Seals (25 page)

“You did it! You really did it!” Jenny
sounded astonished.

David slowed to a jog, impressed by his own
perfect aim. It had been
way
too easy.

And then the archfiend turned her head in
his direction.

Her yellow eyes bored into his as she
inspected him, really inspected him. She smiled a wicked smile that
made David freeze. She turned her gaze casually to the blades
sticking out of her hands. They were nothing but tiny, annoying
splinters. She pulled them out, one by one, and tossed them
away.

“Jenny, get back!” cried David. He braced
himself and pulled the spare soul blade from his boot. It was
coming.

The archfiend appeared to be amused by this
annoying little angel. With a flick of her wrists, and before he
even had time to blink, she sent a bolt of darkness crashing into
him

Jenny’s cry echoed in his ears as he felt
the searing pain and was lifted in the air. Then blackness and
white-hot pain like he’d never felt before. The smell of death and
decaying bodies washed over him and inside him. He felt as though
his body had been ripped apart. Another wave of pain hit him, and
he went down into the blackness of a bottomless abyss.

The world around him vanished.

Was this death? Was this his true death? If
only he could have seen Kara one last time…if only he could have
told her how much she meant to him, how much he truly cared…

But then sick inhuman laughter replaced the
ringing in his ears, and the pain stopped.

“You wish to die at the hands of a dark
god,” said a voice looming over him and everywhere at once.

“It is an honorable death. I prefer
honorable enemies to ambitious ones, and you have refused to
submit. I admire your courage, and so I will grant you a quick
death, angel boy.”

David slowly got to his feet, amazed that
his weapon still hung in his hand. But he made no move toward the
archfiend. He let her talk.

“Touch him again, and I will send you back
to wherever you came from.” Jenny stood behind David with her
bowstring taut and three silver arrows nocked and ready.

The archfiend female threw back her head and
laughed. “Your weapons cannot hurt me, spirit of the heavens.”

She lifted her palms and showed David and
Jenny that the wounds on her hands were gone. They had healed
themselves.

“I’ll take my chances,” said Jenny with a
fierce grin.

David took a careful step back and
whispered. “Jenny, don’t be stupid—”

“Yes, please
be
stupid, Jenny,” said
the archfiend.

“I miss killing things, especially defiant
little angel
specks
. How wondrous it feels to be out and
killing again, removing the filth from this earth.”

“Look who’s talking,” spat Jenny.

The archfiend didn’t lose her smile.

“You angels have always been foolish and
insubordinate. You’ll never learn. Even after all these years, you
still don’t know when to admit to weakness and bow down to your
gods.”

Her beautiful face furrowed. “And then you
tricked us and caged us like beasts. Perhaps luck was on your side,
and you cunning little specks managed to fool us once. But never
again.

“We only wish to repay your kindness. We
will destroy this foul little world you cherish so, and we will
destroy Horizon and all its creatures.”

David caught a glimpse of Metatron sneaking
up behind the dark god. He was hiding in a group of dead-but-waking
demons, and she hadn’t seen him yet.

David suspected that these powerful
creatures probably had eyes in the backs of their heads or could
sense danger before it hit. He had to keep her focused on him.

“Sorry to disappoint you,
giant-woman-person,” began David. “But that’s not going to happen
because we’re
going
to stop you.”

The archfiend’s smile widened, and just as
she made to flick her wrists again, Metatron’s sword perforated her
neck.

Metatron moved so fast that David could
hardly follow him. He appeared on the other side of the archfiend
and struck another sword in her abdomen, just below her
breastplate. The archfiend roared, but when she whirled in anger,
Metatron was already gone.

David smiled. He wished he could move that
fast.

Metatron stood in front of her now and
hurled his short dagger at the archfiend’s head.

But faster than humanly or supernaturally
possible, she caught his blade easily and tossed it away. With a
flick of her wrist, she sent a helix of darkness at the archangel,
and he went down entangled in black shadow tendrils. Metatron
screamed, and the archfiend spread her wings and landed on the
ground next to him. Her face twisted in a mask of fury and
hatred.

