Reapers (17 page)

Now Kara understood that the reapers
weren’t a new threat at all, but the return of a malignant old
enemy. And from what she could gather from Raphael’s reaction,
these archfiends might even be more powerful than the archangels
themselves.

“
What’s the legion’s
plan?” Kara said.

She saw the look of defeat return to
the archangel’s face, so she continued,

“
If the legion beat them
once, surely we can beat them again. And they haven’t broken out of
their prison yet, right? We’ve only seen the reapers, not the
archfiends, which means they’re still in there.”

The archangel held Kara’s eyes and
didn’t answer.

“
Right,” said Kara,
puzzled. “Well, if they
haven’t
, then it means we still have
the upper hand. We just have to stop them from breaking out. We
need to figure out if they’ve got a
get-out-of-jail-free-card
, and
destroy it before they have a chance to use it. Whatever it is. I
know we can do this.”

Raphael forced a smile.

“
I admire your courage,
Kara. I always have. You are a remarkable guardian.”

But then she rose from her seat as
though the conversation were over.

“
I’ve been called to a
meeting with the High Council,” she said rather coldly.

“
In fact, I really must be
going.”

Raphael came over and inspected Kara
curiously.

“
Well,” she said, and put
her hands on her hips. “You truly are a mystery, but I just can’t
see anything wrong with you.”

“
Then, can I go? I’m dying
to see the others.” Mostly, Kara wanted to see David, but she kept
that to herself.

“
You may go,” said Raphael
with a smile.

With her angel body back to normal,
Kara felt she was invincible. And when she came to think of it,
since their arrival back, she had felt stronger. It was as though
she’d been given a dose of angel-steroids. She couldn’t explain it,
but she didn’t care. She was sure the archfiends’ situation would
reveal itself in more detail to her later.

Kara waved goodbye to
Raphael.

Ashley sat with her head down, looking
morbid and gloomier than before. Kara couldn’t believe what she was
about to say to the girl who hated her.

“
Ashley,” said Kara, as
she moved toward the other guardian. “I’m sorry about your team,
your friends,” she began awkwardly. “I know you’re blaming
yourself, but it’s not your fault. It’s nobody’s fault. There was
nothing you could have done.”

Ashley gripped the sides of her chair
but said nothing.

“
I know you were listening
before, you heard what Raphael said. We could really use someone
like you on the team. Are you up for it? You could come with me
right now.”

“
Why don’t you just shut
up and leave me alone?” spat Ashley.

Kara pressed her lips into a fine
line. Just as she was about to tell Ashley off, to bellow out all
the new curse words that she’d learnt this summer from David, she
bit her tongue. The sadness that flashed on Ashley’s face caused
Kara to see and feel her pain. She thought of Lilith then, and her
own insides twisted with pain.

“
I’ll leave you alone if
that’s what you want,” said Kara gently.

“
That’s what I
want.”

Ashley turned away from Kara and
stared at her boots. Even though she acted tough, Kara could see
she was in torment.

The door swung open, and a giant
crystal ball rolled into the chamber. The tiny man with curly white
hair that looked like he was wearing a cloud maneuvered his crystal
ball effortlessly with his bare feet and stopped inches from Kara’s
face. A bright smile spread across his wrinkled face.

“
Hello, hello! I’m oracle
# 779-MIND, from the Mental Health Unit, but everyone calls me
Doctor What, because
what
-ever it is, I’m going to find
it!”

He jumped in the air. “How lucky you
are! It’s not every day that a young guardian such as yourself gets
a visit from Doctor What.”

He puffed out his chest
proudly.

“
I’m here for your psych
evaluation, Stacey,” said the oracle cheerfully, like Kara had just
won the lottery.

He pulled out a large magnifying glass
from the folds of his silver robe and began to inspect her
head.

“
I see that you have a
very large frontal lobe, which could very well be the source of the
problem—”

Kara slapped the magnifying glass away
and jumped back in alarm.

“
I’m not Stacey, my name
is Kara. And I think you mean Ashley.”

His eyes moved to Ashley, who
stiffened in her chair and stared murderously at the
oracle.

Kara bit her tongue to stop from
laughing.

The oracle winced.

“
Oh, goodness me. My
apologies,” he said to Kara, “But are you really sure you
don’t
need
one?
I
perform a whole battery of tests that measure an angel’s
intelligence, academic achievement, weaknesses, and recent and old
traumas. I have recommended specific strategies that have proven to
be helpful with dealing with the loss of team members, and in
evaluating angel disorders. My tests are e
specially beneficial for
younger
angels who are not used to
such—”

“
Uh—no thanks, Doctor
What. I’ve already had my psych eval this month,” Kara lied and
smiled kindly, hoping to run away before the oracle insisted she
stay.

The oracle scratched his head
aggressively.

“
Suit yourself, Clara. But
remember, I am here to help!”

He rolled his crystal ball
toward Ashley, and she looked up at him with daggers in her eyes.
“Hello dear. I’m oracle # 779-MIND, from the Mental Health Unit,
but everyone calls me Doctor What, because
what
-ever is it, I’m—”

Ashley kicked the crystal ball with
her foot, and Doctor What went sprawling on the ground.

Raphael rushed over to the oracle and
helped him up. And as she came thundering toward Ashley, who looked
somewhat pleased with what she had done, Kara took that as her cue
to leave.

