Diving directly into the hearth had not been Danny's best idea. The solid earth on all sides made him extremely uncomfortable even though his intangibility kept him safe. His mind wandered briefly to a fear of his powers shorting out and him being trapped half fused with the ground and buried alive. He shook the fear off and continued circling around in hopes of finding some hidden passage to justify his suspicions.

Danny was just started to consider he might be developing an unhealthy paranoia involving Vlad what suddenly there was a change in the feeling of the earth around him. It was still there but it felt more solid and there were definitely an increasing number of gaps.

Danny gathered ecto energy in his still intangible hand, just enough to create some light. The glow illuminated crumbled stone and brick mixed with earth. Danny followed the brick, taking note that the soil hadn't filled all the spaces between the loose stone. That had to mean that...yes!

"Ha," Danny cheered. "Not paranoid."

Danny returned to tangibility and landed triumphantly as the piles of rubble and earth finally gave way to an arched stone tunnel which dripped with moisture and was slick with moss. His glowing ecto energy glistened off the surrounding walls and ceiling. The place looked old and abandoned.

Danny turned around. The broken stone and wet soil had slid a good way into the tunnel, tapering out near his feet. From all appearances, it looked as though the ceiling had caved in. The healthy growth of moss and lichens suggested this had happened some time ago. Additionally, Danny had no idea if this tunnel had even gone near the house. It can't have been too far off but he could see it curving behind him which suggested it could have ended anywhere.

Danny's fist splatted against the wall and he immediately regretted this expression of frustration as he felt the wetness of slime absorbed through the glove. Cringing in disgust he went intangible to let the grossness fall off of him. The memory lingered however and he made a mental note to wash his everything afterward.

"Great," Danny muttered to himself. "I found a tunnel but no evidence it actually is used by Vlad."

Just to be sure Danny followed the tunnel for several minutes until he came to another cave-in. He tried going intangible and following the rubble but he lost his way and had to go to the surface to figure out where he was. Disappointed he returned to the cabin.

…

Jazz had decided to occupy one of the chairs by the fire as she waited for Danny to return. She considered searching the house again but she doubted she'd actually find anything. The silence quickly bored her even as the tension of not knowing what Danny had found, if anything, prevented her from moving. If there had been a tunnel surely Danny would have found it by now. Or had he run into trouble? Was he trapped in some kind of ghost capture device and beyond her ability to rescue? What if he ran into Vlad and they were now fighting?

The worry brought Jazz to her feet as she started to plan for worst-case scenarios. How bad would it have to be before she was forced to tell their parents? Should she try and contact Sam and Tucker first? Only she had no way to contact them, and this was Vlad they were talking about. If she waited too long Danny might be beyond help, but if she acted too soon she might unnecessarily give away his secret, a secret that was not her to tell.

Jazz was just starting to work herself into half a frenzy was Danny flew through the front door and landed in front of her.

"Oh thank god, I was worried I might have to tell mom and dad."

"Tell them what?" Danny panicked.

"No it's nothing," Jazz waved it away. "It's just, we don't have the usual back up and if you had run into Vlad and things got really, really bad…"

"Ok I get it," Danny said holding his hands up. "Yeah, we...should probably talk about that. But not now." Danny sighed and rubbed his hands through his hair, only to cringe as he remembered the slim that had soaked into one of the gloves. He may have gotten rid of it but somehow the glove still felt dirty, and now, so did his hair. "I found a tunnel, but it's caved in on both sides. Far as I can tell it hasn't been used in ages."

"So we got nothing."

Danny sighed and turned human again before falling into one of the chairs. It brought him a bit of glee to imagine that the slime and muck from the tunnel was now on Vlad's expensive furniture. True there wasn't any actually muck to smear on the fabric, but he still felt dirty from being in that tunnel and it made him happy to think those molecules were now transferring from him to the chair.

"Yeah," Danny finally replied. "We got nothing."

Jazz returned to her chair and slumped in disappointment. Maybe they missed something.

