II

He sat across the desk from me with a stern look plastered on his face. He had to be no older than forty, but his hair was a salt-and-pepper shade of brown and his forehead had more wrinkles than my irresponsibly unironed blouse. I fidgeted in my chair as his eyes scanned my fearful expression.

"Samson, I didn't call you here for a lecture. You already know you're here for the assignment."

His tone was gentle, yet nowhere near soothing enough to keep me from panicking inside.

"But the assignment was for me and Benji, and you made him wait outside, sir..."

"I know," he sighed. "I need to discuss something with you first, Samson."

Terror filled my heart. The Boss did not grant personal visits; he was a busy man, after all, and had little time for the trivial crises of neophyte Guardians.

That's why it made absolutely no sense for me to be in his office by myself at this moment.

"I got a call from Paranormal this morning, Samson. It was a bit unexpected, I must admit, but not entirely unwelcome in light of... things."

"What things?" I caught myself interrupting and tried to quickly apologize. "Sir, I'm sorry, I--"

The crinkled blue eyes before me scrunched into a small smile, and his hand raised to stop my flow of unnecessary verbiage.

"Just let me finish," he said softly, somewhat amused. "When you first joined our ranks, young one, there were doubts about you. Solid doubts, the kind I cannot ignore, as the leader of this organization."

I kept my mouth firmly closed and tried not to take offense to his words. I'd heard of those doubts long ago, after all.

"But, despite the rumors, I decided to let you enter into Training with the other new Guardians, the ones we'd had marked since birth. I couldn't let a preternatural accident destroy your chances at an afterlife; from what I've heard, it's almost impossible to cross over when you've been dragged back a second time.

"The Paranormal agent who had unintentionally brought you to my door was reprimanded for his mistake but not for the situation that his error created. We wanted to wait and see how you turned out."

I wondered what point he could possibly be making with all of this. I'd known that my induction had been a complete accident; in fact, I could remember it. I'd somehow died--that was the one fuzzy part--and then there had been a giant black tunnel. No white light, like they say in the movies. I'd been so afraid...

But then I'd run into something. Something solid. This object had shouted out loud and tried to shake me off, but I clung tightly to it, too scared to go down the black tunnel any longer. Before it could gather enough strength to push me away, our beings had merged, and I'd ended up on a concrete floor.

It was then that I'd heard the chaos all around me, the shouts of people I'd never known who seemed to actually show concern for my well-being. They'd scraped me off the concrete, dragged me down a few bright hallways, and explained what had happened to the best of their ability.

"I've always watched your work, Samson. Even your most reckless exploits. I must say, despite the trouble you've caused in the past, I'm impressed. Not just because you're good at what you do here, but because you've done it all from a disadvantaged position."

I remembered now how often I'd happened to run into the Boss during my months of training, how he'd been like an ever-seeing, ubiquitous eye. He'd spoken to me more frequently than any of the other neophytes and was continuously working to maintain our communication; though we'd never sat down face-to-face in his office, we'd conversed on numerous occasions.

"And now I've spent an hour on the phone, coming up with ways to fend off the Paranormal Department because they want to take you off my team."

"What?" My mouth fell open.

He smiled fully now, and I was surprised to find that the gesture eased a bit of my apprehension. "You and I both know what you can do, Samson. You're not merely a Guardian of the living; you are capable of working with the dead, too."

I stared at him in blatant confusion. "How do you know that? I've never worked with the dead."

"You haven't? Oh, so I must be imagining the time you sent the Ms. Andrea Platt back to her grave. Or the instance when you directed an entire community of lost souls down to Paranormal to be carried over."

I flinched. "No offense intended, sir, but I had no idea what I was doing in either of those situations. I did what was natural; I helped them."

"Exactly!" he said with exuberance, his hand hitting the table. "It's natural for you to work with both the living and the dead! You go by the title of Guardian, but you could make the transfer at any time to Conductor--I'm sure Paranormal would welcome you with open arms."

I wrinkled my nose in disgust. "Again, no offense, but they're a bit bizarre in Paranormal. I don't think I would fit in very well..."

