Marked, Soul Guardians Book 1

by Kim Richardson

Light flickered in front of Kara’s closed eyelids. She forced them open. A mist like a thin white veil blowing in the wind obscured her vision. At first she thought she was back in her room, but as the images cleared, she realized that she was standing in an elevator. She blinked and waited as the images before her came into focus.

  The elevator looked old, like from a hotel in the 1920’s, with beautiful polished wood panels and tan marble floors. She didn’t remember getting into an elevator. How did I get here? A smell of burnt toast and mothballs lingered in the air. She heard faint sizzling and cracking sounds, and when she glanced down she became aware that the noise was coming from her. She lifted up her arm and examined it. Long coils of grey smoke emanated from her limbs. Her entire body was smoking, like a log on a fireplace.

  “Ahem,” said a raspy voice.

  Kara recoiled. At first, she was certain her eyes were playing tricks on her. But she soon realized she was indeed staring at a large chimpanzee. He sat on a wooden chair in front of her and picked at his callused feet in a nonchalant kind of way. He straightened up and brushed crumbs from his green Bermuda shorts. He sighed heavily and regarded her with contempt. The monkey looked oddly familiar to Kara. It lifted its chin and made a face.

  “Haven’t seen you around these parts lately,” said the chimp. “Been on vacation, have you?”

  Kara blinked in confusion. She wasn’t surprised the chimp could speak. And she wondered why that was. She made a face.

  “Don’t look so surprised, Miss Nightingale. We’ve met before. Only … it’ll take a few minutes for your memories to come back. It always does.”

  “My memories?” As soon as she uttered the words, images flooded inside her mind like a massive waterfall. But none of them made any sense to her. It was like watching a movie in fast forward without the pause button. She saw flashes of people, beautiful people, tall and commanding. Images of brilliant spheres dashed across a black sky, like hundreds of falling stars. She shook her head and a clear picture of a city soared in a magnificent blue sky and floated amongst white clouds. Different primates flashed in her mind’s eye. The nasty breath. Those yellow teeth. She knew only one monkey who had that kind of attitude. Kara suddenly realized why the chimp had such a familiar demeanor.

  When the chimp saw that she had finally recognized him, he grinned triumphantly.

  “And we meet again, Miss Nightingale.”

  “You’re that Chimp Number 5M51. Yes . . . I remember now. You were pretty awful. How can I forget—?”

  “Bravo. It took you long enough,” muttered the chimp, and he clapped his hands. “I was beginning to think we were going to be here for a while, and I haven’t packed a lunch. I tell you, angels have no consideration for our work! Think they’re better than us, do they?”

  Kara didn’t hear him. She was lost in thought, focused on the memories that poured inside her brain. She felt lightheaded. The ground around her swayed slightly. She steadied herself against the panels. As her mortal memories slipped away, they were replaced by guardian angel recollections.

  Kara’s body suddenly cracked and popped. She studied her smoking limbs. “That—that black cloud! The lighting! It—it killed me. Just like the first time I got killed by the bus! I’m back in Horizon! I’ve died, and now I’m back.”

  Chimp 5M51 pursed his lips, clearly getting annoyed at Kara’s slow recovery. “Yes, yes, very clever Miss. I don’t know why I was told that the guardian angels were the ones with the brains.” He rolled his eyes. “Clearly, I was misinformed.”

  Kara glared at the chimp. She decided to ignore his remarks and opened her mind instead. She shivered as it all came back to her—her experiences and feelings for David, her training as a guardian angel, and how she vanquished Asmodeus. She remembered vaguely the golden light that shot out of her hand and caused the demise of the demon lord. She remembered that she had saved the elemental child, an entity with tremendous power, and that her golden light was elemental, too. Kara’s wild power was wielded by only those born of human and angel parents, an extremely rare combination. And Kara possessed that power. She remembered. Her soul was part elemental.

  The chimp sighed heavily, as though this was the most boring thing in the world. “Have you figured it all yet, Miss? Or do we have to stay here in limbo till the end of time, waiting for your feather brain to wake up. I tell you, we should be the guardians, and the angels should be working the elevators. How it came to be—is beyond me. Evidently, you are not a very competent guardian. Perhaps you thought we were at the zoo?” He chuckled.

  Kara continued to ignore him and ransacked her brain. She remembered the seven different levels in Horizon and the beautiful archangels who managed them. Excitement rushed through her breast.

  “So … do you know which level I’m supposed to go now?” Her body prickled as she reminisced about David. The image of a kiss dangled before her eyes, so real that she could almost feel his full lips pressed against hers.

  “Level two, Miss. Operations.”

  The chimp lifted a long swarthy arm and pressed the number two brass button on the control panel. The elevator shifted slightly back and forth. It ascended to a higher level.

