Elemental (10 page)

Kara bounded up through the building to the source of the noise. She pushed open an exit door, ran into a hallway, and stopped—

In front of her, Jenny was squared off against a shadow demon. Its grotesque shape was only visible momentarily, before it shimmered and began transforming into a cloud of black smoke.

With incredible speed, Jenny reached behind her, adjusted a silver arrow against the bow, pulled the bowstring and loosed an arrow. Kara was amazed at Jenny.

A silver train followed the arrow as it propelled itself towards the shadow demon. It hit. Silver sparks exploded all around the demon. The demon shrieked. Silver droplets rolled off its rotten flesh. Jenny hit it with another arrow, just as it turned to pounce.

Kara turned towards an even more horrendous creature at the far end of the corridor. A giant demon thrashed back and forth. It had four human heads with gaping mouths and the body of a great insect. Its pointy slimy wings stretched out and beat the air behind it like a monstrous fly. Its insect body was intertwined with its human parts, a stretched and torn mass of tissue and shell. Black blood shone on its shell. The smell of dead things and decaying flesh hung thickly in the air.

Kara shuddered. Fred hung in its grasp, lifeless like a giant ragdoll.

Kara heard footsteps and Peter arrived.

“AH!” he wailed and recoiled against the wall. He flattened himself like a pancake, trying to squeeze his body through the stone wall. His eyes were locked onto the beast.

“Peter! Come on!” urged Kara.

But he only shook his head. He trembled. He wasn’t a fighter. Kara turned and glared at the new breed.

She held up her blade and ran forward. She dashed by Jenny and the shadow demon, focused only on saving Fred. The new breed’s black blood was the acid that had killed Tom and almost killed her. She couldn’t let it touch her skin.

She stopped and studied the creature. As she hesitated, the demon’s four heads turned as they saw her. The head on the top stretched its mouth abnormally long, and its glowing red eyes focused on the unconscious Fred. With one of its stick-like legs it brought Fred towards its gaping maw.

In a flash, Kara threw her blade. It pierced through the demon’s eye.

The creature threw back its head and wailed. The eerie sound of dead human voices crying on its back made Kara wince. It thrashed around on everything it could reach. White smoke coiled from where the blade had touched the demon’s skin.

The demon faltered backwards for a moment.

Then it reached out and pulled out the blade from its eye. It threw the blade away, and Kara watched it bounce along the ground.

Black blood spilled from the demon’s eye socket. The four heads screamed a piercing, stabbing wail that attacked Kara like knifes. She faltered, covered her ears, and when she was about to fall over, the screaming stopped.

She looked up.

The creature stood staring at her. Kara saw an eerie intelligence flash in its red eyes.

It turned away from her, opened all its mouths and covered Fred in a vomit of black blood acid. Fred only had time for a small whimper—then his body dissolved, and his clothes floated to the ground, like dried leaves.

Then the demon turned and focused on Kara. It cocked its heads as though challenging her next move.

Kara pulled out two Soul Blades, and grasped them tightly in each trembling hand.

“Kara! This way!”

Jenny and Peter ran out the exit.

Without hesitating, Kara ran back past the remnants of the shadow demon that Jenny had killed and followed her comrades out the door. Jenny and Peter bolted up the stairs.

“Wait! Why are we going up?” cried Kara. “Shouldn’t we be going
down!”

“I saw more shadow demons below. We’ll take our chances on the roof!” yelled Jenny.

“You think that’s wise?” shouted Kara. Jenny didn’t answer.

They clambered up the remaining two stories and pushed open the door to the roof.

Kara cried in surprise, fell to the ground, rolled to her side and pushed herself up, still holding her two Soul Blades in her hands. She hated the white hair, grayish skin, black hollow eyes and gray tailored suits of the three higher demons who stood in front of her.

“Stay close!” Jenny pulled out another silver arrow and sidestepped to her left. Kara heard a whimper and saw Peter back up and head towards the roof’s ledge.

“What have we here, brothers? Three
more
little piglets?” laughed the closest of the higher demons. His grayish skin stood out white against the darkening skyline. His eyes were bottomless holes. “The master will be very pleased indeed. Three more
scrumptious
souls to add to the feast.”

“You better watch the name calling,
freak
—if you know what’s good for you.” Jenny grinned and twirled her gleaming silver arrow like a baton. She planted herself in front of him.

Kara walked sideways to her right. “I’ll show you what we do to pigs where I come from.” She held up her two blades. “I’m thinking Canadian bacon.”

An evil grin flashed on the demon’s face. “Yes, the master enjoys the feisty ones. He’ll be very pleased with you.”

Jenny stepped forward. “Over my dead body, freak.”

“Well then, your wish is our command.” He snapped his fingers.

“Ahhhh!”

Jenny lifted in the air and was wrenched backwards, her neck wrapped tightly in the grasp of the new breed demon who had followed them up the stairs.

Kara ran forward, but it was too late. Jenny screamed and kicked as hard as she could. Her arms were free, and she stabbed the creature repeatedly with her arrow. Black blood trickled out of multiple lesions. But the demon didn’t let go.

Kara cursed silently. How could she have forgotten the demon? She shared a look of horror with Peter. His eyes reminded her of the little elemental boy she had rescued—his face streaked with fear and tears. She knew he wanted to run.

Kara looked back at the higher demons behind her.

The demon closest to her grinned. “Oh—I see you’ve met our new pet. A little experiment our master has been dabbing with. We finally found another use for the pathetic little mortals. They’re much more valuable to us as creatures of the Netherworld. Who would have thought we could use them for our pets?”

