An empty space appeared at the end of the first level, and he pulled into it, taking more care with Carter’s car than he had with his mother’s. Then he shifted into Park and killed the engine before turning to face me fully. “Kaylee, Tod isn’t human either. And he’s not exactly a friend, so he may not be eager to answer our questions.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and tried to look irritated, which wasn’t easy, considering that every time he looked at me like that, like there was nothing else in the world worth looking at, my heart beat harder and my breath caught in my throat. “A non-human non-friend? Who works at the hospital as a non-medical intern?” At least it wasn’ t another football player. “Now that we’re clear on what he’s not, care to tell me what he is?”
Nash sighed, and I knew from the sound that I wasn’t going to like whatever he had to say. “He’s a grim reaper.”
“He’s a what?” Surely I’d heard him wrong. “Did you just say Tod’s the Grim Reaper?”
Nash shook his head slowly, and I exhaled in relief. Bean sidhes were one thing— we could actually help people— but I was not ready to face the walking, talking personification of Death. Much less ask him questions.
“He’s not the Grim Reaper,” Nash said, watching me closely. “He’s only a reaper. One of thousands. It’s just a job.”
“Just a job? Death is just a job! Wait.” I sucked in a deep breath and closed my eyes. Then I counted to ten. When that wasn’t enough, I counted to thirty. Then I met Nash’s gaze, hoping panic didn’t show in the probably swirling depths of mine. “So …when you said you can’t stop death, what you really meant is that you can’t stop Tod?”
“Not him specifically, but yes, that’s the general idea. Reapers have a job to do, just like everyone else. And as a whole, they’re not very fond of bean sidhes.”
“Do I even want to know why not?”
Nash smiled sympathetically and took my hand, and my pulse jumped at even such small contact. Crap. I could already see that any future anger at him was going to be very hard to sustain. “Most reapers don’t like us because we have the potential to seriously screw up their workday. Even if we don’t actually restore a person’s soul, a reaper can’t touch it so long as you hold it. So every second you spend singing means a one-second delay in the delivery of that soul. In a busy district, that could throw him disastrously behind schedule. Also, it just plain pisses them off. Reapers don’t like anyone else playing with their toys.”
Great. “So not only am I not-human, but Death is my arch foe?” Who, me? Panic? “Anything else you want to tell me, while we’re confessing?”
Nash tried to stifle a chuckle, but failed. “Reapers aren’t our enemies, Kaylee. They just don’t particularly enjoy our company.”
Something told me the feeling would be mutual. I gave him a shaky nod, and Nash opened the driver’s side door and stepped into the dark parking garage. I got out on the other side, and as I closed the door, he clicked a button on Carter’s key chain to lock the car. Both sounds reverberated around us, and by all appearances, we were alone in the garage. Which was good, considering the discussion we were in the middle of.
“So what does Tod look like? Whitewashed skeleton skulking around in a black cape and hood? Carrying a scythe? ‘Cause I’m thinking that would cause mass panic in the hospital.”
He took my hand as we made our way down the aisle toward the garage entrance, footsteps echoing eerily. “Do you chase after funeral processions in a long, dirty dress, hair trailing behind you in the wind?”
I shot him a mock frown. “Have you been following me again?”
Nash rolled his eyes. “He looks normal—not that it matters. You can’t see a reaper unless he wants to be seen.”
A warm, late-September wind blew through the garage entrance, fluttering flyers stuck to windshields and fast-food wrappers scattered across the concrete. “Will Tod want us to see him?”
“Depends on what kind of mood he’s in.” Nash walked past the huge revolving door in favor of the heavy glass pane, which he pulled open for me to pass through into the tiny vestibule. I held the next door for him, and we stepped into a small, quiet lobby lined with empty, uncomfortable-looking armchairs. The warmth of the building was a relief, and my goose bumps faded with each step we took away from the door.
Nash ignored the volunteer at the help desk—not that it mattered; she was asleep at her post—and guided me toward a bank of elevators at the end of the hall.
My shoes squeaked on the polished floor, and each breath brought with it a whiff of antiseptic and pine-scented air freshener. Either would have been bad enough on its own, and together they threatened to overwhelm both my nose and my lungs. Fortunately the elevator on the left stood empty and open.
Inside, Nash pushed the button for the third floor. When the doors closed, the “welcome” scent faded, replaced immediately by the generic hospital smell, a combination of stale air, cafeteria meat loaf, and bleach.
“Tod works on the third level?” I asked as gears grinded overhead and the elevator began to rise.
“He works all over the hospital, but Intensive Care is on three, and that’s where we’re most likely to find him. Assuming he wants to be found.”
A new chill went through me as his statement sank in. We were most likely to find Tod in Intensive Care—where people were most likely to be dying.
My palms began to sweat, and my heart pounded so hard I was sure Nash could hear it echo in the elevator. What were the chances I’d make it through the ICU without finding a soul to sing for?
Slim to none, I was betting. And since we were already in the hospital, if I freaked out this time, they’d probably put me on the express gurney to the mental-health ward. Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars.
I was not going back there.
My hand clenched Nash’s, and he stroked my fingers with his thumb. “If you feel it starting, just squeeze my hand and I’ll get you out.” I started to shake my head, and he ran the fingers of his free hand down the side of my face, staring into my eyes. “I promise.”
I sighed. “Okay.” He’d already helped me through two panic attacks—I couldn’t stop thinking of them as such—and I had no doubt he could do it again. And, anyway, I didn’t really have any choice. I couldn’t help the next victim of an untimely death without finding Tod-the-reaper, and I couldn’t find Tod without checking all his favorite haunts.
The elevator dinged, and the door slid open with a soft shhh sound. I glanced at Nash, bolstering my courage as I straightened my spine. “Let’s get this over with.”
The third floor stretched out to either side of us, and one long, sterile white hall opened up directly across from the elevator doors, where a man and a woman in matching blue scrubs sat behind a big circular nurses’ station. The man looked up when my shoes squeaked on the floor, but the woman didn’t notice us.
Nash nodded toward the left-hand hallway, and we headed that way, walking slowly, pretending to read the names written on disposable nameplates outside each door. We were just two kids hoping to pay respects to our grandfather one last time. Except that we didn’t “find” him on the chosen hallway, or anywhere else on the third floor, which was almost a letdown after my initial fear of entering the ICU. Fortunately, Arlington wasn’t that big of a town, and only three of the beds in Intensive Care were actually occupied. And none of those occupants was in any immediate danger of meeting a reaper.
Tod was also absent from the fourth, fifth, and sixth floors, at least as far as we could tell. The only places left to look were the surgical tower, the emergency room on the first floor, and the maternity ward, on two.
I did not want to