Once Dead, Twice Shy

CHAPTER 2

The air in the upper reaches had been frigidly cold, and my wet hair felt frozen when Barnabas landed us right where we'd started this morning: New Covington High's rear parking lot. As usual, his wings had vanished in a swirl of back wind before I got a good look at them, replaced with dry jeans, a casual black T-shirt, and a gray duster totally inappropriate for the hot weather but totally suitable for making him look good. The soft color reminded me of his wings as it draped over his shoulders and fell to his heels.

Unsure, I wove through a few cars to get to the bike rack. The vehicles hadn't been here this morning, and I wondered what was up. It took me two tries to get the combination right, and I slowly wheeled my green ten-speed back to the shade and Barnabas, propping it against the waist-high wall between the steep hillside and the main road before I slumped against it to wait for Ron, Barnabas's boss.

I missed my car, still back in Florida with my mom, but the lack of a vehicle had been more than made up for by the chance to get to know my dad again. Mom had sent me up here because she'd had it with teacher/principal/parent chats and worrying when the phone rang after dark that it would be a cop. Okay, so maybe I had been a little enthusiastic in "exerting my freethinking tendencies," as the school counselor had told my mom, right before he privately told me to quit acting out for attention and grow up, but it had all been innocent stuff.

A cicada whined from somewhere, and I scrambled up onto the wall beside Barnabas and crossed my arms over my chest. Immediately I put them down, not wanting to look pensive. Barnabas looked pensive enough for both of us. His grip on me on the flight back had been uncomfortable. He'd been quiet too. Not that he ever talked much, but there was a stiffness now, almost a brooding. Maybe he was annoyed that he got wet jumping into the lake. My entire backside was damp now, thanks to him.

Uneasy, I pretended to fix my shoelaces so I could shift an inch or so away from him. I could've asked him to drop me off at home, but my bike was here. Not to mention I hadn't wanted nosy Mrs. Walsh to catch sight of Barnabas sprouting wings and flying away. I swear, the woman had binoculars on her windowsill. School had been the only place that I'd thought no one would see us. Why there were cars here now was beyond me.

I dug my phone out of a pocket, turned it on, checked for missed calls, and tucked it away. Glancing at Barnabas, I said, "I'm sorry I got you identified on your reap."

"It wasn't a reap. It was a scythe prevention."

His voice was tight, and I thought that for someone who'd been around for so long, he could sure act childishly. Maybe that was why he was assigned to seventeen-year-olds.

"I'm still sorry," I said as I picked at the top of the cement wall.

Leaning against the wall, Barnabas put his squinting gaze on the sky and sighed. "Don't worry about it."

I drummed my nails on the hard cement as again the silence descended. "It figures the beautiful one would be the dark reaper."

Barnabas brought his gaze back to me, affronted. "Beautiful? Nakita is a dark reaper."

My shoulders went up and down in a shrug. "You guys are all gorgeous. I could pick one of you out in a crowd just by that." His face showed surprise—as if he'd never noticed how perfect they all were. When he looked away, I added, "You know her?"

"I've heard her sing before, yes," he said softly. "So when she used her amulet to make her scythe, I could put a name to a face. She's been a dark reaper for a long time to have a stone so deep a shade of violet. They slowly shift color with experience, light reapers going down through the spectrum from green, to yellow, to orange, and finally a red so deep it's almost black. Dark reapers go the other way, up through the blues and purples to violet. The color of your stone is reflected in your aura when you use your amulet. But you can't see auras yet, can you?"

That had been positively catty, and if I hadn't been thinking about my own stone, black as space, I would have told him to shut up.

"So she's been at this longer than you," I said, and he turned to me in wonder.

"How do you figure that?" he asked, sounding insulted.

I glanced at his amulet, a flat black now that he wasn't using it. "It's like a rainbow. She's violet, and you're orange, a step away from red, way on the other side of the rainbow. You're not red yet. You get red, and you'll be as experienced as her."

He looked me up and down, his stance going stiff. "My amulet is not orange. It's red!"

"No it isn't."