David sprinted to help Metatron, but
something slammed into him and whacked him on the side of the head.
David fell to his knees for an instant and blinked the black spots
from his eyes. But then he managed to get up and swing his blade
into the face of the creature that had knocked him down. It had
thick brown leathery skin and a mouth with too many teeth. It
hissed at him and staggered back with a large gash exposing raw,
wet flesh across its cheek.

As David aimed his dagger, he saw Jenny
holding her own against four tree-like monsters with human eyes and
gangly roots for limbs.

His dagger flew.

It struck the beast in the neck, and the
creature spat up black blood and fell back again with a roar. Vile
liquid squirted from the wound in its chest. But it wasn’t
finished. It pulled out the dagger and licked the blood from
it.

“Nice,” said David, only too aware that it
was about to attack again.

A scream, a bone-chilling scream interrupted
him.

Metatron.

He was convulsing on the ground with the
archfiend looming over him and shooting tendrils of death into him
again and again. She had a terrifying smile of her face.

Metatron screamed one last time, and then
nothing. He stopped moving.

Panic filled David. He didn’t know if the
archangel was dead or if the female archfiend had merely disabled
him, but staring at the indestructible Metatron face down on the
ground caused David to swallow his shout.

And then Metatron’s legions came out of
nowhere and threw themselves at the archfiend, swords and daggers
flying. But she was waiting for them.

She flicked her wrist, and a flash of black
tendrils came hurtling toward the angels and blasted them into
dust.

“You beast! You monster!” Jenny’s cry rang
in David’s ears.

He stared at the lingering particles of
dust. The archfiend could have easily killed him like it did the
others.

Why hadn’t it done that?

He had an overwhelming feeling that it was
waiting for something.

Something black soared above the
battlefield. It was smaller than the other six fiends, but it
poured a blackness over the retreating angels that incinerated them
until there was nothing left but puffs of falling ash. The creature
banked suddenly and headed toward them.

Jenny pointed behind him.

“David, that’s another one of those
archfiend beasts. It’s coming right at us. If we don’t leave now,
we won’t make it!”

David looked around. Netherworld monsters
had overwhelmed the field like a plague. There were no signs of
angels anywhere.

Had they all gone? Had they all been
destroyed so quickly? Did they all flee?

He turned back to the flying archfiend.

David couldn’t explain it, but this new
archfiend was different. It didn’t wear the metal armor, and he
could tell it was female. He had a strange feeling that the
creature was familiar. “David, let’s go!” barked Jenny. She leapt
backward.

The black winged demon flapped toward them
and then dove straight for David.

It moved so fast that David only saw a black
blur of wings.

He whirled, striking out before he could get
a good look at the creature. He glimpsed only a flash of withered
gray skin and jagged pointy teeth before he sliced his soul blades
across its chest.

It screamed like nothing he had ever heard
before. The ragged cloth on its chest ripped open and revealed a
bony misshapen chest covered in red veins. The creature’s yellow
eyes blazed in fury as it slammed a clawed hand into David’s
face.

Although pain ripped through his cheek, he
couldn’t take his eyes off the creature.

It had Kara’s face.

Chapter 22

D
avid felt the
world shifting around him. The dark gods were playing a cruel joke
on him because what he saw was impossible.

“Kara?” he breathed, staring into the face
of a memory of the girl he loved.

The creature snarled with blackened pointy
teeth. There was no recognition in its yellow eyes, only
death—death and fury. And yet, it had Kara’s face.

David shook his head.

The beautiful girl with chestnut brown hair
and dazzling brown eyes that he had once known had become a
winged creature with claws and dull gray skin. Its
long black hair dripped with black liquid. It still wore Kara’s
clothes and her boots, although they were torn and covered in
filth. It was as though she had tried to rip them off when she had
transformed, to destroy what she used to be.

