to be there?”

“Six o’clock tonight,” she said. “It’s too late to send you a physical invitation, but tell the men at the door that Miss Albany sent you.”

“We’ll definitely be there,” Danny said. “Thank you for calling.”

“I’ll text you the address,” she said. “Oh, and one last thing—please dress nicely. It is a formal event, after all. And wear masks if you have any. The party is a masquerade this year.”

A grin stretched across Danny’s lips. “A masquerade?”

“Yes. I’ll see you tonight and give you more details then.”

She hung up. Danny handed the phone back to George. The other four seemed to have perked up at Danny’s last exchange with the woman. 

“What’s this about a masquerade?” George asked. 

“A businesswoman is holding a party for rich people, and her dead husband is haunting it,” Danny explained. “She wants us to go so we can stop him.”

“And it’s a masquerade?” Jorel mumbled through a mouthful of pancake. A drop of syrup dripped off his plate and landed on the counter. Tiger sniffed at it and licked it up.

Danny nodded, the smile still on his face. “Yep.”

Jordon gasped happily and clung to George’s arm, hopping up and down on the balls of his feet. “How much more perfect could that be?” he exclaimed with a wide smile. 

Dylan nodded. He blinked slowly, his brain no doubt still muddled by sleepiness. “What the fuck is a masquerade?”

Chapter Text

As Jorel rushed off to puke up all the pancakes and milk he had consumed, Danny following after him for emotional support, the other three set to work finding outfits for the first formal event they were all being invited to as a group. Dylan and Jordon rummaged through their closet in the room they shared, searching for anything they could possibly consider formal. It was difficult; neither of them exactly went walking around in suits. The nicest thing Dylan owned were a few button-up plaid shirts. 

Jordon pulled one of his many, many plaid shirts from the closet. “What about this one?”

Dylan gave it one glance and shook his head. “Nah, that one makes you look like a middle aged dad trying to be a hipster.”

Jordon furrowed his brow. “That’s very specific.”

“I call it like it is, homie,” Dylan mumbled, still sorting through his shirts on his side of the closet. He pulled a red plaid shirt out of the closet and held it up in front of him. “Bro, is this even mine?”

Jordon looked up from the hundredth plaid shirt he had removed from the closet. “It’s mine, but you wore it in Whatever It Takes.”

Dylan nodded. “Right.” He tossed the shirt onto the large pile of flannel on Jordon’s side of the room. 

The door banged open and they both jumped. They whirled around to see George in the doorway, an excited gleam in his eyes and a bundle of clothes in his arms. 

Jordon eagerly rushed over to him. “Whatcha got, Georgie?”

George smiled. “I found our suits from the Dead Bite video.”

Dylan and Jordon let out identical gasps of excitement. “Where were they?” Dylan breathed. 

“I asked Danny where they might be, and he said they were probably somewhere in the basement.” He set the suits on the bunk bed Jordon and Dylan shared. “And I found something better.”

“Like what?” Jordon whispered, as if he couldn’t believe that there was anything that could possibly be better than the little piece of their history that George had found in the basement. 

George left the room for a moment and returned with a few cardboard boxes in his arms. “I found all of our masks.”

Dylan and Jordon gathered around as George set the boxes on the floor. He flipped one of them open. Inside the box sat every mask George had ever worn as Johnny 3 Tears, even his old MySpace goalie mask with the duct tape over the mouth. George took out each mask one by one and set them on the floor in order: MySpace, Swan Songs, Notes from the Underground, Day of the Dead, and finally, his six Five masks. The three men stared at the masks in almost childlike wonder. 

Dylan reached out to touch the mouthless Notes mask, but he stopped just shy of the mask as if he was afraid to leave fingerprints on such an ancient artifact. “Whoa,” he whispered. 

Jordon scanned the boxes. “Which one’s mine?”

George picked up a smaller box with the letters CS on it in Danny’s scribbly writing. He passed it to Jordon, who took it and immediately began rummaging through the box. 

Dylan grabbed a box with the letters FM on it and flipped it open. A mass of black masks sat inside, with only two blue ones and two red to add colour to the pitch black void. He removed all six of his Five masks, staring at each one fondly as if they were his long lost children. 

Jorel appeared in the doorway, Tiger cradled in his arms. “Hey,” he said, his voice hoarse from all the lactose-induced vomiting he had just done. 

Danny poked his head into the room. “You found them?” he asked George. 

George nodded. He held his MySpace mask in his hands with one of the most happy smiles Danny had ever seen on him. The sight brought a smile to Danny’s own face. 

He and Jorel sat on the floor and pulled their own boxes closer. Tiger sniffed at Jorel’s box as he flipped it open. 

It was Jordon who posed the question while he was staring lovingly at his American Tragedy bandanna. “Which ones should we wear?”

They all paused to consider the question. “Well...” George picked up his Notes from the Underground mask. “We could go full-on Dead Bite, since we’re already using the suits.”

“Yeah, but we’ve worn that look before,” Dylan pointed out. “I want somethin’ new, homie.”

“Why don’t we all just pick our favourites?” Jordon suggested. He held his white bandanna in front of his face. 

“I don’t know,” George muttered. “I think we should go with one group of masks.”

Jorel picked up his Swan Songs mask. “What if we went back to the classics?”

“My earliest mask is Desperate Measures,” Danny reminded them. He picked up the gold eye mask with black paint splatters. “I’m not a huge fan of it,” he muttered. “I wanna wear something from when I was officially part of the band.”

Silence fell on the group. They all stared at their various masks, wondering which ones they could possibly wear to this super fancy party that they weren’t rich enough to attend. 

By six o’clock, Miss Albany’s party was in full swing. Most of the guests had arrived much earlier than the invitations called for, hoping to make good impressions on the very rich, very successful hostess. Only a few guests were yet to arrive. Some of the representatives of businesses that had been partners with Albany for years would be showing up late, just to show the newcomers that making a good first impression didn’t matter to them. Intimidation was the name of the game that these people played, and the guests with generations of money behind them had plenty of practice.  

Miss Albany sat at the head of her dining table, right at the bottom of the grand staircase that led to the rest of her mansion. Her blonde hair was swept over her shoulder in luxurious curls, and her dark makeup was striking against her pale skin. An elegant red dress hung from her frame, which matched her scarlet high heels and sparkling eye mask. Many of the guests found her beautiful, but none of them would dare approach her with flirtatious intentions. She could destroy any one of their reputations with a snap of her fingers. 

Besides, the party’s hostess appeared nervous, and it was no wonder why. Most of the guests were aware of the odd happenings that occurred at her parties. It was only a matter of time until something started floating through the air or caught on fire. 

Eventually, one of the guards at the door approached Albany’s table and whispered something in her ear. She nodded once and uttered a quiet “Let them in.”

None of the guests paid the guard any mind as he rushed back to the doors. They were too busy mingling with the rest of the wealthy, refined attendees of this social gathering. 

The doors swung open. Most of the guests sneered at any other business rivals entering the room, but the five men who walked in did not carry themselves the same way everyone else did. The one in front wore a shining gold mask with a black cross under the eye, and red hood was attached to the back of his suit to cover his hair. His gaze stayed fixed ahead, as if he didn’t care about any of the other people in the room. The man on his right wore a similar suit, but the hood on his was grey, and his mask was silver instead of gold. Two blue mirrored threes took up the sides of his mask. His shoulders were squared like he was prepared for a fight, and the confidence of the other guests withered under his stare. The man on his right walked with an excited skip in his step, and while other guests wondered whether his gold and black bandanna and sunglasses should be considered a mask, none of them spoke up. His clothes weren’t quite as formal as the invitations had called for, as he wore a snapback atop his head and his suit only had a waistcoat instead of a jacket. The person on the gold man’s left donned a red mask with white paint bleeding from the eyes, and his suit lacked a jacket as well. A brown cat rested on his shoulder, a tiny bow tie on its collar as if the man had tried to make up for his lack of formality by dressing up his cat. The last man of the group had tied his dark brown hair into a ponytail below his fedora. A blue hockey mask covered his face and a white scarf rested on his relaxed shoulders. He seemed perfectly chill, as if attending parties like this was a common occurrence for him. 

As soon as the Undead walked in the door, George’s shoulders tensed. “We don’t belong here,” he muttered to Danny as they made their way over to the head table. 

“Just keep your hackles raised,” Danny whispered through his mask. “This ghost doesn’t sound friendly.”

Jordon nudged George with his elbow. “Think that hot chick is our main lady?” he asked, gesturing to the woman in red at the head of the largest table. 

“Probably,” Danny answered. “Just don’t be rude, and Dylan, for the love of god, don’t start blazing in here.”

Dylan gasped in horror. “But homie! We need my super awesome ghost-seeing abilities to find this thing!”

Danny suppressed a sigh. “You can’t see ghosts when you’re high, Dylbug.”

“Well, you see ‘em when you’re drunk,” Dylan grumbled. “That ain’t any less weird than my ghost-seeing stuff.”

“Guys, stop fighting,” Jorel said. “You’re scaring Tiger.” He pet Tiger on the head, who seemed completely unbothered by the small argument. 

They approached the head table and Danny raised a finger to the lips of his mask to tell the others to be quiet. The blonde lady on the opposite end looked Danny up and down with narrowed eyes. “Interesting outfits,” she said sharply. 

The smile on Danny’s face was audible when he spoke. “I think you’ll find we’re interesting people.” He lowered himself into a slight bow. “Daniel Rose Murillo. It’s a pleasure to meet you in person.” The amount of formal politeness in his voice was not a surprise to the other guys. Chivalry wasn’t dead as long as Daniel Murillo was alive. 

A perfectly shaped eyebrow raised above Miss Albany’s mask. “Charmed.” She turned her head to glance at the others. “And the rest of you?”

