Read Online Something Deadly This Way Comes by Kim Harrison - Free Book Online Page A

when you want to talk.”
    â€œOne way or another, she’s not going to be alive when the sun comes up,” Nakita said dryly, and I took a deep breath, feeling my heels scuff on the carpet in the hall.
    â€œCall Shoe,” I said, throwing the pad of paper to the floor between us. “Find out I’m not crazy. Or don’t call him, I don’t care. Just don’t be here tonight. You or Johnny. I know he’s a pain, but take him with you when you go to the movies, or ice cream, or whatever. Just don’t be here! You’ve got to believe me, Tammy! There’s going to be a fire!”
    She had come forward, more confident now that we were in the hall. Johnny was wide-eyed behind her, and the dog was wagging his tail, toy in his mouth. Tammy glared at us, but it was Johnny who picked up the piece of paper with the phone number. With a shove, she slammed the door shut in our faces. The thump echoed in the hallway. From inside, the music grew louder.
    â€œThat went well,” Barnabas said glumly, his hands in his pockets.

Chapter Five
    Closing my phone, I tucked it away, having texted CUL8R, THX to Josh after his message that he was on his way to bed but wanted to give it another thirty minutes before trying to sneak out. I glanced at Barnabas sitting next to me between the outside wall of the Laundromat and the Dumpster. If it was nine here, it was eleven at home. I had an hour before my curfew. I didn’t know when the fire was going to start, but Tammy had been outside of the apartment in my first flash, so it was likely going to happen sometime between nine and midnight, local time. It’d be just my luck that the fire would start when I was convincing my dad I was going to bed.
    Right now, Tammy and Johnny were out. Barnabas and I were watching to make sure it stayed that way.
    Across the street, the apartment complex had come alive with lights and the sound of too many TVs. From the Laundromat, we had watched the cop car, which Tammy had called, leave about an hour ago. It had taken them almost three hours to show up and forty minutes to leave, both cops laughing at Tammy’s story as they got in their vehicle and drove away, which was really sad because three crazy people had been in her house uninvited, and they weren’t taking her seriously. Tammy and Johnny had left right after the cops, Johnny whining as she dragged him down the sidewalk as the sun went down, looking scared as she got into her friend Jennifer’s dented two-door. I should’ve felt relieved that she’d taken my advice and left, but the fear that they might come back had me tense and worried.
    It was dark now, the lights from the cars between us and the apartment complex creating moving spots of clarity in an otherwise depressing night. Nakita was out doing a flyby of the area. My back was to the red bricks, and my knees were bent almost to my chin as I swung my amulet on its silver chain, idly concentrating on it to shift its form. It was a skill that Nakita had taught me.
    I miss Josh. “Barnabas,” I said softly, feeling alone though he sat right next to me. “You have a soul. How can you not?”
    He was silent, watching as I played with the glittery black stone safely encased in its wrapping of wire. I focused on it, modulating the light bending around it until it looked like a little silver cross with a black stone in the center.
    â€œYou are the best of us,” I said, looking at my amulet. I was pleased with the result, though it still felt like an oval, river-washed stone to my fingers. “Unflawed and beautiful. You have to have a soul.”
    â€œAngels weren’t made for the earth,” he said. “Only those of the earth have souls.”
    â€œOkay, but you abandoned heaven for earth,” I said, not believing that God would be so cruel. But then again, look what he’d fated for me. “Maybe that means you really belonged here. That