The usually stoic Boss laughed out loud, his teeth gleaming in the fluorescent light. "And that's all I needed to know. You will stay in my department, then?"

"Of course."

"Then the issue is settled. Paranormal can kiss my--"

A knock at the door cut short the Boss's attempt at profanity. A stocky man, dressed in dark black, proceeded to enter the room with haste, followed closely by Benji.

The man gave us both a grin and spoke in a raspy, grandfatherly voice. "Sir, I don't mean to rush you, but we have a very small time gap, and I would like to get these two on their way before that gap closes."

"Certainly, Stan. Your directions are here," the Boss said, handing him a slip of paper. Stan then left the room, leaving Benji and I alone with our employer.

"Sit, Wright. You and Samson have some reading to do on the way."

The three-ring binders he handed us were nearly an inch thick, notes and leaflets tumbling out from every direction. I groaned under my breath; Ben stared at his in horror.

"Please, before you go, open the manila folders on top and read the summary of your case. I cannot stress how important it is to know this summary by heart, to have it forever carved in your mind. It will be your lifeline for the next, well, life."

I did as the Boss instructed and peeled back the cover of my folder. There were only two pages, and the print wasn't too small, but it still took me longer than it should have to read every detail in the ink.

Location: Charrington, Michigan, the words said in bold. Michigan... Michigan... Why did that name sound so ridiculously familiar?

Subject: Ashling O'Connor, 16. Ashling? What kind of a name was that? I could take comfort in the fact that she was only sixteen, though; it would make it much easier for Ben and I to adjust if we only had to go back to sixteen.

PIN: 9.

My breath stopped in my throat. This girl had a PIN of nine? Holy...

Benji had reached the same line I had, the most important line in all the text. "Sir, um, I think there might have been a mistake down in Filing. Kaye and I can't take a case with a PIN this high."

The Boss's entire face appeared to be glowing. "I think you'll find that you're up to the challenge. The Peril Indication Number is merely an estimate, after all."

We stared at him in shock. In Training, we'd only worked in simulation cases with PINs up to six. Never anything higher. And now, for our first assignment, we were being given a subject who was closer to death than she was to life.

That was the purpose of the PIN--to give Guardians some sort of range of difficulty, to tell us how much danger our Subject was actually in. Six and below meant that the Subject's chances were good; anything higher than a seven meant that the Subject probably wouldn't survive long enough to hit their midlife crisis.

It also meant that the Guardians were most likely going to die along the way.

I was mildly nauseated as the Boss sent us on our way. I shoved the binder in my backpack, but carried the manila folder with me, my eyes still avidly scanning the page.

So this was why Paranormal had wanted me. They'd wanted to keep me around a bit longer, to prevent my premature murder. Cases this terrible were always given to the most experienced Guardians, not mere amateurs; the chance of me and Benji surviving stood much lower than that of a four-hundred-year-old Guardian.

We climbed into the back of the black car that was waiting in the garage, both of our mouths clamped firmly shut in fear. What the hell were we doing?

Stan turned around from the driver's seat, his face alight with the excitement of a new assignment. He, too, would be with us for the duration of this "mission." But unlike us, he couldn't die--his brand of immortality made him exempt from murder, while ours... didn't. All drivers were that way.

He stared at Benji, and smiled at me. He and I had gotten to know each other well during my months in Training; the relationship between us was one of an uncle to his niece, or a grandfather to his granddaughter. The fact was that he was just like me--an accidental addition to the company--and that similarity had brought us together. Despite all of the times I'd gotten myself into trouble, Stan had always been proud, proud enough to stand up for me when less friendly Guardians were ready to knock my lights out. I'd sought--and found--solace in the way he had saved me at times from my own novice recklessness.

The words that came from his mouth now were not comforting in any way, but they were the truth, and there was strength for me in truth. They echoed in the car, resounding off of the black interior, smothering the silence in their wake.

"They say you're tempting fate again, Kaye Samson, being put on the front lines without a shield. They say we've seen the last of you in this corporation, that an assignment this bad won't bring you back home. Some have even told me that your own tenacity and foolishness will destroy you.

"I really hope you prove them wrong."