Reapers (20 page)

“
Are you all right, Kara?
You look like you’re about to punch someone or
want
to punch someone,” said
David.

He held up a dirty old
shoelace.

When he saw Kara’s puzzled expression,
he added. “From one of the old man’s shoes. It smells like onions,
but it’ll do.”

“
What will do?” she asked
and frowned.

David tied the shoelace around Kara’s
wound. He wrapped it tightly enough to keep most of her essence
from seeping out.

Kara moved her hand over her laced-up
arm. “Thanks, David.”

“
Now you can’t ever say
that I’ve never done anything for you,” he said,
smiling.

He looked serious again and said, “I
know what you’re thinking.”

Kara raised her brows. “You do, do
you…? Do tell.”

“
You’re thinking that the
key didn’t accept you because you were
marked
. And that somehow this has
made you different; that you will always be different.”

Kara wished she were back in her
mortal body with David, alone and away from the key, the imps, and
the reapers.

“
I see,” she said, a
little embarrassed. “I’m like an open book to you—”

“
The imps will be back,”
said Mr. Patterson suddenly.

“
They’ll be back with a
new scheme and with reinforcements. Imps are the most conniving
tricksters in all the worlds. Their capacity for chaos and
destruction is limitless.”

His voice rose to a higher pitch, and
he raised his hand in the air. “The earth’s energy is changing.
Hurry! You must leave now.”

Kara had no idea how her
boss could
feel
the world’s energy change, but she believed him.

The others ran to the door and onto
the street. Kara halted near the door and stood next to Mr.
Patterson.

“
What do we do with the
key now?”

Peter kept waving his arm around. He
just couldn’t get used to the key lodged inside him. He looked like
a rabbit in front of a snake. He was terrified.

Mr. Patterson looked at
Kara.

“
Keep it safe. And
whatever you do, they mustn’t discover that Peter has it. It’s
better that you tell no one else, not until I’ve figured out what
to do.”

He ushered her out. “Now
go.”

Kara suddenly felt a cold shiver pass
through her. She was worried about the old man. “What will you
do—?”

The ground shook and moaned. The road
opened up like a giant mouth, and in an explosion of rock a monster
the size of a bus burst out of the hole.

It looked like a cross between a
centipede and a scorpion, and it spat out pavement chunks like they
were flour. It had rows of bulbous red eyes and sharp mandibles as
long as swords.

The creature hissed, spraying strings
of yellow spit like a sprinkler. And where the acid spit landed on
the road, the pavement sizzled, smoked, and dissolved.

As if that weren’t enough, thousands
of angry imps began to crawl out from the hole behind the
monster.

Chapter 14

Attack of the
Imps

“
O
h, great, the imps brought a pet,” said Kara, and when she
turned around, Mr. Patterson had disappeared.

“
Kara! Let’s go!” cried
David from the middle of the street. “Get out of there.”

“
I can’t leave him!” she
yelled back.

But when she searched the bookstore,
Mr. Patterson was gone. Maybe he had left through the back door?
Frowning, Kara turned her attention to the colossal bug.

The giant centipede creature scurried
toward the bookstore. Its eyes burned with hatred and hunger. Its
body rolled and spurted as it moved, leaving a wet, slimy residue
behind. The beast was moving fast. She saw what appeared to be
straps, crisscrossing the beast’s underbelly. That’s when she
realized that twenty imps armed with curved daggers were saddled on
top.

On the ground, more imps poured into
the street like an army of ants. Soon David, Jenny, and Peter were
drowned in a wave of shrieking and spitting foes again. Could the
imps sense the key? Peter’s life would be in great danger if they
did. She had to help them. But she had to protect her boss,
too.

Kara pulled a soul blade from inside
her jacket and stood her ground. As the creature neared, its foul
breath nearly knocked her unconscious. The rancid smell burned her
eyes and her skin, and she blinked furiously through her blurred
vision.

The giant insect halted for a moment.
Buckets of drool spilled onto the sidewalk and burned holes into
it.

“
Give us the key, oracle
filth. Or die!” challenged one of the imps saddled on the
centipede. It had a large scar that cut across his face and his
belly. The others sneered and laughed, kicking their legs against
the creature’s belly as they urged it on toward her.

Kara moved to the center of the
doorway. She raised her weapon.

“
If you don’t want to join
your dead friends, I’d suggest you go back to the hole you crawled
out from.”

She doubted she could harm the giant
insect with her puny blade, but she had a feeling Mr. Patterson
needed time to escape. She would give him that.

“
Stupid angel,” laughed
the same imp. It pointed its black, curved weapon at her like a
finger.

“
No matter. We
will
get the key from
the oracle.”

It laughed again and then licked its
lips.

“
And when we free our
masters, you are
all
going to die. You and all of your beloved mortals, this
miserable world, and all that’s in it will burn. Free the Dark
Gods! Seize the key!”

“
Seize the key! Seize the
key!” cried the other imps.

“
Free the Dark Gods!” they
chanted.

“
The eighteens!” cried
another.

Jenny had two arrows in her hands and
was using them like swords, perforating the imps like
balloons.

Peter kicked and stabbed the imps that
came at him like giant mosquitoes. He was fighting well, despite
the fact that he had new fear and new responsibility.

David was closer to Kara, and he
kicked, punched and sliced his way through the imps as well as he
could. But it was like being attacked by a swarm of wasps. The imps
were everywhere. David disappeared under a wave of imps. Her
friends were drowning in imps.

