Author's Note: Yeah for those who care I've updated. I've already written up chapter 5 so I can update again if you lot want me to.
I can't believe how much has changed over the past couple of weeks. I know not a big thing, but its still a bit of a surprise, when logining in and finding things have really, really changed. I'm still trying to figure out whether or not I like the changes, but hey, their probably for the best.

Ok this is a rather long chapter and there's a lot of talking at the beginning of it and then some action close to the end of it, I'm not saying anymore, you'll just have to read and find out what's going to happen. Oh yeah and more old character's come back into this chapter.


Chapter 4

Monday morning, 8:30am and all the kids in Carmel were still happily in dreamland, while me, to my slight horror… ok more than slight, was heading with Jesse to Junipero Serra Mission Academy to go see Father Dominic.

I was actually looking forward to seeing the old priest; I mean I do owe him a bit for all that he has done for Jesse so that he could live a normal life without suspicion.

How exactly he managed to do this is still beyond my knowledge, but obviously Men of God can have some powerful friends around.

Jesse stopped the car we had rented for our stay here in the student car-park of my old school, grinning in a cheeky sort of way.

"What?" I asked curious to know what had trigged this cheeky, teasing smile.

"You were so funny when you first came here! So angry yet full of beans, eager to take the world on all by yourself yet pretending that you didn't care about it half the time." He chuckled and shook his head. "You were so complicated! I could never understand what was going on inside of your head at one time to the next." He looked at me and reached out and touched my cheek gently. I frowned at him.

"But you always seemed to know what I was thinking, sometimes I thought you were telepathic or something. Come to think of it," I eyed him suspiciously, "sometimes I still do."

He laughed.

"No it just when you think no ones looking you dropped all your defences and you become very readable. But, it was always very clear to me when you are worried even when you are all smiles or frowns, I can always tell." He shrugged, his hand still stroking my face gently.

"Should we go and see the Father now?" I asked, feeling a little breathless for some reason, maybe it had something to do with this man who took so much interest in my facial expressions and what I was thinking.

I felt my love for him roar into life inside of me and it was very hard for me not to just kiss him hard and passionately right there and then in the car, but I figured since the Father was actually coming this way I had better restrain myself for the time being.

"Susannah! Jesse! Welcome, Welcome!" Father Dom greeted as we met him half way across the student car park. It was too weird to go park in the staff car park, even though there was no one else parked there, I just felt safer parking in the students' car park.

"Hey Father Dom!" I called back cheerfully, because I was cheerful. I was genially pleased to see him. Father Dom hasn't changed much over the five years, come to think of it neither had I much, except for my hair being longer, waist length in fact and I was now only a head shorter than Jesse instead of being like two heads shorter, which is a good thing that I had grown that bit more cause Jesse, the jerk, grew at least three cm taller since he came back to life, very annoying but at least now the gap between mouths isn't so great as it once was.

"How are you both?" Father Dom asked brightly as we walked towards his office.

"Very well thank you and yourself?" Jesse answered for both of us, knowing that I would start complaining about the heat. Ok, I know it's hot in California but I forgot just how hot it can get here. I swear, I was melting from the heat.

I was so glad when I found that Father Dom had finally installed a new air conditioner in his office, since his last one died at the beginning of the summer of my final year here and for some mad reason he didn't bother replacing it even when it was quite obvious the stupid thing was dead, he still didn't get a new one. But now he finally had, I smiled contently as the fresh cool breeze hit me as I sat down in one of the chairs beside Jesse in front of Father D's desk.

"So have either of you seen one of these 'Hell Hounds' around here yet?" Father D asked getting straight to business.

"Um, we've been here a total of a full day." I pointed out, and the full day, yesterday had been spent down at the beach in the water, where it was cool and wet and by no means hot.

"Yes, well, I wasn't sure how long it would take for you to see one." Father D muttered. I open my mouth to argue the point further but Jesse cut across me to save Father D from getting his head bitten off.

"No we haven't seen anything out of the ordinary. Actually we haven't seen anything spiritual at all; I haven't sensed any ghost while I've been here." Because Jesse had once been a ghost, a ghost for a century and a half, in fact. When he came back to life we found out that he had the ability to sense ghosts without even really thinking about it. He can look at an old house or building and just tell me how many ghosts are inside of it and how old they are, which was rather creepy at first but it's an extremely useful tool. He's also better at talking down a (or several) angry ghost, while I, if he can't reason with them, continue to kick their ghostly butts into being reasonable. Thankfully Jesse realises this is sometimes necessary and hasn't taken on Father Dom's way of treating ghosts.

