“Where are we?” whispered Kara to David. “What is this place?”
“Level six-and-a-half,” answered Metatron. His smile told Kara that he had probably heard every conversation she and David had had.
Kara shot a curious glance at David.
He shrugged. He had never heard of level six-and-a-half before either.
The archangel beamed, puffing on his cigar. He raised his brows and smiled proudly.
“I call it, A Room with a View. You like it?”
His smile faded at Kara’s silent response. The noise from the multitude of TVs was giving her a headache.
Metatron snapped his fingers and then pointed to the iron cage. “In.”
Reluctantly, Kara and David made their way toward the iron box and closed the gate behind them.
“Whatever happens, Kara,” whispered David, “don’t make a deal with him. Do you understand?”
“Why would I want to make a deal with a sociopath?”
“Just promise that you won’t.”
Kara watched David. He was furious, but he also looked frightened.
“Okay, but why?” Kara’s voice was low.
“You can’t trust him. He’s going to want to make a deal with us, but you can’t agree to anything. You can’t. Do you understand? No matter what.”
As she nodded, Kara didn’t realize she was shaking until David laced his fingers between hers and squeezed her hand tenderly.
“Whatever happens,” he said, “we’re in this together.”
Kara’s lips quivered. David was her strength when she needed it most, and she needed him now.
She wondered what kind of deal the archangel would try to make with them.
Metatron stepped up the platform and reclined on his black couch. With his cigar in his mouth and his fat fleshy stomach protruding beneath his shirt, he propped his feet up on the coffee table and leaned back lazily.
Six of the guardian angel women, three on each side, lowered themselves next to him. They kicked out their legs in unison and then crossed them. They made Kara think of the Rockettes.
The other six women continued to hold their soul blades unsheathed and stood guarding Kara and David’s metal cage. Kara hated the fact that she couldn’t see their eyes. Their sunglasses made them look colder and more calculating, like demons.
Then something on one of the screens caught her eye.
“Is that…?”
But even before she could finish her question, she already knew the answer.
On the middle screen to her left Kara could see the archangel Raphael examining the contents of a glass vial. Her long black hair spilled over her shoulders like a shawl. A large syringe lay on the table in front of her. It was from Kara’s essence.
Kara looked away.
She felt embarrassed to intrude on the archangel’s privacy. To be eavesdropping and spying, watching something private, seemed wrong.
She glanced away. On another screen she recognized red dunes and white tents. On the screen, Gabriel stared intently at a screen monitor, and for a moment he looked up and their eyes met. She cringed, but then she realized that his eyes were not directly focused on her.
Now she felt both ashamed and angry. On one screen, a group of oracles at Orientation busied themselves with groups of the newly deceased. On another screen, rays of yellow light spilled through the enormous glass dome and illuminated a group of seven archangels—the high council. The image was so close that she could see Jeremiel, the minister of ministration and peace, perfectly well. He was right beside her, and she could hear his comments, even the shuffling of his papers.
Kara was afraid to speak, in case the high council could hear her. But then she realized this was a one-way spying scheme. She could see and hear them, but they could not see her.
Kara stared at Metatron, incredulous.
“Are you spying on the archangels? The high council?”
She heard David curse as he saw and heard the truth for himself.
“And what if I was?” answered Metatron lazily.
“But…why? Have you no shame?”
“I don’t.” Metatron took a drag of his cigar.
“Listen kid, I like to have eyes and ears everywhere. It’s how I do business. It’s how I know what’s going on before anyone else does. I want to know who’s coming and going. I want to know how many demons we’ve killed this month. I want to know how many new rookies we have, and how many we’ve lost. I want to know everything that goes on in Horizon.”
“Do they know you’re spying on them?” asked Kara.
She had forgotten her own fears as her curiosity had taken over.
She watched the archangel’s stone-like face. His eyes were always hidden by his glasses, and she couldn’t read what he was thinking.
“I’m going to guess that they don’t. What are you, Metatron? The spy master?”
Metatron laughed hard. He turned to the women beside him and said, “Metatron the Spy Master! Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think, Claire?”
The woman named Claire smiled from behind her sunglasses, and he continued, “I like her. Do you hear the hatred she has for me in her voice? It’s so pure. There’s so much energy and emotion in it. She hates truly and fiercely.”
Kara’s anger rose. “What do you want from us?”
He blew a sword-like shape of smoke.
“I’m the man in charge now, and I like knowing what’s going on in my domain. I don’t like operations sneaking behind my back.”
“Who said anything about sneaking?” David raised his voice above the cacophony of television speakers. “Listen, Metatron. I’m telling you that we weren’t sneaking. Ariel requested us. We were just following orders, like good little soldiers. And that’s exactly what we were doing.”
Metatron smiled as he observed David, like he was thrilled to be having a conversation with him. He leaned forward and laughed softly.
“I like you Davy—”
“It’s David.”
“You remind me of me in my younger days with the legion, but I was much more handsome,” said Metatron.
