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Alexis

“Hello, yes, hlin, please?” I asked the woman on the phone

My ward, Mordecai, was on theat incredible rates now that his huic, so I had a little tiations When I told a spirit I’d do a certain thing, I followed through Which hy I was currently speaking to soood on the final request of the uptight ghost I’d encountered at the ical zone A detective in life, the poor sod had hoped to use me to resolve his final case

“Who?” the woman asked

“Jane Fon…tain” I gri the fake naood at it “Jane Fontain I have so for Probably Should be looking for, at any rate”

“Please hold”

I dru the line betweenroo room

Daisy,on fifty, sauntered into the kitchen with threadbare sweats and brown hair snarled at the back of her head

“‘Mornin’,” she ht strea across her face as she passed it She reeled back like she’d been slapped before putting up her palm to shield her eyes “What’s up with the weather?”

Near the ocean in San Francisco, late August was usually a hovering fog bank The air was so thick with listened Curly-haired people walked around like they’d just stuck a fork in an electric socket But every so often, Mother Nature gave us a treat, and cleared away the dull gray muck for a day or two of lovely blue skies and warm sun This eather we could expect in October It was a little early

The h the phone switched fro to the next

Daisy yanked open the freezer door “What ti into the icy depths I really needed to defrost it one of these days

I sighed and scrubbed s But they’d have to wait, because I’d gone and said I’d work for Deerous son, anted to help his deceased ns pointed to Valens holding her spirit hostage somehow I needed to find out how, and fix the problem

All without ending up dead myself

This hat I got for ot myself in trouble Because if there was one certainty in life, it was that you didn’t want toDeical San Francisco like a despot Not even the best spies could get aith visiting the city undetected People who had been contract killing for decades were brought up short after one trip into Valens’s territory Everyone knew it Everyone (rightfully) feared him

And soet one over on hiic mostly worked on dead people?

I was about to join them

I rubbed my eyes “Twelve Someone is supposed to meet me here and escort me to Kieran’s office”

Daisy pulled out a beat-up ice creaht it was in the govern” She sidled over to the utensil drawer “Why would they need to escort you?”

“Why do they hide in uided into thinking I’m important”

I griri Thankfully Daisy’s back was still turned

I wasn’t sure if I was i inme

I wasn’t the Ghost Whisperer I’d always thought I was—the lowly peon who couldn’t find a decent job with the hosts

It took Kieran ical assesshosts like I could And that I wasn’t actually a Ghost Whisperer at all Instead, I was sohter of an unbalanced Deod of Hades, who’d saddled ic in history I was a Spirit Walker, the rarest form of Necromancer

Ghost Whispering no longer see the kids think it was still my jam

Daisy extracted a spoon before setting the ice cream carton on the counter She didn’t open the cabinet for a bowl

“Daisy, that ice creah You need to use a bowl” I pinched the bridge of my nose “Which is beside the point, because you can’t have ice cream for breakfast”

She huffed in annoyance before reaching up to the cupboard and extracting a chipped blue bowl

“Can’t have ice cream for breakfast,” I repeated “As in, cannot”

“It’s okay I’ht off”