She bolted for the door and didn’t
look back. As she ran out of the chamber and down the corridor, she
could hear Raphael’s voice booming like a murderous thunderstorm
and reverberating off the stone walls. Ashley would be getting more
than just a psych evaluation now. Although Kara felt sorry for
Ashley, the girl was still a fool.

Kara reached the building’s front
doors, burst them open, and rushed out into the street where she
crashed into David.

She staggered and nearly fell, but
David scooped her up in his arms.

“
I knew you couldn’t
resist me for very long,” said David with a sheepish smile on his
face. He drew her close, so close that she could have leaned her
head forward and kissed him if she wanted to.

Her body tingled at his nearness and
his touch. To feel another angel’s skin and body in Horizon was
electrifying. She felt it shooting down her arms and into her
fingers, tingling in her toes. She couldn’t get enough of
it.

But when she caught the many looks on
the faces passing by, she wiggled out of David’s embrace, but very
slowly.

“
Stop. You’re embarrassing
me,” said Kara, with a smile.

“
You know we can’t show
our…we can’t suggest that we feel…you know…what we feel for each
other. No one’s supposed to know, or at least suspect.”

David watched her for a
moment.

“
You love me, admit it,”
he said. “It’s okay. You don’t have to say it back, but you can’t
fool me. I can see it in your face. You loooovvvve me.”

He shoved his hands in his pockets.
His face was more beautiful every time she looked at it.

Kara shifted uncomfortably.

“
Focus please. We’re
angels, remember? Guardians.” She did her best to control her
feelings.

“
So, Raphael let you go,”
said David, still smiling. “I knew you were fine. So very, very
fine.”

Kara shoved him playfully. “Stop that,
you idiot. Raphael could find nothing wrong with me, so I’m free to
go. By guardian angel standards, I’m perfectly healthy—”

A shot of searing pain stabbed her
between her shoulder blades. It was happening again, and this time
it was worse. She clenched her teeth and trembled as she forced
herself to stop from screaming.

“
What was that?” David
could see she was in pain. “I thought you said you were
okay?”

The pain stopped, as quickly as it had
started.

“
What was what?” she lied
and quickly changed the subject.

“
Raphael told me some
interesting information about the reapers and who created
them.”

She recounted Raphael’s story about
the archfiends, glad that David’s interest in this new information
had distracted him from his concern about the stabbing pains in her
back.

She was torn about whether to tell him
that her memory hadn’t returned, and that the pain hadn’t subsided
but was getting worse. She decided not to worry him any
further.

David narrowed his eyes
suddenly.

“
Why didn’t Ariel tell us
about these archfiends? It makes no sense. It’s like they just sent
us out there without all the facts. It’s not like her.”

“
I don’t know,” said Kara,
who wondered the same thing.

“
Maybe they were hoping to
be wrong? I’m not sure it would have helped us anyway. But the way
Raphael looked when she talked about them, I think they didn’t want
us little angels to know. I think they’re ashamed. Maybe it’s a
deep, dark secret that the archangels wanted to keep, and that they
believed they would never have to tell.”

“
And now it’s out,” David
said.

He watched Kara for a moment, but his
mind was elsewhere.

“
Well, CDD’s been given
the mandate to figure out how to seek and destroy the reapers,” he
said finally. “That’s why I’ve come to fetch you. Jenny and Peter
are waiting for us back at the unit. First, we need to figure out
where the reapers will strike next. Then we figure out how to kill
them.”

Kara raised an eyebrow.

“
It’s not going to be that
easy. You saw how they killed the others. They have to have a
weakness. There must be something we just haven’t figured out yet,
that we haven’t seen. I’m sure of it.”

“
How did the archangels
defeat them in the first place?”

Kara shrugged. “I don’t know, she
didn’t say. Maybe Ariel knows?”

David shook his head. “She doesn’t. If
she did, she would have told us.”

A group of oracles rolled by on their
crystals. “I wonder if the oracles know more about these
archfiends, and if they’re willing to tell. I know how secretive
and strange they can be with all the information that swims inside
their big brains. But I think it’s worth a shot to ask
them.”

“
I agree,” said Kara. “And
I know exactly
which
oracle to ask.”

He might be able to answer a few more
questions that she was dying to ask, and he was someone whom she
could trust to keep them secret.

David smirked, impressed. “Pretty and
smart, a dangerous combination.”

“
Shut up.”

“
So, who’s the lucky
guy?”

“
An oracle named Mr.
Patterson.”

Kara followed David out of the city
and down the forest path toward the elevator. She could think only
of the three questions she was dying to ask Mr. Patterson. Why
couldn’t she remember how she died? Why had she become transparent?
And why was she suffering from recurring pains in her
back?

Chapter 12

The Visitors

K
ara, Jenny, Peter and David stood outside Old Jim’s
Bookstore. A dark, navy sky sparkled with bright stars. The moon
was full and spilled soft gray light over the quiet street and cast
long shadows. Yellow light trickled from the store’s windows, and
Kara could see a shadow moving on the inside.

The pain in her back was increasingly
worse. It hurt her just to stand, and she did her best to hide her
discomfort in front of her friends.

“
He’s here,” said Kara as
she moved toward the front door. Ignoring the
closed
sign hanging crookedly on the
old wooden front door, she turned the knob and pushed
in.

Mr. Patterson sat on a stool behind a
glass counter. He looked up casually from his book as they
approached. His expression was contemplative and serious, as though
he had been expecting them. He measured them through his bushy
white eyebrows. And then he frowned.