Shadow Oracle by Laura Greenwood

Nine

The office managersets down her phone and flashes her an apologetic smile. "Sorry about that. How can I help you?"

"I'm Mathias Carey, this is Syxe Weston. We're the reapers assigned to the ghost in your bathroom," Mathias says. "He's been quite particular about what his unfinished business is and we were hoping you'd be able to help us."

She sighs and straightens a few things on her desk, including the nameplate. I squint at it, making out the name Jean Reeves.

"I'm not sure what to tell you. Cain was a nightmare for the office. It doesn't surprise me that he's making things difficult in death as well as life."

"Difficult how?" I ask.

"He'd always make suggestive comments towards the female staff, and he'd fly off the handle at even the smallest provocation. He wasn't a nice man to work with," Jean explains.

I resist the urge to groan. No doubt whoever this poor Candice is, she hasn't actually done anything wrong.

"He said that his unfinished business was with someone called Candice," Mathias says. "He wanted her to be fired. Do you know anything about that?"

Jean frowns. "I don't think there's anyone called Candice working here. Not unless they're a recent hire. Let me check." She wiggles her mouse and types something into her computer. "No, there's no Candice here, sorry."

"Could it be an alias of some kind?" Even as the question leaves me, I know it's a pointless one. The chances of someone using a fake name in a boring office job.

"I'm sorry, I don't think so. I can ask around, but I don't think anything is going to come of it."

"Please ask anyway," Mathias responds. "Anything you find out that might be useful for us to help him move on."

"I'll do my best. Do you have a number I can contact you on?" she asks.

"We do." Mathias pulls out a card and hands it to her.

I raise an eyebrow, never having seen it before. Should I have cards of my own made? I push the thought to the side. I'll ask Mathias about it when we have a moment that isn't taken up by annoying ghosts, frustrating cults, and our studies.

"I'll be in touch if I find anything."

Even though she hasn't said the words, it's clear she's dismissing us.

"Thank you for your time," I say, getting to my feet.

Mathias follows and the two of us leave Jean's office together.

"Do you believe her?" I ask.

He nods. "But I doubt we're going to hear from her again. She doesn't care enough to actually ask around."

I sigh. "I feared as much. So what's next?"

"We go back to the bathroom and try to get more information out of Cain."

I groan. "I was worried you'd say that. Do you think Candice might work somewhere else? Maybe she's a barista or something like that?"

"It's worth seeing if he'll tell us," Mathias admits. "But I'm worried he's just trying to give us the runaround."

"What do we do if that's the case?"

Before he can answer, a loud shout of surprise from the direction of the bathroom calls our attention that way. We exchange a worried glance and rush over in time to find water flooding out of it and loud cackling coming from within.

It takes me a moment to realise I'm the only one who can hear it.

"Cain did this," I whisper to Mathias, not wanting to draw the attention of anyone else and cause them to panic.

"Almost certainly."

"Should we..." I wave in the direction of the ghost. I don't particularly want to talk to him again. Not that I can really call what I'm doing with Cain talking when he's made it completely clear that he doesn't believe I'm worth talking to.

"No. We need to report this higher up."

"Won't that look bad on us?"

He shakes his head. "He's causing problems for the building and the people working in it. And that's without whatever vendetta he has against someone called Candice."

"Can he hurt anyone?"

"Not directly. But it's not impossible for him to influence the world around him." He waves at the water sloshing around.

"How is he even managing that?" I didn't think ghosts could touch things in the physical world.

"He can mostly do it by influencing the living who have some kind of connection to the dead. Most of them probably don't even know it's happening."

"Huh. I didn't realise that was a thing."

He nods. "I've always assumed it was caused by heavily diluted reaper or necromancer blood, but I have no proof of that. I'm sure there are people looking into the genetics of it somewhere in the world."

Huh. I've never considered anything like that.

"We should take some pictures though, they'll help with our report. Want to do that while I get some witness statements?"

I nod and pull out my phone, snapping some quick photos while Mathias talks to the staff who have stuck around this long.

"All right, ready to go do some paperwork?" he asks me.

"That depends. Are you going to pretend that we'll do it together and then just do it for me?"

"Is that what you want?"

"No. If I'm going to make a proper decision about the Reaper Guard, then I need to learn all this stuff. And you can't make your decision based on always having to mop up after a partner."

"I don't feel like that," Mathias counters.

"No, maybe not. But it's a shared job and we haven't been sharing it."

He chuckles. "You caught onto that, then?"

"You haven't been very subtle about it."

He pauses for a moment, considering it. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have been keeping you out of the paperwork."

"It's okay. I get it. You understand it already, it would take more time if I was the one doing it because you'd have to explain everything. Probably more than once. But we're supposed to be a team. If we don't act like that, then this isn't going to work." I give him my sternest look to punctuate my point.

"I get it. I'm sorry. I'll do better. We can go through the paperwork to report this to the Reaper Guard together."

"Good. We can pick up some sandwiches on the way," I suggest.

"That sounds good. I've got an hour until my next class, so we can do it then."

The two of us make our way out of the office building without anyone talking to us. They're all too caught up in the havoc Cain caused to pay us any attention. Which is ironic when we're the ones dealing with the ghost. Maybe. I don't actually know what happens if the Reaper Guard ends up involved.

"What happens after we submit the paperwork?"

"It depends what the Reaper Guard decides. They'll either take the case off us and solve it themselves, or we'll be approved for a forced reaping."

My eyebrows shoot up. "We're allowed to do that?"

"Why do you think Mr Denzel has been teaching us how?"

"He said it was so we knew how not to do it."

"It's both, as far as I can tell. Hopefully, it won't come to that." There's something in his voice that makes him sound nervous.

"You've never done a forced reaping before, have you?" I ask.

He laughs nervously. "Nope. It's fairly rare. We could go years without having to do one."

"Then aren't we lucky," I mutter.

"It depends how difficult it turns out to be," he admits. "Let's hope the Reaper Guard take it from us so we don't have to deal with it."

Something tells me that's not going to happen.

My phone buzzes and I pull it out of my pocket, surprised to see Fielding's name on the screen. I tap open the message.

"Are you up for a little detour before we head back?" I ask.

"The Agency?" he guesses.

I nod. "Fielding asked if I was free to meet her." Though I have no idea why. I doubt they've uncovered anything since the last time I visited.

"Then let's go. It's better than taking two trips."

"That's what I was thinking." I quickly type out a reply and hit send. "We can do the paperwork after class. But no cheating and doing it without me."

Mathias' lips quirk up into an amused smile. "Promise."

"I'm going to hold you to that," I respond sternly. I need to learn the paperwork, and I'm not going to manage to do that if he doesn't let me help with it.