Kim Harrison - Something Deadly This Way Comes

The dishwasher was empty, and feeling numb, I sat at the table and put my head in my hands. I couldn’t do this anymore. The lies, the sneaking around. I was trying to change something that no one else wanted to change—no one else saw anything wrong with. Except Barnabas. Barnabas believed I could do it.

Head down, I exhaled, feeling my breath leave me and my lungs collapse. I didn’t have to breathe again, and that bothered me. I wanted to be normal, damn it. What guy wants to date a superhero who never needs rescuing? He had his pride. Besides, the seraphs didn’t believe in me. Tammy hated me. Nakita was upset. My eyes grew warm, and I wasn’t surprised when a tear brimmed and fell. I don’t have to breathe, but I can still cry? How unfair is that?

“Madison?”

Josh’s hesitant touch on my shoulder made me even more depressed, and I sniffed, not looking up.

“I’m sorry,” I said, sitting up and wiping my eyes. “I’m not crying,” I said as if trying to convince myself, because I sure wasn’t convincing him. “It’s only that nothing is going right anymore.”

Smiling faintly, Josh sat down beside me. “It’s going to be okay,” he said, finding and holding my hand.

“That’s not why I’m crying!” I said, head down and tears leaking out no matter how hard I tried to stop them. “I mean, Tammy is important, but . . .”

I couldn’t say the words. They sounded so lame next to the problem of Tammy being hunted by a dark reaper. One of my dark reapers.

“Then what?” Josh asked, and I looked at my hand in his. He was holding it protectively, and it hit me hard.

“I-I found my body,” I whispered, looking at our hands on our touching knees. “When I was in the police station. I almost had it, almost managed to slip into it completely and make it mine again, but Barnabas came in, and I lost it.”

“Your body?” Josh said, then glanced at the hall. “Madison, that’s fantastic!” he said, his voice softer. “Why are you upset? If you found it once, you can find it again. You can be fully alive again! That’s great!”

“It’s not great,” I said, miserable. “No one else was happy about it. They all want me to stay as the dark timekeeper. I don’t know why! I’m not good at it. Barnabas thinks I can change things, but he used to be a light reaper. Nakita thinks it’s a waste of time. Now the seraphs are mad at me. They think I’m not taking this seriously or that I don’t understand what’s at risk.” Miserable, I wiped my eyes again and sniffed loudly.

“I’m happy,” Josh said as he leaned forward.

At that, I let out a barking sound of a sob, dropping my head and letting go of his hands so I could wipe my face. “I’m tired of it all,” I said, feeling it hit me hard as I admitted it aloud. “I’m tired of lying to my dad. Tired of fighting to make myself understood. Tired of not being able to sleep or eat. I just want to come home and be normal!”

I looked up at him through my wet eyes to see sympathy but no understanding. “But,” he started, and I shook my head, stopping him.

“Nakita is depressed because I might leave and forget about her. Barnabas is disappointed that I want to give up on something he’s believed in for thousands of years but was too afraid to try for until now. I’m actually starting to figure things out, and somehow it’s making things worse, not easier. I changed Tammy’s aura today,” I said, finding no joy in it. “And I stopped time. I stopped time, Josh! And I don’t even care.”

“Yes you do,” he said, and I shook my head, but at least I was able to stop crying.

“For the first time,” I said. “For the first time I feel like I can make a difference, but the seraphs won’t give me a chance. I could do this timekeeper thing if they would just let me do it!”

Suddenly I realized how close we were. He had taken my hands again, and his knees, where they pressed against mine, were warm. He was listening to me, and it almost started me crying again. “I miss not being able to eat dinner with my dad,” I whispered. “I miss waking up and looking at the sun on my wall and wondering what the day is going to be like.”

I blinked, and a tear brimmed and fell. Josh wiped it away, and his hand taking mine again was damp.

“I miss being normal,” I breathed, feeling drained and thinking about Paul, the rising light timekeeper. Sure, there was the icky factor of having Ron as a teacher, but he did have a teacher, and a life, and probably a girlfriend who didn’t know he was someday going to be a friggin’ timekeeper in charge of angels. He could pretend he was the same as everyone else. “Most timekeepers get to live their entire life before the old one dies and they have to set everything aside and be more than normal. I’m going to miss everything.”

Okay, so maybe I was being a little drama queen, but Josh was the only person who I could tell this to who might understand.

“You’re not going to miss everything,” he said, and before I knew what he was doing, he leaned in and gave me a kiss.

A spark lifted in me. My hands tightened on his, and I shifted my head so our lips met more fully. My eyes closed, and I leaned in just a bit, feeling the space between us. Electricity spun down to my toes, and I pulled him closer.

It was awkward, sitting the way that we were, but it was the first time all day that I felt something other than confusion and desperation. I didn’t want the kiss to end, but he slowly pulled back. The memory of my heartbeat thumped and my eyes opened. I felt breathless, though I knew I couldn’t be. Josh was smiling, and his eyes flicked to mine and held, making me feel warm again.

“You want your body, right?” he asked, as if he hadn’t just made every part of me come alive. I nodded, and he added, “So go get it.”

I pulled back, worried. “You mean you think I should give the amulet up?” I said, feeling a ping of alarm ring through me. “Just walk away from being the dark timekeeper?”

“No, of course not.” He shifted, and our knees parted. “But Ron still has his body, right? He’s alive and he’s still the light timekeeper. So what’s the big deal? You want it. Go get it. Being alive doesn’t mean you have to give it up, does it?”

“No,” I said hesitantly as I recalled my conversation with a seraph on that Greek island when I accepted the position. I had asked if I could take the amulet until I found my body, then return it, and the seraph had said I could if that was what I chose to do. If I chose now to have both, wouldn’t that count for something?

Josh leaned in, surprising me when he kissed me again, lightly, almost teasingly as he took my fingers in his. “Just go get it. Let the rest figure itself out.”

I looked at the hallway, thinking of my dad. “Now?”

Josh stood, grinning down at my reluctance. “Why not? If it had been me, I would have made Barnabas stop so I could have taken it when I first saw it. They live forever, Madison. What do they know? Go get your body, and I’ll make you a sandwich. We can eat it and be normal. And when we’re done being normal, we can call Barnabas and you can go back to saving the world. Jeez, Madison, even superheroes have real lives.”

It was exactly what I wanted, what I’d been thinking about all day, and I sat at the table, unable to stop my fake heart from pounding. He made it sound so simple. I wanted it. To agonize over what everyone else thought I might do because I had my body was a stupid thing to do. “I’m going to do it,” I said, and his smile grew wide.

“I knew you would.” He gave me a soft smack on the shoulder. It wasn’t as nice as that kiss, but I smiled back at him. Doing this felt right, for a change. Heaven be damned, if they didn’t want to do things my way, then I’d just give the amulet back and to hell with them all.