Seals

by Kim Richardson

  She had gotten but a taste of the archfiend’s power when she fought the knights. What other creatures had the archfiends created? How much more powerful were they now that two seals had been broken?

  Kara knew that Mr. Patterson’s so-called unauthorized mission was still the right thing to do. She had faith in the old man, and she suspected that the archangel Raphael did, too.

  She knew what she had to do. She was going after the third knight on her own.

  As she flew toward Montreal, she brushed her hand over the places on her neck and shoulder where she had been wounded. She let out a little startled gasp. Her wounds were gone. Her skin had healed.

  Kara wasn’t all that surprised. She felt different. Her skin felt different. It was almost as though her M-suit had shredded away like snakeskin. Her new skin didn’t need to replenish itself. She wouldn’t need to go to Horizon to replenish her strength because her wounds healed themselves. And she felt stronger than ever.

  She suspected she could never return to Horizon again, not because she had escaped, but because of what she felt she was becoming. The monster that brewed inside her was not angel, but something else, something darker, something much more sinister. She tasted it. She felt it. It was inside her, and it was cold and dark. There wasn’t time to feel sorry for herself. It didn’t matter anymore. What mattered now was how she could use her new strength to do good.

  Whatever she had become, she took some comfort in knowing that she still had her mind and her soul. They hadn’t been corrupted yet, which meant that she still had time to stop the last two knights before her transformation was complete and she was lost forever.

  Kara spotted the bookstore. She dropped to the ground. Soft yellow light spilled from the edges of the boarded up windows. She glanced down the street. Nothing. Most of the street’s shops were still in ruin from the imp attack. A buzz came from a single street lamp. The old bookstore was surrounded by a bubble of quiet that told her the place was empty. Was she too late? Had Metatron gotten here first?”

  But just when Kara was about to scream her frustration, the front door burst open.

  “What took you so long?” Mr. Patterson’s thin white hair was disheveled. His eyes were wide, and he panted like he had run a marathon.

  “I’ve been waiting for hours since I heard about your encounter with Metatron. Quickly, get inside.”

  He looked past Kara’s shoulders. “You never know what lurks in the shadows.”

  Without a word, Kara folded her wings behind her, stepped through the threshold and watched Mr. Patterson lock the door behind her.

  “I thought you were gone,” she said.

  She was a little shocked to find him here and still in one piece.

  “I thought I was too late.” Without thinking, she pulled the old man into a hug.

  Mr. Patterson giggled as if Kara had tickled him by accident. He pulled away from her with a huge smile.

  “Well, they did come,” said Mr. Patterson. “Those wretched angels with high heels and all that stuffy makeup. Why do they have to dress like that anyway? Well, I knew I’d be in a lot of trouble if they found me. I gather they know I’m responsible for sending you all after the knights.”

  “They do,” said Kara. “I’m sorry, Mr. Patterson. I held on for as long as I could…but he literally had us cornered, and he knew it. He knew where we were. I think he’d figured it out when he confronted me in Horizon. It’s my fault. I’m not as good a liar as I thought. Now, we’ve lost David and the others.”

  Mr. Patterson smiled tenderly. “Don’t ever blame yourself for this my dear. None of this is your fault. Remember that. I’m just sorry it happened at all.”

  He sighed. “I wish we’d had more time, more guardians to help us. But I just couldn’t take any chances with unfamiliar guardians. I’m not sure how much good it would have done anyway. He still discovered our plan.”

  Kara pressed her lips together. “What’s the deal with Metatron anyway? He seems to have a vendetta against you.”

  Mr. Patterson blinked. “Well, my relationship with Metatron goes back a long time. We’ve never seen eye to eye. We’re basically like cats and dogs. He gets under my skin. We just can’t seem to agree on anything.”

  “Because you don’t buy into his schemes.”

