Reapers (27 page)

Mistral stood before the table.
“Oracles. You remember Jim?”

At the mention of Jim, the women
suddenly looked annoyed. They looked at his feet, as though they
expected to see a great crystal.

Mr. Patterson smiled nervously and
bowed his head in a greeting.

“
Oracles.”

“
He’s brought two
guardians with him. This is David and Kara.”

When Kara heard her name, her wings
fluttered involuntarily.

The oracles around the table jumped to
their feet and grabbed the crystals around their necks as if to
protect themselves from Kara, as if she was a dangerous
beast.

“
What in the souls?” cried
an oracle. She backed away, tripped on her red robe, and
fell.

“
I knew it! Leave it to
the males to do something like this!” spat the tallest of the
group. Her yellow hat fell off her head.

It pained Kara to be treated like a
monster. The oracles looked at her with the same fear and disbelief
that Mr. Patterson had shown when he had first seen her
wings.

Kara caught David watching her. She
hated the pity that she knew he felt for her. There was nothing
worse than to be pitied.

“
Calm down, Niri,” said
Mistral.

Her expression softened when she saw
the look of distress on Kara’s face. She gave her a short
smile.

“
I don’t think Jim would
have brought something of great evil, if he had known what it was.
He might be a
male
, but I am sure he wouldn’t knowingly endanger us. He was
given the yellow crystal so that he could call upon us for
help.”

“
We all agreed to this,”
she reminded them, “and now he is here, and by the looks of things
he needs our help. Jim?”

Mr. Patterson cleared his voice, and
pulled at his jacket nervously.

“
Oracles, what Mistral has
said is true. I have come here to seek your counsel. I cannot
explain what has happened to Kara. But I will tell you what I
know.”

As Mr. Patterson recounted the events
surrounding the genesis of Kara’s wings, the other oracles became
interested. One by one they moved from the table to get a closer
look. They inspected her like a lab rat. They prodded, pulled,
poked, and even smelled her wings.

“
Ouch, that hurt!” cried
Kara, as one of the oracles tried to cut off a sample of
wing.

“
I fear…I
hope…”

The pain on Mr. Patterson’s face made
Kara feel worse.

“…
I hope that I am
wrong.”

Kara looked at the faces around her.
Their fear had become a great sadness.

“
You know what this is,
don’t you? I can see it in your faces. You know what these wings
mean? Tell me. Please.”

An oracle with a light blue robe
shuffled toward Kara. She took Kara’s hands in hers, and Kara
flinched at the coldness of the old woman’s touch. It was like
touching ice.

“
I am truly sorry, child
guardian. This is a serious burden you carry.”

Kara pulled her hands away.

“
Why is having wings such
a big deal? Birds have wings.”

“
But you are not a bird or
a butterfly,” said another oracle.

“
You are an angel, a
protector of human lives and souls. And guardian angels were not
created with wings.”

“
Okay…I get it.
Angels
don’t
have
wings.” Kara didn’t want to be rude, but her temper was beginning
to rise. “And now I’m a problem, because I have wings. Say what’s
on your mind. Go on. I can take it. How big a problem is
this?”

Mistral spoke next. “We have all seen
wings like yours before, Kara, long ago.”

“
Okay, so then that’s
good, no?”

The oracle shook her head.
“As you put it…it is
not
good. It is the very opposite of good. The worst
kind imaginable.”

Kara felt her little bubble of hope
burst.

“
In the beginning, only
one creature was created with wings,” said Mistral.

“
They were the most vile
and dangerous creatures that ever existed. They were the
archfiends
.”

Chapter 19

Augura

S
ilence. The globe was like a tomb. Everyone stared at
Kara.

She wanted to disappear. She was
getting used to the idea of having wings, and the prospect of
flying had brought her joy, but deep down she knew that a deep cold
feeling had crept inside her soul and wanted to be let out. From
what Raphael had told her about the archfiends, she knew this was
not going to end well.

“
The archfiends,” Kara
repeated almost to herself. “My wings are like the
archfiends’.”

She saw the shocked expression on
David’s face and looked away.

“
Yes,” answered Mistral.
She raised her voice so that it carried inside the entire
building.

“
The archfiends were
created before the archangels and angels. They were the most
powerful beings in all the worlds. But they lusted for power and
became too strong. We began to fear them. After the war, after the
archangels had been created, the archfiends were banished forever.
Your wings bear their mark.”

David recognized the look of panic on
Kara’s face.

“
Don’t listen to them,
Kara. You’re not evil. And you’re not one of those things, whatever
they say. They don’t know you. I know you, and you’re
not
bad. They don’t know
what they’re talking about. They’re stuck here in Eden. They don’t
know what’s going on out there, and they’re not warriors like us.
They’re just a bunch of stupid old ladies.”

“
I beg your pardon, boy?”
The oracle with the purple robe pressed her hands firmly on her
hips and eyed David crossly.

“
Who do you think you’re
talking to? We’ve existed since the beginning. You are merely an
impulse creature, a passerby, a fleck of dust.”

David opened his mouth as if he were
about to tell off the oracle, but at the last minute he decided
against it. Instead he took Kara by the shoulders and turned her to
face him.

“
Stop what you’re thinking
right now,” he said. “You’re not evil. You’re not one of them.
You’re not an archfiend.”

“
Aren’t I?” Kara said
softly.

