Reapers (15 page)

She was beginning to fear that her
return as a guardian was in some way connected with the way that
the creature had pulled away from her. How could she be connected
to that soul-eating demon?

“
Let’s find a source of
water and get out of this godforsaken town,” said Jenny suddenly.
“It’s giving me the creeps.”

“
Same here,” agreed Peter.
“Ubercreeps.”

“
Let’s check the nearest
hotel for an indoor swimming pool,” said Kara.

The four of them began their trek back
up the street. Kara knew that David was still watching her
carefully, but she ignored him and kept quiet. The pain in her back
acted up again, but she forced herself to stay calm and pretended
that it didn’t burn. She pretended that she didn’t feel the panic
that was slowly overwhelming her. What was going on? What was
happening to her?

The smell in the air suddenly changed,
and Kara recognized the cloying warm scent of death. She sensed the
wailing screams of thousands of captive souls again. She
halted.

And then she saw them.

Four reapers stood in the
street.

Chapter 10

A Losing Battle

T
he reapers materialized at the head of the street as if they
had sprouted up from the ground. Identical in size and choice of
weapon, they were a black impenetrable wall of evil and
death.

“
You’ve got to be kidding
me,” David rubbed his hands on top of his head.

“
Four
reapers! What do we do now? Our weapons have zero effect on
these soul-suckers.” He looked nervously at Kara and then back at
the reapers.

“
Any great ideas, people?
How do we kill these things?”

“
They bleed gross black
stuff,” suggested Peter. “If they bleed, then maybe we can kill
them?” he added hopefully.

“
Not with anything we have
on us,” said Jenny, pointing her arrows at them anyway. “Didn’t you
say that we might have a chance
if
they lingered in the mortal world too
long?”

She looked at Peter but he didn’t
answer.

“
Although it looks to me
like these guys just got here.”

“
If we get back—and I’m
really, really hoping that we do—I’m asking Ariel for a raise.”
David laughed nervously.

“
Well, at least now we’re
even. Gotta love these odds.”

“
I wouldn’t call this
even.” Kara didn’t like the odds. These creatures were practically
unknown to the legion. She shifted her weapon nervously in her
hand, but she was sure it wouldn’t do much damage.

“
I say that they can’t
hurt or kill us as easily as they did the mortals,” said David. He
sounded determined.

“
Think about it, they
steal
mortal
souls, not angel souls. We can beat them.”

Kara hoped silently that David was
right.

The reapers moved apart with a ghostly
shudder. They screeched as they went, tearing and ripping the hot,
smoky air. Their long black robes curled like mist.

Kara felt a sting in her chest. If
only she still had her elemental abilities, perhaps she could be
more useful. She felt powerless, and useless.

The reapers began to circle around
them. But soon they were moving so fast that they became a black
blur. They became a circle of black smoke that kept rising and
rising until it formed a moving, circular wall.

They were trapped.

Piercing shrieks reverberated around
them, and Kara felt the screaming from inside her own head, as
though the voices from the lost souls were calling out to her. Like
a giant migraine, the screams were relentless and horrible. She
felt their sadness and agony again, and it pained her. Her knees
began to buckle, but she struggled to stand. She knew that if she
fell and let herself be taken, she would die. The reapers would
take her soul as well. They were the bringers of death.

The wind smelled of rotten flesh, and
the shrill, echoing cries of the trapped souls rose all around like
a thunderstorm.

“
Make it stop! I can’t
take this anymore,” cried Peter. He covered his ears.

Kara shuddered at the fear in his
voice. She felt it too.

“
You have to stay
together!” cried David over the loud screeching.

“
Back to back! Get ready.
We can do this.”

They all obediently pressed their
backs against one another, until they formed a tight circle of
their own, weapons drawn.

Suddenly, a reaper broke from the ring
and materialized like a puff of smoke right in front of Jenny. In a
flash, it hacked its great scythe at her.

Jenny dodged and rolled just as the
tip of the blade sliced through her M-5 suit and into her flesh.
She came up behind the creature, and faster than a blink of an eye
she shot an arrow at the back of the reaper’s head.

But just as the arrow was about to
hit, the creature spun and deflected the arrow away with its
scythe. It had anticipated Jenny’s shot as though it had eyes in
the back of its head.

Then as quickly as it had appeared, it
disappeared in a puff of black smoke.

Jenny cursed as she armed her bow with
two more arrows.

“
It saw me!” she said
through gritted teeth. “How could it see me?”

Peter pulled Jenny back next to him in
their protective circle.

Kara could see that David also had the
uneasy feeling that the reaper had some sort of sixth sense that
anticipated danger.

While the black, ghostly circle
continued to spin around them, individual reapers prodded their
scythes at them with quick jabs, teasing them. Their bodies twisted
and writhed. They screeched in delight.

Kara knew that if by some
miracle they were to survive this, they needed to get out of the
reaper’s circle and
run
.

Suddenly the reapers stopped. The
black smoke circle evaporated into the air. Their hooded heads all
turned and looked behind Kara.

David frowned. “What? What are they
looking at?”

“
Die, demons!” cried a
voice from behind them.

Kara recognized the voice and tried to
call out to stop her. But it was too late.

Mousy little Sasha came hurtling
toward the reapers heroically. She threw a moonstone at the foot of
one of the reapers and smiled triumphantly at her perfect aim. The
moonstone exploded, and Sasha’s forward momentum carried her closer
to the reaper. In one fluid movement, the reaper swung its scythe
at the guardian angel, cutting her as easily as if she had been a
leaf.

