Early to Death, Early to Rise - Kim Harrison [36]
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.
“This is what you do on a reap?” I said, glancing down at Barnabas. “Spy on people?”
“I spot ’em and stick ’em,” Nakita said, rustling the bushes as she came closer.
Eyes never leaving Shoe, Barnabas slid over to make room for her. “It’s a reap prevention, not a reap,” he said softly. “I’m not sure what to do, and there’s nothing wrong with watching until we get an idea.”
A soft sound, almost a growl, slipped from Nakita as she put her back to the house. “There are a hundred possible accidents in that room,” she said. “I can