Seals (21 page)

“It means
Death conquers all
.”

“And life will go on,” countered Kara,
slightly pleased at herself.

“Life?” laughed the archfiend. “Your idea of
life will not exist after the apocalypse. There will be no more
mortal souls for the legion to save because there will be
no
more
legion, no more Horizon. Only the dark gods and those who
serve us will survive. As much as I appreciate your determination,
your will to fight for what you believe is right, it will all be in
vain. Horizon’s actions are fruitless. Angel kin cannot stop us.
You cannot stop a
god
.”

Kara didn’t know what possessed her, but she
couldn’t help it.

“You’re
not
a god—”

Whack
.

Salthazar smacked her on her head, and she
staggered forward. After she blinked the white spots from her eyes,
she stared at him. His face was stone cold, but his eyes were
saying,
Play the game, stupid, for both our sakes
.

Whatever game she decided to play would be
her
own
game.

The screams rose from below the cliffs, and
she could definitely hear some sort of battle cry, but it was too
far away to make it out. Suddenly all the archfiends except
Beelzebub stood up. Beelzebub’s eyes lingered on her as though he
was waiting for something.

The archfiends passed her without a glance
in her direction and moved to the edge of the platform. They spread
their great big wings, dove down from the edge and disappeared.

Kara shuffled a few curious feet toward the
spot where the archfiends had disappeared, but Salthazar grabbed
her by the arm and pulled her back forcefully.

She scowled at him, and he smiled back.

“And I thought you liked me,” she said.

“Oh, but I do like you,” he purred. “Very,
very much.”

She raised her bonds. “Then prove it and cut
these off.”

“She’s like a stubborn mule that we need to
break,” said Betaazu before Salthazar could answer her.

Kara looked over to the dais. It was the
first time she had seen a real smile on the archfiend’s face, and
it was terrifying.

Beelzebub raised a finger. “
Break
her.”

A very happy Betaazu and two other fiends
came at her with whips and chains.

Why hadn’t she noticed their weapons before
she opened her big stupid mouth?

Kara lifted her hands again.

“Not really fair, is it.”

She turned to the Salthazar, “Can you at
least untie me?”

But the demon lord’s face was a blank mask.
He stepped away from her and gave the fiends the space they needed
to beat her.

“Thanks,” she grumbled. “You hurt my
feelings.”

At first she had wanted to die. But the look
of their weapons and the grins on the fiends’ faces sickened her,
and her ideas changed. She would fight them with everything she
had.

Kara braced herself for the first
assault.

The female fiend came at her swinging a
chain like a lasso, twirling it at her side and then above her
head.

“Show off.” Kara snarled. She wished she
could use her wings to cut off her head.

The fiend grinned with pointy teeth. “You’re
mine now, girlie girl. I can’t wait to taste you—”

The red-haired fiend came for her, fast and
slippery, like a wraith. She swung the chain at Kara’s neck.

Kara ducked and heard the chain whip over
her head.

Where were the other two fiends?

She heard the second whip before she saw it.
It wrapped around her neck and yanked.

The world tilted and Kara heard a crunch as
her jaw hit the ground. She opened her mouth and spit out some of
her teeth. She had loved her straight teeth, but she needed to
control her outraged vanity and save herself. She twisted the chain
around her legs and pulled. The force was enough to loosen the
chain’s grip around her neck. Kara jumped to her feet and glared at
the redheaded freak.

She spit out one last tooth. “I’ll kill you
for this.”

Faster than a blink of an eye, there was
crack, and the red haired fiend had wrapped the chain around her
ankle. Kara crashed to the ground again. The fiend was on top of
her instantly, with her black fangs poised over Kara’s neck. Kara
bucked and thrashed and kicked the fiend’s head with her boot. She
rolled over to the side and loosed the chain from her ankle.

The fiend came at her again, fangs
exposed.

