Once Dead, Twice Shy

by Неизвестный

  "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."

  Barnabas pulled me back a step. "We need to leave. She's broken. This isn't going to accomplish anything."

  "I'm broken, too," I said, thinking of my interrupted life, and I jerked out of his grip. "Nakita, will you take a message to Kairos for me? He has my body. I want it back. I'll give him his amulet for it if he promises to leave me alone. I just want to be the way I was. Please. I'm tired of being afraid."

  At the word afraid, she trembled, and a shimmer of air behind her shifted to show her wings arching over her, larger than seemed possible, the tips of the longest feathers shaking. They may have gotten the black wings out of her, but they left within her something a reaper was never created to understand. Fear. And it had come from me. My memories.

  "I'm not your messenger angel," she said bitterly. "But we are going to Kairos. You're a thief. A liar. With your body and soul and my scythe, he can make me as I was. As everything was. He promised!"

  Kairos still has my body. Thank you, God.

  "You aren't taking her," Barnabas said, clueless that Nakita was now a hundred times more dangerous. She had the power of angels cleaved to the will of humanity. Fear and a knowledge of death had made her so. I had made her so.

  "She's mine as she stands there." Dropping into a hunched position, Nakita dragged her new sword forward, the tip cutting into the ground to make the moss split like a wound.

  I shook my head, backing up. "Nakita, listen to me. I just want my body back, alive and unharmed. He doesn't have to destroy my soul for the amulet. I can dissociate from it."

  She straightened as a laugh, cruel and horrible to hear, burst from her. Barnabas shifted closer to me in support. "Kairos needs you dead to make me whole again," she said. "Barnabas, get out of my way, or you'll go down first."

  "You wouldn't." Barnabas pushed me behind him as Nakita pulled her sword from the earth and casually wiped the dirt from it upon her leg. "A seraph will come. You won't risk it."

  "Why not?!" Nakita shouted, then fell back a step, wide-eyed. "I have nothing, Barnabas!" she screamed. "Do you know what it is like to fear? I will laugh if a seraph should slay me for violating one of their places on earth. It would at least be over and I wouldn't have to be afraid anymore!"

  Barnabas didn't understand, and his brow furrowed. "Afraid?"

  An ugly noise came from Nakita, low, almost a growl. It sifted through my brain and paralyzed me. And then she moved.

  I stifled a shriek as she lunged at Barnabas, white wings unfurling behind her. Barnabas dropped to a knee, his own gray wings wide as he darted back, airborne. I retreated, scrambling for cover. A great wind churned the leaves from the forest floor. A clang of steel hurt my ears. They were locked, arms straining, Barnabas standing, his wings beating to find the force to push Nakita back.

  "I will have her!" Nakita screamed as her wings beat wildly, and she tried to press Barnabas into the ground with her will alone. "I will not be this way! I cannot!"

  Barnabas kicked out to shove her off. Gray and white wings struck the trees. Silver flashed in the gloom as Barnabas dove forward, his disadvantage clear. He didn't want to spill blood. Nakita didn't care, and she struck wildly at Barnabas, the light reaper countering each blow more slowly than the last. The dark reaper was fighting with a savage desperation that only humans possess, and it was starting to tell upon Barnabas.

  A heavy feeling about my neck shocked me, and I grasped my amulet, feeling as if the earth had vanished under my feet. Someone…someone was trying to use it! And when Nakita screamed, I knew it was her attempting to duplicate what I'd done to go invisible. She was too far away for my amulet to hold her solid, but Barnabas's wasn't.

  With a wild scream, Nakita smashed her sword into Barnabas's blade, knocking it from him. The amulet about his neck flared and went still. He was helpless. Mouth open in a howl, Nakita jumped right at him. Barnabas braced for an impact that never came as Nakita broke her connection to her amulet and went invisible, diving through him as if he were water.

  "Barnabas, look out!" I shouted, but it was too late. Nakita appeared behind the light reaper, spinning to put her sword against his neck. Her arms braced to pull.

  "Nakita, no!" I shrieked, scrambling to stand before them. The dark reaper hesitated, her lips pulled back in a savage, victorious smile. They were posed, two angels of death locked together, one wild and crazed, the other beaten and shocked.

  "W-where did you learn that?" Barnabas stammered, frozen at the feel of another reaper's blade against his throat.

  Nakita's eyes never left mine as she leaned forward, whispering in Barnabas's ear, "It's amazing what you can do once you know nothing lasts forever unless you make it so."

  My mouth was dry. "Don't kill him," I pleaded. "Please, Nakita."

  "Silly girl," Nakita said, her lips twisted into an ugly expression. "Why do you care? No one else does. He failed to protect you, brought you to me. And now, you're going to die."

  "I'll go with you! Just don't kill him. Take me to Kairos," I demanded, shaking. "Let me talk to him."

  "That's exactly what I intend to do," Nakita said, and then she moved, drawing back.

  "Nakita, don't!" I screamed as she brought the butt of her sword against Barnabas's skull. Silently the light reaper's gray wings drooped and he fell forward, slumped against the mossy earth. His wings covered him, and he looked asleep, an angel resting on a forest floor.