Luckily, before Jordon or Dylan could say something stupid, Danny started making introductions for them. “This is Jordon Terrell and George Ragan,” he said, gesturing to his right, “and this is Jorel Decker and Dylan Alvarez.” He waved a hand towards Jorel and Dylan. “We’re all very pleased to make your acquaintance.”

She looked each of them up and down. Her gaze lingered disapprovingly on Tiger for a moment, but otherwise, she didn’t seem to have an immediate problem with any of them. She stood and extended a well-manicured hand to Danny. “Welcome to the party.”

Danny shook her hand. “It’s an honour to be here.”

Miss Albany’s gaze shifted to the dozens of guests that were still staring at the five men. “Dinner will begin soon, and that’s usually when my husband decides to show up. He can be very sneaky, so watch out for small things moving on their own. His behaviour only worsens as the night goes on. Until then, feel free to mingle with the other guests.” She smoothed down her dress. “I believe it’s time I socialized as well, anyway.”

Danny nodded. “Alright. We’ll keep an eye out for any unusual occurrences.”

Miss Albany sauntered into the crowd without another word, and most of the guests’ attention was drawn away with her. A few of them still shot suspicious glances at Danny and the others, wondering who these five men were and how they had managed to become so close to Miss Albany that they warranted a formal greeting from her. 

Dylan straightened his mask. “Nice idea with the masks, Charlie.”

Jordon didn’t have to remove his bandanna for the others to know he was smiling. “Thank you. At least someone thought it was a good idea.”

Jorel rolled his eyes. “So I didn’t want to look like we’d crawled right out of Undead Origins. Sue me.”

George nervously eyed the crowd, ignoring Jorel’s grumpy attitude. “I still think we shouldn’t be here.”

“We’ll be fine,” Danny reassured him. “Now let’s catch us a ghost.”

Chapter Text

While the others split up to socialize individually, Dylan grabbed Jordon’s arm and pulled him back. Jordon almost tripped over his own feet as he was yanked back to where Dylan was standing. “Dude, what are you doing?” Jordon asked. 

Dylan nodded towards Danny and George, who were making their way through the crowd towards the refreshments table. “We gotta let Danny know he can see ghosts, homie,” Dylan said. “He keeps fuckin’ denying it.”

Jordon scanned the crowd and examined the platters that the caterers were carrying. “I ain’t seeing any alcohol, man.”

“There’s totally gonna be wine here,” Dylan pointed out. “This place is fancy as hell. Rich people love wine. On the off chance there ain’t any of that, there’ll probably be whiskey. We gotta get him drunk so he can see the ghost anyway, since I can’t blaze in here to find it.”

Jordon nodded, suddenly determined to help his best bro out in his mission to get Danny shitfaced. “Alright. You think he’ll start drinking on his own, or should we peer pressure him into drinking?”

Dylan shrugged. “I was thinking more along the lines of spiking his drink.”

While the two lunatics discussed the different ways they could go about their mission, Danny and George made their way through the crowd and stopped at the refreshments table. George peered at the various platters of food in a mix of awe and disgust. “Caviar? That’s seriously a thing that rich people eat?”

Danny shuddered at the sight of the disgusting goopy delicacy. “I guess so. Jorel’s not gonna like it.”

“No shit.” George’s gaze landed on something at the far end of the table and gasped. “Holy fuck, there’s a chocolate fountain.” He nudged Danny aside and made his way over to the end of the table where the fountain of chocolatey heaven sat. “Move, golden boy.”

Danny sighed. They were supposed to be searching for a ghost, not indulging themselves in rich people food. However, he couldn’t exactly blame George for doing just that. They never got to experience the finer side of life. This was their first and probably last taste of upper class life. 

He looked across the room, where Jorel was currently letting a rich woman in a green dress pet Tiger. He wasn’t sure why Jorel had decided to bring Tiger along, but there was no arguing with him once he made up his mind. If Danny didn’t let him bring Tiger, Jorel would have been moody and uncooperative the whole night. Dealing with an upset Jorel was never fun. 

Someone slung an arm around Danny’s shoulders and he almost jumped out of his skin. “Soooo, Danny,” Dylan’s voice said next to him. “Just curious, if there’s any wine here, would you drink it, or would we have to pressure you into it?”

Danny blinked, confused by Dylan’s question, and then it clicked. He heaved a great, frustrated sigh. “Dylan, I can’t see ghosts when I’m drunk. We’ve gone over this.”

Dylan didn’t have to remove his mask for Danny to know he was pouting. “Come on,” he whined. “At least try! I can’t see ‘em if I can’t get high, so you gotta be our ghost tracker.”

Danny shook his head. “I’m not getting drunk. You know how I get when I’m drunk, and I’m not going to let myself get wasted at a party like this.”

Dylan seemed about to protest, but before he could say a word, the sound of someone tapping their glass with a spoon resonated through the room. Everyone turned to the head table, where Miss Albany stood holding a crystal goblet and a small spoon. 

She set the glass and spoon down and beamed at the crowd with a charming smile. “I would like to formally welcome everyone to the seventh annual business gathering hosted by Albany Corporations. It is a pleasure to have all of you here: old friends, newcomers, staff, and special guests. It is lovely to see so many familiar faces alongside so many new guests. I hope you all have a wonderful time, and I am looking forward to forming new friendships and partnerships with each and every one of you.” She spread her arms. “Now, dinner will be served in a few minutes, so I kindly ask everyone to take their seats. There are placecards at the tables for those of you who may not know where you are sitting.”

Everyone made their way to the tables. Danny grabbed Dylan’s arm and dragged him to the opposite end of the large refreshments table, searching for George. Luckily, it was easy to pick him out of the crowd, since he was tall as hell and the only one fawning over the chocolate fountain. He’d lifted up his mask a little and loaded up a small plate with fruit from the plates around the table. He used a toothpick to stab a strawberry and held it under the flowing chocolate before popping it into his mouth. 

Danny grabbed George’s sleeve. “Come on. Put your fruit down and let’s eat supper.”

“But it’s chocolate,” George whined through a mouthful of chocolate-covered strawberry. 

“You can come back later.” Danny pulled him along towards the tables, earning a disgruntled whine from George. 

A few people stared as they passed, but Danny ignored them and scanned the placecards on the tables. He prayed to any higher power that might exist that Miss Albany had given the Undead a table all to their own. They didn’t need to embarrass themselves in front of tons of other people while they ate. 

Luckily, he spotted Jordon and Jorel already sitting at a table, and one glance at the placecard told Danny that they had chosen the correct one. He was half afraid that the two of them would just sit down at a random table with a bunch of rich people, so it was a relief to see that they had enough sense to sit at the right table. 

Danny gently pushed George and Dylan towards two empty chairs and then sat down himself. He lowered his hood and ran a hand through his hair. He hoped this night wouldn’t be as stressful as he thought it would be, but he had a feeling that this was just the calm before the storm.

Servers flooded into the large room with trays in their hands. They drifted to tables and set plates down in front of the rich people sitting regally in their seats. Once again, George felt almost singled out in this crowd, despite the fact that he was sitting with a group that was just as out of place as he was. Nothing about this situation gave him a good vibe.

The others didn’t seem to notice, however. Dylan was trying to convince Danny to drink just a little bit of wine, to which Danny was firmly declining, refusing to drink a drop of alcohol. Jorel and Jordon had derailed into a conversation about cats or something of the like.

“Skimbleshanks carried the entire soundtrack on his super buff cat shoulders,” Jordon said, as if the two of them were arguing. “‘Cats’ wouldn’t have been nearly as good as it was without him.”

“Yeah, but Taylor Swift went off in her number,” Jorel protested. “It was bitchin’ even though it wasn’t a duet like the original. Also, Mungojerry and Rumpleteezer were fucking awesome. Their number was so jazzy. That was Tiger’s favourite.”

Jordon nodded. “Okay, fair point, but Skimbleshanks was the best. You have to admit that. The choreography in his number? Art.”

Dylan turned to them, interrupting his conversation with Danny. “Are you talking about that fucking ‘Cats’ movie?”

“It’s horrifying,” Danny said. “How do you guys like it?”

“Rebel Wilson unzips her cat skin and eats a cockroach person,” Dylan added.

“That’s just part of the movie’s art,” Jorel said, leaning back in his seat. He set Tiger on his lap as a server approached their table letting the conversation go.

“Hello,” a tall black lady in a server’s uniform said flatly as she stopped at their table. Her hair was pulled back in a tight bun, and the look on her face completely lacked any kind of emotion. “Your options for appetizers are gruyere and crab palmiers, rustic Tuscan pepper bruschetta, marinated almond-stuffed olives, and tzatziki shrimp cucumber rounds.”

All five of them blinked. Some of those words might have made sense on their own, but put together like that? It was like she was speaking a different language.

“We’ll take the olives,” Danny said finally. It was the only option that made a lick of sense, and it sounded vegan, so Jorel could eat it if he wanted.

The server took a plate off her platter and set it down in the middle of the table. She turned and left before any of them could thank her.

They didn’t even get the chance to look at the plate of food before another server walked up to them, a bottle of red wine in his hands. “Would anyone like some wine?” he asked politely.

“We’ll all take some,” Dylan said immediately.

Danny sighed and shook his head as the server began to fill the crystal goblets in front of each of them. “Seriously Dyl?”

Dylan shrugged. “I think we’re all gonna be wanting some drinks by the end of the night,” he muttered.

Danny watched the server fill up his goblet. “You’re not wrong.”

The server set down the last goblet and turned to walked away. “Thank you!” Jorel shouted after him. The server glanced back with a confused look on his face, as if he had never heard the phrase before, then moved on to another table.

