Rising (38 page)

My shield was strong, but small, which
allowed the reaper to walk right up to me.
 
It was strange how similar it looked like the others we encountered at
Jessie’s, but it also had a subtle difference in its angular face.
 
I thought they would all be carbon copies of
each other, like some kind of lizard or snake, but they weren’t.
 
Like any race on earth, there were subtle
differences.
 
While its glowing eyes
looked at me more like an animal than a man, there was a frightening sense of
intelligence hiding behind that glare.

“What is this?” it bellowed in perfect
English, though its voice sounded like the rumble of thunder.
 
“A little Guardian, is it?”
 

The shock of this beast speaking my
language wore off quickly.
 
I realized it
was toying with me.
 
There was no need to
answer.
 
I heard a stifled cry.
 
My eyes flashed toward my mom where the third
shadow scout had found its way to keep her still, pressing her throat against
the bark of the tree.
 
Then I realized
that she was staring at it, as if she could actually see it.
 
I studied the shadow scouts, noticing that
they were clearly visible to the human eye, not just my own.
 
I suppose they didn’t bother wasting energy
in camouflaging themselves once the prey was caught.

“Ready, master,” said the scout with
the scar.

The reaper’s gargantuan head tilted
toward my mom.
 
I must’ve made a noise,
because it snapped its eyes back on me with splintering speed.
 
It could see my terror, building, threatening
to overwhelm me.
 
I sensed my power
beginning to weaken.
 
It seemed the
reaper sensed it, too.
 
It lifted its
long, black arm, snaking it along my protective shell in an S-pattern as if
showing me how it could sever my body in half were it able to get through my
shield.
 
Tiny electric sparks showered
down on the outside.
 
Only a thin,
transparent layer of light held him back, but it was enough to keep it from
crossing over all the same.

“Ah,” I heard a gasp and cry from my
mom again.

The scarred one yanked her head back by
the hair.

“Get away from her!” I screamed taking
two long steps toward them before realizing my shield followed me, leaving my
dad’s arm exposed.
 
I leapt back with
maddening speed.

The reaper grinned, showing me a slick
line of black ooze.
 
I shivered,
remembering Ben.
  
There was a creepy,
knowing look in the reaper’s snake-like eyes.

“Humans are strange creatures,” it said
in that bellowing voice, “Let us experiment.”

With those weird words, it stalked
toward my mom less gracefully than the others.
 
Oh, God.
 
No, this wasn’t
happening again.
 
I grabbed my father’s
leg and tried to drag him, barely moving him an inch.
 
He was dead weight.
 
There was no way to move him with me and get
him across the yard in time.
 
I turned
abruptly, watching the reaper step slowly toward my mom whose eyes were on
me.
 
Her beautiful red hair was damp with
sweat and tears, sticking to her pale face.
 
I closed my eyes, frantically focusing on my power, trying to pull it
from deep inside so I could push it outward and reach her.
 
I opened my eyes, seeing the golden halo
extend a few more feet.

The reaper didn’t block my mom’s body,
as if he wanted me to see this.
 
Uncontrollable tears were spilling down my face.

“No!
 
Please!
 
Please don’t!”

I couldn’t believe I was begging, but I
didn’t know what to do.
 
The more I
panicked, the less control I had on my power, and the closer he stepped toward
her, the more my fear grew.
 
Finally, it
was in front of her.
 
It flipped its
cloak back over its shoulders and flared its wings upward and outward like the
one before, revealing all the power in its massive, grotesque body.
 
Even the hood fell away, revealing an
impenetrable, knotty skull.
 
Its head
seemed to be made of hard bone, as if it bore a dense, exoskeleton from the
neck up.
 
I briefly wondered what kind of
world created this monster.
 
It glanced
toward me as one pointed arm severed into seven fingers, grasping my mother’s
skull.
 
The scarred shadow scout stepped
away, since the others held her wrists.
 

I started to run toward them, turning
to see that I could only move one yard before my dad was out of the shield of
protection.
 
The scarred scout dashed to
the periphery above my dad, just waiting for me to move too far.
 
I turned back to the beast.
 
I knew that its huge size was no hindrance on
its speed.
 
As soon as I left my dad, the
thing would have him in its grip.
 
I
realized that it was staring at me with interest.

“Choices,” it said with no feeling at
all, “which will it be?”

I shook my head in disbelief.

“Choose?” I heard myself ask.

How do I choose?
 
Was it even possible?
 
What an evil, perverse thing to ask of
anyone.
 
Then, I remembered this thing
wasn’t from my world.
 
Whatever dark hole
it had crawled from, there was no touch of humanity or mercy in that
place.
 
It was then that I realized what
a dreadfully, menacing force we were up against.
 

The wretched creature twisted my mom’s
delicate head toward me, so that she was forced to look at me.
 
I could see the raw fear filling her
eyes.
 
In that moment, I’d forgotten every
fight we ever had.
 
All I could see was
my sweet mother.
 
The one who helped me
make that pretty lemonade stand with blue gingham curtains to sell on the
street corner.
 
The one who brought me
mint chocolate chip ice cream whenever I had a sore throat.
 
The one who made the most perfect cupcakes
for my birthdays, always letting me lick the bowl.
 
The one who used to sneak in at night and
check on me in bed when she thought I was already asleep.
 
