Chapter 4
Greg stared at it. Tapped it. Shook it.
The window was closed. The collection period had ended. And Dustin was sitting up under a pile of deflated duck, very much alive, swatting away the hands of crew members trying to help him.
“I'm fine,” Dustin was saying. “I'm fine. Get off me. Someone get this thing off me.”
Greg panicked. Internally. Or maybe not so internally.
Was he vibrating again?
Probably.
But this didn't make sense! The files were never wrong. In his entire internship, across hundreds of observed collections, he had never once seen a file be wrong. Death was precise. Death was scheduled. Death was—
Currently shoving a giant vinyl wing off his legs and telling someone to stop asking if he needed an ambulance.
Greg took a step forward. Then stopped.
What was he supposed to do? Introduce himself? Hi, you were supposed to die thirty seconds ago, would you mind terribly trying again?
He flipped to the second page of the folder. There had to be something. A note. An amendment. A secondary cause of death listed for situations where the primary cause inexplicably failed to…
Nothing. Just the standard paperwork. Name, date, time, location. All of it was correct, and also useless.
Dustin was on his feet now, brushing dust off his jumpsuit. Someone had finally dragged the bulk of the duck away from him. He rolled his shoulders, testing for damage, and came up with nothing but a scowl.
“I want that thing gone,” he said, pointing at the crumpled mascot. “I don't care what the contract says. I don't care about brand visibility. Get it out of here before I set it on fire.”
“Dustin, we need you to let the medical team check you over.”
“I just fell two thousand feet on purpose. A plastic duck isn't going to be what takes me out.”
Greg flinched.
It should have taken him out.
He watched Dustin wave off the medic, refuse a stretcher, and walk toward the catering tent under his own power.
The crew was already laughing about it, talking about how this was “the best blooper reel footage we've ever gotten.” They were tossing around ideas about how they could spin this for social media.
And Greg just stood there, invisible, clipboard in hand, watching his first assignment walk away.
What was he supposed to tell Morrith?
Greg followed Dustin toward the catering tent.
He wasn't sure why. The collection had failed. He should go back to HQ, file a report, and let someone more experienced figure out what went wrong. That was protocol.
But he couldn't stop staring at Dustin. At the way he moved—loose, easy, like he hadn't almost just died. Like almost dying was just a normal Tuesday for him.
Greg was so lost in thought that he didn't notice Dustin had stopped walking.
“Okay.” Dustin turned around, arms crossed. “Why are you following me around?”
Greg froze.
He looked over his shoulder. There was no one behind him.
He looked back at Dustin.
Dustin was looking directly at him. At him. Not through him. Not past him.
He had a silver lip ring.
Shiny brown hair and a silver lip ring and several more piercings through his ear and—
None of that mattered now.
Focus, Greg.
This mortal is staring at you.
“I—” Greg started.
“Are you with insurance?” Dustin's eyes narrowed. “Because I'm fine. I've had worse than a mascot attack.”
Greg opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Say something. ANYTHING. You've practiced for decades. You have SCRIPTS.
“I...” Greg heard his own voice like it belonged to someone else. “I'm not with insurance.”
Greg wanted to slap himself.
I’m not with insurance was definitely not among the perfect phrases he’d carefully practiced.
“Dustin! We need you for the interview segment!”
Dustin's head turned toward another mortal waving at him from across the landing zone.
“Coming.” Dustin left without another glance at Greg.
Greg watched him go and tried to remember how to breathe.
He didn't have to, technically, but he'd always found the habit comforting.
Licking his lips, he considered his immediate future.
He needed to go back to HQ. He needed to file a report. He needed to tell Morrith that not only had the collection failed, but somehow the target had—
Had what? Developed the ability to perceive entities outside the mortal spectrum?
Morrith was going to kill him.
The paperwork alone…
Greg returned to Reaper HQ forty-five minutes after he'd left it. That was how long it had taken him to ruin everything.
He gulped.
He'd failed catastrophically and now Morrith's cubicle loomed ahead.
Greg could see his supervisor over the partition, bent over paperwork. Maybe he could just... not. Maybe he could go to his own desk, bury the file, and pretend this had never happened. Maybe no one would notice. Maybe—
“Greg.”
