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Vee traded with him, offering the bacon, eggs and steaming pancakes, "You might want to put the pancakes into the oven for now, if you wanna keep 'em warm." She took the tape recorder and went into the livingroom, listening to the tape. After only a few seconds she pauses, "John, tell me, before I listen to the rest of this what happened."

She looks concerned, uncomfortable. He knows this look well. Fight or flight is settling in and her body is demanding she flee. She looks like a cornered animal, but her hands are folded in her lap.

He put the pancakes in the oven as she requested, and then sat down on the couch with a heavy sigh. She was frightened, almost as he had been last night, but he hadn't heard a thing on the recorder; therefore, as he sat down, he gave her a confused look.

"I can't really explain what happened, but I'll just tell you what went on. I was asleep last night, there had been no other activity up to that point, and then everything got very, very cold. There was ice on the floor and mist all around me, and I couldn't hear a thing; when I went to go check and see if it was happening to Amy, too, the stuff...followed me, into her room. It was like a cloud that surrounded me. As I went to the front door to let myself out, the room became scorching hot, and I heard a scream."

He gave her another confused look, obviously not sure what all of this meant, and then excused himself as he went to wake Amy.

Vee got up and walked around the room while John left. She felt uncomfortable. Something didn't want her there, and was making it well known. She rubbed her hands together, murmuring a prayer under her breath, feeling something wash over her. She felt better.

She sat back down, pressing play. There it was. An inhuman screeching filling the air. It was louder than it ought to be, filling the room with a pained, angry cry of something not alive. There was something else though, something in there that didn't belong.

"No! No! Don't go in there! Stay in here!" It must have been when John went to the other room.

He stared at the tape recorder with a shocked expression, then turned to Amy. He had the shirt from last night in his hand, having retrieved it from where he had tossed it last night, and it bore visible burns on it; now he was scared, and how.

"What the hell was that?" He inquired in a shaking voice.

Amy, just then, sleepily entered the living room from the hallway down to her bedroom; she had been awakened by the talking and the sound of something moving around in the kitchen. With her arrival, John stood from the couch, a little unsteadily, and walked up to her.

"Did you feel anything strange last night, anything at all?"

Vee visibly shook, pulling her knees up to her chest, hugging herself, glad she was wearing a pair of slacks today, "I don't know..." She sounded scared, unsure of herself.

Amy shrugged, "Not happened." She yawned, stretching, "I slept well. Are you okay, Vee?"

Vee nodded, getting up, "I brought breakfast. Let's eat." She left the recorder on the couch, practically running into the kitchen to find plates and get the food ready.

He greeted Amy as she came out, then went into the kitchen to get things prepared. Amy rubbed her eyes and shuffled in, giving John a friendly pat on the back as she passed him; she was dressed in a short-sleeve t-shirt that was two sizes above hers, so it hung down over her waist, and wore shorts under that. John would have been embarrassed to have Vee see his friend like this, but he figured that the woman had both seen worse and was too focused on what had happened to be put off by Amy's wardrobe.

"Okay, everything's hot and ready; grab a plate from the cabinet, here," he said before Amy interjected.

"No, I moved the plates yesterday, John. They're here," she opened a different cabinet to demonstrate, "and there's juice in the fridge."

Soon, John and Amy both were at the dinner table, the half that wasn't piled high with boxes anyway, and eating away. The shock that he had received earlier was soon forgotten in the taste of the food.

Vee smiled weakly at them, picking at the food. She didn't sit, instead she stood, looking between the living room and John. She looked frazzled. Uncomfortable. She put her plate down and wandered into the room, looking around. She lightly touched the wall, wondering just what was going on here.

The hot was something she could explain. The cold too. Not the extremes, though. As she walked around the room suddenly her plat, which had been in the kitchen one moment ago, flew at her head. If they had been looking, Amy and John would not have seen it move, only disappear and then hear her pained cry.

Blood flowed down her neck, from where the skin split. Pain made her dizzy and she fell to her knees.

John jolted from his seat and made a beeline to Vee, whereupon he took a good look at her neck and turned back to Amy as he put his hand on the wound.

"Get me a towel or something, fast!"

She did so and John carefully wrapped it around Vee's neck. With a careful movement, he brought her to her feet and walked over to the couch with her, where he laid her down. Both John and Amy were standing over her, with worried looks.

"You'll be okay, it was just a superficial wound, not deep enough to nick the artery; you'll need to sit there for a bit, though, and recover. What happened?"

Vee's eyes watered and instead of brushing it off, she cried like a child at the pain. She held the towel tight, her lip trembling as she sobbed. Pain was nothing new to her. She had been attacked by worse than a plate, but it still hurt!

She whimpered for a time, pointing at the plate with her food still half eaten on it. The fork had been left in the kitchen.

Cameras were going to be brought it within the hour. She wasn't taking no for an answer.

John carefully looked over to the plate and, with a nervous step towards it, picked it up off of the ground. There was no way that it could have just gotten out here from the kitchen, nor was it possible that Vee could have cut herself on the neck with it. He looked back at her, not sure what to think, but definitely sure that he had to say something.

"H-how did that...get here? I don't understand, Vee..."

