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We chat for a couple more minutes before saying our goodbyes.
It’s early yet and I still have plenty of time for sightseeing, so I let my intuition guide me.
CHAPTER
THREE
RULE # 5: NEVER SPLIT UP!
Remember, safety in numbers. Divide and conquer is a bunch of bullshite when it comes to spectral entities. They would love nothing more than to get you and your partner alone. That leaves you both open and vulnerable–and it could end up with one of you finding yourself six feet under. If you want to stay in the land of the living in corporeal form, stick close to your partner at all times.
—ExorSquad Employee Safety Manual and Operational Guidelines (Revised Edition)
Callum
Just as I’m getting ready to leave for my nighttime investigation of the Salon de Spin, my mobile rings. I glance at the screen and hesitate.
With a reluctant sigh, I answer the call from my old partner at the Met. “Liz, good to hear from you. It’s been ages.”
“And whose fault is that?” she replies tartly.
I grimace. I’ve got no comeback to that.
“Sorry. Life’s been a bit… odd lately.”
“What, you mean more than you being able to see ghosts?”
I run a hand over my face and groan. I never should have told her, but she was my partner, and you don’t keep that kind of stuff from your partner.
“That’s a big part of it, aye. In fact, I’m on a potential haunting case right now.”
“Riiiiight,” she says.
“I know you don’t believe in this sort of thing.”
“It’s hard for me to believe in something I can’t see.”
“No shit. Same for me. That is, until I died for two minutes.”
It’s Liz’s turn to inhale sharply, and I mentally curse myself for being a fool.
This is a hard topic for both of us, and I know Liz feels unwarranted guilt because she wasn’t there to back me up when shit went down and I had my accident on the job.
“Sorry. If you say you can see ghosts, then you can. You’re not a liar, Callum Fraser.” She clears her throat awkwardly. “How’s your health these days?”
“About as good as it’s likely to get,” I admit. “The nerve damage from the fall sometimes gives me trouble, numbness down my leg or weakness in one side, which is fucking terrible. Still, some days are better or worse than others. But I’ve done all the PT in the world. There’s not much more I can do, so now I just live with it. The time between flare-ups seems to be getting longer, so I’ll take that as a win.”
What I don’t tell her is that when it gets really bad, I have to use a bloody cane. Thankfully, that’s not too often. It makes me feel like I’ve turned into my granddad. The man’s ninety-five and I’m barely forty-three.
My injury was serious enough, though, that I had to take an early retirement with an ill-health pension because my body just couldn’t do the job anymore. Back then, I was bedridden for a long time, and it took two years of intense physical therapy to get to where I am now. Most days I’m fine, and I’ve stayed fit with regular cardio and strength training, but when the nerve damage acts up, I can be out of commission for long periods of time, and there’s so far no rhyme or reason as to when that might happen.
Liz and I had a mutual drunken pity party together after my retirement was decided, and now she’s gone on to bigger and better things.
“How’s life treating you, Detective Chief Inspector Wu? You’re moving on up the chain now.”
She snorts. “It’s a nice pay bump, but it also means I’ve got a whole load more administrative bullshit to deal with now.”
I chuckle. “Your husband probably likes that, you being in the office more than out on the streets. Probably gives him peace of mind.”
