Disclaimer: I don't own anything you recognize from the book, that is all Diane Duane's, however everything else is mine - plot, a couple characters, etc. I'm not making any money off this, yaddah, yaddah; you know the drill…

Chapter 1: Silver Eyes

"Kit, tell me again why most of these wizardries have to be done at the most unholy hours of the night?" Nita yawned and glanced at her watch, but it was too dark to read the numbers. Annoyed, she felt the edge of her watch face until she found the Indiglo™ button. The green face glowed illuminating the numbers. 2:07 am.

Kit laughed and shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh you are so much help." Nita grumbled.

"You're always grumpy this early. Let's just go before Sreee decides we aren't coming."

Nita yawned again, and managed to tell her feet to start walking. Kit smothered another laugh as she narrowly missed a lamppost, then took her arm and guided her down the streets to the harbor.

Three hours later the moon shone brightly down on the New York Harbor as Nita and Kit bid their friend goodbye. "Dai'stiho, Sreee." Kit said. Nita was yawning so hard, she was barely able to get the phrase out herself. Kit glanced at her. She put her hands to her eyes, trying to hold them open with her fingers, knowing she was fighting a losing battle.

"Dai, hN'iit, K!t," and with a last exhalation through her blowhole, Sreee sunk back into the water and headed back out to the ocean.

Nita had given up on keeping her eyes open and simply stood with her eyes closed, leaning on Kit's arm.

"Ready to go home, Neets?" he asked her.

"Mhmm." She mumbled.

"I'll take that as a 'yes'," he said, and reached back in his mind for his favorite 'beam me up, Scotty' spell, adding the last couple syllables. Seconds later, they were both in Nita's room. "I figured you wanted to walk as little as possible." Kit explained.

"Thanks Kit." She smiled at him sleepily. "G'nite." Nita flopped onto her bed without bothering to change into her pajamas and promptly fell asleep. Kit smothered a yawn in his hand, smiled, and pulled the blanket at the foot of her bed over her before activating the spell one more time, landing himself in his own room, where he copied Nita.

The first thing Nita was aware of was a faint buzzing in her head. At first, she ignored it, sinking back into sleep, but it grew steadily louder until it invaded her consciousness with an intense barrage of noise.

"Shuddupinfernalcontraptions." Nita muttered, reaching a hand blindly toward her night table to silence her unforgiving alarm clock. "Wursat blasted button," she mumbled. Her hand knocked two figurines, some loose change, and a tube of lip chap off the table before her roving fingers found the smooth plastic surface of the digital alarm clock. She fumbled with the various buttons, eyes blurrily trying to focus enough to read the small print beside the buttons. As the red numbers came slowly into focus, she managed to hit the 'snooze' button. Ten minutes, she thought to herself.

Morning Neets. A much too cheerful voice rang in her head.

Kit?! You have no right to be so … awake. Nita grumbled crankily at him. His mindtouch lightened and Nita could tell he was laughing, if not actually, certainly mentally. Which didn't do much to improve her mood. She mentally glared at him and set about the task of finding something to wear to school.

There's no talking to you in the morning Kit said playfully. Seeya at school. His mindtouch faded.

Nita dragged a pair of jeans out of her not-quite-dirty-enough-to-be-washed-but not-clean-enough-to-be-put-in-the-closet pile and put them on, then wandered downstairs to forage in the laundry room for a t-shirt. By the time she was fully dressed, the alarm clock went off again. Nita switched it off and yawned her way back downstairs and through a bowl of Cheerios. The food managed to wake her up enough that she remembered to grab her work for her group's final science project and stuff it in her knapsack. Dairine, who'd been up for an hour already, slid out before Nita, who turned around to lock the door.

"So, how'd it go last night?" Dairine questioned.

"Alright I think. We'll know how effective it is when Kit and I go back to check on it in a few weeks."

Dairine nodded sagely.

"So what are you working on?" Nita asked as they walked.

"Spot and I have a meeting with the planetary advisory about how immigration to the Orion Arm needs to be stemmed, and how the orbit of Jupiter is affecting solar particle rays… that sort of thing. Oh, and something about a central worldgate malfunction."

