Death offers a plea deal to the defendant.
The young man claiming the title of Death strode into the courtroom, his expression grim. Cate followed him. Sam tried to catch her eye, to get some idea of what the hell was going on, but she wouldn't look at him.
Anna looked flustered. "Mr. Reaper, he –"
"Isn't guilty of death evasion in the first degree," the Grim Reaper finished, coming to a halt in the middle of the space between the lawyers' tables and the judges' bench. Cate hung back, standing in between the two tables, just a couple steps out of the gallery. "He can't be; it's impossible."
Stan frowned. "Mr. Reaper, Mr. Walker here –"
"Has never, ever had a Life Return filed," the Grim Reaper finished again, turning his gaze now to the death attorney. "Ever. I cannot emphasize that enough. If he has never had a Return filed, then how can he be responsible for his CDA failing to do so? He can't. Therefore, the absence of records concerning Samuel Walker is not his fault."
"That's what I was telling you," Sam hissed at Stan, who just scowled. "I'm innocent."
The Grim Reaper lifted his hand, silencing Sam. "However, it is still a grave error, and we can legally hold you responsible for evasion in the third degree."
"What?" Sam exclaimed, rising from his seat. "But you just said it yourself: I didn't do anything! How in the hell can you hold me?"
"We wouldn't hold you in hell," the Grim Reaper said impatiently. "That's for offenders in the first degree. We can charge you because there is still an absence of records, Mr. Walker. Do you know how serious that is? No, you don't, because you are an oblivious mortal who has no conception of death!"
"Well, it's hard to take Death seriously when he calls himself Pete," Sam retorted, crossing his arms.
The Grim Reaper, otherwise known as Pete, paled. Cate glanced down, biting her lip hard in what appeared to be an attempt to repress laughter. Silence fell over the courtroom as Sam and the Grim Reaper stared each other down.
The rational side of Sam's mind, meanwhile, was screaming at him. What are you doing? You just burned the Grim Reaper! The guy who's trying to get you out of this trial! Are you an idiot?
Sometimes, Sam wondered about that.
"Judge, I offer a plea deal, which the defendant will take," the Grim Reaper eventually said, his eyes still boring into Sam's. "He will offer his assistance to Grim Reaper Services, under pain of death. If he fails, I will allow you, Anna, the honor of executing him. Unless he pisses me off – then I will kill him personally."
Cate cleared her throat intentionally, causing the Grim Reaper to glance back at her with a furrowed brow. "What? Oh, right. Yes, the plea deal. So there's no need for a trial, since he will provide us assistance in place of it."
Stan spoke up. "A generous offer, Mr. Reaper, but for the sake of upholding my oath to this court, I must ask. What does my client receive in return for his services?"
The Grim Reaper lifted an eyebrow at Sam. "He doesn't get terminated. It's my only offer and in my view, it's a damn good one."
"He'll take it," Stan declared.
"Hey!" Sam exclaimed, turning to look at the attorney. "Aren't you supposed to consult with me first?"
Stan gave him a look. "You'd be an absolute idiot to turn that deal down. Considering the alternate is death."
"If I fail, it's death!" Sam pointed out.
"Sam," Cate spoke up. "The lack of records means that, according to the GRS, you have never lived. In order to balance our records, we would have to terminate you. Nothing personal, but it's...well, it's business." She rubbed the back of her neck awkwardly.
"You can't do that!" Sam protested, outraged. He knew it was probably the stupidest thing he could have done, argue with the Grim Reaper and his sister, but between the fear and horror caused by Jake's murder and the exhaustion and stress caused by the lack of sleep the night before (really, the lack of sleep since starting college), he wasn't exactly thinking straight and he knew it. "You can't just kill me! It's illegal!"
"Do you have proof in a court of law?" the Grim Reaper flashed back.
"We're in a court of law!" Sam thundered. "Or whatever this is!"
"First Deathly Circuit General Court," Stan coughed. Sam turned and glared him back into silence.
"You have no evidence," the Grim Reaper maintained. "If I were to, as you put it, 'kill' you, no one could prove it."
"Witnesses? This whole damn courtroom? The jury? My sudden lack of existence?"
"That's just it," Cate interrupted. "Sam, you don't exist."
"Sure I do," Sam argued. "Check my birth certificate, social security number, driver's license, hell, my student ID! Samuel Walker exists, I can assure you."
