Chapter 16

"Jeez, Father D," I grumbled when I walked into his office at the ass-crack of dawn. He was seated at his huge mahogany desk, his glasses perched on his nose, his blue eyes sparkling with humor. Of course, he thought it was funny to make me come into school an hour early just so we can talk about mediator stuff.

"How are you this morning, Susannah?" he asked. He asked me this every time he made me come in extremely early.

I shrugged. "Okay, I guess." It wasn't really the truth. I was hurting inside, but the last thing I wanted to do was tell Father Dom that. Then we'd have a long chat about my 'feelings' and I would want to claw my eyes out of their sockets.

He gave me a look that told me he didn't believe me. Did he know? I thought in panic. I mean, Father Dominic was also talking to Jesse about mediator stuff. He knew Jesse and I had been friends, and as the principal, he was privy to the gossip of the nuns, so he probably knew that Jesse and I had been dating. Did he also know we were sort of in limbo, relationship-wise?

He must have, or else Jesse and I would both be in that room together, talking to Father Dom about mediator-related stuff.

Just to be sure… "Is Jesse going to be here this morning?" I asked.

Father Dom said, "No, Susannah. I will see him during lunch today." I could tell by his tone of voice that he knew about Jesse and me, and that was the reason I was seeing him alone this morning.

The week after our fight was extremely awkward, especially in school. I had never dated a guy in school before (actually, I really never dated ever), so I wasn't prepared for the repercussions of a break-up. Well, okay, we weren't broken up, but we weren't really together either.

It seemed like Jesse had really taken what I said to heart (about coming back when he could prove I was worth his trust). He was ignoring me, opting for eating his lunch in the courtyard instead of in the lunchroom with the rest of us.

I admit, I was hoping he'd rush up to me the next day with flowers and chocolate and a whole slew of apologies and reasons we should be together. But that didn't happen. Was he just giving me time? Or was this it between us?

"Susannah?" Father Dom's voice cut into my internal musings.

I blinked. Focusing on his blue eyes, I nodded. "Sorry, Father D. I'm just kinda tired." Which was the truth. I hadn't been getting much sleep lately.

Father Dom gave me a compassionate look before he said, "Have you see any ghosts since we last spoke?"

I nodded. Father Dom and I usually met once a week to discuss mediator issues, more if there was a lot going on. He had had to cancel on me the week before for some important priest stuff he couldn't tell me about, not that I was really interested in the first place.

"This girl named Felicia Holden came to me the weekend before last." I didn't mention that it was right after Jesse and I had had our fight. "I didn't get much out of her, just her name. Before she left, she just said, "He was here!" and poofed."

"And you haven't seen her since?" Father Dominic asked thoughtfully.

Shaking my head, I responded, "Nope."

"Interesting," he said, stroking his chin in thought. I suppressed a smile at the image.

The next twenty minutes went by with Father Dominic telling me about his latest "case," which was a recently dead seventy-something woman, who had accidently left her cat locked in a closet before she had a heart-attack. Apparently her body was lying on the kitchen floor for days before Father Dom called it in. She didn't have any closer relatives to come check up on her every now and then, so no one really knew she was dead. Probably except the poor cat locked in the closet.

Father Dominic asked me if I could go over after school and let the cat out. He gave me a key, of course. Not sure where he got it, but I wasn't up to asking.

Then the rest of our hour session was spent with Father Dominic lecturing me on proper mediating techniques, after I had stupidly let slip that I had slapped Felicia so she would stop crying.

The only time I saw Jesse the rest of that day was in the hallway between classes. He glanced at me once, gave me a sad smile, and then went on his way. So…okay. At least I wasn't totally being ignored. I would just like to know what was going on inside his head. I'd have to talk to him eventually to see where we actually stood as a couple. If we were still even a couple.

Lunch that day started out normal, until I realized that Marta was missing. I asked CeeCee about it, but she just shrugged and said Marta was around somewhere. No one else seemed to know where she was either. I wasn't particularly worried, because I knew Marta could take care of herself. So I shrugged myself and continued my meal. I saw Marta later that day in English class, and she was fine. When I asked her where she had been at lunch, she just shrugged and said, "Around."

After school Marta stopped by my locker. "Can I talk to you real quick?" she asked.

I nodded. I figured this was about Jesse, since Marta hadn't mentioned anything to me about it yet. It wasn't like her, since she was naturally nosy. I had been expecting an interrogation the whole previous week but it never came.

"Sure," I said, shutting my locker door a little more forcefully than I meant to. Marta didn't seem to notice. "What's up?"

