"Ghosts don't belong in the moral world!" Danny insisted

"Who says so?" another voice asked. Turning around he say a group of ghosts flying out of the Specter Speeder. At the head of them was his sister, Jazz. "Ghosts have a right to live a full and productive life like anyone else," she said.

"Haunting people?"

"It's a small price to pay..."

"Oh, come on, Jazz! Ghosts only come into our world because they want something. She -" he pointed to Kitty, "-wanted your body!"

"I'm sure it was all just a misunderstanding."

Danny was about to say something, then closed his mouth. He realized that nothing he said was going to get through to his sister at the moment. She was in one of her "project" moods and nothing would deflect her from her goal. He looked at the other ghosts who had settled down around her. There was Wulf, the Lunch Lady, a surprisingly cowed looking Youngblood, Ember McLain who, when she saw him looking at her, winked and blew him a kiss. There were a couple other ghosts he wasn't too familiar with. One was a ghost who looked a lot like Clarence, the Box ghost except he was even fatter looking. This was Rollo, the ghost of all things round and bouncy. He was a cheerful fellow who's' only interest seemed to be in fighting with Clarence over the superiority of balls versus boxes. Another was a slender ghost in immaculately tailored 19th century evening clothes. He called himself Lord Faultless Roy and seemed only to sniff in disdain at other people's fashion.

"What are you doing with all these ghosts?" he asked his sister, not caring to be surrounded by so many ghosts he's fought with at one time or another.

"Danny, I want you to meet the founding members of People For the Ethic Treatment of Ectoplasmic Manifestations."

"Pet'em?" Danny was confused because he had suggested the idea as a joke. Who knew Jazz would take him up on the idea. "You do realize that the only "people" here are you and me, The rest are, if you'll forgive me, ectoplasmic manifestations."

"We shouldn't discriminate against people because of their origins," Jazz reproved.

"Yeah, ghosts are people, too," Ember said, walking close to Danny and drawing a sensuous finger down along the side of his face. He batted the finger away, causing her to smirk. "OK, maybe we're not 'people' people but we have a right to live our own lives, right?"

Danny was once again at a lose for words. He noticed a guitar slung over the back of Ember McLain. "Were you having a group encounter meeting in my sister's room a little while ago?"

"Yah. You should have been there. We could have discussed your fear of appearing naked in public." Ember purred.

"You mean your compulsion to steal people's clothes?" Well, that explained the 'put the guitar down' comment he'd heard. Jazz may get involved in foolish "projects" but she was no fool, she knew of Ember's power to hypnotize mortals with her guitar.

"Oh, lighten up! I even dressed for you. Do you like it?"

She was wearing a black corset with a little jacket over it, black hot pants, purple fishnet nylons and thigh high pirate boots. Her breasts bulged over the top of her corset like a pair of green apples. "Who'd you steal it from?" he asked belligerently to hide how hot she looked just then.

Ember didn't answer. She floated into the air, crossing her legs as if she were sitting on the ground and unslung her guitar. She picked at the strings, playing a sad sounding melody. "I'm glad you're here," she said after a moment. "There were some who thought you'd help you but I knew you would. You're than kind of guy." She looked up and stared into Danny's eyes. "If you weren't just a kid I'd have a real yen for you."

Ember's eyes were large and soulful. They seemed to consume Danny. Until a sharp yank on his ear pulled his head around and he found himself looking at his sister.

"Ember," she said, talking past Danny," what did I say about hypnotizing people?"

"Something about laying off your family?" the ghost rocker replied uncertainly.

"Everybody! You won't make friends if you keep hypnotizing people into doing things for you! But, yes, especially, don't toy around with my brother."

"I wasn't toying. Are you saying we ghosts are free to date anyone we want as long as it's not your brother?" Ember was snarling by the time she finished.

"He's just a kid. There's laws against that." Jazz answered, trying to be reasonable.

"Earth laws!" Ember retorted. "But we're not on Earth!" She casually pointed the neck of her guitar at Jazz.

Jazz reached around her back and brought out a small round, silver cylinder. "Don't make me have to use this."

