Chapter 40
An hour later—it had taken that long for Dustin to feel like he could operate a vehicle—they pulled into Cathy’s driveway.
Greg looked at the bags of groceries in the back seat and thought about the fact that they had almost died in aisle four and still come home with yellow onions.
Cathy was in the kitchen when they walked in. She looked at the bags, then at Dustin, then at Greg’s hands.
“What happened?”
“Shelf collapsed at Garrett’s,” Dustin said, setting the bags on the counter. “We’re fine.”
Greg stood in the doorway and tried to hold his hands in a way that suggested they were not a big deal.
This was difficult because they were visibly a very big deal.
“Those need cleaning,” Cathy said.
“That’s not necessary.”
“Sit down.”
Greg sat.
Cathy got the first aid kit from under the bathroom sink, pulled up a chair, and took his hands in hers. She turned them over, examining the burns with a steady, unreadable expression.
“How did a collapsing shelf burn your hands?”
Greg opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
He had not prepared a cover story for this.
“He grabbed a hot pipe,” Dustin said from behind them. “There was an exposed pipe on the shelf. Near the lighting fixtures.”
“Hm.”
Cathy did not sound remotely convinced.
Nevertheless, she cleaned Greg’s palms with antiseptic.
Greg hissed through his teeth.
“Hold still,” Cathy said.
Greg held still.
Dustin hovered behind her, looking like he wanted to help and had no idea how. His own shoulder was stiff, his face too pale, but his eyes stayed fixed on Greg’s hands as Cathy wrapped them.
When she was finished, Greg’s hands looked like white mittens.
“Thank you,” he said.
“Don’t touch anything hot.”
“I’ll try.”
Cathy packed the first aid kit away, then looked between them. “Are either of you going to tell me what actually happened?”
Dustin and Greg exchanged a glance.
“No,” Dustin said.
Cathy sighed.
It was not an accepting sigh. It was an exhausted maternal sigh that suggested she knew perfectly well she was being lied to and had chosen, for the moment, to let them live.
“Then unpack the groceries,” she said, looking at Dustin. “Make yourself useful.”
That evening, Cathy made spaghetti with the ground beef and yellow onions they’d brought home.
Dustin fed Greg because Greg’s bandaged hands couldn’t handle a fork, and Greg allowed it because dignity had become less important to him lately.
The spaghetti was good. Slightly sweet. Warm in a way that did not feel like punishment.
“Better than the chili?” Dustin asked, grinning as he twirled another forkful.
“I liked the chili,” Greg said. “It just didn’t like me.”
“It didn’t like you?”
“It hurt me.”
Across the table, Cathy chuckled.
“Well,” she said, “I’m glad my spaghetti isn’t hurting you.”
“Me too,” Greg said fervently.
They ate in the warm kitchen while the clock ticked and no one spoke about burned hands or collapsed shelves or the fact that Greg had no clipboard, no function, and no idea what he was now.
It was the most normal meal Greg had ever had.
And the best.
Later, in Dustin’s room, Greg lay awake in the dark.
Dustin was curled around him from behind, one arm heavy across Greg’s ribs, his nose pressed to the back of Greg’s neck. His breathing had slowed, but not quite settled into sleep.
Greg stared at the ceiling.
He couldn’t stop thinking about the contract.
His logic was sound. A reaper’s soul, freely given—and he wasn’t a reaper anymore. The terms referred to something that no longer existed. The contract should be void.
Should be.
But what if he was wrong? What if the demon didn’t see it that way? What if a reaper’s soul meant something more permanent than a role, something baked into his essence regardless of what he had severed or burned or become?
He couldn’t know from here.
There was only one way to ask.
“Dustin,” Greg said quietly.
“Mm.”
“I need to go to the cemetery.”
The arm around him tightened.
“Now?”
“I need to know if the contract is void. I know the phrase. I can summon him at Tyler’s grave.” Greg swallowed. “If he comes, I’ll tell him I’m not a reaper anymore. Then I’ll see what he says.”
Dustin was quiet for a long moment.