Jordon reached towards the plate of the odd-looking olives on the table and plucked one off the pile. He turned it over in his fingers. “This looks disgusting,” he said, loud enough for people at other tables around them to notice.

Jorel peered through his mask at the olives. Normally, he would be all over any kind of vegan food he could find, but these just didn’t look good. They were just olives with almonds in them, and what the hell were they marinated in?

He wasn’t sure if he wanted to risk trying one, but he took one of the toothpicks on the edge of the plate and stabbed an olive. He raised his mask a little to put it in his mouth. He didn’t even start chewing when he realized that it had been a mistake.

“Not good?” Danny asked.

Jorel shook his head as he reluctantly began to chew. “Nope.” He tossed the toothpick back onto the plate.

Jordon shrugged and plopped one in his mouth under his bandanna. “Tastes fine to me,” he said.

“You also drank fabric softener once,” George said. “I’m not trusting your judgement.”

Danny, the picture of politeness, decided it would be rude to not try one. He took a toothpick and jabbed an olive.

Dylan lifted his mask and sipped at his wine. He wasn’t going anywhere near those olives. Neither was George, it seemed, because he just sat back in his chair with his arms crossed.

“They’re not that bad,” Danny said, stabbing another olive. “Come on, where’s your sense of adventure?”

Jordon gestured across the table to Danny. “See? The sane one thinks they’re good.”

“Whatever man,” George muttered. He took his goblet of wine and chugged half of it. He had a feeling he’d be getting a refill pretty damn soon.

Jorel leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. “So, what are we gonna do about the ghost?”

“Get your elbows off the table,” was Danny’s only response.

“Maybe we can find out more about it if we ask the servers,” George suggested. “You think any of them have been here for more than five years?”

“Maybe,” Danny said. He glanced about for an available server. He spotted the lady who had given them their appetizers and waved his hand to grab her attention.

She turned on her heel and made a beeline for their table. “What can I help you with?” she asked flatly, her shoulders slightly tensed, platter tucked under her arm.

She seemed uncomfortable, so Danny decided to help put her at ease. “My name’s Daniel Murillo,” he said, holding out a hand. “You?”

Her eyes widened and she blinked down at his hand like she didn’t know what to do about it. Finally, she placed her dark hand in Danny’s and shook it lightly. “Maria,” she said quietly. She sounded shocked. It was almost like she hadn’t had another proper interaction with another person in years.

“We’re the ghost hunters Miss Albany hired to fix her problem,” Danny said. “We’d like to know a bit more about her late husband and what he was like when he was alive. Would you happen to know anything about him, or is there another person we can ask that’s not Miss Albany?”

Maria glanced about, and Danny noticed why. Rich people at other tables kept looking at her and their table, a few with disgusted looks just barely visible under their masks. Conversing with the help must not have been a very common thing at these parties.

“Well,” Maria began hesitantly, “I’ve only been here for a couple years, but there’s always the head cook. He hasn’t been fired yet, and people say he’s been around for ages.”

Danny nodded. “Thank you, Maria,” he said, making sure his smile was audible in his voice.

“And thanks for the olives,” Jordon added, popping another one into his mouth. “These are delicious.”

A small smile twitched across Maria’s lips. “You’re... you’re welcome. I’m glad I could help. Let me know if you need anything else.” She turned and walked back through the crowd of tables, her shoulders relaxed and a slight skip in her step.

“Well, I guess we should find the head cook,” George said, swishing his wine in his goblet. Holding it made him feel ten times more fancy than he had before. What was it about crystal goblets and red wine that made a person feel so refined?

“We’ll ask Albany as soon as we can,” Danny said. “We haven’t seen any ghosts yet, so I think we can wait a while.”

“We haven’t seen any ghosts because you won’t let me blaze in here,” Dylan mumbled. “And you won’t get drunk.”

Danny heaved an exasperated sigh. “Dyl, I’m not getting drunk. You know how I get when I’m drunk, and I’m not doing that here.” He stabbed another olive with his toothpick and popped it in his mouth under his mask. “That’s final.”

Dylan grumbled under his breath, but he didn’t protest.

A server approached their table. “The main course will be served in a few short minutes,” he said. “Are you finished with your appetizers?”

Danny glanced at Jordon. “We good?”

Jordon nodded. “Yeah, I think I’m done.”

The server reached over and took the plate. “How did you enjoy your appetizer?”

“It was delicious, thank you,” Danny said with a smile that shone through in his voice.

“Compliments to the chef,” Jordon added.

The server blinked, as if surprised by their positive statements, but he gave the group a nod and walked away with the plate.

Dylan took his goblet and sipped his wine. “I wish we had whiskey,” he muttered.

“Same,” Jorel said, holding his goblet in front of him. “Never been a fan of wine.”

“Doesn’t have the same buzz as whiskey,” Jordon agreed.

“You can ask them for whiskey,” Danny said. “I bet they have some.”

“Yeah, but it’s probably fancy rich people whiskey,” Dylan protested. “Wouldn’t taste the same as a good bottle of Jack Daniel’s.”

“Or maple whiskey,” Jordon said. He shook his head. “You haven’t fuckin’ lived until you’ve had Canadian maple whiskey.”

“You’re not wrong,” Danny said. “That’s some good shit.” He picked up his goblet and peered at the red wine. He gingerly lifted up his mask and took a sip. He almost spit it back out. “Ew. No. Don’t like rich people wine.” He set the goblet down immediately.

The servers made their way into the room again, each one carrying a platter. The boys spotted Maria among the crowd, and she made her way over to their table. She gave them a sheepish smile as she stopped between Jorel and Jordon.

“Hello again.” She lowered her platter and took a plate off. “Your main course is clam toasts with pancetta. Are any of you vegan or vegetarian?”

Jorel raised his hand. “Just me.”

She set the plate down in front of him. “Then you get a lovely Mediterranean chickpea salad. The rest of you can have this instead of the clam toasts as well, if you’d like.”

“It’s okay,” Danny said. “We’ll take whatever.”

Maria took plates off her platter one by one and set them in front of the boys. “I hope you enjoy,” she said with a smile.

Dylan looked up at her. “Hey, uh, I’m really sorry, but would we be able to get some whiskey? Wine ain’t cutting it for Danno.”

“I don’t need it,” Danny tried to say, but Maria waved a hand dismissively.

“It’s no trouble,” she said. She lowered her voice. “I totally understand. I tried a sip once. It’s not that good. Any specific kind of whiskey?”

“Cheap shit,” Jorel said. “None of that expensive stuff. We don’t need that. A bottle of Jack would be fine, to be honest.”

“I’ll see what I can find,” she said. “Enjoy your meal.” She turned and left.

“She seems nice,” Dylan said.

George nodded. “If they don’t treat the staff well here, I’m gonna be throwing hands.” He turned to his plate. “Now how the fuck do we eat this?”

They all looked down at their plates. Three toasted pieces of bread sat on each of their plates, and on top of the bread were a bunch of clams topped with herbs and what might have been tiny pieces of bacon. Covering the bottom of each plate was a puddle of olive oil with red pepper flakes in it.

Jordon lowered his sunglasses to examine his food. “Do we use our forks?”

“That’ll just break the toast,” Dylan mumbled.

“If we use our hands, they’ll get all oily though,” Danny pointed out.

Jorel shook his head as he shoveled a forkful of chickpea salad into his mouth. “Whatever, man,” he said through a mouthful of food. “Shoulda gotten the salad. This shit rocks.”

“I don’t even know if I like clams,” George grumbled. He picked up his fork and prodded the mess of food. “They’re not shelled either. Are they supposed to be shelled?”

Danny shrugged and picked up his fork. He figured he would pick out the clam shells and then try to eat the bread as if the clams and herbs were a sort of spread on top. “Why is fancy food so confusing?” he whispered as he took the shells out.

Jordon still seemed utterly perplexed by his dish. “Are the shells edible? Do you eat the shells? Is that why they’re still on the bread?”

“I don’t think the shells are edible,” George said. He decided to do the same thing as Danny, which was apparently a good move, since that’s what most of the people at the other tables seemed to be doing.

Dylan, however, had taken a completely different route. He picked up the clams and ate them first, setting the shells on the side of his plate. He would eat the toasted bread on its own after.

Jordon watched what Dylan was doing and chose to attempt to do the same. He’d never eaten clams before, but they were better than he thought they’d be. He just wasn’t sure what was up with all the damn olive oil. He didn’t want to eat toasted bread that was covered in oil.

Maria appeared back in the room, a stack of glasses in one hand and a bottle of whiskey in the other. People stared at her in disdain through their fancy masks. Danny glanced at the head table and even spotted Miss Albany following Maria with her eyes, one finely plucked eyebrow raised in skeptic judgement.

Maria stopped at their table and set the glasses down. “Is maple whiskey okay?” she asked.

Jordon lowered his bandanna to give her a smile. “Hell yeah. Thanks so much.”

“It’s no problem.” She began pouring whiskey into the glasses. “Let me know when you need refills.”

“Thanks,” Danny said as she placed a glass in front of him. “You’re an absolute angel.”

Maria’s smile widened as if it was the first compliment she ever received. “Thank you.” She set a glass in front of each of them, then corked the bottle and tucked it under her arm. “Let me know if you need anything else.”

She weaved through the tables to leave the room. Jordon picked up his glass and took a sip. “Fuckin’ heaven,” he muttered.

Danny stared down at his glass. Dylan was gazing at him eagerly, silently begging him to drink something.

Danny sighed in defeat. “You’re lucky I’m a sucker for Canadian whiskey,” he said as he picked up his glass.

“Nice.” Dylan picked up his wine goblet. “You know, I’m kinda vibin’ with this wine, though. Makes me feel fancy.”

“Same.” George took a sip of his wine.

