Bartholemew David McKinnon was born the last of eleven children to an Irish Canadian family on October 31st, 1957. He was a freckly boy, with messy hair and uncontainable energy. By all measures, his early life was unremarkable. Just a large Irish family that loved, argued, ate, and got by in a cramped house in Toronto. He was smart, slightly strange, and above all else, driven. Everyone always said that about him. That kid will do something some day.

Bartholemew, Barty for short, knew he was different from the other boys from a young age. It wasn't until 1976, in the small, smoky library of his Canadian Fraternity in the Annex, not far from where Alex lived in fact, that he realized he was gay.

He also realized that Gary, the young man he studied and shared snickers with, was the love of his life. It was hard not to love Gary. He had that small, mischievous smile and a relaxed manner.

It wasn't easy to be gay in the 70's. Less so in the 80's. Barty hid his true identity from his work colleagues as he rose the ranks in the booming Toronto financial industry. He didn't pretend to be a hard bastard, as he was one by all measures. Barty always got the hardest deals done.

Gary, calmer of the pair, taught philosophy at a private school by day and participated in underground and well-hidden drag shows by night. They had real friends that knew the real them, and the neighbours sniffed and mostly minded their business.

The two lived a full life. They traveled and made dinner. Danced together in the living room and laughed along to Johnny Carson. Once they even went to France, Barty's favourite, and Gary proposed to him with a cheap silver bobble. While some old French man had sneered, they kissed in the rain near the Eiffel Tower.

"Marry me, Barty." Gary had said with his bushy mustache and casual grin Barty had fallen in love with.

"Don't be silly," Barty grinned back, and pulled up his love from the puddle. "We don't need to be married. We already are, if not legally."

"No," Gary answered, seriously. "When it's legal, let's make it official. If it's ever allowed. But say yes anyways. I want you to be my husband."

"Of course, yes," Barty smiled. "I'll marry you any day."

Gary leaned in and kissed him, looking around in the rain at the grumpy old French men watching. "And when we are, we return right here."

"The scene of the crime." Barty answered. It turned into one of their favourite jokes.

The pair hugged and soaked through their clothes in the rain. Barty could never wear the ring at work, though Gary wore his openly. Barty was the smooth-talking hard ass that always closed the deal, after all. What if there were questions about his…what? His wife?

Barty truly only ever let loose at home, and when watching his love regale the underground crowds with a hilarious character. Mrs. Mystical was a riot adored by all.

Messy black wig, with a painted face and gaudy red lips, Mrs. Mystical had a hilarious bit where her giant fake mole would relocate itself around her face. She'd shamble out and dance before setting up a hand painted psychic sign. The witch of Mrs. Mystical would hack her lungs and see the future. Drunk gays stuffed into dingy basements would scream for their turn to have their fortunes told by the dazzling Mrs. Mystical. All good fun.

"Oh, I see a white picket fence, and a fat wife with a lazy eye. Just next week, surely." She'd said mystically.

"No, no, it's fourteen children for you, and all of them insist on bringing you to church!" Another deadpan delivery.

It was where their real friends would congregate to let off some steam. Hidden in basements or back rooms on Church Street and amongst friends who knew the real them. After late nights partying, Barty would always buy Gary Chinese food from some hole in the wall.

It had been a normal, fun Saturday night. Gary hadn't even removed all the mascara of Mrs. Mystical. Barty was paying the nice waiter, who never, ever made a comment about the pair holding hands.

He did make a comment when Gary wouldn't stop coughing, though.

"Probably get that checked out. Doesn't sound right."

That was the last night Mrs. Mystical took the stage.

It took another two brutal years for Gary to succumb to cancer. The pair never made it back to Paris.

Barty threw himself into his work. He'd wear his cheap silver ring in the morning and take it off at the office, only to place it back on his finger on the walk home. Deals, more deals, and work with decades of late nights commenced. Every month he made sure to eat at the same restaurant where they both noticed just how bad Gary's cough was.

There was just no one to talk to about it. Without Gary, he didn't go to the clubs and quickly lost contact with his worried friends. They stopped calling after the first few years, and work was a fine distraction. He always wore his ring when he was certain no one would catch him.

Then, after a second sleepless day, and on his sixtieth birthday, Barty worked alone late into the night from his sky-high corner office. He wore his ring, safe behind closed door from quick eyes. He rubbed his chest unconsciously and felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. Looking up into the storming night, he realized that yes indeed, his chest really was hurting.

