by Kim Harrison
“If you aren’t a spy,” Nakita said, her finger pointing, “then why are you here, Barney?”
“Because I don’t trust you. And don’t call me that.”
She hissed something at him, and when Grace went to referee, I turned away, sighing. “They are like little kids,” I complained, then smiled. “What lunch do you have?”
“Second,” Josh said as he dug out his schedule.
“So do I!” I said, delighted. “I’ll meet you at the front water fountain. Unless…”
He smiled, making my breath catch. “Unless nothing. I’ll be there.”
Beside us, Nakita shouted, “I will rip out your tongue and feed it to my hellhounds!”
Josh winced, and a wider space opened between us and everyone else. “Can’t you get rid of them?”
Beaming, I shook my head. “Nope. I’ve tried.”
He shifted his book to his other hand. “I think I hear Grace. Is she here? I kind of miss her.”
I leaned back against my locker and nodded to Nakita and Barnabas, who were still arguing. People were giving them odd looks, and I wondered if I’d started a new clique. A weird and noisy one. “She brought a message for the almighty ’Kita.”
He laughed. It was a nice sound, and I wondered if he would drive me home after school so I wouldn’t have to take the bus. That would really melt Amy’s retainer.
Josh glanced at Barnabas and Nakita, who had finally stopped arguing so they could listen to Grace. “Are you doing anything after school?”
Not anymore, I thought, but then shrugged. “I don’t know. Nakita might have something going on.”
“Shut your singing hole,” Nakita said to Barnabas, then shook her hair back to find her composure. Facing me, she said, “There’s a situation. Barney will watch you for a few…hours.”
It was as I thought. She had a scything. “Nakita, I don’t like this,” I said as Barnabas bristled. “Scything people who make bad choices is wrong. It’s easy, but wrong.”
Her eyebrows arched up. “That’s not why they’re chosen, and you will feel differently after you have seen enough human atrocity. By the time you learn how to use your amulet, you’ll understand. Until then, what you want will make no difference.”
That was as about as patronizing as it could get, but she was older than everyone here except Barnabas. “What about your domestic studies?” I said, knowing how badly she wanted to fit in, seeing as her own people didn’t understand her anymore.
Jaw tight, Nakita handed her class schedule to Josh. “He can do it for me.”
Josh’s eyebrows went up. “Uh, Nakita. School doesn’t work like that.”
Barnabas grabbed the paper from Josh and shoved it back at her. “If you go, I go. I’m not going to let you take another soul, so you may as well stay.”
“I’d like to see you try to stop me!” she said, starting it all back up again.
Grace dropped between us, a faint shimmer in the air. “All the love in this building! It makes me giddy. I’m out of here. Nakita, are you taking the scythe or not?”
“Yes,” she said, and Grace popped out of existence with a burst of inward-falling light and the scent of roses.
Nakita pulled me to her, our heads almost touching. “You should come with me,” she said, eyes glancing sideways at the surrounding people. “Perhaps then you will learn how to look forward and see the atrocities this human’s choices will bring about. I know you’ll agree then.”
“It’s the first day of school!” I said as Josh started talking to Barnabas to get the scoop on what was going on. “I can’t skip the first day of school.”
Her blue eyes narrowed and her cheeks flushed. “You are the seraphs’ will, Madison.”
“Well, the seraphs’ will doesn’t want to be grounded,” I protested, thinking I’d never have believed it possible those words could go together and make sense. “I don’t agree with fate,” I added. Class was about to start, and the hallway was emptying out.
“It’s wrong, Nakita,” Barnabas said, loud enough that I worried someone might hear us. “That person has not done anything.”
“He will,” was her confident answer. “Just because you can’t fly high enough to see around corners doesn’t mean the seraphs can’t.”
This was just freaking great. First day of school, and Nakita wanted to take me on a scythe party. The warning bell rang, and I jumped. Sighing, I picked up my books and started down the hall. Josh shifted forward, working his way beside me as Barnabas and Nakita fell in behind.
“So,” Josh said, his eyes wide, “are we going to class, or on safari?”
