Chapter Twelve
Pocket Pair
Las Vegas
The portal deposits us outside the Golden Egg on the main strip. Las Vegas assaults my senses immediately—neon lights, car horns, the desperate energy of a city that never sleeps and never runs out of angles.
Asher steps through behind me, looking entirely unbothered by the transition. CAT reapers are used to the noise and overstimulation.
“He’ll be at his table,” I say, consulting the file on my Tombstone Phone. “Table seven. High-stakes poker room.”
“Of course he will.” Asher starts walking toward the entrance. “Dead for over forty years and still chasing an inside straight. It’s rather pathetic.”
“It’s tragic,” I correct. “There’s a difference.”
“Is there?”
We move through the casino floor. The living can’t see us—we’re outside their frequency, existing in the realm that follows after heartbeats.
The high-stakes poker room is exactly what I expected—dark wood, green felt, and the quiet intensity that accompanies any game with serious consequences.
The fragility of life is reduced to simple seconds of chance.
Now, that’s rather pathetic. Reductive. But I don’t voice that aloud.
I have no desire to give Asher any ammunition for his relentless moodiness.
Scanning the sea of souls deep in concentration, I pause over a flickering translucent figure at an empty table that draws no one’s attention despite his mumbling and furtive patting of his sweaty brow.
I don’t need to see the number seven on the table to know this is our guy, but it is there all the same.
His 1980s suit is dated and ill-fitting, though I must admit the shoulder pads give his frame some much-needed shape. He stares intently in front of him, hands tapping and stroking a pair of cards that only he can see.
“Gerald Nance,” I say quietly. “Died March 15, 1984. Heart attack on the river card that cemented his royal flush.”
“Cruel timing,” Asher mutters.
“He left behind a wife and two daughters.”
“Probably left them behind well before his death.”
“Actually, his wife left him three months before he died. Took the children. He came here to escape.”
Asher is quiet for a moment. “Not a lot of places one can run from addiction. But straight into the center of it surely can’t be good.”
“For some, it’s not a choice. You can’t take another path if you only see one way forward.”
“Sometimes, there is only one way forward, Kane.”
“There’s always a choice, Asher. Always a chance.”
“Until there isn’t,” the Catastrophes veteran intones like a man who’s seen too much.
I move closer to the table, ignoring my petulant partner. “Gerald?”
The ghost’s head snaps up. His eyes widen when he sees us—specifically, when he realizes we see him.
“No,” he says immediately. “No, I told that woman before, I’m not leaving. I’m about to get hot; I can feel it.”
“You’re as cold as they come, man. Dead,” Asher mutters. “Now, let’s get a wriggle on.”
“Gerald,” I grit out while glaring at the snarky ass beside me. “My name is Kane. This is Asher. We’re here to help you cross over.”
“I don’t want to cross over. I’m sitting on a pocket pair, and I can taste a full house.”
“You’ve been dead for decades, Gerald. I’d say the house is pretty empty by now,” Asher says bluntly.
“I’m winning.” Gerald gestures to his invisible cards. “I’ve almost got it figured out. The pattern. The system. Just a few more hands—”
“There are no more hands,” I say gently. “The game is over, Gerald. It’s time to let go. What do you say?”
“No!” The ghost stands abruptly, his form flickering more violently. “You don’t understand. If I can just win a few big hands, then everything will be all right. Sonia will come back. The girls will respect me again. I’m so close.”
“Sonia, your wife?”
“The best woman,” Gerald states definitively.
“And your girls?” I ask, eyeing Asher to see if he’s picking up any of the energy I’m trying to create.
“Abigail and June Bug. My babies.”
“Not so little anymore, mate,” Asher grumbles.
Mercifully, Gerald doesn’t seem to hear him.
Gerald’s form wavers, and I notice the dealer at table six shiver slightly. He feels the temperature change.
“I need to show her I can do it. I’m so close to turning it around. The last few hands, I’ve been a whisker away.”
“Close is how they get you. It feels just as good to almost win. If only that were true in love too.” Asher mumbles that last line, but I clock it.
His face casts an unmistakable shadow—memory.
He glances at the case file on his Tombstone Phone, then continues, “Says here she died in 2003. Remarried before that. Had a whole life without you.” He stops speaking and sees the dejected look on Gerald’s face.
“Asher—” I start, but the damage is done.
“Just give me a blade, Kane. Let’s get this over with.”
“No blades, Asher. The souls have to part willingly. Otherwise, they stay lost.”
Gerald’s face crumples, still reeling from Asher’s callous reveal. “No. No, that’s not—she wouldn’t—”
“She moved on,” Asher continues, relentlessly. “How about you do the same? They probably need the table soon anyway.”
“That’s enough,” I snap at Asher.
But Gerald is spiraling now, his form destabilizing. Ghosts in emotional distress can become dangerous—to themselves and others. This is exactly why we build trust first, reveal truth gradually, and help them process rather than forcing them to face everything at once.
Asher has just violated every principle of Lost Souls’ work, and if Gerald’s astral energy overreacts, it can impact the living in ways far worse than cold goose bumps.
The consequences of a soul fracturing in the mortal realm can be truly disastrous.
Living souls with new neuroses and troubling psychoses—it’s instant instability for all within the fracturing space, which, in a casino, is a lot of sad souls.
“Damn it, I knew doing this with you would be a mistake.”
“I have to win,” Gerald moans, his hands grasping at the air. “I have to prove—I have to show—”
“You can’t fix what’s already broken,” Asher says, but there’s something different in his voice now. Something rawer. “Make peace with what you can no longer change.”