"It is so! It has been since the pyramids."

I waved a hand dismissively. "Whatever…I still don't get how hearing her sing comes into it."

With a huff, he turned to the parking lot and away from me. "Amulets make it possible to communicate beyond earth's sphere, and I've heard her. The color of the stone and the sound of her singing match. Sort of like hearing an aura instead of seeing it. From there, it's not hard to guess who's singing because there are so few of us within the earth's sphere to begin with. And although I can hear dark reapers, I can't make out what they are saying. Nakita would have to shift the color of her thoughts to match my aura for that, and we are so far apart in the spectrum that it would be almost impossible. Besides, why would I want her thoughts in mine?"

My eyebrows rose. That bit of information might have been helpful as I spent the last four freaking months trying to learn how to use my amulet. "Huh. I thought you just…popped up to heaven or something when you wanted to talk."

His head drooped. "It's been aeons since I took up an amulet and became earthbound."

He's earthbound? "Whoa," I said, gravel grinding under my shoes as I shifted to face him. "Reapers are earthbound?"

"No, only light reapers are earthbound," he said, flushing in what looked like embarrassment. "Nakita is free to come and go. She touches the earth only long enough to kill; then she leaves."

That had sounded rather bitter. "I thought all angels lived in heaven."

"No," he said shortly. "Not all of us."

Making a face, he ran a hand over his frizzy hair, turning it even more untidy, in a charmingly attractive way. "Few angels transgress, but those who have often take a reaper path to make amends. And when they absolve themselves, they return to their other duties."

Amends? Absolution? Barnabas was a reaper because he'd gotten in trouble? And here I was, getting him in more of it. I suppose saving lives would look good on any angel's résumé. "What did you do?" I asked.

Barnabas crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. "I'm a light reaper out of a sense of moral responsibility, not because I displeased the seraphs. I don't care what they think."

I'd heard Barnabas swear by—or at—seraphs before as we sat on my roof and pitched stones at the bats. I knew all too well he didn't think much of the high muckety-mucks in the angel realm, but I couldn't help but wonder what the seraphs did. I suppose it took a lot to run a universe.

Still not looking at me, Barnabas pushed off the wall and moved to stand at the edge of the light. He wasn't telling me something, a feeling that grew when he put his hands on his hips and stared out at the hot parking lot. "She's right, though. Something smells worse than a black wing in the sun," he said, almost to himself. "Nakita said you have Kairos's stone. That's not possible. He's…" Barnabas turned, chilling me with his expression. "Madison, I've been thinking. When Ron comes, I'm going to ask him to give your instruction to someone else."

My lips parted, and I felt like I'd been socked in the gut. Suddenly it made a lot more sense. He's giving up on me. God, I must be more stupid than I thought. Hurt and not knowing what else to do, I slid off the wall, scraping the back of my legs when I didn't push out far enough. Tears pricked at my eyes, and, grabbing my bike, I started for the distant entryway. I was going home. Ron could find me there.

"Where are you going?" Barnabas said as I swung my leg over my bike.

"Home." Being dead sucked. I couldn't tell anyone, and now I was going to be passed around like a Christmas fruitcake no one wanted. If Barnabas didn't want me around, that was fine with me. But to stand there while he told Ron was humiliating.

"Madison, it's not that you're failing me. I can't teach you," Barnabas said, his brown eyes holding both worry and sympathy.

"Because I'm dead and stupid. I got that part," I said miserably.

"You're not stupid. I can't teach you because of whose amulet you've got."

His words held a scary amount of concern, and I stopped, suddenly frightened. In all this time, Ron had never been able to figure out what kind of amulet I'd taken. "Kairos's amulet?" I whispered, then stiffened at the sudden tickling between my shoulder blades. I froze, my gaze darting to the shadows, wondering if they hadn't just jumped forward. Barnabas's gaze went behind me, and his expression turned to an odd mix of relief and caution.

"I've only got a moment. Let's see your amulets," came the timekeeper's distinctively crisp voice.

