Kim Harrison - Early to Death, Early to Rise

“Excuse me?”

I glanced at Ace, then back to him. “Will you just…watch him for a while?” I asked. “So Shoe and I can fix what we can?”

A curious look came into Paul’s eyes. “I don’t understand you, Madison.”

Hope zinged through me. That hadn’t been a no. The guardian angel clearly thought it was a great idea, darting about the ceiling as if she were a pixie high on a double espresso. “My dad doesn’t understand me, either,” I said, smiling. “Will you do it? Try to make up for screwing this up?”

“I didn’t screw it up. I saved his life!” he said hotly, then looked at Ace staring at us with a murderous look. “Yeah. I’ll do it,” he added. “But you owe me.”

“You think you’re tougher than me?” Ace said as he stood up, and I tensed.

Paul reached for his amulet, and I shivered as something went through me when he touched the divine. The guardian angel let out a yelp when Ace collapsed. Damn, that had been fast. “Wow,” I whispered, totally impressed.

Shoe nudged Ace in the ribs with his foot. “I’m glad I’m on your side,” he said, then pulled Ace’s truck keys from his former friend’s belt. “They have a camera on the hospital gate,” he said in explanation as he edged past Paul and toward the window. “I don’t want my car seen there.”

He slipped out the window, leaning in as he said, “Cover for me if my mom knocks, okay?”

Paul nodded, looking both scared and excited.

“Can you change memories yet?” I asked him, aware of Shoe outside the window, but I really wanted to know.

“No,” Paul admitted, looking almost chagrined, as though he’d tried and failed.

“Me neither,” I said, feeling a surge of kinship. Smiling, I sat on the sill and swung my sneakers outside. It was cooler, and I shivered. Maybe I’d failed to save Ace’s soul, but I could save the lives of some innocents. “Thanks, Paul. You’re not so bad.”

I dropped to the earth, and Shoe started across the dark grass, head down as he fumbled with Ace’s keys.

“Madison!”

It was Paul, and I turned. He was in the window, the guardian angel on his shoulder. “You flashed forward?” he asked, looking uncertain. “Saw what comes of this?”

I nodded, wincing when Ace’s music blared as Shoe started his truck. “I saw what might be,” I admitted, shivering at the memory. “He wasn’t a bit sorry about it. I think what we’re doing changes things, though.” Paul said nothing, and, jiggling on my feet, I blurted, “I gotta go.”

“Good luck!” he whispered loudly.

Smiling, I turned to run to Ace’s truck. “Don’t let Ron hear you say that,” I muttered.

It was with a much lighter heart that I scrambled into the front passenger side of Ace’s truck and buckled myself in. There were a thousand things that could go wrong, and someone was going to get in trouble even if everything went right, but Paul believed me.

And I was surprised to realize that meant a lot.

Shoe put Ace’s truck into park, but he didn’t make one move to get out. Together we stared through the dirty windshield at the brightly lit emergency entrance. It looked quiet, but people were moving around inside.

“Scared?” I asked, feeling the memory of my heart echo in my thoughts. I hated it when it did that, and I forced it to stop.

His hand dropped from the steering wheel, and he looked across at me. “I’ve never broken into anything but the school, and you saw how well that went. Jeez, Madison, I’ve never even shoplifted.”

“But you sat in your room and created a virus that can kill people by shutting down a hospital computer system?” I said with a huff.

“I did not create a program to kill people,” he said hotly. “I made a virus to shut down the school for a day. That’s it. Ace is a toad’s ass.”

It wasn’t like I could argue with him. Head bobbing, I focused on the twin glass doors spilling light into the otherwise dimly lit parking lot. It suddenly occurred to me that I was running around with my amulet’s resonance blaring since I’d left Nakita’s and Barnabas’s shielding. Puppy presents, this could come crashing down really fast. As soon as Ron wasn’t occupied, he’d get curious.

Shoe rubbed his chin, clearly nervous. I knew the feeling. I was really worried about Barnabas, Nakita, and Grace. What if they got hurt? They were more powerful than I, but I was responsible for them. How did that happen?

“They aren’t going to just let us walk in and sit down at a terminal,” Shoe said with a sigh.

If Barnabas or Nakita were hurt, would Ron track me down to gloat? I was on borrowed time, and here I was sitting in a truck that didn’t belong to either of us.

“How are we going to even get in there?” Shoe said, more loudly this time, since I hadn’t answered him.

Nervous, I brought one of my knees to my chest to retie my sneaker. “It’s too late to pretend to be visiting someone,” I said. “How good an actor are you?”

Shoe’s eyes widened in the faint security light. “You want to sneak in as an orderly?”

“No, but if you pulled into the emergency lot fast with me unconscious…”

Brow furrowing, he winced. “You think that will work?”

Remembering racing into the emergency room with Josh out cold and dying after being scythed by Nakita, I nodded. “I know it will. With all the distraction, you could easily slip into the back, with no one the wiser.” As long as I can keep my fake heartbeat going. “Eventually they’ll stabilize me and leave. It might take hours. Unless…”

Shoe gazed at me, waiting. “Unless what?”

“Uh, unless I play dead. They’ll put me in the morgue pretty quick.”

“Yeah, like that will work,” he said around a snort.

I grabbed his hand and held it to my wrist. “I told you, I’m dead. See? No pulse. Unless I work at it, that is.”

My heart gave one thump at the feel of his fingers around my wrist, and then it was silent.

Shoe’s expression shifted from annoyance, to wonder, to fear. Pulling his hand from me, he got a sick look on his face. “It’s a trick or something,” he said.

Here I am again, sitting in a truck, trying to convince another guy that I’m dead, I thought. It sounded like a country song gone bad. My death was so messed up. Sighing, I said, “Good. Don’t believe it. Just go along with it for a few more hours. You’ve got the patch?”

He touched his pocket and nodded.

“They’re going to want to know who I am,” I said, taking my wallet out of my pocket and putting it in the glove box, having to wedge aside another handful of music discs. My phone went next to it, and I hesitated. It was my only link to my dad. Putting it aside felt wrong.

“I so don’t want my dad getting a call that I’m in a morgue half a state away,” I said. “Can you tell them my name is Wendy?” Wendy wouldn’t mind. She’d think it was hilarious. “Tell them you met me at the mall and we were going to a movie or something, and I just fell over?”

Shoe didn’t look good. Actually, he was almost green in the dim security lights. “I don’t know…” he started.

“Oh, for God’s sake!” I exclaimed, feeling the pinch of time. “You’re going to be blamed for three deaths, and you’re worried about lying to the receptionist about where we met? Take me in, and when they tell you I’ve died, get upset and ask if you can go to the bathroom to throw up. Meet me at the elevators at the lowest floor. You’ve got an access key.”

He touched his pocket where Ace’s mother’s ID was, and, looking pained, he nodded. “Why don’t you just take the patch and upload it?” he asked as he brought it out.