Serafina and the Seven Stars

by Robert Beatty

  Serafina swiped her claws at one of the gargoyles, tearing it away with a powerful, roaring blow, but two more came in its place, biting her leg. She struggled to keep going, fought to keep pushing her way up the hill, but there were too many of them. She crashed to the ground under their weight. She tried to stumble forward, to press on, to keep running, but more and more of the winged beasts landed upon her.

  A gunshot rang out. A splash of blood splattered across Serafina’s shoulders and head. She sucked in a startled breath and craned her neck to look behind her, thinking Braeden had been struck, but he was still clinging to her back, his eyes white with astonishment as he wiped the blood from his face. The gargoyle that had been clutching his shoulder fell dead.

  Another shot rang out. The creature holding Serafina’s front leg slumped to the ground. She looked back toward the house and saw the flash of a third shot coming from the roof.

  Someone was shooting at them.

  But this third shot hit the gargoyle that was clamped on to her back leg.

  Whoever was shooting wasn’t shooting at them, but at the creatures all around them.

  “It’s Jess!” Braeden shouted in excitement.

  The girl whose father thought she always missed wasn’t missing anymore. She was hitting exactly what she wanted to hit.

  Jess had taken a position high atop the front tower, looking out across the open grass of the Esplanade. And now she was firing shot after shot, bringing down gargoyle after gargoyle.

  Another shot ripped past Serafina and thudded into the gargoyle charging toward her, toppling it to the ground.

  Realizing that Jess was doing everything she could to give her and Braeden the chance they needed to escape, Serafina growled with new determination. She sloughed the dead gargoyle from her back, shook the dead gargoyles from her legs, and dragged herself to her feet.

  “We can do it, Serafina!” Braeden shouted as he hunkered down on her back to prepare for her leap.

  She took one last look at the horde of gargoyles coming behind them, and then, with all her power, ran forward and lunged into the woods.

  As she hit the speed of her stride, she heard the shots behind her, knocking down one attacker after another. A running gargoyle charged up beside her. But just as it opened its fanged maw to bite her and drag her down, a bullet sent it rolling across the ground, falling dead in her wake.

  As she ran deeper into the forest, the gargoyles, and the sound of Jess’s shots, fell long behind her. But she kept running.

  When she finally slowed down enough to listen, she heard the sound of the white deer’s hooves treading across the ground in the distance.

  Perfect, Serafina thought.

  But there were other sounds behind her, too, the footfalls of large cats, but with a pounding forcefulness rather than the soft grace of real cats.

  What vile creatures have come to life now? she wondered.

  She traveled down into a low river valley, then scrambled under the trunks of wind-toppled trees and through a bog of chokeberry and fetterbush.

  She soon found herself wading through the green, swirling water of a swamp. Moss hung down from the craggy limbs of the tupelo trees, and thick coats of lichen grew on the ragged trunks of the old cedars. As she waded through a lagoon that was open to the glistening blackness of the night sky above them, thousands of stars were reflecting on the flat surface of the water.

  Glancing back over her shoulder, she saw that Braeden’s face and body were scratched, bruised, and bleeding, his clothes stained and torn. He was as wet and bedraggled as a storm-drenched dog, droplets of gargoyle blood and swamp water scattered across his forehead. His arms and legs were shaking with fatigue. And she felt it, too. After the long stretch of running and fighting, her lungs ached and her muscles were giving out.

  The only way out is through, she thought.

  And as she pushed onward, it seemed as if the ground was finally sloping up toward the high ground. They crossed through an area of dense thicket and undergrowth. And then saw what she had come for.

  Hundreds of weathered gravestones reached into the distance, their cracked, gray shapes overgrown with vines, many of them tilting or sunken down into the earth.

  “Why here?” Braeden asked, his voice filled with trepidation as he climbed from her back. “Why the cemetery?”

  She shifted into human form and stood beside him.

