"The humans will kill you, you know," Vlad brushed his fingers across his cuff-links. "You're not like them. And as for the ghosts… well, the dead would be awfully jealous if they found out what you really are. The outside world is simply too dangerous for you and I."

"You say that, yet you still go out," Danny grumbled.

"I was born human. I know how to hide myself in their society. But you? You wouldn't last an hour without giving yourself away."

"Then teach me!"

"It's not that simple, Daniel."

"Why not? What am I going to do if something happens to you? Stay holed up here in this mansion forever!"

Vlad frowned. "Of course not. My servants would take you in. Do you really believe I wouldn't care for you? You're my son."

He patted Danny on the shoulder and turned to walk away.

"Sometimes it doesn't seem that way."

Vlad stopped. "What?"

"I just… I didn't mean that."

"No." He turned, a red glint in his eyes. "Tell me what you mean by that, son."

Danny faltered. "I—I have dreams sometimes. That you're not… I don't know! That you're not really my father and instead I'm just a normal kid, going to those schools that they talk about in the books. Just dreams, I promise. Not that I don't want you as my… my father."

"When did these begin?" he asked, coldly.

"A few months ago…"

"I see." Vlad cast off his suit coat and rolled up the sleeves of his undershirt. "We'll have to have a few remedial lessons in the difference between dreams and reality."

Reflexively, Danny tapped into his core and phased into intangibility. "No. Father, please… please anything but that."

"You shouldn't have kept this from me as long as you have."

"Stay back!" he held his arms in front of him but made no move to fight his father.

"Just let it happen, Daniel." Vlad rested his palms on Danny's shoulders and willed his son back into tangibility. With no other option, Danny relented. Carefully, Vlad moved his hands from his shoulders to Danny's temples and slowly phased his fingers into his head, strumming at the delicate inter-workings of his mind. "Everything will be right again when you wake up."

Father was out again. Danny was curled up in his office while he was away, lounging at his desk chair with a good book on astronomy. Father preferred that Danny studied more practical sciences like chemistry, biology, or even philosophy but there was something inexplicable that drew him to the stars.

Outside the office, there was a loud crash.

Father never made such noises. This was… this was something new.

Sure, humans arrived at the mansion's doorstep every blue moon. Men wearing blue heralding packages for his father, but those people were invited to their remote dwelling. Danny had a feeling that whoever was out in the foyer was a human that had not been invited to their mansion.

Preparing for a confrontation, Danny raised a fist fizzling with ectoplasmic energy.

However, he suddenly remembered that Father said humans couldn't draw energy from their hands and extinguished the ectoblast. He needed a weapon. But what?

There was a stapler on Father's desk. That would have to do for now.

He could hear heavy footsteps approaching the office door and Danny knew that he had to hide. Quickly, he stepped behind the door and dipped into invisibility, hoping that the human didn't have any gear that would immediately give him away. Father warned that ghost hunting gear was common in the human world and to never, ever underestimate the average human.

The door opened and a figure shrouded in black stepped inside. Her hair was shorter than father's but still longer than Danny's and from the angle that Danny was standing he could see that she had striking purple eyes. She held up a switchblade knife and eyed his father's desk greedily.

"Hey Tuck," she called behind her. "I think I found it!"

"His office?" a deeper voice replied.

"No, the bathroom. Yes, his fucking office—get in here!"

"Coming, coming…"

A young man with dark skin joined the black-haired girl.

"His laptop is probably in here somewhere. Once we find it, you can extract the files, right?"

"If they even exist."

"Trust me, Tuck. They exist. There's no way that the mysterious CEO of Axion Labs doesn't have some kind of record of the inhumane experiments going on in his own facilities. Once it hits the web, we're dragging this motherfucker through the mud."

CEO? Experiments? What did that even mean?

The second intruder, Tuck, shot the girl a skeptical look. "I think you're jumping the gun a bit, Sam."

"I am not. Now shut up and let's get to work."

They were going to go through Father's things. And from what he understood from what Sam said, they were planning on doing something to hurt Father. He couldn't let them. Father was the only person he had and these thieves were going to take that all away from him! Having made up his mind, Danny readied the stapler and slammed it into the back of Tuck's neck. He went down on the first blow, startling Sam.

"Wha—Tucker!"

Danny held onto his invisibility and crept behind her. He raised the stapler and second time, but she sidestepped him before he could carry out the motion.

"Who's—who's there!" she held out her knife. "I'm armed!"

She… had arms? He was under the impression that was something all humans had.

"Answer me!"

He hesitated and that's all it took for him to flicker into sight. Once he realized his mistake it was too late. He'd been seen.

Before Sam could react, Danny panicked and hit her with a hasty ectoblast. She too collapsed, leaving him alone in his father's office with two unconscious humans.

What the hell was he supposed to do now?