Kim Harrison - Something Deadly This Way Comes

Barnabas was smiling, and Josh held the last of his cookie up. “Madison, you want one?”

I shook my head, and Nakita glared at him. “She doesn’t eat, mortal.”

“It’s still polite to ask,” Josh said, chewing, and if I was able to blush, I would have. “Barnabas, did they tell you yet that Madison identified Tammy by her aura?”

A jolt of excitement raced through me, and I sat up, having forgotten my success there. “No,” Barnabas said, looking as happy as I suddenly felt. “Madison, that’s fantastic! How long have you been able to see auras?”

“I can’t,” I said, though I was starting to wonder.

Nakita, too, was smiling again. “She looked back through at the time line to where she flashed so I could see Tammy’s aura resonance. She’s a fish.”

“Green with an orange center,” Barnabas said cryptically. “She’s got issues.”

“Fish?” I asked, wondering if it was some kind of code.

“My aura is blue,” Josh said.

Barnabas looked askance at him. “I know,” he said, then turned to me. “So you talked to her. You scared her. You think it was enough?”

I shrugged, glancing at Josh’s cookie. “I don’t know. It’s not like I zap back home when reality realigns itself. I want to talk to her again.”

“There’s a good idea.”

Ignoring Barnabas, I licked my lips, wishing I was hungry. “That looks good, Josh.”

Josh beamed as he stood up. “I’ll get you one.”

“She doesn’t eat . . . Josh,” Nakita said dryly, then took a picture of everyone’s feet and the crumbs he had made.

I shook my head, and Josh sat back down. “Thanks, anyway,” I said softly. “I’ll be glad when I learn how to look between the now and the next and find my body. I’m tired of not being hungry.”

Nakita froze, and I looked up to find her staring at me. Her eyes blinked, and in a sudden motion, she shoved her camera into her purse. “I’ll be outside watching the apartment,” she said, then walked quickly to the door, her back stiff and her pace stilted. The door hit the wall, making a bigger dent, and then she was outside, standing with her arms crossed and her head down in the fading sun.

Bewildered, I looked from Josh, his mouth full and chewing slowly, to Barnabas’s resigned expression. “What did I say?” I asked.

Josh shrugged, but Barnabas winced. “She’s worried that once you get your body back that you’ll dissociate from your amulet and leave her. So am I.”

Worried, I looked out the plate-glass windows.

“Those black wings you put in her left some of your memories in her. She knows you better than anyone on heaven or earth, and she’s afraid. I’ll be okay, but Nakita . . . You taught her what it’s like to fear death, and she thinks that once you’re gone no one will understand her and people will think she’s more of a square peg than they already do.”

Oh, God. How do I get into these messes?

Josh jumped when his phone vibrated. Excusing himself, he went to answer it and give us some privacy at the same time. My gaze dropped, and I ran my fingernail along a groove in the table. Looking up, I gathered my determination. “I don’t want to give up being the dark timekeeper,” I said. “But if I can’t make this work—if I can’t convince the seraphs that the early scythings are unnecessary to save a person’s soul before it goes bad, then I’m not going to stay around to send reapers to kill people who are too scared, or frightened, or just plain stupid to find joy in life.”

Barnabas looked out the window, his hat pulled low over his eyes. “You wanted to know what was bothering her. That’s it.”

He was being unusually callous, and I frowned. “You don’t think I’d rather stay here with you?” I almost growled, crumpling up Josh’s cookie wrapper. “I’m trying to make this work!”

“So is she.” Barnabas leaned forward. “She hasn’t been on earth as long as I have. She doesn’t understand about human choice and the fragility of your dreams and the strength that lies in your hopes and faith. Angels see everything in black and white, and the earth was made to be colorful. Think about what you’re asking her to do. She is all about the soul, Madison. Life is secondary to her. Life is transient, and you’re asking her to risk someone’s soul for an extension of something that to her is a blink of an eye.”

“But all we have is that blink,” I said miserably.

Barnabas leaned back and glanced at Josh, talking with someone on the phone. “I know. It’s one of the reasons I left heaven. I think that Nakita is starting to understand. She’s come a long way.”

My throat was tight, and I watched Josh close his phone, looking as depressed as I felt. “So have you, Barnabas,” I said softly.

Frowning, Barnabas looked away. I knew he wasn’t happy about leaving his light-reaper status. My special talent seemed to be screwing up everyone’s life. Sighing, I watched Nakita standing in the lowering sun looking perfect and worried. She wasn’t a fallen angel like Barnabas, but one in good standing. So far. But I’d scarred her, changed her forever when I had accidentally put two black wings inside her. They had been eating me alive when I’d lost contact with my amulet and had fallen through her like a ghost. The black wings had latched on to her and started to eat her memories, much richer than mine. Eventually the seraphs had gotten them out, but the memories that the black wings had taken from me were forever a part of her. She now knew what it was like to fear, something that most angels have no concept of.

“I don’t want to leave,” I whispered.

Barnabas made a small noise. “Then we’d better make this work.”

Josh shuffled up, his eyes darting from me to Barnabas. “I have to go,” he said in disgust. “My mom found out I wasn’t at The Low D with the guys and wants me home.”

“Oh, no!” I exclaimed, guilt from making him lie for me rising up fast. “Josh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”

He shrugged, head down as he zipped his gym bag shut. “I told her I took you to dinner instead, and she’s not mad, but I gotta go put in an appearance. You’d better call your dad. She might have phoned him.”

I hated this. Lying. It made more trouble than it solved, but what were my choices here? Hey, Dad. I’m on the West Coast tonight, trying to stop a boy from dying in an apartment fire. Back after midnight! Love you!

Throwing my head back, I looked at the stained ceiling. Someone had put graffiti up there, and I blinked. Barnabas silently stood and shook out his long duster like it was his wings. “I’ll take you home,” he offered to Josh.

“Puppy presents,” I swore softly, standing as well. “Do you think you can come back?”

Josh hoisted his gym bag to his shoulder and brushed the cookie crumbs from his shirt. “I don’t know. I’ll cover for you best I can, but if anyone asks, I left you at The Low D with a couple of girls.”

I made a face. Yeah, that was likely. I only had one girlfriend, and she was out at the curb, afraid I was going to ditch her.

Josh glanced at his watch, still set for Illinois time. “It’s almost six thirty at home.” Frustrated, he dropped his hand and grimaced. “I might not be able to get away until after midnight, which will be ten here. Everything might be done by then.”

“If we’re lucky.” I glanced at Barnabas, knowing that he wasn’t going to sit and wait for Josh. He’d come right back. “Well, I’m going to have to put in an appearance tonight, too,” I said, thinking of my curfew. At least it was the weekend. “Call me?”

Josh smiled at that, and my entire frame of mind changed when he edged around the table and took my hands and pulled gently, hesitantly. I leaned in as he did, and he gave me a kiss.