Once Dead, Twice Shy

CHAPTER 1

I leaned my shoulder against a rough boulder and fumed. Dappled sunlight shifted upon my sneakers as the wind made my hair tickle my neck. The sound of kids swimming at the nearby lake was loud, but the happy shouts only tightened the knot in my gut. Leave it to Barnabas to try to turn around four months of failed practice in a mere twenty minutes.

"No pressure," I muttered, glancing across the dirt path to the reaper standing against a pine tree with his eyes shut. Barnabas was probably older than fire, but he blended in nicely, with his jeans, black T-shirt, and lanky physique. I couldn't see his wings, which we'd flown in on, but they were there. He was an angel of death with frizzy hair and brown eyes, who wore a pair of holey sneakers. Would that make them holy holey sneakers? I wondered as I nervously rolled a pinecone back and forth under my foot.

Feeling my attention on him, Barnabas opened his eyes. "Are you even trying, Madison?" he asked.

"Duh. Yes," I complained, though I knew this was a lost cause. My gaze dropped to my shoes. Yellow with purple laces, and skulls and crossbones on the toes, they matched the purple-dyed tips of my short blond hair, not that anyone else had ever made the connection. "It's too hot to concentrate," I protested.

His eyebrows rose as he looked at my shorts and tank top. I actually wasn't hot, but nerves had made me jittery. I hadn't known that I was going to summer camp when I'd slipped out of the house this morning and rode my bike to the high school to meet Barnabas. But for all my complaining, it felt good to get out of Three Rivers. The college town my dad lived in was okay, but being the new girl sucked eggs.

Barnabas frowned at me. "Temperature has nothing to do with it," he said, and I rolled the bumpy pinecone under my foot even faster. "Feel for your aura. I'm right in front of you. Do it, or I'm taking you home."

Kicking the pinecone away, I sighed. If we went home, whoever we were here to save was going to die. "I'm trying." I leaned against the boulder behind me, reaching up to hold the black stone cradled in silver wire that hung around my neck. At Barnabas's impatient throat-clearing, I closed my eyes and tried to imagine a hazy mist surrounding me. We were attempting to communicate silently with our thoughts. If I could give my thoughts the same color as the haze around Barnabas, my thoughts would slip through his aura and he would hear them. Not an easy thing to do when I couldn't even see his aura. Four months of this odd student/teacher relationship, and I couldn't even get to stage one.

Barnabas was a light reaper. Dark reapers killed people when the probable future showed they were going to go contrary to the grand schemes of fate. Light reapers tried to stop them to ensure humanity's right of choice. Having been assigned to prevent my death, Barnabas must have considered me one of his more spectacular failures.

I hadn't gone gentle into that good night, however. I had whined and protested my early death, and when I stole an amulet from my killer, I'd somehow saved myself. The amulet gave me the illusion of a body. I still didn't know where my real body was. Which sort of bothered me. And I didn't know why I'd been targeted, either.

The amulet had felt like fire and ice when I'd claimed it, shifting from a dull flat gray to a space-deep black that seemed to take in light. But since then…nothing. The more I tried to use it, the more stonelike it was.

Barnabas had now been assigned to shadow me in case the reaper who'd killed me came back for his amulet, and I'd gone back to living as normal a life as I could. Apparently just the fact that I had been able to claim it without blowing my soul to dust made it—and me—rather unique. But watching over me wasn't Barnabas's style, and I knew he couldn't wait to get back to his soul-saving work. If I could just figure this thought-touching thing out, he could resume his regular duties, leaving me reasonably safe at home and able to contact him if the dark reaper showed up again. But it wasn't happening.

"Barnabas," I said, weary of it, "are you sure I can do this? I'm not a reaper. Maybe I can't touch thoughts with you because I'm dead. Ever think of that?"

Silent, Barnabas dropped his gaze to the pine-rimmed lake. The worried lift to his shoulders told me he had. "Try again," he said softly.

I tightened my grip until the silver wires pressed into my fingers, trying to imagine Barnabas in my thoughts, his easy grace that most high schoolers lacked, his attractive face, his riveting smile. Honest, I wasn't crushing on him, but every angel of death I'd seen had been attractive. Especially the one who'd killed me.

Despite the long nights on my roof practicing with Barnabas, I hadn't been able to do anything with the shimmery black stone. Barnabas had been hanging around so much that my dad thought he was my boyfriend, and my boss at the flower shop thought I should take out a restraining order.

