Fades With The Day, Part One
Title: Fades With The Day
Fandom: Bandom (for bandombigbang); PATD/TYV (with guest appearances of HS/Gold Motel, CS, FOB, MCR, Forgive Durden, Shane Valdes, and others)
Pairing: Ryan Ross/Shane Valdes, past Ryan Ross/Spencer Smith, brief mention of past Ryan Ross/Gerard Way, past Shane Valdes/Brendon Urie, past Brendon Urie/Sarah O, past Brendon Urie/Audrey K, unrequited Butch Walker/Brendon Urie
Word Count: 20,504
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: character death
Disclaimer: Don't own anything.
Summary: Humanity is not alone: humans share this planet with creatures they thought only existed in fairy tales. Called Nightwalkers, vampires, werewolves, witches and other creatures of the night, they keep their world separate from the human world. Frequently, though, Daywalkers and Nightwalkers do cross paths, which is when the Centre steps in. Ryan Ross, a Medical Examiner who works for the Centre(and who just so happens to also see ghosts), wakes up to find a ghost in his apartment. Little does he know that his life is about to turn upside down.
The alarm went off at 6:37 PM exactly, loud and annoying. Ryan groaned, leaning over to hit it off. He'd always meant to get a new alarm, one that wasn't so blaring and right in his ear, but he hadn't found a clock he liked yet. And he never remembered to set an alarm on his phone until after the irritating sound woke him up. He buried his face in his pillow, trying to recapture the last remnants of the really good dream he was having before the damn thing had gone off. After a few minutes of trying, with very little results, he gave it up as a lost cause and pushed himself up with a yawn, eyes still closed.
“Oh, good, you’re awake.”
Ryan’s eyes snapped open and he found himself face to face with Keltie, his resident ghost. As usual, it was very disconcerting to be looking into her eyes and be disturbingly aware that he could see his window through the back of her head. He’d always assumed she’d had brown eyes when she’d been alive. She wasn’t the oldest ghost Ryan had ever encountered, but she’d been a “permanent fixture” in the apartment long enough that she tried to use up as little energy as she could to pull herself together, and her colors had pretty much faded decades ago because of it. That movie about that kid who could see the dead had it all backwards: Ryan had yet to meet a ghost that looked as solid as the living, and was pretty sure that no one like him had ever seen one like that either. Oh, he’d heard and read stories about people who saw them like that, but he’d never met them.
Still. Keltie. Window clearly visible behind her head. He really, really hated that.
Ryan honestly wished she would pick a new way of waking him up, one that didn’t involve trying to give him a heart attack. But instead of telling her that, he groaned again, rubbing an eye and reaching to pick his glasses off the nightstand, next to the alarm. “What is it, Kelts?”
“Him.” Keltie took a step, or whatever it was ghosts did for movement, back, and pulled her full skirts back against herself, revealing a very nervous looking young man not much older than Ryan sitting in the only chair in the room. The ghost girl turned back to him and gave a little tug of her veil. “You said if any other ghosts showed up in the apartment, I was supposed to let you know immediately. Er, unlike last time.”
Last time had involved a rather impish little girl (people who weren't like him would have just labeled her a poltergeist) and a huge mess in his kitchen by the time Ryan had woken up at sunset. Having to replace nearly all of his dishes and his perishable foods, after helping the little girl cross over, had made Ryan pull his resident ghost aside and explain that, in no uncertain terms, was that to ever happen again, and to make sure he knew about any ghosts in his apartment as soon as possible.
Ryan yawned a second time, leaning over to turn on his lamp before swinging his legs over the side of his bed, looking over at the ghost boy sitting in his chair. The ghost started, head swinging in the direction of the light. Ryan slumped forward, forearms resting against his thighs as he studied the new arrival.
God, he’s so young, was Ryan’s first thought, taking in the young face and the big eyes - he immediately thought of puppy eyes - and took in the now permanently sleep-ruffled dark hair and the rumpled t-shirt and boxer shorts. Whatever had happened to this kid had happened while he was asleep. Ryan had just started to wonder if there could possibly be a trace of his cause of death, whether maybe it wasn't natural, when his cell went off.
Keltie, having died before cell phones had been invented, did her usual disappearing act to the bathroom at the sound of the ringtone. The unknown ghost stared wide-eyed at the spot where she’d been a moment ago, mouth opened in surprise, as Ryan leaned over to answer the phone. From this angle, he could almost see a darker stain on the ghost's clothing.
“Ross.”
“Rise and shine, sleeping beauty, your ass is already wanted down here. Iero is practically demanding your presence.” Jon was, as usual, trying to keep the humor in his voice as far down as he could get it and utterly failing. Ryan was always tempted to tell his friend to just cut it out and let the joking be obvious, but it would have been a lost cause. He knew his lab tech friend would just shrug it off with a suppressed chuckle, and then laugh at it when they were outside of work.
"Why is Iero out for my ass? He's not my boss. In fact, last I checked, I'm his boss." Ryan pointed out, yawning wide and mentally cursing that the werewolf sounded a lot more awake than he should be.
"You know how Iero is." Jon snickered. "Besides, I think he's itching to leave. I hear he's got a big date."
"He's always got a date," Ryan mumbled, yawning again. "If you see Iero, tell him I'll be in shortly."
"Will do." Jon said brightly, thumbing off the call.
Ryan rubbed his eyes, glancing over at his alarm clock as he set his cellphone back down on his nightstand. The time was now 7:13 PM, and he was well aware he needed to get a move on it. Although it wasn't just because one of his M.E.s wanted to go home. That was nothing new when it came to Frank Iero. He forced himself to get up, padding into the bathroom and was completely woken up when he walked through Keltie, who was hovering nervously near the bathroom door. The feeling was not unlike walking through a sheet of thin ice, and one he had never been a fan of.
“Oh fucking hell,” he cursed, rubbing his bare arms as Keltie stepped into the bathtub, looking at him apologetically. After a few moments of rubbing, Ryan was pretty sure he was starting to regain feeling in his extremities and held up a hand to soothe the ghost girl’s remorseful look. It wasn't really her fault. As a rule, ghosts pulled the energy necessary to appear from any source they could, and body heat was just another source they could work with.
He went through his usual wake up routine, ignoring the fact there was the sad looking ghost of a bride standing in his bathtub, watching his every move. There was no point in telling Keltie to leave; if anything, the bathroom was her safe place in the whole apartment, having been her place of death back in the late 1940s, he’d discovered. So Ryan pretty much ignored the fact she was standing behind him, watching. As long as she wasn’t replaying, he was fine with the company. Her replaying - she'd been hung in the shower on her wedding night - made things pretty hard to do in the bathroom.
Some ghosts he’d met were hardly as courteous as Keltie was.
Ryan spit out his mouthwash at that thought, wondering why the ghost boy had come to him. He’d met a few ghosts that could roam, but most of the ones he’d ever met in his profession either never went far from their bodies - and the kid wasn’t a resident of his apartment building, Ryan knew every one of his neighbors as a point of interest - or far from something they were attached to.
He moved back into his bedroom, grabbing a pair of discarded khakis from the floor and a clean dress shirt from his closet, quickly getting dressed before glancing at his alarm clock. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the new arrival was still sitting in the same chair.
“Hey, kid,” he started, but the ghost interrupted him, looking up at him.
“I’m Brendon. Brendon Urie.” The ghost hesitated, looking around as if seeing the room for the first time before looking back at Ryan. “Um, where am I, exactly? I remember being asleep in my bed at home, and then I woke up here, feeling like I wasn’t all there.”
“For starters, you’re in my bedroom.” Ryan couldn’t help gesturing to the fact he could see his chair through Brendon. “And well, you’re not all there, so I’m gonna guess you’re dead, to answer your next question.” He’d already seen the surprised look when Brendon, having raised his hand, realized he was seeing Ryan through it. His phone rang again, and Ryan grabbed it, turning back to Brendon. “I have to go to work now, so you can just hang out here or something, if you can’t cross over or whatever.”
“Cross over?” Brendon’s voice followed Ryan as Ryan moved out into his living room, grabbing his coat and keys on his way to the door as he quickly reassured Iero that, yes he was on his way.
Ryan was already halfway down the stairs when he came face to face with Brendon again. He saw his downstairs neighbor going through their mail on the other side of the ghost, and wished, for what felt like the umpteenth time in his life, that he had been born normal, and not been able to see or talk to ghosts. Or had been born to some other Nightwalkers. Ones that didn't find this commonplace.
“Come on, then. You can come with me to work,” Ryan muttered under his breath, leading the way to his car, already pretty sure Brendon would follow. As it was, the new ghost was looking even more nervous than he had when Ryan had first seen him.
In the car, there were a few minutes where Brendon, apparently still convinced he was still alive, fumbled with the seatbelt before giving it up as a lost cause a few blocks down. Ryan glanced over at his companion, taking in the blank look that had now settled on the ghost’s face.
After a bit, Brendon seemed to become aware of the attention and he looked back at Ryan as if trying to find something in the other man’s face. “This is a bad dream, right? I can’t be dead.”
Ryan shrugged, braking at a stoplight and looking over at Brendon, taking in the people waiting at the bus stop. “No, I’m pretty sure you are. I can see the people waiting for the bus through your head, for instance.”
Brendon turned to watch the people at the bus stop as Ryan continued driving, eyes focused back on the road. The ghost went quiet again and Ryan shifted in his seat, wondering if he should say something. Offer some sort of condolence. But what did one say to someone who just found out they’re dead and a ghost? Having dealt with ghosts his whole life, it wasn’t something he really gave much thought to.
He was still silent when he pulled into the parking lot of his work, chewing his lip as he turned off the car before looking over at Brendon. “Well, here we are.”
Here looked like a normal office building, with about twenty floors rising up from ground level, and looking just like any other building on the street. Brendon turned slightly in his seat to stare up at it, and Ryan watched him do so, taking in the wide eyed look the ghost was giving it. Judging by his reaction, he probably didn’t make many trips downtown. Or, if he did, it wasn’t usually in this neck of the woods, so to speak.
“This is where you work?” Brendon said as they both got out, Ryan grabbing his messenger bag out of the back seat and pulling out his badge, clipping it to his belt. Ryan nodded, saying nothing, and started to lead the way to the building. The ghost quickly followed before hesitating. “I know this is a stupid time to ask, considering I’m going into your work with you, but uh. What do you do?”
Ryan blinked, wondering how best to put his career choice, all things considered, and wondered if explaining it in front of the very human - and therefore, unaware - day guard was a good idea. He waited until they were out of hearing range and hit the down button for the elevator, Brendon staring wide eyed at the guard looking right through him. It was fairly common, Ryan’d noticed: a lot of ghosts expected people to be able to see them, if one person could, and Ryan had explained to at least one ghost that he was pretty unique, even in his own world. “Before I answer that question, maybe I should back up and explain a few things. Like why I can see ghosts, for starters.”
Brendon nodded, following Ryan into the elevator. “Well, can’t lots of people? You hear about psychics picking up ghosts in haunted houses all the time. So, you’re a psychic?”
Ryan snorted despite himself. Brendon’s opinion, simple as it was, showed that he was as human as the day guard. “Okay, let me back up. Let me back up a lot. Do you believe that humans aren’t alone in the world?”
"What do you mean, do I believe that humans are alone?" Brendon gave Ryan a skeptical look, and for a minute, Ryan was nearly reminded of his friend Spencer. Oh god, Spencer would love this ghost, and if he could arrange it, Ryan was totally introducing the two. “Aren’t you human?” Brendon’s voice was not quite full of scorn, but it wasn’t quite not. Spencer would definitely like this ghost.
Ryan sighed, hitting the button marked “Morgue” on the panel, turning his gaze up to watch the floor numbers as the elevator went down. “As the Bard once said, there are more things in heaven and earth than men dream of. He’s right. You humans, we call you Daywalkers - those that walk in the day - aren’t alone. Everything that exists in folklore really does exist. Vampires, werewolves, witches.” He paused, indicating Brendon. “Ghosts.”
