Something Deadly This Way Comes

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.

Nakita made a tiny huff. Arms over her chest, she leaned toward Barnabas. “Why is it they both have to sit down to do stuff?”

Nervous, I sat across from Paul, feeling the damp go right through my thin clothes. I took three breaths, trying to center myself as Barnabas had taught me. It was a lot harder now that I was alive. I guessed that taking Paul’s hand might improve the chances we could pull this off, but Josh was scowling again, and I didn’t.

“Okay, I found it,” Paul said, his expression calm as he looked at his inner mindscape. “I found you.” His one eye cracked open as he compared my real aura with the one on the time line. “Found them,” he added, meaning the reapers, I guessed as he glanced at them. Then he cringed. “Madison, I have no idea what I’m looking at.”

“Hold on,” I said. Closing my eyes, I brought up my mindscape. As I feared, there wasn’t much to look at, just that blurry haze of nothing.

“Try touching him,” Nakita said dryly, and Josh exhaled loudly.

“Okay,” I said, then reached for him.

“Hey!” he yelped.

I got a flash of bright light, and then it was gone. My eyes flew open, and I stared at Paul. He looked scared, his eyes wide in the dim light of the distant streetlamp. My heart pounded, and I realized my hand was fisted in my lap. “Are you okay?” I asked him as Barnabas grumbled.

“Yeah,” he said, clearly flustered. “It just surprised me. Let’s try again.”

Demus made some muffled comment that we all ignored, and Paul reached for my fingers. Nervous, I took his hand. It was smooth in mine, and a little sweaty. Or maybe the sweat was from me.

Nakita snorted, and I gave her a dark look before closing my eyes. Immediately I was struck by how fuzzy everything still was. It was like going from high-def to normal TV. Or maybe taking your glasses off. The exquisite definition of everyone’s life lines was muted and blurry. It was still easy to tell, though, where Paul and I were. Nakita, Barnabas, and Demus were even easier to find, their glows twining around us almost protectively.

Here, I thought, not knowing if Paul could hear me, and I drifted my awareness down into the time lines until I found Tammy, not too far away, still alone, very alone, her new aura with the black-rimmed, orange center shining dully. Paul’s bright glow was beside mine, and the reapers’ auras, too. All we had to do now was find her in reality.

We can do this, I thought with a resurgence of hope. My fingers tightened in Paul’s grip, and he squeezed back. But before I could even relax my hold and break our connection, the entire line flashed blue.

Holy crap! I thought, my grip tightening spasmodically. It’s a flash forward!

In an instant, Paul and I were alone. The reapers were gone. I could feel Paul’s confusion, then fear as he realized something was wrong. His fingers loosened in mine, and I gripped them tighter, frantically trying to keep him with me. If he let go, we’d lose it.

It’s a flash forward! I thought, trying to maintain my grip on his fingers and my sight on the line. I can’t see if you leave!

I had probably been trying to flash forward all night, but my connection had been too weak. Now, with Paul, it was enough. I was desperate to see Tammy’s future, and it was with a huge sigh of relief that I felt Paul’s confusion turn to excitement. His fingers in mine wiggled, and around us, the line became a darker blue, almost black. With a curious flipping sensation, we were out of the present, and in . . .

Tammy, I thought, familiar with the sensation of being in someone else’s mind, a silent observer as a myriad of moments flitted through someone else’s consciousness. At least this time she wasn’t in a burning apartment.

The softness of sheets was what I noticed first, then Paul’s presence next to mine. His quicksilver thoughts were jumping from idea to idea, his excitement contagious. Knowing it wouldn’t help, I willed Tammy to open her eyes. And she did.

The shock of that reverberated through me, and I took in the too-narrow, propped-up bed, the industrial-looking built-in counter and drawers, the blank TV fixed high to the wall, and the long, ugly table on wheels. There was an oversize cup on it, the straw bent away, and a single get-well card. The sun was up, but it wasn’t coming in the open window that had a view of a brick wall. I couldn’t tell if we were two stories up, or thirty. The hazy blue indicating a far-distant flash forward hung on the edges of my vision, and I realized Tammy was squinting as I struggled to get a clearer view.

When are we? I heard Paul ask, another surprise, but I didn’t think Tammy heard since she didn’t react.

I don’t know. A few days from now? A week maybe? No more than that, I guessed.

And then a new thought intruded, clear and resolved. I’m dying.

