"Bam," Cee Cee said. "Kind of like … I don't know. Someone up there has got it out for him, or something."

Which reminded me. I looked around, thinking I might catch a glimpse of the owner of that giggle I'd heard, just before the puppet had come down on us.

I didn't see anyone, but that didn't matter. I knew who'd been behind it.

And it sure hadn't been any angel.

CHAPTER 6

"Well," Jesse said when I told him about it later that night. "You know what you have to do, don't you?"

"Yeah," I said sullenly, my chin on my knees. "I have to tell her about that time I found that nudie magazine under the front seat of the Rambler. That oughtta make her change her mind about him real quick."

The scarred eyebrow went up. "Susannah," he said. "What are you talking about?"

"Gina," I said, surprised he didn't know. "And Sleepy."

"No," Jesse said. "I meant about the boy, Susannah."

"What boy?" Then I remembered. "Oh. You mean Michael?"

"Yes," Jesse said. "If what you're telling me is true, he is in a lot of danger, Susannah."

"I know." I leaned back on my elbows. The two of us were sitting out on the roof of the front porch, which happened to stick out beneath my bedroom windows. It was kind of nice out there, actually, under the stars. We were high enough up so that no one could see us - not that anyone but me and Father Dom could see Jesse, anyway - and it smelled good because of the giant pine tree to one side of the porch. It was the only place, these days, that we could sit and talk without fear of being interrupted by people. Well, just one person, actually: my houseguest, Gina.

"So, what are you going to do about it?" In the moonlight, Jesse's white shirt looked blue. So did the highlights in his black hair.

"I have no idea," I said.

"Don't you?"

Jesse looked at me. I hate it when he does that. It makes me feel … I don't know. Like he's mentally comparing me with someone else. And the only someone else I could think of was Maria de Silva, the girl Jesse was on his way to marry when he died. I had seen a portrait of her once. She was one hot babe, for the 1850s. It's no fun, let me tell you, being compared to a chick who died before you were even born.

And always had a hoop skirt to hide the size of her butt under.

"You're going to have to find them," Jesse said. "The Angels. Because if I'm right, that boy will not be safe until they are persuaded to move on."

I sighed. Jesse was right. Jesse was always right. It was just that tracking down a bunch of partying ghosts was so not what I wanted to be doing while Gina was in town.

On the other hand, hanging around with me was not exactly proving to be what Gina wanted to do.

I stood up and walked carefully across the roof tiles, then stooped to peer through the bay windows into my bedroom. The daybed was empty. I picked my way back down to where Jesse was sitting, and slumped down beside him again.

"Jeez," I said. "She's still in there."

Jesse looked down at me, the moonlight playing around the little smile on his face. "You cannot blame her," he said, "for being interested in your brother."

"Stepbrother," I reminded him. "And yes, I can. He's vermin. And he's got her in his lair."

Jesse's smile grew broader. Even his teeth, in the moonlight, looked blue. "They are only playing computer games, Susannah."

"How do you know?" Then I remembered. He was a ghost. He could go anywhere. "Well, sure. The last time you looked, maybe. Who knows what they're doing now?"

Jesse sighed. "Do you want me to look again?"

"No." I was horrified. "I don't care what she does. If she wants to hang around with a big loser like Sleepy, I can't stop her."

"Brad was there, too," Jesse pointed out. "Last time I looked."

"Oh, great. So she's hanging out with two losers."

"I don't understand why you are so unhappy about it," Jesse said. He had stretched out across the tiles, contented as I'd ever seen him. "I like it much better this way."

"What way?" I groused. I couldn't get quite as comfortable. I kept finding prickly pine needles beneath my butt.

"Just the two of us," he said with a shrug. "Like it's always been."

Before I had a chance to reply to what - to me, anyway - seemed an extraordinarily heartfelt and perhaps even romantic admission, headlights flashed in the driveway, and Jesse looked past me.

"Who's that?"

I didn't look. I didn't care. I said, "One of Sleepy's friends, I'm sure. What was that you were saying? About how you like it being just the two of us?"

But Jesse was squinting through the darkness. "This is not a friend of Jake's," he said. "Not bringing with him so much … fear. Could this be the boy, Michael, perhaps?"