The elevator dinged as they reached the morgue level and Ryan led the way out, following the familiar hallway and grabbing his labcoat off the coat rack, putting it on after putting his messenger bag on his desk. “Although werewolves aren’t the only type of shapeshifters. They’re part of a broader category we Nightwalkers - those that walk in the night - call weres. Or shapeshifters, depending on which type of Nightwalker you talk to. Same with witches.” He paused, catching sight of Brendon’s mouth opening to ask a question. “Let me finish explaining first, and then I’ll let you ask questions. Maybe I’ll answer your question before you ask it.” He led the way through the swinging doors into the morgue, ignoring Frank, who was waiting inside, for the moment. He grabbed the top file on the desk just inside the doors, opening it and checking over Frank’s work. It was starting to look like the new coroner on days was working out pretty well, which was good. It meant Ryan would get his days free to sleep and get things done. “Witches aren’t your typical ‘build a house made out of candy and gingerbread and lie in wait for fat little German children to…”
Ryan trailed off as Frank cleared his throat impatiently, shooting a pointed look to where Brendon was. The day M.E. couldn’t actually see the ghost, but he’d been around Ryan long enough to know that while it might look like Ryan was talking to thin air, he wasn’t as crazy as he looked. He used the file to point to Frank before sweeping it in Brendon’s general direction, because Frank was looking somewhere just past Brendon’s head. “Right, this is Frank Iero. Frank, Brendon. Brendon’s a ghost that found his way to my bedroom somehow, Frank. And Brendon, Frank’s the day M.E., and under me. And I’m now relieving him.” He fixed Frank with a look, and Frank grinned wide, already heading out with the usual whine about how he wished he could do something cool like Ryan could.
“You’re a coroner?” Brendon stared at Ryan before looking around the room, taking it all in before looking back at him. “And you see dead people.”
Ryan gave a small shrug before going to sit down at the desk, going through the paperwork cluttered there. He heaved an inward sigh as he started to straighten out the mess, wishing he had some insight to the clutter. As he cleaned and straightened up the desk to be able to work for the night, and since he wasn’t quite sure what to do with Brendon as the ghost didn’t seem to know how he died or why he was still on this plane, he decided to merit the question and accompanying comment with a response. “It was a life choice that made sense. And technically, I'm a Medical Examiner, not a coroner. The main difference is I’m actually a licensed physician, and a coroner has no medical qualifications.”
A few more moments of straightening later, Ryan looked up at Brendon again. “Okay, right, I may as well go back to what I was talking about before Frank interrupted me.” He grabbed one of the folders marked To Do before pausing. “Uh, do you mind if I actually, y’know, work while I talk? I would love to help you with your problem, but well. You’re dead, and I would like to keep my job so I don’t wind up dead because I starved as a result of being unemployed.”
Brendon shrugged, chewing his lip before casting a look around and sitting down in a chair meant for visitors to the morgue. Ryan took the opportunity to get a closer look at the ghost. Brendon couldn't have possibly been much older than his early twenties, not much older than Ryan himself, which ruled out a lot of causes of natural death. Still, while uncommon, heart attacks could happen in young adults. He’d had a few come across his slab. Some of his coworkers might have thought Ryan was a cold fish with how he went about his job, but Ryan always felt a twinge of sadness when people younger than his own 23 years crossed his slab. The sleep-mussed hair was dark, possibly brown in life, along with the big doe eyes. Definitely good looking. In the back of his mind, Ryan thought to himself that, if they’d met in the flesh, Brendon would be the type of guy Ryan would have asked home. He couldn’t quite get a good look at whatever the design, or possibly it was a stain, was on Brendon’s shirt or boxers in the brighter light of the morgue. Could that be a clue to cause of death? If Brendon angled his head up a fraction, Ryan thought he could see something there, but Brendon kept his head down for the most part.
There was the sound of someone clearing their throat and Ryan started before realizing that it came from Brendon, who was staring at him expectantly. “Right, sorry.”
Ryan shook his head slightly as he got up, and pushed the thought of trying to establish Brendon’s cause of death aside to be able to do his job. He opened the file in his hand, reading over the preliminaries - more like trying to decipher Frank’s handwriting - as he walked toward the drawer the body was in. He pulled it open before realizing Brendon was still looking expectantly at him. “Sorry, I don’t usually have an audience to explain things to.”
Ryan took a deep breath, checking Frank’s notes about the body ("early twenties, dark brown hair, brown eyes, pretty in a girl next door sort of way") as he pulled his thoughts together, snapping some gloves on. Having dealt with this sort of thing - being a Nightwalker - his whole life, Ryan was used to the whole idea. It was weird to have to explain it to someone who was on the outside. He glanced at Brendon over the dead body in the drawer - she had to be the 10th Daywalker Jane Doe this month, and they still hadn't gotten a hit off a sketch they'd shared with the Daywalker news station - and saw the impatient look on the ghost’s face.
“I have no idea what you’re so impatient for,” he commented dryly, unable to stop himself from saying it. “You’re dead, like this Jane Doe here. You don’t have many worries, except for what happens to your body and why you’re stuck on this plane. I guess. I don’t really know what ghosts worry about. I just help them cross over.”
Brendon got up from his chair, coming over to stand on the other side of the body, frowning at him over it. “I don’t know why I’m dead. I don’t want to be dead.” He paused, biting his lip and glancing down. The action made him look younger than he had. “God, I just turned 23.” His eyes widened slightly and Ryan glanced down quickly, wondering what the ghost was seeing.
“I know this girl. Her name's Sarah.” Brendon pointed at the body, finger going through the skin before he caught himself, absently wiping his finger on his shirt. It was such a living movement that Ryan felt bad for the ghost. “I had a date with her like, a month ago. Well, a few dates. She was a really nice girl. I wouldn't have pictured anyone wanting her to hurt her. How’d she…?” His voice trailed off into a whisper, but Ryan could guess what the question was.
Ryan glanced at Frank’s notes before tilting the girl’s head a bit toward him, leaning forward on the balls of his feet as he showed Brendon two small puncture wounds in her neck. “According to Frank’s initial inspection, leaving me with the actual autopsy, these two small puncture wounds. I’m guessing a vamp probably did this.”
“A vamp.” Brendon’s voice was full of question and Ryan glanced up, repositioning the girl’s head.
“Vampire?” Ryan slid the drawer closed, making a mental note to double check to see if next of kin had been notified. Knowing how the system worked, at least when Nightwalkers were involved, there was a good chance that they hadn’t. In which case, they’d have to follow Daywalker procedures versus Nightwalker procedure. He caught the annoyed look, and realized he was doing it again. Brendon, as a human, as a Daywalker, couldn’t be blamed; he had probably grown up believing that everything Ryan knew as fact was only fiction and folklore.
Ryan moved to perch on the edge of his desk, peeling off his gloves and tossing them into the big garbage bin. “Right, let me go back to what I was saying before Frank interrupted me.” He ignored the annoyed look Brendon shot him. “Humans aren’t alone. There’s a much bigger picture than you humans believe exist. There’s witches, weres, vampires…”
“You mentioned that already.” There was starting to be a permanently annoyed expression on Brendon’s face, and Ryan was pretty damn sure it wasn’t supposedly to be as good looking as it was. “You were talking about how witches weren’t your typical ones like in Grimm’s Fairy Tales.”
“Right, right.” Ryan nodded, glancing at his watch. He was wondering why Jon had been so demanding he come in right away when it was pretty dead tonight, besides the fact that Iero wanted to go home so badly. Then again, just because it was dead at the moment didn’t mean it wouldn’t get busy in another few minutes. At least talking to Brendon passed the otherwise boring time. “Well, let me back up. Some witches are. I’ve never had to deal directly with those kinds, the particularly nasty kind, but I’ve had to deal with the fallout from their crimes. The bodies, and worse, the lost ghosts.” He paused briefly, glancing toward the swinging doors to see if anyone was coming. “But most of us witches aren’t that bad.”
“You’re a witch too?” Brendon stared at Ryan as he resettled in the visitor’s chair. “But you’re a guy. Witches are girls, right? And guys are wizards or warlocks?”
Ryan snorted, unable to stop himself. “No decent male witch I know would ever want to be called a wizard or a warlock. Those are bad male witches. Sorcerers are about the middle ground, like anyone, I guess.” He stretched his legs out ahead of himself, staring down at his shoes. “I don’t really know who started that whole ‘witches are only female’ nonsense. It’s a lot farther from the truth than anything I’ve ever heard.” He looked up from his inspection of his shoes, meeting Brendon’s gaze. “Either way, I’m a witch. I guess you could call me a ghost witch, if you were a Nightwalker. You Daywalkers would just call me a psychic, as you said earlier.”
Before he could add anything more, the phone on his desk rang. Ryan held up a finger, leaning back and grabbing it off the cradle. “Ross.”
“We’ve got a dead one for you, Ross.” Pete’s voice sounded bored, and Ryan could just picture the vampire at whatever crime scene he was at, standing off to one side and watching the Daywalker police do their job, before the Centre could do its work.
“I’ll be there with the van.” Ryan bit back a sigh as he took down the address before hanging up, turning to Brendon. “Okay, I have to go. Think you’ll be okay here on your own?”
Brendon looked around the room before shrugging slightly, leaning back in the chair. “There’s nothing to be scared of if I’m dead, right?”
“Guess not.” Ryan leaned over the desk, opening a drawer and pulling out the keys for the M.E. van. “Okay, I shouldn’t be much longer than an hour or so.”
As he left the morgue, Ryan glanced back and took in the sight of Brendon looking around quietly, before settling back into the chair.
The drive to the address Pete had given him was pretty uneventful, although Ryan was worried about the ghost he’d left back in the morgue. Finally, he pulled up in front of a two story house, parking his van behind a squad car. He grabbed his bag as he got out, pausing briefly to look at the abruptly woken up looking neighborhood, washed out by flashing red and blue lights.
He glanced up toward the house, taking in the white siding colored by the flashing lights before inhaling deeply a deep breath and walking up the pathway to the cheerfully painted green door, standing ajar.
“When is a door not a door?” Ryan muttered under his breath, unable to stop himself from quoting that old joke.
“When it’s ajar?” Patrick answered dryly from where he stood on the stairs. The police detective gestured with his notebook for Ryan to follow him upstairs, leading the M.E. into the master bedroom.
As he went up the stairs, Ryan took in the family pictures along the wall. It looked like a normal family - father, mother, one daughter, fairly cute although she wasn’t his type - but that really didn’t mean much when Nightwalkers could be involved. Considering Pete had called him, that meant there was a good chance that they were.
Ryan paused in the dark doorway, taking in the scene before him. He was no CSI - that was Pete’s job, and he could see the vampire talking to Patrick while another CSI, Ryan was pretty sure it was Spencer, dusted for prints - but he still liked getting a sense of the crime scene surrounding the dead body before he confirmed time of death.
The master bedroom was tastefully done in cream and darker colors, from the cream walls to the cream and black bedspread on the mahogany queen sized bed. The floor was also cream colored, splattered in places by dark red bloodstains near the sprawled body, along with the victim’s long bright pink hair splayed out across the floor, looking like a washed out version of a blood pool.
Ryan stood over the body of the girl - Audrey Kitching, according to the wallet that had been found near her, the daughter of the owners of the house - taking in the whole picture and feeling a twinge of regret that she was so young. He crouched down, grabbing a pair of gloves from his bag and snapping them on.
He glanced around the room briefly, frowning when he noticed someone standing in the corner of the room he hadn’t seen when he walked in. The newcomer was female, with short black hair, wearing a short black skirt and white button down top, and watching him with a combination of amusement and concern. The stranger part was the fact that no one, not even the two vampire CSIs he could see, seemed to notice she was standing in the corner, watching the proceedings. Which probably meant that she wasn’t exactly on this plane. Ryan bit his lip, turning his attention back to the dead girl, and away from the uneasy feeling he got from a solid ghost.
Pete crouched down next to Ryan. “Well, can you figure out right now what happened to her?” The vampire grinned faintly as Ryan glanced up at him from where he was minutely studying the girl’s face and neck.
Ryan pressed a gloved finger to the girl’s still warm cheek, pulling it back after a moment before cupping her face in his hands to tilt it carefully up to bare her neck. He’d already seen faint bite marks on her neck, and he knew he’d want a closer look at them back at the morgue. “Looks like a vamp bit her. I’d have to check back at the morgue to be sure it’s a cause of death, or just a side effect.” Ryan sat back on his heels, digging out his meat thermometer, reaching to pull up the girl’s shirt and pushing the thermometer into her abdomen. As he waited for the temperature to finish reading, he lightly pressed his finger against the bite marks on the girl's neck. A very small amount of blood welled up, managing to roll down the pale neck for a few inches before Ryan wiped it away with his glove.
"Well, the vampire didn't drain her completely," Pete noted dryly, and Ryan glanced up at the faint sound of hunger under the vampire's bored-sounding voice.
"What kind of vampire does that?" Patrick asked from where he stood over them. Ryan's head tilted back to look up at the detective, wondering if it were a better question for him to answer, or if he should let Pete field it. When Pete said nothing, Ryan decided to take the ball into his own court as he reached for the thermometer, hesitating as he answered the question.
