David spat on the floor and then whistled.
“Wow, what a mess, literally. There are imp leftovers everywhere. Hope you have a good cleaning lady, Mr. Patterson.”
His smug smile disappeared when he saw the murderous look in the old man’s eyes.
“Is everyone okay?” Kara inspected her friends closely. Although there were many deep cuts and serious-looking gashes, overall they were fine. Mr. Patterson didn’t have a mark on him except for some fluffy dust.
Kara wiped her hands on her jeans and then moved toward Mr. Patterson.
“What’s this key they were looking for? They seemed to believe they’d find it here.”
She measured his face closely and said, “I know you know what they were talking about. They tried to kill four angels and an oracle to find it. Tell us, what’s so special about this key?”
The old man looked at each of them in turn. After a moment, he lowered his bat, straightened up, and said, “They are looking for the key to unlock their master’s prison. I am its keeper.”
Chapter 13
Keeper of the Key
Mr. Patterson picked up his bat, climbed over the piles of books and debris, and returned it behind his counter. He stood, shaken for a moment, and held the sides of the counter to steady himself. Then he untied his bowtie and tossed it on the ground.
Kara had never seen her boss so distraught. It was uncomfortable just looking at him. For the first time since she’d known him, he looked lost. And if he was lost, what did that mean for the rest of them?
David, Jenny, and Peter looked equally confused.
Kara moved toward the counter.
“Mr. Patterson, are you okay?”
The old man lifted his head, “Not even remotely.”
“Tell us what this all means,” said Kara. She tried to hide the urgency in her voice.
Mr. Patterson closed his eyes and shook his head absentmindedly.
“The archfiends were expelled from our reality thousands of years ago. The archangels forced them into a barren dimension.”
“You mean the Netherworld?” Kara looked at him.
“Yes, and no.” Mr. Patterson opened his eyes.
“Beyond the Netherworld there exists another plane, another dimension, a place of fire and shadow, darker than even the Netherworld. And it is there that the archfiends were exiled. All this time we thought we had successfully banished them, and that it was impossible for them to escape.”
“But they haven’t escaped, not yet.” said Kara. “If the imps are looking for your key, it means that the archfiends are still locked up.”
The old man looked serious. “Yes, but the fact that they are aware of the key’s existence and know where to find it means they are planning something.”
“And if they get their hands on the key,” began Peter, as he drummed his fingers on the counter, “they can unlock their prison. Doesn’t that sound a bit too easy? If the archfiends are as dangerous as you say, why didn’t the legion take better care of how they banished them? Why didn’t they just destroy the key? Why didn’t they destroy the archfiends?”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” said Jenny. She leaned over the counter next to Peter and picked up a crystal ball from the glass case.
“Because we couldn’t,” said Mr. Patterson.
He glared at Jenny. He took the crystal ball from her, and then gently placed it back inside the broken glass case.
“They were too strong, too powerful. The only thing we could do was to banish them, to keep them from doing harm. Which is what we did.”
“And the key?” asked Kara.
“The key is part of it,” said Mr. Patterson. “It’ll take more than just the key to unlock their prison. There are other elements that need to work together in order to breach the force field that confines them. We never thought it possible.”
Mr. Patterson hit the counter with his fist. “I still don’t understand how they can even contemplate an escape.”
“Well, they’re thinking it,” said David. “They must think that they can escape. They’ve sent the reapers out, right? Which can only mean they’re getting ready to break out.”
Kara knew David was right. If the archfiends had released their reapers to clear the mortals and angels out of the way, they were preparing their escape and knew they could achieve it somehow.
Kara turned to her boss. “So how do we keep them from escaping?”
Mr. Patterson shifted uneasily and held her gaze. “They must never get hold of the key. No matter what.”
“Sounds easy enough,” said David. “Let’s just keep it hidden—”
A shrill cry of someone being attacked echoed from outside.
Mr. Patterson moved over to Kara, grabbed her elbow, and steered her to face him.
“The imps are coming back. And this time there’ll be more of them.”
“Why am I not surprised?” said David lazily.
“The key cannot stay with me anymore,” continued the old man more urgently. His grip tightened around Kara’s arm.
“They know I have it now. The key must be kept hidden and secret if we are to save our worlds.”
“Okay, we’ll help.” Kara bobbed her head vaguely, a little confused. “Just tell us where it is, and we’ll help you hide it somewhere—”
“No!” said Mr. Patterson. “The key must be transferred into the hands of another keeper. That is the only way to keep it safe.”
Kara watched Mr. Patterson closely. “Did you say into?”
But before he answered her, Mr. Patterson grabbed a glass shard from the counter and slit his arm from the wrist to the elbow. Instead of the bright, white essence Kara was used to seeing in the wounds of angels, a silver light spilled out of his cut. His arm disappeared in the bright silver light.
He worked fast. He dropped the glass shard and pried his skin open with his fingers. He rummaged inside his arm like it was a carry-on bag, and he was looking for his toothbrush.
“Stop!” cried Kara. She tried to grab his hands, but he yanked himself free. “Have you gone mad?”
