Seals (22 page)

Were her friends down there somewhere? Where
was David?

The thought of David getting hurt sent a
dark ripple coursing through her body. She shook, not from the pain
Betaazu had inflicted on her by tearing off her wing, but in
anticipation of the pain she would inflict on him later. He was
going to pay.

Kara felt more cold and empty inside than
she’d ever felt before. Metatron had assigned her friends back onto
the field. She knew that they would be down there fighting if they
were
still
alive.

She had to do something. The angels would
only last another few hours at the rate they were losing. She
couldn’t stay up here, safe, while her friends and the rest of the
legion were fighting.

Why was she up here anyway? Why hadn’t they
killed her already? Were they going to toy with her, torment her,
make her watch the battle until the archfiends won?

Betaazu kicked a pebble down the steep
ravine. “Well, they’re not
your
people anymore, and soon it
won’t matter anyway.”

Kara gritted her teeth. “They’ll always be
my
people.”

Could she fly with only one wing?

She was so close.

If she let herself slip off the ledge, would
her lonely wing be enough to glide her down to the battle? Would it
even open?

Discreetly, she tested her right wing and
moved it. It worked.

She slid an inch forward—

“Get her up. It’s time,” boomed the
archfiend’s voice behind her.

If she was going to do something, she had to
do it now.

It was now or never.

Kara reached down deep into her soul, and
with a last strain of strength she gripped the rock and hauled
herself toward the ledge—

But something grabbed her neck and pulled
her back up.

“Where do you think you’re going?” laughed
Betaazu.

He heaved her back onto the rocky surface.
His face was all smiles, but she could see his surprise in his
cat-like eyes. He hadn’t thought that she’d risk throwing herself
over the edge.

“Thought I’d join the party down there.”
Kara glared at him. “I’m no use to you. Let me die along my own
people. You can do that for me, can’t you? Just—just let me go.
Please.”

The fiend squeezed her neck. “Try that
again, and I’ll rip off your other wing. Don’t think I won’t.”

Kara could see her black blood trailing
behind her as Betaazu hauled her back across the opening. He
steadied her in front of the archfiend.

He leaned back in his throne with a bored
look in his yellow eyes.

“It puzzles me why you haven’t changed
yet.”

The archfiend looked at her lazily, like he
was making a comment about the weather.

“Stranger still that your new body is
letting you bleed out. I would have expected it to stop the
bleeding.”

Kara could feel her essence fade away with
every drop that escaped her body. She was frail and broken. Cold
sweat trickled down her forehead. If Betaazu hadn’t been holding
her up by the neck, she’d have dropped like a stone.

“It’s a mystery, but now irrelevant. It’s
time for you to join us and take back what is ours.”

The archfiend turned his massive head and
bellowed.

“Knights. Come. Your creator commands
you.”

Three great war horses stepped out from the
shadows, and the ground trembled beneath Kara’s feet. The knights
of the apocalypse waited for their master’s instructions. She had
totally forgotten about them.

“Go! Destroy them all!”

The ancient mountain shook as the great
beasts galloped toward the ledge. Famine, Pestilence and War
charged too fast for mortal eyes. They jumped off the ledge and
disappeared down into the battle, leaving only a trail of black
mist.

Within seconds she heard the screams and
desperate shouts of dying angels as the knights unleashed their
carnage with guttural, bone-grinding growls.

Kara struggled against Betaazu.

“Let go of me!”

She kicked him in the knee as hard as she
could, and he let go for an instant before he charged at her
furiously again—

“Enough!”

Betaazu backed away, cursing her with his
fist raised.

But Kara didn’t care. She turned toward the
battlefield. There was a massacre going on down there, and she was
missing it. She had to get away from here.

“Yes, my knights are the most powerful
warriors in all the worlds,” said the archfiend.

Kara turned to look at him, and he mistook
her worried frown for interest for his creatures.

He smiled at her, and his eyes gleamed.