"One that's not hungry, would be my guess," Ryan said as carefully and neutrally as he could manage. He wasn't an expert in them - the Undead types didn't really cross his table, after all, except in strange cases - but one of his longest running friends was a nearly a century old vampire. He glanced over toward where Spencer was watching the proceedings out of the corner of his eye before looking to where the strange woman had been standing, but she was gone. He wasn't quite sure yet if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but something about the way she'd been watching was not something he'd forget anytime soon. He made a mental note to try to talk to her if he ever saw her again.
"Okay." Patrick's voice was skeptical, and Ryan looked up as he waited for the following cars on the detective's train of thought. He didn't have long to wait. "If the vampire wasn't hungry, why bite her?"
"I don't know." Ryan allowed his voice to become as skeptical as theirs. "These are just theories based on what I'm seeing here. I'll know more once I get her back." There was a silent finally following his statement, and he caught the faintly amused snort from where Spencer was crouched. He leaned forward to check the thermometer, doing a quick calculation in his head. "She hasn't been dead long. I'd say a few hours at best."
He got up, pulling his gloves off in the movement. "I saw an ambulance down there. I'll grab the EMTs to help me move the body to the van." Ryan glanced toward Pete. "Once you're done with her, that is. So I can work on the autopsy."
Pete nodded, and Ryan took that as his cue to grab his bag and head back downstairs. He took a deep breath once he was back outside, taking a moment to orient himself to re-find the ambulance.
Only, the strange woman he'd seen back in the master bedroom was standing next to it, arms crossed over her chest, as she watched everything from the CSIs searching the outside to the cops keeping the questioning neighbors at bay. As Ryan watched, one of the EMTs waiting to hear if they'd be needed stepped right through where the woman was standing. For a brief moment, both people occupied the same space before the EMT continued on his way.
She was definitely not on this plane.
Ryan nodded to himself as he walked to his van, making a mental note to talk to her after he'd gotten his bag and the body loaded into the back. He unlocked the doors, setting his bag down in the passenger seat before getting back out, opening the doors of the back of the van.
"You're right on the vampire part. But I don't know about the not hungry part."
The voice was definitely female and definitely right in his ear. Ryan jumped, whirling around to come face to face with the woman he'd seen over by the ambulance. If he'd had doubts she wasn't a normal person, Night or Daywalker, they were definitely gone now. He clutched at the front of his shirt, fingers curling in a bit as he forced his heartbeat to go back to normal. Twenty-three was a bit too young to be having a heart attack, even if it did happen.
"Sorry," the woman said, looking a bit awkward for having startled him. Ryan took another steadying breath, taking a closer look at the woman now that she was right in front of him instead of at a distance. She had the same presence as a ghost, and there was almost a shimmer to her skin, but she was the most solid ghost he'd ever seen. If she was a ghost, that was.
As if she could read his thoughts, the woman arched one eyebrow elegantly, her expression becoming amused. "I'm not a ghost, but I must confess, I've never heard of a ghost witch being able to see one of my kind before. Gabe will be a bit surprised to hear that."
Ryan didn't even consider how she must have guessed he was a ghost witch. The thought that there was a kind of Nightwalker that not even his own breed of witch could see was a particularly scary one, but he'd seen enough to not let the fear show through. "Your kind?"
"Reapers?" The woman drawled, confusion passing over her face briefly before she shook herself. "Well, we're sort of a witch, like the ones found here, on this plane." She didn't explain which "here" she meant, but Ryan was pretty sure it wasn't this plane she was speaking of. "We help the ghosts you ghost witches come across, to cross over here. Well, usually."
Her gaze drifted over to where the body of the dead girl was being carried out by the EMTs. Ryan took a step back to let them load the body into his van before glancing at the woman, and found her looking back.
“Maybe I should explain back at your morgue. I think you told the vampires and the human that was where you were going?"
Ryan nodded. "Might be a good plan."
--
The drive back to the Centre was pretty uneventful, all things considered, but Ryan did find out the name of the strange woman. It was Victoria, but she preferred to go by Vicky. She hadn't offered much else besides her name, content to let Ryan be lost in his thoughts. It wasn't until Ryan turned into the parking lot of the Centre that Vicky sat up straighter in the passenger seat.
"You work for the Centre?" Vicky's gaze toward him was a mix of surprise and appreciation, opening the van's door as soon as Ryan had parked it by the receiving doors closest to the morgue. "We Reapers don't exactly follow the, er. Rules that the Centre sets down for you Nightwalkers, but we know them." She paused, pursing her lips before tapping the tip of her nose. "Strange, though. I wouldn't have pictured a ghost witch working here. I would think you'd be better associated with some other line of work."
“I had a different job before this one, but it didn’t pay my bills.” Ryan made a face at her before opening his own door and getting out, walking around to the back of the van. This time around, he wasn't as shocked when, after he'd opened the van doors, he turned around and found himself face to face with Vicky. "Can I ask you a question? How do you do that? Is it a Reaper thing?"
"Is what a Reaper thing?" Vicky blinked in confusion before her eyes widened slightly. "Oh, the moving. Sorry." She took a few steps back, making sure each step was as normal as they could possibly be. "It's an Other Side thing. I'm sure you've seen some ghosts disappear and reappear in places, right?"
Ryan was just about to say he had when Brendon appeared out of thin air, almost glowing in the brightly lit receiving area of the Centre. It was almost like a case in point situation.
"Who's this?" Vicky and Brendon both said at nearly the same time, both fixed on the other before Brendon looked at Ryan questioningly.
"Brendon, this is Vicky, a Reaper. Don't ask me about them, they don't fall under what I know about. Luckily, she's decided to oblige me in what I don't know." Ryan carefully maneuvered the gurney with the body bag on it out of the van, turning it so he could push it into the Centre and to his morgue. "Vicky, this is Brendon. As you can see, he's a ghost, but I don't know how he died. I don't have a body to match up with his."
Vicky took a step toward Brendon, head tilting slightly as she studied the ghost before she disappeared abruptly.
Brendon blinked at where Vicky had been standing before turning back to Ryan. Ryan shrugged faintly, pushing the gurney the short distance to his morgue. There was a part of him that guessed that Vicky was the type to reappear when he'd least expect her, even if he couldn't imagine why she'd disappeared in the first place.
Sure enough, Vicky was sitting on the desk inside the morgue, chewing her lip and looking nervous. She crossed her legs primly, hands clasped at the knee. "Sorry about that." Her gaze turned toward Brendon, and Ryan could see the honest apology in her eyes. "Let me explain how we Reapers work. I'm sure you two know about the Grim Reaper of legend, right?"
Ryan pushed the gurney next to his autopsy table, unzipping the bag as Brendon wandered over to him to watch.
"Yeah, in charge of bringing the dead beyond, I think." He pulled out a pair of gloves from the small metal table next to the autopsy table before hesitating, looking around. Usually, by this time of the night, there was an intern to help him out, or at the very least, there was a CSI to help him. As it was, he was pretty much alone in the morgue, except for the ghost and the Reaper, and he was pretty sure that neither of them knew how to help him.
Just as he was starting to wonder just how he could bow out gracefully long enough to get help, Spencer walked into the room, already wearing a lab coat with his work badge attached to the left breast pocket. The vampire paused briefly near the desk, head turning a bit as if he could sense, but not see, Vicky, before he closed the distance between himself and Ryan. Ryan nodded briefly toward the box of gloves, before studying his oldest friend to see how he was reacting to the presence of two things he couldn't see. Spencer didn't seem to be bothered by it, even though Brendon was pretty close to Spencer, eyes wide as the ghost took in the fangs pressing against Spencer's lower lip. Over Spencer's shoulder, Ryan could see Vicky considering something, before she disappeared. This time, though, her disappearance was slower, like she was rippling out of existence. For all Ryan knew, it's what Reapers usually did when they weren’t spooked or startled.
"Find anything of use at the crime scene?" Ryan said, taking a step back so Spencer could join him in moving the dead girl's body onto the autopsy table. Granted, given his strength, Spencer could have moved the dead weight on his own, but Ryan knew that his friend liked making Ryan feel less awkward when it came to feats of strength.
Spencer shook his head, reaching out with a finger to brush a few strands of the dead girl's pink hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. There was a sharp intake of breath, something Ryan thought ghosts were incapable of doing, from Brendon's direction. He blinked over at the ghost, taking in the shocked look on his face.
"You know this girl?" Ryan asked Brendon, ignoring the look Spencer gave him. This wasn't the first time that Spencer had seen Ryan talking to ghosts, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. Ryan just knew that Spencer wasn't a particularly huge fan of it. Either way, he'd make it a point to make introductions later if he got the chance to. Right now, he had an autopsy to perform.
"Yeah." Brendon's hands fluttered for a moment, as if he couldn't make up his mind whether he wanted to touch the dead girl or cross his arms over his chest since he knew he couldn't. He settled for watching as Spencer took the cue that Ryan wasn't listening to him and started to slowly undress the body, putting each article of clothing in a bag to process them over in the lab. "We dated a few months back, it got pretty serious but we broke it up because she was feeling awkward coming over to my apartment." His hands waved again before he tucked them under his armpits and look down at the dead girl, biting his lower lip. "She never explained why, so I just thought it was me." There was something about the mournful look that crossed the ghost's face that made Ryan feel like, if he could have, he would have hugged the ghost.
Ryan shook himself a moment later, wondering why he was even bothered so much, before picking up his scalpel and waving absently as Spencer left with the clothes to process them.. Just as he pressed the blade to the body's shoulder, he paused, wondering if Brendon really should be here for this. "Hey, I think..."
His voice trailed off as he looked up, realizing Brendon was no longer standing there. Ryan glanced around, but couldn't find Brendon anywhere in the morgue. Hopefully, the ghost would find his way back to Ryan's apartment. Ryan made a mental note to check to see if Brendon were okay when he got off work.
--
It was still an hour or so before dawn when Ryan finally got a chance to punch out and head home. He'd found nothing of interest in the initial autopsy - for all intents and purposes, Audrey Kitching seemed to have died from a vampire bite, but she hadn't been completely drained - but he'd taken plenty of pictures with the intent to look at them more closely in the relative quiet of his apartment. They, and his fairly limited but nonetheless detailed current findings were in a folder in Ryan's messenger bag, currently sitting on the passenger seat.
Ryan groaned as soon as he'd parked his car by his building, resting his forehead against the steering wheel. Short as it had been, this night had felt like an eternity and, even though he wanted to look at those pictures as soon as he was inside, all Ryan’s body wanted right now was his bed and a couple hours of sleep. He had off tonight, and he had no plans made - his life lately seemed to have the Centre right smack dab in the center of it - but that didn't mean nothing would happen between now and then.
He groaned again, sitting back up and grabbing his messenger bag as he got out of his car. He was pretty sure auto-pilot was the only thing that managed to get him the distance from his car to the building and up the stairs to his apartment. He fumbled with his keys briefly before managing to unlock his door, letting himself into his apartment. He locked the door behind him, barely remembering to throw the deadbolt before slumping against the door. His eyes closed as he felt gravity beginning to slowly work on pulling his messenger bag down along his shoulder and arm. Bed was definitely sounding good.
He wasn't quite sure how he made it to his bedroom, stumbling about for the most part and leaving his messenger bag in a heap in the hallway, but the minute he hit his bed, he was out cold.
Ryan woke up a few hours later, wishing he'd thought to take out his contacts before he passed out because now they were dry and uncomfortable. Not to mention, he probably shouldn't have slept in his clothes. He stretched slowly, feeling a few joints - mostly in his lower back and arms - pop as he tried to make his clothes look less rumpled. Yeah, definitely not a good idea to have slept in his clothes. He was feeling pretty awkward.
He got up, stumbling toward his bedroom door and came face to face with Keltie, who was standing just over where Ryan had dropped his bag. At some point in time, while he was asleep, the messenger bag had fallen over, and the contents had spilled out onto the floor. Including all the pictures and paperwork from the folder with the information on Audrey Kitching's autopsy.
"Maybe you should get out of the apartment," Keltie suggested thoughtfully, studying a picture - a close up of the bite marks on Audrey Kitching's neck - through the filminess of her wedding dress. Past her, Ryan could see Brendon crouched over another picture but he couldn't make out what it was of. If the dead girl had been an ex-girlfriend of Brendon's, Ryan couldn't imagine what the ghost must currently be thinking or feeling. "This doesn't seem like an apartment sort of case."
--
Getting out was turning out to be a good idea, Ryan thought to himself as he walked the short distance between his apartment building and the little coffee shop he liked to frequent. Taking in the warm sunlight seemed to banish away the thought of a vampire that didn't drain its victims completely.
