Early to Death, Early to Rise - Kim Harrison [60]
“Come closer,” she encouraged, her hair falling about her face to make her look dangerous.
Shoe was clicking and clacking. Then he stopped, and as he whispered a hushed, “Yes!” I heard the whine of the CD tray slide open. We’re going to do it! We’re actually going to do it! I thought, elation filling me.
But Ace heard Shoe, too, and he gritted his teeth, a wild look coming over his face. And suddenly, as I stood between Ace and Shoe, I felt the strength drain from me.
A thin tracing of blue spun from the overhead lights to pool on the morgue’s floor.
Not now!
Frightened, I dropped back, holding my stomach as if I could keep myself in. Nakita turned to me, and I panicked as the lights filled the entire room with a blue haze, spilling out from the fixtures in a flood. I was going to flash forward. Ace had made a decision, and his future was changing. This was not what I needed right now!
“Madison?” Nakita called, but her voice sounded tinny, as if from far away.
Dizzy, I looked at her. I could see her wings behind her, existing an instant in the future and therefore invisible to everyone except perhaps the guardian angel hovering over all of us. Her eyes were silver. Nakita was almost too beautiful to look at, and it took several tries for me to whisper, “I’m going to flash forward, Nakita. Don’t let me go!”
Her blade drooped in her confusion, and, seeing an opening, Ace moved.
“No!” I shouted, but I collapsed as the world turned inside out. Nakita lunged for me, her hands catching me just before I hit the floor. Shoe was shouting, but my head was turned to the ceiling. And as the blueshift intensified, the ceiling, the walls, everything melted away…and the beauty of the stars slammed into me.
I gasped, the pain of so much beauty slicing through me like fire. The ringing of sounds never before heard exploded within my soul. Tears filled my eyes, and I shook in Nakita’s arms.
“It hurts…” I moaned, and she turned my face to her. The terrible beauty of the heavens was replaced by the tragic beauty of an angel I had damaged—Nakita, to whom I had taught the meaning of fear. I had done it to her. Me. But the seraphs were right: The fear was a gift, and it made her more than she had been before, even as it tore at her.
“Close your eyes,” Nakita whispered in a terrified hush, and I buried my face against her, sobbing. It was too much. I was mortal, and to see the divine was killing me. How did Ron do this?
The sound of fighting pulled at me, and I felt my awareness drift in the room as my illusion of a body started to go indistinct. And then…I was Ace, feeling his anger, his fear. His everything.
I hate you, I thought with him, unable to separate from him, and with a loud shout, he swung his fist at Shoe, who was rising up from his chair. I howled as his fist connected and the pain shot up his arm. Shaking the throbbing from our hand, I watched Ace’s satisfaction as Shoe rocked back to the chair and fell off it, his hand on his jaw.
No! I screamed into Ace’s mind as he hit the delete button and yanked the connection from the wall. I had no idea whether there’d been enough time to load it completely, and as I tried to take control of a future that hadn’t happened yet, Ace picked up the keyboard and smashed it against Shoe’s head when he tried to stand.
“Get up!” I heard Ace say, both in our shared ears and in our shared mind, furious. “I’m going to kill you!”
I wanted to throw up, but I was trapped, trying to change things but unable to even make myself heard. This was a freaking nightmare. And above it hovered Ace’s guardian angel, weeping for him, weeping for me—a glittering silver cloud falling from her to turn the blue to silver until it touched Ace’s aura and was repelled.
Shoe looked up from the floor. “Get a grip, Ace,” he breathed, staggering as he rose to stand in front of it. “We’re talking about real people. What the hell is wrong with you?”
“Wrong with me?” Ace shouted.
Ace, stop! I screamed, unheard, but as if in response, a heavier wash of blue filled my awareness. Vertigo