Hamilton sighed as he lowered himself into the driver’s seat of their police cruiser, settling in much more heavily than usual. “Matthew wants to meet you.”

Harlan was relieved that he was already struggling with his seatbelt. It gave him a moment to think about what Hamilton had just said.

Matthew? Do I know a Matthew? Hamilton’s—and, by extension, Harlan’s—sergeant was named Matthews, but Harlan had already met her.

The seatbelt clicked into place. He was out of time.

Hamilton sighed again, this time with an edge of laughter. “Matthew is my…” He mumbled something Harlan couldn’t make out. “You haven’t met him,” he added in his regular speaking voice.

Harlan waited, hoping Hamilton would elaborate, repeat himself or that the words would finally click into place as he ran them over and over in his mind.

Silence. Silence that he had to break if he was going to get anything else.

“Sorry… I didn’t quite—”

“Boyfriend!” Too loud this time, loud and sudden enough that it startled Harlan. “Matthew is my boyfriend. He wants to meet you.” Hamilton slid his gaze over to Harlan, a sly smile on his thin lips. “You can say no,” he added, making it clear he would prefer that.

Harlan would prefer that as well, so it worked out nicely.

Before Harlan could assure him that he was, of course, in complete agreement, Hamilton shook his head and sighed for a third time that morning. “Nah, I think we’re past that. At this point, it would just be a delaying tactic. He’s made up his mind.”

Harlan glanced sideways at Hamilton. Is Hamilton actually blushing? He hadn’t thought Hamilton was physically capable of doing that, never mind imagined that it might actually happen.

“And I’ve met your boyfriend,” Hamilton shot back, even though Harlan hadn’t spoken.

Technically true, but they hadn’t exactly met over dinner or another social event. Did life-and-death situations count more or less than sitting down for a meal together?

“And, by the way”—the blush Harlan had probably imagined was gone, and Hamilton was definitely smirking now—”I knew I recognized him from somewhere.”

Shit. Harlan had been dreading this conversation, hoping it wouldn’t happen. He’d hoped that Hamilton wouldn’t connect Charles, Harlan’s ghost-repelling boyfriend, to Mr. Moore, owner of Rattling Chains, a formerly haunted BDSM club. Apparently, that had been too much to ask for.

Hamilton opened his mouth, started to say something then seemed to reconsider when he saw Harlan’s pained expression. “I’m glad you’ve got someone,” he said, just as gruffly as usual, but with a hint of genuine fondness and even warmth. “You don’t have a lot of people.” He looked away while he took a left-hand turn, then laughed. “Of course you’d meet someone on the job.”

Harlan looked down at his lap. Yeah. It was pretty pathetic. Sure, he’d started going to the occasional police-medium group—basically a coffee klatch, not everyone sitting in a circle sharing their feelings the way he’d been dreading—but that was still connected to the police. He hadn’t even realized that Charles had the same connection. Fuck. Somehow, without realizing it, he’d become one of those adults who only lived for his job.

He blinked. Maybe it isn’t just me.

“What does Matthew do?” he asked, fully expecting he already knew the answer.

He was wrong.

“He’s an advertising consultant.” Hamilton shrugged. “I don’t know what that means, either.” He paused, then added, as though he’d read Harlan’s mind—more likely his expression—“I did meet him through a case, though.”

Harlan wasn’t sure if that made him feel better or worse. He didn’t know exactly how old Hamilton was, but he guessed his police partner was at least a few years older than he was. Was that what he had to look forward to—all his personal connections coming from his work for the rest of his life? He wasn’t sure why it bothered him, but it did. Maybe it was like that for everyone, and he just didn’t know—not that there was anyone he could ask.

Maybe Charles… He’d met a few of Charles’ friends, more or less in passing. He certainly hadn’t sat down and had dinner with any of them, the way Hamilton seemed to be proposing that he do with Matthew. He’d always assumed it was because he and Charles were still fairly new as a couple and—knowing Harlan—Charles hadn’t wanted to overwhelm him with a bunch of people all at once—but maybe he’d been wrong. Maybe he just didn’t want to introduce Harlan to anyone else in his life.

Knowing he was starting to spiral, he was relieved when Hamilton continued.

“I told him you don’t do phone calls and you wouldn’t want to text someone you don’t know”—Wow, Hamilton really will make a great detective one day—“so you can just let me know when you decide. Here.” He fished a piece of paper out of his breast pocket and handed it to Harlan. “This is Matthew’s number so you can give it to Charles. He’s invited too, if he’d like.” His smirk was back. “I think he still has a choice, unlike you.”

