by Alan Gratz
“Archie,” Gonzalo said, “there’s sixty thousand people up there watching the rodeo!”
5
Three floors above, Archie and Gonzalo could hear sixty thousand people scream.
Archie closed his eyes and cursed himself. What kind of blinking flange tosses a Manglespawn into a crowded arena?
“Can we climb the rubble?” Gonzalo asked.
“What? No,” Archie said. “Look at it. We’d barely reach the next floor.”
“It’s a straight shot up from where you’re standing,” Señor X said.
Gonzalo nodded. “Archie—grab on.”
“What? Why? Can you fly?”
“Nope,” Gonzalo said. “But Señor X can.”
Gonzalo pointed the serpentine raygun at the ground and yelled, “Repulsor ray!”
A spreading, circular blue beam erupted from the raygun’s mouth—WOM-WOM-WOM-WOM—and Gonzalo started to lift off the ground.
“Whoa! Wait for me!” Archie cried. He threw his arms around Gonzalo’s shoulders, and they were off. WOM-WOM-WOM-WOM-WOM. Gonzalo held the raygun pointed straight at the ground, and the blue repulsor beam lifted them higher and higher, faster and faster. The top two floors flew by and they burst into the bright light of the auditorium like a Roman candle.
Gonzalo cut the power to the repulsor ray and Archie’s stomach did a somersault as they fell toward the arena floor. Archie screamed and squeezed his eyes shut, but at the last moment Gonzalo clicked on the repulsor ray again, and they landed as gently as though they had just stepped down off a stair.
“Thanks, Señor,” Gonzalo said coolly, like he did things like that every day.
Archie opened his eyes and saw the inside of the Astral Dome for the first time. It was the biggest building Archie had ever been in. An entire Philadelphia city block could have fit in there, seven-story buildings and all. The round, arched ceiling glowed with the artificial lights of the ancients, but the cool breeze reminded him why this was truly one of the Seven Wonders of the New World: the dome’s air-conditioning was keeping it a good thirty degrees cooler inside than out. The Astral Dome’s round walls were ringed with three levels of yellow, orange, and red seats, and the tens of thousands of people who had been sitting in them scrambled like ants for the exits, trying to get away from the cucuy that prowled the dirt floor howling at them.
“Damas y caballeros,” an announcer somewhere said through speaking trumpets arranged throughout the stadium, “please move to the exits in a calm and orderly fashion!”
“Yeah, right,” Archie muttered.
“We need a plan,” Gonzalo said.
“I don’t suppose that gun of yours has a freeze ray too, does it?”
“Nope.”
“Then the plan is I punch the cucuy,” Archie said. “Hard.”
“Yeah, well, you punching it and throwing it through the roof didn’t slow it down, Jandal a Haad,” Señor X said.
“My name is Archie Dent,” Archie told the raygun.
“Maybe we can all stop worrying about names until we take this thing down, sí?” Gonzalo said.
The cucuy slashed its razor claws through a metal gate, and a mechanical bull came charging out, followed by a steamhorse without a rider. The cucuy caught the rampaging bull and ripped it apart, spraying the arena floor with broken pieces of brasswork while the steamhorse scampered away.
“That was a thousand-pound mechanical bull it just ripped up,” Señor X said.
Gonzalo didn’t seem to be watching. His eyes were elsewhere. “That’s it: I’ll rope it.”
“And then what?” Señor X said. “You can’t hog-tie the cucuy.”
“No, but Archie can,” Gonzalo said. “Or choke it until it passes out while you and me keep it away from the stands.”
“You can lasso that thing?” Archie asked.
The cucuy tore into the stands, getting closer to the mass of people still trying to get away.
“Sounds like I better!” Gonzalo said. He put two fingers in his mouth and gave a piercing whistle, and the brass steamhorse galloped over to him. “Hola. May I ride you, amigo?” Gonzalo asked the horse. “I’m gonna try to rope that cucuy.”
“Rope that thing?” the horse said. “You’re crazy.”
“The horse talks?” Archie said.
“Course it does,” Gonzalo said. “Don’t steamhorses talk where you’re from?”
“No! And neither do rayguns!”
Gonzalo put a foot in the stirrup of the steamhorse’s leather saddle and hitched himself up. “What’s your name, amigo?”
“Alamo,” said the horse.
“Well, that oughtta be easy to remember,” Gonzalo said. “I’m Gonzalo, and this here’s Señor X.”
“Hey,” said the raygun.
“How do,” said the horse.
