Stopping me from entering my father's house, Blair dropped his satchel on the sidewalk and took my hand. Simon and Steven crowded behind us, arms full with more of Blair's equipment.

"Jim, uh... hold on a sec. You guys, too. I know we were joking around a few minutes ago about being the Cascade Ghostbusters, but I don't think it's a good idea to go into William's house with a frivolous attitude. It's not good Karma, and, from what I read, bringing negative energy into dealing with the supernatural can have a rebound effect."

He gave my hand a hard squeeze and let go, turned around so that he could look us all in the face.

"If William's spirit manifests, he might not come alone. It's possible that other malevolent spirits might come through that metaphysical doorway and attach themselves to our auras. Doing extractions of those spirits is something shamans perform, but it's better to be protected from them in the first place. We should all take a moment and prepare ourselves, ask a higher power, if you believe in one, to look out for us. Or at least try to go inside with the mindset of guarding yourselves. Intent is important, man."

I'd been hearing Blair's musings on communicating with the dead ever since he'd begun his research, after the last time we dealt with Dad's ghost. I tried not to think about it too much, though, although when I asked why not just use a Ouija board Blair had explained in detail why that was a bad idea. And okay, I could see that opening a door to ghost central and inviting a special guest to stop in could mean party crashers might come along.

We had enough trouble with Dad haunting this house. We didn't need to make things worse by letting in more lost souls. Or what Blair called malicious entities.

Simon placed his bags on the ground, and gave Blair a skeptical look. "You really think William's ghost is going to show up tonight? Jim said when he and Steven came back here a couple of times that things stayed quiet. I'm not sure that what happened the first time, when things flew around and the lights blew out, wasn't just some freaky barometric pressure changes and wind gusts."

Steven shook his head, face sober. "I was there, and I'm a believer. It wasn't weather related or the power just going out. Yeah, nothing happened when Jim and I came back to finish getting the house cleaned up, but Blair wasn't with us. It's him that Dad has a bone to pick with, not me and Jim."

I looked at my brother and saw the sorrowful memory of the night Dad had killed himself play across his features.

Steven made an expression I remembered from childhood when he was anxious and asked, "Blair, that higher power stuff? You meant say a prayer, right? Believe me, I have no problem doing that." He stepped away from the three of us and closed his eyes.

Simon let out a gusty sigh towards Blair. "I saw Jim pull off a miracle after you'd drowned. I watched a dead man come back to life that day, so I'll try to be open-minded about tonight."

I said, "Simon, ghosts do exist. I've met one. Remember Molly, the woman in that case where the artist with Alzheimer's killed his lover decades ago? I saw her."

Simon snorted. "Jim, you were influenced by that witch doctor medicine Sandburg here gave you for your cold. You just hallucinated that you saw the victim."

"No way was I hallucinating the first time I saw her. I took that niktabi crap later."

Blair muttered under his breath, "It helped with your cold, Jim."

I ignored that.

Blair opened the notebook he was carrying and turned a few pages. He offered it to Simon, saying, "Ah, I know you've got a soft spot for angels; I mean, you collect enough statues of them, so in case you want to use this prayer I wrote it down for you. It's to Saint Michael, the archangel."

"I've heard it. Something about defend us in battle, and send evil spirits back to Hell."

Blair's face changed to that earnest expression that had been the catalyst for my doing things I wasn't wild about ever since I'd met him. I knew Simon wasn't immune to it, either.

He said, "Simon, if I'm wrong, then you've just spent a few minutes praying. If I'm right, then this is like putting on Kevlar for protection. Please. I don't want anything bad to happen to you or to any of us tonight."

Simon stared at him and then took the notebook. "My grandma believed in haunts. I'll say the prayer."

Simon moved to the side and turned his back on us and started whispering the prayer to Saint Michael to himself.

I took Blair by the shoulders. "I'm going to ask for backup. But I'm hoping that all this preparation you've done turns out not to be needed. Surely Dad's moved on by now."

Blair looked up at me, looking thoughtful and a bit sad. "I really hope so, too. I hate the thought of his soul being trapped here. I'll ask the universe for protection and the wolf and jaguar to guard us also."

He closed his eyes but I kept mine open while I asked the spirit world for its help once again.

Blair had organized and packed stuff as if he were on an expedition. In a way, I was glad to know that his hard-earned skills were still with him, even if he couldn't use them in the way he had once dreamed about.

He set everybody to carrying out tasks once we'd crossed Dad's threshold.

Salt lines had to be remade across all the doorways and windows. Steven volunteered to take care of the ones in Dad's study.

Blair had made me promise to dump salt all over the house the two times I'd been here with Steven without him, and the scuffed remains of the old lines were still visible. He'd wanted us to be able to have safe areas in case Dad had thrown another fit. Nothing had happened; not even a light had flickered, and I'd had no sense that he was still hanging around.

God, let him be gone and have found his peace.

