Seals

by Kim Richardson

  Ashley took a careful step back. “They’re staring at us.”

  David cursed. “And to think that I forgot to pack my bug spray.”

  “I doubt bug spray would work on these,” Kara said dryly. “They’re not normal bugs.”

  The light vanished from David’s eyes. “You got that right. They’re more like demon bugs.”

  Kara watched as a cloud of bugs hovered in the air, turned, and looked as if they were preparing to attack.

  “You’ve got a brilliant plan?”

  “Nope. You?”

  Kara shook her head. “No. Maybe if we walk back very slowly, they won’t attack—”

  The giant swarm of locusts dived at them.

  “MOVE!” cried David as he spun around and ran back.

  Kara just had time to drop her ring back in her pocket, before the cloud of bugs hit her like a brick wall. She went sprawling on the ground, and the locusts covered her body, clawing and biting at her skin, her wings, and her face. She beat her wings and waved her hands frantically in a panic to get the bugs off her. But there were too many. The buzzing of their wings and the chomping of their tiny mouths on her skin blocked out all other sound. They crawled up her sleeves and down through the collar of her t-shirt, all the while their teeth like thousands of death blades pierced her skin. She could feel her skin being pulled and eaten. She could feel the acid-like poison seeping inside her body. The tiny insects tore her angel skin like wild piranhas.

  She thrashed out widely, like a wild, panicked animal. She was blind. She tried to pry her eyes open, but the locusts pinned her eyelids shut. She felt them biting her navel, and she panicked even more as they scrambled into her ears. When she opened her mouth to scream, more locusts climbed in.

  Kara spit out the bugs, overwhelmed with terror. She felt tiny legs, likes needles trying to pry open her mouth, to get in and devour her from the inside. She thought of the animals and how this was the way they must have died, eaten from the inside.

  Over the constant humming in her ears, she thought she heard screaming. Was that David? Were the others under blankets of bugs? If only she could fly. Yes!

  She yanked and pulled, desperately trying to open her wings. But as soon as she made to move her wings, thousands more locusts attached themselves to her, as though they could sense what she was about to try. Were they communicating? She shuddered at the thought of smart bugs.

  She punched out with her arms and tried to loosen their hold on her wings. She kicked out, trying to shake them off. But it was useless. The weight of the locusts pulled her down. She couldn’t fly. It was like they knew what she was about to do before she did it.

  She fell, and it took tremendous effort to keep her mouth clamped shut. She was thankful she didn’t need to breath. The locusts were crushing her.

  She couldn’t move. She couldn’t scream. She couldn’t think. There was only one thing left to do, something that she had sworn she wouldn’t. But what else could she do?

  The darkness throbbed inside her. It was like cold blood that wanted to be free. Kara had sworn never to call forth the darkness inside her or to succumb to its power. It was too dangerous. The black veins were proof. The darkness was slowly taking control of her. She would lose herself to it. What if she couldn’t control it? But she couldn’t let herself be eaten by bugs. It was just too lame. What kind of guardian angel dies of bug bites?

  No. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. She wished for her elemental power…

  Jenny cried out, and it was like something inside Kara snapped.

  Without thinking, she let go, and a tiny spark of dark energy pulsed through her. It was enough. With renewed strength, she jumped to her feet, thrashed her wings violently, and then spun like a top.

  The locusts fell. She was surprised at how fast they came off. It was almost too easy. With a last loud hum, the locusts rose in a massive cloud and disappeared into the dark sky. It was almost as though something had compelled them to leave. It didn’t matter. They were gone.

  With a victory smile on her face, she looked back at her friends.

  Jenny, Peter, Ashley and David staggered to their feet. Their faces were streaked with blood, but the locusts were gone. Where had the locusts gone?

  Kara moved toward her friends, but a sudden fear in their eyes made her stop. They weren’t looking at her. They were looking past her.

  There was something behind her.

  Kara whirled around, and her victory smile vanished.

