Kim Harrison - Early to Death, Early to Rise

Barnabas eased closer, and the scent of the back side of the clouds slid over me. “Think so?” he whispered. “He’s bringing up a hidden folder.”

Suddenly a lot more interested, I looked in to find Shoe still sitting at his computer. Squinting, I read, operation vacation, at the top of the new window. “Sounds innocuous enough,” I said softly.

Barnabas rumbled deep in his chest, shifting his weight to his other foot. “Remember what Grace said? The school’s computer is infected first. Vacation? As in shutting down the school and gaining a day or two off?”

Ooooooh, not good. Still, I wasn’t convinced, even as Shoe popped one of Ace’s decorated CDs into the laptop. “I’ve got to talk to him. Now.”

Barnabas turned to me with wide eyes. “Did you see that?” he asked. “The disc had a black wing on it!”

He looked shocked, and I waved a hand in dismissal. “Sorry. I meant to tell you. It’s Ace,” I said, sending my gaze back into the gray and white bedroom. “He’s an artist. Isn’t it creepy? He got the idea for the melting crow from Shoe.”

“‘Creepy’ is not the word I’d use,” Barnabas grumped, resettling himself.

I watched as Shoe leaned back in his chair as the disc burned. Why he didn’t put it on a jump drive escaped me. Maybe he was going to sneak it into school disguised as music?

Why am I still sitting here? I asked myself suddenly. He was loading the virus. What did I need to see him do? Plug it in? “I’m going to talk to him,” I said, gathering myself and pushing through the bushes to get to the front yard.

The branches scraped against my arms, and I halted when a pair of headlights lit the quiet street. They looked…blue. Not the headlights themselves, but the light.

“Hold up,” Barnabas whispered as he pushed out to stand beside me, but I felt dizzy and I had already stopped, squinting when the headlights resolved into Ace’s truck parked on the street. His loud music cut off three seconds after the engine did, and his door made a hard slam of sound. Footsteps soft, his shadowy form came around the front of the truck and headed for the walk.

“Ace,” I said, holding my stomach. I felt queasy. We couldn’t see the front door from where we were, but it was easy enough to follow his fast pace up the walk and then hear the cheerful dinging of the doorbell.

From Shoe’s room came a muttered curse. Barnabas drew me behind a tree, and together we watched Shoe fidget, standing before his computer and almost falling when he tried to put on his shoes. “Hurry up!” he muttered as the drive still hummed. My eyes weren’t working right, and I blinked, trying to get the haze of blue out of them. Glancing down at my amulet, I wondered if the silver mesh cradling it looked blue, too, or if it was my imagination.

Barnabas tightened his grip on my arm. “We have to go,” he said, eyes on the window.

“Why?” I asked, trying to shake a new buzzing from my ears.

He turned to me, his brown eyes holding a bothered impatience. “Because I think Shoe is going to come out the window as soon as that computer finishes.”

Sure enough, Shoe had a black hoodie on, and was standing at the screen and fiddling with the little clips that held it in place. From outside, I could hear his mom at the door, inviting Ace in. Grimacing, I ducked behind the tree and out of sight.

The sound of wind among feathers brought our attention up, and I wasn’t surprised to see Nakita lightly land on the roof. “Stay there!” Barnabas all but hissed at her, and the dark reaper grinned at him, making me shiver at her fierce expression. My eyes widened when she flipped him off, then jumped back into the air so she could follow Shoe, who was clearly going to go AWOL.

From inside, I heard Shoe’s mom call for him. This was going to get ugly really fast.

“Does Nakita even know what that means?” I asked, putting a hand to my chest. Why isn’t my heart beating? It always beats when I get nervous.

Barnabas pulled me back behind the tree. “I don’t think so,” he said, and I blinked up at him. His eyes were all silver. “We’ve got to go.”

Everything is turning blue , I thought. I felt numb, indistinct.

Shoe finally got the screen off, and it scraped the window as he tucked it outside. His curtains fluttered as he closed them to hide the open window.

“We have to get out of here,” Barnabas said, and he darted off across the grass.

I took a breath and pushed myself into motion. If not for the wind against my face, I wouldn’t have been able to tell I was even moving. It was like a dream where you run and run, and you never go anywhere.

“Madison!” Barnabas called from the sidewalk, and I stopped. Blinking, I looked down. I was still beside the tree. Wait a moment. I knew I had run…somewhere.

“Madison, let’s go!” Barnabas repeated, and I wavered. “He’s going to come out!”

“I don’t feel so good,” I said, squinting at him.

And then the light from the street suddenly went entirely blue. Like ink falling into a glass of water, it poured from the middle, hitting the ground and rebounding against the sides of the beam of light, white and blue swirling until it was all one color.

Oh, this can’t be good.

“Ummm,” I breathed as Barnabas jogged back and took my arm. “I think I’m in trouble,” I said. Then my knees gave way, and I collapsed.

“Madison!”

Head lolling, I felt Barnabas catch me. “Gabriel’s pearly toes,” he muttered, and I opened my eyes. His face was glowing like you see in the movies, with a white smudginess. And I could see his wings. Reaching out, I tried to touch them, finding they were only in my vision, not real. He looked like the angel he was, fallen from grace. He was the only real thing left. Everything else was blue, sliding together into one monotone color of existence.

“Barnabas,” I whispered, needing a huge breath to do it. “Something is wrong.”

“You think?” he said, sounding panicked as he lifted me up into his arms. “What’s the matter? Are you hurt?”

My gaze fell on my amulet, and I stared in wonder. It was absolutely black. No, it was a violet so deep that it only looked black. With a sudden understanding, I realized it had gone ultraviolet, the color falling off the visible spectrum.

My head lolled up, and I gasped as I saw the stars. They were rainbows of noncolors. I could see all the wavelengths blaring from them, and I started to cry. It was too much. I was only human. I wasn’t supposed to see all of this, to even know such colors existed.

“Madison!”

Barnabas turned my face from the heavens, and, sobbing, I gripped him as if he were the only thing real. “Something is…wrong,” I stammered. I wanted to look again, but couldn’t bear it.

“I’ll find Ron,” Barnabas said. His voice was grim, and though a wave of dizziness hit me, I focused on him.

“No,” I breathed, then louder, “No! Just don’t let me look at the stars.” I was crying, and I could see waves of blue coming from me, bouncing into him like waves on a beach. “Don’t let me look at the stars…” I whispered. And as Barnabas panicked, I felt my mind expand.

Like blowing out a flame, he dissolved into a blue puff of smoke and vanished. That fast, I was alone, and all that held me sane was the glow of his aura beside mine as I found myself entirely within the fabric of time.

Where the devil am I? I thought, watching my fingers move as if through a blue haze as I grabbed the back of a rolling chair and swung it to face the computer before me. Holy cow, I’m in Shoe’s room! And those don’t actually look like my fingers….