Excerpt From The Official Reaper Rulebook:
1. No bringing souls back without an appropriate substitute.

Riley had hoped for a lot of things after her boss transferred her to Victorian London, one of the most hoped for being that she would be allowed to go back to Florida once the poisonous fog was lifted, but her hopes were dashed when she noticed that her hourglass was still completely full with only a few grains trickling to the bottom. She was officially stuck until the hourglass was empty and her duties relinquished to another.

Grim, you massive douchebag.

It was bad enough that she'd had to deal with Ronald until the souls had been transferred, but now she had to stay here for at least a year and wear a stupid corset if she had to be visible in public. It sucked, to say the least.

"I can't even watch Game of Thrones here," she whines loudly, grabbing a bag of tater tots out of the cold storage. At least we're allowed to modify certain things for comfort. The outside of her new house blended in with the others, but the inside was completely modern apart from not having cable or WiFi. She really missed her cable and WiFi, though.

Blowing a lock of her black hair off her face, she focuses on cutting the bag open and dumping the tots into the boiling grease.

"Shit better stay quiet," Riley grumbles, covering the fryer with a lid," I ain't going to be happy if we have another one of those creepy fog situations." The last one had wiped out several thousand people, making her snap from one dying person to the next to catch their soul before something else could. Being a Reaper has kept her busy since she graduated from the Academy, hopping from place to place to ferry the souls to the Underworld to be weighed.

Not wanting to hover over her breakfast, she moves further into the house to her bedroom. It was as messy as it usually was, clothes strewn over the floors and makeup spread out across the top of her dresser; her bed was unmade with the bright yellow comforter only half on it, and her small collection of beanies were hanging from the small chandelier. In fact, her throwing knives were the only things neatly packed away in their case beneath her pillow. She's always been one of the messier Reapers, but she didn't have a roommate to complain about it anymore.

Riley grabs a tank top off the ground, sniffing it before shrugging and tossing it on her bed before finding a pair of ripped jeans and socks to join it. Her bedroom was in the back with no windows, so she didn't hesitate to strip right there and pull on the fresh clothes before running her fingers through her hair and pulling on a maroon beanie.

It was cold in London and she was grateful that the beanie at least kept the pointed tips of her ears covered. Once that was finished, she pulled on the white and brown cowgirl boots that had a snow camo pattern on the sides, then slides her glasses in place. She was almost blind without them and knew it was a risk to cook when not wearing them, but they were just an annoyance she waited until the last minute to put on every morning.

She was observing herself in her mirror when she heard a knock echoing through the house, distracting her from the fact that she still had traces of chalk on her fingers. It wasn't often that someone knocked on her door and she wasn't sure whether to be curious or cautious. Other supernatural beings would sense her, she knew that, but it could also be one of the elders that were obsessed with the proper way to call on someone.

After a second, Riley grabs the black necklace off her dresser and starts back down the hall towards the front of the house, locking the necklace in place so she could at least have that comfort. It was her only real weapon that always worked, made of cold metal that had been burnt in Grim's forge.

The front door of her home was made of heavy wood, enchanted to repel humans and keep intruders from breaking in. In the direct center, right below the protection rune recently drawn in chalk, was the peephole, allowing her to gaze out at the person interrupting her quiet time. There were three people, all men in nice enough clothing with grim sets to their mouths and grief in their eyes. Two were humans, one an old man going gray and the other closer to his early thirties, but the other with them was a werewolf.

The humans would be easy for her to handle, they were fragile things, but the werewolf had tried to killed some of her kind before. He hadn't known it, hadn't been in control of himself, but he'd done the task all the same. Still, they were here for a reason and waiting for food to get done was boring, so she opened the door just enough for her to stand in the gap.

"What do you want," she asks bluntly, dark eyes flicking over their faces.

"To make a deal," the oldest of the trio states. His green eyes were bright with emotion, easily read by the Reaper as sadness and a burning anger. She cocks up a brow and studies this human closer, able to hear his teeth grinding together as he awaits her response.

"Why would two humans and a werewolf want to make a deal?"

"How—" She cuts the wolf off with only a look, the broad-shouldered man swallowing hard as he reads all the hostility in her gaze.

"The supernatural recognize each other." She takes half a step outside, leaning forward and sniffing the air. "Werewolves always smell like musk." The man turns his head and sniffs himself, looking offended at her statement. "My God, you really are new to all of this." With a sigh, she holds out an arm. "Take a whiff, cowboy." He hesitates a second before bringing her wrist closer to his nose and taking a few quick sniffs.

"What is that?"

"Reapers always smell like flowers, a sign of death." She takes her arm back and walks into the house, leaving the door open. "Y'all coming inside or not?"