I stared, not believing this. “You want to go too?”
Nakita leaned forward between us, pushing him aside. “You’ll enjoy killing this one, Madison. Grace says the demon spawn is going to create a computer virus that takes out the operating systems of a hospital. Hundreds of your precious people, Barnabas, are going to die untimely deaths because of this human’s choice made in the search for recognition and pride. If we don’t move this soul to a higher plane before he sullies it, he will eventually become a cyberterrorist.”
Ooh, strike one.
Barnabas was grim-faced as he came up on my other side. “But he hasn’t done it yet. There’s always a choice, and he might make the right one.”
The hallway was empty. To the right was the hallway that would take me to my physics class, to the left the bright rectangle of the school’s front door. “Nakita,” I said, my steps slowing in the intersection. “Was I wrong in saving Susan, the girl on the boat?”
“Yes,” she said immediately.
“No,” Barnabas rejoined.
Nakita held her home ec textbook to her chest, the spreadsheet and bowl of eggs on the cover a weird mix with her severe, almost bloodthirsty expression. “She was going to create articles of truth without compassion. She was going to devote her life to destroying faith and the belief people have in each other. There was no giving in her life, only destruction.”
Strike two. “Is that still her fate?” I asked, hearing the was.
Her beautiful face shifted, becoming confused. “No,” she said, and our steps slowed to a stop. “The seraphs sing that her future is muddied, and they don’t know why.”
A slow smile curved my lips up. “I do.” Pleased, I started for the front doors. I knew now what I was going to do—how I was going to reconcile working as head of a system I didn’t agree with until I found my body and returned to normal. “Just like understanding fear changed you, Susan saw death, and as a result, she learned how precious life is. It’s hard to make a choice when you can only see one way.”
From my left, Barnabas frowned. “You’re talking about me,” he said sullenly.
“No.” I glanced at the front offices, hoping no one was watching. “I don’t think so. Maybe?” I shrugged. “I’m going to come with you, Nakita, but before you get your blade out and turn all scary, I want to talk to him.”
The dark reaper’s eyebrows went high. “Why?” she said, mirroring Barnabas’s confused expression.
“To see if I can’t change his fate,” I said. Duh…
Okay, so I was dead, my body was somewhere between now and the next, and I had two argumentative reapers guarding me from the very timekeeper I’d once trusted. Things weren’t all bad. My dad didn’t have a clue I was dead, Josh was alive, and until I got my body back and got off this roller coaster, I not only could skip school with impunity, but it was my moral responsibility to do so.
We had reached the door, and I yanked it open. Sunlight spilled in, warming me as Josh caught the door and held it. “You’re going to skip?” he asked, and I grinned.
“Yup. Nakita and Barnabas can cover for me. For us. For a good girl, I certainly do some bad things.”
Josh laughed as he gestured for me to go first. “Breaking rules isn’t bad when what you’re doing is more important than the rule itself.”
I hesitated on the threshold, squinting in th
e sun. “You think it makes a difference?”
Josh nodded, and his smile made a quiver start in the pit of my being. “Yeah. I do.”
“Me too,” I said, and together, we walked out into the sun to save some good guy’s soul.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’d like to thank my editor, Tara Weikum, who helped me more than she might know, and my agent, Richard Curtis, who continues to surprise me by what he sees before I do.
About the Author
New York Times bestselling author KIM HARRISON was born and raised in the upper Midwest but has since fled south to better avoid snow. She spends her time tending orchids, cooking with some guy in a leather jacket, and training her new dog. Her current vices include good chocolate and exquisite sushi. Kim is the author of the bestselling Hollows series, including THE OUTLAW DEMON WAILS, and she contributed to the paranormal collection PROM NIGHTS FROM HELL. You can visit her online at www.kimharrison.net.
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Credits
Jacket art © 2009 by Gustavo Marx/MergeLeft Reps, Inc.
Jacket design by David Caplan
Copyright
ONCE DEAD, TWICE SHY. Copyright © 2009 by Kim Harrison. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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