Jordon stabbed a clam with his fork, but he missed and hit the shell. “I still don’t know how to eat this,” he mumbled unhappily.

Danny set down his now empty whiskey glass. “Damn that’s good,” he whispered before he turned his attention back to his plate.

Jorel’s eyes widened behind his mask. “Dude, you chugged that? I thought you didn’t wanna get drunk.”

Danny lifted his mask off his face completely and rested it on the top of his head so he could take a bite out of his toasted bread. “Get the feeling I’m gonna be needing this to get me through the night,” he said through his food. “These fuckin’ rich people are already pissing me off. You see the way they’re looking at Maria?” His voice had gotten slightly louder, just enough for a few people from the surrounding tables to turn their heads and glare.

George out a hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Just don’t go overboard. If you lose your one braincell, we’re all fucked.”

“I’ll give the braincell to Dylan,” Danny said. “It’s fine.” He paused with his toast raised to his lips, his gaze fixed on a table behind Jorel. He blinked. “Jay, I think you should duck.”

Jorel furrowed his brow. “What? Why?”

Before Danny could answer, a glass in a lady’s hand exploded into shards. She shrieked in surprise as the shards flew through the air. A bunch of them struck Jorel in the back. He felt it and hugged Tiger close to protect his cat from whatever was happening.

The lady at the table stared down at her dress, now stained with wine. “Fuck,” she whispered. She grabbed a napkin and dabbed at the fabric.

Jorel straightened, Tiger still clutched close to his chest. “What the hell was that about?”

Danny set down his food and lowered his mask back over his face. His eyes narrowed at the table behind Jorel. His gaze followed something moving across the room, but when the others followed his gaze to see what he was watching, they saw nothing.

“Something’s at the table near the doors,” he muttered.

As if on cue, the legs of one of the tables close to the doors collapsed. People shouted and knocked over their chairs in their haste to get away from their table as food and wine spilled across the floor. One lady almost slipped in her high heels on a puddle of wine, but a man grabbed her arm and held her upright.

Dylan stared at Danny in wonder. He silently took his full whiskey glass and pushed it in front of Danny, who took it without even looking. He was still staring at something that was moving across the room.

George shook his head. “Dylan, he can’t see ghosts when he’s drunk,” he said quietly. “Don’t let him drink any more.”

Danny just lifted his mask and took a swig of whiskey, his eyes on the head table. “Tablecloth,” he said.

The tablecloth of the head table whipped onto the ground, as if something had grabbed the end and yanked it off. Plates and goblets crashed to the ground. Miss Albany stood and scrambled away, as did everyone else at her table. She shot a fearful glance at the Undead, silently asking them to fix what was going on.

George stood. “We should go talk to the head cook and find out more about Albany’s husband. Either that, or figure out how to get rid of this ghost now.”

Danny’s gaze flickered upwards. His eyes narrowed, then widened. He shot to his feet. “Everybody get down!”

The chain holding up the chandelier snapped. It plummeted to the ground. People in the middle of the room screamed and ran just before it crashed into the floor, crushing their tables. Glass flew everywhere, and people huddled behind their tables and chairs, desperately hoping they wouldn’t get pierced by shards.

The tinkling of glass came to a stop. People peered out from behind their tables. Luckily, many of them had heeded Danny’s words and ducked before the chandelier collapsed. Servers peeked over the platters that they had been using for protection. The remains of the chandelier had been scattered all across the room, but the metal frame remained in the middle, sitting bent and ruined amidst the crushed debris of the tables it destroyed. Floor tiles had cracked, and some had popped out of floor from the force of the crash.

Jordon stood up from where he had been crouched behind the table. “Holy shit.”

Dylan nudged Danny. “Where’d it go?”

Danny’s gaze flickered frantically abut the room. “It’s gone.” He lifted his mask and downed half his whiskey. He spotted someone across the room and raised a hand.

Maria, clutching her platter in both hands, carefully tiptoed around the people, glass crunching beneath her feet. “Need help?” she asked, her voice shaky.

Danny nodded. “I think we should go talk to your head cook.”

Chapter Text

Maria seemed nervous as she led the five Undead down a hallway towards the kitchens. “The head chef gets very cranky,” she said, tapping her fingernails on her platter. “Especially around this time of year. Not because of the ghost or anything. He’s just sick of people sending complaints back to the kitchen. No matter what he makes, the people here always have something to critique. In the few minutes we had during the main course, he already got a dozen complaints. There was too much oil on the plate, the bread wasn’t crunchy enough, the salad didn’t have enough chickpeas, the clams weren’t shelled, there was too much pancetta. He’s working with a small team of people, and he gets stressed out of his mind.”

Danny swished his whiskey in his glass. “I’ll bet. It certainly sounds like a hard job.” He’d finished off the glass Dylan had given him, and before they left to find the head cook, he’d snitched George’s glass, too. He knew getting drunk here wasn’t the best idea, but he had to admit that something odd had happened because of it. He’d seen something in the main dining room, but he couldn’t quite make out what it was. However, he’d seen enough to know what it had been doing.

Maria sighed. “He’s probably busy preparing dessert now. Miss Albany is going to insist that the banquet goes on despite the interruptions. She’ll just get people to clean up the mess and reset the tables. Hopefully, he’s less aggravated, since this incident gives him more time to cook.” Her shoulders tensed. “He might not want to be questioned about Miss Albany’s husband. Tearing this guy away from his cooking is like tearing a mother away from her child.”

“I’m sure we can work something out,” Danny said. His head was beginning to spin a little, and his words were slurred, but he tried to hide it. He still had to be the responsible one of the group.

He stumbled, and Dylan grabbed his arm and draped it over his shoulders. “I gotcha, homie.”

“Thanks, Dyl.”

Maria paused in front of a set of swinging double doors. The sounds of pots and pans clattering and voices talking swam through the air. “Just please don’t blame him if he’s grumpy,” Maria said. “He’s really trying his best.”

“We’ll keep that in mind,” George said.

Maria took a deep breath. “Okay.” She tucked her platter under her arm and pushed the doors open.

The sounds of people bustling about in the kitchen grew louder. Maria stepped in and the five of them followed. People in aprons ran about, carrying trays and bowls, mixing things and pouring ingredients into bowls. Some of them seemed frantic, but others were too focused on drizzling chocolate over pastries with whipped cream to be panicking.

“We didn’t make enough fuckin’ pudding!” shouted a loud voice at the other end of the room.

Someone rushed past Maria and the boys, barely paying them any mind. “It’s gonna take at least two hours to make more damn pudding!” she shouted, a bowl of unmixed ingredients in her hands. “Chef, where the hell did you put the milk?”

“Back in the fridge where it belongs!” the loud voice yelled. “Kiki, where’s the mixer?”

“On the counter to your far left, sir!” a man called as he walked past with a bowl of whipped cream.

Jorel gazed about the chaotic room with wide eyes. “Whoa, what’s going on here?”

Someone else walked past and glanced at Tiger. “Get that cat out of here!” she yelled, making a beeline for the ovens at the back of the room.

Jorel looked down at Tiger. He unbuttoned the top of his vest, tucked Tiger inside, and buttoned it back up so Tiger was mostly concealed in his vest. “There. No cat hair anywhere.”

“I don’t think that’s gonna help,” Jordon mumbled.

Tiger poked his head out of the vest with a meow. He didn’t seem to mind his new home in Jorel’s vest.

George lifted his mask to look around the room. “Where’s the head chef?”

Maria grimaced. “Way at the back. I don’t think he’ll want to talk to anyone since he’s so busy. But maybe I can get him away from the ovens for a few minutes. I’ll be right back.”

She stepped away from the group and entered the crowd of chefs. She expertly weaved around them as they bustled about and eventually disappeared in the throng of people.

“Oh my god!” the loud voice yelled. “I don’t need to hear any more complaints! I know the clams weren’t shelled, they weren’t supposed to be!”

“No, no, no!” Maria’s voice said. “I’m not here to give you complaints!” Her voice lowered as she explained the Undead’s predicament and how they thought the head chef could help.

“Are you serious?” Footsteps pounded on the floor. An old-ish short guy appeared in the crowd of chefs, his greying hair covered in a hairnet. His eyes lit up as soon as he spotted the five of them.

“Holy shit, are you seriously Hollywood Undead?” he gasped, staring at them in disbelief.

Danny lifted his mask with a smile. “Hey.”

The man’s mouth fell open in shock and he covered it with his hands. “Oh my god, I had no idea you were ghost hunters. I mean, I’m sorry, this is probably weird.” He cleared his throat. “Um, my name’s Allen. I’m the head chef here.”

Maria appeared from the crowd behind him. “Sorry! I told him the Undead were here to fix our ghost problem, and he asked what your masks looked like. I didn’t think he knew you.”

“It’s no problem,” George said. He reached out and clapped Allen no the shoulder. “It’s good to meet you.”

Allen stared in shocked wonder at George, as if just being in the presence of Johnny 3 Tears had stopped his heart and was in the process of killing him. “You too,” he whispered. His face reddened. “I mean, it’s good to see—er, meet you too. Sorry, I—ugh, I’m so sorry! I don’t usually fuck up my words like this.”

“It’s okay, homie,” Dylan said. Allen wasn’t the first fan to get flustered in their presence, and he certainly wouldn’t be the last.

Jorel leaned forward a little to speak. “By the way, that salad was delicious.”

Allen’s eyes brightened further. “Thank you.” He bit his lip, probably trying to keep himself from smiling too much. “So, what exactly did you need help with?”

“We need to ask you about Miss Albany’s dead husband,” George said. “If that’s okay.”

Allen’s smile wilted. “Right, the ghost.” He scratched his neck. “Well, how much do you already know?”

“All Miss Albany told us was that he wasn’t a good husband,” Danny said. “That, and he was hit by a car.”

