Something Deadly This Way Comes

Chapter Eight

I trailed my hand across the smooth marble walls just so I could feel the silky sensation as I left the bathroom. It had taken me an entire, desperate three minutes to find it. The huge washroom had been off an entire suite of rooms that I was guessing had been Kairos’s private quarters. Kairos, the same guy who had killed me. I’d give the man one thing; he had taste. Everything I’d found in my mad dash for the bathroom had been scrumptiously elegant. Cold and precise. A band poster or CD rack would look out of place, which made me wonder how much time he’d actually spent here.

Giving the huge, sunken tub a last, longing glance from over my shoulder, I padded barefoot into the bedroom with its huge bed of soft pillows and downy comforters, still messed up from when Kairos had left it. Which was kind of creepy, when you thought about it. My body had been here all along, just an instant out of step with the rest of the world and therefore unseen and protected from the passage of time. Sort of like Barnabas hiding his wings, out of sync with the universe and invisible.

The sun coming in the huge windows with the flat ocean beyond it made me sigh. Taking a bath didn’t sound prudent, even if I would feel a hundred percent better. I had changed clothes, though. Spending the rest of the night trying to save Tammy in my old prom dress wasn’t an option. Kairos predictably hadn’t had any skirts or dresses in his closet, but I’d found a black pair of trousers that almost fit if I rolled up the bottoms, and a baggy tunic that might be fashionable if you were in Azeroth in World of Warcraft.

I hoisted the baggy pants up higher and tied a small knot in the waistband to keep them from falling down as I went into the hallway. The shirt I couldn’t do much with, and I’d just have to be careful not to lean too far forward. My old dress was wadded up and shoved under the bathroom sink. If I never saw it again, it would be too soon. Though caught in time and basically static for the time I’d been out of my body, I couldn’t help but feel like I’d been wearing it since I’d died. No wonder my chest hurt, scrunched into that corset. My shoulder ached from the car accident, and I swung it experimentally, smiling. Yeah, it hurt, but it was because I was alive. I couldn’t wait to tell Josh.

The hallway opened up into a huge common area with fabulous cushions and low tables, which in turn led out to the spacious, tiled patio through wide archways edged in flowing curtains. I knew no one had been here since Kairos had died, but everything looked clean. One of the perks of living on holy ground, maybe?

I headed for the outside, my hand holding my amulet in reassurance. I was so-o-o-o glad I still had it and it hadn’t been left behind in the kitchen when I had vanished, and I was sure I had. Barnabas had told me I had looked like a ghost when he yanked me back the first time, and since my amulet was what gave me my fake body, and it was with me now . . .

Poor Josh, I thought, wishing I had a way to talk soundlessly with him as I went outside and blinked in the sudden sun. He must be worried sick, me vanishing like that. As soon as I got myself thinking straight, I was going to contact Barnabas or Nakita to come pick me up. Nakita, at least, knew where Kairos’s island was, seeing as she killed him here.

My eyes darted to the broken table where she’d scythed him, the cracked table empty of any sign of violence. I’d taken on the duties of the dark timekeeper before the blood of the last one had gone cold, and I shivered. The hard stone had been cracked when the seraph had laughed at me for not believing in fate. Or had it been laughing because it had seen the future and knew that I’d be here now, wanting my body and the amulet both. They’d let me keep it, right?

Concerned, I wrapped my arms around myself and turned from the table as I remembered the painful beauty of the seraph. They’d let me keep the amulet. I mean, I’d asked if I could try it out, then give it back, and the angel had given me this crafty look and said I could if that was what I chose, like choice was all that there was when it was obvious that seraphs were all about fate. It had even said that there was always a choice. Well, I was making one now. Ron had an amulet, and he was alive. It had said I could choose to give up my amulet when I found my body. That meant the default was for me to keep it. Right?

