Page 4 of Dead Serious Halloween Special
“If the shoe fits. So, shall I tell him yes?” I tilt my head to study Danny, who’s looking thoughtful again. “And see if I can round up the others to join us?”
“Sure, why not? Although I’m not going to say, ‘What could possibly go wrong?’ I learned my lesson from our wedding, and more specifically, the fallout from the wine Olivia gifted us from Dionysus.”
I laugh loudly. “Well, it certainly was a wedding reception no one will soon forget.”
“Urgh,” Danny laments, burying his face in my neck. “I don’t want to go to work. Is it wrong to hope the Wicked Witch of the West drops a house on me and I end up in Oz?”
“Actually, it was Dorothy who dropped a house on the Wicked Witch of the East, and as fabulous as I’m sure you’d look in a pair of ruby slippers, you’d be dead.”
“Still better than going to work.”
“And that should tell you something.” I climb off his lap and pull him to his feet. The pale light of dawn filters through the kitchen window. “At the very least, go to work and tell them you need some time off. If they say no, go to the doctor’s and get them to sign you off with stress.”
“Fine,” he murmurs.
“Hey.” I catch his chin in my fingertips and kiss his grumpy mouth. “We don’t have time to go back to bed, but I can offer you a hot shower and a soapy hand job in exchange.”
He chuckles and picks me up, slinging me over his shoulder as he heads out of the kitchen. I catch a glimpse of Jacob Marley scrambling up onto the table and licking the jam off Danny’s cold toast as we exit the room, and then Danny has me in the shower, stripped naked and groaning in under three minutes flat.
Totally worth being late to work.
“What 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 readsSpirit Guidein 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 afterhe 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.”