She rushed back to the house, her hair blowing wildly behind her as her boots pounded the dirt and shale, sending up small clouds of dust as they hit. Sam felt desperate to see Danny. Fear and need had begun battling inside of her as soon as he had appeared in the sky. Need had won. The compulsion to see that he was in one piece, the desire to be comforted by him, and the hope that even in his desperate state he could protect her and save himself, all drove her to him. Danny had become a need, as real as and more powerful than any other that inhabited her body.

The ghosts arrived at the house before she did and Sam saw them disappear into the roof from a distance. She wished briefly that she could fly, craving the speed and smoothness of travel it offered. The knowledge of the house they had entered and who lay inside, quickly tempered that desire, however. If being human and keeping her feet on the ground was the price she had to pay for keeping control of her own brain, it seemed worth it to Sam, although the thought forced a fresh wave of anxiety for Danny through her body like sea sickness.

By the time Sam reached the front door Danny was floating in the living room, talking to Heine, the child ghost beside him.

"It was really nothing," Danny was saying. "This one was able to create a pretty big distraction," Danny ruffled the child's hair, "I was able to slip in and out so quickly, it was like I wasn't even there."

The child pushed his hand aside and flashed him an annoyed look. "Can I go now?" He addressed the old man.

"Yes, yes." He distractedly waved a calloused hand, dismissing him, "go on." With that the child disappeared into the upper part of the house.

Heine was currently fascinated by the object in his other hand, a large irregularly cut orange gem, examining it with intense pleasure and fascination.

Sam stood just outside the doorway trying to decide what to do. The most logical thing to do was probably to hide and try and hope that they would say something that would be useful to her. After half walking, half running towards him for ten minutes, however, it took everything she had not to run to Danny and throw her arms around him. In the end, she executed a compromise between the two actions and carefully walked through the front door and into the living room.

"Um, hello," Sam coughed.

Danny turned to look at her, his eyes lighting up, and a large smile, similar to the one he'd worn the previous evening, spreading across his face.

"Hello, Sam." It was Heine who spoke, although he barely glanced in her direction, still absorbed in the gem.

"Danny?" Sam's voice wavered a little. She wasn't sure what would happen now and it made her more than a little nervous.

"Master, may I?"

Sam felt her stomach turn in revulsion. Hearing Danny, who never called an adult so much as sir, had called this unsettling mockery of a cowboy "master." It made her furious and nauseous at the same time.

The old man nodded, giving Danny a wave similar to the one he'd given the child earlier. Danny grinned even wider and rushed over to Sam. The girl barely had time to squeak in surprise before his arms were around her and they were flying through the ceiling to the second floor.

Sam found herself standing the room she had woken up in, staring into Danny's eyes. In those strange discolored eyes, she could see the same intense need she had felt when she'd run to the house melded with an extraordinary, consuming desire as he gazed at her.

The frightening thought crossed her mind as she remembered rare moments of total selfishness, when she'd dreamed about a Danny would needed, saw, and wanted only her. Faced with such a look in reality, however, she cringed.

He leaned forward to meet her, pulling her even closer. To her surprise her mouth responded in the same way it had the night before, desperately, eagerly kissing him back. It was several moments before she regained her senses and pulled violently away from him.

"Danny, no."

"What?" A look of confusion ran over the ghost's face.

"This isn't right. You're not right. This isn't you!"

Danny chuckled softly. "Who else would I be?" he said, gently stroking her hair.

"Danny," Sam pleaded. "What has he made you do? What have you done for that man?"

He frowned slightly. "Stolen mostly. Ran errands. I hurt someone but not badly," he said flippantly.

Sam pushed his arms away, repulsed both by his candor and what it was he' actually said. "Danny, that's not you! You're the good guy, you're a hero. You don't hurt people, you save them!" She fixed her eyes on his and grabbed his hand, silently calling him to break the spell. "Please, I know you're in there somewhere. I know you're not some toady. You're a savior, a champion."

"Maybe," his face was impassive and he spoke slowly, "I'm not a hero anymore. Maybe I don't want to be a champion. I'm a ghost. That's not what a ghost is."

Sam gritted her teeth and dropped his hand, clenching her fists. She would not yell or scream or cry in front of her boyfriend-cum-kidnapper no matter how badly she wanted to.

The teenaged ghost looked sideways, as if something had caught his attention. "I have to go." He said simply.

He grabbed Sam and kissed her roughly. A sound rose up in her throat, as she realized yet again how strong he was in his ghost form. Weakly she opened her mouth, as if her body had no choice but to respond automatically.

And then he was gone. As quickly and simply as that, he wasn't there anymore.

Sam collected herself and forced her thoughts into order. Talking to him didn't seem to work, so she would need to try a new tactic. She pushed down a moment of panic and forced herself to think analytically. First and foremost, she needed information.

Wandering downstairs she found the old man was gone, so badgering or coercing him was out of the question. The next best thing, Sam decided was to snoop around the house.

The first floor proved to be exceedingly uninteresting; just the kitchen they'd eaten breakfast in, and the ratty living room complete with a dusty black and white TV and several aging back issues of National Geographic. At least, Sam noted, she'd discovered a new form of depressing- even if it was diametrically opposed to the esthetic gloom she liked to impose on her own life.

Not finding evidence of a basement, she decided to explore the second floor. The first door was closed and after knocking she opened it very slowly, half expecting something to pop out at her.