Determination filled me, and the wind from the water rose up the hundred-foot drop from the tiny beach to shift my hair. The white cloth strung between the pillars made Kairos’s patio look like a perfume commercial. The tide was mostly out, and I closed my eyes and faced the sun, hands spread wide as if I could take the moment and remember it forever, filling myself with the heat of the sun. My heart beat in my chest, and I breathed in and out. I was alive and it felt wonderful—even if my neck hurt as if I had whiplash.

Slowly my smile faded, and my head dropped. Somewhere, on the other side of the earth, Nakita waited in the darkness, thinking I was going to give up my position and abandon her. Some might think it unhealthy to have pinned so much on another person, but Nakita was an angel, one of heaven’s finest reapers. For a creature who had existed since time began, fear was a world-altering realization. Her mind wasn’t created to understand it, and I was her only way to figure it out. Friend was too simple a word. Master was just wrong. Mentor didn’t fit. I only knew we had a bond, and I couldn’t dismiss it just to make my life easier.

My hand gripping my amulet, I closed my eyes, thinking of Nakita’s aura. Shifting my own aura so my thought could slip free of me, I sent a call to her, imagining her in my mind.

Nakita, I thought, feeling my emotion wing from me, and I modified it to her aura, exactly and precisely, right before it hit the top of the atmosphere and bounced down. Even if she were on the opposite side of the earth, she would hear.

But my thoughts stayed empty.

Frowning, I tightened my hold on my amulet. Nakita! I thought louder, taking more care to tailor it to her. Again it bounced from the ceiling of air back to earth . . . and simply vanished.

Concerned, I opened my eyes. I might be in some trouble here. Eventually they’d talk to Josh and figure out what I’d done, and since I had told Barnabas that I’d found my body on my island, they’d look for me here. How long that would take I didn’t know. What might happen to Tammy in the meantime was not pretty.

Barnabas? I called, modifying my thought to slip past his aura and into his mind. I had always been able to reach him the easiest.

“Oh, crap,” I whispered when I got the same response—which was no response. What the devil was going on? It was entirely possible that I’d accidentally changed my signature when I took my body, even if it looked the same to me. They might be hearing me and be unable to answer back. But I didn’t think so. It was as if my thoughts weren’t reaching them at all!

I spun to look at the broken table, fear making my stomach hurt. Maybe the seraphs had cut me off. They had been taking care of the dark timekeeper’s duties for months. What if they had seen me take my body and they just cut me completely out of the equation and left me here before I could tell them I had made a new choice!

Clutching my amulet, I searched its depths. It looked the same, and scared, I stood with the drop-off to my back, the wind shifting my hair as I held my amulet and brought the time line into focus. It looked the same, too, and I exhaled in relief. My amulet, at least, worked.

“There once was a girl who was dead,” Grace sang, and my eyes flew open as I spun, looking for her. “Whose decisions she made with her head. Her body to save, was just what she craved. Choice or fate—both were messed up, instead.”

“Grace!” I exclaimed, hardly able to hear her over the loud surf, and squinting, still not seeing her glow in the bright sun. “I’m so glad you’re here. Barnabas and Nakita . . . are they okay? I tried calling them, and they didn’t answer. I’m still the dark timekeeper. Right?”

A faint buzzing tipped me off that she was nearby, and a warmth stole into my aching shoulder, soothing it. “Yup. You’re still the dark timekeeper. They can’t just take that away. You have to voluntarily give it up. Or be scythed.”

My chest felt warm, and I wondered if she had moved to hover before me. “Your aura looks the same,” she said, her voice going more faint. “Maybe they’re just ignoring you. You smell funny now.”

“Gee, thanks,” I said, fully aware that I stank like I hadn’t bathed in a month. There was nothing funny about it. “Do you think you could have one of them come get me? I’m worried about Tammy.”

“You should be worried about Demus,” she said cryptically.

“Demus?” I echoed, wondering what the dark reaper had done, but there was no answer. She was gone. I hadn’t even seen her leave.

My brow furrowed, and I crossed my arms over my middle, feeing how empty it was. The elation at having gotten my body back was starting to fade. I was hungry, tired, and I ached from the injuries I’d gotten rolling down a hill in a convertible. It was starting to get hot, and my clothes fit funny. Looking at my nails and the old polish from the prom, I wished I had asked Grace to have Barnabas bring Josh with him. God, he must be worried sick.

