“NO!”
Kara cried out. She didn’t have time to ponder why the knight had spared her. She only had time to react.
Grasping her blade firmly, she stroked hard with her wings and charged at the beastly knight, aiming for its eyes. She would gouge them out.
The knight raised his other arm lazily and pointed a finger at Kara. A fist of shadows crunched into her chest, caught her in midair and spun her around. It squeezed her wings and arms together until she was cocooned in a web of black shadows. She dropped to the ground like a rock. She strained with all her strength, kicking and screaming. But she couldn’t break the hold.
“Stop! I’ll kill you. I’ll kill you!” she cried.
She raised her head to look up at the knight. Her malice poured through her. She knew that the creature was going to kill them, and she knew that she wasn’t strong enough to stop it.
Helpless, she watched in horror as her friends began to die.
Chapter 6
A Connection
It began as a tickle in the darkness inside her, and it developed into a sudden surge of power.
Kara broke through the web of tendrils and managed to free her wings and her arms. She hacked and hacked with her sword and cut herself free.
The knight stared at her, and she recognized the surprise in his soulless, red eyes. She wasn’t as weak as it had first thought. She used the knight’s hesitation to her advantage.
Faster than she thought possible, Kara rocketed in the air and ploughed into the knight, putting all the weight and force she could into her attack. Crazed like a rabid animal, she thought only of death. She would kill the creature that had harmed her friends…that had harmed her David.
It worked.
She pushed her blade into the creature’s left bicep and used her body weight to slice into its flesh. Black blood splattered onto her face. But at the same moment she sliced the knight’s exposed flesh—she cried out in pain.
Kara yanked her blade out and looked down at her own arm. She had a deep laceration on her left bicep, exactly where she cut the creature.
She hesitated in confusion for a moment and looked up at the knight. It stared back at her and smiled evilly, exposing its mouth full of black needle-like teeth. Then it backhanded her with a brutal blow that sent her flying.
She lay sprawled in pain. She was dazed and unable to wrap her head around what had just happened.
Before she had a chance to gather herself again, she felt strong arms lift her to her feet. It was David.
She whimpered slightly in her confusion. David looked a little disheveled, but otherwise he bore no signs of Famine’s wrath. His handsome face was back to normal. She collected her wits and inspected the others. They appeared to be unscathed and safe, for the moment.
“What just happened?”
David let go of Kara and looked from Kara to the creature.
“I think…I think I injured it. I stabbed it, and it broke the connection somehow.”
Kara’s sudden fit of stupid-fury had worked. But she didn’t have time get into the details. Her friends were safe. She could work with that. She turned around slowly and faced the knight again.
She gave him a giant smile and challenged him, “Is that all you’ve got, knight of the apocalypse?”
She did her best to hide the terror she felt. Something had happened between her and the knight, something that felt wrong and terrifying.
She looked at the knight’s wound as she brushed her fingers over the corresponding wound on her arm.
How was this possible? What did it mean? Why wasn’t the knight retaliating?
The knight had a clear shot now. It only had to swing its giant sword, and she would be sliced in half. But the knight had a strange calmness in its eyes, like it knew something. But what?
Something had definitely passed between them.
Kara steadied herself and resisted the urge to jump in again. She hated the knight more than ever now, but she didn’t want to have any sort of connection to this demon. She wanted to gouge its eyes out, to make it stop watching her. She couldn’t explain it, but she knew the knight knew exactly what she was thinking. It knew what had happened.
If they were connected, what did that really mean? If she killed the knight, would she die, too?
David was watching her closely. If she weren’t careful, he would figure out that she and the knight had identical wounds, that somehow they were linked.
“What?” she taunted the knight in spite of her fears.
“You scared now? You should be. Didn’t think I could get that close, did you? Next time, it’ll be your throat.”
“Kara, what are you doing?” hissed David.
“Making it angry.”
“It was already angry.”
She took a step closer. She hated this creature for the fear it caused inside her. If she were indeed connected to this monster, she would have to cut it from her.
Angling her body as she had trained, she readied to push off hard and attack again. It didn’t matter if she and this thing were bonded somehow. She would cut off its head.
As her hatred pulsed inside her body, Kara leaped into the air.
The knight opened its mouth
She halted.
It opened its jaws abnormally wide until its chin rested on the back of its steed. Kara could hear humming emanating from somewhere deep inside the creature’s throat. It sounded like thousands of drums beating.
And just when things couldn’t get any worse, masses of locusts shot out of its maw like bullets from a machine gun.
The locusts swarmed and circled the guardians. But just when Kara thought they were going to attack again, the locusts separated into groups. The locusts in each group drew themselves together, and Kara could see that they were transforming themselves into something. They were forming humanoid figures. Locust-men!
“What in the souls do you call those?” Jenny swung her bow over her shoulder and nocked an arrow.
“I don’t think there’s an actual word for those,” cried Peter. He parried with his blade dodging invisible blows.
