Water slipping down his neck, he said, “Why not just tell me who the mark is, and we can put a guardian angel on him?”

I thought back to Nakita’s words not an hour ago, and felt ill. If I had promised her not to, would I have said yes now? “Is that your answer?” I said, wishing Barnabas would hurry up. “Put a guardian angel on him? Can you think any more short-term? Besides, the guy is slime, Paul. He is going to cause a lot of pain and heartache for kicks unless something happens to change his path.”

“Then you’ve flashed forward,” he said softly.

“No,” I said, not liking to admit that I wasn’t capable of doing real timekeeper stuff. “The seraphs told me.”

“And you believe them.” His expression was ugly, as if the seraphs were the bad guys.

“They have no reason to lie.”

Paul, though, had stopped listening. The squeak of my front door opening sparked through me, and I tossed Sandy the last dog bone. “I’m trying to talk to him,” I said as Barnabas and Nakita came out arguing. “If I can help this guy change his life, then fate might not dictate that it be ended. That’s it. That’s all I’m doing. Now, will you get Ron to back off and let me make a real try of it? Soon as a light reaper or black wings show, I’m going to have a hard time keeping Nakita from—”

“Killing him,” Paul finished for me, his eyes hard. “Everyone has a right to make a choice, wrong or not.”

“I’m not arguing with you,” I said as Barnabas and Nakita approached. “But why allow someone to make a bad choice when a little information might engender a better one? It’s hard to wake up and see the sun if the blinds are pulled. I’m a blind puller, Paul. Stop trying to yank me from the window.”

He thought about that, glancing at the approaching reapers. “Tell me who you’re going to scythe,” he demanded before they got close enough to hear. “Maybe then I’ll believe you.”

“I won’t betray Nakita,” I said softly over the hissing rain. “She’s my friend.”

“It would be easier if you did.”

The sound of Barnabas’s steps grew close, and I backed up to make room for him. Nakita had her purse, swinging it as if she wanted to use it like a hammer. I knew I looked flustered, and when Barnabas saw my empty hands—and realized that Paul had his sword back—he sighed. “Madison,” he complained.

Clearly we weren’t going to get anywhere new, and just wanting Paul to go, I said, “Paul was just leaving,” then turned to him. “Right?”

Barnabas muttered, “You’d better call Ron, then. I’m not flying him home.”

“I don’t need to be flown home,” Paul said, and with a sly arching of his eyebrows, he sort of slid sideways and vanished in a shimmering line of black.

“Holy crap!” I exclaimed, dropping back in shock. “I can’t do that!” I spun to Barnabas and Nakita. “How come I can’t do that?” Jeez, he could have left anytime after he’d gotten his sword back. Why hadn’t he?

“You can,” Nakita said, quickly recovering.

“You just don’t know how,” Barnabas added.

Grace made a sharp sound of surprise. “I got it, I got it!” she cried. “My name is Grace, from heavenly space. I’m watching Paul, whose ass has hauled. I gotta make haste.” And in that same sort of sliding sideways light, she vanished.

Peeved, I tucked my amulet behind my damp shirt in disgust. “Don’t these things come with a manual?” I grumbled. One good thing had come out of this, though: If Grace was watching Paul, she wasn’t watching me.

Barnabas shivered, his wings appearing to glow in the streetlight. “We’re leaving?” I guessed, and Barnabas nodded, his wings arching to cover me. “What about my dad?”

No one said anything, and I turned to Nakita, seeing her lips pursed. My thoughts went back to them arguing as they left my house. “What about my dad?” I asked again, louder.

Barnabas took my arm and drew me closer. “He’s on the couch, watching TV.”

He smelled like wet feathers, and I pushed his hand off me. “What did you do to my dad?” I accused, and he flushed.

“Nothing!” he exclaimed. “Come on. I can dry you on the way.” I didn’t move, and he shot Nakita a look to shut up when she took a breath. “Okay, okay,” he added. “I simply gave him a memory that you’re in bed already. I’m not leaving you and Nakita here, and I can’t leave Shoe for much longer. Your dad will be fine. Can we get through the clouds and above the rain, please?”

From the shadows, a dark-winged Nakita grumbled that she could have done a better job of handling my dad.

Standing there with the rain misting my face, I wondered if Paul was right. I could have given him Shoe’s name, and then it would have been over. Except Shoe would spend the rest of his charmed life causing mayhem. And more important, I would have betrayed Nakita’s trust.

Hesitating, I looked at Barnabas. The rain dripped from the ends of his flattened hair as he silently waited, a question in his pinched brow. With a sudden flash of clarity, I realized he had intentionally drawn Nakita into the house so I could do just that. He had given me the opportunity to tell Paul who we were after.

And when I smiled at him and shook my head, he seemed to relax. He hadn’t wanted me to, but he’d given me the chance. Somehow, that made me feel good. Like I’d finally done something right.

Nakita looked from me to him and back again, knowing something unsaid had crossed between us, but not what. “Are we going?” she asked slowly.

“Absolutely,” I said, and Nakita smiled. I believed in choice, but giving Shoe a guardian angel wasn’t choice. It was a copout.

Seven

I was glad my body wasn’t real as I crouched outside Shoe’s window, because my knees would be aching right about now. I straightened, shifting to stand beside the window and get a glimpse of his tidy bed. Beside me, Barnabas watched Shoe, his brown eyes unblinking. Nakita was wandering about the front yard, snapping pictures of leaves, trees, and a crack in the sidewalk, making me nervous even though she had the flash off. At least it wasn’t raining here. Small favors.

While airborne, I had dried to a sort of sticky moistness, and I envied Barnabas’s ability to somehow dry completely. Nakita, too, was arid in her jeans and sandals, her fingernails now matching her toes in their pearly pinkness. She’d finished painting them just moments before, bored with it all.

“Can’t we just go and talk to him?” I whispered when Nakita ranged close again, taking a picture of what looked like nothing. I was tired of this skulking about. I mean, this was the guy I was supposed to save, and I hadn’t even talked to him yet. I had two reapers to help me, but one was distracted by her new toy, and the other was too entrenched in age-old protocol to try anything new.

“Just a minute more,” Barnabas said for about the sixth time. “I want to see what he’s doing.”

From the shadows, Nakita looked at the back of her camera, the glow lighting her face as she grumbled, “He’s a human, killing time. Time to kill the human.”

Barnabas scowled at her from under his mop of curls, and I sighed.

I didn’t like spying, and I stood between the bushes and the siding, thinking about bugs as I pushed my damp hair behind my ear and looked out over the dark yard. The neighborhood was a nice one—nicer than mine—and I wondered why a guy who had everything felt the need to take everything away from someone else.

The stars showed sharp past the outlines of roofs, and I worried that Ron might show up. Barnabas or Nakita had been hiding my amulet’s resonance since we’d left my backyard. I probably should invest some time into learning how to do it myself. I didn’t like relying on Barnabas or Nakita.

A burst of keyboard clatter drew my attention, and I peeked around the edge of the window to see Shoe still hunched at his computer. The guy’s room was boring, with pale white walls and gray carpet that looked like it belonged in a doctor’s office. His desk was scary-clean. Everything was on a shelf or tucked in a drawer. There were no clothes or clutter lying around. Even his bed was made. Apart from the Harvard banner, the only color was Ace’s artwork. There were several music CDs on the tidy desk, and one big picture of swirling eagles with vicious talons taped to the closet door. Maybe his mother had a thing about thumbtacks in the wall. His music was boring, and I fiddled with the tips of my purple hair as the New Age nothing made me sleepy. Me, sleepy…and I hadn’t had a good nap since I’d died.