Seals (13 page)

She didn’t want to die her true death. She
wanted to
live
. It didn’t matter whether she survived as a
guardian or a mortal, as long as it was a life with David. It was
beginning to feel like a fantasy.

She continued to struggle with the darkness
inside her. Now that she had unleashed it, she felt it slowly
spreading, and she feared she could no longer control it. It might
be foolish, but she still had hope. The part of her that was angel
still believed she could change the course of the future—she would
not become the monster that killed her friends.

But the darkness inside her was
intoxicating. She had power that went beyond anything she had ever
felt, even beyond her elemental powers. It was
addictive
.
And like an addict, she trembled in cold sweats as she fought the
urge to succumb completely, to lose herself.

And so she walked in silence and clenched
her fists in the attempt to keep the darkness at bay. She had to
restrain it until she met another knight.

As soon as they arrived at the hospital,
Kara knew something was very wrong.

Masses of people lay on the road in front of
the red brick building. Their faces were covered in boils, blood,
and sores. They looked like someone had taken a cheese grater to
them. Their clothes were splattered and drenched in maroon stains.
Kara saw a young man vomiting blood, and she winced when he
collapsed on a pile of infected bodies. Mothers cried tears of
blood as they clutched their dead babies. People’s bodies and faces
were encrusted with sores that looked like third degree burns.
Moaning and wailing filled the air around them like a symphony from
hell. It reminded Kara of a scene from a zombie movie. Everyone was
infected.

Kara moved carefully through the dead and
infected, careful not to step on anyone or on anyone’s severed
limbs. She covered her nose, but it was impossible not to smell it.
It was everywhere, in the air and on their clothes. They stood
paralyzed by the horror of it all.

And as she looked at the sick and the dead,
Kara became mesmerized by all the blood. It drew her in and
nourished that part of her soul that was corrupted. Part of her
enjoyed the scene, enjoyed watching the suffering. The stench
became a luring fragrance. Darkness clouded her mind, and she
forgot why she was here. An intoxicating wickedness spread across
her chest, down her arms and legs, and into her wings.

She heard her friends’ voices and clung to
the knowledge of their friendship to regain control. Her body
trembled as she overcame the evil that had been triggered by the
sight of all the dead bodies. She clenched her jaw and pushed the
darkness down.

She turned her head away to help clear her
mind. But everywhere she looked, the dead plagued her vision, their
arms reaching out in a last desperate attempt to reach the
hospital. This was no natural disease. This was supernatural evil,
and only the supernatural could defeat it.

She was overcome with a cold anger, an anger
to kill.

“Are you feeling okay?” David appeared by
her side. “You’re shaking.”

Kara could feel his fear. She knew that when
they found the knight, David would be afraid to strike in case he
hurt her in the process. She knew him too well. But they had no
choice.
She
had no choice. They would have to try.

“I’m fine,” she lied. She was disgusted with
herself for the brief moment of satisfaction she had felt at the
sight of the dead.

“All these people. All these sick people.
It’s a lot to take in.”

She hated herself.

“It is,” said David. “You think the knight’s
still here?”

“I do,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t
feel its
presence
or anything like that, but I know it’s
here. Probably gloating at all the sickness and death it
spread.”

“Like some serial killers that come back to
the scene of the crime,” said Jenny.

“They like to relive the crime.”

“It’s sick
,” said
Peter coldly.

“This isn’t your typical serial killer,
either.” Ashley moved slowly among the dead, inspecting them more
closely, like she thought she might actually be able to help
them.

“I wish we could help them.” Jenny looked
like she was about to break down. “We
have
to do something.
Maybe we can find a cure or something? Or maybe find something to
help relieve the pain?”

“There’s nothing we can do for them,” said
Peter gently. “There’s no cure, Jenny. These are not normal
diseases.”

He was silent for a moment. “If you want to
help them, then we have to find a way to keep the seals from
breaking. It’s the only way.”

