Once Dead, Twice Shy

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?"

Ron winced. He came forward a step, and Nakita pulled me back two. Disgusted, I shook Nakita's hold off me and stood upright in the new day under my own power. The dark reaper faced the sun and knelt with her sword upon one knee and her head bowed—she looked like she was praying, hair hiding her face as a soft, eerie keening came from her.

"I did it for mankind, Madison," Ron said persuasively. "You could stop the wrongful deaths if I could get you to align yourself with me. Think of it! A dark timekeeper who believed in choice? There'd be no more scythes, no more lives cut short. Kairos would be bereft of power, leaving only peace behind as you took his place."

"Why would she align herself with you?!" Kairos exclaimed. "You hid her from the seraphs behind allegations and investigations, denied her existence from those who would have righted things. It was your own actions that forced the truth of her existence from where we'd both hidden it so we could fight over her like dogs over scraps. You whispered false truths into her ear until her choices were the ones you wanted. You passed her instruction off to a reaper, giving him a task you knew he couldn't manage while you tutored the one fated to replace you, intending to leave Madison bereft of skills in case the truth should come out and she took my place, safely ignorant and at a disadvantage." Kairos turned to me, disgust in his eyes. "And you let him."

My head moved back and forth in denial. I hadn't known. How could I?

I jumped when Nakita was suddenly at my side, the gentle touch of her wings brushing me. Her sword was gone, and I stared at her, seeing her confusion, knowing what she was feeling, since I was feeling it myself: betrayal, dismay, fear.

"At least I didn't try to kill her," Ron muttered.

"No, you kept her ignorant."

"I'm the one who saved her!" Ron shouted back.

"You didn't save me," I said, lips barely moving. "I died. Remember?"

The light breeze coming up from the beach lifted my hair to make the purple tips tickle my cheek. I tried to understand. It didn't make sense. I could not be the rising dark timekeeper. I didn't believe in fate.

Ron started forward, and I jerked out of my fog. "Stop!" I shouted, gripping my amulet with my other hand outstretched, and he halted, stymied.

"The seraphs fated Madison to take your place?" Nakita said, her voice cracking. "You sent me to kill the one who would be my master? The next who would uphold seraph will?"

Kairos frowned at her. "She wouldn't be your new master if you would let me destroy her soul. With her gone, I will live forever, able to claim a place at a higher court." Kairos pulled himself into a proud stance. "I will be immortal. Immortal, Nakita!" he said, his expression becoming fervent as he gestured, almost knocking over his cup. "It would be enough to shift the tides of time to our favor forever. Imagine it!"

"You promised to help me," Nakita whispered, her voice softer than the wind.

Kairos glanced at her in annoyance, but his eyes narrowed as he realized the threat she was. "Give me your amulet," he said, holding out his hand, and when she didn't, he strode forward, anger and dominance in his movement.

I stifled a gasp when Nakita shoved me behind her, and my feet scrambled to keep me upright. There was a sharp ping that seemed to make the new sunlight shiver, and when I looked, Nakita's amulet was in Kairos's hand and he was striding to the nearby table. He had made her helpless. Crap. Now what?

"I'm still your master, you ignorant angel," he said as Nakita's source of power clinked upon the table; then his smile chilled me to the bone. "Now. Madison. About your body."

Oh, God. He had my body. He could destroy my soul. Ron stood unmoving, not that I expected anything from him.

Nakita dropped to a knee before Kairos, her face pale and a ribbon of moisture slipping from her eye. "You said you could make me well," she said, grief clear in her tone. "I don't want to be afraid."

Despite my own fear, pity rose through me. She was fallen, an angel doubly betrayed. The innocence of a wild thing of power given knowledge of death.

"You promised, Kairos," Nakita said softly as tears slipped from her and she wiped them away, shock showing briefly at their presence. "I suffered black wings eating my memory. Memory is all I have. I believed you. You sent me to kill her because you fear death?"

"I will be immortal!" Kairos shouted, his anger bursting forth. "How can you presume to know what it's like to fear death? You've existed since time began and will until it ends!"

Nakita stood, the air shimmering where her wings would be. "I know now what it's like to fear death, but I still live by seraph will," she said, her voice shaking. "I live by it, and you will die by it."

Kairos smirked, fingering her amulet on the table. "How, Nakita? You belong to me."

But then she pulled from her belt a white rock, bound by black wire and laced on a simple black cord. It didn't look like the amulet I had returned to her in the woods, and Kairos shook his head as if it meant nothing—until she rubbed a thumb across it and what looked like salt fell away to show a simple black stone glowing with infinity. It was the stone I'd returned to her in the woods. As if I had been her keeper. I'd stained it with my tears—gifting her with a symbol of my grief and an atonement for having broken the purity of her existence.

Nakita's hand fisted about it. "I accept you," she said to me, though her frightening grimace was for Kairos.

"No!" I shrieked, reaching out when the glint of her sword flashed a pure black. Nakita leaped forward to send her blade cleanly through Kairos.

