"Vlad Masters, CEO and Chairman of the technological company Dalv Corp, has just been named Affluence Magazine's 'Billionaire of the Year: 1996' for his generous contribution to the efforts to provide relief for those suffering from the ten-year guerrilla uprising in Rumackistan. The man who was a college junior cooped up in a hospital twelve years ago has become an icon in American and International business, as his company has made one breakthrough after another in everything from household appliances to advanced robotics. And yet Masters himself remains very much an anomaly. An interview he granted two years ago – the only one he's ever granted outside press conferences for Dalv – revealed only that he had been placed in a hospital towards the end of his junior year and that he had set up Dalv after pursuing a number of small jobs. Beyond this, everything else known about Masters comes from business records, purchases, and press statements. A recluse, he's rarely been seen leaving his castle in Wisconsin or his cabin out in the Rockies, and he attends only a few social events a year. Though he's a mystery man, one thing's for sure – Vlad Masters has made his mark on science, and with this award, he's begun to gather a reputation as a great humanitarian. And now, for sports –"

Vlad Masters hit the "power" button on his remote control as the news report on himself ended. He was sprawled out, relaxed, in an outstretched rocking chair in the den of his castle, wrapped up in a white silk robe and sipping at Earl Grey tea. His white hair was still long and kept back in a ponytail, and he had begun to keep himself clean-shaven save for his goatee. An issue of Affluence Magazine with his image on the cover rested on the table next to his chair. Behind him, a fire roasted away in a natural fireplace.

Vlad chuckled lightly to himself as he thought over what he had just heard. He had indeed made himself an anomaly. He had granted that one interview for the sole purpose of spicing up what little the human public knew of him with just enough tragedy to make him sympathetic. The business that Dalv Corp did and the records of his purchases and donations spoke for themselves. He had been getting more and more control over his company from the Family, and it kept paying off. The paranormal activities had remained hidden, and virtually that entire department had been left to Skulker and Technus. The perfect façade had been crafted for the public. And as to the images he had set up for the Family and for the Order…

The Family would do nothing as long as Luchesi kept his attitude of mild suspicion and nothing more, and only Katou had begun to uncover what lay beneath the surface. Both would be dealt with as soon as Vlad was sure that his equipment and his minions were ready.

In the meantime, he had his men testing out the weaponry on unsuspecting ghosts (or sometimes individuals with Walker, the Family, or the Order who, by association with one of Vlad's henchmen, had begun to get too lose to the truth) and tracking down leads on the Skeleton Key and Pariah's Keep. He himself would go to retrieve the key, the ring, and the crown, of course, but for the dirty work of finding it, he could trust lesser beings to do so.

And as soon as he had taken care of all that and made a bid for the Packers, there would be just one thing left to make his life complete. Maddie.

The report was right, Vlad thought. He had become a humanitarian.

At least to the one person that mattered.

---

"How can you be so calm about him?" Tony raved.

He, Luchesi, and the six other advisors were gathered in the don's office, which, for some bizarre reason or other, appeared even darker than normal. Luchesi sat comfortably at his desk with his cape over the back of his chair, six of his advisors standing behind him with their backs against the window. Tony stood across from the don, leaning against his desk. The circles around his eyes were darker than ever, his hair hung in his face more than usual, and his voice shook along with his body.

"Have you seen how he works? Dalv Corp is now entirely his! There is nothing left that we get except for some small inventions that don't sell for much and only half of the profits! And his army! You cannot tell me that over these last few years, some of these vanishings and exterminations were not a result of him. Before these happened, he began asking our scientists to build him weapons to destroy ghosts! It is him! And yet you sit there, doing nothing, letting him run circles around you until, one day, he will –"

"Silence!" Luchesi barked, slamming his fist down hard on the desk. "You telling me how to do my job? Maybe you think you should be the one sitting at this desk, eh?"

