Page 6 of Hot Ghost Summer

“I’m serious.” I level him with a look.

Theo falls quiet, leaving only the crunch of our shoes over chalky and uneven ground to announce our arrival.

Until he whisper-sings the hook line from the Ghostbusters theme song.

I freeze in place, my back teeth clenching. “That is incredibly disrespectful.”

Theo’s grin is wide as he claps me on the back and howls with laughter.

I clamp a hand over his mouth and whisper a harsh, “Ssshhh,” while my gaze darts up the thirty-metre-high steel beams, over the concrete blocks that form the only erected wall, along the first-floor ceiling, and across to the far-left corner where there’s yet another open trench.

With my mouth close to Theo’s ear, I keep my voice low and firm. “We don’t know what kind of entity we’re working with. Even the slightest sound could alert it to our presence; it would be wise to avoid that happening until after we’ve identified it.”

Theo licks my palm.

I don’t release him. “Keep that up and find out what happens, brat.”

His eyes roll back for just a second.

I wipe my palm on my coveralls—they’re supposed to withstand ectoplasm, surely they can withstand some saliva—and take my phone from my pocket. The sooner I can set Theo’s idle hands to work, the better, but the case report won’t load because there’s no signal here. Frowning, I look back across the worksite toward the gate we had entered through. There’d been a signal there, closer to the road, but not here.

Theo, wearing a flush that hadn’t been present a moment ago, toes the crude edge of Plot 47’s poured-concrete platform with his head bowed. The embodiment of docile. But looks can be deceiving, and the case report isn’t worth leaving him unsupervised to access.

“Because this site is what it is, we should start with the environmental data,” I announce, indicating the heavy holdall by pointing my phone at it.

Theo lets it slide from his shoulder to the ground with a thud.

Squatting, I rifle through the contents until… there. “This is a Kestrel Meter.”

Theo’s hand is already outstretched, waiting to accept the small device, and he spins it into a sure grip in his palm. “Sweet! The five thousand series with applied ballistics.”

I squint up at him, silhouetted against the bright overhead rays.

“I told you, my family are mostly farmhands. We use Kestrels t’ help monitor the livestock in summer. Barns get hot real quick, and cows—god bless ’em—can’t handle the heat. They’re likely t’ keel over even in the spring if you’re not watching ’em.” He powers on the device with a press of his thumb.

Taking the EMF Meter for myself, I brace my hands on my knees to push up when Theo suddenly makes a grab for the open bag.

“Whoa! What’s that?”

“Ah, Theo. No. That’s not…” I begin, but his hand, the one with the rainbow-coloured peace symbol tattooed on the back, wraps securely around the plastic-coated grip of the only weapon I had in my office. “For you,” I finish.

Theo’s Kestrel Meter dangles by its wrist strap as he sights the scope on the antimonial lead barrel. “This is wild!” His excitement is palpable. “Like something from the X-Files.”

“I assure you, Agents Mulder and Scully had nothing like this.” I hold out my hand, ready to receive it. “That’s an LPA Synchrotron, and I insist you pass it to me.”

“An LPA what-ma-tron?” He switches from looking through the scope to admiring the titanium-doped sapphire rod in the slide.

“I haven’t got time to go into the science of how it works,” I snap, opening and closing my still-empty palm in impatience. “All you need to know is that I brought it because it’s folly to go to any active haunt site without some method of spirit dispersal.”

“Spirit dispersal…” Theo muses, admiring the swirling gas inside the chamber where the barrel of a traditional gun would be. “So, this blaster ray…” He shoulders the rifle-sized weapon with the competence of any seasoned hunter. “Is what you use t’ shoot your wee ghosties back on your estate, eh?”

“Theo.” I arch an eyebrow. “Hand it over.”

“You know,” he sing-songs. “I don’t think I will. I’m going t’ keep it with me. I mean, out o’ the two o’ us, you’re the expert. You know what you’re looking for—what all this stuff does—you grew up surrounded by it. But me, I’m just a farm boy lost in the big city. What do I know about ghosts? Nothing. But I did grow up handling rifles.”

He bucks the LPA Synchrotron up with a confident shrug, and sets it at ease like he’s carrying an axe and not a plasma ray. “Besides, it’d be folly t’ send in a new recruit without a method of spirit dispersal—and on their first day, right?”

With a cocky wink, he struts onto the concrete base of Plot 47 whistling the rest of that annoying song.