Ghost Hunters (Marpel)

Vampires aren't good at everything. For instance, they suck at haunting. John Earl Stark continues his adventures in ghost hunting. Encountering a female ghost who attacks him in a gothic Victorian mansion left him bitten, but alive. Sal and Jude, his employers and guides, came in from a nearby room, shocked. Obviously, John was going to need more training to survive these attacks. But this particular ghost was still haunting and still attacking people with neck bites... Excerpt: I. I didn't see it coming, but that wasn't unusual. But I didn't expect the ghost to try for my neck. I felt more than I saw, which was only a smoky shimmering. A quick shrug and a yell got it off, and it disappeared. I rubbed my neck thoughtfully. No scratches or punctures, just a gnawed feeling. Lucky this time. My yell brought Sal and Jude running into the former living room of the empty old Victorian house they had brought me to. Worry crossed both of their faces. "What happened? You OK?" Sal sputtered out. "Sure, just something trying to clamp onto my neck. But it went away as soon as I yelled." I answered. Jude cocked her head to the side. "Was it trying to take a bite out of you or just give you a hickey?" Sal frowned. "I think we better get some research on this one. Time to get some data from the Librarians." She nodded to Jude, then the room shimmered and disappeared. II. They reappeared in a house that was floor to ceiling books, the living room had tall ceilings and the shelves covered everything right up to the top, with only enough space at the bottom to keep the books off the floor. Or at least away from the stacks of books which need to be re-filed, or didn't have a space. And the shelves were crammed solid from side to side, with occasional smallish books wedged sideways above the vertical ones. The hallways that ran off away from this mass of bookshelves also had shelves in them. And what I could see of the rooms beyond them were also book-lined. I saw no overstuffed chairs or lounges here, like modern libraries, only solid ladder-back chairs around sturdy tables, whose legs themselves were crammed with books stacked in between. Between wasn't much, here. The aisles between the shelves were barely enough for a smallish person to navigate, and only one at a time. With all these books and paper, of course the place smelled of old bookstore mustiness. And so quiet that even dropping pins would make no noise. There was a hardwood floor, but covered with strip rugs of an oriental pattern in between the tables, only leaving the barest spaces under the tables themselves. Jude, Sal, and I arrived in its largest open space. And that made me only wonder again how they did that and never appeared inside something. As it was, I bumped into a table and nearly upset a pile of books on it while catching my balance. A red tabby cat meowed and pushed against his leg for petting, which I obliged. Taking Sal and Jude in with one look, it quickly sprinted off between the under-table stacks to lose itself again in the forest of book holders. "So Hermione is the first to welcome you." A wrinkled, and weathered old man appeared at my elbow, holding out a gnarled hand as greeting. "You can call me Ben. My full name is too long and convoluted for pronunciation in English. You must be John, the new guy. Heard a bit about you." I shook his hand and found the grip to be a vise, but brief. That surprised me, but Ben seemed not to notice my reaction.