The little coffee shop was owned by a very friendly werecat by the name of Greta. Before he'd gone into being an M.E., back when he was still running a mostly slow private eye sort of business, he'd crossed paths with Thomas, Greta's weredog mate, because the two weres had been having poltergeist behavior, as well as objects disappearing and reappearing in places the two had searched countless times. (If Ryan closed his eyes, he could still see the little shop he'd owned; a combination of his own little private eye business, where he'd help people with their ghost problems or to find lost things, and a psychic reading sort of thing. Every so often, he'd close his eyes and remember the place, remember how it had always smelled like myrrh and other incenses, and he wished he could go back to it.) At the time, with all their relatively small income tied up in the shop, the two weres hadn't been able to afford to pay his fee, but Ryan had waived it - it hadn't been that hard of a poltergeist to get rid of, anyway - and now, whenever he came in with a problem or a case that was bothering him, Greta always let him take a table and settle in to pour over the details he had. Plus, she and Thomas always made sure that he had plenty of whatever he was drinking - usually green tea, two sugars - as well as whatever dessert was on sale that day. There had yet to be a problem Ryan had that couldn't be solved at Greta's little coffee shop.
He pulled his messenger bag back up as he pushed open the door, giving a small wave to Greta behind the counter as the small twinkling of the bells alerted her to someone coming in. Greta mirrored the wave, pointing over to Ryan's usual table. Seeing it empty, Ryan had to smile and wonder if maybe the werecat had her own brand of precognition. Stranger things did happen, after all.
No sooner had he sat down in his favorite overstuffed chair, and noticed Brendon already warily sitting in the other overstuffed chair opposite him, than Greta appeared with a steaming cup of tea and a plate of chocolate cake, setting them both down in front of Ryan as well as producing a fork from the pocket of her apron.
"Hi, love." Greta's eyes were a warm golden brown. Ryan could see her pupils were shifting between normal and slitted the way a cat's would, and it made him realize the full moon was a lot closer than he thought it was; before they turned an almost bronze color, pupils automatically slitting and widening as her gaze turned toward Brendon. Ryan knew that in her human form, Greta couldn't actually see ghosts, even with her special eyes, but he knew she could smell them. "You have company, too." She blinked, eyes turning back to normal as she gave Brendon a warm smile. "Don't worry, I'm a nice kitty." Her hand reached out to pat the arm of the chair, mere inches from where Brendon's arm was resting, before she turned and headed back to the counter.
"That's Greta," Ryan said by way of greeting, curling his hands around the tea cup, as Brendon shifted in his seat to look at Ryan. "She's a werecat, and as far as I know, in her human form, she can't see ghosts. But she can hear and smell them, although she's better at all three in her cat form." He smiled reassuringly, taking a small sip of his tea. As usual, Greta had it perfect. "I met her, and her mate, a few years back when they opened this place. A previous owner didn't want to move, even though they were dead, so they brought me in to help."
Ryan nearly laughed at the look of pure skepticism Brendon gave him. "They brought in a medical examiner? For a ghost?"
Ryan shook his head, forking up a bit of the chocolate cake and taking a bite. Delicious, as usual, but that was to be expected with Greta's baking. He'd yet to be disappointed. "I used to run like, this psychic shop? I dealt with wayward ghosts and that sort of thing." He shrugged faintly, taking another bite of his cake. "I'm not really big into the demanding sort of jobs, where I'd have to report to someone else, but I couldn't really make ends meet on bizarre hours like I had, so I closed the shop and went to school to be a medical examiner. I was, despite all attempts on my part to not be, top of my class, and the Centre needed a new chief medical examiner, as the chief M.E. before me had met with a...." Ryan paused, remembering his very first case with the Centre. Even with all the ghosts he'd seen in his life, bodies were never supposed to contort like that, much less have that much blood coming from them. Things like that were why Ryan stayed away from the practicing witchcraft part of being a witch and just dealt directly with the ghosts that crossed his path. Definitely less messy. "..a rather unfortunate accident."
He was sure that something of what had crossed his memory had also crossed his face, judging by the near disgusted look Brendon gave him. Ryan shrugged. It happened to bad witches, more than Ryan'd really like, but he wasn't about to mention that to a ghost. He was pretty sure Brendon wouldn't want to hear about it anyway. "But, I still come back here every so often, especially when I've got a big problem I can't figure out." He used the fork to point at Brendon, and Brendon gave him a rueful face, as if to say thanks for reminding him he was dead.
Ryan finished his piece of cake before he lifted his messenger bag onto the table, digging for a moment before pulling out the folder that contained Audrey's autopsy. He set his bag back down on the floor, pushing his tea over a fraction before he started covering the table with the autopsy photos. Out of the corner of his eye, Ryan saw Brendon looking down at the few pictures that had wound up being in front of him. He glanced up, since the way Brendon was leaning over made the design on his shirt more obvious, as well as the mark across his neck.
"Well, that's just morbid."
Ryan prided himself on the fact that he didn't jump at the unexpected, and unknown, voice right behind him. He did, though, turn slightly to look up at the speaker, but the man wasn't looking at him but at the autopsy photos. On the other side of the table, Brendon was staring wide eyed at the guy, half-rising in his chair, and Ryan wondered just what sort of connection the man had with the ghost. He wouldn't guess murderer, judging by the almost pained look in Brendon's eyes as the ghost sat back down, as if he remembered he couldn't touch the other man.
The man picked up one of the photos - a different angle of Audrey's neck; Ryan could see on the photograph where her neck was broken, something his autopsy had already confirmed - and Ryan used the opportunity to study the speaker. He would have guessed the newcomer couldn't be much older than himself, and he seemed to be looking at the picture in his hand with almost professional detachment. Ryan mentally guessed the man might be a photographer, and confirmed it when he saw the camera bag slung over the guy's shoulder.
"Really, fucking morbid," the man grinned, handing the photo back to Ryan. "But I had a head's up from Greta behind the counter you were going to be like that." He cast a glance toward the chair Brendon was sitting in before pulling up a nearby chair, setting the camera bag on the floor next to his feet. Ryan straightened up a bit more, sliding his gaze across the table to where Brendon was staring at the newcomer with a cross between sadness and frustration, before turning his attention back to his unexpected guest.
The man rested his wrists against the edge of the table, folding his fingers together as he looked at Ryan. "Look, Ryan, I have a problem that I can't go to the Centre with, for certain particular reasons. Greta said you'd be able to help me."
Feeling like he wouldn't get any insight into his autopsy right now, and feeling pretty annoyed with it, even if it wasn't Greta's fault, Ryan got to his feet and started collecting his photographs. "Sorry, I'm no longer in that line of work. I work for the Centre, anyway. Greta knows that."
"She did say that." The man agreed cautiously, like he was choosing each word after careful deliberation. "And that you were a medical examiner." His finger turned one of the photographs - a full-frontal shot of Audrey's face - toward himself, warm brown eyes slowly studying Audrey's features. "It's those two things that I need help with." Ryan opened his mouth to say something, anything, but the man glanced up at him with a pleading look almost mirroring Brendon's. "My roommate is missing, and I'm pretty sure he's dead. But I can't go to the Centre for this sort of missing person thing, because he's not a Nightwalker like you and I are. He's a Daywalker."
Ryan stared at the man for a long moment, slowly sitting back down. Nightwalkers didn't usually have Daywalker roommates, except the vampires - whenever vampires chose to have roommates - and those were heavily monitored. Daywalkers were generally kept in ignorance of Nightwalkers - there were quite a few people at the Centre who had that as their job - and the minute they knew of the existence of Nightwalkers, the Daywalker had crossed the line. Patrick, through Pete, was one such example.
Ryan glanced over at Brendon before he could stop himself, before looking back at the newcomer. "Maybe you should start at the beginning and explain what you mean, because that's unheard of, as far as I know." Feeling like he was back in his former career, Ryan pulled out a notebook and pen from his messenger bag, waiting for the Nightwalker to begin.
The man took a deep breath, and Ryan was sure his gaze drifted briefly over to where Brendon was sitting, before the man's brown eyes were back on him. "I'll start with the basics then. My name is Shane Valdes, and I'm an incubus. Kind of." Shane's eyes glanced down toward his camera bag before he looked back at Ryan. "I don't feed in a traditional incubus manner. I'm," Shane paused, biting his lip and looking faintly nervous. "I'm not a traditional incubus for that matter."
Ryan, in the process of jotting down the basic facts, stopped writing for a moment and stared at Shane. "You're an incubus? Your kind is heavily, heavily monitored by the Centre, especially in big cities like ours."
Shane nodded. "I know. But I'm given some leeway because I don't have sex to feed. I've never been able to." He coughed, turning faintly red. "Anyway, I feed more by a different route." He bent down, and pulled an old-fashioned camera out of the camera bag. He set the camera and a plate for it on the table. "You know how there are all these superstitions about how cameras can steal your soul? This camera traps portions of people's life energy, so I get some leeway since I don't go around sucking people's lives." He hesitated, drumming his fingers against the camera. "And it was because I wasn't a typical incubus that, y'know, couldn't have a roommate of any sort, much less a Daywalker, that I decided I could use a companion in this big house I had. And I didn’t think the Centre would mind because of my… Uniqueness."
He looked so earnestly at Ryan that Ryan nodded despite himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Brendon chew his lip, perched on the edge of his chair and listening to every word Shane said. After a moment, Ryan could guess where this was leading.
"And your roommate?" Ryan asked carefully, knowing he wasn't going to like the answer.
"This really nice Daywalker named Brendon. Brendon Urie. Only we didn't stay just roommates. We'd maybe started dating a couple weeks ago."
"Brendon Urie? Are you sure?" Ryan tried to keep his voice as neutral as he could, resisting the urge to look at Brendon, although he could feel the ghost looking at him. It almost felt like, if he didn't acknowledge the ghost looking at him, Shane could have been talking about some other Brendon Urie. Some other Brendon, not the ghost that had appeared in his bedroom last night.
Shane blinked at him, almost frowning. "Of course I'm sure. I think I'd remember my own roommate and boyfriend, wouldn't I?"
Ryan finally gave into the urge to glance over at Brendon, taking in the worried look that was prominent on the ghost's features. "I don't think your boyfriend's missing." He paused, while Brendon looked across the table at Shane with such heartbreak, Ryan was sure he could feel it. And, judging by the way Shane was looking at the chair Brendon was sitting in, if the incubus couldn't see the ghost, he could definitely feel Brendon's emotion. "And I'm pretty sure you're right on the part where you think he's dead."
As soon as he uttered those words, Ryan wished he hadn't, as Shane's eyes closed almost painfully before he nodded.
"I wasn't expecting that he was still alive. I can't." Shane hesitated, as if wondering how to express what he wanted to say. "As an incubus, I can feel people's energy, regardless of whether they're Nightwalker or Daywalker. Every kind has its own vibration, as it were. And Brendon has this... vibration I'd know anywhere. That I could feel no matter where I was." The incubus caught his lower lip between his teeth, and Ryan could see the hint of fangs, not unlike the sort vampires sported. For a moment, Ryan wondered if an incubus could feed the same way a vampire could before he mentally shook himself. Now wasn't the time to be having those kinds of thoughts. "And after he disappeared abruptly one night, I couldn't. I couldn't feel him anymore. Like, if he were still alive, someone was hiding his energy in theirs. That's how I knew something had happened to him." He worried his lip a bit more, and Ryan reached out to pat his hand comfortingly. "That was a few days ago, and I couldn't go to the Centre because of the whole thing where I'm not supposed to be having a Daywalker roommate because of what I am."
Ryan took a deep breath, giving Shane's hand another pat. "I'm sure, as you're over here talking to me about it, Greta told you that I can see ghosts. See and talk to them, right?" Shane nodded, so Ryan plunged on. "And Brendon turned up in my bedroom last night, before I went into work." Ryan glanced over to Brendon as he spoke. "He looks frightened, for the most part. I can't see ghosts as solidly as I can see you, but I can tell you that he's wearing a t-shirt and boxers, which I'm guessing were his pajamas." Ryan paused, wondering if he should mention that he could now clearly see the huge gash across Brendon's throat and a large blood stain on the ghost's nightshirt. As Shane had already seen the autopsy photos, it didn't seem that out of place. "Also, I don't think he died pleasantly. There's this huge gash across his throat, and there's a dark stain on his shirt from it. I'm guessing it's blood, but I couldn't tell you what he was killed with."
Shane swallowed heavily, eyes closing in pain again. "Do you think he went quickly?"
Ryan looked at Brendon, who shrugged. "Brendon doesn't seem to remember the actual dying part. Even last night, he said he remembered being asleep in his bed and, when he woke up, he didn't feel like he was all there. So I'm guessing it was either quick, or Brendon was unconscious for the actual act."