And then Mr. Patterson withdrew a brilliant crystal key from his arm. It was the size of his palm and had a shield engraved into it. It looked like the archangel’s symbol of two wings sculpted into a bow. Etched all around the edges were symbols and letters written in a language she didn’t understand.
“This is the key,” said Mr. Patterson.
David cursed loudly, and Kara eyed it curiously.
“I bet that hurt,” she said.
Mr. Patterson reached out and grabbed her wrist. She felt a small electric shock. But before she could ask him what he had done, he grabbed David’s soul blade.
“Hold out your arm Kara.”
Kara looked at him, stunned. “Excuse me?”
“You are the new keeper,” he said simply. “Hold out your arm, quickly now. We don’t have much time.”
Kara expected David to save her from Mr. Patterson’s sudden madness, but he gave her a short smile and a nod. Jenny and Peter nodded, too. Somehow, there was a silent agreement amongst them that she should be the new keeper.
Kara knew she couldn’t refuse. But she wasn’t sure she was the best candidate.
“Mr. Patterson,” Kara began, speaking as fast as she could. “There’s something I didn’t tell you. Since I’ve been back I haven’t just lost my memory—I’ve also been experiencing pain—”
“There’s no time!” Mr. Patterson glanced over his shoulder as though expecting a new horde of imps to crash into his bookstore at any moment.
“Give me your arm! Make haste! Hurry!”
Kara held out her arm and flinched as Mr. Patterson sliced up the inside of her forearm. Her angel essence spilled out like sunshine. She felt a tug and watched, transfixed, as he tucked the crystal key under her M-suit skin.
He pulled his fingers away, and Kara felt a sudden white-hot pain. The key was burning her from the inside.
“It�
��s burning!” she cried and shook her arm violently. The key popped out of her arm and fell to the ground.
Mr. Patterson jumped back in alarm, recovered quickly and scooped up the key again.
“What just happened?” David asked Mr. Patterson. “Is that normal?”
Mr. Patterson gazed at Kara, but she knew what he was going to say.
“The key has rejected you, Kara,” said Mr. Patterson.
He looked at Kara curiously, as though there was something about her that he wasn’t saying. Something confused him. If the key rejected her, it could only mean that somehow she was bad.
Kara pressed down on her open wound. “But why? Why would the key reject me?”
Mr. Patterson studied the crystal key. He looked up at Kara and said, “I’m not sure.”
But just when she thought he was going to explain himself further, he grabbed Peter and sliced open his arm. Peter yelled in protest, but Mr. Patterson shoved the key into his arm, just as he had done with Kara.
Everyone was quiet, waiting to see if the key would reject Peter. And when nothing happened, Mr. Patterson let him go and stepped back.
“There! The new keeper,” he said, relieved.
Peter didn’t look relieved at all. He felt desecrated. He looked at the wound in his arm like it was a huge infection.
Kara wondered why the key had rejected her, but had accepted Peter.
Mr. Patterson pressed down on Peter’s skin to stop the essence from seeping out.
“Penny, take that bowtie and wrap it around his arm,” he said pointing his head at Peter’s arm. “As tight as you can. We don’t want the key to fall out accidentally, before the skin has time to heal. Hurry.”
Jenny held the bowtie taut for a second, like she was about to strangle Mr. Patterson. “It’s Jenny, not Penny.”
Moving fast, she wrapped the bowtie around Peter’s arm until it was bandaged completely, and his angel essence was intact.
“There…” Mr. Patterson stepped back and admired his handiwork. “How does that feel?”
Peter moved his arm and ran his fingers along the bowtie-bandage. “Like I’ve been violated. It doesn’t hurt, but I feel it. It feels like I have a foreign object inside my arm like a tumor.”
“Perfect! The key has accepted you as its new keeper,” said Mr. Patterson and then he added, “Quickly!”
Mr. Patterson jumped over the piles of rubbish and headed toward the door.
Kara held her arm with her hand. She felt a little annoyed, even envious, that somehow she wasn’t good enough to be the keeper of the key—that Peter was a better guardian, one without fault, one that wasn’t tainted.
“Are you all right, Kara? You look like you’re about to punch someone or want to punch someone,” said David.
He held up a dirty old shoelace.
When he saw Kara’s puzzled expression, he added. “From one of the old man’s shoes. It smells like onions, but it’ll do.”
“What will do?” she asked and frowned.
David tied the shoelace around Kara’s wound. He wrapped it tightly enough to keep most of her essence from seeping out.
Kara moved her hand over her laced-up arm. “Thanks, David.”
“Now you can’t ever say that I’ve never done anything for you,” he said, smiling.
He looked serious again and said, “I know what you’re thinking.”
Kara raised her brows. “You do, do you…? Do tell.”
“You’re thinking that the key didn’t accept you because you were marked. And that somehow this has made you different; that you will always be different.”
Kara wished she were back in her mortal body with David, alone and away from the key, the imps, and the reapers.
“I see,” she said, a little embarrassed. “I’m like an open book to you—”
“The imps will be back,” said Mr. Patterson suddenly.
“They’ll be back with a new scheme and with reinforcements. Imps are the most conniving tricksters in all the worlds. Their capacity for chaos and destruction is limitless.”
