Seals

by Kim Richardson

The dark god laughed. “Hope! There is no more hope, well, not for the angels or the mortals. It is over for them.”

  “Come to me now,” he ordered.

  “But there is.” Kara turned to the archfiend. “There is still hope. Because there’s still a seal that’s holding on—”

  “No, there isn’t.”

  “Yes there is.” She lifted her hand, and her golden ring glimmered in the light.

  “This ring tells me that there is.”

  Painfully, she steadied herself with her right wing and prayed it could keep her in one piece until she jumped off the ledge.

  “There’s always hope,” she said.

  “I’m going after the last knight, and you can’t stop me. I’m going to kill it.”

  Just as she was about to whirl around and jump, she stopped, not because she was afraid of splattering herself at the bottom, but because something wasn’t quite right about the way they were looking at her. She was more like an injured bird than anything else. They should be furious, but instead they were pleased. Why?

  She was being stupid. Who cares what they thought. What mattered was finding the knight while there was still hope.

  “I will find him,” she said defiantly as she prepared to jump.

  Beelzebub stood up from his throne and said, “You’ve already have.”

  Kara scanned the chamber and then looked back at the archfiend. She made a face.

  “You? You’re the fourth knight?”

  Beelzebub smiled, his eyes widened.

  “Of course not. Kara Nightingale, of the legion of angels, you are. You are Death.”

  Chapter 19

  Death

  Kara nearly fell over the ledge.

  Impossible. She took one careful step forward, all the while keeping her eyes on the archfiend. She waited for him to start laughing or for any sign or twitch in his face that would give away his lies. But his face was stone cold, blank.

  Betaazu kept his distance, but she was aware that he could grasp her in an instant.

  Whatever was going on, she was not free yet.

  The archfiend was mocking her. It couldn’t be true.

  “Is that the best you can do?” she said finally. “You sound really desperate and really, really delusional. No, I take that back—it’s pathetic. I’m not a knight.”

  She forced a laugh. “Where’s my horse? I don’t even know how to ride a horse. This is crazy. I don’t even know why I’m wasting my time speaking to you.”

  “Because you know it’s true.” The dark god’s voice was cool and calculating. His smirk widened.

  Kara felt a tiny spark of fear, but spoke with conviction.

  “No, I don’t! How can I? I thought you people were supposed to be all knowing? But you’re not the brightest, are you? So let me clarify this to you. You didn’t make me. I didn’t sprout from the ground from some otherworldly bog of eternal darkness. I exist. I exist in this body because I’m an angel—”

  Their laugher set her fury boiling. If she’d had the use of her other wing, she would have ripped the smiles off their faces, especially the redhead.

  “Whatever I am,” Kara’s voice wavered. “Whatever monster or creature you made of me …it doesn’t matter, because I know I’m not a knight, because I’m still me. I’m still the same girl inside, and you can’t change that no matter how hard you try. Your scheme hasn’t worked.”

  The archfiend stared at her for a few moments.

  “Oh, but it did work. And that girl you claim to be inside, well, you won’t be for much longer.”

  Kara forced a laugh. “That’s bull. You know it, and I know it.”

  “I do not know what bull is, but I can guarantee that the last of that angel dust that still flickers in you will waste away in a few minutes’ time.”

  The archfiend paused and then added, “No, I take that back, in a few seconds. In a few seconds, you will no longer remember what it was like to be an angel. You will not remember the legion, Horizon, or your friends. You will not remember who you were before the change. You’ll only know what you have become. You are the fourth knight.”

  “I’m not.” Kara shook her head like a stubborn child.

  She was still bleeding a lot. She stood in a puddle of her black blood. She tried not to think about it too much because the more she dwelled on the blood, the more she felt the effect of it. It was getting harder and harder to remain standing. She faltered slightly, and she saw that the dark god had seen her falter, too.

  “You see,” he said pleased, too pleased. “Stop fighting it and let go. Embrace the darkness and all its purity. Let go of the foul angel and become the creature feared by all. Become Death.”

  Kara was so angry and tired that she could hardly think or stand. Her head hurt so much that she thought her brain had melted. Her eyes narrowed to slits.

  “I think there’s been enough death, don’t you agree?” said Kara. “I won’t be part of your schemes.”

  She gritted her teeth at the burning pain that shot down her body. Her vision blurred, and the archfiend became two instead of one. She shook her head, but it made the pounding worse. She could see Betaazu smiling at her pain. How she hated him. How she hated them all.

  She knew she should jump now, but something was still holding her back.

  “I’m going to get better,” she croaked.

  Her throat was raw and was closing up. She tried to convince herself that she was all right by speaking again. “You’re lying. You’re a liar. You’re just trying to trick me.”

  “Am I?” laughed the dark god. “You can feel it, can’t you? In the pit of your pitiful little angel soul, you feel it pushing its way in. It wants to show itself. You want it to come. You know I speak the truth, Death.”

  Kara trembled, “Don’t call me that.”

  “Why not? It is your true name.”

  Could it really be true?

  “It is true,” said the archfiend, as though he was reading her mind again.