To Part Two
Fandom: Bandom (for bandombigbang); PATD/TYV (with guest appearances of HS/Gold Motel, CS, FOB, MCR, Forgive Durden, Shane Valdes, and others)
Pairing: Ryan Ross/Shane Valdes, past Ryan Ross/Spencer Smith, brief mention of past Ryan Ross/Gerard Way, past Shane Valdes/Brendon Urie, past Brendon Urie/Sarah O, past Brendon Urie/Audrey K, unrequited Butch Walker/Brendon Urie
Word Count: 20,504
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: character death
Disclaimer: Don't own anything.
Summary: Humanity is not alone: humans share this planet with creatures they thought only existed in fairy tales. Called Nightwalkers, vampires, werewolves, witches and other creatures of the night, they keep their world separate from the human world. Frequently, though, Daywalkers and Nightwalkers do cross paths, which is when the Centre steps in. Ryan Ross, a Medical Examiner who works for the Centre(and who just so happens to also see ghosts), wakes up to find a ghost in his apartment. Little does he know that his life is about to turn upside down.
The alarm went off at 6:37 PM exactly, loud and annoying. Ryan groaned, leaning over to hit it off. He'd always meant to get a new alarm, one that wasn't so blaring and right in his ear, but he hadn't found a clock he liked yet. And he never remembered to set an alarm on his phone until after the irritating sound woke him up. He buried his face in his pillow, trying to recapture the last remnants of the really good dream he was having before the damn thing had gone off. After a few minutes of trying, with very little results, he gave it up as a lost cause and pushed himself up with a yawn, eyes still closed.
“Oh, good, you’re awake.”
Ryan’s eyes snapped open and he found himself face to face with Keltie, his resident ghost. As usual, it was very disconcerting to be looking into her eyes and be disturbingly aware that he could see his window through the back of her head. He’d always assumed she’d had brown eyes when she’d been alive. She wasn’t the oldest ghost Ryan had ever encountered, but she’d been a “permanent fixture” in the apartment long enough that she tried to use up as little energy as she could to pull herself together, and her colors had pretty much faded decades ago because of it. That movie about that kid who could see the dead had it all backwards: Ryan had yet to meet a ghost that looked as solid as the living, and was pretty sure that no one like him had ever seen one like that either. Oh, he’d heard and read stories about people who saw them like that, but he’d never met them.
Still. Keltie. Window clearly visible behind her head. He really, really hated that.
Ryan honestly wished she would pick a new way of waking him up, one that didn’t involve trying to give him a heart attack. But instead of telling her that, he groaned again, rubbing an eye and reaching to pick his glasses off the nightstand, next to the alarm. “What is it, Kelts?”
“Him.” Keltie took a step, or whatever it was ghosts did for movement, back, and pulled her full skirts back against herself, revealing a very nervous looking young man not much older than Ryan sitting in the only chair in the room. The ghost girl turned back to him and gave a little tug of her veil. “You said if any other ghosts showed up in the apartment, I was supposed to let you know immediately. Er, unlike last time.”
Last time had involved a rather impish little girl (people who weren't like him would have just labeled her a poltergeist) and a huge mess in his kitchen by the time Ryan had woken up at sunset. Having to replace nearly all of his dishes and his perishable foods, after helping the little girl cross over, had made Ryan pull his resident ghost aside and explain that, in no uncertain terms, was that to ever happen again, and to make sure he knew about any ghosts in his apartment as soon as possible.
Ryan yawned a second time, leaning over to turn on his lamp before swinging his legs over the side of his bed, looking over at the ghost boy sitting in his chair. The ghost started, head swinging in the direction of the light. Ryan slumped forward, forearms resting against his thighs as he studied the new arrival.
God, he’s so young, was Ryan’s first thought, taking in the young face and the big eyes - he immediately thought of puppy eyes - and took in the now permanently sleep-ruffled dark hair and the rumpled t-shirt and boxer shorts. Whatever had happened to this kid had happened while he was asleep. Ryan had just started to wonder if there could possibly be a trace of his cause of death, whether maybe it wasn't natural, when his cell went off.
Keltie, having died before cell phones had been invented, did her usual disappearing act to the bathroom at the sound of the ringtone. The unknown ghost stared wide-eyed at the spot where she’d been a moment ago, mouth opened in surprise, as Ryan leaned over to answer the phone. From this angle, he could almost see a darker stain on the ghost's clothing.
“Ross.”
“Rise and shine, sleeping beauty, your ass is already wanted down here. Iero is practically demanding your presence.” Jon was, as usual, trying to keep the humor in his voice as far down as he could get it and utterly failing. Ryan was always tempted to tell his friend to just cut it out and let the joking be obvious, but it would have been a lost cause. He knew his lab tech friend would just shrug it off with a suppressed chuckle, and then laugh at it when they were outside of work.
"Why is Iero out for my ass? He's not my boss. In fact, last I checked, I'm his boss." Ryan pointed out, yawning wide and mentally cursing that the werewolf sounded a lot more awake than he should be.
"You know how Iero is." Jon snickered. "Besides, I think he's itching to leave. I hear he's got a big date."
"He's always got a date," Ryan mumbled, yawning again. "If you see Iero, tell him I'll be in shortly."
"Will do." Jon said brightly, thumbing off the call.
Ryan rubbed his eyes, glancing over at his alarm clock as he set his cellphone back down on his nightstand. The time was now 7:13 PM, and he was well aware he needed to get a move on it. Although it wasn't just because one of his M.E.s wanted to go home. That was nothing new when it came to Frank Iero. He forced himself to get up, padding into the bathroom and was completely woken up when he walked through Keltie, who was hovering nervously near the bathroom door. The feeling was not unlike walking through a sheet of thin ice, and one he had never been a fan of.
“Oh fucking hell,” he cursed, rubbing his bare arms as Keltie stepped into the bathtub, looking at him apologetically. After a few moments of rubbing, Ryan was pretty sure he was starting to regain feeling in his extremities and held up a hand to soothe the ghost girl’s remorseful look. It wasn't really her fault. As a rule, ghosts pulled the energy necessary to appear from any source they could, and body heat was just another source they could work with.
He went through his usual wake up routine, ignoring the fact there was the sad looking ghost of a bride standing in his bathtub, watching his every move. There was no point in telling Keltie to leave; if anything, the bathroom was her safe place in the whole apartment, having been her place of death back in the late 1940s, he’d discovered. So Ryan pretty much ignored the fact she was standing behind him, watching. As long as she wasn’t replaying, he was fine with the company. Her replaying - she'd been hung in the shower on her wedding night - made things pretty hard to do in the bathroom.
Some ghosts he’d met were hardly as courteous as Keltie was.
Ryan spit out his mouthwash at that thought, wondering why the ghost boy had come to him. He’d met a few ghosts that could roam, but most of the ones he’d ever met in his profession either never went far from their bodies - and the kid wasn’t a resident of his apartment building, Ryan knew every one of his neighbors as a point of interest - or far from something they were attached to.
He moved back into his bedroom, grabbing a pair of discarded khakis from the floor and a clean dress shirt from his closet, quickly getting dressed before glancing at his alarm clock. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that the new arrival was still sitting in the same chair.
“Hey, kid,” he started, but the ghost interrupted him, looking up at him.
“I’m Brendon. Brendon Urie.” The ghost hesitated, looking around as if seeing the room for the first time before looking back at Ryan. “Um, where am I, exactly? I remember being asleep in my bed at home, and then I woke up here, feeling like I wasn’t all there.”
“For starters, you’re in my bedroom.” Ryan couldn’t help gesturing to the fact he could see his chair through Brendon. “And well, you’re not all there, so I’m gonna guess you’re dead, to answer your next question.” He’d already seen the surprised look when Brendon, having raised his hand, realized he was seeing Ryan through it. His phone rang again, and Ryan grabbed it, turning back to Brendon. “I have to go to work now, so you can just hang out here or something, if you can’t cross over or whatever.”
“Cross over?” Brendon’s voice followed Ryan as Ryan moved out into his living room, grabbing his coat and keys on his way to the door as he quickly reassured Iero that, yes he was on his way.
Ryan was already halfway down the stairs when he came face to face with Brendon again. He saw his downstairs neighbor going through their mail on the other side of the ghost, and wished, for what felt like the umpteenth time in his life, that he had been born normal, and not been able to see or talk to ghosts. Or had been born to some other Nightwalkers. Ones that didn't find this commonplace.
“Come on, then. You can come with me to work,” Ryan muttered under his breath, leading the way to his car, already pretty sure Brendon would follow. As it was, the new ghost was looking even more nervous than he had when Ryan had first seen him.
In the car, there were a few minutes where Brendon, apparently still convinced he was still alive, fumbled with the seatbelt before giving it up as a lost cause a few blocks down. Ryan glanced over at his companion, taking in the blank look that had now settled on the ghost’s face.
After a bit, Brendon seemed to become aware of the attention and he looked back at Ryan as if trying to find something in the other man’s face. “This is a bad dream, right? I can’t be dead.”
Ryan shrugged, braking at a stoplight and looking over at Brendon, taking in the people waiting at the bus stop. “No, I’m pretty sure you are. I can see the people waiting for the bus through your head, for instance.”
Brendon turned to watch the people at the bus stop as Ryan continued driving, eyes focused back on the road. The ghost went quiet again and Ryan shifted in his seat, wondering if he should say something. Offer some sort of condolence. But what did one say to someone who just found out they’re dead and a ghost? Having dealt with ghosts his whole life, it wasn’t something he really gave much thought to.
He was still silent when he pulled into the parking lot of his work, chewing his lip as he turned off the car before looking over at Brendon. “Well, here we are.”
Here looked like a normal office building, with about twenty floors rising up from ground level, and looking just like any other building on the street. Brendon turned slightly in his seat to stare up at it, and Ryan watched him do so, taking in the wide eyed look the ghost was giving it. Judging by his reaction, he probably didn’t make many trips downtown. Or, if he did, it wasn’t usually in this neck of the woods, so to speak.
“This is where you work?” Brendon said as they both got out, Ryan grabbing his messenger bag out of the back seat and pulling out his badge, clipping it to his belt. Ryan nodded, saying nothing, and started to lead the way to the building. The ghost quickly followed before hesitating. “I know this is a stupid time to ask, considering I’m going into your work with you, but uh. What do you do?”
Ryan blinked, wondering how best to put his career choice, all things considered, and wondered if explaining it in front of the very human - and therefore, unaware - day guard was a good idea. He waited until they were out of hearing range and hit the down button for the elevator, Brendon staring wide eyed at the guard looking right through him. It was fairly common, Ryan’d noticed: a lot of ghosts expected people to be able to see them, if one person could, and Ryan had explained to at least one ghost that he was pretty unique, even in his own world. “Before I answer that question, maybe I should back up and explain a few things. Like why I can see ghosts, for starters.”
Brendon nodded, following Ryan into the elevator. “Well, can’t lots of people? You hear about psychics picking up ghosts in haunted houses all the time. So, you’re a psychic?”
Ryan snorted despite himself. Brendon’s opinion, simple as it was, showed that he was as human as the day guard. “Okay, let me back up. Let me back up a lot. Do you believe that humans aren’t alone in the world?”
"What do you mean, do I believe that humans are alone?" Brendon gave Ryan a skeptical look, and for a minute, Ryan was nearly reminded of his friend Spencer. Oh god, Spencer would love this ghost, and if he could arrange it, Ryan was totally introducing the two. “Aren’t you human?” Brendon’s voice was not quite full of scorn, but it wasn’t quite not. Spencer would definitely like this ghost.
Ryan sighed, hitting the button marked “Morgue” on the panel, turning his gaze up to watch the floor numbers as the elevator went down. “As the Bard once said, there are more things in heaven and earth than men dream of. He’s right. You humans, we call you Daywalkers - those that walk in the day - aren’t alone. Everything that exists in folklore really does exist. Vampires, werewolves, witches.” He paused, indicating Brendon. “Ghosts.”