“
You’re not getting the
key,” she called out.

She hoped these creatures couldn’t
sense that the key was inside Peter’s arm, and that she was a good
enough actor to make them believe Mr. Patterson still had it with
him.

The imp howled in laughter and then
pointed to itself.

“
We
will get the key,” it said. “And when the eighteens comes,
this world and all the other worlds will belong to our
masters.”

Before Kara could wrap her
head around what the
eighteens
was, the imp yelled a command and the giant beast
lunged forward.

Kara threw herself out of the way just
as the giant worm burst through the front doorway and took out the
front wall of the building as it did so. Its grotesque body
wriggled and climbed over the debris. The building shook, and the
roof started to move. It was going to come down.

In a moment of panic, Kara jumped to
her feet and thrust her blade into the beast’s torso. She dragged
the blade all the way down its side, and thick yellow liquid oozed
out of the great gash and burned into the ground. The centipede
staggered and howled in anger. It bucked off three of its riders
who burst into ashes as they were crushed. The giant bug rolled and
thrashed, sending walls and concrete slabs crashing down in an
avalanche of building materials.

As Kara tried to retrieve her weapon,
a chunk of concrete came crashing down on her. She stumbled
backwards, but her legs were trapped under a mass of
concrete.

The imp-riders cheered as they steered
their beast toward her. She pulled and pulled, but it was no use.
It was like trying to move a bus. She was trapped.

She looked up. The centipede-scorpion
reared up on its back legs. Its gaping mouth revealed rows of
teeth. It was so close that Kara could see right into its maw. Tiny
fangs circled around its throat all the way down inside its
cavity.

Desperately, Kara searched the ground.
She grabbed a brick the size of a shoebox and hurtled it straight
into one of the beast’s eyes. Its eye exploded like a squashed
tomato.

It was livid. It struck out like a
bullet.

Kara rolled to the left just as its
giant mandibles sliced her hair and part of her jacket. The beast’s
hot breath burned the back of her neck like an acid shower. She
turned her head. Yellow spit spilled onto the concrete that pinned
her down, protecting her legs from the beast’s acid
saliva.

“
The eighteens!” cheered
the imp-riders.

Kara pulled at her legs. She felt
something tear, but she couldn’t break through.

“
Uh—guys—a little help
here!” she yelled over her shoulder.

But no one came.

This couldn’t be happening. She
couldn’t die in the jaws of a giant worm.

“
Tear her apart, Sentini,”
said one of the imp-riders. “Eat her angel-flesh until there is
nothing left. Destroy her!”

The beast widened its jaw and lowered
its head. Its red eyes gleamed with hunger as it was about to feast
on her.

Kara braced herself for
impact—

And then there was a flash of white
light.

The ground shook, and Kara blinked,
half expecting to be ripped to shreds. But the creature lay on its
side. It twitched as coils of white electricity sparked around its
body.

“
Go back to the
Netherworld, you devilings!” Mr. Patterson appeared on top a pile
of rubble with a shimmering crystal ball in his right
hand.

“
Get a taste of
this!”

He threw his crystal over Kara’s head,
and it crashed into a mass of imps. There was another great white
light, then nothing at all. No ashes. Nothing. Twenty imps just
vanished into thin air.

“
Mr. Patterson,” said Kara
as the old man came rushing over to her. “You shouldn’t be
here.”

“
And you should take
better care of yourself.”

Mr. Patterson kicked an imp in the
gut, and the creature keeled over.

“
Peter, help me lift this
off her.”

David and Peter appeared behind Mr.
Patterson. They ran over to Kara and gripped the stone block. “On
three. One. Two. Three.”

Together, they raised the concrete
slab. Kara slipped her legs from under it before it came crashing
back down. Jenny helped her up.

“
Get her out of here!”
said Mr. Patterson angrily as a new wave of imps appeared. The
giant centipede stirred, like it was waking.

“
I can’t leave you here
with them. They’re going to kill you,” said Kara. “They think you
have the key. You have to come with us.”

“
No.” Mr. Patterson pushed
her away. She could see that he had another crystal in his
hand.

He looked at Peter. “You must get the
key to safety. That’s all that matters. You must not fail.
Go!”

Before Kara could protest, David
grabbed her arm, and they broke into a wild run. Kara stole a look
over her shoulder and saw her boss disappear under another wave of
imps.

She wanted to kill every last one of
those filthy creatures.

“
Stop. Stop!” cried Jenny.
She pointed behind them. “Look. They’re not following
us.”

It was true. The imps weren’t
following them. They were tearing apart what was left of the
bookstore. They thought the key was hidden there.

“
The key’s more important
to them than we are,” said Kara. She felt as though she had
abandoned her friend.

“
He’ll be fine, don’t
worry,” said David, as though he read her mind.

“
Oracles are full of
surprises. He’s probably got some backup plan. He’s probably
leading them on some wild goose chase right now. I’m sure nothing
will happen to him.”

“
I hope you’re
right.”

Kara stared at her old place of
employment. She could hear glass shattering and loud metal tearing
as the centipede moved through the ruined building. It crawled out
through the other side and then back through the opening that had
once been the roof. It was searching for something.

“
Let’s get out of here
before the imps change their minds, and figure out I’m the one with
the key,” pointed Peter. “There are too many of them.”

David patted him on the
back.