by Kim Harrison
I’d only actually seen Grace the few times I’d dissociated from my amulet—and almost killed myself for good, incidentally. Though tiny, she’d been beautiful, with a face too bright to look at. Most times, she appeared as a haze of glowing light, sort of like the spots you sometimes get in photographs. That was exactly how she showed up on film, and it was the only way a normal human would know she was around. I could hear her. My reapers could, too, but humans could not. Lucky them.
“There once was a girl timekeeper,” Grace sang cheerfully as she dropped down to me, bored with playing in the echoes at the ceiling, “who didn’t agree with her reaper. So she fought the good fight, thinking choice just might, get the bad guy to think a bit deeper.”
“Thanks, Grace,” I said wryly.
She brightened, her giggle sounding like falling water. Grace liked her new job of messenger, which she had gained when I first gave her a name. I’d granted her the promotion accidentally, not knowing that names had that much power in the angelic realm. I think the seraphs assigned her to me as punishment, but I’d have it no other way, limericks or not.
“What’s with the reapers?” she asked, going invisible when she landed on the top of the trash can beside me. When her wings stopped, she quit glowing.
“You make a dark reaper and a former light reaper work together and see if they don’t have issues,” I said, sighing as I leaned against the directory and waited. My hand went around my amulet and, in my mind, I reached out to the divine to warp the light around the black stone. Like magic—which it sort of was—the river-smooth stone vanished even though its weight was still heavy in my palm. Making my amulet disappear was one of the first things Nakita had taught me. Someday, I’d be able to make it look like something else, but for now, this was all I could manage.
Grace’s wings blurred into sight at my show of “skill,” then vanished. “At least they’re talking.”
“They aren’t talking; they’re arguing,” I said. This was going to be harder than I thought if they were going to “discuss” everything to death. We were here; it was time to start looking for the mark.
“You didn’t think changing heaven and earth was going to be easy, did you?” Grace asked, and I frowned.
“It’d be easier if I could flash forward in the time lines and see the future,” I complained.
“Give it a chance,” Grace said dryly. “You severely damaged your amulet when you dissociated from it.”
I winced at the accusation in her tone. She’d told me not to do it, and I’d ignored her. Having done so had saved me, but until my amulet fixed itself, it would be the seraphs who’d be reading the time lines and sending out my dark reapers to kill people.
Seraphs reading the time lines was an imperfect proposition in itself. They could do it, but they had a hard time separating past from future, which was one reason why timekeepers were human. Human timekeepers—which, in this case, would be me—also allowed flexibility over the millennia, sort of giving heaven a way to adapt as perfectly imperfect humans changed their relationship with life, the universe, and everything.
Scythings were taking place that I didn’t know about, and it bothered me. The seraphs knew I wanted to change things, and I couldn’t help but feel as if I’d been given this scything as a trial. If I couldn’t get this guy to see a new choice and make a different decision, how could I hope to get my dark reapers to?
Seeing me depressed, Grace hovered closer. “Don’t worry,” she soothed. “It won’t be long before you’re reading the time lines. I think you’re already doing so unconsciously. Your instinct to stop at the mall was a good one. I didn’t know he was here.”
“Is he?” I asked, and she brightened, rising up as Barnabas and Nakita finally came to some agreement and headed our way. Maybe she was right. There had been a faint tickling through my mind as we’d flown over the mall, sort of like the feeling of someone watching me. When I’d mentioned it to Barnabas, he had immediately angled for the parking lot. It had given me a boost of confidence, but now, as I looked over the place, I wondered if it had been a true feeling or simply wanting to get my feet back on the earth. The mall didn’t look very promising.
It was Monday, so there weren’t many people, mostly moms dragging their kids from store to store for school clothes, or kids dragging their moms for the same thing. By an earring cart, a couple of girls were eyeing me. I scuffed my yellow sneakers on the tile, feeling like I fit right in with my punky hair with the purple tips.