"What I'm thinking is that you should get rid of Vlad Masters!" Tony screeched. It was quite clear that this concern over Vlad was not his typical paranoia or cowardice. He was deadly serious.

"What?" Luchesi snapped back. "You think I do not know the strings Vlad has been pulling? You think I don't know that he can't be trusted? I have known this since he moved in on our deal five years ago. That was all on his side, nothing for us. I know what he's working at."

"So you let him work at it? When he's ready, he'll –"

" – He won't do it." Luchesi cut in. "No way, no how. He will never take us down and get us out of his way. He has his army and the real world, but he won't tear us down. We outnumber him. He had to go into the slime of The Ghost Zone to get his men. And they are not equipped to face us. We have our weapons, our boys, and our scientists."

"But don't you get it?" Tony screamed. "All these disappearances, all these exterminations, all done by some technological force…he's developing the weapons he asked our scientists to build! He's testing them on anyone he can find, including our boys! And he converted Eel! Maybe he's not ready yet, but he will be!"

"You forget – he has the Order to deal with, and Walker if he gets found out."

"You think the Order will be able to fight against those weapons! Hardly any of them have ever even touched a ghost-gun! And Walker doesn't even know the name 'Masters!' You think they'll hold him back?"

"Let him alone." Luchesi sighed. "His weapons are not ready, and until they are, he won't pull anything. If things get too risky, I'll make him an offer he can't refuse. You worry far too much, Tony. Now we are done here," he rose up and draped his cape over his shoulders, "and I have an occasion to attend." The don moved out from behind his desk and floated towards the door, the six advisors following him. Tony stayed where he was, still leaning against the desk. He did not turn to look at them. His eyes now looked at an edition of The Ghost-Zone Times that had been covered by the cape. It was the same copy that Tony had been reading when Vlad had called on Luchesi's deal – tattered, torn, and a coffee stain splattered across the front page. Such headlines had been occurring for the past five years, and each had been adding to Tony's concerns. He had been following them carefully, shifting through the clues, piecing together his disturbing conclusions about Vlad, the disappearances, the weapons used, and their connection.

And it just took this last conversation with an old fool to make it seem like a waste of his years.

Tony struggled to keep himself from falling to his knees. He let out a sigh. He slammed his fist down hard on the desk, then reluctantly turned to follow the don.

Having accomplished nothing, he was in no mood for a party, but what Luchesi said went.

---

"The signs are not good." Manach sighed. "Storm clouds are gathering."

The six members of the founding council were seated at their cushions in the main room of the Order's Chinese palace. They gazed up towards their three maps of The Ghost-Zone. All three maps were heavily marked with red "Xs." Each "X" stood for one of the mysterious disappearances or deaths. And over the course of five years, they had assembled quite a large number of reports.

The Order had made no leeway over those five years. They had merely accumulated more of the same information and evidence over and over again. All their tracking, all their years of study, their research, their attempts at deduction…it had all amounted to naught.

They had been forced to turn to a dark alternative.

Deep within the darkest bowels of The Ghost Zone were twin ancient beings. Older than the Order, older than Pariah and the Ancients who defeated him…they may have been as old as time itself. Very few knew of their existence, and due to their ways, it wasn't something that they wanted out as public knowledge. Omnipotent, they kept watch over time, recording the past and looking toward the future in a desire to keep both The Ghost Zone and the real world safe. Unfortunately, their way of viewing time as an unbending, ever-constant parade led them to exact a very harsh and severe solution to any problems they saw. There were no second chances as far as they were concerned. And as their oath was to watch and never act, they sent the Master of Time, Clockwork, to carry out their "justice –" and, Clockwork being far more forgiving and open to the turns that time could take, he was often working against his will. These beings were known as the Observants.

Unfortunately, the Observants and the Order did not have a peaceful relationship, as the Order had several times stood in the way of the Observants' will (and sometimes with Clockwork's blessing). And being the snippy, stubborn pair that they were, the Observants held each instance as a personal offence – even when a twist in time had proven their prophecies wrong. Furthermore, they were very particular about sharing their sights with beings whose powers did not dwell within horology.