The elevator dinged as they reached the morgue level and Ryan led the way out, following the familiar hallway and grabbing his labcoat off the coat rack, putting it on after putting his messenger bag on his desk. “Although werewolves aren’t the only type of shapeshifters. They’re part of a broader category we Nightwalkers - those that walk in the night - call weres. Or shapeshifters, depending on which type of Nightwalker you talk to. Same with witches.” He paused, catching sight of Brendon’s mouth opening to ask a question. “Let me finish explaining first, and then I’ll let you ask questions. Maybe I’ll answer your question before you ask it.” He led the way through the swinging doors into the morgue, ignoring Frank, who was waiting inside, for the moment. He grabbed the top file on the desk just inside the doors, opening it and checking over Frank’s work. It was starting to look like the new coroner on days was working out pretty well, which was good. It meant Ryan would get his days free to sleep and get things done. “Witches aren’t your typical ‘build a house made out of candy and gingerbread and lie in wait for fat little German children to…”
Ryan trailed off as Frank cleared his throat impatiently, shooting a pointed look to where Brendon was. The day M.E. couldn’t actually see the ghost, but he’d been around Ryan long enough to know that while it might look like Ryan was talking to thin air, he wasn’t as crazy as he looked. He used the file to point to Frank before sweeping it in Brendon’s general direction, because Frank was looking somewhere just past Brendon’s head. “Right, this is Frank Iero. Frank, Brendon. Brendon’s a ghost that found his way to my bedroom somehow, Frank. And Brendon, Frank’s the day M.E., and under me. And I’m now relieving him.” He fixed Frank with a look, and Frank grinned wide, already heading out with the usual whine about how he wished he could do something cool like Ryan could.
“You’re a coroner?” Brendon stared at Ryan before looking around the room, taking it all in before looking back at him. “And you see dead people.”
Ryan gave a small shrug before going to sit down at the desk, going through the paperwork cluttered there. He heaved an inward sigh as he started to straighten out the mess, wishing he had some insight to the clutter. As he cleaned and straightened up the desk to be able to work for the night, and since he wasn’t quite sure what to do with Brendon as the ghost didn’t seem to know how he died or why he was still on this plane, he decided to merit the question and accompanying comment with a response. “It was a life choice that made sense. And technically, I'm a Medical Examiner, not a coroner. The main difference is I’m actually a licensed physician, and a coroner has no medical qualifications.”
A few more moments of straightening later, Ryan looked up at Brendon again. “Okay, right, I may as well go back to what I was talking about before Frank interrupted me.” He grabbed one of the folders marked To Do before pausing. “Uh, do you mind if I actually, y’know, work while I talk? I would love to help you with your problem, but well. You’re dead, and I would like to keep my job so I don’t wind up dead because I starved as a result of being unemployed.”
Brendon shrugged, chewing his lip before casting a look around and sitting down in a chair meant for visitors to the morgue. Ryan took the opportunity to get a closer look at the ghost. Brendon couldn't have possibly been much older than his early twenties, not much older than Ryan himself, which ruled out a lot of causes of natural death. Still, while uncommon, heart attacks could happen in young adults. He’d had a few come across his slab. Some of his coworkers might have thought Ryan was a cold fish with how he went about his job, but Ryan always felt a twinge of sadness when people younger than his own 23 years crossed his slab. The sleep-mussed hair was dark, possibly brown in life, along with the big doe eyes. Definitely good looking. In the back of his mind, Ryan thought to himself that, if they’d met in the flesh, Brendon would be the type of guy Ryan would have asked home. He couldn’t quite get a good look at whatever the design, or possibly it was a stain, was on Brendon’s shirt or boxers in the brighter light of the morgue. Could that be a clue to cause of death? If Brendon angled his head up a fraction, Ryan thought he could see something there, but Brendon kept his head down for the most part.
There was the sound of someone clearing their throat and Ryan started before realizing that it came from Brendon, who was staring at him expectantly. “Right, sorry.”
Ryan shook his head slightly as he got up, and pushed the thought of trying to establish Brendon’s cause of death aside to be able to do his job. He opened the file in his hand, reading over the preliminaries - more like trying to decipher Frank’s handwriting - as he walked toward the drawer the body was in. He pulled it open before realizing Brendon was still looking expectantly at him. “Sorry, I don’t usually have an audience to explain things to.”
Ryan took a deep breath, checking Frank’s notes about the body ("early twenties, dark brown hair, brown eyes, pretty in a girl next door sort of way") as he pulled his thoughts together, snapping some gloves on. Having dealt with this sort of thing - being a Nightwalker - his whole life, Ryan was used to the whole idea. It was weird to have to explain it to someone who was on the outside. He glanced at Brendon over the dead body in the drawer - she had to be the 10th Daywalker Jane Doe this month, and they still hadn't gotten a hit off a sketch they'd shared with the Daywalker news station - and saw the impatient look on the ghost’s face.
“I have no idea what you’re so impatient for,” he commented dryly, unable to stop himself from saying it. “You’re dead, like this Jane Doe here. You don’t have many worries, except for what happens to your body and why you’re stuck on this plane. I guess. I don’t really know what ghosts worry about. I just help them cross over.”
Brendon got up from his chair, coming over to stand on the other side of the body, frowning at him over it. “I don’t know why I’m dead. I don’t want to be dead.” He paused, biting his lip and glancing down. The action made him look younger than he had. “God, I just turned 23.” His eyes widened slightly and Ryan glanced down quickly, wondering what the ghost was seeing.
“I know this girl. Her name's Sarah.” Brendon pointed at the body, finger going through the skin before he caught himself, absently wiping his finger on his shirt. It was such a living movement that Ryan felt bad for the ghost. “I had a date with her like, a month ago. Well, a few dates. She was a really nice girl. I wouldn't have pictured anyone wanting her to hurt her. How’d she…?” His voice trailed off into a whisper, but Ryan could guess what the question was.
Ryan glanced at Frank’s notes before tilting the girl’s head a bit toward him, leaning forward on the balls of his feet as he showed Brendon two small puncture wounds in her neck. “According to Frank’s initial inspection, leaving me with the actual autopsy, these two small puncture wounds. I’m guessing a vamp probably did this.”
“A vamp.” Brendon’s voice was full of question and Ryan glanced up, repositioning the girl’s head.
“Vampire?” Ryan slid the drawer closed, making a mental note to double check to see if next of kin had been notified. Knowing how the system worked, at least when Nightwalkers were involved, there was a good chance that they hadn’t. In which case, they’d have to follow Daywalker procedures versus Nightwalker procedure. He caught the annoyed look, and realized he was doing it again. Brendon, as a human, as a Daywalker, couldn’t be blamed; he had probably grown up believing that everything Ryan knew as fact was only fiction and folklore.
Ryan moved to perch on the edge of his desk, peeling off his gloves and tossing them into the big garbage bin. “Right, let me go back to what I was saying before Frank interrupted me.” He ignored the annoyed look Brendon shot him. “Humans aren’t alone. There’s a much bigger picture than you humans believe exist. There’s witches, weres, vampires…”
“You mentioned that already.” There was starting to be a permanently annoyed expression on Brendon’s face, and Ryan was pretty damn sure it wasn’t supposedly to be as good looking as it was. “You were talking about how witches weren’t your typical ones like in Grimm’s Fairy Tales.”
“Right, right.” Ryan nodded, glancing at his watch. He was wondering why Jon had been so demanding he come in right away when it was pretty dead tonight, besides the fact that Iero wanted to go home so badly. Then again, just because it was dead at the moment didn’t mean it wouldn’t get busy in another few minutes. At least talking to Brendon passed the otherwise boring time. “Well, let me back up. Some witches are. I’ve never had to deal directly with those kinds, the particularly nasty kind, but I’ve had to deal with the fallout from their crimes. The bodies, and worse, the lost ghosts.” He paused briefly, glancing toward the swinging doors to see if anyone was coming. “But most of us witches aren’t that bad.”
“You’re a witch too?” Brendon stared at Ryan as he resettled in the visitor’s chair. “But you’re a guy. Witches are girls, right? And guys are wizards or warlocks?”
Ryan snorted, unable to stop himself. “No decent male witch I know would ever want to be called a wizard or a warlock. Those are bad male witches. Sorcerers are about the middle ground, like anyone, I guess.” He stretched his legs out ahead of himself, staring down at his shoes. “I don’t really know who started that whole ‘witches are only female’ nonsense. It’s a lot farther from the truth than anything I’ve ever heard.” He looked up from his inspection of his shoes, meeting Brendon’s gaze. “Either way, I’m a witch. I guess you could call me a ghost witch, if you were a Nightwalker. You Daywalkers would just call me a psychic, as you said earlier.”
Before he could add anything more, the phone on his desk rang. Ryan held up a finger, leaning back and grabbing it off the cradle. “Ross.”
“We’ve got a dead one for you, Ross.” Pete’s voice sounded bored, and Ryan could just picture the vampire at whatever crime scene he was at, standing off to one side and watching the Daywalker police do their job, before the Centre could do its work.
“I’ll be there with the van.” Ryan bit back a sigh as he took down the address before hanging up, turning to Brendon. “Okay, I have to go. Think you’ll be okay here on your own?”
Brendon looked around the room before shrugging slightly, leaning back in the chair. “There’s nothing to be scared of if I’m dead, right?”
“Guess not.” Ryan leaned over the desk, opening a drawer and pulling out the keys for the M.E. van. “Okay, I shouldn’t be much longer than an hour or so.”
As he left the morgue, Ryan glanced back and took in the sight of Brendon looking around quietly, before settling back into the chair.
The drive to the address Pete had given him was pretty uneventful, although Ryan was worried about the ghost he’d left back in the morgue. Finally, he pulled up in front of a two story house, parking his van behind a squad car. He grabbed his bag as he got out, pausing briefly to look at the abruptly woken up looking neighborhood, washed out by flashing red and blue lights.
He glanced up toward the house, taking in the white siding colored by the flashing lights before inhaling deeply a deep breath and walking up the pathway to the cheerfully painted green door, standing ajar.
“When is a door not a door?” Ryan muttered under his breath, unable to stop himself from quoting that old joke.
“When it’s ajar?” Patrick answered dryly from where he stood on the stairs. The police detective gestured with his notebook for Ryan to follow him upstairs, leading the M.E. into the master bedroom.
As he went up the stairs, Ryan took in the family pictures along the wall. It looked like a normal family - father, mother, one daughter, fairly cute although she wasn’t his type - but that really didn’t mean much when Nightwalkers could be involved. Considering Pete had called him, that meant there was a good chance that they were.
Ryan paused in the dark doorway, taking in the scene before him. He was no CSI - that was Pete’s job, and he could see the vampire talking to Patrick while another CSI, Ryan was pretty sure it was Spencer, dusted for prints - but he still liked getting a sense of the crime scene surrounding the dead body before he confirmed time of death.
The master bedroom was tastefully done in cream and darker colors, from the cream walls to the cream and black bedspread on the mahogany queen sized bed. The floor was also cream colored, splattered in places by dark red bloodstains near the sprawled body, along with the victim’s long bright pink hair splayed out across the floor, looking like a washed out version of a blood pool.
Ryan stood over the body of the girl - Audrey Kitching, according to the wallet that had been found near her, the daughter of the owners of the house - taking in the whole picture and feeling a twinge of regret that she was so young. He crouched down, grabbing a pair of gloves from his bag and snapping them on.
He glanced around the room briefly, frowning when he noticed someone standing in the corner of the room he hadn’t seen when he walked in. The newcomer was female, with short black hair, wearing a short black skirt and white button down top, and watching him with a combination of amusement and concern. The stranger part was the fact that no one, not even the two vampire CSIs he could see, seemed to notice she was standing in the corner, watching the proceedings. Which probably meant that she wasn’t exactly on this plane. Ryan bit his lip, turning his attention back to the dead girl, and away from the uneasy feeling he got from a solid ghost.
Pete crouched down next to Ryan. “Well, can you figure out right now what happened to her?” The vampire grinned faintly as Ryan glanced up at him from where he was minutely studying the girl’s face and neck.
Ryan pressed a gloved finger to the girl’s still warm cheek, pulling it back after a moment before cupping her face in his hands to tilt it carefully up to bare her neck. He’d already seen faint bite marks on her neck, and he knew he’d want a closer look at them back at the morgue. “Looks like a vamp bit her. I’d have to check back at the morgue to be sure it’s a cause of death, or just a side effect.” Ryan sat back on his heels, digging out his meat thermometer, reaching to pull up the girl’s shirt and pushing the thermometer into her abdomen. As he waited for the temperature to finish reading, he lightly pressed his finger against the bite marks on the girl's neck. A very small amount of blood welled up, managing to roll down the pale neck for a few inches before Ryan wiped it away with his glove.
"Well, the vampire didn't drain her completely," Pete noted dryly, and Ryan glanced up at the faint sound of hunger under the vampire's bored-sounding voice.
"What kind of vampire does that?" Patrick asked from where he stood over them. Ryan's head tilted back to look up at the detective, wondering if it were a better question for him to answer, or if he should let Pete field it. When Pete said nothing, Ryan decided to take the ball into his own court as he reached for the thermometer, hesitating as he answered the question.
