by Alan Gratz
“Órale! What was that?” said Gonzalo.
Archie was afraid he knew.
“The cucuy is hungry,” Procopio announced. “We need tributes.”
The prisoners in the pens cried out and retreated into the darkness.
“What’s a cucuy?” Archie whispered.
“It’s a kind of bogeyman Texian parents scare their kids with,” Gonzalo said. “A monster.”
“Right. Of course,” Archie said. He’d been right after all. No matter what, things always came back to the Mangleborn.
Gonzalo looked at the floor. “This one of them creatures you were talking about?” he asked. “The ones causing all the trouble?”
Archie frowned. “I didn’t say anything about monsters.” He’d been thinking it, but he hadn’t said anything about the Mangleborn. Before he could ask what Gonzalo meant, the redheaded bandito started rounding up children.
“Take these, and these, and these,” Procopio said, passing over Archie and Gonzalo, “and feed them to the cucuy.”
“Wait! Take me instead!” Archie and Gonzalo yelled at the same time.
Archie and Gonzalo looked at each other, both surprised the other had volunteered to go in place of a tribute. Who is this guy? Archie wondered.
Procopio frowned down at them, trying to understand why two children would want to be fed to a monster. “No,” he said. “These two are too valuable. Put them in a cell.”
The ground shook again as whatever it was in the basement roared.
“Get the others down there,” Procopio said. “The cucuy is restless.”
There was no time to lose. Archie snapped the chain binding him to Gonzalo and got ready to fight. “Stay down and you won’t get hurt!” he and Gonzalo told each other at the same time.
“What?” they said together.
The banditos pushed the crying tributes into a chute, and they disappeared below. Archie didn’t have time to figure out what Gonzalo was talking about. He stomped his foot on the floor with all his strength—the strength of a hundred men—and sent a ripple through the floor that knocked everyone in the room from their feet. At the same moment, an orange raygun beam crackled through the air, scorching the air right above where Procopio had been standing. If Archie hadn’t knocked him to the floor, it would have hit him.
“Alto! Drop your rayguns! You’re all under arrest!” yelled the woman who’d shot the oscillating rifle. She was Texian, with long black hair and dark eyebrows, wearing a brown skirt, blue denim shirt, and white cowboy hat. Archie’s stomp had sent her to the floor with her partner, a Texian man with a wide nose and a broad, bushy black mustache, who wore a long brown leather duster and a black sombrero. Who were they, and where had they come from?
The fallen banditos didn’t stop, and they didn’t drop their rayguns. Kazaaak! Kazaaak! Kazaaak! Orange beams lanced out from every direction as the banditos fought the invaders, and Archie found himself in the middle of a raygunfight. Beams sent rock and dust exploding from the walls and knocked prison doors off their hinges. Children ran in all directions, the banditos sometimes using them as human shields. Archie spun, trying to decide who or what to hit first.
“Where’s Procopio?” Gonzalo cried. He knelt on the floor beside Archie with something in his hand that looked like a turquoise statue of a coiled snake. Where had he gotten that from?
“We’ll take care of Procopio!” the woman yelled, back on her feet again and shooting. “Go after the tributes!”
Gonzalo nodded and ran for the chute where the banditos had dropped the tributes to the cucuy.
“Wait!” Archie cried, still feeling lost. “Wait for me!”
Gonzalo jumped into the chute, and Archie threw himself in headfirst behind him.
3
Archie tumbled head over heels, banging against the walls of what must have once been a metal air duct for the ancients, until at last he spilled out into a dark room. He landed face-first on a floor of ice and slid and slid and slid, slamming into a stone wall beside what he took to be Gonzalo.
“You okay, Clyde?” Gonzalo asked.
Archie tried to stand and had trouble. The ice was slippery and hard to walk on, and it was pitch black to boot.
“Clyde? You okay?” Gonzalo asked again. Was Clyde here? Archie suddenly missed Clyde and Buster and Kitsune.
And Sings-In-The-Night.
Then Archie remembered—he’d told Gonzalo that his name was Clyde!
“Me? Oh. Yeah. I’m all right. How about you?”
“I’ll live.”
