The office was innocuous to say that, beyond the door, was the person who'd decide my fate. A frosted pane was set into the dark wood and someone had screwed a brass plate beneath it.

Jane Doe

Undead Affairs and Soul Allocation

Leon reached for a tarnished bronze handle when I noticed a sheet of paper affixed to the glass which said in bold letters, KNOCK FIRST. Realising that Leon had no intention of doing any such thing, I reached out a hand and grasped his arm to stop him.

"You're meant to knock first."

Leon paused. "Why the Hell would I knock?"

The Reaper had reason to care when he turned the handle and the door swung inward. Leon followed with an exclamation of surprise and was lifted onto his toes. He slammed one hand against the doorframe so that he didn't tumble right through. I lunged forwards and wrapped my arms around his waist from behind as he teetered on the edge of a swirling black vortex within which lightning crackled, threatening to obliterate any matter in its path. It took our combined strength to pull him back into a standing position. Once he staggered back to the relative safety of the stable ground, the door slammed in our faces.

Breathless in shock, I told him, "That's why."

Leon nodded his head in agreement. "Yeah. Good call. I'll just..."

The Reaper cleared his throat and drummed his knuckles against the window. Before he could try the handle again, it turned of its own accord and the door swung back to invite us inside. Gone was the chasm of doom and destruction, and in its place was a simply furnished office. The walls and ceiling were magnolia, while the linoleum floor tiles were light grey with a few darker flecks. Ahead of us stood a reception desk which reminded me of the sort one might find in a post office or bank, with rooms beyond for clerical use. The lower half was wood panelled, and the upper was glass, and a woman sat behind one window tapping away on an ancient white keyboard. She was a neat, sensible-looking person. Her half-moon spectacles perched on her button nose, her soft brown hair had been coaxed back into a loose bun, and she had knotted a white sweater over the shoulders of her light blue dress.

With a flick of his wrist, the clipboard reappeared in the Reaper's hand. Leon approached the woman, tapping said clipboard against his abdomen slowly and rhythmically. She didn't look up to greet him, not even when he cleared his throat to get her attention. I scurried along in his wake, peering around at the plain room. A small smile tugged at her mouth, and I realised she liked to keep Leon waiting and revelled in his infuriation. She noticed me and I thought I saw her eyes widen behind her lenses.

Unable to draw out her task of irritating him any longer, she asked, "How can I help, Leon?"

"Dropping off. At least, I'm attempting to. I need her travel papers."

"You're alone?"

"Jack is... Yes. Alone."

The woman didn't look wholly surprised by this information. I wasn't sure who Jack was. A friend, perhaps? If he was, then clearly, he was a friend who couldn't stand Leon's attitude and had left him to his own devices. I couldn't say I blamed him. I'd have liked to do the same, but it looked like I was stuck with the guy until I got a ticket or whatever it was I was meant to do.

"Name?"

"Mackenzie Bowen."

Jane tapped my name on the computer. It whirred and hummed, pondering the search for a moment before it made a loud, angry buzzing noise like a nest of hornets. Jane turned to me and asked, "Is that spelt with an I-E or with a Y?"

"I-E," I replied.

The second attempt was hardly better than the first. Leon dug his nails into his palm and pressed his lips together tightly. Something told me he'd known there'd be an issue once we arrived. In fact, I'd wondered if he realised it when we'd met in the hospital mortuary when he couldn't find me on his list.

Jane took off her glasses so she could look him dead in the eyes. "Are you sure this girl was dead when you picked her up?"

"Very."

"Where did you find her?"

"On a mortuary slab."

"I was in a drawer," I corrected, but was ignored.

Leon protested, "I didn't just bump into her and think I should snatch her soul. I'd just finished up a collection at the hospital and I felt her presence. From the state of her corpse, I'd say she'd been in there for hours."

"But she wasn't actually on your list?"

"Not exactly... She was dead, Jane. So much so that a Hound picked up on her."

"A Hell Hound?" Jane's expression soured. "Was she a suicide?"

"Car accident."

"Ambulance," I corrected. "I am still here, by the way."

"Yes, and therein lies the problem," Leon retorted. "You're here, and you're not all at the same time."

"Can I go back to being alive, then?" There was no harm in asking. It wasn't as if things could get any worse. Well, I assumed they couldn't. I didn't think Leon would smack me on the back of the head with his clipboard. "Okay, ow. Also – no – I'm still on ow."