"Hey, Jazz?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you think...maybe I'm just a bit paranoid about Vlad? I know he's done a bunch of suspicious stuff before, but maybe this time he wasn't actually planning anything."

Jazz bit her lip. On one hand she felt Danny was perfectly justified in suspecting Vlad at every turn, but on the other hand that line of thinking wasn't healthy, and even if it was true at times Danny would go insane if he spent all his time worrying about Vlad. Jazz felt torn. Before she could decide how to answer however voices began to carry through the window from outside along with excited yips.

Both siblings looked up as the door opened. Cujo came bounding happily inside leaving a trail of muddy paw prints all over the floor. Their mother followed after, her mouth set in a thin line and her brow furrowed in thought. Their father entered last, covered in dirt.

"Hey, kids." Jack's smile seemed slightly stretched as though he might have been forcing it a little. "I thought you would have been in bed by now."

Both Danny and Jazz glanced at the nearest clock. It was nearly 11.

"I guess we lost track of time," Jazz explained with a nervous chuckle.

"How was ghost hunting?" Danny interjected, his voice just a bit too eager.

Luckily, neither parent noticed.

Jack's shoulder slouched. "Well, we didn't catch anything. Chased off a bunch of spooks though so it wasn't a total bust."

Jazz noticed the questioning glance her father exchange with their mother and her eyes narrowed. A quick look at Danny assured her he had also seen the look.

"Anything familiar," Jazz pressed.

The pause before the reply was just a bit too long.

"It's hard to say," Maddie finally answered. "So many animal ghosts look alike after all. But it would have been extremely odd to find a ghost from Amity park way out her in the woods."

Jazz wanted to ask about ghosts from other places. Specifically big castle places with very wealthy owners who have a penchant for green and gold. Unfortunately, she couldn't think of a good way to phrase such an inquiry without making it sound out of place.

"Well hopefully none of them follow us home," Jazz grimaced.

Maddie brows were furrowed again. "Yes, that would be for the best. Although…" She stopped and shook her head. "Well, in any case, it's late and if we're going to get home before you kids have school on Monday we're going to have to leave early tomorrow."

The goodnight wishes were awkward, but everyone seemed too caught up in their own thoughts to notice. Danny and jazz got ready for bed and then listened to the shuffling and water noises above them as their parents did the same.

"Mom and dad were acting strange, weren't they?" Jazz voiced, staring at the ceiling.

"Definitely," Danny agreed.

"Do you think...maybe Vlad really did have something planned."

Danny groaned and Jazz heard the bed creak as he rolled over. "I don't even know what to do next. Maybe it was nothing. Maybe they just had a completely normal, non-scheme related ghost hunting trip."

"We could just ask them for more details. They are both still hoping we'll go into the family business."

Danny groaned again. "I don't want to be a ghost hunter, and my grades aren't good enough for paranormal research."

Jazz bit her tongue to hold back on pointing out that her little brother still wanted to be an astronaut, even with his bad grades. Bringing that up would only start a fight. Jazz made a mental note to offer to help Danny study.

"We could play it up as a school assignment. Or maybe tell them we have a friend interested in ghost hunting."

"Except they'd then want to meet that friend. Do you have any friends who actually want to hunt ghosts."

"No." Jazz admitted. She then rolled onto her elbow, "But you know somebody."

"What? No I...oh. No, nonononono. If I bring her in, she'll be at our place all the time. That's more chances she'll find out the truth. Also, she hates Cujo."

"So did Mom and Dad, now they love him. Well, dad loves him and mom has grumpily accepted him. Besides, if she's over more often she might learn that Cujo isn't so bad, which could mean that she eventually learns that other ghosts, specifically certain half ghosts also aren't so bad."

Danny was silent and then grabbed his pillow and groaned into it. "Fine. I hate it but you're right, and we need to know what happened."

"Right, so talk to her Monday."

Danny sighed. "Yeah, I'll talk to her Monday.