Chapter 24: The Whole File

Driving to the Outer Sunset qualified as a poor decision by several medical standards. Callum kept both hands on the wheel. They shook anyway. The ghost occupied the passenger seat in pieces. Her face appeared when the van passed under a streetlight and disappeared before the light reached her shoulders. The seat showed through her dress. She had spent enough of herself in the alley that even the tether could not give her weight. "You died badly," she said. "I didn't die." "Your heart stopped." "It restarted." "Barely." Fog thickened as they crossed the city. By the time they reached the avenues, it had erased the upper floors of the houses and silvered every parked car. The N-Judah passed ahead of them with its windows lit, carrying people west toward the ocean before Callum had managed breakfast or a defensible pulse. The ghost watched his hands. "You should not be…