Across the Universe (13 page)

              “Never.”

              Elli approaches me, grabbing my arms and digging her nails into my flesh. Her face is inches from mine as she spits her venom into my ear. “Oh, you will, dear girl. You will, or I’ll kill Noah. I’ll kill everyone. Your choice is simple. Fulfill the prophecy, or watch as I destroy every last member of The House.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

              Elli follows me to the Watch Room, her eyes on my every move as I walk in front of her. She directs me along a path I’m unfamiliar with. The halls are empty and ominous.

              “So what is it you plan to do with the Key once I bring him to you?” I ask, trying to buy time.

              “I thought that part would be obvious. I plan to access the mystical power of The House and use it to take over this place,” Elli replies.

              “And then what? Destroy all the known universes? Sit up here alone with the Harbingers and your dusty old books for the rest of eternity?”

              “Oh, I’m going to do something much better than that. I’ll take the power and use it to create my own universes. I’ll become judge, jury, and executioner for whole worlds. Guided evolution, I think the term is. It’ll be so much better than what the idiot Leaders have us do now.”

              I glance over my shoulder. Her expression is one of greed and pride. “So you think you can do better than them. That you can undo billions of years of their work and start fresh with new laws and rules.”

              Elli’s voice raises several octaves out of anger. “There will be no laws or rules. There will be only me. I won’t have to deal with Dante or Nim or any of the others. The life forms I make will worship me as their maker. I’ll get to be all of the things we previously had to choose from: Watcher, Archiver, Seer, Leader, Aider. My power will be limitless.”

              “And if you fail?”

              “I won’t,” Elli snarls. “You’ll bring me my Key like I told you to, because if you don’t, I’ll destroy everyone and everything you care about. I might not be able to bring Noah here on my own, but I can go to Earth and kill him with my bare hands.”

              “And then you’ll never get what you want,” I say.

              Elli shrugs, acting completely unfazed by my rebuttal. “Let’s say you can overlook the death of Noah. But what about Nim and all the other members of The House? Can you really live with the idea of causing all those deaths?” She points to a turn in the hall up ahead and adds, “Go left here.”

              I round the corner and find myself a few halls away from the Watch Room. The corridor is crowded again, full of bodies that jostle around me. I take one look back at Elli—at the ruthless sneer pasted onto her lips—and I know it doesn’t matter what I do. She plans to destroy everything anyway, whether I act as she asks or not.

              In a split second I make my move, maneuvering sideways so that a group of House members come between Elli and me. The crowd blocks off her line of sight and then I am running down the hall and around the corner, slipping through conversations and flustered shouts. Elli is close behind me; I hear people crashing to the ground as she plows through them in her effort to reach me.

              A flurry of screams fill the air and I glance back long enough to see streaks of black smoke shoot through the air above me. House members throw their arms overhead and duck as the Harbingers careen toward me, drawing ever nearer.

              The black clouds reach me and spin around my arms and legs, trying to trip me up. I flail and kick at the smoke, never allowing the mist to form a solid hold on my body. One of the Harbingers swirls in front of my eyes and I’m lost in a haze of darkness until I collide with something solid. I hear an
OOPMH
and I bounce back, falling to the ground and out of the smoke.

              The person I ran into stands above me, screaming wildly and batting at the Harbingers as they flit around her. I’m back on my feet, ready to dart around them, when a pair of hands grabs my shoulders and spins me around.

              Elli glowers at me, her tangled hair circling her head like a lion’s mane as she claws her nails into my skin so hard they draw silver. My blood stains the collar of my dress as I fight against her grip.

              “You can’t get away from me that easy,” she growls.

              I wrench back, form a fist, and swing my arm at her right cheek. She goes down hard, releasing me and sliding backwards across the marble floor until a pair of feet halts her movement. The person bends down, helping her up, and points to me.

              “She’s escaped! Get her!” he yells.

              Dante.