Ember looked at the Fenton Thermos, then at Jazz. There was a long pause as she thought. Then she laughed. "God, you people have no sense of humor. I was just having a little bit of fun with you, that's all. No harm. No foul." She slung the guitar over her shoulder. "See?" she said holding out her empty hands.

"Perhaps we should tell young Daniel about our problem," the Lunch Lady interrupted. "It was so good of him to come to us. We should respect that kindness." She bent her head looked at Ember as if she were looking over the top of a pair of glasses. Ember was incapable of feeling guilt about anything but she recognized that maybe she'd gone too far.

"Ahem, yes," Lord Faultless Roy cleared his throat. "It all started a while back. It first it didn't seem like anything. Some ghosts started flyng around in shiny black costumes and acting like they were better than the rest of us. The attitude is common enough in the Ghost Zone, only these were ghosts who had never done anything before to distinguish themselves. The thing is that we began to notice that ghost to heckled or picked on these member of what they called "The Order" tended to get beat up or even occasionally go missing."

"Yeah, you shouldn't have made fun of their stupid outfits," Ember chuckled.

"I ran into a door that I expected to be open!" Lord Faultless Roy huffed, pulling his morning jacket down and smoothing it nervously against his front. "I was not set upon by ruffians!"

"That would make you the only one here who wasn't. At least I left my attackers with more black eyes than I'd received." the rocker laughed somewhat hollowly.

"They took Johnny," Kitty burst into tears. "You've got to bring him back. I can't live without him."

"They're insisting that we all join their order," the Lunch Lady said. "Someone of us are kind of solitary folk. We like to be alone and to be left alone. But the Order won't let us."

"You want me to go up against an army of people that have been beating you up?"

"Why not, you do pretty good kicking the snot out of us all,"" Youngblood grumbled. He was dressed at the moment in camouflage pants and shirt, with a bandana tied around his forehead and shoe polish stripped under his eyes and along his cheeks.

"Maybe one on one, but this is an army. What am I supposed to do?" Danny asked.

"Bring back my Johnny," Kitty answered.

"OK, I'll look for Johnny 13. And if I run into this The Order I'll look it over and see what can be done. No promises beyond that, OK?"

He turned to his sister, "so, what brings you here?"

"I thought I could gain some insights into the issues of my group if I had a better sense of how they live and their day-to-day activities," Jazz explained.

"And nothing to do with their missing friends?"

"Well, that's one of their big issues, Danny. Of course I have to look into that, too."

"And they didn't tell you I'd be here waiting for them?"

"They did seem to be in a hurry to get back and the session lasted longer than we'd planned. Someone -" Jazz's eyes flitted over to the Lunch Lady, "- can't get it into their head that having the occasional salad is not a rebuke of meat. But we're working on that, aren't we?"

"Right. OK, let's get this thing rolling. I'd like to get back in time to play Tucker a few rounds of Zombiecrunch. So, where's this The Order?"

"We don't know," said Ember. She was sitting cross-legged in the air, strumming her guitar, which had somehow turned from an electric model into an acoustic one. She was plucking strings one by one in a sad progression.

"How am I supposed to find Johnny 13 if you don't know where he is?"

"Clar-ence." Wulf growled. He was a hulking werewolf looking ghost with large soulful eyes and a snout of large gleaming teeth. His hands ended in claws that could rip holes in the space-time continuum, allowing him to escape into other dimensions. Unfortunately he only spoke Esperanto, on Earth an obscure, artificial that only Tucker, among Danny's friends, knew.

"What about Clarence?" Danny asked. "Where is he?" Looking around he realized that Clarence, The Box Ghost was not part of the group.

"He's disappeared, Dipwad," Ember sneered.

"But I just talked to him the other day!"

"More like a week ago, idiot." She plucked one string and ran her fingers up and down the neck causing the note to undulate in pitch.

"Now, Ember, we've talked about your habit of insulting people," Jazz interrupted.

"Oh, shut up, you stupid T-" Ember found herself choking on a mouthful of mystery meat. "You do need to be more polite, young lady," the lunch lady admonished.

"Clarence is gone, too? How did this happen?"

