Reaper's Rise

Ghosts without souls are terrifying. Missing threads of fate are even more so.

Still, I’m almost glad Maddox caught a case involving both—it means I get to see him again. Maybe I’ll even get a chance to explain that I didn’t turn him into a monster.
Well, I guess I am partly responsible for him getting changed into a sort of undead wolf shifter. Some people would call that a monster. (My ancestor—the goddess Hel—keeps telling me to put the “unnatural creature” down.)
But I didn’t make Maddox a killer. Honest. That murdering colleague of his was already dead when I undid the magic that was tethering him to a life past his expiration date. He’d have disintegrated whether Maddox crashed into him or not.
No, Maddox isn’t a monster, not by a long shot. I’m sure of it, even if the mutilated, soulless ghosts squeal about a white wolf. Even if my interfering ancestor insists he’s going to cause the end of the world.
I don’t believe it. Neither Maddox nor his wolf has an evil bone in his body. They wouldn’t do any of this.
There has to be another explanation.

I have to find that explanation before reality as we know it unravels even more.
Maybe then, Maddox will realize I didn’t mean to hurt him by dragging him into my world.
Maybe then, he will forgive me.