Susan gripped the gunwale with two hands as she stared at the water off the starboard. She clearly wasn’t seeing half of what was out there, but she’d noticed something. My illusionary pulse quickened.
The more anxious I became, the more my mind relied on memories of being alive. Something was about to happen, and I didn’t know what to do. What if that beautiful girl at the wheel was the reaper?
Tense, I listened to the water hiss as we raced past the ski jump. Our skier took it, letting out a war whoop at the top of her arc. She lost her balance on the landing but fell into the water gracefully, as if she knew what she was doing.
Bill, moments behind her, shied off at the last second. The toe of his ski snagged the ramp. I gasped, helpless as he pinwheeled. Reapers loved to work by accident, adding a deathblow to an already injured person to hide their actions. Barnabas had been right. The victim, and hence the reaper, must be on his boat. “Turn around!” I shouted. “Bill hit the jump.”
Our boat shifted, and Susan grabbed the rail. “Oh my God!” she cried. “Is he okay?”
He’d be fine as long as Barnabas got to him first. I glanced at our driver as she turned the boat, silently urging her to hurry up. Her eyes were now showing over her sunglasses.Blue, I first noted, and then fear slid through me. Even as I watched, they shifted to silver as she smiled in quiet satisfaction. She was a reaper.The driver was the dark reaper. Barnabas was on thewrong boat. Damn it, I knew she was too pretty to be alive.
Scared, I forced my eyes down before she could see that I knew. Edging to the back of the boat, I clasped my arms about myself, becoming frantic as we slowed. Our skier was swimming toward Bill, but Barnabas had dived into the water and would get there first. Susan joined me at the side of the boat when Barnabas slipped his arm around Bill to start pulling him to my boat, not his. The fear in me deepened. He didn’t know the reaper was with me. He was bringing him right to her! Damn it, why had I insisted on doing this when I couldn’t even communicate with Barnabas!
The two boats were coming together, the engines softening to a chugging rumble that died when they were both turned off. Everyone was at the edges, shouting. I tried to get Barnabas’s attention without alerting the dark reaper that I knew who she was—all the while not letting her out of my sight. But Barnabas never looked up.
Hands went down to Bill. He was conscious but bleeding from a head wound. Coughing, he weakly extended a shaky hand for help. I shivered when the shadow of a black wing slid over me and was gone.
Beside me, Susan shuddered as well, clearly feeling but not seeing the dripping black sheets above us.
“Get him up,” I whispered, thinking they looked like sharks gliding smoothly under the surface. “Get him out of the water.”
My boat, though, wasn’t any safer, and I lurched to get between the dark reaper and Bill as he was lugged over the edge and a wash of water soaked the plastic green rug. The dark reaper had to know someone was here to stop her, though she probably thought it was Barnabas, since he was the one who’d jumped in.
“Is he all right?” Susan said, letting out a little yelp when our boats gently hit and the driver of the red boat threw a rope to tie us together. Dropping to her knees in the narrow space before the back bench seat, Susan yanked a beach towel from her bag. “You’re bleeding. Here, put this on your head,” she said, and Bill blinked vacantly at her.
Crouched beside Bill, Barnabas wasn’t looking at me, and my heart hammered as I inched closer to a beautiful death in a Hawaiian top and flip-flops, smelling faintly of feathers and an overly sweet, cloying perfume.She won’t recognize me. I’m safe, I tried to convince myself. But when Barnabas stood and started to make the jump to the other boat to leave me, I lost it.
“Barnabas!” I cried, then froze as I felt, more than heard, the hiss of metal through air.
Tension slammed through me, and I whipped my head around. The dark reaper stood with her feet planted firmly apart in the narrow space up front, the light shining gloriously upon her and her sword. It had a violet stone above the grip that matched the one around her neck. I could see it now. Both stones blazed with a deep intensity. She wasn’t looking at Bill. She was looking at Susan.
“No!” I shouted, panicked. There was a flash of light against a blade, and, unthinking, I lunged to get between them, hitting Susan with my shoulder to send her sprawling. Yelping, she fell beside Bill at the back of the boat. My knees burned as they hit the plastic carpet. Looking up, I was blinded by the sun reflecting upon a moving blade, and I gasped as it sliced cleanly through me with the sensation of dry feathers against my soul.