Once Dead, Twice Shy (Madison Avery Trilogy #1)(14)
Author: Kim Harrison

I could understand why he didn’t want to believe, but it still irritated me. "Well, let me fill in the gaps of your dream, okay?" I said tartly, giving up on keeping my angel in the dark. If Ron hadn’t wanted her to know I had Kairos’s amulet, he shouldn’t have left her with me. "Kairos is dark, with a sexy accent that could make the lead singer of a girl band pee her pants. He kissed me. You remember that. I saw you."

"You kissed Kairos?" the guardian angel said, her already high voice going thin and wondrous. "I don’t even want to know what you did to get his amulet. Oh. My. God!"

That was insulting, and Josh saw me glare at the bell before he turned back to the road.

"Kairos held the door open for me when I got into his convertible," I continued. "You and Barnabas followed us out. Remember Barnabas? Tall guy with an annoyed expression? Anyway, the top was down." The better to kill you with, my dear.

The guardian angel laughed merrily. "Barnabas messed up your scythe prevention? Is that why he hasn’t been working lately? Holy sweet seraph nubs. This gets better by the second!"

Josh was listening now too, and, encouraged, I continued, "The car goes off on the right side of the road," I said, going somber as I remembered it. "It flips twice. The windshield shatters on the first hit. I’ve got my seat belt on, so I don’t get thrown out. It saved my life." I looked down at the belt around me now. Old habits… "When it’s done rolling, Kairos is standing next to my door like nothing happened," I whispered, "and his nasty blade goes right through the car and me both. It leaves no blood. Not a mark."

The angel was on my knee, and a feeling of sympathy and warmth stole into me like a sunbeam. I gave her a smile, then looked up, tossing my hair from my eyes. "You left your car running. And you called my name twice as you ran down the hill." I felt sick remembering the fear in his voice. "I’m sorry, Josh. It wasn’t your fault."

"Stop," he said. His hands gripped the wheel tight and he was breathing fast.

"He doesn’t believe you," the angel said tartly.

"Would you have rather I let you keep believing it was a dream?" I protested.

Josh turned into the bike shop’s lot, easing to a stop and putting his truck into park. "You are not dead."

I shrugged as I undid my seat belt. "They seemed to think so at the morgue."

Josh reached across the truck and jabbed a finger at me.

"Ow!" I yelped, drawing back and covering my upper arm as the angel giggled.

He smirked. "You’re not dead. It’s not funny anymore. Knock it off."

My pulse jumped into play, and I tried to stifle it. "It’s the amulet. It gives me the illusion of a body." And my memory of being alive supplies the rest, I thought glumly.

"What amulet?" he asked, and I fished it out, holding it for his inspection. Josh’s eyes widened, and I pulled it out of his reach, not wanting him to touch it.

"I swiped it from Kairos when he showed up at the morgue to claim my soul," I said, letting it thump back against me. "As long as I’ve got it, I’m fairly safe. But, uh, you aren’t."

"Oh-h-h-h-h," the angel murmured. "Madison, you are in so much trouble. I’m glad you’re dead already. I don’t think I could keep you alive if you weren’t."

That made me feel tons better, and I scanned the sky for black wings. There was a haze of darker cloud in the distance. Crows?

"God, you’re weird," Josh said as he turned off his truck and started to get out, the old metal creaking when he opened his door.

"You don’t believe me?" I said, aghast. "After what I told you?" Ron was going to be royally P.O.’ed if I’d blown Josh’s new memory for nothing. Not to mention he’d be mad at me for telling my guardian angel about the amulet. What did he expect, though? I was freaking dead. I think she would have figured it out eventually, first-sphere or not.

Josh was smiling as if it was a big joke. "I’ll help you with your bike, Mad Madison. Can you get home from here?"

I stared at his empty seat when he got out, steaming from the nickname. I hated it. Hated it passionately. The first time I’d been sent to the principal’s office it had been because I’d shoved a girl down for singing it. I’d been six, and it took most of my elementary school career to live it down.

My eyes closed in a long blink so I could find my temper, and I followed him. "Josh!" I exclaimed as I met him in back. "I’m not making this up. You know that’s what happened! You were there!"

"It was a dream," he said as he put the tailgate down.

Frustrated, I put a fist on my hip. He didn’t want it to be real, because if it was, he’d feel like it was his fault, like he should have insisted he take me home. "A dream that you keep having and I know all about?" I prompted, stepping back as the bike scraped across the liner.

"Sure," he said around a grunt as he lifted it free. "My mom would say it means I have a psychological hang-up about you. I’ll get over it."

"You’ll get dead!" I exclaimed, then lowered my voice as cars passed us not ten feet away. "Reapers can’t find me, but they can find you."

"These are the guys with the scythes, right?" he asked, laughing.

I took my bike as he rolled it between us. "Josh, you were there the night I crashed. Kairos has seen you. He’s looking for me, and he’s going to use you to do it. The only reason you’re safe right now is because you’re with me."

He smiled, squinting in the sun. "A regular Wonder Woman, are you?"

"Stop laughing at me!" I said, imagining what was going to happen when school started back up. He and his friends were going to have a good laugh over this. If he survived. "It’s the amulet that protects you, not me!" I couldn’t tell him about my guardian angel. Not yet. He’d laugh his butt off.

His eyes flicked to the stone resting against my lower neck, and his amusement dimmed.

A black shadow ran over the parking lot and sent a spike of fear through me. I looked up to see a black wing. It kept moving, but there were three more across the street. This was so not good. In the ten seconds he’d been away from me, they’d gotten a whiff of him. "Just stay with me until Barnabas gets back, okay?"

"Barnabas?" he questioned, then shoved his tailgate up. "That’s the guy from the prom."

"Yes." Wings, amulet, can’t miss him.

His face was thoughtful as he took my bike from me and pushed it toward the shop.

"Look," I said, thinking he was starting to believe. "Do you see those things?"