  A ten-foot humanoid creature sat astride a giant skeletal horse with glinting red eyes and a mouth filled with too many fish-like teeth. The horse’s ribs protruded through its thin, stretched, hairless, sickly skin. It was so thin it was as though its bones alone held it up. The rider’s white skin looked like crumpled paper. Corded muscles sheathed its arms and legs like pale ivy. A war helmet with horns covered most of its face, and body armor covered its skeletal frame. It looked like a two-thousand-year-old mummified corpse. A gleaming black sword the size of a small tree dangled from the grip of the rider’s enormous hand, and the great white horse stared at her with fiery red eyes and pointed teeth.

  Kara let out gasp. She was standing face to face with one of the four knights of the apocalypse.

  Chapter 5

  Famine

  “Why didn’t they tell us the knights would be giants?” grumbled David as he brandished his soul blades but then he frowned when he glanced at them. He knew that his blades wouldn’t do more than scratch the giant.

  “What did you expect,” said Ashley, her blue eyes blazed with a fearlessness that Kara envied. “Gnomes? Dwarves? Tiny little elves?”

  “Ha. Ha.” David looked at Kara. “Now what? Please tell me you’ve packed your magic beans?”

  “Magic beans?” Kara forced a laugh. “I’d go for magic. Period.”

  Kara didn’t want to jinx it by moving just yet. The knight appeared to be contemplating what to do with them. It radiated power like a thousand heat lamps, but it was an overwhelmingly dark and evil power. Thousand-year-old intelligence gleamed in its eyes. This creature hadn’t been created just three days ago. It had been around for a very long time.

  The earth and fields seemed to pulse with its energy. The smell of rot and decay rolled off it, like a million rotted corpses. Both the rider and its steed emitted a green glow, like glowing toxic waste. Kara knew the knight controlled the atmosphere somehow. She felt a tinge of electricity prickling her wings and her skin. Abnormally low dark gray clouds with black underbellies hovered over them. The giant could probably touch them. The air was moist with the scent of rain and static. The knight’s power permeated the air like the silence before an electrical storm.

  A wave of terror ripped through Kara as she locked eyes with the knight. She felt its hold on her, paralyzing her with only its eyes. It didn’t belong in this world. It was a dead thing, an evil thing that shouldn’t be.

  She did her best not to show any fear as she ransacked her mind for a plan. How to destroy this thing? Where was its weakness? She knew that this knight was Famine, and because their rings were still intact, she knew it hadn’t broken the seal. Not yet. She took courage from that. Now, how to destroy it?

  David leaned over and whispered. “Why isn’t it moving?”

  “I’m not sure,” Kara whispered back, but she was certain that for whatever reason it was waiting, it could only be a very bad one.

  “Maybe it’s waiting for us to make the first move. But that would be stupid since I doubt our weapons would even make a scratch.”

  “It smells like a demon,” David held his nose. “Maybe it dies like a demon.”

  “This is no mere demon.”

  A cold rage spread across Kara’s face. “It feels…different…more powerful and evil. So how do we kill it?”

  “I guess we’re about to find out.”

  Kara clenched her jaw. She would find a way to destroy it. She had to—

  “You cannot destroy me,” boomed a voi
ce that sounded like the mountains themselves were speaking.

  Kara stiffened, but she planted her feet.

  “Go back now, angels. Go back to the comfort and delights of your realm or you will perish along with this mortal world and everything in it.”

  A cold smile spread across Kara’s lips. She raised her voice.

  “We’re not going anywhere. It is you that should leave, not us. We are the sworn protectors of the mortal world. We are the soldiers who drive the darkness out from this world. This world is only for the living. You have no claim here. Leave or face your doom.”

  The knight’s red eyes shone like burning coal.

  “I have already unleashed my curse upon this earth. You cannot stop the affliction. Mere angels do not possess the power to control my destruction. It will spread until all of this planet’s natural resources are consumed. My plague spreads as fast and silently as the wind. It will corrupt and infect everything. The earth is already dying. You are too late.”