  Her spirits lifted as she remembered Operations, the second of the seven levels in Horizon, where colossal red dunes rolled and disappeared in a vast red desert, and where David, her petty officer, had taught her to fight as a guardian angel—to save the mortal souls from the demons, she remembered.

  The elevator swayed and bounced to a stop. She heard a ting, and with a swish, the doors slid open.

  “Level two, Operations!” cried the chimp. He gestured impatiently with his hands. “Off you go, Miss.”

  Kara started to feel anxious. She bit her lower lip. “Wait a minute. I need time to think. I believe I’m supposed to go see Gabriel.”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care,” declared the chimp. He wrinkled his nose. “Now get out! You are stinking up my elevator!”

  “What? Just a second,” she groaned and tried to put out the fire along her arms. “That wasn’t my fault! It was a lightning—”

  The chimp grabbed Kara by the arm and threw her out of the elevator.

  Kara landed in the red sand. A handful of sand gushed into her nose and mouth.

  She spit and wiped her mouth with her hand. “You’ll pay for this! You freaking monkey! I’m going to report you to the High Council! Hopefully they’ll throw you in those white fires of Atma,” she mumbled crossly. She jammed her fingers in her mouth and scraped away the smallest specks of sand that still stuck to her teeth.

  She heard a snort. Chimp 5M51 regarded her with lazy yellow eyes.

  “Is that a threat? How terribly uninteresting. I would have thought you could have conjured up something with more—originality,” said the chimp, patronizing her. He curled his fat grey lips, wiggled his arm theatrically in the air and gave her the Queen’s wave just as the elevator began its decent.

  Kara pulled herself out of the sand and struggled into a sitting position. Without thinking, she grabbed a handful of sand and threw it directly at the elevator.

  “You missed,” laughed the chimp as the doors closed.

  She watched the elevator disappear back into the sand.

  “You better hope to never see me again!” she yelled and raised her fist. “Because it’ll be your last, monkey!”

  Frustrated, Kara pushed herself up and dusted off the sand. Miraculously her body wasn’t smoking anymore. There were no burn marks anywhere, no traces of her lightning attacker.

  She brushed her bangs out of her eyes and looked around. She smiled. How could she have forgotten the beautiful red dunes of Operations?

  The red sand flashed like jewels as they caught the sun. Rolling hills of ruby-red sand stretched out before her for miles and disappeared out of sight. A cool breeze lifted the hair from her back, bringing with it the smell of the ocean. She remembered Operations as her favorite place in Horizon. She sighed. It still was
.

  There must be a reason they had brought her back so soon. She figured she had only been home for about ten months. The High Council had informed her that they would call upon her services again. She just hadn’t expected it to be so soon.

  An image of David flashed in her mind’s eye. She shivered. She longed to see him. To touch him. Even though David had loathed her when he found the Mark on her and believed she was a demon, he had come around in the end and believed she was innocent and good, and that had only made her care for him more. She wondered if he still felt the same way. But she knew that her feelings towards him were dangerous. Romance was forbidden in Horizon. But she couldn’t help what she felt. It was natural. If angels weren’t supposed to fall in love, then why was she filled with such intense feelings—her angel body had all the other four senses. How could these feelings be wrong?

  Kara made her way down the sandy slopes. She passed a giant maze of salt pyramids, as tall as a two story house. Golden haired children with identical faces drove large contraptions with metal hoses that sucked out the salt. Their blue robes swished behind them.

  Kara jumped out of the way of a machine … she appeared to be invisible to the cherubs. She left the loud thumping and grinding noises behind her and climbed to the ridge on the next dune. Thousands of open blue tents stretched out in rows in front of her, their tops rippling in the soft wind like waves on the sea. The air around her was loud with the sounds of battle. Guardian angels fought each other in combat practice, hitting and blocking one another with shiny silver swords.

  A quiver passed through her as she thought of her combat training lessons with David. Anxious to see his face, she walked on.

  A familiar massive white tent stretched before her, and Kara was embraced by an even stronger scent of the sea. She could see the hundreds of round pools … in place for guardian angels to jump in for their next assignment. She watched as flashes of light appeared above the pools, only to disappear seconds later. She recalled journeying to Earth by jumping into the pools. She remembered how the water didn’t feel like water at all, but more like a mist spilling all around right after a long hot shower … and then brilliant light exploding all around as her angel body disintegrated.

  Kara bit her lip and clenched her fists. She walked into the tent. She recognized the archangel Gabriel at once. He towered over the oracles and guardian angels around him. He stood at the head of a great oak table, its polished legs reflecting in the light. Even in his loose white linen clothes, his arms and chest muscles bulged through the fabric, buttons ready to pop. He had powerful shoulders and thick muscular forearms. His dark skin glistened like a black panther’s, and Kara was sure if she were to touch it, it would be silky smooth. He looked like one of those Greek gods—surreal. His face was beautiful and fierce. He always made Kara a little nervous. His massive hands typed on a keyboard. He didn’t notice Kara until she stood in front of him.

