Most days, the dead don’t care about paperwork. But today wasn’t most days. It was barely
past sunrise when my phone buzzed with a curt text from the city morgue.

Get down here. Now. It’s walking around

Azazel, my resident demon roommate, rumbled in my skull, half-asleep and half-irritated. Tell them to call pest control.
“Pretty sure pest control doesn’t handle ambulatory corpses,” I muttered, pulling on yesterday’s crumpled shirt and ignoring the bloodstain from last night’s subway demon brawl.
Neither do we.
I grabbed my coat anyway, “Welcome to the glamorous life of a PI.”
The morgue smelled of bleach, decay, and burnt coffee. Karen, the night attendant, stood by the intake desk, eyes wide, clutching her half-empty thermos like a rosary.
“It’s in the freezer room,” she whispered, “It asked for its death certificate.”
I blinked, “Excuse me?”
She gestured shakily, “I asked what it wanted. It said it wouldn’t leave without proof it’s dead.”
Az snorted. Bureaucratic ghosts. My favourite.
I stepped into the freezer. The ghost stood by drawer B17, looking down at its corpse.
Male, early fifties, olive skin sagging grey, mortician’s tag taped to one toe. His chest rose and fell in shallow, wheezing half-breaths that had no business echoing in the world of the living.
He looked up as I entered, eyes cloudy but focused, “Are you the clerk?”
“Depends,” I said, “You here to file taxes or just haunting your estate lawyer?”
He sighed, an exhausted, rattling exhale, “I need my death certificate.”
“Why?”

“So I can move on.”
Az shifted uneasily. That’s… not how it usually works.
“No kidding.”
I pulled my business card from my coat pocket, flashed it at the ghost, “Nicodemus Scratch. Infernal Affairs. Mind explaining why you’re upright before breakfast?”
He gazed at me with empty calm, “Because I can’t rest without official proof. My wife won’t believe I’m dead. She never believed anything I said.”
Az cackled. Truly, death imitates life.
I ignored him, “Name?”
“Thomas Giannetti.”
I flipped open my phone, scrolling the city coroner database, “Heart failure. Found on the Q train. Autopsy pending toxicology.”
Thomas tilted his head. His neck crackled like stale cereal, “So no certificate yet?”
“Nope.”
He sagged in place, bones creaking, “Then I can’t go.”
Before I could respond, the freezer door swung open. A woman stepped in, bundled against the dawn chill. Her eyes were red-rimmed, her movements stiff with grief. Karen followed, wringing her hands.
“This is Mrs Giannetti,” Karen whispered, voice tinged with barely restrained panic, “She came to identify the body.”
A moment of brief silence followed. Then, Azazel got there before me.
Fuck.
Thomas’ eyes snapped to her. His entire form flickered, shadows shivering along the edges of his translucent outline.
“Anna…” he rasped.

She didn’t hear him. She couldn’t. She only saw me, and the corpse behind me on the slab. For those without the sight, situations like these processed themselves differently in the mind, formulating rational reasons, images and emotions. Still, it could cause issues.
Like, now.
“Is… is that him?” she whispered, voice breaking.
Before I could answer, Thomas let out a strangled sob. His form spasmed, shadows peeling away from him in thick, tarry ropes. Frost spread across the steel walls, mist curling from my breath.
Az hissed. Nic, he’s destabilising. Grief is tipping him toward wraith-state.
“Great,” I muttered, stepping forward with my hand raised, “Thomas. Listen to me. Calm down.”
“Anna!” he wailed, voice splitting into a thousand echoing fragments. Glass vials along the wall exploded, shards clattering across the tiled floor. The temperature plunged further, a rime of ice crackling across the corpse drawers.
Anna screamed, backing against the wall. Her eyes darted wildly, unable to see the ghost inches from her face.
Az roared. Banish him or he’ll kill her by accident!
I closed my eyes, whispered the temporary banishment phrase under my breath. Silver light flared across my vision. Thomas shrieked as his form imploded into fog, sucked into the flickering freezer lights above.
Silence fell. Anna sobbed softly against the wall, tears tracking down her pale cheeks.
“Mrs Giannetti,” I said gently, pocketing my card before she saw it. “You should wait outside.”
She didn’t speak as Karen led her out, only clutched her coat tighter, as if holding in what was left of her heart.

