Reapers (16 page)

“
You think that’ll hold
them?”

David shook his head. “Not for long,
it won’t.”

“
Hurry, this way!” called
Peter from somewhere inside the hotel lobby.

Under different circumstances, Kara
would have taken the time to explore the grandeur of the great
hotel and to marvel at its marble floors, grand crystal
chandeliers, giant staircases, and majestic rugs. But this time,
she only concentrated on pulling the distraught Ashley along with
her and putting as much distance as she could between herself and
the reapers.

Even before she saw it, the smell of
chlorine filled her nostrils.

They arrived at an Olympic-sized
indoor pool. Its pure blue waters were calm, and the soft murmur of
a pump sounded from below the water like the beating of a heart. No
one said much. They just wanted to leave the horrific place and get
back to Horizon a.s.a.p.

A blast thundered outside the pool
chamber, and the waters rippled.

“
That was the front door,”
said David. “Everyone in! Now!”

He stood by the edge of the pool and
watched the door.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Peter
hurtled himself in the pool, shouting, “See you guys later!” And
with a brilliant splash, he was gone. Jenny jumped in after
him.

“
Do you think they’ll spot
us here?” Ashley sounded as though all her happiest feelings had
been stolen. It was as though she had already lost her
soul.

Kara watched her but said nothing.
Although she still clung to her hand, Kara didn’t know what to say
to comfort her.

“
You’ll know they’ve
spotted us when they screech,” David told her.

The reapers screeched.

“
Told you.”

Kara saw them, black against the
white-colored hotel walls. The reapers raised their arms and turned
into coils of black smoke and shadow. She could sense them leering
under the shadow of their hoods.

Kara dragged Ashley to the edge of the
pool. She readied herself and gripped Ashley’s hand hard. She bent
her knees—

“
Uh…Kara?”

Kara turned to David. “What? What is
it?”

The reapers reached the doorway of the
pool.

“
Your…your
M-suit…”

“
What about
it?”

“
You’re not transparent
anymore.”

Kara’s mouth fell open.
“What?”

Before she had time to react, David
grabbed Kara’s free hand and pulled her and Ashley into the pool
with him.

Chapter
11

An Old Enemy

K
ara sat in the archangel Raphael’s healing chamber and tugged
at her skin. It had the same elasticity as before, the same smooth
texture. The only difference now was that the skin wasn’t
see-through. Her usual olive-colored skin color was back, just as
it was when she was a mortal and a guardian.

She was back to normal.

While she should have been relieved,
she wasn’t completely happy. There was still something that nagged
her. When she’d realized that David was right and that her skin was
back, she’d thought her memories would come flooding back, too. But
they didn’t. That part hadn’t changed. She stared absently at the
walls of Raphael’s chamber, trying to remember. It was like the
memories of before she died had been locked away in some room, and
she couldn’t find the key to unlock them.

Picking at her fingernails now, Kara
had to admit to herself that she was also a little bummed out that
she’d been dumped in the Miracles Division, and had not gone with
the others to the Department of Defense to debrief. She didn’t feel
any different, but she knew the legion was still nervous about what
had happened to her and where her true loyalties lay.

Although she was back at her duties,
and not in Tartarus, it was only because Metatron had believed she
was loyal to the legion. She knew that she and David had been
released only because she had made a deal.

And now, the archangel Ariel had
ordered her to remain at level three indefinitely because they
needed to know more about her sudden return to normal.

The only other guardian in the entire
legion who felt worse than Kara was Ashley, and she sat on the
opposite side of the room with her head in her hands.

Ashley hadn’t uttered a single word to
anyone since she’d arrived back to Horizon. The scars of what had
happened to her team were still clearly visible on her face. Ashley
sat slumped and silent with a dazed expression, like she was in a
dream and didn’t want to wake to face reality. Kara could see
plainly that Ashley blamed herself for the loss of her
friends.

Kara felt wrong to stare at Ashley’s
personal torment, as though she was eavesdropping on a private
conversation.

She heard the archangel in the
medicine storeroom down the hall, rustling through the chests and
drawers, unearthing the potions and creams that she would no doubt
be smearing over Kara at any minute.

“
Kara, how do you feel?”
Raphael called out.

“
Fine,” Kara called
back.

There was some muttering in response,
and then a moment later the archangel came into the chamber with
containers, vials, tubes, three potted aloe plants, and a bag of
what looked like salt.

Kara raised her brows. “Are you going
to prep me up for surgery? You really shouldn’t be wasting your
time on me. I said that I was fine. Truly, I feel great. Never
better. I swear.” Her face broke into a smile.

“
Sure you are,” said
Raphael, unconvinced. She dumped the medicines on the table. “And
you shouldn’t swear.”

Kara kicked her legs under her chair
impatiently.

“
What I
should
be doing is
helping David and the others with this reaper business, not being a
lab rat. No offense,” she added with an apologetic grin.

“
Look at me…I’m fine. I’m
better than fine. I look normal again. See?”

The archangel ignored her.

“
David said that you were
experiencing some discomfort around your back. Stand up and lift up
your shirt please.”

Kara sighed loudly but did as she was
told. She lifted her shirt and waited uncomfortably while Raphael
inspected her closely.

“
Hmm,” she heard the
archangel say. “I don’t see anything.”

“
That’s because there is
nothing to see except a perfectly fine angel body.”