The Grim Reaper rolled his eyes. "You mortals and your petty excuses for identification. How many identity thefts happen every year, with people claiming to be who they aren't? Not to mention aliases? Pseudonyms? Mistaken identity? Witness protection program? Legal changes of name? Huh? If your mortal records were so thorough, such excellent ways to prove existence, then how come people can masquerade as someone they're not? Care to explain, Mr. Walker?"
Sam was silent, glaring angrily at the Grim Reaper.
"Let me explain in a different way," he went on, with a weary sigh. He ran his hand through his jet black hair. "If you work in a store, you have records of who buys what, correct? You can check the record of your sales for the day."
"Sort of, yeah," Sam agreed, thinking to his time spent working in Caffeinated.
"Okay. Now picture someone walks in and tells you they bought something from your store and want to return it. But they have no receipt. Can you take it back?"
"Um, Pete?" Cate interrupted quietly. "Some mortal stores will take objects back without a receipt, as long as they sell that item. They take it on honor, I guess."
The Grim Reaper turned and looked at her, incredulous. "What? They do? Why? They could be scamming them for their money back! That's what I would do!"
Cate just shrugged. "I don't make the rules. I'm just trying to help your analogy."
The Grim Reaper took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment. "All right then. To return to our example, your store has a no returns without a receipt policy. So that person, without the receipt, is making an argument that they bought the object from your store, and they need to return it. But they can't provide the receipt. However, they show you a shopping list they had made for your store and the item they're trying to return is listed on it, and they claim that's all the proof you need. Can you take back the item, based on that shopping list?"
"If they don't have a receipt, by the policy, I can't," Sam said, getting a bad feeling in his stomach. "But this isn't that! I'm alive, I know that! Ask anyone, ask my professors, my roommates, my sister, my parents! They'll all affirm they know a Sam Walker!"
"That's even worse than a shopping list," the Grim Reaper stated. "That's, like, a text message from your mom saying you need to get this item at some random store."
"But sometimes, you really did purchase something from a store," Sam argued. "But you lost the receipt for it and you can't find it, but you really need to return the item. So you go to the store and you explain it to them, and they happen to notice it's the same exact brand as that sold there. So they take it back anyway."
"Not in a store with a receipt-only policy," the Grim Reaper asserted, crossing his arms. "No receipt, no return. And that's final."
"Enough about the store!" Sam shouted. "Just get to the point, will you?"
"You don't have a receipt for your life," the Grim Reaper explained. "We have no record of your existence. Therefore, we don't know if you've gained life legally or not. And when you die and wish to file for an afterlife, we won't have the necessary records to process your request."
"Which is why the lack of records calls for termination," Cate continued, her expression sympathetic. "Which is a step further than simple execution. It's the suppression of the soul, of consciousness, preventing you from, um, wandering for eternity. So you definitely don't want that."
Sam glanced from Cate to the Grim Reaper before looking down at Stan. "Is this a good deal?"
"Yes," Stan told him seriously. "By helping out the GRS, you avoid termination."
"But wait," Sam said, frowning and glancing at the Reaper siblings. "Even if I help you, I still don't have records."
Cate and the Grim Reaper exchanged long glances. "We can amend that," the Grim Reaper finally said. "Even if you die in the process, you won't be terminated, so your soul will still be conscious."
Sam stood in silence for a moment, staring at the floor. It didn't look like he had any other option than to accept the plea deal. It was his only shot at staying alive.
"Deal," he said.
[----]
After finalizing the paperwork, Cate and the Grim Reaper led Sam out of the courtroom and back out into the Atrium. They set off across the chamber toward the large black door which Sam had seen the DBI agent go through earlier.
"The GRS is through this way," Cate told Sam as they walked. Sam glanced at the doorknocker, which was the lower jaw of an elaborate skeleton head. It almost looked real. Judging by where he was and who he was hanging out with, it probably was.
The Grim Reaper opened the door and stepped into a short, obsidian paneled hallway, lit by bright lights overhead. At the end was a lobby, staffed by a hooded receptionist, typing away at a computer. It looked like a Ringwraith from The Lord of the Rings. Sam blinked as they walked toward the desk.
"Visitor?" the hooded figure asked in a raspy voice, lifting a thin, bony hand to point at Sam.
"Yes, Unidentified Male," the Grim Reaper told the receptionist. "We don't need to run him, though."
