Mortal (2 page)

Her mother needed meds. And no curfew
was going to stop her from getting them.

"I’ll show them the meaning
of
stupid
."

Kara ran into her room and pulled open
her closet doors. After rummaging inside, she withdrew a black
winter sky jacket with a faux-fur lined hood and pulled it on. Then
she grabbed her backpack and stuffed wool mitts into her pockets.
She ran back to her mother’s bedroom and grabbed her cell phone.
Her mother’s forehead glowed sporadically with toxic green symbols
that looked almost as though they were breathing.

Kara bent over and kissed her mother’s
cheek. "I love you mom. I’m going to the drugstore. I’ll be back
soon. I’m going to make you better again, I promise."

Her mother didn’t show any signs that
she had understood, and Kara’s eyes burned as she ran to the
kitchen.

She grabbed the flashlight
from the cabinet above the fridge and then dashed towards the
apartment’s front door. She pulled open the door and locked it
behind her with a
click
.

Her backpack bounced against her back
as she rushed down the hall, and she jumped down the stairs two at
a time. The lobby was a blur of beige and brown. Once she had
emerged through the glass doors, Kara was glad of the cool December
air that soothed her hot face.

She caught her breath. The wind
swirled around her as she stood facing the darkness. Thick
snowflakes fell from the black sky like leaves from a tree. She
looked over to her left. The police officers were still inside the
apartment building. Snow lifted off the ground and twisted around
in white whirlwinds. It was unusually quiet for a Friday
night—nobody was on the streets.

The decrepit street lamps gave off
just enough light for Kara to recognize the snow-covered sidewalks.
The local drugstore was just two blocks away.

She would run it.

As she ran, her breath escaped her
lips in rolling coils of white mist. She hurried up the quiet
street, but her tread crunched against the packed snow and echoed
around her too loudly.

She heard muffled voices in the
darkness and threw herself down behind a parked car. Her knees
stung with pain as she grazed them against the sharp edge of its
rusty bumper.

Two more police officers emerged
around the street corner. They walked towards her. She cursed
softly and crawled around to the other side of the car. Kneeling,
she watched their boots make their way past her hiding place and
then disappear down the next block. She stood up slowly. Both her
knees throbbed in pain. She pressed her fingers against them, her
jeans were torn, and she could feel wetness on her
fingertips.

Too late to go back home
for some
Band-Aids
—besides; it was only a little scrape. Kara made her way
around the car and back onto the sidewalk.

Something moved in the corner of her
eye.

Kara froze. She peered into darkness
that stared back at her. Was the night playing with her mind? Had
she imaged a tall shape gliding across the street up
ahead?

She turned to see a green mist pour
into the street toward her like a great wave. It flowed above the
snow, moving fast, against the wind. What is that? Kara shook her
head and ran into the dark snowy wind. The drugstore was just
ahead. The police would never see her in this blizzard.

SMACK!

Kara stumbled backwards and nearly
fell. She steadied herself, blinked through her snow-caked lashes
and looked up. She had crashed into someone. At first she panicked
thinking it was a police officer, but she quickly recovered when
she saw the girl’s face.

"Sabrina?" said Kara. The young girl
from first floor in her building was shivering.

"Oh my god, where’s your coat? Why are
you out here in the cold in a t-shirt? You’ll catch your death out
here."

Snow clung to Sabrina’s hair like
thick icicles. Melted snowflakes dripped from her nose. She
trembled uncontrollably. Her pale skin shone in the
moonlight.

"There’s some kind of curfew, you
know. You’d better get inside before the police catch you." Kara
leaned closer for a better look at her neighbor.

"Sabrina? Are you all right? You’re
shaking like a leaf."

Sabrina lifted her head, and Kara’s
blood froze. Green symbols flashed across her face—the same as her
mother’s. Her face was hollow and sunken like she hadn’t eaten in a
month. Her sad empty eyes stared as if she had lost something close
to her. She reminded Kara of the living dead in the zombie-movie
she had watched with David.

Sabrina’s lips moved aimlessly as she
brushed past Kara and walked off into the darkness.

"Sabrina!"

The girl disappeared. Kara knew she
could do nothing to help her.

Straining through the blizzard, Kara
scanned the street up ahead. There was nothing there, but she
couldn’t shake the strange feeling that she was being
watched.

And then she saw it.

On the other side of the street,
something massive and slippery glided towards her. For a moment a
street lamp illuminated the raw blood-red flesh of its twisted
body. It looked like a cross between a skinned gorilla and a giant
beetle, with glassy red eyes and a gaping maw.

The wind carried a putrid smell, like
a mixture of vomit and decaying flesh. The snow around the creature
melted away from its heat. It suddenly moved towards her. She dared
not breathe.

With a giant leap, the creature came
at her, thrashing massive clawed hands.

Kara tripped and fell hard on the
ground. She pulled off her mitts and rummaged through her backpack,
madly searching for her flashlight. She clasped it in her hand and
brandished it like a weapon. As strange as it was, she found
courage somehow, courage enough to go down fighting this
thing.

Its razor sharp claws scraped the
ground as it charged. The ground vibrated, and Kara fought the urge
to vomit as the putrid garbage truck smell of the creature filled
the air. She looked into its red glowing eyes as it
lunged.

Kara impulsively flicked the switch
and pointed the light straight at the creature.

She heard a scream but couldn’t tell
if it was her own or the creature’s.

The creature fell back shrieking
horribly, and her legs exploded in burning pain, as though a bucket
of acid was eating away at her flesh. She dragged herself a few
feet away from the thrashing creature. She blinked away the tears
from her eyes and looked upon the thing that attacked
her.

