Quintessence by Hugs.And.Kisses (book recommendations website TXT) 📕

eyes glowed red for a moment as she tapped into her magic and forced it down her arm and onto the mark. Gold light burst out from under her palm, and Aubrey blacked out for a moment.

When she came too, she saw Lock and Jack hovering over her worriedly. Lock smiled when she opened her eyes, and helped her sit up. "What happened?"

"I don't know. But whatever it was, it broke the contract." Lock said.

"Contract?" She asked, confused.

Lock frowned slightly. "Aubrey… do you remember, when we were still kids, you asked me, Shock, and Barrel once why we were so loyal to Oogie Boogie?"

"Vaguely." She responded. "I remember that you got really mad."

He sighed. "When the three of us died, we weren't sent directly to Halloween Town. Our souls ended up in the Hinterlands, where Oogie found us. We didn't know what we were getting into… and before we knew it, we'd signed the contract with Oogie."

"Contract?" Aubrey questioned. "What contract?"

"It… it was Oogie's way of making sure we obeyed him. It was his only way to use magic. The contract basically bound us to him- we didn't age, couldn't go against him, and had to do whatever he said. And being almost eight for three hundred years gets really old, really fast."

"Lock… I never knew." Jack said, frowning.

"We couldn't tell anyone." Lock muttered. "It was part of the contract. We were slaves. We… we thought it was over when he died. I mean, when it didn't reactivate the first time he came back, I figured we were safe."

"He wasn't really back, though." Aubrey muttered. "I saw him. He was like a ghost. But he's back for real this time, so…"

Lock nodded. "So he reactivated the contract. We didn't have any choice but to do what he told us." He scowled. "Him and Mercy, anyway."

Jack grimaced. Aubrey had already told him about Mercy bringing back Oogie, but this seemed to hit it home. "Well, it's good to have you back on our side." Lock smiled.

"Lock, you don't know where Zero is, do you?" Aubrey asked cautiously.

Jack was both relieved and disappointed when Lock shook his head. "No, sorry."

All three looked up as they heard a familiar bark. "Zero!" Jack called, relieved as the ghost dog flew out of his grave and over to his master. Lock glanced over his shoulder at the grave and blinked, picking up two halves of what appeared to be a black talisman.

"No wonder Zero couldn't come out of his grave." He said holding it up and away from him.

Aubrey peered at it. "That thing's ancient… Romanian, I think. It's supposed to hold the dead in their graves, as a ward against vampires. Who would have one here?"

Lock wrapped his hands around the metal, melting it. "Well, I hope they didn't want it back."

"Do you think that's what was causing the interference?" Aubrey questioned Jack.

Lock frowned. "Interference?"

"We were trying to track down the Hanging Men. Oogie's monsters stole them from the Hanging Tree." Jack explained. "But something is interfering with the magical flow in the graveyard, and I can't use a tracker spell to locate them."

"That's Shock's doing, I'd guess." Lock muttered. "She must have a proxy here to channel it to, because I'm the only one Oogie sent to the graveyard."

Zero barked, as if to bring himself back into attention. "Hey, I bet Zero can track the Hanging Men down!" Lock said. "He can track anything."

Jack nodded. "It's certainly worth a try. We should back to where the Hanging Tree is, so Zero can get the scent." He said before walking off. Aubrey started after him, stopping when Lock grabbed her wrist gently.

"Lock?"

He smiled crookedly and pulled her engagement out of his pocket, sliding it back on her finger. "Thought you might want this back." Aubrey smiled and kissed his cheek before running after Jack, Lock not far behind.

The Hanging Tree flinched at the sight of Lock, who grimaced, standing back from the living foliage. "It's all right, Hanging Tree." Jack assured him. "Lock is back on our side."

The Hanging Tree relaxed. "Well, that's certainly good news."

Zero circled around the single Hanging Man on the tree's branch, sniffing him, making the skeleton laugh quietly. The ghost dog's head suddenly shot up, and he flew toward the other end of the graveyard, barking wildly.

"I'd say he's got the scent." Aubrey said. "But he sure isn't waiting for us."

"Aubrey, follow Zero from the air. It'll be easier to track you than him." Jack ordered- hey, the dog was transparent, glowing nose or no. Aubrey nodded, unfurling her wings.

She grimaced. "Right, no wind." She growled, running toward one of the gravestones. Jumping up, her foot came down on it and she pushed off, her wings making a hard down stroke as she did, propelling her into the air.

"Don't worry, we'll get back your Hanging Men." Jack assured the Hanging Tree before running off after Lock.

"Good luck! And be careful!" The Hanging Tree called back.

It Jack a minute to catch up with Lock and Aubrey, who had landed in a nearby tree and was busy trying to untangle the rope of a Hanging man from the twisted branches. Zero was circling the tree and barking, obviously very proud of himself. "Almost…" Aubrey muttered, tugging on a stubborn knot. It came loose, letting the skeleton fall into Lock's waiting grasp. "Got it." She chirped, hopping down.

"I'll take him back to the Hanging Tree." Lock said.

