Elemental (2 page)

Kara’s stomach lurched, she caught her breath and a nasty feeling crawled along the back of her neck, making her hair stand up. Her heart pounded in her ears. She trembled. She recognized that face. It belonged to the foul monster from her nightmares. It sneered and licked its lips, showing off a mouthful of pointed yellow teeth.

Her insides twisted. A sick feeling rose to her throat. Kara bolted down the street.

With her flats scrapping the pavement, she picked up speed. Kara became aware of the stillness around her even more. It was as though the world stood still, and only she moved within it. A sudden gust of wind pushed against her back. Darkness grew, sucking out the light. Kara heard thunder rumble in the distance. A large shadow suddenly appeared on the ground before her, as though a bucket of black paint had spilled by her feet. She looked up. A single dark grey cloud raced alongside her in the pink and blue sky. It travelled fast against the wind and headed towards her.

Kara gasped and focused on putting as much distance between herself and the black-eyed monster. She stole a look behind. Her heart caught in her throat.

The demon was right behind her.

A loud roar made her jump. Thunder cracked all around. Kara glanced up. The grey cloud was now above her. She choked a scream. Goose bumps prickled on her skin.
How could a cloud move like that?
She knew it wasn’t natural. Panic surged through her body.

Kara made a run for towards a bus stop across the street and collapsed into the glass shelter. A shadow covered the ground and darkness crept around her. She looked up and stared through the top of the shelter. The grey cloud was directly on top of it. It had followed her.

Kara followed it with her eyes. A spark emanated from the cloud. And then another, until the cloud was consumed entirely by tiny electric flashes. She shook her head in disbelief.

Something moved in the corner of her eye. She caught sight of the demon—he stood in the doorway. He snarled, bared teeth shinning in the darkness. She shut her eyes and willed the nightmare to end. There was a sudden loud crack. Kara opened her eyes.

A bolt of lightning charged out of the cloud.

It hit the demon.

Kara screamed as she watched him sizzle and crackle before her eyes. His limbs crumbled to pieces like overcooked toast. Ashes floated in the air like dried leaves from a tree in a breeze. A pile of dirt was all that remained of the demon. And Kara felt a moment of nausea wash over her.

ZAP!

A bolt of lightning struck the shelter. In a flash of white light, the entire shelter disappeared, leaving only a few traces of smoke and the smell of burnt plastic. Horrified, Kara glanced around her. How was this even possible? She shivered as her stomach tightened into a ball. Her hands were shaking, and she clenched them into fists.

She hopped out of the blackened shelter, back onto the street and ran towards the nearest house. A sizzling sound, too close…she felt a sensation of something behind her. Something touched her hair, brushed the back of her neck. She whirled around to look—and nearly fainted.

The demon with the black eyes ran behind her with unnatural speed, like an image being played in fast forward. He hissed and spit furiously. His pale grimace revealed rows of thin pointed teeth. He didn’t have a scratch on him, she realized. No signs of any burns from the lightening that had immolated him, not even on his tailored suit.

Why is this happening to me!

Kara’s knees gave in. She crashed to the ground and cried out. She rolled over and clasped her foot. The skin around her ankle swelled and instantly turned red and purple. She strained to stand, but fell back down. A shadow crept along the ground. She looked up. The grey cloud was inches from her head, so close she could reach out and touch it. A loud scraping sound came from behind. Kara whirled around.

The demon was only a few strides away. He would be on top of her in a matter of seconds. A weird smile spread across his face as he ran, like he was about to win the lottery.

“Help!” Kara screamed in desperation. “Someone help me!”

The demon’s mouth opened, and his chin dropped to the middle of his chest, like a snake unhooking its jaws ready to swallow his prey. In that horrible moment, Kara realized she was about to be eaten—just like the little boy in her dreams. She could only tremble and watch.

At the same time, the grey cloud settled above her. Blue and white sparks danced in and out of the cloud.

And then another bolt of lightning shot out.

Kara blinked as white light burned her eyes.

She felt a surge of electricity flow through her body. It burned. She didn’t have time to scream.

And then everything went dark.

Chapter 2

Missing in action

LIGHT FLICKERED IN FRONT OF KARA’S
closed eye lids. She forced them open. A mist like a thin white veil blowing in the wind obscured her vision. At first she thought she was back in her room, but as the images cleared, she realized she stood in an elevator. She blinked and waited as the images before her came into focus.

The elevator looked old, like from a hotel in the 1920’s, with beautiful polished wood panels and tan marble floors. She didn’t remember getting into an elevator.
How did I get here?
A smell of burnt toast and mothballs lingered in the air. She heard faint sizzling and cracking sounds, and when she glanced down she became aware that the noise was coming from her. She lifted up her arm and examined it. Long coils of grey smoke emanated from her limbs. Her entire body was smoking, like a log on a fireplace.

“Ahem,” said a raspy voice.

Kara recoiled. At first, she was certain her eyes were playing tricks on her. But she soon realized she was indeed staring at a large chimpanzee. He sat on a wooden chair in front of her and picked at his callused feet in a nonchalant kind of way. He straightened up and brushed crumbs from his green Bermuda shorts. He sighed heavily and regarded her with contempt. The monkey looked oddly familiar to Kara. It lifted its chin and made a face.

“Haven’t seen you around these parts lately,” said the chimp. “Been on vacation, have you?”

Kara blinked in confusion. She wasn’t surprised the chimp could speak. And she wondered why that was. She made a face.

“Don’t look so surprised, Miss Nightingale. We’ve met before. Only…it’ll take a few minutes for your memories to come back. It always does.”