“Where are we going today?” Normally Hamilton didn’t tell him, and he didn’t ask, but it was the only change of topic Harlan could think of. “Is it another one of Samuel’s ghosts?” Killing the warped medium and serial killer Samuel Harkness had released most of the spirits under his control, but even eight months later they were still finding stragglers, like the ones that had led Harlan to their killer in the first place.

Interestingly, Harlan and Hamilton had found—and freed—almost three times as many wanderers as the other three medium pairs put together. It was as if even though he’d never met them, these spirits felt a connection to him for killing the man who had been controlling them.

This part of the job was a lot less glamorous when the ghosts they worked with weren’t leading him to a serial killer.

“Kid,” Hamilton had laughed after a sweaty, dusty and frustrated Harlan had snapped something along those lines after a very long, hot day crammed in the crawlspace of an old house, trying to coax an especially nervous ghost close enough for him to either grab or calm it down enough for it to cross over on its own, “that’s the job. It’s not bringing down bad guys and epic showdowns. It’s…this. Hey, you’ve got a cobweb on your face.”

Harlan couldn’t help feeling that he’d peaked too soon, experienced more police-medium excitement than most of his colleagues got in a lifetime.

Crucially, he’d survived. Most police mediums didn’t live long enough to retire.

He still liked his job and found it fulfilling, rewarding and blah blah, but he couldn’t help feeling a little…let down. Restless, maybe. Not that he wanted to face anything like Samuel ever again! But…something. Something more than finding ghost, freeing ghost, next. Day in, day out, week after week. Just a little.

“Nah. Well—not as far as I know,” Hamilton amended. “Though apparently this is kinda a weird one.”

Harlan couldn’t help brightening, sitting forward in his seat a little. In light of what he’d been thinking, ‘weird’ was good. “Really?”

“Yeah, yeah, keep it in your pants.” Hamilton laughed.

“You gonna tell me or is it gonna be a surprise?” Even a few months ago Harlan wouldn’t have dared ask for information about the scene they were going to, and he certainly wouldn’t have expected an answer.

Now, it was almost like a game between the two of them—if Harlan really wanted to know, Hamilton would tell him, and if Hamilton really wanted to keep him in the dark until they got there—and Harlan was beginning to think that, sometimes at least, walking in without any preconceptions was helpful—he wouldn’t. And, occasionally, Hamilton himself knew very little or nothing about the haunting situation. Harlan was starting to suspect that was one of the reasons Hamilton hadn’t filled Harlan in ahead of time in the past. Hamilton didn’t like admitting when he didn’t know something.

“Mmm, this time I think I’ll let you see for yourself. Besides, we’re almost there.” Hamilton pulled up beside a record store, one of those hipster places that had been popping up in the most gentrified parts of the city. He got out, coming around the other side of the car and opening Harlan’s door when he didn’t get out immediately.

Harlan stepped onto the sidewalk to take a better look around. Hauntings—the ones not related to violent crime, which he doubted was the case here—tended to be in residential buildings. People died where they lived, not where they bought vinyl.

He glanced across the street—more shops, and they didn’t look like they had apartments over them. Neither did the record store or the others around it.

“There’s a haunting here?”

“I can double-check the address if you’d like,” Hamilton offered, smirking a little.

“No. That’s fine.” As far as Harlan knew, Hamilton had never got an address wrong.

Maybe the dispatcher had been wrong?

A young white man stepped out of the shop, waving at them. “Are you with the Graveyard Crew?”

It was a nickname for Toronto police mediums that Harlan didn’t really like—and, by the look on Hamilton’s face, he didn’t care for it either.

Hamilton pointedly glanced down at his uniform and badge. “We’re with the police.”

“Oh, good! C’mon in. We’ve been expecting you.” He turned and disappeared into the shop.

Harlan shot Hamilton a questioning glance.

Hamilton shrugged one shoulder, extending a hand to say after you.

He was suddenly hit by a barrage of noise—apparently the door was surprisingly soundproof. Harlan always thought the music in these types of places sounded bad, but this was bad.

Hamilton, never one to fuck around, headed straight to the man who’d welcomed them. “Can you turn the music down? Or off, maybe?” He had to raise his voice to be heard over the din.

The man shook his head. “No! That’s the problem.” He didn’t have Hamilton’s loud ‘cop voice’ and he was practically screaming.

Rolling his eyes, Hamilton motioned Harlan closer. “You go do your woo-woo, and I’ll see if I can turn this noise down so we can think straight.”