"After you turned him down," Kitty spoke up, "he became very depressed. I recall hearing him say something like 'if you can't beat 'em...'

"So you think he joined The Order?" Danny asked.

Kitty just glared as if to say, 'what do you think?'

"So I've got two people to rescue and no idea how to find them. I could search the Ghost Zone for the rest of my life and not find them..."

Suddenly Jazz had her arm around his shoulder and was pulling him away from the group.

"I think there's way too much negativity coming from you, Danny," she was saying. "You need to turn that frown upsidedown and think about how you can do this and not about how hard it might be."

Danny shook her arm off and snapped, "Don't give me that stupid Pop Psych stuff, Jazz. Maybe it'll work on them but not me."

"Oh, come on, Danny" she snapped right back. "These people are depending on you to do something and all you can do is complain that it might be hard. You're blinding yourself with your own negativity. This isn't mumbo-jumbo, Danny, is hard, plain fact."

"What makes you think there's any way in heck I can do this?"

"Someone obviously does." She nodded towards the demon dog that was sniffing around the Spector Speeder.

"Cujo? He's a dog."

"But he brought he here. He obviously thinks you can do this."

"No offense to the big guy, but dogs aren't known for their strategic thinking."

"Cujo's not some ordinary dog."

"No, he's an eight foot tall mastiff ghost who think's he's a puppy."

"Dogs are a lot smarter than we give them credit for."

"Jazz, you give them a doggie treat and they're friends for live."

"Danny, you have to think positively..."

"Oh, please," Danny turned to walk back to the group of ghosts.

"Aren't dogs good trackers? Maybe he can find Johnny 13 and the Box Ghost for you?"

"He's not a bloodhound, Jazz."

"But aren't all dogs able to follow a scent?"

He was about to tell her than greyhounds didn't, a useless fact he's picked up from watching TV, when he finally realized what she was saying. Assuming that Cujo could follow a scent, it was his best chance of finding The Order and putting an end to their nonsense. Without bothering to thank his sister for the idea, he went back to the group and asked if anyone had an article of clothing with either Johnny 13's or the Box Ghost's scent on it.

"I've got this necklace Johnny gave me," Kitty said, lifting one of several necklaces from around her head.

"That might smell more of you than Johnny by now," Danny said. "Anyone else?"

Wulf ran off to the overhang where the tents were and ran into one of the smaller ones and came back a moment later with a blanket clutched in his mouth. He dropped it at Danny's feet and groaned "Clar-ence."

Danny had to wonder just how much English the man-wolf ghost understood. He looked at the lunch lady, whom he assumed, because of her greater age to be a more responsible entity, "Is this the Box Ghost's blanket?"

"I believe it is," she told him.

"Ok. Cujo!" he called. "Smell the blanket. Find! Find the Box Ghost," and held the fabric up for the dog to whiff.

The dog sniffed the blanket several times, then ran up to the tent Wulf have brought the blanket from.

"Good boy," Danny encouraged. "Keep going."

Cujo circled the camp a couple of time before heading off down river at a lope. Danny took to the air to keep up with him.

The trail took a meandering course, sometimes sticking close to the creek and other times wandering far up the side of the river banks. At one point Danny looked straight up to find the creek flowing placidly overhead. Cujo kept forging ahead and soon he was back to walking beside the creek.

Eventually Cujo climbed out of the river bed entirely and took off across the endless skies of the Ghost Zone. He went past the realm of floating islands, then the realm of floating doors before coming to a place where rainbows seem to hover in the skies. Cujo jumped on one and suddenly was sliding down it towards some distant and invisible end. Danny hurried and caught up. Touching the rainbow brought its gravity to him and he was sliding after the giant ghost dog towards what he hoped was more than just a pot of gold.

What had seemed like bright and cheerful rays in the sky when he had jumped on the rainbow was turning dark and sinister. He couldn't put his finger on what made it seem to menacing; it just was.

After a time Danny could see ground spread out below him and rushing up at a dizzying rate. He gave a toot on the dog whistle then jumped into the air, stopping his descent well above the ground. Cujo had jumped, too, when he had heard the dog whistle and was waiting for fresh orders. Danny ruffed up the fur behind his ears, called him a good boy and feed him a couple doggy treats. Cujo tried to wash his face.

