Something Deadly This Way Comes ma-3

by Kim Harrison

  “He doesn’t know we’re here,” Barnabas said. “I think we should keep it that way.”

  He probably suspected we were here, but I wasn’t going to bring it up. Not being able to see the time line was going to be a problem. I knew what Tammy’s resonance looked like now, but I couldn’t show anyone if the time line was a blurred mess to me. I didn’t think reapers could backtrack by themselves into the past to see where her aura shifted unless I was there to guide them. It would take a timekeeper for that. Or perhaps . . . one studying to be a timekeeper?

  Elated, I yanked my borrowed pants back up. “Paul,” I said firmly, and everyone stared.

  “Paul?” Nakita echoed, disbelief in the slant of her eyes.

  “Who’s Paul?” Josh whispered.

  Demus had sat back up to better laugh at me. “You mean the rising light timekeeper?” he snorted, and Josh’s expression darkened. Yeah, he remembered him now.

  “Paul isn’t skilled enough to tweak your amulet,” was Barnabas’s opinion, but I was waving at them to listen.

  “Yeah, I know. But he can help us find Tammy. He can look at the time line back to where I changed her aura. He can show both of you.” I glanced at Demus. “The three of you, I mean. And once you have that. Ba-da-bing! We have her.”

  Demus was eyeing me in disbelief. “Uh, we’re talking Ron’s grub, right?”

  Grub? I thought. How insulting is that?

  Nakita had crossed her arms in front of her, looking immovable. “This is not a good idea. Even for you, Madison.” Josh, too, had turned away and was scuffing the turf with the toe of his boot. He wasn’t jealous, was he? I wondered, feeling a flash of delight.

  “Why not?” I asked, not caring that everyone thought it was a bad idea. When had I ever had an idea they thought was good? “Paul helped us before. We never could have saved Ace if it wasn’t for his help.”

  The words were out of my mouth before I had a chance to think about them, but it was true. Dark and light working together had done it.

  “Oh, come on!” I almost moaned as Nakita rolled her eyes. “You got any better ideas?”

  Barnabas gave up with a long exhale. “If she wants to try it, why not?” he said, and Nakita’s lips parted in surprise.

  “Great,” Demus said as he stood and stretched. “You go talk to the rising light timekeeper, and I’ll go check in with the seraphs.”

  Barnabas spun, his long coat unfurling. His hand was on his amulet, and his threat was obvious. “You show even one feather to leave, and I’ll cut your wings off. You’re Madison’s reaper, and you’ll do as she says, so help me God!”

  “Gee, thanks, Barnabas,” I said to try to lighten things up, and Demus slumped. Apparently Barnabas’s swordsmanship was legendary.

  “I guess I’m in, then,” the dark reaper said.

  I smiled at that. Demus wasn’t really a bad guy. Just focused on old methods. Nakita had been, too, and she had been far more militant in voicing her opinion. Still smiling, I held out my hand to Nakita. “Can I have my phone?” I asked sweetly, and Demus made an odd, strangled sound.

  “Sweet seraph nubs, she’s going to phone him?” the reaper gasped, and Josh sighed, falling back to stand against a tall pillar with his arms over his middle. He was starting to look cold. I knew I was. And he’s jealous!

  I smiled my thanks as Nakita handed me my little pink phone, the battery charged and five bars showing. Magic, technology . . . it was pretty much the same thing to me. The important thing was that we were going to do this together. I couldn’t do it alone. I didn’t think it was even possible to do alone. It was going to take all of us. Light and dark.

  “She has his number?” Demus asked in disbelief as I went through my phone book and hit ice.

  “When did you get his number?” Josh asked, his voice clipped.

  “Last month,” I said, listening to it ring. “I got it from Shoe, and thought it would be a good idea.” Josh was still staring at me, and I made a questioning face. “What’s the big deal here? I’m a timekeeper, he’s trying to be one. I’ve got him as my emergency number in case, I don’t know . . . I get put in jail for starting a fire or something.”

  Josh turned away, and faintly, almost at the edges of my hearing, I thought I heard Grace huff and say that she was all the protection I’d ever need.

  “Am I the only one who sees a problem in this?” Demus was saying. “Nakita, she’s betraying everything the seraphs believe in. Everything we believe in.”