“Do you think Josh is okay?” I asked Grace as I fussed with my short-sleeved, red-and-black-checked shirt. If I’d known that I was going on a reap prevention this morning, I might have worn something a little flashier.
“He’ll be fine,” Grace said as Barnabas came to a halt before us. Nakita’s steps were precise and sure, but upon seeing his slouch she lost some of her upright posture, still trying to fit in as she eyed the girls at the kiosk.
“So, Grace,” Barnabas said bluntly, “you sure the seraphs couldn’t give you anything more about this mark?”
I sighed. Mark. That was what reapers called potential victims. As in “he won’t be anything but a mark on a tombstone.”
Nakita smirked, tossing her hair back and smiling at the round haze that was Grace. The original message that had gotten us out of school and out here had been only for her, but Barnabas had listened in. “What’s the matter, Barnabas? Not enough information for you? I thought you were good at this.”
It was positively catty, and as Barnabas and Nakita started right back up again, I sent my gaze roving. A group of guys by the magazine store had noticed us, or Nakita, rather, her midriff showing in flashes as she lectured Barnabas about seraph supremacy. Spinning on a heel, I walked away from their argument to sit at one of the empty tables. The food court felt right, but I couldn’t do this by feel. I had to know.
Immediately their argument switched to who was ticking me off the most, and I heard them start to follow. Grace was favoring them with one of her limericks about “the reapers did fight, with all of their might, till their keeper did leave them behind.” Honestly, I was about to. They weren’t helping at all.
Finding a table that was sort of clean, I dragged out a chair to sit with my back to the doors. Silent at last, the two reapers took their places on either side of me. Nakita set her empty purse on her lap, nervously fingering her amulet as she watched the girls at the earring kiosk. Her expression was worried—not because of my mood, but because the girls were Gothed to the max in black and lace and she was wearing a red shirt. Barnabas was sullen as he slouched in his faded tee, looking good anyway with his curly hair all over the place.
“Grace,” I asked, wondering how I’d become the cool head in this circle. “What exactly did the seraphs tell you?”
This time the reapers stayed quiet, and the messenger angel dropped down to the table, her haze vanishing as she came to a rest.
“Not much,” Grace said, her ethereal voice seeming to insert itself in my mind. “Seraphs aren’t very good at giving physical descriptions. Apart from the town’s location, I know he’s good with computers.”
Leaning back in the plastic chair, I mentally crossed off the guy at the magazine kiosk reading Guns & Ammo.
“The seraphs never said he was a computer geek,” Barnabas said dryly.
Nakita bristled. Her hand dropped from her amulet, and my eyebrows rose as I saw that the gray stone had shifted to a Gothic cross. “The seraphs foretold a computer virus being released into a school as a prank,” she said to me as she glared at him. “I’d say that would make him good with computers. It’s when it gets into the local teaching hospital that people start to die. The seraphs say he finds so much pleasure in the anonymous notoriety that he goes on to do more of the same, intentionally harming people the rest of his life. So you can see why it is in everyone’s best interests, Barney, to take his soul early, before it’s so sullied and turned that he won’t ask for redemption.”
&nb
sp; Gritting his teeth, Barnabas stayed quiet, and I shifted nervously on the chair. Funny how she could make death sound like a good thing.
My spider sense had stopped tingling, and I put my elbows on the table, thinking that this was as about as productive as the study hall I was currently skipping. I’d be willing to bet the guy in the Harley shirt striding through the mall with a girl talking on a phone beside him was out. I needed to find someone with a pocket protector.
“Computer geek,” I murmured, squinting as I looked up at the bright windows in the ceiling. I supposed I should be grateful for whatever information the seraphs could give, but, frustrated, I dropped my head onto the table. It hit with a thump, cold against my forehead.
Barnabas put a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Madison, it’s okay,” he said, making me feel even worse. “We’re trying to find this guy incredibly early. The time lines are harder to read the farther out they are from the present. Even Ron is incapable of giving a description before he flashes forward, and that’s usually just hours before the mark makes his fatal choice, not an entire day. We’re relying on angelic interpretations of what might happen, so relax.”
