The creature flicked the contents of the syringe again.
“With this—you’ll be stronger than ever. Your abilities will thrive. Your power will be limitless. With this you will be invincible, angel.”
The word angel rang in Kara’s ears, resonating clear and then fading away. For a second she felt that the word angel had some weight, some meaning. But that was crazy. He was crazy. The entire situation was crazy. He was going to stab her with that needle and then kill her. She had to get away before he did.
“Too long have we ethereal creatures been forced to live a life of secrecy, abandonment, and rejection. We have been forced to live like wraiths. Promises were made that never came to pass. The legion lied. They tricked us and chose this world, when it was promised to us. The legion chose to favor mankind over their own kind.”
He sneered wickedly. “But not for long.” His eerie yellow eyes burned with a mixture of madness and hatred.
Kara’s heart thumped in her ears. The beast was insane, delusional. None of it mattered. She took another step back and swallowed hard.
The creature eyed her neck.
“They thought they could hide you from us. They attempted to make you different—so that we couldn’t find you—but they were wrong. You still have enough of it to make you whole again.”
He held up the syringe.
“This will make you stronger than you were. You have so much potential, Kara. There is so much power in you. Your uniqueness, your strength singled you out. Your peers rejected you. They were jealous of you. You never belonged with them—you belong with us.”
“You’re mad. You’re insane,” said Kara.
The hot air and rotten smell were making her dizzy. As she blinked the sweat out of her eyes, she knew she’d have to escape before she fainted.
The man-creature grinned at her discomfort.
“You showed incredible potential and talent. You were powerful, but now you will be much, much more. Your power will be unmatched. You will become a creature of darkness.”
He bent slightly forward and watched her, like a cat about to pounce on a mouse.
“Get that away from me!”
Kara’s knees buckled, and she strained to regain her strength. And when the creature’s gaze turned away from her for a moment, she screamed, “Mr. Patterson!”
She looked over the creature’s shoulder. For a split second he turned and looked behind him.
It was all that she needed.
Kara dropped the wooden club and bolted.
She ran with all her strength. She ran knowing that her life depended on it. She knew that if she peeked over her shoulder to see if he was after her—she was dead. Branches scratched and tore her skin like a crazed cat, but she didn’t stop.
With her heart hammering at her chest, Kara tore through the dense forest, pushing her body as hard as she could.
David. She had to see him again…
Just when she thought she couldn’t run anymore, she burst out of the forest and stumbled onto a baseball field. She expected the cat-eyed man to burst out of the forest behind her, but he didn’t appear.
The trees rustled in the wind. Kara waited and listened. Nothing. Maybe he had given up. Not likely, but perhaps she had lost him in the thick of the woods.
Light spilled from tall light posts surrounding the baseball field. She could make out the nearest street. She felt safer out of the forest. She massaged the cramp in her side. It was time to go home. With a deep breath Kara started forward—
Something pricked the skin at the back of her neck like the sting of a wasp. It burned.
“Ah!” Kara brushed the back of her neck with her hand. It was wet. In horror, she willed herself to turn around.
“Our business was inevitable,” said the creature with a black, toothy grin.
“It was foolish for you to think you could run away from me. You can’t hide from your destiny, Kara. You were meant for this. Now you will become a terrible, dreadful force, a storm more powerful than the foundations of the earth. Soon the darkness will consume you, and you will come to me. All will fear you.”
He tossed the empty syringe to the ground like it was garbage.
Kara held her neck with her hand. She trembled.
“What—what did you inject me with?” her voice cracked. “What did you do?”
Her throat was dry and felt like it was swelling closed. She pulled her hand away from her neck. A mixture of blood and black liquid marked her hand.
As she stared dumbfounded at her stained hand, she started to tremble. She was cold, then hot. Fever broke out all over her. Her throat swelled until she could hardly breathe. And then her body was on fire, like she had swallowed acid, and it was eating away at her from the inside. Her vision blurred. She could hardly see. She collapsed to her knees and gasped for breath, as the world around her spun like a merry-go-round.
Kara knew she was going to die. She was dying, and she couldn’t even cry out for help. She had been poisoned by a madman, and now she was fading away. David. Her mother. She would never see them again. Tears streaked down her face. David…
A sudden burst of anger welled inside her.
She wanted to kill the man—to knock that evil smile from his face forever—but her arms fell limply at her side. She gasped for air.
“A—Am I—going—to die?”
The man’s yellow eyes glowed unnaturally in the semi-darkness like two little suns. He surveyed her attentively for a moment, like a scientist watching an experiment unfold before his eyes for the very first time.
“Not from the injection,” he said finally, “but from this you will.”
Before Kara could react, with one quick movement the stranger stabbed her in the chest with a dark maroon blade. Searing pain exploded around her chest. She cried out and then keeled over. Wetness spilled down from her abdomen to her legs and leaked across the ground. She felt her life essence flowing away.