I spun to see a small man squinting in the sun. "Ron," I said softly as he strode forward, his loose gray robes just as bad as Barnabas's duster in terms of being totally wrong for the heat. I glanced at the school, hoping no one saw me with them. I had a bad enough reputation already for being weird. Six months, and I was still the new girl. Maybe I should start dressing down. No one else had purple hair.

Chronos—Ron for short—looked like a cross between a wizard and Gandhi, having a martial arts—like robe and brown eyes that gave me the impression he could see around corners. His eyebrows were blond from the sun but his skin and tightly curling hair were dark. Shorter than me, he nevertheless had a huge presence about him. It might have been his voice, which was deeper than one would expect. He had a pleasant, crisp accent, as if he had a lot to say and not a lot of time to say it.

He moved fast, too, and had an amulet that allowed him to tap into the time stream and kept him from aging, since unlike the reapers, timekeepers were human for some reason. Which begged the question of how old he really was. He used his ability to manipulate and read time to help the light reapers. It was through him that Barnabas got his scythe-prevention assignments.

Glancing sourly at the sky, Ron held out his hand, fingers wiggling. "Madison?"

"Ron, about my amulet," I started, holding it before the timekeeper, still on its leather lanyard around my neck.

"Yes, I know. I'm going to fix that," he muttered as his fingers blurred out of existence for a moment, encircling my amulet. I felt a tingling across my scalp, and then it was done. "When did you dye your hair?" he said lightly, his sharp gaze not meeting mine.

"After prom. Ron—"

But he was already standing before the light reaper, his hand held out in a possessive fashion. Barnabas looked positively ill as he towered over the small man. "Barnabas…" the man intoned with warning, or recrimination maybe. I think Barnabas heard it too, since he took his amulet from around his neck and handed it over instead of coming closer. Without his amulet, Barnabas couldn't make a scythe, losing much of his abilities. Without mine, I'd be a ghost, more or less.

"Sir," Barnabas said, looking uncomfortable as his amulet took on the same hue it had when his sword was bared; then it returned to a matte black. "About Madison's amulet…"

"It's fixed," Ron said smartly as he handed Barnabas's back.

Barnabas looped the simple cord back over his neck and tucked his amulet behind his T-shirt. "The dark reaper at the scything recognized it."

"I know! That's why I'm here! You were identified," Ron barked, fists on his hips as he peered up at him, and I dropped my eyes, chagrined. "Both of you. On her first scythe prevention. What happened?"

Great, I'd gotten Barnabas in trouble again. "I'm sorry," I said contritely, and Barnabas's head came up. "It was all my idea," I gushed, thinking that if I took the blame, Barnabas might give me another chance. My knowing that auras had sounds might make all the difference in our practice, and maybe then we'd be able to accomplish thought-touching. "Barnabas didn't want to take me until we could thought-touch, but I convinced him it wasn't that big of a deal. And then I met Susan. I couldn't let that reaper kill her. It happened so fast."

"Stop!" Ron barked, and I jumped. The man's eyes were wide, and he was staring at Barnabas—who was…cringing? "You told me she could thought-touch!" the small man accused, and my mouth dropped open. "You lied? One of my own reapers lied to me?"

"Uh," Barnabas stammered, backing up when Ron stepped forward to get in his face. "I didn't lie!" he yelped. "You assumed she could when I said she was ready. And she is."

He thinks I'm ready? Even when we can't thought-touch?

Ron's eyes narrowed. "You knew I wouldn't allow her on a prevention until she could touch thoughts. Because of it, five memories had to be shifted. Five!"

My brief elation that Barnabas had thought I was ready evaporated, and I wished I'd kept my mouth shut. Puppy presents on the rug, this sucked.

"It doesn't matter how much we practice, Madison will not be able to touch thoughts with me," Barnabas protested, his face going red. "It's her amulet, not her!"

"Good God almighty," Ron interrupted, turning away with a hand in the air. "I can't keep this from the seraphs. Can you imagine the fervor? You simply haven't spent enough time with her. Learning how to thought-touch is done slowly, not bang and you can do it."

