Netherworld, Soul Guardians Book 4 (26 page)

The mortal world was safe for the time
being, and Kara was really looking forward to going back home and
spending more quality time with David. They still had a movie to
catch—

Woof, woof!

A white and tan bulldog stood at her
feet. Its big serious brown eyes stared up at her under thick folds
of skin. Buckets of drool ran down the sides of his droopy jowls. A
red and white polka dot collar was wrapped around his thick
neck.

“
Thor!” Kara knelt down and
patted the dog on the head. She looked over her shoulder to see if
anyone was paying attention. She lowered her voice to a whisper.
“What are you doing here? How did you find me?”

Thor licked his lips. “I smelled you
out.”

“
Thanks.” Kara glared at
the dog. “It’s nice to see you, too. You don’t smell like flowers
either, you know.” She wasn’t sure if she was happy to see the
little fellow anymore.

“
Never said I did. And
you’re welcome.” Thor sat down with a plop. His scrawny little legs
protruded from under his giant belly. “Listen—I’m not here to
mingle over a latte—you need to come with me. There’s been an
attack.”

Kara leaned closer. “What kind of
attack?” By the amounts of drool flying out of the dog’s maw, it
sounded serious.

“
There’s been an attack on
the sensitives—a massacre—they’re almost all dead. Only a few have
survived.”

“
What!” Kara’s voice rose
before she could control it. She saw Jenny whirl around, but she
dismissed her with a wave of her hand and a fake smile. She lowered
her voice. “How can this have happened? Who did it?”

A deep growl formed in Thor’s throat.
“The seirs.”

And now a sneak peek at
SEIRS

Chapter 1

Bloodbath

A
warm breeze brushed her face as Kara rushed through the
throng of mortals who crowded the elaborate maze of streets. She
tried her best to follow the English bulldog that ran at her side,
staying close to the buildings and out of the thickest of the
commotion. The smells ran from foul to fragrant. There was a faint
mist of exhaust fumes with a hint of blossoms. She slid past men in
suits arguing loudly on their cell phones, women balancing large
shopping bags while they tried to hang on to their children, and
teens huddled together as they laughed excitedly about something on
their smart phones. Kara ignored the beautiful lush park and the
sweet aroma of the summer blooms. She didn’t even glance at the
Golden Retriever puppies in the window of the pet shop.

She didn’t have time to
stop.

“
How far is it till we get
there?” whispered Kara as she sidled around a large woman sucking a
soda drink through a straw. “The mortals are giving me
looks
.”

Thor dove under the legs of an elderly
man with a walking stick and kept his eyes on the street. “Not far.
Just after the next block.”

Kara accidentally rammed
her shoulder into a man. He glowered at her. “I’m so sorry, excuse
me. I didn’t see you there. I said I was
sorry
.” She twisted around him and
ran to catch up to Thor.

“
Are you going to tell me
what’s going on?” she blurted out loudly to the dog. She
disregarded the confused looks that the passing mortals gave her.
It seemed only fair to her that she should know what was going
on.

Thor halted and turned. His gray
tongue hung out the side of his jaw and grazed the sidewalk in a
sloppy mess. “You’ll see when we get there. Then you’ll understand.
I just can’t talk about it right now—especially here.” His big
brown eyes looked about uneasily. He lifted his snout and sniffed
the air. With a bounce in his step, he turned and scurried down the
street.

Pressure weighed on Kara’s chest, and
she pressed on. She had been on an unauthorized excursion to a
Boston coffee shop with Jenny when Thor had suddenly appeared.
There had been an attack on the Sensitives. If Thor had known where
she was, that meant that the legion also knew.

Leaving Jenny to her own devices, Kara
had followed Thor out of the shop.

She wasn’t sorry she had lied about a
possible rift to the Counter Demon Division. In fact, she would do
it again to see that smile on Jenny’s face when she hooked her up
with that handsome teen. Jenny had nearly died in the netherworld,
and she deserved a break and a little fun. Perhaps guardian angels
were good at hiding their emotions, but it didn’t mean they didn’t
have feelings. Kara wanted to do something meaningful for her
friend, even if she undoubtedly knew she was breaking some sacred
law. She was aware her actions would probably cost her a demotion
in the legion or worse—a trip to Tartarus, the angel prison, her
favorite of all places. But it seemed that the recent attacks on
the Sensitives had saved her the trip.

And right now, it appeared Tartarus
was the least of her problems.

Kara’s knees buckled at the thought of
those evil Seirs slaughtering the Sensitives in a merciless attack.
A chill rolled up her back as she remembered the wicked grins
painted on the hideous faces of the Seirs. The horrifying tattooed
eyes on the back of their heads seemed to follow her wherever she
went. Their long black leather coats and death blades haunted her.
Although they had once been Sensitives, gifted with the ability to
see the supernatural, the Seirs had turned evil and had sworn an
allegiance to the netherworld. Now they had become enemies that the
guardian angels couldn’t fight or kill. Like all guardian angels,
Kara had sworn an oath to protect all mortals, and although the
Seirs were the most sinister of all, they were still mortals and
were not to be touched. The Seirs were off limits.

Kara glowered and clenched her jaw,
resolving that somehow she would find a way to stop them. Someone
had to, and she might as well be that someone.

