Touched (The Marnie Baranuik Files) Read Online Free PDF Page A

and removed a dark burgundy box, from which he drew his G. B. Kent & Sons hairbrush. A ‘Military Oval’, he'd once told me, the disappointed inflection in his voice indicating I should have recognized what it was. His last DaySitter, my grandma Vi, would have known. Grooming his short-clipped hair by touch, he kept his back to the empty mirror. He'd been blond in life, his hair thinning in front . While his hair had darkened to sandy, death hadn't changed his hairline. He wasn't about to lose any more hair, but it wasn't going to grow back, either. Hence, Harry's enduring fondness of hats.
    He sensed me inspecting him and paused in his grooming, meeting my gaze steadily until he was satisfied that I was pleased with what I saw. I showed him an adoring smile.
    “Why did you open the door this morning?” he asked.
    “What else am I'm gonna do, leave them on the porch in a hail storm?” I mulled that over. “Why didn't I leave them out in the hail storm?”
    “One can only assume that you wanted Agent Batten inside.” He gave me a long, questioning look. “If he had come alone, would you have let him in?”
    “Did it occur to you that maybe it was Gary Chapel I wanted to chat with?”
    “Don't be absurd,” he said gravely. “Are you holding Agent Batten to blame for the attack in Buffalo?”
    He wanted to hear me say it; Harry didn't need to ask me that or anything else. Thanks to our Bond he knew exactly how I felt. Frankly, I was no longer sure if the weight of his mind pressing down on mine hadn't evolved over the years into something stronger, something worse; that an empathic revenant could eventually tinker with your emotions, as he crossed from old to truly ancient, could dabble with the puzzle of your heart, was a horrific prospect. If that was the case with Harry, he wasn't dumb enough to admit it to me.
    I motioned for him to pass the nail brush. “He couldn't have predicted the shooting. No one expected a rev to be armed.”
    “Revenants choosing firearms over fangs and superhuman strength. What is this world coming to?” Harry agreed.
    “That rev—” At Harry's displeased ask, I remembered my manners. “Jeremiah Prost was over a century dead and his mind control was excellent. It took less than ten seconds: Batten was his, I was his.”
    “May I remind you?” He paused in his hair brushing. “I hate to, but may I?”
    “Yes, I know. Fourth Canon.”
    “Fourth Canon,” Harry said as though he hadn't heard me. “Safeguard oneself chiefly against the dead, for the mind of a DaySitter is far more vulnerable to the call of the grave than is the mind of a mundane.”
    “I got it.” I scrubbed with the nail brush more vigorously than was necessary. “Something to do with open channels in my mind… not sure how I could fix that.”
    “By avoiding revenants altogether, I should say, unless your advocate was backing you up,” he said, meaning himself. “Twould not be a difficult task. My kind is hardly roaming ten-deep in the streets. There are, at most, four dozen immortals left in America. You should only come upon one if you meant to, as was the case with Mr. Prost.” He plucked an imaginary piece of lint off the front of his shirt. “Alas, I fear you do not always learn from your mistakes.”
    My mistakes? It had been Harry's decision not to come with me from Portland to Buffalo on my first official FBI case. If he had… Harry cocked his head at me curiously and I scratched the critical thought.
    Sinking up to my chin, blowing the bubbles away from my lips, I remembered with perfect clarity everything about the encounter with Prost. The slip-splash as cabs cruised the glittering, rain-soaked streets; the smells of the bakery on the corner, sewer gas from the manholes. But mostly the snap of singed sweets, that distinct scent of revenant magic that should have sparked a warning in my mind; the buzz ramping up through my veins like a cold thrill when I saw Jeremiah's form emerge into the