Horizon, Soul Guardians Book 3 (5 page)

“
Well, there’s only one way
to find out—” David plunged his arm through the Rift.

“
David! No!” yelled Kara,
Jenny, and Peter at the same time.

After a moment, David retrieved his
arm. It was unscathed.

“
Ha! Look, nothing
happened!” David laughed as he paraded his arm. He started to do a
dance and moved his hips in a strange way that made Kara look away
embarrassed.

Jenny was pleased with this new
discovery and jumped beside David. Her green eyes sparkled in
delight. “So … we all go. I wonder where it leads if not to the
demon world.”

“
It doesn’t matter where it
leads, as long as it leads us to my mother.” Kara studied the Rift
for a moment, and then glanced over to the prison’s doorway.
“There’s something I have to do first,” said Kara. She watched
Jenny pluck out one of her earrings and hand it to the sky-car’s
driver, who accepted it graciously. “Zadkiel had an angel locked up
in here because he was on to him. He’s the only reason I knew how
to make his mark appear. He’s the reason why I’m out. He told me
how to do it. He deserves to be freed. I can’t go anywhere before
we do this. I owe him that much.”

“
Sounds good to me,” said
David. He turned and walked up to the guard. “Hey … big bird! Think
you can get us inside to release our friend? Think you can do that?
Or do I have to go and have a chat with your boss?”

The giant eagle lowered its
head towards David. It regarded him for a moment before it spoke.
“I have special orders to answer to
her
,” he cocked his head towards
Kara, and she heard David mumble something under his
breath.

“
Who is this friend of
yours you speak of?” said the eagle.

Kara shuffled closer and looked up.
“His name is Legan. He was in the cell next to mine—”

“
That’s impossible,” said
the guard.

Kara wrinkled her face and
kept her composure. “I’m telling you …
he’s
in there, and I want you to let
him out!” She felt her temper rising and was glad for it. She
wouldn’t stand for his attitude. These birds didn’t exactly warm
her stay in the prison. She would have preferred to be treated
badly, than to be forgotten altogether.

The guard ruffled his
feathers in annoyance. “You are mistaken. It is impossible that
your
friend
as
you say was in a cell next to yours. There are no cells next to
yours. You were in a high security cell, with nothing but thick
walls surrounding you.”

A chill passed through Kara. She
wondered if she had indeed imagined the entire thing. She felt the
stares of the others on her, and suppressed a shudder. What if they
thought she was mad? Had she made up a friend to ease her
loneliness? But then how would she have known about Zadkiel’s mark?
No. Legan wasn’t a figment of her imagination, but a real angel who
had been in the cell next to hers. The eagle was mistaken, or
worse, he was lying.

“
That’s not true,” said
Kara, as she remembered Legan’s raspy voice coming through the
wall. “He’s here. I know he is. You’re lying. You’re hiding
something. I demand to see him at once!”

The eagle’s face was expressionless.
“There is no one by that name in Tartarus, and as I have told you …
there are no cells or rooms that neighbored yours. Only thick walls
of stone—”

“
Now you listen here, you
big piece of poultry,” said David and pointed to the large bird’s
face. “If Kara says he’s in there, that means he’s in there. Now
let’s go!”

“
As you wish.” The eagle
turned its massive body. It bent its head and stepped through the
doorway. David beckoned to Kara to follow the guard, and he stepped
in after her, followed closely by Jenny and a wide-eyed
Peter.

Kara stepped into darkness. Tall
shadows surrounded her. A deep roar sounded from the depths of the
prison, and Kara felt as though the monstrous cube was welcoming
her back. Three brilliant green orbs appeared. They hovered before
them like large fireflies and gave off enough light to see through
the blackness. A low rumble came from the deep. The sound rose
until the tremors were all around them. Kara watched as pieces of
rock detached themselves from the walls to form the path below
their feet as they went. It was too bad the lights couldn’t mask
the burning stench of bird droppings. She heard Jenny complain
rudely about the smell.

