Before Van could ask any questions, Razor steered him out the door into the dimness. He positioned Van against the wall, far from the foot of the staircase.
“Stay right here,” he said firmly. “Don’t move.”
Van nodded.
Razor turned and strode away, his black coat flaring behind him.
One of the other Holders was lighting lanterns that hung all around the huge, empty chamber. By their flickering light, Van could see the cyclone of dark birds—owls, ravens, crows—that filled the air, screaming as though they’d spotted a fresh carcass. More Holders came pounding through the metal door behind him; others were racing down the stairs above. In the center of the spiraling staircase, something was plunging through the shadows: something silvery and huge, wrapped in a bundle of nets and lowered by ropes.
The Holders formed a tight circle.
“In position!” Razor called. “Open the net!”
Two men pulled at the ropes. A giant Wish Eater surged out onto the stone floor.
This one was shaped like a bull, with hulking shoulders and a body like a freight train. Two long, tapering horns curved out from its head. Instead of hooves, its legs ended in paws like a lion’s. It bellowed, and the entire cavern shook.
“Back it up!” Razor’s slashing hook left a trail like a comet across Van’s vision. “Stitch! Move inward!”
The beast lowered its head and charged. Razor and two other Holders leaped out of its path.
“Over here!” called another—the woman named Eyelet, who’d taken the wishbone. She waved her arms, drawing the Wish Eater’s attention. When it charged again, she stepped aside, sending it straight through the Hold’s door.
“Nets!” called Razor. The Holders whipped out their knotted ropes, forming a cage behind the creature. “Guide it down!”
Van watched as the Holders forced the Wish Eater out of sight. One more bellow rang along the corridor. When its echo had finally died away, Van tiptoed after it, back into the Hold.
Without the horrible roaring to fill it, the broad corridor actually seemed peaceful. Lamplight glimmered over the walls. All the closed doors reminded Van of a hotel hallway late at night, when everyone is asleep in their matching rooms.
He crept back to the peephole in Lemmy’s door.
The Wish Eater had turned slightly in its sleep, so that Van could see its little face. It looked peaceful. Just like it had looked in its shoebox under Van’s bed.
Maybe Razor was telling the truth. The Wish Eaters didn’t seem hurt or sad or scared—at least, not once they were contained. They weren’t being mistreated or abused. They were just . . . safe. It wasn’t so terrible, Van told himself. In fact, it wasn’t so different from the rows and rows of boxes in Mr. Falborg’s hidden room.
Van pressed his palm to the door.
Even if what he really wanted was to open the door, hide Lemmy inside his pajama shirt, and smuggle him straight back to the apartment, he knew he couldn’t. Someone would be sure to see him. And then they would both be caught. Even if the Holders weren’t cruel to the Wish Eaters, he wasn’t sure what they’d do to a traitor. Furthermore, if Razor was telling the truth, Lemmy would eventually grow into the kind of huge, dangerous beast that had just almost chomped Van like a sandwich.
At least he could tell Mr. Falborg what he’d seen. The Wish Eaters weren’t being hurt. They were secure. They were safe.
Van swallowed hard. He pulled his hand from the door.
“Bye, Lemmy,” he whispered.
Chest aching, he turned away.
The air around him began to shimmer.
He turned back.
Far away, in the sunken arena, the Holders were herding the bull-like beast into a waiting cell. Their shouts and bellows faded into nothingness.
Enclosed in a twinkling fog, Van reached for the door of Lemmy’s cell. His hand turned the metal bolt.
Van stared at the hand.
He hadn’t told it to do that.
He hadn’t told his fingers to pry open the metal door, or his body to step back as it swung open.
Lemmy woke.
Its big eyes blinked at Van. Swiftly, it crawled out the door and floated down to the stones. It gazed up at him, beginning to smile.
Panic speared through Van’s chest. What was he doing? Why was he doing it? And how was he doing it without even trying?
Van bent down to scoop Lemmy into his hands, but his body jerked back, mid-motion. He tried again. His hands refused to reach for the Wish Eater. Instead, they turned the bolt on another nearby door. And then another. And another. And another.