Fiction is stranger than Fact, but also father and mother to it. From the archives of the Ghost Hunters Library, here a classic tale of an amateur paranormal enthusiast who happens on a solution to nagging ghost infestations. This tale of his runaway success, the perils of being too effective, and exacting revenge against a greedy sanitarium owner for non-payment of services rendered. Exciting and humorous, sit back and enjoy this short tale of ghoulish entrepreneurship. Excerpt: The next problem to solve was getting a fresh supply of ghosts. In the last few years, I had almost exhausted the entire database of the American Psychical Research Society. And my requests for ghost exterminating had decreased markedly, so I had next to no leads coming in. But I wasn't going to get anywhere if I didn't think really big ideas. Getting ghosts by the ones and twos would simply eat up the finances necessary to acquire them. A zero-sum game, no profit in it. I needed a mass capture operation. Days of research in the libraries around San Francisco didn't result in any stories of massive ghost infestations. However, one day looking through back magazine articles in their archives, I found an article about the battle of Waterloo. The report stated that every year, on the anniversary of the celebrated victory, spectral squadrons were seen charging battalions of ghostly grenadiers. Here was my opportunity. I had a month before the date occurred again. Applying for project funds based on my earlier success wasn't successful through conventional banks. However I did find private investors who were willing to take near-majority interest in my company in return for financing. Calling in my best machinists and chemists, I converted and shipped large containers to Belgium. These large tanks were calculated to hold the massive amount of specters that recurred each year like clockwork. Shipping the equipment by air was facilitated by my Navy contacts, who had large transports available. Once in Belgium, local trucks were hired to get all this equipment to the remote location. We were ready just in time for the annual event. Close to the fatal ditch which engulfed Napoleon's cavalry I stationed a corps of hired locals provided with portable ghost exterminator spray systems, ready to enfilade the famous sunken road from both sides to prevent escape. I stationed myself with a with a four-inch nozzle and a quick releasing shut-off valve much the same as used by firemen, directly in the path the advancing squadron took. All our tanks were pressurized and ready. We waited for the exact moment to creep slowly toward us. It was a fine, clear night, lit at first by a slice of new moon. As the hour approached, that moon turned dark and the sky was black except for the pale illumination of the stars. I have seen many ghosts in my time-ghosts in garden and garret, at noon, at dusk, at dawn. I've seen phantoms fanciful, and specters sad and spectacular-but I've never seen such an impressive sight as this nighttime charge of cuirassiers, galloping in goblin glory to their time-honored doom. From a distance, the French reserves presented the appearance of a nebulous mass, like a low-lying cloud or fog-bank. Faintly luminous, shot with fluorescent gleams. As the squadron came nearer in its desperate charge, the separate forms of the troopers shaped themselves, and the galloping guardsmen grew ghastly with supernatural splendor. Although I knew them to be immaterial and without mass or weight, I became terrified at their approach. They were so realistic, I was afraid of being to be swept under the hoofs of the nightmares they rode. I started to run, but in another instant they were upon me, my reaction and only defense was to turn on my stream of formaldybrom, shut my eyes, and pray. Right then I was overwhelmed in a cloud-burst of wild warlike wraiths...

This ghost was haunted by someone or something else. None of her doing, but prevented her from moving on. Every time someone would try to talk to her, the castle around her started collapsing on that visitor. John Earl Stark was given this assignment with the help of his spirit-guides Sal, and Jude. Unlike the others, they had completed together, this one required skills they never before had to develop. A double haunting. And mortal risk. In this story, John, Sal, and Jude also explore an undercurrent of their deepening relationships. Excerpt: "I don't know why castles and ghosts always seem to need dark and overcast weather to be so dramatic." I said when the shimmering stopped. We were at the castle in one of the upper rooms. A high, vaulted roof was partially still intact overhead. There were only blank walls, and the floor had a massive hole in it, directly below the missing roof portion. Sal and Jude both had lit spectrals in their hands. Little blue-white flames that appeared just off the tip of one finger. Bright enough to show what a person needed to see, but too bright to look at directly. I'd read about these, but this was the first I'd seen either of them using one. Sal nodded, "These should help with the general gloom. Just to give you the layout." Jude added, "We are going to put them out and stand over to each side as lookouts. When the specter shows up the room will be bright enough. But don't wait to engage her. We think the light is what brings the interference.' At that, they both moved away from me, skirting the piles of rubble that appeared here and there across the floor. They extinguished their spectrals and we waited. Not long. A yellow-greenish light appeared and a woman walked in from beyond the wall, dressed in some white linen with some sort of gold or light tan rope that crossed her chest and circled her waist. Fetching, even in the light she gave. From her knees down, she fades to transparent, and the movement of her knees and hips, along her forward motion were the only indicators she was walking. Both hands held a single tapered candle in front of her. The greenish light came from its tip. But there wasn't a natural shadow below her, or an unnatural one. It simply went dark before and after her. The light seemed to go through her as well, like a glowing sphere of light that had nothing to do with a flame. It showed up the wall as she came through it, then faded as she walked away from it and toward me. I could see well enough to know that there were no rubble piles between us. I started walking immediately in her direction, with a long pasture-covering gate. "Hey there! What's your name and how can I help you?" The specter stopped at this, a puzzled look crossing her face. "I'm Margaret. And, sir, who are you?" "Call me John. Do you know what date it is?" Margaret's puzzlement turned into a frown. "The 4th of January." "Can you tell me what year it is?" The frown deepened. "1898, of course. Are you jesting with me? Everyone here knows..." She took one arm to include the room and an expected audience but found only the bare walls, and myself standing in front of her. "I think you are playing a trick on me, sir. Where have you hidden the party? What have you done with the party decorations, the tapestries, the long tables of food and drink?" "Margaret, this isn't some sort of jest. You've been dead for some time and I've been sent to help you sort that out." "Dead?" Her eyes were wide and the glow of her candle increased. "How can I be dead? This was my birthday party! I just arrived to greet my guests. And yet, I only see you. Sir, you are to immediately tell me what you've done here and why!" The glow of her candle increased to near white, so brilliant, I held a hand out to shield my eyes from it to see her face...

