Netherworld, Soul Guardians Book 4 (6 page)

“
Kara, don’t you think
you’re being a little unreasonable?” said David, a sharpness to his
voice.

“
Is that what you think?
After all that’s happened—you think I’m being a little
unreasonable?” Kara ground her teeth in frustration.

David didn’t answer. He watched Kara
with solemn eyes. Kara glared at David. They stood staring at each
other. After a moment, Kara was confused as to where all the anger
came from. A wave of shame washed over her, and she looked away. It
wasn’t David she was angry with. She knew he was just trying to
make her see reason. She felt badly about her attitude, but the
damage had been done. When she turned back to apologize to David,
he was walking stiffly towards Peter. Kara shrugged and kicked a
pebble with her boot.

“
Hey guys! I think I got
something.” Peter stood by a brown stone apartment building. He
waved his hand with the glowing orb. “Definitely something over
here—see that? See how the light changed? You guys should come
check this out. I think she’s in there—”

A door swung open with a loud crash. A
girl in a white dress flew past Peter and knocked him down hard.
The elemental sprinted up the street with unbelievable speed. Her
red bow rippled behind her, and she dashed down the
block.

It took a few seconds for the group to
react. David took off after the elemental in hot pursuit. Kara
rushed over to Peter, grabbed him by the arm, and hauled him to his
feet.

“
Please don’t tell anyone I
got run over by a little girl.” His face was pinched in
humiliation. After scanning the ground for his glasses, he
collected them and pushed them onto the bridge of his
nose.

Kara tried hard not to laugh. Everyone
knew Peter wasn’t much of a fighter. “I won’t, promise. But don’t
feel too bad. She’s no ordinary girl.”

Peter forced a smile and pocketed his
orb. “Ordinary or not, we still have to get her.” He took off
running in the direction where David had disappeared.

Kara started to run but stopped short.
She glanced behind her. “Jenny, you coming?” Jenny stood motionless
and faced the opposite direction. She was staring straight at the
group of teens that had passed them earlier. As Kara got closer,
she noticed that Jenny was paying particular attention to the young
man with black hair who had smiled at Kara moments earlier. A look
of pain on Jenny’s face sent tightness into Kara’s
chest.

“
Jenny, are you all right?”
called Kara gently. “Who is he? Is he someone you
knew…before?”

Jenny jumped back startled. “Huh?
Uh…no. I...I was just looking, that’s all. I thought I saw
something. I guess I was wrong. Where are the others?” By the
quiver in her voice, Kara knew instantly she was lying.

Kara studied her friend’s face for a
moment. Jenny was a true friend. She had never betrayed or lied to
her before, which made it all the more intriguing. Who was that
mysterious boy with the grey eyes? And why was Jenny so upset to
see him? She had a feeling Jenny wasn’t ready to tell her. She
didn’t like to see her friend suffer. Whoever he was, Kara decided
she would get to the bottom of it later.

“
They’ve gone after the
elemental,” answered Kara after a minute. “We should go now if we
want to catch up with them.”

“
Right. Let’s go.” Jenny
brushed past Kara. “Which way?”

“
This way.”

Kara led the way. She ran down the
block and caught a glimpse of the back of Peter’s head. Passersby
jumped out of their way as they charged down the street like two
lunatics. Kara could hear Jenny’s feet slap the asphalt noisily
behind her. Wind smacked her face. She blinked through long strands
of hair. Peter dashed around the next block and disappeared behind
a convenience store. For someone so small, his legs moved
unnaturally fast. Kara and Jenny bolted down the street right
behind him—

A black SUV charged directly towards
them.

Pushing their M-5 suits, Kara and
Jenny vaulted easily over the hood of the SUV. Kara’s left hand hit
the rear side mirror, and she heard a snap. They landed
effortlessly on the other side, without interrupting their
momentum. With a thundering crash, the SUV collided with a parked
car and was still.