Something else was controlling him. Van realized it with a dizzying jolt. Something else was moving him, like a marionette on an invisible stage.
Four more little Wish Eaters clambered down from their cells. Then six. Ten. More.
Van’s hands flew from cell to cell, twisting locks, opening doors. Finally, when a herd of tiny Wish Eaters—some like furry lizards, some like winged squirrels, some like animals Van had never seen or imagined—had joined Lemmy, filling the corridor from wall to wall, Van’s body stopped.
The Wish Eaters turned toward the Hold’s entrance, their noses and ears and little foggy bodies all craning intently in the same direction. Then, like a bunch of dandelion seeds being blown from a stem, they whooshed out through the huge metal door.
Van stood very still.
His body felt strangely heavy, as if the strings that had held him up had suddenly been cut. His head ached. His legs wobbled. Even his arms hurt, like he’d been shoving back against something much bigger and stronger than he was. He felt ill.
Van threw a glance back toward the arena. What would Razor and the other Holders think when they learned what he had done?
They would think he was a traitor.
And maybe he was.
He had to get out of here.
Van lunged out of the Hold.
The shadows of the stairwell closed around him. Even in the dimness, he could tell that the Wish Eaters were not in sight. Where had Lemmy gone? His hand gripped the icy stone banister. He’d raced up only two flights when he heard the sounds.
They were coming from above—shouting, thumping, crashing sounds. They grew thicker around him as he climbed. For the hundredth time that night, Van wished he could reach up and pull out his hearing aids. A ball of dread settled in his stomach. He could guess where those sounds were coming from—and when he reached the next landing, he knew for sure.
The Collection’s double doors hung open. Inside, the chamber was in chaos.
Many bottled wishes had already fallen—or been pushed—from the high shelves. Fireworks of shattered glass pocked the floor. Collectors were shouting. Hawks and ravens screeched. Rodents scurried everywhere, darting out of the way of running feet. As Van watched from the threshold, a green bottle plummeted from halfway up one wall, exploding with a burst of emerald shards and a flash like a tiny shooting star. The flash cometed upward, straight into the open mouth of a creature the size of a Great Dane that hung from a spiral staircase. The creature had long limbs—Van counted six of them—and feet with prehensile, monkey-ish toes, and a mouthful of smoky, pointed fangs.
Two Collectors armed with iron spikes rushed up the staircase toward the long-limbed beast. Out of thin air, a red cloud appeared above the Collectors’ heads. It released a torrent of bloody rain, sending the Collectors tumbling back down the coiling steps. Van could have sworn he saw the beast laugh.
Another Wish Eater, this one already the size of a pony, charged toward a low shelf where a row of Collectors stood guard. At the last moment, the Wish Eater veered to one side, its snakelike tail lashing over the Collectors’ heads and striking the bottles on the shelf above. The Collectors ducked. Glass pelted them as it smashed to the floor. Dozens of silvery wisps whirled up from the broken bottles. Some wisps were snagged again by desperate Collectors, but more were sucked straight into the Wish Eater’s open mouth.
The creature swelled. A flock of shadows seemed to burst out of its body. The shadows wheeled through the air, all sharp beaks and talons and pointed wings, before diving at the Collectors, scattering them in every direction.
“Keep your positions!” Kernel shouted over the cacophony. “Don’t let their magic distract you! Someone sound the alarm!”
Another noise added itself to the fury. It was a mechanical wail that grew louder as it climbed, until Van felt like his skull would pop from the pressure of containing it. Covering his ears, he scanned the Collection again. He could only count four Wish Eaters. This meant that more—many more—must have climbed even higher. Lemmy had to be one of them.
He staggered back toward the staircase.
From below, he could hear the thumping footsteps of the Holders.
