Ossy. Gods, I was so mad at him. He hadn’t spent the night, as he’d promised. And yeah, that was pure Ossy behavior. He’d flaked as usual.
It was the last time. I really meant it.
And what was with that damn cricket? My gods, the thing was relentless.
I either needed to help it or let it drive me bonkers. I was already halfway to insanity anyway.
The office chair popped when I stood up. I should tell maintenance about it. It had started squeaking a couple of months ago, and now it sounded like a rusty car. Old Nelly ain’t what she used to be.
My grandpa used to sing a song about an old gray mare not being what she used to be to tease my grandma whenever her back acted up.
I smiled at the memory.
Maybe I’d wait to tell maintenance. I could live with a busted chair for a bit longer. It brought back good memories. Funny how my chair breaking would bring back a memory I had nearly forgotten.
My grandparents were the only two people who hadn’t abandoned my sister and me, at least not on purpose. They had died a few years earlier. My grandfather went first. His heart gave out. And I swear my grandmother died six months later of a broken heart.
Thinking about them made me think about my reaper co-workers. They all might have left. What would I do if they did?
I’d give Morgana one more day. If she didn’t contact me soon to say she was all right, I would email Donn for help. If she were in trouble, a god could get her out of it, right? It seemed reasonable.
There was no need to worry just yet, though. I was certain everything was fine.
The longer the cricket made that incessant chirping, the crazier I felt. My chest tightened a little at a time, out of fear of becoming certifiable. It didn’t happen because Ossy Reaper abandoned me. Not even a little.
The sound came from the corner of Morgana’s office. The little black thing, with legs bigger than its body, hid behind the trash can as if resigned to its fate of being stuck on the fourth floor with me, the assistant to the death transporters.
“Are you taking over the reaper division, little guy? If so, I’m sorry to say you’re not doing a good job. You’ve scared everyone away but me.” Even I really wanted to go home, binge-watch Bridgerton, and eat butter cookies with the unopened jar of Nutella I had just bought yesterday. I couldn’t not go to work, even if the rest of my division wasn’t there. I had a work ethic that wouldn’t allow that sort of behavior.
I stood from my crouched position and looked around Morgana’s office for something to scoop the cricket into.
As soon as I moved away, the cricket started chirping again.
Morgana had left her coffee mug on her desk, so I grabbed it and a sheet of notepad paper.
Confession time. I didn’t like bugs. Anything with more than four legs creeped me out, even crickets. And yes, I was very aware of how harmless they were. I really didn’t want to get close enough to scoop it up, but it was better outside in the courtyard, where it could eat whatever crickets ate, than inside Morgana’s office, which probably had no food for it at all.
I hesitated mid-scoop when a thought struck me. What if the cricket was Morgana? What if Donn had done something to turn her into a bug? What if the afterlife for reapers was really reincarnation? Maybe we aged out of our jobs. If I were reincarnated into anything, please don’t let it be a cricket.
I was getting up there in age, even though I didn’t look a day over twenty-seven. My sister had started noticing. I’d been avoiding her lately, but that wouldn’t last forever. I’d have to ask Donn to remove her memories of me. That was the proper protocol for a Bureau employee.
Maybe I wasn’t old by some of the reaper’s standards.
Ossy was two hundred and two years old. That was incredibly old, especially for someone who looked like an exceptionally hot thirty-year-old. He was way too sexy for my sanity and not at all what I needed to focus on, but thoughts of Ossy never really left me. He was a plague. A sexy one, but still unwanted. Not that I was focused on Ossy. He wasn’t the point. My point was that if I couldn’t age or die just because I accepted a job in the reaper division at the Soul Management Bureau, then Morgana could have been cursed and turned into a cricket, right? That would explain her absence.
Not that the little cricket I named Jiminy wasn’t living his best life on the fourth floor of the Soul Management Bureau Building. He very well could have been, for all I knew. After all, he lived downtown. Up here, I could only hear traffic on the busy city street when someone blew their horn. Lack of food or not, it was pretty cushy.
Still, Morgana wouldn’t want to be anything other than herself, in a human body.
What if the plague wasn’t Ossy occupying my every thought, but a cricket invasion? Holy hell, that sounded terrifying. If I had to choose between those two scenarios, it would be Morgana getting cursed into crickethood. “Sorry, Morgana.”
I held my breath and manifested that the cricket would not attack me if my attempt to trap it failed.
“Ew, ew, ew, ew.” Scooping it up was easier than I expected. It didn’t move at all, which was a relief.
When I had it safe and sound inside the mug, I put the paper over the top so it wouldn’t jump out, then carried it out of the office. “We’re going to go for a little walk, Jiminy.” The elevator didn’t take as long as usual to reach the ground level. It opened into the lobby, but the courtyard was outside the main doors and to the right, between the Soul Management Bureau and anotherbuilding that housed an insurance company’s administrative department.
As I passed the receptionist’s desk, Hale smiled. His eyebrows drew together when he saw me holding the mug with the paper over the top.