I pulled my head up, still staring at the table. The light timekeeper was not my favorite person these days, but I felt better that Ron was likely unaware we were out here trying to save this guy. Once he knew, it would make things more difficult.
“Madison, you’re doing fine! You got us here, didn’t you?” Barnabas said, his hand falling away. “I can feel that the mark is here, too. Your instincts are good. We’ll find him.”
Looking up, I read first his hope, then Nakita’s doubt. On the table, Grace was silent, listening. “In time?” I asked. “Before Ron flashes forward and sends someone to stop us? I don’t think a light reaper will believe I’m trying to save this guy with Nakita standing beside me, ready to kill him if I can’t make him change his mind. Would you?”
Barnabas darted a glance at Nakita, and her grip on her red purse tightened. “Sure I would,” he said, but he was lying. “Madison, don’t worry. We’ll find him. It’s just first-prevention jitters.”
“It’s a reap,” Nakita said, looking at her black nails, and then at the Goths. “Not a reap prevention.”
“It’s whatever Madison makes it,” Barnabas shot back, his face turning red.
“Well, I gotta go!” Grace said, the soft glow that was her wings rising up and sending the scent of strawberries to me. “I was told to get you here, then back off.”
“You’re leaving?” I asked, worried, but then something in Grace’s words caught my attention. “Back off?” I repeated, and her glow above the table turned almost a sickly green. “Not leave? Darn it, Grace, are you spying on us?”
Barnabas sat up in concern, and a high-pitched groan came from Grace. “Don’t be mad!” she exclaimed. “The seraphs are confused, and they want some reassurance that changing a mark’s path is even possible. That’s why you got this reap, Madison. There’s always a shift in policy when a new timekeeper takes over, but there’s never been one as big as what you want. They don’t think a reaper can open a human’s mind to choosing a different path while remaining anonymous, especially if it takes both light and dark reapers working together to do it. If Barnabas and Nakita can’t do this with you helping them, how are they expected to do it together when you’re not with them?”
I’m helping Barnabas and Nakita? I thought, confused. All I’d been thinking about was how I was going to save this guy, not set a precedent for others to follow. But even I had to concede that Ron didn’t handle reaps himself but sent his light reapers out and moved on to the next soul.
“Together?” I questioned, glancing at Barnabas and Nakita, both of them wearing sick looks. “Why would it take them both?”
“Because if the light reaper fails to effect a change, the seraphs want a dark reaper there to scythe the sucker,” the guardian angel said cheerfully. “And I’m not spying! I’m evaluating!”
“It’s the same difference!” I exclaimed, then hunched into my seat when the guy reading the magazine looked up.
“Well, it’s not like you really want the job,” Grace snapped. “How much unconditional support are the seraphs supposed to put behind your ideas if you’re going to give up the position as soon as you find your real body and turn living again?”
Nakita’s expression froze, fear a shadow in the back of her eyes.
Oh, crap. The hum of Grace’s wings seemed to grow louder. Nakita wouldn’t look away from me. It was as if I’d already abandoned her—me, the person who had accidentally damaged her perfect angel wisdom with a human’s understanding of death. She didn’t fit in anymore with her dark brethren, and I was possibly the only one who might be able to help her understand why, seeing as it was my memories and fears that had changed her.
“Well, maybe if they’d get behind my ideas a little more, I might keep the job after I find my body,” I said in a loud whisper. It wasn’t the first time I’d considered keeping it once I found my body. Timekeepers didn’t have to be dead—actually, I think I was the first one who was. But I wouldn’t stay the head of a system that I didn’t believe in. Either they let me do things my way, or I was out of here.
“I don’t believe in ultimate fate, and I won’t send dark reapers out to cull souls because people are ignorant of choice,” I said, knowing that through her, my words would be heard. “If the seraphs can’t meet me halfway, then I’m not going to do this, dead or alive.”