“Nets ready!” Razor was shouting. “When we reach the doors, we form a wall. Stitch, Tick, Bullet, you stay in the main chamber. The rest—”
Van didn’t wait to hear more. He pounded up the steps as fast as his legs would lift him. The alarm’s amplifiers hung all around the hollow square of the staircase, so as he climbed, the wail grew louder and louder. Van’s eyes watered. He clenched his teeth so hard he thought they might crumble.
The staircase was getting crowded. Collectors rushed in every direction, nearly knocking Van off his feet. Everyone was too focused on the emergency at hand to give him a second glance. . . . That is, until something with beady black eyes and a beak like a sharpened pencil landed on his shoulder.
The raven stared at Van, its talons digging straight through his pajamas and into his skin. Van recognized Jack’s raven. And it recognized him.
Van’s blood turned to ice water.
The raven took flight, swooping out into the darkness. Van broke into an even faster run.
He scrambled up the steps, tripping once and bashing his knees against the rough stone. No matter how fast he ran, he couldn’t outpace a raven—a raven who had probably already flown to Jack. He had to hide.
At the next landing, he veered through the archway, into the Calendar.
Chaos had reached this chamber too. Several bookcases had toppled like dominoes, scattering heavy black volumes across the floor. Voices shouted. Creatures squealed.
Clambering over a fallen shelf, Van rushed into a corner just past the arch and pressed his back against the cold stone wall. He sank down into a crouch, making himself as small as possible. He had to catch his breath. Once he felt sure that Jack and the guards had lost his trail, he would slip back out again.
On the landing, several pairs of footsteps came to a stop.
“Near here, Lemuel?”
That deep, hard voice. Jack’s voice. Van stiffened.
“Heeeerre!” cawed the bird.
“Beetle, you head up. Rivet, you go down. I’ll take this floor.” The voice tightened. “That little idiot. I swear, when I find him, I’ll throw him straight over the banister.”
Two sets of footsteps faded away.
A third set came closer.
Van held his breath as Jack strode through the archway. The big Collector paused with his back to Van, scanning the chamber. On his shoulder, the raven scanned the room too.
Keeping tight against the wall, Van sidled past the fallen bookshelf. If he could slip out through the arch while Jack’s back was turned, he might be able to get away. Of course, Rivet was hunting for him above. Van slowed. Who wouldn’t be hunting for him as soon as they knew he was to blame?
But he wasn’t really to blame. Someone else had made him unlock those cells. Someone who—Van’s foot bumped a fallen book. It rasped against the floor.
The raven’s head spun toward him.
Before Jack could turn around too, Van shot out through the archway.
He tore up the stairs, hating that his short legs would only let him take one step at a time, too scared to even glance over his shoulder. His heart thumped against the roof of his mouth. His slippers slapped the stone faster and faster—but, Van realized, he couldn’t hear them anymore. At first he thought his heartbeat had drowned out everything else. But even that heartbeat was growing fainter. His wish was wearing off.
At the next landing, he skidded toward the archway into the Atlas. Maybe he could find another hiding spot.
But there, in the middle of the room, shoving tables aside, was Rivet. Van ducked behind a pillar just as Rivet turned. At the same moment, something smoky and winged soared up through the middle of the central staircase. Van felt the gust of wind over his shoulder. He whipped around. A beast that looked like a cross between a dragon and a vulture hovered above the pit, its massive wings beating the air. The Wish Eater let out a puff of green flame, which dissolved an instant later into a hail of plummeting marbles. Collectors screamed on the staircases below.
Van turned back just in time to meet Rivet’s sharp black eyes.
With a little gasp, Van flew through the arch and toward the next staircase. He skidded across a patch of marbles, catching himself on the banister to keep from plunging over. A glossy black wing swept in front of his eyes.
“Heeeerrree!” Lemuel’s voice pierced through the blur. “HEEEEERRRREEE!”
Van glanced down. Two landings below, he could see Jack staring up at him, his eyes like arrows.
Van reached the entry chamber at a full-tilt run. The space had never seemed so huge, the floor so endless. He dodged knots of Collectors, catching sight of Nail at the center of one distraught group.
“He may already—” Nail was saying as Van dashed past, his deep, clear voice sinking back into the noise.
