The 13th: Destiny Awaits (23 page)

That was weird. Kate touched her swollen lips, a stupid smile that she couldn't erase playing on her face. With a soft sigh she closed her eyes. He had kissed her when there was nothing to gain. “Maybe he really does like me,” she whispered to herself.

The sound of a muffled scream, like somebody was on the other side of the window, made Kate open her eyes. A pale green blur hovered before her. After a few seconds, Kate took off the pendant, put it on the chest of drawers beside her and a ghost floated before her. It was Yuki.

“He is mine,” the ghost hissed, her words heavily accented.

Hadn’t Ethan said that Yuki was gone? “Yuki?”

“He is mine,” the girl repeated, her energy spreading from her hair to her dress, fluttering in the air like a sheet in the wind. “You not have him.”

The girl was losing her aura. “Do you know who I am?”

Yuki become angrier, the edges of her energy turned white. She screamed at Kate in what Kate assumed was Japanese, “Watashino. Ethan wa watashino. Tsuneni.”

Kate imagined the sickle and the handle of the curved blade appeared in her hand, but she hid it behind her back. “I don't know what that means.” Not literally anyway. “But if you hadn't noticed, you are dead, and he's still alive.”

The girl screamed as she charged at Kate.

Kate brandished her tool at the girl, expecting her to doge it, but she didn't and the blade ripped though the girl's arm. A dot of light shot from it and images of the girl's memories poured into Kate's mind together with the feeling of obsession she had for Ethan.

Another scream, this time Yuki attacked her from the side.

The door of the room opened. “What --” Ethan froze in the doorway.

Kate wheeled around and with a thought, the sickle become the scythe, which she thrust forward. The blade cut through Yuki's middle. The beam of pale green light exploded and when it vanished, Yuki was gone.

Good riddance. “You owe me one.” Kate moved to the bed and sank down on it. She rubbed her eyes before she faced Ethan, who stood by the door. “A big one. That girl...” She couldn't decide whether to be annoyed or to welcome the images of a naked Ethan that she had glimpsed in the girl's memory. He had nice abs and a very nice back, but there was too much nudity for Kate's taste.

“What?” Ethan came closer. “Why are you blushing?”

Kate cleared her throat. She hadn’t just seen snapshots of the girl stalking Ethan, but something that she thought Ethan would find interesting. “For reaping her you owe me a favour, big one, right?”

“Yes.”

“Well, you actually owe me two.”

“For Sandra, right?”

She had forgotten about Sandra. Too much had happened. “Three then.”

“I do?”

“Yes.” Kate nodded. “Because I'm going to tell you that the girl's suicide was an accident. She didn't want to die, just to scare you enough to get your attention, but she cut too deeply.”

Ethan walked closer. “Are you sure?”

With the stones on his gloves he could look into ghost's memories, too, why hadn't he used them? She asked him that.

“Too afraid of what I would see.”

“Ah,” Kate said.

Ethan shuffled his feet, his brows furrowed. An awkward silence stretched between them. “Thank you. You know, for getting rid of her.”

She nodded.

“And sorry about earlier. I didn't think and... well, you better get some sleep, right?” He moved backwards. “I won't bother you anymore.” He slipped out the door.

That was weird. He looked so embarrassed. Kate lay down, her legs dangling from the edge of the bed. She covered her eyes with her hand. She felt tired, quite ready for that nap she needed to take, but would she ever be able to sleep?

Kate took a deep breath before she rolled her head and wiggled her shoulders. She was in her spirit form. When she lowered her gaze, she encountered two heads turned toward her body, which occupied the left side of Mandy's bed.

Ethan had left the house a while ago, to go to Kate's house where he would leave his body and then in his spirit form return home for her. He was still afraid that his mother would find his body and make a fuss about it. Kate tried to convince him otherwise, but Mandy took Ethan’s side. She told Kate how hard it was for their parents when Ethan locked himself in his apartment. They’d had to break in, and they found him dehydrated and unconscious. Their mother hadn't come to herself for weeks. They trusted him enough to let him go wherever he wanted and do whatever he wanted, but they didn’t trust him enough to allow him to lock himself in his room.

Mandy crawled to the head of the bed and poked Kate's cheek. “Do you think she can feel that?”

Kate materialized the scythe and touched Mandy with it. According to Ethan, Mandy had an inkling of sight, which Ethan had never bothered to see if he could expand with his stones, but she couldn't see spirits clearly. “Actually I do.” Just a hint of it and from a distance. It was weird. But in her life most things were weird.

“I can see you.” Mandy stared up at her, then her eyes darted beyond Kate. “And him, too.”

“See who?” Tyler moved closer to her, his eyes trailed her gaze.

Kate turned. Ethan was already there, behind her.

“Kate. And Ethan.”

“Are you ready?” Ethan asked her, the gloves on his hands glittering red.