  “We need to get to the Angel’s Glade,” she said. “It’s not much farther.”

  She turned and looked behind them, back toward the swamp they’d just come through. They had traveled miles from Biltmore.

  As she tilted her head, closed her eyes, and listened out into the darkness, Kinsley’s eerie words drifted through her mind. It started following us. It’s not going to give up!

  And sure enough, she heard the faint sounds of four spindly little legs slowly swishing through the water toward them.

  “It’s still behind us,” Serafina whispered to Braeden.

  “Then we’ve got to get out of here,” he said, peering through the vegetation for an escape, but she grabbed his arm.

  “No, we’ve got to go deeper into the graveyard,” she said, remembering her pa’s words to have faith in herself and what she knew to be true. “We’ve got to get to the Angel’s Glade.”

  But at that moment, the white deer emerged from the foliage.

  She was expecting some sort of mythical, cat-footed animal to be with the white deer, maybe even two of them. But something else entirely arrived.

  As she looked up at it, her first, split-second thought was, So that’s what landed on the rooftop and crashed the chandelier.

  And then she grabbed Braeden by the shoulders and threw him to the ground as the large, flying, dragon-like creature burst out of the upper trees and bore down on them with daggerlike claws.

  The scaly beast had a long, chomping snout, two powerful hind legs, and large bat wings.

  The corrupted magic of the Seven Stars had brought to life a wyvern.

  The talons of the wyvern crashed down through the cover of the brush above them, tearing through the vegetation and knocking her and Braeden to the ground.

  They scrambled frantically out of reach of the talons, the beast’s claws ripping through the ground like plows and pulling up the roots of the trees.

  “Run, Braeden!” she screamed as she rose to her feet and pulled him with her. “Into the graveyard!”

  With a leap into the sky, and great, billowing flaps of its wings, the wyvern went airborne again, screeching as it pivoted in midair and came sweeping in low to the ground in pursuit of them. It was a fast and agile flyer, but the thickness of the forest helped them. Serafina leapt behind a large tree just as the wyvern’s talons came slashing through the branches above. She thought she had escaped the attack, but the wyvern wheeled around with a mighty burst of its wings, and then its claws clenched right into her shoulder with a lightning bolt of piercing pain. The force of the blow lifted her off the ground. Screaming, she reached out and grabbed at the branch of a tree, yanked herself out of the wyvern’s talons, and tumbled hard to the ground.

  Her ribs reverberated with splintering pain as she crawled rapidly across the ground. Stay low, stay low, she thought as she scurried beneath a thicket of underbrush like a little weasel escaping the talons of a great horned owl. But where was Braeden?

  As the wyvern circled overhead, Serafina hunkered down against the trunk of a gnarled old tree, caught her breath, and scanned the forest for him.

  “I’m here!” Braeden said as he came crawling on his belly through the wet leaves toward her. Her heart surged with hope.

  She thought they’d get a few seconds to figure out what to do, but then she heard something coming toward them through the underbrush. It was the sound of cat paws, moving fast and strong.

  Two vile beasts emerged from the brush. They had the lower bodies of lions, but the upper bodies and heads of human women. They were the sphinxes that had a
dorned Biltmore’s gate. These once beautiful feline sculptures had been transformed into vicious creatures with clawing feet and gnashing teeth.

  The sphinxes crouched low and sinister, looking more like rabid hyenas than either lions or humans, growling and snapping, saliva dripping from their mouths.

  The sphinxes lunged toward her and Braeden. She dodged the attack and sprang behind the trunk of a tree, but one of them got hold of Braeden and pulled him to the ground, biting at his throat as he grappled against it. Serafina leapt at the sphinx and knocked it away from him, but it immediately turned on her. Braeden picked up a large branch and slammed it into the sphinx.