  “Why do you think we injected you with the extract of darkness? Because we knew. We knew if we combined the extract with your special essence, your unique bloodline, we could create the final knight. You are the warrior of the dark gods, the killer of angels. You are the final seal.”

  “Your bloodline has been traced back to the beginning of all things, to the very first archfiends, before we were cast into prison by the archangels.”

  Beelzebub sat back down on his throne. “And when rumors of a special angel with the powers of both an angel and an elemental reached us in our remote doomed prison, we knew. We waited eons for you, for this chance. You—and you alone—were the missing link. Without you, we could never have broken free from our perpetual doom.”

  Kara’s eyes widened. “No, it can’t be.”

  “Believe it,” said Betaazu. “This,” he raised his arms, “is all your doing. You helped release our masters. You did this. You saved us all.”

  “No.” Kara shook her head.

  Black blood dripped from her nose and from the hole in her back. Her headache pulsed unmercifully.

  “Yes,” said the archfiend, confident of his ancient intelligence. “The darkness thrives inside you, and you will destroy the archangels, the angels, and all living things. Rejoice in darkness. It is eternal. You are perfect.”

  The world shifted around Kara. Images that the white oracle had spoken played inside her mind. She could see the shadowy figure with great wings that soared through the blackened and smoky sky. The white oracle had shown her images of death, the fourth knight of the apocalypse. And she was it.

  “But I thought…” She shook her head. What did she think? What else could the wings have meant other than that she was becoming a monster freak, a killer of angels? But to think that she was going to change into the ultimate monster was too much to bear.

  But what about her light…the light that still lingered somewhere in her soul?

  “I won’t change,” said Kara. Her voice wave
red, but she didn’t care. “It’s not going to happen.”

  “You will change. It’s inevitable.” The archfiend spoke confidently.

  “Your defiance is a strength that will make you an even better knight, a better bringer of death.”

  “I won’t,” Kara repeated. Her voice was stronger.

  “You said it yourself. I didn’t change yet, so it’s not working. Whatever you did to me, didn’t work. You failed.”

  A cold smile spread on the archfiend’s face. “No, I didn’t.”

  She wouldn’t accept this defeat. She’d known and tasted fear and pain before, but it was nothing compared to what went through her now.

  “NO!” she screamed, enraged because she knew it was true.

  Kara stumbled toward his throne, limbs wobbling. She fumbled in a fog with her broken body.

  Kill him. Kill the monster creator. It was all she could think of. Her steps became more feeble, and her vision blurred.

  She would kill him, if it were the last thing she did.

  The archfiend smirked. “And now, my dear, it’s time to give you a little push—”

  As Kara neared the dais, the dark god raised his hand and shot a black tendril of power straight into Kara’s chest.

  It was like being shot by a twelve-gauge shotgun. She was blasted to the ground in a flash of blinding pain. The darkness overwhelmed her like a hot fever, and an uncontrollable and ancient evil welled up inside her. Dark fire was dragging her down into an abyss. She was losing her hold of the light. She was losing herself. She was losing Kara.

  Her golden ring shimmered, but then the color faded, and it became black. The little light inside her flickered one last time and went out.

  A moment passed and then the creature she had become jumped to its feet.

  It felt no more pain. It felt nothing. But its senses were heightened, and it could see everything. It knew everything. It smelled the terror. It smelled the blood of mortals and angels. It tasted the pain of millions. It licked its gray lips. It wanted to kill. It was created to kill. It wanted to extinguish the light. It wanted only darkness. It understood darkness. It was darkness.

  A faint, red-gray mist covered its body, and red veins began to grow in its glossy gray skin. Long black hair billowed from its head, and where a wound had been moments ago, a perfect large black leathery wing sprouted and grew.

  The creature turned and awaited its master’s instructions. It wanted to please its master.

  “Kill the archangels,” its master ordered. “Them first. Then kill all the angels. Leave not a single one.”

  The creature sneered in delight. It wouldn’t fail. It longed to taste the death of the angels. It licked its gray lips in anticipation and spread its massive veiny wings.

  With a dripping maw, Death smiled, jumped from the ledge, and dove down into the battle.

  Chapter 20

  David

  David swung and sliced off the head of a clown demon with his soul blade. It hissed at him before it thumped to the ground with a surprised expression frozen on its face. Black blood sputtered over David’s boots as he kicked the body.

  “Stupid clown demons,” he clenched his jaw.

  He would slice all the clown demons to ribbons. He hated clown demons. He remembered that Lilith had changed him into a clown demon, and that he had wanted to hurt Kara. It still haunted him that he could have hurt the only girl in all the worlds that he’d have given his life to protect.

  Kara…

  The thought of her created an ache in his chest. Was she all right?

  He remembered how unbelievably attracted he’d been to her the first time he’d seen her in Horizon. He had felt on fire even before he knew her name. Her brown eyes had sparkled when she had looked at him, and he had been bewitched. He had never been the same.

  Of course she had thought him arrogant, rude, ill mannered, and charming—all of those things, but that had just been his way to break the ice. She made him nervous, and it made him want to be his best around her. No other girl had ever had that effect on him before. She was electrifying.