"Well," she said, falling into step beside me as we walked in the breezeway. "I wanted to know what happened between you and Jesse. Being the stubborn ass he is, he won't tell me."

I figured as much, but I didn't say so to Marta. Sighing, I admitted, "I'm not even completely sure myself." I shook my head. "All I know is…he doesn't trust me around other guys. It's like he thinks I'm going to throw myself at them or something. I just…I trust him to not be like that with other girls, so why can't he trust me to not be like that with other guys?"

Marta sighed and patted my shoulder sympathetically. "Well, now I understand," she said, almost to herself.

I blinked. "Uh, care to enlighten me? Because I don't."

She turned and focused on me as we walked out the front door of the school. "Suze, it's not my business to say. If he hasn't told you, then there's a reason for it, and I'm definitely not going to get in the way."

"Marta," I protested. "Come on—"

She shook her head. "I can't, Suze. Look, I'll see ya later. My ride is gonna leave without me." And she was gone. Well, not like she dematerialized or anything, but she definitely took off at a run before I could say anything else to her.

Looking around, I realized I didn't have a ride home. I usually got a ride home with Jesse, but not now after our fight. I knew he'd give me a ride if I asked, but I couldn't get up enough nerve to ask (being alone in a car with him for even fifteen minutes was daunting). The week before, I had coerced Dopey into letting me ride to and from school with him. However, today he left early with Doc to run some errands. I hadn't been particularly interested, so I didn't ask for any details of those errands.

I mentally slapped myself. Why hadn't I thought of this when my mother dropped me off early this morning? Probably because it was so damn early that I wasn't functional enough to even think. God, I needed to get my own car. I couldn't always rely on other people to drive me everywhere. I was definitely looking at the used car section of the classifieds when I got home.

Letting out a long-suffering sigh, adjusted the backpack on my shoulders. This was going to be a long walk home. I thanked the heavens that I actually wore sneakers today instead of the new Jimmy Choos I had found on clearance last week. The shoes were kind of a post-argument pick-me-up. My legs looked great in them, but I knew my feet wouldn't after hiking five miles home.

I was maybe about half a mile from the school when I heard someone pull up beside me. I guess part of me instinctively knew who it was, but I still turned cautiously and stared at the BMW idling at the curb.

Inwardly I groaned. Of course. Did he just follow me or something?

He was smirking. I couldn't see his eyes behind his glinting Ray-Bans, but I knew they would be smirking just like his mouth, if eyes could even smirk.

I turned away from him and continued walking up-hill. Man, I was only fifteen minutes into the walk and I was wilting. It was so freaking hot out, and I had forgotten to bring a hair-tie with me today, so the hair at my nape was sticking to my neck from the sweat. I knew there was sweat beading my brow, as well. God, I was so out of shape.

Paul crept the car along the curb as I walked. This went on for about five minutes until he said, "I could do this all day, Suzie Q. Now are you going to hike the rest of the way home, or let me drive you there?"

I spun around in agitation, mostly at being called Suzie Q. "Oh yeah? And what do you get, Paul? I know you aren't offering out of the goodness of your heart."

He held a hand up to the heart in question, as if I wounded it. "That hurts," he said dramatically. The sun glinted off his perfect teeth as he grinned. "Okay, you got me. I drive you home, you agree to one shifter lesson with me."

I snorted in derision. "I knew it," I mumbled. "Nice one, Paul, but I'd rather walk home."

Paul chuckled. "Aww, come on Suze. Besides, word has it you're in the market for a new man. What, de Silva couldn't handle you? I always knew he was too uptight for such a free spirit like you."

He hit a nerve, and the worst part was that he knew it. What he said should've made me want to punch him and run the hell home so I could get away from him. But somehow his words did the exact opposite. The only thing I could think was, Fine, if Jesse won't trust me with another guy, then what the hell is the harm in going with Paul? What I should have been thinking was, Going with Paul would only makes things worse between Jesse and me.

But when you're angry with someone, no matter how reasonable or unreasonable the anger is, you just don't think rationally.

And I was definitely thinking irrationally when I climbed into the passenger seat of Paul's Beemer and said, "Fine, but one shifter lesson and no touching."

Paul grinned and gunned the engine.

It was after we passed through the first light that I remembered the dead old woman and her cat locked in the closet. I relayed this to Paul, and he glanced at the directions that Father Dominic had given me to get to her house. It only took about two more minutes to actually get to this woman's house.