In the days when people were owned by the land, two young girls found their power by becoming ghosts, then spirit guides. This is their origin-story... Their parents were serfs, and belonged to two different dukedoms. Falling in love endangered them both. Becoming pregnant with twins made this even worse. Their Dad had to raise them by himself, as Mother died shortly after birthing them. But her spirit remained on Earth to watch over them. Sal and Jude could see her, and knew their Dad could feel her presence. But the problem in survival was staying hidden, because they were on hunting land the King claimed as his own. And forces were at work to find them... Excerpt: We were both born as twins. But as you can see, we were never identical. Jude had black hair and I had blond. And our Da told us that we were more alike than not, otherwise. We liked to drink our milk and smile and gurgle. And neither of us cried much. But we didn't know our Ma much, well not at first. She caught a fever a few days after we were born and died soon after. Da was upset by this, but he often told us that our smiles and gurgles took all the pain away. That, and when he went out to hunt that night, he found a white and black spotted milk goat who had wandered off into the woods and was following him around as he tried to hunt. Her udders were full, and looked tight and painful to Da. So he took the goat home to us, so we could have some milk until he could find where she had wandered off from. It was that night where we saw our Ma again. She was smiling at us, and we smiled back. Da couldn't see her, so he didn't understand why we were so happy. But with full bellies, we went to sleep and Da milked the rest from that goat and put the milk into skins to make into cheese. Then he tethered the goat right outside the hut to graze. He never did find out who that goat belonged to. No farm around us was missing any. And we had that goat until we could eat solid food, Da said. And then it wandered off again one day. But it wasn't the last time both tame and wild life around our cabin would take care of us. We grew like sprouts, Da told us. Soon we were walking and getting into trouble. When he went off to hunt food for us to eat, he soon devised a system of tying us to opposite corners of the cabin, just long enough to not get us tangled with each other or anything else. Everything up and out of our reach, and secured so it couldn't fall on us. What he didn't know is that the mice and birds would come to entertain us while he was gone. We would hear symphonies by the birds, and watch balancing and tumbling acts by the mice. And we knew Da was close when they would combine the most dramatic action with the trilling accompaniment of the birds. And when the door opened, the birds and mice would vanish, leaving us smiling and clapping just as Da opened the door with some game he had caught. ... In those days, the land wasn't owned by people, it was all property of the King or Queen or Prince, depending on who was in power when. And where the land was deeded to a local count or baron, the property title could be withdrawn at any time. People were property of the land. And were supposed to stay with it. Our family, our Da and Ma, were from two different deeds. They'd met at a trading festival and fell in love. Both Dukes wanted both of them, or would be just as happy to split them up so they could re-mate to someone else within the land deed they belonged to. But our parents eloped into hiding - and away from everyone they knew, to keep their families and themselves safe. And of course, Da and Ma loved each other very much. When Ma found she was pregnant, that made the problem very serious. You can't split a child...

