Free Reapers by Kim Richardson Page A

about
herself. She only wanted to save him.
    Kara glared at Metatron.
“What will it be then? What do you want from me?”
    For a moment Metatron
considered Kara with great interest.
    Then he said, “A deal is a
deal. Once you agree—the deal is sealed with your word, and it can
never be broken.”
    His voice was eager, like
a threatening whisper.
    Kara could feel him
ensnaring her.
    “ I understand,” she
replied.
    “ No—Kara—don’t,” said
David, his voice cracked like he was suffering from a
cold.
    But it was too late. She
had already agreed, even before knowing what she had traded. “What
is it then?”
    To her horror, Metatron
reached forward and grasped a handful of her hair. He twisted it in
his gloved hand, moved closer to her, leaned forward, and whispered
in her ear.
    Kara flinched, but she willed herself
not to step back.
    He had spoken the terms.
    Metatron leaned back. “Do
you agree to these terms?”
    The words rang in her
ears. She dreaded them. They were like the poison from the death
blades, eating slowly away at her soul, but she still
nodded.
    “ Yes.”
    “ Done.” Metatron
laughed.
    He reached inside the cage
and removed the chain from David’s neck. “Nothing personal,
Davy.”
    Immediately, David
collapsed to the ground. His face was sunken, and the flesh around
his neck was raw. Kara could see his angel essence spilling out and
over his chest. He moaned in agony.
    “ Kara!” David muttered,
his voice hoarse. “What did you do? What did you do?”
    The conditions of the deal
rang loud in Kara’s mind, but she could not speak the words to
David.
    Metatron turned and made
his way back up onto the platform.
    He turned to Kara with a
superior smile and said, “ Give my best to
the ravishing Ariel.”
    And then he added, “I’ll see you soon,
little bird.”
     

Chapter 6
    Leap of Faith
     
     
     
    A fter a quick stop back to level three, so that David could
heal his wounds in the Healing-Xpress, they made their way to level
five. Kara’s ears still rang with Metatron’s deal. It was an
irritating tune that played over and over, and wouldn’t go
away.
    “ Kara, tell me what the
deal was! What was the agreement?” David questioned her again and
again. But she pressed her lips firmly together and shook her head,
infuriating David all the more.
    David continued to watch her
nervously, but she still couldn’t bring herself to tell him what
she had traded their lives for…not yet.
    Finally, the elevator stopped. David
retrieved his golden key card from the large, molasses-colored
primate with a tail like a cat who had kept his eyes on the control
panel the entire journey. The two of them stepped into level five,
the Department of Defense.
    The Counter Demon Division looked just
as she remembered. It was a giant circular room the size of a
baseball field, with second and third-floor offices separated by
glass walls. Hundreds of guardian angels walked up and down the
stairs or sat at desks and busied their fingers with
keyboards.
    At first the room was loud with the
sound of voices, but within a few seconds of their arrival, the
room went still. Kara did her best not to make eye contact with
anyone as they moved past holographic screens that looked like
moving wallpaper. She angled her body strategically so she could
hide behind David. But it was no use. Everyone was watching
her.
    Instead of moving toward the large
round desk in the middle of the chamber, where the guardians
usually held their meetings, David led her toward four cubicles of
green-colored water. The vega tanks shimmered like giant emeralds
from the light from the ceiling.
    A group of angels stood nervously
around the tanks, as though they were preparing themselves for the
jump. Kara could see Ashley and her cronies, Sasha, Raymond, and
Ling. Ashley’s hazel eyes shot daggers at her. She was a few years
older than Kara and wore her long blonde hair pulled back into a
braid. It was a style that caused her sharp,