Allen nodded. “I know he was killed by a reckless driver. The driver was never arrested, because no one saw his face and the vehicle didn’t have a license plate.” He tapped his foot. “What else... Well, I don’t know about the bad husband thing, but he was always pretty great with the staff. He complimented our cooking skills, at least. Sometimes, he would even come in here and visit with us, and he let us eat with him and his wife at the table during dinner. Now we can’t eat in sight of the guests. Miss Albany still visits us, but not as much as her husband did.” He shrugged. “That being said, I did hear them arguing a lot. I never knew what it was about. I hardly spoke with him outside of work, so I don’t know exactly what his domestic life was like, but I don’t think it was good. Miss Albany has a scream that could shatter windows.”

Danny furrowed his brow, tapping his finger on his whiskey glass. “So he was a good person to the staff, but he and Miss Albany weren’t on good terms. Is there any reason he might have disliked his wife that you know of?”

Allen bit his lip. “I’m not quite sure. They seemed to get along well in front of guests, but they just didn’t have a good overall relationship, from the looks of it. I think he only married her for her money. Then he got a job at a company that wasn’t hers, and that drove a wedge in their relationship. She wanted him to work at her company.” He shrugged. “That’s all I know. They just didn’t like each other.”

George and Danny exchanged a glance. “Maybe we should talk to Albany about this,” George said, “see if she can confirm anything.”

Danny nodded. “We’ll let you get back to your cooking,” he said. “Thank you so much for your help. We’ll come see you again later, once this ghost situation is wrapped up. Okay?”

Allen nodded, his smile making its way back onto his face. “Glad I could help. Good luck.”

“Allen, your pudding!” someone shouted.

Allen whirled around. “Shit! Hang on!” He ran back into the crowd of chefs.

Maria brushed past the five of them. “If you’d like, I can take you back to Miss Albany. I think she’s trying to fix up the mess the ghost caused, but I should be able to pull her away long enough to talk to her.”

“That would be great,” Danny said with a smile. He sipped at his whiskey. His words were getting more and more slurred. The alcohol was certainly making its way through his system.

The five of them left the kitchen, Maria walking briskly in front. “She’s not going to be in a good mood,” she said. She still had her platter under her arm, and she reached over and tapped her nails on it with her free hand as she walked. “If she says anything rude, please don’t blame her. This night is always stressful for her.”

“Then why does she keep doing it?” Jorel asked. “If this always happens, why keep holding these parties?”

Maria shrugged. “I think she’s just doing it as a big ‘fuck you’ to her husband. Everyone knows they hated each other. Allen tells everyone she was overbearing towards her husband and was super controlling, but maybe his memory’s a little faulty. He is getting kind of old.”

Danny nodded as his drunken brain slowly processed that information. “He could just be gossiping though?” he asked.

“Maybe.” Maria nudged open a door that led them into the hallway that would take them to the main room. “I’ve heard different stories from everyone. Some say she hit him sometimes. It’s all speculation. Allen’s our only slightly reliable source of information. Either way, they seemed to have a bad relationship.”

She paused in front of the door at the end of the hallway. “I hope you’re ready for chaos.”

“I live with these idiots,” Danny said. “My entire life is chaos.”

Maria pushed the door open. Dozens of servers had abandoned their trays and were frantically trying to clean up the mess. Maria immediately set her tray on one of the nearby tables and rushed to help clean up the mess. Albany and the guests still stood around the room, their few remaining wine glasses in hand. They muttered amongst themselves. Danny would have thought they were scared, but they kept throwing disgusted glanced at the workers cleaning the mess, as if the chandelier falling had been their fault. The sight made a bolt of anger bury itself in Danny’s chest. He wasn’t an angry drunk—that was a role reserved for George—but by god, he would start throwing hands if these people didn’t start showing those workers a decent amount of basic respect.

George must have sensed this, because he placed a reassuring hand on Danny’s shoulder. “Rein it back a little, man. We don’t wanna piss off Albany.”

“Fuck Albany,” Danny said without thinking. “She’s just some fucking rich bitch who probably abused her husba—”

“Okay!” Dylan interrupted before he could finish his sentence. He took Danny’s shoulders and gently guided him to the back of the group to stand next to Jordon. “You’re not speaking anymore. You just... stay here and watch Jordon. Make sure he doesn’t do anything stupid.”

Danny nodded, a little absent. Yeah, he could keep an eye on Jordon. He always did. He was good at that.

Dylan turned to Jorel and George. “Who has the braincell now?”

George wasn’t there. Dylan glanced around frantically and spotted him over at the refreshments table, which was miraculously still standing. George lifted his mask and plopped a chocolate covered strawberry in his mouth before stabbing a raspberry with a toothpick and holding it under the streaming chocolate in the small chocolate fountain.

Dylan sighed. “Why did you let him go over there?” he asked Jorel.

Jorel shrugged, scratching Tiger on the head. “What? I’m not his babysitter. Danny should have stopped him.”

Dylan gestured to Danny with one arm. “In case you haven’t noticed, he’s a little drunk right now.”

Danny slammed back the rest of his whiskey and lowered the glass. It began to slip from his hand as he leaned against Jordon. Dylan lunged forward and caught it before it could shatter on the ground. “I love you, man,” Danny mumbled to Jordon. “I don’t think I say that enough.”

Dylan pushed down his growing frustration and turned back to Jorel. “You watch them,” he said, jabbing a thumb in Danny and Jordon’s direction. “I’ll get George, and then we can talk to Albany.”

He started in George’s direction without waiting for a response. He weaved between guests and servants, muttering apologies along the way. He reached the refreshments table and set Danny’s whiskey glass down next to the chocolate fountain. “George, we have to talk to Albany about the ghost.”

George shrugged and held out a chocolatey piece of pineapple. “Want some?”

“No. Let’s go.”

“Danny’ll talk to her,” George said.

“Danny’s shitfaced,” Dylan pointed out. “Or close to it, at least. Come on, you usually get the braincell when Danny loses it, you gotta do this.”

George shook his head. “Nope. You’ve got braincell privileges now.” He put the piece of pineapple into his mouth. “You deal with it.”

Dylan sighed. He grabbed George’s arm and started dragging him back towards the rest of their group, earning a grunt of protest. “Come on, Dylan,” he whined.

“If I’m the responsible one, I’m not doing this alone,” he grumbled. He tugged George through the crowd of servants and guests, George mumbling under his breath in displeasure.

Dylan stopped in his tracks as soon as he saw Jorel. “Are you fucking kidding me,” he whispered.

Danny and Jordon were nowhere to be seen.

Dylan repressed the urge to scream. Was this how Danny usually felt when he was the responsible one?

“Whatever,” Dylan muttered. He would deal with that later. He dragged George over to Jorel and placed them right next to each other. “Don’t move,” he ordered.

He turned and made a beeline for Miss Albany. Only one minute as the responsible one of the group, and he was already stressed to the point that he wanted to scream. However, he would deal with it. They just really, really needed to find Danny as soon as possible. He was the only one here who could see where the ghost was.

He gently tapped Albany on the shoulder. She whirled around, startled, but she relaxed after a moment. “Oh. It’s you. Where’s your leader?”

“Well, he’s not really our leader—whatever. Point is, he’s kind of missing at the moment, and he’s pretty much wasted. He and the idiot of our group wandered off, and I think they went after your ghost, so wherever he is, they probably followed. If your husband would be anywhere in this house, where would he be?”

Albany raised an eyebrow. “Well, that’s interesting story. Have you tried calling him?”

“He doesn’t answer the phone when he’s shitfaced,” Dylan said. “And the other always leaves me on ‘read’. Please, could you just tell me where your husband might be so I can find my idiots?”

Albany stared at him through her mask. “I... suppose.” She glanced at the servants frantically cleaning the room. “I might have an idea of where he could be. But I don’t think he’ll be happy to see you. He hates visitors.”

“We’ll take our chances,” Dylan said. He had to find Danny and Jordon, and he figured this was the best way how.

Albany turned on her heel and started towards a door to the left side of the large staircase. Dylan rushed after her, motioning for George and Jorel to follow. They exchanged a mildly confused glance, but they shrugged and walked after the two. They didn’t really have anything better to do, anyway.

Danny leaned on Jordon’s shoulder as he watched Dylan run off towards George. Good on him for taking some responsibility. It wasn’t something that happened often.

Jordon wrapped an arm around Danny’s shoulders. “You good, man?”

Danny nodded slowly. He spotted something bright moving across the room and tried to follow it with his eyes. It was shaped vaguely like a human, but its form shifted constantly, keeping him from getting a good look at it. He realized with a start that it was the same thing he’d seen earlier, just as everything went to shit.

He lifted his head off Jordon’s shoulder and stumbled towards the shape. It looked like it was making its way to one of the doors in the room. He wanted to know where it was going.

Jordon’s footsteps ran up beside him so they were walking side by side. “You see something?” he asked eagerly.

Danny nodded. “Yeah. I wanna see where it’s going.”

“Then let’s go!” Jordon linked his arm with Danny’s and the two of them started off together after the odd humanoid silhouette. It phased right through a door. Danny stumbled over his feet as he picked up the pace. He didn’t want to lose sight of it.

Jordon opened the door and ushered Danny through. The hallway beyond the door was long, the floor covered in a soft red carpet. “Where’d it go?” Jordon asked.

Danny saw it. At the end of the hall, the strange silhouette stopped. It turned its head to look at them, as if checking to see if they were still following it, then drifted towards a door at the end of the corridor. The door was tall and black, gilded with a beautiful golden image of an angel. It certainly stood out in the hallway, since the doors to either side of the hall were all short and painted white.

Danny tugged Jordon along with him towards the silhouette. Jordon was practically vibrating with excitement at the thought of chasing after another ghost.