The story continues, as two young girls find their power by becoming ghosts, then spirit guides. This is their origin-story...Barely escaping discovery by soldiers from a nearby dukedom, Sal and Jude's dad starts training them to survive in the forest. While gathering herbs in a clearing, Sal and Jude find they can communicate to the animals. But find something else, their mother's ghost can appear to them. They can see and hear her voice in their mind. One morning their dad returns early. He tells them he has seen soldiers forcing local village men to build a road access road through a ravine - that will let them the army find their hut in the forest... Excerpt: One day Da was late coming home. When he did arrive, he came through one of the other paths and had no game with him. He put out the fire and had us get into the storage space below the floor. Most cabins in this day were simply dirt floors. Walls of cabins in the woods were often mud and woven wicker. Ours was an old hunting hut, abandoned years ago. It was made with trimmed logs, and chinked with mud and grasses against the weather. On its back wall, there was an opening just big enough for Da to squeeze through. This led to a small dugout area that had its own roof. We stored vegetables and meat here, as the temperature was the same all year long and never froze. This is where Da had us go that day. He opened the dugout door wide and put all our food and toys with us then he scattered dirt all around our table and shelves. When we tried to ask him, he shushed us and said we were going to practice waiting for wild game. We had to be very, very quiet for a long time. He climbed in with us, and we watched from that hole in the wall, waiting. Soon we heard the thumping of heavy boots coming up the path toward our front door. They kicked the door open. Men covered in leather and shiny metal came in our little hut, shouting to each other until one made them all be quiet. He was wearing more colors than the rest and so seemed to be in charge. Da could understand what they were saying. And he quietly put the cover over that hole, the one that looked like part of the log wall. He sat with his back to that cover and braced his feet against the other side of the dugout. We now sat in complete darkness and silence. And waited while we listened. More men came into the little hut and were talking for awhile. Da told us later that someone had said it looked like some bandits had been using the hut as to hide out in. The man in the colors was talking about burning it down. But then the men all got very quiet. And we heard a woman singing. She was singing an old song, one we hadn't heard before. Soon the men were trying to get out of the hut all at once. Maybe the song was to get them to find her. Both Jude and I tried to get out, but Da just held us close and pushed against the back wall of the dugout to keep us all inside. And we kept quiet. Then we heard horses whinny and scream, then the sound of them galloping away. We heard men who were shouting loudly go after them, clanking in their metal and squeaking in their leather. Da didn't let us go for a very long time after that...

In the days when people were owned by the land, two young girls found their power by becoming ghosts, then spirit guides. This is their origin-story... Their parents were serfs, and belonged to two different dukedoms. Falling in love endangered them both. Becoming pregnant with twins made this even worse. Their Dad had to raise them by himself, as Mother died shortly after birthing them. But as a spirit, she remained on Earth to watch over them. Sal and Jude could see her, and knew their Dad could feel her presence. The King's soldiers have visited the forest and found their hut, only to be chased away by a specter. In Spring, they returned, forcing nearby villagers to make a crossing into the ravine that will enable wagons to bring a hunting party. Their Dad starts training Sal and Jude to hide themselves in the forest as they hunt and forage for food. What they find in their training is unexpected... Excerpt: Da returned one cold morning and was worried. He had been near the ravine and saw that some workers were improving the road. There was a seldom used trail that led to the one crossing horses could take their riders across. These workers were widening this road so that a wagon could travel it. He told us that he had seen them bring tools in their carts so that they could bring gravel and small rocks up from the bottom of the ravine to make the road solid. They wanted it passable and keep wagons from getting mired in mud during wet weather. Da said he saw the captain and some soldiers nearby. They were all mounted on horses and looked to be arguing with the men who were getting rocks out of the ravines. At any loud noise, even a crow's caw, the men would run up the side of the ravine and then have to be forced back to their work of getting the rock and gravel. Everyone's faces were white with strain. Da's face was coated with mud and clay so that it couldn't be seen by them. So he watched for a good while and then crept quietly away. He came back to our hut and got us ready. But today we didn't need our packs. We each got a small bag of the meat-berry-fat mix instead. Da again said we were going to practice being ghosts. We were going to make no sound and leave no trace of our passing. "Like Ma?" we both asked at once. Da cocked his head to the side, and smiled. "You've felt her too?" "Yes," we both replied as one. And started to tell him our stories of seeing her, but he held his finger up to his lips. "We must first learn to be quiet inside our little hut," he said. "You'll be able to tell me later, and I want to hear all about it. But right now, we must practice being as good as your mother in being able to disappear anytime we need to. No one can ever be allowed to follow us back to this hut, or anywhere we go. Our family staying together depends on us being able to vanish whenever we need to." That day, we never said another word until we returned to the hut and had closed the door again...