I pushed myself away from the rock. "I'm sorry, Barnabas. You go on and do your thing. I'll sit here and wait. I'll be fine." Maybe this was why he'd brought me. I'd be safer waiting for him here than several hundred miles away—alone. I wasn't sure, but I think Barnabas had lied to his boss about my progress in order to get out and working again. An angel lying—yup, it happened, apparently.

Barnabas pressed his lips together. "No. This was a bad idea," he said, crossing the path to take my arm. "Let's go."

I jerked out of his grip. "So what if I can't push my thoughts into yours? If you don't want to leave me here, then I'll follow you and stay out of the way. Jeez, Barnabas. It's a summer camp. How much trouble can I get into?"

"Plenty," he said, his smooth, young-looking face twisting into a grimace.

Someone was coming up the path, and I rocked back a step. "I'll stay out of the way. No one will even know I'm there," I said, and Barnabas's eyes crinkled in worry.

The people were getting closer, and I fidgeted. "Come on, Barnabas. Why did you fly us out here if you were just going to take me home again? You knew I couldn't solidify in twenty minutes what I've been trying to do the past four months. You want this as much as I do. I'm already dead. What more can happen to me?"

He looked up the path at the noisy group. "If you knew, you wouldn't be arguing with me. Hide your amulet. One of them might be the dark reaper."

"I'm not afraid," I said as I tucked it behind my shirt, but I was. It wasn't fair, being dead and still having to deal with heart-pounding, breath-stealing tension when I was afraid. Barnabas said the sensations would fade the longer I was dead, but I was still waiting, and it was embarrassing.

Eyes down, I dropped back to let three girls and three guys go by. They were in flip-flops and shorts, the girls chattering as if they didn't have a care in the world as they headed downhill to the dock. It all seemed normal—until a shadow passed over me and I looked up.

Black wing, I thought, stifling a shudder. They looked like crows to the living—when the living noticed them at all. The slimy black sheets were nearly invisible when viewed from the side but for an oddly bright, shimmering line. These scavengers fed on souls of the people taken by the dark reapers, and if it wasn't for the protection of my stolen amulet, they'd be all over me. Light reapers stayed with a scythed soul, protecting the deceased until they could be escorted from the earth.

I glanced at Barnabas, not needing to hear his thoughts to know that someone in the group was targeted for an early death. To find out who it was would be a mix of the sketchy description from Barnabas's boss, and Barnabas's intuition and ability to see auras.

"Can you tell who the victim is?" I asked. From what Barnabas had told me, auras had a telltale shimmer as to a person's age—which sort of gave Barnabas an excuse for why he had failed in protecting me. It had been my birthday, and he only worked with seventeen-year-olds. I'd been sixteen until right before the car flipped, and officially seventeen when I actually died.

Barnabas squinted, his eyes silvering for a moment as he drew on the divine. It totally creeped me out. "I can't tell," he said. "Everyone is seventeen but the girl in the red swimsuit and the short, dark-haired guy."

"How about the reaper, then?" I asked. No one was wearing an amulet—but since the stones could shift to look like anything, it didn't mean much. Just one more skill I didn't have.

He shrugged, still watching them. "The reaper might not even be here yet. His or her aura will look seventeen, just like ours. I don't know all the dark reapers by sight, and I won't know for sure until he or she pulls their sword."

Pull sword, stick it in a person, reap accomplished. Nice. By the time you knew who the threat was, it was too late.

I watched the black wings sport above the dock like gulls. Beside me, Barnabas fidgeted. "You want to follow them," I said.

"Yes."

It was too late to give the prevention to someone else. The memory of my heart seemed to pound harder—a shadowy remnant of being alive my mind couldn't let go of yet—and I grabbed Barnabas's arm. "Let's do this."

"We're leaving," he protested, but his feet were moving, and I watched his sneakers meet the earth in perfect synchronization with mine as we headed downhill.

"I'll just sit quiet. What's the big deal?" I asked.

Our steps echoed hollowly on the dock, and he drew me to a stop. "Madison, I don't want to make another mistake," he said, turning me to face him. "We're leaving. Now."

I looked past him, squinting in the brighter light and the fresh wind, shuddering when one of the slimy sheets of dripping black alighted on a pole—waiting. Oblivious, the group argued with the dockmaster. If we left, someone was going to die. I wasn't leaving. I took a breath to convince Barnabas I could do this, but from the dockmaster's hut a voice called, "Hey! You guys doing anything?"

Barnabas jumped, and I turned, smiling. "What's that?" I called back, tension hitting me.

