Chapter 2

" W hat are you doing here?" Dusty declares loudly as I continue to stitch a very neat seam into Mr Brent's torso. "I thought it was your day off?"

"It is." I tie off the last stitch and glance up, snorting softly at my best friend. "Why are you wearing that?"

She adjusts the huge glittering beauty pageant crown and then runs her crimson-tipped nails along the white and silver satin sash which drapes across her chest and reads Spirit Guide in ostentatious letters.

"Because it's a very special day," she points out, as if that should be obvious. "It's Halloween, and as much as I'm looking forward to Chan's party later, I'm actually working."

I pause in the act of clipping off the final sutures and stare at her blankly. "Working?"

"I do work, you know." Dusty huffs indignantly. "It's All Hallows' Eve, when the veil between life and death is at its thinnest and evil lurks in the shadows. It's my sacred calling to guide lost souls into the light and fight the forces of darkness."

I blink. "Seriously?"

"Fuck no." She rolls her eyes. "They told me I had to."

"I imagine that went down well." I chuckle and set my scissors down on the metal rolling table. "You hate being told what to do. I'd have thought they'd learned their lesson when they tried to send you on that accidental spirit possession awareness safety course."

"Unfortunately, there was no window for me to climb out of this time." Dusty huffs. "They said I couldn't just keep coming down here and hanging out with you. As a full-fledged spirit guide, spending time actually guiding spirits is mandatory, so they tell me. They gave me the choice of Halloween or Black Friday. Apparently there's a lot of evil going on during the November sales."

"So you chose Halloween?" I pull the sheet over Mr Brent and pick up the clipboard to scribble some notes down.

She shrugs. "At least this way I can hang out with you and the others."

We both look up as the lights flicker and the air crackles with electricity.

"Duck!" I shout just before a brightly coloured arc of electricity shoots across the room and leaves a scorch mark on the opposite wall.

"Terry!" Dusty growls. She straightens up and glares at the man wearing a maroon Adidas tracksuit with white stripes along the seams who has just appeared in the middle of the room.

"Oops." He winces. "Sorry. It got away from me for a moment."

I sigh loudly and shake my head as I take in the latest addition to my merry band of ghosts hell-bent on inhabiting the mortuary instead of moving into the light.

"I didn't mean to," he says defensively, his mouth pursed. His wild, smoking hair still stands on end nearly a year after he accidentally electrocuted himself to death while doing a DIY home improvement project.

"I know you don't mean to, Terry," I reply patiently, "but you really need to try. I'm running out of excuses for why there are constantly burn marks all over the walls. At this point, we've had the fire department out so many times to check the wiring that we're on first-name terms with them all."

"You're welcome."

"He does have a point," Dusty muses. "They're gorgeous. I saw the last lot that traipsed through here. I thought it was an audition for Magic Mike ."

"HAPPY HALLOWEEN!" Two more familiar voices chorus, one American and one Scottish.

Glancing over, I see Ian and Dave standing hand in hand at the end of the table and do a double take. Usually, the pair of them appearas they did at the moment of death: Dave, soaking wet and with no shoes, having taken a nosedive off a bridge into the Thames where he drowned, and Ian, covered in blue wax and tiny shards of glass from the exploding lava lamp thatfinished him off. Because of their appearance, I'd always assumed they were caught in some sort of death cycle, unable to move on until they solved their unfinished business, business that so far I'd had no luck figuring out.

However, now I'm starting to suspect that's not the case at all. Both of them show no signs of the manner of their deaths right now; in fact, they both seem to be in costume. Ian is wearing a tiny pair of gold pants… holy hell, and I mean tiny. He's also wearing a little pair of sporty boots, the kind boxers wear, and he has a few artfully placed bandages on his thigh and upper arm. His shaggy blonde surferhair is loose around his shoulders and for once not matted and clumped with wax and glass. A light dusting of fair hair covers his well-defined pecs, and his rippled stomach is golden and smooth, no trace of the usual cuts and grazes.

Beside him, holding onto his hand to stop himself from wobbling on the black platform heels he's clearly not used to wearing, is Dave. His black hair is wild and curly, his piercing pale blue eyes framed by heavy makeup and his lips painted a murderous red. But it's his outfit that has my attention—or rather, his lack of it. He's wearing tiny black briefs and a shiny corset, tightly laced.

"Holy Frankfurter!" Dusty cackles in delight. "You two look fabulous!"

Ian shrugs. "It's Halloween, so we thought we'd dress up. If we're going to the party at the bookshop, we figured we should make the effort."

"You're going to Chan's party?" I blurt in surprise.

"Dusty invited us." Ian nods in the direction of my dead bestie.

"What?" She blinks innocently. "It's not like they can't leave themortuary, they do it all the time. I caught them sitting at the apex of St Paul's Cathedral the other week."

"What were you doing up there?" I ask in confusion.

"Smoking," Ian says easily. "You said you didn't like the smell of weed in the mortuary."

"Yeah, but I dunno, doesn't it seem a bit sacrilegious to do it on top of a cathedral?"

Ian shrugs. "It's a great view though."

"Wait a minute!" Terry interrupts indignantly. "Why do they get invited to a party and not me?"

"Because you weren't here," Dusty answers in a bored tone.

"Oh," Terry replies. "Well, can I go? To the party," he clarifies.

"It depends." Dusty's eyes narrow.

"On what?"

"On whether you can go one evening without accidentally defibrillating anyone."

"I'll do my best," he promises.