With only a moment of hesitation, the trio follow her into the sitting room, taking in the intricately embroidered rug and the modern furniture in shades of white and dark brown. It was a larger room, but scarcely decorated to keep packing a simple chore. There was only a couple of personal touches and those were the two photographs on the mantle—one of herself and her little brother after she graduated and the other of a dark-skinned Ranger with corkscrew curls. The Ranger may have been a Took, notorious for their strangeness, but Jas was always nice to Riley.

"We know what you are," the shortest of the three men states, fidgeting slightly with the hem of his coat. He was a skinny little thing, pale with dark circles under his eyes. Insomniac with paranoid tendencies, not of the best mind right now. He was too thin and she would invite him to eat with her if she wasn't possessive of her food.

"And what's that?"

"A creature that feeds off death and grief." She quirks up a brow at that, giving him a look that practically screamed judging you.

"Are you the pot in this or are you a kettle, Doc? Last I heard, you were making delightfully sinister experiments on humans that forced the shattered remnants of their souls back into their ruined corpse. All I do is ferry their souls to the underworld where they are judged and sent to wherever their faith allows." The other two look at their companion uneasily, like they had just realized they were standing next to a monster.

"And if we wanted to know of a singular soul that was collected just a few days ago?" Riley tilts her head back with a frustrated groan, mentally cursing her boss for even creating a rule that would allow dumb questions like this to be possible. "Could you bring it back without shattering it?"

"Unfortunately."

"And would the person remain the same as they were or would the process change them?"

"Of course it changes them, you'd be a fool to think otherwise." The oldest stares straight ahead of him, jaw clenched as he fought back a wave of tears. He was handsome for an older man, his short hair and beard more gray than brown, there were bags under his eyes from lack of sleep, and his mouth was twitching as though he were fighting not to yell.

"Would they…. Would they remember their life?" Three sets of eyes land on her, filled with a desperate hope that made her heart ache from the intensity. They were so desperate to get their loved one back, but they were smart enough to know that what comes back may not be the person they remember.

"They'd remember everything from the moment they were born, every second of every day, and it will be hard on them until they learn to control it. They will remember what death is like and the process of rebirth, but they will know your faces and they will retain their quirks. Will they be exactly the same person? No, that could never happen, but they will still be the one you all love."

"Her name is Vanessa Ives," the oldest says with a tremor in his voice," thirty-six—"

"I don't need to know all of that," Riley interrupts with a wave of her hand, seating herself on the arm of the couch. "Go to her home and search her bedroom for a neatly folded square of paper that should be on her writing desk, it'll have her identification number written on it. Bring me that and I can bring her back to you."

"Thank you," the wolf breathes, a small smile turning the corners of his mouth upwards.

"Not so fast, cowboy, I need payment before I bring anybody back from death."

"Anything," the old man says hurriedly," I've got the funds."

"Actually, I'd rather have a puppy." Riley shrugs at their incredulous looks, not caring one whit what the humans would think of that. "And I need a soul to replace Vanessa's, doesn't matter if it's a good one or bad one as long as it can be a substitute." The three share a few looks, a silent conversation happening, and then they all nod before facing her again.

"How about the soul of Dracula?"

"That'll work." She stands and shoos them out of her sitting room, almost shoving them out the front door.

"We live at number eight Grandage Place if you ever need shelter."

"Whatever, just have fun killing Dracula. Fair warning, he's a massive asshole!" With that, she slams the door closed and walks back to the kitchen, carefully transferring her crispy tots to a frying pan to brown them a little.

It was quiet for another few minutes, just the sound of grease popping as she cooked. She loved the quiet that usually went with her job, a serenity of just observing the humans and animals around her until it was time to collect their souls and take it to be weighed by Anubis. The jackal god was pretty cool as gods go, always up for free beer and watching High School Musical.

She was just about to dump her food into a bowl when another knock sounded, Riley letting out a noise of frustration before stomping back to the door and yanking it open. Instead of the trio from earlier like she'd expected, there was a man on the other side that was entirely too familiar for her liking.

He had a light brown complexion, he was made up of lean muscles, and dressed in a three-piece suit with a heavy gray jacket over it; his dark hair was carefully styled and his beard neatly trimmed, his brown eyes were sunken slightly, crow's feet hinting at his true age.

Riley didn't hesitate, bringing the pan up and swinging it as hard as she could, the cast iron hitting the man's head with a sickening crunch. He stumbled to the side, not having been prepared for the attack, and it allows Riley the chance to start running for her life. She didn't mind that she was completely visible to the human eye or that she was elbowing past a whole lot of them to get away, she only cared about her own survival.

She didn't stop sprinting until she reached a large block of stately homes, pushing open the door to number eight and barging right in, surprising all of the people gathered in the sitting room. Riley took a moment to catch her breath before straightening up and leveling an accusatory glare at the three people who had visited her. What other reason would a vampire have for coming to her door other than being led there by a specific scent of two desperate humans and their pet werewolf?

"I just wanted to eat my tater tots," she shouts at them," not hit Dracula in the face with a frying pan!"