Aubrey put a hand on his shoulder. "Maybe I should. If Oogie's got this place booby-trapped too, you'll know how to get around it better." Lock grimaced slightly at the less-than-pleasant memories, but nodded and handed the Hanging Man over to Aubrey. She took off into the air again, leaving the two men alone.

"Let's go, Zero." Jack ordered. The ghost dog sniffed the air for a moment, before taking off deeper into the graveyard, yapping madly.

Lock looked around for any sign of the traps that he could remember, realizing that they hadn't gotten much farther than the-

Oh shit. "Jack, stop!" Lock yelled, grabbing the back of the Pumpkin King's shirt before he could take another step down the path they were on. Jack turned. "Lock, what-"

His unfinished question was answered a moment later when the statue in front of him began to spew fire from its forever open mouth. The two behind it did the same. "Oh."

"Yeah… we, uh, kinda had the statues rigged." Lock confessed sheepishly. "They should stop in just a second." True to his word, the flames died down, only for the fourth and fifth to spark and flame this time. Lock knelt beside the base of the first, putting his hand on a strange symbol Jack knew he had never seen there before. The flames died abruptly, and didn't start back up anywhere. "Go on, I've got this." His voice sounded strained, but Jack nodded and ran past the statues to the other side.

With a grunt, Lock curled the hand resting on the statue into a fist. A low rumble filled the air, and the stone statues seemed to shudder before exploding in a huge, fiery burst. Fragments of rock showered down on the two men as Lock stood up, coughing and brushing the ash and rock off of him. He glanced down at the rock that had melted over the statue's base, preventing any flames from coming through.

"What happened?" Aubrey asked as she ran up. "Are you okay?"

Lock nodded, picking another piece of shrapnel out of his hair. "Yeah. One of Oogie's traps… backfired." He grinned.

Aubrey rolled her eyes, recognizing a bad pun when she heard one. "Find any more of the Hanging Men yet?"

"Not yet."

"It doesn't matter if you do." All three looked around frantically as a familiar voice echoed through the Graveyard. "You'll never get out again."

"There!" Lock pointed to the top of a nearby ledge, overlooking the graves. Mercy was perched on it, between a pair of leering gargoyles, not looking happy in the slightest.

"Mercy, what are you doing?" Jack demanded.

She rolled her non-existent eyes. "Oh, cool it, dad."

"You little brat…" Lock growled, smoke collecting around the fist gripping the Advocate's handle.

Mercy didn't seem to fazed by the insult. "Lock. Why am I not surprised that you've turned traitor? Again."

"You can't betray someone you were never allied with in the first place." He retorted.

"Ooh, clever. Been thinking of that one for a while, have you?" She retorted. "Oogie isn't going to let any of you out of here until your souls are… poof." She made a small motion with her hand, then smirked cruelly. "By the way, the rest of those stupid Hanging Men are all yours… if you can find them." She disappeared in a flourish of black smoke.

"We have to hurry." Jack ordered, obviously shaken by his daughter's obvious turn of sides.

The last of the Hanging Men were heavily guarded by more of Oogie's sinister creations- by the time we got to the last of them, we had gone through three of the six bottles of fountain water.

"This is the last one, isn't it?" I asked, watching as Jack coaxed Zero out from under a shriveled up shrub.

"Well, let's see." Lock said, the skeleton slung across his back, "There was the one in the tree, the one that the ghosts were trying to shove into a hole, the one in the ravine, and this one. That's all five."

"Great, now we can focus on finding Shock's proxy, and getting rid of the interference here." Aubrey said, determined.

"I just hope that Shock isn't with it when we do." Lock muttered, heading back toward the center of the graveyard.

"Ah! Thank you, Lock." The Hanging Tree said as the pyromancer fixed the last Hanging Man back to his rope.

"Now we can look for mom." Aubrey said.

"Sally? She's here?" The Hanging Tree asked, concerned.

Jack nodded. "Oogie's monsters abducted her from town and came this way."

"I see… well, if it helps you any, I heard a woman singing from beneath the mausoleum. I thought that I was just hearing things."

"It has to be Sally!" Jack said. "Let's go!"

"Wait!" Lock called. The skeleton turned. "I- we can't get into the mausoleum."

Aubrey frowned. "Lock, what do you mean?"

He shook his head. "Oogie… had Barrel put up a barrier around the mausoleum. I didn't know what it was for, but I guess it was to keep Sally inside."

"What kind of barrier?" Jack questioned.

"I don't know, but it wasn't white magic. Barrel had a lot of trouble casting it." Lock frowned. "I… I think that Oogie tapped into the buried souls here in the graveyard. A lot of his monsters were smashing up the graves."

"Damn, a soul barrier?" Aubrey muttered. "We'll have to block off every single leak if we want to cut off its power."

"We'd better get started, then." Jack said. "If I know Oogie, he'll have monsters guarding every one of the supplying leaks."

"Should we split up?" Lock questioned.

Jack paused. "No. It is far too dangerous to go against Oogie's creatures alone."

Aubrey sighed, summoning the Morningstar. "This is going to take a while, isn't it?"

"That's the