They followed Peter down an alley with
enormous graffiti murals of jazz musicians with dancing men and
women. The smell of rotten fish filled the air and stung Kara’s
eyes. The alleyway ended, and the girls found themselves on another
street. They zigzagged their way around the moving mass of mortals,
trying hard not to knock more down than was absolutely necessary.
Kara finally caught sight of David running down the block a few
yards away. She glimpsed a flash of white cloth a few paces ahead
of him. Then it disappeared into the wave of humanity again. Kara
charged down the block.

Another black SUV hurtled down the
street toward her.

The tires screeched, and the vehicle
propelled itself savagely towards them. Kara jumped out of the way.
Her legs hit the front bumper with a loud crack. She was thrown in
the air and hit the ground hard. The vehicle swerved and stopped,
facing her. The headlights flicked once.

“
Watch it!” Kara yelled
angrily at the shadow of a chauffeur behind the tinted glass. She
realized that the SUV had driven in the opposite direction down a
one-way street.

“
Kara, come on!” Jenny
pulled her up and dragged her into a run with her. Relieved that
her legs worked just fine, Kara ignored the looks of the many
eyewitnesses. If they had tried to be inconspicuous on this
mission, they were failing miserably.

“
I’m okay, seriously,” Kara
called out to the worried faces. “I’m wearing a suit!”

Kara dashed behind Jenny at
full speed. Her only focus now was on the elemental. She didn’t
have time for clumsy drivers. Soon Peter and David came into view.
They ran up the next block and then vanished into an alley between
a decrepit building with boarded up windows and doors. A pink
painted brick building with a flickering neon sign that
read,
Loulou’s Laundry Lovers,
fastened to a giant wooden heart panel, stood
watch over the quiet alley. Kara and Jenny ran in after
Peter.

Tall stone buildings loomed on either
side, casting long shadows and covering most of the alleyway in
darkness. Weak light filtered through small cracks from above.
Black puddles covered the ground. The air was hot and stale and
Kara caught a whiff of the underlying stink of rotten meat. A swarm
of flies buzzed around large garbage bins, whose entrails were
spilled out onto the ground. The traffic hummed behind
her.

The elemental reached the end of the
alleyway, which was blocked by a large grey brick building. She
turned around and faced her pursuers. She had nowhere else to
run.

David twisted around and shared a
concerned look with Kara. She brushed past him and lifted her palms
up in surrender again.

“
Don’t be afraid. We are
not here to hurt you. We only want to help. I promise.” Kara walked
slowly towards the girl with her hands still in the air. She tried
to look as innocent as possible, and smiled tenderly. She attempted
to imitate that soft, caring voice her mother used whenever Kara
had been sick. “Please, I only want to help you.”

The elemental girl watched her with
dark eyes. Her face showed no expression. She didn’t move a muscle.
Kara found it strange that her chest wasn’t moving. She should be
gulping down buckets of air from all the running. It was as if she
was frozen solid. She didn’t even blink.

“
I’m an angel,” continued
Kara, “and so are my friends here. I know you can see through our
mortal shells. And I think that’s why you ran. You’re afraid. And I
can understand that. But we are your friends. So there’s no more
need to be afraid. We know what you are. We know you are special,
just like us. We want to help you.
I
want to help you. Let me be your
friend. Can you tell me your name?” Kara stepped
forward.

The elemental took a step back. Her
eyes locked onto Kara’s, watching her every move.

“
Please,” Kara pleaded.
“It’s me, Kara. I know it was you who spoke to me earlier. You
asked for my help. Now I’m here.”

She searched the little girl’s face
for any sign of recognition.

“
Please, let me help you. I
just want to be your friend. I know how scared you are. Let me help
you.” Kara pressed her hands against her chest. Slowly, she took
another step forward—

A deafening screech erupted in the air
as two black SUV’s roared into the alleyway behind them. Kara
averted her eyes from their strong headlights. She blinked away the
black blotches in her vision. When she regained her sight, she saw
the glossy midnight black exteriors with chrome finishes and
impenetrable tinted windows. They were the same make as the ones
she had seen earlier. One black SUV could be an accident, but two
identical SUVs were indeed a message.

