“Same here. Could I ask a favor?”
“What?”
“You may not have noticed this, but while we’ve been talking, a dark spot has grown between your eyebrows. It keeps getting bigger.”
Sheri reached her hand up and felt around. “There’s a lump.”
“I know what it is.”
“What?”
“It’s the implant the Entity placed inside you. It’s coming out.”
“Why now?”
“Because it cannot stand love.”
Sheri snorted. “I cannot stand love! If there was no love in my life, my heart wouldn’t be broken right now. To hell with your love. It doesn’t fix anything. Hector—Tulas—he’s still dead!”
“ ‘To hell with your love.’ That’s an interesting quote. Since we’re both about to die, I want you to come with me into the blue light. I don’t want you to go to the Entity.” Ali paused. “Let me remove the implant from your head. It’s coming out anyway.”
“I don’t deserve your help.”
“Do it as a favor to me. Please?”
Sheri shrugged. “If you don’t mind getting your hands messy.”
Ali leaned over and, using the nail on her right thumb, she poked a hole in the space between her sister’s eyebrows. The crystal shard was about to pop through the surface, anyway, so it was easy for Ali to pluck it out. Using a handkerchief from her pocket, she wiped away the blood. She tossed the implant down the tunnel, toward the bomb.
“How do you feel?” Ali asked.
“I have a headache.”
“Doren . . .”
Her sister reached over and hugged her. “I feel free. And I feel . . . I feel your love.” She let go of her, and Ali was surprised to see her sobbing now. She added, “That’s why you have to leave. All the damage that’s going to happen . . . The world will need you to help pick up the pieces.”
Ali stood and stretched out her hand. “I’ll leave if you come with me.”
Sheri put a hand to her head. “Seriously, I do have a headache. A bad one. I don’t think I can fly. When you took that thing off me . . .” Sheri didn’t finish.
“What?” Ali asked.
“I don’t think I can live without it.”
Ali shook her head. “We just have to get out of here is all.”
Wincing in pain, Sheri checked the time again. Since Ali had taken the implant out, her sister had turned white as a bedsheet. Holding a hand to her head, Sheri lay down and curled up. Her voice came out weakly.
“Go. Honestly, my strength is gone. I just want to lie here beside Hector.”
“But . . .”
Sheri was fading, but she had enough strength left for tears. “You’ve only two minutes left. Please go, at least for Nira’s sake. I need you there to take care of her. I need to know . . . she has a mother.”
Ali plopped back down beside her sister and stroked her back.
“It’s all right. Everything’s going to be all right now,” Ali said.
Sheri had closed her eyes. Her voice came out very faint.
“I do love you, you know,” she whispered.
Ali sniffled. “I’ve always known it.”
Another minute passed. Another thirty seconds.
A half-minute to go. Now there was no possibility of escape.
Her cell phone rang. Hector’s cell. It was incredible that she could get reception inside the cave. It must have been that weird attachment Nemi had insisted she plug into the phone.
Ali flipped open the cell. “Hello?”
“Hello, Ali. It’s me.”
“Who? Wait! Nemi?”
“Of course. Do you have a minute?”
“I have twenty-five seconds.”
“Hmm. I’m not sure if that’s enough time.”
As Doren lifted her sword to cut off Geea’s head, her stance wavered. It was as if the last drop of energy had just left her body. Staggering around her sister, the sword fell from her hand and she dropped to the ground and rolled on her back. Still bleeding badly, Geea crawled to her side.
Ra ran over as fast as he could.
“What’s the matter?” Geea asked her sister. A bulge had appeared in Doren’s forehead. Sharp and purple, it looked like a small chip of amethyst. As Doren began to gasp for breath, Geea used her nails and pinched it from her sister’s head, throwing it into the flowing river. Even though she was bleeding from serious wounds, Geea managed to cradle Doren in her lap. “Tell me what’s happening!” she pleaded.
Doren smiled. “You know our human halves. They’re really our better halves.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because their lives are so frail, their love has to be real.” Doren reached up and brushed her sister’s red hair. “I was just teasing when I said you looked better with short hair. Don’t ever cut it. I love it . . . this way.”
Geea had tears in her eyes. “The spell is broken?”
Doren nodded. “The purple light is gone. Now . . . I must go.”