Barnabas's eyebrows furrowed. "I never said she wouldn't be able to learn how to touch thoughts with someone, just not me. Sir," he said, glancing at me, "Nakita was the dark reaper assigned to the scything. She recognized Madison's stone. Madison has Kairos's amulet!"

The timekeeper went stock-still. Alarm turned to wide-eyed surprise. Seeing his gaze touch upon my amulet, I put my fist around the stone so firmly that the silver wires cradling it bit deep. It was mine. I'd claimed it and no one was going to get it without a fight. Not even Kairos, whoever he was.

"Kairos?" Ron whispered, and then, seeing my fear, he broke eye contact with me.

"Yes, and if she has Kairos's amulet," Barnabas said, "then maybe—"

"Hush," Ron whispered, cutting his words off, and Barnabas fumed. "I knew it wasn't a regular reaper's stone, but Kairos's? Are you sure that's what Nakita said?"

Barnabas was standing stiffly. "I was there, sir."

Nakita also said I belonged to them, which makes me feel all peachy-keen. I just wanted to be who I was before, blissfully ignorant about reapers and timekeepers and black wings. Maybe if I ignored it, it would go away.

Ron squinted at us, his stiff stance giving off a sudden air of mistrust. He gestured to the edge of the shadow. "Go watch the sky, Barnabas."

Silent, Barnabas shifted to the edge of the sun and sent his gaze upward. A chill went through me. Everything had changed in an instant—because of Kairos.

"Who's Kairos?" I asked, turning my attention back to Ron.

"My counterpart." Ron had his hands on his hips as he looked uneasily out from the shelter of the tree and into the hot parking lot. "Light reapers, dark reapers. Light timekeeper, dark timekeeper. You didn't think I was the only one, did you? Everything has a balance, and Kairos is mine. Kairos watches the threads of time weave into possible futures and sends dark reapers to scythe people early. I spend more time trying to second-guess him than anything else."

He said the last word like it was a curse. My heart was pounding again, and I crossed my arms over my chest as if I could make it stop. Okay. I had swiped a timekeeper's amulet. Crap, I had to get rid of this thing, but it wasn't like I could borrow a reaper's amulet and return this one to Kairos. Keeping it was my only option. I'd never sleep again. Good thing I didn't need to.

"No wonder Seth hasn't come back," I said, trying to work this through to a conclusion. "I bet he's hiding from Kairos."

Frowning, Ron shifted deeper into the shadow to lean against the wall beside me. "A reaper wouldn't be able to use Kairos's amulet, just as a timekeeper can't use a reaper's," he said. "Nakita must be mistaken. Unless" — Ron's eyebrows rose in a private thought as he turned sideways to look at me—"it wasn't a reaper who killed you. Perhaps Kairos was doing a little extracurricular scything on his own."

Barnabas looked over his shoulder at that, and Ron waved him to be quiet. Again.

"What did Seth look like?" Ron asked, his voice deceptively mild.

Nervous, I levered myself up to sit on the wall, glancing at Barnabas, but he had returned his gaze to the sky. I drew my knees to my chin, not wanting to remember that night, but the memory came back with crystal clarity. "Dark complexion," I said. "Dark wavy hair. Nice accent." Good kisser, I added in my thoughts, cringing. Oh, God. I've kissed the guy who killed me.

Sexy stranger at the prom had turned into psychopath Seth, a dark reaper bent on killing me. Which he did, using a reaper blade after rolling his convertible down an embankment hadn't done it. I'd woken up in the morgue that night to hear Barnabas arguing with another light reaper as to whose fault it was I was dead. They'd been there to apologize and keep the black wings off my soul until I got to my "reward." But everything changed when Seth showed up at the morgue as well. Seems he wanted to throw my soul in front of someone to "buy his way to a higher court," whatever that meant. But only Barnabas and I knew that last part. For some reason Barnabas had thought we shouldn't say anything about it to Ron. And then I'd stolen Seth's amulet, and the fact that I'd been able to do that at all and remain here was a mystery to everyone involved.

