After her encounter with the Reaper, Fatima couldn’t go back to work. There was no way she could explain the way her suit skirt was stained with blood and torn and dirty. And there was no way she’d be able to work like this anyway.

She’d simply made her excuses over text and gone home. Dizziness. Best to lie down. She took a shower, crying in the water. She could taste the ectoplasm between her teeth, and threw up again. But Amy was there and she could almost feel the dinosaur nuzzling her, trying to cheer her up. She steeled her courage and sat on the couch for the next few hours, staring at the twisted Smilodon skull that served as a mask. It made Amy nervous. And it had turned that ghost into something stronger.

Her wounds still hurt, but at least she wasn’t bleeding, and her guts weren’t falling out. All she really had to tell her that she’d been stabbed was a faint bruise and the soreness. Even the skin had smoothed over.

So when five o’clock rolled around, she put on an athletic hijab, track pants, and an A shirt, with the the skull mask in her backpack. A short bus ride and she jogged through the park to where Frank wanted them to meet.

Joy and Hobie were already there, laughing about something with the other boy, Liam. The three of them were in their early to mid twenties, and even though two of them had died, Fatima envied how young and lively they were. All three had colorful hair. Blue, green, and a bright orange. Hobie had their leather vest with all those buttons, and a ratty skirt. Joy was wearing black short shorts and a tee shirt with some band Fatima had never heard of—”Star Riders”—over black striped stockings and a long sleeve. And Liam looked like he came from he 80s with all that denim. The last was also wearing an unplugged electric guitar, and strummed it every so often.

With the two members of the krewe were their geists of course. A masked man with bullet holes in the constellation Scorpio. He flexed and posed for a woman in a boiler suit, who returned the gestures. Mr Midnight and We Can Do It. Liam, of course, had no geist, though there was something deathly about him.

All five of them turned to Fatima when she stepped off the trail. It wasn’t a surprise that they would. Amy was with her, and making herself known.

“Ay! Fates!” Hobie called, after a moment of surprise from the three humans. “And the dinosaur!”

“Amy,” Fatima corrected with a smile, looking over her shoulder.

“Amy! How’s it hanging, big girl?” Hobie asked, looking up at the geist.

Amy gave a low rumble that Fatima interpreted as satisfaction.

“She’s doing well. Though we had some trouble earlier. Do you know when Frank will be here?”

“I’ve been here the whole time,” a Frank said, stepping out of the shadows. The Detective on Leather Wings fell away from him and loomed along the ground. The figure almost looked like the shadow of Frank’s shabby trench coat, except for the fact that it had fiery eyes and stretched towards the light instead of away from it.

“Yo, Frankie!” Hobie said, getting up and holding out a fist.

Frank stared at it and shook it. Liam and Joy giggled.

“I see you got blue laces I gave you now, man,” Hobie said with a wink and a friendly punch to the shoulder.

“String broke. Needed a replacement. We have to talk,” he said, heading over to the rest of the group. He stopped, noticing Liam. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “Liam. I guess you’re here, too.”

“Yup, how ya doin’? Free Dog says hey.”

Frank blushed a little, and looked away, over towards Joy. “Tell Levy I said ‘hey’ back, I guess.”

Joy’s blue painted lips broke into a wide grin. “Ey, teacher’s got a crush?”