“You’re asking me to drive you to a cemetery in the middle of the night so you can summon the demon who bought your soul.”
“Yes.”
“And this can’t wait until morning.”
“I can’t sleep without knowing.”
Another silence.
Then Dustin exhaled through his nose, long and resigned.
“Give me five minutes.”
The cemetery was quiet.
They walked to Tyler’s grave together. The headstone looked exactly as it had two nights ago, the infinity symbol pale in the moonlight.
Greg’s burned hands throbbed beneath the bandages.
“Okay,” Dustin said. He stood close, tense from head to toe. “You’re really doing this?”
“I have to.”
“And if he disagrees?”
“Then we’ll have a conversation about it.”
“Great plan.”
“I didn’t say it was a plan.”
Dustin shot him a look.
Greg took a breath and spoke the phrase.
“I have more to lose.”
Nothing happened.
The air didn’t change. The cemetery stayed quiet. Somewhere in the trees, a bird called. The flowers on Tyler’s headstone stirred in the breeze.
Greg frowned and said it again.
Still nothing.
“Maybe he’s busy,” Dustin said.
Greg opened his mouth to reply, but then he felt something else.
Not the dark, skin-crawling presence of the demon.
Something lighter.
Like he was being watched by someone who wasn’t trying to hide it.
He turned.
A man sat on a bench near the cemetery path, about twenty feet away. Brown hair. Brown eyes. Unremarkable features.
He wore a bow tie covered in cacti wearing party hats.
“Noah,” Greg said.
“Hello, Greg.” Noah smiled. “Hello, Dustin.”
Dustin’s gaze moved between them. “You two know each other?”
“We’ve met,” Greg said. “He’s the one who had my clipboard on the highway.”
“The man with the rubber ducks.”
Noah let that pass without comment as he rose from the bench. “I was hoping you’d come tonight. Though I admit I expected you earlier.”
“We had a long day,” Greg said.
“Yes, you did.” Noah’s gaze moved to Greg’s bandaged hands and lingered. “I see you went through with it.”
“I didn’t have a choice.”
“You had many choices. You made this one.”
Noah said it without judgment. A simple observation.
Then he looked at Dustin. “Would you mind if I spoke with Greg privately for a moment?”
Dustin’s jaw tightened. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
Noah raised one hand and made a small gesture, almost as if turning the page of a book.
The world went still.
The breeze stopped. The bird mid-call went silent. The flowers froze mid-sway.
Dustin stood beside Greg, motionless. His eyes were open but fixed, caught between one blink and the next. His hand, which had been moving toward Greg’s arm, hung suspended in the air.
Greg stared. “What did you do?”
“Borrowed a moment.” Noah put his hands in his pockets. “He’s fine. He won’t know it happened. I thought you might appreciate the privacy.”
Greg looked at Dustin’s frozen face.
Even motionless, he looked like he was about to argue with someone.
“He’s not going to like this.”
“He won’t know.”
“That doesn’t mean he won’t dislike it retroactively if he finds out.”
Noah’s mouth twitched. “Noted.”
Greg turned back to him. “The demon isn’t coming, is he?”
“No.”
Greg’s breath caught.
“The contract dissolved when your clipboard burned,” Noah said. “There’s no reaper’s soul to collect. The terms he agreed to no longer refer to anything that exists. He knew before you did, I suspect. Demons are very attentive to their contracts.”
“Then why didn’t he come?”
“To gloat? To rage?” Noah shrugged. “He collects stories. This one ended in an interesting way. Not all deals pan out.”
Greg looked down at his hands.
Burned. Empty.
Free.
“He asked what happened to me,” Greg said quietly. “When he looked at my soul.”
“Love happened to you,” Noah said, as if it was that simple.
Maybe it was.
Greg exhaled slowly.
The demon wasn’t coming. The contract was void. His soul—whatever it was now, whatever it had become—was his own.
He had braced for a fight and found an empty room.
“Okay,” he said, smaller than he meant to. “Okay.”
Noah let the silence hold for a moment.