  And at that moment, the wyvern came crashing through the canopy of the forest and landed immediately in front of them, its great maw roaring as it drove toward them.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Braeden shouted as they scrambled away from the massive beast. He tilted up his head and made the strangest sound she’d ever heard a human make, a loud, croaking call up into the night sky. “Now go!” he shouted at her. “Run for it! Get to the Angel’s Glade!” And then he sprang to his feet and charged straight at the wyvern.

  “What are you doing? Braeden, no!” she screamed.

  Suddenly thousands of flying black shapes came out of nowhere, seeming as if they were exploding from the trees themselves.

  It looked like Braeden was intending to somehow battle the wyvern head-on. Surrounded by the black shapes that he’d called from the forest, he ran straight at it.

  But with a great swoop of its wings, the flying beast leapt upward, and clutched him in its talons.

  He screamed as the massive claws clenched around his body.

  In a desperate panic, Serafina rushed forward to help him, but the wyvern flew upward and pulled him out of her reach.

  “Braeden!” she screamed, her whole body filling with anguish.

  The creature had grasped him in its claws and there was nothing she could do. It lifted his bleeding body up into the sky, Braeden screaming in pain, his arms and legs flailing.

  The last she saw of him he was rising higher and higher away from her, dangling in the talons of the wyvern, until he disappeared into the darkness above the canopy of the forest.

  “Braeden!” she screamed again, her throat straining with lacerating pain.

  She tried to hold on to hope that he had somehow survived the attack of the wyvern and would call out to her.

  But there was no reply.

  Braeden was gone.

  Her entire body throbbed with the ache of it. Her heart was shuddering in her chest.

  How could she let this happen? Why did he run at the wyvern like that?

  She could feel the sobs welling up inside her, ready to burst out. But there was no time to think or feel. The two growling sphinxes were moving toward her, forcing their way through the underbrush, and a thick horde of running, crawling, flying gargoyles were pouring through the forest straight at her.

  She had to fight them. But she couldn’t fight them.

  She had to go after Braeden. But she couldn’t go after him.

  Her pa’s advice came into her mind: What was the most important thing? What was the one thing she must do? She had to run, run for the Angel’s Glade, and there she would confront the white deer in the only way she had left.

  She turned and sprinted up the hill. She ran past grave after grave, darting between the broken headstones and tilting crosses.

  When she finally looked behind her, the white deer was there, right with her, coming toward the Angel’s Glade.

  I hope this is gonna work, she thought as she scurried behind the pedestal of the stone angel.

  The white deer moved toward her with unnerving speed, scuttling more like a scorpion than a deer. Every sphinx and gargoyle attacked. And every gravestone ripped out of the earth and flew at her.

  A great, swirling maelstrom of wind and debris and flying gravestones rose up from the ground.

  Serafina hunkered behind the pedestal, bracing herself for the barrage. But the first gargoyle flew past her. The second—a six-legged beast with no wings—ran straight at her, but then broke off to the side. The gravestones hurtling through the air tumbled to the ground behind her.

  Not a blade of the perfect green grass was disturbed in the circle of the Angel’s Glade.

  All the sphinxes, gargoyles, and monstrous beasts converged on her and attacked her. Hundreds of gravestones plunged through the air at her in a storm of violence. But she clung to the pedestal of the angel, unharmed by the attacks.

  And yet she knew she could not stay in the glade for long. She was surrounded and there was no way out. She could not fight. She could not defeat her enemy.

  The white deer, the sphinxes, and the gargoyles stood just outside the perimeter of the Angel’s Glade staring straight at her. She knew they had probably already killed Braeden. And now they were going to kill her. They would not stop until they did.

  “Come on!” Serafina screamed at the white deer and the other beasts. “You killed the hunters! You attacked Kinsley! Come on! Do it! Do it now!”

  The white deer just stared at her with those malevolent black eyes.

  You need to kill me, Serafina thought. And I’ve left you only one way to do it.