No, but they had wasted too much time already and she couldn't dilly-dally. “I have a bad feeling about this.”

“There's nothing to be afraid of, we are just going to let them know about Nanael and about the Eater and let them handle things.”

“Yeah.” That was the plan, but in her experience, nothing ever went as planned. Well, except with Sandra, that had gone even better than planned, surprisingly.

“Kate?” Red energy touched Kate's arm.

“Yeah, I'm ready, I'm ready.” They had merged their energy before, but not in the way needed for the portal. That was what made her hesitate. If they fully merged, could he read her mind, could he learn about her feelings for him?

“No, you’re not.” Ethan floated closer, she could feel him against her back. “But we are going to do this anyway.”

His energy tickled as it dove into her and thoughts that weren’t hers poured into her mind until she couldn't distinguish them from her own. When she looked down her arm, their energy glowed dark purple.

“Pretty, isn't it?” Ethan said. He lifted their arm. It held a weapon that wasn't a scythe, but a snath that widened into a sword; it looked like a spear, with a wide blade at the end of it. The vine was gone, replaced by two rose buds whose thorny stems wove around the shaft.

To call a portal they had to focus on the Tree of Souls, on the life and hope that it represented, and on the beginning of the circle of life.

She had never seen the tree. Neither of them had, but they had both seen a picture of it in the handbook, of a heavy branched tree devoid of leaves but with colourful dots of light that hovered high above the sky, pools of water under it that cascaded down until they were hidden behind the small black city.

She could see it in their mind.

The space before her rotated. One part of the blue wall and the wardrobe gave way to colours, fresh and vibrant. A tree just like in the picture hovered under the sky and sparkling dots of rainbow on blue rained down. It was breathtaking.

“This is it,” Ethan said, his voice coming from their mouth. “We opened it. And it was so... easy.” They flew to the portal, passed through it and found themselves on the edge of an island floating in the darkness, illuminated by the shower of souls and the light-blue light of the worlds encircling it. Were they the other worlds? And which of them was theirs? And which one the original? The book never told anything about the other worlds or even which one was her world; the original, the fourth copy?

“Too easy.” And it worried her. Nothing in her life was easy. “Where to?” she asked as they descended to the grass. In front of them was the beginning of a path cobbled with black stones that shimmered in the light coming from above. The path led toward the houses and towers rising before them. As soon as their feet touched the ground, their energy divided, and the sweet scent of flowers drifted over them.

They went toward the city. They passed the first row of houses, then the next. The deeper into the city they went, the larger the buildings became while their footsteps echoed through empty, deserted streets. The windows were dark and there was no light coming from under the doors.

“The Black City, Nanael called it,” Ethan said, his voice loud in the silence.

“What is that?” Kate pointed at the silver light coming from the highest tower in weak, hardly visible waves.

“I don't know.”

Their step quickened.

“And why is it so quiet?”

“I wish I knew that,” Ethan said.

From the left came the sound of marching and the clatter of steel. They followed the sound and walked into a street that spread into a square with silver and black obelisks in the middle of it. Men in black shining armour, gripping black spears, passed them without even glancing in their direction, their faces, visible under pointed helmets, glowed in the colours of their auras.

“Hey,” Ethan yelled and ran after them, Kate right behind him. “Where are you going?”

The last in the row turned. “Can't you see the Silver? We have an intruder.” Then he was back in the line.

“An intruder.” Kate wrapped her hand around Ethan's arm and pulled him back. “Us?”

“I don't think so,” Ethan said, but he stopped following the troop. “Could it be possible that...?”

“What?”

“You thought that the Eater wanted Nanael for feeding, right? That he feeds on the living because of the absence of pain. What if...” He rubbed the back of his neck, his eyes troubled. “It sounds impossible, but... What if he wanted Nanael as a ticket to get into the 13th?”

“Why would he want to go to the 13th? Oh.” Her pupils widened. “To feed. Of course. To feed.” She lifted her gaze toward the tree and the rain of colourful sparks.

“We should go up there.” Ethan took hold of her hand and dragged her up the road that led to the highest point, to the centre of the 13th where a tall black tower rose above the city.

“And how do you propose we get there?” Kate tugged him backwards.

“We are in our spiritual form, aren't we?”

“Like everything else in this world.” Kate touched the wall of the house nearby and caressed the cold and marble-smooth surface. It felt solid and real and it was, but like everything in the 13th, it was made out of spiritual energy, which she felt vibrating against her fingertips. Black energy. White and black energies were void of auras and, as such, not of interest to Eaters. That's why they never fed on one another.

“Come on.” Ethan's feet separated from the ground.

“I don't know if I can.”

“Of course you can, and if you can't...” A small smile bloomed on his face, and he lowered himself down to wrap his arms around her middle and drew her against his side. “I'm just going to carry you up, aren’t I?”