Jenny shook her head, her bottom lip
quivered. “But that’s like—how many more people are going to die
before we stop the knights? Thousands? Millions?”

“More than we can imagine,” whispered
Ashley.

Jenny nocked an arrow angrily. “I’m going to
kill them. I
swear
I will.”

“That’s the idea.” Ashley swung her sword
over her head and stood in a fighting stance. Her smile grew
wider.

While Kara appreciated Jenny and Ashley’s
courage and was grateful to have them by her side, she knew that
arrows and swords wouldn’t be enough to defeat the knights.

Suddenly, Kara felt a cold presence.

She scanned the scene and saw it
immediately. On the flat roof of the hospital she could see the
silhouette of a specter sitting on a giant steed. Even from a
distance she could tell it was watching
her
. It sat calmly,
waiting, waiting for Kara.

“It’s up there.” Kara pointed with her blade
to the rooftop. And before anyone could stop her, she spread her
wings and soared into the sky.

“Kara! Wait! It’s too dangerous!” she heard
David cry out.

“We don’t know what’ll happen to you!”

But she ignored him and beat her great black
wings. She wanted to kill it herself.

She hated the knight, and she hated herself.
She let her hatred control and fuel her. She didn’t want to think
about what would happen to her. Nothing mattered anymore.

She landed on the hospital roof and folded
her wings.

Like its brethren, the knight was enormous.
But unlike Famine, Pestilence wasn’t bony thin and haggard but
thick with rippling diseased muscles. Beneath a metal armor, its
skin was wet. It was covered in festering boils, rashes, and
growths, like it carried every possible disease on itself. It was
its own plague. She could see its red eyes watching her from behind
its metal helmet, and it held two great swords in its giant hands.
The knight was mounted on a tawny colored horse, and like its
master the beast’s coat was infected by disease. Kara winced at the
rank smell that rolled off of them. It was the stench of a million
dead corpses rotting in the sun.

She kept her distance and tried very hard to
hide the fear she felt inside. She watched the knight and waited
for an opportunity to draw her blade quickly. The only target she
could see was the head. If she could slip her blade into its eye,
she might be able to stab its brain.
Would that kill it? Could
she kill it? Would she kill herself?

Her friends would be running up the stairs
and bursting out onto the roof any minute now. She had to kill it
before they arrived. She had to do something. She clenched her
dagger so tightly that her fingers ached. There was only one way to
find out.

There was no time to think or figure out
plots. There was only time to attack.

The darkness pulsed inside her, and in that
instant she knew she had to use it.

Like an assassin, she sprang with only death
on her mind.

With a single, great flap of her wings, Kara
shot like a missile toward the knight with her dagger aimed at the
creature’s head.

The knight sneered. Its black pointed teeth
looked like spikes.

Just as the tip of her blade was inches from
the creature’s eyes, a shadow passed in front of her eyes, and
something hard punched her in the chest. Kara went spiraling
through the air and crashed on the rooftop. But she was up on her
feet again in an instant and attacked the knight again.

Some kind of steam drifted from its helmet.
Its scarlet eyes glowed, and its diseased face showed a smile. But
Kara didn’t have time to dwell on how ugly this beast was, she
sought only to kill it.

She leaped from the roof, and with a roar of
rage, she flew at him again.

The knight swung one of his great swords and
caught Kara in the chest. Pain exploded inside her, and she landed
on her side on the roof. Ignoring the pain, she rolled over and
leapt to her feet. Her wings beat behind her wildly and echoed the
fury that surged through her. She turned and faced her opponent
again.

The knight howled in delight, and his voice
boomed above the rooftop like the crackling of thunder.

“Give up, child of darkness. Why do you
oppose us? Why do you fight what you are?”

Kara spit the dirt from her mouth.

“I don’t know what you mean and frankly I
don’t
care. I fight for what’s right. I fight for the fate
of the mortals. I fight for the angels.”

