Once Dead, Twice Shy - Kim Harrison [63]
I scanned the open wood, feeling my skin prickle. “It feels funny.”
“It does, doesn’t it?”
There was nothing to hear but the wind in the highest leaves. “How do I tell Nakita I want to talk?”
Barnabas silently stepped from me, moving a good twenty feet away so that his amulet signature wouldn’t mix with mine. Eyes on the darkening trees, he said, “I imagine she’s looking for you. You’d better be sure of this.”
“I am,” I said confidently, but inside I was worried. I was exposed, my soul singing to those who could hear it, chiming like a bell, making a spot of light that Nakita could follow. My jaw clenched when a black wing flew silently across the space between the ground and the trees, but then I decided it was really a crow. I looked up, my attention drawn by something unseen.
Barnabas shifted his feet, and a twig snapped. “I feel it too,” he whispered. I swallowed hard. “What is it?”
His eyes slowly moved back and forth. “I don’t know. It feels like a reaper, but afraid. Like a human.”
Barnabas’s gaze darted behind me. “Madison! Drop!” he shouted, and I fell into a sloppy front fall, getting a faceful of earthy loam. The weight of a stone rolled across my back, and then was gone. I looked up, spitting my hair and dirt out of my mouth. With wings so white they glowed in the dusk, Nakita came to earth, spinning so her feet barely touched the ground before her wings vanished like a memory.
“You’re okay!” I shouted, thinking it was one of the stupidest things I’d ever said.
“The seraphs lie to me as well,” the reaper snarled, fear and anger twisting her once beautiful features. I had no idea what she was talking about, and I stared blankly at her.
“Nakita, wait!” Barnabas shouted as he lunged to get between us. The light reaper darted back when a gleam of steel slashed down. Nakita’s arms were extended and her back bowed as she struck again. I gasped as I reached out in a useless warning, but Barnabas’s own blade met her sword, pulled from forever and nothing, and I shivered as the sound seemed to echo and made the trees tremble. Kairos must have given her a new amulet. She didn’t need the one I wanted to return to her. Her sword had a black stone now, and the jewel on Barnabas’s blade had shifted farther down the spectrum, blazing a glorious yellow. Nakita’s looked dead, a flat black.
“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.