Seirs, Soul Guardians Book 5 (7 page)

Ranab kicked out furiously at the pack
of wild mortals who were attacking him from all sides.

Kara reached out for the
net.

Ranab opened his mouth and stared
wild-eyed at Kara.

“
Thanks, I’ll take that.”
In a flash, Kara grabbed the net, turned on her heel, and rocketed
back towards the gatehouse.

Ranab pushed his way through a wall of
mortals. His long black coat rippled behind him like a black wave.
He raised his blade and shouted.

“
You’re mine, angel. Don’t
let her get away! Get her! I want that soul!”

Kara bolted back towards the
gatehouse. The souls bounced gently against her back.

Ranab jumped in front of her,
brandishing his blade. A wicked grin spread over his white face.
“You’re not going anywhere. Your soul is mine!” With a sinister
gleam in his eye, he swung a powerful blow towards Kara’s head. She
parried to the side, grabbed a fistful of his jacket, pulled it
over his head, and kicked him hard in the knee. He teetered and
went down like a rock.

Kara was already on the
move.

Ranab threw his jacket to the ground.
“Stop her! I want that soul! Don’t let her get away you
fools!”

Kara leapt over the oncoming Seirs and
charged towards the gatehouse.

David stood by the interior wall of
the main entrance. A large metal lattice grille hung dangerously
above him. Metal chains from the portcullis curled around a winch
mounted on the internal wall four feet above his head. He grasped
the metal winch and waited.

“
Kara, they’re right behind
you. Floor it!” shouted David.

Kara put on speed. Her boots grazed
the ground as if she were floating in the air. Just a few more
paces, and she was out.

Pushing his weight into it, David
turned the wheel with all his might. The metal chains spun around
the winch. An earsplitting screech echoed around the courtyard. The
ground trembled as though the ancient castle had suddenly awakened
from a long sleep.

The black metal spikes of the gate
protruded beneath the archway.

Kara flew through the air into the
waiting hands of her friends and landed on her stomach like a
baseball player sliding into home plate.

With a thunderous crash, the gate came
down.

Kara spit the dust out of her mouth
and smiled.

Chapter 5

Coup D’état

K
ara strolled along the sidewalk behind David, Jenny, and
Peter. Men and women scurried by, sipping coffee from Styrofoam
cups with one hand while talking on their cell phones with the
other as they rushed to their daily jobs. She was surrounded by
happy conversations and laughter. She studied their faces. They
were normal. She couldn’t see any traces of deranged anger. Lilith
hadn’t changed anyone here yet.

Glass and metal buildings
loomed up on either side of the street. A flock of pigeons flew
across a blue sky and dodged the buildings effortlessly, like
miniature jets. Cars slowed to a crawl. The exhaust filled air was
loud with honking as angry drivers rolled down their windows and
cursed. A white and red city bus rolled to a stop.
Downtown Toronto
,
flashed in yellow light at the front of the bus. Its doors swung
open and a group of overly excited kids poured onto the sidewalk.
Monitors chased them up and down the street, doing their best to
herd them into a group, while other kids laughed and slipped away
easily.

A shiver ran up her back as she
remembered the madness in the mortals’ eyes at Dirleton Castle.
Lilith had changed them into beasts. Kara didn’t want to think
about what would happen to these children if Lilith got to them
too.

The children—the Sensitive children—
weren’t at the castle. In a way, Kara was glad they weren’t stuffed
in the castle’s dingy dungeon or turned wild like the rest of the
mortals. But that left her with more questions. If they weren’t
there, then where were they? And what had Lilith done with
them?

“
So, there’s a bounty on
your soul?” said David forcing Kara out of her reverie. His blue
eyes glistened with concern. “That sucks.”

Kara shrugged and sidestepped a blue
metal recycling bin. “Lilith is up to something, I can feel it. She
wants me out of the way for a reason, and I have to figure out what
it is.”

David looked behind him and
dropped his voice to a whisper. “This is bad, Kara. It means every
Seir in the freakin’ world is looking for you. And we can’t even
fight back—we can’t even mess them up a little. It
really
sucks.”

Kara shook her head and did her best
to hide the frustration in her voice. “I know. I wish there was a
way we could defend ourselves against them somehow.”

“
But there isn’t. God knows
I’d love to take care of a few Seirs,” David threw a punch into his
palm, “one on one, and see what happens. We’re just going to have
to be extra careful now.”

A group of teenage girls wandered past
them. All five pairs of eyes were glued on David. A tall pretty
brunette with tanned skin and too much makeup winked and smiled at
him. Kara’s temper flared. The girl completely ignored her. It was
as though she was invisible. The giggling girls batted their
eyelashes at David, one after another, before they wandered
off.

David raked his fingers through his
hair and walked on with a bounce in his step and a self-satisfied
smile.

“
Ouch!” David rubbed his
arm. “You punched me,” he laughed. “I love it when you’re
forceful.” He beamed and examined Kara’s face closely. “I knew it.
You’re...jealous.”

“
No, I’m not.” Kara looked
away. “You’re delusional.”

“
You love me. Admit
it.”

“
You’re
deranged.”

“
You looooove me.” David
started to dance on the spot. He met Kara’s glare and his smile
disappeared. Deflated, he looked quickly away and kept
walking.

Kara’s face brightened, and she
pressed her lips together hard to stop from laughing.

Jenny turned around and shared a look
with Kara. Giggling, she turned to Peter. “How much further until
we reach 1185 Queen Street?”

Peter held a rectangular metal
contraption with loose wires close to his face and examined the
tiny red bulbs. After a moment he answered. “Not much. Should be
just after the next block.”