“My memories?” As soon as she uttered the words, images flooded inside her mind like a massive waterfall. But none of them made any sense to her. It was like watching a movie in fast forward without the pause button. She saw flashes of people, beautiful people, tall and commanding. Images of brilliant spheres dashed across a black sky, like hundreds of falling stars. She shook her head and a clear picture of a city soared in a magnificent blue sky and floated amongst the white clouds. Different primates flashed in her mind’s eye. The nasty breath. Those yellow teeth. She knew only one monkey who had that kind of attitude. Kara suddenly realized why the chimp had such a familiar demeanor.

When the chimp saw that she has finally recognized him, he grinned triumphantly.

“And we meet again, Miss Nightingale.”

“You’re that Chimp Number 5M51. Yes...I remember now. You were pretty awful. How can I forget—?”

“Bravo. It took you long enough,” muttered the chimp, and he clapped his hands. “I was beginning to think we were going to be here for a while, and I haven’t packed a lunch. I tell you, angels have no consideration for our work! Think they’re better than us, do they?”

Kara didn’t hear him. She was lost in thought, focused on the memories that poured inside her brain. She felt lightheaded. The ground around her swayed slightly. She steadied herself against the panels. As her mortal memories slipped away, they were replaced by guardian angel recollections.

Kara’s body suddenly cracked and popped. She studied her smoking limbs. “That—that black cloud! The lighting! It—it killed me. Just like the first time I got killed by the bus! I’m back in Horizon! I’ve died, and now I’m back.”

Chimp 5M51 pursed his lips, clearly getting annoyed at Kara’s slow recovery. “Yes, yes, very clever Miss. I don’t know why I was told that the guardian angels were the ones with the brains.” He rolled his eyes. “Clearly, I was misinformed.”

Kara glared at the chimp. She decided to ignore his remarks and opened her mind instead. She shivered as it all came back to her—her experiences and feelings for David, her training as a guardian angel, and how she vanquished Asmodeus. She remembered vaguely the golden light that shot out of her hand and caused the demise of the demon lord. She remembered that she had saved the elemental child, an entity with tremendous power, and that her golden light was elemental, too. Kara’s wild power was wielded by only those born of human and angel parents, an extremely rare combination. And Kara possessed that power. She remembered. Her soul was part elemental.

The chimp sighed heavily, as though this was the most boring thing in the world. “Have you figured it all yet, Miss? Or do we have to stay here in limbo till the end of time, waiting for your feather brain to wake up. I tell you,
we
should be the guardians, and the angels should be working the elevators. How it came to be—is beyond me. Evidently, you are not a very competent guardian. Perhaps you thought we were at the zoo?” He chuckled.

Kara continued to ignore him and ransacked her brain. She remembered the seven different levels in Horizon and the beautiful archangels who managed them. Excitement rushed through her breast.

“So…do you know which level I’m supposed to go now?” Her body prickled as she reminisced about David. The image of a kiss dangled before her eyes. So real now, she could almost feel his full lips pressed against hers.

“Level two, Miss. Operations.”

The chimp lifted a long swarthy arm and pressed the number two brass button on the control panel. The elevator shifted slightly back and forth. It ascended to a higher level.

Her spirits lifted as she remembered Operations, the second of the seven levels in Horizon, where colossal red dunes rolled and disappeared in a vast red desert, and where David her petty officer had taught her to fight as a guardian angel—to save the mortal souls from the demons, she remembered.

The elevator swayed and bounced to a stop. She heard a
ting
, and with a
swish
, the doors slid open.

“Level two, Operations!” cried the chimp. He gestured impatiently with his hands. “Off you go, Miss.”

Kara started to feel anxious. She bit her lower lip. “Wait a minute. I need time to think. I believe I’m supposed to go see Gabriel.”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” declare the chimp. He wrinkled his nose. “Now get out!
You
are stinking up my elevator!”

“What? Just a second,” she groaned and tried to put out the fire along her arms. “That wasn’t my fault! It was a lightning—”

The chimp grabbed Kara by the arm and threw her out of the elevator.

Kara landed in the red sand. A handful of sand gushed into her nose and mouth.

She spit and wiped her mouth with her hand. “You’ll pay for this! You freaking
monkey
! I’m going to report you to the High Council! Hopefully they’ll throw you in those white fires of Atma,” she mumbled crossly. She jammed her fingers in her mouth and scraped away the smallest specks of sand that still stuck to her teeth.

She heard a snort. Chimp 5M51 regarded her with lazy yellow eyes.

“Is that a threat? How terribly uninteresting. I would have thought you could have conjured up something with more—originality,” said the chimp, patronizing her. He curled his fat grey lips, wiggled his arm theatrically in the air and gave her the Queen’s wave just as the elevator began its decent.

Kara pulled herself out of the sand and struggled into a seating position. Without thinking, she grabbed a handful of sand and threw it directly at the elevator.

“You missed,” laughed the chimp as the doors closed.

She watched the elevator disappear back into the sand.

“You better hope to never see me again!” she yelled and raised her fist. “Because it’ll be your last,
monkey!
”

Frustrated, Kara pushed herself up and dusted off the sand. Miraculously her body wasn’t smoking anymore. There were no burn marks anywhere, no traces of her lightening attacker.

She brushed her bangs out of her eyes and looked around. She smiled. How could she have forgotten the beautiful red dunes of Operations?

The red sand flashed like jewels as they caught the sun. Rolling hills of ruby-red sand stretched out before her for miles and disappeared out of sight. A cool breeze lifted the hair from her back, bringing with it the smell of the ocean. She remembered Operations as her favorite place in Horizon. She sighed. It still was.