One summer night, Agent K was departing a local cemetery (he had snuck in to attempt to verify his Ghost Mushroom strain's capabilities) when he heard a scream. He alerted the caretaker (pretending to be a passer-by) and together they investigated. A young (20-something) woman named Melissa LeVoy was found unconscious in the graveyard, apparently having just suffered some sort of breakdown. Her father, a concerned parent and a respected Engineer, was contacted and arrived to retrieve his daughter. Kerry offered the aid of Agents J & K to help uncover what had caused this, and how she had come to be there. Mr. LeVoy accepted (mainly because they worked cheap, and out of gratitude for finding his daughter).

As it turned out, Melissa had gone missing from her apartment about a week earlier. She claimed to have no knowledge of where she had been, nor how she had ended up in the cemetery, and the subject disturbed her. It further developed that the grave she had been near when she cried out was that of her mother.

The case took an eerie turn when Agent K later realized that the Ghost Mushrooms had been acting up a bit in the young woman's presence. Or rather, he realized that this might not be a random glitch in his theory, which is what he had first dismissed it as. Startled, he asked Agent J to perform a search for the woman they were helping. This search located her ... or rather, her body. As it turned out, Melissa LeVoy had been kidnapped and apparently murdered by an unknown assailant. The Melissa that experienced the breakdown in the graveyard was, in fact, a new ghost**. Her mother's grave was a fetter, thus explaining why she had appeared in that particular graveyard.

Agents J & K consulted with their resident expert, Shannon, and subsequently counseled Melissa (and later, her father) on how to cope with this change in their lives (sic). The case is not entirely closed; the murderer is still unknown, but Agents J & K have no leads in that regard (Melissa does not have clear memories of the murder), but for the time being, the LeVoy's just need to cope with Melissa's death.

** I have very little knowledge of the Risen, but that's sort of the concept I'm shooting for here...she's solid enough to fool most people, including herself, into thinking she's alive, at least long enough for this case to occur. Stacy informs me that the Risen generally use their own corpses, but I have no compunctions about ignoring that.

In midsummer, the J & K Detective Agency received a pleading phone call from one Timothy Grant, asking them to meet him at a pay phone in the city. (It remains a mystery how he acquired the number, though Agent J had been experimentally magicking the Agency's PR efforts to come to the attention of those who most needed the services the Agents offered.) In person, Mr. Grant appeared to be a healthy middle-aged man, but he seemed confused and occasionally verged on hysteria. Once calmed down, he related a most unusual story: He was actually an eight-year-old boy, artificially aged by a mad scientist's youth-stealing machine. He further identified the villain in question as Dr. Kurt Schnell, his pediatrician.

Needless to say, Agents J and K were skeptical at first, but a little research confirmed the existence of a young Timothy Grant, the details of whose life matched the older Timothy's story, and who had been reported missing a few days before. Another young prisoner Timothy claimed to have met while in the doctor's clutches proved also to be a genuine missing child -- one who was probably at that very moment suffering hideously to prolong the madman's unnatural life.

After installing the aged Timothy in Agent J's room with instructions not to draw attention to himself, Agents J&K followed his directions, and cased Dr. Schnell's home while he was at work. With the aid of their magickal abilities, they were able to liberate the other captive -- who already looked older than Agent K, despite being just shy of her fifth birthday. They hesitated to destroy the infernal device itself, though -- Agent K was consumed with scientific curiosity about the very Etheric-looking tool, and Agent J had her own reasons for wanting to capture an age-altering machine intact. Unfortunately, their attempts at investigation triggered a security device that rendered them both unconscious.

They awoke, locked up together with the recaptured little girl. Dr. Schnell appeared shortly thereafter, displaying all the behaviors of an addict craving his next hit. Agent K's characteristically chivalrous attempts to defend his companions only moved him to the top of the victim list. Bereft of her laptop, Agent J was reduced to using the relatively slow and cumbersome backup device in her wristwatch to attempt to access and deactivate the machine . . . to no avail.

Fortunately, the mad doctor had not accounted for all factors. Upon exposure to the machine's effect, the various seeds, pods, and other esoteric plant-bits in Agent K's pockets had their own growth accelerated enormously. Agent K, Dr. Schnell, and the machine were all enveloped in a spreading wave of vines and tendrils. Not having been built to handle so many distinct biological patterns at once, the machine began to exhibit signs of catastrophic failure. Unable to do anything more sophisticated in the time available, Agent J worked to turn as much as possible of the impending disaster inward upon the machine itself.

Following the inevitable Fifteen Minutes of Bright White Light, it appeared that the machine, the hyperaccelerated plant matter, and Dr. Schnell had all been reduced to a fine powder. Agent K lay on the floor. Upon reviving, he proved to have gained an inch in height, but seemed otherwise unharmed. He released Agent J and the captive girl (Danielle Brooks), and the three returned to the office.

Timothy and Danielle were subsequently delivered into the care of Dr. Rodochenko, where periodic treatments are gradually returning their altered life patterns to their original physiological ages. Once that is accomplished, they will be returned to their families.