Blair handed out EMF meters – he'd cadged them from somewhere – and in teams of two we mapped the downstairs, noting any fluctuations in energy readings near appliances and heating ducts. Blair was in full-on scientist mode, and wanted baselines taken of everything in the environment before he and I would try to rouse my father's ire by kissing. He said wryly that the meters would go nuts if William was here and noticed us making out. Simon made sympathetic noises and I wasn't sure if it was for us or for my father.

Blair had also brought special thermometers, infrared ones that would note any rise or drop in temperature instantly. He had Simon set up battery operated motion detectors, two to a room, and a variety of recorders, digital and cassette, both with external mikes, so any "ghost noises" could be recorded.

On the kitchen table, Steven set out a few emergency candles and a lighter, in case of a total power outage.

There wasn't much furniture left, just the appliances and the kitchen table and chairs. There was nothing left in the study where Dad had died, but Blair pulled out a box of Kleenex from one of the bags and I scattered sheets of tissues around the room. If Dad threw his energy around, Blair wanted to see it and get a sense of the strength of his fury.

There were other supplies Blair handed out, such as small flashlights and extra batteries to keep in our pockets and compasses to hang around our necks. If the EMF meters indicated a power fluctuation, the compass would also spin around. Or so he said. Blair had dived into this research with as much interest as he had with learning police culture or tribal customs.

Blair and I went through the downstairs with a video camera equipped with infrared and documented the layout. That video camera was now on a tripod in the kitchen, safely outside the study salt line and ready to capture in movie format anything weird. Last of all, Simon and Steven were handed cameras, one a regular camera and the other an infrared one.

When everything was ready Simon and Steven took up their stations, ready to record temperature fluctuations and EMF readings in the small notebooks Blair had given them and to use the cameras.

Blair looked at me and Steven and Simon and said quietly, "I know I'm indulging in science nerdiness here, but I really do hope William has passed on. If he hasn't, then we're going to try to communicate with him, see if we can help him process his fears and anger so he can go into the light. There is a light, you know; I was headed towards it before Jim revived me after Alex killed me, and it is welcoming and forgiving. I want William to understand that I harbor no ill feelings towards him and that I forgive him for the harm he did to me."

Blair isn't perfect, but sometimes he says or does the perfect thing and I fall for him all over again.

You hear that, Dad? The guy you tried to kill because he loved me forgives you. And if you're still here, don't you even think about trying it again. He's mine, for this lifetime and, if I have anything to say about it, in the next life, too. Hands off.

I drew Blair to my side and together we walked into the study.

x x x

"Okay, Jim. Let's go for part two," Blair said. Part one had been me calling my father's name and asking if he was here to talk to me. We had waited for about fifteen minutes and I told Blair I wasn't sensing anything at all. Nothing was registering on the equipment, either.

Now we would touch each other, progressing from holding hands to hugging to kissing.

I felt the temperature drop when I kissed Blair on his temple.

"Dad?" I still didn't see anything, but the hairs on the back of my neck rose. Fuck. Blair was right; Dad hadn't left. I glanced at my brother and saw he was biting his lip.

Both Simon and Steven started taking pictures.

Blair kept quiet. He'd told me before that he wanted to ease into a conversation with my dad, not enrage him into a tantrum like the last time.

"Dad, we want to talk to you. This isn't right, what you're doing."

I halted, not sure what the hell to say to him. Blair made encouraging faces at me, and motioned with his hands for me to keep talking.

Suddenly I felt a rush of anger. I guess Blair recognized what I was feeling because he gripped my forearm and squeezed.

It flared up in me like gasoline on a campfire, and my anger erupted in a storm of words.

"How could you, Dad?! Do you have any idea of the shit heap you threw me and Stevie into? You never wanted the spotlight on me, but let me tell you, the press has had a field day with this story. Help me understand why you went after Blair the way you did. Yeah, Blair! So what if he's my lover! You had no right to try to kill him, none at all! I get that you had some misguided idea that I needed to be protected from falling in love with a man, but that's such a pile of crap! Blair didn't seduce me into being bi-sexual, I've always been that way. He wasn't the first man I kissed or jacked off! I was a teenager when I had sex for the first time with a guy!"

The windows rattled and the lights blew again in the study, dimming the room. Simon uttered a "Sweet Jesus" and checked his compass, while Steven aimed his EMF meter at me. Blair whispered, "Calm down," but I was still boiling mad.

The Kleenex nearest to where Blair and I were standing rose off the floor and began to swirl through the air. I adjusted my vision and saw something odd. There were all these floating balls, translucent and beautiful, some small, others as big as a basketball, between Blair and me and the whirlwind of Kleenex.

The whirlwind came closer to us. Blair tilted his head and I knew he was trying to look at it the way he looked at people's auras.

Suddenly Blair gasped and stumbled back from me, almost losing his balance, but I grabbed him and pulled him close and put my arms protectively around his body.

"Stop shoving him, Dad. It won't work. You can't separate us. I love him, get it? I'll marry him legally when the laws change someday. Stop trying to control my life!"

The pretty multi-colored balls started moving faster towards the Kleenex that was now hovering in the air, and Blair went "Oh" softly and shook himself.