  “Shut up and watch,” Nakita shot back at him, but I could tell she was worried.

  The phone was still ringing, and I fidgeted with it to my ear, wondering if the warmth I felt on my face was from Grace.

  “’Ello?” a tired voice came on, and my tension doubled.

  “Paul, it’s Madison,” I said, and Paul said nothing. “Dark timekeeper?” I prompted, then felt a flush of worry. Maybe I’d gotten the number wrong. “Crap, is this Paul?”

  “Oh! Hi, Mark,” Paul said, and I froze until I realized he wasn’t alone. “Sorry, I fell asleep on the couch watching a movie. Sure. Hold on and I’ll get it. It’s in my lab book. You’ve got all weekend to do it. Couldn’t you have called tomorrow?”

  Demus was leaning against a rock again, his disgust obvious. “He doesn’t even know who you are.”

  “Relax,” Barnabas said, leaning close to whisper it. “He’s with Ron is all. That’s the problem with you dark reapers. You don’t know how to lie properly.”

  Demus’s expression became irate, but I thought it was funny.

  There was a smattering of background noise, the sound of a door closing, and then Paul’s hushed voice saying, “Are you insane? Why are you calling me?”

  “Why did you tell me I could if you didn’t want me to?” I asked him.

  “It was in case of an emergency!” Paul said, then hesitated. “What did you do?”

  I would have taken offense, but I had kind of screwed up. “Um, I found my body. And now my amulet doesn’t work right.”

  “Congratulations?” he said, making it into a question.

  “See?” Nakita said, leaning forward so she could hear. “Even the grub knows it was a mistake.”

  “It wasn’t a mistake!” I said, but I was starting to think that it was. Giving her a dark look, I turned back to the phone, my eyes on Josh’s. He looked mad, or maybe worried. “Paul, I need your help,” I said. Jeez, I hope he hadn’t heard the grub comment.

  He sighed. I heard it even though he was probably several hundred miles away in an Arizona desert. “Are you trying to change someone’s fate again?” he asked. “Madison, it was luck the last time. Fate is fate. That’s why they call it that.”

  “I thought you believed in choice?” I mocked him, then caught my anger, swallowing it. Paul didn’t say anything, and my worry crept back. “Paul?”

  “For God’s sake,” he said, voice hushed. “Do you know what Ron will do to me if he finds out I helped you?”

  My hand holding the phone to my ear trembled. “Her name is Tammy,” I said. “Her soul was going to start to die after her brother died in a fire. I talked to her, and her fate changed so they both died, so I talked to them again, and something shifted so that they survived. She listened, Paul, and I reminded her of the good stuff. She wants to change, but she’s not out of it yet. She’s still in danger of letting her soul die. I need to find her. Talk to her again. I know I can fix this.”

  Demus was peering at me in question. His eyes met mine and held. “This is a big mistake,” he said, his voice utterly devoid of the devil-may-care attitude he had shown so far.

  “She still isn’t making the choice to live,” I said to Paul, but talking to both of them. “But I think she can. I changed her resonance to hide her from the reapers and I can’t find her because my amulet . . .” I took a breath. “Paul, my amulet is tuned to a dead person, not one halfway to heaven.” Or hell. “I can’t find her. Please, just help me find her, and then you can go back to
your movie or whatever you were doing. Five minutes, tops.”

  “You changed her resonance?” Paul asked, a hint of jealousy in his voice.

  “Yes,” I said, feeling a stirring of pride. My eyes flicked to Josh again. He still wasn’t looking at me, and I felt a ping of anger. Save me from the touchy male ego. “Help me find Tammy, and I’ll tell you how I did it.”

  “You can’t teach the rising light timekeeper!” Demus exclaimed, and Barnabas shoved him over.

  “I can’t see the time lines,” I admitted, starting to get nervous. “Paul, we have to find her before the light reaper does and puts a guardian angel on her.”

  Again he sighed. “Or I could sit here and do nothing, and Tammy’s life is saved by a guardian angel,” Paul finally said.

  “A guardian angel doesn’t save anything,” I said in frustration, working to keep the irritation from my voice because I was trying to gain his help. “It just means that her life goes on. No meaning, Paul. No grace. She may as well be a painting on the wall. I’m not going to ask the seraphs for help. Grace says they’re ticked at me, and I think it’s because I’m proving them wrong and they don’t like it.”