  “Precisely,” said Mr. Patterson. “But understand, Metatron’s not bad—not in the way a demon or an archfiend is bad. He’s not a fallen archangel or a disloyal one. On the contrary, he’s a little too loyal, too obsessed, and it makes him very dangerous as both an ally and as an enemy.”

  “Wonderful.” Kara hated the guy. The next time she saw him she decided that she would feed him his cigar.

  “So how did you escape from his clutches?” she asked. “It took me almost two hours to get here—”

  “I know,” said Mr. Patterson dramatically. “It was a very long time to be stuck in my little cupboard.”

  He saw that Kara looked confused. “I hid.”

  “You hid. Where?”

  The old man crossed the room and made his way around his makeshift counter. She watched as he made a fist and punched the wall behind the counter. A small panel popped open and revealed a small room the size of a broom closet. It was large enough to fit two grown men, so there was plenty of space to fit an oracle. A shimmer caught her eye, and when she leaned in closer she saw a row of gleaming crystal balls tucked away neatly in a sky-blue blanket in a box on the floor. They looked like newborn babies cuddling together.

  Kara suppressed a laugh. Who was she to judge anyway?

  “My secret cupboard.” Mr. Patterson beamed.

  Kara smiled back at him. “A panic room. Brilliant.”

  A smug smile materialized on his face.

  “Well, it wouldn’t work if demon hounds were after me. They’d smell me a mile away. But it works for the average, lousy angel spy.”

  Kara inspected the small closet more closely. “This is great, but someone must have told you he was coming.”

  Mr. Patterson pulled the cupboard door shut. “Ariel did.”

  Kara’s mouth dropped open.

  “Ariel?” she repeated. She realized that there was much more to the archangel than she had given her credit for. She was grateful that Ariel had defied Metatron.

  “But…I thought Raphael was one of your secret allies?”

  “She is,” said the oracle. “But Ariel had always been conflicted when it came to Metatron. She fears Metatron, and with good reason. But still, she believed your story about the demons. She told me so. But she couldn’t defy Metatron openly, so this is her way of helping us.”

  Kara’s spirits lifted. “I’m glad she did.”

  The old man watched her warily.

  “Tell me,” he ruffled the front of his shirt with his hands. “Are the four seals still intact? Ariel wasn’t able to give me any information on that account.”

  Kara shook her head. “No. There are only two left.”

  There was no point in lying to the man. She dug a hand into her pant pocket and retrieved the small golden ring. She held it between two fingers and searched it to see if it had any power. And when she didn’t find anything, she slipped it over her right ring finger. It felt right. No point in keeping her hands hidden now.

  “Jenny and I still have our rings.”

  Mr. Patterson watched her silently.

  “We tried. We really did. But the knights were wickedly strong. They have powers unlike anything I’ve ever faced before.”

  “What about your connection to them?” Mr. Patterson’s eyes widened. “Any news on that score? Have you discovered anything new that could help us?”

  Kara ruffled her wings in irritation. “Not really. But I know we can kill them.”

  She gave the old man a wicked smile. “I know it because some of the higher demons confirmed it.”

  She frowned at the memory of the way they had sneered and laughed at her. God she hated demons.

  Mr. Patterson was ve
ry still as he asked, “What do you mean, they confirmed it?”

  “Because they were there.”

  “What? I knew it! I knew it!”

  He spat. His expression hardened, and he looked like a bulldog ready to fight.

  “Those wretched, foul, double-crossing creatures.”

  He paced around the room, kicking and punching at invisible foes, all the while mumbling to himself. “Wait till I get my crystals. They’ll wish they’d never been created! We’ll see who’s calling the shots! I’ve never...”

  Kara watched silently as the old man’s tantrum faded away. She stared at the black, spidery veins on her hands, but she couldn’t look at them for more than a few seconds. They disgusted her. She disgusted her. But as she looked at herself, she realized that the demons hadn’t been at all surprised at the black markings on her face and body. It was almost as though they had expected her to look that way…

  But how was that possible? No one had known about her transformation, except for some of the archangels. She needed to find out more about the demons.

