Horizon, Soul Guardians Book 3 (7 page)

“
That’s right, Mrs.
Demon—oh, you don’t mind that I call you by
your
true name, right?” David stood
beside her. “It’ll be a pleasure to kick your ass. And a very big
one I might add—”

Zadkiel’s expression darkened. A smile
twitched on his lips. “You were always too outspoken for my taste,
David McGowan. Well then, perhaps I too can play this little game.”
He reached into the jar and pulled out the glowing sphere. “One
false move, and I will squish this little soul.”

Kara stepped forward, her golden power
sizzling on her finger tips. “Don’t do anything stupid … if you
care about your own stinking soul.”

“
You want this?” The
archangel lifted the soul into the air and gazed at it. He looked
at Kara. “Then go get it—”

The little sphere rocketed in the
air.

Kara lunged for the soul. In one swift
movement, she jumped and caught it. The tiny ball of light
illuminated her face and her hands. She held it carefully, as
though it might break into pieces in her hands.

Images of different women flickered in
her mind’s eye. An East Indian woman with long black hair wearing a
red and gold sari smiled as she waved her hands around in a dance.
Another face; this time it was a weather-beaten woman’s face. She
was covered in animal furs and sat in the snow sewing wet sealskin
onto a kayak frame. She saw an image of her mother as a young girl
on roller skates—then as a grown woman holding an infant to her
breast. Kara smiled. This was indeed her mother’s soul.

“
Kara!”

By the time Kara whirled around,
Zadkiel was already on the move. She heard him laugh as he dashed
down the gullet of the ungor demon. His red robe rippled behind him
like a flag caught in a strong wind.

Anger rose inside her. She dropped the
soul carefully into her jacket pocket and ran after him.

“
Kara! No!”

She heard David’s plea, but she
couldn’t stop. She wouldn’t stop. Not until Zadkiel had paid for
what he did. She rocketed through the tunnel, her boots churning up
the sticky floors. She caught a glimpse of a red robe vanish into
another passageway, or was it an alimentary canal leading away from
the creature’s stomach. Kara quivered at the thought. Either way,
she reached it within seconds. She bolted down the food canal and
stopped.

Kara found herself in a large rounded
area with the same wet red walls. What was different in this space
were the wooden desks and chairs that stood at the opposite end. A
large bookcase rose to the top. Books spilled from its shelves,
ragged and torn. Their leather bonds disintegrated into dust. Kara
looked around. This must have been where Zadkiel retreated after a
long day’s work at the council—to conspire against the Legion, and
most probably to communicate with Asmodeus in the safety of the
beast’s belly.

Zadkiel stood in the center of the
cavity. He tilted his head and half smiled, as though taunting Kara
to come closer. A black mist rolled up behind him, a rift that
wavered like a mirage of water.

“
I should have killed you
when I had the chance,” laughed the archangel softly.

“
But you didn’t.” Kara
threw her Soul Blade.

The archangel stepped back into the
Rift—and disappeared.

With a soft thud, her blade fell onto
the sticky ground.

Chapter 5

Falling to pieces

K
ara hadn’t even let David hold her mother’s soul while they
helped Jenny and Peter back through the Rift. It is not that she
didn’t trust him; she just couldn’t bring herself to let it go.
Kara clutched the soul protectively against her chest, like a
mother would her own child. With every little elevator jolt, she
found herself tightening her grip. It was as though she had Krazy
Glued her hands to the brilliant ball.

Once they were safely back in Horizon
and headed towards the Healing-Xpress, Kara said her goodbyes and
took off towards the Hall of Souls. David had offered to accompany
her, but she brushed him off. She told him that she needed to do
this alone. It was her own fault her mother’s soul had gone missing
in the first place. She could only relax once she knew her mother’s
soul was safe—finally, and once and for all.

