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I screamed when the cobweb hit my face. I’d like to say that I did literally anything else in the Old Chateau, but I was alone, the house was creepy, and this was the LAST time I decided to catch a ghost-type.
I tapped my flashlight against my hand a few times and finally, the beam of light illuminated the darkness. Lotsa cobwebs, lotsa dust, lotsa gothic architecture and furniture covered in linen, but not lotsa ghosts.
I swallowed as the darkness swallowed the sounds around me. Somewhere, I heard what I thought was a door close, but… no, must be my imagination.
Was it?
Wasn’t I here to catch a ghost?
I took one step. Then I took another, then my flashlight flickered, and I scowled at it. The flickering stopped.
That’s what I thought.
The Old Chateau had thirty rooms. Apparently, this was nothing compared to the old Cinnabar Mansion before it got burned down. They had closer to seventy. Still, it was a lot of ground to cover, and I got the feeling just poking my head in wasn’t going to cut it.
I got to the next room and took the brass doorknob, twisting and pushing. The door creaked and groaned, needing oiling at the hinges long ago, but the heavy mahogany still swung, inward, not outward, built before construction codes and crush prevention.
I was in a child’s room.
The walls had been painted. Girafarig playing, Mankey in the trees, Pikachu running in the grass, the bright colors, the bold green trees, the deep brown bark, there was no way this was anything else. I stepped into the room. The door swung closed behind me, silently.
A toybox in the corner, and a crib? I walked over to the toybox kneeling down. They were… old toys. Most broken, some wooden ones actively rotting.
It’s an unsettling thing, when you look into a child’s toybox and find the toys rotting.
I carefully stood and turned, sweeping my flashlight over the room. No ghosts here.
I walked back over to the door and grabbed the knob, pulling.
The door didn’t open.
Wait, hadn’t it squeaked when I opened it before?
Why did it close silently?
A piercing cackle shattered the silence, and at the same time, my torch flickered and died.
“No! No no no not now!” I whispered, smacking it against my hand.
It didn’t work.
Of course not. I slowly lowered my hand, then noticed another sound.
I wasn’t smacking my hand against the flashlight anymore, so why was the sound continuing.
Worse, why was it coming from behind me?
The sound stopped.
I slowly turned.
Standing behind me was… honestly it looked like a pinecone covered in a sheet, with one beady eye staring into me.
“Clops.”
I screamed. I screamed and ran. As I did, the mansion came to life. The chandeliers erupted into flames as Litwicks yawned, Lampents and Chandelure’s chased me down the hall.
A Chimecho flitted around me with a spin, it’s little bell driving me insane with it’s peals, then a Bannette came down from the ceiling, grabbing my hair and cackling.
I screamed and shook my head, running for the door. A gengar materialized in a chair, sipping wine before offering it to a spectral corpse, who actually took it. Every TV in the house, plugged in or not, turned on, static and snow, at maximum volume.
I reached the front door, threw it open, then ran directly into a man.
The Old Chateau went silent, as if flipping a switch the moment I touched the doorknob.
“Oh, pardon, mon ami. je ne voulais pas vraiment te rentrer dedans.”
Right, Kalos. He spoke Kalosian. I went over my lessons very quickly, then switched to the language from Galarian.
“Quick, run! This house is haunted!”
He arched an eyebrow and looked past me, into the eerily quiet house. “Oui,” he said, as if it was obvious.
“And… and you want to go inside? Why?”
He looked back at me. Now that I had a few minutes for the adrenaline to go down, and now that I was on the porch and not inside, I could really get a good look at him. He was… sickly looking. Pale, blonde, 5’ if he stretched and a hundred pounds soaking wet. Stormy grey eyes that rolled like thunderclouds. The irises physically roiled like smoke in a jar, complete with little streaks of light, like lightning. It was captivating.
“Would you believe me if I told you I was a ghost?”
This time, I arched an eyebrow. “A little solid, aren’t you?”
He shrugged. “Worth a try. I’m here for a reason. The ghosts were preparing for my arrival. I woke them up.”
Surely I didn’t hear that right. “Huh?”
He smiled. “I have a job to do. You should run home, little girl.”
Lit… I was taller than him! I got to my feet. “Little?”
He sighed. “I’m twenty-five. Yes, I am aware that I look twelve, and yes, you are physically taller, you are still a little girl. Now, go home?”
Oh. Okay, I hadn’t expected the age but… “You’re two years older than me!”
“And two years wiser. You ran out screaming from things that didn’t even care that you were there.”
I looked back into the house. “They certainly seemed like they did. the pinecone was mocking me!”
He scrunched up his face. “The… The… pinecone?”
“I’m not crazy! The pinecone pokemon with one eye!”
