Marked (18 page)

“M—my head,” breathed Kara, “I’m freaking hearing voices in my head.”

A door opened with a loud creak on the opposite side of the alleyway. A man dressed in white threw some large black garbage bags on the ground, plopped a large bucket of soapy water with a wet mop beside it and slammed the door shut.

“Hmmm,” continued the demon as it approached her, “how splendid you will taste.”

The bucket, Kara,
said the voices.
The water…run to it. Feel the strength in you, Kara, run!

Kara couldn’t explain it, but she suddenly felt stronger, as though the strength of a hundred people burst into her. The higher demon’s jaw loosened up grotesquely as he prepared to eat her, and Kara mustered the last of her energy and ran towards the bucket.

She plunged her head in the water. A sharp pain erupted in her legs—and the darkness took her.

Chapter 11. Miracles Division

I
t seemed days later when she finally opened her eyes.

Her body was enveloped in something soft. It followed her every move like the waterbed she once tried at her Aunt Tracy’s house. She turned her head in every which way and saw only orange. As she moved, a semi-liquid substance pressed against her like jell-o. She reached out. Her hands stopped at a harder subsurface. She felt up and down and around. She was inside a globule. She opened her mouth to scream. Liquid poured in. She closed her mouth.
I’m in a freaking orange bubble!

She strained to see past the semi-translucent shell. Shadows of bubbles floated all around her. She looked down at herself. Her clothes were gone
. Oh my God, I’m naked!
She whirled around inside her bubble, kicking with her legs and flailing her arms.

There was a sudden loud
pop
—Kara felt the bubble break below her, she slipped and fell into a pool of water. She struggled to the surface, where buckets of the jell-o substance came drooling down on her.

“Gross!” she yelled, as she wiped her eyes. She was inside a massive warehouse-like building made of shimmering brass metal. A great metal contraption of interwoven pipes and wires stood at her left, reaching all the way to the top—like her uncle’s car garage, but without the oily cigarette smell. The pool ran the length of the building and sparkled in the sun light which spilled from the sky lights above.

Thousands of soft orange spheres, the size of a person, hovered in the air, like giant soap bubbles. They bounced off each other in the crowded space.

She heard a shuffle of feet and turned to see a cherub with a glass jar full of souls stop at an operational panel on the left. With some effort, the cherub stood on the top of its toes and dumped the souls into an opening. They flowed up through a pipe, where she couldn’t see them, to a giant translucent tube extruded from the top of the machine. The souls rolled inside the machine for a moment and then popped out, one by one, enveloped by orange bubbles. She could make out the silhouettes of GAs wiggling inside these bubbles—as they grew slowly into their human forms.

Something moved in her peripheral vision. A group of guardian angels stood below one of the globules, looking up. Suddenly, the bag broke and, with a
splash
a naked GA plopped into the pool. She heard buzzing. She read a huge flashing neon sign, Healing-Xpress.

Kara made a face. “Whoa—I think I swallowed too much of that orange stuff.”

She brought her hands to her face. Her body gave off a strong citrus smell, as though the orange substance was some sort of fruit punch. She heard the faint patter of some walking behind her. She turned and looked up into sparkling blue eyes.

“Here—” David threw her a towel and turned his back. “You can cover yourself with that, until we get you some clothes.”

Kara’s mouth seemed sewn shut. She struggled to open it.

“Thanks,” she croaked.

She pulled herself up and over the ledge into a sitting position. She wiped her body down.

“And you’ve been here for how long—staring at my naked body—if that’s what this is.”

She wiped her face with the towel and then carefully wrapped herself in it

“I just got here.”

She studied David’s back.
He did come to see me.
Maybe he believes me now?

Kara brushed a sticky strand of hair behind her ear. She felt prickling all the way down her back as she tried to come up with something to say. She was never good in these kinds of awkward situations. But then again,
she
was dead, and she had been naked and covered in sticky orange slime; what could be more awkward than that?

“You can turn around now.” She watched as his body shifted and turned.

“Hm.” David thinned his lips; a scowl materializing on his brow.

She studied his face for a moment. She had never seen David look so troubled. It was like he was fighting something from the inside.

When she couldn’t bear it anymore, she asked the one question she’d been dying to ask since he arrived.

“So—do you believe me now? About the demon’s mark on my leg?”

David stared at the floor, his face expressionless. “It doesn’t matter what
I
think. The Legion is divided about what happened. They haven’t come to a decision. Not everyone believes you’re innocent.”

Kara looked into his face. She wanted David to believe her. It was the truth, after all.

“You still don’t believe me—and you think I’m some
spy
?” she said angrily.

“It doesn’t matter what I think.” His quiet tone was worse than if he’d been yelling.

“Right—you said that. So then, why are you here?”

