Netherworld, Soul Guardians Book 4 (4 page)

Kara made her way slowly towards the
weapons rack. Once she was fitted with her weapons of choice, two
soul blades, she followed the others silently towards the green
water tanks. The three of them were already standing on the
platform waiting for her. They fidgeted with excitement.

Although determined to save the
elemental, Kara couldn’t help but wonder what the darkness was. If
Asmodeus was dead, then what was this new evil? Could he have
released something even more sinister without the legion knowing?
Kara remembered the wails of dying mortals as their bodies were
shredded into pieces by the foul demons that Asmodeus had released
through the Mirror of Souls. Their screams would always haunt her.
She curled her hands into balls to stop them from shaking. This
wasn’t going to be so easy after all, but one thing was for
sure—she had to get to the elemental before anyone else
did.

Chapter 3

A Glowing Angel

T
he sun was a perfect golden coin in the mid afternoon sky.
Birds peppered the blue skies as they chased each other in hot
pursuit. Kara and her teammates walked along Washington Street in
search of the Saint James Youth Center. Brownstone buildings
surrounded them on either side and towered over the dilapidated
local shops that were sandwiched in between the stone giants.
Mortals strolled past deep in conversations, ignorant of the
supernatural elements surrounding them.

Kara was still fuming after the
meeting. She couldn’t suppress her anger easily; it dwelled inside
her core, ready to pounce like a wild cat. She walked with her
fingernails gouged into her palms to stop from shaking with rage.
She prayed no one would get in the way of her plans, because it was
going to get really ugly for them if they did. Protecting the
elemental was all that mattered. She knew her friends would be on
her side, they wouldn’t interfere. But if other GAs tried to stop
her, she didn’t think she could control her power. In that case,
she would probably end up back in Tartarus—her least favorite place
in Horizon.

They walked by manicured parks with
lush green grasses dotted with perennial flowers in rich yellows
and reds. A warm breeze brought forth the smell of summer blooms.
Kara remembered her summer days spent at her grandmother’s cottage,
with long yellow grasses that swayed in the June breezes, and the
sweet aroma of lush hydrangea bushes that her grandmother loved so
much. How she missed her granny. Kara smiled. She was glad to be
amongst the living again. The sun’s rays tickled her face. She
closed her eyes happily for a moment and let the sunshine seep deep
into her M-suit.

Kara…

“
What?” Kara opened her
eyes and turned around. Her comrades regarded her with blank
expressions.

“
What?” she repeated a
little annoyed.

“
Nothing, Kara,” answered
David, with a shrug. “No one said a word to you.”

Kara frowned and averted her eyes. She
was positive she had heard her name called. Her eyes met David’s
briefly, and it was long enough to understand the questioning look
in them. Kara’s annoyance grew.

Jenny stepped forward. Concern
reflected in her large green eyes. “Are you feeling okay? You look
a little freaked.”

“
Yes…I’m fine. It’s
nothing.” Kara brushed her off, her embarrassment growing with
every new question. “Let’s get moving. The Youth Center should be
just another two blocks or so.”

As they walked away, Kara glanced
behind her one last time. She strained to hear. A cacophony of
screeching tires and honking cars answered back. She didn’t hear
her name again. Maybe she had imagined it, maybe the wind taunted
her. She brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. Halfheartedly,
she jogged a few paces to catch up to the others—

Kara…help me!

Kara halted and whirled around. She
stared at a middle-aged couple waddling up to her. They were
arguing loudly and were oblivious to everyone around them. The
woman pushed the man away from her angrily and tried to hit him
with her leather purse. The man pleaded with her by gesturing
theatrically with his hands. The voice couldn’t have come from
them. And yet she was sure it had come from behind her. It had been
so close, as if only a step away. But there was no one around close
enough to have uttered her name. What was going on?

“
Kara? What are you doing?
The youth center is this way. I thought we were in a hurry to get
there. Let’s go.” David waved at her, with a confused expression on
his face. When he realized she wasn’t moving, he shrugged and
started walking towards her.

Reluctantly, Kara lifted her hand.
“I’m coming, David. Just a second.” She scanned the area one last
time and shook her head. “I’m going mad,” she said to herself.
“Maybe the M-5 suits are dysfunctional. I’ll have a talk with Ariel
when I get back.” With her mind finally made up, she walked up the
street to join the team—

Kara, please…I need your
help…They’re coming…

Kara froze. Every hair on her angel
body stood up. The voice was coming from inside her head. Just as
her own elemental part had spoken to her before, a voice rang
inside her mind. It was loud and crisp as though her own thoughts
spoke out to her. But this was something entirely different.
Someone else was speaking to her telepathically—and somehow she
already knew who it was.

With a renewed sense of duty, Kara
searched the street frantically for any sign of the elemental girl.
She knew she had to be close. She whirled on the spot and scanned
the mass of mortals for a young girl. Shoppers ignored her sudden
outburst and wandered past her to peer through the windows of the
local gift shops. A sense of foreboding filled her. Where was she?
Was she already taken? A horde of girls her own age spilled out
from a nearby music store. They strutted away while texting into
their phones. Kara pushed her way through, desperately ignoring the
angry shouts from the mob of mortals. Panic surged inside her. She
had lost her. She pressed her hands on top of her head. There was
no sign of a little girl…or an elemental.

Kara slapped her leg angrily. How had
she lost her so suddenly? Where could she be? Maybe she was
frightened to be seen, and was hiding somewhere close. She prayed
that was the real reason. If demons were after her, it would come
as no surprise that the elemental was scared out of her wits and
preferred to stay hidden. Maybe she was just waiting for the right
moment to show herself —or maybe she wanted Kara to find
her.