“I don’t care what they’re called, as long as we can kill them.” Ashley advanced with her sword clasped securely.
“I’m with Ashley.” David gave Kara a sidelong glance.
But Kara wasn’t watching the bug-men. She was glaring at the knight.
“Coward!” she bellowed. “Fight us! Fight me!”
Fury fuelled her. She could hardly see the knight, who appeared to be hiding behind the wall of bug-men. Perhaps it knew she was the only one who could kill it. Maybe it even feared her. She needed to cut her connection with this monster and find out, once and for all, if she’d kill herself in the process.
There was no time to think.
The locust-men steadied themselves and then charged.
“Get ready!” was all Kara could voice before a locust-man launched itself at her. With a beat of her wings she leaped from the ground, but not fast enough.
The locust-man caught her leg, and with an incredible force for a thing made of just insects, it yanked her down.
Kara beat her wings feverishly, but another locust creature grabbed her other leg. Their grip was like thousands of needles pricking into her skin. The creatures tossed her sprawling to the ground.
They came at her again, but Kara was already up.
“You’re going to pay for that.”
She launched herself at a locust-man, spinning and driving a sidekick in the creature’s chest. The locust-man exploded in a stink of vomit and sewage.
But the locusts reformed, and the locust-man came at her again. She kicked out hard and landed another blow, this time to the creature’s head. Again the locusts shattered, but as quickly as they had split apart they reformed, as though nothing had happened.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of the knight. Famine sat on his emaciated steed and watched them with a bored and irritated expression, a
s though he already knew that he and his insect army would win.
Kara cursed loudly. If she wanted to be a normal angel again, if she wanted to stop her transformation, she had to stop the knight from breaking the seal. But she had no idea how she was going to do that. Great.
She soared up into the air and hovered for a moment as she tried to figure out what to do next. She pulled her soul blade from the folds of her jacket. It was a guess really, as she didn’t know if it would affect the creature, but she had to try something.
A locust-man cocked its head, as though it was considering whether or not the blade was a threat. For a moment she thought she saw it flash a smile.
The creature charged at her like a rocket. She swerved and slashed across its rippling insect chest with the tip of her blade. Handfuls of locusts fell from their humanoid host, like burned skin peeling off a body. A screeching buzz sounded from the creature, as though it screamed in pain.
Kara could see that David was holding his own against two locust-men, slashing at them with a soul blade in each hand. But each time he drove his blade into a creature’s chest, although the locusts exploded into clouds of swarming insects, they reformed within a few seconds.
Jenny and Ashley weren’t doing any better.
Ashley spun and sliced skillfully with her sword, slicing two creatures at once, and Jenny nocked arrow after arrow and hit her mark every time. But the creatures always reformed.
She spotted Peter and was surprised as he, too, held his own. But then two of the locust-men ganged up on him, and he disappeared under flailing, insect claws. Peter!
She made to swoop to Peter’s aid, but something pinned her wings from behind.
She smelled the bile and heard the buzzing wings of a locust-man as it pulled at her wings. She cried out in pain as some locusts broke free and tore at her M-5 suit. She thrashed out with her blade but missed. The locust man held her wings tight, and she plummeted from the sky.
Kara hit the ground hard, but luckily she had squished the locust-creature in the process.
She rolled and pushed herself up. But just as she almost smiled at her luck, another locust-man punched her in the face. Her head snapped back. White lights exploded behind her eyelids. She staggered, and another blow hit her in the stomach. Locusts scrambled into her eyes, blinding her. Her head snapped around as another blow caught her on the side of the head.
From the corner of her eye she saw the knight open its jaws. Another swarm of locusts flew out, and fifty more locust-men formed and attacked.
She leaped at her attacker, only to be grabbed from the back again. A second locust-man leaned in, smiled a contorted locust grin, pulled back its arm, and curled it into a fist. Then it punched Kara in the stomach, like a shot from a cannon. She felt her angel shell shatter as the creature’s fist punctured her stomach.
The creature pulled back its hand, and light seeped from the deep wound in her chest. Even before she gasped at the piercing pain, she felt the scurrying and digging of tiny feet inside her body. The locusts had infected her.
“Kara!” she heard David shout, terrified.
But she hardly heard him. Her own terror took had overtaken her.
She felt the insects spreading as they multiplied inside her. Kara screamed in utter terror as the locusts began to feast on her angel essence. She staggered as more locusts crawled around her face, and she felt herself weakened by their poison. She was vaguely aware that three more locust-men had begun to assault her.
Dimly, she heard Jenny cry out.
Then she heard a scream that she recognized as Ashley’s. Were they being infested as well? Three locust-men held Ashley down, and Kara could see Ashley’s angel essence pouring out from many tiny cuts.
Jenny was on her knees, screaming and crying as she punched and slashed at the five locust-men that came at her.
Kara was overwhelmed. They couldn’t keep fighting like this. She couldn’t see or hear any signs of David or Peter.