The women next to him giggled.
His face toughened, and he tapped his cigar. “You think I don’t know…you think I can’t see what you’re up to?”
David laughed casually. “Dude, we’re not up to anything. It’s like I said. We were just following orders.”
Metatron chewed on his cigar and clapped as though David had just given a superb theatrical performance. All the women on the couch followed his example and clapped. He stopped clapping, and so did they.
He leaned forward, shaking his head disapprovingly, a sly smile on his face.
“I applaud your efforts, Davy, but the fact remains—you can’t con a con, kid.”
Kara shot David a nervous look, but his attention was fixed on the big man on the couch.
“Both of you went against my orders,” said Metatron, his face clear of any smiles. “You were trying to escape from me. You managed to con those two simpletons I sent to apprehend you, I give you that, but your little scam won’t work on me. See, I’m charged with protecting the legion, protecting Horizon, by any means I choose.”
He leaned back and blew cigar smoke in the shape of a skull.
“I’ll do anything to protect us. Anything. If I say you’re traitors, then you’re traitors.”
“We’re not traitors,” said Kara defiantly.
She tried to gauge the anger in the bend of his neck and the hardness of his shoulders. Would he really kill them? She had a feeling that he might— to prove a point—just to show off in front of his lady friends.
Kara felt trapped. She feared this archangel more than any she had ever encountered. He was ruthless, dangerous, and he had an obvious lust for power. He seemed to get pleasure from seeing them squirm under his authority. How could the high council appoint such a heartless archangel to be the overall legion commander? It made no sense.
Metatron was sile
nt for a moment.
“It is in my power to decide your fate and your future with the legion. I can kill you—” he snapped his fingers, “just as easy as that. And I’ll feel no remorse, no guilt, in killing you both. I’ve killed many guardian angels over the past millenniums, and I’ve never regretted my decisions. I do what’s best for the legion—no matter the stakes.”
The guardian, Claire, leaned over and whispered in Metatron’s ear. Her red lips brushed against his earlobe playfully, and to Kara’s surprise she handed him a pair of gold-colored gloves. Metatron took the gloves and then kissed her cheek affectionately.
“Thank you, darling,” he said. “I do believe it’s time. And now, here comes my favorite part,” he said as he looked at Kara.
After a big drag on his cigar, he pulled on his golden gloves and rubbed his hands excitedly together like a psychopath anticipating his next kill.
He stood up and moved to the right side of the couch to a great wooden chest with stars carved on the sides. He raised the lid and drew a thick, black metal chain from the contents of the chest.
“Let the tortures begin!”
He jumped down from the platform in a single bound, and the ladies on the couch applauded and crossed their opposite legs in unison.
David squeezed Kara’s hand hard. She could feel him trembling.
As Metatron neared their cage, the mass of television screens reflected off his glasses and made him look like he had two enormous bug eyes. It made him all the more creepy, and it made the situation seem more like a bad dream.
He held up his black chain, wiggling it in front of their eyes. Toxic black vapors coiled up from the knotted metal.
Kara had the feeling that she had seen this chain before, but she was terrified and couldn’t think straight.
“This,” he said, and he pulled the chain taut, “this chain has provided me with many, many answers. It is a remarkable tool for the truth…and the truth I will have.”
It was Kara’s turn to squeeze David’s hand.
“This, here, is made from the same metal the demons use for their death blades. I can see from the fear in your eyes that you’ve seen it before. You have reason to be fearful. It is the same metal that can cut through the skin of an angel like butter and poison their essence with a terrible burning darkness.”
He paused theatrically and then raised the chain above his head.
“Forged in the Black Wastes in the Netherworld—I give you, Truth Chain.”
Metatron’s entourage clapped, including the six women who guarded Kara and David’s cage. They were like his groupies, clinging to his every word like he was some god. It was pathetic.
“You’re mad,” hissed Kara. “You can’t do this. The legion would never allow torture.”
“Wouldn’t they?” laughed Metatron. “And how would you know, little bird?”
There was something strange about the way he said that, like somehow the legion did permit him to torture angels, like he was given a free pass to torture whomever he pleased. Kara shuddered.
No one knew she and David were here. And no one was coming to rescue them. They were on their own.
“You’re sick,” she hissed. “I don’t care what you say, but the legion was wrong. They should never have made you the overall commander. They must have been mad.”
Metatron smiled as if she had just paid him a giant compliment.
“Kara Nightingale, are you a traitor?”
He raised the chain higher, taunting her with it.
Kara set jaw. “No, of course not. I’m not a traitor. Never was…never will be.”
“How do you explain your ghost-like appearance? Who do you really work for?”
At first Kara was stunned by the comment, but she recovered quickly and said, “I work for the legion. What are you implying, exactly?”
She eyed the black chain in his big hands apprehensively like a poisonous snake that was about to strike her.
Metatron measured her for a moment. “Not good enough, I’m afraid.”
