Horizon, Soul Guardians Book 3 (16 page)

“
Orders from the High
Council, that is. The archangel Uriel himself,” replied the other
tiny person in a voice even higher pitched, “says no one is to
leave. Too dangerous. Have to stay here.”

“
Too dangerous? But
we
have
to leave.
We can’t stay here!” Kara’s temper flared. Things were just getting
worse by the minute. She fought to control her anger. She wanted to
strangle the little guy.

“
I’m sorry, but you can’t.
You’ll have to sit and wait with the rest of them.” The little man
turned and pointed in the direction of a large grey panel that
covered an entire wall.

Another man waddled over to
the panel, put his weight into it, and pushed the panel as it
rolled away and folded onto itself. Kara stared at a back room
packed with angels. A flashing blue and red neon sign was nailed at
the top. It read,
Customer service, now
serving angels
. Over a thousand guardian
angels sat in small metal chairs. They fidgeted nervously. Kara
wondered how long they’d been waiting in that room. She scanned the
area for Jenny and Peter. They weren’t there. She felt a pressure
in her chest and prayed that they had made their way back to
Horizon safely.

“
You have to take a number
and sit with the rest of them.” The man rolled up the robe and
flung it over his shoulder. “Lilly will take care of you.” He
skipped away, the black robe dragging on the floor behind
him.

Kara turned back and searched the
room. A single desk of polished wood stood across the room at the
far right. A woman sat in a chair behind the desk. She wore a black
vest over a white blouse buttoned all the way to the neck. Her grey
hair was pulled back tightly in a bun that rested on the top of her
head. Her pointy face was pulled tight, and she wore a deep frown
that dragged her forehead down to the bridge of her nose. She
reminded Kara of her fourth-grade teacher, Mrs. Wiggins, whose
frown and cruel face terrified the children. She suppressed a
chill.

To Lilly’s right was a
large red arrow secured on a tall metal stand with the
words,
pick a number
, pointed down. A large roll of numbers spilled to the
floor.

David raised his brows. “This is the
weirdest day I’ve ever had as a GA.”

“
Let’s just hope she can
tell us how to get back. The longer we waste here, the slimmer our
chances are to reach the Legion in time before the demons
strike.”

David shrugged. “You’re right. Well,
let’s get to it.” He strode toward the desk, pushing his way
through the tight space. Kara followed him and looked around. She
didn’t recognize any of the faces. But they all had one thing in
common—they were frightened.

David stood before the large red arrow
and tore off a number. He stared at it for a moment. He looked up
at Kara and handed her the small piece of paper.

Kara seized the ticket. A bell rang,
and a number appeared above the arrow: eighty-four. She glanced
down at her number, thirty-six thousand seven hundred and
ninety-nine. They would be stuck here for days. Kara watched the
angel with the number eighty-four walk up to the desk and hand the
piece of paper to Lilly. She took the number, crumbled it, and
threw it in a waste paper basket behind her without turning her
head. Kara thought she looked annoyed.

Kara crumbled her own number and
stormed towards the desk. The angel with number eighty-four walked
away. Kara took the opportunity, and as the bell rang for the next
number she was already standing in front of the desk.

Lilly looked up from under the deep
folds of her brows. “Number,” she said impatiently and held out her
hand. She waited.

Kara caught sight of David standing
next to her. She handed Lilly her creased number. She watched the
old woman examine the piece of paper. Her eyebrows rose, and the
old woman’s face twisted in annoyance.

“
Can’t you read? It says
number eighty-five.” She pointed to the number above the red arrow
with a long crooked finger. “Sit,” she ordered, and dismissed Kara
with a flick of her hand. Kara clenched her jaw. This was going to
be more difficult than she expected.

Kara leaned over the desk, so that the
other angels couldn’t hear. “Uh … Lilly? Listen, we can’t wait
here. We have urgent information for the Legion. My partner and I
must get to Horizon right now.” She hoped she didn’t sound too
disrespectful. She studied the woman’s face for any traces of
contempt. There weren’t any.

