Kim Harrison: Something Deadly This Way Comes

“What the hell?” Jennifer said. “Are you some kind of Bible school reject?”

My temper got the better of me, and I squinted at her. “Honey, the stuff I’ve done and gotten away with would put your daydreams to shame,” I said, anger shoving my embarrassment to the back of my mind to deal with later. “So listen to me when I tell you sneaking out isn’t worth it.”

The sound of the fire roaring was echoed in the bus’s engine, and I stifled a shiver as I looked at Tammy. Seeing her new resolve, I realized that speaking out had done more bad than good. She wanted freedom. She wanted to make her own decisions. But she clearly thought that making her own decisions meant doing the opposite of what her parents said was good for her. I’d call her a fool, but I’d been the same way myself. Until I had died trying to make a point that I was no one’s little girl.

They were still staring at me. Maybe I should try a different tack.

“Look, all I’m saying is that stuff goes wrong sometimes,” I said. “What if your little brother gets hurt? A burglar could break in, or the building could catch on fire. He’d be all alone.”

Jennifer flopped back into her seat. “In this town? You gotta be kidding me. Nothing happens here. Mind your own business.”

Nakita reached for her amulet, and I gently kicked her ankle. Her gaze shot to mine, her eyes seeming to say, “I told you so.”

I was hot with anger. I don’t know how, because I was dead and didn’t really have a body, but I was definitely warm. Disconcerted, I turned around, very aware of them still staring at me.

I couldn’t bring myself to look at Nakita. I didn’t want her to be right. There was no way that I was going to spend the next thousand years sending out assassin angels to end lives in order to save souls. I stood when the bus lurched to a halt.

Nakita rose with me. “We’re getting off? What about . . . her?”

My eyes were fixed on the front as three kids filed off. “Tammy will be fine until tonight. We need to leave before I shove my amulet down Jennifer’s throat.” I looked back at Nakita, who still hadn’t gotten into the aisle. “Come on. We know where she lives. Or Barnabas does.”

Nodding, Nakita followed me to the front. “We’re leaving?” Josh said as I touched his shoulder, but he immediately picked up his gym bag and stood.

From the back of the bus, Jennifer said in a mocking falsetto, “Going home to play tea party with your dolls?”

Josh winced at my pressed lips and warm cheeks. “Time to leave. Gotcha.”

“Before Madison learns how to use her amulet and scythes the wrong girl,” Nakita said, clearly amused.

“I can’t believe I just blurted it out like that,” I berated myself. “I am such an idiot.”

“Didn’t go well, huh?” Josh asked as he filed out behind Nakita, and we all got off the bus.

“That’s one way to put it,” I said, hands on my hips and staring at the bus from the sidewalk. Tammy was watching me, and Jennifer was making angelic faces looking heavenward. I hated that they were laughing at me, especially with Josh watching.

Nakita and Josh were beside me, and I held my breath as the bus drove away. The three kids who got off with us gave us a long look before heading down the sidewalk.

“Madison?” Josh asked, and I exhaled.

“It’s okay,” I said, trying to get rid of my anger. I hadn’t handled it well, but it was only my second scything. “We know who she is, and what she’s doing tonight. That’s more than we did ten minutes ago.” I glanced at my watch, surprised to find out it had only been just that long. “Barnabas is probably a few houses up,” I said as I put my hands in my jeans pockets and started to follow the bus’s route. “You want to just walk it?”

Josh immediately shouldered his bag and fell into step beside me. Nakita, though, lingered behind, head down, arms crossed over her middle—thinking.

The loud bang of the Laundromat’s door hitting the wall brought Barnabas’s eyes up from where he sat with an untouched vendor-dispensed coffee before him. I watched the woman who just left drag her bratty kid to the busy street, not even using the crosswalk to dart over the six lanes to reach the apartment complex on the other side. The building was the same one from my flash forward—minus the fire trucks. The air-conditioning was on in here, but it was humid from the dryers, and it smelled like bad coffee and fabric softener. The place was empty now, apart from us, and Josh leaned over to open the dryer that someone had left going. The heat billowed out to warm my feet, and slowly the noise died to nothing.

Josh slid from the dryer, sighing as he went to stand before the concession machine. He jiggled the change in his pocket before exchanging it for a double-stuffed, massive cookie the size of a plate. I looked at it enviously as he brought it back and slumped into the couch beside me. Nakita was in the chair next to Barnabas, and I propped my feet up on the table.

“You found the place okay?” I asked Barnabas as Josh took a huge bite, white cream squishing out the back.

Barnabas nodded, running a hand over his loose curls as his gaze went out the window to the apartment building. “How about you? Did you find Tammy?”

Nakita rolled her eyes and set her purse on the table. “She blew it.”

My brow furrowed, and Barnabas’s eyes widened. “She’s dead?”

“She is not dead!” I said, then lowered my voice when an attendant poked his head in before vanishing into a back room. A sitcom laugh track rose faintly, and I leaned toward Barnabas. “I know who she is. Blonde. Bossy—”

“And thinks Madison is a wacko,” Nakita said as she snapped open her purse and brought her camera out. Focusing on the rows of silent washers, lids up, she added, “You just had to blurt it out.”

“Hey. I’m not the one telling her I’m trying to save her soul,” I said, and Barnabas exhaled loudly.

Totally unperturbed, Nakita looked at the back of her camera and the digital screen. “Stay home or you’ll ruin your life was the first thing out of her mouth. We had to get off the bus.” Glancing at Barnabas, she added, “Did you see Tammy get off?”

Barnabas pulled himself out of his slouch. “Could have. I saw a girl the right age get off the bus with a boy. She looked scared.”

I nodded. “That was probably her. Jeans, pink shirt. Blonde?”

“Yup, she lives on the third floor, corner apartment.” Barnabas sipped his machine-made drink, grimaced, and set it down. “Sweet seraphs, this is bad. So what happened on the bus?”

My focus blurred as I thought back to it. Maybe I hadn’t screwed things up too badly. “Other than she and her friends thinking I was a freak of a Goody Two-shoes? I don’t know. If she looked scared, maybe she’ll stay home tonight instead of going to the movies to swap spit with David.”

“It was Dan,” Nakita said, and I rolled my eyes.

“Dan then. But if her brother doesn’t die, she won’t run away, right? Problem solved.”

Nakita, though, didn’t look convinced as she exchanged a worried look with Barnabas. “What?” I asked, thinking they knew something I didn’t.

Josh turned his cookie around to lick the cream squishing out. He looked happy and content, and I shifted my leg until our knees touched. He smiled as he looked up, making me glad he was here with me. “Don’t you ever stop eating?” Nakita asked him.

“No.” Josh turned to look at the vending machine. “You chipped your nail polish.”

Nakita gasped, immediately checking her fingernails, then bending first one sandal up to check her toes, then the other. “I did not!” she exclaimed indignantly.