The vehicles’ doors flew open, and a
group of ten wicked looking men scrambled out. Long leather black
coats swished at their heels as they positioned themselves in front
of the SUVs. The soft light reflected off their baldheads, and Kara
could see the black tribal-like tattoos that covered most of their
scalps. Their faces were covered in white powder, which made the
black kohl rim around their eyes stand out even more. Kara was
reminded of the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics she had seen in the
bookstore’s National Geographic magazines. Much to her horror,
pairs of eyes were also tattooed on the back of their heads. The
eyes leered at them, ever watchful.

David and Jenny backed away slowly and
joined Kara. They formed a defensive line. From the corner of her
eye, Kara saw David reach inside his jacket and pull out a soul
blade. The silver blade glimmered in the eerie light as it hung by
his side. Kara rummaged around under her jacket and drew out one of
her blades. She gripped the handle firmly in her hand. Jenny lifted
her bow and nocked an arrow, aiming at the ominous strangers. Peter
shrank into the shadows and did his best to become
invisible.

The largest of the men stepped
forward. The tread of his enormous boots echoed around them. “Well,
well, well. What do we have here, boys?” he said in a guttural
voice. A wicked smile twitched on his lips and revealed rows of
rotten teeth. “Four little angels have lost their
way...”

Chapter 5

Seirs

K
ara frowned and looked over to David. His eyes were glued on
the men. He clenched his jaw, and his blade twitched in his
grasp.

“
Angels shouldn’t be
allowed to roam around in
my
city without
my
permission,” laughed the man, in a deep menacing
voice. He moved his hand. A dark blade glided down from under the
sleeve of his leather jacket to his wrist. Black vapors rose and
coiled around his arm. He clasped the blade in his hand and lifted
it to pick at his teeth. Kara recognized the death blade
immediately. “I haven’t killed an angel in these parts lately—mind
telling me what you’re doing here? In
my
city?”

Kara’s elemental power awakened with
the threat. It flared at the limits of her core and then settled,
waiting. Sure enough these were mortal men, but how could they have
death blades in their possession? Kara peered at them. Their foul
stench reached her nose. She could sense they weren’t demons, but
why did they smell like them? What were they?

“
They’re called seirs,”
whispered David, as though reading her mind. “I’ve heard about them
before, but I thought they were only a myth. Didn’t think these
psychos existed for real.”

Kara kept her eyes on the leering man.
“Seirs,” she repeated, keeping her voice low so only David could
hear. “So what are they? I’m pretty sure they’re mortal, but they
feel…evil.”

“
They are foul. They’re a
group of the worst kind of mortal men—wicked and deadly. They were
born sensitives…but they’ve chosen a different path—a very dark
path. Seirs work alongside demons, they swore their allegiance to
the netherworld.”

Kara couldn’t fathom why any mortal
would choose to side with demons. It made no sense to her. There
had to be another explanation. Demons killed mortals for their
souls and ate them just for the fun it. One of the seirs turned his
back and whispered something into the leader’s ear. Kara shivered
at the sight of the eyes tattooed on the back of his head. They
were staring right at her.

“
I hate having to repeat
myself,” said the man, anger resonating in his voice. A wicked grin
stretched across his face, and he licked his lips. “It’s not going
to end well for you, angels.”

“
What happened to all the
love? Last I checked, this city belonged to everyone…not some
face-painted clown,” David challenged and returned a calm
smile.

The man’s face twisted, sending
hundreds of tiny cracks around his white visage. “Are you trying to
impress the girls with your bravery, boy? You angels are too
much—always strutting around with a false sense of bravado. I never
understood why you angels believe you’re above every other
creature. I have news for you. You’re not. And I’m going to enjoy
cutting up your face pretty boy.” He lifted his blade and twirled
it around in his hand like a baton.