"But you don't work on worldgates." Nita said.

"No, I just overheard it. I thought Kit might be interested, seeing as he's been into worldgates lately. Also, Grand Central's down again, so if you're planning any off-world travel this week, you'd better cancel."

"Well I wasn't planning on transversing the galaxy this week, so I think I'm safe." Nita mock-reassured her sister. Dairine rolled her eyes but smiled.

Suddenly Nita stopped and looked around, head tilted as if she was listening for something.

"What is it?" her sister asked.

"I'm not sure… did you… did you feel that?"

"Feel what?"

"That. Just a few seconds ago."

"I don't think so. What was it?"

"I don't know. It felt wrong though."

"Wrong how?"

"I don't know."

"Ookay." Dairine said.

Nita just shook her head, then continued walking.

Dairine raised her eyebrows at Nita.

"Never mind… I must be feeling things."

"If you say so." Her sister replied doubtfully. "Are you ok, Nita?"

"Yeah. Yeah I'm fine. Let's go. We're gonna be late."

"For the last day of school? Not like it really matters." Dairine shook back her hair.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. You don't have Mr. Giles for Chemistry." Nita made a face. "We have to be on time even on the last day."

"Hey Nita, hello??"

Nita snapped back to see Kit waving a hand in front of her face.

"Sorry Kit. I've been feeling weird all day." She apologized.

"Weird how? Like sick? Or tired?"

"No, neither… more like, water. Gosh, this is hard to explain. Ok, you remember when I did all that stuff with the kernels?" After seeing his nod of confirmation, she continued. "Well it feels sort of like I'm looking for a kernel, but it's in water and the water is distorting my senses. Does that make any sense?"

"Sort of. Is this something we should be worried about?"

"I honestly don't know. But it's been bugging me all day."

"Let's go see Tom and Carl after school then." Kit said, looking concerned.

"Alright." Nita agreed. She opened her mouth to say something more, but just then a girl behind Kit caught her attention. The girl tilted her head to the side as though listening or feeling for or through something. Nita recognized the look; she'd been feeling that way all day. Suddenly the girl snapped out of it, and focused, her silver eyes staring straight back into Nita's. Just as Nita was about to call out to her, the bell rang and the girl flicked back her black silver-streaked hair and disappeared down a hallway.

"…but that's besides the point. Darn that bell. Oh well, at least it's the last day today. So, meet me at the flagpole after and we'll talk to Tom and Carl?"

"Huh? Oh yeah. Sure." Nita said, clueing back into the conversation. Kit gave her a questioning look, then excused himself off to math class.

"Hey Sarah," Nita called to a girl whose locker was beside her own.

"Yeah?" the girl answered, then spoke into her cell phone, "Uh huh, sure. No, I said two. I can't do four. Not on a Saturday. Ok, ok fine... just call me back after class and we can work it out. Yeah yeah, call Kirsten and tell her. Bye."

"Sarah, who's the girl with her locker by Kit's? The one with the black and silver hair?"

"Oh, you mean Silvereyes."

"Yeah I guess so."

"That's Electra. Weird kid. Sits across from me in Spanish and Biology. Why'd you wanna know anyway?"

"No reason." Nita said, waving her hand as if the question had just been a passing whim. "You have Biology now, right?"

"Yep, and I gotta go. Seeya." Sarah finished emptying her books out of her locker and into her bag, shouldering it as she left.

Nita spent most of Spanish thinking about Electra. She even tried catching her on her way out of Biology, but managed to miss her in the press of moving bodies crowding the halls. Finally she gave up and went out to the flagpole to meet Kit.

"What took you?" he asked, standing up straight from his leaning position against the pole.

"Just really crowded in there." Nita explained. "Let's go."

They made their way down to Tom and Carl's and were barely in the gate before a cheerful black dog with a crooked ear and a limp bowled into them, nearly knocking them over.

"Whoa there!" Kit put up his hands to fend off the dog. "Easy, easy."

The dog returned his paws to the ground and stood, wagging.