“Oh!” he said, slapping his forehead. “That pokemon is called a Dusclops, it’s the evolved form of Duskull, the unevolved form of Dusknoir, and likes to mimic sounds because it didn’t have hands before it evolved.”
I frowned and looked back at the house. “The… The Lampent and Chandelure chased me.”
“Yes, you were running in the dark. It’d be a shame if you tripped and hurt yourself.”
This time my jaw did drop. “But… But the gengar! It was sharing a drink with a ghost!”
He smiled. “No, it was making you think that with an illusion, but that’s just cause Gengar are dicks. It wasn't being helpful.”
I looked back at the house as he stepped up to me, placing his hand on my shoulder. “Go home. Catch your ghost another night. They are helping me this evening.”
Ugh. I narrowed my eyes at him, then picked up his sleeve like it was dirty. “Hands off, Pierre. Save the misogyny.”
“No. I specifically mentioned your age, not your gender. I also didn’t stoop to racism. My name is Duke Zakarie Damien Aether Arnaud, Lord of Laverre, Regent of Velusia, and…” he paused, and a sweet, heartwarming smile appeared on his face. “And friend of the chosen of Tapu Koko. I could never forget Tamlin.”
He turned back to me, and the smile fell. “I have a name, it isn’t Pierre.” God, he said it with the swagger only the Kalosians can pull off, and he made it look good too. “But you are an adult. I can’t stop you.”
With that, he brushed past me, right into the chateau.
Like hell.
“I wasn’t done talking!” I shouted, turning to him.
“I was done listening,” he said, then snapped his fingers, and the gengar shut the door in my face.
“And you come back anyway.” he said as I opened the door again.
“You’re infuriating.”
“And you’re naive, strange girl.”
I slammed the door behind me. The Litwicks flared up at the loud bang. “I have a name too! You could use it!”
He rolled his eyes. “You never gave it to me. Did Galarians never learn manners?”
That made me go cold, and I took a step back. “I… I never said I was Galarian.”
He crossed his arms like a father trying very hard to exercise patience. “You have an accent.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Anabelle.”
He tapped his arms with his fingers, then sighed, lowering his hands. “Okay, clearly you don’t understand me. Anabelle, you are in danger. I am not in danger, because I am here on a job and I have protection. I can’t do my job while I am also protecting you. Please leave, before something here hurts you.”
This time I crossed my arms. “I can take care of myself!”
“I don’t have time for this.” He said and turned away, pulling a pokeball from his belt. He tossed it, and with a flash, a gorgeous Absol appeared.
“Find it.”
The Absol slinked back into the darkness, then melted into it, gone.
He nodded, then tossed two more pokeballs. An Espeon and a Togetic? He wasn’t a type ace.
“Espee, ready your psybeam.” he said, then glanced at the Togetic. “Keep her here, Ace. I don’t need her in the way.”
The Togetic squealed, then body-slammed me. It didn’t hurt. It felt like getting nailed by a feather pillow. I went down, and his Togetic fell right on top of me, keeping me from getting up.
“Hey, get off of me!” I shrieked.
“Stay there and be good, mon cher. I’ll return soon.” Zak said, and at the same time, there was a howl from one of the floors above us.
“Let’s go!” Zak shouted and charged up the stairs. As he did, his eyes flickered, and as he rounded the stairs, I saw them go from grey, to terrifying bright red.
Ten seconds later, all the ghosts started screaming. I don’t mean a party. I mean that every single ghost in the building looked up at the exact same time, opened their mouths, then let loose the screams of the damned. Blood-curdling, horrendous.
The Togetic started panicking. it took off, flitting up the stairs to help its owner. I dragged myself to my feet. I don’t know what spurred me onward. I don’t know if it was morbid curiosity, peering into the abyss, or just being really into smarmy condescending Kalosian strangers, but I headed up the stairs. The whole time, the ghosts never stopped screaming.
I didn’t want to run. I barely wanted to move. I crept up the stairs as the dead wailed, each one had their eyes on the floors above, which made it easy to know where to go. The air grew colder as I ascended, the oxygen thinner. I was streaming frosty fog with each breath as I crested the stairs.
When I got to the third floor, I started screaming too.
Zak was in the hall with his Absol and his Espeon, and that was really the only normal thing about the situation.
Zak was floating. A ring of black fire spread out from around his feet, and he had his arms out like some cursed messiah. A flaming black crown had appeared on his brow and a very inhuman, very gleeful smile marred his beautiful face. His eyes had turned black, like the pupils had eaten the rest of his eye.