Ron rubbed his ear like he had a nervous tic. "Taller than you by about a hand?"

My stomach clenched. "Yeah," I mumbled, "that's him."

Barnabas's feet shifted in the grit as a long exhale escaped Ron. "I should be blessed by baboons!" Ron muttered, then started pacing within the confines of the shade. "That was Kairos," he said tightly. "He didn't give you his true name. God, if you ever loved me, open my eyes for me when I'm being this stupid!"

"But he looked my age," I protested. Great, not only had I kissed the man who killed me, but he was older than the pyramids, too. Yuck! Now that I thought about it, he had been too good at both dancing and kissing to be seventeen.

"Kairos gained his position unusually early, long before his predecessor intended." Halting, Ron stared into the parking lot. "Hasn't aged a day since acquiring the amulet now around your neck. Pretty prima donna. I bet he's not happy about growing older again. I'd wager a timekeeper's amulet is the only divine stone you could have claimed that wouldn't blow your soul to dust."

"Because I'm dead?" I guessed, and Ron shook his head.

"Because you're human. Just as timekeepers are."

"So it really isn't my fault then that I couldn't keep her alive," Barnabas interrupted. "I can't best a timekeeper."

"No, you can't," Ron said, giving him a look that said to shut up. "And if Madison has bonded with Kairos's stone, the only way he can reclaim it is if she's dead."

"But I am dead," I protested, hands clasped about my drawn-up knees.

Ron smiled faintly. "I mean, your soul destroyed. He's got your body, I presume. Someone has it. And as long as you exist in some fashion, the amulet is tied to you. That you were able to claim it at all from him is a miracle." He glared at Barnabas when the reaper tried to interrupt. "You need to stay away from him," he said, turning back to me.

"Not a problem," I said, scanning the sky I could see. "Just tell me what cloud he lives on, and I'll make a note of it."

Ron resumed pacing, his robes moving elegantly and his slight form staying in the tree's shade. "He lives on earth, same as me," he said distantly, clearly too preoccupied with his thoughts to get the joke.

"Sir," Barnabas said, making me nervous when he turned his back on the sky. Shouldn't someone be watching? "If Kairos hasn't come after her by now, maybe he won't."

"Kairos give up on his quest for immortality? No. I doubt that," he said. "I'm guessing he hasn't come after Madison yet because until today, no one knew he'd lost his amulet. He was undoubtedly taking the time to make another one. The longer he spends on it, the better it will be—though he'll never create one that matches the power of the one he lost. No, Nakita has probably told him Madison has it. He'll be looking for her now. We will have to hope I changed your resonance fast enough."

"Timekeepers make the amulets?" I asked, surprised, and my attention fell on Ron's own black amulet, almost lost in the folds of his robe. "Can't you make me a new one and I can give Kairos his amulet back?"

Ron blinked at me as if startled by the thought. "I make them, yes, and give them to angels who are stirred to take action and choose to become something they've never been before. Not everyone is happy with the way things are, and this is one way of many to make a difference. But you're dead, Madison. I can't create a stone to keep the dead alive. Trying to use one I've given to a reaper will burn through your human mind. I say since Kairos killed you, you have the right to keep his. Of course, the seraphs may think differently."

I bit my lower lip worriedly when Barnabas moved his attention to the road at the top of the hill as a car went by. Seraphs. They had the clout to make big decisions. Reapers were below them, and guardian angels lower. Barnabas talked about seraphs like they were spoiled children with power. Scary. "This is bad, isn't it?" I offered softly.

Ron's bark of laughter died quickly. "It's not good," he said; then, seeing my pinched brow, he smiled. "Madison, you claimed Kairos's stone. It's yours. I'll do my best to see that it stays that way. Just give me the time to get the political machine working."

I slid from the wall, nerves demanding I move. "Ron, I know why he's after me now, but this started months ago. What did I ever do to make him come after me in the first place?"

Barnabas turned from the edge of the shadow to face us, but Ron interrupted him before he could speak, coming forward to take my hands and smile reassuringly. At least I think it was supposed to be reassuring. But there was something in the back of his eyes that made me queasy.