The silhouette passed through the door. Danny opened it and gazed through. The silhouette was gone.

He stared down at the staircase they found behind the door. It descended into the far reaches of the house, the lightbulbs growing dimmer as the stairs went down. He thought the end of a lavish hallway was an odd place to put the entrance to a basement, but he dismissed the thought. At least the stairs seemed stable.

He and Jordon started down the stairs. Neither of them noticed the door swinging shut behind them, or the faint rumbling in the ground, as if the staircase itself was moving.

A lady entered the hall seconds after the two ghost hunters left. She was only searching for a bathroom, but she’d found nothing of the sort. This house was so confusing.

She walked up to the large black door at the end of the hall. Maybe this was it.

She opened it. A large library stared back at her, nothing but dozens of shelves of books in the room beyond the door.

She shut the door and left.

Chapter Text

Miss Albany led the three ghost hunters down a lavish hallway. “If he’s not terrorizing my guests, I’m sure he’s in here,” she said. Her voice rang with certainty.

Dylan unstrapped his mask from his face and stared at the tall black door she was leading them to. The golden angel embossed on the door almost seemed to glare at him. It made him a little uncomfortable. “Alright. Just stay on your guard when we’re in there. You’re the person he’s targeting.” He was already questioning his new role as the responsible one of the group, but he had to admit, it was much easier being responsible when he wasn’t higher than shit. He just hoped he could find Danny and Jordon soon. Was this how Danny felt when Dylan and Jordon got lost in grocery stores?

Albany turned around, mouth open to speak, but she stopped before a single word could leave her throat. She blinked at Dylan, and he could have sworn that her cheeks flushed when she looked at him. “You are much cuter without that mask,” she said finally, as the four of them stopped in front of the black door. “Are you single?”

Dylan didn’t quite know how to respond. He was single, but people hardly ever flirted with him. They usually went for Danny, with his heart-stealing smile and pretty hazel eyes. Was being a chick magnet just something that came with being the responsible one of the group?

Albany waved a hand in dismissal. “Whatever. We can talk about that later.” She turned back to the door. “Be prepared. He might throw a book at you or something.”

She slowly opened the door. Jorel took a step back with Tiger, just in case something flew out of the doorway and hit his beloved cat.

The four of them peeked through the open doorway. Dozens of shelves of books stood in the room beyond. Albany stepped into the room, glancing around furiously through her mask. The other three followed her. Dylan kept an eye out for any sign of Jordon or Danny. They had to be here somewhere.

“This was his library,” Miss Albany said as she led the three ghost hunters into the room. “He spent hours here before he died.” She snorted. “Of course, I’ve never seen him in here after he died. It’s not like I come in here at all. This was all his shit.”

“But you’re certain he’d be in here?” Dylan asked.

Albany nodded. “I know it. He has to be.” She tentatively stepped further into the room, lifting her dress above her ankles as she walked.

“Doesn’t look like he’s here to me,” George mumbled. “Can I go back to the chocolate fountain now?”

“No,” Dylan sighed. “We have to find Danny and Jordon, and we have to find this ghost. We have a job to do.”

“You’re no fun,” Jorel muttered. He walked up to a bookshelf and grabbed a book.

Dylan was almost hurt by the sentence. He was loads of fun! Of course, he understood that right now, he was the acting mom of the group, so it was kind of his job to be a buzzkill. He would accept the insult—for now. Jorel better apologize for it later, though.

Albany studied the books on the shelves. “Oh, I remember this one,” she whispered, taking a book off its shelf. “He always read this when he was sad.” She scanned the back of the cover, then placed it carefully back on the shelf. She took another book and opened it.

Dylan peered around the room as he wandered around the aisles of shelves. He didn’t see anything that might indicate that a ghost had been there, but it couldn’t hurt to keep his eyes peeled.

Jorel placed the book he’d been reading back in its place. He’d never been a huge fan of reading. George, however, must have been in heaven right now.

Juts as Jorel thought, George was already holding three books in his arms and was now scanning the shelves for a fourth. He figured he’d ask Albany if he could borrow them. She did kind of owe them for trying to solve her ghost problem.

He was eyeing an old copy of Dracula when he heard a quiet thump. He turned and searched for the source of the noise. A book had fallen from one of the shelves and was lying open on the carpet.

He furrowed his brow. He was pretty sure that books didn’t just fall off shelves of their own will. He set his small stack of books back on he shelf and walked up to the one that had fallen. He picked it up and skimmed the page it had landed open on. There didn’t seem to be anything special about it.

A short rip tore across the page and he jumped at the sound. He looked over the page. The rip was very small, and it had been torn right under one specific word. Another tear ripped the across the other page. He held the book closer to his face, and his stomach dropped when he saw the two words that the rips had underlined.

Kill her.

“Uh, Dylan?” he called. “I think I found something.”

Footsteps hurried through the aisles of books, and Dylan appeared at the end of George’s aisle. “What is it?” he asked.

George held out the book. Dylan rushed up to him and looked over the pages. “Oh. That’s... concerning.” He took the book in his hands. “Miss Albany? Your husband definitely wants to kill you.”

“Oh, I know,” she said from somewhere in the library. “You shouldn’t listen to anything else he says. The man is dead and delirious.”

Dylan shut the book. “He’s definitely somewhere in here.” He silently cursed at himself. “Jordon’s the one carrying my weed. I can’t blaze in here to find this fucker.”

“Tiger might be able to see him!” Jorel’s voice called. He hurried into the aisle Dylan and George were in. He unbuttoned his vest to free Tiger. “Animals can see ghosts, can’t they?”

Dylan wasn’t sure if that would work, but he figured there was no harm in trying it out. “Alright. Set him loose.”

Jorel set Tiger on the ground. Tiger sniffed at the air and glanced about in mild confusion. He trotted up to Dylan and nudged his leg. He sat back and meowed.

“I don’t think this is working,” George said.

Albany entered the aisle. “Why is the cat on the floor?”

“He’s our ghost detector,” Jorel said. He crouched down to the floor. “Come on, buddy. You can do it. Just sniff out the ghost.”

Albany stared as Tiger lied down at Dylan’s feet and pawed at his shoes. “He’s doing great,” she muttered.

Jorel put a finger up to his masked lips. “Shh. He’s doing his best.”

The four of them watched as Tiger pawed at Dylan’s leg. Tiger stood up on his hind legs and sniffed at the book in Dylan’s hands. He lowered it a little so Tiger could smell it.

“This is stupid,” George whispered as Tiger nudged the book cover with his nose.

Dylan, however, was actually starting to think that Tiger was onto something. “Wait a second, Georgie,” he muttered. Tiger sat back down, nose twitching. He blinked up at the book.

The four of them watched as Tiger turned and trotted down the aisle. Jorel shot to his feet and jogged after his beloved feline companion. Dylan didn’t know if Tiger had found anything, but he followed the two of them. He heard footsteps behind him as George and Albany hurried after the rest of the group.

Tiger led them through the aisles of books and stopped in front of a door. He meowed and pawed at the door.

The four of them paused at the door. Jorel leaned down and scooped Tiger into his arms. “Through here?” he asked.

Albany walked up to the door. “I don’t know where this leads,” she muttered. “I don’t often come in here.”

Dylan strapped his mask to his face again. “Well, I guess now would be a good time to find out.”

Albany took a deep breath and nodded. She stepped forward and opened the door.

A long, rickety, wooden staircase stretched down into the depths of the house. It looked like they would collapse the second someone put their weight on the first step.

Albany cursed under breath. “I can’t walk down there in these. Hang on.” She grabbed Dylan’s shoulder for balance and stood on one foot. She used her free hand to pull off one of her scarlet high heels and then switched to the other foot. She set her heels on the ground and reached into pockets that Dylan hadn’t noticed had been sewn into her dress. She pulled out a pair of flats and slipped them onto her feet.

“There.” She let the hem of her dress fall over her shoes. “Better.”

Jorel gazed in wonder at her dress. “Those are some deep pockets,” he whispered.

Albany smiled. “I know!” She shoved her hands into her pockets, and her forearms almost completely disappeared into the fabric. “I made them myself!”

“Did you make that whole dress?” George asked.

“No. My friend Thomas helped, but I did the pockets.” She picked up her heels in one hand and held up the hem of her dress in the other. “Well, let’s go find my fucking husband.”

She started down the stairs, the wood creaking beneath her feet. Jorel followed after her, Tiger clutched tightly in his arms.

George looked at Dylan. “You really think Tiger is going to be a reliable ghost bloodhound?”

Dylan shrugged. “How else are we gonna find this fucker?”

With that, he jogged down the stairs into the darkness of the basement.

George heaved a sigh. He debated sneaking off to the chocolate fountain again, but he had to do his job. He reluctantly walked down the stairs, gaze on the dim lightbulbs hanging from the ceiling.

“I don’t remember there being an entrance to the basement in here,” Albany’s voice said over the creaking steps. Her voice had regained its flat, sophisticated tone. “He must have had someone make it without asking me first.” She scoffed. “Asshole. This is my house. He shouldn’t have made renovations without at least telling me. Besides, these stairs are awful. I could have done a better job, and I don’t know the first thing about construction.” Despite her previous excitement about the pockets in her dress, she seemed to have reverted back to her haughty, rich lady attitude. Maybe pockets in dresses were just a common topic of excitement among dress-wearers.

“I don’t think trash-talking your dead husband is a good idea if we’re going into a basement,” Dylan suggested. “Basements are the places were shit goes down. Those, and attics. Your husband can probably hear you loud and clear, esé.”

“Good,” Albany snapped. “I can’t stand the man. I’m glad he’s dead.”

The stairs creaked louder beneath their feet. “Okay, now might be a good time to stop provoking him,” Dylan said.

