Eight

I ran away in the direction of my car and hid behind my door. Paul had dematerialised after kissing. I ran over to Jesse and we went back into my car and began to drive to Aunt Pru's home.

I really feel bad for Lily. When this is over, I'll go Up There and ask her if she want to stay there. If she haven't suddenly felt the Dark-Shifter's presence and gone to check on me, she'd have died. And now she sacrificed for us.

I drove into the Walden's garage, parked, and rang the doorbell. And elderly woman in her early fifties opened the door. "Yes?" she asked, confused. I guess she thought only I would be visiting her, not with a guy.

"I'm Jesse, Susannah's husband. Something's came up. Can we talk inside?" Jesse asked. Aunt Pru nodded and led me inside the living room. We sat down and I told her all that's happened on the drive over. Then I showed her the caricatures Lily had drawn and asked her if she could summon any of them.

"Well, if the drawing had captured the person's essence, I can," Aimt Pru said.

"Uh, essence?" I asked.

"Like, if the person is kind, and is drawn with a benevolent look, that means the essence is captured. The expressions are good, so maybe we have the essence," Aunt Prun explained.

Oh. Aunt Pru took out her tarot cards and began to lay them on the table. Then she began to whisper and chant. The table began shaking. Wisps of smoke turned into a solid figure of a ghost.

"Are you Juliana Smith?" I asked a pretty woman of forty. The woman sniffed.

"Yes. I died in that plane crash. There's this half ghost hybrid who said that we don't need to leave. He said we could live here. Well, I want to stay here with my daughter. And we can, as long as we do what he says. Now what do you meddling mediators want?" she asked.

"I'm Susannah, he's Jesse. Paul is the evil hybrid. He is amassing a ghost army to take over the world. He's just using you. Can you please tell everyone to leave in peace; heaven's really nice and all, and leave Paul?" I asked.

Juliana snorted. "Easy for you to say, mortal. You're not the one who's dead. I'll make a deal with ya. If you manage to find my son, Daniel, and if he's not dead but living, I'll rest in peace. If he's dead, well, at least we can go together. How about that?"

"Sure, that'll be fine." I knew I had to find her son if she was going to help my persuade any other ghosts. "Nice meeting ya, buh-

bye." Then Juliana vanished.

Aunt Pru was shaking. "I can't believe you're so…so casual to a ghost!" she said.

Oh, puh-lease. Ghosts are my old friends. "Thanks for your help, Aunt Pru. If we find any leads, we'll come over. Take care." With that, Jesse and I went to drive back home.

"So, Susannah, as if we don't have enough on our hands, we've got to find Gina, find Daniel, and then try to stop the ghosts joining him, while running away from Paul Slater, who wants to make you into a ghost-hybrid. How're we going to do that?" Jesse asked.

"Easy: we'll split. You're tasked with finding Daniel and convincing the ghosts to move on (don't argue, Jesse, you know you're a good orator, man, all the female ghosts listen to you!), while I try to find Gina and will probably stop Paul on my own. Trust me, I am no pushover," I said.

"OK, honey. Take care. If there's anything else I can do for you, just say it," Jesse said, reaching over to kiss me.

I kissed him back and grinned devilishly. "Yes, actually, you can buy me a Suzuki for starters. My Porsche is wacked-out from Paul's telekinetic dodgeball."

Jesse sighed. "Susannah…"

I stuck out my tongue. "But you said anything I want…"