Chapter Text
Chapter 9
“You have the ring!” The young ghost exclaimed as Charles handed the ring back to their client. “H-how? You said a witch had it?” They asked the two. They looked back down at the ring and smiled.
“Sorry there’s no more protection magic in the ring…it had to be drained before we could get it from the witch,” Charles frowned but that didn’t seem to bother their client. They were just rather happy to have the ring back.
“The magic wasn’t what was important. The ring itself is though. So thank you very much for finding it,” they beamed, their fingers curled around the ring protectively. “I owe you some form of payment, right?” They asked, looking between the pair of them.
Crystal and Charles looked at each other for a moment before Crystal sighed. “Alright, fine…” She threw her arms up and turned away from the two ghosts. Their client blinked for a moment before turning their attention towards Charles.
“I can pay you! I know a ghost at an old bookshop that kinda owes me a favour, I can grab two books on the arcane and…and…” Charles watched as their client frantically pulled out some loose change and slammed it down on their table. “Is…is this enough?” They asked.
Charles nodded. “That seems like a fair trade to me,” he watched as Crystal took the change before looking back at their client. “If you can grab us two books and bring them here, we’ll appreciate it, yeah?”
“Of course!” Their client beamed at Charles and quickly stood up from the chair and phased through the office door.
“Job officially jobbed,” Charles said as he walked over towards the case board he had with Crystal. Crystal hummed in agreement as she pulled out her phone and started to surf the internet. Charles shook his head and pulled out a small card with the name of the case, which he named the case of the stolen ring, and placed it under the to be filed section. If that meant just being placed in a filing cabinet that was somehow in this office space when he and Crystal found it, then so be it.
With that out the way, he looked around the office and smiled. This was his little corner of home. His safe space with Crystal where other ghosts came to see if they could help them. He still checked in with his parents, no matter what Crystal told him, he wasn’t ready to let them go just yet. Even if his father was an asshole and his mother unable to help. His afterlife had given him a meaning, a purpose he enjoyed.
Later that night, Charles found himself alone in the office. As a ghost, he didn’t need to sleep but Crystal did. He didn’t feel like going for a walk. Picking up a new case card, he wrote a particular name on it. Edwin Payne. This was going to be their next background case. Placing the card on the case board, he turned to look at the second full length floor mirror and smiled.
Sitting on the floor of the reflected office, sat Edwin Payne. His nose in one of the many books that Charles had on the shelf. He wasn’t going to get anything out from Edwin once the other ghost had a book that had gripped him.
“Hey Edwin?” Charles asked, only receiving a hum of recognition that Edwin had heard him. “What was the witch’s name?” He asked.
“She never did tell me her name. Names hold power, after all.”
“Right mate,” Charles looked away from Edwin before reaching into his little bag-of-tricks and pulling out a tennis ball before tossing it up into the air and catching it again. It was something to pass the time. That was until Edwin pushed the reflection of the tennis ball away, causing the real-life counterpart to fly away from Charles. “Oi!”