As the wound drained her energy, she lay on her back and blinked at the bright stars. They were so beautiful, and she thought it strange how she could think of such a thing, right before she died. She felt the last of her strength leaving her body. She could hardly keep her eyes open. She tried to turn her head, to look upon her killer one last time, but she couldn’t.
“Why?” was all she was able to say.
The man tossed his raven hair behind his back. He leaned over Kara and smiled.
“Because. I needed to inject you…and then I needed for you to die. You need to die for the transformation to work. Your metamorphosis would be incomplete if you didn’t die. Things must die in order to be born again, as you angels know all too well.”
He reached out and wiped a tear from her eyes. She had not the strength to move away.
“Only in death can we rise up stronger. Like the caterpillar becoming a butterfly, your chrysalis is your death. You will rise again, Kara, and when you do, you will be magnificent.”
As she listened to the crazy man speak about angels as if they were real, Kara’s last thoughts were of David.
And then she succumbed to the darkness and was no more.
Chapter 3
Back with a Twist
A white world. A blurry haze. Silence.
Kara felt as though she were floating. Her mind was empty, empty of feeling, empty of everything. It was a strange dream. It was as though her consciousness was all around her, and she was a big, floating brain. It was as though she didn’t have a body. At first she thought she was dreaming, but then in dreams you don’t usually know you’re dreaming. You only know you’re dreaming once you wake up. This was different.
She felt like she was millions of different pieces at once, like she was in every particle of dust. Her consciousness was stretched and everywhere at the same time.
The world shifted. As her vision cleared, she felt the weight of her body return, like the millions of bits of her were gathered up and made whole again.
Then she was s
tanding on solid ground. Kara blinked the fogginess from her mind and looked around.
She stood in an elevator, not an ordinary elevator, but the special elevators that transported guardian angels to Horizon. She recognized the elegant, handcrafted cherry panels with golden-wing crests, and the familiar mothball smell. She was back, back on her way to Horizon.
But how could that be? Her last memory of Horizon was of the conversation she had had with the Chief. He had told her that she had channeled every last bit of her elemental power into the obelisk and had drained her elemental part away. She specifically remembered him saying, “We won’t be requesting your services for quite some time.”
So there it was. Quite some time, that meant a long time, and right now she knew it hadn’t been that long. How could it be? When she was still a college student, working in the same bookstore. She shouldn’t be here…and yet she was.
Moreover, she was back and a regular angel—no more special elemental abilities, no more rays of golden power—she had exhausted her special powers. She was an ordinary angel.
She wasn’t sure how to feel. She had been unique, and even though she had been hated by most of her peers, she had always secretly enjoyed being different from the other guardian angels. It had been a big part of who she was—it was what made her special.
Without knowing why, she reached up behind her and felt the back of her neck, half expecting something to be there. But what? She couldn’t remember. Why was she acting so silly?
As Kara leaned against the back panel of the elevator, she held her head in her hands. Her memories flooded back. She recalled the memory projection, her last mission as a mortal, the Fay Sisters, Olga, Gideon, and the Dark Warlock. The memory of Lilith pained her. She hoped Lilith’s soul was safe and had been reborn.
She regained her composure and took stock of her surroundings more carefully.
A primate, a large gray-black chimpanzee, was standing next to the operating panel. Its single red bowtie made it look like a furry black present. It wore a purple vest over its broad shoulders with the nametag Chimp 6L75 stitched in golden letters. Its large brown eyes were wide and looked almost fearful. It eyed her strangely, like it was looking at a ghost.
Initially, Kara didn’t think anything of it. She was used to elevator operators with an attitude. But there was something different about the way this one was looking at her. It looked frightened.
“What?” said Kara defiantly after she couldn’t take his staring any longer.
“What now? I just got here, you know. Can’t you give me a moment’s peace before you start your monkeyshines? Don’t you know it’s impolite to stare?”
She shook her head. “Never mind that, just tell me why you’re looking at me like you’ve never seen a guardian angel?”
Chimp 6L75 looked away quickly and began whistling nervously. It was as though he pretended not to have heard her, which was very unusual. She knew that the elevator operators in Horizon always enjoyed tormenting their passengers. But this operator was behaving very peculiarly.
Kara frowned and leaned forward. “Did I miss something while I was away? Excuse me, Chimp 6L75? Did you hear me? Hello?”
The primate continued to whistle, ignoring her completely.
“Have the operators turned deaf while I was gone?”
She leaned her head against the panel. She wasn’t going to let an uncommunicative elevator operator ruin her first day back. She hoped David was back, too. It just wouldn’t be the same without him.
She was about to reprimand the primate for being rude when she noticed that the third button on the elevator control panel was illuminated.
She stepped forward for a closer look. The brass button with the number 3 was indeed illuminated and operational. They were ascending to level three, the Miracles Division.
“Excuse me, why are we going to level three? Shouldn’t you be dropping me off to level five—”
Kara stopped. Since she didn’t have her elemental powers, maybe she wasn’t in the Counter Demon Division any longer. It stung a little, not to be part of the elite group. Perhaps she should go to level two, Operations. It was the only other option.