Morrith hadn't looked up.
“How did you know I was back?”
“You’re the only reaper in here who’s ever hyperventilated.” A pause. “What did you do?”
Greg approached the cubicle entrance. His mouth was very dry. “Something went wrong.”
Morrith finally looked up. His expression was the same as always—tired, weathered, expecting disappointment—but there was a flicker of something else. Concern, maybe. Or dread.
“Tell me.”
“The collection didn't... happen.”
Morrith waited for him to elaborate.
“The subject survived.”
Morrith blinked. That was more reaction than Greg had ever seen from him.
“The subject,” Morrith repeated slowly, “survived.”
“Yes.”
“The easy job I gave you.”
Greg felt himself shrinking. “Yes.”
Morrith set his pen down. He leaned back in his chair. The chair creaked in a way that suggested it, too, was tired of everything.
“Explain.”
“He's a BASE jumper. He jumped off a cliff. I thought that would be the cause of death.”
“That sounds reasonable.”
“But it wasn’t! He landed perfectly. It was actually kind of impressive, the way he rolled and—”
“Greg.”
“Right. Sorry.” Greg clutched his clipboard. “There was this... this duck.”
Morrith stared at him.
“A mascot,” Greg continued, speaking faster now. “A giant inflatable duck with sunglasses. It was twenty feet tall. Very... very imposing. The anchor lines failed and it collapsed on him right as the window was closing.”
“A duck,” Morrith said.
“An inflatable duck,” Greg pointed out. Accuracy was important in their line of work.
“And this inflatable duck was supposed to kill him.”
“It would appear so.”
“But it didn't.”
“No, sir. Death by duck failed, sir.”
Morrith was quiet for a long moment. His hand drifted toward his desk drawer—the one where Greg suspected he kept something stronger than coffee—but stopped short.
“Let me make sure I understand,” Morrith said. “You had a three minute, fifty second window. Your subject jumped off a cliff, survived. Got hit by a giant inflatable duck, survived. And you're standing in my office, without a soul, telling me that death by duck... failed.”
Greg nodded miserably.
“I refuse to put that in a report.”
“Sir?”
Morrith opened the desk drawer, pulled out a bottle and poured something into his coffee. He took a long sip. Then he asked, “Is there anything else? You look like you have more to say.”
Greg hesitated.
Morrith's eyes narrowed. “Greg.”
“He saw me.”
Morrith looked at his coffee as if suddenly thinking that whatever he’d put in there was no longer enough for this conversation. “Mortals can't see reapers unless we reveal ourselves.”
“I know.”
“Did you reveal yourself?”
“No! I was just standing there. Observing. Like I was trained to do.”
Morrith was quiet for a long time. Evaluating, maybe. Greg waited. Morrith did something on his computer.
“I was hoping your first job would be easier,” he said finally. “But we can still make this right without getting Oversight involved. Dustin is pending.”
“Pending?”
“He is still marked for collection. If we're lucky you can still complete the assignment.”
“But—the window closed. The death didn't occur. Doesn't that mean it wasn't his time?”
Morrith pinched the bridge of his nose. “If it wasn't his time the file would not be pending anymore. Sometimes things go wrong and fate needs a little assistance.”
“A little assistance?”
Morrith leaned forward. “You understand what I need you to do, don't you? What the natural order needs you to do.”
Greg had an idea, but that couldn't be what his supervisor meant. “Are you saying I should…?”
Morrith held his gaze. “Sometimes death needs a little help, Greg. That's what we're here for.”
“But that's not…. we don't cause deaths. We collect souls. We guide transitions. We don’t…”
“We maintain the natural order.” Morrith's voice was flat. “Dustin was supposed to die. He didn't. The order is disrupted. You're going to un-disrupt it.”
Greg opened his mouth. Closed it.
“He's a BASE jumper,” Morrith said, turning back to his paperwork. “From what you've told me, he defies gravity for fun. You only need to make sure that next time he does, gravity wins.”
“Sir—”
“You’re dismissed, Grigoreth.”