Ron took several steps forward, crying out in dismay, but it was too late. It was done.

Kairos looked at his unmarked middle, blinking when he brought his gaze up, fixing first on the violet stone, then her eyes. "You've failed us," he whispered, and then he collapsed.

Nakita reached out and caught him gently, almost lovingly, as she eased the dark timekeeper to the polished floor. "Fate, Kairos," Nakita whispered, crying as her hands slid from him, and she closed his eyes so they wouldn't look to the heavens. "The seraphs fated her taking your place. Your span was done. There is no failure. There is only change."

"Oh my God!" I shouted, terrified as I stood there. "You killed him! How could you…? He's dead!"

Ron made a sound of regret, and I spun to him, frightened. If Kairos was dead, then that meant—"He's not dead," I babbled. "Tell me he's not dead."

"He's gone," Ron said, and I danced back when Nakita was suddenly before me, kneeling and offering me her sword.

"Nakita, no!" I cried out, panicked.

"My lady," she insisted, pain in her fragile expression. "I am flawed."

"Stop. Stop!" I said, frantic as I tried to get her to rise. She was so beautiful. She was an angel. She shouldn't be kneeling before me. "D-don't do this," I stammered. "I'm not the dark timekeeper." I looked at Ron, standing with his hands clasped before him.

"You are the keeper of unseen justice," Nakita said, smiling at me, "sanctioned by seraphs. Able to track time and bend it to your will."

"No I'm not!" I insisted, glancing at Kairos's body. Nakita had just killed him!

Ron sighed heavily enough for me to hear. "Yes, you are."

My gaze went to him, and I stiffened. A figure was behind him, hard to see against the rising sun. Ron saw where my attention was and turned. A strangled sound escaped him, and he scrambled out from between us. It was a seraph. It had to be.

"Blood has been spilled in the home of a timekeeper," the seraph said, its voice both musical and painful. It carried the power of the tides and the gentle caress of the waves upon the beach, and I almost cried to hear it. I couldn't bear it. It was too much.

"A sacrifice so you will hear my plea." Nakita stood before the seraph with her head bowed, but her sword was still at my feet, and I picked it up.

The seraph nodded, and I wondered if I should bow or curtsy or kneel or something. Oh, God. It was a freaking seraph, and here I was in yellow tights and skull earrings.

"She has taken her place," Nakita said. "I present her to you and ask a boon. I want to be as I was. I'm damaged." She looked up, tears marring her beautiful face. "I fear, seraph."

"That is not damage, Nakita," the seraph said gently. "That is a gift. Rejoice in your fear."

The seraph turned to me, and my mouth went dry. "I'm not the dark timekeeper," I babbled, shoving Nakita's sword back at her until she took it. "I can't be! I don't know anything!"

"You will. In time," the seraph said, wry amusement in its voice. "Until then, I will keep everything running smoothly. Don't be long. My voice is already missed from the chorus."

"But I don't believe in fate!" I exclaimed. My gaze shot to Ron; I was thinking I was having doubts about choice, too.

"To believe in fate is not a requirement," the musical voice said, the seraph seeming to take up the entire world, though it wasn't much bigger than I was. "Kairos didn't. Apparently." I took a quick breath when it looked away from me and fixed on Ron. "You do, though. For all that you say otherwise."

Ron didn't move until the seraph looked away; then he sagged in relief.

"But I don't want the job!" I said, frantic that what I wanted didn't seem to matter. "Please, can't I just have my body and go back to the way things were?"

The seraph blinked, looking shocked—if such an emotion could be applied to the divine. "You don't want this?" it asked, and Ron took a step forward as if to protest.

"No!" I said, hope filling me. "I just want to be me." In a rush, I pulled the stone from around my neck. Gathering my courage, I darted forward, pushing the amulet into the seraph's hands. My heart was pounding again, and, embarrassed that I couldn't control it, I backed up, wondering if I'd broken a rule by getting that close. I couldn't look up at its face. It hurt.

The seraph looked at the amulet in its luminescent fingers as if holding a great treasure. The stone was blazing an infinite black, the silver wires now a hot gold. "You already are you."

"Please," I begged, darting a glance at Kairos, dead on the tiles and forgotten. "Can you just make me as I was? Put me back in my body?"

Hope buoyed me up when the seraph smiled so brightly that I squinted. "If you choose so," it said, an unexpected humor in its voice. "Where is it?"

My ecstatic shout died in dismay. "Kairos had it," I said, feeling ill when my gaze landed on Nakita, then Ron, quiet in the background. He was no help, and I turned to the seraph.

"It's got to be in the house," I said, turning to it and feeling naked without the amulet around my neck.

"It would have rotted by now," said Ron.

Horror lifted through me, and then fear. Had Kairos let my body rot? Had all of this been for nothing?

"He's right," the seraph said. "Your corporeal self is not here on earth."

I staggered to the table, sitting down heavily, my legs unable to hold me upright anymore. My elbows went onto the tiled table, and I knocked Kairos's cup over. Scrambling, I righted it, wondering why. No one is going to drink it. It's a dead man's drink.