Her severed body fell to the ground.
Millions of glowing particles rose in the air like tiny fireflies
and migrated to the reaper’s scythe. In a moment Sasha’s angel soul
was completely sucked into the weapon. The red blade shone as
though it were welcoming its new soul.

Her M-5 suit withered and blackened,
until there was nothing left but a pile of gray ashes.

Kara watched, transfixed and horrified
at how easily a guardian could die with the sweep of a reaper’s
scythe. Reapers could kill angels and ensnare their souls, too. Her
friend’s screams became disconnected and muffled, like in a dream.
And then she heard more shouting.

Raymond and Ling tore toward the
reapers with soul blades wielded in each of their hands. They were
oblivious to the gray ashes on the ground, oblivious to what
remained of their teammate. They hadn’t seen what had happened to
Sasha.

“
STOP! WAIT!” Kara
yelled.

They kept running.

“
No!” Kara moved forward,
but David pulled her back, his face tight.

“
It’s too late for
them.”

Kara watched in horror as two reapers
moved toward Raymond and Ling. The reapers moved as one and swung
their scythes with such force and speed that Raymond and Ling
didn’t even flinch or stop.

Kara head a gurgle, a gag, and then
they were split in half from head to toe. Their M-5 suits peeled
away and fell over to their sides like banana peels. And then, just
as had happened with Sasha, their angel souls floated into the air
and drifted into the reapers’ scythes. Their M-5 suits became ashes
blowing in the wind.

While Kara had never cared for these
three guardians, she knew they didn’t deserve to die like this.
Were their souls truly dead, or somehow still alive and imprisoned
within the reapers’ scythes?

“
This is our chance,” said
David. “They seem to have temporarily forgotten about us, like
they’re still enjoying their recent kills. It’s time for us to say
bye bye.”

“
He’s right,” agreed Jenny
bravely. But Kara could see her angel essence was spilling out of
her side, and her skin was pale.

“
Let’s get out of here
before they get greedy and put
angel
soul
back on their menu.”

As they turned and raced back up the
street, Kara looked over her shoulder. The reapers still hadn’t
moved. And then something struck her as odd. Where was Ashley? It
wasn’t like Ashley to leave her team behind. She was the team
leader; where could she be?

“
We need to find water!”
yelled Peter.

“
We’re in a giant desert!”
cried David. “There is no water!”

“
Shut up you two,” howled
Jenny. “There are like a million hotels here.”

David turned to her, “Sorry to rain on
your parade, Jen, but it’s not like we have time to play the
tourist.”

“
Not that, you idiot,”
argued Jenny.

“
She means we’ll find
water in the hotel pools,” interrupted Kara as she ran.

“
Thank Horizon! We’re
saved!” David made his way toward the nearest hotel, a giant, pink
building with two huge palm trees on either side of the front
entrance, and a sign that read
PINK DUNES
HOTEL, SPA AND POOL
.

Suddenly Ashley came tearing down the
street back toward the reapers. She was weeping
furiously.

“
No!” she cried between
sobs. “I’ll kill you all! Demons!”

With her soul blade in her hand,
Ashley ran toward the four reapers, ready to die to avenge her
friends.

Kara knew it was crazy. She hated the
girl, and the girl hated her back. But somehow she spun around, and
in two great strides, she grabbed hold of Ashley’s
jacket.

“
Ashley, they’re gone!”
Kara pulled the girl around to face her. “There’s nothing we can do
to help them. You’re going to get killed.”

“
Let go of me—you freak!”
Ashley kicked and punched at Kara desperately.

Her voice cracked. “My—my team—my
friends. I have to help them. There’s still a chance!”

Kara slapped Ashley in the face hard,
harder than she had intended. It worked. Ashley stopped fighting
her.

“
Ashley, listen to me,”
said Kara urgently. “They’re gone, they’re all gone. And we’ll be
joining them soon if you don’t come with me right now. Ashley? Are
you listening to me?”

Ashley staggered, dazed. She looked
like a lost, frightened puppy, not at all like the headstrong young
guardian Kara remembered.

“
I…I told them to wait…I
told them to wait for me…” mumbled Ashley. Her lips trembled, and
her eyes were unfocused.

Kara looked over Ashley’s
shoulder.

The four reapers were coming up the
street toward them.

“
Come on!” Kara grabbed
Ashley’s hand and pulled her into a run. She could see David,
Jenny, and Peter waiting for her at the hotel’s door.

Jenny moved forward and drew four
arrows, one for each reaper.

As the arrows whipped past Kara, she
stole a look behind her.

The reapers were so close now that she
could smell the rotten warmth of death again.

The reapers screeched in frustration,
angered that their next meals had run away from them. They had
tasted angel souls, and now they would stop at nothing to get
more.

A black tendril flashed past Kara and
was gone. Something tangled around her legs, and she and Ashley
both fell. Kara whirled around and shot her weapon straight into
the face of the first reaper. It shrieked and danced away, but
there were still three others, coming in fast.

Kara pulled Ashley to her
feet.

“
Come on! We’re almost
there!”

The two girls ran in desperation. If
they fell now, they would join Sasha and the others.

Jenny continued to fire at the
reapers, and while it didn’t slow them down, it did distract them,
which was better than nothing.

And just when Kara thought her M-5
suit was going to explode, she and Ashley reached the hotel doors
and rushed inside. David pushed them out of the way and bolted the
doors shut.