Neil Vs. Pansy (Part 1)
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. 
When I linked myself as a spirit-sidekick to a gumshoe in Shigaqua, Noir, I figured my afterlife would blow up with tailing creeps and serving justice. I thought I’d be chasing down bad guys and noting their incriminating dirt. Instead, I found myself cruising the suburbs, trailing some dame’s missing cat.
Now, when I first met Aeron—an up-and-comer mortal who could chat with the dead in his sleep—I thought he was no more than a pain in the neck for disturbing me with his endless and pestering questions. Then he came back to my haunt. Again and again. Shoot my Mystery-influenced mind, as much as he rubbed me the wrong way, I couldn’t help but be intrigued by the guy who’d seek justice for a poltergeist. With my murder solved, I wasn’t ready to go on to the Unknown Beyond, so I figured, shoot, why not? I linked myself to the young gumshoe, thinking I’d help with his Cases like a side-kick to a dime novel detective.
Instead, I followed P.I. Aeron Spade’s spirit through a backyard cellar door of a suburban joint. Aeron had a dark complexion with bright eyes and rocked a plain cotton button-up shirt and drawstring slacks. Unlike the rest of us spirits, he couldn’t switch his duds with a mere thought. Despite dying over seventeen years ago, I still dressed like my time, shirt sleeves rolled up to my elbows and proper suspenders cinching my waist-high pants.
The two of us drifted through the cellar boxes, following clues of furballs and litter-sand trails till we spotted a little tabby curled up on a top shelf. She musta wandered in when the neighbors left the cellar open, then got trapped by accident.
“Found her,” Aeron said with an unnecessary breath of relief. “Neil, I’ll need you to note—”
His spirit zipped out of the room—called back to his body as something roused him and yanked him back to the living state.
“Ah, shoot,” I swore. My link to the gumshoe tugged on me uncomfortably, urging me to haul after him. I almost missed my seventeen dead years linked to the theater where I’d been knocked off. Those years were a haze, moaning about my unsolved murder, practicing my gifts to make sounds and make things move, waiting for payback. For all my waiting and scheming, I fumbled when time for payback came. I hadn’t planned to whack my murderer’s kid, but…that happened.
Then along came Aeron with his aspirations to be a PI and the pluck to go with it. He was the type of oddball who’d fold up in the dark then build the gumption to go toe-to-toe with a pro twice his age and rep.
When I finally made it to his rambler across Shigaqua, I found Lestrade and Dupin already there, jawing about their old Cases. They gave me their usual withering stare as “Hello.” I scoffed. Jealous of my tangibility gift, like everyone else. If I had their lame gifts, I’d be green too.
Lestrade could read real fast, and Dupin did no more than peep into others’ thoughts and feelings. After two weeks of tailing Aeron with his nod, reading him was as easy as a book.
Aeron, back in his body, was up in his bed, holding his corded phone to his ear. He ought to move that ameche if he wanted decent Z’s and chats with us spirits.
I scraped up the pencil from his nightstand and started scribbling on the paired notepad. Slow and steady. Sure, I could chuck a chair in a hot fit, but writing? That took precision and focus.
An older dame’s voice crackled over the receiver.
“Mom,” Aeron responded and sat up like he’d been caught sleeping on the job. Now, I’d heard him talk about his folks before, but he usually shut that conversation quicker than a speakeasy door. Naturally, that made me all the more curious. I’d asked Sherlock, who treated everybody (not just me) like we were inferior, and was always ready to show off his smarts.
I already knew the kid was a big deal with the spirits—he could visit us and send our messages back to the living. But what threw me for a loop was when Sherlock and other spirits called him Aeron Fromm, the Haunted, instead of PI Aeron Spade. Turned out, the kid wasn’t just some wannabe gumshoe with a supernatural quirk. No, he was some glitterati from Fantasy, straight up royalty, and a direct inheritor of a whole duchy.
Seventeen years of spending my afterlife in a playhouse, and suddenly my world got a whole lot bigger.
Aeron cleared his throat from the morning frog. “Yeah, I was sleeping in for work.” I smirked. What an odd thing to say that only made sense for this kid.
“Work?” his ma asked.
“Yeah, I’ve been busy. Sorry I haven’t called. It’s been…” He drifted. At least since before I’d linked to him.
“Two weeks, Aeron,” she said. Ah, right before I’d linked to him. “Theo said you’d called to say you found a job and wanted to buy a condemned lot—which I’ll only approve if it goes through a complete cleansing—especially since the last time you called me, it was to ask about poltergeists. I’m trying really hard not to be a helicopter mom, and you can thank your dad I wasn’t on your doorstep last week, but I’ve been worried sick. Are you okay?”
What was this? The kid rang up his ma to jaw about poltergeists? What could Lady Fromm possibly know about haints—about my kind—or about…me?
“Sorry, Mom,” Aeron said, revealing his nerves by latching and unlatching his leather bracelet. “I’m fine. It’s just this new job keeping me busy all through the night.”
“I only heard it through Theo, so clarify for me; you solved that Case and were hired by that big investigation agency you wanted?”
“Not exactly,” he slurred. I chuckled to myself with the memory of that “big investigation agency” that was now under threat of disbanding. I set down my pencil, finishing my note. Aeron said, “That fell through, but I was offered a better position with Truth Locke. Remember her?”
“How could I forget? That’s wonderful to hear! And you’re already working on another Case?”
“Yeah.” He lowered the phone to his chest to say, “Neil, what do you mean by, ‘neighbor’s cellar?’ Which neighbor?”
I flipped my peepers at him. The kid passed the buck more often than he could jog his noodle.
Back to the ameche, he spoke, “Thanks, Mom. I hope to round off this Case and come visit the family soon.”
“Great! And who were you talking to? Didn’t you just wake up?” Her voice pitched with suspicion.
“Mo-om.” Aeron flipped his own peepers. “It’s one of my spirit friends.”
I let out a soft snort. His old lady was unnecessarily concerned. With every ghost swarming around Aeron’s joint, no dame in her right mind would cross his doorstep—let alone step a toe in the kid’s bedroom where we all hung out.
“Really?” his ma asked. “Is it one I’ve heard of?”
“Uhh,” he slurred, eyes shifted, and hands fiddled with his bracelet. With a heavy swallow, he said, “He’s a new friend. His name is Neil Martin.”
That warmed the cockles of my heart. He called me his friend.
Aeron continued, “He’s kind of my assistant. He helps me remember what I dream about…by taking notes.”
I frowned as his latching and unlatching grew faster and faster like a jitterbug. I didn’t think I’d ever seen him so shook up, and I’d seen him psyche himself up to go toe-to-toe with a big-time double-crosser.
“Really?” his ma said. “That’ll be helpful. I know you struggle to remember your dreams, so that’s great!”
Aeron’s shoulders sank with relief and confusion. Why’d he been so nervous?
“Do you know what days you’ll be visiting?” she asked. “I can request Chef Steve to prepare your favorite omelets.”
Aeron said he’d swing by that weekend then signed off all polite-like. The second he hung up, he let out a long moan and ran his mitts slowly down his face.
“I don’t think she understood that a spirit ‘taking notes’ means a poltergeist… Supernaturals, she’s going to kill me.”
Continued in Part 2…Neil Vs. Pansy © 2025 by C. Rae D’Arc is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
