“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.