The elevator swayed slightly to the
right, then to the left. Kara cupped the soul tenderly. Her eyes
never left the operator. An ape with long light brown fur and a
small black face, watched her from his chair. His hands and feet
were completely black, as though he were wearing gloves. He wore a
green tall hat that engulfed his tiny head, as though it was two
sizes too big. He looked like an ugly leprechaun. His black beady
eyes observed her. His eyes glanced at the soul momentarily. They
flashed with sudden interest. Kara pressed her lips into a hard
line and hid the soul within her jacket. The ape raised its
eyebrows and kept staring at her. She looked him in the eye, stone
faced, without blinking. She didn’t care that he was supposed to be
one of the good guys. If he tried anything, she would cut him up
into tiny monkey cubes.

After a few moments, the
elevator wrenched to a stop. With a
ding
, the doors slid open. The
operator pulled off his hat and bowed.

“
Level four! Hall of
Souls!” he called, to no one in particular.

Kara pressed the soul protectively
against her chest and stepped off the elevator.

She heard the doors close behind her.
She looked around. She stood still.

The once brilliantly lit chamber with
millions of hovering spheres was now dark and gloomy. Kara’s
favorite giant field of fireflies had been extinguished. Only a few
thousand spheres still floated radiantly in the black sky, casting
a lonely glow in the vast space. A chill passed through her. What
was going on?

Kara gazed at the ground. The black
marble floor was covered with dark grey powder, like a plush carpet
of dust. Dead souls, Kara realized in horror. Everywhere she
looked, dead souls littered the ground. It was like staring at the
ashes from the aftermath of a volcanic eruption with mounds of
cinders everywhere. The ground was completely covered. There was
nowhere for her to walk, if she didn’t want to step on the remains
of a soul. She bent down and reached out—but pulled her hand back.
She cringed as she remembered the feeling of dread and despair she
had once felt, while handling a dead soul, Mrs. Wilkins’s dead
soul. It had been a horrible experience for her, and she never
wanted to feel it again. But something told her that this was an
entirely different situation.

A shiver passed through her. She could
see a huge stone fireplace in the distance. She remembered the
magnificent white flames that sprouted high into the air. But there
weren’t any flames now. The white fires of Atma were doused. Dread
crept inside her like a fever. She forced the frightening feeling
aside and thought of the archangel Ramiel. He would explain this to
her.

Kara stuck out her leg, and gently
tapped one of the dead souls—nothing happened. Curious, she pushed
it to the side with her boot. She still felt nothing. There were no
intense feelings of despair and misery. No voices screamed inside
her head. No visions of past lives fluttered inside her mind’s eye.
It was as though it had never happened. She tapped it again, and
the soul rolled over and stopped—like a black ball, hollow and
dead. What had happened to the soul? Why it wasn’t crying out when
she touched it, she couldn’t tell. Something was terribly
wrong.

Kara made her way carefully through
the thousands of dead souls that littered the ground, brushing them
gently with her boots, so as not to step on them. God forbid if she
stepped on one of them. Her footsteps echoed throughout the
chamber, a strange and lonely sound in the majestic space. She
strained her eyes to see beyond the peppered black sky. The room
was still, nothing moved. It felt dead to Kara. She looked for the
blond haired children, but she couldn’t see any. Where were the
cherubs?

Crunch
.

Kara frowned and glanced at the floor.
She stood in a small mound of sparkling sand, as though someone had
dumped a pile of diamonds on the ground. She brushed her boot
through it. How beautiful the stones looked against the black
marble floor. Her mother loved diamonds. But they could never
afford to buy the real ones, only the zirconia. She tapped the soul
gently against her chest.

“
I’ll buy you real diamonds
one day, mom. I promise.”

A sparkle caught her eye a few feet
away. More piles of diamonds, she realized. And now that she knew
what to look for, she noticed hundreds more hidden beneath the
blackened souls. Strange. She had never noticed them
before.