Az exhaled shakily. That was almost catastrophic.
“He’s slipping,” I said, “We need that certificate. Now.”
Az sighed. We’ll have to get it expedited.
“Which means…?”
Az sighed. Which means a visit to Records.
I winced, “Ashwell & Thorne?”
Of course.
I sighed in resignation, “Fuck.”
Hidden beneath the glamour of a brownstone law office in Gramercy Park, Ashwell & Thorne handled everything from infernal contract disputes to spiritual intellectual property theft. Their Records Division smelled of stale ink, ancient parchment, and hopelessness
fermented over centuries.
The clerk behind the iron-barred window had the pinched look of someone who’d died in 1863 and never forgiven anyone for it. She adjusted her half-moon glasses, glaring down at me through eyes clouded with cataracts and unspoken curses.
“Purpose of visit?”
I slid Thomas’ coroner file under the slot, “We need an expedited death certificate.”
She flipped through the pages with bored precision, “Toxicology pending. No
certificate issued until COD confirmed.”
“He can’t move on without it.”
“Not my problem.”
Az growled low in my chest. Ask for Senior Records Keeper Marlowe.
“Marlowe’s working today?”
It’s Thursday.
I exhaled, “I’d like to escalate this to Marlowe.”

The clerk’s lips thinned, “He’s occupied with a class-action soul reclamation suit.”
“Tell him it’s Scratch.”
She sniffed, rose painfully, and shuffled behind the heavy tapestry wall. Minutes passed in stale silence. Finally, Marlowe appeared, bald scalp gleaming under the yellow bulbs. He wore the same charcoal robes and obsidian cufflinks as the last time I saw him, when he nearly had me disbarred from reality. No, seriously. I kid you not.
“Scratch,” he drawled, voice dry as old bone, “What’s this about a provisional
certificate?”
“Bureaucratic ghost in the morgue. Thomas Giannetti. Won’t move on without proof.”
Marlowe raised a bushy brow, “Provisional COD is dangerous. If toxicology returns homicide, his spirit could return for vengeance. Reclassification rituals are messy.”
Az purred with mild amusement. Let it. At least it’ll have paperwork this time.
I ignored him, “Look, Marlowe, he’s clogging the Veil. The longer he stays, the greater the risk of wraithification.”
Marlowe sighed, knuckling his temples, “Very well. Fill out Form 72-E.”
He slid the form under the glass. Four pages, dense infernal script, Az translating silently as I scrawled my answers in blood ink from the desk’s vial.
When I finished, Marlowe reviewed it with a professional sneer, “Processing fee, three hundred twenty-five souls.”
I froze, “You’re fucking joking?”
“Nope. If you can’t pay up, the ghost stays.”
Az snarled. We could offer a substitution.
“Like what?”
Offer him your pain. One hour.

Marlowe’s eyes glittered when I relayed Azazel’s proposition, “One hour of infernal agony. Non-lethal. Balanced exchange.”
I swallowed, “Fine.”
Karen would have fainted if she saw what followed. Marlowe’s assistant placed a black iron brand against my forearm. It seared through flesh and into nerve, lighting every cell with acid and fire. My scream echoed through the archive stacks like a tortured hymn. Az coiled tight around my mind, anchoring me against passing out.
When it ended, the pain remained as an echo, burnt into bone. The brand mark faded, leaving blistered skin behind.
Marlowe nodded, sliding the provisional certificate under the glass, “Pleasure as always, Scratch.”
“Have a nice day,” I winced, retreating quickly before Az started suggesting
permanent solutions to bureaucratic inefficiency.
Back at the morgue, Thomas sat cross-legged on the freezer floor, flickering in and out of visibility, grief still clinging to his ruined face.
“I’m sorry,” he rasped, voice shaking. “I didn’t want to hurt her.”
“I know,” I said softly, pressing the provisional certificate into his fading hand.
“You’re free now. Provisional COD: cardiac arrest pending toxicology.”
He stood shakily, bones clicking into place. His cloudy eyes brightened with
something like peace, “Thank you.”
He reached out. His hand passed through the paper, a faint breeze of cold across my knuckles. For a moment, his face looked young again. Relaxed. Relieved. His eyes cleared.
Relief unknotted the shadows around him. His gaze turned to where Anna had stood, and for a moment, he almost smiled.

“Tell my wife…” he began, then trailed off. His smile turned wistful, “Never mind. She wouldn’t believe you anyway.”
His form faded into translucent ash, dissolving into the fluorescent glare of the freezer room. Silence fell, broken only by the hum of the refrigeration units.
Outside, dawn had eased into mid-morning, the sun crimson and unforgiving across the East River. My arm burned with the phantom echo of Marlowe’s brand.
Az spoke softly. “You didn’t have to pay for him.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, pulling my coat tighter, “But someone had to.”
He was quiet for a long moment before sighing. “You’re going to get yourself killed with mercy, Scratch.”
“Maybe,” I said, the pain throbbing deeper than bone, “But not today.”
The city roared awake around me, car horns and garbage trucks greeting the day.
Another ghost freed. Another receipt paid.
Just another Thursday for Infernal Affairs.