“The angels?” The knight’s sneer expanded
and his shoulders shook in silent laughter. Sores on its shoulders
burst and festering rivulets of orange pus seeped out of the
blisters and over its metal armor like hot wax.

Kara turned her face away in disgust. The
way its sores burst open whenever it moved, and its overpowering
smell of sickness and death repulsed her even more than the first
knight.

The knight circled Kara. The steed was
graceful and light on its feet for a creature that was diseased.
Kara stayed still.

The knight’s voice echoed in the air
again.

“The fight between angels and man is over.
The time for the dark gods is now. It is too late…too late for this
world…too late for the other worlds. Our dark gods will make a
dominion of darkness. Night and decay and death will
hold dominion over all. Death is inevitable. The legion
was bound to fail from the beginning. There is no hope for mortals.
It is over.”

“There’s always hope.”

The knight snickered. “I feel the darkness
in you. The shadow world is strong inside you. You will become
great. Soon you will not care about these humans or this world, and
you will join us.”

“Never.”

“You know I speak the truth. You can feel it
inside, can’t you? The cold power calls to you, and you have
already set it free. Embrace what you are to become. Embrace what
you are. Embrace the darkness.”

“I’m going to cut out your tongue if you
don’t shut up…that’s if you even
have
one.”

“The angels and all ethereal creatures that
do not surrender and bow to the true dark gods will perish.”

Kara didn’t want to hear words anymore.

But somewhere deep inside her soul, she knew
it was right. Her mutation was nearly finished, and she could feel
the cold power flourishing inside as though it belonged in her. She
was meant to be on the wrong side, the side that killed innocents.
That killed angels.

“It’s too late now. You know I speak the
truth. Soon
you
will join the darkness.”

Her memories from the white oracle still
haunted her. Kara screamed in rage. She hit her head repeatedly
with the pommel of her dagger.

“I won’t. I’m not evil!” she cried. “I’m an
angel
.”

“You are no longer an angel.”

“SHUT UP!”

Kara’s hatred throbbed with a cold, dull
ache, and she felt the cool, untamed power ripple down her spine
and spread to her wings. It clouded her mind with thoughts of
death. The dead, whispered in her ears, coercing her, compelling
her to believe that all those who had died would have died anyway.
She would be showing them no mercy. Kill them all.

“No, I don’t want this.”

She shook her head and whimpered at the
desperation she felt as she tried to maintain control.

The darkness had lied to her. It was trying
to trick her. She
had
to make it stop. She had to stop the
knights. Her head cleared momentarily, and she focused all her
malice on the repulsive knight. She wanted to shut it up, to stop
it from speaking the dreaded truth she already knew.

“I am an angel,” she wailed, partly to the
monster and partly to herself.

In a wild fury, Kara threw her blade. As she
watched the blade lance across the rooftop, she knew it wouldn’t
kill the knight, but it certainly would anger it. Maybe it would
anger it enough that it would dismount, and then maybe she’d have a
fighting chance. The blade flew straight and true and sank deep
into the knight’s neck in the unprotected part near the
clavicles.

The knight thrashed about in sudden surprise
and pain, but Kara staggered, too, as a searing pain burned a spot
on her own neck in the exact same place where she had hit the
knight. She pressed on her wound with her hand and looked up.

A mix of black and orange pus spurted from
around the blade where it had hit the knight. She might have hit an
artery. The steed neighed and reared up on its back legs, but the
knight stayed on. He pulled out her blade and tossed it at her
feet, challenging her to try again. It was nothing to him.

Kara absorbed all of her pain and anger and
fury and let it fill every inch of her. Then she picked up her
blade, screamed, and threw herself toward the knight like a
bullet.

The knight sneered and flicked his hand. The
shadows rose up again and slammed Kara to the ground. She fell,
rolled, and tried to get on her feet, but another shadow wrapped
itself around her waist and yanked her sideways. The knight flicked
his wrist again, and Kara was lifted and hurled back onto the
rooftop. The impact crushed her wings, and she lay in a heap on the
ground.