He hurried after the shopkeeper just as Harlan said, “I think they’re connected…” He thought he’d figured out just why the music was so awful, because it wasn’t just one song playing. It sounded like at least three, maybe as many as five. Harlan didn’t know any of them, and at first, he’d assumed he was hearing something ‘experimental’ or something, but after listening for a few minutes, he’d come to a different conclusion.

Shaking his head, Harlan followed the other two men. There was a bank of five record players against one wall, with oversize old—or at least made to look old—headphones hanging from a hook beside each of them. Harlan assumed this was so shoppers could listen to the record they wanted before they bought it.

There was a spinning record on each of them.

He glanced around. There was no one else in the store. Not exactly surprising. “How long has this been going on?”

“A few days now.” The man extended his hand. “I’m Simon, by the way,” he added, his voice a little less shrill now that they were standing closer to him.

Harlan glanced at Simon’s hand. Usually Hamilton did this kind of thing, but he wasn’t paying attention. “Harlan,” he said, shaking for the shortest amount of time he thought he could get away with without seeming rude.

Simon glanced at Hamilton’s back.

Fuck. Harlan hated doing introductions. “And this is my partner, Hamilton.”

Apparently satisfied, Simon backed off a little. “I called as soon as it started, but they told me I was ‘low priority’. And, like, I get it, but…” He opened his arms to gesture at his empty shop.

“Yeah,” was the only response Harlan could come up with. He could see both sides of the problem. Obviously, it wasn’t great for Simon as a small-business owner—at least Harlan assumed he was the owner, since he was the only one who was here willingly—but by police-medium standards, it was definitely low priority. No one was being hurt or driven off or being frightened—just annoyed. Very, very annoyed.

The odd thing was that Harlan hadn’t seen any sign of an actual ghost so far, not so much as a sparkle at the edges of his vision.

Hamilton, who’d been bent over one of the record players, abruptly straightened. Harlan could see that he’d been holding something, but he dropped it before Harlan could see what it was.

“Yeah, we tried that,” Simon said dryly. “Didn’t work.”

Harlan wandered closer to Hamilton to see what he’d been doing.

“Unplugged. They’re all unplugged.” Looking stunned, Hamilton pointed at the cable dangling from each player.

Harlan frowned. He didn’t know much about records or record players. A year ago, he never would have asked, but now he trusted Hamilton enough to suggest, “Maybe they don’t need to be plugged in all the time? Maybe they can run off a-a battery or something?”

Hamilton blinked thoughtfully. “Maybe.” He turned to Simon. “These need power to work, right?”

“Yep.”

As one, Harlan and Hamilton turned back to the row of spinning records.

“Well, that’s creepy,” Hamilton said, deadpan.

Harlan nodded. “It is, but it’s actually not all that uncommon.” He’d almost got used to the noise. Barely noticed it anymore.

“Not uncommon?” Hamilton waved a hand at the players.

“Well, not this, specifically… I just mean, ghosts are very good at manipulating energy, especially electricity. They can make electronics—even broken or unplugged ones—turn on, but not usually for this long. It takes a lot out of them to interact with the physical world.”

“Like he said, the call came in a few days ago, but no one was able to get to it until now.”

Harlan hadn’t thought Hamilton had been listening when Simon said that, but apparently Hamilton had heard everything. “That’s the weird part. A few hours, maybe. A few days, even if the ghost is only doing it while people are here and resting when it’s alone? Very weird.”

“Where is the ghost, anyway? I don’t know about you, but I’d really like to get outta here.”

“That’s another weird part.”

“Great. More weirdness. My favourite.”

Harlan ignored him. “I still haven’t seen it.” He let his eyes slightly un-focus and turned in a slow circle, without looking at anything in particular. His gaze was drawn to a pair of large speakers, one in each of the back corners of the shop. The music was blaring through them, but he could see their power cords hanging limp beside them.

Brushing past Hamilton and Simon, he inspected the turntables. All the headphones were connected.

“The music from the record players is only supposed to play through the headphones, right?”

“Yeah.”

Harlan tried to lift the needle off one of the records. It didn’t want to come, and he was afraid he would break it before it finally did, which wasn’t helped by Simon making little ‘gluhhh!’ noises of protest behind him. The record kept spinning—Harlan wasn’t sure if that was supposed to happen—but it sounded like there was one less song blasting out of the speakers. “That’s something, anyway,” he said, quietly enough that the others wouldn’t hear. He was making little enough progress otherwise.