Steam rolled off the
creature’s front and back. Its rotten flesh slid off its body in
clumps, and the smell of burnt flesh made
her lungs burn and her eyes water. A
large open wound in the shape of a lightning bolt zigzagged across
the creature’s chest, exposing the red rotten flesh beneath. Even
in the darkness she could make out black liquid oozing out of the
large gash.

She watched the creature howl in pain
as its body sizzled and popped, thrashing around on the ground over
and over. The flashlight. Somehow, the light had burned the
creature.

Her legs felt warm—horrified, she
realized she was sitting in a puddle of her own blood. The creature
had struck an artery on her leg. She was bleeding out. If she
didn’t get to a hospital soon, she would die...

She dragged in a
single breath, then another. She choked on the
s
mell of
burning flesh. She could barely see through the layer of snow that
stuck over her eyes. Then a low growl came from behind.

Kara
turned the flashlight in the direction of the noise. Too
late.

She
soared through the air and smacked into a parked car with a
sickening crack. The flashlight flew out of her hands, hit the car
and landed in pieces on the ground. The light flickered for a
moment and then went out.

She lay crumbled on the ground, broken. She couldn’t
move.
She
looked into the red maddened eyes that glared down at her. She
thought of her mother.
The beast wailed in
fury.
It was
going to tear her apart.
It raised its giant clawed arm for the
kill...

A
glowing red sphere flew across the night sky and hit the
creature. The sphere exploded on impact like a firebomb. Instantly,
the creature’s body was engulfed in red light. Its ear splitting
wails filled the night sky and then the red light went out and the
creature vanished.

"Kara!"

A young man kneeled down beside her.
His bright blue eyes glistened with concern. She had a strange
feeling she’d seen his handsome face before. But it didn’t matter.
It was too late. She knew she was dying. She thought of her mother,
waiting alone in her room. Hot tears rolled down her cheeks. Kara
didn’t care if she lived or died—she only wanted the pain to
end.

Let it end...

"I’m so sorry, Kara, this wasn’t
supposed to happen. You weren’t supposed to feel any pain. This is
all my fault!"

As she felt her life slipping away,
she looked at him more carefully. His skin glowed as though a halo
surrounded him. His blond hair illuminated his head like a golden
crown. Who was this stranger?

"You’ll be all right soon," continued
the stranger. "The guardian angel legion needs you. This is only a
changeover...this isn’t the end."

Kara struggled to keep her eyes open.
She was hallucinating about legions of angels—a sure sign that the
end was near. She felt so cold.

The stranger took her hand, and she
felt a little warmth from his. She tried to speak, to ask him who
he was, but her lips were like cement blocks.

"Man, you’ve always been a freaking
demon magnet, you know. They’re always looking for your soul," she
heard the stranger say. "I’ll never let them take you. You’re safe
with me now. I’ve got you."

As she succumbed to the darkness, her
last thought was that this guy was definitely just as crazy as her
mother.

And then she didn’t remember anything
else.

K
ara tried to avoid the unblinking stare of the ancient primate
and looked to the ornate wood panels of the elevator instead. She
could see her anxious reflection in his single round monocle. He
was nearly hairless, and the sparse hairs he did have were
snow-white. If the elevator jerked again, he looked as if he would
burst into a cloud of white dust. Even though she’d taken the ride
to the fifth level in Horizon many times, the old operator always
gave her the creeps.

With its rich wood panels and tan
marble floors, the elevators always made her think that they
belonged in some grand hotel. She traced her fingers gently along
the golden-wing crests carved into the wood panels. She was
shaking. She hid her trembling hands behind her back and shuddered
lightly. She had abandoned her sick mother.

Kara turned towards David. "I didn’t
think I’d ever see the inside of this elevator again. The oracles
had made it clear, my GA days were over. Don’t you think it’s weird
that I’m back? I keep thinking I’m dreaming, and any second now I’m
going to wake up and forget everything."

"You won’t, ’cause you’re not
dreaming," said David with a hint of a smile in his
voice.

He was much calmer inside
the elevator. He had only just stopped apologizing for being
late
to escort her back
to Horizon.

"I’m really glad you’re back. Things
just aren’t the same without you. You’re part of the legion—in a
big way. Probably one of the best guardians the legion’s ever had.
So it’s not really a surprise that you’re back so soon."

He leaned over a little
closer and lowered his voice. "Besides, I knew you couldn’t resist
my angelic-charms, my heavenly good looks. The fact is, woman,
I’ve
supernaturalized
you."

Kara rolled her eyes and pushed David
playfully. "Oh, please. Get over yourself."

She shook her head gently. "Do you
even know how this is possible? I mean...I killed a mortal,
remember? I broke the sacred law."

From the corner of her eye she saw the
old primate lift its ancient head towards her. She forced herself
not to meet his eyes.

"I wonder why they decided to
reinstate me. It’s not like I had everyone’s vote—I was never a
favorite in the legion. I’m sure most of the GAs despise
me."

"You’re back because the legion says
you’re back, that’s all there is to it. Just as long as you’re here
with me, that’s all that matters." David searched her face with his
intense blue eyes.

She remembered his panic when the
crystal timer had run out and she had disappeared. She remembered
his pain. But they were together as GAs once again—all was well for
now.

"So what did I miss since I’ve been
gone?"

David took a moment before answering.
"I don’t really know...they shipped me back to my mortal self soon
after you’d left. It’s weird, it’s like they didn’t want me back
either."