“We should go!”
“I’m not doing it.”
“Perhaps it will help us to leave this plane faster! I don’t want to be in Purgatory anymore, don’t want to hide anymore.”
“What if we go and the wall is gone and then we are trapped somewhere with nothing to protect us at night?”
“We can be ofhelp!”
This time, I didn’t bother trying to follow their rapid-fire conversation.
“You have time to decide!” I shouted into the confusion. “If you decide to come, we’ll be at the wall. If not, then maybe we’ll meet again one day!”
“How will we know which section of the wall you’re at?” Daisy asked me.
I opened my mouth to respond, but I didn’t know how to answer that. “Go straight until you hit the wall,” Kobal answered. “There should be demons and humans at that section defending it; if it’s not us, you can ask the demons where to go.”
“They’ll never tell us,” Ethel snorted.
“Then you will at least be able to follow the wall until you find us,” he replied. “There was light at the wall the last time we were there.”
I gripped his arm and gave it a grateful squeeze.
“What if we decide to come to the wall and not help? The humans will adjust to us anyway,” Pervy said.
“That’s not right! No, not fair!” some of the ghosts shouted while others stopped to hear the reply.
“I hate ghosts,” Corson said.
“Then you’ll most likely be stuck in Purgatory forever,” I replied. “Thinking like that is what landed you here and why you’re still here now.”
Pervy shrugged. I bit my tongue to stop myself from calling him a bastard. Kobal stepped closer to me and leveled Pervy with a look that had the ghost floating back.
“I know of a place that destroys spirits. Didn’t think it was possible?” Kobal inquired when Pervy gave him a disbelieving look. “It is. And I am the only one who can gain entrance to it. No matter what happened to Hell, the Fires that gave birth to me still exist. I feel it in these.”
He lifted his arm and gestured at the markings on it. “We watched those fires destroy a wraith, and I don’t mean they drained the wraith until it could no longer function. I mean the wraith ceased to exist completely. No reincarnation, no chances of moving on. Push me and don’t think I won’t take you there.”
Pervy darted away from us. The other ghosts remained focused on Kobal.
“Impossible,” one of them murmured.
“Not impossible,” I said. “I saw it.”
Most of the ghosts zipped as far as possible away from Kobal.
Lix reemerged with another crate and plopped it on the counter. “Could someone ask my fellow skelleins to come in?” he asked.
“We’re leaving soon,” Kobal said to him.
“And we will be prepared to do so,” Lix assured him before disappearing again.
“What if the wall is gone and you’re not there?” Daisy asked me.
“I don’t know,” I admitted, “but it is worth the chance, or you can all come with us now. You won’t be able to have any light when we travel at night.”
“No dark!” many of them said at once, and Daisy glanced over her fellow ghosts.
“I think it’s best if we wait,” she said.