"He said it was close," I whispered, numb. Where was my body if it wasn't on earth?

The sun was eclipsed, and I looked up to see the seraph sit before me, a situation both shocking and mind-numbing. "Your body is most certainly somewhere between now and the next."

My heart felt like ash, and I blinked, trying to see the angel's features. But there had been hope in its words. "Between now and the next? What does that mean?" I'm sitting at a table with an angel on the other side of the world. How freaky is that?

"It means that your body is lost, but the lost can be found," the seraph said. "Kairos would have put your body in the only place it would remain hidden yet be immediately accessible. Between now and the next."

Licking my lips, I snuck a glance at Kairos's dead body. "Can you take me there?"

Again, the seraph smiled, and I had to drop my gaze. "There is no there to go to. It just is. Within time, you'll be able to see between the now and the next." Clearing its throat in a very human gesture, the seraph extended my amulet back to me. "Do you choose to take this or will you choose to perish utterly?"

Like I really have a choice?

The wind off the ocean shifted my bangs, and I glanced at Nakita, looking lost and beautiful as she rubbed the slickness of her tears between her fingers, trying to figure them out. "Can I sort of accept it?" I asked. "Just until I find my body?"

The seraph laughed. The beautiful sound shook the air, and the table between us cracked. "And you do not believe in fate!" it said merrily, reminding me of Grace somehow.

"I'm serious," I said roughly, trying to cover up my shock at the broken table. "Can I do this until I find my body, then give the amulet back?" To be alive again was all I wanted.

Nakita had come forward, purpose replacing her confusion. Seeing her, the angel shifted its expression to one of calculation. "If that is what you choose," it said slyly.

"Choice?" I asked sourly. "I thought you were all about fate."

"There is always choice," the seraph said.

I glanced at Kairos and stifled a shudder. "Kairos said there's only fate."

"And Chronos said there is only free will," it said with a devious lilt to its voice.

The seraph was up to something. Talking to it was very odd. Its emotions were as easy to read as a child's, but powerful beyond belief. Licking my lips, I turned so I couldn't see Kairos. "Which is right? Choice or fate?"

"They both are," it said. With a hush of sliding fabric that sounded like sunshine, the seraph knelt before me, the amulet held out in supplication.

I bolted to my feet, scared. "Don't do that," I whispered, wanting everyone to just ignore me. I'm going to get sick. I'm going to get sick right here on this beautiful floor.

The seraph looked up, and pain sliced through my head as our eyes met, almost blinding me. "I honor you. You can do something I cannot," it said softly. "For all I am and all I have been, you are human. You are loved for your inventiveness, both good and bad. I can kill, but you can create. You can even create…an end," it said wistfully. "That's something I will never be able to do. Accept this. Create."

I stared at my amulet. It was beautiful, the black stone glinting with tiny silver lights at its center like stars. I couldn't look at the seraph's face, it hurt so much, but I felt like it was smiling at me. "Madison, fate—not choice—sent Kairos to kill you. Fate gave you courage to claim his amulet. Fate caused Chronos to hide you from us. It has been fate that angled a hundred moments to bring you here. And yet, you have to choose to accept your place or return as you were."

Still I hesitated from going back. "Which would you choose?" I asked. "If you could."

The seraph laughed. "Neither, I am me. Choice? Fate? They are the same. I cannot see the difference. It is why only a human can twist time to his or her will. When you fly high enough, seeing around the corners of time is not a problem, but it makes separating the future and the past difficult."

It was a choice that wasn't one. Fate that was set by free will. I didn't want to die, so there was only one option, and as if in a dream, I reached out to take my amulet, my life. The seraph's skin was cool, and when our fingers touched, I felt the vastness of space spread before me in my thoughts. The stone was warm, and my fingers closed about it, claiming it anew.

In a graceful movement, the seraph stood. "It is done. She has taken her place."

That fast, it was done. No fanfare, no trumpets. The amulet rested in my hand, feeling like it always had. Shocked, I looked up from it. That's it? I'm the dark timekeeper?

Ron sighed. Nakita was at my elbow, her fear that I would cast her aside clear in her wide eyes. "What would you have me do?" she whispered, begging me to give her a task.

I looked at the seraph, confused, and it said, "You have a desire. She will see to it."

"Save Josh," I said, wonder-struck that it was that easy. After all that I had done, I only had to ask? "Help Barnabas."

Nakita's eyebrows rose and her lips parted. "I've never done that," she said, and Ron made a choking sound.

"Please," I added, curling my fingers around hers as she held her sword.

Nakita nodded. Her wings blurred into existence. The whiteness of them shimmered as she wrapped them around herself, and with a soft sigh of air, she vanished.

"It's a good beginning," the seraph said, jerking my attention back to it. "You see well, Madison. Your friend Josh isn't done doing for others yet." Smiling, it leaned close. I couldn't move as the scent of clean water flowed into me, cooling my anxiety and filling me with peace. "You should go before your father calls for you," it said, and when it kissed my forehead, I passed out.