“Holy souls,” said Jenny peering from behind
him. “David, what happened to her?”

David threw an arm up and pushed Jenny
back.

“I don’t know. I think—I think this is what
the oracles saw. What they made her see. The change, the
transformation.”

He looked at the creature solemnly. “This is
what Kara had feared she was going to become…become a…”

Monster
.

But David couldn’t utter the words. It was
too painful.

Did she or it recognize him at all? Was
there a little part of Kara that still existed in that thing?

There had to be. He wouldn’t let himself
feel the dread that threatened to take him over.

Kara had to be in there somewhere.

“What did you do to her!” barked Jenny as
she sprang forward, but David held her back.

“Kara?” he asked and took a careful step
forward. He dared not take his eyes off the creature. He had
forgotten about the all the demons, the archfiends, and the war.
There was only him and the creature, Kara.

“It’s me, David.”

The creature blinked.

He lifted his hands in surrender, his voice
calm, only his lips trembled.

“You know me. We’re friends remember? Well,
we’re more than friends. Don’t you recognize me?”

The creature tucked in its wings and sank
back on its thighs, waiting for a chance to pounce.

David’s throat tightened, but he forced down
his fears.

“Kara. I know you’re still in there
somewhere. It’s me, David.”

He forced himself to look straight into the
creature’s eyes, but he saw nothing, nothing but a dark hunger.

“Kara. Come back to me. Fight it. Fight it,
Kara. You’re the strongest guardian I know. The strongest in all
the legion. You can do this—”

The archfiend landed beside Kara and smiled
at the horror on their faces.

“There is no more Kara.”

“This creature is no longer your angel
friend. In fact, there is no more angel in her at all. She has
become a creature of darkness, a mutation of wild and dark power.
She is marvelous.”

The archfiend’s eyes were wide with
superiority. “She has become
Death
.”

The creature turned at the sound of its
name, acknowledging its master, and David thought he was going to
be sick.

“The fourth and final knight of the
apocalypse,” continued the archfiend. “She is our most deadly
weapon. You angel specks should have yielded to our higher power.
But you refused to bow down to us. Now it’s time for you to taste
the wrath of a dark god. Kill them! Kill the angels! Kill them
all!”

Death sprang.

David had only the time to knock Jenny out
of the way as the creature slammed into him, claws ripping at his
face. He had his blade in his hands, but he didn’t use it. He
couldn’t bring himself to hurt her. He believed that Kara was still
in there.

He managed to pin the creature’s hands
together and kick her off him, but the creature hovered overhead
and then dove again. Only this time it went for Jenny.

“No!” David ran after it cursing.

“Here, here! It’s me you want. Leave her
alone!”

Jenny held her blade with shaking hands.

“Kara, no please. It’s Jen,” she pleaded.
“I’m your friend—”

But Death dove straight for her, knocked her
blade out of her hands, wrapped its claws around her neck and
squeezed—

David slammed into the creature so hard that
he sent them all tumbling on the ground. The Kara creature let go
of Jenny. Without missing a beat, David was on his feet and had
slipped behind the creature and held his soul blade to its
neck.

“Stop! Stop this!” he hissed. “Snap out of
it!”

The creature reeked of rot. Kara’s sweet
lavender scent was gone. He needed that girl back. He needed his
Kara.

“Just come back to me, Kara. Don’t make me
hurt you. Souls, I don’t want to hurt you. Please stop this and
come back.”

The Kara creature stiffened in his hold,
aware of the blade at its throat.

The archfiend watched with a satisfied smile
on its creepy perfect face.

David glanced around for Metatron, but his
body was gone.

“Fight it,” urged David. His hand shook
violently. “Fight it, please. Don’t make me do it, don’t make
me—”

The creature slammed the back of her head
into David’s face. He staggered backward and let her go.

The creature whirled around and hit him with
its wing, sending him sprawling to the ground. But he was up on his
feet quickly.