The shape within the dark cloak and cowl chuckled, a sound both sweet and shivery, as she spotted the lone witness to her reaping. She had just entered the room in her characteristic flash of light, then claimed the soul of the man who had been raping a young woman. The young woman in question had jumped out of the bed as soon as she appeared and cowered in the furthest corner of the room from the new arrival.

"Ahhh, thou art a young lass, I ken?" she enquired of the trembling girl in the corner of the opulent bedroom.

That girl shrieked, and would not stop doing so for several minutes. The reaper formerly known as Sir Owain waited patiently.

Eventually, the girl stopped shrieking, then noticed the strange being still standing there, waiting for her to reply to the question.

"I am a young woman, yes, miss. I turned seventeen just three months ago," she muttered at one point, still in shock at what she was seeing. There was no doubt that the strange creature was real. There was also no doubt that it was NOT here for her, but that bastard on the bed.

The strange creature nodded, then stalked over to a big but comfortable leather wing chair in one corner of the room. It, no she, then waved a hand, beckoning the young woman to join her by taking a seat in the wing chair on the other side of the small side table.

The girl blinked, then shrugged and slowly pulled herself to her feet before stumbling across the room and slumping into the other chair.

"What be your name, lass?" the creature asked. "I be Owaina, a Grim Reaper, here to claim that one as his time had come." The newly named Reaper pointed to the body of Count Oliver Bardenne, who had as of this date ravaged the last maiden he would ever know in life.

Something about that name had the girl thinking furiously for a few minutes. As before, the reaper waited patiently for her to finish. Finally, she figured it out. "Owaina? That's a rather unusual name for a girl. I assume it would be the feminine variant of the Welsh name Owain?"

"Aye, lass, it be the female form. Pray tell why it be of interest to thee?" the Reaper enquired.

"Well, I take English Literature in one of my high school classes, and Owain was well known as a knight of King Arthur's Round Table."

The gusty sigh coming out in that sweet sounding voice sent a shiver through the girl's body. Something very strange was happening here.

"Girl, I be that Owain, forsooth, who wast one of Arthur's knights. I died at the hand of the treacherous undead Tristan de Bois long ago."

"Undead? You mean ghosts, ghouls and other things like that are real?" The girl shrank back into the depths of her chair, plainly horrified.

"They be real, yes. I have some power over them, but only to send them from where I be at the time," she replied to the girl's new question. "Ahhh... speaking of which..." Owaina waved a hand at the flickering shape rising from the body of the so recently deceased count and intoned in a clear, carrying voice, "Begone, foul spirit. Go to whence thou belongest, before I sendest thee there 'gainst thy will!"

The ghost shrieked as it realized that it was no longer alive, then vanished in a flash from the room at the command of the Reaper.

The girl watched, fascinated, as the creature, this Grim Reaper as she had identified herself, banished the ghost from their presence. She found it hard to believe that she was sitting across from a creature who held the reins of death in her obviously capable hands.

It took another moment before the girl focused on the room again, then spoke, "I apologize, my name is Katherine de Bois, some call me Kate." It was only as she stopped speaking that she realized that the Reaper was looking at her with a very strange and dark expression.

That voice, which had sounded sweet and clear before, now rasped as the Reaper lifted her scythe and faced Kate. "de Bois? Ye bear the name of that treacherous filth! Prove to me now that ye be not of his line, or face the full extent of my wrath!" as she rose from the chair.

Kate blanched, it was very, very clear that this Reaper was beyond furious just at the mention of her surname. She squeezed even further back into the depths of the chair as she looked up at the creature, then screamed, "I do not know for sure if my family was in any way related to him! I only know that my ancestors lived in the southeast of France, and that they came here after the French Revolution took place!"

Those statements caused Owaina, the Reaper, to halt and turn her gaze inward, accessing memories of the dead from foregone ages. Several minutes passed before the scythe was slowly lowered to the Reaper's side and Owaina turned and sat down again.

"I have spoken with the Lord of Death himself, and accessed the records of your forebears. They be not from evil Tristan's line," she stated.

Kate almost fell out of the chair, such was the surprise and jubilation she felt at the Reaper's blunt pronouncement.

The two of them sat there, the only sound in the room being the ticking of the large grandfather clock not far from the room's main door, for a good quarter of an hour before Owaina stood again, nodded and said, "My work be not yet done. I must be on my way from here now."

The first statement startled Kate, enough that she asked before taking the time to think it might not be polite, "Not done? What do you mean?"

"There be a number of souls that a Grim Reaper must claim before their time be done. I have many a soul to claim yet!" Owaina declared.

That caused Kate to be shocked again, Reapers had to claim a specific number of souls before they could leave their existence? As she thought about that, she realized that the Reaper's statement verified that there were others who did the same duties as this one did tonight.

She sighed, then looked up at the Reaper, intrigued by it? "I'm curious, just how does one become a Grim Reaper?" Kate asked Owaina.

"That be different for each Reaper, lass. Some be bound to it, some have business unfinished to resolve, some are claimed by Death."

The way that Owaina said Death, it was obvious that she meant it to be capitalized. It was a name, perhaps a rank in the spirit realms.

Once more, the Reaper Owaina stated, "'Tis time I must be gone! Fare thee well, Katherine de Bois!"

A moment later, after an eerie blinding light finished flashing through the room, Kate looked up to find that she was now alone. The Grim Reaper Owaina had taken the body of the former Count with her, leaving only a smelly stain on the bedsheet from the Count's passing.