Death and Relaxation (Ordinary Magic #1)(74)
“Woke up? You were supposed to be on night shift.”
“I traded with Roy.”
“Okay. When?”
“Last night. When else would I trade?”
“When did you get the bad feeling?”
“Just a few minutes ago. It hit me hard. It’s about you.”
“Are you sure?”
“It’s about you,” she said. “I’m headed your way.”
I glanced out the window. Nothing but gray sky and wet trees and the low, quiet fog of morning. “Everything looks good here. Don’t come to the house. I’ll meet you at the station.”
She hesitated, trying to make up her mind. “I don’t know. I think you should hunker down. I’ll come by.”
“Jean.”
“And lock your door.”
“No need to be paranoid.”
“I can be paranoid if I want to be. Lock your door.”
“Sure,” I said. I was so not going to lock my door.
“See you in ten.”
I ended the call and stared at the phone for a minute. I knew Jean too well, trusted her small gift far too much to ignore her.
Something bad was possibly going to happen to me. Strangely, I wasn’t all that worried about it. What was the advantage to being warned about possible trouble cropping up if that warning only made a person panic?
I calmly took off my flannel and strapped on my holster, then checked my gun and put it in the holster. I slipped back into my overshirt and walked to the door.
The doorbell rang with a two-tone lilt.
Trouble. Right on time. I drew my gun and approached the door from the side, then glanced out the small square window beside the door.
Death stood on my doorstep. He wore a bright red overshirt patterned with monkeys, bananas, and fancy little drink umbrellas. Under that was a T-shirt I couldn’t quite read.
He was not the trouble I had expected.
“Killers don’t usually ring the doorbell,” I said through the glass.
“Indeed,” he agreed.
“So I think you can just move along. I’m not planning on dying today.”
“Very few plan to die any day.”
“Seriously, Than, I know why you’re here.”
“Do you?” His flat black eyes glittered with something that might have been humor. Or anger.
“You’re going to harm me.”
His eyebrows lifted up into his cropped hair. “Am I?”
“Yes. Jean knew something bad was going to happen, and here you are.”
He tutted and looked like he was having a hard time keeping a smile off his face. “Your sister may be correct in her gift, but she is incorrect in assuming I would cause you harm.”
“You’re not here to kill me?”
He pursed his lips as if considering his answer. “Dear Delaney. I am on vacation. Therefore, I am here to kill no one. If I intended to kill you, or do you harm”—he made the last word sound like a filthy insult—“I would first tell you so.”
“Thanks?”
He nodded, as if promising to let someone know you were going to kill them was the height of propriety. “Would you open the door so that we could speak in a more civilized manner?”
I holstered my gun and put my hand on the doorknob. The door hadn’t been locked during any of this exchange. He could have opened it any time he wanted to.
I opened the door. “What?”
“Good morning, Reed Daughter.”
I leaned in the doorway. “Good morning, Than. What’s up?”
“Although I have secured my business license, I have been informed that you will be among the persons of authority who must approve of my trade.”
It wasn’t usual for the chief of police to have a say in such things, but I’d found it was easier to head off the more disastrous career choices of new gods in town if I was in the loop from the beginning.
“Yes. I’ll have a say in okaying your business. What kind of business do you intend to go into?”
“Aerials.”
“Excuse me?”
“String and paper and wind.”
I waited for him to continue. He didn’t, instead just stood there looking at me expectantly.
“What are you going to do with string and paper and wind?”
He looked surprised that I hadn’t guessed yet. “Kites, Reed Daughter. I will sail kites.”
“Have you ever flown a kite?”
“No.”
“You understand you’ll have to make money from this. From selling kites. Pretty, bright, whimsical things for children and the young at heart.”
“Yes.”
“Do you really think a job in sales is playing to your strengths?”
“I thought the purpose of vacation was to relax. To be, for a time, not strong.”
I couldn’t help but smile at that a little. It was how the gods looked at it. Being a god meant a lot of responsibilities, a power constantly coursing through everything they did, everything they touched.
It could mean years and years of seeing that the one thing they had the power over was completely and thoroughly enacted.
For Death, I could see how getting a break from having to harvest souls might be seen as no longer being strong.