Once Dead, Twice Shy - Kim Harrison [75]
Not anymore, I thought, but then shrugged. “I don’t know. Nakita might have something going on.”
“Shut your singing hole,” Nakita said to Barnabas, then shook her hair back to find her composure. Facing me, she said, “There’s a situation. Barney will watch you for a few…hours.”
It was as I thought. She had a scything. “Nakita, I don’t like this,” I said as Barnabas bristled. “Scything people who make bad choices is wrong. It’s easy, but wrong.”
Her eyebrows arched up. “That’s not why they’re chosen, and you will feel differently after you have seen enough human atrocity. By the time you learn how to use your amulet, you’ll understand. Until then, what you want will make no difference.”
That was as about as patronizing as it could get, but she was older than everyone here except Barnabas. “What about your domestic studies?” I said, knowing how badly she wanted to fit in, seeing as her own people didn’t understand her anymore. Jaw tight, Nakita handed her class schedule to Josh. “He can do it for me.”
Josh’s eyebrows went up. “Uh, Nakita. School doesn’t work like that.”
Barnabas grabbed the paper from Josh and shoved it back at her. “If you go, I go. I’m not going to let you take another soul, so you may as well stay.”
“I’d like to see you try to stop me!” she said, starting it all back up again. Grace dropped between us, a faint shimmer in the air. “All the love in this building! It makes me giddy. I’m out of here. Nakita, are you taking the scythe or not?”
“Yes,” she said, and Grace popped out of existence with a burst of inward-falling light and the scent of roses.
Nakita pulled me to her, our heads almost touching. “You should come with me,” she said, eyes glancing sideways at the surrounding people. “Perhaps then you will learn how to look forward and see the atrocities this human’s choices will bring about. I know you’ll agree then.”
“It’s the first day of school!” I said as Josh started talking to Barnabas to get the scoop on what was going on. “I can’t skip the first day of school.”
Her blue eyes narrowed and her cheeks flushed. “You are the seraphs’ will, Madison.”
“Well, the seraphs’ will doesn’t want to be grounded,” I protested, thinking I’d never have believed it possible those words could go together and make sense. “I don’t agree with fate,” I added. Class was about to start, and the hallway was emptying out.
“It’s wrong, Nakita,” Barnabas said, loud enough that I worried someone might hear us.
“That person has not done anything.”
“He will,” was her confident answer. “Just because you can’t fly high enough to see around corners doesn’t mean the seraphs can’t.”
This was just freaking great. First day of school, and Nakita wanted to take me on a scythe party. The warning bell rang, and I jumped. Sighing, I picked up my books and started down the hall. Josh shifted forward, working his way beside me as Barnabas and Nakita fell in behind.
“So,” Josh said, his eyes wide, “are we going to class, or on safari?”
I stared, not believing this. “You want to go too?”
Nakita leaned forward between us, pushing him aside. “You’ll enjoy killing this one, Madison. Grace says the demon spawn is going to create a computer virus that takes out the operating systems of a hospital. Hundreds of your precious people, Barnabas, are going to die untimely deaths because of this human’s choice made in the search for recognition and pride. If we don’t move this soul to a higher plane before he sullies it, he will eventually become a cyberterrorist.”
Ooh, strike one.
Barnabas was grim-faced as he came up on my other side. “But he hasn’t done it yet. There’s always a choice, and he might make the right one.”
The hallway was empty. To the right was the hallway that would take me to my physics class, to the left the bright rectangle of the school’s front door. “Nakita,” I said, my steps slowing in the intersection. “Was I wrong in saving Susan, the girl on the boat?”
“Yes,” she said immediately.
“No,” Barnabas rejoined.
Nakita held her home ec textbook to her chest, the spreadsheet and bowl of eggs on