  It felt good to say it, and my face warmed even as I turned from the reapers watching me with varying degrees of hope and disbelief. Paul was silent again, but there was nothing more I could say, and I waited, fidgeting.

  “Where are you?” he said flatly, and I took a huge breath of air, thrilled to my toes. Demus softly swore, and Barnabas and Nakita exchanged a high five. Josh smiled softly, and I warmed. “Puerto Rico?” he guessed. “Ron just sent someone out there.”

  “Baxter, California,” I said, feeling like this might work even though he hadn’t said yes yet. “I’m not sure where that is exactly. Somewhere south? It’s hot and muggy.”

  Paul made a soft mmmm of sound. “I think I know where that is. Let me get my shoes. Ron was griping about one of the reapers not checking back in.”

  “Arariel,” I said, and Paul made a grunt of acknowledgment.

  “Yes, that’s her. Hold on. I gotta tell Ron I’m going to bed.”

  Hold on? I wondered, but the phone made a high-pitched squeal. Yelping, I dropped it, scrambling to catch it and missing. “Sorry,” I said after I picked it up and gingerly put it back to my ear. “Paul? Paul, you there?”

  But Paul wasn’t there anymore, and I spun at a bright light that lit the graveyard. Ten feet away, a vertical line split the darkness, widening until a black shadow grew at its center. It was Paul, closing his phone as he stepped from one part of the world to the other as easily as crossing into another room. His smile widened as his unlaced dress shoes found the dew-wet grass and the bright line behind him closed in on itself and vanished.

  Nodding respectfully to Barnabas and Nakita, he let his gaze linger on Demus, who was eyeing him with mistrust, then blinked in surprise when Josh pushed himself up from the pillar, obviously the odd man out, not being a reaper.

  “Hi, Madison,” Paul said lightly as he tucked his dress shirt back in his Dockers, fully aware that I was as impressed as all hell. “Who are we saving tonight?”

  Chapter Ten

  Demus dropped back to take in Paul. “Your aura is green?” he mocked, staring at the luminescent stone around Paul’s neck. The glow of the stone was a reflection of Paul’s aura, and it was indeed a bright, gold-laced green.

  Paul dropped his eyes, his lips set tight as he ran a hand over his sandy-brown hair. He was embarrassed, and I didn’t think it was because he was still wearing the rumpled clothes that he’d worn to school today. The stone he used to touch the divine should be shifting up the spectrum to a light timekeeper’s red by now, but it was that sparkly, neutral green, as Demus had so inelegantly pointed out, that ebbed to a flat black even as I watched.

  “You shut up.” Nakita threatened to smack him, and I cleared my throat. I thought it odd she was defending Paul, seeing as she didn’t like him, but she had apologized to Paul for knocking him out once, so maybe it was part of her trying to understand. Barnabas, too, looked more uncomfortable now that Paul was here.

  “You’re not doing this!” Demus said, ignored, and I didn’t like the look in his eye.

  “I can’t stay long,” Paul said, glancing at everyone, his gaze lingering on Josh questioningly.

  “The rising light timekeeper should not be here!” Demus hissed, and I jerked when I felt him tap into the divine. Barnabas was already moving, his dark shadow darting across the open area to slam into the redheaded angel.

  “Look out!” Nakita shouted, and I found myself on the ground, the air pushed out of my lungs and Nakita on top of me. Damn, she was fast! Blowing the hair out of my eyes, I wiggled to get a better look as Barnabas sat on Demus, a handful of red hair in his grip as he pulled Demus’s head up. Paul had fallen back, knowing to get out of the way when angels fought, and Josh was behind that pillar again.

  Barnabas lifted the chain around Demus’s neck until he had his amulet in his possession. “Nakita, do you have any rope in that purse of yours?”

  “Get off me, Nakita,” I wheezed. Yeah, my life was so glamorous, out after midnight among the tombstones, sweating and slapping at mosquitoes.

  Nakita slipped off, and I took a huge gulp of air, sitting up to brush last week’s dried grass clippings off me. Nice. I hadn’t been in my new dark timekeeper clothes five minutes and I get them dirty. Josh extended a hand to help me up, and I took it gratefully.

