Page 1 of Guarded By the Reaper

Chapter One

Grim

The floorboards creaked under my boots as I stopped in the doorway of Norman’s office at the Monster Security Agency branch in Seattle. The scent of lemon air freshener assaulted my senses. It was always pristine in here, the kind of cleanliness that screamed it was more for show than actual use.

Norman was my handler, and he was currently hunched over paperwork, his comb-over gleaming under the harsh fluorescent lights. He waved me in absentmindedly, a practiced smile plastered on his face. I already knew whatever job he had lined up for me was going to be a pain in my ass, and given the second thoughts I’d been having lately, I was going to refuse it and instead discuss with him how I might want to quit the MSA.

“Well?” I prompted him.

He sensed my sour mood, because he shook his head and went straight to the point.

“Before you argue with me, I just want to say this job is no big deal, even if it pays like it is. It’s just fourteen days,” he said from behind the monstrosity of an oak desk he used as a shield between himself and the rest of the world.

I hated the way Norman kept this office – disgustingly perfect, like a showroom no one was allowed to touch. It reeked of lies. Which suited him too well. He was a man who’d divorced his wife when she got sick. It made my non-existent stomach turn. But Norman liked his life in black and white, saw everything as simple equations, and when things got complicated – which a sick wife most certainly was, a complication – he chose to subtract them out of his life. Just like that, like removing an unsightly stain.

“Fourteen days, Grim. Easy peasy,” Norman repeated, drawing out the vowels. He finally set the pen down and claspedhis hands on the surface of the desk. “So, what do you say? You want to keep a pretty little thing safe for two weeks? The client is Camellia Aster. Yes, she’s one of those Asters.”

I had no idea what he was talking about and who the Asters were, so I suppressed the urge to scoff. I didn’t say anything. Didn’t move a muscle, just stood there, my boots a steady presence on the fluffy Persian rug that looked like it had never been walked on. I’d always wondered, why bother with a rug if you wouldn’t let anyone walk on it? Norman was full of such nonsensical displays of abundance – things meant to impress, but missing the point entirely.

“Grim?” he prompted, his voice laced with a touch of annoyance. “Cat got your tongue?”

Humans and their figures of speech. I had a feeling if a cat got my tongue, Norman would clutch his pearls and faint. And that would make two of us, because the day I let a furry creature get close to me was the day I’d let Norman cut my cloak to pieces and sell it as souvenirs.

I watched him watching me and fought back another sigh. Even eternity had its limits. Mine were wearing thin. This whole bodyguard gig, once a defiant middle finger to Death and their soul-reaping monotony, had lost its charm somewhere between protecting a politician who’d sold his soul, literally, for a second term, and a pop star whose idea of a threat was a pimple on the day of a music video shoot. How pathetic were the things humans clung to, the power they craved, the fleeting moments of what they called “fame”... It was laughable. And exhausting.

“No, Normal,” I said flatly, the nickname slipping out before I could stop it. I always made sure it sounded unintentional. “The cat hasn’t gotten my tongue.”

Norman’s brow furrowed, but he let it pass. He usually did, mostly because he thought I was calling him “Normal” or “Normie” by mistake.

“Then humor me,” he said, leaning back in his chair. “What’s got you all twisted up?”

Oh, where to even begin? The never-ending parade of human folly? The utter futility of it all? Or maybe the fact that after a century, I was starting to feel… nothing. Not the sharp bite of cynicism, not the flicker of anger, just a vast, echoing emptiness. I was a reaper who no longer wanted to reap, but who also didn’t want to do this. I was adrift.

He cleared his throat. “Look, Grim, all you need to know is she’s loaded, scared, and needs someone like you. Someone… discreet.”

“Discreet.”

“Yes, discreet,” he insisted. “See, Ms. Aster, well, she’s dealing with something… unusual.” He paused, shuffled some papers on his desk, like he was buying time for a big reveal.

As if I cared about any of this. I should’ve just left, flown right out the window and never looked back. Problem was… I didn’t know where else to go.

“Unusual how, Normie?”

Another wince from him at the nickname. Good. He cleared his throat again, then pushed a piece of paper towards me.

“She made a sketch of what’s been bothering her.”

I stepped closer to his desk, the heel of my scythe dragging behind me, leaving a deep mark on the plush carpet. I stretched my bony hand out from inside the long, wide sleeve of my cloak and gripped the piece of paper between sharp fingertips.

The sketch was of a creature – a grotesque mockery of a child’s doll, except full-sized. Slender limbs made of twisted branches, a head roughly molded from clay, the hollow sockets where eyes should’ve been filled with a chilling darkness. And the straws. Everywhere, woven into the clay, jutting out at odd angles, like brittle bones pushing through decaying flesh. The creature was crude, almost childish, but there was something about itssimplicity that made my skin crawl. A deep, primal fear, the kind that echoed with the memory of a thousand nightmares, vibrated down my spine.

I shoved the paper back across the desk. “Not interested.”

Norman just sat there, his gaze steady, a smug smile on his lips. He knew I’d reacted. He always enjoyed making me react.

“This thing… it’s been leaving gifts,” he said.

“Gifts.”

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