A scraping sound reached her ears. She
whirled around—and a golden haired person with long blue robes fell
into her arms. Balancing the cherub with one arm, Kara slowly
lowered herself to the ground. He was surprisingly light. She
positioned herself on her knees and brought the little child closer
to her—and froze.

An emaciated face with sunken eyes
with a nose and mouth lost in hundreds of wrinkles looked up at
her. His withered skin was like parchment and stretched over his
skull-like face; it looked as though it would disappear. This was
not the youthful face of the cherubs she remembered. She was
staring at the face of an ancient man. His lips moved, but no sound
escaped his mouth. Kara felt him shivering in her arms. Gaunt grey
feet stuck out from beneath his blue robes, like a cadaver from the
morgue. Kara desperately tried to wrap his robe around him. She
thought of crying out for help, but thought better of it. She felt
as though he would break if she raised her voice. She brushed his
thin hair from his face with shaking fingers. His lips moved again.
She lowered her ear near his lips.

“
Save us.”

Kara felt suddenly cold. She frowned.
“What? What do you mean … save us? What’s wrong with
you?”

The cherub’s eyes rolled back in his
head. He didn’t answer.

Kara fidgeted uncomfortably. “I’m …
I’m going to lift you up now—and take you to Raphael. Just hang
on.”

Delicately, Kara balanced the cherub
tenderly against the left side of her chest. She remembered having
dolls heavier than he was. It frightened her. She glanced down at
her mother’s soul, still clutched gently to her chest, and was
careful not to squish it with the cherub’s weight. She knew that
was probably unlikely, since the little guy weighed no more than
her neighbor’s cat.

“
Save us … you must save
us,” croaked the cherub again, and Kara noticed how much louder the
voice was, as though he had gained some strength back.

She stopped and looked gently at him.
“I’m going to get you some help. Don’t you worry. Don’t talk … save
your strength.”

The cherub lifted his hand and pressed
a finger against Kara’s forehead. She shivered as his touch sent a
cold chill from her head down to her toes, as though someone had
poured a bucket of ice-cold water on her head. A sudden burst of
emotions exploded inside her. Voices screamed inside her head.
Millions of people cried out to her at the same time. She could
hear them clearly, as though they were right there beside her. Her
vision blurred. She blinked. Images of different men, women, and
children flashed in her mind’s eye, like a fast-forwarding movie.
More like a dream, she realized. All at once, she felt their joy
and their pain. A man walked his dog in a lush green park. A
middle-aged woman with a straw hat worked feverously in her garden.
Children laughed and chased each other on a playground. A black
mist approached. The children screamed. Shadows swallowed the
children and muffled their screams. Darkness came. She heard the
screams of thousands of mortals. She heard their pleas for help.
Creatures from their nightmares tore at their bodies, ripping them
limb from limb. Kara cried out, just as the people in her mind
cried out as they died—

The visions disappeared.

Kara trembled and looked down into the
wet golden eyes of the cherub. His mouth opened in a soundless cry.
Suddenly, his skin and robe began to glow. They shone brilliantly
like crystals. The skin cracked. Kara noticed small crevices
forming on the cherub’s face, like a puzzle. And with a sudden pop,
the cherub exploded in a cloud of diamonds.

“
No!”

Terrified, Kara searched the air in
front of her with her hands trying desperately to catch some of the
falling particles. She watched them drift to the ground. The cherub
was now a beautiful pile of glimmering diamonds.

Kara fell to her knees. She grabbed a
fistful of the tiny crystals and watched them fall through her
fingers like grains of salt. Overcome with sadness, Kara cursed the
fact that she couldn’t cry.

“
They are dying,” said a
voice behind her.

Kara whipped around and stared up into
the face of a giant man. He was dressed in a white robe, open in
the front with a high gold-rimmed collar and gold rimmed cuffs. His
handsome face was twisted in grief. A golden glow emanated from his
pale skin.

“
There is nothing we can
do,” said the archangel Ramiel solemnly.