Something Deadly This Way Comes by Kim Harrison Read Free Book Online Page B

brother giving Tammy something to believe in. “They both die,” I whispered.
    â€œIn a state of grace,” Barnabas finished for me, his brow furrowed.
    Josh rocked back, looking worried. I would never tell him of the horror I’d just lived through. “I didn’t save Tammy’s or Johnny’s life,” I said. “All I did was make it so a reaper didn’t have to come out here and scythe her early. God, this sucks!” Depressed, I closed my eyes and wiped a tear away. I couldn’t do this. It was too much. It hurt too much when things went wrong.
    â€œWe have to do something,” Nakita said, and my eyes opened. She was standing over the table, her lips pressed in determination. “Now,” she said firmly. “We have to go now.”
    â€œBut her soul is safe,” I said, wanting to do just that but surprised that Nakita did, too. “Why do you care?”
    Her hand on the door, Nakita paused, looking at me to make me shiver. “Her soul may be safe, but mine is troubled.”

Chapter Four
    The memory of fire trucks that existed only in the future seemed to haze over my sight as I looked across the busy road to the three-story apartment complex. Having watched—no, lived—Tammy and Johnny dying in a fire had more than shaken me. It had rocked me to my core. I’d thought that I’d made a difference, but all I’d done was make things worse. Josh, at least, got home safely. He’d been gone only five minutes, and I missed him already. I worried that he was going to drift away, looking for someone who wasn’t being yanked across the continent to save someone she didn’t even know, someone who didn’t have to lie to her dad all the time, someone who had friends other than angels—and someone who could eat a friggin’ bowl of popcorn with him. Why couldn’t I just be normal?
    I sniffed, jumping when Nakita handed me a tissue from her purse. “Thanks,” I said as I rubbed the soft paper under my nose and wadded it up in a tight ball. God, I was going to throw up, I knew it.
    â€œI’m sorry, Madison,” she said as she stood awkwardly next to me while we waited for traffic to clear enough to cross.
    â€œMe too,” I said, glancing back when Barnabas dropped from the sky, a soft thump of air giving him away. His expression was cross, and his wings immediately vanished, leaving him a slightly surly, broody teenager in dark pants, a faded band tee, and a black duster totally at odds with the hot weather. He shoved his hands in his pockets and joined us at the curb, just back from his quick trip to take Josh home. Josh said he was going to cover for me, but I was likely still going to have to make an appearance for my dad before too long.
    I turned back, waiting for a light to change about half a mile up the road. Barnabas was upset, looking positively angry as he scowled at Nakita, something clearly on his mind. I’d be concerned, but disappointment clung to me like a second shadow, made worse by the darkening sky. Heat stored in the asphalt rose, and I brushed the hair from my eyes as I scanned the skies for black wings that wouldn’t be coming. No, I’d fixed everything up just jim dandy. Thanks to me, Tammy would die without reaper intervention. The seraphs were probably tickled three shades of happiness. I was truly the dark timekeeper, able to convince people to kill themselves after a few minutes’ conversation.
    â€œYou do not have a soul,” Barnabas muttered to Nakita out of the blue, shocking me. “Only creatures of the earth have souls.”
    Souls? I wondered, my thoughts going back to Nakita’s last words before he had left, and I turned to see her standing with her lips pressed and her grip tight on her red purse.
    â€œI do, too,” she said defiantly, but she looked frightened as well. “I fear,” she said as if finding strength in it for the