The hair on the back of my neck seemed to prick, and I spun, heart pounding. There was no one there, just the big empty house that now belonged to me.

“Madison!” came from above, and I looked up, almost blinding myself. It was Nakita, and I backed up under the canopy as she landed, her beautiful wings glinting in the afternoon sun. She was wearing all white again from her head to her boots, and I felt a pang of guilt. She only wore white when she was upset with me, her way of expressing her anger.

Her face was creased, but upon seeing me in my new black clothes pulled from Kairos’s closet, confusion trickled into her eyes. “You’re wearing Kairos’s clothes,” she said.

“I . . .” I said, then hesitated. “Well, I’ve got his job, right?” I said, sounding harsher than I intended. “I may as well do it right.”

Nakita’s lips parted, and her wings rose to block out the sun. “Then you’re staying?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted, and her expression fell as if I’d told her I was leaving this moment. “Nakita, I’m trying, but nothing seems to be working,” I pleaded with her. “You can see it better than I can. I don’t want to think about it, okay? I just want to do right by Tammy. Then, when it’s over, we can think about what comes next.”

She seemed to accept that, her head down and the wind shifting her long black hair into her face. “I’m sorry the seraphs aren’t listening to you,” she said. “Barnabas found Demus. He went to find you, and found Josh instead. They are both waiting for you in the graveyard.”

“Josh!” I exclaimed, glad he was going to be there.

“You need to talk to Demus,” Nakita said tightly, “or he’s going to kill Tammy the second he sees her.”

A faint smile came over me. “And that would be wrong, huh?” I asked her, and she blinked at me. Slowly her smile grew, and she looked almost embarrassed.

“It might be,” she admitted, stretching her wings to put us both in the shade. “If there is a chance we can change her fate. We should go. I had forgotten how peaceful it is here.” Her eyes met mine, holding not peace but at least a lack of fear. “Or maybe I never noticed before.”

Nodding, I hoisted my pants back up and minced across the black marble to her. Nakita’s arm went around me, and I stepped up on one of her feet, standing next to her, rather than in front. One push of her huge wings, and we were airborne. My stomach dropped, and I clutched at Nakita’s arm. Looking down at the small island, I shivered. Flying was a lot scarier now that I was alive again.

“Close your eyes,” Nakita warned me, and I screwed them shut. The muffling softness of her wings pressed against my ears as she enfolded us, and the scent of feathers and wind filled my nose. I gasped when the world seemed to turn inside out, but I was expecting it. Nakita had flung us across space, moving us from high noon to nearly midnight in an eyeblink.

A warm breeze shifted my hair, and I opened my eyes just as Nakita unfolded her wings and we dropped into space. Below us were the scattered lights of Baxter. Descending in a slow spiral, Nakita angled to a very dark part of town. It was the graveyard. A fitting spot, I thought, for a dark timekeeper to meet with her reapers.

“A reaper, Nakita, once saw, death comes to the big and the small,” came Grace’s faint voice, but I still couldn’t see her. “Alone she once stood, thinking no one else would, but the truth empowers us all.”

“Hi, Grace,” I said, putting a hand to my stomach as we descended in the humid blackness. Man, we were a long way up. And the ground looked really hard.

“I’m not going to drop you,” Nakita said as if she could read my thoughts, but it was probably my grip on her arm that gave me away.

I stumbled as she made the last wing-flapping movements in the air and my feet finally touched earth. My oversize shirt was slipping, and I yanked it back into place, warming as everyone looked up. Barnabas looked uneasy, clearly having guessed I had my body back, but Josh, standing beside him, grinned. Demus was leaning indolently against a large stone, his arms over his chest and his expression cross until he noticed what I was wearing, upon which he straightened to attention as if my clothes gave me status. Nakita had hidden her wings and was moving to stand hesitantly beside Barnabas. Grace, I’m sure, was somewhere about, but she wasn’t moving, so who knew where her bright glow was.

