Page 26 of Dead Serious Case 4 Professor Prometheus Plume

I shake my head and blow out a breath. “I… Death promised me,” I tell Danny. “He promised that he’d tell me when Dad’s time comes so I can say goodbye, and when I spoke with Lois yesterday, she said the doctor had checked on Dad and said it was just a cold. He’s in no immediate danger, he’s just sleeping most of the time.” I swallow tightly. “I’m not going to lie. I feel so guilty for even thinking about going away. I feel like I’m being really selfish but…”

“But?”

“I think I need this,” I admit. “The past six months has been a lot—the past year if I’m being honest. You’ve been the best part of it, but it’s been a lot of change, a lot of adjustments on top of Dad declining and work being insane. Is it terrible for me to just want to take a breather?”

Danny sets his coffee and phone on the table and reaches for me, cupping my face. “No, love, it doesn’t make you a bad person.”

“I’ll probably still feel guilty but Lois said she’d call if anything changed, Death promised me an advance warning, and Dusty said she’d keep an eye on Dad.” I blow out a shaky breath. “So–”

“You want to go?” Danny says as he searches my face.

I nod. “I do.”

I hear Dusty snort loudly at my words, and I turn to look at her.

“Sorry,” she mouths. “As you were.”

Rolling my eyes and wondering what has gotten into her lately, I turn my attention back to Danny, my mind made up.

“You know we can come back at any point if you need to, even if we’ve only been there twenty minutes.”

I nod again. “Let’s do it,” I say. “Let’s go away for a dirty weekend.”

He chuckles and kisses me lightly before he releases my face, then sniffs loudly. “Can you smell burning?”

“Oh no.” My eyes widen in alarm. I set my cup down on the coffee table, feeling my skin prickling. I see a flicker at the corner of my eye and without stopping to think, I launch myself at Danny, flattening him to the sofa as an arc of electricity hits the wall behind us, leaving a scorch mark.

“What the hell was that?” Danny bursts out.

“Terry?” I glance over and see the ghost from the mortuary in his maroon tracksuit, wincing in apology as his wild hair continues to smoke.

“I’m so sorry. It was an accident. Still haven’t quite got a handle on it yet.”

“Who the bloody hell is Terry?” Danny scowls as he sits up and eyes the burn mark on the living room wall.

“He’s the guy I was telling you about from Christmas Eve.” I sigh. “The one who decided he was qualified to rewire his kitchen after watching a YouTube video and forgot to disconnect the mains.”

“What’s he doing here?”

“That’s just what I was wondering.” I turn back to Terry. “What are you doing here?” I ask him. “My home is off-limits.”

“Sorry,” he apologises again with a shrug. “It was really boring at the mortuary. There’s no one there to talk to. I started thinking about you, and poof.” He mimes an explosion with his hands. “I was here.” He glances down and squints. “Is that a cum stain on the carpet?”

“Focus please, Terry,” I snap, shaken at the fact he almost incinerated the love of my life. “You need to get this under control. You can’t just go materialising in people’s homes and accidentally almost electrocuting them.”

He has the good grace to look sheepish. “Sorry.”

“I’ve got this, boo.” Dusty looks Terry up and down.

“What are you going to do?” I ask.

“I’ll take him to Bruce. He needs to go into the light stat.”

“Uh, hello, standing right here. There’s no need to go talking about me as if I’m not here,” Terry interjects indignantly.

Dusty and I both turn to glare at him and he holds up his hands in surrender. I jolt and almost duck again just in case.

“He definitely needs to cross over, and as soon as possible,” I tell Dusty. “Do you think he can use the gateway in the bookshop?”