Thank you all for your great comments, I'm really happy to see that people like my story and that I can bring you a little fun:)) Hope you enjoy the new chapter, the next one will be the last one, so stay tuned ;)

Regards, Eisteufel ^.^

Chapter X

A Touch of Shame

This is bad! Really, really bad!

Biting his fingernails until he could taste the coppery flavour of his own blood Grell watched the scenery in front of his eyes with a consistently rising feeling of discomfort.

Mr. Turner the young attendant of his superior Mr. Greyes flipped the pages of the To-Die-List with stoical precision until he finally closed the file with a deep, unnerved frown on his pale face.

"Mr. Sutcliff," he audibly cleared his throat.

"Exactly why didn't you collect the records of Mr. Mills as scheduled?"

He folded his thin fingers in front of his face in anticipation. In the meantime Greyes went back and forth behind Turner's desk like a tiger in his cage. The stony expression on his pinched face caused Grell to swallow hard. He feared the worst.

Let's get this over with...

"Because they were cut," Grell whispered feebly now fiddling with his fingers in his lap.

"Cut?"

The reddish brown eyebrows of his opposite twitched dangerously. Greyes continued his walk through the office without batting an eye.

"Yes cut," Grell repeated with a low grown as the gaze of Turner intensified its sceptical analysis. He made a short gesture with his hand.

"Please go on."

"They were cut because otherwise they would have killed me. I lost hold over my scythe so he had-"

"How on earth can one lose his Death Scythe?" the raging voice of Greyes suddenly roared through the little office and caused Grell to wince involuntarily to its croaky sound. He was entirely sure that every reaper in London must have heard the scolding now.

"It wasn't lost, it broke," the young reaper meekly tried to intervene but was completely overrun by his supervisor. The head of his superior hovered above him like an overripe tomato, ready, willing and able to explode any second.

"That was a Death Scythe!" Greyes yelled hoarsely, running his fingers over his baldness again and again in a hectic gesture. His younger attendant shook his head in silent disapproval considering Grell's faux pas.

"Do you know what the decisive feature of a Death Scythe is, Sutcliff? Do you?" Greyes threatened him with his index finger only centimetres away from Grell's face.

"They can't be cut by anything but a Death Scythe! How on earth did you break it then?"

Grell stared at him open mouthed. How the hell was he supposed to know why theses hideous records were able to cut the damn thing? They did it. That was the point of the matter!

"That... that was because... but the records..."

A small chuckled from behind made Grell choke on his words.

"Please excuse the interruption Trevor but I have to say that the quality of these trainee-scythes really should improve."

Grell's jaw dropped when he saw the slender figure approaching him with vast steps. Grinning his trademark Cheshire Cat grin his encounter positioned himself right next to him, affectionately placing his bony hand on the youth's shoulder in a reassuring gesture.

"You can't compare these toys with a real scythe, you know?" the silvery haired man continued airily while leaning down to reach out for his scythe at Grell's feet.

"Thank you for taking care of it," he whispered into Grell's ear, holding his heavy tool with a satisfied smirk.

It took Greyes several seconds to get his wits together. Grell could see how the little gear wheels in his head rotated round and round before he finally managed to ask in a composed, monotonous voice:

"Well... can you explain this whole situation to me then?"

He crossed his arms defensively, eyeing his opposite in a mixture of disapproval and incomprehension.

"A trainee fails to reap the person he was supposed to. That's not such a big deal, it happens once in a while. But interestingly enough he claims that he has reaped a completely different person instead, although he has lost his own scythe. Well, obviously he carried yours with him as I see now. And above all out of nowhere you appear here and take this boy under your wings?"

"Didn't see that coming did you?" the man next to Grell snickered as if Greyes had told him a very fine joke.

"It's actually rather simple. I think when someone did a good job he should be rewarded. And Mr. Sutcliff did a very good job indeed. Granted, he was in need of a little assistance and he did not reap the person he was supposed to but he reaped someone from the assignment list. This should suffice for passing the exam, don't you think?"

It was Greyes' young assistant Turner who harrumphed dryly again.

"So I assume you cut the records of Mr. Mills?"

Green eyes looked at Turner with an uninterpretable glimmer in them.

"There wouldn't have been a necessity to do so, if the Office wouldn't have sent a trainee to his first reaping without a partner. Under the circumstances given he put up a good fight, showed a lot of compassion."