"Sorry!!" a voice called from the house.

"Hey Tom. New dog?" Nita asked.

"Yeah, actually. Showed up last week, and sort of adopted us. His name is Rigel."

"Hey there, Rigel." Nita reached down and petted the dog. Rigel gave an appreciative 'whuff', and trotted back toward the house.

"So what brings you two here?" Tom asked, once they were all inside.

"Nita's been feeling 'weird'." Kit said, snatching an apple from the fruit bowl on the counter.

"Weird how?" Carl asked, coming down the stairs.

"That's what I said." Kit put in, around a mouthful of apple.

Nita explained about the feelings of distortion.

"I can't say I've ever heard of anything like this." Tom said. "But I don't think it's dangerous, if that's what you're worried about."

"Am I going crazy or something?" Nita asked. "Kit doesn't feel it."

"Kit never worked that intensely with the world kernels." Carl stated. "And no, you aren't going crazy. If anyone's crazy around here it's that dog." He gestured at Rigel, who was lying on his back with his head twisted at an odd angle, his tongue hanging out, and all four paws waving in the air. At the mention of his name, Rigel flopped over on his side and thumped his tail on the floor enthusiastically. Nita and Kit laughed.

"So what should I do?" Nita turned back to Tom and Carl.

"Well, we'll look into a few things. In the meantime, let us know if it gets any worse."

Nita nodded.

"Hey, well I gotta get home and feed Ponch." Kit broke in. "Seeya later Neets?" he looked at her.

"Yeah, ok." She agreed. Kit threw his apple core into the garbage and waved goodbye, petting Rigel's head on his way out.

"I'd better go too." Nita said. "Thanks."

"Anytime." Carl waved back at her.

Nita walked out the front door and closed it behind her. Kit was nowhere in sight. He must have used that 'beam me up Scotty' spell again. Oh well. I need a walk. Nita thought to herself, and set off home. Halfway there, she saw a flash of black and silver and saw Electra walk around the corner.

"Hey, wait!" she called, starting to run. "Electra!"

The girl paused, and turned back, silver eyes flashing. "What do you want?"

"I just wanted to talk to you." Nita said.

"Why?"

"I saw how you looked at school. Can you feel it too? The… strangeness… " Nita trailed off, suddenly realizing how crazy she must sound.

"Like looking at things through water." Electra finished, her eyes going softer and her voice sounding faraway.

"Exactly!" Nita said, elated.

Electra's eyes narrowed and the silver in them was edged again. "I don't know anything. Leave me alone." She spun on her heel and walked away quickly.

"Hey! Wait!" Nita started walking after her.

Electra turned down a small alley and disappeared from view. Nita started to run, and turned down the same alley, coming out in a parking lot behind a couple of apartment buildings. She can't be that far ahead of me. Nita thought to herself, glancing around the lot. The only live things around were a couple of cats fighting over half a salmon fillet and a very large black dog scrounging in a garbage can. Nita pushed around the cans, trying to see if Electra was hiding somewhere.

"Please come out." She called. "I just want to talk to you about it!" The only response she got was a menacing growl from the black dog, which seemed to consider her a threat to his dinner. Nita backed away from it slowly. The dog took a few steps forward and growled again. Nita took tiny backward steps until she felt a brick wall at her back. She looked back at the dog, which now stood in front of the can it'd been foraging in, and Nita was painfully aware of how very big it was. It appeared to be a sort of shepherd cross, Nita judged from the pricked ears and the size, and the grayish streaks in its fur, but it looked too much like a wolf she'd once seen in a zoo for Nita's comfort. It stared at her with white fangs bared and burning eyes; at the time she thought she noticed something odd about those eyes, but she relegated that line of thought to the back of her mind and began edging sideways until she reached the alley. With a final look back at the dog - who hadn't moved - she turned and ran back the way she'd come.

It took her the whole way home to realize that the dog's eyes had been silver.

AN - I WILL be getting deeper into the plot in the next couple chapters - these two are important for background/introduction…. PLEASE R&R… let me know if I should continue. I will take flames, but if you're going to flame, at LEAST be constructive.