Barty died alone of a heart attack in his office. The last thought he had was one of regret.

"Never made it back to the scene of the crime."

With no dependents, Barty's monstrous assets were distributed to his many family members, and all in all, each of the eighty-odd people were quite happy when their fat cheque hit. Quite a few didn't get a cent, as they had upturned their noses at him and Gary. Some of his siblings cried at his funeral. A few of his old friends from the underground cried too. Within two weeks, Barty was mostly forgotten.

Importantly, however, some snot-nosed distant cousin sold his unofficial silver wedding ring to a pawn shop run by a truly wicked Quebecer for ten dollars and a hit of drugs.

But, like everyone always said, Barty was a driven boy, and a terrifyingly driven man. Moreso after Gary had died.

Pre System there were ghost tours hosted in downtown Toronto. Typically run by hipsters with a fetish for wax and dead things, or people who genuinely believed the moon's alignment granted permission to be a see you next Tuesday. Small groups would hop from old building to old building under the night sky holding laminated ghost factoids.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

The tour would start at the lake, where the ghosts of buried horses used to build up the foundation on Yonge Street at Lake Ontario apparently clopped if you listened just closely enough. Next were the abandoned mental asylums. That was always a fan favourite. Up to Church Street to stare wide-eyed while holding dollar store candles at old buildings. Most of these places were not genuinely haunted. Some of them, however, did have ghosts roaming about. The horses did clop if you just shut up a minute and listened over the city noises.

"Bruise and Tangoes," some variety of ghost hunting host wearing a polyester cowl would say, pointing at the oldest standing gay bar in Toronto. "In the seventies and eighties, it used to be a clothing store, and underground at night, secret drag shows would take place!"

Several minutes of picture snapping and chatter would happen.

"And it's said, that if you listen just closely enough in the basement, an old school drag queen will cry about 'crime,' and bang her heel on the floor! Her name was Mrs. Mystical. Back when these kinds of places were illegal--," everyone would pat themselves on the back for how socially forward they were, "Mrs. Mystical would dance and tell fortunes! Quite a nut, from stories passed down."

Several more minutes of pictures would commence, and then the group would descend into the basement of Bruise and Tangoes. Ocassionally, a believer would hear cries and something clacking against the floor or tables. Everyone would run out of the basement screaming about the ghoul in the basement of the drag bar and talk about it occasionally.

It wasn't Mrs. Mystical. It was Bart visiting an old hang where he and Gary would go, crying alone, mumbling about the scene of the crime and taking his not-real, ghoulish ring off and on compulsively. The Chinese food restaurant had turned into another coffee shop. The gay bar, thankfully, remained for years.

He came often enough that the current, much more socially accepted drag queens feared going into the basement. Tarot card performances or anything related to the occult was jokingly banned for performances.

Some years later, as Barty was sitting alone in the basement, ghosting about, the System came randomly one Friday night. June 4th, 2024. Many things happened thereafter.

For example, a regular ghost gained power and adopted the moniker of Mr. Mystical as a nod to his former lover. All his old friends had died, and besides, with the System he could possess things and gain a physical presence. Like a taxidermized mouse with a third eye in a fez. Sanity, or a semblance of sanity, was gained as well.

Being a ghost meant he could find things. Hidden things and rotten things, if the money was right and it gained him more power, he'd dedicate all his stubborn, driven energy to weaseling it out. Those that got into his way were simply inhaled in his [Send to The Unspace] Skill.

When you've already lost everyone you've loved, even if it was just the single person, and reality bends around you while you dance against the funny thing called life, what are morals? Can you even be sane when you've died already and walked around in a haze of paranormal grief for decades, only to gain power and lack nothing in the way of persistence?

It's quite easy to locate items when you can pass through walls, fit into forgotten suitcases, or see physical objects are merely something normal, living individuals had to deal with. He got quite good at finding things, and without the need to sleep, learned quite a bit about the System.

Mr. Mystical figured with the right Skills, the right Relics, the right symbols, that maybe, just maybe, Gary could be brought back.

Which brings things to the present.

A French…thing threatened one such item of his interest and made Mr. Mystical cower. What could make a ghost cower? The destruction of the single thing that permanent existence bearable.

If only that baboon of a relative hadn't sold his ring for some drugs money.

"You do not want me to melt it, do you?" The Collector exhaled, rolling the ring between his long, wrinkled fingers. "For me…it is only metal."