His voice rose to a higher pitch, and he raised his hand in the air. “The earth’s energy is changing. Hurry! You must leave now.”
Kara had no idea how her boss could feel the world’s energy change, but she believed him.
The others ran to the door and onto the street. Kara halted near the door and stood next to Mr. Patterson.
“What do we do with the key now?”
Peter kept waving his arm around. He just couldn’t get used to the key lodged inside him. He looked like a rabbit in front of a snake. He was terrified.
Mr. Patterson looked at Kara.
“Keep it safe. And whatever you do, they mustn’t discover that Peter has it. It’s better that you tell no one else, not until I’ve figured out what to do.”
He ushered her out. “Now go.”
Kara suddenly felt a cold shiver pass through her. She was worried about the old man. “What will you do—?”
The ground shook and moaned. The road opened up like a giant mouth, and in an explosion of rock a monster the size of a bus burst out of the hole.
It looked like a cross between a centipede and a scorpion, and it spat out pavement chunks like they were flour. It had rows of bulbous red eyes and sharp mandibles as long as swords.
The creature hissed, spraying strings of yellow spit like a sprinkler. And where the acid spit landed on the road, the pavement sizzled, smoked, and dissolved.
As if that weren’t enough, thousands of angry imps began to crawl out from the hole behind the monster.
Chapter 14
Attack of the Imps
“Oh, great, the imps brought a pet,” said Kara, and when she turned around, Mr. Patterson had disappeared.
“Kara! Let’s go!” cried David from the middle of the street. “Get out of there.”
“I can’t leave him!” she yelled back.
But when she searched the bookstore, Mr. Patterson was gone. Maybe he had left through the back door? Frowning, Kara turned her attention to the colossal bug.
The giant centipede creature scurried toward the bookstore. Its eyes burned with hatred and hunger. Its body rolled and spurted as it moved, leaving a wet, slimy residue behind. The beast was moving fast. She saw what appeared to be straps, crisscrossing the beast’s underbelly. That’s when she realized that twenty imps armed with curved daggers were saddled on top.
On the ground, more imps poured into the street like an army of ants. Soon David, Jenny, and Peter were drowned in a wave of shrieking and spitting foes again. Could the imps sense the key? Peter’s life would be in great danger if they did. She had to help them. But she had to protect her boss, too.
Kara pulled a soul blade from inside her jacket and stood her ground. As the creature neared, its foul breath nearly knocked her unconscious. The rancid smell burned her eyes and her skin, and she blinked furiously through her blurred vision.
The giant insect halted for a moment. Buckets of drool spilled onto the sidewalk and burned holes into it.
“Give us the key, oracle filth. Or die!” challenged one of the imps saddled on the centipede. It had a large scar that cut across his face and his belly. The others sneered and laughed, kicking their legs against the creature’s belly as they urged it on toward her.
Kara moved to the center of the doorway. She raised her weapon.
“If you don’t want to join your dead friends, I’d suggest you go back to the hole you crawled out from.”
She doubted she could harm the giant insect with her puny blade, but she had a feeling Mr. Patterson needed time to escape. She would give him that.
“Stupid angel,” laughed the same imp. It pointed its black, curved weapon at her like a finger.
“No matter. We will get the key from the oracle.”
It laughed again and then licked its lips.
“And when we free our masters, you are all going to die. You and all of your beloved mortals, this miserabl
e world, and all that’s in it will burn. Free the Dark Gods! Seize the key!”
“Seize the key! Seize the key!” cried the other imps.
“Free the Dark Gods!” they chanted.
“The eighteens!” cried another.
Jenny had two arrows in her hands and was using them like swords, perforating the imps like balloons.
Peter kicked and stabbed the imps that came at him like giant mosquitoes. He was fighting well, despite the fact that he had new fear and new responsibility.
David was closer to Kara, and he kicked, punched and sliced his way through the imps as well as he could. But it was like being attacked by a swarm of wasps. The imps were everywhere. David disappeared under a wave of imps. Her friends were drowning in imps.
“You’re not getting the key,” she called out.
She hoped these creatures couldn’t sense that the key was inside Peter’s arm, and that she was a good enough actor to make them believe Mr. Patterson still had it with him.
The imp howled in laughter and then pointed to itself.
“We will get the key,” it said. “And when the eighteens comes, this world and all the other worlds will belong to our masters.”
Before Kara could wrap her head around what the eighteens was, the imp yelled a command and the giant beast lunged forward.
Kara threw herself out of the way just as the giant worm burst through the front doorway and took out the front wall of the building as it did so. Its grotesque body wriggled and climbed over the debris. The building shook, and the roof started to move. It was going to come down.
In a moment of panic, Kara jumped to her feet and thrust her blade into the beast’s torso. She dragged the blade all the way down its side, and thick yellow liquid oozed out of the great gash and burned into the ground. The centipede staggered and howled in anger. It bucked off three of its riders who burst into ashes as they were crushed. The giant bug rolled and thrashed, sending walls and concrete slabs crashing down in an avalanche of building materials.
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