“Silimma hemeen, Daniel. There is an important question we need you to answer,” and I laid the envelope containing his sister’s question beside the gift box. Then, the lights started to flutter. “Got ‘em.” It never fails. Curiosity will get the cat’s attention.
The temperature in the room began to cool, and the lights, when they weren’t flickering, were catching moving shadows. After a couple of passes, I could have sworn I saw a face in the mirror next to me, but it was gone when I looked directly at it. Anyone new to this part or easily spooked was usually out the door once this started to happen. I lost a few well-paying clients in my early days by bringing them in from the start of the resurrection.
Since I’ve learned all normal humans claim to want to know what happens on the other side, but they don’t. To avoid being ghosted, losing money, and getting sued – it’s happened three times – I have a rule about only allowing the customer to enter the Sanctum once it’s mostly fabricated woowoo and not the real stuff. Besides, nothing alerts those pain in the ass witches like a very loud, pissed off rich person. Normies may not believe them, but those broom-riding Sabrinas will have me packing my bags soon after the rumor gets out.
“I hear him, Alexis,” Rainey informed me.
“No shit.”
It was now my time to shine, “Dea parte, li invocare te apare tu mortalis vas.”
“Yeah, no thanks,” said a visible, but transparent, Daniel Ouster. His close proximity actually made me jump. They don’t sneak up on me very often. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
Looking over to him, I replied, “But think of what you could do with a little extra time. I’m sure there’s something you didn’t get to do while you were alive. You also get to hold your loved ones again. That’s nice.” But he responded with a laugh that was both ethereal and bone-chillingly creepy. This was nothing new, but the effect ghosts have on sound waves still managed to send the sound right into the depths of my body.
“Why’s that funny?”
“My entire family is a complete bunch of assholes. If I never see them again, it will be too soon.” Rainey and I both sighed at this news, and she discreetly went through the draped doorway that led to the hall that went to the waiting room. It was always so much easier when a departed wanted to come back. This would also change our game plan because now, the client couldn’t be involved–-at least as far as the departed knew.
“There’s nothing in this world that could draw you back into your body for a short while,” I asked, looking for my last easy way out.
“Why do you care, necromancer? Bored?” And he lowered his floating body to a sitting position beside mine. “Seriously, why are you trying to put me back? I just got free.” I looked into his incorporeal face and was met with two incredibly sad eyes. He really did not want to come back. Damn, I hated forcing people, living or not, to do things they didn’t want. Ghosts also talk to witches, which means I could only unwillingly bind a spirit to its body a limited number of times before I was moving again.