Seals
yanked her
down.
    Kara beat her wings feverishly, but another
locust creature grabbed her other leg. Their grip was like
thousands of needles pricking into her skin. The creatures tossed
her sprawling to the ground.
    They came at her again, but Kara was already
up.
    “You’re going to pay for that.”
    She launched herself at a locust-man,
spinning and driving a sidekick in the creature’s chest. The
locust-man exploded in a stink of vomit and sewage.
    But the locusts reformed, and the locust-man
came at her again. She kicked out hard and landed another blow,
this time to the creature’s head. Again the locusts shattered, but
as quickly as they had split apart they reformed, as though nothing
had happened.
    Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a
glimpse of the knight. Famine sat on his emaciated steed and
watched them with a bored and irritated expression, as though he
already knew that he and his insect army would win.
    Kara cursed loudly. If she wanted to be a
normal angel again, if she wanted to stop her transformation, she had to stop the knight from breaking the seal. But she had
no idea how she was going to do that. Great.
    She soared up into the air and hovered for a
moment as she tried to figure out what to do next. She pulled her
soul blade from the folds of her jacket. It was a guess really, as
she didn’t know if it would affect the creature, but she had to try
something.
    A locust-man cocked its head, as though it
was considering whether or not the blade was a threat. For a moment
she thought she saw it flash a smile.
    The creature charged at her like a rocket.
She swerved and slashed across its rippling insect chest with the
tip of her blade. Handfuls of locusts fell from their humanoid
host, like burned skin peeling off a body. A screeching buzz
sounded from the creature, as though it screamed in pain.
    Kara could see that David was holding his
own against two locust-men, slashing at them with a soul blade in
each hand. But each time he drove his blade into a creature’s
chest, although the locusts exploded into clouds of swarming
insects, they reformed within a few seconds.
    Jenny and Ashley weren’t doing any
better.
    Ashley spun and sliced skillfully with her
sword, slicing two creatures at once, and Jenny nocked arrow after
arrow and hit her mark every time. But the creatures always
reformed.
    She spotted Peter and was surprised as he,
too, held his own. But then two of the locust-men ganged up on him,
and he disappeared under flailing, insect claws. Peter !
    She made to swoop to Peter’s aid, but
something pinned her wings from behind.
    She smelled the bile and heard the buzzing
wings of a locust-man as it pulled at her wings. She cried out in
pain as some locusts broke free and tore at her M-5 suit. She
thrashed out with her blade but missed. The locust man held her
wings tight, and she plummeted from the sky.
    Kara hit the ground hard, but luckily she
had squished the locust-creature in the process.
    She rolled and pushed herself up. But just
as she almost smiled at her luck, another locust-man punched her in
the face. Her head snapped back. White lights exploded behind her
eyelids. She staggered, and another blow hit her in the stomach.
Locusts scrambled into her eyes, blinding her. Her head snapped
around as another blow caught her on the side of the head.
    From the corner of her eye she saw the
knight open its jaws. Another swarm of locusts flew out, and fifty
more locust-men formed and attacked.
    She leaped at her attacker, only to be
grabbed from the back again. A second locust-man leaned in, smiled
a contorted locust grin, pulled back its arm, and curled it into a
fist. Then it punched Kara in the stomach, like a shot from a
cannon. She felt her angel shell shatter as the creature’s fist
punctured her stomach.
    The creature pulled back its hand, and light
seeped from the deep wound in her chest. Even before she gasped at
the piercing pain, she felt the scurrying and digging of tiny

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