"And you have to wear a costume. Even though Chan can't see you, he's a stickler for the rules," Dusty adds.

"But I don't know how to," Terry frowns.

"Hang on a minute," I interrupt, looking at Ian and Dave. "How did you two manage to change your appearance?"

"We finally figured it out. Not sure why it took us so long," Dave says shyly.

"Did you notice anything else?" Ian grins and stares down at Dave proudly.

Now that he mentions it, there is something different, calmer about the Scotsman. For a second I stare contemplatively, then it comes to me.

"Your tic is gone!" I exclaim. "And your speech… the Tourette's?"

"Mostly gone." Dave grins. "A couple of words and phrases sneak in there if I'm stressed or not concentrating, but this is the longest I've gone without twitching or blurting things out."

"I'm so happy for you." I smile. "You seem so much more, I don't know… at peace?" I muse. "So you're really not caught in a death cycle, either of you. Which means you don't have any unfinished business." I watch as they both shake their heads. "Why are you still here? Why didn't you move on? Even if you didn't see the light or missed it, Bruce can still help you to cross over."

Ian and Dave look at each other as if having a private conversation, thenturn their attention back to me.

"After everything that went on last year, with that chaos business and then the demon, we were worried about you. We decided to stick around and make sure you were okay."

"You did?" I smile at them, and a warmth spreads through my ribs. "Thank you."

Dave shrugs. "It's nothin'." He shoots a grin at Ian. "Besides, we kinda like it around here. It's never dull. Who needs heaven anyway? Just a load of stairways and chunky angels playing harps, I bet."

"I'm sure that's not entirely accurate." I chuckle.

"They're not far off." Dusty huffs. "It's really boring, trust me. Here's where it's all at. Never a dull moment with you, Tris, honey."

"Thanks," I reply dryly. "That's not exactly by choice, you know."

"That's what makes it so exciting." Dusty winks. "Never know what insanity is coming next."

I look across the room as the door bangs open and Ted, our orderly, strides in. "Morning, Tristan." He inclines his head in greeting. "The undertaker's here from Stovell's. He's collecting Mrs Finchley."

"Okay."

"You done?" He points to the body on the table in front of me. "Want me to put that one back in cold storage?"

"Yes, please, if you wouldn't mind." I peel my gloves off and toss them in the bin before washing my hands thoroughly. "Mr Brent, number four, please."

"No problem. You done for the day?" Ted asks conversationally as he sets about moving the body back to the bank of refrigerators.

"Yes, just covering for Hen for a few hours." I hang my white coat on the peg and pick up my notes. "Anyway, see you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow. Have a good Halloween!"

"You too." I smile as I head out of the room.

Dropping the notes in my office to type up tomorrow, I grab my coat and start to head out, but I pause at the sound of a loud crash, which came from the staff room. Back tracking a few paces I grasp the handle and open the door, then poke my head around the edge.

"Is everything okay in here?" My question is met with silence and an empty room.

Huh. Maybe I imagined it. I'm about to withdraw and close the door when something sparkly catches my eye. Curious, I push the door open wider and step into the room.

"What the?—"

There are small, child-sized footprints leading across the staff room. But these aren't shoe imprints—I can see the impressions of an instep and one, two, three… four toes? That's weird, and that's not the only thing. The footprints are made up of glitter.

"The fuck?" I mutter under my breath.

My gaze follows the trail to the small staff refrigerator. The door is wide open and a milk carton is on its side on the floor, spilling out the last of its contents in a little pool.

Crossing the room, I reach down and pick up the carton, which is now empty, but what catches my eye is the bite marks in the top of it, as if someone tore into it with their teeth rather than just open the top neatly.

"Tris, are you ready to go? The ghost squad is waiting," Dusty's voice blares out next to me. I jolt in shock.

"Jesus, Dusty." I suck in a sharp breath and press my emptyhand to my chest. "What have I told you about sneaking up on me?"

"What? Do you want a ten-piece band playing the opening verses to Adele's Hello ?"

Ignoring my question, she looks down at the puddle of milk on the floor, then to the mauled carton in my hand. Her gaze stops on the teeth marks.

"Thirsty?" She quirks a brow. "Jesus, Tris, you're an animal. You could've just got a glass."

"This wasn't me, I found it like this." I frown down at the carton.

"My money's on Ted."

"Well, it's not going to be Judy, is it?" I reply.

Dusty scoffs. "No way. That woman is as prim as Dame Maggie Smith." She pauses a moment thoughtfully. "God rest her soul," she adds for good measure.

"Is she…"

"Oh, yeah." Dusty nods. "She's having a whale of a time with Alan Rickman. They were setting up a theatre group and putting on a production of King Lear when I last looked in."

"Okaay…" I look down at the glittery footprints, about to point them out to Dusty, and blink. They're gone.

Did I imagine them? Shaking my head in confusion, I decide it's probably best not to think too hard about it. Weird shit has a tendency to happen around me all the time. It's probably one of the other mortuary ghosts playing a Halloween prank.

Tossing the carton in the bin, I grab a handful of paper towels and mop up the milk from the floor. I throw that into the bin too, and close the door to the fridge. Tugging my beanie from my coat pocket, I pull it down over my wildly curling hair and nod to Dusty.

"Let's get going, then, before Chan and Harrison start fighting over Halloween decorations."

"Fine," Dusty mutters. "But my money's on Chan. You've never seen him at a boxing day sale. He's feisty as fuck."