She remembered the kind faces and the
confident gleam in the eyes of the Sensitives who had saved her and
her friends from the Seirs in the warehouse a week ago. They had
been so elegant in their suits and fedora hats, like the gangsters
from the old movies she loved to watch with her grandmother. But if
the Sensitives had been so skilled with their gleaming swords and
so well trained in the martial arts, how had the Seirs defeated
them in these recent attacks? Was Lilith behind these
assaults?

Somehow, Kara had the nasty feeling
that she was.

The Seirs followed Lilith’s commands
like obedient dogs. They had been promised power and immortality,
and in return they did Lilith’s bidding. When Kara had rescued
Jenny from their clutches, Lilith had promised that she would
avenge her father’s death. It appeared as though Lilith’s revenge
had already begun.

Kara’s last visit to the netherworld
had left her feeling troubled. She hadn’t shared the conversations
she’d had with Morthdu, the keeper of the netherworld, with
anyone—not even with David. It was bad enough to be marked, to be a
demon spawn. She couldn’t blame the legion for being suspicious of
her—they must have known that they had traitors among them. Kara
knew not only that she was Asmodeus’s daughter, but that she also
shared a link with Morthdu. It would be a mistake to tell anybody
about that.

The green entity had
said,
The darkness lives within
you...

Kara shivered at the thought. She knew
that she was part of the netherworld and had an unmistakable
connection to another conscious level. What the green sun had told
her was all true—Kara had the darkness inside her.

But how did it get there?

Since her trip to the netherworld she
had been obsessed with what Morthdu had told her. She replayed the
conversations in her head over and over again. Had she missed
something? Had she misheard Morthdu? Kara repeatedly tried to deny
it, but in the end she knew she had a darkness in her—she felt it.
But she desperately wanted to share it with someone, that way they
could tell her it wasn’t true. It ate at her, like a flesh eating
disease, like cold hands wrapped around her neck choking the angel
life out of her.

And yet she couldn’t shake off her
thrill for that power and for more...

Kara shuddered. Was that the
darkness?

What’s worse, the more she used her
elemental powers, the more she felt drawn to the netherworld. She
tried to deny it, but the sensation was intoxicating. Part of her
wanted to explore these feelings—and the other part was absolutely
terrified at what this meant.

She wasn’t like her late father or her
half-sister Lilith. She was one of the good guys.

The brick buildings around them cast
long shadows, and Kara hurried to catch up to Thor. He tore around
the next corner at the end of the block. A wall of brownstone
buildings loomed before them. Thor dashed across the street. Kara
ignored the loud comments of having her dog off leash by a middle
aged couple and galloped behind him. He hurtled up a set of
concrete stairs that led to a large black wooden door. Kara was
amazed at the agility of the bulldog’s grubby little
legs.

The stone building was a warm brown
color, and Kara imagined that the brick was made of chocolate. How
she missed the taste of chocolate melting on her tongue! Her mortal
days already seemed so far away.

Vibrant flower boxes with a variety of
purple pansies and blood-red geraniums hung below the tall windows
of the neighboring buildings, but the flowers hanging from the
windows of the chocolate-brown building were dead. A single candle
burned in one of the lower windows.

Thor scrambled onto the
side metal railing and pressed a paw on the dagger shaped brass
doorbell. After a few seconds, there was a buzzing sound, a
click
, and the door
unlocked. Thor jumped down onto the veranda and pushed open the
door with his flat face.

Kara closed the door behind her. The
floorboards creaked as she stepped out of the foyer and followed
Thor down a hall. Intricate moldings decorated the walls like icing
on a fancy cake. It was like a grand hotel, but on a smaller scale.
The sound of Kara’s boots was stifled by lush Persian carpets that
ran the length of the hall. The dim lighting from a large
chandelier cast a sullen light, and Kara could hear mumbling
voices. The air smelled of disinfectant and blood.

Thor disappeared through a doorway at
the end of the hall. Kara stepped behind him across the
threshold.

David, Peter, and some Sensitives were
already inside. In front of them, the bodies of men and women lay
tangled over one another with their limbs twisted hideously. Gaping
wounds slashed across their necks, and their empty hands clutched
at their throats in a last attempt to keep the blood from pouring
out.

The grisly scene horrified her and yet
compelled her to investigate closer. It was like a crime scene from
one of the television police shows she loved to watch with her
mother. Blood covered the walls as though buckets of red paint had
been thrown against them. Kara searched but could find no
weapons.

A young woman with swollen red eyes
had begun to wash the blood from the floors. She wiped her wet nose
with her sleeve and swabbed a pink cloth on the floorboards. Her
long blonde hair fell over her face. She pushed it back and mumbled
incomprehensively as she worked vigorously at the dark maroon
stains which were seeping into the floorboards.

David and Peter stood by the far wall
next to a large bay window. The soft light cast shadows under their
eyes. Peter looked as though he was about to be sick. She shared a
look with David before she forced her feelings for him out of her
mind. This wasn’t the time or place to be affectionate.

“
Where’s Jenny?” asked
David in a low voice. He brushed up against Kara. “I thought she
was with you.”

Kara averted her eyes. “She’s still at
the coffee shop. I told her we’d meet up with her later. I didn’t
tell her about this. Thor didn’t give me much anyway.”

David raked his blond disheveled hair
with his fingers and sighed. “Not what you expected, huh? Those
Seirs are pretty messed up. You have to be seriously psychotic to
do this to other mortals. They need to be taught a lesson.” David
cracked his knuckles. “I wish the legion could let us revoke our
oaths for a few minutes—just enough to kill a few of
them.”