They rose up and after a while Kate could float on her own, but just in case, she held onto Ethan's hand. They flew past the pools, up, up, until they reached the highest pool, the Pool of Memories. All the souls, the ones falling from every direction of the sky and the ones lowering from the tree's branches, gathered in it.

The Eater should be there, at the source, but he wasn't. There was only the pool of lights.

“Maybe I was wrong.” Ethan descended until he stood on one of the large black stones that framed the pool. “Maybe the intruder is not an Eater and Nanael's disappearance has nothing to do with the alarm, or whatever that Silver was.”

Whispers rose up in the pit and the lights moved, producing jingling sounds. An olive green ball of light rose from above others and the rest parted to clear its path.

Kate pointed at it. “Look, it's moving.”

When it reached the edge where they stood, they leaned over it and an old face with a beard stared at them from the orb. “Youngsters,” it said with a disapproving tone. “Sightseeing when they should be down there, fighting for the existence of the 13th.” He clicked his tongue.

“Fighting for the existence? If so, shouldn't you look more disturbed?” Ethan's brows arched.

“We, the souls, are rarely disturbed,” it said.

“Unless the Oldest is sharing a tale of his adventures.” A small sphere of blue shyly peeked up then hid behind the bigger orbs.

“The Oldest?” Kate squatted down, her arms, crossed at the wrist, dangled over her knees.

“That would be me.” The green orb lifted slightly up as if puffing its chest. “I have been here the longest. One of the few whose souls have been present in all twelve worlds, before the 13th lost the world's light for the first time.”

“I see. Can you help us then?” Kate asked. “What does the silver light mean? And where is everybody?”

“A Soul Eater penetrated the wall of the 13th, they have it surrounded in the library.”

“How do you know?” Ethan inquired.

A thin stick-like arm emerged from the side of the soul and pointed down. Their eyes followed it and saw a troop of soldiers disappearing into a long building that stood nearby the highest tower.

“We have to go there.” Ethan's hand found Kate's.

“What can we do? He's not a normal, average Eater.”

“But they never are,” the Oldest said. “If they were, they would have never found their way into the 13th.”

#

Fear crawled under Kate's skin, getting stronger and stronger with each step she took toward the building whose windows emitted the white light. She would have turned and run away if not for Ethan's hand warm against her. She wanted to wiggle it free and wipe her clammy palm against her shirt. She had left her body lying on the bed in Mandy's room. How could she sweat without it?

“It's going to be okay,” Ethan encouraged her.

How many times had she said that to herself, and then things blew up in her face? “I can't, please, don't make me.”

“Make you what?” He stopped at the stairs leading into the library, strange symbols on the arch above it.

“I can't defeat him, I tried.”

“We’re not going to do anything, the soldiers are there, aren't they?”

“Then what? Why do we need to go there?”

“To make sure it's the right Eater and find out from it where Nanael is. Even if it's 'your' Eater, he might not have Nanael with him. If that's the case, then we have to figure out where she is, right?”

“I guess,” Kate said even though she didn't feel reassured.

They walked through the open double doors, tall, heavy and wide, and made out of the same black material as the walls. In the round hall they climbed up the stairs that circled up the wall. Golden glitter coming from the walls illuminated the staircase in a hushed glow, drawing the railing’s soft shadows on the ground below. They pursued a low noise that guided them into a gallery that opened into a long, three-story high hall, with shelves upon shelves that filled the hall and lined the walls. They stood in the second gallery of the hall. Kate saw overturned shelves just below the gallery, the soldiers around them formed a circle. And in the middle of it...

She took a deep, shaky breath as her eyes landed on the white light of the Eater, whose face shimmered with Nan's features. He had merged with her, like Kate and Ethan had, to enter the 13th. And he was using her even now, he had to be; Nan's face was twisted in pain.

The soldiers attacking the Eater were shoved away every time, no matter if it was one, two, three or four at a time. One flew by them in an arc, hitting the wall with a loud thud and then in a rattle landed on the floor of the gallery.

The loud, jagged laugh of the Eater reached them. “You can't best me, nobody can.”

“The Reaper of your world can,” one of the soldiers shouted out before he attacked the white creature just to end broken on the ground by the shattered bookshelves.

“Not even the Reaper can.”

“What is it talking about?” Ethan crouched beside the half-conscious soldier whose aura shone in a light orange.

“A Soul Eater... highly evolved like this...” The soldier closed his eyes.

“Yes?” Ethan shook him.

“Only the Reaper of his world can destroy him.” The man's voice was thin and barely audible.

It couldn't be true, it couldn't, because if it was... the Eater was here to stay.

“Why don't you call her then? Why are you attacking him despite knowing that you can't beat him?”

“Because...”

Ethan shook him again.

Kate squatted down and tried to pry Ethan's hand off the man's armour. “He's injured and he has lost a lot of his colour.”