Kim Harrison - Something Deadly This Way Comes

“Why don’t you try to use the time lines to find her?” she finally said. “Kairos always showed me the mark’s aura in the time lines so I could recognize him or her by that.”

I winced. “Tammy’s aura, huh?” I offered. “That’s great. Except I can’t see auras.”

“I can,” Nakita said. “Kairos would show me the time line where he flashed, and the aura that mixed with his was the one we were looking for. We can do this, Madison.” Her brow furrowed. “We can find her before Barnabas does, I bet.”

A knot of tension eased in me, and I smiled. Barnabas. The rivalry was that bad, even now. “Worth a try,” I said cheerfully, then turned my back on the school and sat down. The bars of the fence pushed into my back, and the grass tickled my ankles. Dappled sun made a cool wash of light on me. Taking a breath I didn’t need other than to speak with, I exhaled, trying to settle myself using the technique that Barnabas had taught me. My hand crept up, and I grasped the stone that was at the center of my amulet. The silver wires cradling it were warm, and I closed my eyes. It was my amulet that let me see the time lines, and if I could use it to see auras, it would be a very good sign that I was becoming better at this.

Finding the time lines was easy, and with hardly any effort, I found the bright glow of the present, shifting off into infinity. Now all I had to do was find Tammy on it.

Everyone’s life had a different color or aura. I couldn’t see auras, but Barnabas had gone over them countless times as we sat on my roof and waited for the sun to rise. For most people the color was a reflection of their age and state of mind and could change with the seasons, but for reapers, it was a reflection of what side of the fate or free-will fence they were on. Light reapers tended to be a dark red in color, and dark reapers, violet, and those in the middle a neutral, greenish yellow. When I’d first met Barnabas, his amulet had been a respectable dark red. Now, though, it was clearly moving up the spectrum, showing more certainly than actions that he was starting to doubt his own beliefs. Doubt in an angel was a scary, unexpected thing, like finding out rocks were really made of water.

My original aura had been blue, or so Barnabas had once told me. Now it was violet, so dark it was basically black thanks to my timekeeper amulet. It was easy to find my aura in the bright time line, looking almost like a sinkhole. Beside me was Nakita’s cheerful violet glow, her thoughts weaving among mine. Barnabas was absent, but if I looked down the fabric of time into the past, I could see where he had been with us. Josh, too. As I settled myself, Josh’s aura jumped from somewhere else, joining mine and Nakita’s. He was back from the mausoleum, and I didn’t need to open my eyes to know it.

“Is she flashing forward again?” I heard him whisper.

“No,” Nakita said softly. “She’s searching the time lines for the mark’s, uh, Tammy’s aura.”

“Really?” Josh said, and I heard him drop his gym bag. “What color is my aura?”

“Blue,” she said tersely. “Shhh.”

As soon as she said it, my entire thinking realigned. Given a name, the resonance I was seeing from Josh suddenly made sense. Blue. Josh’s resonance was blue. I could see it in my mind so much clearer. Feeling more confident, I left the bright glow of Josh and Nakita to scan back a few hours earlier to the tangle of lines where I flashed forward at the track meet. I could feel Nakita’s presence beside me, and together we looked to where my past twined with another, the weight of it seeming to make a dip in the fabric. The aura with mine was a sort of sick greenish color with a flash of orange at its center. Beside it was a bluish yellow one, slightly smaller. Her brother?

It had to be, and I eagerly opened my eyes. Josh was staring at me, having crouched to put us eye to eye, and I grinned right back at him. I couldn’t decide, but there might have been a soft blue glow around him until the sun washed it out. Maybe I had a chance after all if I was really able to see auras.

“Was that her?” Nakita asked impatiently. “The greenish orange one?”

“You saw?” I said, relieved, and she nodded, smirking almost, as I let go of my amulet and the last visage of the time line vanished from my thoughts.

“Tammy has issues,” she said, suddenly a lot more interested in the kids filing into buses or getting into cars. “But most seventeen-year-olds do.”

Seventeen, same as me, or would be if I was alive. Josh stood, extending a hand to help me up. I took it, feeling a tingle between us. The glow about him seemed to strengthen, and I could see a red striation running through it, hovering even closer to his skin. It looked like it was fading, though, like a bruise. His near-death experience, maybe?

Nakita was holding the bars of the fence, her head gently resting between them as if she was in jail. I felt like I was one of the dead, spying on the living. Okay, technically I was, but being behind the graveyard fence only strengthened the emotion. Nakita’s eyes closed, and she breathed deeply. “There’s, like, twenty people the right age that have auras like that,” she said. “Let’s get closer.”

Red purse tucked under her arm, she headed for the impressive gate, her sandals silent on the mown lawn. I brushed my jeans, glancing at Josh’s school pants and shirt. He was going to be hot, but it was better than his running shorts and tank top. “If it helps, Tammy’s brother has a bluish yellow aura,” I said loudly.

“I saw that.” Nakita turned to show me a worrisome smile. Predatory. Eager. Her fingers were on her amulet, the origin of her power and the source of her scythe.

Beside me, Josh hesitated. “She’s not going to kill her, right?”

I shook my head, feeling he was right to ask. I picked up the pace to catch up with her. “Nakita?” I asked warily.

Nakita stopped, her hand on the gate and her eyes on the kids. There were fewer standing around outside now, and the first of the buses was leaving.

“I won’t allow Ron to put a guardian angel on her,” she said tightly. “You’d just better get Barnabas to do his part. But I’m telling you this isn’t going to work. Marks never listen.”

“Ace did.” I was arguing with a brick wall, but even brick walls could be broken down. “Okay,” I admitted as she tilted her head and raised her eyebrows questioningly at me. “So Ace is fated to live a short, violent life, but his soul isn’t meaningless anymore and he gets people to think,” I protested. “And what about Shoe? Now that he isn’t taking the blame for trashing the hospital’s system, he can help prevent that computer terrorist attack in the future. You can’t tell me that’s a bad thing.”

“Life is transitory,” she muttered, a whisper of doubt in her voice. “Only the soul matters.” Checking to see that she had her precious camera, she lifted her head and started for the chipped curb. Josh laughed, and we bumped shoulders as he took my hand and we followed. Like magic, I felt as if the sun was warmer, the air fresher, and my step lighter. His hand in mine was cool, and he gave me a little squeeze, cementing our connection. Josh put up with a lot from me, and I was grateful he was here.

Short, violent life or not, I was proud of our success with Ace. Not only had we saved his soul and life, but we managed to keep his best friend, Shoe, out of the crapper, too.

It had been really hard, though, and our success was as much due to Shoe working to save his own skin as me, Barnabas, and Nakita trying to save it as well. Together Josh and I stepped up beside Nakita at the curb, squinting into the sun at the unfamiliar school. “I know that everyone thinks that Ace was a fluke,” I said softly as Josh’s hand slipped away with a last squeeze. “That’s why we have to do it again.”