              Elli shoves him off of her and barrels down the hall in my direction again. I am now being pursued by two foes instead of one and my heart hammers in my chest as my brain tries to wrap itself around my odds of survival. In my haste to escape I make a wrong turn and suddenly I am sprinting past a row of bedrooms. I’m dismayed until I see Nim standing up ahead in front of her chamber, making her way toward me.

              “Amara! What are you doing out of the Archives Room? You were supposed to stay out of sight until I could go search for evidence,” Nim says. I grab her arm and drag her back into her bedroom, slamming the door shut behind us. “What do you think you’re doing?” she continues. “Dante could see you.”

              “He already has,” I say, “but that’s not the worst of our problems.”

              Nim raises her eyebrows. “Oh? And what could be worse than getting cast into the void?”

              A shadow flickers across the crack in the bottom of the door and I put a finger to my lips, silencing her. I can hear Dante’s muffled shouting coming from the hall.

              “Figure out how she escaped and where she disappeared to. And find Elli the Archiver, too. I want to know what her outburst was about.”

              His footsteps trail off into the distance, and I give a sigh of relief.

“It’s been Elli all along, Nim,” I say before she can ask any more questions. “She’s the one trying to get to the Key, but she needs me to bring it to her. She’s threatening to kill Noah and everyone else in The House if I don’t do as she says.”

“What’s Noah got to do with any of this?” she asks.

“Noah
is
the Key. I’m connected to him. It’s all part of some big prophecy and—oh, Nim! That’s beside the point. I need to get to Noah. I need to warn him that Elli’s coming to kill him before she gets there. I have to protect him from her, and while I’m gone you have to warn The House.”

Nim pales, her expression haunted. “Are you sure it’s Elli? I don’t see how it could be. She’s the one that encouraged me to help you in the first place.”

“Exactly! She wanted you to let me out so I could bring Noah to her. Now please, Nim; focus. We’ve got to get to the Watch Room. The fate of all the universes depends on it.”

“O—okay,” she stammers. “But it won’t be easy. We’ll have to sneak past Dante and his helpers, and hope we don’t run into Elli on the way.”

“Not to mention the Harbingers. They’re floating around out there, too.”

Nim gulps, steps over to the door, and opens it a crack. Sticking her head out to make sure the hall is clear, she pulls me out after her. We pad down the corridor back the way I came on our way to the Watch Room. Nim jumps at every sound, her hand clenching around mine.

“It’ll be okay,” I tell her. “I promise I’ll fix all of this, Nim. I won’t let you down.”

She eyes me carefully before replying. “You’ve never let me down, Amara. No matter what happens, you must know that I’m proud of you.”

We’re in front of the Watch Room now, and despite my desire to get to Noah, I throw my arms around Nim’s neck. She blushes, her cheeks burning against my shoulder as she leans into the embrace and gently pats my back.

“How touching,” a derisive voice says.

We leap away from each other and turn around. Elli stands across the hall, black smoke curling around her arms and legs. Slowly the clouds morph into hooded figures, flanking her on either side. House members inch away, forming a wide circle around the scene. They stare at Elli and the Harbingers with a mix of fear and curiosity.

“I won’t let you get to Noah,” I say, guarding the door to the Watch Room with my back.

Elli throws her head back and laughs. The sound is hoarse and echoes around the hall like the shriek of a ghost. A purple welt blossoms on one her right cheek, the edges rimmed in yellow. “I don’t need to get to Noah to hurt you,” she says when she’s done. “There are other options. Your dear mentor, for instance, would make a lovely sacrifice.”

Nim steps in front of me, holding her arms out wide. Her hands tremble, as do her words. “L—le—leave her alone. Dante will throw you into the void for your treason.”

“Dante doesn’t even suspect me. He’s too busy accusing Amara of my troublemaking. And even if these fools surrounding us tell him what they’ve seen, I can’t be stopped. It’s been foretold in the prophecy. The House will fall either way. As for you, Nim—the House member who can barely stand to bend the rules, let alone break them—your fate falls on Amara’s shoulders. She should know that before I kill you.”