  “Come on!” she screamed, spitting out the words. Then she picked up a fist-size rock and threw it at the deer, striking it in the side. Violence brings violence. “Come on!”

  Finally, the white deer turned to the statue of the angel standing on the pedestal in the center of the glade.

  That’s it, do it, Serafina thought. Do it!

  The stone angel began to move, coming alive just as the others had.

  The white deer pivoted its head and looked directly at Serafina.

  Despite all that Serafina had done to get to this exact moment, her chest seized in fear and her breathing stopped.

  But the angel did not immediately attack. She gazed around her at the forest-choked graveyard and the storm of violence surrounding the glade. She gazed at the white deer, and the maelstrom of flying gravestones and attacking gargoyles. And then, finally, the angel tilted her head down and gazed at Serafina crouched at the base of the pedestal.

  Serafina had looked up at this angel of stone so many times, had spoken to her, cried to her, and never once had the angel moved or made a sound. But now the living, flesh-and-blood angel was looking right at her, her eyes as alive as any human’s eyes, as green as the moss that had once grown on her shoulders, and as powerful as any woman who had ever lived.

  And Serafina saw in those eyes one thing: understanding. No one had ever looked at her and comprehended her more fully than in that moment. Everything she was now, everything she had ever been, and everything she wanted to be. The angel understood.

  And then the angel looked at the white deer standing at the edge of the glade.

  Unlike the inert, lifeless stone of Biltmore’s statues, the angel in the glade was filled with a deep and powerful spirit all her own.

  The white deer stared at the angel with those terrible, mesmerizing black eyes, as if trying to drive the angel with its will, trying to force her to attack.

  But the angel did not bend to its will.

  And the angel did not look away.

  The angel raised the fullness of her great gray feathered wings up above her shoulders and her head, and she held them there, trembling, on the cusp of unimaginable transformation.

  Serafina cowered behind the pedestal and covered her face with her arm as she peered out.

  And then the angel brought her wings down.

  The angel’s wings came together in one blazing, swooping motion that sounded like a thunderstorm tearing the length of the sky. Her wings threw a hurricane of wind that snapped the trunks of the surrounding trees. Dirt and rocks flew from the earth. The gargoyles and sphinxes were thrown tumbling away, and the white deer was buffeted back.

  The angel rose up, hovering above her pedestal, roaring with fury
, her power engulfing everything around them.

  Serafina clung to the base of the pedestal. She tried to suck in a breath, but there was no air to breathe, just wilding wind and clamorous noise.

  As the white deer struggled to keep its footing against the terrific forces bashing against it, it used its powers to hurl massive rocks and gravestones at the angel, but the angel deflected them with gestures of her hand. And in her other hand, she held her long, straight, sharply pointed sword.

  Still hovering, the angel glided forward through the air, then came slowly down to the grass of the glade and walked toward the white deer.

  The white deer hurled rock after rock at her, and then entire gravestones and monuments, but it meant nothing to the angel.

  The angel lifted her wings above her head once more, and stepped closer to the white deer.

  With a deafening shout, the angel swung her sword, low to the ground and then upward toward the sky, in a great sweeping motion.

  Serafina watched in amazement. The sword didn’t cut through the white deer. Its tip sliced open the earth and sky, as if rending a seam in the fabric of the universe. The blade tore through space and time, creating a gaping split of blackness filled with nothing but stars.

  For a fleeting moment, as if all time had come together in a great, swirling torrent, Serafina glimpsed the white deer as it had been the first time she saw it, a luminous magical creature springing through the forest.

  And then the white deer and all the creatures around it exploded into bursts of blazing pieces. The painful blast of heat singed Serafina’s skin, and the bright light burned her eyes.

  With a great thunder crack of sound, the blinding rush of a meteor storm flew up into the sky, hundreds of fragments searing the air around her, ripping and smoking as they hurtled upward toward the Seven Stars.

  The white deer was gone.

  The fury of wind had stopped and the world had become still.