When I turned around and saw him standing there, my heart froze in my chest. The beat actually seemed to stop, like a scratched CD does when its contents are being blasted out one of those old time CD players my parents probably still use.

Vlad was grinning at me, but the grin was somehow soft, somehow filled with understanding, compassion, all those other emotions that I would never associate with Vlad but that he might associate with me, and weakness. I thought he looked almost glad to see me, and that his grin was goofy more than anything, the sort of grin my parents had had on their faces when they'd reunited with everyone from college. Stupid, really, but happy nonetheless.

"Hello, little badger," he said, and his voice was almost welcoming, as if it were inviting me to come in and get lost in it. "It's been a little while, hasn't it?"

"I wouldn't know," I snapped almost immediately. I was frightened, of course—it wouldn't be fair to pretend I wasn't. But that fear also caused something else in me—hostility. I guess I had found throughout so many months of ghost fighting that my fear and anger were directly linked, and that they almost lived off each other, a sort of Ying and Yang, like all those posters Sam kept on her walls to "instill peacefulness". If I was angry, I was afraid, and if I was afraid, I was angry. So I said with rage burning in my eyes as I glared up at him, "I've been too busy with all this freakin' homework. I heard that was your fault, by the way."

"Oh, Daniel, why in the world would I have done that to you poor teenagers when I know how busy you already are, especially one of you?" He lifted a slim finger and tapped the tip of my nose.

Pulling back in disgust, I hissed, "You're sick, you know that? You have no idea how hard my life is! You have no idea how much shit I take everyday from everyone! You have no idea at all!"

Vlad frowned; his expression showed something like concern. "Daniel, calm down."

"Oh, that's so fucking easy for you to say, Vlad! Because while I'm trying to protect the town and maintain a relationship with my goddamn family and friends and graduate from high school and get a job all at once, you're sitting back sipping wine in your castle in Wisconsin! How dare you even say that? You have no right at all! And how dare you try to screw around with me like that? Convincing the school board to increase homework to make me crack!"

"Daniel—"

"Well, you did it! I cracked! I'm tearing my hair out, Vlad, I'm tearing my hair out!" I reached up, grabbed a fist of my unwashed hair, and yanked. I let the strands I'd pulled float to the ground.

Vlad watched with an expression of concern and disbelief, but watered-down, muted, because Vlad, I came to realize, was incapable of showing any emotion other than arrogance and anger so clearly.

I started to say something, something like, Are you happy now, Vlad? when he reached out, pulled me into his arms, and swept his cape around me. Teleporting us, somewhere. I didn't even think he could do that, and maybe he hadn't been able to, maybe not before. Maybe his powers were improving. The thought made me groan internally, because that was one thought I always dreaded.

But, as we teleported, I was not exactly capable of thought. My mind was consumed by outrageous sensation of teleporting itself. It was kind of like drowning, I thought when it was over. I had almost drowned when I was younger, while I was swimming in our pool in the backyard and I'd swallowed water and my parents were too distracted with one of their new ghost hunting weapons to come to the rescue. It was Jazz who ended up saving me. But I never forgot how that felt.

Drowning, I realized, was a senseless process. It was almost as if you didn't inhabit your body while it occurred, because your mind emptied and your breath left and you shut down and a sensation came, one that was like being completely incased in bright, warm light…but your soul screamed. It knew what was happening and yelled, yelled helplessly, trying to save its host but unable to intervene. OOB, Sam said. An out-of-body experience.

This, I realized, was what teleporting felt like.

When it was over, we were in Vlad's office, the mayor's office, which was now disgustingly decorated with a portrait of his face that took up an entire wall. He let me go and walked over to his desk and sat down in his chair. I stood there, stunned for a minute.

"Daniel," he started, "why don't you sit—"

"WHY IN THE NAME OF GOD DID YOU DO THAT?"

He stared at me calmly, his hands clasped, his eyes cool and calculating, the way a shrink stares at their patient while they go off on a detour of angry comments, unfazed, much like Spectra had stared at me while I ranted.

"We need to talk, Daniel," he said simply. "I told you that."

"Talk!" I exclaimed, appalled.

"Yes, Daniel."

"What in the hell…?"

"Sit down and I'll tell you."

It took awhile, but I finally sat, because I didn't know what else to do.