“
Don’t be smart with me,
young lady,” said the archangel shortly. “It doesn’t suit you. Now,
stay put.”

Kara hung her head. She
was tempted to run out the door to join the others, but decided
against it. Raphael would be livid, and she knew that even though
she was back to
normal
, most of the archangels and angels in the legion still
weren’t too thrilled with her. They never were. She didn’t want to
give them more reasons to hate her.

She flinched as Raphael rubbed a cool
ointment on her back. She smelled raw onion and cabbage. It
reminded her of her mother’s beef stew.

She wondered how her mother was. She
missed her dearly. Had she said goodbye to her that morning before
she went off to work in the bookstore, before she died? Yes, she
had. That she remembered. But when she tried to recollect those
precious moments before her death—nothing. Her mind was an empty
box. The contents were missing.

“
Are you almost finished?”
asked Kara as patiently as she could. She was frustrated more with
herself because she couldn’t remember how she died, than she was
with the archangel’s overly conscientious concern for
her.

“
There. Now I’m finished,”
said Raphael finally. She pulled Kara’s shirt back down and turned
her around to face her.

Kara’s skin felt cool, as if the
archangel had rubbed Vicks VapoRub on her. And then she felt
nothing. “What did you put on me?”

“
Ethereal E-3 non-stick,
Healing balm
,” said the archangel as she
tightened the lid of a small container with green-colored cream
inside. “Not sure it’ll work, but it’s supposed to minimize the
effects of burns and cuts and help your angel body to heal faster.
It protects it with an extra layer.”

“
Like an
M-Suit.”

Raphael smiled. “In a way…yes.” And
then her face was serious again.

“
Any other pains or
bruises I should know about?”

“
Nothing,” said Kara. “And
that’s the truth. Honestly, I feel as right as rain.”

“
If you say so,” said
Raphael, smiling, but she still looked troubled.

Kara smiled. “Then I’m good to go,
right? I have to get back to the others. I’ve been dying to know
more about these reapers and how to stop them.”

The smile faded from the archangel’s
face at the mention of the reapers. “You know something about them,
don’t you? The reapers? What do you know, Raphael? Tell
me.”

Raphael set down the healing cream and
absentmindedly ran her fingers along the table’s smooth
surface.

“
I know what I saw. It was
a very long time ago…over two millenniums ago…” She was silent for
a moment “

maybe
even longer than that. Before the first age, before the creation of
man, before things changed.”

“
Which is?”

The archangel pressed her hands down
on the table, almost as though she needed to steady herself.
“Reapers have always been servants.”

“
Servants? Like the hired
help.” Kara’s eyes widened. “Okay, so they serve some demon
overlord from the Netherworld. Is that what you’re trying to tell
me?”

“
Not entirely.”

Raphael looked down at the table.
“Reapers don’t suddenly appear like most demons. They have a
singular purpose. They follow rules—they are controlled—they obey
orders. They are faithful servants to their creators.”

Kara watched Raphael’s
face.

“
Higher Demons control
them, right? I knew it. They created the reapers to kill us, to
kill angels.”

“
No,” said Raphael, and
she frowned. “No. Demons didn’t create the reapers, something far
worse did. Something we archangels thought we had banished long
ago. But now I know that we were not successful. If the reapers
have reappeared, it means they’ll be joining them soon.”

Kara could hardly control her
curiosity. Her voice rose. “What will? What’s controlling the
reapers? I can’t think of anything worse than higher
demons.”

“
Archfiends.” Raphael
closed her eyes. “Archfiends are the epitome of evil.”

“
Archfiends
?” repeated Kara stupidly.
She’d never heard of an archfiend.

Raphael’s eyes looked dark.

“
Reapers were created by
the archfiends in a time when we were at war with them. Reapers
collected the souls of angels with their Scythes of Death, and
truly killed them in the process. Now these monstrosities have been
unleashed onto the mortal world. It should never have been allowed
to happen. We’ve been careless, and now we’re going to pay dearly
for our folly.”

“
Archfiend…archangel,”
Kara began.

Raphael’s eyes flashed to
hers.

“
Is there a connection?
The two sound oddly similar, like cousins. Is there a connection?”
she repeated.

Raphael fell into a chair, her
beautiful face tangled in a mixture of desperation and disbelief.
She dragged her long black hair into her hands and began to braid
it.

“
Archfiends were a mighty
race of ethereal creatures that originated long before the
archangels, and long before the time of man. They were created with
a strong, and reckless lust for power and loved only themselves.
They were banished from Horizon soon after the archangels were
created.

The Archfiends believed they were gods
and wanted the creatures of the worlds to worship them. They were
jealous of the archangels.”

“
So what happened?” Kara
bubbled with interest.

“
There was a great war
that lasted five hundred years, mortal years if you will. I lost
many great friends in that war…”

Raphael’s gaze changed and her face
fell, like she was remembering some awful trauma.

“
We were losing. The
archfiends were too powerful. We couldn’t match them in battle. We
decided to concentrate our efforts on
banishing them
instead. After many,
many years we contrived a way to keep the archfiends locked away
for all eternity. We were able to trick them, so that they were
transported to an exile beyond the planes of the Netherworld. Never
to rise again—”

“
Until now.” Kara could
see that Ashley had been listening to the entire
conversation.

“
Until now,” echoed
Raphael. She looked distant and was obviously still traumatized by
an event that took place eons ago.