"Jane," he said, turning back to her with the most imploring of expressions, "can't you make some new travel papers and put her through? I have work to carry on with."

"Clipboard," she said, tapping at the narrow slot in her window. Leon passed through the board with a small huff of annoyance. I thought the man was incapable of expressing any other emotions. Jane took the papers from the board, curled them into a roll, and stuffed them into a pneumatic tube. Leon's expression turned to one of horror when she put the tube into a pipeline and it shot away, spirited off to who knew where. "Now your schedule is free."

"You can't just -"

"I'm the head of soul allocation. I can do as I please," she interrupted sternly. "Your roster has been reassigned. You are this girl's guardian until the matter is resolved."

"Hang on a second -" he said.

I had to share my own apprehensions, "Isn't there someone else I can -"

"- right! Someone else that can take on this -"

"- there have to be other Reapers -"

"- or a caseworker -"

"- maybe even an Angel who might -"

"You can't leave me with this idiot!" we both blurted out in unison.

I turned to Leon. "I'm the idiot?"

"Naturally."

"I wasn't even on your list!"

"I saved your life!" he barked back.

"What difference does it make? I'm dead already!"

"I didn't hear you complaining when I got rid of that Hell Hound!" he shouted. "If I'd known what I was letting myself in for, I wouldn't have bothered saving you in the first place!"

"It's not like I asked you to save me! If you regret it so much you should have just let it take me! I bet you don't need to be on a list to get into Hell!"

"As a matter of fact, you don't, and if it will shut you up, then I will gladly have you sent there!"

"See, this is why I said your bedside manner is shit! Don't you think this is traumatic for me?" I asked.

"Believe me, I've got the worst end of this!" he claimed.

"Then you should've left me where you found me!"

"Where, in the morgue? I saved you from a fate far worse than death by getting you out! A little gratitude wouldn't go amiss!"

"Fine! Thank you!" I yelled.

"You're welcome!" he bellowed in return.

Silence fell suddenly and utterly, a shocking absence of sound after the din of our voices. I breathed hard, too furious, hurt, confused, and frankly, too frightened to continue. The rush of emotions was all too much. I felt the swelling of my throat and the stinging in the corners of my eyes as they welled with the tears that I'd been unable to shed while trapped in my mortal body. Jane was ready for such a reaction. I supposed she'd seen it all before. People had to be upset when they found out they were dead. Only a total weirdo wouldn't be. She pushed a white handkerchief through the slot in her window and I accepted it gratefully, covering my eyes and willing the tears to cease while Leon was still present to see them.

Uncomfortable, but not altogether unfeeling, he cleared his throat and adopted a far more level tone with which to continue. He returned his attention to Jane and asked, "What am I meant to do with her?"

"She'll be assigned a caseworker. You can discuss her options and see her to the next stage, and then you may continue with your work."

"A caseworker?" I asked, confident that I could hold off on the waterworks until we had figured things out. "Like a lawyer or something?"

"Something like that," Jane said kindly. Even if my question was stupid, at least she was nice enough not to mock me for it. She took a card from behind the desk and passed it through to me, along with two train tickets. "His name's Clark. Leon will take you to him."

"Clark?" Leon asked. "Never heard of him. Is he any good? Shouldn't she have someone with more of a reputation for something like this?"

"Clark will know the best thing for Mackenzie," Jane assured him in a firm tone. She wasn't about to hear any more objections from Leon. "His office number is on the card. The Seraph Line train is fairly regular. It should get you there quickly."

Her decision final, Leon swallowed down whatever he was tempted to say on the matter. He started walking without me. It was only when Jane ushered me away that I realised I ought to be following. I jogged to keep up with him, his long strides easily covering at least three of my steps.

Torn between his frustration and his desire to not appear as awful a person as he had until that point, Leon muttered, "You'll be fine. This is just – just a hiccup."

"A hiccup? Really?"

"A big hiccup."

"I'd call it a total, unmitigated, corporate cock up," I said.

I noticed his lips tug at the corners, a smile determined to push through. So long as I was being a miserable, sarcastic arse, he was happy. I had to assume that was because he felt I was a kindred spirit in such moments. Unfortunately for Leon, they were rare for me. At least, they had been in my previous years.

My living years.

My years spent being very much not dead.

Good times.