"No, no!" Mr. Mystical jittered madly on his persian rug. "Don't melt it! I swear, I'll stop their expansion!"

The Collector, formerly known Francois-Xavier Leternal, looked up into the three eyes of Mr. Mystical. Though he was a ghost, it chilled him right down to his very being.

Francois-Xavier Leternel, proprietor of Bits and Bobbles in the east end of Toronto, had been a simple pawn shop owner prior to the System. Hunch backed, stinking of old-people sweat and rotten cheese, his endless black eyes took in everything around him. He moved like an old man withered by time, with wild white hair and cheap glasses framing drooping, wrinkly jowls. Surrounded by cheap Relics in an oppressively claustrophobic hole, ripping people off for their heirlooms was his favourite past time. And all his deals were scribbled on a tiny notebook in perfect French cursive.

When the day finally came that his heart gave out, it was over a stack of some woman selling her child's favorite playing cards for a bit of Credits. His corpse had slumped over, and the woman had stolen a good amount.

Hours later, he had simply stood back up. Francois-Xavier Leternel had been preparing for that moment for a long time. One learns quite a few things when all your customers are floundering. Secret things and forbidden things. Forsaken things, too.

His soul, tucked neatly in his black notebook, hummed back as he continued ripping people off, buying grief cheap and collecting nostalgia. For The Collector grew in power only by collecting.

Now, as a Lich, he had access to so much more tools to pry trades from the desperate.

A yellow, crumbly thumbnail nicked the silver band, sending a fleck of metal tumbling to the floor. "Mmmmm. Not very good quality. I'm not certain this would make a good pair of earings. Maybe clip-ons for a drag queen?"

"Stop it, please! You're going to break the Relic!" Mr. Mystical howled and jittered around. He was a powerful ghost, but not nearly as strong as a Gold Grade Lich. Behind the glass eyes of the mouse Mr. Mystical hid within, he [Examined] the ring to make sure it was OK.

[Gary's Unvowed Band]

It had taken Barty five years to find Gary's ring. Searching through all of Toronto had been difficult, but one day, while humming to himself to one of Gary's favourite tunes, he had passed right by the shop and felt it.

He wished he never did. Wished it had gone undiscovered. With it within reach, however, Mr. Mystical had to have it. He just wished that he could inflict several war crimes against the relative that had sold it to The Collector.

"I've told you, you filthy little ghost," the Collector said. "Now they are close. Stop their expansion, or I will destroy this."

He held the ring up between two gnarled fingers. Mr. Mystical's three eyes fixed on it, and The Collector turned it over and over, just as the man named Barty once had. Then, with a casual motion, snapped his hand shut over it.

"You spoke of a familiar? A protector?" the Collector continued, leaning in. "That delivery boy of theirs will only accelerate their growth. Go after him more."

"He's onto me with the clone copy Skill," Mr. Mystical stammered. "It's the cat! It's not a Familiar. It's…it's guarding everything. That damned cat sees everything. It sees in the sky! It—"

The Collector watched him the bored curiosity of a man inspecting a cheap toy. He rolled the silver on the glass-top table. "A cat? I once had a cat," he mused at the though of the dead cat's body in the back of the shop. "Collected him too."

His thumb slammed the ring flat against the glass. "Stop them, or I will melt this piece of junk. Understand?"

"Yes—yes! Yes I understand! Just…just give me two weeks damnit!" Mr. Mystical yelped.

"Yes…what?" The Collector asked coldly.

"Yes Master! Yes I will stop them! I swear it."

The Collector's fetid fingers held the ring up once more. "Good. Then you will get your Relic. Such a small thing. So easy to destroy. Now be gone from my shop."

Mr. Mystical raced out of Bits and Bobbles, and The Collector smiled his tasteless lips at the fleeing Ghost. Opening his notebook, he flipped through the pages and found what he was looking for.

"Ah, yes," he said, activating one of his Skills. "Pushkin. Twenty Credits for a cat from an…addict. Typical."

The Collector became engrossed in cataloging his collection as something came alive in the back of the shop. Buried under a mat, as it had stunk when it died, a skeleton of an underfed cat raised itself at the behest of it's Master and wove its way through the cluttered filth of the shop. Once, it had been a beautiful long-haired orange Maine coon. Now Pushkin was just part of the collection.

"Pushkin, find this cat and deal with him."

His eyes didn't even leave his notebook as Pushkin pushed out the front door into the night of Toronto.

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