“Forgive yourself and move on. We all make mistakes,” I add on to Asher’s comment in a slightly softer tone.
Gerald’s form begins to fracture, pieces of his essence breaking apart. He’s fragmenting—it’s the ghost equivalent of a psychotic break.
“I can still win!” Gerald shouts.
Suddenly, every card in the room levitates. Chips fly through the air. Dealers yelp as their tables shake. The living can’t see the ghost, but they can see the chaos he’s creating, and they’ll feel the effects in a very real way if his soul shatters here.
“Merde,” I curse. This is going spectacularly wrong.
“Kane,” Asher says, a warning note in his tone.
“Oh, come on, Asher. Even you know merde means shit.”
Asher moves fast, faster than I expected. He steps directly in front of Gerald, grabbing the ghost by the shoulders. The contact stabilizes Gerald’s form momentarily.
“Listen to me,” Asher says, his voice hard. “It’s not your fault.”
“What?” Gerald asks, a glimmer of hope dotting his translucent eyes.
“I said, it’s not your fault,” Asher continues, his grip tightening on Gerald’s shoulders. “People from the outside, looking in—they see your life, your decisions, and the math looks easy. Choose the comfortable one. Life dealt you a winning hand, just play the cards.”
“I tried.”
“I know you did. But it doesn’t work like that, does it?”
“The pull of the tables. The rush, the smell, the desperation, the hope …” Gerald’s voice brightens to euphoria on the last word.
“Some people see the potential losses in gambling, financial and otherwise, and so they steer clear. They can dip their toes in without drowning. Low wagers, low payout, but more importantly, low losses. Most people can live with that. But not you, eh, Gerald?”
“No.”
“You feel too much. You want to feel too much.”
Gerald stares at him. The cards stop flying. The chips settle.
“The thrill of winning is unlike any other feeling I’ve ever known,” the ghost whispers.
“It’s the only time you feel that big,” Asher says quietly.
“Nothing replicates it.”
“Nothing beats it. And the pursuit of that one feeling clouded your judgment in the areas where it really mattered. It made you act in ways that did not align with what you truly believed in. It’s a disease.
But you can be free of it, Gerald. You can’t fix what’s already broken.
Life isn’t kind in that way. But you can heal now.
You can make peace with your mistakes and not allow them to consume your energy.
We all make mistakes, mate. It’s what we do next that’s the true measure of a man. ”
The words hang in the air. Gerald’s form solidifies. The fracturing stops. “Will I see my Sonia again?”
“I’m afraid not.” I step forward carefully.
“My sweet girls?” Gerald asks, his voice breaking.
“The OtherWorld doesn’t work that way,” I tell him and shift my gaze to Asher.
He’s locked in, present. The same determination I’ve seen in his eyes during Catastrophe cases lives behind his gray now. He follows my lead, guiding Gerald with gentle honesty.
“But you can write a new chapter. Let go of these shackles.”
The tension in the air lessens, and the colors of the aura vibrating off Gerald dull.
Gerald looks between us. At me, with my careful compassion. At Asher, with his blunt honesty.
“Will it hurt?” he asks.
“Everything worth doing hurts. At least a little,” Asher says, though I’m not sure if he’s speaking to Gerald or himself.
“The crossing is peaceful,” I assure him. “You’ll let go of the pain. The regret. The craving.”
“Finally,” Gerald whispers.
I signal to Asher, and together, we each place a hand on Gerald’s shoulders. Gerald’s form brightens. Solidifies. And then, with a soft sigh, he dissolves into light.
“I’m sorry, Sonia.”
“You’re free now,” I tell him. That’s as reassuring as I can be.
His apology floats in the air around us, unreceived and unanswerable, but no less earnest for all that.
An alert chimes on both of our Tombstones.
Crossing Complete.
The casino floor is quiet. Dealers are picking up scattered chips, looking confused. Murmurs of an “earthquake” give the living a rational explanation for this spectral outburst.
We remain in the wreckage. Asher and I, standing in the aftermath of grief, addiction, and letting go.
“That was messy,” I say.
“He crossed, didn’t he?”
“You nearly caused him to fragment completely. If he’d shattered, his essence would have been lost permanently.
Not to mention the fact that he had everything in this room levitating.
Do you understand what we are doing here?
We are dealing with tetchy, temperamental spirits.
We can cause way more harm than good. Their energy can fracture under extreme stress.
The living can be altered permanently. Messing with the Weaver Sisters’ stories is not without its dangers and far-reaching consequences. ”
“This is brand-new information. Thanks for the unhelpful lecture, mate,” Asher responds sarcastically, his jaw tight.
After a lengthy pause, I add, “You did good in the end. You found his hook and untethered him.”
“Is there a campfire around here? Because you’ve become a bloody marshmallow, I swear.”
I’m about to continue the lecture when I see something move out of the corner of my eye. Looking down, I see a smooth, round white ball rolling slowly toward us. It stops inches in front of us.
Asher and I stare at the tiny object, then each other.
“What is this?” Asher states as he bends down to grab the ball.
When he looks back up, on bended knee, a figure towers above me. He wears a Hawaiian shirt that is open at the top, his sculpted pectorals and dusting of chest hair on full display. He hides his eyes behind a pair of designer sunglasses, but it doesn’t conceal the smirk that creeps onto his face.
The ball glows in Asher’s hand as he slowly rises to stand beside me.
The stranger leers at both of us, then finally speaks. “Hey there, boys. Time for a quick game?”