Lilly stared at Kara without blinking.
She smiled in amusement. “Do you have number
eighty-five?”

“
No, but—”

“
Then sit down!”

Kara flinched. How dare this woman
speak to her like this? She clenched her trembling fingers into
fists. She wanted to punch her. She slammed her hand on the desk.
The boom echoed louder throughout the room than she would have
wanted. All the GAs were listening in.

“
Listen, lady,” hissed
Kara, and she noticed David take a step back. “I don’t have time
for your attitude and stupidity!” Her voice carried through the
room. “If you don’t let us get back, the Legion will be destroyed!
And it’ll be because of you!” She pointed her finger inches from
Lilly’s face. That seemed to anger the woman.

Lilly looked as though she had bitten
into something bitter. Her eyes became tight slits and Kara could
hardly see the green in them anymore.

Lilly pushed back her chair and stood
up. “Listen to me carefully, guardian. As I have been explaining
for the last five hours to the rest of your kin—,” she waved her
skinny arm in the direction of the angels sitting in the chairs,
“you cannot go back to Horizon. Something has broken the veil. All
angels trying to get back to Horizon from Earth will land here. The
High Council has instructed us to keep you here safely until they
fix the problem. So you see, you cannot go anywhere … no matter how
much you raise your voice to me.”

Kara glared down at the tiny woman.
“This is exactly why we must go.”

Kara tried to calm the shaking in her
voice. “There are things you don’t know … don’t understand.
Terrible things will happen if we don’t get in touch with the
Legion in time, you must believe us—”

“
What things?” Lilly
crossed her arms over her chest. “What things, guardian?” she
repeated, a hint of concern in her commanding voice.

Kara wondered if she should tell this
old fool. She decided that she would and hoped she would
understand. “Asmodeus is planning an attack on Horizon. He used the
attacks on the mortal world as a diversion. We know it to be true.
He’s also probably causing this disruption in the veil.”

“
With all the angels gone
to save mortal souls, plus the ones stuck here—he has a great
chance of succeeding.”

David stood by Kara. “This is very
serious, Lilly.” David put on the charm. “We’re not here to get you
into any kind of trouble, I promise. We just need you to help us
get back.”

The old woman stood motionless, her
cold stare fixed on them both. For the moment no one
spoke.

“
If we can’t get through to
Horizon … then at least let us send them a message,” pleaded
David.

“
You can’t,” said Lilly
through gritted teeth. “That’s not possible.”

“
Surely you can communicate
with them? You just said they gave you orders to keep everyone
here—”

“
No, as I said … it’s not
possible.”

“
Why not?” Kara heard the
anger in David’s voice. He too was losing his patience with the old
woman.

Lilly studied their faces for a
minute. Her green eyes focused on Kara. “You are the angel, Kara?
Aren’t you?”

“
Yes.” Kara was running out
of patience and time.

Lilly fell back into her seat, and
Kara thought she had paled. “If what you say is true, then it is
grave indeed. I had wondered why we had lost all communication with
Horizon. They can’t hear us anymore. We are unable to communicate
with them. No messages can get through anymore.”

Kara’s eyes were level with Lilly’s.
“Then let us through, let us get back.”

The old woman stared into space. She
looked up at the two of them and shook her head. “It is too
dangerous. Your angel bodies will die. I cannot be responsible for
your deaths.”

Kara pressed her hands on the desk.
“If you don’t let us go, you’ll be responsible for a lot more than
just two deaths.”

Lilly shook her head again. She looked
at them with sad eyes. “You don’t understand. With the veil broken,
it is too dangerous to travel back to Horizon. Your supernatural
bodies will burn and fall apart. Without vega, your bodies will
disintegrate into nothingness. You will die … the true
death.”

