Page 83

“Maybe if we keep holding them off,” I suggested, “they’ll eventually get bored and drift away?”

Annabeth frowned. “Until when, morning? It just got dark.”

“I’m trying to be optimistic here.”

The ghosts attacked. In wave after wave, they threw themselves at the circle of blue light. Each time one got close to the flames, the spirit disintegrated, only to re-form at the far end of the yard. Great, they had multiple lives. Why didn’tIhave multiple lives?

So far, the torches were keeping them at bay, but the ghosts kept trying. With each assault, Annabeth flinched and swayed like she was weathering a gauntlet of punches.

Hecuba barked.

“She says the lead ghost is holding them together,” Grover told us. “They won’t leave before they’ve broken through.”

“So we’re in a standoff,” I said.

“Time is not on my side,” Annabeth warned. The torchlight was already starting to dim and cool. Her hair picked up streaks of gray from the light, like she was aging before my eyes.

“What did we ever do to them?” I grumbled. “Besides making them work on Halloween night? What do they want?”

I was immediately sorry I’d asked.

A howl rose from the mob. Frost crackled across Hecate’s garden. The ranks of ghosts parted, and Stuyvesant limped forward, so dark and solid now he might have been sketched with a smudge stick.

Your heretic souls, his voice whispered in my mind.You must burn. The witch’s house must burn.

“Oh, yeah?” Grover called back. “Well, joke’s on you, Pete. Some of us don’thavesouls! I’ll just reincarnate…probably as a pumpkin patch if I die on Halloween, but that’s not so bad!”

For some reason, this failed to discourage Stuyvesant. He drew his coal-dust rapier.Witches must burn.

He really seemed stuck on that point. I was starting to think that raising a dude from the 1600s to rebuild the manse might not have been the best plan.

“This isn’t justanywitch’s house,” I said. “This place belongs to Hecate, the goddess of magic. You’re messing with the wrong real estate!”

The ghosts shrieked in outrage, nearly rupturing my eardrums. The spirits swirled together into a massive funnel cloud of ice and dust, and then splintered off in every direction—wisps of ghostly gray racing into the night. Even Peg-Leg Pete disappeared.

The yard fell silent except for the crackling of the torches.

“You—you think they gave up?” I asked.

Somewhere down the block, a scream cut through the night. A car honked. Metal crunched against metal.

“Nope,” Annabeth guessed.

“Nope!” barked Nope.

When the ghosts came back, they were wearing upgrades.

Some shambled along in piles of garbage that formed vaguely human shells of plastic bags, aluminum cans, tattered blankets, and fast-food boxes. They would have gotten solid grades on SODNYC’s “recycled clothing” project. Other ghouls had apparently ripped the costumes off unsuspecting trick-or-treaters. I spotted characters from Star Wars, some superheroes, pretty princesses, and a whole bunch of Mickey and Minnie Mouses like they were on their way to work the crowds at Times Square. It was horrifying.

Even worse, trailing behind the trash- and costume-ghosts were actual living people. They moved like they had forgotten how to operate their own bodies. Parents and kids lurched along, hissing in Dutch. They were joined by taxi drivers and bike-delivery guys…and in the back of the horde, a police officer mounted on a black horse. The cop wore the face of a jack-o’-lantern—like he had ripped it off an actual pumpkin and attached it to his face, which raised his ax-murderer vibe by a factor of twenty. His eyes glowed silver. In his hand was a black baton that kept flickering and shifting form, sometimes elongating into a rapier. Stuyvesant himself…now with a badge.

We know whose house this is, he said.My mother must pay for her pagan crimes.

I glanced at Annabeth. “Peter Stuyvesant…son of Hecate?”

“That wasn’t in the assigned reading,” Grover complained.

Annabeth muttered a curse. “I didn’t know. Will the torchlight keep out physical bodies, do you think?”