Early to Death, Early to Rise

Nine

Barnabas’s arms were tight around me as he flew over what had to be the high school. While Nakita and I had been trying to pass my dad’s spaghetti off on Josh, Barnabas had been canvassing the town of Fort Banks, a foresight I was now reaping the benefit of. The flat, pebbled roof with its big air-conditioning units was featureless in the dark. It smelled like tar, and the air grew warmer when he drifted over it and found the back of the school with its big expanse of parking lot.

“Do you see Nakita?” I asked, scanning for any sign of her, Shoe, or even Grace.

“No,” he said softly, and I hoped we weren’t too late.

“Do you think I should try calling her?” I asked, and he shifted the tilt of his wings to make us fly parallel to the rows of black windows along the side.

“I’d have to stop hiding your resonance and hope she is doing the same. Ron might hear,” he said, finishing softly, “Better to just look.”

“I suppose,” I said, frustrated.

“No black wings,” Barnabas said, making me think that there had been when I flashed forward, and he just hadn’t told me.

“Yet,” I said sourly. A darting motion attracted my attention, and I pointed. “There!” I said, but Barnabas had seen it, too. It was Shoe, halfway through a low window with one foot inside, one on the sill. Nakita was talking to him from outside, having probably surprised him. The faint, softball-size glow over her was likely Grace. The dark reaper didn’t have her sword out, but I could tell by Grace’s haze that things were not going well.

Barnabas angled away, and, startled, I yelled, “Where are you going?”

“I don’t want him to see me with my wings,” he said, and Grace, who had clearly heard me, darted up and our way.

“Barnabas, I’m trying to convince him he needs to change his life or risk being cut down by an angel. Land where he can freaking see you! You can always change his memory.”

Making a grunt of understanding, he shifted his course, wings beating three times to cushion our landing on the pavement.

“He’s here! You need to hurry!” Grace said, her haze looking dim against the stars as she flew in circles around us. My hair flew straight up from the gust of Barnabas’s wings. “She chased him inside!”

I stumbled away from Barnabas as my feet found the earth, tugging my skirt down where it should be. Nakita had vaulted inside, but she was lingering by the window to watch Shoe and us both. Her sword was drawn, and I didn’t need to see the future to know everything was about to crash down.

“Grace, tell her to wait!” I said. “Ron isn’t here! We’re okay!”

“Got it!” she sang out, and in a flash of silver she zoomed away.

Ron isn’t here, is he? I questioned myself. Grace was. She’d been keeping an eye on Paul. Was she still, or had she shifted over to spy on me again? The seraphs were watching. Nothing like a little pressure to bring out your best, I thought, grimacing.

Barnabas came up beside me, and as we started forward, Nakita and Shoe vanished deeper inside the building.

“Damn it!” I shouted, not caring if God himself heard me. I was mad. I didn’t feel very good from my flash forward. And now Nakita was going to scythe Shoe and turn all our efforts into puppy presents on the rug.

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?

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.”

“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.