"Yes, I haven't seen a ghost for quite sometime myself, nor has Paul." He winced as soon as he spoke the forbidden name and waited for the explosion. Which… didn't come, Jesse just shrugged, his face blank of emotion and I… ok, it's hot and I was feeling sick, so I couldn't be bothered to get irritated at the mention of Paul's name, anyway there was no real point hating the guy anymore since he was actually, apparently, helping us solve this problem.

"Weird, maybe they all went on holidays to get away from this heat." I muttered. Both men stared at me sceptically.

"I was being sarcastic." I defended myself. Jesse rolled his eyes at me and Father D just shook his head.

"Susannah, please be serious, Ghost's are disappearing all over the place. This is a serious matter."

"Or the reason there are no ghosts around might be because none of them are holding grudges or have finally decided to move on." I pointed out, once again the sceptical look from the two of them.

"What? It's an option!" I defended myself again, glaring at Jesse. Father Dom I could understand not siding with me on this, but Jesse… hey, I had dated him for five years and known him for just over six, he was suppose to side with me and support me, but once again he was siding against me.

"Or those stupid Hell dog things have collected up the ghosts." I grumbled.

"That seems more likely." Jesse said softly.

"How is it more likely? Personally I'd rather go with Suze theories that they've all moved on to where ever or at least gone on holidays." a sarcastic voice from the doorway behind us said.

"You're only agreeing with my theories to get out of doing any ghost hunting." I shot back, swivelling in my chair to glare up at Paul. Paul just grinned at me. I resisted the urge to stick my tongue out at him.

Oklong story short, I don't hate Paul, neither does Jesse for that matter, we just don't like him much very; it really has more do with him continually trying to hit on me (though it was more to wind up Jesse then anything else) during year 12 with Jesse actually being alive and more than willing to punch him more than once, more than anything he has done in the past. We've pretty much forgiven him for all the pains he caused during the ghost business of things.

It's just fun making fun of him and now it's also sort of fun watch him and Jesse having glaring competitions every time they meet.

Jesse and Paul don't like each other full stop, even if they hadn't had history prier to Jesse becoming alive and human again, they were never destined to be great mates.

So upon his arrival the two men started their glaring competition that so far had no winners and could go on for hours if no one interrupted them and I found it too amusing at that moment to bother them and was quite happy to time how long they could go at it for, but Father D on the other hand wasn't in the mood to watch yet another glaring match.

"Um, can we please return to subject at hand?" Father D asked loudly to get Jesse and Paul's attention.

"Whatever you want D." Paul shrugged, winking at me. I shot him a 'in your dreams' look before swivelling once again on my chair to face Father D again.

"So your plan of action to solve this growing problem is?" I asked him. Father D blinked and looked rather stunned. He didn't have anything, I realised, just like us, he didn't have an idea or plan or anything, except for a vague idea that the Hell Hounds were behind the disappearances.

"Well that's helpful." Paul said sarcastically. I fought the urge to kick him.

"Do you have any ideas then?" Jesse asked him coolly.

"Actually, I do." Paul said smugly, "or better yet I have information to help create plans?"

"Oh yeah? What information?" I was curious, I wondered if Paul's Grandfather, Dr Slaski had found something of use.

"Well, it defiantly Hell Hounds that are rounding up all the ghosts and it's a witch rather than a Mediator that summoning them and looks they are being summon for some revenge ritual or something…" he paused as I let out a little giggle. He rolled his eyes at me in exasperation.

"Oh come on Suze! You believe in ghosts but not the existence of witches."

"No, I believe in witches but actual magical ones?" I giggled.

"Sure, you travelled threw time and back again didn't you? And you exorcised really bad ghosts, so in a way you could consider yourself a witch too." I stopped giggling at this. Paul beamed in triumph.

"Well if I'm a witch, then so are you." I shot back after a moment of thought. Paul blinked and thought for a moment before actually sticking out his tongue at me.

"Warlock." He argued regaining his composure.

"Warlock is only the male term for witch." I sniggered, "and you can't say wizard because you don't have a staff or do anything vaguely wizard like."

"Which would be?"

"I don't know but I don't think many wizards do what we do." I made a mental note to google up information about Wizards later so to make sure that I was actually right about what I was arguing about.

