But my smile faded when Ace almost barked, “What do you want?”

Nakita reached for her amulet, and I “accidentally” came down on her foot. “Uh, nothing,” I said as she shoved me off her, but I was already rocking back. “I wanted to say I’m sorry I got you fired. It was kind of my fault.”

I gave him a sad, big-eyed look, and sure enough, he shifted from P.O.’ed to accommodating. Ah, the power of a pretty face. Too bad he was looking at Nakita’s and not mine. But she was an angel. Why was I even trying to compete?

“It wasn’t your fault,” he said, his voice softening. “Shoe’s an ass.” A flash of anger reddened his face, and he shouted after Shoe’s car, “Dumb ass!”

“Can I scythe him, too? Just for the fun of it?” Nakita asked, and Ace turned, shocked.

“Stop it,” I muttered, but he’d heard.

“What did you say?”

I licked my lips, scrambling for words. “So you like music?” I blurted, and he turned back to me.

As he glanced from me to Nakita, I could almost see his thoughts realign, wondering if he had a chance with her. Sure, that was likely. Not.

“Yep,” he said, still looking at her, and she suddenly smiled back and giggled like Amy, my earthly nemesis at school in designer sandals. Hearing that noise come out of her shocked the b-juice out of me, and I wasn’t surprised when Ace added, “I don’t have anything to do now. You want to hear some?”

“Absolutely!” I said enthusiastically, and he shifted away from the front door, hitting his shoulder on the side mirror and trying not to lose his cool.

“Get in,” he said, opening the door. “I live twenty minutes from here. You can hear the new stuff.”

For a moment, I looked in at the long bench seat, remembering the last time I got into a stranger’s car. I’d ended up at the bottom of a ravine, dead. Well, you can’t kill someone twice, I thought. Besides, Nakita was with me. Stepping carefully to avoid the CDs tossed everywhere, I got in, sliding to the far door. The truck was old, with cracked vinyl seats and a dusty, sun-faded dash. The CD cases made bright flashes when the light caught them, and I snatched one out from under Nakita before she sat right on it. It was clearly home-burned, with an art decal on one side. Josh had an old truck, too, but he at least kept his clean. I had a thought to text him and see how he was doing, but texting a guy in front of Ace probably wasn’t the best way to convince him to show me his illegal downloads.

“Is this your work?” I asked as Ace got in, slamming his door twice to make it latch. Just from looking at their cars, I could tell there was a big discrepancy between Ace and Shoe, and I wondered if that was where some of the anger was coming from. Jealousy, maybe.

“Shoe’s,” he said tersely.

“No, I mean the artwork,” I added, and his tight jaw relaxed as he cranked the key and the engine started. “I like it.”

Music blared, heavy on the percussion, and the singer screaming so you couldn’t understand what he was saying. “Thanks,” he said as he turned the music down so we could hear him. “My mom thinks I could get a scholarship, but what’s the point? It’s not like I can make a living with squiggles.”

I thought of my own dream of making a living with my photography, and a sigh of understanding slipped from me. “Maybe,” I said hesitantly. “But it’s easier to find a way to make money at something you love than to learn to love a job that you can make money at.”

He didn’t say anything, and feeling Nakita’s eyes on me, I rolled the window down. Jeez, it was a crank, and it was stiff, like it hadn’t been down in a year. Slowly the still air was replaced by new as we headed for the exit, pulling out to go the same way Shoe had. There had been a small town east of here when we’d flown in, right in the middle of cornfields.

Ace bobbed his head in time with the music, glancing at Nakita to see how she liked it.

My attention dropped to the CD I was holding, and I put it on the dash, fingering another one decorated with similar artwork. It was all swirls and stark, bright colors, making me think of Celtic knot work.

“This is good,” I said as I looked at the handful of discs within my easy reach. “The artwork, I mean. You should talk to your art teacher. I bet she knows of a scholarship.”

“People like them don’t help people like me,” Ace said, his mood tarnishing. “Besides, college…that’s not for me.”

My eyebrows rose. People like him?

“That’s mine, too,” he said, and I followed his pointing finger to the overpass we were going under. It was covered in graffiti with the same swirls and angles. Archetype symbols were worked into it everywhere, making it look like sort of a mix between a tattoo and a stained-glass window.

“Wow,” I said, turning in the seat to find that the other side of the overpass was decorated as well. “That’s beautiful.”

Ace smiled a bad-boy smile and tapped his fingers in time with the drums. “Almost got caught the last night I worked on it. They were waiting for me. Look at the water tower.”

Nakita made a strangled sound, and I followed her gaze to the bulbous thing rising high over the cornfields. My mouth dropped open, and I stared.

“You like it?” Ace asked, and I nodded, too shocked to do more.

“It looks like a black wing!” Nakita whispered, and I nodded again. Wrapped around the water tower was a black-and-white crow, looking as if it were melting into a dripping puddle of goo. It looked exactly like a black wing might look to the living, sort of a mix of sophisticated graffiti and Native American petroglyphs. Black wings were unintelligent scavengers of the soul world, showing up at a reaping in hopes of snitching a bit of unattended soul. I hated them, and they gave me the creeps. Both light and dark reapers used them to help zero in on a target, even as loathsome as they were.

“I’ve made that my trademark,” Ace was saying, and I dragged my attention back to him.

“The crows?” I said, stifling a shiver. “Where did you get the idea to make them melt like that?”

His jaw clenched. “Shoe.”

Back to Shoe. It looked like Barnabas was right: Shoe was our target, not Ace.

Ace took one hand off the wheel and looked at Nakita. “You don’t talk much.”

“I don’t see the point when actions are more convincing,” she said stiffly, behaving completely at odds to that giggle earlier.

Nodding his head like she’d said something wise, Ace said, “Me too.”

I had to get back to Shoe. Barnabas had been right. “Hey, I’m sorry about your friend,” I said hesitantly, trying to turn the conversation to him.

Ace made a huff of sound. “He’s an ass. I’ve known him since third grade, and he’s always been an ass. Nothing here is ever good enough for him. He’s always after the big city and a ‘better life.’ What’s wrong with just staying here and being normal?”

“He’s the hacker?” I asked. “You do the artwork, and he gets the stuff?”

Ace stared straight ahead, his speed never changing. “Yup,” he said sarcastically. “I’m just the guy who makes it look cool. He’s going off to college at the end of this year. Between filling out applications and prepping for the skills test, I only see him at work.”

Ohhh, he’s jealous. Feeling ditched. It might be the wrong time, but we were going to run out of cornfields eventually. I didn’t want to spend the day with Ace when it was Shoe who was in danger. “Uh, do you think you could take us to Shoe’s house?” I asked, and Ace leaned forward past Nakita to see me.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Ace said in disgust. “This is to get to him, isn’t it? You girls are all the same. You see a fancy car and you think I’m dirt.”

“No!” I exclaimed, my pulse jumping into play. Sensing it, Nakita looked at me. “Ace, Shoe is in danger,” I said, and seeing his anger, I blurted, “I know all about the virus he wants to upload to the school. It’s going to kill people.”