The one who read Dr. Seuss to me every night
because she knew it made me laugh.
 
My mom,
the one who I’d pushed away for the past few years, even when I knew she loved
me as much as I loved her.

This foul creature held her in its
grasp and there was nothing I could do.
 
I shook my head violently, feeling my shield ebb away.

“It’s okay, Clara,” she said in a shaky
voice, a willowy arm reaching toward me, “it’s okay, it’s o—”

The reaper’s rapier arm had slid under
her ribs in a swift, silent movement, cutting off her breath.

“Mom!”

I heard myself screaming, but it
sounded so distant, like it was happening far away.
 
I wailed over and over, watching the
unimaginable in front of me.
 
My
beautiful mother blackened to cinder as the reaper sucked the life out of her,
her mouth agape and her eyes hollow.
 
I
fell to my knees, unable to absorb what I’d just seen.
 
I knew that my shield was no more.
 
I knew it because the shaking flames of fear
were licking up my spine; the scarred scout had his hands on my shoulders,
sending his energy of terror through me.
 
Strangely, the fear had no place inside of me.
 
It kept twisting into despair, the longer I
looked on the ashen statue of my dead mother.
 
Hot tears spilled down my cheeks.

A high-pitched shriek echoed around
me.
 
As the reaper stepped away from what
was left of my mother, an ash-eater slinked up toward her.
 
It had been waiting in the shadows.
 
Morbid fascination made me watch how it
didn’t seem to have any limbs under its pasty gray, crackled cloak.
 
Wait, it wasn’t a cloak.
 
It was frayed wings, thin and tattered,
lagging heavily on that skeletal body.
 
Its
bare head had no features at all, only a yawning, hungry mouth.
 
As it drew nearer, I looked away.
 
I couldn’t watch what it was about to
do.
 
There was nothing I could do to stop
it.
 
Everything seemed to slip away from
me in a feeling of overwhelming hopelessness.
 
I didn’t even care that the reaper was standing above me with no shield
between us.
 
My head was bowed in defeat.
      
“Strange creatures you humans are.
While humans think of others before themselves, we serve ourselves first.
 
This is why we are dominant, and you—”

I felt a sharp sting under my chin,
lifting it upward.
 
It was one of the
creature’s sharpened finger tips, making me look into its demon eyes.

“—are food.”

“Go ahead,” I said, choking back a sob,
“just get it over with.”

“No,” it said, dropping its voice even
deeper, “I will kill you slowly.
 
I may
even keep you as a slave.
 
Setti
make such faithful slaves.”

In that instant, I felt a flare of
power in my gut.
 
Without even trying, a
burning light instinctively lurched out in a small burst.
 
The beast felt it too, growling fiercely,
then slashed at my face with its clawed finger.
 
A stinging burn sliced across my left cheek, sending a searing pain and
an electric shock through my entire body.
 
It radiated from my face, down my neck and spine, rippling farther
downward in agonizing torture.
 
My mind
took over, carrying me away from this place of pain.
 
As my body began to tip sideways and slip
from consciousness, I became faintly aware of a building pressure rushing
through the air above me.
 
In the muffled
distance, I heard Gabe calling my name.

15

GABE

“She did what!” I yelled.

“She took Mommy’s car,” repeated Hunter,
shrinking back into the seat cushion.

“Get in, Jeremy! Now!”

I knew I sounded like an ass, but I didn’t
care.
 
He jumped in the back next to
Hunter without saying a word.
 
That’s
what I liked about Jeremy.
 
He had good
sense.
 
I made sure Ben was strapped in
securely, because I couldn’t promise we would make it to Clara’s house safe and
sound.
  
I tore a hole in the lawn,
spinning out of the yard.
 

What was she
thinking
?
 
Had she completely
lost her mind?
 
No.
 
Maybe not.
 
Maybe I
was
being an ass.
 
I didn’t even consider how seeing her own
cousin transformed into a shadow scout might affect her.
 
I wasn’t even taking a second to think about
how it affected me.
 
After all, Jessie
had been my friend for most of high school, but I couldn’t focus on that right
now.
 
There was too much at stake.

Clara was just too damn impulsive.
 
She didn’t even consider that separating from
us put us all in danger.
 
I was worried
about my own mom and grandfather, too, but we had to act rationally. Going
rogue wasn’t the smartest plan in the world, especially after seeing what these
creatures could do.
 
Above all that, my
heart pounded at a maddening speed because she was endangering herself and
risked encountering these things on her own.
 
I needed to be there, to be with her.

“Watch that—”

Jeremy was warning me about a mailbox in the
middle of the street, but I’d seen it already, swerving like a maniac without
dropping speed.
 
I understood now what
Homer meant about needing to control your emotions.
 
Clara was thinking with her heart, not her
head.
 
At the moment, so was I.
 
I felt physically nauseous not knowing what
was happening to her.

“Watch that—”

Jeremy pointed at a red tricycle that had
rolled into the road, but I crashed right into it, sending it spiraling across
a yard.
 
Gusting wind spun around us and
night had nearly come.
 
There was no
electricity anywhere.
 
Without street
lights and the yellow glow from windows, it felt like we were painfully
alone.
 
Finally, I turned onto Gardenia
Drive, shifting quickly up into fifth gear speeding to the end of the street.