Seals by Kim Richardson

he
brandished his soul blades but then he frowned when he glanced at
them. He knew that his blades wouldn’t do more than scratch the
giant.
    “What did you expect,” said Ashley, her blue
eyes blazed with a fearlessness that Kara envied. “Gnomes? Dwarves?
Tiny little elves?”
    “Ha. Ha.” David looked at Kara. “Now what?
Please tell me you’ve packed your magic beans?”
    “Magic beans?” Kara forced a laugh. “I’d go
for magic. Period.”
    Kara didn’t want to jinx it by moving just
yet. The knight appeared to be contemplating what to do with them.
It radiated power like a thousand heat lamps, but it was an
overwhelmingly dark and evil power. Thousand-year-old intelligence
gleamed in its eyes. This creature hadn’t been created just three
days ago. It had been around for a very long time.
    The earth and fields seemed to pulse with
its energy. The smell of rot and decay rolled off it, like a
million rotted corpses. Both the rider and its steed emitted a
green glow, like glowing toxic waste. Kara knew the knight
controlled the atmosphere somehow. She felt a tinge of electricity
prickling her wings and her skin. Abnormally low dark gray clouds
with black underbellies hovered over them. The giant could probably
touch them. The air was moist with the scent of rain and static.
The knight’s power permeated the air like the silence before an
electrical storm.
    A wave of terror ripped through Kara as she
locked eyes with the knight. She felt its hold on her, paralyzing
her with only its eyes. It didn’t belong in this world. It was a
dead thing, an evil thing that shouldn’t be.
    She did her best not to show any fear as she
ransacked her mind for a plan. How to destroy this thing? Where was
its weakness? She knew that this knight was Famine, and because
their rings were still intact, she knew it hadn’t broken the seal.
Not yet. She took courage from that. Now, how to destroy it?
    David leaned over and whispered. “Why isn’t
it moving?”
    “I’m not sure,” Kara whispered back, but she
was certain that for whatever reason it was waiting, it
could only be a very bad one.
    “Maybe it’s waiting for us to make the first
move. But that would be stupid since I doubt our weapons would even
make a scratch.”
    “It smells like a demon,” David held his
nose. “Maybe it dies like a demon.”
    “This is no mere demon.”
    A cold rage spread across Kara’s face. “It
feels…different…more powerful and evil. So how do we kill it?”
    “I guess we’re about to find out.”
    Kara clenched her jaw. She would find
a way to destroy it. She had to—
    “You cannot destroy me,” boomed a voice that
sounded like the mountains themselves were speaking.
    Kara stiffened, but she planted her
feet.
    “Go back now, angels. Go back to the comfort
and delights of your realm or you will perish along with this
mortal world and everything in it.”
    A cold smile spread across Kara’s lips. She
raised her voice.
    “We’re not going anywhere. It is you that should leave, not us. We are the sworn protectors of the
mortal world. We are the soldiers who drive the darkness out from
this world. This world is only for the living. You have no claim
here. Leave or face your doom.”
    The knight’s red eyes shone like burning
coal.
    “I have already unleashed my curse upon this
earth. You cannot stop the affliction. Mere angels do not possess
the power to control my destruction. It will spread until all of
this planet’s natural resources are consumed. My plague spreads as
fast and silently as the wind. It will corrupt and infect
everything. The earth is already dying. You are too late.”
    The earth rumbled beneath Kara’s feet, and
she had the strangest suspicion that the knight had just laughed.
It was mocking them. She suppressed a shiver.
    “We’re not too late.” Kara knew that
the rings were all still intact.
    “We’re going to send you back to whatever
dimension you came from. And then the earth will heal