by Неизвестный
He didn't care about Josh. Not really. Warning was thick in me, and I pulled out from under his grip. And why was he blaming Barnabas? Barnabas said it was my amulet that prevented me from thought-touching, not my lack of skill or lack of trying—and Ron should have known that. He was hiding something. "Grace said I cracked it," I said warily, but I wouldn't pull it from behind my shirt to show him.
Behind Ron, Barnabas stood stiff and tense. I saw a hint of the avenging angel in him as his eyes silvered. "I'm going home," he said to Ron, pain showing in his brow. "They'll let me in. They have to. I have to tell them about the black wings. They can get them out of her."
Home? I thought. As in heaven? Why wouldn't they let him in? He wasn't just earthbound, but barred from heaven? Just who were the bad guys here?
Fear slid through me like a knife, born of the sudden realization that everything I thought was true probably wasn't.
"Barnabas, shut up," Ron said as he rose between us, smaller than Barnabas but deathly serious. "I'll send word, and Nakita will be fine. They won't let you back, and I've got work to do. Stay with Madison. Try to keep her out of trouble. And keep your mouth shut!" His eyes were almost black, carrying a mix of anger, frustration, and…uncertainty. "You understand me? I can't fix this if you interfere. Keep your mouth…shut."
The image of Nakita arched in pain, white wings stretched high as she screamed, lifted through my memory. I had hurt one of heaven's angels. Who was Barnabas? Who had I been spending my nights with on my roof?
Scared, I watched Ron stride from the building, vanishing as he found the sun. I turned to Barnabas, shrinking back when he made a sound of anger and flopped into the chair next to me, his brow furrowed and his expression cross. He didn't move. Not one fidget or blink.
"She was trying to kill me," I said. "She was trying to kill Josh! She was going to—"
"Take you to Kairos. You said that," he said abruptly. There was a hint of fear in him. It wasn't fear of me, but fear for himself. He wasn't going to shut up as Ron had told him, and I shivered.
"So many religions, Madison," he said, "but only one resting place, and she was going to put you right back on that path that you skipped off when you claimed Kairos's amulet."
"Nakita's not from hell," I guessed, knowing my face was white. "You are."
Barnabas jerked straight. "Me? No," he said, coloring as if embarrassed. "Not hell. I don't even know if there is such a place other than what we make for ourselves. But I'm not from heaven…anymore. I left because I disagreed with seraph fate. They won't let me back. They won't let any of us light reapers back." Jaw tight, he exhaled, putting a hand to his head and rubbing his temples. "I should have told you, but it's embarrassing."
"But you're a light reaper!" I said, confused. "Light is good; dark is bad."
He scowled at me. "Light is for human choice, easily seen. Dark is for hidden seraph fate, no choice to glean."
"Oh! That would have been nice to know!" I shouted. "How come no one bothered to tell me that?!" I added, frustrated, scared, and a little relieved that Barnabas wasn't from hell, just kicked out of heaven. There was a difference, right?
The receptionist peeked out from a doorway, disappearing when she decided I was upset about Josh, not a little misunderstanding about light and dark.
Barnabas's thoughts were clearly somewhere else. "I don't understand what Ron is doing," he said to himself, gaze distant, and unaware that I was having a meltdown. "I believe in choice, but after what's happened, I don't know. You're a nice person, Madison, and I like you, but you put black wings in Nakita. That's…a terrible thing. Maybe the seraphs are right. Maybe you need to go where you belong. Maybe fate has a place in the world. Fighting it has only made things worse."
Where I belong? Does he mean like home with my dad, or like dead? I swallowed hard. I was not the one who'd been kicked out of heaven. "It was an accident."
"Was it an accident that you worked to learn how to go invisible?" he asked earnestly. "Was it an accident that you used that knowledge to break the hold Nakita's amulet had on you? Was it an accident that she fell through you? Or was it fate?" His head slowly shook back and forth, dark curls shifting. "I should've realized what Ron was doing sooner." His eyes narrowed. "I still don't believe it. I didn't want to believe it."
My mouth was dry. Just what was Ron doing? Barnabas knew something I didn't, and by God, I was going to find out. "Barnabas," I started, but the phone at the desk hummed and the nurse came back to answer it. She gave me an encouraging smile when she sat down, telling me that Josh was okay. Or at least not getting any worse. Distracted, I settled back in my chair, and, hearing a dry leaf crunch, I picked it out of my hair. I held it for a moment, then set it on the nearby table. Did I really want to know the truth? Yeah. I do.
I watched the line Barnabas's duster made against the dull carpet as I screwed my courage up, wondering if the coat was his wings in disguise. My mind shifted back to Ron dragging Barnabas away from me at the school's parking lot, and then just now, when Ron cautioned Barnabas to keep his mouth shut so he could fix things, the awful feeling of Ron's hand on me when he tried to comfort me. "Barnabas," I whispered, "what's Ron not telling me?"