But he did understand. This was not something that had happened through rational means or logical causes, this was supernatural; therefore, it was her territory, not his. He figured the best thing to do would be to help her to her feet when she wanted to get up, and then help her set up her equipment. The surprise of her stumbling out, bleeding, had scared him enough to make him forget all about eating.

"Poltergeist, I want to say." She pulled out a set of tripods from the back of the van, "As much as I want to have faith in people, you can either sit with the van or transport into the house. I have a wagon you can use, or you can carry by hand. Of course, if you're waiting here I can set up the house as I'd prefer from the get-go."

Her eyes flicked to the house, taking in the sight of it. It looked dark, foreboding to her. She wasn't sure if she would see the end of this.

John started helping Vee transport the stuff into the house, while Amy sat with the van. They were in a safe, quiet neighborhood, anyways; almost the entire area was filled with retirees and the worst crime to be reported for the place was a little vandalism every few months. Still, though, the equipment couldn't have been cheap and John agreed that it was better to be safe than sorry.

When the equipment was brought out of the van, John carried it inside and placed it all where Vee wanted it.

Vee directed him, "Cameras in the kitchen, livingroom..." She instructed him thoroughly as she set up her monitors. There were twelve cameras in all, but she was only using four, voice recorders, a machine she said would measure the number of "people" in the room, digital thermometers.

She set up another monitor, the screen showing the room in blues, reds, greens, yellows. It must have cost a fortune, but she just carelessly set it up.

"There." She spoke softly when she closed and locked the van. She didn't even use half of what she had, but instead she used small amounts wisely.

John set up the equipment where she needed it and, after the van had been closed up, joined Amy in the living room with Vee. Both were looking at the monitor with the many different colors, but neither had the same expression when looking at it.

"So, what exactly is that?" Amy inquired.

"Some sort of thermal imaging device, I imagine," John stated, "I've seen these before, occasionally at conventions and the like. Far, far out of the range of my little precinct's budget, but pretty nifty nonetheless."

Amy was starting to get a little worried about all this, while John was starting to be relieved. She wondered, if this much stuff was being used, maybe there really was something in her house. John, on the other hand, was glad to see this equipment; he had trusted Vee so far, but if she had broken out the prayer beads or incense, he would have told her to vamoose. This technology, though, couldn't have been cheap. Either the woman was very rich and just doing this as a hobby, or she had a fairly successful business chasing after ghosts, enough to cover the cost or the payments on all of her equipment.

Vee smiled a bit, "It was a gift from my former mentor after I set up my own office." She patted the screen, "The others I bought myself. It's been a long, expensive road, but it's a little more reliable than the old fashioned way. I'm not saying I'm opposed to burning sage and prayer, but I'm more of a modern gal."

She checked a frequency, giving Amy a smile, "I'll be out of your hair in a day, maybe two." She looked at John for a moment, checking him out. It would be nice to spend the night next a man like this, but it wasn't the point.

Amy nodded and, after touching John's arm, she turned to him with a whisper.

"What do you think, is this okay?"

"I thought you didn't want me playing big brother to you; that's what you said on the drive out here."

"Can you just," she turned with a quick look and a disarming smile at Vee, "just tell me what you think?"

John looked at Vee, realizing that there was no need to keep this from her, and then raised his voice to normal.

"I think Vee is here to help us, pure and simple. If I thought that she was a con artist, do you really think I would have let her into your house, twice? With a van? She's here to catch ghosts, not case the joint. You can relax."

He sighed as Amy nodded and, after giving Vee another smile, went off to her bedroom. Rubbing the back of his head, he sat down on the couch.

"I'm sorry about that, but she can be like that sometimes. She's really quite friendly, but this is a lot for her to adjust to. So," he said, hoping to change the subject, "what can I help with?"

Vee laughed softly, "I'm used to it. I'm a quack with special letters settled behind my name is all. I went to school for a useless degree. I'm the devil herself." She laughed a little louder, "I imagine you get BS about police brutality all the time, or how you use your badge to puff your chest up."

She turned a dial, changing the setting on one of the TVs. She went quiet for a moment, "Not really much for you to do now that things are set up. I guess we just wait." She rubbed the back of her neck, "This house... it honestly makes me want to run. I hope you understand that I'm actually, honestly scared."

He nodded at her statement about police brutality, but said nothing; she only knew that he was a cop, not that he was a deputy sheriff of a tiny village in the mountains outside of town. The truth was, most days John just sat at his desk and chatted with the sheriff, or else went up to the campgrounds to solve disputed among the tourists. In any case, her comment about the house caused him to give her a look.

"Wait, you're scared? I thought you dealt with ghosts and hauntings for a living, Vee. How is this any different from other cases?"

Vee looked at him with a flat gaze, "And I suppose you never get scared dealing with violent criminals." She was not mirthful in the least. The comment wasn't meant to offend, just to bring to light that she was allowed to be afraid - her job wasn't all rainbows and sunshine.

He shifted on the couch, aware of what she meant and not offended in the least.

"So, this is one of the worse cases, then? Vee, if you think that Amy could get hurt, should I put her somewhere else, a motel or something? I mean, yeah, so far the stuff's only happened to me, or you a little bit, but isn't it possible that this...thing could go after her later?"

He stood before Vee could reply and walked over to the gear, taking a look at all of it before looking back at her, expectant of an answer.