“As mighty as they might be, still they are
nothing compared to my most precious and most feared
possession.”

“When Death arrives,” his grin widened,
“nothing in all the worlds will be able stop him. Nothing. Death is
the most powerful and sublime of my dark forces. He is
indestructible. The dark gods will reign. The angels will be
massacred!”

A faint laugh caught Kara’s attention. The
redheaded female fiend, her neck swollen and bruised, looked
daggers at Kara. All the other fiends were watching her, too, their
cat-like eyes gleaming with cold pride.

Kara took a small step back, not from fear
of the female fiend, but because she had to get out. And the only
way out was down over the ledge.

“It is time, Kara.”

Kara turned her attention to the
archfiend.

“It’s time for what?” she spat.

“It’s time to put you to work,” said
Beelzebub. “It’s time for you to embrace what you are and to reveal
your true identity. It’s time for you to fulfill your destiny.”

Kara leaned heavily to her right side
because the weight of her right wing pulled her down. Her black
blood was smeared all over her clothes and her boots. Her head
throbbed again, more intensely. She knew she wouldn’t last for very
long.

If this was to be her true death, she wanted
it to have meaning. She wanted to go out with a bang. But first she
needed to find the knight. Nothing else mattered.

Using her injuries as a disguise, she
staggered and then took another shuffle backward toward the
edge.

“I was always destined to be a guardian
angel,” Kara winced at the pain in her head. “Of that I am
sure
. No, I
know
it.”

Beelzebub admired her calmly. It infuriated
her.

“You were destined to become something far
greater than merely an angel or a demon. Your father knew it
too.”

Kara rubbed her throbbing head.

What was he talking about? He clearly
enjoyed hearing himself speak. Good. Let him talk.

She took another step back and shifted her
weight so that she could make a run, or rather a shuffle, for the
edge.

“But your father was a fool, a selfish demon
fool. In his own quest to acquire greatness and power for himself,
he failed to see your real potential, your
real
destiny. He
was blinded by his selfishness and failed to learn the
real
truth, the
real
secret about where you came from. About
your
bloodline.”

Bloodline?

Kara felt a cold surge of darkness rise
inside her soul. The darkness was trying to snuff out the tiny
light that was the only part of her that was still
her
. She
was able to push the darkness down for now, but she knew she wasn’t
strong enough anymore. Soon it would take over, and she would lose
control.

Her head pounded, wetness dripped from her
nose, and when she wiped it, her hand was stained with black blood.
She had to move.

“Your headaches are just a sign that the
transformation is nearly complete,” said the archfiend as if he
read her mind.

He paused for a moment, pleased that he had
intrigued her.

“It is an end…but also a new beginning.”

Kara had no idea what he was mumbling about.
She focused on her weakening knees and throbbing head. She didn’t
have time to listen to these psychotic archfiends.

She took another discreet step back.

The archfiend smiled evilly. “You are ready
now.”

He stretched out a large hand in front of
her.

“Come, join me, and I promise your headaches
will end.”

There was no way in Horizon Kara was going
to
join
him. She couldn’t take it anymore, couldn’t take the
lies, the self-important monsters, her hammering headaches—so she
spun around and shuffled away as fast as her weakened body would
allow.

She saw the lip of the ledge and heard the
heavy pounding of boots behind her. He was too close. She halted
and whirled around, the heels of her feet dangling over the
ledge.

“Stop or I jump!”

Betaazu skidded to a stop, just a step away
from her. She could see the fury blazing in his eyes. His teeth
were bared like he wanted to rip out her neck.

“Stand down, Betaazu,” said the archfiend,
still in that insufferable, lazy tone.

He looked at Kara for a moment. “Why do you
even still care for them? There is no hope for them.”

She stared at her ring.

“There’s
still
hope,” she muttered
more to herself than to them. She saw Betaazu stare at her ring,
but his expression was blank.

