Early to Death, Early to Rise - Kim Harrison [54]
Shoe didn’t look good. Actually, he was almost green in the dim security lights. “I don’t know…” he started.
“Oh, for God’s sake!” I exclaimed, feeling the pinch of time. “You’re going to be blamed for three deaths, and you’re worried about lying to the receptionist about where we met? Take me in, and when they tell you I’ve died, get upset and ask if you can go to the bathroom to throw up. Meet me at the elevators at the lowest floor. You’ve got an access key.”
He touched his pocket where Ace’s mother’s ID was, and, looking pained, he nodded. “Why don’t you just take the patch and upload it?” he asked as he brought it out.
The sight of the dripping black wing shivered through me. “Me?” I said. “I don’t know anything about computers. You have to do it.”
Reluctantly he slid it away. “What about after?” he asked. “You dead? Me bringing you in? The cops?” Then he paused. “You said Barnabas could change memories.”
I nodded, and, looking even more uncomfortable, Shoe licked his lips. “Don’t change mine, okay?” he asked. “I want to remember this.”
“Okay,” I said quickly, just wanting to get on with it. I didn’t know how long they would let me lie there before moving me downstairs. “When this is over, I can always simply go back to the morgue and get off the table,” I said. “They’ll think their instruments were off and I wasn’t really dead. It’s a freaking miracle.”
“I mean it,” Shoe said, his voice loud, and I looked at him. “Don’t make me forget. If you take that from me…what’s the point?”
My heart gave a thump and stilled. “Okay,” I said, meaning it this time.
He looked at me for a long moment, then put the truck back into drive. “This had better work,” he muttered.
“It’ll work,” I said, but it was kind of scary. I’d have to make sure my heart didn’t start up, and it usually did when I was stressed. And I’d have to make sure I didn’t smile and ruin it. If they put me in a drawer, I was going to be stuck until Shoe found me. But there weren’t many choices here. If the patch wasn’t in place by six, people were going to die. It would be my fault.
Nervous, I slumped in the seat against the door and concentrated on listening to the emptiness of no heartbeat. Slowly it settled and stopped. Identity hidden—check. Pulse stopped—check. My amulet, I thought, worried that someone might try to take it off me.
“Wait!” I said loudly, and the truck jerked to a stop. “I have to hide my amulet,” I said sheepishly.
Shoe’s eyebrows went up in question, and I settled myself to concentrate, glad that I’d been working on this. Taking my amulet in my hand, I thought about it, how it felt in my grip, smooth, warm, and how it was a violet so deep that it was really black. I looked at it with my mind’s eye, seeing how it touched the divine, filtered it so I wouldn’t destroy myself when time echoed in my thoughts. It resonated with the sound of my soul, of the universe. It felt alive. And if I twisted the weight of it just so…light would bend around it.
A warm sensation filled me. Knowing it had worked, I opened my eyes and let go of my amulet. It thumped back against me, but it was gone. Damn, I loved it when I could do something.
“Oh, my God, it went invisible,” Shoe said, sounding scared. “Shit. You really are dead,” he said, white-faced.
I smiled, trying to reassure him. “Now you look like you’ve got a dead girl in your truck. Let’s go.”
Taking a deep breath, he turned to the hospital entrance. “I’m going to get in so much trouble for this,” he whispered, hands shaking as he put the truck in drive and revved the engine.
I closed my eyes again, forcing myself to go limp. I’d made my amulet invisible before, but never when it mattered like it did now. I’d have three balls in the air, and I didn’t know if I could do it. I had to keep the memory of my heart quiet, keep myself from twitching when they tried to bring me to