An idea came to her, and she decided
to try a different approach. She let herself relax. She stood with
her hands pressed over her ears and blocked out all the sounds from
the busy street. Calmly she closed her eyes. With great effort, she
focused all her energy.

Hey, little girl…it’s me,
Kara. I’m here to help you. Where are you?

Nothing. Her mind was as silent as the
grave. Just a dull hum answered back. She waited a little longer.
Again she emptied her mind. Drawing in her power, she projected it
outwards like a beacon.

It’s me, Kara. I just want
to help you. Can you tell me where you are?

Kara waited. Still
nothing.
Well, it was worth the
try.
She lowered her hands and opened her
eyes.

At first, when she had heard the
voice, she didn’t sense anything dark surrounding it. In fact, she
had felt nothing at all. The voice had sounded very normal, just
like any young girl’s. Whatever darkness the scouts had felt, Kara
didn’t feel it. They had been wrong. The evil the Scouts had felt
wasn’t connected with the elemental, but most likely was the nasty
aura of demons. It would explain the evil presence they had felt.
The elemental was probably surrounded by demons.

A sudden urgency to find the elemental
welled inside her. The prospect of a little girl being tortured by
a mass of wicked demons was horrifying. They were running out of
time. Kara needed to find her immediately. Walking briskly, she
spotted David and the others standing near a bench a block away.
They were waiting for her. Their faces showed their concern when
they saw her approaching.

A little boy around the age of seven
with carrot-red hair chased a yellow and purple butterfly around a
metal lamp post across the street.

Kara waved at her friends. She made up
her mind to tell them about the voice—that way they wouldn’t look
at her as if she were demented anymore. Or would telling them make
it worse? She wasn’t sure. But she knew she must tell them no
matter how delusional they would think she was afterwards. They all
had their worried faces on. She hated the fact that they thought
she was so fragile.

The butterfly flickered away and flew
across the street towards Kara.

It always made her anxious to talk
about the voices she heard. She feared the look in their eyes. Kara
the schizo—that’s what you got for being different—and different
Kara was. She knew her friends cared for her a great deal, but that
psycho suspicion always flashed across their faces for a second
when she spoke of the voices—and always long enough for Kara to
see.

The boy chased the butterfly onto the
street.

But even after all the experiences
they shared, her friends still stood by her. They had risked their
own souls breaking her out of jail. Freak or not, they were still
her friends, loyal friends. So what if she heard more than one
voice inside her head. They had accepted her freak show already.
Surely one more oddity shouldn’t be a huge blow. They would
understand.

The boy laughed as he continued to
chase the butterfly in the street.

The blue of David’s eyes sparkled as
she approached them. Jenny was staring off at a group of girls
their own age with longing in her eyes. Although Kara knew Jenny
loved her job with the legion, she understood that yearning. She
felt it, too, at times. They would never be normal teenagers ever
again. Instead, they were soldiers who fought to keep the mortal
world safe from demons. Their lives now were unequivocally
different from that of average teens. There was no going
back.

The boy jumped as he tried to catch
the butterfly with his bare hands—

Kara froze.

A black cab rumbled down the road in
the opposite direction.

An image of the boy lying dead in the
street wavered before her eyes. The world around her faded, and she
focused her full attention on the boy. Her sight sharpened like a
camera’s zoom lens.

The boy’s eyes were fixed upon the
fluttering creature.

The cab kept coming.

Her M-5 suit clicked into overdrive. A
surge of warm energy washed through her. Before she knew what she
was doing, Kara rocketed across the street and tackled the boy. The
cab clipped her left foot as she landed safely on the sidewalk. She
heard a loud crack but felt no pain.

“
Are you crazy!” The cab
driver honked angrily and cursed as he drove by.

Kara ignored his rude comment and
sighed in relief. She lowered the little boy to the ground. Her
hands shook, and she let him go gently.

“
Wow that was really close.
Didn’t you see the car? No. I guess you didn’t. You could’ve gotten
really hurt. Be careful next time, okay? Always look both ways
before crossing. No more chasing butterflies in the street. You got
that?”

The little boy didn’t answer. Instead,
he looked at Kara with a puzzled expression. His big blue eyes were
fixed on her; his mouth fell open. He poked her arm with his tiny
finger. “Why are you glowing?”

Kara laughed. “What? I’m not glowing.”
She thought she might have bumped the kid on the head by
accident—oops—but she had still saved his life. A bruised head
shouldn’t be too serious. “Just be careful next time,
okay?”

“
James!” A red haired woman
came rushing up to them. She squeezed the little boy in a tight
embrace and fell to her knees.

“
James! Oh my God!” she
whimpered into his shoulder. She grabbed him by the shoulders and
shook him. “What were you thinking? You know better than to run
into the street!” she scolded lovingly, tears running down her
face.

But James didn’t answer. He just
stared at Kara with the same bewildered expression.

“
Mommy, why is the girl
glowing?” He pointed.

Kara started to feel uneasy. She
glanced around nervously, but no other mortals seemed to be looking
their way. She looked down at herself. Her M-suit was intact. She
could see no signs of tears anywhere. She leaned over and stared at
her reflection through the window of a parked car. She looked fine.
She looked like a normal mortal. She wasn’t glowing so what was the
kid talking about?

The woman wiped her nose with her
sleeve and ignored her son. She got to her feet. “Thank you so
much, miss. I—I—didn’t see him in time. If you hadn’t been
there”—the woman’s eyes started to leak water like a
tap.

“
It’s all right. He’s safe
now.” Kara smiled gently. “Just watch out for wandering butterflies
in the streets. I think he might follow them again—”

“
Mommy, the lady is
glowing!” James stomped his feet and pointed some more, his face
turning redder.