Don't Kill the Messenger Read Free

it against him. I knew all about not getting to choose how you were built.
     
I reached down with my foot, carefully keeping it in sunlight, and slid the envelope toward myself. “Fine, then. I’ll take it.” I picked it up. The vibration I felt in my foot when I’d come in contact with the envelope was stronger now. Whatever was inside the plain manila wrapping had some kind of mojo on it. I wanted it in my hands as little as possible. That stuff can be like cooties, infectious and hard to wash off.
     
Alex was already slipping his way along the wall back toward the hospital entrance. I didn’t blame him. I’d seen what even a few seconds of sunlight could do to vampire flesh. I’d want to make sure I was back into the artificially lighted, windowless hospital interior before the sun exposed the rest of that wall, too, if I were he. “That’s my girl,” he said as the automatic doors slid open and he darted through them.
     
Good thing he’d saved that one until I’d already agreed to take his stupid envelope. I started to snarl, but he was already gone, which left me with nothing better to do than fume as I went to my car. I may well be his Messenger, but I damn sure wasn’t his girl.
     
     

     
I SETTLED BEHIND THE BIG STEERING WHEEL OF MY CAR. IT’S A Buick LeSabre. I inherited it from Grandma Rosie when she went into the assisted living facility. It is a classic old lady’s car, which could be mortifying, but that is mitigated by the fact that the front seat is more comfortable than my living room couch. In fact, driving the Buick is a lot like driving a big couch around Sacramento. Plus, I’ve tricked out the inside with a zebra-striped steering wheel cover, a dancing hula girl on the dashboard and some fuzzy dice hanging from the rearview. My father says that all these items are distractions and will cause an accident some day. He still hasn’t figured out how much better my reflexes are than his and everybody else’s. One of the perks of the job. The Messenger one, not the hospital one. The hospital one comes with health insurance and paid vacation, which kick ass in their own way, but no enhanced physical abilities. Those all come from the Messenger gig.
     
Dad doesn’t know about my Messenger job at all. Dad’s a sweetheart, quick with a hug and fast to open his wallet, but not the most clued in man I’ve ever met. He is one hundred percent ’Dane, as those of us in arcane circles say. It’s short for mundane and is not particularly flattering according to some. Alex won’t use the shortened version. He shakes his head and mutters about kids these days. Me? Well, I’d give just about anything to be one hundred percent ’Dane or mundane or whatever you want to call it. I can’t even remember when I was.
     
I need the superfast reflexes for the Messenger job. My job description generally doesn’t put me in harm’s way. Or, at least, it’s not supposed to. I’m a delivery girl, a glorified gopher to the things that go bump in the night. I’m one of the little cogs in the big machine of the unseen undercurrents that keep all our everyday lives moving smoothly. I may not be the most well-oiled of those cogs, but I generally get the messages and packages where they need to be by the time they need to be there. Occasionally, however, things don’t go according to plan and I need to defend myself or hightail it out of a situation like Usain Bolt in the last leg of a relay.
     
It’s not a job I asked for. It just kind of happened. I blame it on my mother being a clean freak.
     
If she hadn’t been so determined to keep germs and dirt at bay, she wouldn’t have been scrubbing the tiles of our backyard pool with a wire brush while I took my nap twenty-three years ago. If she hadn’t been so focused and intent on removing every last bit of scuzz on the tiles, I wouldn’t have been able to sneak past her and slip into the water behind her.
     
If I hadn’t done that and she hadn’t