Neil Vs. Pansy (Part 3)
The following free story is a follow up of Specter Inspector: Dead and Back Again #1 (Barnes & Noble link). I HIGHLY recommend reading Specter Inspector BEFORE reading this short story as this occurs TWO WEEKS AFTER the events of the book.
Meaning, SPOILERS AHEAD.
If you have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s a link to the first book of the Dead and Back Again series, a paranormal mystery with elements of Noir, Cozy, and Professional Sleuth sub-genres.
Supposing you’ve read the book, I hope you enjoy the following complimentary story. 
Aeron’s ma was noticeably absent during dinner too. I could tell the kid was rattled, and Theo shot me a look again. Shoot, you’d think I’d get used to it, but his eyes penetrated like bullets.
“I can talk with her tonight,” he said. “Give her time, and she may…someday come to accept your spirit friends.”
Later that night, I trailed Aeron to yet another part of the castle. The place really was massive. He walked right down this long, upstairs corridor—wait, did I recognize that cherry-leafed tree down below? I was a bit distracted by the crowd of spirits loitering around.
“Make way for the Duke of the Dead!”
“I told you of his return, did I not?”
“Did someone alert the God of Conquest?”
Aeron smiled as if he could see his old friends. They parted like they were making room for royalty. One big spirit—shoot, it might have been a troll—slid into my path, keeping me from shadowing my link.
“Who are you?” it asked. Was it male or female? I couldn’t tell from its drooping features. “Only known spirits are allowed access to the Duke of the Dead.”
Good thing I couldn’t sweat anymore, or I’d have been puddling up on the floor. I’d had my share of run-ins, sure, when I first tailed Aeron to his Noir abode. But Mystery didn’t have nearly so many ghosts, and this troll was the kind that could shove me right into the Unknown Beyond.
“I, uh…I’m Neil Martin. I’m linked to Aeron Spade.”
The troll gave me a dumb, heavy frown. “Who is Aeron Spade?”
Nearby, a little spirit with fairy wings flipped her peepers, and squeaked, “‘Tis the name he uses while in Mystery. Looks like the silly boy tricked you. Are you from Mystery?” He eyed my smart suspenders and hipster haircut.
“Yeah,” I said, “but I’m linked to Aeron, see? So I go where he goes.”
The troll frowned deeper. “You have an odd color about you. What are your gifts?”
“Uh, I can make my voice heard by the living, not with words, but more like sounds—creaks, groans, that kind of thing.”
The troll nodded, but still scowled and didn’t budge. “And?”
“And, uh…I can, uh, touch—”
“Make way for the God of Conquest!” a spirit rumbled from down the corridor. Behind him, a huge spirit glided in like some glitterati. Big guy, the type that reeked of authority. Wait a minute…I knew that face.
The troll—still holding its ground—reached out and palmed my chest before I could react. It shoved me back. How the crapshoot was it doing that?
The rumbling caller floated to the side, making room for the big guy. The God of Conquest barely spared a glance at the troll, but then, he locked eyes with me.
That got it. I knew those penetrating eyes. That was the man in the dining hall tapestry with the unicorn and giant, Aeron’s great-grandfather, the former King of Fairy.
“Neil, was it?”
“Y-yes?”
“The poltergeist?”
The troll shot me a look and its grip on my chest got so cold, I could almost feel my very essence freezing up.
“There, there,” the god said. “I heard the young earl speak in favor of him. Even my grandson has confirmed his loyalty.”
The troll’s grip eased up.
“However,” he continued, “keep a sharp eye on him. If he even dares to harm one of my descendants, even with a scratch, let him feel the wrath of chains, snakes, and the torments of Hel.”
No Loki games for me then. I swallowed hard and threw on my best goody-two-shoes act. The big troll finally let me go, slow and reluctant like a bouncer with second thoughts. I gave it a polite nod, like a gentleman should, then slipped past it and weaved through the crowd of spirits, down to the far end of the corridor of Aeron’s room.
Despite the cold stone walls of Ruezdad, the kid’s room felt almost like his place back in Shigaqua. It smelled like time with dust, moss, and nostalgia’s charm. Healthy molds grew in the wall cracks, dust settled over every surface like the place was in a deep, peaceful sleep. Lavender bloomed in pots by the bed, and winter flowers—pansies, chamomile, wintergreen—popped up like little bits of color in the grey. The wooden floor creaked like a jazz record under a needle as ghosts floated over it. One spirit had taken up residence in the curtains, staring out the closed window and making the fabric wave gently around her like there was a breeze, but there wasn’t a lick of wind in the room.
I slipped into a corner, thinking maybe I could just blend in and stay low.
No dice.
“Hear me,” the God of Conquest boomed at the room entrance, then gestured to me. “We have a new presence. Introduce yourself.”
His voice snapped like a command—sharp, clean, no room to wriggle. I shrank back, but answered like I wasn’t sweating it, “My name is Neil Martin. I was born in Paranormal and was murdered in Noir, Mystery. Aeron Fromm is my link.”
“And your gifts,” the god demanded.
“Uh, audibility and tangibility.”
That got me looks, the kind that folks usually reserved for ticking time bombs. And then, the god grinned. Not a smirk. A real joyful grin.
“At last! The Duke of the Dead has found one brave enough to risk his very soul to record the whispers of his visits!”
