Something Deadly This Way Comes

that the black wings had taken from me were forever a part of her. She now knew what it was like to fear, something that most angels have no concept of.

“I don’t want to leave,” I whispered.

Barnabas made a small noise. “Then we’d better make this work.”

Josh shuffled up, his eyes darting from me to Barnabas. “I have to go,” he said in disgust. “My mom found out I wasn’t at The Low D with the guys and wants me home.”

“Oh, no!” I exclaimed, guilt from making him lie for me rising up fast. “Josh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to get you in trouble.”

He shrugged, head down as he zipped his gym bag shut. “I told her I took you to dinner instead, and she’s not mad, but I gotta go put in an appearance. You’d better call your dad. She might have phoned him.”

I hated this. Lying. It made more trouble than it solved, but what were my choices here? Hey, Dad. I’m on the West Coast tonight, trying to stop a boy from dying in an apartment fire. Back after midnight! Love you!

Throwing my head back, I looked at the stained ceiling. Someone had put graffiti up there, and I blinked. Barnabas silently stood and shook out his long duster like it was his wings. “I’ll take you home,” he offered to Josh.

“Puppy presents,” I swore softly, standing as well. “Do you think you can come back?”

Josh hoisted his gym bag to his shoulder and brushed the cookie crumbs from his shirt. “I don’t know. I’ll cover for you best I can, but if anyone asks, I left you at The Low D with a couple of girls.”

I made a face. Yeah, that was likely. I only had one girlfriend, and she was out at the curb, afraid I was going to ditch her.

Josh glanced at his watch, still set for Illinois time. “It’s almost six thirty at home.” Frustrated, he dropped his hand and grimaced. “I might not be able to get away until after midnight, which will be ten here. Everything might be done by then.”

“If we’re lucky.” I glanced at Barnabas, knowing that he wasn’t going to sit and wait for Josh. He’d come right back. “Well, I’m going to have to put in an appearance tonight, too,” I said, thinking of my curfew. At least it was the weekend. “Call me?”

Josh smiled at that, and my entire frame of mind changed when he edged around the table and took my hands and pulled gently, hesitantly. I leaned in as he did, and he gave me a kiss.

He smelled like soap, and his lips quirked in a soft smile when he pulled away. “Soon as I know what’s up, I’ll call,” he said. “Maybe I can get away sooner.”

“Okay.” I felt soft and squishy, and I let his fingers slip from mine reluctantly. Outside, Nakita was frowning, but Barnabas patiently waited.

Shifting his gym bag higher, Josh leaned toward me again, and after one last kiss, he rocked back, smiling.

“Come on, Buck Rogers,” Barnabas said as he motioned to the door. “Let’s go.”

Giving me a last look, Josh headed for the parking lot. “Who’s Buck Rogers?” he asked as the door opened, Barnabas catching it before it hit the wall.

I slowly sank back down in my chair, still feeling the warmth of those two kisses. Such a small thing, but not really. My smile fading, I watched Barnabas talk to Nakita. The dark reaper glanced at me, then away. I couldn’t help but wonder what he’d said to her as he started walking away with Josh.

Stretching out my leg, I shoved the dryer door shut with my foot, then stood to push the button to get it started again. The soft hum and sliding schlummp, schlummp, schlummp of someone’s jeans slowly filled the steamy room. Head down, I leaned over the adjacent dryer, wondering if Nakita would come in or continue to boycott me. I wished that Josh could have stayed, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that having him at home to help me if I needed it was a comfort. Being two time zones from home made it hard to cover one’s tracks. Even if one was a timekeeper.

The faint humming in my legs grew stronger. Realizing it wasn’t coming from the adjacent dryer, I pulled my head up. The world had gone blue. Like I was in a gigantic fishbowl in reverse, the parking lot beyond the huge plate-glass windows was a sunny, inky blue, but even as I stared, the fluorescent lights in the Laundromat began dripping an insidious indigo. I was going to flash.

We’ve done it! I thought joyfully, eyes alight as I looked for Nakita, her back to me as she watched Barnabas and Josh leave. Why else would I flash forward unless Tammy had indeed changed her fate?!

My hand rose to grip my amulet, shocked to find it more than warm. It was hot! “Nakita!” I shouted, and she turned. Her eyes widened at something she saw in me, and I heard her mental shout to Barnabas echo as it hit the top of the atmosphere and bounced back.

And then the inky black poured from the ceiling lights. It billowed up around my knees, and, like a deadly gas, it hit me hard. My knees gave way, and I fell, one hand still holding the top of the dryer. The heat of it seemed to burn my fingers, and I couldn’t see. The blue stuff had gotten in my eyes and they were tearing. Suddenly I realized I wasn’t crumpled on the floor of the Laundromat with my fingertips warm on the dryer.

I was in Tammy, her fingers burning, and she was terrified.

Choking, hot air burned in my mouth, and my lungs ached. I couldn’t breathe. “Johnny!” I screamed, then hunched over, coughing. I fell, arms outstretched. It was dark, and I gasped when my cheek hit the carpet. The air down here was a blessed few degrees cooler, and I cried as I pulled it into my damaged lungs. I was dying. I had died before, and I knew the feeling though Tammy didn’t—the same blackness edging my vision, and the same lack of pain filled my arms and legs.

No! I thought, confused. I had changed things! We had talked to Tammy! This couldn’t be the future, could it? Was there going to be a happy ending to this? There had to be. But the flash forward said otherwise, and by the lack of any blue haze, it looked like it was going to be tonight, not tomorrow. Damn it, I’d made things worse, not better.

“Johnny!” I cried again, crawling to his door. I found it, reaching up to turn the knob and push the door open. A wave of sound rushed out over my head, and I cowered in the sudden heat.

“Tammy!” I heard him call, and I crawled forward, scared out of my mind. I could smell things burning, and my mind walled the horror away. Everything. Everything was on fire.

And then I found him.

He was blind with terror, but at my touch, he grasped me, and we clung together as the ceiling above us turned into a beautiful, rolling orange and red. It was mesmerizing, even as my eyelashes singed and my nose burned inside.

“Tammy, I’m scared,” Johnny whispered, coughing, and I held him. It was too late. We couldn’t get out. Crying, I rocked him, our backs to the wall beside his bed.

“I’m here,” I whispered, Tammy’s last breath rasping as our twined thoughts were voiced by her alone. “You’re not alone. I’ve got you.”

And then we looked up as a roaring sound of heat sucked a new breath of air into the room an instant before the ceiling gave way. Everything flashed red—

I jumped, feeling as if someone had slapped me. Terrified, my eyes sprang open.

“Barnabas!” I cried. He was crouched before me, his eyes intent. It was over. But what had happened? The memory of my heart was thudding after having been inside Tammy, and slowly it beat one last time and stopped. Her terror took longer to leave me, and I sat there clutching my cooling amulet as Nakita and Josh clustered around me in concern.

“You came back,” I said, thinking it sounded lame, and Barnabas shifted a few inches away. Standing, he extended his hand and pulled me, wobbling, to my feet.

The humid air of the Laundromat seemed cool. Tears were dribbling from me. I slowly leaned back against the thumping dryer, my arms wrapped around myself as I started to shake, the tears steadily slipping from me. It was awful. So awful.

“What happened?” Josh asked, but I couldn’t talk. Not yet. They had died. Both of them. This was so unfair. Johnny and Tammy had died with grace, supporting each other in a way that was beautiful and showed the best of a human soul, but they had died. It wasn’t what I had wanted. Her soul might be saved, but it was the end of her life that had bought its purity.