The figure tilted his head, so it appeared to be looking at the Grim Reaper. "I can't draw up an unidentified badge, Mr. Reaper."
The Grim Reaper sighed. "Give him Deathly Clearance, Maurice. He'll need it. Put Sam Walker on his badge."
The figure hissed. "Unidentified!"
"I'm handling it," the Grim Reaper snapped. "Just draw up the badge!"
With a lot of grumbling and cursing and what might have been evil looks at Sam if his face had been visible, the figure tapped on the keyboard and then a rectangular badge shot out of a small machine next to the computer. Maurice picked up the badge and handed it to the Grim Reaper, who handed it to Sam. "Pin this on. It'll grant you access to GRS. Now let's go."
Pivoting away from the desk, the Grim Reaper led the way down another corridor, toward a frosted glass door. Neat black letters crossed the surface, reading Grim Reaper Services.
"Sorry about Maurice," Cate said to Sam. "He's touchy when it comes to unidentified beings entering either the DBI or the GRS. I suppose it's a consequence of being denied an identity himself."
Sam just looked at her. "You just said his name's Maurice. That's an identity, right?"
"And your name's Sam Walker, but you count as unidentified," Cate pointed out smoothly. "Names don't mean much when it comes to Death."
"I've noticed," Sam muttered as the Grim Reaper opened the door. They entered the GRS and Sam's eyes widened.
A large, business-like chamber stretched out into the distance, separated from the three by a transparent veil. Cubicle after cubicle marched down the length of the chamber, each occupied by a man or woman working. The line of desks seemed endless – in this strange place, Sam wouldn't have been surprised if it was.
"Welcome to the GRS," the Grim Reaper intoned, spreading his arms out to take in the vast array of cubicles, stretching into infinity.
"What, exactly, do you do here?" Sam asked, tearing his gaze away from the workers at their desks.
"We keep track of the lives of everyone who's ever lived," the Grim Reaper said proudly. "Been doing it since the beginning of time."
"With the exception of me," Sam couldn't help but add.
The Grim Reaper scowled. "Shut up."
"Actually, it's the CDAs who keep track of the lives," Cate chipped in, gesturing to the cubicles. "Every person in the world has been assigned one and they work here until their person passes away."
Sam looked at the people working. "So, what are they?"
Cate looked thoughtful for a moment. "They're not human, if that's what you're asking. I'm not sure there's a good word in your language for them. The Norse were the closest; they called them Norns."
"Norns," Sam repeated, frowning.
Cate nodded. "When a Norn is recording a person's life, they're officially known as a CDA. However, when their person dies, the Norn is free to leave the GRS and do what they want."
"What do you mean, the Norse were closest?" Sam asked curiously.
"Your modern day culture has no understanding of death," the Grim Reaper interrupted. "The ancient cultures, however, had a better sense for who we are. If you study their tales, you'll learn more about death than you will by spending a lifetime on your modern literature concerning it. Damn PhDs, they think they know everything."
As someone whose sister was going for her PhD, Sam could agree with him on that.
The Grim Reaper strode off and Cate indicated for Sam to follow. They walked down an arched corridor with high ceilings and through a room with desks and partitions strewn across it to a paneled oak door, painted with a light stain. A golden plaque hung on the door, with black letters engraved on it, reading The Grim Reaper.
Sam raised his hand. "Question. So, are you the Grim Reaper, or are you Pete?"
The Grim Reaper glowered at him. "To you, I'm the Grim Reaper. To my sister, Pete. In each culture, we can choose a name to go by that fits that society. For America, I go by Pete."
"But I've never heard Death referred to as Pete," Sam pointed out, frowning.
The Grim Reaper sighed. "That's because the people don't call me Pete. Cate does, and those others I have permitted to on this side of the doors."
"The doors?" Sam asked.
"The doors in the Atrium," Cate explained. "The padlocked ones."
"As I was saying," the Grim Reaper continued. "Your culture has no conception of death. The ancient cultures did. So to the Greeks, my name was Thanatos. The Norse called me Odin, although they didn't have the most accurate depiction of me. The Egyptians, Osiris. And so on and so forth. Every single ancient culture had some understanding of me, some more accurate than others depending on their society's outlook. The Greeks, I've found, tend to be the closest to the truth regarding most of Death's operations. They were also the most appreciative; they even left us tips!"
"So who are you?" Sam asked, turning to Cate.
