Seals (26 page)

Death lunged at him, but he kicked the back
of the creature’s knees and it stumbled. It turned to face him
again.

“Don’t do this,” said David.

Kara was much stronger than he was.

He waved his soul blade. “Kara, fight it,”
he said more urgently. “I know you’re in there somewhere. This
isn’t you. Fight it.”

But the yellow eyes that watched him showed
no hint that Kara was in there. There was only a monster. He could
see the hunger in its eyes. He could see the pleasure it took in
killing. It was going to eat his angel flesh and devour his
soul.

The creature licked its dry gray lips and
showed off its teeth as it snarled.

“It’s
me
! It’s me, David.”

But the creature didn’t recognize him. He
didn’t know how to stop this fight without one of them getting
killed.

The creature flicked its wrists, and a beam
of shadow shot toward him.

David tried to twist out of the way, but he
wasn’t fast enough.

He saw black and crashed head first into the
jagged rock. His body jerked as white-hot pain shot through his
limbs, and then his body was limp and unresponsive.

He heard footsteps. He heard Jenny calling
his name.

He knew the creature was coming back to
finish him off. He was drained. But he tried to gather what
strength he had left, not for him, but for Kara. He had to try to
make the creature remember. She had to remember who she was before
the transformation. He would try to make her remember, even if it
meant dying in the process.

Something hard hit him in the stomach, and
he went sprawling, rolling on the ground.

Why wasn’t it killing him yet?

As he lay with his back on the ground, he
realized it wanted to play with him.

A tingling in his fingers. Then his toes. He
could feel his arms tingling, and although his limbs burned, he
winced and willed himself to move. He rolled over and pushed
himself up back on his feet.

He saw that Jenny was on her knees with two
higher demons holding her. One of them held a death blade to her
neck. Her green eyes were dim, like she’d given up.

The Kara creature grinned, and David could
tell it was glad he wasn’t dead yet. It wanted to keep fighting. It
eyed the soul blade he still clasped in his hands.

David couldn’t see Kara anywhere inside the
monster she had become.

It stepped forward.

“Remember the first time we kissed?” he
blurted.

It was a long shot, but he was
desperate.

The creature halted, a frown materialized on
its face. Was it remembering?

“We were out together at that club, and you
kissed me,” he said.

He felt a gush of hope and energy.

“Or was it that
I
kissed you first.”
He shook his head. “Doesn’t matter. But you remember, don’t you?
How it felt? How we both felt?”

The creature stared at him for a long
moment, and David was positive that somewhere in there it was
remembering.

Kara was still in there, and she was going
to wake…

“Kill him,” roared the archfiend suddenly.
Although her face was twisted in rage, David detected a little fear
in her voice as well.

“I command you. Kill this miserable angel
speck. We have lots more to kill. Devour this wretched angel soul.
Do it. Do it now!”

The Kara creature watched its master then
slowly turned its yellow eyes back on David. But it hesitated. It
was unsure.

“You know me, don’t you?” David’s eyes
flashed with hope. “Kara, I lo—”

“KILL HIM!”

The creature flicked its wrists. A beam of
shadow slammed into David, and he fell back. But he regained his
footing, surprised that she hadn’t hit him that hard. He made to
grab the creature as it dove for him, but it ducked and dodged not
letting him get a hold.

It lunged at him again, and David ducked and
hit the creature in the head with the pommel of his blade. The
creature gagged, dropped back a little, and shook its head. Its
eyes looked disconnected and stunned. It stood there for a
moment…

David glanced at his blade. He could do it.
He could finish her with one stroke—

But he couldn’t. He watched her and knew he
couldn’t hurt her.

The creature watched him curiously and then
roared in anger. It dove at him, fangs bared and mouth snapping
toward his neck.

His blade was heavy in his hands, but still
he couldn’t bring himself to use it on her. He couldn’t.

He fell against the creature. It tried to
bite him, but he jumped away and kicked it hard.

“Enough of this,” bellowed the archfiend.
“Kill him now, or I will!”

Darkness pulsed through the Kara creature’s
veins. It boiled inside her and then leaped from her hands in a
twisting stream that coursed the distance between them and washed
over David.

It happened so quickly that he was unable to
escape the flow of dark shadows that shot out through her fingers
like bullets.

David wasn’t aware that the creature loomed
over him. He was barely aware of anything except for the pain.

A wild grin spread on the creature’s lips.
Its yellow eyes blinked at him, and it picked him up in its strong
arms.

David felt his life force seep out of him.
The darkness grabbed hold of his soul. It wouldn’t be long now. He
felt his own death approaching.

He was barely aware that his blade still
hung in his hand. He could just reach out, slice the creature’s
neck, and end it.

But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

Even though she was killing him, this
monster was the closest thing he had to Kara.

His Kara…

His blade fell from his fingers. He closed
his eyes and let the darkness come.

Chapter 23

D
eath held the
angel in its grasp, squeezing the life force out of it, feeding off
of it. It enjoyed killing, especially an angel. It quivered in
delight just at the thought of its delicious soul, the sweetness of
it. But it didn’t want to kill it right away. Not yet. First, it
would play with it. Death loved to see the fear in the eyes of its
prey before it reached in and took away its soul.

Death knew its master was angry with it for
not killing the angel right away, but it was curious about the
angel. It didn’t understand why, but it felt drawn to this
particular angel. It wanted to know why. Why this one? Why was it
interested in this angel?

Death decided it would keep him alive for
just a little while longer.

“Kill it, you insolent creature!” cried the
female archfiend. “I command it. Obey me at once, you vile
creature. I am your master now, and you will do what I say. Do your
duty and kill the angel.”