Kara head butted her with all her strength,
and the fiend staggered and fell backward. Without a second to
lose, Kara grabbed the chain as best she could with her bound hands
and wrapped it around the creature’s neck. She pulled and pulled
until she felt her arms burning. The fiend finally stopped
struggling and was still.

Something hit Kara in her wings and lower
back. She fell to her knees. Betaazu stepped over the unconscious
female fiend and made his way closer to her. She turned and saw
that the other male fiend had crept up behind her as well.

He kicked her in the face, and Kara went
sprawling on the ground. As she rolled to a stop, she felt her
darkness fed on her anger. She was going to kill them.

The new, cold energy throbbed through her
body, and she jumped up and faced the moron that had kicked her in
the face. A long, sharp whip dangled from his right hand.

She glanced over to the archfiend and was
surprised to see a mix of excitement and anticipation in his face.
It was like she had been performing for him, and he was enjoying it
immensely. He looked like he was expecting something to happen. She
was sure of it.

But what?

The fiend with the whip gave her a cold and
calculated smile. In the gloom, his blond hair looked sickly and
green. If he wanted a fight, he would get one.

With a crack, the whip sailed toward Kara,
and she jumped to the side. But as she regained her balance, the
whip flew at her and wrapped around her knees. She screamed as the
whip burned through her pants and her skin, as though it had been
coated with acid. The fiend yanked his whip, and Kara slammed back
onto the ground.

She blinked the spots from her eyes. Her
legs were on fire.

“Kneel before your gods!” said the blond
fiend. “Swear your loyalty to your new masters, filthy
creature.”

Kara rolled onto her stomach and spit the
hair from her mouth. “Never. You’re going to have to kill me,
demon
.”

The fiend snarled and pulled on his whip
with tremendous strength. Kara soared into the air and came
crashing down next to Salthazar. She could see that Salthazar
didn’t care if they were hurting her. He merely looked annoyed that
she might be ruining his chances of making a favorable impression
with the archfiends.

She kicked out at Salthazar’s legs, and as
he fell she snatched his death blade.

She didn’t have time to wonder why the blade
didn’t scorch her fingers as it should have, and she began
frantically to saw at her bonds. But before she could make much
progress, she was booted in the back and lost her grip of the death
blade.

Had her cut had been deep enough?

Kara rolled on the ground and flipped onto
her knees. The blond fiend loomed over her. His fangs gleamed in
the soft light, and his black cloak billowed around him.

“Kneel, girl, or I’ll rip your wings from
your body.”

“I’d like to see you try,” snarled Kara.

As the darkness bubbled inside her body, her
senses sharpened, and she felt the presence of the thousands who
were dead and dying close by. Although she hated the smell of
death, she also thrived on its cold, empty feeling. It gave her the
strength she needed, and she ripped her bonds apart and tossed them
at the fiend.

He shot at her so fast Kara could have sworn
he was flying. But her hands were free now, and she was waiting for
him. She grabbed his burning whip with both hands and yanked the
fiend toward her. As he stumbled forward, she kicked him in the
face with all she had. She let go of the whip as he crashed to the
ground. Her black veined hands were covered in blisters.

The fiend spit black blood from his mouth as
he stood up.

“You’re going to pay for this.”

“Thought you’d say that.” Kara threw her
hands behind her and tried to free her wings.

If she could fly, she could get the heck out
of there and look for the fourth knight. It was their only
chance.

Desperately, she tugged and yanked, but the
bonds on her wings were too strong for her raw hands. Even with her
super-darkness strength, the bonds wouldn’t come off. She was going
to have to use something other than her strength. She would have to
outsmart it.

The fiend sent his whip sailing toward her
neck again, but she spun around and dodged the scorching weapon.
Without skipping a beat, she grabbed the whip again, and using his
own momentum, she wrapped it around his neck and strangled him with
his own weapon. There was a sickening
crack
, and he crumpled
to the floor. Black blood sprayed onto her face as his decapitated
head thudded onto the ground beside his body.