Paul opened his mouth to throw a smart and probably rude reply my way but was stopped by Father Dom coughing uncomfortably from where he sat.

Oh right, Catholic priest, witches aren't a going thing with him. Ooo, I hope his hasn't got any firewood handy.

"Oh sorry Father." Paul said smoothly, "Oh Father!" His eyes went bright and I figured he had just stumbled across the same train of thought as I just had. He grinned.

"You haven't any fire wood handy do you, because it's a bit hot to be burned at the stake, but winter should be fine. I should be able schedule you in between my teaching potions class and flying my broom stick around London." I sniggered and to my surprised so did Jesse. I hadn't figured his get the references, but obviously my dragging him to the movies to see the films had done him more good then I thought.

Father Dom, however, didn't look amused.

"We are Mediators." He said firmly and we all fell silent immediately under his glare.

"Um, so a, um, witch is summoning the Hell Hounds?" I asked Paul.

"Yeah, I mean, there aren't any other Mediator's around that we know of and plus Gramps has this old artefact that detects when witch magic is being used."

"That would have been helpful in Salem." I whispered to Jesse, who just nodded in agreement.

"So what it glows or something to let you know if magic is being used?" Jesse asked Paul looked genially interested.

"Yeah, something like that, it makes this howling sound if the magic is real close, but it hasn't done that in weeks, not since we saw the first Hell Hound."

"I wonder what he/she is doing with these Hell Hounds?" I wondered out loud staring at the wall behind Father D.

"Revenge, obviously." Paul said.

"It's got to be more than that; I mean this person is taking ghosts from both here and New York, why? Where's the connection? There is no pattern here at all." I complained.

"Maybe its more than one person doing this." Jesse shrugged.

"A Coven of witches have come to play." Paul grinned and Father Dom cringed. I let out a weak giggle more from Father Dom reaction than to what Paul had suggested; actually the idea was making me cringe as well.


"You seriously think its witches?" I asked Paul as he, Jesse and I head in the direction of the beach. We had just finished our meeting with Father D and thought that we deserved a swim and since we had all been packed for the beach we could go straight a way.

"Gramps seems to think so," he shrugged.

I smiled, Paul had far more faith in his Grandfather then anyone had had in years.

"How is he anyway?" Jesse asked.

"Eh, happier, I guess, he's working on a new book about stuff in the supernatural side of the world." Jesse and I looked at him.

"As in, what? Exactly." I asked curious. Paul's face went a little red in colour.

"Um the existence of Vampire's, Werewolves, Witches, you know that sort of stuff."

"What did he find out?" Jesse was looking even more curious then me.

"More than I wanted to know." Paul grumbled.

"Like?"

"Like the facts that these things actually exist."

"Are you serious?"

"Yup!" He grumbled, "Met one, a Werewolf. It was freaky. I counted my lucky stars that he could control his changes. Apparently proper Werewolves can keep their heads when they transform." He informed us. He grinned a little at our hanging mouths and wide eyes.

"Don't worry, he's gone back to Alaska now, he just dropped by to say Hi to Gramps. Apparently they went exploring all around the world together in Gramps younger days." Paul explained. Jesse seemed to calm down at this but me; my mouth was still hanging open as if my jaw muscles had forgotten how to function.

"Suze? You ok?" Paul asked me with a teasing grin which snapped me back to reality.

"Yeah, I'm fine, just surprised that's all." I shrugged; Jesse nodded his head in agreement with me

Paul shrugged and walked off towards the shops. As soon as he was out of sight I turned to Jesse.

"So what do you think about all this?"

"I don't know querida, I really don't know." He mumbled and pulled me into a one arm hug and kissed my forehead.

"Beach?" I asked him softly. His worried face broke into a soft smile and he hugged me tighter to him.

"Yeah, let's go."

Jesse loves the ocean, almost as much as he loves the land.

I remember the first time we came down to the beach when he first became human, ok, alive again. We hadn't swum, a bit too cold to swim at that time, but we had sat on the beach watching the wave's crash upon the shore. Jesse had watched them with awe and had actually gone knee deep into the ocean. He had tried to coax me to come and stand with him but there was no way I was going in that cold water. He had laughed at me but didn't pester me any longer.

Now, Jesse was still of awe of the ocean but he was defiantly a man of the land and it would take a lot of convincing before he'd willingly leave it behind and spend, say months at sea. Not that I actually see the opportunity popping up in any near future of ours.

"Suze!"