The first thing about her house that I noticed was the proximity of the other houses around it – the other houses were pretty far away. Like someone could scream bloody murder outside the house and the neighbor's most likely would not hear it.

The next thing I noticed was the landscaping. Or lack thereof. It was clear no one had been there in a good long while to trim the bushes and mow the lawn. The lawn was starting to brown from the lack of water and attention, but it also faintly resembled a jungle, and I was half-expecting to see a large crouching cat in the brush.

Instead I found a small starving cat in the kitchen closet. This poor thing yowled at me for two straight minutes before I could find the bag of cat food on top of the refrigerator. I was thinking, Strange spot for cat food, but then I shrugged. The lady was probably really eccentric and had a perfectly good reason for keeping the cat food on top of the fridge. As I looked around, I realized this was probably because the cat couldn't get up there to have a midnight snack. For some reason, the fridge was totally detached from the rest of the kitchen, not near any counters or shelves.

Paul had come in with me, but he was just sitting on the kitchen counter with a bemused smile on his face. I rolled my eyes at him, put the cat food in my backpack along with the cat, who was so happy at being fed that he didn't mind being put in another small dark space. Apparently I was its new best friend. Damn, I really didn't want or need a cat, but what was I supposed to do with it? I couldn't leave it here. I would have to hit up the shelter on Saturday morning, but that was five days away.

I slipped my arms through the backpack straps and let them settle on my shoulders. I picked the house key off the counter where I had left it, but I was kind of clumsy it and slipped out of my hands and somehow slid under the fridge.

I close my eyes for a few seconds and took a deep breath. Of course that would happen, and now I had to move the fridge that looked like it had been bought in the 1950s.

Taking the bag off my shoulders and setting it on the table, I glanced at Paul and he came over to help me. Apparently I didn't hide my look of surprise that well because he just said, "You think so highly of me, don't you?"

"What, you can't move this with your mind?" I shot back sarcastically.

He shrugged. "I could, but I'd rather save my energy." He didn't mention what he was saving it for, and I didn't ask.

After we moved the fridge, I understood why it was so detached from the rest of the kitchen. It was because there was a door behind it.

Paul and I glanced at each other. He raised an eyebrow at me, and I exhaled heavily. Now why couldn't this just be a normal cat-snatching mediator mission? Did there have to be a secret door hidden behind an old refrigerator?

The doorway wasn't what you'd call normal. It almost looked as if someone had cut the space out of the wood themselves with, I don't know, a handsaw? Anyway, it was shorter than normal, about five and a half feet instead of the standard seven feet. The door itself looked like an average piece of plywood cut to fit the doorway and some hinges thrown on it. There was a knob on the door, but it was just to be able to pull and push the door, not to latch it into place or lock it.

I was definitely going to have to ask Father Dom tomorrow morning who exactly this woman was and why she had a crudely made door behind her ancient refrigerator.

I guess I was about to find out the latter. And behind Door #1, ladies and gentlemen…

The first thing I noticed as Paul and I opened and went through the doorway was the stench. I held the sleeve of my sweater up to my nose to somewhat filter the nasty smells. The strongest smell was decay, but underlying that was the smell of smoke, chemicals, and something else I couldn't quite place.

I had gone first just so Paul wouldn't call me out on being a coward. I was kind of regretting that now, especially because he had a great view of my ass behind me. It had been pitch black when we first opened the door, but I had used the light from my phone to find a light switch. When I flipped it on, I had been surprised at the amount of light that was pouring through the place. If the stairway hadn't curved around a corner, I would be able to clearly see everything that there was to see.

As we descended the stairs and came around the bend, I noticed right away what was decaying. Animals. They were mostly cats, but there were a few dogs, birds, mice, a small alligator, and some other random animals. They were all dead that I could see and they all reeked. Thank God there were no human carcasses.

Aside from the animals, the hidden room in the house was essentially a laboratory, kind of Frankenstein-esque. There were beakers and Erlenmeyer flasks scattered all along the bench top counter, filled with all different colored liquids varying in translucence. My non-scientific background didn't help me much with identifying the liquids, but if I remembered anything from chemistry class, it was Mr. Borden telling us that most chemicals used in a lab setting were not colored, and that people only made them that way to amuse the non-scientists who wanted everything to be pretty and colorful (I guess it was true – life was boring without color, and I suppose the same can be said about chemistry for those who don't enjoy it).

So either the person who owned this lab (I was having a hard time believing this belonged to an old woman who loved her cat enough to find a mediator to let it out) just made his or her liquids colorful for the hell of it, or this wasn't a chemistry lab.

