Early to Death, Early to Rise

One

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.

Crouched before me, Nakita started to rise. “I’ll smack her.”

“No!” both Barnabas and I shouted, tugging her back down.

Josh was peeping through the windows. “She’s gone.”

Son of a dead puppy. How am I supposed to save some guy’s life if I can’t even sneak out of the high school’s parking lot? I’d told the seraphs that if I could talk to him—the mark—he would make a better choice and he wouldn’t have to die to save his soul. This was likely my best chance to prove that my ideas could work. I didn’t want to lose my opportunity by getting to the party too late. And I wasn’t going to blow it all to dust because I was sitting in detention—and then my room after my dad found out.

My fingers encircled my amulet, and my worry grew stronger. I should be able to stop time using the black stone at its center, go invisible, and do all sorts of things, but the last time I tried some experimentation, I had nearly destroyed myself. But if I didn’t do something…

Barnabas put his hand around mine, both of us holding the shiny black stone that kept me looking alive, and I turned to him, blinking in surprise. “I’ll take care of this,” he said, compassion in his deep brown eyes.

My lips parted, and I nodded. I didn’t have to do this alone. He and Nakita were here to help until I could do things myself. Seeing my gratitude, he smiled, and his hand slipped from mine as he stood.

“You?” Nakita barked as she stood, too. “If anyone is doing any smiting, it will be me!”

Josh sighed. “There they go again.”

Barnabas’s expression became peeved, but his eyes went wide as he focused behind her. A dry clearing of a throat shocked through me, and I stood when I saw Officer Levy with her hands still on her hips and disappointment in her expression.

“Isn’t it a little early for a field trip?” she asked. She looked too young to be a cop, but the no-nonsense slant to her eyes demanded a respect that went beyond her snappy haircut and slim stature.

“Officer Levy!” I said, feeling foolish as I brushed off my skirt. It was black, with skulls and crossbones on the hem. It matched my shoelaces. And with the black tights, the outfit was out there, but all me. “Wow, it’s good to see you again. I didn’t know you were assigned here,” I said.

My voice died, and no one said anything while she looked at each of us in turn.

“Ah, we were getting something out of Josh’s truck,” I lied, looking at it two aisles away—two aisles and six hours away. Crap.

Her eyebrows were high, and she took her hands from her waist. “Josh, Madison…and you two are…?” she asked.

“Barney,” Barnabas said, not looking up as his eyes silvered. He’d given her the name I used when I was mad at him, which told me he was ticked at himself.

“And you, young lady?”

“Nakita,” the dark reaper said boldly as she fingered her amulet as if preparing to use it.

“She’s my sister,” Barnabas said, pulling her close in what Officer Levy would think was a sideways hug but what I knew was an admonishment for her to behave herself. Trouble was, they both thought they were top dog, and it only made things worse when she shoved him off her. “We’re transfer students from Denmark,” he added, and I looked at him in surprise.

I thought it was Norway…. “They’re staying with me,” I added.

Officer Levy seemed to relax, apparently satisfied with our downcast expressions. “You’re going to be on probation if you pull this again,” she said, dropping back and gesturing toward the school. “Inside. All of you. I’m not going to bust your chops the first day of school. Let’s go,” she said as she ushered us ahead of her, and as one, we pushed into motion.

“Sorry,” Josh muttered as I came even with him, but whether he was talking to me or Officer Levy, I didn’t know. Disappointment slipped into me, tinged with desperation. The hair on the back of my neck prickled as I heard Officer Levy behind me. We’re not going to go quietly, are we? I thought, but the wink and sly smile I caught from Barnabas when I looked at him brought me straight with anticipation.

“Keep walking,” he mouthed, then tugged Nakita’s arm to bring her even with Josh and myself. I couldn’t help but smile at her muffled complaint as Barnabas put his head next to hers and convinced her not to smite the woman.

“I saw what you were going to do,” he said, his hand upon his amulet as it started to glow a faint green. It used to be ruby red, but since he’d abandoned his light-reaper status and gone grim, it had shifted up in the spectrum—much to Barnabas’s embarrassment. “Smiting her has the finesse of a rhino, Nakita,” he added. “You need to learn the art of minimization. Just watch.”

Then, softer, to me, Barnabas whispered, “Madison, start to drop back until Officer Levy walks right past you. Josh, I’m sorry; I can’t cover you. The woman has to take someone in. The best I can do is make it so you don’t get in trouble.”

Josh sighed, glancing at me as he took my hand. “I’ll see you later,” he said softly, his expression both unhappy and resigned. “I knew it was too good to be true.”

My fingers slipped from his, and I winced. “Get my assignments for me?”

“Yeah. I’ll stop at your house after school. Got my number?”

I touched my pocket, feeling for my cell phone. “Always,” I said, and Nakita made a huff of sound, not understanding at all. Most everything was logic for her. That was the difference between her and Barnabas. For all his sourness, he was ruled by his heart.

I felt like dirt for ditching Josh, but what else could I do? Slowly I started easing my pace, both Nakita and Barnabas dropping back with me until Josh continued on ahead of us, his head down and his hands in his pockets. I held my breath as I shifted to the side and let Officer Levy walk right on past. Barnabas touched my elbow, and I stopped. His other hand was around his amulet, and his eyes were silver as he touched on the divine, changing Officer Levy’s memories to not include us. It was a minor task, but one I think they were both reluctant to teach me because of what I might do with it. Sure, I was their boss, but I’d gotten the job without the lifelong apprenticeship and discipline that usually went before it.

I stood between cars and watched, unbelieving as Officer Levy seemed to forget all about us, escorting Josh back to the school as if he were the only one she’d seen. Reaper magic—you gotta love it.

“The woman will remember,” Nakita said with a huff, hip cocked and watching, too. “You used so little of the divine that the false memory won’t stick.”

“It will stick long enough for us to leave, and that’s all we need.” Josh clearly forgotten, Barnabas took my elbow and directed me to the field at the edge of the parking lot, but my eyes were on the school behind us and the open windows. “And when she comes back to look and she finds nothing, then there will be doubt in her. A week from now, she won’t remember it because it will be easier for her to forget.”

A week, I thought, hoping he wasn’t making a mistake. I had thought it would be more certain than that. Nakita, too, seemed unconvinced.

Shoulder-to-shoulder, we turned and left the cars behind us to walk out onto a long-fallow field thick with bees and tiny flowers. I couldn’t help but feel odd as I walked between the two angels, one light, one dark, as if I were somehow connected with all the past that had happened before me and the future yet to be. If I hadn’t known the school was behind us or smelled the pavement and hot metal, I could have been walking in Eden.

Nakita looked to the sky and shook her hair back. A smile so beautiful that it hurt came over her. As she stretched her arms to the heavens, her wings—her glorious, black-feathered, impossibly big wings—melted into existence, glistening in the sun. Dark reaper, dark wings.

Worried, I looked behind us to the school. When I turned back, Barnabas had found his wings as well. His were white, and I wondered if they would eventually change color like his amulet had.

I had less than twenty-four hours to try to help some nameless soul who was about to find himself at the center of a fight for his very life. And we, I thought as Barnabas wrapped an arm around my waist and I stepped backward upon his feet so he could carry me into the air, are the only ones who can save him. We were bringing both his salvation and his death…because if I couldn’t convince him to make a different choice, Nakita was going to kill him.