Early to Death, Early to Rise - Kim Harrison [45]
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