Early to Death, Early to Rise - Kim Harrison [1]
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