"To the Greeks, Hecate," Cate answered. "The Norse called me Freyja, the Egyptians Isis, and the Celts Rhiannon. And of course I had many other names. While Pete is associated with death, honorable, usually natural, death, I am associated with the death arts, magic and death."
"That's where the Norse were off," the Grim Reaper added. "They saw Odin as a god of those killed in battle, although that's not entirely what I do. I'm a little more similar to their Hel than to him, but anyway. No one gets everything right."
"But we have plenty of knowledge about death," Sam pointed out. "I mean, we have funeral homes, cemeteries, wakes, et cetera. We know about death and we prepare for it."
The Grim Reaper rolled his eyes. "Did you see any of this coming? Anything you've seen today?"
"No," Sam admitted honestly.
"Exactly," he said, crossing his arms. "Your modern culture is so wrapped up in materiality you've forgotten what it means to die. You dress up your dead instead of providing for their needs in the afterlife, and you forget that in order to get into a good afterlife, you must have letters of recommendation and a strong essay."
Sam must have looked incredulous, for the Grim Reaper raised his hands. "Kidding, kidding! The essay is optional."
"However," Cate joined in. "You might want to check with your afterlife before blowing off the essay. Some require it."
Sam's head was swimming again. "I need to sit down," he muttered, feeling overwhelmed again. Just when he thought things couldn't get more complex or weird, they did. He glanced around and used a foot to drag a chair closer to him, which he sank into.
Cate gave him a sympathetic smile. "It is a lot to take in."
"But take it in fast," the Grim Reaper advised. "We've got a lot to brief you on if you're to be of any help to us before the deadline."
"Deadline?" Sam asked, alarmed. "No one said anything about a deadline!"
"Of course there's a deadline," the Grim Reaper said, irritated. "What, you think I'd just let you have all the time in the world? If I had all the time in the world to solve this problem, I wouldn't have offered you that plea deal."
"What problem are you talking about?" Sam asked, stiffening. What in the world would the Grim Reaper need my help with?
"What do you know about serial killers, Sam?" he asked.
Sam's eyes widened. "What?"
"Serial killers," the Grim Reaper repeated impatiently. "Not that difficult a topic."
"They kill people," Sam said, furrowing his brow. "And they, uh, don't feel sorry for it."
The Grim Reaper rolled his eyes, looking at Cate. "Wow. Should we give the kid a gold sticker, Cate? I think we should give him a sticker. It looks like we really taxed his brain just there."
"They're sick!" Sam shouted, anger bubbling up inside him. "They're screwed up in the head, okay? Psychopaths or sociopaths or whatever the correct word is – they're just damn crazy! And they don't care who they kill or what they do to their victims' families – they just do it anyway. Serial killers commit such horrible acts, and yet they feel no remorse. They'd have a thousand Horcruxes if, you know, if they weren't made up."
Cate nodded solemnly. "Pretty spot on, there."
"Serial killers are special," the Grim Reaper began, but Sam interrupted him.
"Special?" he repeated indignantly.
"In a bad way!" the Grim Reaper shouted. He took a deep breath, pinching the bridge of his nose as he closed his eyes. "I meant as in they're the exception to the rule. We hate serial killers, hate them the most of all humans."
"Them and optimists," Cate chimed in.
"Why ask me about serial killers?" Sam asked, getting a sick feeling in his stomach. "Is that what this mission is about?" Cate's words from earlier came back to him. "Almost as big as the pending Death v. Unknown Serial Killer 492 case." Was that connected to what Sam was supposed to help the GRS with? Oh, he hoped not.
"Unknown Serial Killer 492, to be exact," Cate answered grimly after a look at her brother, confirming Sam's worst fears. Of course it had to be that. "We have murders attributed to him – or her – going back fourteen years, the victims centered in four locations."
"Four universities," the Grim Reaper picked up, crossing his arms. "The last one being ULD."
"There's a serial killer targeting my campus?" Sam demanded.
"Who do you think killed Jake Miller?" the Grim Reaper fired back. "You saw him, same as I. That was a murder, and it wasn't any ordinary murder, either. It's ritualized. The slits, the gags, it's all been done before, at three other universities."
Sam gaped. A serial killer killed Jake? Holy crap.
"We call him the University Killer," Cate said. "Or the Slit-Gag Killer, whatever you like. We've been trying to track him, but he's been flying under the radar for the past ten, twelve years or so."