His words left her quickly, as though
they carried no weight, no meaning. She pulled away from him, aware
of the hurt feeling on his face. But she couldn’t look at him right
now.

Kara felt a tug on her
wings.

“
I think that somehow you
have been made into one,” said Niri. She secured her hat back on
her head. “Your wings are very much like theirs, smaller, but very
like them, too. Such evil creatures, they were. Such
destruction.”

She shivered as though just the memory
of the archfiends made her skin crawl.

A mousy-looking oracle in a light pink
robe said, “Well, I am glad they will never resurface.”

“
I’m afraid that’s not
entirely true,” said Mr. Patterson.

The oracles all turned
their attention to him and urged him to elaborate. He told them
about the reapers, and the imps who were searching for the
key
.

The oracles were all silent, pondering
this new bit of information. Their golden eyes shone brighter, as
though a light illuminated them from the inside. And as Kara
watched their expressions change, a tilt of the head, eyebrows
raised and furrowed, she was sure that they were communicating
telepathically. Most likely, they were arguing.

Mr. Patterson watched Kara solemnly,
his face a mask of pity and regret, as if the suspicions that he
had hoped would be false had now come true.

“
This is what you didn’t
want to tell me?”

Kara’s soul felt like it was breaking.
Her wings seemed heavier somehow, and she avoided looking at
David.

“
Yes,” Mr. Patterson
answered. “I had hoped I was wrong. I didn’t want you to suffer
again. You’ve been through so much with the legion; I had hoped to
spare you any more misery. We had some insight into what to expect
from you when we discovered your elemental powers. But this…this is
strange and unfamiliar territory. And we fear what we do not
understand.”

Kara stared at the ground. It was the
worst news she could hear. She was not turning into a fairy as
Jenny had hoped. She was becoming an evil creature with black
leathery skin, sores and exposed flesh, bat wings, and fangs like
the mouth of a piranha.

The more the oracles confirmed her
suspicions, the deeper she buried the last of her hopes. She knew
that if she let the darkness in, if she succumbed to its demands,
she would be lost. Would she even remember who she was? Would she
hurt her friends? The thoughts frightened her because she didn’t
know the answers.

Kara remembered the man-creature that
had injected her. Was he an archfiend? He wasn’t human. She was
sure of that. And yet, she was pretty certain he didn’t have any
wings.

She struggled to find her
voice.

“
If what you say is true,
if I’m part
them
—” She strained to continue even though her voice shook. “How
and why would they do this?”

Mistral spoke.

“
We’ve decided that we
should make sure our suspicions about you are true. We are going to
call upon Augura. She will be able to see inside your mind. She
will know who made your wings.”

“
Ladies!” She clapped her
hands firmly. “To your feet!”

They all
shuffled forward and scrambled around until they stood side
by side in a straight line.

“
Is it me, or did we just get front row tickets to see a
line dance?” said David, laughing. “And I forgot my
camera.”

At first
, Kara had to agree with David. It did look like the little
women were about to perform a dance of some sort. But then they
began to run, and the giant crystal building began to
roll.

With a roar like thunder, the great crystal structure
tipped,
shook, staggered and then began to roll faster and faster.
It was like a giant bowling ball catching up momentum after the
throw. The oracles’ feet moved in unison, with the
tap tap tap
rhythm of a motor
running.

Kara was
amazed at the agility and skill of these little women. They
moved together, skilfully and effortlessly, and manoeuvred the
colossal globe with precision.

It all made sense now. The furniture
was fixed to the sides and ceiling of the spherical building
because it was a movable structure.

Kara ran alongside them to
keep from falling. She moved her feet, faster and faster until she
was running up the walls of the giant sphere and passing furniture
that had originally been on the ceiling.
It was like they were running in a
giant hamster wheel.

If Kara
hadn’t been so glum, she might have really enjoyed this
part. And finally, the tiniest of smiles appeared on her face. She
couldn’t help it. It was contagious. It was an awesome
feeling.

Mr. Patterson looked thrilled to be
moving the crystal ball, too.
Even David smiled as he ran behind the oracles.

The tiny windows closed as the ball
rolled forward. But the thick crystal walls were impossible to see
through.

“
How do they know where
they’re going?” Kara cried over the noise of crunching gravel. “Can
the oracles see through the walls?

“
They’re oracles,” said
David, laughing, “I guess they can
see
where they’re going.”

And just when Kara was beginning to
forget that she had wings at all, the oracles stopped running, and
the crystal slowed to a stop.

The oracles shuffled outside. Only
Mistral remained.

“
This way please.” She
gestured for them to follow her as she made her way outside as
well.

Together they stepped through the
threshold and onto the green grasses of Eden.

A single oracle in a white robe was
kneeling by a stream. Her back was toward them, so Kara couldn’t
see her face. The other oracles led them toward her.

The oracle in the white robe turned as
they approached. She was short and slender, and her thin face was
ancient and riddled with deep lines, like the grooves in an old
tree’s bark. But her golden eyes were true and full of vigor. A
single bun of white-silver hair was neatly pinned to the top of her
head like a crown.

When she smiled at them, her tiny eyes
disappeared into the folds of her skin. She turned, and Kara felt a
tiny prick on her forehead. The white oracle emitted great power.
She didn’t seem as surprised at Kara’s wings as the others had
been. It was almost as though she had expected to see
them.