If I couldn’t do this, Josh would die. I wouldn’t let him die just because I was afraid of pain. The decision was easy.
My hand ached under the angel’s grip. I gave in to the pain. I let it wash through me and away, leaving me scoured clean of everything but my will. Euphoria rose, a false high as my mind tried to protect itself.
Exhilarated and powerful, I exhaled, blowing on the ties connecting me to the present—and with the breath of my will, all of them shriveled like silk threads in flame. Her sword was mine.
“No!” Nakita shouted, pulling back as she felt her blade go invisible with me. I was the mist, and she couldn’t hold me, but she lunged as if she could. Instinct brought my hand up, and the reaper passed right through me, her amulet blazing like a violet flame.
Nakita’s face went wonder-struck, and her mouth opened in a silent scream. It was as if time slowed, and I held my breath so as not to breathe her in. I started to crumple, feeling her cold anger, tasting her frustration, seeing in my mind Kairos standing on a black tile floor in the sun and telling her I was a threat to seraph will and sending her secretly after me. For an instant, I was her. I was Nakita—and she was me.
The black wings attached to me felt her too. And they found something better to eat than my paltry seventeen years of memory.
Nakita screamed in agony as the black wings let go of me and cleaved to her instead. Pain lifted from me as they parted from my soul, embedding themselves inside the reaper as she passed through me.
I hit the ground, and the shock broke my mental hold on the amulets. Lines burst into existence, two stones tying me to the present. I was again solid. Nakita stood above me, stiff with pain. In my hand was not her sword, but her amulet. By taking one, I’d taken both.
Her voice pitched high in agony, Nakita dropped to kneel upon the ground. Her white wings shimmered into existence, stretching to the high branches. I scuttled backward to Josh, frightened. Josh looked up, one hand to his middle as he watched, shaking as Grace again became a glowing ball of light above us.
A third piercing scream came from Nakita. It didn’t sound human, and fear iced my veins. She had black wingsinside her. I stared, horrified, as I realized what I’d done. But I hadn’t known. I hadn’t known!
Her wings and back arched again in what must have been horrible pain, and her wail cut off with a frightening suddenness as, with a downward thrust of wings, she vanished. Dirt and grass clippings flew, and I cowered.
“Madison,” Grace said, her terrified voice clear over the noise of the middle school band. “Get in the truck. Get Josh and get in the truck.”
Nakita was gone, but the black wings were still swarming. There were hundreds of them. I was solid, and Grace was with us, but they were not dissipating. “Josh,” I panted, feeling weary and insubstantial.
Stumbling, I helped him up, Nakita’s amulet wrapped around my wrist. Lurching, I snagged my camera, forgotten on the ground. The truck door was open, and I shoved him in, making him slide across to the passenger side. It was still running, and I thanked God for small favors.
“Is Josh okay?” I panted as I slammed the door shut. The hard gearshift felt like it was going right through to my bones. “Did she hit him?”
“It wasn’t a clean strike,” Grace said. “I would have stopped her entirely, but you got in the way. His soul is hanging by a thread. Get out of here. I can’t stop a concentrated effort if they attack together. I’m hiding you, but two got a taste of you, and the others sense that. Don’t go invisible again. Madison,don’t go invisible ! You’re cracking your amulet a little more every time you do.”
I was shaking as I backed the truck up and then put it into forward gear. Josh was slumped against the passenger door.Don’t go invisible. Grace had said that before. That it drew the black wings in. But I hadn’t had a choice.
“Josh?” I said as we found the pavement and I slowed to an infuriating crawl to avoid the people just now starting to abandon the park. “Josh, talk to me.” I looked behind me, but it was as if no one had heard Nakita scream. No one had seen a winged angel arched in pain in a terrible beauty under the trees.
I reached to shake him, and he groaned. “Hospital,” he whispered. “Madison, I feel like I’m dying. Get me there. Please.”
Fear struck me. I jostled out onto the main road, and then I floored it. Horns blew, and I turned the hazard lights on, for what good they would do.
When my dad found out about this, he was going to kill me. Again.
Ten