“I think you pressed the wrong button,” began Kara. She was doing her best to be polite since this creature seemed to be frightened of her, but she still couldn’t fathom why.
“If not five, then I’m pretty sure I should to be going to level two. Yup. Level two it is. Go on now, please press level two.”
The operator ignored her.
Kara’s temper flared. “Fine. Keep pretending that I don’t exist.”
She leaned forward. “I’ll do it myself—”
The operator flung itself at the panel and covered it with its body. It turned its head slightly, but it wasn’t angry. It looked frightened.
For a moment Kara was lost for words. It was behaving so strangely, so out of character for an operator. It didn’t make any sense. What was wrong? Was it sick? Could they even get sick? The way the chimpanzee avoided her eyes and stole a look when it thought she wasn’t looking made it clear that it was afraid of her.
She cleared her throat and tried to control the panic in her voice.
“What is it you’re not telling me? I can see it in your eyes. You’re hiding something. Come on…spit it out.”
Wide-eyed and shaking its head, Chimp 6L75 raised a single, long finger and pointed at her. “Look. Something’s wrong with you. You’re not a normal angel.”
“What?” Kara almost laughed. She was used to being called not normal. But when she looked down at herself, her knees buckled, and she fell against the back panel.
She was semi-transparent, like a ghost.
Her clothes were see-through, like tissue paper. They looked as if they would tear and break with a touch. Her angel essence shone through her thin, brittle skin so that she radiated light. But it was as though half of her essence hadn’t appeared with the rest of her in the elevator. Part of her being was lost, and she had become a specter. When she tried to remember the moments before she died, her memories were lost in a fog.
The panic in the primate’s eyes only made her own fears multiply. It all made sense now. The operator was taking her to level three because she was definitely in need of a miracle. If anyone could figure out what was wrong with her and fix her, it was the archangel, Raphael.
The elevator stopped, and with a ding the doors slid open.
On shaky legs, Kara willed herself to move and stepped off the elevator onto level three.
The sky above her was a mix of scarlet and orange, twisting and swirling like giant candy canes. She could see a thick line of forest, and at the base of a great mountain she could see the archangel’s chamber.
And so, with fear weighing her down, Kara began her journey toward the forest. On her way, she passed the giant warehouse-like building of the Healing-Xpress, the one-stop fixer-upper for the angel in need of repair. She knew that her own curious affliction was something the grand machine couldn’t fix. She needed Raphael’s help.
The tall green trees rippled in a light breeze as she made her way through the forest and came face to face with the colossal mountain. It rose high above the forest and was lost in a sea of red clouds.
She could see the city that was carved from the mountain’s core. She had met no one yet, and was glad of it. With every step, her panic increased. She hurried passed the two giant manlike rock sculptures that stood on either side of the entrance like sentries and sneaked through the opening into the city—
“What in the souls?” said a voice.
Kara froze.
The oracles and guardian angels in the street stood with expressions of shock and disbelief on their faces. Others hurried over to see what the commotion was about until Kara was surrounded.
She wanted to disappear.
An oracle with long wisps of white hair down his back dropped his dossiers. “How—how is this possible? What anomaly is this? Who are you?”
“What’s wrong with her?”
Kara looked up to see a woman guardian angel with short, curly red hair pointing at her.
“She looks like a ghost. I can see Jamie’s head right through her.”
“Demon!” shouted a man with dark skin.
“She’s a demon!”
“Get away from her!”
“Throw her in Tartarus!”
As the crowd of oracles and GAs increased, so did the whispers and accusations. Kara couldn’t hear all that was being said, but she heard enough. It was clear from their faces what they were thinking. Freak. Monster. Mutant. Demon.
There was nothing worse than being singled out in a crowd as a freak. It was the worst feeling, and it was a feeling she knew all too well. She could see them judging her, condemning her, but most of all she could sense their fear.
The streets were so still she could hear the trees rustle in the wind in the forest behind her. All at once the painful memories of being marked by a demon overlord overwhelmed her like a giant wave.
But this situation was worse. Her demon mark had been carefully hidden. But now, every single creature in Horizon could see that she was transparent. She couldn’t hide it.
With her head down, fighting the urge to cry out, Kara brushed past the crowds of onlookers and ran down the winding and turning walkways that wound between the buildings. She needed to find Raphael soon, before the mob did something stupid and threw her in Tartarus.
Kara ran as fast as she could. And when she thought for sure she was lost, she recognized a familiar stone structure and made for it. She passed two angels who jumped out of her way and flattened themselves against the walls. Finally, she pushed open a wooden door and bounded into a large chamber.
“Kara? What’s happened to you?”
A beautiful Asian-looking woman, draped in white linen, looked up from a long wood table. Red highlights reflected off the jet-black hair that spilled down her back. The golden shield that was crisscrossed with two silver swords on her forehead marked her as an archangel. She pushed back her chair and stood up. Her eyes were wide with concern.
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