  She tried to clear her throat, but a strange cackle came out instead.

  Gabriel looked up. His dark brown eyes glimmered beneath heavy brows. When he realized who it was, he straightened himself, and Kara thought she saw relief flashing across his face. It confused her.

  “Kara. I’m glad to see you’ve made it. We were a little worried—”

  A giant crystal ball rolled towards Kara. It crunched the sand beneath with an explosion of loud cracks and pops.

  “Ah! Here she is at last! The one and only . . .!” A tiny white haired man with a long wispy beard trailing behind him, like a white scarf, maneuvered the crystal ball effortlessly with his feet. He swayed for a moment and stopped inches from Kara’s face.

  The oracle jumped in the air and clapped his grubby little hands together in excitement. “Let’s see here . . .so this is your first time in Horizon. Welcome! Welcome!” He stopped and wrinkled his face. “But you really should be at Orientation. You see, all the new angels are gathered there to—”

  “Uh—this isn’t my first time here, oracle.” Kara smiled kindly and hoped she wasn’t being rude. “This is my second time in Horizon. I was here … about ten months ago, I think.”

  The oracle scratched his head aggressively. “Oh dear. I think I’ve gotten the time periods mixed up again. This business of seeing the future never gets any easier. I swear it’ll be the death of me.”

  His expression became perplexed as he twirled his long white beard with his fingers. “So this is not your first day here? Oh dear. I seem to have forgotten what I was about to do?”

  “You’re to give her the second star, Oracle,” said Gabriel a little annoyed.

  The second star, repeated Kara in her head. She felt a jolt of excitement. Second stars meant more responsibility. She guessed she wasn’t a rookie anymore. Maybe even a petty officer like David, she hoped.

  The oracle’s eyes widened. “Of course I was! How can I forget? This is so exciting! I can hardly control myself, let alone my own mind!”

  He pressed his hands together in front of him and edged closer to Kara. He wiggled his toes with eagerness. Suddenly a white glow emanated from the oracle’s crystal ball. It illuminated most of his lower body and then it slowly subsided. A maelstrom of white smoke appeared inside the crystal, like trapped clouds.

  “Come closer, Clara.”

  They were practically touching, Kara realized. She wondered how much closer he wanted her to be. She could see her reflection in his sparkling blue eyes. She liked the oracles. She shook her head and laughed. “It’s Kara, not Clara.”

  “Yes, you are right, Kara. Now come closer.” He waved his arms impatiently.

  Before Kara could react, the little man reached out and pressed his thumb on her forehead. Her head tipped backwards as his touch burned a spot between her eyebrows. A rush of energy spilled through her body, like a shot of adrenaline. She shuddered as warmth spread all the way from her head to her fingertips.

  And then it was over.

  The oracle leaned back. His eyes changed back from gold to their bright blue color. His crystal ball lost its luminescence, like a light bulb slowly burning out.

  “Here we are, Clara” said the oracle brightly and balanced himself on his toes. “You have now officially graduated from your status as a rookie in the Guardian Angel Legion, and have been promoted to the next rank—as a petty officer. May you perform your duties as a guardian angel wholeheartedly, with honor and justice.”

  Kara felt a sense of pride swell inside her. She had never really accomplished much in her seventeen years of existence on Earth; she hadn’t the time or the inclination. David was a petty officer, she knew. And now she was one as well. She wondered if they’d be paired together again. They did make a good team.

  “Thank you. This means a lot to me. I won’t let you down.” Kara made sure Gabriel wasn’t paying attention and lowered her voice. “And my name is Kara, by the way. Not Clara.”

  “Oh dear—did I get it wrong again? I tell you, this ongoing business is messing up my head.” The oracle pulled on his ear lobes with his fingers. And in one swift movement, the giant crystal ball rolled away, with the oracle running above it.

  “Told you they only get your name right after a hundred times,” said a voice coming from behind Kara.

  Kara felt tiny pricks all over her body and turned around quickly. She wished she hadn’t looked so eager. David sauntered towards her. Kara found that she couldn’t look away. He had on his usual leather jacket and tight white T-shirt. His usual grin was plastered across his face.

  “Hey, kiddo. You miss me?”

  With a million questions and feelings about to burst out of her, Kara strained to control her composure. She had to look cool in front of Gabriel.

  “Hey, David.” She flashed a tiny smile and bit the inside of her cheek.

  Neither of them knew what to do. Kara wondered if they should hug. But she dismissed the idea when she thought that Gabriel wouldn’t approve. She looked into David’s blue eyes. He had an unforgettable face.


  Then she remembered something else, something about David, she realized. It became clear—

  She punched David hard on the arm.

