Marked (13 page)

He tapped her shoulder. “It’s ok, Kiddo. You did
good
. Now, give the shiny white ball to the Cherub.” The Cherub tapped its foot on the ground. It cocked an eyebrow, clearly annoyed by Kara’s reluctance to give up the soul.

She dropped her shoulders and looked down at the soul. The glowing ball emanated light on her frowning face. Kara pulled her hands away from her chest slowly and gently dropped the soul into the glass jar. Immediately the Cherub turned on its heel, strolled away, jumped into a tiny vehicle and drove off, leaving Kara staring after it. A sudden feeling of sadness washed over her, as though she had just lost a part of herself.

“What’s going to happen to it?” Kara asked, as the Cherub disappeared into the walls of light.

“It’ll be reborn—like every other living soul,” answered David.

A thought nagged at the back of Kara’s mind. “David. You think you can ask Ramiel about my mom? Maybe he knows something?”

“Sure.” David cleared his throat. “Excuse me your highness, but Ms. Nightingale here has a question...about her mother.”

“Yes?” said the archangel heavily and leaned forward.

“Well, she told me that her mother can see demons—so she’s probably a sensitive—but then the interesting part is that her mother likes to—
disappear
at times. Reappearing at different places. So, you see...I believe she might be a guardian.”

The archangel’s face was impassive, apart from a light twitch in his lip. “I will consult her profile.”

He moved his hands over his keyboard and started typing. He looked up at Kara. “Is your mother’s name, Danielle Dubois?”

Kara’s jaw dropped. “Yes.”

“She is indeed a guardian angel. She’s back on Earth in her mortal body, waiting for her next assignment.”

“I knew it!” David’s face lit up. He nudged Kara on the shoulder. “How cool is that! My parents are just regular mortals. My Dad’s a mechanic and my mom’s a teacher—nothing special.”

But Kara didn’t feel the news to be special. Things just started to make a lot more sense to her, now that she knew why her mother behaved so strangely. Somehow she felt a lot worse.

“My mother—a guardian angel. It explains a lot. I wish she could have told me somehow.” Kara dropped her eyes and stared at the floor.

“She couldn’t,” said David with kind eyes. “We’re forbidden to reveal ourselves to mortals. It’s one of the laws or something. Plus—it was for your own good. I doubt you would have believed her anyway. It’s like you said—you thought she was mad.”

But Kara thought otherwise. She would have believed her. She knew it somehow. She looked up at Ramiel. With his eyes closed and his head arched up, he looked like he was meditating. She studied his perfect face as he opened his eyes again and spoke.

“The archangel Gabriel is waiting for you. Your
rookie
needs more training. Don’t make him wait.”

“No worries, your divineness—your wish is my command!” David bowed and flashed his teeth.

Ramiel stepped forward, looking down upon David with flares in his eyes. “
You’re
only still here because your rookie shows a lot of promise. Don’t disappoint her by being a fool!”

“Ah—but I’m the best damn fool in all of Horizon,” said David. “Later, your worship.”

And with that David whirled around, grabbed Kara by the elbow and steered her back towards to the elevator.

“You’re a real ass—you know that?” Laughed Kara. She knew he was way too cocky with the archangels, but at least he made her smile.

“I’ll take that as a compliment, thank you very much.” He lifted his chin and smiled into the black skies. “I’d like to think of myself as an entrepreneur—a visionary.”

“Keep it up and you’ll be visioning Ramiel’s fist when it makes contact with your face.”

The elevator ride back to Operations was a silent one, apart from the loud scratching noises coming from a chimpanzee in a blue fisherman’s hat, who kept rubbing its behind. Kara pressed her head against the wood panel at the back on the elevator, closed her eyes and thought of her mother.

“What are you thinking about?” asked David. He leaned against the panel beside her.

“Oh, nothing much—the usual.”

“And…what’s the usual?”

Kara opened her eyes. “Just that I was flattened by a bus—got a new job as a guardian angel—souls are everlasting and reincarnated into body suits—my mother is an angel—demons are freak’n real—and some, apparently, are out to get you.”

David scratched the back of his neck. “You’ll get used to it.”

“So, you keep telling me.”

They jumped off the elevator and walked along the red sand.

“Um, David?” Kara brushed a long strand of brown hair behind her right ear. “Uh—those higher demons—you said that they were after
us
? Why?” She felt a slight shiver pass through her body. Their black eyes still haunted her.

David looked intently at Kara. “Not
only
after us, but after guardian angels in general—especially the rookies, since you’re easy targets.”

Kara frowned with curiosity as she walked. Puffs of red sand escaped her feet as she kept up the pace with David. “So they were after my mother too. But why? I thought demons were only after
souls
—like, to eat or something?”

“Well, they do eat them, sort of.” He combed the top of his hair with his fingers. “Lesser demons, like shadow demons—devour souls. Souls are a life force. The more they feed on them, the more powerful they become, and it gives them longevity on Earth. Without the souls, they would die.”

Kara stared at the salt pyramids as she and David walked passed them. She reflected on this new information. White puffy clouds ran across a perfect blue sky, shaped like wild animals. An ocean fragrance surrounded them.