Looking up, I saw his jaw clench. "It's not my place."
Fear made my heart give a thump, but then it stopped. "You want to tell me. You tried at the school parking lot, and I see you want to tell me now. If you believe in choice, tell me so I can make a good one."
His eyes lifted, falling first upon my amulet, then my eyes, and I shivered.
"Ron is hiding who you are from the seraphs so he can shift the balance between fate and choice by misleading you," he said flatly. "That's what I think he's doing."
"He said he was talking to them!" I argued, then hesitated. "Misleading me? Why?"
Eyes fixed on mine, Barnabas quietly said, "You're the new timekeeper, Madison. The dark one."
I blinked. "I am not," I said belligerently.
But instead of arguing with me, he smiled bitterly. "I told you there's a reason you can't touch my thoughts," he said, his gaze alighting on my amulet. "You've got a dark timekeeper amulet. If it were otherwise, our resonances would be close enough that we could talk, but they are on opposite ends of the spectrum. Ron knows that. Ron knows everything. He's just not saying anything."
Reaching down, I touched the black stone, then dropped it. "Maybe it doesn't work because I'm dead."
Barnabas turned away, and his chest rose and fell in a heavy sigh. "The only reason you succeeded in claiming a timekeeper's amulet is because you are one."
"No!" I exclaimed. "I was able to claim it because I was human."
He shook his head. "You could touch it because you were human, but you claimed it because of who you are. You went on to teach yourself how to dissociate yourself from it and still hold that claim. You commanded Grace, gave her a name that bound her and broke the charge that Ron put on her. You're a rising timekeeper, Madison, one of two people born to this millennium with the ability to survive the bending of time."
I stared at him, panic starting to wind its way through my spine. Me? A dark timekeeper? I didn't believe in fate. He had to be wrong. "Has Ron said so?" I whispered.
He shifted his feet in their dirty sneakers and scooted forward. Leaning over his knees, he eyed me from under his mop of curls. "No," he admitted, and I exhaled in relief. "But you are. Madison, timekeepers are mortal for a reason. The earth changes, people change, values change. To ask a human who was born in the time of the pyramids to understand someone who takes for granted that man can see the earth from space isn't reasonable, and so when change spills over itself in its rush to happen, new timekeepers take over."
He glanced at the receptionist and inched closer. "I've seen it before, like the turning of a wheel. Rising timekeepers are found and taught, learning until the amulet is passed on and the old timekeeper resumes aging, picking up where his or her life was disrupted by the divine. That you're dead complica
tes things, but this is who you are."
"No I'm not!" I protested. "I'm just me. And even if I was a timekeeper, I wouldn't be the dark timekeeper. I don't believe in fate. I just took Kairos's stone to stay alive!"
Frowning, Barnabas shot a look at the busy receptionist. "Taking it might have been a choice, but fate put you there to do it. If you were an innocent scything, Ron would have given you to the seraphs that first day. But he didn't." Barnabas's frown deepened. "I should have known then, but I never guessed he'd stoop so low as to keep you in the dark with lies."
"Ron said he told the seraphs about me, to ask them to let me keep the stone," I said, bewildered. "If he didn't, why do I still have it?"
"Because Kairos hasn't told them you have it, either."
"Why?" I asked. I couldn't think. I was numb. I needed an answer, and I couldn't grasp enough to guess it for myself.
Barnabas shifted in his chair, pulling his coat around himself. "I'm guessing Kairos wants you destroyed so he doesn't have to give up his place, and if the seraphs find out you exist, even dead as you are, they will force him to abide by their will. Only if you are destroyed will they be obliged to allow him to remain the dark timekeeper through the turn of another wheel."
Kairos would live forever. Immortality—a higher court. That's why he killed me, then came after me. He wanted to destroy my soul completely. Panic started up again. "No. You're wrong. I simply have the wrong amulet," I said. "I just need to give it back. I need to return Nakita's amulet, too," I babbled as Barnabas flopped back to look at the ceiling. "Tell her I'm sorry. Maybe she'll let Josh live."
"If Nakita finds you, she'll take you to Kairos," Barnabas said to the ceiling. "Being sorry isn't going to change anything. You've already claimed the dark timekeeper amulet. You're it, Madison. For Kairos to reclaim it, your soul has to be destroyed! Only one or the other of you can be the dark timekeeper."
I felt dizzy. There had to be a way out of this. "One or the other? I don't think so," I said, my head hurting. "I can dissociate from my amulet. Maybe the reason I can is because it doesn't really belong to me. You ever think of that? If I can give it fully back to Kairos, then maybe I'm the rising light timekeeper."
Barnabas's foot quit jumping up and down, and he turned to me, considering it. "Ron said not to dissociate from your amulet."
I shivered, breathless with hope. "And Ron's been lying to me—to us. I say chance it. Barnabas, I am not the rising dark timekeeper!" Thinking, I looked away from his intent expression. "I need to talk to Kairos," I muttered. "Where does he live?"
