Chapter Five
Phin
The phone rang. I knew it was Ossy, so I didn’t answer. I didn’t even look at the screen. I didn’t need to. No one else had called me since the reapers stopped showing up for work.
It had been another long day in the office by myself, and almost a week had passed without my co-workers.
I had nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs and play solitaire on the computer.
The reapers weren’t ferrying souls. That much was obvious from the lack of paperwork.
It turned out that boredom was hard work.
I should probably just go to bed, but what self-respecting man in the prime of his life goes to bed at half past seven? I should wait until at least nine, right? That was when normal people tucked in early, right?
I wasn’t a night owl. I hated staying up late. I only ever did it because Ossy was. He had always made it worth my while.
Thinking about how good the sex had been made me smile. Ossy had always been gentle, too. And he was fun when he wasn’t prioritizing everything else over me. Maybe that made me selfish, but I didn’t want to monopolize all his time. I just wanted to be someone he didn’t forget.
I sighed. I really needed to pick an emotion and stick with it. Staying mad was what I wanted to do, but as much as it was what Ossy deserved, I’d never been able to sustain that anger.
Ossy was under my skin in a big way. He’d been there almost from the first time we started fucking.
I longed for him in a way that was probably not healthy, and that totally showed my hand where Ossy Reaper was concerned.
It seemed to come on while I was at home.
I blamed it on the fact that we spent more time at my place than at his.
And enough about Ossy. I had a murder to solve. DNA and gunshot residue were what the CSI detectives were testing. But I’d seen the episode before. I binged the entire series.
CSI was my comfort show. I liked them all, but my favorite was the Las Vegas one.
The bug guy was weird enough that I could identify with him.
Obviously, I didn’t like bugs. The cricket experience gave that away.
But I thought of myself as quirky, and I was probably a little weird.
I was an administrative assistant at an organization that transported the dead to the afterlife.
If that didn’t make me weird, well, I didn’t know what did. I liked weird people, including myself.
A parchment burned itself into existence on my coffee table. I sucked in a breath. I’d never gotten one of those at my house before. Any I’d gotten at work were usually office memos. Never in my time with the Bureau had anyone sent one just for me. But at home, after hours? It had to be serious.
The phone rang. I muted the TV before answering.
“Answer when I call. Please, Phin.” Ossy’s voice did nothing to ease the sinking feeling in my stomach.
I put Ossy on speaker and set the phone on the empty couch cushion beside me. My hands shook as I picked up the paper. It read: You have a meeting with HR at 0800 tomorrow. It included the date to avoid confusion. And it was signed, Jurgren, New Head of the HR Department.
Oh no. This couldn’t be good. What if the whole reaper department was fired and I was just the last one? But why wouldn’t Ossy tell me I was being fired? “HR wants to see me tomorrow.”
Ezul, who had been the head of HR, hadn’t signed it. No one had made me aware of a staffing change, not that they would have. What had changed? Why was Jurgren suddenly heading the department?
“Don’t go. Stay home. I’ll come get you.” Tension laced Ossy’s voice.
“I have to go to work, Ossy.” I might not do fieldwork like Ossy, but I was still a reaper.
Technically, I had died in a fire when my apartment building burned to the ground, but Donn had given me a second chance, just like all the other reapers.
Instead of going to the afterlife, I went to work for the Bureau.
Not doing so meant I would die in that fire and either go to the afterlife or be reincarnated as a bug.
The afterlife wouldn’t be so terrible. I’d get a cabin in the forest. That was the plan upon retirement, anyway.
It was what I desired. A Snow-White sort of existence, except my seven dwarves would be just one surfer with long blond hair and commitment issues.
We could fuck like bunnies and take care of cats.
Maybe the forest animals would love me. Minus the bugs, of course.
And getting turned into one. There were worse ways to spend eternity.
I would rather stay in the living world. There were still mysteries I needed to solve here, a puzzle Ossy was probably in the middle of. And if I knew my reaper colleagues at all, the rest of them were at the center of something big, too.
“You don’t have to do anything, including going into the office. All you have to do is wait for my call. I’ll give you instructions on how to get out of the city, and then I’ll meet you somewhere.”
