“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 make it look as if his power cord frayed and he electrocuted himself.”
“No!” both Barnabas and I exclaimed softly.
Shoe looked up from his keyboard, hearing us maybe. I dropped back and Barnabas dragged Nakita off to the other side. The sleepy music grew louder, but it wasn’t until the clack of keys resumed that we relaxed and looked around the window again.
“You are not going to kill him!” Barnabas said, and she put her camera in her purse, frowning as she zipped it up.
“You have no idea how good I’m being,” Nakita whispered, watching Shoe hit the print button, then lean to catch the paper as it shot out. “Chronos could have followed us here. If I get one whiff of him, I swear, I’m going to kill him.”
Who, Ron or Shoe? I thought, eyeing Shoe. The guy was a total geek, but that didn’t make him scythe-worthy. What the seraphs claimed just didn’t fit with what I’d seen tonight. I’d watched him help his younger brother with a handheld game earlier, and he hadn’t taken it away to show him what to do—instead, he walked the ten-year-old through the problem.
“I’d like to see you try,” Barnabas said, not shifting his gaze from Shoe’s room.
Nakita huffed, and I rolled my eyes. Not again… “You can’t stop me,” she said haughtily, a little too loudly for my liking. “This is what we do. Get used to it or leave. You’re the new angel here. Not me.”
Barnabas turned, his expression peeved. “That’s a good idea,” he said sourly. “Kill Shoe and blow to stardust Madison’s chance to do things her way.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Ron could be watching us right now. I’m not going to let him put a guardian angel on Shoe!”
Oh, ma-a-a-an. They were going to make enough noise to bring Shoe to the window. It wasn’t the introduction I really wanted. “Actually,” I said before Barnabas could come back with anything, “Nakita has a valid concern.”
The leaves rustled, and Barnabas turned to me. “What?”
Not meeting his eyes, I looked up at Nakita. “Why don’t you make a couple of circles to make sure Ron or Paul isn’t watching us?”
Barnabas hid his smile a shade too late. Nakita saw it, and she stiffened. “You’re getting rid of me,” she accused.
“Well, yeah,” I said, not wanting to lie to her. She’d been lied to enough. “But you’re right. Someone should keep watch. I pick you.”
Her brow furrowed, and as her eyes shifted to silver for an instant, she said, “Fine,” and stalked away.
I exhaled, rubbing the back of my neck in a show of nervous relief as she found her wings, and, with a downward thrust that sent grass clippings flying, she put herself in the air.
Barnabas stood and stretched. “Does ‘fine’ mean the same thing when Nakita says it as when you do?”
“Yup.” Glancing back at Shoe, I felt a moment of uselessness. “He’s just filling out college applications. Barnabas, Shoe is as exciting as oatmeal. Are you sure we’re watching the right person? Even if he is a computer genius, he doesn’t seem the kind of guy who’s after anonymous notoriety by killing people.”
Barnabas eased closer, and the scent of the back side of the clouds slid over me. “Think so?” he whispered. “He’s bringing up a hidden folder.”
Suddenly a lot more interested, I looked in to find Shoe still sitting at his computer. Squinting, I read, operation vacation, at the top of the new window. “Sounds innocuous enough,” I said softly.
Barnabas rumbled deep in his chest, shifting his weight to his other foot. “Remember what Grace said? The school’s computer is infected first. Vacation? As in shutting down the school and gaining a day or two off?”
Ooooooh, not good. Still, I wasn’t convinced, even as Shoe popped one of Ace’s decorated CDs into the laptop. “I’ve got to talk to him. Now.”
Barnabas turned to me with wide eyes. “Did you see that?” he asked. “The disc had a black wing on it!”
He looked shocked, and I waved a hand in dismissal. “Sorry. I meant to tell you. It’s Ace,” I said, sending my gaze back into the gray and white bedroom. “He’s an artist. Isn’t it creepy? He got the idea for the melting crow from Shoe.”