"How can he be flying under the radar if he's still killing people?" Sam demanded.
"We have no ability to trace him," the Grim Reaper answered, glancing at him. "He's disposed of his CDA. We have no records of him, and so even if we did have a name, we couldn't track him."
Sam just looked at him. "What?"
"Names are fickle," Cate supplied. "Records aren't. A name may help the police, but it doesn't help us. I mean, we can plug it into our database and see what comes up, but he won't have any current records if there's no CDA."
"If you don't know who he is, then how do you know his CDA has been, uh, disposed of?" Sam asked, furrowing his brow.
"We're assuming," the Grim Reaper said flatly. "We have to. There's a database of records, but no database of active CDAs. I don't know which CDA is assigned to which person. All records are anonymous; it's to prevent me or the Norn Oversight Council from interfering with individual lives. We can check your records, but we can't check your CDA. It's to protect their interests."
"Why do your CDAs need protection?"
"Not everyone on our side of the doors likes how things are run," Cate replied. "This way, a being with malicious intent can't just kill off certain CDAs and prevent us from receiving records for particular individuals they have an interest in. Instead, any interference must be done randomly and there's no way to know who is being freed."
"Interfering's like shoplifting," the Grim Reaper told Sam. "Take what you can get, not always what you want."
"I thought I told you to quit with the store analogy," Sam shot back hotly. The guy only shrugged, not seeming to care. "Besides, that one's a stretch."
"So we don't know who Slit-Gag's CDA is," Cate finished, ignoring both her brother and Sam. "We're assuming, because the imprints we've received don't match anyone in our system."
"Imprints?" Sam asked, feeling his headache coming back again in full force. This was starting to get too much.
"They're like fingerprints," the Grim Reaper said. "But they match to Life Returns. The DBI came up with two imprints in the course of their investigation, but they matched nothing in our database of records. Which means he has no current ones."
"Maybe he's just not in the system," Sam suggested.
"You mean, like you?" the Grim Reaper clarified. When Sam nodded, he shook his head. "No, not possible. Everyone has at least some records. Most people have all of their records. So no."
Then how come I don't have any?
"Anyway, back to the serial killers," Cate said. "They're an exception to the rule in that humans, while they may have a perception of us and how things work, can't interact with us, physically. Serial killers can. They have something off in their brains, the thing that allows them to kill the way they do, which also messes with their perception. This defect enhances their perception, allowing them a more thorough knowledge of us and of the world this side of the doors."
"As a result," the Grim Reaper picked up. "They can interact physically with us. Unless we grant permission to be interacted with, mortals simply can't touch us. But serial killers can. They can...well. They can beat death. They can beat me."
Sam's eyes widened. "What?"
"Ever heard of Heracles?" the Grim Reaper asked abruptly.
"Yeah," Sam said slowly. "My professor was just talking about him the other day in class. Why?"
"He's the world's first serial killer," the Grim Reaper asserted. "At least, the first you mortals were obsessed with."
"Yeah, you guys are almost as obsessed with those monsters are we are," Cate observed drily. "It's quite amusing, actually."
"Heracles wasn't a serial killer," Sam pointed out. "He was a hero."
"A Greek hero," the Grim Reaper countered. "Which means killer. Which means serial killer, sometimes. The Greeks acted like he was some sort of hero and that they could attribute all his deeds to him, but that's not the facts. The Greeks made up stories, but they only found out about his killings afterwards. And like all serial killers, there are unknown victims attributed to him, which your myths don't talk about."
"My professor didn't talk about this at all," Sam muttered, rubbing his head. Cate gave him a sympathetic look.
"No wonder. He probably doesn't even know. Mortals don't realize it. But Heracles, or the man behind Heracles, was a serial killer. And he, uh, well, he beat Pete in a fight once. As a result of losing to him, Pete was unable to officially finalize the death of Alcestis."
The Grim Reaper looked grim and also a little...ashamed? Sam couldn't tell. "Serial killers can fight me and possibly beat me," he repeated quietly. "That's why we can't just catch them, even if we knew who they were. It takes strategy, and cunning, to beat a serial killer. It takes more than just...death."
"And sometimes it just takes a well-placed bit of evidence," Cate added. "The DBI just love their well-placed evidence, don't they?"
"They do," the Grim Reaper affirmed. "They also get a kick out of not listening to me." A note of annoyance laced through his tone. He glanced at Sam. "That's the problem with this case. The DBI, who should be still investigating, have closed this case."