  Movement caught his eye. David spun and thrust his soul blade hilt-deep into the eye socket of a lime-green creature. The demon went limp and sank to the ground.

  He wiped the black-green blood from his blade on the sleeve of his jacket and looked up.

  Throngs of angels and demons surrounded him on the east side of the vast desert plain. He was in the middle of the hot zone. He fought alongside a battalion of a thousand angels. And even though the angels were outnumbered by demons that kept on coming at them as if they were sprouting from the ground, the angels were skilled fighters, and the demons were falling fast. Their bodies crumbled into ashes that blew away in the wind or disappeared into the earth.

  They could win this. They would win this war.

  Unlike the other angels, it came as no surprise to David when they found a demon and monster cavalry waiting when his legion had arrived at the foot of the volcano. Mr. Patterson had predicted it. He had told them to expect the archfiends. And they were here.

  The war had started in the blink of an eye.

  The wails of the dead and dying mixed with the clatter of metal on metal and the thumping of fists on flesh. It felt as though the earth were cracking like an egg. The crescendo of sounds was so continuous that they all merged into a single annihilating roar. The ground trembled and thundered like the beating of a giant heart.

  David had never been in a war of this magnitude. All he could do was take cover and get his bearings. He fought like a good soldier. He fought for what was right. He fought for the freedom of Earth and of Horizon.

  He fought for Kara.

  He struck both his soul blades into the abdomen of a zombie demon, pulled them out, and made his way forward into the melee. Dust and sand obscured the flailing arms and weapons so that it was hard to tell angel from demon.

  But his more pressing problem was Kara.

  He was faltering because he was distracted. He couldn’t stop thinking about Kara and where she was. He knew she had flown off to search for the last knights. But now that Jenny’s ring had gone, it was all up to Kara.

  Kara, where were you?

  He should be with her.

  He saw a flash of purple and spotted Jenny right away. Her purple hair and jacket were like a beacon, and he knew it wasn’t such a good idea to stick out so much. He fought his way near her.

  She wore her silver bow wrapped around her back, and like him she brandished a soul blade in each hand. She slithered like a snake behind an unsuspecting demon, and with a flick of her wrists she perforated the demon’s neck, and it slumped to the ground.

  David had forgotten how skilled Jenny was with a blade. He’d always thought of her as an archer, but she didn’t have enough time to nock her arrows here. There were too many demons, and she didn’t have enough arrows. She would have needed thousands of them.

  David scanned the battle. He recognized a few faces, but Peter and Ashley were nowhere in sight. He prayed they were all right.

  Jenny caught sight of David, but she didn’t smile at him as he rushed over to her. Even before he reached her, he knew something was wrong. Her face was taunt and troubled. She kept opening and closing her hands.

  “I’m glad to see you in one piece,” she said.

  Her face and clothes were stained in black blood. “Any news from Kara?”

  David shrugged and didn’t meet Jenny’s eyes. “Not yet.”

  “David, I’ve got some bad news,” she said quickly, looking over her shoulder.

  He read the panic in her voice, and his own cold panic started to well inside him. He already knew what she was going to say.

  “My—my ring’s gone.”

  She looked terrified. “It just…it just disappeared, just like that. I didn’t even realize. It could have happened hours ago. I had forgotten about it.”

  And then she spoke quickly. “What does it mean? Do you think anything hap
pened to Kara? Do you think she’s still okay?”

  David couldn’t answer her because he didn’t know. He didn’t want to face the obvious explanation—that Kara had failed.

  Jenny quickly changed the subject.

  “Never seen so many demons in all my angel days. I don’t know what I expected. Who knew there would be so many demons in the Netherworld?”

  “I knew there’d be lots of them, but it appears that they all came out to play today.”

  A demon loomed over behind Jenny, but before she noticed it, David knocked it on its head with the pommel of his dagger and sliced its neck as it collapsed to the ground.

  Jenny looked mildly surprised. “Thanks.”

  “Don’t mention it. Won’t be the last time, that’s for sure.”

  David knew she was looking for someone special.

  “Did you see Peter anywhere?” said Jenny, as though she were reading his mind.

  David shook his head sadly.

  “No. But I’m sure he’s okay. He’s a real fighter, our Pete. And I’m sure he’s got all kinds of new tricks and gadgets up his sleeve. I wouldn’t worry about him.”

  But Jenny didn’t look relieved. She looked worried.

  “He’ll be fine, Jen,” said David. “I promise.”

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep.”

  David thought that she was about to cry, but whatever frustration she felt inside she vented on a demon who had no idea what had hit him until her blade had perforated its head.

  “I don’t know, David. There’re so many of them.” Jenny straightened up.

  “With the rings gone…with Kara gone…”

  She faltered, her voice cracked.

  “Don’t say it, Jenny,” said David.

  “Maybe our rings are gone, but that doesn’t mean Kara’s is. There’s still one knight left, and she still has a chance at killing it. I know she can do this. I have to believe she can, and she will. It’s up to us to give her all the time we can. It’s our job to make sure we kill as many demons as we can.”