"Skiing," the short, dark-haired guy said, holding a pair. "We can't take two boats unless we have eight people. You two want to be the designated watchers?"

A quiver rose through me. "Sure!" I said, sealing the deal. Barnabas wanted this. I wanted this. We were going to do this.

"Madison," he griped.

But everyone was enthusiastically piling into the boats, and I dragged him closer, scanning the faces to see who didn't fit. "Which boat has the victim on it? I'll take the other."

Barnabas's jaw was clenched. "It's not that easy. This is an art, not a memo."

"Then guess!" I pleaded. "For criminy's sakes, even if we're on different boats, you'll be like what…thirty feet away? What is the big deal? I'll just shout for you, okay?"

He hesitated, and I squinted at him, watching his thoughts play over his face. Bad idea or not, a life was on the line. Behind me, the black wing took flight.

Barnabas took a breath to say something, pausing when a guy in gray trunks came over. He held a towrope and was smiling. "I'm Bill," he said, extending his hand.

I turned sideways to Barnabas and took it. "Madison," I said shyly. I figured he wasn't the reaper. He was too normal-looking.

Barnabas muttered his name, and Bill looked him up and down. "Do either of you know how to drive?" Bill asked.

"I do," I said before Barnabas could think of an excuse to get us out of here. "But I've never pulled a skier. I'll just watch." I glanced at Barnabas. That last bit had been for him.

"Great!" Bill smiled devilishly. "You want to ride in my boat? Watch me?"

He was flirting, and I grinned. I'd been holed up with Barnabas for so long, working on this thought-touching stuff, that I'd forgotten how fun—and how normal—flirting was. And he was flirting with me, not the girl on the dock who'd stripped to a yellow bikini to show off her butt or the stunning girl with the long black hair, who was wearing shorts and a brilliantly patterned top.

"Yeah, I'll watch you," I said, taking a step after him, only to jerk to a halt when Barnabas snagged my arm.

"Hey," he said loudly, his eyes silvering again and making me shiver. "Let's do guys on one boat, girls on the other."

"Cool!" bikini girl said cheerfully, not seeming to notice his metallic-like irises, though she was looking right at him. "We get the blue boat."

I pulled out of Barnabas's hold, uneasy that I could see something that the living clearly couldn't. I didn't think even Barnabas knew I could see it. The level of noise increased as they rearranged themselves, boats starting to chug and lines being cast off. Still on the dock, I pulled Barnabas down so I could whisper, "Bill isn't the reaper, is he?"

"No," he whispered back. "But something's hazing him. He might be the victim."

I nodded and Barnabas turned away to talk to a guy in a blue shirt standing possessively behind the wheel of the red boat. Saying hi to the girls, I landed at the bottom of the small blue speedboat. Barnabas's plan must be to shadow the victim. I looked across the dock at Bill, wondering if I could see a dark haze about him, or if it was my imagination.

All too soon, we were on the water, speeding over a small lake with the girl in the red one-piece skiing behind our boat, and Bill behind the other. The rhythmic thump and the hissing of the shattered waves was like a familiar, glorious song. Sunshine beat heavy on my shoulders, its warmth stolen by the force of the wind whipping my hair into my eyes. The black wings had risen up in confusion at the dock, but the biggest were already making their way after us. My unease grew as I dropped my gaze to the skiers.

Bill looked like he knew what he was doing, as did the girl behind our boat. If they weren't dark reapers, and the guy in the gray trunks driving wasn't a reaper, then that left three possibilities, two of whom were with me. I resisted the urge to finger the black stone hiding behind my shirt, hoping that Barnabas hadn't put me on the wrong boat. Bikini girl had on a necklace.

"Are you a good skier?" I shouted to her, wanting to hear her talk.

She turned and smiled, holding her long blond hair tightly. "Not bad," she said, leaning in to be heard over the engine. "Think she'll fall soon? I'm dying to get on the water."

My smile went stilted, and I hoped she wasn't foretelling her future. "She might. The jump is coming up."

"Maybe then." She glanced at the purple tips of my hair, dropping her gaze to my skull-and-crossbones earrings. Smiling, she said, "I'm Susan. Cabin Chippewa."

"Uh, Madison," I said, holding tight to the boat with one hand as my balance shifted. It was too windy to really talk, and as Susan watched the skier behind us jump our wake, I assessed the driver.

The petite girl behind the wheel had an enviable mane of black hair, long and thick. It streamed out behind her to show little ears, strong cheekbones, and a placid expression as she looked forward. Wide shoulders and a slim body made her seem as capable as she was attractive. Her Hawaiian top was glaring out here in the sun, making me wish I had worn sunglasses, too.