“Why can’t you just teleport here?” I whined every word. I’m not too proud to beg.
I rarely let myself be vulnerable around people.
Ossy was the exception. I know it was a defense mechanism and a hindrance most of the time, keeping people at bay.
Of everyone, Ossy was the last person I should have trusted.
He’d stomped all over me enough times. I should know better, but I needed to feel close to someone.
I didn’t have anyone else but my work colleagues.
I didn’t have friends or family outside the Soul Management Bureau.
My life before the Bureau was almost over.
Donn would make sure my friends and family didn’t remember me.
Leaving them behind wasn’t in the handbook, but it was a rule nonetheless.
The rule was unspoken because I was a living dead person.
The only living dead people in existence worked for the Bureau.
“I can’t teleport.”
“Why?”
“I can’t tell you why. Not yet, anyway.” Same thing, different day. Ossy would never change. The pit in my stomach deepened. I truly was alone in whatever was going on. “I have to go. Stop calling me.”
“Baby, please. I’m trying to save your life.”
Wait. What? “You think my life is in danger?”
“Yes.” Ossy sounded so convinced of the danger. He believed it. Or was he a good liar?
The laugh was strained. Tension took hold.
I stood and headed to the kitchen. I filled the tea kettle with tap water and set it on the burner before turning on the heat. Chamomile tea always calmed my nerves. “That’s the biggest lie you’ve ever told.”
Ossy growled, something I had never heard him do before. “I have never lied to you. Ever, Phineas Reaper.”
Reaper wasn’t my last name. It was Ossy’s. Him calling me by his name stole every retort I had, just as much as his adamancy that he wasn’t a liar did. “I...”
I tried to think of a time when Ossy might have lied, but I couldn’t. His excuses for not showing up had always seemed absent-minded, but they weren’t. It was Ossy deflecting. He hadn’t wanted to get serious. “You never wanted to have a relationship. And Reaper is not my last name.”
“I do. I swear it, baby.” As sincere as Ossy sounded, I knew I couldn’t believe him.
“Why?” Why wasn’t Ossy chasing waves and bar-hopping? That was what he did before. It was what I could count on when it came to Ossy.
“I’ll explain everything when I get there. I promise.”
My heart couldn’t take it any more. “You’re deflecting again.”
“I am not.” He so was.
“I’m not listening to you tell me how much I mean to you, only to have you ditch me again.
How many more times do I have to be an afterthought?
Just admit you don’t want to get serious, and let’s end things once and for all.
I need some sort of closure. And for the love of the gods, please have Morgana call me.
” I should have ended the call, but for a reason that had everything to do with hope, I hung on to hear Ossy’s next words.
“I will not, under any circumstances, leave you. Ever. Again.” Ossy paused. I could hear him breathing as if the words had cost him a lot of energy. “I’m sorry for how I was before.”
“Before what, Ossy?” As far as I was concerned, nothing had changed. Well, except for the reapers, including Morgana, who no longer showed up for work. That was a big change. Fucking huge, in fact. And I wasn’t the only one who would notice eventually.
“Don’t go to work. But if you do, don’t use Bureau resources.
Not teleportation or the Bureau’s communication system.
If you listen to nothing else, please listen to that.
” So Ossy feared the Bureau. Which, okay, made sense.
Kind of. We worked for the god of death.
There should be some level of fear, right? It came with the territory.
Wait. So, no using the Bureau’s systems? Did that mean... it did. Didn’t it? Oh, no. No. No. Please, for the love of the gods, please don’t let the reapers fuck with the Bureau. “You need to stop, Ossy. Please. Don’t do what you’re doing. Don’t go against the Bureau.”
“You’re the smartest one of us all.” Was that respect in Ossy’s voice, or pride? “I have to, baby. We all have to.”
“Why?” What could possibly be so important that the reapers would mess up their job?
“I want to see your face when I tell you. It needs to be face-to-face.”
“So you’re dumping me. The whole reaper division is, isn’t it?”
Ossy sighed. “I’m coming for you. Just hold on.”
“Don’t drag me into whatever you and the rest of the reapers are doing?” The reapers left the Bureau, leaving me behind. I expected it from Ossy, but not from the rest of them, especially Morgana.