The group walked in silence for a
while. The light tread of their footsteps reverberated in the
darkness, followed by the eerie sound of sharp talons scraping the
stone floor. The prison’s walls rumbled and shook with every step,
as though commanding respect of all those who entered. Kara had a
nasty feeling the walls could come crashing down upon them at any
moment, sending them all to the black void below. She felt
dreadfully uncomfortable wandering inside Tartarus again. She had
hoped to forget about it, to shake it off like a bad
dream.

Soon the group found themselves
standing before a chamber. A large concrete door stood ajar. Kara
glanced to the side nervously. There were no adjoining cells to
either side. Just walls of more thick rock, she realized. What was
happening?

“
This isn’t the same cell.”
Kara eyed the large bird. “This is a trick. Where’s my prison
cell?”

The eagle cocked his head towards the
room. “This is it.”

“
It can’t be,” said Kara
stubbornly. She watched the eagle’s expression, and she swore he
looked annoyed.

“
This is it,” repeated the
guard.

Frustrated, Kara stomped into the tiny
room... the hair on her entire body stood up. Small indents covered
the back wall, spaced out equally in sections like days in a
calendar. They were her marks, she realized in horror. This was
indeed her cell.

Kara’s mouth fell open in silent
protest. “How is this possible—?”

She ran over to the back wall and
pressed her hands against the sharp rock. It felt cool against her
angel skin. Kara ran her fingers up and down the wall and searched
for the opening from which she and Legan had shared
information.

“
Where’s that stupid
crack?” Kara frantically moved her hands all along the wall. Her
fingertips tapped every inch of the rough wall, passing over every
little bump and probing into every tiny hole. But she didn’t find
openings of any kind. It was as though the wall had swallowed up
the crack.

Kara fell to her knees. “I … I don’t
understand. He was here. We talked for like an hour—he told me
about Zadkiel! I couldn’t have made this up. It doesn’t make any
sense. He was real. I’m not crazy!” Kara hit the wall with her
hand. “What is happening?”

“
It’s okay, Kara.” David
stood beside her. He placed his hand on her shoulder reassuringly.
“No one’s saying you’re crazy. I’m sure there’s a very good
explanation—”

“
The explanation is that
there was never anyone on the other side.” Kara heard the eagle
say. Her temper flared.

Kara’s hands shook, afraid of what she
might do to the bird. She kept looking at the wall. “I didn’t
imagine this, David. He was there. I swear it.”

“
I believe you, Kara,” said
David, and Kara saw the concern in his face. She wasn’t sure if it
was a concerned
it’ll-be-okay-face
, or a
concerned
the-girl-went-crazy-face
. She
figured it was the latter.

Kara’s eyes flicked to Jenny who only
offered a shrug and quickly looked away. Great, now her friends
thought she was a mental case. But she knew the truth. Legan was
real.

“
Uh … guys?” Peter popped
his head inside the cell. “If we want to go through the Rift and be
able to come back before it closes—we have to leave now. If we
don’t … we won’t be able to get through.”

“
Come on, Kara. He’s
right.” David strolled towards the doorway. “We have to go now, or
we’ll lose your mother’s soul for good.”

Reluctantly, Kara pushed herself up
and ignored her friends’ stares. She knew how this scene must look
to them. She had lost her sanity to the grey and lonely walls of
Tartarus, and they felt sorry for her.

Kara struggled to keep her legs steady
and staggered through the door. She kept her head down and avoided
their eyes.

“
Let’s go find my mother’s
soul.” Kara ran back to the platform. She wondered what had
happened to Legan? Was he really a figment of her imagination, a
temporary glitch in her brain caused by the isolation and solitude
from inside the walls of Tartarus? Or did something awful happen to
him? Fear welled up inside her. Perhaps it wasn’t a coincidence the
Rift was on Tartarus. Maybe Zadkiel came here to finish him off
before disappearing back to his true master. Something didn’t fit,
and she promised herself that she would figure out what happened to
Legan—after she rescued her mother.

