Vicious Circle by Mike Carey

it’s just the fear and pain of passing over, or some other strong emotion like anger.” I was trying to present this to them in a particular way, so that they could see it as what it was—a kind of happy ending. “It usually tends to be something negative, anyway. Most ghosts are hurting, on some level. I think—if you made Abbie feel as safe and welcome and loved as you probably did—she may just have gone on to whatever comes next.” I wouldn’t bring heaven into the equation: I’m an atheist myself, as I think I may already have mentioned—mostly because I can’t handle the contradiction of an omnipotent God coming up with a world as badly thrown together as this one. A couple of CORGI-approved gas fitters could have done a better job. “She may be somewhere else now—somewhere where she should have gone to straightaway, after she died. The extra time you had with her was a gift and, you know, a comfort—but it was never going to last. The dead aren’t that durable, most of the time.”
    I stopped. Steve was shaking his head very emphatically—almost angrily—but he didn’t speak. Instead he turned to look expectantly at Mel, whose eyes were on the desk. Evidently this part of the story fell to her, and evidently she knew it.
    “There’s something else,” she said, and swallowed hard. “I met a man. Three years ago.” She darted a quick glance at me, to see how much I’d infer just from those words. I stared back at her, deadpan. I prefer to have the “i”-dotting and “t”-crossing done for me. “He was . . . a client. Someone I was representing.”
    “A man in your line of business,” Steve supplied.
    “An exorcist?”
    “Yes, exactly. An exorcist.”
    Mel was looking at Steve with a curious expression now: tense, supplicating, submissive. I wondered whether he’d given her that bruise in the course of a marital disagreement that turned ugly. Three years ago . . . did that count as ancient history or current affairs in this marriage? He didn’t look like the wife-beater type. But then, most wife-beaters don’t.
    As if to shame me for having those suspicions, his arm curled around her shoulders and he drew her close, kissing her on the top of her head because the side of her face that was closest to him was the bruised side.
    “You don’t have to put yourself through this,” he said softly—so softly I could barely hear him. “I’m not blaming you. You know I’m not blaming you?”
    Mel nodded, eyes on the ground.
    “Do you want to go and wait in the car?”
    She nodded again, and he removed his arm, kissing her again.
    Mel stood. “I hope . . . ,” she said, flashing a wild look at me. “I hope you can help us, Mr. Castor.” Then she gave a jerky shrug, turned, and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.
    A heavy silence fell. I decided to let Torrington break it.
    “The man’s name was Dennis Peace,” he said at last, his tone mild—but mild with an undertow. “Perhaps you know him?”
    I shook my head. Maybe a vague echo, but ghostbusters aren’t that community-minded. And even when we do meet up, we don’t always bother to exchange names or sniff each other’s backside. The echo was an interesting one, though: something about a fight that ended badly. I’d have to try to pin it down later because Steve was still talking.
    “He was being sued over an exorcism that had gone wrong: the ghost wasn’t bound properly, and it did a lot of damage to the house it was in. He said it had ‘gone geist,’ and that that happens sometimes, no matter careful you are.”
    Firmer ground again: I welcomed it like an old friend. “That’s why it’s in the standard contract,” I agreed. “The exorcist is responsible for any damage he directly causes, but not for the damage that the ghost does in the course of the binding. It should have been open-and-shut, provided he’d given them a contract in the first place.” I was a fine one to talk: I never