  “Thanks,” I said softly, my lips next to his ear. “And relax, will you? You look like he wants to be my boyfriend or something. He’s just a guy.”

  “Yeah?” Josh said as he watched me brush the last of the dirt off. “Just a guy who can do that amulet thing and walk through space.”

  I grinned at him, appreciating that he felt jealous. “He’s not the one who held my hand when I died,” I said, shifting my weight to bump into him. “And he’s not the one who was there when I got my body back.”

  Josh’s shoulders eased, and he actually smiled, even when Paul came to stand at my other side. The two guys warily greeted each other as Nakita leaned against a stone and pulled her long stockings off.

  “This is wrong!” Demus was shouting, and I looked at the dark street that suddenly seemed too close. “The seraphs need to know what you’re doing! That grub is going to tell Ron. He’s going to put a guardian angel on her!”

  I had broken curfew too many times and gotten away with it to be cowed by what a seraph might think about me hanging out with my future adversary. They were the ones who picked me. If they couldn’t handle my rebellious tendencies, then they should have picked someone else. Still . . . I watched the sky. Demus couldn’t do much without his amulet, but there was no need to advertise.

  “Here,” Nakita said as she handed Barnabas her white stockings. Barnabas tossed me the reaper’s amulet, and I caught it, feeling the violet stone warm in my grip as both Paul and I looked down at it. I hadn’t made it, but the amulet around my neck had been used in its construction, and it was as if the two stones were greeting each other.

  “Get off!” Demus huffed as Barnabas yanked his arms back and tied his wrists. “Nakita,” he pleaded when Barnabas finished and got off him. “He’s going to put a guardian angel on her. Nakita, stop this! You’re traitors! Traitors!” he shouted.

  Feet spread wide, Nakita stood over him as Barnabas yanked him into a seated position. “I told you to be quiet,” she said, bending provocatively to shove her last wadded-up stocking into his mouth. “And I’m not a traitor,” she added, looking unsure as she stepped back.

  Paul gave me a look like he wanted to laugh but was afraid to. “Having problems with your reapers?”

  My heart was pounding. Demus’s face was as red as his hair. “He’s new to my methods,” I said with a false lightness, then turned away as if it didn’t bother me. But it did.

  Paul grinned, reaching out a finger to poke my shoulder. “You’re alive now?”

 
I couldn’t help but smile back. “Yeah, so no scything me, okay?”

  He laughed, pantomiming cutting through me with a blade, remembering our first meeting when he’d tried to kill me. I had been evil incarnate, according to him. Now I was hoping he saw us as colleagues . . . sort of. Glancing at Demus, Paul said, “I don’t know exactly what you want me to do here.”

  Excitement tingled to my toes. “Your amulet is strong enough to see the time lines, right?” I asked. “I mean, Ron didn’t give you an amulet that couldn’t, yes?”

  Paul looked down at his green stone. “I can see them, sure. But that doesn’t help you much. I don’t have the slightest idea where to look.”

  Barnabas gave Demus a nudge to be quiet. “What have you been doing the last three months?”

  “Not this,” was Paul’s quick, defensive answer, and Josh snorted.

  “If you can bring the time lines up,” I said, “I can see them through your thoughts. I’ll show you her resonance, like I would a reaper.”

  Paul’s eyes were wide. “You can do that? Show someone else what you’re looking at?”

  “It’s how a timekeeper shows a reaper what soul to take,” I said, realizing that Ron hadn’t told him that much. Sure, Paul could jump across space and make a sword from the divine, but he didn’t know the first thing about his job. What was Ron waiting for?

  “Like I said,” Barnabas muttered as he leaned toward me, “what have you been doing the last three months?”

  I glared at Barnabas to be quiet. We needed Paul’s help. “You want to try it?” I asked Paul. If he didn’t, we were screwed.

  Paul glanced at Josh, then me. “You, uh, won’t be able to read my thoughts, will you?” he asked.

  I looked at Nakita and Barnabas, not sure myself, and they shrugged. Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea. “I don’t know. Paul, you’re going to have to do this eventually,” I cajoled, and his eyes grew determined.

  “Okay,” he said, sitting down on one of the stones.