My heart gave a jump, and I felt Paul’s grip tighten in mine when Tammy moved her hand above the sheets. It was horribly thin, the skin pale and almost transparent, looking too weak to even tie a shoelace. A bruise was around her wrist where someone had gripped her, and her fingernails were painted a bright red, garish against the white sheets. An ache filled our entire body, as if in a fever, and I wondered if she had been beaten. The blue haze surrounding everything put it a few days ahead at most, but there was no way she could lose this much weight that fast, and I wondered why the vision was so clear. We must be months, maybe years ahead.

The breath labored in our chest, and I felt a tear slide down Tammy’s cheek. Inside, I could feel her pulse becoming erratic, and a weird tingling rose up from her toes. She said she was dying. She might be right.

A feeling of worthlessness had filled our joined thoughts as the sound of traffic came in the open, small window set in the large pane of glass. She was alone, but that was not why she cried. Regret. Regret for words not said, for thoughts left unspoken, for actions not taken, and challenges not acknowledged. And only now, at the end, did she understand what she had lost by shutting out the good things and living her life without love. Even her brother, who she had turned away so often that he had quit trying.

Tammy, it’s okay, I thought, trying to reach her. It’s not too late!

But only Paul heard me.

My chest clenched in heartache as she thought of drawings she never began and poems stopped with only one phrase—afraid of what others would think. There were trips not taken and friends never joined, chances to make someone else happy that she ignored, thinking that it made her stronger, when all it did was eat away at her soul.

“I wish . . .” she breathed, her head turning to the window and the dismal brick wall. “I wish . . .”

But it was too late, and I felt a lump in my throat as a small glint of dust glittering in the corner took on the familiar glow. It was a guardian angel weeping sunbeams, and I wondered if this was why the far flash forward was so clear.

Paul started in surprise, and then I realized by Tammy’s sudden exhalation of breath that she saw her, too. Is that an angel? he asked me, and I sent a sideways thought to him that it was. Why is she crying? both Tammy and he wanted to know.

“Because your life is over,” the angel said aloud, her chiming voice like falling water both familiar and different from Grace’s.

Tears slipped from me. From us. We were all the same. “You’re so beautiful,” Tammy breathed, clearly able to see her, too. “Have you come for me?”

The hope in her voice went to my core and twisted, and hearing it, the angel dropped down before her, bathing her in warmth as the room seemed to go cold and dark.

“I’ve been with you since forever and no time at all,” the angel said, smiling through her own tears.

“I know. I felt you,” Tammy said. “I think I felt you. I’m so sorry,” she said around a gulp of air, the tears spilling over and blurring our shared vision.

“What for, child?”

Her pale hand lifted and fell, looking unnatural as it lay palm up on white, faded sheets. “I ran away. I don’t just mean from Johnny and my mother, but from everything. I had so many plans. I was going to do so many things, and I can’t even remember them now.”

She was dying, six thousand sunrises behind her, a billion emails sent, a thousand jokes laughed at, a zillion moments tucked in her brain to add up to nothing because she had forgotten how to love. She was still that same scared girl I had tried to help hours ago, frightened and thinking she was alone.

The angel dropped even lower, coming to rest in the cup of her hand. “You must be brave now,” she admonished, crying, still crying.

A spike of fear lit through her and died. “Why?” she whispered.

“It’s going to hurt.”

The fear redoubled, and Tammy held her breath. Why? she thought, her question echoing in both Paul’s and my minds.

“I won’t leave you. I’ll stay until it’s over,” the angel said like a parent reassuring a child they wouldn’t leave until he fell asleep, and the warmth of her stole up Tammy’s arm and settled in her chest.

Am I going to die? Tammy asked, her thought quavering.

“You’ve already done that, love.”

Fear, my own this time, filled me. It was true. Tammy was dead. She had not taken another breath since the angel had told her it was going to hurt. I felt Paul’s panic, and I squished my own terror. We were okay. We weren’t dead. But Tammy was.

What’s going to happen to me? Tammy asked, her thoughts clearer now among ours.

And still the angel cried. “I’m sorry,” she said, beautiful in her sorrow. “I wish I could make it different, but all I’m made for is to protect in case your soul would revive and be renewed before you died, but it’s too late.” Her eyes—too bright to see—bore into Tammy, finding me somewhere inside her. Is it now? Or is it yet to be?

What? Tammy asked, but I was the one who jumped. She was talking to me. The guardian angel who had been with Tammy was talking to me. She knew I was here, living the future, and the angel didn’t know if what we were living was true, or just a maybe. God, I hoped it was a maybe.

A shadow covered the window, and the stink of wet stone. My pulse leapt as I saw the black wing slide into the room through the open window. Fear hit me, sour and rank, and Paul sensed my sudden terror.

