“ Dad, you will not yell. You will listen and you will obey without question.” With those words and a quick reach into his father’s mind, Conner...had mind control down. “ You will not be rude or disrespectful to me, and you will treat me as though I’m actually your son. You will defend me when anyone asks you what happened at school, and you will say you don’t know what I did to get so… ripped I guess.” With that, Conner decided he didn’t want to alter his father too much, and made him return to. Corec turned her way, his eyes widening. “Razai! What are you doing here?”“Renny Senshall sent me,” she said flatly. “That’s the only reason I came, so don’t go getting any ideas. I work for her, not for you.”“You’re the woman she mentioned? I thought you didn’t want to be anywhere near me.”Razai shrugged. “I gave her my word before I knew you’d be here, but the pay’s good.”He stared at her suspiciously. “Are you really working for Senshall, or for someone else?”“I’m no longer associated with. He doesn’t want Shelley here, but he can’t put her out tonight and thanks to you, William’s in no condition to drive so she has to stay until morning. It doesn’t mean he chosen William and her over you.’ I looked at her, surprised that she knew everything that was going on. Of course, she always knew everything even when we were kids. ‘Yeah, I heard the whole thing. Please don’t leave son,’ Mom pleaded with me. ‘I can’t stay Mom. I can’t stand to be around William, to see him smirk at me. “But it isn’t. Besides, what do you have to lose?”I looked into her eyes. “Julia, I believe in you. If you accept that belief, it will give you the power to remain corporeal the whole year. If you find out I’m lying, you can just gorge yourself on whoever you want and then finish me off as dessert. Then you can go back into the ether until next Halloween.”I took a deep breath, “But if I am telling the truth, you have a way to return to what once was before belief in magic left this world.” .