Elli reaches in her pocket and extracts a long, silver blade. It’s tarnished, just like the knobs on all of the doors, and the sharp end glints maliciously in the light. Elli waves the blade at one of the Harbingers, and then points the tip at Nim.

“Take the crowd. As for these two, only the older one. Leave the girl to me.”

The Harbingers lift their skeletal hands and pull back their hoods, revealing the hideous skulls underneath. Oily black skin and red tendrils of muscle weave around sets of glowing red eyes as they stare out at the crowd. One by one the throng falls to the ground, one atop the other, until a blanket of House members covers the hall.

A single Harbinger glides forward, setting its sights on Nim. She collapses into my arms as the entity’s power overtakes her. I try to support her—to hold her up—but she’s too heavy and she slides to the ground at my feet. I bend down with her, letting her head loll in my lap.

Nim’s eyes flutter weakly as Elli approaches. “No,” my mentor moans. Her words are slurred from fatigue. “Please, think about what you’re doing. The House needs to be in existence for the sake of the universes. If you destroy it, they’ll be left without Watchers. There will be no one to care for them.”

“Of course you’d say that,” Elli snarls. “You weren’t around in the beginning to see how things went before the rules. The truth is, the universes don’t need to be watched at all. They don’t need Harbingers to fly down and destroy them when the Seers proclaim it’s time for them to end. If left alone, worlds flourish and die in their own time. The way I see it, the only thing The House does is get in the way. That’s why I want to build my own universes—ones that I rule over completely. Then there will be a point to my existence, beyond caring for a bunch of musty old books.”

She kneels down, brushing her hand across Nim’s cheek, and I flinch as if it is my own. Elli sees my reaction and turns her gaze on me. “Stupid little girl,” she says. “You could’ve listened to me, and none of this would be happening. But you forced my hand, and now I have no choice but to show you how serious I truly am.”

And then Elli lifts the dagger above her head, gripping the end with both hands as she plunges the blade down, down toward Nim’s heart.

Chapter Twenty-Three

              As the blade plummets toward Nim’s heart, I wrap my arms around her shoulders and roll to the side. Nim’s dead weight is too heavy for me to drag completely out of the way but at least I divert the path of the dagger. Elli can’t stop her momentum in time and she gives a warrior cry as the sharp tip sinks into Nim’s upper leg.

              Silver blood spills out of the wound, dripping into a puddle underneath her. Nim shrieks in pain, spasms clenching her muscles as her eyes go wide and fearful.

              “No!” I shout, lunging forward to claw at Elli. She yanks the dagger out of Nim’s flesh and jumps out of my grasp. More silver spurts from my mentor’s leg and I clasp my hand over the wound, trying to stay the bleeding.

              “Go now,” Elli tells her Harbingers. “Put the rest of The House to sleep. I can’t let them get in my way.”

              The Harbingers glide away—all but one that stays to guard Elli like a faithful watchdog. I want to lunge at her again—to tear her apart limb from limb—but I can’t leave Nim, not when she lies injured on the ground.

              “Don’t worry,” Elli says. “I’m not killing anyone just yet, not unless you cross me again. But as for poor Nim here—I plan to finish what I started.”

              She draws the blade up again and I lean over Nim’s frame, protecting her heart from the path of the dagger. Elli is unfazed, tensing her arms to send the pointed end straight through my shoulder so that it reaches its destination—

              “What in the name of The House is going on here?” Dante bellows from somewhere off to my left. When I look up he is stumbling over stirring bodies, a group of fellow Leaders trailing behind him. The puddle of blood that drains from Nim’s leg causes him to go white as a sheet. His eyes dart between the injury and Elli, who wields the dagger over her head. “Elli! What have you done?”

              Elli doesn’t pause to think. She doesn’t flinch or speak. Instead she leaps forward, dragging Dante by the collar so that he comes to stand before her, and pulls the dagger across his throat. It seems like it happens in slow motion, and as she does it I stand and advance on her. I get there a moment too late, careening into her stomach as Dante crumples to the floor.