The one member of the Order they would consent to even see was Manach, whose own unique powers of meditation gave him limited insight to prophetic visions. But they steadfastly refused to tell the monk anything, saying that if they wanted the future, they would have to go to Clockwork. He gave them a vision, but warned that it would not be complete. The Order's greatest trial was soon coming, and the Master of Time felt it wrong to do any more than give them a starting point. They needed to piece together the clues and face this alone.

The vision they had been given made every horror they had ever faced seem calm and gentle as a summer's night.

Walker was the only authority figure left in The Ghost Zone that they could see, but total chaos had erupted. Any and all order had fallen to pieces, Walker having control over his prisoners and nothing more. The only control at all seemed to be in the hands of a vampiric presence. Blue-skinned, with devil-hair and a white cloak, the ghost yielded red spectral energy and had the alliances of many. He had been seen in company with a ghost that should never have been awakened – the Fright Knight. He had been seen in a Gothic castle in the dead of night, delighting in taunting a young, kind-looking ghost-boy. And the final image of the vision was that same ghost-boy and the vampiric ghost in the process of fusion, creating a being more evil and vicious than even Pariah Dark.

Clockwork said that the final image was more related to another matter, one that didn't concern the Order. They needed to concern themselves with the vampiric ghost. And a transparent image of the ghost's face made up of green smoke hovered over the Order's cauldron before the three maps. The founding council had been turning their focus from the maps to the face, trying to contemplate what it all meant and how it all fit together.

The one inference they had thus far made was that the vampiric ghost was the one behind all the vanishings. And so their first task after receiving the vision was to have as many of the Order's men as they could spare to search for this ghost or anything about him. With so many of their finest distracted by trying to stop the disappearances themselves, it was difficult to find warriors to take up this task, but they had managed to put together a search party. Their efforts, however, proved to be in vain. Not a trace of this vampiric monstrosity could be found anywhere. Nothing they found came remotely close to leading them to the ghost. The search party, unsolicited and at great risk to themselves, had even gone into territory controlled by the Family and Walker to seek answers there. The only thing they had found that remotely tied in to their case was a handful of terrified ghosts who knew other ghosts on the payroll of a shadowed, powerful figure. They said that among the ghosts who were being abducted or destroyed, those who were associated with these ghosts were prime targets. They were too terrified to give anything more coherent than that, and often fled as soon as they had said that much.

The search party was also charged with tracking down anything else from the vision that may have lead to finding the vampiric ghost. The castle, the ghost-boy, and the Fright Knight were moved to the front of the list. Frequently they paid visit to Pariah's Keep to insure that the Soul Shredder was embedded inside the pumpkin that sat on the knight's former throne. And throughout the entire Ghost-Zone they travelled, searching for a Gothic castle to match the one in the prophecy, and for the spirited ghost-boy who dared to oppose the nosferatu. There was many a castle in the realm, and a good number of them had their architectural roots set in the Middle Ages. But none matched the white stone masonry of the prophecy's castle, and none took on the midnight blue hue in the moonlight.

The ghost-boy proved even harder to find. Teenage ghosts existed, to be sure – several served the Order as apprentices – but none that they could find resembled the vision's youth in any way. The symbol on his chest in the latter image when he and the nosferatu merged proved a burden to their search, as it didn't appear in the earlier part of the vision. And no ghost wore a spandex suit such as that. They were even more lost there than with their search for the castle.

With the lack of success and the vanishings continuing without hindrance, the Order's mood and that of The Ghost-Zone at large had turned bleak. But until the very end, the founding council was determined to find their way.

"I have had disturbing visions come to me in my meditations." Manach continued. "I fear our time may soon grow short."

"I've heard nothing from our party since the winter solstice." Wizikute sighed.

"We've had no luck slowing these tragedies." Majeed lamented.

"And we have been losing morale for a long time now." Arthur said.