Geea hugged her. “Wait! I can heal you! Don’t leave!”
It was too late, Ra saw. She could not live without the implant.
Doren had returned to the home she had come from.
When Nira was finished working with the Yanti, she stood back from the two doors, stared at them a moment, then suddenly reached out and grabbed the green door and took it off and set it aside. Then she seized the yellow door and put it in place of the green door. Finally, she picked up the green door and tucked it where the yellow door had been.
The switch had taken her all of five seconds.
Holding forth the Yanti, she closed her eyes and shone a broad violet beam over the doors. It was not very bright, but it seemed to help seal the doors shut. Now they appeared the same as before—except they had swapped places.
Nira studied her handiwork. “Now comes the tricky part,” she said.
Cindy shuddered. If Nira thought it was tricky, then that meant it probably could destroy the Earth. Nira cracked open the yellow door, and then, placing a foot against it, she stretched out as far as she could and grabbed the green doorknob. Tight.
“What are you doing?” Cindy asked.
“You really don’t want to know,” Nira whispered.
“I do,” Mr. Warner insisted.
Nira spoke without looking over. “The bomb’s in this world—it has to detonate in this world. But because I’ve switched the doors, if I open one and close the other at the right moment, the energy from the blast will exit the yellow world and enter the green world.”
Cindy gasped. “What will that do to the elemental kingdom?”
“Nothing too serious. Clean out Tutor of a lot of unpleasant creatures.”
“How can you time your trick to a millionth of a second?” Mr. Warner asked.
“It would be a lot easier if I didn’t have to keep answering your questions.”
Mr. Warner came close to Nira. “Wait a second! What if Ali’s with that Sheri Smith woman? And she’s got the bomb with her?”
“I cannot worry about that right now.”
“But Ali . . .”
Cindy grabbed Mr. Warner from behind and tried to calm him down, all the while pulling him away from Nira and the doors. “Ali will find a way to escape. She always does. No one equals her when it comes to surviving. Let Nira do her job.”
Mr. Warner hung his head. “It’s just that I can’t lose them both.”
Cindy led him to the far side of the cavern. “Let’s sit over here and keep quiet.”
They were sitting only a minute when a bright glare formed around the yellow door. Nira closed it—and the glare started to form around the green door. Then the child kicked that door shut as well, and leaned on it, hard, as the glare flew off the scale.
It didn’t matter that Cindy shut her eyes. The light swelled inside the center of her brain, and she thought her skull would explode. For sure, she knew she was going to end up like Mr. Havor, blind as a bat, with two bla
ck holes for eyes.
Then, in the space of seconds, all went completely dark.
And the three of them were alone.
Except for the two dead bodies on the ground.
In a silence filled with more shock than peace, they prepared to leave the cavern. A palpable grief hung in the air. The bomb had exploded and it appeared the Earth had escaped unharmed. That was good. Yet there was a feeling in the air that other good things had departed the planet as well.
There came an unexpected knock on the blue door.
Nira hastily strode over and opened it. For a second Cindy was flooded with a light and joy so wonderful, she almost forgot her name. Then it vanished, and she had to blink her eyes just to be able to see.
What she saw was Mr. Warner hugging a beautiful woman in a green gown. They were both weeping for joy. Both calling each other names that seemed to make sense to them, but to no one else.
When they finally parted, Nira stared up at the tall redhaired woman with the soft green eyes. “Amma. Did the ice maidens bring you here?” Nira asked.
Amma hesitated. “I think so. I rode Denzy—the dragon’s kloudar—behind Anglar. Then I found a way out of their den, and sucked in a breath and then flew into space, into the blue light beyond the moon. I prayed they would bring me here.”
Nira nodded. “You were fortunate. They usually don’t help that way.”
The woman knelt beside Nira. “Do you know where Ali is?”
Nira closed her eyes, and it seemed as if she searched behind every door in front of them. In fact, Cindy was sure that was exactly what she was doing. Unfortunately, when she was done, she shook her head.
“Ali is gone,” she said.
Mr. Warner spoke. “What do you mean, she’s gone?”
“Is she dead?” Amma whispered.
“Wherever she is, I can’t find her,” Nira said.
Ali’s Story Will Continue
in the Next Book in the Series,
Nemi
Christopher Pike, The Yanti
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