              I land on top of Elli, my head turned to the side so that I stare at the fallen Leader. His eyes are wild and pleading as silver spurts from the gash on his neck; he tries to speak but his words only come out as labored gurgles. Then his chests stops rising and falling and he goes still.

              The other Leaders run toward us but the Harbinger gives them one red stare and they slow, fighting against the draining fatigue that overtakes them. One of them manages to breach the fallen crowd and reach us. He wrenches me off of Elli, tossing me backward onto Nim as he leans down to grab her. Elli has but to extend her hand and the dagger penetrates through his torso, the tip going so deep that it emerges from his back. The man collapses on top of her and she shoves him off, springing to her feet.

              One after another Leaders stumble over to her through the haze of the Harbinger’s power. Some of them target the Harbinger instead, trying to break its hold over them, but the entity’s force is stronger and it brings them to their knees. The hall becomes a blur of senseless shapes and figures as I lie atop Nim, protecting her from the skirmish. A foot lashes out, catching me in the gut by accident, and I roll over in the fetal position, coming to rest several feet away.

              I am on the outer edge of the chaos. Nim lies helpless in the center of it all, unprotected from Elli’s blade. I can’t leave her like that, not after all she’s done for me, so I grit my teeth, clutch my injured side, and stand.

              Staggering back out into the fray, I grab Nim under her arms and drag her slowly down the hall. Swaths of blood soak my path and I slip multiple times in puddles of the stuff; I’m no longer sure if it’s Nim’s or Dante’s or one of the other countless Leaders that Elli is butchering in the hall.

              Nim moans as I move her. The noise somehow reaches Elli through the den and she looks up, her eyes turning frantic. She pushes past fumbling Leaders on her way over to us, casting the dagger over her head.

              I duck and grab onto Nim’s arm, turning us to smoke in an instant. I swarm around her cloud form, directing her toward the watch room. Elli bats at the air with her weapon but the knife slides harmlessly through us, and as we wisp under the door of the Watch Room she slams her weight into the wood and screams in rage.

              I focus on solidity and we become whole again, bodies hunched on the floor. The doorknob starts to turn and I still it with my hand, pulling against Elli’s push. The frame rattles as I hold it shut, putting my whole weight against her efforts. Away from the Harbingers, Nim begins to recover, moaning loudly and struggling to sit up.

              “Don’t exert yourself,” I say. “Keep pressure on your wound.”

              “You’ve got to barricade the door,” she says.

              Nim crawls backward across the floor, dragging her legs in front of her and leaving a swath of silver in her wake. Once she reaches me she leans her back against the door. “Go,” she orders again. “Find something heavy and drag it over here.”

              I release the door and rush across the room, hauling one of the heavy basins back with me. It feels like it’s twice my weight and my muscles burn in a way I never thought possible as I pull it in front of the door. Nim scoots out of the way and I step back, watching the doorknob rattle and the frame shake. Still, Elli can’t move the weight of the basin.

              “You’re forcing my hand again, Amara,” she shouts. “You won’t like what you see when you come out of that room.”

              “It’s a whole House against one Archiver,” I reply, raising my voice so that it penetrates the wood. “I’ll take my chances.”

              “So be it.”

              The knob ceases to rattle and all goes silent but for the muffled grunts of Leaders on the other side of the door. Then the gray smoke starts to come, wisps of it floating in from the crack underneath. I lunge forward, waving my hands to waft Elli’s cloud form away. As I do Nim pulls her dress over her head and tosses it to me. She is left in nothing but a thin white slip that is slick against her skin from blood and sweat.

              “Stuff it under the door,” she says.

              I do as I’m told, rolling the dress up and blocking the opening. The smoke recedes and a bellow of ire vibrates through the door. I brace myself for another attack but none comes, and the air becomes silent again. An unease falls over me as I wonder what Elli’s scheming out of sight.

              “Do you think the Leaders will overpower her?” I ask Nim.

