Page 33 of Geist Fleisch
“I don’t know what you’re on about.”
“Yes, you do, and I’m telling you to get the idea out of your head this instant. They’redead,Callum, as animated as they might seem. Max is dead. He doesn’t belong among the living and you don’t belong with him.”
“Oh, come off it! You said so yourself, it’s not like I know him!” A lie. As Max had wrapped his energy around Callum long enough to restore his hand, he’d felt like he’d never know anyone better. “He doesn’t even speak English!”
“Callum, that isnotyour biggest hurdle to domestic bliss here. Once more, they’re… Oh, Callum, you’re not—”
“Oh, piss off, I’m not gonna top myself! I just thought… Forget it. It’s daft.”
Frank took his hand and squeezed it. “You thought you’d disappear there?”
“I’m disappearing anyway. At least they can see me! Or…” Or what? As if he’d be welcome back in the bar. They’d cut his bloody hand off; the same hand Frank was holding and stroking with his thumb. Callum had never had a bloke—a living one at least—hold his hand like this before, with no come-ons or clumsy attempts to feel him up.
“I appreciate that. One of the greatest yearnings we have as human beings is to be seen for the person we are. Or more accurately, the person we want to be. In your case… well.”
Frank knew. Maybe he even cared in some way. Maybe Max, in their short courtship, did too, enough to see Callum, at least.
“Are you feeling better?” Frank asked, squeezing his hand again. “This is the hand, isn’t it? No pain?”
For the first time since waking, Callum smiled. “No. Did it really come off? I mean here, in the living world.”
“That’s a very astute question. When you manifest in the ghost realm, does that mean you also become spirit, protecting, in theory, your physical body? Honestly, Callum, we just don’t know. There’s certainly no scarring there now. Why your hand, in any case? Seems awfully…”
“Biblical?”
Frank frowned.
“Just something the bloke who cut me said. Some bit from the German bible. But my hand was itching like mad. Burning, almost. It’s never done that before.”
“So, something’s changed.” Frank turned his hand over and examined it like a palm reader. “Well, we can run some tests. They’ll be quite painless, I promise you.”
Callum wished he could hide the truth as easily as he could hide himself. He knew exactly what had changed and could have saved them the trouble. “I think I’m good.”
“I’m glad to hear that, but it isn’t just your welfare I’m thinking of.”
“I said, I’m good. No offence, but last time you ran one of your ‘tests’—”
“My friend, this will be entirely different.”
“Will you stop talking this rubbish about us being friends?”
Frank’s frown turned angry, if only for a moment. “I’m sorry. I suppose I just have a nasty habit of taking care of men who fall unconscious in public places.”
“To keep it hushed up? Some good Samaritan, you are!”
“Fine,” Bakker snapped, letting go of his hand and getting up. “No more tests. I can only offer what we’ve offered. For now, perhaps a good long walk?”
“A walk?” Callum muttered, slowly getting to his feet and following the man to the entrance, where the door was wide open.
Frank handed Callum a long, heavy grey coat. “It was not a suggestion. Your boots are there.”
Callum angrily filled the sleeves, and pulled the front of the coat tight. He’d only just put on his boots when the door to the Institute clicked shut.
CHAPTER TEN
Callum barely noticed the cold as he trudged through the Tiergarten, avoiding the paths and so avoiding other people, not knowing or caring where he ended up. A walk? He just had to get his blood pumping. To be away from Frank and his menagerie of monsters. Away from angry spirits who’d dismember him as soon as look at him and from vague promises of visibility that only caused more trouble. Why had he even come? Just in time for winter, and a thief, no less! Lounging around Berlin sucking the cocks of desperate Germans was the luxury of a rich man, or at least, a richly educated one. Callum knew he was closer to the boys who turned their arses up for a few marks than he’d ever be to the playboy tourists who bought them drinks at the Cosy Corner or Kleist-Kasino, or even the girlish fruits in their fancy gowns that haunted the Eldorado night after night.
Had he come to Berlin to be seen, or to disappear?
