“So what makes this reaper such a legend?” I whispered, walking between Nash and Tod, whose shoes still made no sound on the floor.

For a moment, Tod gaped at me like I’d just asked what made grass green. Then he seemed to remember my ignorance. “She’s ancient. The oldest reaper still reaping. Maybe the oldest reaper ever. No one knows what name she was born with, but back in ancient Rome she took on the name of the goddess of death. Libitina.”

I arched both brows at Tod. “So, you address the oldest, scariest grim reaper in history by a nickname?”

Tod shrugged, but I thought I saw him blush. Though, that could have been the red satin backdrop panels showing through his nearly translucent cheek. “I’ve never actually addressed her as anything. We haven’t officially met.”

“Great,” I breathed, rolling my eyes. We were accompanying Tod-the-reaper-fanboy to meet his hero. It couldn’t get any lamer without a Star Trek convention and an English-to-Klingon dictionary.

When we rounded the corner, my gaze found Libby just as she sucked the last bit of Demon’s Breath from the air. The end of the strand whipped up to smack her cheek before sliding between her pursed lips, and the ancient reaper swiped the back of one black-leather-clad arm across her mouth, as if to wipe a smudge of sauce from her face.

I didn’t want to know what kind of sauce Demon’s Breath swam in.

“There she is,” Tod said, and the eerie, awed quality of his voice drew my gaze to his face. He looked…shy.

My own intimidation faded in the face of the first obvious nerves I’d seen from the rookie reaper, and I couldn’t resist a grin. “Okay, let’s go.” I took Tod’s hand and had tugged him two steps in Libby’s direction before his fingers suddenly faded out of existence around my own.

I stopped and glanced down, irritated to see that he had dialed both his appearance and his physical presence down to barely-there, to escape my grasp. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing a little dignity wouldn’t fix,” Tod snapped. “So could we please not mob the three-thousand-plus-year-old reaper like tweens at a boy-band concert?” He ran transparent hands over his equally transparent tee and marched toward Libby with his shoulders square, evidently satisfied that his composure was intact.

He grew a little more solid with each step, and I glanced around, afraid someone would notice him suddenly appearing in our midst. But when his shoes continued to make no sound, I realized he hadn’t stepped into human sight. Not that it mattered. All eyes were glued to the stage, where the doctor still worked tirelessly—and fruitlessly—on Eden.

We followed Tod, and I knew by the sudden confidence in Nash’s step that he could now see his brother. And that he was probably secretlyhoping Tod would do or say something stupid in front of the foremost expert in his field.

We caught up with him as he stopped, and since they were the same height, Libby’s bright green eyes stared straight into Tod’s blue with enough intensity to make even me squirm. “Hi,” Tod started, and I had to give him credit for not stuttering.

My own tongue was completely paralyzed.

Libitina was very old, very experienced, and clearly very powerful—all obvious in her bearing alone. She was also so impossibly beautiful that I was suddenly embarrassed by the makeup I’d probably sweated off during the concert and the long brown hair I could see frizzing on the edge of my vision, in spite of my efforts with a flatiron.

Libby wore a long, black leather trench coat, cinched at her tiny waist to show off slim hips. I would have said the coat was cliché for someone intimately involved with Death, except that as old as she was, she’d probably been wearing black leather much longer than it had been in vogue for hookers and superheroes alike.

Her hair was pulled back from her face in a severe ponytail that trailed tight, black curls halfway down her back. Her skin was dark and flawless, and so smooth I wanted to touch her cheek, just to assure myself she wasn’t as perfect as she looked. She couldn’t be.

Could she?

“Yes?” Libby said, her piercing gaze still trained on Tod. She hadn’t acknowledged either me or Nash, and I was suddenly sure that, like most reapers, she hated bean sidhes. Maybe we shouldn’t have tagged along after all.

Yet she hadn’t become invisible to us….

“My name is Tod, and I work for the local branch office.” He paused, and I was amused to realize Tod’s cheeks were blazing—and this time that had nothing to do with the stage backdrop. “Can I ask you a couple of questions?”

Libby scowled, and a chill shot up my spine. “You are dissatisfied with my services?” She bit off the ends of her words in anger, distorting an accent I couldn’t place, and we all three stepped back in unison, unwilling to stand in the face of her fury.

“No!” Tod held up both hands, and I was too busy choking on my own fear to be amused by his. “This has nothing to do with the local office. I’m off duty tonight. I’m just curious. About the process…”

Libby’s thin, black brows arched, and I thought I saw amusement flicker behind her eyes. “Ask,” she said finally, and suddenly I liked her—even if she didn’t like bean sidhes—because she could easily have made Tod feel about an inch tall.

Tod stuffed his hands into his pockets and inhaled slowly. “What does it feel like? Demon’s Breath. You hold it…inside. Right?”