"What? Why?" Sam demanded. "Jake was just killed, like, yesterday! How can they close the case when the unknown psycho's still out there?"
"Unknown psycho," Cate laughed. "I like that."
Her brother glared at her before looking back to Sam. "Because they've got their suspect. And now they're setting up to lead your mortal police to them. But that doesn't matter, because they're wrong."
"All the evidence is circumstantial," Cate added. "Looks pretty damn bad, but it's circumstantial. However, their suspect apparently fits the profile like a hand in a glove. But we don't know anything more than that, for Pete thinks they got the wrong person and refuses to allow the GRS to be involved in framing them."
"Framing?" Sam asked.
"How do you think those bite marks incriminated Bundy?" the Grim Reaper asked. "Or the paint chips that caught the Green River Killer? The floppy disc that led the police to BTK? The familial DNA that identified the Golden State Killer? The autopsy that exposed Doctor Death? The letters that linked the Son of Sam to David Berkowitz? You think those were just fortunate mistakes on the killers' part?"
Sam felt his head swimming and pressed his hand to his forehead as Cate picked up the conversation. "The DBI find the serial killers, then lead the police to them. That's how the DBI operates on your side of the doors. That's what we mean by framing. We're not setting up an innocent person – just pointing the finger at a guilty one."
"And if you don't frame a suspect?" Sam asked.
"Police don't find them," the Grim Reaper said grimly. "I told you, serial killers are the exception to a lot of rules."
"And you want me to catch one," Sam stated. "Or did I hear all this wrong?"
"Well, you'll have help," Cate told him. "Me, for one. And Pete. We're both, um, well, we're both invested in this."
Sam looked from Cate to her brother, at their darkened expressions. Neither of them had told him everything about this case, or about their reasons for wanting the bastard caught. Figures, he groused. Of course they would make this harder by not revealing everything. "Okay," he said aloud. "Tell me one thing. How am I, a college student suffering from the chronic condition of too much homework, supposed to catch a serial killer?"
"Well," Cate began, glancing at the Grim Reaper. "We don't, um, exactly...we don't know."
"You don't know how I'm going to help you?" Sam repeated, incredulous. "Well, that's just great, because I don't know how I'm going to help you."
The Grim Reaper sighed. "Look, we didn't even know you existed until we heard your name from a group we're monitoring, which we believe is involved somehow with this serial killer. When we ran your name, we got zilch. So Cate tracked you down and I mailed the letter."
"Let me guess," Sam said, narrowing his eyes. "You tracked me via mortal records, right?"
The Grim Reaper looked down and Cate offered him a sheepish grin. Sam crossed his arms. "Not so lousy now, are they?"
"That's not the point," the Grim Reaper said dismissively. "The point is that, due to your complete lack of records, you have become an anomaly. We don't know what abilities you might have, but obviously you're on this group's radar, so we thought we might want you on ours."
"I still have class, though," Sam pointed out. "I can't just skip that."
"This is life or death for you," the Grim Reaper said, furrowing his brow in confusion. "And you're worried about missing a couple classes?"
"You would be, too, if you had to deal with differential equations," Sam retorted. "Besides, I'll miss homework assignments and I'll get marked absent too many times and I do not need to be dropped a whole letter grade for my absences. I can't afford that."
The Grim Reaper blinked, looking utterly perplexed. "I don't understand. You're telling me you want to waste time in class instead of devoting all your time to catching this killer so you don't die?"
Sam thought for a moment. "Well, see, if we do catch him, I don't die," he said finally. "But then, like, I fail a class or something and my parents kill me. So I really don't live long, either way." He furrowed his brow as he thought about what he had just said. "Man, I've turned into Hermione Granger, haven't I?"
"When do you get off class tomorrow?" Cate asked briskly.
"Four-fifteen," Sam said.
"I'll meet you at your apartment," Cate said. "I'll bring pizza. You'll spend the weekend and every spare moment working on this case. After all, we've only got a week."
Sam thought about the calendar, calculating the date of the dreaded deadline. "Wait. The deadline's Halloween?"
"Yes," the Grim Reaper said. "Now that we're clear, I believe you may be dismissed. Cate will take you back to your apartment."
Before Sam could say anything more or ask what was so important about Halloween, Cate grabbed his hand and dragged him back into the darkness of the Void.