“It’s fine,” Jorel muttered, scratching Tiger under the chin. “We ain’t gonna die.”

“But we might,” Dylan said.

George put a hand on Dylan’s shoulder. “Dude, come on. Stop acting like Danny.”

“Someone has to be responsible, and if it’s not gonna be you, it might as well be me.”

Jorel sighed. “If she wants to talk trash about her dead husband, who gives a shit? Let her, man. He’s dead.”

“Thank you, cat boy,” Albany said. “Cute boy, you really are being a killjoy right now. Which is surprising, actually. I took the blond one as more of the motherly type.”

“Well, he’s drunk as hell right now, so someone’s gotta fill his role,” Dylan said. “It’s not usually me, though. I don’t know why he’s not doing it this time.” He gestured to George.

George shrugged. “Blame the chocolate fountain, man. That shit’s delicious.”

Albany paused and stared at the wall. “Wait a second.”

“What is it?” Jorel asked.

Albany walked up to the wall. Dylan hadn’t noticed the doorknob sticking out of the wood until Albany reached for it. She grasped it and pushed the wall open like a door. A much nicer room than the shitty stairwell sat beyond the door.

“That’s our actual basement,” she whispered, “where all the servants quarters and kitchens are.” She turned back to the rickety staircase that led downward into the dark. “Then where does this lead?”

All four of them, plus Tiger, stared down at the stairs with an increasing sense of worry. If the actual basement ended there, was there another one below it?

Dylan strapped his mask back onto his face. “I say we find out.”

Danny almost stumbled off the last step, but Jordon reached out and grabbed his shoulder before he could fall. “Thanks bro,” Danny slurred.

“No prob.” Jordon stared around the room they ended up in. “Whoa. Looks like we hit the jackpot, homie.”

Danny took a moment to process the scene around him. Lights flickered above them, illuminating the room just enough so they could see. They had emerged in a room that was filled with aisles of shelves, and each shelf held dozens of bottles.

“A wine cellar,” Jordon mumbled. He ran up to the nearest shelf and grabbed a bottle. “Damn, they got some old fancy stuff. You think they got whiskey down here?”

Danny shrugged as he scanned the shelves. He wasn’t quite shitfaced, but he could tell he was getting there. Getting drunk here would be extremely irresponsible, but if there was any whiskey down here, he couldn’t guarantee that he wouldn’t chug half a bottle. His ability to be responsible was slowly disappearing along with his ability to walk straight.

“Yes!” Jordon grabbed a bottle of amber liquid and held it up triumphantly. “Found some! And it’s the good shit!”

He uncorked the bottle and took a swig. Danny walked up to him as Jordon lowered the bottle. “Fuck yeah,” Jordon muttered. He held the whiskey out to Danny. “Want some?”

“Do you really even need to ask?” Danny took the bottle and lifted his mask to take a drink. The whiskey burned down his throat.

He finally lowered the bottle and wiped his mouth. “We should probably find the ghost.”

Jordon nodded, but he was too busy gazing around the oversized alcohol cabinet to respond. “What else do you think they have in here?”

“Hope it’s a ghost,” Danny muttered. He slung an arm around Jordon’s shoulders to stay upright and they walked down the aisle of alcohol bottles. “Where do you think this fucker is?”

“I dunno, man, but I hope it’s close. If I find this fucker first, I can totally rub it in Jorel’s face.”

Danny took a sip of whiskey, but he paused when he noticed something moving across the room. He stopped in his tracks and stared at it as it drifted through the shelves. It was surrounded in a faint white light, and the bottles rattled as it moved through them.

“What do you see?” Jordon whispered in awe.

Danny furrowed his brow. He lowered his mask back over his face and stumbled towards it. Jordon helped keep him on his feet as they slowly made their way over to where the strange moving shape was.

It darted behind a shelf, and Danny and Jordon hurried after it. Jordon let go of Danny and pulled the shelf aside to reveal the wall behind it.

His shoulders slumped. “We can’t follow it through the wall.”

Danny stared up at the wall. “Unless we can.”

“What?”

Danny stepped up at the wall and examined the bricks. One in particular stuck out from the wall more so than the others.

He raised a hand and pressed it. The brick slid into the wall, and the room began to tremble.

Jordon took Danny’s arm and pulled him away form the wall. “What did you do?”

They watched as a section of the wall disconnected from the rest and swung inward. Danny and Jordon stared up at the tall opening the hidden door had left in the wall. Danny hadn’t actually really expected anything to happen, but he was glad he pressed that brick anyway.

They linked arms and stepped through the door into the dark room beyond. Jordon brought out his phone and was about to turn on the flashlight so they could see, but he stopped when he heard a fwoosh of fire. He looked up and saw two fancy torches in opposite sides of the wall. More torches lit up further along the walls, illuminating the room until they could see.

They were standing in a large dining room. A long table stretched ahead of them and a chandelier swung above them. The sight would have been elegant if the tablecloth wasn’t riddled with moth-eaten holes and the metal of the chandelier wasn’t red with rust.

At the other end of the table stood a tall humanoid shape. It glowed with a soft light, and while the edges of its form blurred and shifted, it wasn’t hard for Danny to see it. He almost wished he couldn’t.

The shape did look more or less human, but something was very unsettling about it. Aside from the obvious glowing, its eyes flickered black when it rested its gaze on the two ghost hunters. When it flashed a welcoming smile, its teeth were just a little too sharp to be normal. It wore a fancy suit, when it moved its hands from behind its back to put them in its pockets, its fingers were a little too long, with one too many knuckles than it should have had. Its smile was a bit too wide, its neck a little too long—everything was just a smidgeon too off for this thing to be human.

“What do you see?” Jordon whispered.

Danny gulped. “I think we found Mr. Albany.”

Chapter Text

Jordon gazed at the same spot Danny was staring at, desperately trying to see something. Unfortunately, he did not have the same glorious powers of ghost perception as Danny and Dylan did, so there was nothing to be seen. Jordon wished he could see ghosts the same way Danny or Dylan could, if not to help them catch ghosts, but to use that as an excuse to get high or drunk.

“What does it look like?” Jordon whispered.

Danny blinked at the ghost and didn’t respond. He... he had never actually seen a ghost before. Why had he never asked Dylan what they looked like? That might have prepared him for... whatever the hell this was.

“Who are you?” he asked. He figured that was a good enough question to start with.

The ghost cocked its head, and Danny couldn’t help but notice that the angle was just a little too far, as if it had snapped its too-long neck in the process. It didn’t speak.

“Can you talk?” Danny asked.

The ghost shook its head lightly.

That might make this a bit more difficult than Danny anticipated. “Are you Miss Albany’s husband?”

The ghost nodded once. “What did he say?” Jordon hissed.

“It is her husband,” Danny whispered back. He took a swig of whiskey. “What do we do?”

“I don’t know, you usually tell us what to do when we find the ghost.”

Jordon had a point there. Danny wracked his brain, but he couldn’t think of anything to do. The ghost wasn’t attacking them, so there was really no reason to try to get rid of it right this second. They didn’t even know how to get rid of it.

Danny furrowed his brow and bit his lip. “Uh, Mr. Albany? Would it be okay if we asked you some questions?”

The ghost seemed to hesitate for a moment, but he nodded. He gestured with one hand towards some of the chairs around the table.

Danny sat down in one of the two chairs on their end, and Jordon followed suit. “What do we ask first?” Jordon whispered.

Danny thought about it. They had to be careful. Vengeful spouses were often dangerous ghosts. Some of the things he might tell them could very well be lies.

“Mr. Albany,” he said finally, “your wife mentioned that you died because you were run over by a car. Is that true?”

Mr. Albany nodded slowly. “He said yes,” Danny said to Jordon.

Jordon raised a hand like he was a kid in elementary school. “Is it true that you hated your wife?”

A scowl made its way onto the ghost’s face. He nodded.

“Why did you hate her?” Danny wondered.

The ghost grimaced. He made no motion to respond. It must have been too complicated of a question for him to answer.

“Was she controlling towards you?” Danny asked. “Manipulative at all?”

The ghost just blinked at them. “Do you even really remember much about your life?” Danny asked. Maybe he couldn’t answer because he just didn’t know.

The ghost shook his head lightly. “He doesn’t remember much,” Danny said to Jordon.

Jordon furrowed his brow and rested his chin in his hands. “Hm. Does he even know why he hates her, then?”

Danny shrugged. “Dunno. Maybe he’s confused and wants to move on but he can’t?” he turned to the ghost. “Do you want to move on?”

The ghost nodded. “Do you know how?” Danny added.

The ghost shook his head. Danny bit his lip and furrowed his brow. If this ghost didn’t even know how to move on from his life, how were they supposed to help him?

“Can you recall any events at all that might have driven a wedge in your relationship with your wife?”

The ghost cocked his head. He shrugged. Danny tried to ignore the unnatural angle the ghost’s shoulders bent into and instead searched his sluggish drunken brain for what to do. Maybe they could get Mr. Albany and Miss Albany in the same room and get them to work things out. It would be like... like ghostly marriage counseling. Would Miss Albany be willing to do that?

“What if we went to find your wife and tried to work things out between you two?” Danny suggested. “Then she could move on with her life, and you can move on with your... not life.”

The ghost stared at him. He shrugged and drifted around the table, making his way towards the door. Danny followed his ghostly form with his gaze.

“Where’s he going?” Jordon whispered.

“I think he wants to find Miss Albany,” Danny whispered back.

“Should we help him?”

“We’ve got nothing better to do.”

Jordon stood. “Then let’s go!”

Danny pushed his chair back and pushed himself to his feet, but the world swayed around him and he almost toppled over. Jordon slung Danny’s arm around his shoulder to keep him upright.