  Finally, Mr. Patterson sighed loudly and flattened the top of his thin hair with his hands as he gathered his wits again. Kara was surprised to see how much anger still lingered in his eyes.

  “Tell me exactly what they did,” he asked.

  “Just when I was about to destroy the knight, three higher demons came out of nowhere and tackled me. And when I pushed them off me, the knight was gone. It’s obvious. They didn’t want me near it. They didn’t want me to kill it because they knew I could. They protected it from me and made sure it got away.”

  Kara shivered at the thought of the knight’s foul body. She had been so close, so close to her own freedom.

  “The demons aren’t going to honor this treaty, you know,” she said after a moment. “They’re planning something…I can feel it.”

  Mr. Patterson narrowed his eyes. “I never believed for one minute they would. They’re demons, after all. It’s in their nature to be dishonest. They can’t be trusted, and the legion was foolish in thinking that they could. I cannot blame them for trying, but I wish they would have listened to me.”

  Kara shrugged. “I don’t get it. Why did the legion trust them in the first place? It’s like the entire legion’s gone mad, or they were hypnotized or something.”

  “Because desperate times call for desperate measures.”

  “You can say that again,” said Kara indignantly.

  The weight of their failed mission weighed heavily on her shoulders. Without the others she was on her own, and that terrified her. She feared that she would fall into the darkness more easily, since no one would be there to help pull her back to the light. And her light was running out.

  “So what do we do about the legion?” asked Kara. “Will Ariel help us? Maybe with her and Raphael on our side, the legion will listen to us. They have to.”

  Mr. Patterson looked exhausted and frail. “And if by chance you had an audience with them, do you think they would ever believe you?”

  Kara hung her head. “No, not me, of course not me. I was thinking you might tell them. You know, you’re an oracle after all—”

  “Ha!” Mr. Patterson choked on a laugh. “You give me too much credit, my dear girl. As the souls would have it, I cannot show my face in Horizon—not for quite some time I’m afraid.”

  His eyes twinkled with a hint of mischief. “I’ve already had a lengthy discussion with Metatron and the High Council about the treaty with the demons. They chose to ignore me and all the oracles, including the oracle mothers.”

  “What did the oracle mothers say?”

  Mr. Patterson patted a round lump inside his front jacket pocket that Kara suspected to be a small crystal ball.

  “They have seen many versions of the future. Many of them projected time lines that could occur and many of them end in our doom.”

  “But that can’t be.” Kara whirled on the little man. “You said we had a chance. You said if we destroyed the knights before they broke the seals, then we’d have a chance. You said!”

  “Yes, yes, yes,” said the little man, and he sighed loudly.

  When he looked at Kara again, he gave her a little smile.

  “The white oracle saw another version of the future. It was just one trifling strand of the future that differed from the others—the tiniest glimpse. But it was the only one that showed a better future. The only one that showed life.”

  Kara felt like she was going to explode in anticipation. “Which was the one you based your theory with the seals on, right? Well tell me already, I’m dying here.”

  He raised his chin and changed his voice to a high-pitched tone that Kara figured was his attempt at sounding female, but it only made him sound like he had a bad case of strep throat. He coughed and then said, “The only way to stop the archfiends is with the demise of the knight.”

  Kara frowned.

  “Wait a minute. Something’s not right. You said…”

  She faltered. A ray of hope shone through her. She feared that if she spoke her thoughts out loud, then the spark of hope would diminish, because it was too good to be true…

  “Hmmm?”

  Kara spoke very carefully, as though she were addressing a young child.

  “You said knight. Singular. Not knights.”

  “No, she said that.”

  Kara rolled her eyes and waved her hand at the old man frantically.

  “I know. I know. I mean the white oracle said knight. Not knights—plural, right?” Her eyes widened impatiently as she encouraged him to answer.

  Mr. Patterson pressed his lips into a hard line, his brows furrowed.

