Kim Harrison - Early to Death, Early to Rise

I jogged toward the long rows of windows, gasping when I stumbled. Barnabas caught my elbow until I found my balance. The open window wasn’t that far above the ground, but Barnabas unexpectedly boosted me up and, in a sliding sound of crashing chairs, I landed inside the school, arms and legs tangling.

This is so not cool, I thought, trying to get up and finally having to accept Barnabas’s hand. But my ungraceful entrance had stopped everyone, and both Nakita and Shoe were staring at me instead of each other. Grace giggled while I adjusted my clothes and directed Barnabas with a nod to cover the second door into the hall. Somehow Nakita had gotten in front of Shoe and was blocking the first door. Grace, unseen by Shoe, hovered over him.

It was a chemistry lab, dark but for the light coming in from the outside security lights. There were six long benches with sinks and little spigots for the Bunsen burners. A skeleton grinned at me from the corner, and I stifled a shiver. “Nakita,” I said, still embarrassed from my entrance. “Let me talk to him. I can save him.”

“So can I,” Nakita said as she shifted her feet to find her balance. “It will be a lot faster, too.”

“I told her!” Grace chimed out. “She called me a firefly.”

Shoe looked both angry and bewildered, and from the second door, Barnabas said loudly, “The seraphs have granted her a chance, Nakita. Let her try.”

Feet spread wide, Nakita tossed her hair defiantly, but when Grace cleared her throat to make a sound like a wind chime, Nakita grudgingly added, “Talk to him, but if a black wing shows, I’m scything him.”

“Scythe me?” Shoe was starting to look nervous as he eyed her sword. “What the hell are you doing? Who are you?”

“Madison is how she was christened,” Grace sang merrily. “When she’s angry her eyes tend to glisten. Lives she does save, no thanks does she crave. It’d be easier if you crapheads would listen.”

Jeez, does she sit awake at night thinking these things up?

“Uh,” I started, but Shoe was staring at me, finger pointed.

“You were at the mall,” he accused. “You’re that girl Ace was talking to. You like him?” Shoe relaxed into a cocky stance. “Go for it. He’s an ass.”

“No, it’s you I wanted to talk to,” I said, but he’d turned away.

“That’s a new one,” he said sourly as he started for Nakita and the door, only to stop short when she began swinging her sword.

“Talk to Madison, or I’ll cut you down right now,” she threatened.

“Nakita…” I complained.

But Shoe was backing up. “What is wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” Grace said cheerfully. “She’s here to help. Really!”

“One more step,” Nakita begged him, her beautiful face going savage. “Just one more, and this farce of trying to change fate will be over. Talk to Madison. She’s trying to save your worthless life. I’m simply trying to save your soul,” she finished bitterly.

Clearly unnerved, Shoe glanced first at Barnabas by the back door, then at me by the open window. “Shoe,” I said, capturing his attention. “I know about the virus.”

“Yeah?” he said bitterly. “Ace talks too much.”

“It’s going to get out and shut down the hospital,” I said, trying to keep him focused. “People are going to die.”

Shoe shook his head, glancing at Nakita as she practiced a few swings. “Is that what Ace told you? The virus is a prank. A way for me to gain some notoriety in my last year as the guy who shut down school for a day. That’s it. It can’t get out, and it doesn’t replicate. You’re more stupid than your shoes look if you believe anything Ace tells you.”

“There is nothing wrong with my shoes!” I said hotly, fist on my hip as Grace laughed. “And the virus kills people. I saw it!”

Shoe crossed his arms over his chest and put his weight on one foot. “You saw it? What are you? Some kind of teen-intervention mega enforcer? Am I on camera? Is this a joke or some weird reality-TV show?”

That was insulting, and I huffed.

“He’s not listening, Madison,” the dark reaper said, clearly eager to get on with it as her grip shifted. “This is why no one ever tries to reason with a mark. They don’t listen. They never believe.”

Frustrated, I rounded on her. “They don’t believe because you don’t show them anything to believe in!”

Barnabas had been inching closer to Nakita, and I felt as if things were spiraling out of control when he gripped his amulet and his scythe appeared. “I’m sorry, Madison,” he said, his face taking on a grim expression. “I wanted this to work, but he’s not going to listen, and I’m not going to let her kill Shoe.”

Shoe’s mouth dropped open, and his eyes widened, but Barnabas had his sword pointed at Nakita, not him. “He doesn’t deserve to die,” Barnabas said to her. “I bested you before, and I will again.”

“You freaks are going to try to kill me?” Shoe said, his voice getting higher. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

Grace’s wings seemed to dim. I wasn’t too happy, either.

This was so getting out of control. The seraphs would never believe it was possible if I couldn’t do this at least once. “Barnabas, put your scythe away!” I shouted. “Nakita, back off! You guys are driving me nuts! Neither of you is giving this a chance!”

Both of them lowered their swords, and I took a breath. Shoe swore softly, and I strode forward, ticked. He was going to listen, damn it. I didn’t have time for this!

Knowing that everything that happened was going to land in a seraph’s ear by way of Grace, I tried to calm myself, but it didn’t work. “Look, you!” I said right in Shoe’s face, to make him back up, startled. “I don’t like Ace. And I don’t particularly like you. Let’s just say I have access to tomorrow’s headlines, okay? The aliens beamed them down to me, all right? If Barnabas gets his way, the papers will read, ‘Three dead in the hospital from a computer virus.’ If Nakita gets her way, it’s going to be your name in the obituaries to save your soul at the expense of your life. Me, I’m trying to do the impossible and have the headlines read, ‘Average day in average America—everyone’s happy.’ But if you don’t even try, I don’t think I can stop Nakita from putting your head on a platter!”

Grace seemed to dim a little more. Barnabas made a pained-sounding noise, but I couldn’t spare him a glance. I felt sick. This was not what I wanted to do. I had thought it would be so easy. Find the mark, talk to the mark, we all go home to be dead another day.

His face pale in the dim light, Shoe eyed the reapers, then shuddered when he looked at their swords. “Who are you?”

His voice lacked the earlier mockery, and, encouraged, I said, “The only person besides you who can fix this. Don’t upload the virus. Please.”

He swallowed hard, his gaze returning to Nakita before jerking back to me. Clearly he’d seen something in her that he couldn’t explain, a glint of the eye, a gesture so graceful a human couldn’t make it. A sense of the divine, perhaps. Finally he was listening. “Madison. They called you Madison,” he said, attention coming back to me.

Sighing, I extended my hand, and Grace made a happy sound. “I’m Madison. Nice to meet you, Shoe.” His hand in mine felt cold, and he let go almost immediately. “Listen to me,” I said, noting that Nakita was looking at me like I’d done the impossible in getting him to pay attention. “Somehow the virus you made gets out. It messes up the hospital system. Three people die before they know what’s going on. Just don’t do it.”

Outside, a dark shadow passed over the window. My gut tightened. Nakita had seen it, and her expression went empty as she slipped to the window to look out. Black wings?