David met her eyes, an unreadable expression on his face. “I’m still your Petty officer—it’s my job to make sure you’re okay.”

“Right.” Kara narrowed her eyes and shook her head. “You said the legion was
divided—the legion
—does everybody know about this?…and angels have taken sides?”

A loud
splash
cut the uncomfortable silence between them. More GAs plopped into the pool; their naked bodies struggling to a sitting position as they wiped the orange liquid from their supernatural skin.

After a long pause, Kara turned her attention back to David. “So, how did I get here—in these
bag
things?” She pointed to the floating orange bubbles.

“The last thing I remember was being attacked by higher demons and reaching the bucket of water. Then everything went black.”

David looked up as more GAs plopped into the pool.

“Your soul was in bad shape—you needed to be healed. This is where all angels come to get fixed.”

“Oh.” Kara felt like a car that needed an oil change. She cleared her throat.

“Um—David? Something—something
strange
happened to me when, when I thought I was going to die…when my soul was dying.”

“What do mean
strange?
”

Kara blinked. She wasn’t sure what to say as—hearing voices in your head up in Horizon, could mean the same thing as hearing them back on Earth—
you’z crazy
.

“What is it?” said David. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Kinda.” Kara sighed and closed her eyes. “You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I—I heard voices.”

She opened her left eye and peeked at David.

“What?” David cocked an eyebrow. “Maybe you just bumped your head or something.”

“I don’t think that’s it. I really
heard
voices inside my head—they—they helped me escape. You think I’m crazy don’t you?”

David’s expression was distant.

“I’ve never heard of guardians hearing voices? I’m pretty sure it was your own voice, Kara. Remember—you were weak, and you thought you were dying. Our minds do strange things when we’re about to die.”

He threw out his hand. “Come,” he said as he gestured for her to take it. “The archangel Raphael wants to meet you.”

Kara took his hand and pulled herself to her feet. She realized she should be more cautious about what she said from now on. Hearing voices was not common among the angels. She feared it might make her look more like a traitor. So she dropped the subject.

“Who’s Raphael?” she asked instead. She pulled her towel tighter around her.

“An archangel,” David squeezed her hand.

“I know—but who is he? What does he do?”

“You’ll see.”

They left the Healing-Xpress building through giant metal doors and Kara stared up into a scarlet and orange sky. Like a rainbow, the colors chased one, twisting and swirling as they spread above and beyond. In the forest before them, tall green trees rippled in a light breeze.

Surprisingly, she felt great. She kept the towel wrapped tightly around her body and followed David through the forest. The dirt path led up to a clearing where they looked out across a valley to a mountain that rose high above and was lost into a sea of red clouds. As they neared the base of the mountain, Kara realized that a city was carved from the mountain’s core. Groups of oracles and guardian angels poured out from the many stone edifices, going about their business.

“What is this place?” asked Kara.

David seemed to relax a little. “Miracles Division—where the
magic
happens.”

“Huh?”

“Just a handful of GAs get to work here,” explained David, “sometimes—but it’s very rare, we get to perform miracles. Usually by healing the sick. What the mortals can’t explain with their science—how a person is suddenly cured of cancer—that’s us.”

Kara thought of all the sick people she had seen in the hospital last year when she had cut herself and needed a few stitches—back when she was alive. She remembered
a lot
of sick people. “But—there are still
so
many sick people in the world? Why aren’t they cured?”

“I’m not sure,” answered David. He passed a hand through his hair. “All I know is, there are only a few special cases…and that the orders come from the Chief, himself.”

“Oh.” Kara followed David down a small slope. Her bare feet pressed against a smooth stone path. “I feel kinda awkward in just a towel—everyone else is dressed.” She tugged the top of her towel and held it in place with her right hand.

“You’re not the only one—look.” David pointed to another group of GAs waddling down a path in white towels.

“Thank God. I don’t feel like such a moron now.”

When they reached the opening of the city, two giant manlike rock sculptures stood on either side of the entrance, like soldiers guarding the entrance to the palace. Their rough faces carved into downward grins.

Kara stared at the jungle of winding and turning walkways that wound between buildings carved from huge walls of rock, as though chiseled by gigantic hands. Other buildings were wood and stone, molded into perfectly balanced designs.

Kara followed David inside a massive stone structure, down a hallway, into finally a large chamber. Red rays of sunlight poured through square openings at the top, like stained glass windows. Five guardian angels in blue lab coats worked on wooden tables cluttered with plants and pots, mixing and measuring elements in glass containers. The liquids morphed into green and orange colors.

A beautiful Asian-looking woman, draped in white linen, examined the contents of a square glass container, which looked to Kara like a small trapped rainbow. Red highlights reflected off the jet black hair that spilled all the way down her back. She towered over David and Kara.