He got his fingers under the spinning disc and tried to lift the record off the turntable, but it felt like something heavy was sitting on top of it or like it was glued down. He pulled harder, ignoring Simon’s increasingly frantic sounds. He wasn’t sure why he was bothering with this—it almost certainly wouldn’t solve the haunting—but he was stubbornly hoping that a series of small victories would add up and he’d be able to figure out how to stop it—or at least buy himself time.

Just as he was afraid the record was going to snap in half from the strain, it abruptly sped up. He pulled back with a hiss. Looking down at his hands, he could see a small friction burn on each finger.

“Are you okay?” Hamilton rushed over, and Harlan didn’t think he was imagining the way Hamilton’s elbow kept brushing his holster. If only this was a problem Hamilton could solve with his gun.

“I’m fine.” Knowing Hamilton wouldn’t let up until he’d seen the damage for himself, Harlan held out his hands.

Hamilton gave them a brief glance, then nodded. “What next?”

What next, indeed? Harlan was asking himself the same question. He just had to think for a minute, but it was so hard with all this music playing. When he’d first started working as a police medium, he probably would have stayed, telling himself he had to ‘tough it out’, but he knew that overstimulating himself would only be counterproductive. “I’m just going to step outside—”

Hamilton and Simon were right behind him. He didn’t know how Simon had stayed sane after a few days of this.

Once outside, Harlan stepped around a corner into an alley, stopping where he could still see Hamilton, just in case. Of course, he promptly closed his eyes, but he was relying on the fact that Hamilton could see him, too.

The turntables were unplugged. The speakers were unplugged. It had been hard to lift the needle but raising it had stopped the music coming from that turntable. He couldn’t tell how new or old any of the records or players were, but the turntables all matched, as though they’d been bought at or near the same time.

He hadn’t been able to lift the record off.

Okay… That was the closest thing he had to a clue.

He opened his eyes and walked back to the shop. “Where do you get your records?”

Simon blinked. “Uh…all kinds of places. We order them online. People bring them in to sell or trade…”

Harlan shook his head. “Have you got any in the last few days?” Hopefully they hadn’t been scattered around the store’s stock already and were still sitting in the back waiting for…whatever needed to be done to them before they could be sold.

“Lemme check.”

Harlan was afraid they’d have to go back inside so Simon could look at his computer, but he just pulled out his phone and started scrolling through. “Ah, here we go. This woman brought in her dad’s old collection. If I’m thinking of the right person—she’s not a regular—he passed away recently, and she was clearing out his house. Really sad for her, but great for us. There was some really primo shit.”

Harlan and Hamilton exchanged glances. Bingo.

Hamilton definitely had an air of Couldn’t you have told us this half an hour ago? but Harlan was just glad they were making progress.

“I don’t suppose you could show us those records?” Harlan asked.

“Ohh-h! Yeah, that probably has something to do with it, eh?”

Harlan steeled himself and went back inside. It was even louder than before, and he groaned when he saw that the needle he’d managed to lift had dropped again, adding another song to the horrible medley.

He and Hamilton followed Simon as he darted them through the store like a hummingbird, flicking through boxes and displays of records and showing them the newest additions. Hamilton glanced at Harlan after each one, and Harlan had to keep shaking his head over and over. None of them held a hint of ghostly sparkle.

“That’s all of ‘em.” Simon slid his phone back into his pocket. “Is this going to take much longer?”

Harlan groaned in the quiet of his mind. They had to be missing something. He had to be missing something—but what?

“Hmm.” Simon nibbled his lip thoughtfully. “Wait a second. I wasn’t actually here the day they came in. Let me call Brianne. She’s the one who received them.” He flitted outside and had a brief, animated phone call with lots of hand gestures. “Okay, you guys, this might be it.” He led them to an office at the back of the store and opened a filing cabinet behind the overflowing desk. “Here we go.” He held up a record. It wasn’t in a sleeve, was bright blue and didn’t have a label. Definitely weird.

Harlan, who’d been straining his psychic senses since entering the shop, was nearly blinded by the ghostly sparks shooting from the vinyl. He blinked rapidly, knowing it wouldn’t really help, because it wasn’t his actual vision that was being overwhelmed. He dialled his senses way back—the psychic equivalent of squinting. “Oh, yeah. That’s it.” He held out his hands.

Simon glanced down at the record he was holding, a strange mix of horror and reverence on his face. He quickly handed it over.

The music stopped.

