Reapers (34 page)

Before Kara turned to follow Ashley, she
reached out to David.

“
David, I’m
sorry—”

He brushed past her with his eyes on the
ground and didn’t even look at her.

Kara stood there for a moment, gathering
herself, as she watched him walk away. What had she done that was
so terrible? But even as she asked herself, she knew. She had hurt
David more than she had realized when she had dismissed his
affections in front of Ashley.

She watched the back of his head, the sway
in his shoulders as he walked away, and still she couldn’t move. It
was like someone had punched her in the gut.

David arrived at the creek just behind
Ashley. He didn’t turn around. He just jumped into the creek and
disappeared.

As Kara stood in her
desolation, she felt a presence behind her, something foul,
something
dead
.

She spun around and held her soul blade to
the throat of a sneering higher demon.

The demon’s grin widened so much that he
looked like a ventriloquist’s puppet.

“
Aren’t we a little bit
jumpy,
fiend
-angel
? We’re supposed to be on the
same team now. Remember? Why don’t you put that blade away so we
can have a nice little chat?”

Kara narrowed her eyes and pushed the blade
harder into the demon’s neck.

“
I’ll never be on
your
team, demon. I don’t
care what the legion says. I’ve always been a bit of a rebel, and I
usually do things
my
way. Besides, I don’t think killing just one demon will ruin
the legion’s plans. It’s not like you’ll be missed. Give me a
reason why I shouldn’t kill you now?”

“
Because you’d be breaking
the new treaty we have with the legion, and you’d be in a lot of
trouble, little angel,” laughed the higher demon.

“
If you want to beat the
archfiends…” the higher demon paused, licked its lips with a gray
tongue and then added, “you
need
us. The archfiends will destroy all of us if they
can, but
together
we stand a fighting chance. We can beat them.”

Kara couldn’t bring herself to admit the
demon might be right. “I know you’re up to something with this deal
with Horizon, and I’m going to find out what it is.”

“
You’re wrong…but then
again you’re the one with the blade.”

Kara had never been so close to a higher
demon for so long without killing it. The demon smelled of bile and
rotten flesh, and it took an enormous amount of will power not to
send it back to the Netherworld. She gritted her teeth.

“
Why were you were sneaking
behind me,
demon
?”

“
I was not.”

“
Liar,” spat Kara. A
trickle of black blood seeped down the tip of her blade.

“
All you demons are liars.
It’s part of what you are—deceivers and tricksters. There’s nothing
honest about demons. You might have fooled Ariel and the other
archangels, but I’m not buying this sham. This treaty’s a
joke.
You
know it,
and
I
know
it.”

A rasping laugh erupted
from the demon’s throat. “You angels are so suspicious, you
especially. I meant no offense. I was just
curious
about you, that is
all.”

There was something odd
with the way the demon said
curious
, almost as though it hinted
that it knew something about her, about what was happening to her …
about her wings. But how could that be?

“
We wanted a closer look at
your new
wings
,”
said a second voice from behind her, as though it had been reading
her mind.

Kara turned quickly and saw two more higher
demons.

Between them was a man. He looked like a
regular thirty-year-old businessman in an expensive black suit. He
had neatly trimmed dark hair and a sly smile on his handsome face.
He looked like he was ready to charm his way into some sort of
cunning deal. But his black eyes and pale skin gave him away.
Although he looked like a model, he still smelled like the dead. He
was a demon. He carried himself like a proud peacock, and Kara
suspected she was looking at a demon lord or some kind of boss from
the Netherworld. Typical. She narrowed her eyes. She wanted to kill
him too.

“
They are…”

The man-demon paused as he took a moment to
inspect her wings thoroughly, moving his black eyes over every inch
of her, “…remarkable.”

“I know.”

Kara shoved her captive
higher demon to the ground and resisted the urge to kick it. The
demon smiled at her viciously and then stood amongst its brethren.
Their hollow black eyes and their identical faces were warped and
twisted into unnaturally large sneers. These higher demons, clones
from the abyss, always freaked her out.

She sensed that they were
hiding something, like they knew some sort of secret about her that
they weren’t about to share. She was really starting to get
annoyed.

“If you don’t stop staring
at me like that, I’m going to start chopping off heads.”

“So you’re the infamous
Kara Nightingale,” said the man. He stood too close, and his black
eyes rolled over her body once more.

“My, my. You’re not at all
what I expected.”

Kara grimaced at his foul
breath and shuddered at his nearness, but she wouldn’t move.
Showing this demon any kind of weakness by stepping back would be a
victory for him. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. So
instead, she squared her shoulders and raised her chin. “Yeah? And
why’s that?”

He raised his brows. “I
imagined you…taller. But, you’re still very…exquisite.”

The frown on Kara’s face
deepened. “And you are?”

“Salthazar,” said the
demon pompously. His voice was oily and treacherous. It was the
voice of a madman.

Kara twirled her blade in
her hand, inches from Salthazar’s suit.

“You say that like it’s
supposed to mean something to me.” She forced a laugh. “Never heard
of you.”

Salthazar lost his smile
for a second, but when it returned, and to Kara’s surprise, his
teeth were sparkling white.

“No matter, you will hear
of me soon enough. But to help enlighten you—I’m your late father’s
successor.”

Kara flinched as though
Salthazar had slapped her across the face. With all that was
happening to her, and with the archfiends’ escape, the last thing
on her mind was her father, the demon lord that
she
had killed.

“Yes,” continued
Salthazar.

He clearly enjoyed the
distress on Kara’s face.