“Her soul is dead, Madison,” the guardian angel said to me, not a hint of accusation in her voice. “It died three years ago, and I stayed with her, keeping the black wings from her in the hope that it might rekindle and grow anew, but it did not. She failed to nourish it, and it perished utterly.”

No! I shouted as the first black wing landed on her.

Tammy screamed, her body dead but something still aware in her. White-hot ice filled her thoughts, peppermint and fire. I tried to pull back, but I was caught in this hell and couldn’t escape. Black wings had found her, and her memories were being eaten as we watched, unable to move and stop them. The energy that she had stored as memory was being stripped from her, the dripping sheet of black tearing memories from her like a hyena over a kill.

And like hyenas, more came. One by one, they fought their way into the room and covered Tammy as she screamed and writhed in her mind, unable to escape, unable to fight back, her body flaccid and still.

Stop! I pleaded, feeling real tears slip down my real cheeks somewhere across time in a dark graveyard. The memory of having my own thoughts stripped from me returned, and I felt anew the burning lack, the fear of nothing being left behind. She was being taken apart, aware and watching. This? I thought in horror. This is what happens to lost souls? No wonder dark reapers kill them.

Someone please help me! Tammy screamed, her body peaceful but her mind in terror as huge chunks of her disappeared. She was becoming nothing. I couldn’t help her, and I cried, huge racking sobs as I tried to hold her together, failing.

Not this! I said, fighting off a black wing when the image of a sun-drenched car from Tammy’s memories filled me. There was laughter, a silly song. Nothing much, but there was happiness. This they couldn’t take, and I pulled it to me, hoarding it.

The black wing I took it from rose up, and I howled as it fought me for it, hungry and having gotten a taste. I shoved a memory to it, one just as precious but one of mine. The black wing melted into nothing, not knowing the difference. I curled myself around Tammy’s beautiful memory, crying and wishing it would all just end.

Slowly Tammy’s agony and terror ebbed as more and more was taken, and less and less was left, and finally it was just Paul and me. One by one, the black wings lifted, swollen and misshapen as they staggered out the open window, bumping into the glass like wasps until they found their way. My thoughts shaky, I reached for Paul’s presence, feeling like a great tide of poison had rolled over us and only we had survived. The guardian angel was still with us, her tears now ceased as the one she watched and protected, in the slim hope her soul would renew itself, vanished as if she had never existed. Hope, that’s all the light reapers bought with their guardian angels, a slim hope that the soul would rekindle. It was a hope that Barnabas had started with his beautiful Sarah, and heartache filled me at the travesty of it.

“Has this happened yet?” the angel asked me, her voice sad. “I can’t tell. Has this happened yet? Is it happening now? You’ve never been here before at the end.”

I felt raw, and even though I knew I was really sitting in a graveyard, I also knew I was here, in the future, talking to Tammy’s guardian angel that she didn’t have yet. It hasn’t happened, I thought, feeling emotionally drained. Cupped in the curve of my awareness was one bright spot of glory—Tammy’s memory too beautiful to allow to be eaten.

The angel rose up, her eyes going terrible and hard. “Make it stop,” she said, and it was as if she carried the voice of God in her. “Please,” she added, sounding helpless now. And then she vanished.

The world flashed red, and I let out a choking sob of relief. It was over, and I steadied myself for the gut-wrenching feeling of my consciousness being yanked back across the years of what-if to reality.

I woke up crying, curled up on the wet grass between Nakita and Barnabas, Josh standing awkwardly as if not knowing how he could help. They were silent and subdued, knowing that it had to be bad by the shape I was in. Meeting their eyes, I saw the tears in Nakita’s. Barnabas had cried his last eons ago, but the pain behind his gaze was no less. He had started this when Sarah’s soul had revived. I didn’t know if I should thank or curse him. It was awful.

Sitting up, I looked for Paul. He was standing hunched beside a distant tombstone, puking his guts out. “I’m sorry,” I whispered, and he turned, wiping his mouth. Haggard, he faced me, looking more alone than I’d ever seen a person. I tried to get up, and Josh jumped to help. My hand was cold in his, and shaking.

“Are you okay?” I asked Paul, hearing my voice crack. “That was a bad one.”

“No.” His word was short, full of the dead terror we had endured. “That . . .” he said, hands shaking as he tried to find words. “That was hell. This job is hell!”

I couldn’t find fault with him there, and I staggered, listing sideways until Josh pulled me upright. “It’s not always like that,” I breathed. Sometimes you’re burned alive.

Paul turned away, his expression ugly as he tried to come to grips with what we had seen. I leaned against a rock—excuse me . . . a grave marker—and Josh let go after making sure I wasn’t going to fall over. “You okay?” he asked, and I nodded, not looking up at him.