"What?"

I swung around and, clinging to the edge of the roof, watched as a minivan pulled up the driveway and parked behind my mother's car.

A second later, Michael Meducci got out from behind the wheel, and with a nervous glance at my front door, began heading toward it, his expression determined.

"Oh, my God," I cried, reeling back from the roof's edge. "You're right! It's him! What do I do?"

Jesse only shook his head at me. "What do you mean, what do you do? You know what to do. You've done this hundreds of times before." When I only continued to stare at him, he leaned forward, until his face was just a couple of inches from mine.

But instead of kissing me like I'd hoped, for one wild heart-pounding moment, he would, he said, enunciating distinctly, "You're a mediator, Susannah. Go mediate."

I opened my mouth to inform him that I highly doubted Michael was at my house because he wanted help with his poltergeist problem, considering he couldn't know I was in the ghostbusting business. It was much more likely that he was here to ask me out. On a date. Something that I was sure had never occurred to Jesse, since they probably didn't have dates back when he'd been alive, but which happened to girls in the twenty-first century with alarming regularity. Well, not to me, necessarily, but to most girls, anyway.

I was about to point out that this was going to ruin our wonderful opportunity to be alone together when the doorbell rang, and deep inside the house, I heard Doc yell, "I'll get it!"

"Oh, God," I said, and dropped my head down into my hands.

"Susannah," Jesse said. There was concern in his voice. "Are you all right?"

I shook myself. What was I thinking? Michael Meducci was not at my house to ask me out. If he'd wanted to ask me out, he would have called like a normal person. No, he was here for some other reason. I had nothing to worry about. Nothing at all.

"I'm fine," I said, and got slowly to my feet.

"You don't sound fine," Jesse said.

"I'm fine," I said. I started crawling back into my room, through the open window Spike used.

I had wiggled most of the way in when the inevitable thump on my door occurred. "Enter," I said from where I lay, collapsed against the window seat, and Doc opened the door and stuck his head into my room.

"Hey, Suze," he whispered. "There's a guy here to see you. I think it's that guy you all were talking about at dinner. You know, the guy from the mall."

"I know," I said to the ceiling.

"Well," Doc said, fidgeting a little. "What should I do? I mean, your mom sent me up here to tell you. Should I say you're in the shower, or something?" Doc's voice became a little dry. "That's what girls always have their brothers say when my friends and I try calling them."

I turned my head and looked at Doc. If I'd had to choose one Ackerman brother to be stuck with on a desert island, Doc would definitely have been my pick. Red haired and freckle faced, he hadn't quite grown into his enormous ears yet, but at only twelve he was by far the smartest of my stepbrothers.

The thought of any girl making up an excuse to avoid talking to him made my blood boil.

His statement tweaked my conscience. Of course I wasn't going to make up an excuse. Michael Meducci may be a geek. And he may not have acted with any real class earlier that day at the mall. But he was still a human being.

I guess.

I said, "Tell him I'll be right down."

Doc look visibly relieved. He grinned, revealing a mouthful of sparkling braces. "Okay," he said, and disappeared.

I climbed slowly to my feet, and sauntered over to the mirror above my dressing table. California had greatly improved both my complexion and my hair. My skin - only slightly tanned thanks to SPF 15 sunblock - looked fine without any makeup, and I'd given up trying to straighten my long brown hair, and simply let it curl. A single hit of lip gloss, and I was on my way. I didn't bother changing out of my cargo pants and T-shirt. I didn't want to overwhelm the guy, after all.

Michael was waiting for me in the living room, his hands shoved in his pants pockets, looking at the many school portraits of me and my stepbrothers that hung upon the wall. My stepfather was sitting in a chair he never sat in, talking to Michael. When I walked in he dried up, then climbed to his feet.

"Well," Andy said after a few seconds of silence. "I'll just leave the two of you alone, then." Then he left the room, even though I could tell he didn't want to. Which was kind of strange, since Andy usually takes only the most perfunctory interest in my affairs, except when they happen to involve the police.

"Suze," Michael said when Andy was gone. I smiled at him encouragingly since he looked like he was about to expire from nervousness.

"Hey, Mike," I said easily. "You okay? No permanent injury?"