Kim Harrison - Early to Death, Early to Rise

“Madison?” Ron called. “Show yourself.”

“But you can’t stand up to Ron!” I almost hissed. “He’ll just stop time or something.”

Grace drifted down to land on Barnabas’s shoulder, giggling. “I’m a guardian angel first, baby,” she said, her words cheerful. “I can keep Ron from messing with time.”

“We’ll be fine,” Barnabas said, gesturing with his eyes for me to leave. “Go.”

“What about the other guardian angel?” I asked.

“She doesn’t have free will,” Grace said. “No name, you see.”

I licked my lips, wondering if I might be able to salvage something. Shoe’s life, maybe.

“Madison! Come out and admit you lost!” Ron shouted. “There’s no shame here. You can’t expect to win when you’re trying to beat a thousand years of experience.”

This guy has an ego bigger than my old chemistry teacher’s.

“Go!” Barnabas said urgently as Shoe stared at us, frightened. “Nakita, you go with them. In case you have to…”

His words trailed off, and I met his eyes, shocked. Was he agreeing with Nakita’s position, to kill Ace if he wouldn’t change?

Nakita, too, was surprised. “You think I’m right in ending his life?” she asked, and Shoe fidgeted, seeming more concerned about not getting caught in a demolished lab than with our conversation about killing his friend.

“No. I mean, I don’t know what I believe anymore,” Barnabas said, his brown eyes solemn. “I held Madison as she lived in the shadows of the future, heard her cry from the pain of the beauty in the stars. Maybe it would be better if his life ended before he does himself so large a hurt and robs his soul of the chance to find that beauty. I don’t…know anymore. I have… doubt.” His eyes came to mine. “Please make him see reason. Don’t force me to have to make that choice.”

I swallowed, scared. Were things so wrong that an angel doubted his own mind?

“Madison!” Ron shouted.

Nakita touched Barnabas’s arm. “I understand,” she said softly.

From above us, Grace said, “Uh, guys? He’s coming over here.”

Barnabas looked at all of us in turn. “On the count of three,” he said, then took a breath. “One. Two—”

“Three!” Nakita shouted, jumping straight up to land atop the bench, screaming as she drew her sword. On her chest, her amulet glowed a sharp amethyst, hurting my eyes.

“Nakita!” Ron exclaimed, and Grace lit up, bathing Nakita in a crystalline beauty. My amulet warmed, and I knew the former guardian angel was blocking whatever Ron was trying to do as Nakita screamed at him, her sword making large circles as she advanced.

Barnabas sighed and hunched closer. “Three,” he said. “Get Shoe out of here. Talk to Ace. Please make him understand. We’ll catch up with you.”

It was all the encouragement I needed. Grabbing Shoe’s hand, I ran, trying to stay below the level of the benches. Glass sparkled on the floor, and the night air came in through the broken windows. Cars had pulled up, and flashing lights had begun playing on the ceilings.

Cop cars and alarm bells. Ohhh, I knew this song. We had to leave, and leave now. Ron’s breaking of the window had been more than noticed.

“What about her?” Shoe said when we skittered out of the room and into the hall. It was cooler out here, and darker.

I glanced behind us and sighed. “Nakita doesn’t want to kill you now. She’s after Ace. You’ll be fine.”

Breaking into a jog, we headed down the hall. “I got that part. Is she coming?”

It never failed to amaze me how people could go from fear to acceptance. Meeting him stride for stride, I said, “She’ll catch up. How did you get here? Will your bike hold two?”

Shoe pulled me into a room. It was another lab, and, moving fast, he led me to the back and the attached greenhouse. “I’ve got a car. But with the cops—”

“A car?” I interrupted him. “How do you sneak out your bedroom window, then drive a car to the school?” For all my moaning and groaning about having left my car in Florida, I’d found a new freedom with my bike. Slipping away was easier when you weren’t making noise.

“I park it in the street,” he said, flashing me a grin. “It’s not like my parents want it in the drive. They can’t get their cars out with me in the way.”

I nodded as Shoe pointed to an open window in the school’s greenhouse.

Another boom shook the school, followed by the sound of frantic radio chatter. The hoot of the fire alarm started. An instant later, the sprinklers went off.

“Damn!” Shoe said, watching the water spill out of the ceiling. There weren’t any spigots in the greenhouse, and, glad for small favors, I bent to slip out the narrow window. I could hear cops in the hallways complaining about the water. I’d be willing to bet that between Ron and Barnabas, everyone in the school with a pulse would remember tonight just as the one when the fire alarm went off.

My feet skidded on the dew-wet grass when I finally got outside. The night was cool, and I waited, fidgeting and scanning the empty parking lot while Shoe scraped himself out the window. There was a glow on the horizon where the moon was about to rise. Shoe’s feet thumped silently onto the grass, and after a quick look at the distant cop lights, we jogged across the empty parking lot.

“So where’s your car?” I asked, hoping Barnabas and Nakita were being enough of a distraction, but not so big that it made international news.

“I didn’t want it seen at the school, so I parked it down the street,” he said, breathless as we ran. But when we rounded the corner, it was me who stopped dead in my tracks.

Shoe drove a gray convertible. And the top was down.

“No freaking way,” I said, the memory of my heart pounding in a past fear. It looked like the car I had died in. Right down to the leather seats and the key in the ignition.

Shoe jumped over the closed door and turned the key. “Get in!” he exclaimed, surprised to find me six feet back. Behind me, fire trucks were starting to arrive.

I can do this, I thought, carefully opening the door and getting in. It’s not the same car. It’s not the same driver. But the thudding of my heart seemed real enough to shake even the illusion of my body. “Put your seat belt on,” I said as I settled into the rich leather seats as if I were glass and could break.

“We’re only going a couple of miles,” he griped, looking over his shoulder as he backed up, the lights of the cop cars a distant threat.

“Put your seat belt on!” I yelled, and his eyes widened, black in the dim light.

“Okay, okay!” he said, and I glared at him until he did. “Freaky girl.”

“I died in a car just like this,” I said to try to explain myself, then laughed nervously. “Just kidding.” He’d probably stop believing me if he thought I thought I was dead.

He gripped the wheel tighter, not saying anything as he got us on the road and away from the commotion at the school. It wasn’t until we’d gone about a quarter mile that he flicked on the lights, and I breathed easier. “We need to stop at your place and get the patch,” I said, holding my hair out of my face. “Ace might still be there. I don’t know how far into the future I saw that first time.”

Oooooh, I thought, biting my tongue as I realized what I had just said. That was going to be hard to laugh off.

Shoe stared at me as he drove. “Future?” he said softly, as though this was just sinking in, and I winced.

“Can you, um, ignore that last part?” I asked him, and he looked scared.

Anxious and jittery, I closed my mouth before I told him anything that would make him want to kick me out of the car. I still had a chance. It wasn’t too late. I had to make this work. It wasn’t just Ace’s future on the line. It was my own.