“It was a flash forward,” I said, and Barnabas sighed, seeming to know what I’d seen. “We saw Tammy’s death. A few years from now, I’m guessing. I don’t know. She had a guardian angel so I think if we walk away right now, we fail to help her.” My words drifted to nothing as I thought back to what the angel had said to me.

“We have to do something,” I said, remembering the pain Tammy ended her life with, and then the utter nothingness, a nothing so complete that it was as if she had never existed. “If we can’t help her, Tammy’s life is worthless, no grace, no beauty. She didn’t do anything to nourish her soul. No art, no creativity, taking in nothing outside of eating, sleeping, living, and when she died, her soul was eaten by black wings.”

Bile rose, and I forced it back. She was gone. Except for the tiny bit I had kept. I could feel it in me, lost, alone, and not fitting in with the rest of my memories.

Nakita touched my arm and I jumped. Her eyes were brimming with tears, but it only made her more beautiful. “I’m sorry, Madison. I thought you knew that’s what happened to lost souls if they can’t rekindle them. That’s why I was so confused. Rekindled souls happen so rarely. So very rarely.” She was looking at Barnabas. His head was down, and it looked as if he was reliving his entire lifetime of lonely heartache.

“I didn’t know!” I shouted, and he looked up, tears in his eyes. “I didn’t know,” I said softly. “No one told me.” I glanced at Paul. Clearly he hadn’t known, either. My sorrow was shifting to anger, but it didn’t feel any better.

“That’s why we take them early,” Nakita said, giving Barnabas a soft glance. “To spare them that and save what we can. If Tammy is scythed tonight, a light reaper will keep her soul safe until she is welcomed home, remembered, loved. Like Bar-nabas was going to do for you until you stole Kairos’s amulet. But if she is given a guardian angel and her soul doesn’t rekindle itself . . .”

I finished Nakita’s thought for her. “A life of nothing, ending in the same.”

I turned from them, heartsick and confused. Maybe I should just give up and send reapers to cull souls.

“I can’t do this.”

It had come from Paul, and I looked up at him, his features hidden in shadow.

“I can’t be the light timekeeper,” he said. “This is insane!” He started to back away into the dark. “I can’t do it! I can’t!”

Barnabas pressed his lips together. Reaching out, he grabbed Paul’s arm. “You are the rising light timekeeper.”

“I don’t want it!” Paul said, panicking but unable to break Barnabas’s hold. “I can’t do that! I can’t send reapers out to put guardian angels on people if all they are going to do is be eaten by that sludge! It would be better if they died young!”

My head dropped as Paul struggled to unwedge himself from Barnabas’s grip, finally managing it and stepping back as he rubbed his arm. And that was where we were. Neither of us wanted to do what was expected of us. I knew I should be depressed, but a part of me was glad I wasn’t the only one being asked to do something I didn’t want to do. Together, maybe, we could do what one of us could not.

“Listen to me!” Barnabas said, his hand on his amulet as if it was the hilt of his sword. “You are the rising light timekeeper! You will keep your mouth shut. You will learn what Ron teaches you. You will take his amulet when he steps down!”

“Barnabas!” Nakita exclaimed, appalled.

Barnabas ignored her. “And when you reach your power, you will use your understanding of choice to change things,” he finished.

Josh exhaled in understanding, and I stiffened. Barnabas turned his gaze to me, and I shivered at the depth of his heartache. Eons of it, stored behind his dark eyes. “You both will,” he said to me, his voice breaking. “We just have to be patient.”

“I don’t want to wait a lifetime to make a difference,” I said.

“Then you find them when you can,” Barnabas said, a new, almost eerie fervor to his voice that bordered on the fanatical. “Talk to them if they listen. Before Ron sends an angel to guard them or the seraphs send a reaper to scythe them.”

It was what I had been trying to do all along. Barnabas believed it was possible. Maybe now, Paul did, too. And if Paul did, perhaps we had a real chance.

“We have to find Tammy,” Paul said, his voice almost virulent. “We have to change this. She can’t be allowed to live her life if all that is at the end of it is . . . for the sum of her life and memories to be eaten by a mindless dish of bacteria!”

“Then we do this?” I said, hope making me shake inside.

Paul took a breath, knowing he was agreeing to more than saving Tammy. He was going to get in trouble. Ron wasn’t going to be happy. Screw Ron.

“We do this,” Paul said. His eyes closed briefly, and then he turned to look deeper into the graveyard, across it to the rest of the town. “She’s not very far away.”

“Good,” Nakita said, her expression drawn up into a worried look. “Because Demus is gone.”