I glanced at Paul as we both came to a halt at the threshold. He looked back at me with an eyebrow cocked. "I wasn't expecting this, but I knew an afternoon with you wouldn't be boring."

For reasons beyond me, I felt my face flame. Paul noticed this and gave me a grin that was blinding even in the artificial light of a musty underground laboratory.

I rolled my eyes and walked ahead of him, glancing around every nook and cranny of the room. I noticed there was another door on the far wall, but I wasn't ready to go through another mystery door yet.

I was thinking about sniffing whatever was in the beakers, but then I decided against it. I didn't want to be inhaling anything harmful. Who knows, maybe I'd start seeing animal ghosts in addition to people ghosts. That would make my life more of a living hell than it already was.

Looking around at the decaying animals, I grimaced. It was disgusting. Who would just kill these animals and leave their carcasses lying around? Some of them were caked with dried blood, and others looked completely whole (well, they would have been whole before they started decaying). It was obvious they had been experimented on – I mean, what other use would they be down here?

I looked around to find Paul, and he was engrossed in a book he found amongst the mess of the counter. He didn't look up as I approached. In fact, he didn't even seem to notice I was there until I asked, "What is it?"

He blinked and looked at me, his blue eyes taking in my curious expression. Snapping the book shut, he said, "Nothing."

Interesting. I glanced at his face, which had become expressionless, and then at the book. There was something in that book he didn't want me to see. And considering he was such an asshole, I knew he wasn't trying to protect my feelings or anything. There was something he didn't want me to see, because it wouldn't be to his advantage.

I shrugged and said, "Okay." This surprised him, but not enough to let me see the book. So I stomped on his foot as hard as I could.

The book dropped to the floor as he swore and hopped up and down. I snatched it up and hurried to the other side of the room, looking at the title of the book. The word maleficiis caught my eye. It looked to be in Latin, but I knew pretty much anything with the letters 'mal' together meant BAD. That would have been enough to throw it away, but I still opened it up and looked through it. Everything was in Latin, of course. But as I flipped from page to page, I realized it was kind of in recipe format…

I looked up in shock and my gaze met Paul's icy blue one. "Witchcraft?" I whispered harshly. For some reason, I didn't feel comfortable saying that loudly.

He shrugged. "That's what it looks like."

I blinked, thinking back to my days in New York when I thought I wanted to be a Wiccan. I researched the Wiccan religion and witchcraft heavily, but I never picked it up because it didn't seem like my thing.

Then it finally dawned on me what the animal carcasses were used for. Well, maybe they weren't all for one specific thing. But most of them were probably used as a witch's familiar before being dismembered and disemboweled for spell ingredients.

I glanced again at the door on the far wall and marched forward. The door was unlocked, and I turned the knob and flung it open. Sure enough there were jars filled with liquid and various animal parts and other things I couldn't identify, all on shelves lining the walls of the small room.

I lurched out of the room, feeling sick. The book was still in my hands and I looked down at it in disgust. I dropped it where I was standing, not bearing to touch it any longer.

Then, as I was standing still in that underground room, I got the feeling that we had overstayed our welcome down there, and it was definitely time to leave. Paul seemed to feel this too. Without looking at him, I headed for the stairs and made my way out to his car, grabbing my backpack with the cat and cat food inside. I felt guilty for leaving the poor thing in there so long, but when I opened it up, I noticed the cat was sleeping contentedly.

When Paul emerged, he was holding that God-awful book. I grimaced at him, but he just shrugged and threw it in his trunk. "Could be useful," he just said.

Useful for what? I wondered. What exactly was this shifter business?

On the drive to my house, neither of us said a word until he stopped out front. He just said, "I had a great time," and then he leaned over and kissed me, all like we had just gotten back from a date.

I blinked, not comprehending what exactly was happening. For a few beats I just froze, and then I pushed him away. "What the hell, Paul? I said no touching! And kissing definitely qualifies as touching!" I pretty much shrieked.

He just grinned. "That's only at the shifter lessons, Suze. So, Thursday after school? I'll drive."

I narrowed my eyes at him, setting my jaw. "You're an asshole." I grabbed my bag from the back seat and high-tailed it out of his car before he could do anything else.

I walked jerkily up the front steps of my house, fuming over what Paul had just done, and lying to myself that I didn't like it one bit. I was also still thinking about what had happened at that old woman's house, and how I needed to call Father Dominic right away and tell him.

So it was no wonder that I didn't notice Jesse's car in the driveway.

So...not too bad, right? I'll try to keep updating as regularly as I can. Please review!