Barnabas's jaw dropped. "You are not going to talk to Kairos!" he said. "And besides, I don't know." The fallen angel turned in his chair to face me, bringing a leg up onto the cushion. "Madison, even if you are the rising light timekeeper and you can give his amulet back to him, Kairos will destroy your soul anyway to slide the balance of things his way."
I couldn't afford to think like that. "He's mortal, so he lives on earth, right?" I asked, standing and looking at the empty reception desk. "If Kairos wants his amulet, he's going to have to give me my body," I said, flicking the amulet, heavy around my neck. "I bet Nakita knows where he lives. Is she okay? Did they get the black wings out of her? You can hear the songs between heaven and earth. What are they saying?"
Barnabas remained where he was, looking up at me from under his curly hair in disbelief. "Madison," he protested.
"Is she okay?" I said loudly, hand on my hip. "Can you call someone? Come on! What's the point of being a reaper if you don't do anything?"
His eyes narrowed at me for a moment in annoyance; then a smile quirked the corners of his lips. "She's okay," he said, and a knot eased in my middle. "But this is a bad idea."
I pulled him up, surprised that he moved so easily. "Yeah, but it's an idea. And if I'm a rising timekeeper, then I'm going to be your boss someday. Come on. Help me find Nakita."
Barnabas dug in his heels, and his hand pulled from mine as I continued on a step without him. "You're not going to be anyone's boss if you're dead," he said wryly.
"I have to apologize," I said, reaching for his hand and tugging him forward another step. "And give her her amulet back. Maybe if I do, she will let Josh live. Maybe that's why she hasn't killed him. She's waiting for me."
A frown creased his forehead. "You want to give a dark reaper an amulet. Are you even hearing yourself?"
"It's hers," I said. "What is the problem?"
"Ron will freak. He'll take my amulet away," Barnabas muttered as he glanced at the parking lot in worry. "I shouldn't have told you."
I put a hand on my hip, seeing every second as one more moment that Josh's life was still hanging by a thread. "You know you did right. I'm not asking you to leave me. If Ron takes your amulet away, I'll make you another. Unless this is another lie and I'm just a poor slob who got mixed up in this and I'm not a rising timekeeper." Man, was I glad the receptionist was gone.
Still he vacillated. "Why are you listening to Ron!" I exclaimed, frustrated. "He knew what I was and didn't tell me. He told you to teach me something he knew I couldn't do. Will you just help me?! I have to try to save Josh. I have to try to save myself. I can be me again!"
Barnabas's brown eyes searched mine. "You've always been you."
I backed up, not knowing what he was going to decide. "Will you help me?"
He stood beside me, his duster shifting about his ankles as his feet scuffed. "You see a choice here?"
My head bobbed up and down. "I see a chance." And a way to get out of here before my dad or Josh's parents show up.
Barnabas looked to the parking lot and the setting sun, grimacing. "I can't believe I'm going to do this," he said.
"You'll help me?" I said breathlessly, scared and elated all at the same time.
"I am going to get in so much trouble," he said as if to himself, and together we turned to the double doors. "I can take you to a safe spot. Nakita can't hurt you there. Though I don't think it will do any good."
"Thank you," I said as we walked through the doors purposefully, my stomach fluttering.
I would convince Nakita to give me Josh's life for a lousy hunk of rock, then do the same with Kairos for my life. Just watch me.
CHAPTER 11
I tensed my muscles and screwed my eyes shut when the green tops of the forest grew close. I didn't want to watch as Barnabas closed his wings about us and dove into a small opening in the canopy. My stomach dipped and fell. There was a brief rush of wind in the leaves, and the air cooled. I opened my eyes as he swooped to dodge a tree and landed with a sharp pull-up on a mossy log. It started to fall apart, and I jumped off as it crumbled with a soft hush.
My tangled hair covered my face when Barnabas pushed backward once with his wings to stop his momentum. By the time I turned, he was standing behind the log, his wings gone and his coat covering his narrow shoulders. Worry tightened his features, clear even in the gloom, and I gazed up at the canopy. The trees were big and the underbrush almost nonexistent. Soft loam cushioned my feet, and I clasped my arms around myself, feeling the damp. Mounds dotted the space with no pattern I could see. They looked like…graves.
"Where are we?" I said as I took an awkward step over the log to be closer to Barnabas.
"A spot of ground," he said softly. "The earth would shake to feel the touch of a seraph, but there are a few places where the ground is strong enough, and in the past, immortals have used them to conduct business on earth. The circles across the sea have huge stones marking them, but here, where people lived harmoniously with nature until driven out, they're marked with mounds that shelter bribes to the angels to leave them and their children in peace." He turned to me, and I shivered at his suddenly alien look. "It's a neutral place. If blood is spilled here, a seraph will come. Nakita won't want that."
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 high
est 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.