“Now you’ve done it.” Betaazu came striding
across the floor, his face livid. “You stupid, foolish girl.”

Kara stepped away from the body, hiding her
surprise at what she had done.

“I was wondering when you’d show up.”

His savage rage was frightening. He tossed
his whip aside and came at her. His black teeth were bared, and his
face was contorted in an anger that destroyed any handsome features
that he might once have possessed.

Kara raised her brows. “So it’s going to be
a fair fight, then? Super.”

But it wasn’t. Not really.

Betaazu shot at her faster than a blink of
an eye. He smashed her face with his fist, and she saw stars.

She didn’t know what he was doing until the
searing pain found her. She screamed like she’d never screamed
before. The fiend tugged and tore at her back until he ripped off
one of her wings with his bare hands, and she collapsed to the
floor.

She lay in a puddle of her own black blood.
The world around her spun, and the excruciating pain immobilized
her. Scorching, white-hot pain gushed down her back like hot wax.
She couldn’t think. She couldn’t move. She only knew pain.

She heard Betaazu’s voice.

“You shouldn’t have killed my brother! What
were you thinking? You stupid, stupid, girl. Do you even know what
you’ve done? And now look at you. Pathetic. You should have kneeled
when we told you to.”

He kicked her severed wing, and it slid
across the ground, dead.

“Now you’re broken.”

Her mouth was dry, and her throat was raw
from screaming. The blood was still running down her back. She
wanted to curse him, but she couldn’t find the strength to utter a
single word. He kicked her hard in the stomach, and she rolled over
to the edge of the stone platform.

“You’re lucky we need you,” hissed Betaazu.
“Otherwise I’d kick you off this ledge right now and watch you die
a slow and painful death. But not before I tear off your other
wing.”

With her body trembling in anguish, she had
only the strength left to lift up her head. She was close enough to
the edge of the stone platform to see the commotion below.

She blinked, and as the scene below her came
into focus, Kara felt no more pain and forgot about her severed
wing and the dark gods.

There was only the terrifying scene below
her.

A colossal battle was being fought in the
vast desert below the great volcanic mountain on which she lay. It
was monstrous battle between the fiends, demons, and terrors of the
Netherworld and the angels.

And the angels were losing.

Chapter 18

K
ara had never seen
so many angels together at the same time. There must have been
hundreds of thousands of them fighting and losing on the plain
below.

As small as mice, they peppered the land
like a rippling sea of moving figures. Hundreds of different
legions fought the demon platoons. Even from a distance, she could
clearly see the large and towering archangels as they fought
alongside the smaller angels. They were strong and impressive, but
they weren’t enough.

The clash of metal and the shrieks of dying
angels rose above the plain of battle. The reek of demon and angel
blood was a sour, disturbing odor. Hordes of giant monsters and
worms and insect-like beasts tore at the bodies of wounded angels
like they were paper.

She could see that the legions of angels
fought with agility and deathly expertise as they delivered their
fatal blows. But when the demons should have stayed down, when the
angels should have been tearing the demons’ legions apart—the
demons kept fighting.

Demons with fatal wounds fought on as if
they didn’t notice their missing limbs or loss of blood. The demons
and other Netherworld creatures fought as though they had some
supernatural power.

And then she saw it.

Six archfiends stood in a circle on the
outskirts of the battlefield. Thousands of thin, rippling black
tendrils of shadow poured out of their arms and wings and shot out
over the battle and into the demons and the fiends. The dark power
of the archfiends was supplementing the demons with the unnatural
strength of the gods.

The angels were outmatched. They could never
defeat creatures with an endless supply of impossible power.

Kara’s chest stiffened, if only she could
have stopped the last knight…

“Enjoying the view?” laughed Betaazu.
“Enjoying watching your people die?”

“Shut up.”

Kara scouted the vast area for faces she
could recognize, but they were too far away and were no larger than
ink dots.