  “That’s right. She said knight. The knight. So? Why are you smiling like you won the lottery? What am I missing here?”

  With her nerves tingling in excitement, Kara grabbed Mr. Patterson’s head and kissed it. A tiny smile crept on his face, but he couldn’t meet her eyes.

  “Because, if I’m right,” she said, trying to control the tremor in her voice, “and I have a feeling that I am, it means we only need to kill one knight for the future to change. Don’t you get it! Just one! One miserable knight! I feel like someone’s handed me an early Christmas present!”

  Mr. Patterson looked distracted for a moment. “I love Christmas. This year, I was thinking about dressing up as Santa. Maybe you can be my helper!”

  “Okay there, Santa. First we destroy a knight, and then maybe if all goes well you’ll have your Christmas.”

  Kara wished silently that they all might share a Christmas. She bounced on her feet, feeling fifty pounds lighter. She forgot about her wings, the markings, and the darkness that flowed inside her like blood. She couldn’t remember feeling this excited, this happy, and she wanted the feeling to last forever.

  “This is it. This is our chance. We find one of the other two, Death or War—and we destroy it.” She punched into her palm.

  “Let’s go with War,” said Mr. Patterson.

  He waddled over and disappeared behind his counter.

  “Death is the strongest of the four knights.”

  His voice sounded muffled, as he rummaged through boxes.

  “War is the lesser evil of the two. I wouldn’t want to face Death, if I didn’t have to. We will go after the one whom we stand a real chance to destroy. Together, we will end War.”

  “Together?” said Kara. “As in me and you?”

  Mr. Patterson looked up from behind his counter. “Yes. Together.”

  He wrinkled his face.

  “Why are you looking at me like that? I can fight. I’m a member of the legion, aren’t I? I might not be a guardian per say, but I’m still a participant with skills. And I have many talents that you’ve never seen. You need me, so I’m coming with you.”

  “I’m sure you have many talents.” Kara’s voice was calm. “But the answer is no.”

  She couldn’t risk harming the old oracle. If anything were to happen to him, she would n
ever forgive herself.

  Mr. Patterson raised a puffy white eyebrow. “It’s not your decision to make.”

  He moved back from the counter, and Kara could see that his jacket and pant pockets were bulging with hidden items that Kara suspected were crystal balls. An assortment of daggers, chains, and one metal sword, hung from his leather belt. And in his right hand, he held a wooden staff with a gleaming crystal on top. The staff was taller than him, and he looked like a modern-day wizard.

  Kara frowned. “It doesn’t make a difference how many weapons you have, you’re not coming.”

  “But I am.” Mr. Patterson moved to her side.

  “Whether you want to admit it or not, you need my help, Kara.”

  He eyed the veins on her face and her hands.

  “I’m the only one who can help you if things get worse. You’re changing, faster than I would have liked. I can feel a coldness in you, like a cold fire.”

  Kara lowered her eyes.

  “And I can also feel that you are fighting it. I can feel it right now. And that alone gives me reason to hope. There is darkness there inside you, Kara, but there is also light.”

  His eyes sparkled.

  “But not for long,” mumbled Kara.

  She stared at the floor. She could feel a tiny flame inside her, burning low. She had been fighting a constant inner battle to keep the light from burning out. But she didn’t know for how much longer she could keep it up. At first the darkness had tried to sneak up and take control every hour or so. Now it was almost every fifteen minutes.

  “I don’t know how much time you have before your transformation is complete. And I’d rather not think about it now. But, if and when you turn, I’m the only one who can bring you back. I can help you control the urges and pull you back to us. You know it. I’m coming with you, whether you like it or not!”

  Even though Kara knew the oracle was probably right, she still felt a pang in her chest at the thought of harm coming to him. But what other options did she have. None. She was separated from the rest of the group, a fugitive from the legion, and although she hated to admit it—she needed the old man. She didn’t want to be alone.