In the days when people were owned by the land, two young girls found their power by becoming ghosts, then spirit guides. This is their origin-story... Their Dad had to raise them by himself, as Mother died shortly after birthing them. But as a spirit, she remained on Earth to watch over them. Sal and Jude could see her, and knew their Dad could feel her presence. The King's soldiers have visited the forest and found their hut, only to be chased away by a specter. These three make improvements to their hut to make it harder to find, or to find the entrance they use. And learn to leave no trace as they move about the forest, even in snow. In Spring, the Captain and his troops returned, forcing nearby villagers to make a crossing into the ravine that will enable wagons to bring a hunting party. Their Dad starts training Sal and Jude to hide themselves in the forest as they hunt and forage for food. What they find in their training is unexpected... Excerpt: When the morning light finally came, the overcast sky matched the mood of the soldiers. The captain was probably the first up, and got busy kicking and rousing his men into some sort of action. He found that no one had died. Several were burned, but no one burned badly. Their wagons had been destroyed. Their horses could probably be recovered from the peasants (who weren't allowed to own horses.) Their tents might be able to be salvaged. There was no food, there was no firewood. The captain found his officers and made them disentangle their next in command, who had to find their juniors, and so on down the line. Finally, he mustered them all together. One of his officers took a small group of men into the nearest town to get the horses rounded up and returned. Another officer's group was organized to get the tents recovered, folded properly, and stacked for transport. A third officer's group was to clean the grounds and salvage anything of value. The trash, especially any bottles, were to be buried in the center of the camp. On top of this spot, they were to make a bonfire of anything too damaged to be repaired. The captain walked to the edge of the ravine and stared out into it. He waited for reports from his officers when their actions were completed. By the time the first officer and their horses returned, the other actions were also completed. At that, the captain had the men lead the horses down into the ravine and then back up, saddle and ride around the entire encampment. Then repeated this many times. At last they rode off. Later that day, a single wagon arrived, with a small handful of men to load up the tents and return them to the soldier's headquarters. And it was quiet on the land again...

If I didn't rescue him soon, I'd be worse than dead. Just another ghost. Again. But... forever, this time...

Two scientists broke time - trying to travel in it. If they weren't so cute, I don't think I'd be as forgiving. Still, they have no clue what they just invented. In these days of overnight express delivery, they could make a fortune. And the same device could deliver ticking bombs to any government building or office building anywhere. Instantaneously. You'd think these scientists would have learned something after the Manhattan Project. And Nagasaki. And the Twin Towers. Nope. All these two young knuckleheads were trying to do was to prove the impossible was possible - and get some more funding to do it. I just can't tell them that what they were doing was the worst thing in history, I'd have to show them. Or they'd never believe me. And that's when it really got involved - and personally dangerous.

An old clock tower, with an unsolved death, that the ghost still haunted. Once a year she appeared. Right on the calendar date of her death. Not that she wasn't also seen during the day, some rumors said, but that was a real person. A flesh version. Who was also haunted by the mysterious death. The mystery was, who pushed the young woman, or did she simply slip? Why the lights in the upper bell tower, and why three of them? Too many for a single person to carry... For hundreds of years, the clock never moved, frozen at the time of her death, it was said. Yet, the bell still tolled once a year. Two minutes before her anniversary, of dying.

She was tall, with a long black wavy mane that came most the way down her back.While her tight black leather jeans almost came up to meet, except for a narrow band of pure ivory skin. Those, plus a cropped knit top and an opened shorf jacket, drew all eyes to her in the backwoods bar.Only the jukebox continued any noise, beating out a worn country music classic.She had come to see me. Perhaps to help with my simple request. Because I needed assistance for an appointment after hers. For a mystery I wasn't sure I could solve on my own.As she strode over in her high-heeled Timberline boots, she smiled. In another age, her smile would have launched a thousand ships.Right now, she was here just for me.A slight wave of her hand and the crowd resumed whatever they had been doing before. She liked a grand entrance, but only so much.She again turned back to me, and our eyes locked. I returned her smile.As ever, this was going to be fun... Excerpt: It looked to be just another "red-neck" bar. And I was drinking tea. Not that anyone minded. This place had more customers coming for their barbecued tenderloin sandwiches than their draft beer or hard liquor.But the music, the atmosphere – that was pure Midwestern, traditional. Classic Western ballads in the jukebox. Broad shoulders on men, tight jeans on women. And smiles for everyone, but your hands are for your drink and your food. Lot's of self-respect around, which comes from respecting others first.American values, passed on and validated with each new generation. And places like this dotted most of America and were more common than any corporate-run diners or coffee-houses. Because they were an outgrowth of the community, they weren't there to "make a lot of money", although they did that, too.This wasn't one of my usual haunts as a mystery writer. But this also wasn't one of my usual mysteries to solve.I was relaxing at a table near the front. Waiting to meet someone – a certain someone who could help me with my problem. That situation was more than just an unresolved mystery. And if you know me, leaving some mystery unresolved in my life gets irritating. Like a single grain of sand inside a mussel's shell.The front door opened and I recognized that young woman standing tall in its frame. She took a single stride in and stood there. With her heeled boots, she looked a long glass poured full of pure femininity. Her Timberline boots slipped into the tight pant-legs of her black leather jeans, which went on up to described every curve and dimple of her smooth legs beneath, from her knees right up to her hips, and to the very limit of those jeans' low-cut waist.There, a thin band of ivory-white midriff took over before being itself covered by a snug, black and very defining knit v-top. An open black leather bolero jacket swept up from that midriff area to slide itself beneath a thick mane of wavy back hair. A cascade down her shoulders from its provocative part on one side of its crest.Underneath those long tresses were dark brows, dark eyes, and dark lips that completed a goth approach to stunning beauty.Those clear and piercing eyes swept the room, while almost everyone else's eyes swept over her.She found me and strode over. A slight gesture from her hand and the conversations in the bar continued again. You could almost feel the disappointment of the single males from where I sat.This young woman, like so many human counterparts, reveled in making a grand entrance.It was going to be an interesting afternoon...