I was arguing with heaven, but I didn’t care. Grace was silent; then the haze of her brightened. “I don’t know why you want to be alive anyway,” she muttered, apparently willing to concede the point. “It’s messy. I mean, you leak liquids from every orifice and can’t stay awake.”
“Yeah, and we eat, too,” I said sourly. “Do you know how long it’s been since food tasted good?” It was a good thing I didn’t need to, or I would have starved by now.
She made a tiny harrumph, and a new urgency layered over me like a second skin. Swell. Not only did I have to save some guy’s life, but I had to get Barnabas and Nakita to work together in the process? Great. Just freaking great.
“You didn’t think it was going to be easy, did you?” Grace said from the middle of the table, her glow shifting wildly through the spectrum before she shot straight up like a reverse falling star and slipped right out through the high skylights. We appeared to be alone, but I’d bet she was watching.
No one said anything, and I looked from Barnabas to Nakita, who was ignoring me, her expression grim. “I’m going to get a shake,” I said suddenly, not at all hungry of course but needing the excuse to get away from them for a moment. “You guys want anything?”
I didn’t wait for an answer, and standing up, I almost ran into a chair someone had left out. Catching my balance against it, I stopped short and carefully set it under a table, trying to make it look like I’d meant to do it. Striding over to the restaurants, I swear I thought I heard Grace giggle.
I’d ditched school with high expectations, but now I was feeling totally inadequate. It wasn’t an unfamiliar emotion, but this was the first time someone’s life was in the balance. Picking a restaurant without a line, I set my hands on the counter and stared up at the menu, not really seeing it. I had the cash my dad had given me for lunch, not that I ever ate lunch anymore. Crap, I had to text him that I might be late after school today.
“You going to read it, or order from it?” said a voice right in front of me, and I jerked, bringing my attention down to find a guy about my age in a lame-looking apron with a chicken on it, boldly stating, THE CHICKEN COOP, ONE GOOD CLUCK. A paper hat tried to contain his sandy blond hair, but failed. He had a nice face, and he smiled as he saw my embarrassment. His name tag said ace. My thoughts zinged to Josh, and I felt a moment of guilt that he had been left at school.
“Uh, can I have a vanilla shake? Small,” I said, since I wasn’t really going to drink it, and he beeped it up.
I turned to see Nakita with one hand on her purse, watching me with a lost look on her face. Barnabas had his head thrown back, staring at the ceiling as if he were bored. At least they weren’t fighting. “You’ve been watching me?” I asked, tilting my head to look coy. Stupid, but coy.
Ace plucked a cup a size larger than I’d ordered and smiled. “Nice move with the chair. Almost looked like you meant to do that.”
I rolled my eyes, cursing Grace for leaving it there for me. “Yeah,” I said, shifting from foot to foot, terribly conscious of my hair. I hadn’t seen anyone here with purple hair except for the pierced goddess working at Hot Topic.
Ace was silent, his back to me as he filled up the cup. There was only one other guy working in the back room, cleaning the ovens. It was too early for lunch. “So, when does school start for you?” I asked, needing to say something.
Ace turned around, eyeing me slyly as he snapped a top on the shake. “Tomorrow. I wasn’t even supposed to be here this morning, and then they called. Man, I could’ve killed my mom.” He slid the drink to me. “I had my day already planned. Surfing the web and eating cheese puffs. That’s the last time I let my mom get the phone and answer for me.”
“I work part-time at a flower shop, and I hate it when my dad does that.”
Ace adjusted his hat, grimacing. “If I’m at work, she knows where I am,” he said sourly. “She’s always checking up on me like I’m a kid. She works at the hospital, so she sees everything that comes in through the emergency room and thinks I’m going to get in an accident.”
My mind flitted back to waking up in my local morgue, dead from a car crash. My heart began thumping. I didn’t think it was the memory of me dying, though. A tingling was rising through my aura as a thought evolved in my mind. His mom works at the hospital? Can it be this easy? Maybe that’s what Barnabas meant about my instincts being good. “I hear you,” I said, glancing at Barnabas and Nakita, but they were staring at me, oblivious.