“Hi, Josh,” I said, and he ducked his head as he came forward, giving me a quick hug.

“You feel the same as before,” he said, smiling with half his mouth as he gave me a squeeze.

“Thanks,” I said, meaning for about six different things.

Barnabas cleared his throat, and Josh stepped back. “You scared the life out of me when you just vanished like that,” Josh accused, then added proudly, “I knew you could do it. Some warning would have been nice.”

“Sorry,” I said, fidgeting as I turned to Barnabas.

“Congratulations,” Barnabas said as he handed me my phone, his tone not giving me a clue as to what he thought about me getting my body back, and my smile started to fade.

“Yes, well, nothing has changed,” I said as I fumbled for a place to stash it before I handed it to Nakita to put in her purse. “Except I’m hungry.”

Demus pushed himself from the tombstone, squinting as he approached. “You’re wearing Kairos’s clothes and his amulet, but you don’t look anything like him.”

“And we’re all glad of that,” Nakita said, earning a chime of laughter from Grace, who was hiding somewhere.

“There was a cross-dresser from France,” she started, and Nakita threw a rock at her. It went clattering into the dark, and I swear I heard a cat yowl.

I looked down at my clothes. The reapers seemed to be making more out of me wearing them than I’d intended. “I, uh, was in that old prom dress. It was kind of icky. This was the only thing that remotely fit.”

“You look fine,” Barnabas said, but his eyes were on the dark school behind me.

“Well, I think you still smell funny,” Grace whispered right next to my ear, and I jumped.

“Grace, flap your wings a little,” I said. “It’s eerie not knowing where you are!”

I was just in time to see the worried look exchanged between Nakita and Barnabas. “You can’t see her?” Barnabas asked, and I flushed again. Man, I was starting to miss being dead.

“I’ve never been able to see her very well. It’s dark out here,” I said, wondering if I was seeing the tip of my new iceberg. First I wasn’t able to contact Nakita or Barnabas, and now I was having a hard time seeing Grace. It didn’t help that Nakita was still looking at Barnabas like I was broken.

My stomach growled, and I levered myself up to sit on the nearest tombstone. “Okay, the seraphs are mad,” I said.

“Understatement,” Demus said bluntly as he tossed his amulet up and caught it.

“They sent you to scythe her,” I added, making sure we all knew where we stood.

“The moment I find her,” Demus said, throwing his amulet up again into the inky black.

Barnabas reached out, and the dark stone smacked into his hand. Demus sat up fast. “I won’t let you kill her,” Barnabas said. “She might be able to keep her soul alive, rekindle it. You don’t know.”

“They never do!” Demus shouted, lunging. Barnabas sidestepped him, smacking his butt with the flat of his sword, brought into existence in the time it takes for an electron to spin. Josh grabbed my elbow, and I slid from the stone, putting it between us and the reapers.

Demus caught his balance, his face twisted into an ugly snarl. “I will kill her,” he vowed. “I will save her soul from butchers like you, breaking seraph will. Choice is nothing compared to fate. Nothing! Or you’d be able to change it, and you can’t! Give me back my amulet!”

My eyes were wide, and I gripped the stone I was standing behind, Josh firmly next to me. Barnabas had taken the stone to keep Demus from having the ability to kill Tammy, but that wasn’t how I wanted to change things, and I gave a directive head-toss in Demus’s direction.

Barnabas’s lips pressed together disapprovingly, but he lobbed it back to the angry angel even as Nakita scoffed. “But we have changed fate, dark reaper,” Barnabas said as Demus caught it. “The seraphs just don’t want you to know about it.”

“If the seraphs don’t tell me, then I don’t need to know,” Demus said, cradling his amulet as he hunched protectively over it. “Soon as I find her, I take her soul to save it,” Demus said, then turned to Nakita. “Why are you even listening to this? Are you going grim, Nakita?”

Nakita stiffened, her features lost in the dark as she crossed her arms over her middle. Nakita wasn’t grim, but I could see why he asked.

