Chapter 18
The transition from the ice cream parlor to Reaper HQ was instantaneous and disorienting, as always. One moment Greg was being dragged through a door in Colorado, the next he was standing in the fluorescent purgatory of the office.
He was welcomed home by the distant hum of the perpetually jammed printer and the faint smell of coffee that lingered in the air.
Valerie marched him down the corridor toward Morrith's office, her posture ramrod straight. Her expression could have frozen hellfire.
Greg followed in miserable silence, mentally composing his defense. I wasn't fraternizing, I was conducting extended observation. The ice cream was research. The almost-kiss was—
Actually, he had no explanation for the almost-kiss.
They turned a corner. Morrith's cubicle loomed ahead, but Valerie suddenly stopped. She glanced left, then right. The hallway was empty.
Then she grabbed Greg by the shoulders and shoved him into the supply closet.
“What—” Greg stumbled backward into a shelf of filing folders. “Valerie, what are you doing?”
“Okay.” Valerie shut the door behind her and whirled to face him. Her entire demeanor had transformed. The stern efficiency was gone, replaced by something Greg had never seen on her face before.
Excitement.
“Spill,” she said.
Greg blinked. “What?”
“The tea, Grigoreth. Spill it. All of it. Right now.” She looked at him expectantly. “How long has this been going on? How did it start? Is he a good kisser? He looks like he'd be a good kisser.”
Greg's brain short-circuited. “I—we haven't—there's no—”
“Don't you dare hold out on me.” Valerie jabbed a finger at his chest. “I have been assigned to 'peaceful passings' in the Midwest for the past forty years. Forty years, Greg. Do you know how boring peaceful passings are? Nothing happens. No one has any drama. Everyone just... dies in their beds surrounded by loving family members.” She said this like it was a personal insult.
“I haven't had a single interesting conversation in decades.”
“I thought you were going to report me to Morrith.”
“Oh, I am. Absolutely. You're in massive trouble and he's going to tear you a new one.” She waved this off like it was irrelevant. “But first—details. That human could see me. He called it a date. He touched your face. What is happening?”
Greg opened his mouth, but he didn't have the words. “I don't know,” he admitted.
“You don't know?”
“It's complicated!”
“Un-complicate it!” Valerie crossed her arms. “Start from the beginning. Your assignment didn't die when he was supposed to. Then what?”
Greg leaned against the shelf of folders, suddenly exhausted. “Then I tried to complete the collection manually.”
Valerie's eyebrows shot up. “You tried to kill him?”
“Morrith said to fix it!”
“Morrith says a lot of things. Most of us just file the paperwork and move on.” She studied him with new interest. “You actually tried to cause a death? You? The Hallmark Harvester?”
Greg winced at the nickname. “I cut his parachute lines. He fell eight hundred feet.” He paused. “He survived.”
Valerie's mouth fell open.
“Without a scratch too,” Greg added miserably. “I don't know how. I don't know why. I've been trying to figure it out, but every time I get close to him, I get...” He gestured vaguely. “Distracted.”
“By his face?”
“By everything!” The words came out more forcefully than Greg intended.
“He's infuriating. He's reckless. He deliberately puts himself in danger and it's like he doesn't even care if he dies, but he'll throw himself in front of a truck so a stranger won't have to.
He acts like nothing can touch him, but he sat with a dying man he'd never met just so the man wouldn't be alone.
He eats fries like it's a performance. He has metal in his face, Valerie.
In his face! And I can't stop thinking about it!”
He was breathing hard by the end. Valerie was staring at him with an expression of dawning delight.
“Oh my god,” she said slowly. “You're head over heels for him.”
“I am not!”
“You absolutely are.” She clapped her hands together. “This is the best thing that's happened in this department since Reva failed to reap that medium and she haunted him for six months.”
“I'm not in love with him,” Greg insisted. “I'm just... professionally invested in understanding why he won't die.”
“Uh-huh. And the ice cream date?”
“Research.”
“The face touching?”
“I had chocolate on my mouth! He was being helpful!”
“The way you looked at him like he hung the moon and all the stars?”
Greg didn't have an answer for that one.
Valerie's grin was enormous. “This is amazing. Morrith is going to have an aneurysm… if reapers can have those, I'm not sure, but…” She patted his shoulder almost fondly. “Honestly? Worth it. He's gorgeous.”
“You're supposed to be on the side of the natural order.”
“I am on the side of the natural order. I'm also on the side of entertainment.” She winked at him, and then she straightened, smoothing down her blazer. “Now. Morrith is waiting. Try not to cry.”
“I don't cry.”
“You might after this.” She opened the supply closet door and gestured for him to exit. “Also—if you survive? I want updates. If you kiss him, I want to know immediately. If you do more than kiss him—”
“Valerie.”
“—I want details, Grigoreth. Don't forget.”
She shoved him back into the hallway.
Greg stumbled, caught himself, and turned to say something—he wasn't sure what—but Valerie had already resumed her stern professional mask.
“This way,” she said crisply, loud enough for anyone nearby to hear. “Morrith is waiting.”