  “Ouch! Why did you do that for?” David laughed as he rubbed his arm. “I miss you too, you know. But you don’t have to beat your love into me, woman. Unless you’re into that—I’m sure we can come to an arrangement—”

  “It was you!” Kara glared at David. “You’re the guy who’s been stalking me!”

  She struggled to control her anger as she realized that her hot stalker had indeed been hot David. She frowned. “And there I was scared out of my mind for months because some freak was stalking me—you gave me the creeps—freaked me out. I thought I was going mad. And all this time, it was you!” She punched him again, harder.

  David jumped back and laughed. He tried his best to avoid Kara’s assault. “Ow—let me explain! Ow! Hang on … just a second! Stop it—ow. Gabe, help me!”

  For the first time ever, Kara saw Gabriel smile. His lips curled, and she thought he looked even more handsome.

  “Help you? Why should I help you? You’ve done this to yourself, David. Besides, I’m enjoying watching this.” Gabriel chuckled and interlaced his fingers. “This is greatly amusing.”

  With two more punches, Kara crossed her arms and glared at David. “How could you! You scared me half to death! I thought we were friends. I didn’t realize you were some psycho. Tell me something, do you stalk all of your friends?”

  “Okay, okay! Listen to me, Kara. It was my assignment to track you. You were my mission. I had to keep an eye on you, you see. I had to make sure you were safe. That’s why it appeared that I was stalking you.”

  “Safe? Safe from what?”

  A flicker of fear flashed behind David’s eyes, and Kara felt herself tense. “From the freakin’ albino clones—the damned Higher demons—white hair, black eyes, identical to each other, eating the souls of angels—higher demons.”

  Kara remembered. A shiver passed along her back. She had nearly lost her soul to these demons . . . more times than she cared to recall.

  David stepped closer to Kara and spoke to her more gently this time.

  “They found you out, Kara. They found out where you lived. We did our best to throw them off your tracks, but they found your apartment.”

  He let out a long sigh and passed his fingers through his hair. “And they nearly got you. We pulled you back in the nick of time. We almost lost you.” He looked into her eyes. Kara felt a shadow of terror for a moment, and then the feeling was gone.

  She remembered the man with grayish skin and black eyes—his mouth filled with pointed teeth, foul, vinegar like breath, and a hungry look that made her skin crawl. She thought of the lightning.

  “… so you vaporized me by a bolt of lightning?” said Kara. “Isn’t that a little excessive? Even for you? Why not die in my sleep? At least I would have been comfortable.”

  “Well, it saved you—didn’t it?” David rolled up the collar from his jacket. “It was my idea. Yup. You can thank me later. I thought it was a pretty badass way of dying.” He jammed his hands in his front pockets.

  Kara thought about the headline in tomorrow’s Montreal Gazette:

  Death by lightning!

  Seventeen year-old girl sizzles to death in bizarre lighting attack.

  Gruesome pictures on page 13.

  “Wait a minute.” A feeling of dread took over her trembling body. “My mother—what about my mother! You said the higher demons knew where I was. That means they know where my mother is, too! We have to get to her! We have to help her!”

  David pressed his hand gently against her back. “Your mother is safe. Don’t worry. I personally took care of it. We have a team watching her round the clock. She’s fine.”

  Somehow that didn’t make Kara feel any better. She’d seen what higher demons could do to an angel. Images of her friend Brooke’s death came flooding back to her. She couldn’t let that happen to her mother.

  Kara brushed David’s hand away and rushed over to Gabriel.

  “My mom’s a guardian, too. Why didn’t you zap her and bring her to Horizon like you did with me?”

  “Because right now, she needs to stay where she is. It’s safer if the two of you are separated. They won’t go after your mother now; it’s you they wanted, Kara.” Gabriel’s expression was cool and unruffled.

  “Don’t worry, Kara.” David gave her a sympathetic smile. “She’s fine. I promise. I wouldn’t let anything happen to your mother.”

  But Kara couldn’t shake off a nasty feeling inside. She decided that she would have to do something about her mother later. She crossed her arms in front of her chest.

  “So you brought me back to save me from the higher demons. That’s it?”

  “Not only to save you,” said David. He and Gabriel looked at each other, and Kara saw something pass between them.

  She screwed up her face. “What? What do you mean by that? What’s going on, David? Tell me!”

  It was Gabriel’s turn to answer. He leaned over and pressed his large hands on the table. His expression was a mixture of confusion and misery.

  “We need your help, Kara. Something’s been happening to the Legion since you’ve left. Your unique strength and power could be the key for our survival.”

  Kara stumbled back. Her mouth fell open. “Huh? For our survival? What are you talking about?” Her eyes flicked to David. “David … what’s going on?”

  “Because guardian angels are dying each day,” answered Gabriel, “and we don’t know how to stop it.”

  Chapter 3

  Rookie Duty Disaster