Kim Harrison - Something Deadly This Way Comes

Excitement zinged down to my toes, almost as potent as that kiss had been. I settled myself more firmly in the chair, setting it square to the table with my back to the hallway arch.

Josh made a sound of surprise. “Here? What if your dad comes in?”

He had moved to stand beside the coffeepot, concern in his expression, and I put my hand out, hoping he’d come sit beside me. “I want you with me when I do this,” I said, my foot jiggling under the table. “You in my room after midnight isn’t going to happen. Talk about my dad having a cow! The roof is out, too. Ron might still be out there.”

“Okay, but we could go somewhere else,” he said, arms crossing in front of him as he looked out the black window to the street.

“Barnabas is going to be here in an hour,” I said impatiently. “There’s nothing open. It will be fine, Josh. The first time I did this, I was in a cop’s office. Besides, what do you think is going to happen? I slip into my body, and it’s done!”

He made a face, and I wiggled my fingers at him, my palm up. “A kiss for luck?” I said, feeling myself grow warm. I couldn’t wait to get my real body back. Everything I felt with Josh was being filtered through my amulet, and I just wanted to be myself again.

Josh chuckled at that, his arms uncrossing as he took the few steps that separated us. “A kiss for luck,” he said, one hand taking mine, and the other going flat on the table between us. With a last look at the empty hallway as if my dad might be coming, he leaned over the table, tilted his head, and met my lips.

I breathed him in, imagining I could feel his aura swirling through mine. My eyes shut, and I leaned forward, our lips moving against each other as the memory of my heart gave a pound. I want to be alive again, I thought as my fingers tightened on his, and then let go.

His eyes opened as we pulled away, his gaze going to the hallway before they came back to me. “If you’re sure?” he said, pulling out the chair facing the archway and sitting down.

My heart was still pounding, and I shrugged, licking my lips as if trying to seal the memory of him there. “Tell me if you hear him coming down, okay?”

Josh put his arms flat on the table, his head shaking. “Okay.”

God, I hope this works. I felt like I was running out of time. Smiling at Josh, I closed my eyes and resettled myself. I felt him take my hand, and I gave his fingers a squeeze. It was easy to find my mindscape of the sheet of the present and the tightly interwoven threads of everyone’s lives falling from it. I could see Josh’s blue twining heavily about mine, Barnabas and Nakita close in thought but not presence. Inching my awareness higher, I found the lines of my thought that were attaching to my amulet and pulling me into the future. And between them was the soft blue and yellow glow of my body, stuck in time, waiting for me.

“I can do this,” I breathed as I let my awareness fall into the spaces in between.

Like a foot into a well-designed shoe, my soul gave a sigh and slipped into my body. The memory of Josh’s lips on mine was replaced by the taste of salt. The hum of the fridge ebbed, and became the sound of surf. I gasped when a wrench twisted my gut.

Josh cried out, but it sounded thin and unreal. And with that same sort of mental relaxation I’d used to let go of the time line and get it started again, I let my mind slip back an instant in time. I hadn’t before, and it made all the difference. With a little thunk of presence, I felt my body shift back in sync with the universe. I was here, and there was no going back.

My heart pounded, and a thrilling sensation spilled through me as I sat up in a spacious, sunlit room. I looked down at my torn prom dress, unbelieving as I felt the grimy fabric between two blood-caked fingers. That fast, it was done. I was in my body.

Dizziness hit me, and I took a gasping breath, almost forgetting to let it out. A laugh burbled up, mixing with the sounds of gulls. I had to breathe. I had to breathe!

My hand went to my neck, and I found my amulet. Swinging my feet around, I jerked my toes from the cold marble floor. Everything seemed to be moving slowly, and I ached everywhere. There was no toe tag when I looked, but I remembered having torn that off.

A throbbing at the front of my head brought my hand up, and I probed my forehead carefully, feeling what was probably a bruise. My shoulder and chest hurt. I pulled the dirt-stained, grimy dress from me to look down my front and see a long bruise where the seat belt would have been. I was really in my body. It was mine!

“I did it!” I shouted, hearing my voice echo, and the gulls outside seemed to mock me. Coughing, I hunched on the velveteen couch, holding my ribs so it wouldn’t hurt so much.

“I did it,” I whispered, not caring if I hurt. I had done it, and I wondered if my resonance had changed because I was again in my body. Black wings, I realized, wouldn’t be a problem anymore. But then my victorious smile hesitated and slowly vanished. Moving carefully until I was sure I could, I stood up and hobbled toward the nearest door, frantically searching for the one thing I hadn’t needed in six months. I had really done it. The proof, they say, is in the pudding. Or in this case, the can. I had to go to the bathroom in the worst way, and I didn’t have a clue where it was.

I trailed my hand across the smooth marble walls just so I could feel the silky sensation as I left the bathroom. It had taken me an entire, desperate three minutes to find it. The huge washroom had been off an entire suite of rooms that I was guessing had been Kairos’s private quarters. Kairos, the same guy who had killed me. I’d give the man one thing; he had taste. Everything I’d found in my mad dash for the bathroom had been scrumptiously elegant. Cold and precise. A band poster or CD rack would look out of place, which made me wonder how much time he’d actually spent here.

Giving the huge, sunken tub a last, longing glance from over my shoulder, I padded barefoot into the bedroom with its huge bed of soft pillows and downy comforters, still messed up from when Kairos had left it. Which was kind of creepy, when you thought about it. My body had been here all along, just an instant out of step with the rest of the world and therefore unseen and protected from the passage of time. Sort of like Barnabas hiding his wings, out of sync with the universe and invisible.

The sun coming in the huge windows with the flat ocean beyond it made me sigh. Taking a bath didn’t sound prudent, even if I would feel a hundred percent better. I had changed clothes, though. Spending the rest of the night trying to save Tammy in my old prom dress wasn’t an option. Kairos predictably hadn’t had any skirts or dresses in his closet, but I’d found a black pair of trousers that almost fit if I rolled up the bottoms, and a baggy tunic that might be fashionable if you were in Azeroth in World of Warcraft.

I hoisted the baggy pants up higher and tied a small knot in the waistband to keep them from falling down as I went into the hallway. The shirt I couldn’t do much with, and I’d just have to be careful not to lean too far forward. My old dress was wadded up and shoved under the bathroom sink. If I never saw it again, it would be too soon. Though caught in time and basically static for the time I’d been out of my body, I couldn’t help but feel like I’d been wearing it since I’d died. No wonder my chest hurt, scrunched into that corset. My shoulder ached from the car accident, and I swung it experimentally, smiling. Yeah, it hurt, but it was because I was alive. I couldn’t wait to tell Josh.

The hallway opened up into a huge common area with fabulous cushions and low tables, which in turn led out to the spacious, tiled patio through wide archways edged in flowing curtains. I knew no one had been here since Kairos had died, but everything looked clean. One of the perks of living on holy ground, maybe?