"I have a few ideas," he said, his gaze touching mine briefly before darting away. "Let me find out more. No need to worry you needlessly."

"Ron, if she has Kairos's stone, then perhaps—"

"Oh, look at the time," Ron blurted, taking Barnabas's arm and actually jerking the reaper off balance. "We have to go."

Go? Go where? Startled, I took a step forward. "You're leaving?"

"We'll be back soon." Ron squinted as he dragged Barnabas into the sunny patch. "I have to talk to the seraphs, and I'll need Barnabas as a go-between." He smiled, but it looked strained. "I'm not dead yet, you know," he said with forced good humor. "I don't have a direct line to the divine plane. No need to worry, Madison. Everything is fine."

But it didn't feel fine. Things were happening too fast, and I didn't like it.

"Sir!" Barnabas exclaimed as he yanked out of Ron's grip. "If Kairos comes after her, changing her amulet's resonance won't be enough. He knows what she looks like. So does Nakita. Either of them can simply walk around and find her. Shouldn't we leave her with a guardian angel?"

Ron blinked as if shocked that he hadn't thought of that himself. "Uh, of course," he said as he came back into the shade. "What a perfectly proper thing to do. But, Madison," he said as he gripped his stone and a glow of black light leaked from between his fingers, "I'd advise saying nothing about Kairos's amulet to your guardian." His eyes went to my amulet and then back to my gaze. "The fewer who know you have it, the fewer I will have to convince you should be allowed to keep it."

Frightened, I nodded, and he smiled. Almost before my head stopped moving, a faint sphere of golden light hazed into existence in the shade of the oak tree. I stared at the dancing, hovering glow. It had to be a guardian angel. For me? Barnabas was clearly relieved, and I wondered why he cared when he'd been so hot to get rid of me not twenty minutes ago.

The ball of light shrank to nothing when it landed atop the wall, and I started when an ethereal voice seemed to insert itself into my head, saying, "Guardian, Reaper-Augmented Cherub, Extinction Security, as requested!"

Patting my shoulder, Ron turned, apparently having heard it as well. "And you are?"

"G.R.A.C.E.S. one-seventy-six," the curious chiming came again, making my ears hum.

Cherubs? As in flying naked babies with arrows?

Barnabas looked worried and the ball of light reappeared as the voice belligerently shot out, "You got a problem with cherubs, reaper?"

"No," Barnabas said. "I didn't think G.R.A.C.E.S. employed the cherub union until the protected was eighteen."

A tiny rude snort filled my mind. "Like anyone is going to fall in love with her?" the light scoffed. "I'm a guardian angel. Not a miracle worker."

"Hey!" I exclaimed, insulted, and the globe of light darted to me. I backed up when it got too close. Graces, eh? More like a firefly from hell.

"You can see and hear me?" the ball of light chimed as it ran a quick circle around me, and I spun to try to keep it in view.

"Hear, yes. See? Not really, no." Disoriented, I stopped turning, and the glow settled on the bars of my bike and faded away. Barnabas snorted, and the glow reappeared and dimmed.

"Delightful," Ron drawled. "One-seventy-six, this is a temporary duty, not till death do you part. Keep her safe, and I want to know immediately if anything unsavory should come within thirty cubits of her."

The light lifted from the bike and shifted to me. "Thirty cubits. A-a-a-affirmative!"

Affirmative? This is an angel, right?

Ron gave me a last warning look to behave, grabbed Barnabas's arm, and started pulling him away. "I'll be back when I can. Oh, and I like your hair. It's very…you."

I tried to smooth out my brow as I fingered the tips of my hair, then jerked when the two of them vanished. My breath hissed in, and I actually saw the shadows shift to later in the day. Not by much. Maybe a few seconds was all, but Ron had stopped time to cover his tracks. My stone was warm as if in reaction to his own amulet, and I held it tight. Looking out from the shade into the bright parking lot, I thought the world looked a whole lot more dangerous.

For the first time in four months, I was alone.