Van looked over his shoulder at last.
Both Jack and Rivet had reached the top of the staircase. Their eyes were honed on Van. And they were getting closer.
Van pelted for the final staircase, the one leading up to the office, and to escape.
He veered around its corner.
A crowd of Collectors stared down at him. They filled the staircase from wall to wall, top to bottom, all of them armed with iron bars and sticky ropes to catch any escaping Wish Eaters.
Or any treacherous boys in flannel pajamas.
“Hey!” Van heard one of the Collectors shout, her voice sounding muted and very far away. “Isn’t that the boy who—”
He didn’t catch anything else.
Because at that moment, something snagged his arm and hauled him backward, into perfect darkness.
25
The Fall
HE couldn’t hear.
He couldn’t see.
The sudden, total darkness wrapped him like a cocoon, winding his exhausted body inside. He knew he was in a small space—the air had the stillness of enclosure—and he knew that he was not alone. And that was all.
Van held as still as he could, hoping that whoever was with him couldn’t see or hear either.
Something furry brushed against his neck.
Van jumped. His shoulders bumped the cold stone wall.
“Hey! Van de Graaff Generator!” squeaked a voice. “What are you doing here?”
Van fumbled the flashlight out of his pocket. He clicked it on. A slashing light cut the darkness, falling on a silvery squirrel and Pebble’s familiar—and desperate—face.
Van watched her lips. “. . . Need . . . out of here,” they said.
“No kidding!” Van exploded. “That’s what I’m trying to do, but—”
Pebble’s hand clamped over his mouth. “Ears . . . way . . .” Her voice was barely a buzz. “. . . Back . . . you . . .”
Van shook her hand off his face. “The stairs are blocked,” he said desperately. “Jack’s after me. Everybody thinks I released the Wish Eaters, but I didn’t. I mean, I didn’t do it on purp—”
Pebble’s hand smacked over his mouth again. She said something—it might have been “No!” or “I know!” or “Now!”—before grabbing him firmly by the arm and dragging him behind her, into denser darkness.
The beam of Van’s flashlight bounced ahe
ad of them, bleaching tiny plots of a narrow, twisting hall.
Barnavelt’s voice chirped brightly in his ear. “I know the back ways too. I know all the ways. Front ways, sideways, anyways . . .”
“Barnavelt,” Van whispered. “Is Pebble turning me in?”
“Turning you into what?”
“In to Jack.”
“Is Pebble turning you into Jack?” The squirrel sounded confused. “I don’t think she can do that.”
“Then where are we going?”
“Up,” said the squirrel.
They had reached a massive black spiral staircase. Pebble tugged the flashlight out of Van’s hand. She aimed its beam up the metal coil. Before Van could see where the stairs ended, Pebble started to climb, pulling Van after her.
The stairs twisted up and up, in a tight, dizzying spiral. The metal steps shivered under their feet. The railing felt as steady as a piece of dental floss. Van did his best not to look down, even though he knew he would only have seen darkness.
After dozens of steps, Pebble slowed. Van clung to the railing, panting, as she stepped onto a small platform, dropped the flashlight into one of her many pockets, and pushed open a door.
A second later, she whisked through it, dragging Van behind her.
Van blinked.
They had arrived at the edge of a great, round room, dimly lit by strings of twinkling lights. The walls were made of metal, and the floor was strewn here and there with worn rugs and saggy armchairs. On a platform in the center of the room, a few people were gathered around the base of what looked like a giant telescope. A handful of others stood at tables nearby, busy with charts and instruments. No one seemed to notice Van or Pebble creeping stealthily by.
“Is this the Observatory?” Van whispered to Barnavelt. “What are we doing here?”
“What?” The squirrel shook his head. His eyes focused on Van again. “Hey! Van Gogh! What are you doing here?”
“That’s what I just asked you.”
Pebble’s head whipped around. “Shh!” Van saw her hiss. She pointed straight ahead, toward a set of curved metal rungs that led straight up the wall.
Van’s stomach flipped.
The Collectors Page 19