Mortals
? Kara screwed up her face and turned to look at the new breed again. It was like a giant mass of disheveled human and insect flesh. She wondered if she was looking into the faces of four dead mortals who had been bred with a demon insect. She shivered with pity and fear.

“You angels have it all wrong. You are stronger than these pitiable mortals. Why are you
serving
them? It’s pathetic really. Angels the slaves of mortals. It’s laughable.” The demon laughed, a sick wet laugh that sent shivers down Kara’s back again.

Her eyes met Jenny’s. She winced at the pain in Jenny’s eyes. For a moment, Kara remembered the fear in Brooke’s eyes before the higher demons shred her body to pieces.

Jenny’s mouth moved. It said
help
.

“Don’t listen to them, Kara,” urged Peter. “They’re trying to distract us!”

“Kara?” A strange hunger flashed in the leading higher demon’s eyes. “—the same angel Kara who attacked our master? Well, well, well. This is
most
agreeable.”

Kara ignored the demon and focused. What could she do against three higher demons and a new breed on her own? It was suicide. She ransacked her brain for a plan.

“Ah, come on now, little angels—why the frightened faces? We’re just having a little fun.” Its black eyes studied Peter. “You there…against the wall. You are right to be terrified. You know death is near for you, don’t you. You can sense it in your pitiful little angel soul.”

The higher demon threw something at Peter. He screamed and fell to the ground.

“Peter!”

As Kara ran over to him she could see black smoke curl up from a black blade that had punctured into his stomach. Kara cried out in pain as she wrapped her hands around the burning handle and pulled the death blade from his abdomen. She tossed the blade. She could see the holes it had burned through the hands on her M-5 suit.

“Ah, we have a hero amongst us. The famous Kara Nightingale.” The higher demon laughed. He clasped his hands behind his back and raised his chin in the air. “How I love a good show.”

He lifted his hand, and before Kara realized what was happening, he had thrown another blade straight into Peter’s neck.

“Stop!” Kara hurled her blade at the higher demon, but he knocked it away easily.

“It’s me you want,” she screamed at the demon. “Leave him alone!”

Kara watched in horror as the poison from the Death Blade poured into Peter’s body like black spidery veins. She knew he would die within seconds. Desperately, and ignoring the pain in her hands, she pulled the Death Blade free of Peter’s neck.

“Come, my pet,” said the higher demon to the new breed monster. “You have one more little piglet here.”

The new breed demon landed beside her. Kara blanched when she saw the gaping hole in Jenny’s right shoulder where her arm used to be. The new breed had ripped it right off. Jenny’s lips trembled, and her body shook in spasms.

The higher demon stepped closer to Kara. “Do you want to see a show, Kara? I love shows. We have our own theatrical performances in our world, you know, with stages and a wide audience. Demons love shows. But we mostly put on our best performances when we devour mortals on earth. That, my dear, is pure entertainment.”

He clapped his hands. “I’ll call this one—
seeing your friend die an excruciating death
—how’s that for a title?”

“Don’t you dare!” shouted Kara. Her hands quivered. “You touch her, and I’ll kill you! I swear!”

“I don’t think you can stop us, little piglet.”

“I’ll kill you! I swear I’ll kill you all!” Kara’s body trembled. Anger surged inside her and she felt something else trigger. At first she thought it was the M-5 suit powering up some more, but then she felt the small flow of a power she recognized. Like turning on a switch—what had lain dormant inside her was waking up. Kara felt it well up inside her chest.

The higher demon lifted his head and howled like a wolf. He danced around on the spot. He gave Kara a mischievous smile. “Prepare yourselves, brothers, for another great show!”

He looked at the new breed. “Kill.”

The new breed opened its giant contorted mouths and brought Jenny’s body closer.

Kara, feel your power—let it loose,
said the voices inside Kara’s head.

Kara’s body started to shake. Heat spread from her toes to her finger tips. Her vision became sharper. She could see a golden glow around the edges of her eyes. Her tracker mite slipped from her ear. It landed with a soft thump and was still.

You are elemental, Kara…let it go, let it go…

The demon lifted Jenny.

Her anger fed her power. She felt it overpowering her. In her mind’s eye she saw Brooke’s silent plea before the higher demon had ripped her apart—she wouldn’t let that happen to Jenny. A hunger to kill spread through her like a poison—she wanted to slay them all—to tear out their spirits until they were no more. Anger welled inside her chest until it consumed her. She only saw death. The new breed’s death.

And without a second thought, Kara’s right hand lifted in the air, as though it had a mind of its own. Her body shook, and a ray of golden light shot out of her palm like the blast from a rocket.

The new breed demon twitched and wailed as the golden light enveloped it. It let go of Jenny as the light crawled over it like golden tendrils of fire. Its skin cracked and oozed black acid blood and it crashed to the ground, burning itself into in a lifeless jumble of insect limbs and human faces.

In a moment, the demon was no more.

Kara stared at her hands in disbelief—remnants of the golden light ran across her palms like yellow electric current. She felt the elemental power drain away as her anger lessened.

“Fool!” The higher demons ran towards her.

Kara only had a second to react. She shot her hand out—and the demons all jumped and fell out of the way, half expecting the golden beam to hit them. But nothing happened.

Kara shook her hand and tried again desperately, but nothing happened.

She jumped up and ran over to Jenny. She pulled her to her feet. Jenny wavered slightly, but opened her eyes and seemed stronger than Kara had thought. Hope filled Kara with new energy.

The demons inspected themselves. They realized they weren’t hurt, and they charged again.

“Run!”

Kara dragged Jenny over to where Peter lay helplessly in a fetal position. Kara felt pity for him. She bent down and pulled him over her shoulders as though he weighed no more than a child. She hoped her M-5 suit’s strength could save them now. It was all she had left.