"One that's not hungry, would be my guess," Ryan said as carefully and neutrally as he could manage. He wasn't an expert in them - the Undead types didn't really cross his table, after all, except in strange cases - but one of his longest running friends was a nearly a century old vampire. He glanced over toward where Spencer was watching the proceedings out of the corner of his eye before looking to where the strange woman had been standing, but she was gone. He wasn't quite sure yet if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but something about the way she'd been watching was not something he'd forget anytime soon. He made a mental note to try to talk to her if he ever saw her again.
"Okay." Patrick's voice was skeptical, and Ryan looked up as he waited for the following cars on the detective's train of thought. He didn't have long to wait. "If the vampire wasn't hungry, why bite her?"
"I don't know." Ryan allowed his voice to become as skeptical as theirs. "These are just theories based on what I'm seeing here. I'll know more once I get her back." There was a silent finally following his statement, and he caught the faintly amused snort from where Spencer was crouched. He leaned forward to check the thermometer, doing a quick calculation in his head. "She hasn't been dead long. I'd say a few hours at best."
He got up, pulling his gloves off in the movement. "I saw an ambulance down there. I'll grab the EMTs to help me move the body to the van." Ryan glanced toward Pete. "Once you're done with her, that is. So I can work on the autopsy."
Pete nodded, and Ryan took that as his cue to grab his bag and head back downstairs. He took a deep breath once he was back outside, taking a moment to orient himself to re-find the ambulance.
Only, the strange woman he'd seen back in the master bedroom was standing next to it, arms crossed over her chest, as she watched everything from the CSIs searching the outside to the cops keeping the questioning neighbors at bay. As Ryan watched, one of the EMTs waiting to hear if they'd be needed stepped right through where the woman was standing. For a brief moment, both people occupied the same space before the EMT continued on his way.
She was definitely not on this plane.
Ryan nodded to himself as he walked to his van, making a mental note to talk to her after he'd gotten his bag and the body loaded into the back. He unlocked the doors, setting his bag down in the passenger seat before getting back out, opening the doors of the back of the van.
"You're right on the vampire part. But I don't know about the not hungry part."
The voice was definitely female and definitely right in his ear. Ryan jumped, whirling around to come face to face with the woman he'd seen over by the ambulance. If he'd had doubts she wasn't a normal person, Night or Daywalker, they were definitely gone now. He clutched at the front of his shirt, fingers curling in a bit as he forced his heartbeat to go back to normal. Twenty-three was a bit too young to be having a heart attack, even if it did happen.
"Sorry," the woman said, looking a bit awkward for having startled him. Ryan took another steadying breath, taking a closer look at the woman now that she was right in front of him instead of at a distance. She had the same presence as a ghost, and there was almost a shimmer to her skin, but she was the most solid ghost he'd ever seen. If she was a ghost, that was.
As if she could read his thoughts, the woman arched one eyebrow elegantly, her expression becoming amused. "I'm not a ghost, but I must confess, I've never heard of a ghost witch being able to see one of my kind before. Gabe will be a bit surprised to hear that."
Ryan didn't even consider how she must have guessed he was a ghost witch. The thought that there was a kind of Nightwalker that not even his own breed of witch could see was a particularly scary one, but he'd seen enough to not let the fear show through. "Your kind?"
"Reapers?" The woman drawled, confusion passing over her face briefly before she shook herself. "Well, we're sort of a witch, like the ones found here, on this plane." She didn't explain which "here" she meant, but Ryan was pretty sure it wasn't this plane she was speaking of. "We help the ghosts you ghost witches come across, to cross over here. Well, usually."
Her gaze drifted over to where the body of the dead girl was being carried out by the EMTs. Ryan took a step back to let them load the body into his van before glancing at the woman, and found her looking back.
“Maybe I should explain back at your morgue. I think you told the vampires and the human that was where you were going?"
Ryan nodded. "Might be a good plan."
--
The drive back to the Centre was pretty uneventful, all things considered, but Ryan did find out the name of the strange woman. It was Victoria, but she preferred to go by Vicky. She hadn't offered much else besides her name, content to let Ryan be lost in his thoughts. It wasn't until Ryan turned into the parking lot of the Centre that Vicky sat up straighter in the passenger seat.
"You work for the Centre?" Vicky's gaze toward him was a mix of surprise and appreciation, opening the van's door as soon as Ryan had parked it by the receiving doors closest to the morgue. "We Reapers don't exactly follow the, er. Rules that the Centre sets down for you Nightwalkers, but we know them." She paused, pursing her lips before tapping the tip of her nose. "Strange, though. I wouldn't have pictured a ghost witch working here. I would think you'd be better associated with some other line of work."
“I had a different job before this one, but it didn’t pay my bills.” Ryan made a face at her before opening his own door and getting out, walking around to the back of the van. This time around, he wasn't as shocked when, after he'd opened the van doors, he turned around and found himself face to face with Vicky. "Can I ask you a question? How do you do that? Is it a Reaper thing?"
"Is what a Reaper thing?" Vicky blinked in confusion before her eyes widened slightly. "Oh, the moving. Sorry." She took a few steps back, making sure each step was as normal as they could possibly be. "It's an Other Side thing. I'm sure you've seen some ghosts disappear and reappear in places, right?"
Ryan was just about to say he had when Brendon appeared out of thin air, almost glowing in the brightly lit receiving area of the Centre. It was almost like a case in point situation.
"Who's this?" Vicky and Brendon both said at nearly the same time, both fixed on the other before Brendon looked at Ryan questioningly.
"Brendon, this is Vicky, a Reaper. Don't ask me about them, they don't fall under what I know about. Luckily, she's decided to oblige me in what I don't know." Ryan carefully maneuvered the gurney with the body bag on it out of the van, turning it so he could push it into the Centre and to his morgue. "Vicky, this is Brendon. As you can see, he's a ghost, but I don't know how he died. I don't have a body to match up with his."
Vicky took a step toward Brendon, head tilting slightly as she studied the ghost before she disappeared abruptly.
Brendon blinked at where Vicky had been standing before turning back to Ryan. Ryan shrugged faintly, pushing the gurney the short distance to his morgue. There was a part of him that guessed that Vicky was the type to reappear when he'd least expect her, even if he couldn't imagine why she'd disappeared in the first place.
Sure enough, Vicky was sitting on the desk inside the morgue, chewing her lip and looking nervous. She crossed her legs primly, hands clasped at the knee. "Sorry about that." Her gaze turned toward Brendon, and Ryan could see the honest apology in her eyes. "Let me explain how we Reapers work. I'm sure you two know about the Grim Reaper of legend, right?"
Ryan pushed the gurney next to his autopsy table, unzipping the bag as Brendon wandered over to him to watch.
"Yeah, in charge of bringing the dead beyond, I think." He pulled out a pair of gloves from the small metal table next to the autopsy table before hesitating, looking around. Usually, by this time of the night, there was an intern to help him out, or at the very least, there was a CSI to help him. As it was, he was pretty much alone in the morgue, except for the ghost and the Reaper, and he was pretty sure that neither of them knew how to help him.
Just as he was starting to wonder just how he could bow out gracefully long enough to get help, Spencer walked into the room, already wearing a lab coat with his work badge attached to the left breast pocket. The vampire paused briefly near the desk, head turning a bit as if he could sense, but not see, Vicky, before he closed the distance between himself and Ryan. Ryan nodded briefly toward the box of gloves, before studying his oldest friend to see how he was reacting to the presence of two things he couldn't see. Spencer didn't seem to be bothered by it, even though Brendon was pretty close to Spencer, eyes wide as the ghost took in the fangs pressing against Spencer's lower lip. Over Spencer's shoulder, Ryan could see Vicky considering something, before she disappeared. This time, though, her disappearance was slower, like she was rippling out of existence. For all Ryan knew, it's what Reapers usually did when they weren’t spooked or startled.
"Find anything of use at the crime scene?" Ryan said, taking a step back so Spencer could join him in moving the dead girl's body onto the autopsy table. Granted, given his strength, Spencer could have moved the dead weight on his own, but Ryan knew that his friend liked making Ryan feel less awkward when it came to feats of strength.
Spencer shook his head, reaching out with a finger to brush a few strands of the dead girl's pink hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear. There was a sharp intake of breath, something Ryan thought ghosts were incapable of doing, from Brendon's direction. He blinked over at the ghost, taking in the shocked look on his face.
"You know this girl?" Ryan asked Brendon, ignoring the look Spencer gave him. This wasn't the first time that Spencer had seen Ryan talking to ghosts, and it certainly wouldn't be the last. Ryan just knew that Spencer wasn't a particularly huge fan of it. Either way, he'd make it a point to make introductions later if he got the chance to. Right now, he had an autopsy to perform.
"Yeah." Brendon's hands fluttered for a moment, as if he couldn't make up his mind whether he wanted to touch the dead girl or cross his arms over his chest since he knew he couldn't. He settled for watching as Spencer took the cue that Ryan wasn't listening to him and started to slowly undress the body, putting each article of clothing in a bag to process them over in the lab. "We dated a few months back, it got pretty serious but we broke it up because she was feeling awkward coming over to my apartment." His hands waved again before he tucked them under his armpits and look down at the dead girl, biting his lower lip. "She never explained why, so I just thought it was me." There was something about the mournful look that crossed the ghost's face that made Ryan feel like, if he could have, he would have hugged the ghost.
Ryan shook himself a moment later, wondering why he was even bothered so much, before picking up his scalpel and waving absently as Spencer left with the clothes to process them.. Just as he pressed the blade to the body's shoulder, he paused, wondering if Brendon really should be here for this. "Hey, I think..."
His voice trailed off as he looked up, realizing Brendon was no longer standing there. Ryan glanced around, but couldn't find Brendon anywhere in the morgue. Hopefully, the ghost would find his way back to Ryan's apartment. Ryan made a mental note to check to see if Brendon were okay when he got off work.
--
It was still an hour or so before dawn when Ryan finally got a chance to punch out and head home. He'd found nothing of interest in the initial autopsy - for all intents and purposes, Audrey Kitching seemed to have died from a vampire bite, but she hadn't been completely drained - but he'd taken plenty of pictures with the intent to look at them more closely in the relative quiet of his apartment. They, and his fairly limited but nonetheless detailed current findings were in a folder in Ryan's messenger bag, currently sitting on the passenger seat.
Ryan groaned as soon as he'd parked his car by his building, resting his forehead against the steering wheel. Short as it had been, this night had felt like an eternity and, even though he wanted to look at those pictures as soon as he was inside, all Ryan’s body wanted right now was his bed and a couple hours of sleep. He had off tonight, and he had no plans made - his life lately seemed to have the Centre right smack dab in the center of it - but that didn't mean nothing would happen between now and then.
He groaned again, sitting back up and grabbing his messenger bag as he got out of his car. He was pretty sure auto-pilot was the only thing that managed to get him the distance from his car to the building and up the stairs to his apartment. He fumbled with his keys briefly before managing to unlock his door, letting himself into his apartment. He locked the door behind him, barely remembering to throw the deadbolt before slumping against the door. His eyes closed as he felt gravity beginning to slowly work on pulling his messenger bag down along his shoulder and arm. Bed was definitely sounding good.
He wasn't quite sure how he made it to his bedroom, stumbling about for the most part and leaving his messenger bag in a heap in the hallway, but the minute he hit his bed, he was out cold.
Ryan woke up a few hours later, wishing he'd thought to take out his contacts before he passed out because now they were dry and uncomfortable. Not to mention, he probably shouldn't have slept in his clothes. He stretched slowly, feeling a few joints - mostly in his lower back and arms - pop as he tried to make his clothes look less rumpled. Yeah, definitely not a good idea to have slept in his clothes. He was feeling pretty awkward.
He got up, stumbling toward his bedroom door and came face to face with Keltie, who was standing just over where Ryan had dropped his bag. At some point in time, while he was asleep, the messenger bag had fallen over, and the contents had spilled out onto the floor. Including all the pictures and paperwork from the folder with the information on Audrey Kitching's autopsy.
"Maybe you should get out of the apartment," Keltie suggested thoughtfully, studying a picture - a close up of the bite marks on Audrey Kitching's neck - through the filminess of her wedding dress. Past her, Ryan could see Brendon crouched over another picture but he couldn't make out what it was of. If the dead girl had been an ex-girlfriend of Brendon's, Ryan couldn't imagine what the ghost must currently be thinking or feeling. "This doesn't seem like an apartment sort of case."
--
Getting out was turning out to be a good idea, Ryan thought to himself as he walked the short distance between his apartment building and the little coffee shop he liked to frequent. Taking in the warm sunlight seemed to banish away the thought of a vampire that didn't drain its victims completely.