"I notice you have not yet lent us your opinion, Katou." Manach suddenly observed, and all eyes turned towards the samurai. He had indeed been silent the entire time, his chin resting on one of his hands and his gaze going out into nothing. His silence was not really uncommon now. For five years there had been a melancholy air about him, but with all else that was going on, his fellow warriors had not been able to talk with him about it.

Manach, however, had detected a haunted look in Katou's eyes, and he had slowly been sensing what had put it there.

"What could I say that you all haven't already?" the samurai shrugged, not turning to look at them.

"I sense something troubling you, my friend." Manach said quietly. "And I sense that it relates to the matter at hand, and in a way that the five of us cannot know."

Katou sighed. The monk was right, of course. There was something about all this that was troubling him and him alone. And it was something he needed to share. It was the key to the entire mystery. He had kept this knowledge for five years, always knowing it was best that he share it and that failing to do so would have dire consequences. What he knew confirmed suspicions he had long held. He had no reason to be shocked or afraid of it.

But suspicion of betrayal and knowledge of it were two entirely different things. And that difference had kept him silence for five years.

"Katou?" Arthur said gently.

The samurai slowly turned to face the others and let go of his fear.

"I think that Vlad Masters is the one behind these disappearances, and that he will become the nosferatu ghost we saw in the vision."

The other five members of the founding council stared at him as if they had each been hit in the face with a sandbag.

"You speak of your apprentice?" Manach asked, to which the samurai nodded.

"Why would he…" Arthur began.

"For a long time now he and I have been growing apart." Katou explained. "Our training sessions are no longer diurnal. He has disregarded much of bushido and our moral teachings. I found his hat at the site where Guyart was lost. I fear he may be caught deep in the web of the Family. And five years ago…I…I found that the man-made portal we had found belonged to him, and in the laboratory where he keeps it, he has…been experimenting with animal ghosts and building weapons that leave the same marks as we have been finding." The samurai sank lower into his cushion and let out a great sigh. Reliving all of that was worse than any battle.

The others looked among themselves, their confused expressions turning stern and thoughtful. They were not angry at Katou for holding back all of that about his apprentice – it was hard to deal with betrayal and to speak ill of someone one cared for. But Vlad knew much about the Order. If he was in league with the Family, he would have known about them too. And Walker was not difficult to figure out.

The founding council had signs of their own that Vlad was not to be trusted – his unexplained research into the legend of Pariah. But they had not looked deeply enough into the matter to see what it meant. Now, if Katou's suspicions held true, the Order was faced with an enemy who not only knew all that he was up against, but had made sufficient leeway on them.

Clockwork's assessment of the task ahead was hardly an exaggeration.

"Katou," Arthur said calmly, "Why don't you go to Manach's meditation chamber and rest a while?"

The samurai nodded. He certainly did not want to deal with this any more tonight. He rose up out of the cushion and floated out of the room and towards the stairs that led up to Manach's camber.

Arthur waited until he had left the room before beginning again.

"I know he would go with us against Masters if the need came," he said, nodding towards the samurai's empty seat, "But I don't want to put him in that position. Now, my heroes – what do you say we do about this?"

"He obviously has some forces behind him." Majeed said. "No one can be in so many places at once."

"Agreed." Wizikute nodded.

"We do not yet have any concrete evidence of Vlad's guilt," Manach observed, "We must first go and confront him about this."

"Tomorrow," Arthur said, "Wizikute and I will find his portal and go talk to him. Manach and Wizikute will stay here and keep things under control. Hopefully, we will soon be rid of this horror."

The five of them looked to the cauldron before the maps. Inside it, Clockwork's vision had been playing again and again. Green smoke drifting up from it took the shape of the vampire ghost's horrible, grinning face.

---

"So what brings you to these parts, Maddie?"

