I crumpled up the invoice in front of me, not throwing it away only because it wasn’t the minister’s fault that burying Don’s ashes in hallowed ground didn’t do jack toward sending my uncle to the Great Beyond. We’d now tried everything that our friends—alive, undead, or otherwise—had suggested to get my uncle to cross from this plane to the next one. None of it worked, as evidenced by Don pacing next to me, his feet not quite touching the floor.

His frustration was understandable. When you died, unless that was just a precursor to changing into a vampire or ghoul, you rather expected not to be stuck on earth anymore. Yeah, I’d been around ghosts before—a lot lately—but considering the number of people who died compared to the number of ghosts that existed, the odds of getting your Casper on were less than one percent. Yet my uncle seemed to be stuck in this rare between-worlds stasis whether he liked it or not. For someone who had been almost Machiavellian in his ability to manipulate circumstances, his current helplessness had to rankle that much more.

“We’ll try something else,” I offered, mustering up a false smile. “Hey, you’re a pro at overcoming insurmountable odds. You managed to keep Americans from finding out about the supernatural world despite complications like cell phone video, the Internet, and YouTube. You’ll find a way to move on.”

My attempt at cheerfulness only earned me a baleful look. “Fabian never found a way to cross over,” Don muttered, a swipe of his hand indicating my ghostly friend who lurked just outside my office. “Neither did any of the countless others who’ve found their way to you since you’ve become a spook magnet.”