  My heart was beating again, and I started to back up. Nakita shook her wings and smiled. One soft feather slipped from her, the pure white drifting to land on the green, green moss.

  I ran.

  There was a whoosh of air, and she had me. That fast, and it was over. "Let me go!" I cried. I knew going invisible wouldn't help if she could, too. "Why can't you leave me alone?!"

  "I want myself back," Nakita snarled as she held me tight against her. "I don't want to be afraid anymore. The black wings," she said, her words clipped as her voice rose in pitch. "I've never known fear. I've seen it, thought you were all weak for it, but you aren't. I don't want to be afraid anymore. I want to be the way I was. Kairos can make me the way I was. But he needs his amulet to do it."

  My amulet, I thought defiantly, then shrieked as we were abruptly airborne, ducking when we exploded through the canopy and back into the light. Her arm was tight around me, and my legs flailed until my heels found her feet and I stood upon them. It was a show of cooperation, but at least my guts weren't being shoved up into my lungs.

  "Nakita, I'm sorry," I said as we ascended. "I didn't know the black wings would hurt you. You were trying to kill me!"

  "It was my task, your fate," she said, gripping me tightly. "I can't exist
the way I am now. I will be the way I was!"

  The air was cold. Without warning, Nakita swooped into a dive, her wings folding around us, cocooning us in pillow-soft warmth. I fought her as my stomach dropped and vertigo told me we were falling.

  "Be still," Nakita snarled, and then the world turned inside out.

  I screamed, my mind unable to take the absolute absence of everything. No sound, no touch, nothing. It was as if I were a black wing, never having existed but having the terror of knowing there was more and it was now lost to me. I was falling, and there was nothing within my experience to tell me it would ever end.

  Suddenly Nakita's wings were about me once more, infusing their warmth into me. I breathed her scent in, gasping in relief, feeling her presence bring me back to sanity. We weren't moving, and when her arm about me fell away, my knees hit a hard floor. Struggling to rise with my shaking muscles, I scrambled backward, getting to my feet and trying to figure out what had happened. My back hit a thick pillar holding up a white canopy, and I froze, mouth gaping.

  I was outside, standing on a veranda of black marble shot through with gold veins. There was no railing between it and the drop-off leading to a narrow beach down below. The sun was just above the horizon, but the cool, damp feel in the air was wrong for sunset. It was rising over a flat ocean, not setting, and as I looked at the sparse vegetation with its small leaves and tough skin designed to survive drought, I realized I was somewhere on the other side of the earth.

  A scuffing noise jerked my attention around. It was Nakita, but she was ignoring me as I pulled out of my instinctive crouch. Her wings were gone, and she placidly stood beside Kairos, who was sitting behind a small table covered with old books and a breakfast tray. The dark timekeeper was dressed in loose robes like Ron usually wore, looking young, fabulously refined and elegant, poised and tall, his calm expression holding a satisfied expectancy.

  Scared, I glanced behind me to a low building built into the hillside, its wide windows open to the elements. Curtains shifted in and out of the house, moving in the breeze. I could die here, and my dad would never know. "This is your house, isn't it?" I whispered, and the wind carried my words to Kairos.

  He smiled as he stood and came forward.

  I was dead. I was so-o-o-o dead.

  CHAPTER 12

  "Perceptive," Kairos said, his voice as hard as his expression.

  My yellow sneakers squeaked as I turned to run, but there was nowhere to go. In a blur of motion, Nakita was beside me, and I lurched to stay out of her reach. Grimacing, she shoved me, and I fell. My elbow hit the black granite, jarring me all the way to my spine. I tried to stand, falling again when Nakita hooked a foot under me and rolled me onto my back.

  I froze as they both stood over me, the scent of dirt rising from a smear on Nakita's leg. The black stone at my back was cool with the chill of night, and the sky held a delicate, transparent light.

  "How quickly the fate of angels can fail," Kairos said, his words rising and falling like music. I'd once thought I could hear the sea in his voice—that he had been beautiful, embodying elegance, refinement, sophistication—but all that was left was the reek of dead salt water, stinking and putrid. My eyes flicked to the scythe in his hand, and I recognized it as the one he had killed me with at the bottom of the embankment.

  "Not again!" I babbled, lurching to fling myself away. My back found a pillar, and I slid my back up it to stand with my fingers clenching the raised ridges. Gasping in reflex, I ducked as Nakita swung her blade at me.

  A sharp crack echoed through the air, and I looked up to see that Kairos had brought his own blade to bear, holding back a deathblow with a frightening ease.

  "Patience, Nakita," the dark timekeeper said. "You can kill her, but not until I retrieve her body. All three have to come together at once; otherwise nothing changes. I simply need a moment to find it."

  I darted away, trying to put space between us. Nakita's gaze flicked to me. "You told me it was close."

  "It is. Will you give me a moment to concentrate? Once I find it, it will be here, and you can kill her."

