Once Dead, Twice Shy

Barnabas dug in his heels, and his hand pulled from mine as I continued on a step without him. "You're not going to be anyone's boss if you're dead," he said wryly.

"I have to apologize," I said, reaching for his hand and tugging him forward another step. "And give her her amulet back. Maybe if I do, she will let Josh live. Maybe that's why she hasn't killed him. She's waiting for me."

A frown creased his forehead. "You want to give a dark reaper an amulet. Are you even hearing yourself?"

"It's hers," I said. "What is the problem ?"

"Ron will freak. He'll take my amulet away," Barnabas muttered as he glanced at the parking lot in worry. "I shouldn't have told you."

I put a hand on my hip, seeing every second as one more moment that Josh's life was still hanging by a thread. "You know you did right. I'm not asking you to leave me. If Ron takes your amulet away, I'll make you another. Unless this is another lie and I'm just a poor slob who got mixed up in this and I'm not a rising timekeeper." Man, was I glad the receptionist was gone.

Still he vacillated. "Why are you listening to Ron!" I exclaimed, frustrated. "He knew what I was and didn't tell me. He told you to teach me something he knew I couldn't do. Will you just help me?! I have to try to save Josh. I have to try to save myself. I can be me again!"

Barnabas's brown eyes searched mine. "You've always been you."

I backed up, not knowing what he was going to decide. "Will you help me?"

He stood beside me, his duster shifting about his ankles as his feet scuffed. "You see a choice here?"

My head bobbed up and down. "I see a chance." And a way to get out of here before my dad or Josh's parents show up.

Barnabas looked to the parking lot and the setting sun, grimacing. "I can't believe I'm going to do this," he said.

"You'll help me?" I said breathlessly, scared and elated all at the same time.

"I am going to get in so much trouble," he said as if to himself, and together we turned to the double doors. "I can take you to a safe spot. Nakita can't hurt you there. Though I don't think it will do any good."

"Thank you," I said as we walked through the doors purposefully, my stomach fluttering.

I would convince Nakita to give me Josh's life for a lousy hunk of rock, then do the same with Kairos for my life. Just watch me.

I tensed my muscles and screwed my eyes shut when the green tops of the forest grew close. I didn't want to watch as Barnabas closed his wings about us and dove into a small opening in the canopy. My stomach dipped and fell. There was a brief rush of wind in the leaves, and the air cooled. I opened my eyes as he swooped to dodge a tree and landed with a sharp pull-up on a mossy log. It started to fall apart, and I jumped off as it crumbled with a soft hush.

My tangled hair covered my face when Barnabas pushed backward once with his wings to stop his momentum. By the time I turned, he was standing behind the log, his wings gone and his coat covering his narrow shoulders. Worry tightened his features, clear even in the gloom, and I gazed up at the canopy. The trees were big and the underbrush almost nonexistent. Soft loam cushioned my feet, and I clasped my arms around myself, feeling the damp. Mounds dotted the space with no pattern I could see. They looked like…graves.

"Where are we?" I said as I took an awkward step over the log to be closer to Barnabas.

"A spot of ground," he said softly. "The earth would shake to feel the touch of a seraph, but there are a few places where the ground is strong enough, and in the past, immortals have used them to conduct business on earth. The circles across the sea have huge stones marking them, but here, where people lived harmoniously with nature until driven out, they're marked with mounds that shelter bribes to the angels to leave them and their children in peace." He turned to me, and I shivered at his suddenly alien look. "It's a neutral place. If blood is spilled here, a seraph will come. Nakita won't want that."

I scanned the open wood, feeling my skin prickle. "It feels funny."

"It does, doesn't it?"

There was nothing to hear but the wind in the highest leaves. "How do I tell Nakita I want to talk?"

Barnabas silently stepped from me, moving a good twenty feet away so that his amulet signature wouldn't mix with mine. Eyes on the darkening trees, he said, "I imagine she's looking for you. You'd better be sure of this."

"I am," I said confidently, but inside I was worried. I was exposed, my soul singing to those who could hear it, chiming like a bell, making a spot of light that Nakita could follow. My jaw clenched when a black wing flew silently across the space between the ground and the trees, but then I decided it was really a crow. I looked up, my attention drawn by something unseen.

Barnabas shifted his feet, and a twig snapped. "I feel it too," he whispered.

I swallowed hard. "What is it?"

His eyes slowly moved back and forth. "I don't know. It feels like a reaper, but afraid. Like a human."

Barnabas's gaze darted behind me. "Madison! Drop!" he shouted, and I fell into a sloppy front fall, getting a faceful of earthy loam. The weight of a stone rolled across my back, and then was gone. I looked up, spitting my hair and dirt out of my mouth.

With wings so white they glowed in the dusk, Nakita came to earth, spinning so her feet barely touched the ground before her wings vanished like a memory.

"You're okay!" I shouted, thinking it was one of the stupidest things I'd ever said.

"The seraphs lie to me as well," the reaper snarled, fear and anger twisting her once beautiful features. I had no idea what she was talking about, and I stared blankly at her.

"Nakita, wait!" Barnabas shouted as he lunged to get between us. The light reaper darted back when a gleam of steel slashed down. Nakita's arms were extended and her back bowed as she struck again. I gasped as I reached out in a useless warning, but Barnabas's own blade met her sword, pulled from forever and nothing, and I shivered as the sound seemed to echo and made the trees tremble. Kairos must have given her a new amulet. She didn't need the one I wanted to return to her. Her sword had a black stone now, and the jewel on Barnabas's blade had shifted farther down the spectrum, blazing a glorious yellow. Nakita's looked dead, a flat black.

"Madison wants to parlay," Barnabas said as he held Nakita's weapon unmoving against his own. "Sheathe your blade in this holy spot."

Nakita smiled, the determination on her face frightening. She looked nothing like herself, dressed in white garb that was twin to Ron's robes. "I need her," she said, her voice musical as it rose and fell. "You brought her. She's mine."

Barnabas took a step back, and the humming in my ears ceased when their blades no longer touched. "She brought herself. She wants to apologize. To not listen would shame you."

With a flourish, Nakita stepped back, wild and extravagant as she gestured for me to speak. I didn't think she cared what I might say, but it was my only shot.

Scared, I faced her with Barnabas at my elbow. "Nakita, I'm sorry," I said, my words vanishing into the gloom of dusk. "I didn't know the black wings would stay in you. I was only trying to stop you from killing Josh. I brought your amulet back," I said, hand trembling as I extended it. "It's not a bribe, but please let Josh live."

Her face twisted in a frown, but she caught the amulet when I tossed it to her, shoving it into her belt. "Kairos gives me my amulet, not you," she said. "And I need your pity less than I need your apology. The seraphs say I am perfectly fine. I am perfect!" she screamed to the sky, then turned to me, panting and eyes wild. "But they lie."