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An ominous fog bank spread across the far end of Wall Street, rolling slowly forward. From inside it came the steady thrum of marching feet and the clanging of chains—a phantom army on the move.
“What is that?” Woody asked from the steps below, his notebook open and his hand shaking.
“That thing people told us not to worry about,” Evie replied.
“Ghosts!” The murmur passed through the crowd, not yet hysteria.
“Stay here. I’m going to call in the troops,” Theta said, squeezing through the crush of curious swells and back into the hotel.
The dark, billowing cloud advanced another block, then stopped. For several long minutes, the ghosts, shrouded in gloom, kept their distance. An electric stillness filled the air, a storm held under a bell jar, just waiting to be unleashed. The crowd burbled with nervous excitement and growing dread: “What are they doing?” “I don’t know.” “Will they hurt us?” “Where are the police?”
Theta raced back to Evie’s side, breathless. “I called Henry and Sam. They’re grabbing everybody and coming down here.”
“How long?”
Theta gave a New Yorker’s shrug.
Sirens rang out, followed by the shriek of whistles as the police arrived. They pushed back the people and set up barricades, as if that could stop what waited in the fog.
“Ling! Over here!” Theta called, spying Alma helping Ling navigate through the gawkers lined up ten deep on the sidewalks. News had spread fast.
“I got here as quickly as I could. Mr. Leong will be upset when he doesn’t get his tea,” Ling said. “What is happening?”
Evie pointed to the end of the street.
“Are the others…?”
“On their way,” Theta confirmed. And not two minutes later, a taxi swerved to the curb, and out jumped Henry and Sam.
“’Scuse us, ’scuse us. Would ya move outta the way, pal?” Sam barked as he and Henry pushed through the crowd to join their friends.
“Where’s Memphis and Isaiah?” Theta asked.
“Uptown,” Henry explained, and Sam groaned. There was no telling when they’d show up. It was a long way through New York City’s infamous traffic.
More whistles sounded as the police fanned out along the barricades and aimed their guns at the menacing fog.
“Fire!” the captain called, and the streets echoed with tight pops of gunfire.
“Hold!” the captain shouted.
The streets smelled of smoke. The fog was still there, unchanged.
“Did we get them?” a policeman asked.
As one, the ghosts screeched. The sound, terrifying, echoed through the canyons of Lower Manhattan. And then they marched forward, terrifying the crowd of onlookers, who screamed and pushed. Some of the guests tried to run back to the hotel, sending others tumbling on the steps. It was chaos.
“We’ll be trampled!” Theta said, trying to help Ling to a safer place. But there was no safer place. The six of them stood in the middle of the street as the police fell back.
“They’re panicking,” Ling said.
“Probably because there’s a ghost army headed straight for us,” Sam answered.
A man in a tuxedo pointed to the Diviners. “Do something!” he shouted, and soon others picked up the call. “Yes, do something!”
“Everybody’s watching us,” Henry said.
“Might be a good time to show ’em what we can do,” Sam said. “To show ’em we’re the real McCoy.”