Archie helped Gonzalo to his feet.
“Where’s the kids?” Gonzalo asked.
“I don’t know. Unless you can see in the dark, I’m as blind as you are,” Archie told him.
Someone whimpered on the other side of the room, and Archie and Gonzalo shuffled across to them on the ice, using each other for balance. It was the children. They were huddled together along the wall.
“Is everybody still here?” Gonzalo asked.
“Sí,” said a small voice.
“No sign of the cucuy?” Gonzalo asked.
The mention of the bogeyman’s name set some of them to crying again. Archie’s eyes had begun to adjust to the dark a little, but he still couldn’t see a thing. There wasn’t a hint of light down here.
Back in the shadows with the other monsters, where I belong, Archie thought.
“Clyde, you stay here with the kids. I’ll look for a way out and come back for you,” Gonzalo said.
“Huh-uh. You stay here with the kids. It’s better if I go alone.”
“Ain’t gonna happen,” Gonzalo told him.
“You don’t understand. You’ll just get hurt,” Archie said.
“And you won’t?” Gonzalo asked.
“No, I—”
The cucuy roared somewhere off in the darkness, a sound that shook dust from the ceiling and cracked the ice under their feet. The children screamed and sobbed.
“Don’t move from here, understand?” Gonzalo told them, and Archie felt him slip past him.
“Wait!” Archie said. He put a hand to the wall and slid along as best he could behind Gonzalo. The slippery floor was bad enough, but Archie hated being blind. Every faint breeze and every tick of cracking ice sent him spinning, trying desperately to make out a shape, a shadow, a silhouette in the inky darkness. He was completely lost.
Unlike Gonzalo. The Texian moved along with more confidence, and didn’t stop and turn at every little sound.
There was an open doorway in the wall at the far end of the room, and a hallway that a little groping around told them went left and right.
“This way,” Gonzalo said, heading right. “Ándale.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa. This way,” Archie said, heading left.
“We shouldn’t split up,” Gonzalo said.
“I agree. So let’s go this way,” Archie said.
“Look, I’m the one in charge here,” Gonzalo said.
“You’re the one in charge here?” Archie said. “Says who?”
“Says the Republic of Texas. I’m a Texas Ranger.”
Archie had heard of the Rangers—they were the legendary police force of Texas, skilled trackers and raygunslingers who roamed from town to town, going wherever they were needed to keep the peace.
“Right,” Archie said. “You’re a Texas Ranger.”
Gonzalo lifted Archie’s hand to his shirt, where Archie could feel a round metal badge the size of a Texian five-peso coin. Inside the circle, Archie’s fingers traced the cutout of a five-pointed star.
“We go right,” Gonzalo said, and he moved off that direction.
Archie followed along blindly. “But … you were living on the streets.”
“I was undercover,” Gonzalo told him. “My parents are Texas Rangers too. They were the ones who came in shooting upstairs.”
“That was your parents?” Archie asked. That was way cooler than Archie’s parents, who spent all their time in libraries.
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“They followed me in,” Gonzalo said. “We been tracking Procopio Murietta for months. We thought he was running a child slave ring out of Houston, but we never could get close to him. Then all of a sudden he got more open about it. Lot of other criminals came out of the shadows too. Like suddenly somebody flipped a switch, and now all the bad guys are going loco.”
Somebody had flipped a switch, Archie thought. Moffett had turned on the Dragon Lantern. Now she was marching east across the country with her Monster Army, stirring up the sleeping Mangleborn who drove the weak-minded to madness.
Gonzalo’s voice came to him from the darkness ahead. “Thought we finally got Procopio today. Would have too, ’cept for that freak earthquake that knocked everybody over.”
“Um, yeah,” Archie said. “About that…”
“Turn left,” a man’s voice said, and Archie just about jumped out of his skin.
“Who’s that? Who’s there?” Archie spun, trying to see in the absolute darkness, and slipped and fell on the ice.
Gonzalo’s hand found his and helped him to his feet.
“That’s Señor X. He’s with me,” said Gonzalo.
“But I followed you down the chute! There wasn’t anybody else with you.”
“We need to hurry,” Señor X said. “It’s getting closer, and we don’t want to meet it here.”
