Once Dead, Twice Shy

"No!" I shouted, panicked. There was a flash of light against a blade, and, unthinking, I lunged to get between them, hitting Susan with my shoulder to send her sprawling. Yelping, she fell beside Bill at the back of the boat. My knees burned as they hit the plastic carpet. Looking up, I was blinded by the sun reflecting upon a moving blade, and I gasped as it sliced cleanly through me with the sensation of dry feathers against my soul.

It was as if time stopped, though the wind still blew and the boat still bobbed. The people on the other boat broke from their shock and started shouting. Oblivious to them, the dark reaper stared at me, her lips parted in horror when she realized she'd scythed the wrong person. "By the seraphs…" she whispered as the confused babble rose higher.

"Damn it, Madison," Barnabas said, his voice clear over the rest. "You said you were just going to watch."

Still kneeling before her, I splayed my hand against my unmarked middle and remembered the awful feeling of when I'd sat dazed in a flipped car at the bottom of a ravine, shaken but alive. And then the helpless terror when the dark reaper had pulled his sword, meeting my confusion with his anger because I hadn't died in the crash and he had to kill me with his own blade.

"Uh, you missed," I said as I shook off the memory of my death.

Susan staggered up, and the dark reaper dissolved her blade, sending its power back into the stone around her neck. Her lips parted when her gaze found my amulet resting against my chest, shaken from its hiding place by my fall. "Kairos's stone!" she said. "You have Kairos's amulet? How? He's…" She hesitated, peering at me in confusion. "Who are you?"

Who the devil is Kairos? I thought. Seth was the dark reaper who'd killed me. Licking my lips, I got up, almost stepping on Bill. "Madison," I said boldly, scared to death. "I took an amulet, yeah. Leave, or I'll take yours, too."

It was an idle threat, but the reaper's expression went from surprise to determination. "If you've got Kairos's amulet, he probably wants it back," she said, her slim hand reaching for it.

"Madison, get away from her!" Barnabas shouted.

Frightened, I backpedaled, tripping over Bill and landing on the long bench seat at the back. Face grim, she followed. Sure, she couldn't kill me again, but she could drag me off.

People shouted, and a blur darted between us. It was Barnabas, and I stared, gaping as he suddenly stood before me and the dark reaper in his perfectly average jeans and T-shirt, dark and dripping from the water. His presence was overwhelming—the stance of a warrior. "You'll not have her," he intoned, looking at the dark reaper from under his wet curls.

"She has Kairos's amulet," the dark reaper said, and with a violet pulse from her amulet, a blade was again in her hand. "She belongs to us."

What did she mean, belongs to us ? I shrank back into the stiff cushions, but Barnabas had created his own blade, pulled from the power of his amulet, now glowing a violent orange. The two clanged as they hit, followed by a deep thrum echoing between my ears. From around us came the noise of frightened people scrambling back, trying to get out of the way.

Swiftly, Barnabas stepped forward and swung his weapon against hers in a rasping spin, violet and orange streaks of light marking their paths. The dark reaper's blade was torn from her hand, arcing through the air to slide cleanly into the water with hardly a ripple.

Shocked, she hunched over, holding her wrist as if she had been stung. Her amulet was as dark as her expression. Someone swore a muffled oath of a question.

"Get back," Barnabas said. "I've heard of you, Nakita, and you're out of your depth. Don't reap in my sphere. You'll fail every time."

The dark reaper's eyes narrowed. Jaw clenched, she looked at Susan, then me. "Something's not right. You know it. I hear it in the seraphs' songs," she said, and when Barnabas's chin rose, she dove into the water to retrieve her blade.

Seconds passed. The dark reaper didn't surface, but if she was like Barnabas, she didn't need to breathe and was likely gone.

The guy in the blue shirt darted to the back of his boat and looked down. "Did you see that?" he said, spinning from the water, to us, and the water again, his eyes wide. "Did you freaking see that ?"

Barnabas took a breath to speak, losing his mien of wrathful warrior on his exhale when he changed his mind. The light reaper's eyes met mine, and I cringed when the silver sheen was replaced by worry.

From the corner of the boat, Susan asked, "Did you just shove her in the water?"

Whoops. This might be kind of hard to explain.

Barnabas grimaced, and with his hand gripping his amulet, he calmly said, "Who?"

Bill was staring at the sky, his gaze clearly tracking the dispersing black wings.

Susan's expression became confused. "There was a girl," she said, sitting up. "She had black hair." Susan looked at Bill. "And a knife. It was a knife, wasn't it? You saw it, right?"

Taking the towel from his head, Bill looked at the red stain and said, "I saw it."

Barnabas walked with perfect balance through the boat and dropped to one knee before Bill. "I didn't see anything." Still holding his amulet, he peered into Bill's eyes as he put the towel back against his cut. "You hit your head pretty hard. You feel okay? How many fingers am I holding up?"

Bill didn't answer, and I looked over the water, avoiding Barnabas's gaze. His eyes had gone silver again, and I thought to look now would be a mistake. "Bill hit his head," Barnabas said calmly. "He needs to go to the dock and get it looked at."

Like magic, the fear and confusion turned to concern as everyone rearranged themselves on the two boats. My knees were shaking as Barnabas got our boat started, and in the sudden noise, I leaned into him. "They won't remember?" I asked, not realizing he had the skill to change memories.

Barnabas slid out from behind the wheel. "You drive," he said shortly. Putting a hand on my shoulder, he pushed me into the seat. "Hurry up before someone remembers you didn't drive out here."

He sounded peeved and I started fiddling with the levers. Yeah, I could drive a freaking boat. I'd grown up in the Florida Keys and had been able to put a boat in a slip before I could ride a bike.

Barnabas was stowing the skis and wet ropes when I shifted into a slow crawl. The other boat had taken off fast, and I followed its path to make the ride easier. Susan was on her cell phone, shouting, "He hit his head on the ski jump! Camp Hidden Lake. The one with the big red canoe over the road? We're headed for the dock. He's awake but needs stitches, maybe."

Edging into a faster speed, I pressed into the cooling vinyl and felt my shoulder go cold where Barnabas had touched it. The black wings were gone, apart from a single smudge skirting the edge of the lake. The scythe had been prevented, but Barnabas wasn't happy.

Closing her phone, Susan wobbled back to sit beside Bill at the back of the boat. "Hey," she said, shouting over the engine noise. "I've got an ambulance coming. You doing okay?"

He was flushed and he looked confused. "Where's the girl with the sword?" he asked, and I caught Barnabas making the «crazy» sign, twirling his finger beside his ear.

"Take it easy," Susan said, softer, but still almost yelling. "We'll be there in a minute."

The lights of the ambulance at the dock gave me a point to aim at, and I slowed our speed as we closed in. People had gathered, and I hoped Barnabas and I could make our escape before we were noticed.

"Where's the girl with the sword?" Bill asked again, and Barnabas went to sit on his other side.

"There is no girl with a sword," he said tightly.

"I saw her," he insisted. "She had black hair. You had a sword too. Where's your sword?"