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“I have no idea. I never paid attention to any of that. I just liked the take down.”

That didn’t surprise me. “You’re a questionable human being.”

“Ah, the real question is, am I even still a human being?” Ryan raised his eyebrows up and down. “Who am I, Bai? That is the question.”

Since I highly doubted Ryan was referencing an ancient philosopher and was just trying to be entertaining/annoying, I didn’t answer. I just pushed open the auditorium door and went into the hallway.

“Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” he said, pretending to brush off my T-shirt. “That’s more you than me. Damn, you’re filthy.”

“Stop, that’s weird,” I said, still thinking about that strange moment in the car when our faces had melded together.

“Get back, demon!” a man’s voice suddenly burst out.

It should have been more unnerving than it was.

But with a heavy sigh, I turned, fully expecting this was my introduction to one James Kwaitkowski, recently deceased.

Fresh spirits are always a little kooky, and it seemed the senior center janitor was no exception to that rule.

THREE

In my experience,ghosts have one of two reactions when they’re new to the game.

They’re either super casual, to the point that you grow concerned they don’t know they’re dead (I’m looking at you, Ryan Conroy) or they freak out. Big time. Not, say, slightly agitated or mildly distressed. Not even anxious with a side of raised voice.

Nope. They freak the you-know-what out.

James Kwaitkowski was the latter.

Around sixty years old, he was standing in the hallway, wearing a blue janitor’s uniform and waving his arms wildly. His eyes were filled with terror and panic.

Ryan stopped walking and glanced back behind him. “Who’s he calling a demon? You? That’s ridiculous. That’s like calling a bunny a polar bear.”

I didn’t follow his logic exactly, but I knew what he meant. I was not in any way threatening, even on a bad day.

“You!” James Kwaitkowski hissed, pointing directly at Ryan. “The demon in flannel.”

“Oh, he means me. Wait, you can see me?” he asked James.

Generally speaking, the ghosts I encounter can’t see each other. Living humans can’t see any of them. But there don’t seem to be hard and fast rules. Some ghosts have seen Ryan and vice versa. It gets very confusing.

“I see your evil heart beating inside you and your yellow eyes.”

Okay. That was new. Was it possible James was somehow seeing Ryan the way his fear projected an image onto him? Or was Ryan really a yellow-eyed demon?

Now there was a twist I wouldn’t have seen coming.

I took one step away from Ryan, very discreetly.

Not discreetly enough.

“Seriously?” he demanded of me. “You actually think I’m a demon? You believe the babbling dead guy over your oldest friend?”

“Alyssa is actually my oldest friend.”

“You know what I mean,” he snapped. “I’m not evil and I would never hurt you. Morally gray at certain points in my life? Yes, that’s probably fair. But evil?” He made a huffing sound of impatience. “That’s just insulting.”

I instantly felt guilty, because everything made me feel guilty. “I’m sorry. It just caught me off guard.”