“
Do we know what the urgent
meeting is about?” Jenny surveyed the group anxiously, “I just hate
not knowing where we’re going, or why we’re going. I wish the
legion had given us more info.” She looked over her shoulder at an
old Asian woman arranging piles of clothes on tables at the front
of a shop.

Kara felt anxious as she studied
Jenny’s face. She knew Jenny was on edge, and she didn’t blame her.
Jenny had changed since she had come back from the netherworld.
Kara tried repeatedly to find out what had happened. But Jenny
would snap her mouth shut and walk away. Whatever had happened to
Jenny must have been terrible. Kara dug her nails into her palms.
Payback would be bliss.

“
We don’t know what’s
waiting for us,” continued Jenny, with more urgency in her voice.
She scratched her purple spiked hair. “There could be a crap load
of Seirs. You remember what happened the last time we went looking
for the missing kids.”

“
Yup. We almost got our
butts whipped by our dearest fans.” David dodged a kid on a
skateboard and nearly fell. He swung his fist angrily at him and
shouted a few curse words.

Kara waited for David to compose
himself and gave Jenny a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry, this isn’t
the same. We’re meeting Santo.”

Peter stopped suddenly, and
Kara had to jump sideways in order to avoid crashing into him. With
his mouth open, he stood staring at a large shop window. A red
stenciled sign above his head read,
The
Techie Shop, Featuring Geek apparel and Merchandise for the most
gifted nerds.
She could almost see the
drool forming at the sides of his mouth while he stared at the
hundreds of gadgets on display. She grabbed his jaw and closed it
gently.

“
Come on, nerd-boy, we have
a meeting to get to.” Kara seized Peter by the arm and hauled him
away. A middle-aged couple on the sidewalk pointed at Kara and then
turned away as if they were talking about her.

“
From what Ariel told me
after the debrief,” said Kara, keeping her eyes on Peter, “we’re
meeting in an apartment building. Santo and a few other Sensitives
are waiting for us. But we don’t know the specifics.”

“
I don’t like it. All this
secrecy...” said David, lowering his eyes. “Smells rotten if you
ask me.”

Kara carefully stepped over a spilled
drink of orange goo. “I agree, but we don’t really have a choice.
The Sensitives are in bad shape. We have to help them and find the
missing children.”

“
Could be another trap,”
said David.

“
Maybe, maybe not. It’s a
chance we have to take.”

A lanky young man in loose clothes
caught Kara’s eye. His scowl surprised her. She looked away and
checked herself in the reflection of shop window. She looked fine,
but a feeling of dread crept into her mind like an annoying
mosquito. As she suppressed it, she caught David watching
her.

“
What did Ariel say about
what happened to the people in that village?” asked
David.

Kara shrugged. “She said she’d speak
to the council. She doesn’t know how Lilith was able to control the
mortals like that. You should have seen her face though; she looked
completely freaked out.”

“
A terrified archangel
isn’t a good sign. Did she say anything else?”

Kara rubbed her forehead. “No. But I
could sense there was something she wasn’t telling me.”

“
Like what?” More girls
passed them, but David kept his eyes carefully on Kara.

Kara shook her head gently.
“I don’t know

something to do with what Lilith did to those poor mortals. I
think it’s a weapon.”

David frowned. “A weapon?”

“
Yes. I saw something in
her hands back at the castle. An object, like a small blue
pyramid.”

Another couple with white hair and
walking sticks stared and pointed their bony fingers at her as she
passed them by.

Kara frowned and lowered her voice.
“David, am I hallucinating, or are the mortals staring at
me?”

“
Oh. My. God.” Jenny
stopped dead in her tracks and pointed to the buildings across the
street.

A ten-foot long billboard like a giant
movie screen was mounted on the roof and Kara’s enormous face
looked back down at her. Then screens from neighboring buildings
flashed more pictures of Kara’s face. The buildings’ façades were
wallpapered with pictures of Kara.

“
Kara? What the—” David
leaned forward, a confused expression painted his face. Frowning,
he stared at the images for a moment, and then glanced back at Kara
questioningly. “Did you see this? You’re huge!” cried
David.

“
Great, thanks.” Kara
looked over her shoulder.

Mortals eyed her suspiciously from
everywhere. Fingers pointed. Whispers of her name reached her ears.
She lowered her head and tried to hide her face behind her bangs.
Quietly, she stepped behind David. With her eyes glued on the
billboard, she strained to hear any sudden noises or to see any
unusual movement in the crowd. She had to be ready for
anything.

Kara froze. She stared at the giant
version of herself staring back. It was the weirdest thing, and it
freaked her out. Then writing appeared suddenly on one of the
plasma screens.

FBI’S MOST
WANTED.

Young Caucasian woman is
wanted on suspicion of bioterrorism.

Involved in a prior
terrorist attack and the death of a French police officer last
year, this young woman is linked to the use of infectious agents on
the human population.

The Center of Disease
Control has issued a global outbreak warning.

If you have seen this
woman, please contact your local authorities.

Kara swore.

The screens flickered and Kara’s face
disappeared. An online news feed appeared. A woman with short red
hair and a string of pearls wrapped around her neck looked out into
the camera. She folded her hands on the desk before her and set her
face in a stern expression. Everyone on the sidewalk stood still
and listened

“
Good evening,” her voice
echoed on all the screens. “We interrupt your local program at this
time to bring you this special bulletin. The Center of Disease
Control has issued a global warning about a new virus which has
infected two hundred cities across the globe.”

Kara heard a woman gasp behind her.
What was going on?

“
The virus,” continued the
newscaster, “is infectious and affects the brain. Once people are
infected, they become extremely aggressive and lose all sense of
reality. Mothers are killing their own children and children are
killing their own parents.”