              “I don’t know. The Harbingers are strong, and with them on her side she doesn’t even need to do the killing herself. She can just order them around and wipe out everyone in The House.”

              Nim winces, leaning into her injured leg. I kneel by her side and split the seam of my dress, ripping free a length of the hem and tying it around the knife wound. “Can you walk?” I ask.

              Nim tries to lift herself up, gasps in agony, and falls back to the floor. “No,” she says. “The pain is too much.”

              I come to sit beside her, staring at the only full basin in the room. My universe floats above it, the swirling galaxies within projecting onto the walls around us. “She’ll get inside eventually, and who knows how she’ll bide her time until then.”

              “You need to go warn Noah. Tell him of the threat against his life. The Key must be protected.”

              “And what about you? I’m not leaving you here to be slaughtered.”

              Nim tries to laugh but the sound comes out as a grumble instead. “I’ll be fine, dear.”

              “No. You’re just as important to me as Noah is.”

              “Amara; listen to me. Even if Elli kills every last one of us—even if she murders all the Leaders and Aiders and Watchers and Seers—you must survive. You must rebuild The House. It’s up to you now.”

              Tears spill from my eyes. “But it’s all my fault. I should’ve just done what she asked. Gone to get Noah and brought him back to her.”

              “And then what? Do you actually think she would’ve let us live?” Nim raises a hand to my cheek, leaving a print of silver on my skin as she cradles my head. “There is no right answer here. No obvious outcome. There is only her and you, and you must make sure she doesn’t take over The House. Evolution is unguided for a reason, Amara, just like some doors are locked. Universes aren’t meant to be ruled or conquered.”

“
The Key will be brought into these walls by a Watcher, who will then unlock the mystical force that powers our institution. With this power she will either destroy universes or save them, but either way, The House will suffer a terrible end
,” I repeat verbatim. “That’s what the prophecy says. I think it means The House will be destroyed either way.”

Nim purses her lips and draws her hand back. “Like I said, universes aren’t meant to be ruled or conquered. They are simply
meant to be
. We in The House are the lucky few who get to watch that happen, but nothing can last forever. We are not what’s important. It’s the life that matters; the universes stored within the orbs. Save those, and even if every last one of us is snuffed out, all will be right.”

              I lean my head on her shoulder and sob. I cry until I think I have no tears left to spill, and then I pull away. “This is the end,” I say. “Whichever road I take, this is it.”

              “Do you love this boy, Noah?” she asks.

              I nod. “Yes. Yes; I think I do.”

              “Then you have lived more than me. More than any of us.”

“I suppose I have.”

Nim manages a small grin. “Now go, Amara. Protect the Key. And don’t you dare come back. You can hide on Earth and gather your strength. Form a plan. And years from now, you can return and take back this place as your own.”

“You should come with me. You can help.”

Nim presses her fingers against the makeshift bandage knotted around her leg. “What if Elli comes in here and makes it to Earth after us? I can’t run with you. I can’t even stand. It’s a silly thing to even consider.”

“Two Watchers are better than one.”

“I’ve made my decision,” Nim says firmly. “There’s no changing my mind. Leave me here. If anything terrible happens while you’re gone—if Elli breaks in and tries to come for you—I will enter your universe and warn you with my dying breath.”

This is when I say goodbye. I wrap my arms around her, pulling her into an embrace, and whisper my thanks in her ear. She strokes my hair and ducks out of my grasp, dragging herself backward so that she leans against the door and adds more weight to the barricade. Then I come to stand before the basin, turn to smoke, and fly into the stars and blackness beyond.

I swim through galaxies and past planets, shooting through Earth’s atmosphere and landing next to the cabin in the mountaintop clearing. Night sets the whole place in shadows, the moonlight tinting the grass blue. Running to the window, I look inside.

There is no one there. No fire billows in the hearth; no body sleeps on the bed. Noah does not swim in the spring or lie on the grass.

He is gone, and I am alone, lost in a world I barely understand.