Once Dead, Twice Shy (Madison Avery Trilogy #1)(41)
Author: Kim Harrison

My amulet, I thought defiantly, then shrieked as we were abruptly airborne, ducking when we exploded through the canopy and back into the light. Her arm was tight around me, and my legs flailed until my heels found her feet and I stood upon them. It was a show of cooperation, but at least my guts weren’t being shoved up into my lungs.

"Nakita, I’m sorry," I said as we ascended. "I didn’t know the black wings would hurt you. You were trying to kill me!"

"It was my task, your fate," she said, gripping me tightly. "I can’t exist the way I am now. I will be the way I was!"

The air was cold. Without warning, Nakita swooped into a dive, her wings folding around us, cocooning us in pillow-soft warmth. I fought her as my stomach dropped and vertigo told me we were falling.

"Be still," Nakita snarled, and then the world turned inside out.

I screamed, my mind unable to take the absolute absence of everything. No sound, no touch, nothing. It was as if I were a black wing, never having existed but having the terror of knowing there was more and it was now lost to me. I was falling, and there was nothing within my experience to tell me it would ever end.

Suddenly Nakita’s wings were about me once more, infusing their warmth into me. I breathed her scent in, gasping in relief, feeling her presence bring me back to sanity. We weren’t moving, and when her arm about me fell away, my knees hit a hard floor. Struggling to rise with my shaking muscles, I scrambled backward, getting to my feet and trying to figure out what had happened. My back hit a thick pillar holding up a white canopy, and I froze, mouth gaping.

I was outside, standing on a veranda of black marble shot through with gold veins. There was no railing between it and the drop-off leading to a narrow beach down below. The sun was just above the horizon, but the cool, damp feel in the air was wrong for sunset. It was rising over a flat ocean, not setting, and as I looked at the sparse vegetation with its small leaves and tough skin designed to survive drought, I realized I was somewhere on the other side of the earth.

A scuffing noise jerked my attention around. It was Nakita, but she was ignoring me as I pulled out of my instinctive crouch. Her wings were gone, and she placidly stood beside Kairos, who was sitting behind a small table covered with old books and a breakfast tray. The dark timekeeper was dressed in loose robes like Ron usually wore, looking young, fabulously refined and elegant, poised and tall, his calm expression holding a satisfied expectancy.

Scared, I glanced behind me to a low building built into the hillside, its wide windows open to the elements. Curtains shifted in and out of the house, moving in the breeze. I could die here, and my dad would never know. "This is your house, isn’t it?" I whispered, and the wind carried my words to Kairos.

He smiled as he stood and came forward.

I was dead. I was so-o-o-o dead.

CHAPTER 12

"Perceptive," Kairos said, his voice as hard as his expression.

My yellow sneakers squeaked as I turned to run, but there was nowhere to go. In a blur of motion, Nakita was beside me, and I lurched to stay out of her reach. Grimacing, she shoved me, and I fell. My elbow hit the black granite, jarring me all the way to my spine. I tried to stand, falling again when Nakita hooked a foot under me and rolled me onto my back.

I froze as they both stood over me, the scent of dirt rising from a smear on Nakita’s leg. The black stone at my back was cool with the chill of night, and the sky held a delicate, transparent light.

"How quickly the fate of angels can fail," Kairos said, his words rising and falling like music. I’d once thought I could hear the sea in his voice – that he had been beautiful, embodying elegance, refinement, sophistication – but all that was left was the reek of dead salt water, stinking and putrid. My eyes flicked to the scythe in his hand, and I recognized it as the one he had killed me with at the bottom of the embankment.

"Not again!" I babbled, lurching to fling myself away. My back found a pillar, and I slid my back up it to stand with my fingers clenching the raised ridges. Gasping in reflex, I ducked as Nakita swung her blade at me.

A sharp crack echoed through the air, and I looked up to see that Kairos had brought his own blade to bear, holding back a deathblow with a frightening ease.

"Patience, Nakita," the dark timekeeper said. "You can kill her, but not until I retrieve her body. All three have to come together at once; otherwise nothing changes. I simply need a moment to find it."

I darted away, trying to put space between us. Nakita’s gaze flicked to me. "You told me it was close."

"It is. Will you give me a moment to concentrate? Once I find it, it will be here, and you can kill her."

He sounded bothered, and I stood, terrified, at a loss as to what to do. Sure, I’d gotten away, but I wasn’t going anywhere. I was on an island. I knew the feeling of the earth when water pounded on all sides. "Kairos, give me back my body and let me go, and I’ll give you your stupid amulet," I said as I scanned the open horizon for an escape, but I was shaking, and I cursed my voice when it quavered. "I don’t care if I’m a rising timekeeper. All I want is to be left alone, okay?"

Kairos laughed, throwing his head back and letting the long sound roll out, and I realized that Nakita had blinked at my words. She hadn’t known. Kairos hadn’t told her. I had been a mistake to her, nothing more. "Who told you?" Kairos asked, wiping an eye. "Not Ron. Or did you figure it out? Amazing. I fully intend to give you your body back, because until you’re dead and gone, your giving me my amulet won’t allow me to use it."

"I can dissociate from it," I said. "I learned how yesterday. It will be all yours. Ron can make me a new one. Just give me my body and let me go, okay?"

The air shifted, and I spun. "Ron!" I shouted as I saw him. Barnabas. Is he okay? Then my eyes narrowed. Why was I glad to see Ron?

Nakita swooped forward to grab my arm, and I fought her – until I found her blade at my throat, the thumb-sized, dead-looking jewel glinting dully inches from my eye. Damn it! How did she move that fast? Kairos’s claim that my body was nearby froze my muscles. If he produced it, she could kill me for good.

"Too late, Ron," Kairos said, laughing softly at my surprise. "That’s funny," he said lightly to Nakita. "A master of time running late."

My feet slipped on the smooth stone. If not for Nakita catching me, I would have cut myself on her blade. I was so scared.

Ron bowed his head. The new sun shone on him, lighting the determination in his eyes when he brought his gaze back to me. Determination and…guilt? It was about freaking time.