He could. Davy shrugged the heavy jacket off and handed it over. Under it…
Hill briefly forgot to be self-conscious about his chin as he gawped in confusion at the…toga. He supposed there was nothing wrong with that as a costume; he’d just expected something sexier. It was possible he should feel bad for that.
“You’re a—”
Davy shook the costume out, grabbed part of it, and dragged it up over his head, giving the front of it a tug to get the eye holes inthe right area. The folds fell into place as he gave his shoulders a quick shimmy.
“You’re a ghost?” Hill course-corrected on the question.
Davy pulled the edges of the sheet back from his wrists. His tentacles squirmed out from under the folds, the material thin enough that they could pass through it without any problems.
“It seemed on brand,” he said.
The man who’d just taken Davy’s jacket just nodded. “I’ve only seen five,” he said, damning it with faint praise.
He gave Davy a ticket for the coat and stepped away to hang it on the long rail that ran along in front of the staircase. Davy headed on into the party. He grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing server and moved through the crowd.
“Don’t worry about the dead,” he said. “Just think of them as another department, one that doesn’t get out much. Just stay close to me.”
He lashed a tentacle around Hill’s wrist to make sure he did as they pushed through the dead and peopledressedas the dead. It occurred to Hill to wonder if the dead might not care for that, but there was no point in asking Davy. He wasn’t the sort to care what other people cared about…except maybe what Hill did. Which was…heady.
“Do you have any sort of plan?” Hill asked.
“Sort of,” Davy said.
“Is it ‘wing it and see what happens,’ or are there actual steps?”
Davy freed his arm under the ghost-sheet to gulp his champagne. “Sort of.”
Someone had queued up Bloodhound Gang on the sound system. It pulsed through the air as Davy quartered the party efficiently on a hunt for Fraser. No sign of him in the foyer or the main dining room. Someone had given Davy a strange look when he’d asked if they’d seen Fraser, but after the double-take had pointed him toward the kitchen.
When they got there, a frazzled member of staff had shooed them back out and directed them to the gardens.
Strung fairy lights hung from trees and decorated the rose bushes. They didn’t provide much light, but enough to walk over the manicured lawn without breaking an ankle. Hill wished there’d been a little less light, as he caught a few unexpected glimpses of the dead trysting out here.
Hill could hardly judge, he supposed, but some of them made tentacles look quite tame. He was a little bit annoyed by that.
They found Fraser by the glowing light of the cigar he had just lit. He glanced at them through the cloud of blue-gray smoke that drifted from pursed lips.
“Don’t tell your mother,” he said.
Davy paused a beat and pulled the hem of the costume up over his head to drape his shoulders. He scrubbed a hand through his sweat-flattened hair.
“How did you know it was me?”
“I’ve known you since you were a toddler,” Fraser said. “And I recognize your shoes.”
Davy looked down at his damp Converse. He wriggled his toes.
“Fair play.”
Fraser laughed. He took a puff of the cigar and tapped ash onto the grass.
“You got that from me, you know,” he said. “I’ve not been much of a stepdad, but I guess there’s that.”
Davy hesitated at that opening. He scratched his lower lip with his thumbnail and glanced sidelong at Hill. All Hill could do inreply was shrug in confusion. It was, he supposed, the sort of self-reflection they wanted. He had just thought the various war crimes and a few murders would have been where the doubts set in.
“I guess it wasn’t something you set out to be,” Davy said. “I mean, who does?”