“What’s getting closer?” Archie asked.
“El cucuy,” Gonzalo said.
“You mean, you believe the bogeyman’s really down here? You’ve seen things like this before?”
“Nope,” Gonzalo said. “But Señor X has.”
“Right. The imaginary Señor X.”
“I’m not imaginary, kid,” Señor X said. “I’m as real as you are.”
Archie followed along, straining his ears and his eyes for some sign of Señor X. Except for the voice, there was no evidence whatsoever that anybody else was with them. Maybe it was Gonzalo. Maybe he had a split personality. Whoever he was, Señor X kept telling Gonzalo which direction to go, and Archie kept following them.
“How does he know where the cucuy is?” Archie asked.
“I’m right here in the room if you want to talk to me,” Señor X said.
Archie sighed. “All right. I’ll play. Señor X, how do you know where the cucuy is?”
“Ever heard of infrared scanners?” Señor X asked.
“No,” Archie admitted.
“Then why don’t you shut up and let me do the driving.”
So. In addition to being invisible, Señor X was a jerk.
The labyrinth-like passageways they traveled beneath the Astral Dome reminded Archie suddenly of the catacombs beneath the Septemberist Society’s headquarters, and he remembered that day not so long ago when he’d been pretending to be Theseus, chasing the minotaur-like Lesool Eshar across the Afrikan plains. How simple things had been then—and what a fool he’d been to think chasing after mountain-sized monsters would be fun. Fighting the Mangleborn was a serious, dangerous business.
“It’s here!” Señor X cried. “The cucuy is in the room!”
4
Something snuffled a few yards away, and Archie put his hands out blindly. He still couldn’t see a thing!
“Where? Where is it?” Archie called. His super strength was going to be pretty useless if he couldn’t see the cucuy to hit it.
“Is this one of them things you were telling me about, Señor X?” Gonzalo whispered. “One of them Mangleborn?”
“No,” Señor X said. “It’s a Manglespawn. The child of a Mangleborn and an animal. In this case, a human animal. And really, seriously ugly.”
“How do you know about the Mangleborn?” Archie asked. “Who are you?”
“How do you know about the Mangleborn, kid?” Señor X asked.
“Too much talking, not enough shooting,” Gonzalo said.
Archie heard an aether pistol charge. “You have a raygun?”
ZaPOW! A yellow beam of light lit up the corridor in answer, blinding Archie. In the split second before fireworks exploded in his retinas, Archie caught sight of the Manglespawn. All he saw was a twenty-foot-tall werewolf with short black horns and razor-like claws, but that was enough.
The cucuy screamed, and the room thundered with the sound of its charging footsteps.
“Look out!” Archie cried. He threw himself at where Gonzalo had been standing, knocking him out of the way. Thwack! The cucuy’s razor claws hit Archie and sent him flying across the room, where he thudded into the wall.
“Stay down! I’ll protect you!” Archie and Gonzalo yelled at the same time.
ZaPOW! ZaPOW! ZaPOW! Gonzalo’s raygun blasted the screaming cucuy again and again, without having to take time to recharge between shots. Archie’s eyes started to clear, and in the staccato light from the raygun Archie could see the little Texas Ranger moving around the room, shooting again and again with that strange thing he’d been carrying up top. It worked like a raygun, but it didn’t look like any raygun Archie had ever seen before. It was turquoise blue and shaped like a slithering snake, carved all over with lines and spiraling filigrees like the gargoyles on ancient Aztek pyramids. Its tail stuck up at the back like the fin on a raygun, and its horned head belched aether rays out of its frog-like mouth. Gonzalo wielded it with calm, practiced ease, keeping the big hairy Manglespawn at bay like he saw monsters just like it every day.
Archie worked his way back across the icy floor to Gonzalo. “I thought you said you’d never seen a Manglespawn before!”
“I haven’t,” Gonzalo answered.
“How is that boy standing?” Señor X asked. “That hit from the cucuy should have broken half the bones in his body.”
“I’m right here if you want to talk to me,” Archie said to the air.
“Scanning,” Señor X said. “Twisted pistons—he’s the Jandal a Haad!”