My attention shifted across the water to the red boat thirty yards off our starboard and Barnabas talking to the guy in the blue shirt. The wind shifted as the boat turned to the jump, and Susan leaned in, her long hair smacking my face before she grabbed it. The black wings had caught up. All of them. "How long are you here for?" she asked.

"Uh, not long," I answered truthfully. "School starts up in about two weeks."

Susan nodded. "Same here."

I shifted on the spray-splattered vinyl, nervous. I was supposed to be the designated watcher, but I really wanted to watch the driver. No mortal had a right to be that gorgeous. If I could find the guts to talk to her, I might be able to tell if she wasn't. And what if she isn't, Madison? I thought, growing nervous. It wasn't like I could tell Barnabas. Maybe splitting up hadn't been such a good idea.

"My parents made me come here," Susan said, pulling my attention back. "I had to leave my job and everything," she added with an eye roll. "Lost a month of pay. I work at a newspaper, and my dad didn't want me staring at a computer screen all summer. They still think I'm twelve."

I nodded, my expression freezing when a kite-sized sheet of dripping black glided between the boats as if we were standing still. Stifling a shudder, I sent my gaze to Barnabas; I could see his frown from here. Frolicking both above the water and under it, the black wings grew close, winding my tension tighter, starting at my feet and climbing higher.

Susan stood and wobbled to the bow of the boat to glory in the wind. In a surge of worry, I forced my hand down from the black, water-washed smoothness of my amulet and held my middle. I was getting seasick, not from the jarring boat, but from what was going to happen. Unless Barnabas could do a better job than he had with me, someone would die. I'd done that—well, half of it, anyway—and waking up in the morgue wasn't fun.

My gaze slid from the skier to Barnabas as the red speedboat inched closer; we were nearing the jump. His brown hair streamed back from the wind, and he was talking to the driver, his knees spread wide for balance, looking every bit like the casual seventeen-year-old he was trying to save. As if feeling my attention, Barnabas looked up and our eyes met. Between us, a black wing dove into the water. Son of a dead puppy. They were getting bold. It was almost time.

"Hey!" Susan shouted, looking to where the black wing had vanished. "Did you see that?" she asked, eyes wide. "It looked like a stingray. I didn't know they had stingrays in freshwater."

Because they don't in this hemisphere, I thought, scanning the horizon. Black wings were everywhere, keeping pace with the boats above and below the water.

Susan gripped the gunwale with two hands as she stared at the water off the starboard. She clearly wasn't seeing half of what was out there, but she'd noticed something. My illusionary pulse quickened. The more anxious I became, the more my mind relied on memories of being alive. Something was about to happen, and I didn't know what to do. What if that beautiful girl at the wheel was the reaper?

Tense, I listened to the water hiss as we raced past the ski jump. Our skier took it, letting out a war whoop at the top of her arc. She lost her balance on the landing but fell into the water gracefully, as if she knew what she was doing.

Bill, moments behind her, shied off at the last second. The toe of his ski snagged the ramp. I gasped, helpless as he pinwheeled. Reapers loved to work by accident, adding a deathblow to an already injured person to hide their actions. Barnabas had been right. The victim, and hence the reaper, must be on his boat. "Turn around!" I shouted. "Bill hit the jump."

Our boat shifted, and Susan grabbed the rail. "Oh my God!" she cried. "Is he okay?"

He'd be fine as long as Barnabas got to him first. I glanced at our driver as she turned the boat, silently urging her to hurry up. Her eyes were now showing over her sunglasses. Blue, I first noted, and then fear slid through me. Even as I watched, they shifted to silver as she smiled in quiet satisfaction. She was a reaper. The driver was the dark reaper. Barnabas was on the wrong boat. Damn it, I knew she was too pretty to be alive.

Scared, I forced my eyes down before she could see that I knew. Edging to the back of the boat, I clasped my arms about myself, becoming frantic as we slowed. Our skier was swimming toward Bill, but Barnabas had dived into the water and would get there first. Susan joined me at the side of the boat when Barnabas slipped his arm around Bill to start pulling him to my boat, not his. The fear in me deepened. He didn't know the reaper was with me. He was bringing him right to her! Damn it, why had I insisted on doing this when I couldn't even communicate with Barnabas!