Kara refused to believe it. They
hadn’t gone through all this mess to be told they couldn’t reach
Horizon. “Is there a chance that we might not? Is there a chance we
might survive?”

Lilly didn’t answer. She only stared
at her.

“
Well, is
there?”

The old woman closed her eyes. “Yes.
There is a slight chance. A very slight chance you might
survive—”

“
So we’ll do it. We’ll take
that chance.”

Lilly stared at Kara, bewildered for a
long moment. After a while she relaxed. She seemed to have accepted
Kara’s request. She stood up and called out.

“
Rosy! I need you to
replace me for fifteen minutes.”

A plump young woman with a tan skirt
suit pushed her way through the crowd. Her curly blond hair bounced
from her shoulders as she went to busy herself with the angel
customers. Lilly made her way around her desk and gestured for Kara
and David to follow her.

She led them out of the room and
across the warehouse towards the back. They followed her through a
small corridor and down a few steps leading to a bottom level. Kara
couldn’t see anything through the darkness. Lilly climbed up a
ladder and flicked a switch. Immediately the room was bathed in a
soft yellow light. A large elevator shaft rose against the back
wall. A metal gate was secured before it. Kara heard a tinkle, and
saw Lilly pull out a large set of keys. She waddled over to the
large elevator and stood up on her toes. She jammed a key into an
iron key hole and turned—

The ground shook as light exploded
from the key hole. The elevator was illuminated in a blue light.
Blue shards of light coiled around the elevator and went out. The
room stood still once again.

David smiled. “Wow. What kind of
elevator is this?” He walked across the room and dragged his hand
against the metal gate. “It looks ancient.”

“
That’s because it is.”
Lilly grabbed hold of the gate and with great effort, she pulled it
across. Two solid metal doors stood before them. “This elevator was
one of the first built by the archangels, thousands of years ago.
They stopped using it because it had some defects. Angels would
come back missing arms and legs. It became too dangerous to let
anyone use it. They then designed the EL20 models—the ones you’ve
used, and forgot about this one. It hasn’t been used in over five
hundred years. It’s kept only for emergencies. I don’t even know if
it’ll work.”

Kara pressed her hand against the
doors. It was cool. “Well, this is definitely an
emergency—”

The doors creaked, and slid open. Kara
jumped back in alarm.

Beyond the doors was a large
compartment. The walls were metal and the floor was crooked slabs
of concrete. It wasn’t nearly as fancy as the elevators Kara was
used to. But this wasn’t the time to get picky. Kara made up her
mind and stepped into the elevator. David stepped in beside her.
She looked around. Smooth metal walls surrounded them. There were
no buttons anywhere. Kara thought it strange that there was no
control panel.

Lilly grabbed the metal gate and
pulled it across them on the other side. She stepped back and
watched them with a worried expression.

“
How do we know where the
elevator is going?” asked Kara, with her hand on the wall where the
control panel ought to be.

Lilly forced a smile. “You don’t. If
you survive the journey, it’ll take you to Horizon. But where, is
beyond me.”

“
Great,” mumbled
Kara.

“
Safe journey back. Best of
luck.” She leaned over and pressed her finger on a panel on the
exterior wall.

With a loud screeching noise the doors
jerked and slid slowly across the front. David squeezed her hand in
his. She looked into his blue eyes and returned his squeeze. David
was as terrified as she was.

The elevator jerked to life. She felt
pressure pulling her in every direction. The pulling increased, and
she felt as though her body would rip apart. She hung onto David
desperately. What have they gotten themselves into? David’s body
shook, and she felt hers move. Kara yelled in surprise. David’s
body suddenly disappeared. It reappeared a second later, but it was
transparent. She could see the metal wall through him, as though
she was looking through a heat wave. She looked down. Her lower
body and legs were a white mist. Was this the end? Another wave of
pain attacked. Kara let out a cry. She shook uncontrollably. She
felt as though she was in a blender. She knew her body was
breaking. They were going to die.