The dark god laughed. “Hope! There is no
more hope, well, not for the angels or the mortals. It is over for
them.”

“Come to me now,” he ordered.

“But there is.” Kara turned to the
archfiend. “There is still hope. Because there’s still a seal
that’s holding on—”

“No, there isn’t.”

“Yes there is.” She lifted her hand, and her
golden ring glimmered in the light.

“This ring tells me that there is.”

Painfully, she steadied herself with her
right wing and prayed it could keep her in one piece until she
jumped off the ledge.

“There’s always hope,” she said.

“I’m going after the last knight, and you
can’t stop me. I’m going to kill it.”

Just as she was about to whirl around and
jump, she stopped, not because she was afraid of splattering
herself at the bottom, but because something wasn’t quite right
about the way they were looking at her. She was more like an
injured bird than anything else. They should be furious, but
instead they were pleased.
Why?

She was being stupid.
Who cares what they
thought.
What mattered was finding the knight while there was
still hope.

“I will find him,” she said defiantly as she
prepared to jump.

Beelzebub stood up from his throne and said,
“You’ve already have.”

Kara scanned the chamber and then looked
back at the archfiend. She made a face.

“You? You’re the fourth knight?”

Beelzebub smiled, his eyes widened.

“Of course not. Kara Nightingale, of the
legion of angels,
you
are. You are Death.”

Chapter 19

K
ara nearly fell
over the ledge.

Impossible. She took one careful step
forward, all the while keeping her eyes on the archfiend. She
waited for him to start laughing or for any sign or twitch in his
face that would give away his lies. But his face was stone cold,
blank.

Betaazu kept his distance, but she was aware
that he could grasp her in an instant.

Whatever was going on, she was not free
yet.

The archfiend was mocking her. It couldn’t
be true.

“Is that the best you can do?” she said
finally. “You sound really desperate and really, really delusional.
No, I take that back—it’s pathetic. I’m not a knight.”

She forced a laugh. “Where’s my horse? I
don’t even know
how
to ride a horse. This is crazy. I don’t
even know why I’m wasting my time speaking to you.”

“Because you know it’s true.” The dark god’s
voice was cool and calculating. His smirk widened.

Kara felt a tiny spark of fear, but spoke
with conviction.

“No, I don’t! How can I? I thought you
people were supposed to be
all
knowing
? But you’re
not the brightest, are you? So let me clarify this to you.
You
didn’t
make
me. I didn’t sprout from the ground
from some otherworldly bog of eternal darkness. I exist. I exist in
this body because I’m an angel—”

Their laugher set her fury boiling. If she’d
had the use of her other wing, she would have ripped the smiles off
their faces, especially the redhead.

“Whatever I am,” Kara’s voice wavered.
“Whatever
monster
or creature you made of me …it doesn’t
matter, because I know I’m
not
a knight, because I’m
still
me. I’m still the same girl inside, and you can’t
change that no matter how hard you try. Your scheme hasn’t
worked.”

The archfiend stared at her for a few
moments.

“Oh, but it did work. And that
girl
you claim to be inside, well, you won’t be for much longer.”

Kara forced a laugh. “That’s bull. You know
it, and I know it.”

“I do not know what
bull
is, but I
can guarantee that the last of that angel dust that still flickers
in you will waste away in a few minutes’ time.”

The archfiend paused and then added, “No, I
take that back, in a few seconds. In a few seconds, you will no
longer remember what it was like to be an angel. You will not
remember the legion, Horizon, or your friends. You will not
remember who you were before the change. You’ll only know what you
have become. You are the fourth knight.”

“I’m not.” Kara shook her head like a
stubborn child.

She was still bleeding a lot. She stood in a
puddle of her black blood. She tried not to think about it too much
because the more she dwelled on the blood, the more she felt the
effect of it. It was getting harder and harder to remain standing.
She faltered slightly, and she saw that the dark god had seen her
falter, too.