  The earth rumbled beneath Kara’s feet, and she had the strangest suspicion that the knight had just laughed. It was mocking them. She suppressed a shiver.

  “We’re not too late.” Kara knew that the rings were all still intact.

  “We’re going to send you back to whatever dimension you came from. And then the earth will heal itself. That’s what she does. You might have destroyed some of the crops here in China, but they’ll grow back, they always do. Life finds a way. It’s obvious you don’t know anything about this world because it always fights back.”

  The knight lowered its head, and the horns on his helmet made it look like a great bull ready to charge.

  “You speak with such conviction, angel, but you know nothing about the end of days. My curse is upon your mortal world whether you’d like to admit it or not. The mortals will starve. It has already begun, and you are fools if you think you can stop me. In the end you will become like beasts and eat the flesh of other mortals.”

  “Okay, did he just say that we will become cannibals?” David’s face was twisted in disgust.

  “He did.” Peter’s eyes darkened. “Don’t believe it. It’s lying. It’s trying to discourage us…to make us believe that mortals are merely animals and not worth fighting for. It wants us to let it finish what it started.”

  “That’s not going to happen!”

  Jenny looked up at the knight fiercely. “We’ve sworn an oath to protect the mortal world, which is what we’re going to do. I don’t care how scary you look. We’re going to stop you.”

  The knight leaned back.

  “Accept the inevitable. Five angels cannot stop the knights of the apocalypse. You are weak and connected to this world. You care about these mortals. You love them, and that will be your downfall. The power of the archfiends is limitless. Mere angels could never understand. My words would not be sufficient. To understand their power, you’d have to be gods yourselves.”

  “You’re delusional,” spat David. “The archfiends are not gods. They’re just a bunch of god-botherers. You’re all insane because you’ve been locked up for so long.”

  He leaned over and whispered in Kara’s ear. “What are we doing here? We can’t keep chatting forever.”

  “For now we have to,” whispered Kara. “If we can keep it busy long enough, keep it talking, we might be able to distract it from its job, and it’ll miss its chance to break the seal.”

  “But we don’t even know how they break the seals.”

  “I think it has to do with how much they spread their plagues in seven days. They probably need a percentage. A certain percentage of the entire world has to succumb before the seal will break. Somehow we need to stop them from reaching that goal.”

  “I think we should kill it, just in case.”

  Kara nodded. True, if the knight were destroyed, then they’d be ahead of the game. The trouble was she wasn’t sure how to kill it.

  She returned her gaze to the creature.

  “The mortals have enough gods as it is,” she said, keeping their conversation going. “They don’t need anymore, especially ones that want to harm them. I don’t think that’ll sit very well.”

  The knight sneered. “It makes no difference. Those who will not worship the dark gods do not deserve to live. Non-believers will die whether they are mortal or not.”

  “I’m pretty sure they’d disagree with you,” said Kara, not fully understanding what other creatures it was referring to.

  “Mortals have the right to worship any god they want. It’s part of being human, to have a soul, to have an open mind and do what feels right. Who are you to decide who lives and dies?”

  “The dark gods decide. They are the true gods, and they wield the power over all things.”

  Although the knight was terrifying, Kara was starting to get annoyed with all the talk of dark gods.

  “That’s a load of bull, and you know it,” said David. He gave the creature a withering glare.

  The knight eyed the group for a moment. “The time of angels and mortals is over. The dark gods have returned. Join us or die.”

  “We will never join you,” spat Kara.

  She was surprised at how much she trembled in rage. How dare this creature threaten her, threaten the angels and mortals, or threaten this beautiful planet. She hated its arrogant voice, so sure that it had already won. But it hadn’t. The rings were proof. There was still time.

  The knight cocked its head, and its thin, withered mouth stretched disgustingly into a sneer. “And yet some of you have already joined.”