We had just stepped on to the beach when I heard my name being yelled out by two familiar voices. I turned on my heels and grinned at my two best friends waving at us from under a huge beach umbrella.

Under normal circumstances, they would have run up to meet us, but with Cee-Cee being seven months pregnant (though covered with a baggy t-shirt and shorts, you could hardly tell) they had thought better than to risk it.

Well Cee-Cee had thought better than to risk it, but Adam, well he's wasn't the one pregnant, so as soon as we got close he bounded up from where he had been sitting close beside Cee-Ceeand came to meet us and gave me a hug.

"Your married and you have a baby on the way." I teased him as sound as he hugged me.

"Aw, so you're breaking our affair this early?" he asked me with mocking sadness.

"Adam, you cheat." Cee-Ceesighed and beamed at me and Jesse as she tried to get to her wobbling feet. Seeing what his wife was trying to do, Adam bounded back over to her and helped her to her feet. Adam, despite his numerous faults was a sweet, humorous guy and a wonderful and protective husband to Cee-Cee.

As soon as Cee-Ceehad found balance on her feet, I gave her gentle hug.

I had really missed her. I mean, I love Gina to bits, but Cee-Cee though pushy in her own way, she at least knows her limits with how far she can push me with my secrets and she's quite happy to keep the fact the Jesse was once a ghost to herself. She hadn't told anyone not even Adam.

"How are you?" I asked, grinning at her. She rolled her eyes back at me and replied.

"This little bugger won't stop kicking my kidneys. I swear I'm gonna be a soccer Mom with the way he kicks." She grumbled to me, ignoring Adam's hopeful look at that comment.

I laughed, "So the baby is a boy?" Jesse asked. He looked thrilled; actually Jesse always looks thrilled at the mention of new life. I guess being dead for so long might make one look down on life but with death comes life and Jesse seemed to be one of the few people I knew who understood the concept completely.

"I – we think it's a boy but every time we go for ultrasound the baby's back is always to us, so we don't know." Cee-Cee sighed, giving her swollen belly a quick rub.

"Still could be a girl." I pointed out. Cee-Ceepulled a face but Adam shrugged, he didn't really mind. Boy or girl he could live with either, proving that he has grown up over the years. He is still a bit of a clown now and again, but he does use his brains more now.

He and Cee-Cee haven't been married long, seven, eight months "cough" honeymoon baby "cough". They've had a pretty solid relationship from where it started in high school, only a few fights that where patched up after two days of silence.

I'm serious, these two are hopeless! When they do fight, they get all depressed and are desperate to get back together again but their pride was the only things getting in the way at times though Adam's pride is usually the first to crumble.

Anyway, they were both doing well; they had rented a small flat close to the beach, not so close that it was beyond them in mortgage but close enough for Cee-Cee and Adam to have a brag about it when I was in New York, freezing my butt off.

Both of them work at News Station with Mom, Cee-Cee is a researcher and though she's goaling to be a full time reporter and Adam is my Mom's cameraman, which is rather amusing really.

How Mom manages to keep a straight face for a serious story with Adam around is beyond me.

"You still not sure what you want to be?" Cee-Cee asked me as we head up the steps from the beach to the fish and chip shop that had grown to have quite a reputation of having some of the best fish and chips on the Northern Coast of California, so the tourist population had peaked quite considerably around here since the shop open.

"Eh?" I stared at her blankly as I relished in the smell of hot chips and the scent fresh, real fish being grilled.

Cee-Cee rolled her pink eyes at me.

"Career. Your still not sure what Career you want, right?" I felt my face go red.

I had always felt a little stupid when everyone, even Jesse, talked about their dreams for their futures and I still had no idea what I wanted to do with mine, well except for the part where I was with Jesse forever, that part never changed.

"I'll figure it out." I said firmly. Cee-Cee laughed making me scowl.

"What?"

"That's just so you, determine to make sure no one worries about you even though your so worried yourself." She snorted.

"Please tell me you haven't been talking to Gina." I begged. She just smiled secretively at me which immediately gave me my answer.

"I should never have introduced you two." I grumbled more to myself than to Cee-Cee. She laughed at me again. Resisting the urge to stick my tongue out at her, I went back to my previous activity which was looking at everything, trying to spot any changes that I might have missed yesterday.

A flicker of movement from the beach car park caught my eye. I felt my stomach do a somersault as I looked over to it to have a better look.

It was a Hellhound, on the prowl, following a human woman with curly blond hair.