Greg followed her toward his doom, mind reeling.
At least one reaper was rooting for him.
Even if it was just because she was bored.
When Greg approached Morrith's cubicle, his supervisor was drinking out of a coffee mug that said “Death Takes No Holidays.”
He set the mug down with a disappointed expression when he saw Greg.
“Sit,” he said.
Greg did.
Morrith didn't say anything for a long moment. He just looked at Greg with those ancient, tired eyes. Somehow it made Greg feel worse than screaming rage might have.
“I sent you several messages,” Morrith said finally.
“I know.”
“You ignored all of them.”
“I was... I'm sorry.”
“You're sorry.” Morrith picked up his mug and looked into it like it might contain the will to keep going, then set it down again without drinking.
“I vouched for you, Grigoreth. When they said you were too soft for fieldwork, I said give him a chance.
When they laughed about your little notebook, I said he cares about the work.
When they wanted to fail you out of the internship, I said this one's different.”
Greg's stomach twisted. “Sir—”
“And now I have Oversight asking me questions.” Morrith's voice was flat. “And a rookie field reaper who's ignoring direct orders.”
“I was trying to understand what's happening.”
“Well, here's something you should understand.” Morrith pulled a file from his stack and flipped it open.
It was Dustin's file. “When a mortal survives their scheduled death, the system recalculates. They get a new death date and a new collection window. It happens rarely, but it happens. Do you know why?”
Greg shook his head. This was the first he was hearing about this.
“Mortal life is chaos,” Morrith explained.
“Sometimes the variables shift. Sometimes a truck is three seconds late. Sometimes a branch falls at the wrong angle. The system accounts for this. It adjusts.” Morrith turned a page.
“It did for Sarah Meadows. She's already been reassigned.
We won't have to concern ourselves with her for the next fifty years or so.”
Greg blew out a breath. Sarah would live. At least for a while longer.
That was good.
“But this one.” Morrith tapped Dustin's file. “This one doesn't recalculate. I've run it through the system four times. Every time, it comes back the same.” He looked up at Greg. “The status never changes from Pending.”
“What does that mean?”
“At this point, it means something is interfering.” Morrith's jaw tightened. “The system can't generate a new death date because something is preventing his death entirely. Not delaying it or postponing it. Preventing it.”
Greg's chest tightened. His mind went back to the moment he'd watched Dustin fall 800 feet. The moment he'd watched him sit up after like it was nothing.
“Your target can see you,” Morrith continued. “Typically mortals only see us during their own collection or in moments of near-death when the veil thins. When their soul is already partially separated from their body.”
Greg's throat went dry. “You think his soul is separating from his body?”
“I think his soul knows what his body hasn't accepted yet. He should be dead, Grigoreth. By every metric we have, Dustin should have crossed over last week. But something is holding him in the mortal realm.” Morrith closed the file.
“What kind of something?” Greg asked carefully.
“That's what you're going to find out.”
Greg blinked. “Me?”
“You've spent more time observing this mortal than any reaper has spent observing a living human in centuries. You've watched him, talked to him…” Morrith's expression flickered—something almost like suspicion. “Eaten ice cream with him, apparently.”
Greg's face heated. “That was—”
“I don't want to know.” Morrith held up a hand. “I'm already toeing the line on how much whiskey I can put in my coffee and still call it coffee. I need you to fix your mess. Something is interfering with the natural order, and it's connected to your assignment. Find out what.”
“How am I supposed to do that?”
“Dig.” Morrith's voice hardened. “Look into his history, his friends, his family. I promise you, at some point in that mortal's life, something happened that shouldn't have.” He paused. “Find the flaw before Oversight decides to investigate themselves.”
Greg swallowed. “And when I find it,” he asked, “I restore the natural order?”
“Of course.”
“Of course,” Greg echoed, thinking about Dustin's reckless grin and his sad eyes and the way he'd sat with a dying stranger just to keep him company.
And maybe Morrith caught something in his gaze because he said, “The natural order exists for a reason. You know this. Death gives life meaning. Without endings, nothing matters.” He picked up his mug again.
“Look, it's tragic that your first assignment went sideways, but I know you can do this.
You did excellent work with Marco Reyes-Ybarra.
You were made to be a reaper, Grigoreth. You'll be fine.”
Greg didn't know what to do with the encouragement. It didn't warm him the way it should have.
“Just don't let your target interfere in any more reapings,” Morrith added.
Greg nodded because there was nothing else he could do. Realistically he didn't think he could influence Dustin's behavior any more than he could change the course of a hurricane.
“I'll be careful,” Greg made himself say.
“Be very careful,” Morrith responded and something in his gaze sharpened. “Attachments in this line of work... they don't end well. For anyone.”
Greg forced himself to nod again, feeling his cheeks grow warm.
Morrith studied him for a moment longer. “Don't ignore my messages again.”
“No, sir.”
Morrith set down his mug and turned back to his files. “Dismissed.”
Greg rose and walked away, mind buzzing.
He'd been ordered to research Dustin's family and his past.
He had to find out what was protecting Dustin.
Why did he have such a bad feeling about what he would find?