The two boats were coming together, the engines softening to a chugging rumble that died when they were both turned off. Everyone was at the edges, shouting. I tried to get Barnabas's attention without alerting the dark reaper that I knew who she was—all the while not letting her out of my sight. But Barnabas never looked up.

Hands went down to Bill. He was conscious but bleeding from a head wound. Coughing, he weakly extended a shaky hand for help. I shivered when the shadow of a black wing slid over me and was gone. Beside me, Susan shuddered as well, clearly feeling but not seeing the dripping black sheets above us. "Get him up," I whispered, thinking they looked like sharks gliding smoothly under the surface. "Get him out of the water."

My boat, though, wasn't any safer, and I lurched to get between the dark reaper and Bill as he was lugged over the edge and a wash of water soaked the plastic green rug. The dark reaper had to know someone was here to stop her, though she probably thought it was Barnabas, since he was the one who'd jumped in.

"Is he all right?" Susan said, letting out a little yelp when our boats gently hit and the driver of the red boat threw a rope to tie us together. Dropping to her knees in the narrow space before the back bench seat, Susan yanked a beach towel from her bag. "You're bleeding. Here, put this on your head," she said, and Bill blinked vacantly at her.

Crouched beside Bill, Barnabas wasn't looking at me, and my heart hammered as I inched closer to a beautiful death in a Hawaiian top and flip-flops, smelling faintly of feathers and an overly sweet, cloying perfume. She won't recognize me. I'm safe, I tried to convince myself. But when Barnabas stood and started to make the jump to the other boat to leave me, I lost it.

"Barnabas!" I cried, then froze as I felt, more than heard, the hiss of metal through air.

Tension slammed through me, and I whipped my head around. The dark reaper stood with her feet planted firmly apart in the narrow space up front, the light shining gloriously upon her and her sword. It had a violet stone above the grip that matched the one around her neck. I could see it now. Both stones blazed with a deep intensity. She wasn't looking at Bill. She was looking at Susan.

"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?"

I glanced back and Barnabas gave me a tired look, making me feel like I'd really messed this up. Maybe having to change people's memories was a sign of sloppiness.

"Just relax, Bill," the light reaper was saying. "You hit your head hard."

I gripped the wheel tighter and wondered if Bill's head injury made him less susceptible to having his memory changed. Just how badly had I screwed this up? Jeez, all I'd done was shove Susan out of the way. I wasn't going to just stand there and let her be killed. Susan was blissfully ignorant. She was alive. She would finish her life and probably do something great with it, or she never would've been unfairly targeted by the dark reapers in the first place.

My furrowed brow eased, and I pulled a strand of spray-damp hair out of my eyes. I was glad I'd intervened, and nothing Barnabas could say would convince me it hadn't been the right thing to do. I couldn't help but feel a little sheepish, though. Two years of martial arts practice, and all I'd done was shove her out of the way?

Barnabas left Bill and Susan clustered together on the back bench and sat in the seat across from mine. "I put in for a guardian angel," he said as he leaned close enough for me to catch the scent of sunflowers at dusk. "Susan will be fine."

"Good." I eased the throttle down as we neared the dock, refusing to drop his gaze. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

Leaning back, he huffed. "You have no idea the trouble you caused," he said. "Saints protect you, Madison. Five people saw her cut right through you. Five people I have to cobble alternate memories for. You think thought-touching is hard, you should try altering memories. I shouldn't have brought you. I knew it wasn't safe."

I clenched my teeth and stared at the approaching dock, thick with people. "I saved her life. Wasn't that the point?"

"You were identified by a reaper," he said darkly. "You said you'd simply observe, and you go and…get recognized! They know the resonance your amulet gives off now. They can follow it. Find you."

I took a breath to protest. Reapers had amulet resonances; living people had auras. Either could be used by reapers to find people both at a great distance and close-up, sort of like a noisy fingerprint or photo. "Are you telling me I should have let her die, Barney?" I said bitterly, knowing he hated the nickname. "Let that reaper cut her down just so I wouldn't get recognized? Call Ron. He can change my amulet's resonance. He has before."

Arms crossed over his chest, Barnabas frowned. I was right, though, and he knew it. "I'm going to have to, aren't I?" he said, sounding like the seventeen-year-old he was masquerading as. "I haven't been pinged in three hundred years. Apart from your reap, that is. I need to get my resonance changed, now, too." Sullen, he stared ahead. A sullen angel. How sweet.

But the more I thought about it, the worse I felt. It seemed that ever since I'd made his acquaintance, I'd been screwing up his life. My special talent. Now he had to call on his boss to fix things, and I knew he hated looking bad. "Sorry," I said softly, but I knew he heard me.