"Cee-Cee, wait here, if Jesse comes tell him I need him in the car park." I hissed at Cee-Cee before sprinting off towards the car park.

"Suze? Is that actually you?" Oh great, the woman I was trying save, was Kelly.

Kelly Prescott, the girl who had been my on and off "friend" threw my years at Junipero Serra Mission Academy. Great.

"Yeah, it is. Hi Kelly." I managed to smile at her, even though my eyes were transfixed on the Hellhound behind her, which had stopped, its head cocked to one side, peering at me with what I guess was curiosity.

"Oh my god, it's been like forever. How are you?" I was at first a little confused as to why Kelly was so chirpy to see me because she pretty much hated me all threw our last year of high school, for two main reasons.

One, cause in year 12 I wasn't voted as class vice president, I was voted for class president and won to and… I didn't even do anything. Cee-Cee informed me that was why I won, I didn't try to bribe anyone like Kelly and her crew, I just kept to the truth, plain and simple and I won.

The second reason was Paul. Kelly loved Paul; Paul just didn't feel the same way back. To cut a really long and boring story short, she was jealous because every so often Paul would come and hang with me and my small group of friends and that drove her mad which just made Paul laugh at her. Did I mention that while I was class president, Paul was my vice president. Funny how things turn out, huh?

Anyway our class actually had a lot of fun that year; we did a lot of fun things, like beach cook outs and stuff like that and just made a final year at school fun.

"Suze?"

The growing frustration in her voice broke threw my thoughts bring me back to reality.

"I'm great, really great, still with Jesse. Do you want come and sit with us for a bit and we can catch up and stuff." I was trying to steer her away from the Hellhound into an area where there were more people, with the far less likelihood of the evil dog attacking her, hopefully… that or I was luring it to the beach for it go on a mass slaughtering rampage. Great.

"Um, well I'd love to" such a lie, you could so see that she was lying, "but my boyfriend is just parking the car than we're heading off to lunch at that new restaurant on the beach side." She smirked at me and I rolled my eyes. She was trying to make me jealous without saying my boyfriend is better then yours. He's richer, hotter and you get what I mean. Normally I would have retaliated but at that moment I was more than a little worried by the fact that the Hellhound wasn't doing anything but watching us. Maybe it would attack; maybe it was never going to attack, just watching. But why would it want to watch Kelly?

I sighed, these creatures made no sense to me at all.

"Ok, see you around then." I shrugged. She gave me one last smug smile and went over to link arms with, I admit, a cute guy standing beside a flashy sports car that I know Jake and Brad would have been drooling over.

"Suze."

I turned to look back at her, confused.

"Say hi to Jake for me." She said sweetly before turning her full attention on to her guy who looked maybe a tad confused.

I rolled my eyes at him and he seemed to get the message.

I looked back to where I had last seen the Hellhound and found it was gone.

Great, it was following Kelly again, walking along side a van…

Aw come on, give me a break here!

"Kelly!" I yelled. The Hellhound wasn't here to watch, no now it was in for the kill. Shit. The Hellhound was pushing the van over on to Kelly and her Boyfriend.

Kelly let out a terrified shriek and froze to the spot, unlike her boyfriend who bolted at the sight of the tipping van.

Even running full sprint wasn't enough to miss the full impact of the toppling van. I managed to push Kelly out of the way only to be hit in the back of the shoulder by the falling van.

Now, how I wasn't crushed by the van when I went down under it after I was hit by it, I still don't know.

One minute I was in the shadow of where the van was going to land and the next I was lying next to Kelly, who was screaming, making my headache even worse.

Thank you very much.

All around about me I could hear more screams that couldn't just belong to Kelly.

"Querida?" among the screams I heard the most wonderful voice calling to me.

"Querida?" I felt a pair of gentle hands moving under my head and waist, careful not to jostle me to much, moving me even further away from the fallen van.

"Jesse," I whispered, "Hellhound… It was a Hellhound… It was after…" my voice trailed off as the pain in my shoulder grew more painful, so much so that the only way to escape the pain was to black out which was exactly what I did.


Author's Note: Ok, so that was the chapter, I hope you liked it and I hope I did all the old characters' justice, epically Paul, I don't like the guy much, but I love his humour most of the time.
I now have a much better idea of what I'm doing with this story and I know what's going to happen in coming chapters. So, reviews would be much appreciated, thanks.
I'll update again if people want me too, so please review and let me know what you all think.