Simon threw his hands in the air. “Oh, thank fucking God!” He immediately looked ashamed for his outburst, but at least Harlan and Hamilton weren’t customers. Harlan also thought he was entitled to at least that after putting up with the non-stop blended music for days.

Hamilton grinned at Harlan and gave him a little golf clap.

Harlan turned away from both of them, concentrating on the disc. Come out, he told the spirit sternly. He was not in the mood for messing around with this haunting any longer, even if it was quiet now.

A long-haired young white man wearing clothes that looked like they were from the sixties or seventies slowly materialized. His arms were crossed, and he looked very unimpressed. “Dude, you’re like, majorly harshing the vibe here.”

Harlan wasn’t surprised that the ghost didn’t look old. It was pretty common for the deceased to appear as younger versions of themselves. “Good. The vibe is harshed. What were you doing?” He wasn’t usually this abrupt with ghosts, but he could feel a major headache coming on and didn’t feel like holding the ghost’s hand. Besides, anyone—living or dead—who would do something this annoying probably needed a firm touch.

The ghost sighed heavily. “I asked, like, a million times for them to put on the records I wanted to listen to, but everyone just ignored me. Then I realized I could do it myself. I realized I could listen to all my favourites, all at once.” He grinned dopily.

“I’m Harlan. I’m a medium, and I’m here to help you pass on today.” Emphasis on today. “What’s your name?” Harlan wasn’t sure why, but he hated introductions a lot less with ghosts than with living people. He also tended to remember their names more easily. Though he also didn’t have to remember their names for very long.

“Groovy. I’m Mike.” He held out a hand, but Harlan didn’t take it. He could have given him a handshake—unlike non-mediums, whose hands would have gone right through—but he already had enough nerve damage from touching ghosts, and he didn’t want to add more for something so pointless.

Mike didn’t seem offended and slowly pulled his hand back.

“It’s time for you to go,” Harlan told him solemnly.

“But I haven’t listened to—”

“You do realize you’re going to…a good place, right?” Harlan didn’t like saying ‘heaven,’ and he didn’t think it was entirely accurate. “You’ll be able to listen to all the music you want.”

“You mean it?”

“I mean it,” Harlan agreed gently. He could afford to be gentle now that he was this close to sending the idiot on.

“Groovy,” Mike said again.

Harlan opened the veil, blinking at the bright swirl of colours on the other side. He’d never seen a portal quite so…psychedelic. He was sure Mike was going to be just fine.

After one final glance back at the record store, Mike stepped through to his final resting place. Harlan wasn’t sure if he imagined a sudden swell of sitar music as the vortex closed behind Mike.

Harlan took a deep, steadying breath, then turned back to Simon and Hamilton—who, he realized uncomfortably, had apparently just been standing there watching him the whole time. “He’s gone,” he assured Simon. “But you should make sure this gets back to its rightful owner.”

“The dead guy?”

“No. His daughter. He had his ashes mixed in with the vinyl, and either she didn’t know or she got it mixed up with the others. It looks like it didn’t get a label by mistake.” Or she’d just thought it was creepy and wanted to get rid of it.

Hamilton took a surreptitious step back. Harlan didn’t think he’d even touched it.

“Cool…” Simon said.

Harlan could see him wiping his hands on his pants as if the ashes had left some kind of residue.

Mentally rolling his eyes at both of them, he handed the blue record back to Simon, who took it—though he held it at arm’s length, like it was a dead rat.

“Do you still have that Advil in your car?” Harlan asked Hamilton, both because his head was killing him and because he wanted to get out of there.

“Yeah, I think so.” Hamilton turned to Simon. “Feel free to call if you have any more problems, but you should be good to go.” He barely waited for Simon’s answering, “Thank you!” before striding toward the front door with Harlan hurrying to keep up with him.

There was plenty of Advil in the cruiser, but the only thing to drink was a miraculously unfinished cup of Tim Hortons coffee Hamilton had got before work. It was unpleasantly warm—worse than actually being cold—and Harlan didn’t like Tim Hortons coffee, even when it was fresh. He was pretty sure that made him a Bad Canadian, but it was true. But he gulped it down, only grimacing a little at the taste. “Thanks.”

“You know, we could’ve stopped somewhere and got you something to drink,” Hamilton laughed, shaking his head as he popped the pill bottle back in the glove compartment and started the car.

“Yeah, but…” He couldn’t explain that he’d, for some reason, decided using the coffee was a kind of personal challenge, because that sounded stupid, even to him. He grinned, changing the subject. “Well, you were right. That was a weird one.”