Kara stood before the Rift. She felt
the anxiety rising inside her, like an uncontrollable panic attack.
This wasn’t a Rift to the Netherworld, so where did it lead? She
saw David standing to her right in her peripheral vision, and heard
the shuffling footsteps of the others behind her.

“
You ready?” asked David.
Kara noticed a slight waver in his voice.

Kara just nodded. She didn’t want
David and the others to hear the panic in her voice. She fought to
control her composure. The black wall rippled, but Kara saw only
the laughing face of a bald archangel.

She clenched her fists—and stepped
into the Rift.

Chapter 4

Lost Soul

K
ara felt her body being pulled by a powerful source, like a
giant vacuum sucking her in. She opened her eyes. Blackness
surrounded her. It was like being sucked into space. She couldn’t
tell what was up or down; it all looked the same to her. Something
pulled at her leg, then her arms. Was she going to split apart? She
was terrified of drifting in the black abyss until her mind shut
off, and she turned into shadow. She feared that jumping into the
rift had been a mistake.

Light shone at the edges of her
vision, like a light at the end of a tunnel. A setting sun of red
and orange appeared before her. With a last tug, Kara was propelled
forward towards the light. She fell head first onto a soft surface.
She lifted her head. Her hands were covered in a red sticky film of
cobwebs and strings. She sat on her knees and shook her hands. It
wasn’t coming off. Her nostrils burned with the sudden stench of
rotten flesh and bile. She wiped her hands on her pants and looked
around.

She stood in a cave. A shiver rolled
up her back. The walls were covered in folds of decomposing and
blackened tissue. Yellow pus-like liquid oozed from what looked
like large, infected sores on the walls. Kara watched a piece of
flesh peel off and drop to the ground, followed by a crack and a
pop. Sheets of meat dripped and slipped to the soft ground in a
sticky red carpet. Torches lined the length of the cave on either
side, like an underground runway. Kara could see that the cave
appeared to go for miles in each direction, with twists and turns
as other adjoining tunnels disappeared into shadow. And in the
distance, Kara could hear the faint sound of drips that she hoped
was water and not something else. The air was hot and heavy, and
Kara couldn’t wait to get out.

A sucking sound reached her ears.
Suddenly, Kara was hit in the chest by a strong force, and she
crashed onto the ground. Weight pinned her down. She blinked and
looked up into David’s smiling face.

“
Hey babe. This is a bit
fast for a first date—but I don’t mind.”

“
Oh, please!” Kara rolled
her eyes, but she couldn’t help the smile that reached her lips.
David’s weight felt awfully good to her, and part of her didn’t
want him to move. But she didn’t want the others to see her in this
compromising position.

“
Get off me!” She pushed
David off of her just in time to see Peter and Jenny crash land
beside them in a sticky mess.

“
What took you guys so
long?” Kara fought with the gooey substance in her hair. She gave
up after a while, since the more she pulled, the worse it
got.

“
This is disgusting!
What
is
this
place?” Jenny jumped to her feet and looked around. She made a
face. “It’s like a giant meat grinder. And it smells
disgusting.”

David picked at the wall with his
blade and cut off a piece of decayed tissue. “Figures why Zadkiel
would pick this place of all places to hide. He always did smell
rotten. He probably feels right at home in this palace of flesh
jam.”

Kara watched Peter adjusting his
glasses. He opened his palm to reveal a small floating red
orb.

“
Can you read anything in
here, Peter?” asked Kara, and she waddled up to him. Her boots sank
further into the red mess.

“
Can you tell where my
mother’s soul is? Can you pinpoint a location for it?” She felt her
nerves prickle inside of her body. There was no way of knowing if
her mother’s soul was still intact and unharmed. Zadkiel could have
destroyed it long ago, and it pained her to think about
it.