"Either that or she's stupid," Miranda said, and then snorted. "Do you realize what Perry is? He's like the most powerful shape-shifter in the world right now. Everyone knows you don't piss off a shape-shifter. They have terrible tempers."

"I ... he ... he tricked me into letting him snuggle up against my breasts." She recal ed hearing the twerp's voice morph into a very threatening roar.

Okay, so maybe her actions had been a tad stupid, but nothing, nothing made her blood boil more than someone making a fool out of her, and that's what he'd done.

Fighting the tears, because she always cried when she was mad, she spotted the fridge stil open and marched over to shut it. The cold blast from the white box hit her face the same time as she remembered ... "Gross, I checked out his privates."

Behind her, both Del a and Miranda spewed more laughter. Then for some off-the-wal reason, what hadn't seemed funny suddenly did. Kylie leaned into the closed fridge and started laughing. For the next five minutes, they sat at the kitchen table, giggling until they had tears in their eyes. It reminded Kylie of what she and Sara would so often do.

Or had until everything had changed.

"You should have seen his expression when you were pul ing him by the ear," Del a said. "I wish I'd had a camera."

"I almost felt sorry for him," Miranda said.

"Sorry for him?" Kylie asked.

"Yeah, he's kind of cute in that boyish kind of way. Don't you think?"

"Cute? Oh, heck. He's a freak," Kylie insisted.

"Aren't we al ?" asked Del a, her humor fading just a notch.

Not sure I am, Kylie thought, and almost said as much, but something plopped down on the table. Kylie screamed when she saw the toad. Miranda rol ed her eyes and snatched up the creature. "Being bad again, Mr. Pepper?" she seethed at the amphibian, holding the beast a foot from her face, his toad legs dangling almost to the table.

"What did he do for you to put a spel on him?" Del a asked, studying the toad in disgust.

"Like our friend Perry, he's a member of the pervert club." Miranda gave the toad a little shake. "He's my piano teacher and he tried to start playing something besides the piano, if you know what I mean."

Del a snarled at the toad. "Why don't we just make him a midnight snack and be done with it? Do toad legs taste as good as frogs?"

"Hmm. Don't know." Miranda glanced at Del a. "But I'm wil ing to find out," she said, and eyed the toad. Kylie could be mistaken, but she could swear the toad's eyes grew large with fear.

Miranda laughed. "If only I was that type of witch."

"What kind of witch are you?" Kylie asked, somewhat relieved.

"A screwed-up witch." Miranda frowned and then scowled at the toad. "You know the dril , Mr. Pepper, stop thinking bad thoughts and you'l go back to normal."

The toad wiggled his legs and then vanished into thin air.

"What kind of curse did you put on him?" Del a asked.

Miranda moaned in frustration. "If I knew that, I could stop it."

"You mean, you don't remember?" Del a asked.

Miranda lowered her gaze. "I remember what I thought I said, but I'm ... I'm dyslexic and I get my spel s wrong sometimes, and I have to know exactly what I said to make it stop. So until then, every time that pervert thinks about an underage girl, he's transformed into a toad and pops in for a visit."

Kylie leaned in. "While it sucks for you, it sounds like he deserves it."

"Yeah, he does. But he's like a constant reminder that I'm a screw-up."

"True," Del a said. "But on the positive side, you're keeping him from doing anything wrong. I hate perverts. I had an old neighbor who would stand at his window, empty lotion in his hand, and whack off in front of me or other girls."

"That's disgusting," Miranda said.

"Yeah, but what I hated was that a girl down the street had already told me he did it to her, too. She told her parents, the parents cal ed the police. The police came back and said that he's a deacon of the church and it was basical y my neighbor's word against his and they believed him."

"That's why I did the whole curse thing," Miranda said.

"But I handled it." Del a grinned.

"What did you do?" Kylie was almost too scared to ask.

"I broke into his house and replaced his lotion with some real y bad-ass superglue that my dad uses at his lab at work. You should have seen the look on his face when he couldn't get his hand off his dick. Then I made an anonymous cal to the police and reported him. I mean, how could he deny doing it? His hand was stuck to the crime scene."

They al burst out laughing. Wiping the tears of laughter from her eyes, Kylie looked at Del a and Miranda and she could have sworn they were just normal teenage girls.

Wel , she could have sworn until the blast of cold snuck up on her from behind. Kylie glanced over her shoulder hoping beyond hope nothing was there.

But hopes were often futile.

Soldier Dude stood only a few feet from her. Too close. Closer than he'd ever been. The chil from his presence sent an icy fear climbing her spine.

"Kylie?"

She heard Miranda cal her name-or was that Del a? Kylie couldn't tel because it sounded as if it came from another world. A world in which ghosts didn't exist. A world Kylie wanted to get back to, but couldn't.