Sorry for the length of this chapter, but I felt it important for story continuity to post it this way. And I wanted it posted on or before Halloween, of course…Once again, I don't own any of these characters. Hope you enjoy it! Please read and review. Thanks!

The Lazerus Project: Chapter Two:

Klarion stood in the cemetery, looking over the grave of Greta Hayes. It hadn't been too difficult to find it, and, just to forestall any conflagrations, he'd elected to arrive at midnight. At least this way, he could be more or less assured of no interruptions.

At least, that had been his plan initially. As it actually turned out, he had to wait out a pack of Satanist wannabees, who'd chosen this night for their "ritual." Watching from the darkness, Teekl in his arms, Klarion sighed inaudibly. Amateurs. The curse of the professional. At least they hadn't brought in some poor stray animal to sacrifice; he wouldn't have stood by for that.

So he waited while they finished their pathetic little ceremony. It was usually that way; when the Devil didn't appear, they usually lost interest and went home.

Mischievously, he toyed with the notion of conjuring up a life-like illusion, just to see what they'd do. But he really didn't want to cause a commotion; he just needed them to get on with it, and go on home so he could get to work.

Finally, around two o'clock, they left, without even bothering to clean up their mess. Ah, humans. Always letting somebody else do the dirty work.

There. Three rows down, one across. The tombstone simply read, "Greta Hayes, Beloved Sister." Klarion's face twisted into a sour expression. "Beloved Sister," indeed! Killed by her own brother, at the tender age of fourteen….

He let Teekl jump down while he summoned his will and conjured up his circle, muttering the proper incantations. The ground lit up with a Halloween-yellow glow as the magic flowed into the proper form. Everything had to be just so…necromancy, in any form, was dangerous.

"Mreeowww!"

"Oh, Teekl, you needn't worry. Yes, the last time she did target you, but that was only to get at me. This time will be different. We'll both be on the same side. Well, more or less." Teekl still didn't look convinced.

With a whispered word, Klarion summoned and lit the ritual candles, all the while focusing his mind on his memories of the girl as he remembered her. He could feel the magical energies swirling around him, and, when he opened his eyes, they were visible to his witch-sight, a small tornado of mystical forces summoned by his will.

"De somno mortis, oriuntur, Greta Hayes, surge!" He paused, reviewing his enchantment so far. He'd almost forgotten to use the girl's name, a serious mistake-if he'd made it. Had he used the correct verb tense? "Consurgo! Greta Hayes, consurgo! Arise, Greta Hayes! Arise and rejoin the living!"

Nothing happened. Not even a whisper of the wind. It was absolutely silent; he couldn't even hear crickets chirping. He looked around. Nothing. His shoulders slumped. What could have gone wrong? He'd done everything according to the ancient rituals, handed down from father to son, and mother to daughter over countless eons. He couldn't see anything amiss…

He sat down on a large tomb stone, the very picture of dejection and despair. "I don't understand, Teekl. I must be doing something wrong. The incantation should have worked. But it so obviously didn't."

His first indication that all was not lost came when he noticed a slight, very slight glow in the area just in front of the tombstone. It was so faint that he almost missed it: just the faintest expanding phosphorescent glow, accompanied by a chill wind that seemed to come from nowhere. The glow seemed to emanate from the dirt of the grave itself, and he watched, barely daring to breathe, as the head and shoulders of a young girl emerged from the ground.

She was clothed in what looked to be a thickly woven hooded jacket, and was overall so pale as to be translucent. She seemed to have no color to her or to anything she wore; just a ghostly whiteness pretty much all over. More and more of her emerged, rising up out of the ground.

Finally she stood before him, just as he remembered her from the previous encounter: Greta Hayes, aka Secret. The chill wind died down as she seemed to gain a foothold on the solid earth below her, but he could clearly see the branches of trees behind her, moving gently in the breeze. Aside from her hooded jacket, he could tell she was wearing a long dress of some sort that seemed a bit frayed at the very bottom, and, he noticed with a start, she was wearing no shoes. No doubt that was the way she was buried. He rolled his eyes momentarily. Typical humans: put up a nice headstone, but leave off the shoes of the departed. After all, with the corpse only showing from the waist up, who will know the difference?

She was ever so still, and he summoned Teekl up into his arms and approached her. She didn't blink, but just stood there, unmoving. This was the somnus mortis, the "sleep of death," and she would not awaken from it unless someone called her by name.

So he walked up to her, his cat in his arms, and snapped his fingers in her face, like a stage magician awakening someone from hypnosis. "Greta! Greta Hayes! Awaken!"

The ghost girl in front of him blinked, once, twice, then began to stir; she yawned slightly, and stretched a bit, as if awakening from some deep slumber. "K-Klarion?" Her voice seemed to come from a vast distance. "What-what are you doing here? Where am I? What's going on?" She asked, with increasing alarm. After all, the last time she'd seen him, they'd been enemies…

"It's alright, Greta. Well, I mean, maybe not all alright, but, but what you're experiencing is normal." All things considered, he thought. "What do you remember?" He had to be careful, lest she panic.

"I—I, I'm not sure. It seems like….something happened. Something big. And, and I, I was fighting someone…or several someones. You, among them." She gasped, remembering. "Klarion! What did you do to me?" She looked down at herself, as if she was afraid he'd thrown mud on her dress or something.

"Greta, it's alright. Look. Look at me." Obediently, and not a little scared, she looked at him. "Greta. I have some….hard truths that you need to know. Please don't be scared; I know you're confused, but I'll help you. Okay?" He drew a deep breath as she nodded warily. "Now. What do you remember about your brother?"

An hour later, they were both sitting in a momentary silence. Greta had tried sitting on her tombstone, but found she kept falling through it. Why the ground stopped her, neither of them were too clear on. But with concentration, she discovered she could sit. Not that she needed to, physically; it was just the idea of being seated while taking it all in. "So. I'm…a ghost."

"Yes." There wasn't a whole lot he could add to that.

"Why?" This took him by surprise. "Why did you bring me back, Klarion? The last thing I remember about you was, we were fighting. We were enemies. Why did you bring me back?"

He thought about it long and hard. Why had he brought her back? Impulse? A whim, maybe? He wasn't immune to such, but somehow he felt like there was a better reason. "Greta, I…I just felt like you deserved better than what you got, than what happened to you. I don't know if I can explain it any better than that. It just felt wrong, somehow."

"But, but you're a Lord of Chaos. I thought…I thought wrongness was what you were all about."

"You aren't the first to make that mistake. What humans call 'Chaos' is an integral part of creation. Without a certain amount of chaos, nothing would ever happen. There would be no change. One seeks to strike a balance, so to speak. Now, I'll admit, perhaps there are times when I have been…perhaps a little, shall we say, overly enthusiastic? in performing my, uhm, well, duties, I guess you'd call them. Perhaps I should strive to be a bit less aggressive." He shrugged. "I'm still learning, even after all this time."

They were silent for a moment. Then she spoke up. "So. I'm a ghost now." Obviously she was still dealing with that. "So now what? Do I go haunt a house somewhere?" She wasn't being sarcastic; she honestly wondered what came next.

He scratched his chin. "Well, that sort of depends. Do you want to go haunt a house?"

"Not really. It sounds boring."

He suddenly stood up, slapping his knees. "Then, let's don't! This just happens to be the best holiday of Blue Rafter's whole year. Let's go to a party!"

"A party? What kind of party? What holiday is this, anyway?" She looked around, as if expecting to see a calendar somewhere.

"Halloween, of course!"