“But I’m not a traitor—”
In an instant he wrapped the black chain around David’s neck.
David cried out in agony and fell to his knees. Black mist curled around his head as the chain burned deep into his neck and chest. He tried desperately to pull it off, but the chain melted the skin from his fingers. They fell apart like a pair of old rubber gloves. He shivered and cried out again and again as the black chain burned his body. The black poison made its way through him like a virus. Kara knew that it would eat away at his soul until it consumed him entirely.
White-hot fury blazed inside Kara as she fell to her knees next to David.
His face was pale, his skin translucent and paper-thin. He trembled as the poison from the chain paralyzed him. He was suffering needlessly. He was suffering because of her. She wanted to kill Metatron.
“Now that I have your attention, and cooperation,” Metatron pressed, “again, tell me, why are you transparent? And don’t even try to lie, because I can always tell when angels lie. As a master liar myself, I can always tell when an angel is lying to me. It is one of my special gifts.”
Kara’s lips trembled. “I—I don’t know. I don’t know,” she said.
Her anger surged and she screamed in a rage. “I don’t remember, and that’s the honest truth! I don’t remember what happened to me. Raphael tried to get me to remember, but I just can’t! I’m telling you the truth. I’m not a traitor. I don’t know what’s happening to me! Please, I’m telling you the truth!”
Metatron raised his brows and leaned forward more closely, his big, ugly grinning face inches from Kara’s.
“I believe you are telling me the truth,” said Metatron after a moment. His breath was surprisingly sweet, like peppermint, and not sour as Kara would have thought.
“Thank God! So will you let David go?” Kara felt a surge of relief and hope.
Metatron shrugged. “I haven’t decided yet.”
Kara wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. She wanted to grab a soul blade from one of the women and gouge out the hateful eyes that hid behind those stupid sunglasses. The only person in all the worlds that she loved more than herself was withering away before her eyes. And Metatron was deciding.
Kara stood up. And in a moment of desperation, she jumped up and waved frantically at Raphael on the screen, in an attempt to get her attention. But she realized foolishly that she couldn’t see her. No one could.
“I could let Davy here wither away into nothingness,” began Metatron, and he took a long drag from his cigar “Or, you and I can make a deal.”
The word deal rang in Kara’s head. David had specifically said not to make a deal with him, but right now what other choice did she have? She could feel her resolve weaken.
Her voice faltered as she said, “Just, please stop. I’ll do anything you ask. Just don’t kill him.”
Kara felt a sudden tug on her pants. David stared up at her, his face drawn as the poison moved though his body.
“No…” he breathed, “Kara…don’t…”
“I have to.” She answered in a whisper.
She didn’t care about herself. She only wanted to save him.
Kara glared at Metatron. “What will it be then? What do you want from me?”
For a moment Metatron considered Kara with great interest.
Then he said, “A deal is a deal. Once you agree—the deal is sealed with your word, and it can never be broken.”
His voice was eager, like a threatening whisper.
Kara could feel him ensnaring her.
“I understand,” she replied.
“No—Kara—don’t,” said David, his voice cracked like he was suffering from a cold.
But it was too late. She had already agreed, even before knowing what she had traded. “What is it then?”
To her horror, Metatron reached forward and grasped a handful of her hair. He twisted it in his gloved hand, moved closer to her, leane
d forward, and whispered in her ear.
Kara flinched, but she willed herself not to step back.
He had spoken the terms.
Metatron leaned back. “Do you agree to these terms?”
The words rang in her ears. She dreaded them. They were like the poison from the death blades, eating slowly away at her soul, but she still nodded.
“Yes.”
“Done.” Metatron laughed.
He reached inside the cage and removed the chain from David’s neck. “Nothing personal, Davy.”
Immediately, David collapsed to the ground. His face was sunken, and the flesh around his neck was raw. Kara could see his angel essence spilling out and over his chest. He moaned in agony.
“Kara!” David muttered, his voice hoarse. “What did you do? What did you do?”
The conditions of the deal rang loud in Kara’s mind, but she could not speak the words to David.
Metatron turned and made his way back up onto the platform.
He turned to Kara with a superior smile and said, “Give my best to the ravishing Ariel.”
And then he added, “I’ll see you soon, little bird.”
Chapter 6
Leap of Faith
After a quick stop back to level three, so that David could heal his wounds in the Healing-Xpress, they made their way to level five. Kara’s ears still rang with Metatron’s deal. It was an irritating tune that played over and over, and wouldn’t go away.
“Kara, tell me what the deal was! What was the agreement?” David questioned her again and again. But she pressed her lips firmly together and shook her head, infuriating David all the more.
David continued to watch her nervously, but she still couldn’t bring herself to tell him what she had traded their lives for…not yet.
Finally, the elevator stopped. David retrieved his golden key card from the large, molasses-colored primate with a tail like a cat who had kept his eyes on the control panel the entire journey. The two of them stepped into level five, the Department of Defense.
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