“We all know what you did
to your own precious daddy. You were the talk of the Netherworld
for a long time, the angel that destroyed the powerful Asmodeus. He
was the strongest and greatest of our kind, and yet
you
…” his black eyes
sparkled, “…destroyed him. How did you do it?”

A smile tugged at the
corners of her lips. “It just happened.”

“Nothing ever
just
happens. There is
always an explanation. Was it cleverness? Wit? Strength? Or just
dumb luck? I guess we’ll never really know how you managed to
vanquish the most powerful demon lord of our time.”

Kara let out a growl of
annoyance. “Guess not.”

Salthazar watched her for
a moment. “Rumors spread of your elemental power. Yes. I know of
it. It sparked lots of interest amongst our kind—to be able to
control such wild and fierce energy. It is a power that demons have
long desired to manipulate ourselves. But we never succeeded. Your
father tried and failed. It must take a great deal of self-control,
not to let it control you. But I guess things have changed now. I
know that you don’t possess it anymore.”

Kara did her best to hide
her annoyance and bitterness. Her elemental power was gone, and she
felt miserable. It had left a hole in her, and she wanted it
back.

The demon lord shook his
head. “You lost an incredible gift, there’s no denying that…only to
be replaced by wings? Don’t you think it’s strange that these
things keep happening to you, Kara Nightingale of the legion of
angels? Yes…tell me, why is that?”

“It’s a
mystery.”

Kara gripped the handle of
her dagger. Her nails cut into her palm. She tried to ignore the
surge and crash of bitter emotions that had awoken within her.
Truth be told, she wished she knew the answer, too. But she didn’t.
She didn’t know why these horrible things kept happening to her,
the elemental power…the wings…it was like a dark force kept
throwing obstacles at her, challenging her, keeping her from
becoming the guardian she was supposed to become, keeping her from
attaining her full potential.

Salthazar let out a cold
laugh. “Well, whatever. I think I should be thanking you, really.
Without you, without what you did, I wouldn’t be here. So thank you
for clearing a path for me.”

He paused. “I’ve always
wondered why
you
didn’t take his place.”

Kara frowned, but she
couldn’t find her voice.

“You could have, you
know,” continued the demon. “It was rightfully yours. You could
have taken your father’s place in the Netherworld. To rule the
demons as their queen.”

“My job is to
kill
demons,” said Kara.
She trembled with rage and squeezed her soul blade. “That’s what
guardian angels do. We rid the earth of scum like you, and we
protect the mortals. I would
never
side with you, with demons. I would rather die a
thousand true deaths than join the Netherworld.”

Salthazar laughed harder.
“So very dramatic, but then again all you angels are such
dramatic
creatures. But
you…” he faltered, “but you’re
different
, aren’t you, Kara? You’ve
never been just a
regular
angel. You’re different. You always have been,
and never more so than now.”

His eyes moved to her
wings, and Kara squeezed them together in an unsuccessful attempt
to hide them behind her back.

The demon raised his
eyebrows and waved his hands in a dismissal.

“Never mind. Well then,
that’s settled.”

He raised his voice. “I’m
Lord Salthazar, ruler of the Netherworld. I’m taking over where
Asmodeus left off.”

“What do you want?”
growled Kara, unable to control the hatred and anger that boiled
inside her. She wanted to cut that pretty smile off Salthazar’s
face.

The demon lord smiled at Kara’s sudden rage.
He was enjoying seeing her struggle internally. He wanted to push
her buttons. He was testing her.

He regarded her silently for a moment and
then said, “Just wanted a look. I wanted to see who this famous
Kara Nightingale was, the little girl who killed the powerful
Asmodeus, the one who’s been brewing up such trouble in my world. I
wanted to see what the fuss was all about.”

His black eyes widened.
“But most of all, I wanted to see your wings. I wanted to see them
in all their
glory
myself.”

Kara felt the eyes of the all the higher
demons on her. Their gray, identical faces were frozen like ugly
life-size demonic dolls. Their black eyes glimmered with evil. How
could Horizon make a deal with these treacherous, vile
creatures?

She glowered. “Well, you’ve seen them, so
get lost.”

She waved her blade menacingly at the
demon’s face, knowing all too well that demon lords were powerful
and that her puny blade probably wouldn’t do much damage.

Salthazar laughed playfully as though Kara
had said something very funny. “Of course.”

His black eyes rolled over her body once
more, and she resisted the urge to shiver under his creepy, oily
stare.

“
See you soon,
butterfly
,” he said and
turned on his heel.

“
Not if I can help
it.”

Kara hated the fact that only moments ago
David had called her that, too. But now, hearing it from the lips
of the demon lord made her feel dirty somehow.

Kara watched the demons leave. Butterflies
were beautiful and fragile, while Kara was nothing of the sort. She
wasn’t weak, and she would prove it.

But first she’d have to apologize to
David.

Just as she turned to leave, a choking,
mind-searing pain burst from her chest and extended to her
fingertips and to her wings. White lights exploded from behind her
eyes like a giant migraine, like someone beating her head with a
sledgehammer. Her ears popped, and she could scarcely hear her own
screams. She was on fire, burning from the inside out. She closed
her eyes. She could feel her body swell. She was changing into
something else.

Kara dropped her blade and crumbled to her
knees. The weight of her wings was like a backpack full of bricks.
It pinned her to the ground and paralyzed her. She could feel the
infection coursing through her. She gritted her teeth as another
spasm of pain hit her. What was happening to her? Fear replaced her
pain. She was sick with trembling and felt a madness infecting her
mind. Darkness. Evil…