The man and his lady were at his cabin abode in the Rockies. Jack was still in Amity Park, probably bumbling with another invention. The invitation that the Dalv group had sent was for an all-womens' science convention in Florida anyway. A private jet sent out, a ghostly pilot sabotaging the flight at just the right time, and a parachute left on board insured that Maddie would be brought straight to him.

"You'll never believe it," Maddie sad, looking up from her book, "I was on my way to a Symposium and my pilot forced me out of the plane right over your house!" she turned back to her reading.

"Dreadful, dreadful." Vlad pondered, expertly concealing the glee in his voice. "Well, that just goes to show – you can't trust anyone. Of course, I learned that from Jack twelve years ago."

"Now Vlad," Maddie said sternly, "Jack may be a bumbler, but he means well."

"I know, Maddie. And believe it or not, I've grown to forgive him for many things. Causing the accident that ruined my life, stealing you, the backwash incident…"

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, back up!" Maddie set her book down. "What was that last one?"

"Causing the accident that ruined my life?"

"No, no, after that."

"The backwash incident?"

"No, in the middle!"

"Oh, the stealing you part?" inside, a huge grin overcame Vlad. It was time.

"Oh, Maddie, you always could see right through me! I'm just going to come out and say it! I love you, Maddie. I always have. And I know what Jack is like, and you deserve better. I'll wager he's been forgetting things left and right – even things such as your anniversary. Please, dump Jack and stay here with me. You'll be happy, I promise. What do you say?

…

The reception was a simple one, with no one but the bride, groom, and reverend to see it. They were up a mountain with the sunset behind them casting scarlet, golden, and violet hues over the sky and peaks alike. The brilliant romantic backdrop left the trinity of performers in this story silhouetted as vows were silently exchanged. Rings were placed. The reverend pronounced them man and wife. Vlad and Maddie leaned in. And, at long last, their lips met – and Vlad did not awake.

…

"Vlad, please listen to me. I never meant to…"

"Silence!" Vlad barked. He stood on the highest balcony of his Wisconsin castle, looking down upon the orange jump-suited man below. Many months had now passed since Jack had been left alone, and ever since he had sought out Vlad. He had said that, while he was never going to stop loving or missing Maddie, he didn't want to confront Vlad about that. He just wanted to talk about what had happened between them.

"Vlad, how many times do I have to try and say "sorry!" It was an accident!"

"An accident that ruined my life!" Vlad shouted down. "An accident that left me alone for twelve years and cursed with a paranormal infection while you stole the love of my life! And now you have been left alone and without Maddie! Let this be a lesson to you, Jack – what goes around comes around! Now get off my property!"

"Vlad, please just let me…"

"GO!" there was no arguing with that cry. Defeated, Jack let his shoulder slump and he dragged his feet back towards his car. His back now turned, he did not see the grinning form of Skulker step up behind Vlad.

"Kill him."

The command was given quietly, with a stoic face, proper posture, and not even a turning of the head. With malicious glee, the predator ghost leapt out from behind, dived down, and released from Jack a blood-curdling scream.

…

"Masters? Masters?"

Vlad slowly opened his eyes as the hand shook him awake. This early morning conference of the Dalv board of directors had been about some boring rival company or other, and apparently he had fallen asleep during the presentation. The director on his right had aroused him from his sleep. Vlad cursed him for doing so – it had been such a lovely dream.

"You feeling alright, Masters?" the director asked as some eyes turned to look upon him.

"Oh, I'm fine." Vlad smiled dreamily. "Must have dozed off a bit there."

"You doze off during your own company's meeting on competition?" the director raised an eyebrow.

Vlad merely shrugged.

"You're an odd one, Masters." The director shook his head, stood up, and walked over to the water jug in the corner of the room. As he walked, Vlad let a trail of intangibility extend from his foot and creep towards his. The director fell into the path, stumbled, and fell into the container, knocking it over and going on to hit his head on the wall. As the others enjoyed a laugh at their comrade's expense, Vlad leaned back in his chair and put on a sly grin.

"You have no idea."