The little coffee shop was owned by a very friendly werecat by the name of Greta. Before he'd gone into being an M.E., back when he was still running a mostly slow private eye sort of business, he'd crossed paths with Thomas, Greta's weredog mate, because the two weres had been having poltergeist behavior, as well as objects disappearing and reappearing in places the two had searched countless times. (If Ryan closed his eyes, he could still see the little shop he'd owned; a combination of his own little private eye business, where he'd help people with their ghost problems or to find lost things, and a psychic reading sort of thing. Every so often, he'd close his eyes and remember the place, remember how it had always smelled like myrrh and other incenses, and he wished he could go back to it.) At the time, with all their relatively small income tied up in the shop, the two weres hadn't been able to afford to pay his fee, but Ryan had waived it - it hadn't been that hard of a poltergeist to get rid of, anyway - and now, whenever he came in with a problem or a case that was bothering him, Greta always let him take a table and settle in to pour over the details he had. Plus, she and Thomas always made sure that he had plenty of whatever he was drinking - usually green tea, two sugars - as well as whatever dessert was on sale that day. There had yet to be a problem Ryan had that couldn't be solved at Greta's little coffee shop.
He pulled his messenger bag back up as he pushed open the door, giving a small wave to Greta behind the counter as the small twinkling of the bells alerted her to someone coming in. Greta mirrored the wave, pointing over to Ryan's usual table. Seeing it empty, Ryan had to smile and wonder if maybe the werecat had her own brand of precognition. Stranger things did happen, after all.
No sooner had he sat down in his favorite overstuffed chair, and noticed Brendon already warily sitting in the other overstuffed chair opposite him, than Greta appeared with a steaming cup of tea and a plate of chocolate cake, setting them both down in front of Ryan as well as producing a fork from the pocket of her apron.
"Hi, love." Greta's eyes were a warm golden brown. Ryan could see her pupils were shifting between normal and slitted the way a cat's would, and it made him realize the full moon was a lot closer than he thought it was; before they turned an almost bronze color, pupils automatically slitting and widening as her gaze turned toward Brendon. Ryan knew that in her human form, Greta couldn't actually see ghosts, even with her special eyes, but he knew she could smell them. "You have company, too." She blinked, eyes turning back to normal as she gave Brendon a warm smile. "Don't worry, I'm a nice kitty." Her hand reached out to pat the arm of the chair, mere inches from where Brendon's arm was resting, before she turned and headed back to the counter.
"That's Greta," Ryan said by way of greeting, curling his hands around the tea cup, as Brendon shifted in his seat to look at Ryan. "She's a werecat, and as far as I know, in her human form, she can't see ghosts. But she can hear and smell them, although she's better at all three in her cat form." He smiled reassuringly, taking a small sip of his tea. As usual, Greta had it perfect. "I met her, and her mate, a few years back when they opened this place. A previous owner didn't want to move, even though they were dead, so they brought me in to help."
Ryan nearly laughed at the look of pure skepticism Brendon gave him. "They brought in a medical examiner? For a ghost?"
Ryan shook his head, forking up a bit of the chocolate cake and taking a bite. Delicious, as usual, but that was to be expected with Greta's baking. He'd yet to be disappointed. "I used to run like, this psychic shop? I dealt with wayward ghosts and that sort of thing." He shrugged faintly, taking another bite of his cake. "I'm not really big into the demanding sort of jobs, where I'd have to report to someone else, but I couldn't really make ends meet on bizarre hours like I had, so I closed the shop and went to school to be a medical examiner. I was, despite all attempts on my part to not be, top of my class, and the Centre needed a new chief medical examiner, as the chief M.E. before me had met with a...." Ryan paused, remembering his very first case with the Centre. Even with all the ghosts he'd seen in his life, bodies were never supposed to contort like that, much less have that much blood coming from them. Things like that were why Ryan stayed away from the practicing witchcraft part of being a witch and just dealt directly with the ghosts that crossed his path. Definitely less messy. "..a rather unfortunate accident."
He was sure that something of what had crossed his memory had also crossed his face, judging by the near disgusted look Brendon gave him. Ryan shrugged. It happened to bad witches, more than Ryan'd really like, but he wasn't about to mention that to a ghost. He was pretty sure Brendon wouldn't want to hear about it anyway. "But, I still come back here every so often, especially when I've got a big problem I can't figure out." He used the fork to point at Brendon, and Brendon gave him a rueful face, as if to say thanks for reminding him he was dead.
Ryan finished his piece of cake before he lifted his messenger bag onto the table, digging for a moment before pulling out the folder that contained Audrey's autopsy. He set his bag back down on the floor, pushing his tea over a fraction before he started covering the table with the autopsy photos. Out of the corner of his eye, Ryan saw Brendon looking down at the few pictures that had wound up being in front of him. He glanced up, since the way Brendon was leaning over made the design on his shirt more obvious, as well as the mark across his neck.
"Well, that's just morbid."
Ryan prided himself on the fact that he didn't jump at the unexpected, and unknown, voice right behind him. He did, though, turn slightly to look up at the speaker, but the man wasn't looking at him but at the autopsy photos. On the other side of the table, Brendon was staring wide eyed at the guy, half-rising in his chair, and Ryan wondered just what sort of connection the man had with the ghost. He wouldn't guess murderer, judging by the almost pained look in Brendon's eyes as the ghost sat back down, as if he remembered he couldn't touch the other man.
The man picked up one of the photos - a different angle of Audrey's neck; Ryan could see on the photograph where her neck was broken, something his autopsy had already confirmed - and Ryan used the opportunity to study the speaker. He would have guessed the newcomer couldn't be much older than himself, and he seemed to be looking at the picture in his hand with almost professional detachment. Ryan mentally guessed the man might be a photographer, and confirmed it when he saw the camera bag slung over the guy's shoulder.
"Really, fucking morbid," the man grinned, handing the photo back to Ryan. "But I had a head's up from Greta behind the counter you were going to be like that." He cast a glance toward the chair Brendon was sitting in before pulling up a nearby chair, setting the camera bag on the floor next to his feet. Ryan straightened up a bit more, sliding his gaze across the table to where Brendon was staring at the newcomer with a cross between sadness and frustration, before turning his attention back to his unexpected guest.
The man rested his wrists against the edge of the table, folding his fingers together as he looked at Ryan. "Look, Ryan, I have a problem that I can't go to the Centre with, for certain particular reasons. Greta said you'd be able to help me."
Feeling like he wouldn't get any insight into his autopsy right now, and feeling pretty annoyed with it, even if it wasn't Greta's fault, Ryan got to his feet and started collecting his photographs. "Sorry, I'm no longer in that line of work. I work for the Centre, anyway. Greta knows that."
"She did say that." The man agreed cautiously, like he was choosing each word after careful deliberation. "And that you were a medical examiner." His finger turned one of the photographs - a full-frontal shot of Audrey's face - toward himself, warm brown eyes slowly studying Audrey's features. "It's those two things that I need help with." Ryan opened his mouth to say something, anything, but the man glanced up at him with a pleading look almost mirroring Brendon's. "My roommate is missing, and I'm pretty sure he's dead. But I can't go to the Centre for this sort of missing person thing, because he's not a Nightwalker like you and I are. He's a Daywalker."
Ryan stared at the man for a long moment, slowly sitting back down. Nightwalkers didn't usually have Daywalker roommates, except the vampires - whenever vampires chose to have roommates - and those were heavily monitored. Daywalkers were generally kept in ignorance of Nightwalkers - there were quite a few people at the Centre who had that as their job - and the minute they knew of the existence of Nightwalkers, the Daywalker had crossed the line. Patrick, through Pete, was one such example.
Ryan glanced over at Brendon before he could stop himself, before looking back at the newcomer. "Maybe you should start at the beginning and explain what you mean, because that's unheard of, as far as I know." Feeling like he was back in his former career, Ryan pulled out a notebook and pen from his messenger bag, waiting for the Nightwalker to begin.
The man took a deep breath, and Ryan was sure his gaze drifted briefly over to where Brendon was sitting, before the man's brown eyes were back on him. "I'll start with the basics then. My name is Shane Valdes, and I'm an incubus. Kind of." Shane's eyes glanced down toward his camera bag before he looked back at Ryan. "I don't feed in a traditional incubus manner. I'm," Shane paused, biting his lip and looking faintly nervous. "I'm not a traditional incubus for that matter."
Ryan, in the process of jotting down the basic facts, stopped writing for a moment and stared at Shane. "You're an incubus? Your kind is heavily, heavily monitored by the Centre, especially in big cities like ours."
Shane nodded. "I know. But I'm given some leeway because I don't have sex to feed. I've never been able to." He coughed, turning faintly red. "Anyway, I feed more by a different route." He bent down, and pulled an old-fashioned camera out of the camera bag. He set the camera and a plate for it on the table. "You know how there are all these superstitions about how cameras can steal your soul? This camera traps portions of people's life energy, so I get some leeway since I don't go around sucking people's lives." He hesitated, drumming his fingers against the camera. "And it was because I wasn't a typical incubus that, y'know, couldn't have a roommate of any sort, much less a Daywalker, that I decided I could use a companion in this big house I had. And I didn’t think the Centre would mind because of my… Uniqueness."
He looked so earnestly at Ryan that Ryan nodded despite himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Brendon chew his lip, perched on the edge of his chair and listening to every word Shane said. After a moment, Ryan could guess where this was leading.
"And your roommate?" Ryan asked carefully, knowing he wasn't going to like the answer.
"This really nice Daywalker named Brendon. Brendon Urie. Only we didn't stay just roommates. We'd maybe started dating a couple weeks ago."
"Brendon Urie? Are you sure?" Ryan tried to keep his voice as neutral as he could, resisting the urge to look at Brendon, although he could feel the ghost looking at him. It almost felt like, if he didn't acknowledge the ghost looking at him, Shane could have been talking about some other Brendon Urie. Some other Brendon, not the ghost that had appeared in his bedroom last night.
Shane blinked at him, almost frowning. "Of course I'm sure. I think I'd remember my own roommate and boyfriend, wouldn't I?"
Ryan finally gave into the urge to glance over at Brendon, taking in the worried look that was prominent on the ghost's features. "I don't think your boyfriend's missing." He paused, while Brendon looked across the table at Shane with such heartbreak, Ryan was sure he could feel it. And, judging by the way Shane was looking at the chair Brendon was sitting in, if the incubus couldn't see the ghost, he could definitely feel Brendon's emotion. "And I'm pretty sure you're right on the part where you think he's dead."
As soon as he uttered those words, Ryan wished he hadn't, as Shane's eyes closed almost painfully before he nodded.
"I wasn't expecting that he was still alive. I can't." Shane hesitated, as if wondering how to express what he wanted to say. "As an incubus, I can feel people's energy, regardless of whether they're Nightwalker or Daywalker. Every kind has its own vibration, as it were. And Brendon has this... vibration I'd know anywhere. That I could feel no matter where I was." The incubus caught his lower lip between his teeth, and Ryan could see the hint of fangs, not unlike the sort vampires sported. For a moment, Ryan wondered if an incubus could feed the same way a vampire could before he mentally shook himself. Now wasn't the time to be having those kinds of thoughts. "And after he disappeared abruptly one night, I couldn't. I couldn't feel him anymore. Like, if he were still alive, someone was hiding his energy in theirs. That's how I knew something had happened to him." He worried his lip a bit more, and Ryan reached out to pat his hand comfortingly. "That was a few days ago, and I couldn't go to the Centre because of the whole thing where I'm not supposed to be having a Daywalker roommate because of what I am."
Ryan took a deep breath, giving Shane's hand another pat. "I'm sure, as you're over here talking to me about it, Greta told you that I can see ghosts. See and talk to them, right?" Shane nodded, so Ryan plunged on. "And Brendon turned up in my bedroom last night, before I went into work." Ryan glanced over to Brendon as he spoke. "He looks frightened, for the most part. I can't see ghosts as solidly as I can see you, but I can tell you that he's wearing a t-shirt and boxers, which I'm guessing were his pajamas." Ryan paused, wondering if he should mention that he could now clearly see the huge gash across Brendon's throat and a large blood stain on the ghost's nightshirt. As Shane had already seen the autopsy photos, it didn't seem that out of place. "Also, I don't think he died pleasantly. There's this huge gash across his throat, and there's a dark stain on his shirt from it. I'm guessing it's blood, but I couldn't tell you what he was killed with."
Shane swallowed heavily, eyes closing in pain again. "Do you think he went quickly?"
Ryan looked at Brendon, who shrugged. "Brendon doesn't seem to remember the actual dying part. Even last night, he said he remembered being asleep in his bed and, when he woke up, he didn't feel like he was all there. So I'm guessing it was either quick, or Brendon was unconscious for the actual act."
To Part Two