Kara raised her brow. “This place is even freakier than I could have imagined.” Her mind flicked to thoughts of the black eyed demons. “So, what about the black eyed freaks? Higher demons?” As she said that, a guardian angel with two stars tattooed on his forehead approached them. He smiled, lifted up his hand, and he and David high-fived one another. They exchanged a few words. The angel patted David on the shoulder, then walked away.

“So, I see you’re a celebrity in Horizon,” laughed Kara.

“Huh?” A smile reached David’s lips. “Right—the higher demons. Yeah, they’re nasty,” said David as he lifted up the collar from his leather jacket. “Can’t be too careful when they’re around.” He gave Kara his wink
du jour
.

She signed and rolled her eyes. “God—you’re so full of yourself. I could slap you!” She kicked up some red sand with her shoe. “But why were they after us? After me?”

“’Cause, you have something they want. Your GA life source is like a thousand regular souls. One guardian angel soul can make a higher demon almost as powerful as an archangel—and trust me, you don’t want that.” David looked away and seemed lost for words.

“You said that the higher demons knew where we were? That seemed to freak Ramiel out a little—why’s that?”

“Well, for starters—that never happened to me before. It usually takes hours before the higher demons—or any demon, can sense us back on Earth. They don’t just show up like that, a few minutes after we show up. I don’t get it…?” He searched Kara’s face, with that same puzzled expression in his face.

“Don’t look at me like that! It’s not like I
announced
our arrival or anything. Besides, I’m new here! How would I know anything?”

David shook his head. “I don’t know, but it smells bad.”

Kara felt that was probably true, but there was nothing she could do about it. This new job came with a lot of unanswered questions and a lot of new dangers.

David raised his eyebrows. His blue eyes glittered. “It almost feels like—someone from the Legion told them.”

“What? But that makes no sense?”

“It makes perfect sense. And it’s happened before.” He face hardened. “Traitors, working for the demons from inside the Legion. They’re fallen angels who go over to the dark side—their heads filled with a lust for power.”

Kara stayed where she was, frozen, as her mind strained to process all this new information. “But why us? Who would do this to us—to me? And why?”

“I can think of someone.” David stepped beside Kara. She saw a flash of anger in his eyes. She knew exactly who he was referring to—someone tall and powerful who happened to hate David’s guts.

“Benson?
No
…are you sure?”

David’s tone was sharp. “Positive. This is his chance to get rid of me for good. It’s his
payback
for what I did to Sarah.”

If what David was saying was true, that meant Benson was going to get her killed as well—caught in the crossfire—just to get to David. She had just barely escaped with her angel life on their last job.
It’s just going to get worse.
A part of her felt betrayed, she hadn’t done anything to anyone, she had just
died
recently. And now her life was in danger. Another part of her was angry that someone wanted to hurt David. She looked up into his clear blue eyes. “So…what do we do?”

He looked fierce. “We get him—before anything else happens. We’ll need proof, obviously, or to catch him in the act. I’d love to see how Gabriel fries his ass!”

“So, should we follow him?” asked Kara.

David narrowed his eyes. “Yeah—he’ll probably have to rendezvous with the demons back on Earth. We should find out what his next assignment is and follow him there. He’s bound to make contact with them sooner or later.”

Images of the higher demons flashed behind her eyes, she started to feel anxious. “But shouldn’t we tell Gabriel, or one of the archangels? This is pretty serious, David; shouldn’t we tell them?”

He looked down at the ground. “No, they’ll just think I’m up to something because of our
history
. They won’t believe me. It’s not like I’m Mr. Popular with the archangels—or haven’t you noticed. And if Benson finds out somehow, we’ll never catch him—no one can know about this, Kiddo.”

Kara knew David was right. They’d never believe him, or her. They would have to do this on their own.

They wandered through the twisted rows of blue tents; watching the ongoing combats. Operations was full of noises: bursts of combat cries, the clatter of metal on metal and the raised voices of the oracles teaching classes, and then forgetting what they were supposed to teach. The fragrance of salt drifted in the air.

She followed David into the weapons tent. Two guardian angels were making their selection of weapons and looked up as they saw them enter.

“Yo, Dave! What’s up?” said the taller one. “We heard about your
jump
. Awesome! It’s spreading all over the legion already.”

“Don’t think Gabriel’s too happy about that,” laughed the smaller one, as he eyed Kara. “He’s in a
really
bad mood. You sure you want to be here right now?” he slapped David on the arm.

David lifted his chin and puffed out his chest. “Gabe
loves
me. He just doesn’t know it.”

The three young men laughed stupidly while hitting one another. To Kara, it was like watching the end of a winning basketball game, where all the boys danced around excitedly after the match. David, so it seemed, had won the popularity game—David versus the archangels.

More and more guardian angels stopped their training and came to congratulate David on his wild escape. Some even congratulated Kara. She turned around quickly and became very interested in a short silver dagger. She flicked the blade with her fingernail. The sound was drowned by sudden loud cheers. She looked back towards the crowd. She saw David jump down from one of the large tables. He was surrounded by an animated group of predominantly male guardian angels. He re-enacted their suicidal plunge off the Old Port. His cronies giggled excitedly, like a pack of wild hyenas. He bowed after each performance—which were many.