Kim Harrison - Early to Death, Early to Rise

Seventeen, dead, and in charge of heaven’s dark angels—all itching to kill someone. Yup, that’s me, Madison, the new dark timekeeper without a clue. It wasn’t exactly how I envisioned my “higher education” going the night I blew off my junior prom and died at the bottom of a ravine. I’d survived my death by stealing my murderer’s amulet.

Now it’s my responsibility to send a dark reaper to end a person’s earthly existence. The idea is to save their soul at the cost of their life. Fate, the seraphs would say. But I don’t believe in fate; I believe in choice, which means I’m in charge of the very people I once fought against.

The seraphs are confused about the changes I’m trying to make to a system I don’t believe in, but they’re willing to give me a chance. At least, that’s the theory. The reality is a bit more…complicated.

The car was hot from the sun, and I pulled my fingertips from it as I slunk past. Excitement layered itself over my skin like a second aura. Hunched and furtive, I followed Josh in his first-day-of-school jeans and tucked-in shirt as he wove through the parking lot toward his truck. Yes, it was the first day of school, and yes, we were ditching, but it wasn’t like anyone ever did anything the first day. Besides, I thought the seraphs would forgive me; it was one of their marked souls I was going to try to save.

Josh turned to me as he stopped, crouched behind a red Mustang as he tossed his blond hair from his eyes and grinned. It was obvious this wasn’t his first time skipping. It wasn’t the only time I’d ditched school, either, but I’d never done it with a posse. I smiled back, but as Josh’s gaze went behind me, his smile faded.

“She’s going to get us caught,” he muttered.

My yellow sneakers with the skull-and-crossbones shoelaces ground into the pavement as I turned to look. Barnabas was skulking properly between the cars, his dark eyes serious and his expression grim. Nakita, though, was casually strolling, her arms swinging and her perfection absolute. She was wearing a pair of my designer jeans and one of my short tops, looking better than I ever could, with her dark hair shining and her black toenails glinting in the glorious sun. She hadn’t painted them that color, it was natural. Normally I’d hate Nakita for her looks alone, but the dark reaper didn’t have a clue how pretty she was.

Halting in a crouch beside me, Barnabas frowned, the scent of feathers and sunflowers coming off him. The angel masquerading as a high school senior in his faded black jeans and even more faded band T-shirt was twice fallen: first when he was kicked out of heaven untold millennia ago, and now for having switched sides in the middle of heaven’s war.

“Nakita hasn’t the faintest idea how to do this,” the reaper grumbled, brushing his frizzy brown curls out of his eyes and squinting. The two had been on opposite ends of heaven’s war, and it didn’t take much to set them off on each other now.

I cringed, waving for Nakita to crouch down, but she just kept walking. Nakita was my official guardian, assigned to me by the seraphs.

Technically, as the dark timekeeper, I was her boss. Although in all things earthly I was the smart one, she knew my job and what I was supposed to be doing. Trouble was, I didn’t want to do it heaven’s way. I had other ideas.

“Get down, you ninny!” Barnabas hissed, and the petite, beautiful, and deadly girl looked behind her, confused. Over her shoulder was the trendy purse I’d given her this morning to complete her look. It matched her red sandals and was absolutely empty, but she insisted on carrying it because she thought it helped her blend in.

“Why?” she said as she approached. “If someone should stop us, I’ll simply smite them.”

Smite? I thought, wincing. She hadn’t been on earth very long. Barnabas fit in better, having been kicked out of heaven before the pyramids were built because he believed in choice, not fate, but Nakita once told me rumor had it he’d been ousted for falling in love with a human girl.

“Nakita,” I said, pulling at her when she got close, and she obediently dropped to a crouch, her long hair swinging. “No one uses that word anymore.”

“It’s a perfectly fine word,” she said, affronted.

“Maybe you could try smacking people instead?” Josh suggested.

Barnabas frowned. “Don’t encourage her,” he muttered. Nakita stood.

“We should go,” she said, looking about. “If you can’t get the mark to choose a better path before Ron sends a light reaper to keep him alive, I’m going to take his soul to save it.”

With that, Nakita started walking for Josh’s truck. “Take his soul” was a nice way of saying “kill him.” The enormity of what I was trying to do fell on me, and my shoulders slumped.

I was the new dark timekeeper, but unlike the dark keepers who came before me, I didn’t believe in fate. I believed in choice. The entire situation was a big cosmic joke—apart from the bit about me being dead. The old dark timekeeper thought that killing me, his foretold replacement, would give him immortality. No one had known who I was until it was too late to change anything, and I’d been stuck with the job until I could find my real body and break the bond with the amulet that kept me alive without it.

Josh rose, peering at the parking lot’s entrance through the Mustang’s windows. “Come on. Let’s get to my truck before she takes the front seat. I’m not driving with her riding shotgun.”

Knees bent and keeping in a crouch, we started after her. Barnabas was vastly better at this soul-saving stuff than I was, knowing how to use his amulet and having experience finding people marked for an early death in order to save them from reapers like Nakita. That he had switched sides to stay with me was as weird as my being chosen as the new dark timekeeper to begin with. Maybe it was guilt that had kept him with me, since he’d failed to keep me alive when I’d been targeted for death. Perhaps it was anger at his old boss, Ron, the light timekeeper, who’d lied to both of us in his quest for supremacy. Or it might possibly be that Barnabas thought I had answers for the questions that Ron’s betrayal had raised. Whatever the reason, I was glad Barnabas was here. Neither of us agreed with heaven’s philosophy of killing someone before they went bad, but if I’d been fated to become the new dark timekeeper, I could’ve done far worse than win Barnabas’s loyalty. Nakita didn’t trust him and thought he was a spy.

“Uh, guys?” Josh said, and I froze when I followed his gaze to the squad car parked before the school. Beside it was a woman in uniform, hands on her hips and looking our way.

“Crap!” I yelped, dropping. Josh was right beside me, and Barnabas had never risen above the level of the car. “Get down!” I almost hissed at Nakita, and yanked her toward the pavement. My pulse hammered. Okay, I know. I was dead, but try telling my mind that. It thought I was alive, and with the tactile illusion of a body, who was I to tell it different? It was embarrassing. If I was simply sitting, nothing—but the minute I got excited, the memory of my pulse started up. It was so unfair that I had to deal with all the physical crap of being scared when I was already dead, but at least I didn’t sweat anymore.

My back was pressed against the car we were hiding behind. Beside me, Josh looked worried. “It’s Officer Levy. Do you think she saw us?” I whispered. Just freaking great, I was already on the woman’s radar. She had tailed me speeding to the hospital when Nakita had almost killed Josh two weeks ago. Yup, she’d smited him, but only halfway. I wouldn’t call the two of them friends, but at least Nakita wasn’t trying to kill Josh anymore.