The new shoes were paid for with time itself. Two women came this day, in search of an artisan to make them a pair of shoes from scratch. Not just repair some cheaply-made shoes, but to get a proper pair of hand-crafted, custom-fit, proper shoes. Price was no object. The shoemaker took the measurements of the younger lady's feet. "Two weeks." He quoted them. "And if we work as apprentices?" "Two years. No cost for the shoes as you will earn them." So they paid him in time. And it only took them an afternoon for the shoes. But added years to the life of the old shoemaker...

The Legend of the haunted Spirit Mountain isn't that old. Just a few decades. And, something to do with secret government experiments in hidden bases deep in the desert. They must have thought no one would ever find out... When strange weather patterns started affecting local crops in near-mystical ways, the Ghost Hunters got their assignment: find out if it was some sort of trapped spirit, who was causing this disruption. Move them on if they could. But, the underlying conflict they found endangers lives of not just humans, but immortal spirit guides as well. And, any continued existence on this plane was caught in the middle...

I was walking in my pasture one sunny afternoon, when a pair of hands pulled me into the underworld. Once I arrived, I relaxed, a bit. Because it was an old friend. Carol. A time-bender and now a Lazurai as well. Meaning she could walk through rock, and other things. "Hi John. How have you been?" Carol was standing in front of a crystal fireplace, warming herself from the magma heat that was channeled out of the earth's core. "Not bad, Carol. Other than being pulled deep into the earth without a simple request, or how-de-do." "Sorry about that. Really. But I need your help - because I'm worse than haunted now, I'm being hunted." "And I'm the only one who can help you?" She smiled, embarrassed, and shrugged. "Yeah, that about sums it up, other than how many people are after me..." Excerpt: Just walking along in the pasture, out to check my cows, when two hands reached up and pulled me underground. I kinda resented that. Because it was turning out to be a brilliant, sunny day. Winter had let go - at least for now. I could get outside with a light jacket instead of a heavy winter chore coat. The company I was keeping lately probably meant this was another mystery to solve. Hands had come up from below to grab me before, but these weren't Gaia, that earth goddess I've been working with. This wasn't the same touch. Firm, and female, sure -but not Gaia. Before I could wonder how I could tell things like that, we arrived. It looked like Gaia's "bedroom" chamber again. Crystalline though, but feeling like a large cave of crystal. Its walls were slightly different, more orangish than the clearer yellow-white interior. But solid crystal, regardless. We were both "breathing" solid rock again. And moving through it like just so much open space. I found a bench-like rock formation of "thicker" granite to sit on, and focused on my kidnapper. She had her hands out toward the rock hearth in the room, warming up from the magma heat being channeled up from somewhere below. Then she turned around. As I suspected from her simple outfit a light jacket over a simple patterned blouse tucked into some black jeans, all designed to be inconspicuous -it was Carol. Time-bender and Lazurai. She smiled at me. "Sorry I didn't ask before I whisked you down here." I had to smile in return. "Better to ask forgiveness than permission?" A broader smile. "Something like that, but I knew you'd like a good story. And besides, like the first time we met, I don't know who else to go to. This problem is huge, or at least seems that way to me." I had to shake my head, like I said, the company I've been keeping lately. They know I'm in it for the story. "OK, tell me this huge problem, dramatic situation first, please." She chuckled a little. "John, you have a way to make anyone feel at ease. Sal and Jude have told me straight about you." A few steps across that bedroom suite let her sit next to me on that granite bench. "There's a huge group that has been trying to capture me. They're chasing me through time wherever I go, trying to head me off. Running has been my only option until now."