David…
She felt her own strength evaporate. Her legs shook, and she collapsed. The locusts were inside her, eating her essence and spreading their poison. She couldn’t move or fight. It had happened so fast. And there was nothing she could do but lie down and wait to die.
Chapter 7
A Little Bit of Darkness
Her vision had blurred, and she was about to pass out when she felt the ripple of a little spark inside her. At first she thought the locusts had finally reached her soul, but then she felt it again. This was different, like an electrical charge, like a battery being recharged—her battery.
It was like her body had turned on its self-defense mode, and even though she had not called upon it, the darkness inside began to assert itself. It wouldn’t let her die.
Her body jerked as the cold, rippling darkness sent shockwaves through her. Her wings tingled. Her cold power flowed more forcefully. Her fingers curled, clawing into the dirt. The power terrified her, but it was also intoxicating. She lost control to the dark force so quickly that she wasn’t even aware what had happened. The darkness churned inside her, and her fingers pulsed with a new energy. Strong energy.
It was the same sensation of dark power she had felt before, that wild forbidden power that had whispered to her and teased her. It wanted her to succumb to it, to set it free. She feared and embraced it as she felt it pulse from the tip of her wings and through her body. And although she knew she’d be lost to it now that she couldn’t control the force that was taking her over, she didn’t care.
It had saved her. And now she would save her friends.
Kara groaned, and as she stood up hundreds of dead locusts poured out of the deep wound in her stomach like waste. Black veins spread over her chest and pulled her wound together, stitching it up like medical thread until she was completely healed. Except for the hole in her shirt and the black veins that covered her upper body, it was as though the locust-man had never punched her at all. The last locust scurried over her face and tried to pry her lips open, but she bit it in half and spit out the bug’s guts.
She felt her power surge. It pulsed in her hands and legs. She was going to kill them all.
With bloodlust in her eyes, she spotted Famine. It was looking straight at her, and for a horrible moment, it seemed happy.
She didn’t have time to wonder why it looked so smug. She had to help out her friends first. The knight would be next on her to-kill list.
Kara spread her wings and jumped into the air. Masses of locust-men had overpowered her friends like a sand storm. Jenny lay crumbled beneath a swarm of locusts. Ashley was a few feet away, and Kara could see her angel essence seeping from her many wounds as she fought the creatures with her bare hands.
Kara dove toward Jenny. She spun around with a powerful beat of her wings so violent that the blast of wind flung the locust-men into the air and splatted them onto the ground in a black and green mess. Then she spun like a top, spreading out her wings like a razorblade tornado. The edges of her wings hacked, sliced, shredded through the locust-men like a revolving meat grinder. Insect blood and guts fell like heavy rain.
She was lost in a fury of hatred, in her hunger to kill, and she kept killing until she had annihilated every last locust creature.
“Kara, stop!”
Kara halted, but the darkness still pulsed inside her. It wanted her to kill again and again. She knew in that moment that it would never leave her, not anymore. She had broken its seal.
David ran up to her. He surveyed the severed bugs and then stared at her for far too long. His face hardened, and his eyes narrowed. Why was he looking at her like that? Hadn’t she just saved them? Shouldn’t he be thanking her?
Peter was lifting Jenny to her feet. She was battered, but in much better shape than Kara would have thought. Ashley stood next to them with her sword in her hand and a murderous look on her pretty face. Her friends were safe. All of them. Strangely enough, she felt great.
The earth rumbled slightly,
and Kara’s sudden heroic feeling died like the bugs at her feet. She spun on the spot.
“Where’s the knight?”
“Gone,” said David. He was still looking at her with a perplexed expression as he moved closer to her.
Kara felt deflated and furious. They had lost their chance at killing it. She had lost her chance. She feared what had been revealed between her and the knight. She didn’t understand the truths that she so desperately wanted to know. Where did it go and why?
“The bugs,” she squished a few dead locusts underfoot. “They were a diversion for a quick getaway. They kept us busy while it continued to spread its wickedness.”
She looked quickly at her injured bicep. The wound had healed, but it didn’t make her feel any better.
“Well, I don’t know exactly when the knight packed up and left, but it was around the time you went all DEET on the bugs.” David stood right in front of her now, but there was no love or kindness in his eyes, only fear.
“What?” said Kara.
David was not supposed to look at her that way. At first she thought he was looking at her arm, but his eyes remained fixed on her face.
“Is it the bugs?” Kara watched for his reaction. But there was none.
“Do I still have bug guts all over my face or something?” She wiped her face with her sleeve.
“Is it gone now? What is it, seriously? Stop staring at me like that and just tell me.”
The others were staring at her, too.
“Your face,” began Jenny. She looked at Kara’s face like it was the ugliest thing she’d ever seen. “It’s all…it’s all...”
“It’s all what?” Kara felt the darkness start to rise in her. It wanted to be released again, but she pushed it down.
What was wrong with them all? They should be grateful that she had risked her angel life to rescue them, not pass judgment on her.
“I can clean it off later,” Kara growled.
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