Then he said, “You’re facing a different problem now.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“I’m not anything.” Greg said it aloud for the first time. “I’m not a reaper. I’m not human. I don’t have a clipboard or a function or a place in any system. I’m soul-stuff held together by a bond to a mortal. That’s all.”
“It’s not the worst thing.”
“It’s not sustainable.”
“No,” Noah agreed. “Not as it stands.”
Greg’s stomach sank.
“What you are right now is unprecedented,” Noah said. “A reaper who severed himself from the system, burned his tether, and survived dissolution through a soul-bond with a living human.” A pause. “Quite the feat.”
Greg wasn’t sure if that was a compliment.
Noah stepped closer. “You were flagged during your internship, you know.”
“Flagged?”
“Let me quote from your file. In danger of being emotionally compromised. Overly curious about the human experience. Lingers too long at deathbeds.” Noah sounded mildly amused. “The reaper administration considered these qualities problematic.”
“They are.”
“Terribly problematic. For a reaper.” Noah smiled. “Less so for a guardian.”
Greg blinked.
A guardian.
“You know,” Noah said, nodding toward Dustin, “that man has burned through three guardians in his lifetime. They all requested reassignment. One transferred to inanimate objects. She guards a bridge in Kyoto now. Apparently, it’s very peaceful.”
Greg looked at Dustin’s frozen face.
“Do you want to take over the role?” Noah asked. “Before I lose more promising staff members.”
“Me?”
“You guarded him today, didn’t you?”
“That was different. I just didn’t want him to die.”
“That’s basically the job, Greg. Everything else is paperwork.”
Noah pulled a card from his pocket and held it out.
Greg took it.
GUARDIAN SERVICES
Protection. Guidance. Occasionally Preventing Idiots From Killing Themselves.
“I spoke to Morrith,” Noah said while Greg stared at the card.
Greg’s head snapped up. “You spoke to Morrith?”
“Your former supervisor, yes. He’s processing your severance as an interdepartmental transfer rather than a termination.”
“He’s doing that?” Greg asked. “For me?”
He thought of Morrith in his cubicle, cold coffee at his elbow, tired eyes fixed on paperwork. Morrith, telling him attachments didn’t end well.
Noah glanced at Tyler’s headstone. “People do unexpected things when the system they serve stops making sense.”
Greg looked at the card again.
Guardian.
The word felt strange and right at the same time, the way Greg had once felt strange and right when he first chose it over Grigoreth.
“If I say yes, what happens?”
“You get a purpose, a tether, and an anchor that doesn’t depend on any one mortal’s heartbeat. You get to keep protecting people, except now there’s a filing system for it.” Noah smiled. “You like filing systems.”
“I do like filing systems.”
“I know.”
Greg looked at Dustin again. Frozen mid-reach. Mid-argument. The most Dustin anyone had ever been.
“You’ll stay with him, of course,” Noah said. “That one needs round-the-clock guarding, and I think you’re just the man for the job.”
Greg let himself smile.
“I like that even more than filing systems.”
Noah held out his hand. “Welcome to the job, Greg.”
His grip was warm and firm, and something inside Greg lit up and solidified.
A new purpose.
One he embraced with his whole being.
Noah made the small gesture again and vanished.
The world resumed.
“—while some guy in a bow tie—” Dustin stopped. Blinked. Looked at the empty bench. “Where did he go?”
“He left.”
“He was just here.”
“He was.”
Greg looked at Tyler’s headstone one last time. The infinity symbol. The flowers.
Then he turned toward the gate.
“I’ll explain in the truck.”
“Explain now.”
Greg thought for a moment. “The demon’s contract is void. Morrith approved my transfer. I have a new job.” He paused. “And I think the bow tie man might be my new boss.”
Dustin stared at him.
“I leave you alone for one second—”
“You didn’t leave me alone. You were right here. You were just paused.”
“I was what?”
“I’ll explain in the truck.”
Greg walked toward the gate. His hands hurt, the night was cool, and Noah’s card sat heavy in his pocket.
Behind him, Dustin followed, asking several questions at once.
Greg couldn’t answer all of them.
He had a lot of questions himself.
But for the first time in a long while, he felt like things might turn out okay.