  Kara fumed. She didn’t like the way it had said you, as though some angels had already sided with the archfiends. No. It was lying to her.

  “Your words are like poison,” Kara said harshly. “But say what you want, it doesn’t matter because we’re the antidote, the cure for your plagues. We’re going to fight you, and we’re going to win.”

  “You think you can destroy me?” laughed the knight. “Five miserable little angels in soft angel shells? Are you ready to die your final death for this world? Your beloved legion has sent you on a fool’s errand. They knew you couldn’t defeat us, and still they sent you. Why is that? Do they think you are so insignificant that they are willing to sacrifice you? This is your death sentence, little ones. Why do you fight alongside a legion that cares so little for your fate?”

  Kara took a step closer to it, enough to smell its foul breath. “Shut your stupid mouth, or I’ll punch your teeth down your throat and shut it for you.”

  The knight revealed its teeth. “Your threats are empty and meaningless.”

  “You know nothing about us,” said Kara.

  The knight stared at her blankly. “I have known multitudes before you. I am a creature forged long before the time of angels. You cannot defeat me with your weapons. And when I kill you, because I will exterminate all of you, I will savor the moment I take your pitiful life-force because I will know how foolishly you have thrown your lives away—for a war you could never win.”

  The knight’s horse whinnied loudly, as though it were agreeing with its master or laughing at them. It shook its head and splattered yellow and black ooze all over the ground. Despite its frail and withered body, its eyes were full of vigor. If it weren’t some end-of-the-world horse, Kara would have felt sorry for it and would have fed it some hay.

  “We’ll see about that,” murmured David.

  He leaned over and whispered in Kara’s ear. “If you have any great ideas about how we’re supposed to defeat this thing—now’s the time.”

  Kara looked at David. She wanted to tell him that she had some great plan, but the truth was she didn’t. She had no idea how to defeat this thing. Her new wings felt small and pathetic in comparison. And for the first time, she felt completely helpless.

  “Kara?” she heard Jenny whisper behind her.

  But she had nothing to give. She didn’t have her elemental power anymore—the one thing that could have made a real difference—a
nd she felt overwhelmed by the weight of this burden.

  She looked up and glared at the creature’s red eyes anyway.

  “This is your final warning, Famine. Yes, we know who you are. Go back to whatever world you came from, or we will destroy you. Whatever it takes, we’re going to defeat you. I swear it.”

  Kara had no idea where she found the courage to speak to the knight like this. This was no ordinary foe. She wondered if the knights were somehow like the reapers, if their life force was linked to their weapons. If this creatures had been created by the archfiends, just like the reapers, perhaps she could she kill it if she disarmed it somehow. It seemed too easy. But what else could she do?

  The earth shook below Kara’s feet and broke her train of thought.

  “The dark gods have risen once more,” said the knight. “In four days and four nights, the earth will die. It will burn. And you will die with it.”

  Kara took a step forward, straining to hide her fear.

  “This world does not belong to them or to you. It belongs to the mortals!”

  The earth trembled again.

  “So be it.”

  Just as Kara was about to yell some more, the knight raised its sword above its head. Black lightning danced on the blade, and thunder cracked. The steed neighed loudly, and black spit oozed between its sharp teeth. Kara felt a cold shiver roll down her back.

  The knight grinned, and pointed its sword at them. And before she could react, before she could even blink—black tendrils shot out at each of them—all but her.

  Her friends were encircled by the black vines. The coils of darkness tightened, and Ashley screamed as the black shadows cut into her angel flesh. Then Jenny, Peter and David howled in pain as wisps of black mist looped around them. And then something horrible happened.

  They all began to wither.

  Like the dead animals in the valley, their faces wrinkled, stretched, and shrunk down as though their M-5 suits had been drained of their lifeblood. They looked like hundred-year-old corpses. Their eyes lost their brilliance and became hollow, gray and glazed. Famine was draining their life force in the same way it had drained the earth of its natural resources.