Something Deadly This Way Comes

going to kill me. “Grace?” I whispered, needing some company.

“There once was a cop shop in Baxter,” the guardian-angel-turned-messenger sang out as she ghosted through the glass in the door, “who once a timekeeper did capture. Accused of a fire, her condition was dire, but Barnabas won’t let them ax her.”

Looking at the bookcase of sloppy folders where she had landed, I squinted. “Grace? What’s going on? I feel like I’m on a deserted island, here.”

“You’re in jail, Madison!” the angel said cheerfully. “The seraphs are angry. Tammy is a lost cause. And Demus is walking the streets again, looking for her. She’s run away, just like the seraphs fated she would.”

“What?” I sat up, now twice as worried for Tammy as I was before. “I thought Demus was recalled!”

The glowing ball of light landed on my knee, and a soft warmth soaked into me, like a sunbeam. “No, he just went back to heaven temporarily to make sure he wasn’t doing something contrary to heaven’s will by doing what you told him to do.”

My face scrunched up into an ugly expression. “Three guesses as to how that went,” I said sourly. “And the first two don’t count.” Just like Tammy’s desire to live, I guess. This is so unfair. I saved her from the fire. I saved Johnny from the fire, and still Tammy lets her soul die? What is wrong with the girl? Doesn’t she see how much her mother and brother love her?

“Um, they told Demus to get back down here and scythe her. Madison, it doesn’t look good. He knows her aura signature and even what she looks like.”

Thanks to me.

Grace rose up, the glow from her wings a spot of clean in the otherwise sticky office. “Barnabas and Nakita are going to get you out,” she offered, but I didn’t feel much better. “Madison, maybe this isn’t such a good idea,” Grace said softly, and my heart gave a thump.

“Not you, too,” I said, miserable. Damn it, why did no one believe that this was possible! We’d done it before. It would work if they would believe in it!

“It’s just that the seraphs are so agitated!” Grace said, hovering right in front of me. “Their songs are going higher than I’ve ever seen them. The echoes are reaching down here, even. Those sensitive to it are getting visions. I haven’t seen it like this since . . . since the Renaissance in Italy.” She hesitated, and a burst of light came from her at a thought unshared.

“Maybe the seraphs shouldn’t have butted in and sent Demus,” I said, and Grace flew backward in alarm. “I’m trying to help Tammy!” I said, almost pleading. “It doesn’t always happen whiz-bang! If it takes a year for a soul to give up on life, then it might take longer than two hours to rekindle the will to live. Scything someone to save their soul is so fast that it’s cheap. Where’s the honor in that? I’m getting better at this. Haven’t I changed things already so that she is alive? Her and her brother both. She doesn’t have that guilt now. How can that be a bad thing?”

Never. Never would anyone be able to convince me that Tammy and her brother dying in pain and agony in a fire was a good thing.

“There once was a brave human girl, immortality gave her a whirl. For humans to save, God’s wrath did she brave, her tenacity making me hurl.”

“Nice.” I looked at the door as a shadow went past. “Grace,” I whispered, “I got this job for a reason. Maybe because I want to change things.”

Her glow dimmed, and I felt cold as her depression soaked into the room. “What do the seraphs say Tammy’s fate is now?” I asked. There had to be something I could do to make this better.

“It hasn’t changed.” A brief glow came from Grace, vanishing as she moved to the desk and stilled her wings. “Her brother’s death had been the trigger of her soul’s decline. Now it’s losing her home in the fire. That’s why they sent Demus back. She needs to come home early, or she’s not coming home at all. Madison, we’re talking about her soul. What is a human life compared to the everlasting soul? This isn’t a game!”

“Is that what they think I think this is? A game?” I exclaimed, then lowered my voice before someone came in. “I want this to work so badly that it hurts. Tammy’s fate hasn’t changed at all?”

“Nope.”

She sounded resigned, and I slumped back into my chair, not wanting to believe it. Barnabas could lie. Maybe seraphs could, too.

“Tammy’s choice to stay with her brother tonight was based on fear, not a change in heart,” Grace said. “You may have saved their lives, but Tammy still runs away, abandoning those who love her and losing hope in herself. Soon as Demus finds her . . .” Grace made a curious, high-pitched whistle, and went silent.

“Game over,” I whispered, staring at the cop’s desk and his phone. Maybe they left me alone thinking I’d use it and they could track my parents down. “Are you sure?”

“Yup.”

I need to figure out how to change her resonance. I was a timekeeper, damn it. I should be able to do this. “Maybe if I talked to her a little more.”

“Madison. Don’t you get it? You are a timekeeper. You can’t change fate. And you can’t cause change. You see the future. You send out dark reapers to cull souls. If they are successful, the light reaper who failed escorts them to heaven’s gate so the black wings don’t eat their still-bright soul, severed early from their body. You know this. It’s how you met Barnabas. Andif the light reaper wins, a guardian angel keeps the mark safe in the hope that their soul will remember how to live. That’s all you do!”

Screw it. I knew I could do more. “I see the future, huh?” I said, starting to get angry. “Then I want to see her future. Ask the seraphs to show me. I can still fix this!”

“They are angry at you! First you fix it so that they both die in grace, which is what they wanted, and then you go muck it up by talking to Tammy and getting her to leave the apartment. You may have saved both their lives, but you damned her soul doing it!” Grace said, glowing so brightly that she started to cast shadows. “I’m not going to ask them to do a far search on her!”

“Yeah? Well, I’m not too happy with them. Butting in like that.” Sullenly I stood, pacing to the high window and back. That cop was going to come back. I had to get out of here. I had to find Tammy before Demus did. Jeez, what kind of timekeeper was I if I couldn’t even elude a building of cops?

“I bet I can find her future by myself,” I said, hands on my hips and glaring at her.

“See the future before the seraphs do?” Grace snorted. “There once was a girl with no brain, whose theories were kind of insane.”

“Thanks, Grace. You’re a font of wisdom,” I muttered.

She rose up in a haze of glowing light, adding, “To outfly immortals, caused many to chortle. Because what the girl was, was vain.”

“I’m not vain,” I said as she hovered before the closed door. “I’m trying to get things done and no one is helping.”

Grace bobbed up and down impatiently. “I gotta go. They found another phone battery.”

“Go, go! And thank you,” I said, waving at her as she flew through the glass and vanished. I didn’t want to explain to my dad why I was on the West Coast and accused of arson. But even if Grace could keep them from contacting my dad, there was no way that I could hide that I wasn’t at home. Never would I have imagined I could get things this messed up. Maybe Grace was right. Maybe they were all right.

Arms wrapped around myself, I glanced at the door and sank down in my squeaky chair. Maybe. But it didn’t feel right. Barnabas had once said to trust my gut. My gut said this wasn’t done. My gut said I could make this better. My gut said . . . I could make a difference.

I looked at the ceiling again, closing my eyes against the water stains that looked like swirling clouds or angels. And I’m disgraced, I thought, feeling a welling of self-pity. The seraphs were angry with me. Worse, I failed Tammy.

Ticked, I kicked out at the cop’s desk. My toe met the thick steel with a dull thump, but I hadn’t put any force behind it and nothing happened, not even a twinge in my toes.

I know Tammy’s aura resonance. I can find her future by myself, I thought defiantly, but it was quickly followed by the realization that I probably couldn’t. I wasn’t being a self-defeatist—I was being a realist. Still . . . maybe I could change her resonance so Demus and Arariel couldn’t find her. Buy me some time.

Resolving to try it, I looked at the ceiling again, exhaling everything out of my lungs. My eyes closed, and I