In front of him was what had me screaming.
a woman in a white dress was lashed to a cross of obsidian, barbed wire wrapped around her ragged and bleeding wrists and ankles. This woman should have been howling in pain, but instead, her mouth was locked in a manic, rictus grin, her pupils pinpoint as she grinned at Zak, spittle dripping from her mouth.
“Dahlia.” Zak whispered.
His voice. It was pained, but not physically. He was choking back tears.
“I’m so sorry.”
Then his voice changed register. it went booming, basso, and terrible.
“Dahlia Arnaud, tempus tuum advenit! Animo fracto necne, vocavi te, et respondere noluisti! Tempus est! Audi patrem tuum!”
Black lightning lanced out of Zak’s eyes, and Dahlia Arnaud, the ghost of a girl, burned in black lightning. As she did the ghosts went silent, and all that could be heard in my life, at that moment, was the woman’s tortured screaming and sobbing.
Zak fell.
The charred corpse sunk into the ground on the cross as he did. The ring of fire winking out, the black crown dwindling to a pinpoint, before vanishing entirely.
Then he hit the ground, hard.
I’d taken a tumble or two. There was a good way to fall. Directly onto your spine wasn’t it.
Zak didn’t move. Hell, I didn’t move. I was too freaked out to do anything at that point.
The Absol sat, watching the ground where the cross had disappeared, then chuffed, rose to it’s paws, and plodded over, licking Zak’s face.
That did the trick. He started coughing, sitting up and pushing his Absol away. The pokemon didn’t fight, instead, curling up into a ball. Zak wheezed, then dragged himself over to a wall. he didn’t stand, and blood trailed behind him.
When he got to the wall, he thumped against it, reaching very, very shaky hands into his pocket. He withdrew a pack of cigarettes, and went to light one with his lighter.
His hands were shaking too bad. He couldn’t even flick the flint.
Helping someone else. That was something my brain could make sense of.
I stepped forward and held out my hand. He looked up at me, then sighed and dropped the lighter into it. I flicked it and lit his cigarette. He took a long drag, then pulled it out his mouth and exhaled a thick cloud of smoke.
“Every time. It’s just as stressful as sex with none of the fun parts.”
I glanced at him, then offered the lighter back. he took it. “What just happened?” I asked in a small voice.
He coughed, and I jerked my head towards him. A thick wad of blood was in his hand. He rolled his eyes and wiped it on his chest.
Eww.
“I told you to leave.”
“The ghosts were screaming.” I responded in a whisper, just trying to process what I had seen.
He closed his eyes. “Oui. Their lord was here.”
I frowned.
He coughed again. More blood.
“Do you need a hospital?”
He shrugged. “I won’t die here.”
“Spooky.”
He turned those grey eyes to me. “Anabelle, you just watched me float in a ring of fire and electrocute a ghost. Those words are the least spookiest thing you have witnessed tonight.”
I frowned, wrapping my arms around myself. I was cold all of the sudden. “What are you?”
“Duke Zakarie Damien Aether Arnaud, Lord of Laverre, Regent of Velusia, friend of the chosen of Tapu Koko…”
“You said this already…”
He held a finger up. “And Scion of Ylveltal, God of Death.”
I swallowed and took a step back on reflex.
“Not like that.” He leaned back. “This is why I don’t say anything. Everyone assumes I'm a crackpot or an edgelord.”
He took a slow drag of his cigarette, followed by a deep inhale, before exhaling through his nose.
“Those will kill you.”
He grinned, showing his blood flecked teeth. “The job has perks. I’m a zealot, but not some deranged lunatic that kills people thinking I’m an assassin for god. I hunt ghosts. The only blood on my hands…” He turned his bloody hand to me. “Is my own!”
He laughed at his own morbid joke. What a loser.
“I know when I die, Anabelle. There’s peace in that, and it’s not here. What you saw tonight? Most mortals don’t live through it. Be thankful you still have your sanity, and forget what you saw. You aren’t Tamlin. You can’t understand. You don’t have a foot in the grave.”
He turned to me, one final time. “Leave this house, Anabelle. Please. Forget what you saw. Forget who I had to exercise, tonight.”
And then just like that, he and his pokemon were gone. No puff of smoke, no sparkles, no sound, just completely and utterly gone.
And I had never been so cold, alone, and terrified in all of my life. Dahlia. His daughter, maybe? But… But that woman… She was easily in her thirties. Zakarie wasn’t twenty five. I knew at that moment, I met something that shouldn’t exist. I met a god, and I met its chosen, unaging, immortal champion.
I never saw him again, and truthfully, I consider it a blessing. That man, he had darkness in him, and he was crazy.
Just because you aren’t foaming at the mouth doesn’t mean you aren’t a crazed zealot that won’t banish your own child’s spirit.