Kim Harrison - Something Deadly This Way Comes

The softness of sheets was what I noticed first, then Paul’s presence next to mine. His quicksilver thoughts were jumping from idea to idea, his excitement contagious. Knowing it wouldn’t help, I willed Tammy to open her eyes. And she did.

The shock of that reverberated through me, and I took in the too-narrow, propped-up bed, the industrial-looking built-in counter and drawers, the blank TV fixed high to the wall, and the long, ugly table on wheels. There was an oversize cup on it, the straw bent away, and a single get-well card. The sun was up, but it wasn’t coming in the open window that had a view of a brick wall. I couldn’t tell if we were two stories up, or thirty. The hazy blue indicating a far-distant flash forward hung on the edges of my vision, and I realized Tammy was squinting as I struggled to get a clearer view.

When are we? I heard Paul ask, another surprise, but I didn’t think Tammy heard since she didn’t react.

I don’t know. A few days from now? A week maybe? No more than that, I guessed.

And then a new thought intruded, clear and resolved. I’m dying.

My heart gave a jump, and I felt Paul’s grip tighten in mine when Tammy moved her hand above the sheets. It was horribly thin, the skin pale and almost transparent, looking too weak to even tie a shoelace. A bruise was around her wrist where someone had gripped her, and her fingernails were painted a bright red, garish against the white sheets. An ache filled our entire body, as if in a fever, and I wondered if she had been beaten. The blue haze surrounding everything put it a few days ahead at most, but there was no way she could lose this much weight that fast, and I wondered why the vision was so clear. We must be months, maybe years ahead.

The breath labored in our chest, and I felt a tear slide down Tammy’s cheek. Inside, I could feel her pulse becoming erratic, and a weird tingling rose up from her toes. She said she was dying. She might be right.

A feeling of worthlessness had filled our joined thoughts as the sound of traffic came in the open, small window set in the large pane of glass. She was alone, but that was not why she cried. Regret. Regret for words not said, for thoughts left unspoken, for actions not taken, and challenges not acknowledged. And only now, at the end, did she understand what she had lost by shutting out the good things and living her life without love. Even her brother, who she had turned away so often that he had quit trying.

Tammy, it’s okay, I thought, trying to reach her. It’s not too late!

But only Paul heard me.

My chest clenched in heartache as she thought of drawings she never began and poems stopped with only one phrase—afraid of what others would think. There were trips not taken and friends never joined, chances to make someone else happy that she ignored, thinking that it made her stronger, when all it did was eat away at her soul.

“I wish . . .” she breathed, her head turning to the window and the dismal brick wall. “I wish . . .”

But it was too late, and I felt a lump in my throat as a small glint of dust glittering in the corner took on the familiar glow. It was a guardian angel weeping sunbeams, and I wondered if this was why the far flash forward was so clear.

Paul started in surprise, and then I realized by Tammy’s sudden exhalation of breath that she saw her, too. Is that an angel? he asked me, and I sent a sideways thought to him that it was. Why is she crying? both Tammy and he wanted to know.

“Because your life is over,” the angel said aloud, her chiming voice like falling water both familiar and different from Grace’s.

Tears slipped from me. From us. We were all the same. “You’re so beautiful,” Tammy breathed, clearly able to see her, too. “Have you come for me?”

The hope in her voice went to my core and twisted, and hearing it, the angel dropped down before her, bathing her in warmth as the room seemed to go cold and dark.

“I’ve been with you since forever and no time at all,” the angel said, smiling through her own tears.

“I know. I felt you,” Tammy said. “I think I felt you. I’m so sorry,” she said around a gulp of air, the tears spilling over and blurring our shared vision.

“What for, child?”

Her pale hand lifted and fell, looking unnatural as it lay palm up on white, faded sheets. “I ran away. I don’t just mean from Johnny and my mother, but from everything. I had so many plans. I was going to do so many things, and I can’t even remember them now.”

She was dying, six thousand sunrises behind her, a billion emails sent, a thousand jokes laughed at, a zillion moments tucked in her brain to add up to nothing because she had forgotten how to love. She was still that same scared girl I had tried to help hours ago, frightened and thinking she was alone.

The angel dropped even lower, coming to rest in the cup of her hand. “You must be brave now,” she admonished, crying, still crying.

A spike of fear lit through her and died. “Why?” she whispered.

“It’s going to hurt.”

The fear redoubled, and Tammy held her breath. Why? she thought, her question echoing in both Paul’s and my minds.

“I won’t leave you. I’ll stay until it’s over,” the angel said like a parent reassuring a child they wouldn’t leave until he fell asleep, and the warmth of her stole up Tammy’s arm and settled in her chest.

Am I going to die? Tammy asked, her thought quavering.

“You’ve already done that, love.”

Fear, my own this time, filled me. It was true. Tammy was dead. She had not taken another breath since the angel had told her it was going to hurt. I felt Paul’s panic, and I squished my own terror. We were okay. We weren’t dead. But Tammy was.

What’s going to happen to me? Tammy asked, her thoughts clearer now among ours.

And still the angel cried. “I’m sorry,” she said, beautiful in her sorrow. “I wish I could make it different, but all I’m made for is to protect in case your soul would revive and be renewed before you died, but it’s too late.” Her eyes—too bright to see—bore into Tammy, finding me somewhere inside her. Is it now? Or is it yet to be?

What? Tammy asked, but I was the one who jumped. She was talking to me. The guardian angel who had been with Tammy was talking to me. She knew I was here, living the future, and the angel didn’t know if what we were living was true, or just a maybe. God, I hoped it was a maybe.

A shadow covered the window, and the stink of wet stone. My pulse leapt as I saw the black wing slide into the room through the open window. Fear hit me, sour and rank, and Paul sensed my sudden terror.

“Her soul is dead, Madison,” the guardian angel said to me, not a hint of accusation in her voice. “It died three years ago, and I stayed with her, keeping the black wings from her in the hope that it might rekindle and grow anew, but it did not. She failed to nourish it, and it perished utterly.”

No! I shouted as the first black wing landed on her.

Tammy screamed, her body dead but something still aware in her. White-hot ice filled her thoughts, peppermint and fire. I tried to pull back, but I was caught in this hell and couldn’t escape. Black wings had found her, and her memories were being eaten as we watched, unable to move and stop them. The energy that she had stored as memory was being stripped from her, the dripping sheet of black tearing memories from her like a hyena over a kill.

And like hyenas, more came. One by one, they fought their way into the room and covered Tammy as she screamed and writhed in her mind, unable to escape, unable to fight back, her body flaccid and still.