  He sounded bothered, and I stood, terrified, at a loss as to what to do. Sure, I'd gotten away, but I wasn't going anywhere. I was on an island. I knew the feeling of the earth when water pounded on all sides. "Kairos, give me back my body and let me go, and I'll give you your stupid amulet," I said as I scanned the open horizon for an escape, but I was shaking, and I cursed my voice when it quavered. "I don't care if I'm a rising timekeeper. All I want is to be left alone, okay?"

  Kairos laughed, throwing his head back and letting the long sound roll out, and I realized that Nakita had blinked at my words. She hadn't known. Kairos hadn't told her. I had been a mistake to her, nothing more. "Who told you?" Kairos asked, wiping an eye. "Not Ron. Or did you figure it out? Amazing. I fully intend to give you your body back, because until you're dead and gone, your giving me my amulet won't allow me to use it."

  "I can dissociate from it," I said. "I learned how yesterday. It will be all yours. Ron can make me a new one. Just give me my body and let me go, okay?"

  The air shifted, and I spun. "Ron!" I shouted as I saw him. Barnabas. Is he okay? Then my eyes narrowed. Why was I glad to see Ron?

  Nakita swooped forward to grab my arm, and I fought her—until I found her blade at my throat, the thumb-sized, dead-looking jewel glinting dully inches from my eye. Damn it! How did she move that fast? Kairos's claim that my body was nearby froze my muscles. If he produced it, she could kill me for good.

  "Too late, Ron," Kairos said, laughing softly at my surprise. "That's funny," he said lightly to Nakita. "A master of time running late."

  My feet slipped on the smooth stone. If not for Nakita catching me, I would have cut myself on her blade. I was so scared.

  Ron bowed his head. The new sun shone on him, lighting the determination in his eyes when he brought his gaze back to me. Determination and…guilt? It was about freaking time.

  "Let her go, Nakita," he said persuasively. "Kairos can't help you, even if he gets his amulet back. Madison is a rising keeper. It's already fated whose place she's going to take."

  Her breath came in softly, and as her grip on me loosened, I could feel her confusion. Kairos strode forward, saying, "I didn't lie. I won't know for sure I can't do it until I try."

  "She is a rising timekeeper?" Nakita questioned, and I started when her sword smoothly moved, shifting from my neck to point at him. Seeing it, Kairos halted with a comical swiftness. She was still holding me, though, her arm around my neck. Shock showed on his refined features, which he quickly hid.

  "Nakita," he coaxed, "I might be able to help you. Put your blade away."

  "You told me you could pluck the fear from me," Nakita said, holding me tighter. "You told me the seraphs sang that she was fated to die, and to take her. Is she a rising timekeeper? Did you send me to scythe a timekeeper because you fear death? Chronos believes it!"

  Nakita's voice thundered in my ear, the righteous anger of an angel wronged. The hem of Kairos's robe trembled as he took three steps back, his jaw clenched. The moment seemed to hesitate, and I wondered if I was being held for my death…or my protection.

  "So I lied," Kairos admitted, returning to his table and turning sideways to finger the small pitcher on the tray. His shadow from the rising sun stretched long to touch my feet, and I shivered as the light glinted on his less powerful amulet. "I have ruled both you and time for more than a thousand years, Nakita. I'm not going to go quietly because the seraphs fated it was time for me to step down, teach another, and fade into death. And not for a girl hardly old enough to be counted a woman."

  "She's as old as you were when you murdered your predecessor," Ron said sourly. "Funny how these things work out."

  Kairos's upper lip trembled, but his eyes were fixed on Nakita's. "She can't be a timekeeper," he said tightly. "She's dead. I killed her myself."

  Ron moved a step closer, halting when Nakita's sword shifted
to him for a moment, then back to Kairos. "She stole your amulet," he said. "I don't think it matters what her state of aliveness is if she managed that. Madison has already claimed her birthright. She wrested the control of a guardian angel from me by simply naming her, and she now stands in Nakita's protection. It's too late. You've lost, Kairos. It's over. Let her go. Accept it."

  And yet, I was still in a dark reaper's grip.

  "Kairos?" Nakita asked, her voice high as she struggled to piece it together. I was right there with her, and a wave of vertigo made my knees watery. Frightened, I stiffened as the soft wind shifted my hair into my eyes, momentarily blocking Kairos from my sight with Nakita's sword unmoving between us.

  "I'm not the rising dark timekeeper," I said as Nakita pulled me back a step. "I'm the rising light. That's why I want to trade Kairos his amulet for my body. Ron, he's got my body. I can go back to the way I was! Tell him I can break my hold on his amulet." My gaze darted to Kairos, seeing his disbelief. "I can! I've done it before! Ron, tell him! Tell him I'm the rising light timekeeper!"

  But Ron was looking at the ground, scaring me.

  With a false ease, Kairos poured amber liquid into a crystal cup, sipping it lightly before setting it down. "Still don't have it all?" he said. "You were fated to be my student, Madison; why else would I scythe you? Ron can't take you now even if he wanted to. He's been teaching the rising light timekeeper for over a year."

  What the… My frantic gaze went to Ron, reading in his downcast expression that Kairos was telling the truth. "You son of a dead puppy," I whispered. "You knew? You're teaching someone else? Is that why you passed me off to Barnabas?"