The words hit Archie harder than a steamhammer. Jandal a Haad. Suddenly he was the broken little boy hiding in the corner of his hotel room again, a monster who feared the light of day.
“What’s that mean? Jandal a Haad?” Gonzalo asked, still shooting at the cucuy.
“The Lemurians called him Tezcatlipoca. The Mountainheart. Enemy to Both Sides.”
“Not helping,” Gonzalo said, dodging a swipe of the cucuy’s claws.
“He’s a monster, just like the cucuy. Worse than the cucuy. He’s made out of stone. Super strong. Practically invulnerable.”
The raygun. It was the raygun that was talking.
Señor X was a talking raygun.
“I’m—I’m not a monster,” Archie said halfheartedly.
“You ever kill anybody?” Gonzalo asked without looking at him.
“N-no,” Archie said.
Gonzalo’s raygun lit up, hitting the cucuy again, but Gonzalo wasn’t even looking where he was aiming. His face was turned to Archie, his eyes looking right through him.
“You’re lying,” Gonzalo said.
The raygun laughed. “If there’s one thing Gonzalo sees, it’s the truth. Always. You can’t lie to him, kid. But G-man, I gotta warn you: I don’t have anything strong enough to take down the Jandal a Haad. Not even on my highest setting.”
Gonzalo rolled out of the way of another charge from the cucuy. “You’re not taking this thing out either. It won’t die.”
“The Jandal a Haad can do it,” Señor X said.
“My name is Archie. Archie Dent,” Archie said quietly.
“Well, I knew it weren’t Clyde,” Gonzalo said. He backed away from a swipe of the cucuy’s claws, still shooting. “Can you do it? Can you beat el cucuy?”
Archie felt himself drifting away, reliving the moment Philomena Moffett had told him where he’d really come from. What he really was.
A bright yellow raygun beam hit Archie in the face, snapping him back to reality. He turned angrily on Gonzalo.
“Archie Dent,” Gonzalo said, “can you beat el cucuy?”
Archie blinked. Hachi and
this guy would get along great.
Hachi …
“Archie!” Gonzalo cried. The cucuy was backing him into a corner.
“Yes. Yes! I can beat it. But I need light. I can’t see it to hit it.”
“One skylight, coming up!” Gonzalo yelled.
ZaPOW! A massive yellow beam erupted from the mouth of Señor X, exploding the roof. KaTHOOM! The raygun bored its way through sublevel after sublevel like a drill—KaTHOOM-KaTHOOM-KaTHOOM—until it burst through the arena floor and the wonder of the Astral Dome’s ancient gasless lights streamed down on them.
Now that there was light, Archie saw that Señor X was right: the cucuy was seriously ugly. The only part of it that wasn’t covered with fetid, bloody, matted fur was its callused and wrinkled face, which seemed like it was all forehead and teeth.
The cucuy lunged for Gonzalo.
“Oh no you don’t!” Archie cried. He grabbed the hair on the cucuy’s butt and yanked.
Archie came away with two big handfuls of hair, and the cucuy howled.
“Um, sorry,” Archie said.
The cucuy turned and charged him, but Archie met it with his fists. WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! He beat the cucuy back into the wall, hitting it again and again. But it wasn’t going down. Archie grabbed the thing’s big hairy legs and pulled its feet out from under it. Thoom! It slammed into the ground. Archie dragged it in a circle, building up speed until he was spinning it around.
“You like eating little kids, huh?” Archie said. “Well let’s see how you like eating dirt!”
Archie launched the cucuy. It smashed through the floor above them as it spun, and the next floor, and the next floor, tearing an even bigger hole than the one Gonzalo had shot to let in light. The cucuy stopped short of the glowing ceiling and fell back to earth, slamming into the floor three flights above them with a boom.
“Whoa,” said Archie. “I didn’t meant to throw it that far.”
“The cucuy’s on the arena floor,” Señor X told them. “It’s down, but it’s not out.”
“We gotta get up there lickety-split!” Gonzalo said.
Archie clapped the dust off his hands like a job well done. “Why? I got rid of it, didn’t I? The kids are safe.”
