Once Dead, Twice Shy (Madison Avery Trilogy #1)(6)
Author: Kim Harrison

Chilled, I looked for black wings, but they were gone. The water reflected the trees close to the dock, flat in the lee of the wind, and I shifted the engine into neutral. "I said I’m sorry," I said, and Barnabas looked up from the flashing ambulance lights.

His brown eyes were black in the shade, and it was as if I was seeing them for the first time, finding something different in their depths. "There’s a lot you don’t know," he said as I swung the boat around to dock beside the first. "Maybe you should start acting like it."

Susan was flipping the bumpers out over the side, and Barnabas moved into the bow to throw the front dock line when I cut the engine to drift in. The ambulance crew was waiting with a stretcher, and they seemed relieved when Bill shouted that he was okay. There was an air of efficient excitement, and when I saw the bright polo shirt that said camp counselor more than a laminated tag would have, I cringed. We had to get out of there.

The boat emptied out amid loud chatter and requests for information that Susan was delighted to supply at the top of her voice. I stood, wanting to go home, but Barnabas couldn’t simply pop us out in front of everyone. He stepped onto the dock, and I followed, nervous in the crush.

"Keep an eye on the girl," he said as I fidgeted. "I need to find some quiet so the guardian angel can locate me. It’s not likely they’ll try for her again, but it’s possible. Especially if they know you’re here. Don’t do anything if a reaper shows, okay? Just yell for me. Can you do that?"

Subdued, I nodded, and he wove through the people on the dock. I slowly followed to find a place out of the way near the ambulance. My heart had stopped again. Finally. Barnabas thought it was funny, which only made it more embarrassing. I was always taking in air I didn’t need, too. Susan was within earshot with a cluster of girls and a camp counselor. It was an odd feeling, wanting to be close but afraid to be included.

Susan’s story was bringing gasps from the surrounding people, but I was glad to hear nothing about sword fights or girls in Hawaiian tops disappearing under the waves. At night, when she was asleep, it might be a different story. I’d seen too many haunted looks on my dad’s face that made me wonder if he remembered the morgue. While I was busy stealing an amulet from my killer, my dad had gotten the phone call telling him I was dead. Finding him alone in my room, sifting through my things before he knew I was alive, had been heartbreaking. And his joy when he saw me breathing? I’d never been hugged so hard. Though his memories had been shifted…sometimes, I thought he remembered.

Barnabas had settled himself atop a red picnic table under the pine trees. A vaporous softball-sized light hovered before him, looking everything like the imperfections you see in pictures from time to time. Some people thought the glows were ghosts, but what if they were guardian angels, only seen when the light was right and they were caught on film?

"And then he fell back in the water," Susan said, words slowing when something didn’t jive with her memory, and I turned away lest she see me and ask me to back her up. She had mentioned that she worked at a newspaper – maybe a planned journalism career was why she’d been targeted. Perhaps she was supposed to do something later in life, something that would work contrary to the dark reapers’ great plan. That’s what the whole game was about. That’s why I’d been killed. I didn’t know what great thing I was supposed to have done, and now that I was dead, it was likely I never would.

Arms crossed, I leaned against the prickly solidness of a tall pine tree, and vowed I wouldn’t ever feel bad about saving Susan’s life.

Barnabas stood, and I watched him weave his way through the crowd with that ball of light trailing behind him. Susan’s friends noticed him, and, giggling, they hushed themselves. Pretending ignorance, Barnabas smiled and shook Susan’s hand. As if it was a signal, the hazy light shifted from him to her. She had her guardian angel; she would be safe. A knot of worry eased in me.

"Thanks for keeping him talking out there," Barnabas said, brushing his wet hair aside in a casual show that made someone in the back sigh. "You should go to the hospital with him. He’s going to have to stay awake all night in case he has a concussion."

Susan flushed. "Sure. Yes. You think they’d let me?" She turned to the counselor. "Can I go?"

At the chorus of catcalls and a yes, Susan flashed a smile and jogged to the ambulance. The haze of light entered the ambulance before Susan, and Barnabas’s faint tension vanished, telling me that he, too, had been worried about her. It just seemed like he hadn’t cared.

Feeling better, I looked at him and smiled, glad it was over. The reaper’s face went blank and my smile faded. He turned on a heel and walked off, expecting me to follow.

Head down, I wove through the diminishing crowd after him, my satisfaction at having saved Susan stilling to a gray ash. If I had had another way home, I’d have taken it. Barnabas looked ticked.

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.