“You can’t find her because I changed Tammy’s resonance,” I said, my bare feet going damp in the grass as I came from around the stone and walked toward him. “And you are not going to kill Tammy. You, dark reaper, are going to help me find her, and then we are not going to scythe her. We are going to talk to her and show her a different choice so she stirs her soul back to life before it dies completely. That’s how we do things down here now. Barnabas saved someone ages ago. And we saved someone else just last month. It can be done.”

“Life is transitory. Souls are not to be risked,” he said, backing away.

“If her soul is to be lost, then we will save it, but not at the cost of her life!” I said, then lowered my voice before someone called the cops about voices in the graveyard. “I am the dark timekeeper,” I said, pushing forward until his back found a tombstone. “I survived my predecessor killing me. I survived black wings eating me alive. I am going to change things,” I said, my heart pounding. “And you are going to help me. Got it?”

He didn’t say yes. But he didn’t say no, either. “Who am I?” I insisted.

“You’re the dark timekeeper,” he muttered, his expression going from defiance to one of a sullen understanding. “Nakita, this is stupid. Haven’t you told her that you can’t change fate?”

“Of course I did.” Nakita, who had been doing handstands against a tombstone, walked on her palms toward us. Flipping right side up, she landed in a fighting pose. “And then she proved me wrong. We saved Ace.”

“Barnabas . . .” Demus almost whined.

The angel smiled with half his mouth, still leaning on his sword. “Just go with it,” he advised. “But if you try to scythe Tammy, I will stop you.”

Demus crossed his arms over his chest, defiant, but understanding. “Why not just let Ron put a flipping guardian angel on her and be done with it?” he said belligerently. “If you want to save someone’s life, that’s how you do it.”

“Because we’re not just trying to save her life, we’re trying to save her soul and her life,” I said, not knowing how to explain it to him. It was about free will and choice, and angels just didn’t get it. Like Barnabas had said, heaven was black and white, but the earth was colorful.

Slumping to the ground, Demus sat cross-legged. “Sweet seraph toes, I don’t get it.”

His head shaking at the angel’s confusion, Josh gingerly sat on a broken stone. “Intense, and a little dense, too,” he whispered to me, and I smiled.

Barnabas put his sword away, clearly relaxing as Demus backed off. “So how do we talk to her?” he asked, then added, “Without her calling the cops on you. I mean, she does think you started the fire, right? Do you want me to wipe her memory?”

“No,” I said quickly, head down as I began to pace in the wet grass. “That’s why marks don’t change. You take their memories, and they have nothing to make a change with.” I came to a halt and pulled my head up. “Everyone leaves Tammy’s memories alone. Got it?”

Demus groaned, rocking back as he sat there cross-legged. “This is the weirdest scything I’ve ever been on.”

I couldn’t help my smile. “That’s because it’s not a scything, it’s a rescue.”

His head thrown back to the stars, Demus moaned, “This isn’t going to work.”

My stomach growled, and I turned to the empty street. “I’m sure Tammy would appreciate us trying.” And he was wrong. It would work. It had to.

“Never going to wo-o-o-ork,” Demus sang, and Nakita threw a rock at him.

“Shut up!” she exclaimed as Demus ducked and the rock shattered into fragments on the stone behind him. “She’s the dark timekeeper and you’re going to listen!”

“It’s okay, Nakita,” I said as I felt the sudden adrenaline rush banish my tiredness. “He sounds like you used to. He’ll learn.”

Barnabas ran a hand through his curls, his eyes on my bare toes. “There’s only one problem,” he said, giving Nakita a worried glance.

“And that would be . . . ?” I prompted, thinking it likely wasn’t my lack of shoes.

“Your amulet,” he said, his gaze flicking to it and back to me. “I don’t think it’s working.”

“What do you mean?” I said, grasping it like it might vanish.

Barnabas shrugged. “What I mean is that Grace has been talking to you for the last five minutes, and you haven’t heard a word she’s said.”