They descended the rest of the way to the end of the rainbow slowly. Danny spotted a patch of woods to one side and maneuvered there. Just as he was passing through the tops of the trees he noticed a small compound built near the spot where the rainbow ran into the ground and disappeared. Under cover of the trees he made his way towards this encampment.

He paused at the edge of the forest to observe the place better. It looked for all the world like a TV movie western Fort. Wood pilings eight feet high formed the walls of the square camp. In each corner of the walls was a wood watchtower, a little higher than the fence, with a angular peaked roof. From what he could see from the tops of the trees were orderly, rectangular rows of small building or occasional tents. A wide row bisected the encampment, running from one large gate in the fence to another on the opposite wall. A flag hung in the exact center of the camp. It was square and red and divided into nine smaller squares by criss-crossing green lines. It looked like a giant tic-tac-toe square. Danny wondered what kind of idiot would take a game board for their flag.

He wanted to get closer but the moment he stepped out of the woods Cujo was right behind him. Danny figured he could hide well enough in the waist high grass in the meadow surrounding the fort, but at eight feet Cujo was just too conspicuous. Danny had to chase the ghost dog back into the woods and tell him to "stay." Unfortunately, the dog was too excited to have someone to play with that he didn't want to 'stay' but eventually Danny got it through the dogs head that he was to wait for his master to return.

Frustrated by the unexpected delay Danny rushed through the concealing grass faster than he should have. He came to a ditch close to one gate and halted there. He could see over the gate a plaque. "THE ORDER" had been painted on it in neat regular letters. Even allowing for the strangeness of ghosts that seemed weird for a supposedly secret society.

Danny was wondering how he was going to get through the gate. A couple ghosts were patrolling in front of it and seemed pretty vigilante in their duties.

"Will you be my friend?" a needy voiced asked.

Danny turned to see Klemper floating behind him. Klemper was wearing a uniform, black with green highlights. Klemper, like many ghosts, had no legs, just a wispy tail, above he wore a tight cloth coat, green strips ran down the seams on the arms and edged the pockets on the front. The shoulders were padded and capped with epaulets. On his head was a small round cap with a flat top and a small, flat bill. He looked like a train conductors such as Danny had seen in old time movies. There was a silver badge on his chest. It showed a giant eye surrounded by leafy branches. Were those called 'laurels'," Danny wondered. Instead he said, "I'm not your enemy, Klemper. How have you been doing? You look different, have you joined a club?"

"Yes." The ghost pulled itself up proudly. "I am a member of The Order. I have lots of friends now. I am so happy. I would be even happier of you were my friend, too."

"Good, good," Danny said, thinking furiously what more to ask. "I'm glad to see you getting out more. I hear some people aren't happy about joining The Order?"

"They don't know what they are missing. We are all friends here. We play games and have long talks and live together. It is everything I've ever wanted. You should join."

"Who's in charge of The order."

"The Commandants. They are so wise and thoughtful. Everything has a place in The Order and everything should be in its place."

Klemper was never the sharpest knife in the drawer. Danny could see it was going to take forever to get anything out of him. "What if someone doesn't want to join?"

"Who would not want to join?"

"But what if they don't?"

Klemper looked confused for a moment. Obviously this was a question he was not used to."

"Have you seen Johnny 13 around here," Danny asked, "His girlfriend, Kitty, is concerned about his whereabouts."

"Oh, he is in the Re-education class." Klemper answered. "He kept saying bad things about The Commandants so he had to go for Re-education."

Danny shuddered at the answer. This was beginning to sound all too much like World History class. He wondered there wouldn't be a test afterwards. "Is there any chance I could get in there to talk to Johnny? So I can reassure Kitty that he's OK?"

"I don't know. I should ask the Commandaths about that."

"Oh, we don't need to bother them about this. I'll just be in and out so fast nobody will notice. I just want to make sure that Johnny is OK. For his girlfriend..."

Klemper was thinking deeply about this when Danny heard "Beware!" shouted behind him them everything went black.