What she saw instead was a room void of any other furniture or decoration, itsonly contents, endless stacks of comic booksthat rose in piles almost up to the ceiling. Glancing around she could see hundreds, maybe thousands of the slim superhero comics that so many young boys read. But those were only the beginning of the collection. There were also stacks of Japanese manga, books of absurd French comics, and thick collections of newspaper serials, filling every corner with no discernable method of ordering them.

More amazing than the extensive graphic clutter, however, was the child-ghost who sat in the middle of the room. He was reading another superhero comic. Actually, he wasn't reading so much as he was watching the characters move about in three dimensional form, acting out their parts as the pages slowly flipped.

Sam remembered what he'd said to Danny at the Nasty Burger, "I like seeing them alive." Right now, he looked absolutely peaceful, and his power seemed like less of a threat than an extraordinary amusement for a child.

"Hey," Sam said as a way of greeting. "I was wondering if I could talk to you for a second."

The child's body stayed where it was facing the opposite wall while his head turned to look behind him, mimicking a scene from the exorcist. His round face contained the same perturbed look it seemed to wear most of the time.

"Get out of my room!" His child's voice screamed and all the force of the supernatural came with it. Sam felt herself fly violently out of the room and land forcefully against the hall wall, the door slamming behind her.

Sam sat on the floor for a moment aching from her violent expulsion and slightly shaken by the encounter.

"Geez, you could have just said no." Sam muttered before getting up and brushing herself off. She sighed. "Well then, let's see what's behind door number two."

The next door down the hallway revealed a library, the discovery of which coaxed a small smile from Sam. Book collections not only gave you a wealth of information but they also told you quite a bit about the person to whom they belonged.

Sam might have expected to find a collection of readers digest novels sitting dustily on the shelves to match the aura of the room down stairs but she was pleasantly surprised to find a room filled with interesting looking books ranging from paperbacks to grand leather bound volumes. The room was rounded off by a large, worn, comfortable chair and an equally worn desk tucked away in one corner.

Sam let her fingers dance over the spines of the books as she slowly made her way down one of the shelves, her eyes grazing over the titles. It was as if she had wandered into a very small version of one of her favorite book stores and the feeling comforted her

Her hands stopped on a title and she froze in her revelry. It was a slim volume, one that she'd been reading with Danny in what felt like another lifetime, even though it had been just days before. In a fit of romantic indulgence she pulled the book off of the shelf and opened it to a random page.

"'I know what pleasure is,' cried Dorian Grey. 'It is to adore some one.'

"'That is certainly better than being adored,' he answered...'"

Sam snorted as she shut the book. That was certainly seemed true.

A day ago she might not have thought so. A day ago she might have been upset when Danny's attentions turned elsewhere, when he became frustrated with her, when he hid his thoughts. She thought about the way he looked now when he looked at her, his eyes hungering for her, seeing only her. It frightened her and hurt her to see him look at her like that and she hated it.

With a sigh, Sam slumped back into the chair in the corner of the room and let her thoughts wander. It wasn't as if there wasn't an attraction to this bizarre behavior. She remembered the way he touched her the night and she shivered as the ghosts of his caress crawled over her skin once more.

But it hadn't been right.

Her mind traveled back a few weeks earlier to a moment that was supposed to be wonderful and exquisite, perfect in her memory.

They had decided to be each other's first. She'd been giddy and nervous but determined it would be extraordinary. Her parents and grandmother had gone out for the eveningleaving her alone. Danny had come over. She'd made them a simple dinner, just spaghetti and salad.

How is this supposed to work, if I don't have a meatball to push at you with my nose? He'd asked.

She'd laughed but secretly she'd felt a little hurt that he would break the mood with a joke like that.

After diner they'd gone to her room.

There were candles and flowers. She had fresh sheets on her bed.

And it was ackward. And it was painful. It was over in a moment and they both lay on the bed embarrassed and unsure what to do next.

Then Danny had laughed. He had laughed a genuine laugh at all of it. He had pushed her hair off of her face and kissed her softly. Looking into his sparkling eyes she had felt herself relax. Suddenly the absurdity of the whole evening and their expectations had reached her and she'd giggled in spite of herself.

And they had lay there, in what should have been the most romantic moment of their young lives, but clearly wasn't, and laughed and held each other and laughed some more.

Sam felt a sharp pain somewhere between her chest and her throat. That was the young man she adored. And because she adored him, she had to save him- somehow.

She paced over to the most threatening looking leather bound volumes, noting with an twinge of unpleasant recognition that a pair of them had been written by Frederich Isak Showenhower. She pawed through several of the books, finding everything from myths to detailed descriptions of disturbing spectral devices, she only hoped Heine had nowhere in his control.

Three quarters of an hour and a pair of tired eyes later, Sam still hadn't found anything useful. She was barely paying attention when she opened a book entitled Transformative Phantasmic Vita.

The sound of a girl gasping and a book hitting the floor could be heard all the way downstairs.


Sorry, this is so long in coming. Life has been a bit hectic these past couple of weeks. At least it's long, I guess.

And remember, reviews make the writer feel soft and fuzzy inside! And critiques make me a better writer, which gives you better stuff to read! (Hint, hint.)

Thank you to those who are reading, whether you review or not. (I can see the hits. I know you're out there.)

-Daphne