Beside me, Barnabas leaned back in the bench seat, casual as he stirred the ice in his untouched drink. “It’s kind of gross, Madison.”
I eyed him, reading a soft envy in his carefully relaxed pose. “Jealous?” I asked tartly.
“Sort of,” he muttered, looking up and away to where Grace and her new friend were chatting on the light fixture, their wings making them into softball-size globes of light only I and my reapers could see.
Eating another fry, I grimaced when a splotch of ketchup hit my lab coat. “I think it’s from the flash forward,” I said as I dabbed at it. “I was alive again, or at least it felt like I was when I was in Ace.” I looked at him, feeling my face twist up in distaste. “You’re a piece of work, you know that?”
The guy sneered at me, and, wadding up my napkin, I stifled a yawn. “My mind must have remembered what it’s like to be hungry. And tired. What time is it?”
Not looking, Barnabas said, “Midnight.”
“Mmmm.” I crumpled the napkin up and dropped it on the fries. I was still hungry, but I didn’t want to look like a pig. “I gotta get home.” It wasn’t too late yet to call my mom as I had promised, school night or not. She kept hours like a vampire.
My gaze went back to Ace, scrunched up and silent in the corner of the booth. He hadn’t said anything much since waking up in his truck. As it stood, there was not going to be any problem at the hospital come six the next morning. No one would ever know. What would happen to Ace now was anyone’s guess.
Shoe, on the other hand…I smiled at him as he carefully felt his jaw, which was now turning an ugly purple. “You going to be okay?” I asked him, and he winced.
“I’m going to catch hell for trashing the school’s computers,” he said, glancing at Ace. “But I knew that before I did it. It’s staying out to midnight on a school night that I wasn’t planning on. But at this point, I don’t care.”
We all looked at Ace, who flipped us off. The waitress must have seen, because she cleared her throat loudly and went to talk to the cook in the kitchen.
I looked at the plate of fries, then ate one, feeling guilty for no reason that I could fathom. “Barnabas, maybe we can stop at Shoe’s house on the way home and make his mom and dad think he’s been tucked into bed,” I suggested.
Barnabas nodded, looking a bit too casual for my comfort. Sneaky, almost.
“That’d be great,” Shoe said nervously, edging away from Nakita as she started to mutter about wanting to just scythe the lot of them. But Shoe’s discomfort seemed to be stemming from Barnabas’s sly demeanor, not from Nakita, and I wondered if he was worried that I was going to go back on my word and change his memories as well.
Throwing his wad of damp napkins down, Ace sat straighter. “You all suck,” he said loudly. “You’re going to fix it so that no one remembers he’s even been out?”
“Quiet!” Nakita hissed, leaning across the table. “You should be dead.”
“You shut up!” he exclaimed, his brow furrowed. “Crazy chick!”
“Don’t call me that!” she said, starting to rise, but when the guardian angel set her wings to humming, Nakita sat back down with a huff. “You’re lucky, human,” she muttered. “Lucky.”
Lucky wasn’t the word I’d like to apply to Ace, but he was. He’d tried to make a name for himself by killing people and blaming Shoe for it, and the only way he’d get in trouble for it now would be if Shoe got in bigger trouble, too. I was all for being honest and taking one’s licks, but sometimes…the better part of valor and all.
Sighing, I slid to the end of the bench and stood. It was time to go home, and I dropped my head as I looked at the lab coat. I kind of liked it, even with the ketchup. Maybe I could start a new trend at school. I hadn’t done anything really kooky yet to make myself stand out. Other than being dead, that is, and no one but Josh knew that. It would have been nice for him to have helped me tonight, and I missed him.
“We have to go,” I said softly, giving my fries a last longing look.
Barnabas gathered himself, standing when Nakita did. The two of them exchanged knowing looks as they slid out of the booth. Their eyes had both gone silver, and I jumped to get in front of Shoe. “Not Shoe,” I said, hand outstretched to keep them from wiping his memory.
Barnabas rolled his eyes. “Madison…” he started, but a subtle prickling in my temple shocked through me. Barnabas felt it, too, and so did Nakita.
“There once was a keeper named Ron,” Grace said from the light fixtures, “whose karma was kind of a yawn. He showed up too late; some say it was fate. I think he’s just really stupid, myself.”
True, it didn’t rhyme, but I still kind of liked it. “Ron is coming?” I said, bothered. What does he want? It’s over!
“But I’m shielding us!” Nakita said, clearly bewildered.
“Apparently not well enough,” Barnabas said snidely, and I felt all the more tired. Swell. They were arguing again.
“I won’t let him mess with you,” Grace said, and I smiled up at her darting ball of light as she left the fixture. I knew my face still held my grateful expression when Shoe whistled and I followed his gaze to the front door, where Ron was standing just inside as if he’d been there all the time. Paul was standing beside him, and the little entry bells were not ringing.
Ron looked peeved, one hand lost in the folds of his flowing tunic as he put it on his hip and gestured at me with the other as if I were an errant child. I glared right back, shifting to hide Shoe, still sitting down. Barnabas moved to my right, Nakita to my left. Ron’s gaze lingered over her traditional white clothes of a dark reaper, and Nakita lifted her chin.
“I wouldn’t have believed it if I’d not seen it,” Ron said, his eyes taking in my lab coat and yellow sneakers with their skulls. “The scything is over. The mark is safe. Well, he’s beaten up, but he’s alive,” he added, glancing up at the two guardian angels. “I won. It’s over. You lost. Go home, Madison.”
I took a slow breath to find my words. Mark, I thought, deciding that giving people labels was degrading. “Ace has a name,” I said softly, wondering how bad I looked when I noticed Paul was staring at me.
“Hi, Ron,” I finally said loudly. “Come any closer, and I’m going to kick you right in your pendulum. What do you want? As you said, you already won.”
The small man harrumphed, squinting warily first at the two guardian angels, then at my reapers flanking me, and finally at Ace behind us. “The seraphs sent me to adjust your amulet,” he said, surprising me. “Me. Ha. Go figure. Apparently you’re touching the divine too closely.”
I’m touching the divine too closely? That was exactly what it had felt like. Maybe the hell I’d just gone through wasn’t the norm.
Seeing me looking at him like I’d taken a week’s worth of stupid pills, Ron strode forward among the empty tables with his usual quickness, halting with a comical abruptness when Barnabas flung out a hand in warning and Nakita suddenly had her sword out. The waitress made a muffled yelp, ducking into the back and babbling for the phone.
Better and better.
Ron stopped, his expression frustrated as he assessed the situation. Barnabas calmly crossed his ankles and leaned back against the table, looking good in his casual tee and black jeans. “You’re not touching her…Chronos,” the reaper said calmly, softly, his voice heavy with threat.
Ron’s wrinkles grew deeper. “Back off. Her predecessor is dead. Who else is going to tweak her amulet? You? I’m here as the superior timekeeper under seraph orders. You think I’m going to violate those? How else could I find you, shielded as you are?”
On my other side, Nakita steamed, her grip on her sword hilt tightening. “You might if you thought you could get away with it,” she said, and Paul, almost forgotten, inched forward.