Kim Harrison - Early to Death, Early to Rise

Shoe glanced at the open door. “It’s not that kind of virus,” he repeated. “It won’t get out, and it doesn’t replicate. That’s why I had to break into the school to upload it. I’m not a freak. I want the notoriety for getting everyone a day off from school, not killing people. What kind of monster do you think I am?”

“The kind whom Nakita tries to kill,” Barnabas said, but something in Shoe’s words had struck me.

“You had to break in to upload it?” I whispered, hearing the past tense he had put everything in. My eyes pinched, I looked at him. “You already uploaded it,” I said, and Nakita pulled back from the window while Grace sighed loudly enough for me to hear. “You were coming out of the school when Nakita found you, not going in.”

“Well, yeah,” he said, shrugging. “It’s done. It’s already in. When the clock ticks over to six in the morning, the system will shut down. Fire, security, everything. But that’s all that’s going to happen. It can’t get out!”

Nakita strode forward, her face ugly. My eyes widened. Shoe darted for the door, and I grabbed his arm, swinging him behind me. If he ran, it would be over.

“Look out!” Grace shrilled, and I ducked.

Nakita’s sword struck Barnabas’s, inches before me. Damn it, I had to work harder in figuring out how to make a sword from my amulet. This relying on Barnabas was getting old.

“Knock it off!” I shouted as I rose out of my crouch, grateful that Barnabas could move that fast.

“You’re crazy!” Shoe was yelling behind me. “Crazy! All of you!”

From the ceiling, Grace chimed in merrily, “Nakita, a reaper of light, the bad guy she wanted to smite. But Barney had planned, to make a big stand, to draw lines between wrong and the right.”

Nakita’s face went livid.

“Stop it! All of you!” I exclaimed. “This is my scything, not yours!”

The two reapers stared at each other, the air smelling of ozone. I could almost see their wings. As if in slow motion, they lowered their swords and stepped away from each other. Shaking, I turned to Shoe. That flash forward had really taken it out of me. “Sorry,” I said, wondering if he still had the ability to listen after that. “Nakita is intense.”

“She’s freaking crazy!” he shouted, then shivered when Grace landed on his shoulder, bathing him in a glow he couldn’t see.

“He said it’s too late,” Nakita said, trying to defend her actions.

Choice—it was never too late to make a new one. “It’s not too late,” I said, giving Barnabas a thankful look. “We can take the virus out. Shoe, you’ve got a patch, yes?”

“Yes,” he admitted, looking darkly at Nakita. “But I’m telling you, the virus won’t spread. It can’t.” Reaching to his back pocket, he brought out the disc. “This won’t do anything but shut the school down!”

I took a breath to disagree, but when I saw the disc decorated with Ace’s artwork, a cold feeling trickled through me. The disc in Shoe’s hand wasn’t the disc I’d seen in my flash forward. Crap on toast, how stupid can I be?

Oblivious as to why I was staring at the disc, Barnabas drew close. “Madison, I’m sorry,” he was saying, but I wasn’t listening. “Maybe if we had been faster.”

With a thump, my pulse staggered into play. How am I going to fix this? “That isn’t the same disc I saw in the flash forward,” I said, panic making my voice sound thin.

Nakita’s head came up, and her grip on her sword tightened. Grace made a sound like bells, and her glow went completely out. “She flashed forward?” Nakita asked Barnabas, then looked at me. “You flashed forward? Then he’s the mark!”

I shook my head, cursing myself for assuming I’d been in Shoe’s mind when I’d found myself in his room. “No,” I whispered, a hand to my stomach. Fumbling, I took the disc from Shoe and waved it under Barnabas’s nose. “This isn’t the disc I saw in the flash. It has Ace’s artwork on it, but it’s not the same disc. Shoe isn’t the mark.”

Nakita was ashen. “I almost scythed him. I…would have.”

“It’s my fault,” I said. Everything was blue when I saw the virus being uploaded to the disc. It was Ace. I’d been in Ace while he made a duplicate of the virus in Shoe’s computer. Maybe the future wasn’t here yet. Why hadn’t I tried to get him to look in a mirror?

As if from a great distance, I heard Barnabas say, “We’re following the wrong person.”

“It’s Ace,” I said, as if it weren’t already crystal clear, and Shoe jerked back when I grabbed his hand, looking at his fingertips. “There’s no ink on your hands.”

“What is your problem?” he asked, pulling back out of my grip.

“My problem is that I’m stupid!” I exclaimed, taking a step forward and feeling faint. “I’m such a dunce! Shoe, I saw Ace in your room at your computer. I thought it was you. He downloaded the virus to a disc. We have to find Ace before Ron does.”

“You were spying on me?” Shoe said hotly, and I grimaced. He was worried about a little spying?

“Ace is trying to get even with you. I thought I was seeing you be mad at him . I never considered it might be him mad at you.” I had to find Ace. He was somewhere with that virus.

“He’s been mad at me for a long time,” Shoe said softly. “He knew I was doing this tonight, and now I bet he’s going to make it look like I downed the hospital, too. I ought to kill him.”

Nakita dissolved her sword in a flashy show of whirling. “No need. I’ll do it.”

Shoe’s face went pale. “I was kidding.”

“I’m not.”

“Life ended, a soul to save,” Grace said mournfully. “Decisions age-old are made. Is it choice? Is it fate? Forgiveness or hate? When love is what all of us crave.”

Shocked, I stared at her dim glow. It was…good.

Barnabas touched my arm, and I jerked. “Ace’s mother works at the hospital,” he reminded me, and I turned to the black windows.

Nakita leaned to look out at the sky, her long throat showing in the light. “He has a way to get in.”

Beside me, Shoe was clenching his teeth. “And he knows how to upload it. I showed him how. I’m such an idiot. I’m going to get blamed for this, not him.”

Stomach knotting, I looked at Barnabas. “We have to get to the hospital.”

At the window, Nakita made a muffled oath, then shouted, “Drop!”

I stared at the window, seeing the black shape coming at it. Barnabas reached up and yanked me down behind one of the lab stations. I hit Shoe on the way, and he fell under me. “Hey!” I yelped, then clapped my hands over my ears as something crashed through the window.

Glass flew, tinkling, and a faint bell began ringing. Swell. Just peachy keen.

“It’s Ron!” Grace chimed out, her hazy shadow darting over us.

I picked a piece of glass out of my hair and sat up, safe behind the tall lab bench. “No kidding.”

From inside the room came Ron’s harrumph, and I could almost see him standing with his feet spread wide and his eyes turning blue like they did when he was angry. At least he wasn’t trying to stop time. “Madison!” he said loudly, and I met Shoe’s eyes, mouthing for him to stay down. “It’s over. I’m putting a guardian angel on him.”

I peeked above the lab bench to find Ron at the front of the room before the whiteboard. A hazy glow above him had to be the guardian angel, as yet unassigned. Ron was wearing his usual off-white tunic and pants, and he looked satisfied. It was all I could do to keep my mouth shut and let him believe that Shoe was the mark. Maybe I can pull this off after all.

“Go,” Barnabas said, hunched beside me. “Grace and I will keep him busy. If he wants to put an angel on Shoe, then Ace doesn’t have one yet.”