Death eyed its master. It didn’t like to be
ordered around. It was strong, very strong. It knew its masters
were still weak. It knew that the masters were all waiting for the
last seal to be broken. Soon.

But for now, it grew angry. It wanted its
master to stop telling it what to do. Death was no one’s pet. Death
was its own being, the strongest of the four knights, perhaps even
stronger than the masters.

It smiled wickedly at the thought. Yes. It
was powerful.

As it held the male angel still, it thought
about the other three knights. It sensed they were near, waiting in
the shadows for the final seal to break. They were all waiting for
her to unleash her power, to break the final seal and kill all the
angels.

But right now Death didn’t care. It only
wanted to play with the curious little angel again.

What had it called it before?

The angel had called it Kara, a human name.
Strange. Why had that name meant something?

A small light glowed in the depths of
Death’s being.

“I swear to you by the Darkness that if you
don’t kill this angel speck now and obey me, I will destroy you!”
yelled its master in a fury.

As Death stared into the archfiend’s angry
face, the light in the pit of its core flickered again and
grew.

Death tossed the angel to the ground.

What was happening?

It ignored the strange light it felt inside
and focused its cruelty on the angel. The master wanted it dead,
but Death was going to play with the young angel before she took
its life.

The angel blinked and opened its eyes.

Death waited. It wanted the angel to stand
and fight back. It wanted a stronger opponent. It was more fun with
a stronger prey for the chase.

The angel cried and tried to scramble to his
feet, but Death was faster. She grabbed the angel and sent him
crashing to the stone floor again.

Another flicker of light danced inside
Death’s chest.

Death smiled wickedly, licked its gray lips,
and seized the boy by his neck. It raised him high in the air,
enjoying the fear in his eyes. It relished the fear. The angel
struggled, but it was no use. Death was upon him.

“Kara, please, don’t,” choked the angel.

What was it about this angel?

Death was hungry to taste this angel’s life
force. Her black tendrils crept over the angel’s body until they
covered his face like a spider’s web. She was draining his soul. It
was a good and pure life force, and Death enjoyed it.

“I—love—you,” breathed the angel.

The angel’s lips trembled,
“I—forgive—you.”

The angel looked at Death straight in the
face and smiled. And then his eyes rolled back into his head.

The angel’s limp body was in Death’s grip,
and she leaned in to devour his soul. She opened her mouth, longing
to taste its purity and power—

But then it recoiled.

Something wasn’t right.

Death had sensed it before, but what was it?
Why would this miserable angel forgive her for devouring his soul?
Was this a trick?

The angel was unconscious and close to
death. Death had already eaten bits of his essence.

Why did that smile mean something?

The warm light pulsed inside Death with more
urgency now. She staggered and stepped away from the angel.
Confused, Death stared at her hands. She didn’t know why she had
let it go.

“What are you doing, Death?” roared the
archfiend. “Kill it. I command you to finish him off. Kill the
angel now!”

But Death just stood there, staring at the
young angel’s face. There was something about his face…

Death knew that face. The face meant
something to her.

“Kill it now! Take the soul! I am your god.
You will obey, or I will destroy you faster than I created you.”
The archfiend was furious.

But Death felt compelled to look at the
pained face of the young angel.

The light in her intensified. The cold pit
in Death’s soul began to warm.

White light and pain shot through Death’s
head. She couldn’t move or think. The darkness fought with the
light inside her.

The golden, warm pulsing light was
winning.

Images and memories, sensations and emotions
were all mixing up, matching up, latching on to each other, and
splitting off from each other inside her. The darkness struggled
with the invasive warm light. The light inside Death and was
looking for something, searching for someone…

Warm light suddenly pulsed through Death and
shone into her cold darkness. She stared at her illuminated body.
The black veins retreated from her skin and disappeared. Her body
throbbed with a hot, golden energy that must always have always
been inside her. And now it was unleashed.

The wild, golden light warmed the darkness
inside her, until nothing remained of the cold, damp, dark
power.

Kara stared at the golden power that danced
around her palms. She spread her brilliant, pulsing, golden
butterfly wings, looked up at the archfiend and smiled.

“I’m back.”

Chapter 24

K
ara did two things
immediately.

She rushed over to David to make sure he was
still alive, and at the same time, she shot two beams of golden
light into the two higher demons that held Jenny. They burst into
clouds of dust.

Golden sparks of wild energy danced around
her body. Her skin shone like it had been painted with liquid gold.
She radiated power, elemental power, and she felt stronger than
she’d ever felt before.

Kara turned to face the archfiend. She
raised her hands, and her elemental power glowed with fierce
energy.

“Impossible.” The archfiend female staggered
back, confused.

“It’s not possible. Simply
not
possible. You are the fourth knight! You have the darkness in your
essence. It cannot be defeated. We studied for thousands of years
to make your ingredients perfect—to put the exact amount, the exact
percentage—to make your change irreversible. How can this be?”

Kara moved slowly, her anger boiling inside
her and ready to pop.

“Guess your calculations were wrong,
speck
.”

She glared at the real monster, the monster
that had tried to change her into a beast. She suffered from the
guilt she felt about what she had done as Death. She could never
undo what she’d done, and that would haunt her forever.

But she could make things right again.

She remembered the white oracle’s
prophecy.

The only way to stop the archfiends is with
the demise of the knight.

Kara
was
that knight. She realized
that she was the one that had needed to die. The oracle’s prophecy
seemed to have been correct.

And now she only needed to nudge it
along.

She looked the archfiend in the face.

“You’re going to pay for this and for the
lives of all the angels you took. You don’t belong in this world,
and you never have. You don’t respect it. You don’t love it, and
you don’t deserve it. You deserve to be sent back to your
cage.”