"Until we get the resonance of our amulets changed, we're as vulnerable as ducks sitting on the water," he muttered.

Chilled, I looked for black wings, but they were gone. The water reflected the trees close to the dock, flat in the lee of the wind, and I shifted the engine into neutral. "I said I'm sorry," I said, and Barnabas looked up from the flashing ambulance lights.

His brown eyes were black in the shade, and it was as if I was seeing them for the first time, finding something different in their depths. "There's a lot you don't know," he said as I swung the boat around to dock beside the first. "Maybe you should start acting like it."

Susan was flipping the bumpers out over the side, and Barnabas moved into the bow to throw the front dock line when I cut the engine to drift in. The ambulance crew was waiting with a stretcher, and they seemed relieved when Bill shouted that he was okay. There was an air of efficient excitement, and when I saw the bright polo shirt that said camp counselor more than a laminated tag would have, I cringed. We had to get out of there.

The boat emptied out amid loud chatter and requests for information that Susan was delighted to supply at the top of her voice. I stood, wanting to go home, but Barnabas couldn't simply pop us out in front of everyone. He stepped onto the dock, and I followed, nervous in the crush.

"Keep an eye on the girl," he said as I fidgeted. "I need to find some quiet so the guardian angel can locate me. It's not likely they'll try for her again, but it's possible. Especially if they know you're here. Don't do anything if a reaper shows, okay? Just yell for me. Can you do that?"

Subdued, I nodded, and he wove through the people on the dock. I slowly followed to find a place out of the way near the ambulance. My heart had stopped again. Finally. Barnabas thought it was funny, which only made it more embarrassing. I was always taking in air I didn't need, too. Susan was within earshot with a cluster of girls and a camp counselor. It was an odd feeling, wanting to be close but afraid to be included.

Susan's story was bringing gasps from the surrounding people, but I was glad to hear nothing about sword fights or girls in Hawaiian tops disappearing under the waves. At night, when she was asleep, it might be a different story. I'd seen too many haunted looks on my dad's face that made me wonder if he remembered the morgue. While I was busy stealing an amulet from my killer, my dad had gotten the phone call telling him I was dead. Finding him alone in my room, sifting through my things before he knew I was alive, had been heartbreaking. And his joy when he saw me breathing? I'd never been hugged so hard. Though his memories had been shifted…sometimes, I thought he remembered.

Barnabas had settled himself atop a red picnic table under the pine trees. A vaporous softball-sized light hovered before him, looking everything like the imperfections you see in pictures from time to time. Some people thought the glows were ghosts, but what if they were guardian angels, only seen when the light was right and they were caught on film?

"And then he fell back in the water," Susan said, words slowing when something didn't jive with her memory, and I turned away lest she see me and ask me to back her up. She had mentioned that she worked at a newspaper—maybe a planned journalism career was why she'd been targeted. Perhaps she was supposed to do something later in life, something that would work contrary to the dark reapers' great plan. That's what the whole game was about. That's why I'd been killed. I didn't know what great thing I was supposed to have done, and now that I was dead, it was likely I never would.

Arms crossed, I leaned against the prickly solidness of a tall pine tree, and vowed I wouldn't ever feel bad about saving Susan's life.

Barnabas stood, and I watched him weave his way through the crowd with that ball of light trailing behind him. Susan's friends noticed him, and, giggling, they hushed themselves. Pretending ignorance, Barnabas smiled and shook Susan's hand. As if it was a signal, the hazy light shifted from him to her. She had her guardian angel; she would be safe. A knot of worry eased in me.

"Thanks for keeping him talking out there," Barnabas said, brushing his wet hair aside in a casual show that made someone in the back sigh. "You should go to the hospital with him. He's going to have to stay awake all night in case he has a concussion."

Susan flushed. "Sure. Yes. You think they'd let me?" She turned to the counselor. "Can I go?"

At the chorus of catcalls and a yes, Susan flashed a smile and jogged to the ambulance. The haze of light entered the ambulance before Susan, and Barnabas's faint tension vanished, telling me that he, too, had been worried about her. It just seemed like he hadn't cared.

Feeling better, I looked at him and smiled, glad it was over. The reaper's face went blank and my smile faded. He turned on a heel and walked off, expecting me to follow.

Head down, I wove through the diminishing crowd after him, my satisfaction at having saved Susan stilling to a gray ash. If I had had another way home, I'd have taken it. Barnabas looked ticked.