Thanks for waiting! Only TWO PAGES LEFT in the CHAPTER! It's been a wild ride! Also hey who's this.

A little spider told me to tell you to stay tuned for next week... Eightfold awaits! Thank you for reading, I'm so excited for what's in store in Paranatural and I hope you all are too! :^)

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[Transcript]

        “D-Dad...!” Cody stammered at his father. “Who... who was that? What just happened?”

        Davy was still feral and hunched, still thrumming with the thrill of the hunt. Slowly, the monster found his mask again, then stood up straight and turned to face his son.

        “...You saved my life,” he said to Cody, “by calling out to me. I fight my fiercest for you, Cody. To protect you.” He smiled. “I’m glad that you were here tonight, my son.”

        Cody’s gaze sank to the floor. A battered Davy stalked to his side and wrapped him in a limp, hook-handed hug.

        “I suppose I can forgive some stray rebellion here and there.” Davy smirked and shook Cody by the shoulder. “There are deeper betrayals to punish than preteen mischief,” he growled, casting a glare towards Razor Rex and Fauxbia. His soft smile reappeared as he returned his gaze to Cody. “No. You were right, son. You deserve the freedom to explore the world as I did in my youth... and now that the day is won, now that the day is done forever... there’s nowhere here in Dayview that we can’t explore together.”

        Cody blinked, conflicted and defeated. His exhausted father’s loose embrace felt like a suffocating vice.

        “...What a mess,” sighed Davy, staring down at his model town.

        Stakes and splinters protruded from its islands like great spires; Davy had mistaken all signs of earlier sabotage for after-the-fact collateral damage dealt by his duel with Doctor Burger. The goldfish was nowhere to be seen. Hijack and Sophie were pressed back into the shadows of the rafters, huddling with their hands across each others’ mouths to mute them.

        “Let’s finish cleaning up before we see the life-sized version, hm?” Davy grinned, raising Fauxbia up to eye level. “Starting with this clump of filthy rags. I command you, Witch—” the vampire began, preparing to deliver a decree she couldn’t follow. Once she defied him in defiance of their Sphinx pact, he would be free to rid the world of the wicked Witch once and for all...

        Davy’s voice, however, had stopped short, as had all the sound within his batlike ears.

        Masquerade MOCKERY! Hiphop’s MASTER Volume!

        Before a muted Davy had realized what was happening, Fauxbia’s eyes lit up like molten metal.

        Fryclops’ HEAT VISION!

        “RRNGH!!” Davy snarled, reeling back, as a fiery laser pierced his face and, shooting straight down from the Witch’s dangling eyeball, tore through pricey dress shoe leather to sear a red-hot hole straight through his foot.

        “Let’s MAKE a DEAL!” hissed the Witch while Davy was deafened and sightless, spinning her severed head to grin at Cody. “Help ME to escape your FATHER’S wrath unharmed, and I’ll allow those RATS in the RAFTERS to scurry FREE, if just this once! What do you SAY?!”

        A string shone in the stagnant air, the threat that she’d prepared to give her proposition teeth.

        Cody followed it to the ceiling, meeting the lopsided stare of a half-frightened Hijack. The Witch had read the room as fast as Cody was now forced to. With just a whiff of familiar fear, with just a single, fleeting glimpse of Mayor Spender, Fauxbia had realized that the hapless politician was now playing host to the same spirit she’d sensed before—the spirit that had been inside the vampire’s pet goldfish. She understood now, too, just what a treasure of a power she had stolen from it...

        Cody hesitated across a half-second’s eternity. His plan to run away from home with the Hijacks’ help was in shambles. Could he still reach his mom without them? Did he still need to trick his dad, who’d promised him a moonless sky? Guilt struck him when he realized that he’d always planned to use them and discard them. Why was he prepared, then, to strike a bargain for their safety? Their utility was lost. They hadn’t nearly made amends for all that they had done to Jeff yet. Was he really kind enough to spare them at his own expense? Or was he feigning his humanity to prove he wasn’t heartless?

        Fauxbia robbed him of the chance to find an answer.

        “Fulfill the BARGAIN, and I promise NOT to HARM a single hair on dear JEFFAVORITE FLAVORS’ head!”

        “D-deal!” Cody found himself stammering out in a panic. The string that led up to the Hijacks fell slack as purple light shone in the Witch’s gleeful eyes...

        ...and a hook sliced through her head. Cody gasped, but the terms of his deal (and Davy’s, for that matter) were not yet broken: Fauxbia was utterly unharmed. Her grinning face had faded into swirling spectral energy just as Davy had lashed out in his blind fury.

        The vampire overlord roared a silent roar in mute frustration, black blood splashing from his face as it regenerated. Past his shoulder, Cody witnessed the patchwork portal collapse back into the shape of a giggling, scurrying, decapitated Fauxbia. Davy whirled to face her, and Cody briefly caught the eye of a retreating Mayor Hijack. Their stolen gaze shone with defeat, remorse, and gratitude as they departed into darkness hand-in-hand with Sophie Sybil.

        Cody didn’t have time to convey more than a flash of resignation in return. Davy had crashed one foot to the stage and, with a sound reminiscent of Peekaboo’s shapeshifting, dragged the Witch back to his side along with all the space around her.

        He had her. He’d lunged and felt his fangs sink into substance. He’d cut her laughter short, heard that delicious screech of pain as sound returned back to his ears... but then his son had pulled him back. Cody’s strength had flared beyond his own. Davy blinked down at him, dumbstruck, taut with fury.

        “It’s over, Dad!” Cody insisted, hugging his father as tight as he could. “You won.”

        Davy cast a haggard glance around the room. The Witch was gone. Razor Rex, too, had long since disappeared in the confusion.

        “No more fighting, please. I just... I just want to go home.”

        Cody felt a hand rest softly on his head. Davy ruffled his hair. When Cody finished flinching and opened his eyes, the father that he couldn’t help but love was grinning down at him, every drop of vicious bloodthirst back behind its fragile dam.

        “My boy... I can’t wait to show it to you.”

        Davy fixed the high collar of Cody’s presidential coat. There would be plenty of time for a witch hunt and dog catching later. He pulled away, slowly limping towards the curtains at the far end of the stage.

        “This has been the worst BEST DAY of my eternal life,” Davy chuckled, gripping the fabric at the threshold, “but now, Cody, it’s bound to be the same best night FOREV—AAAARRRRRGGGHHH!!”

        Sunshine flooded through the ballroom’s skylight and filled the stage as Davy threw its curtains wide. He fled in smoking, melting tatters to the nearest shadow that remained... as a new dawn rose above a sleepy town that wasn’t Dayview.