He said, "Jim, I can see orbs, well, I could when I was doing my thing, but not now, so cool, but you have got to calm down. I think William is drawing energy from you, that's what the orbs are, balls of energy, and the madder you are, the more powerful they are and I can see that William's aura is absorbing them. He's using you to do his Tasmanian Devil imitation. Control your breathing, deep and slow, remember?"

I should have heeded his advice, but I was just so pissed off at my dad. All the times he'd tried to bend me to his way of thinking, all the damn manipulations he'd done to us, his children, that had driven me and Steven apart, well, I guess I hadn't processed all that old shit as much as I thought I had because I gave him the biggest finger I could.

I turned Blair around in my arms and kissed him like it was V-J Day and I'd gotten a winning Powerball ticket.

I caught him by surprise, from the way he stiffened in my arms at first, but he got with the program.

I stopped when I felt a freezing, tingling sensation on my arm. A feeling of desolation spread through me.

My father's ghost was standing next to me, and he was crying.

The intense feelings of despair I was experiencing smothered my anger, and I sighed, deeply. My father let go of my arm, and I was relieved. And sad for him.

"Jim, what is it? What can you see, man?" Blair shivered and I drew him against me, his body warm and real against mine. Dad reached out to him and I said warningly, "Dad!" but there was no hatred in his expression. He cupped Blair's cheek and I saw tears start to pool in Blair's eyes.

"William, I forgive you. Please, please don't deny yourself the comfort the light will bring. Can I do anything to help you?"

My dad shook his head and stepped back from us. One moment he was standing there, tears still on his face, and the next he was sprawled out on the floor, blood everywhere, the gun he had shot himself with helter-skelter on the floor.

I hoped Stevie couldn't see him like this, in his death pose.

"Dad!"

He faded from my sight and the room immediately became warmer again.

"He's gone again, isn't he?" Blair asked quietly, voice thick with emotion. He wiped at his eyes and took a deep breath. "Did you get any sense that he's moved on?"

"From what I saw before he disappeared, he didn't go into the light. Chief, he looked like he did after he shot himself." I pointed to where my father had died. "He was right there... the blood, even the gun. Then he just faded."

Blair hugged me and then stepped back, doing his bright-eyed bird imitation to check my aura.

"We need to talk more about that anger you expressed, but at home, all right? And we should look over the data. Maybe the voice recorders or cameras caught something that will help us. I'm not giving up on him."

I nodded, and we walked back into the kitchen.

Blair told Simon and Steven to turn off their cameras; Simon started helping Blair put up equipment. I heard him quietly ask Blair if he was okay; Blair nodded, then gave Simon the rundown on what had happened.

Steven hadn't said anything, was just standing there with his arms wrapped around himself, and I winced when I saw his expression.

"Steven, did you see anything?"

"No, thank God. I heard what you said to Blair, though. And I want you to tell me about it, but not here. Let's go somewhere else."

"The loft?"

He shook his head. "I want to go somewhere bright and noisy and full of people having a good time. Someplace where we can play pool and throw some darts."

I understood. I'd felt that way sometimes after a mission, when I'd wanted to shake off what I'd done.

"You want to ride with me and Blair? Come home with us later?"

"Only if we take my car. I can drop you both off here tomorrow to get your respective rust-buckets."

I staggered, miming a shot to my heart.

Blair snickered at our attempt at humor, and I caught Simon's eye.

"Hey, want to hit up a bar with us?"

Simon took out a cigar and stuck it in his mouth. "As a matter of fact, a drink or two sounds like a great idea. And I want to talk to Steven about the racetrack anyway. Little Stogie is going to run there next week. Maybe you two want to come along and watch him leave those other nags in the dust."

That sounded good to me, and I knew Blair would want to go and use that cock-eyed betting scheme he swore by.

"Sure, I haven't been to the tracks for a long time. And I'm down with soaking up some life-affirming vibes," Blair said. "But before we leave this house, we should take another moment and thank the universe for its protection this night, and ask for peace for William's soul."

He crossed to me and Steven and took both our hands and closed his eyes.

I caught Simon's eye. He was looking uncomfortable with what Blair had asked us to do, but he nodded and his deep baritone whispered an impromptu prayer thanking God for his protection this night and asking for William's soul to find its way to his side.

I did as Blair suggested, the brief aside of humor replaced by soberness, and asked for my father's torment to end.

Blair's hand tightened on mine and I felt a wave of sadness for my father. He could have chosen to accept Blair and be a part of our lives, like Steven had done. Why had that been so hard for him to even consider?

I wished I could really talk to him. More than that, I wished we could have talked about his fears years ago and that all of this heartache could have been avoided.

Maybe I should have leveled with him about liking men as well as women back when I was a young man. Hindsight – the path you should have taken was always so damn clear.

Blair must have caught something of my thoughts because he raised my hand to his lips and kissed it.

We left the house then, but as I climbed into Steven's Porsche, I heard the far off cry of a wolf and the faint, deep cough of a jaguar.

x x x