“Thanks man,” Danny mumbled.

“No prob.” He helped Danny away from the table, and together, they followed the ghost of Mr. Albany.

George stared around the large room the rickety stairs had led them to. “Have you ever been here?” he asked Miss Albany.

Albany lifted her mask to gaze around. The walls were made of old bent wooden planks, as was the floor and ceiling. The entire room creaked as they stepped off the stairs.

“I didn’t even know this was down here,” Albany mumbled in shock. “Did he have someone build this without telling me?”

Dylan reached for the light switch in the wall, but the lightbulb in the ceiling remained dark. “Great. We don’t have flashlights, either.”

“I got this!” Jorel exclaimed. He took off his mask and tucked it into his vest. Before Dylan could ask what the hell he was doing, Jorel pulled his “Notes From The Underground” mask from his vest and strapped it to his face. The gas canisters on the cheeks and the embers around the eyes lit up. “I brought George’s, too.”

Dylan stared at him. “You thought to bring that, but not flashlights.”

Jorel reached into his vest and brought out George’s Notes mask. “Well, I can see just fine,” he said, holding the mask out to George.

Dylan suppressed a sigh as George took off his V mask and strapped the Notes one to his face. Dylan hated being responsible, but he couldn’t exactly hand the role off to someone else. He was stuck being the responsible one for now, which meant he couldn’t get too mad at Jorel for bring something nearly useless and neglecting to bring along literally anything else.

“Next time,” he said, “please bring flashlights instead of a light-up mask.”

Jorel crossed his arms. “You’re just mad that we look more badass than you.” Tiger meowed from where he sat on Jorel’s shoulder.

“Not really.” He glanced around the wooden room. He dug around in his pocket and pulled out his lighter. He was lucky he’d at least brought that with him.

He flicked his lighter on, and the darkness around him was illuminated by a dim flickering light. He spotted a faint shape of an open doorway in the wall ahead of them.

“Well, that’s not foreboding at all,” he grumbled.

“Looks spooky,” George agreed. He turned on the lights on his mask, and an orange butterfly lit up on the right side of his face.

Albany grabbed her skirts in her hands and held them up above her ankles. “What are we waiting for? Let’s go find my bitch-ass husband.”

She marched for the doorway. Jorel followed her, petting Tiger with one hand. George wasn’t far behind.

Dylan took a deep breath. He could handle this. Once they got Danny back, they could get rid of the ghost and then leave, and this long night would come to an end.

He followed after the others, flickering lighter in hand. The flame danced in the darkness, and although it didn’t do much, it was more helpful than Jorel and George’s masks. He stepped through the doorway behind the rest of the group. They found themselves in a long wooden hallway.

“I don’t like this,” George whispered.

“Me neither,” Albany whispered. She gazed around at the hallway with wide eyes. “I had no idea this was here.”

“Sometimes powerful ghosts can rearrange the places they haunt,” Dylan said. “Maybe all this showed up after he died. Or maybe it was built just before he died.”

“Maybe,” Albany said. “I wasn’t here when the mansion was built. It belonged to my parents first.”

“Do you think your husband is down here?” Jorel asked.

Albany pressed her lips into the thin line. “Honestly? I hope not.”

They continued on through the darkness in near silence. Dylan kept his lighter held high as he guided the way. Everything about this place sent chills up his spine.

He tensed when he heard a faint voice. “What was that?”

“What was what?” George asked.

“I heard a voice,” Dylan said.

They all paused to listen. Dead silence filled the hallway.

Then they heard it. Faint whispers hissed from the walls, too quiet for them to make out what they were saying. The four of them huddled together, back to back. The flickering light of Dylan’s lighter sent shadows dancing across the walls.

Something hissed in Dylan’s ear, and he heard what the voice was saying: Albany.

“That’s spooky,” Jorel muttered. “We don’t usually hear them talk.”

“Maybe this ghost is angrier than we thought,” George said.

“Maybe he’s just trying to find us,” Dylan offered in an attempt to brighten their situation. “He could be physically somewhere in the house, and he can sense us somewhere, but he doesn’t really know where. He could just be calling out for his wife.”

Dylan turned and ushered the group further down the hall. The whispers faded behind them, and Dylan allowed himself to relax a little. Whatever this ghost’s deal was, it was certainly going to be difficult to deal with.

“Albany,” Dylan began, “why do you and your husband not get along?”

Albany turned to him. “Well... That’s a bit of a long story.”

“We’ve got time.”

She sighed. “I don’t talk about this to anyone. The truth is, the two of us just didn’t want to get married. Our parents wanted us to get married from the time we were kids. They always pushed us to be together for the good of both of their businesses, so we got married to get them off our backs.” She heaved a great sigh. “It was a damn nightmare, I’ll tell you that. They were so pushy with our lives, it ended up making neither of us want to be around each other. And I don’t hate him for that, it’s not like it was his fault. It just made me dislike him because... I was supposed to love him. Then he started accusing me of cheating on him, and that was it. I know one of our old staff started that rumour, but I could never figure out who it was. I had them all fired except for our head cook. He was too good to get rid of.” She scoffed. “It was so difficult to get along when we were forced to do so. We had nothing in common!”

“Sounds like a complicated marriage,” Dylan observed. He would hate to be stuck in that kind of situation.

“Well, I can’t rewind time and fix it now.” Albany tightened her grip on her skirts. “Everything would have been so much better if we hadn’t been forced into it, you know?”

“Was there anything about him that you liked?” Dylan asked.

Albany was silent for a few moments. “Well... I always admired his passion for art. He loved it, no matter what form it was in. Written poetry, architecture, paintings... he loved all of it. I remember sometimes he would disappear for hours at a time just to work on some sort of art project he never told me about. He said it was a surprise, but eventually he stopped leaving to work on it. That was when our relationship began to really go downhill. Before that, however, we would sometimes sit in his library and read together.” A wistful tone creeped into her voice. “It was always nice when that happened. No screaming over things the staff gossiped about. Just silent reading. Sometimes we would discuss the books we were reading. It was nice.” Her voice turned sour again. “We stopped doing that after a while.”

George and Jorel didn’t even seem to be paying attention to the conversation. “What do you think used to be down here?” Jorel asked. Tiger meowed and sniffed at a wall.

“Who knows, man,” George mumbled. “Maybe this place was built on top of an old mine shaft or some shit.”

The hallway they were in came to a sudden stop. The wall in front of them had a door embedded in it, made of crooked old wooden planks. Dylan stepped forward and slowly pushed it open.

The room beyond it was pitch black. Dylan felt along the wall for a light switch. He found one and flicked it on. Miraculously, the lights flickered on.

All four of them gasped.

“Oh my goodness,” Albany whispered in awe. She walked into the room, eyes wide. “This is...”

“Incredible,” Jorel finished. He lifted his mask to stare at the walls. “Did he make all of these?”

Dylan couldn’t tear his eyes away from the walls. They were covered in paintings, photographs, and sketches, even a few unfinished stained glass mosaics. Canvases with unfinished paintings were propped up just about everywhere, dried paint caked on the tarps that covered the floor. A little section of the room was curtained off. The curtains were open to reveal a bunch of supplies for developing photos, all of the film that might have once held photos long since exposed and ruined. The frame for a glass mosaic lied on the floor, surrounded by multicoloured shards as if someone had pushed it over in a fit of anger. Every single piece of art had the same subject.

Many of the photos were of two people, a man and a woman. Dylan spotted a few wedding pictures, others of the two of them smiling and laughing with each other, and a few of the two of them with people who might have been the old staff before Mr. Albany’s death. Many of the sketches and paintings were of the same woman, her blond hair draped elegantly over her shoulder, her smile bright and wide. It took him a moment to realize that it was Ms. Albany in those photos and paintings. It was hard to recognize her with a smile on her face.

“Oh my goodness,” she whispered. “Was this what he was always working on?”

“It looks like he cared about you more than you thought,” George said.

Jorel walked up to one of the unfinished mosaics. “Damn, he was talented.” Tiger sniffed at the glass.

Albany strode towards the part of the room separated by curtains. She picked up a roll of ruined film and examined it closely, as if trying to see if she could find the photos the film had once held. “I had no idea he was doing all of this,” she mumbled. “I knew he had an art studio somewhere in the house, but how did it end up down here?”

Dylan followed after her. “Maybe he moved it after her died so no one could find it,” he said.

Albany nodded. “Maybe.”

Dylan raised a brow. “Are you okay?”

He was asking because he could have sworn he saw tears in her eyes. Albany sniffled and set the roll of film down. “I’m fine,” she said. She turned on her heel and strode to the stairs. “It doesn’t look like he’s here. Let’s leave.”

Dylan didn’t want to leave. He was so sure that this place was the key to finding Mr. Albany’s ghost and freeing him from whatever was keeping him here.

Dylan started looking around the film developing area. It was a small space with a large cardboard panel propped over the curtains to cut off the light from the ceiling. He examined rolls of film, photo paper that had been ruined for a long time due to previous light exposure, and a bunch of tubs of old chemicals that he supposed were meant for developing photos. He peered into the chemicals. He’d always wondered what it tasted like.

Just as he was about to dip his finger into one of the chemicals, he heard footsteps getting closer. He whirled around, unable to place where they were coming from.

Then he realized they were coming from the curtain the covered the wall. He yanked it open and found an old door in the wall.

It swung open. He screamed and stumbled back, bumping into one of the trays of chemicals. It spilled all over the floor and on himself. Well, guess he couldn’t taste it now unless he wanted to lick it off his own clothes.

He looked up to see who had opened the door. Danny and Jordon stood there, having just entered the room from a long hallway beyond the door. Danny loosely held a half empty bottle of whiskey in his fingers.

“We found the ghost,” he said.