"Do you have proof that Mr. Sutcliff collected the records of Miss Trellawny?" Greyes sneered.

"Of course. The scythe," Grell almost yelled. He didn't get the whole situation at all but there was one thing he knew damn well. He had reaped Martha Trellawny with his own hands and with this monstrosity of a scythe and he had personally dragged the damn thing though half of London in deep of winter. He absolutely refused to see that all the toil of the night should have been in vain.

"It proves it! It proves that Martha Trellawny's records have been collected!" the young reaper therefore continued passionately. "They can be turned into books of doomsday and stored in the Library now. Everything is fine!"

"Mr. Sutcliff, as far as I can see nothing is fine. Apart from the fact that Mr. Mills' records are genuinely lost now..."

Greyes' eyes narrowed to thin slots when he turned his attention towards Grell's companion once more.

"It was your job to reap Martha Trellawny. Who says that the boy did it and not you?"

"Oh Trevor..." the silvery haired man groaned, knitting his thin brows in shammed surprise.

"I wonder if I should feel appalled by your scepticism," he mused, pointing his overly long fingernail against his upper lip. "I said that the boy did the job, isn't that enough? Or..." he fixed Greyes with his daunting emerald gaze, "are you implying that I would lie to you?"

Greyes' expression made a slip.

"Do I really have to proof my reliability? I thought we were beyond that centuries ago."

Grell blinkered when he saw that Greyes dropped his gaze.

Could it be? Was the manager of the London Dispatch Society really intimidated by this strange, haggard guy?

"I have a question..."

Turning his head towards his proponent Grell batted his crimson eyelashes questioningly.

"Who are you anyway?"

Grell wasn't even sure if that was anatomically possible but he would have sworn that Greyes' face had just now turned to an even deeper shade of purple. But before he could scold the redhead once again, the silvery haired man simply cut him off with just a small movement of his black clothed arm.

He deliberately cleaned his rectangular glasses with the sleeve of his trench-coat before he put them back on his nose to look at Grell with blatant amusement written all over his scarred face.

"The name is Undertaker," he simply stated, pursing his thin lips.

"I'm not surprised at all that you didn't even realize who saved your little, redheaded stern, Sutcliff," Greyes muttered sorely, rolling his eyes but Grell wasn't even listening anymore.

"Undertaker?" he only mumbled completely awestruck, staring at his opposite with eyes wide open. "The Undertaker?"

"The very same."

The Death God everyone told us about since the very first day we set foot into the Library? The reaper who is so high above us worthless maggots that we should feel deeply grateful when he even bothers to look at us lowly creatures? The Undertaker? That's the reason why he is hot as hell…

The realization hit him like a ton of bricks.

That was what William meant. The statue… Gods Grell, there is a hugeass statue of him in the Entrance Hall! You stood below it so many times and you didn't recognize him? That is why he appeared so strangely familiar to you… it's because…

"You are a legend," Grell whispered more to himself but to Undertaker. In fact he didn't even realize he had said the words out loud – it forced a small smile onto Undertaker's scarred features.

"Undertaker is just fine, dear," he reassured in a soothing voice before he turned his attention towards Greyes and Turner again.

"Well… what do you think then?" Undertaker smiled a mischievous, lopsided sneer while holding his scythe in a defensive manner as if he was willing to strike out the very second one of them would say the wrong words.

"Seriously... who would have guessed that you of all people would bother to help this little troublemaker?" Greyes frowned, reluctantly reaching over for the file on the desk.

With a disapproving expression he stamped John Mills' file "case closed".

"Grim Reaper Grell Sutcliff," he obviously struggled to utter the words. Turner bit back a smile.

"You're officially given the permission to go to Mr. Anderson in order to get your glasses customized. Furthermore, it obliges to your consideration which kind of personal Death Scythe you want to get registered."

"Personally I recommend a good old-fashioned scythe," Undertaker grinned sheepishly, running his fingers affectionately over the blade of his scythe like so many times before. Grell shuddered involuntarily.

No! Definitely not!

"I'll think about it," Grell murmured hoarsely before he turned on his heel, heading towards the glasses department with faltering steps.

Rrrrrrr... yes hot, sexy Shinitaker... fangirl-heart what more could you want?^^