And just like that, the room shifted. What had been curiosity turned into something warmer. Gratitude. Fascination. The spirits came forward—eager to meet me. I backed up a step. That wasn’t right. Wasn’t normal.
People didn’t react like this to me. I got the cold shoulder, fear, suspicion, or sometimes flat-out panic. But admiration? Thanks? That was new.
Before I knew it, I was rubbing spectral elbows with heroes—real ones. Beowulf, all stoic and muscle. Jack the Giant Killer, eyes like he’d seen too much and laughed anyway. And two of the seven dwarves, named Bread and Knife.
It was wild. Somehow linking up with Aeron had flipped my whole afterlife sideways. Or, dare I hope, right-side up?
Around midnight, like clockwork, Aeron’s spirit floated out of his sleeping body—light as a whisper, confident as a noble. He did his usual sweep, scoping out the vibe, seeing which ghosts were still hanging around and who was new to the party.
He whistled one note—clean and sharp—and just like that, the whole room—god included—snapped to attention.
“It has come to my attention that my younger sister has made visits among you.”
“Yea,” Beowulf said. “The silent dame stands at the end of the hall, held fast by fear, her visage wrought with sorrowful dread, frozen in that place for many moments.”
I had to clamp down hard not to laugh. Aeron raised an eyebrow like he’d caught the tail end of my amusement. “She’s been trying to use her ability of one-way telepathy to communicate to you all.”
Understanding dawned on the translucent faces in the room.
“You mean she was attempting to communicate with us?”
King Fromm laughed jovially. “I knew it! There was magic afoot, and it had everything to do with peace offerings!”
“Can no one tell Spoon?” Knife said. “We made a bet that the Snow White look-alike was under a spell, and Spoon will make me dress like a bug for a whole week if he finds out I was wrong.”
I coughed once—innocent and definitely not in jest—and Aeron smirked.
“Yes, so, be nice. She wants to talk to you all as friends and someday might.”
With the matter settled, they got down to business—spirits giving their reports like ghostly intel officers. One by one, they laid out updates since Aeron’s last check-in two months ago.
They knew things. Important things. Stuff they picked up from their links to adventurers, dangerous monsters, treasures, poisons, and the Fromm family. One spirit even mentioned a trend among fairies learning growth magic. Trying to size up, be more…human. Not a problem yet, but I’d seen enough “not problems” turn real problematic real fast.
Then Aeron turned to me, wearing that friendly smile of his. “What do you think of Fantasy?”
I cleared my throat. “There are a lot more spirits lingering around.”
King Fromm barked with a laugh. “Why should we venture forth to the Unknown Beyond when our strength grows mightier after death and the people revere us as gods?”
Aeron shrugged. “The spirits of Fantasy tend to be a little less…strict with their interactions with the living. King Fromm is commonly mistaken as the God of Conquest among the living.”
“There is no mistake about it, young earl,” his great-grandpa said with a point. “In life, I was known as the Giant Slayer. Since my demise, my status was elevated to godliness.”
Aeron flipped his peepers, cluing me in of some old debate.
I tilted my head, thinking about the greetings I’d gotten, the threats, the welcomes, even the shove from the troll. “It’s possible I’ll like it here,” I said, keeping my tone light, like I wasn’t still half-expecting someone to toss me out.
“Good,” Aeron said, “because I plan to make several visits. My father can keep track of your aura’s shade of danger, and my mom…might learn to accept you…one day.”
I leaned back, slow and easy, like I was kicking up my feet on a desk. “You said your folks fought poltergeists and won. Can you tell me about them?”
“My parents or the fights?’
“Both,” I said.
Aeron gave the room a once-over, like a conductor checking if the orchestra had anything left to play. No objections. Just silence and a few expectant stares. Then he looked at me—really looked at me. There was a beat, long enough for me to wonder if he was sizing me up for a shovel talk. He must’ve seen something honest in me—something worth trusting—because he obliged.
He told me about his ma and how she grew up in Horror, where shadows got teeth and screams echoed longer than they should.
“You’re lucky,” he said, “it’s fresh on my mind since I researched her history when learning how to deal with you.”
He chuckled softly, like the laugh wasn’t about the story, but about how it all seemed to work out in the end. He went on about her Haunting, how she’d gone toe-to-toe with a mad scientist, some nutjob who thought it’d be a good idea to jam human souls and haints together. Said it’d give people kinetic powers. Real cockeyed belly-up of a plan.
She’d lost her first love to one of those poor souls, but it didn’t end there. The poltergeist—malicious piece of work—used her lover’s body and spirit to haunt her. Again and again.
But she didn’t do it alone. Friends stood by her. Spirits, too—including her lover’s and her brother’s. She didn’t beat it with vengeance, but with love, grief, and grit.
And all that was before she came to Fantasy. Before she got her supernatural speed. I sat there, thinking I was lucky I’d survived my run-in with her and hadn’t been exorcised before Aeron had his say.
Aeron’s storytelling took the whole night, and by the end, I felt a near kinship to his parents. The heartbreak, the terror, and the fight they suffered.
I shook my head, half in awe. “I can’t even imagine. That incredible woman raised you—a man who crumples in the fetal position during a power-outage?”
“Hey,” Aeron defended. “It’s never just a power-outage. She was the one who taught me that.”
Continued in Part 4…Neil Vs. Pansy © 2025 by C. Rae D’Arc is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