A talking raygun and a talking horse. Archie shook his head. It was the craziest blinking thing he had ever seen—and that was saying a lot.
Gonzalo grabbed the lasso hanging on the side of the steamhorse and unwound it. “Be ready,” he told Archie.
“You’re awfully cool for a guy about to try to lasso a Manglespawn,” Archie told him.
“Why shouldn’t I be?” Gonzalo said.
“Are you kidding?” Archie said. The cucuy was ripping out rows of seats and hurling them at the crowd. “Are you blind?”
“Yes,” Gonzalo said, his eyes focused a few feet above Archie’s head.
“Wait—what?” Archie said, but Gonzalo had already kicked the sides of Alamo and was galloping off toward the cucuy. Gonzalo had to be kidding, right? He couldn’t really be blind. But the more Archie thought about it, the more it made sense—the way Gonzalo was always looking off in some other direction, the way he understood sounds better, the way he handled the darkness of the labyrinth so well. He hadn’t blown a gasket when he’d seen the cucuy either, not like most people would. Because he hadn’t seen it, not then, and not now. And whatever he did need to see, Señor X was there to tell him about.
Archie watched as Alamo swung Gonzalo in close behind the cucuy, and the blind ranger looped his lasso around the Manglespawn’s head as easily as roping a fence post—all while looking off in the wrong direction.
“Hold up a minute, rodeo fans!” the announcer boomed. “Looks like we’ve got a new contestant, and he’s roped himself a mean one!”
The people who hadn’t squeezed out of the stadium turned to watch, their fear overcome by fascination. Gonzalo tightened the rope around the cucuy’s neck and backed Alamo away, pulling the Manglespawn away from the stands. It roared and sliced the rope connecting it to Gonzalo with its claws, but the ranger had its attention. Gonzalo drew his turquoise raygun and shot it in the face, which only made it angrier.
“Archie! You’re up!” Gonzalo called.
Archie waited until the cucuy’s back was turned and jumped on it, landing just above the thing’s skinned, callused bottom.
“Uck,” Archie said, and he started to climb. But the cucuy knew he was there. The big shaggy beast jumped and twisted and kicked, trying to throw him off.
“Whoa! That is one bucking bronco!” the announcer cried. “And who’s that snowcap riding him? He sure looks like that Archie Dent, hero of everybody’s favorite dime novels!”
Archie heard the crowd roar like they had when he was in the dark passageways below. Why weren’t they running? They were as crazy as Gonzalo, who was riding circles around the cucuy and peppering it with raygun blasts.
Archie kept climbing until he had the rope Gonzalo had looped around the cucuy’s neck.
“He’s got the bucking strap, muchachos y muchachas! Now, does this white-haired snowball stand a chance in hell?”
Archie tightened the rope, and the cucuy roared. It shook and writhed, swiping at him with its razor-sharp claws.
“That cucuy’s trying to shuck him like an ear of corn, but our boy’s sticking to him like a burr on your britches! Three seconds! Four seconds! Five seconds!”
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Archie didn’t have any idea why the announcer was counting the seconds, but he squeezed the rope tighter and hung on, his legs flailing in the air.
“Six seconds! Seven seconds! Eight seconds!” the announcer yelled, and the crowd went wild. “Ride ’em cowboy! Let her buck!”
Archie could feel the fight going out of the cucuy, and he gave the rope one last yank. Snap! The rope broke and Archie went flying. He heard the crowd gasp as one right before he hit the hard-packed dirt floor with a thump.
“Well, that just goes to show you, mijos y mijas,” the announcer said, “there ain’t a bull that can’t be rode, or a rider that can’t be throwed.”
Archie lifted his head in time to see the cucuy fall to its knees, its ugly, twisted face blue. Its eyelids fluttered, and it fell flat on its face, shaking the whole building. THOOM.
Fireworks went off on the ceiling—indoor fireworks!—and Archie flinched. The audience in the stands clapped and cheered, and Gonzalo rode over to help Archie to his feet.
“Ladies and gentlemen, your All-Around Cowboy Champions, Archie Dent and the Raygun Kid!”
“Well if that don’t beat all,” the steamhorse said.
“Why’d he call you a snowcap?” Gonzalo asked. “Is your hair really white?”
“Yeah,” Archie said. “Are you really blind?”
“Blind as a bootstrap,” Gonzalo said. “Have been since the day I was born.”
Archie suddenly remembered the story of a long-ago League of Seven he’d watched with John Otter during a Cherokee circle dance. One of the dancers had worn a blindfold and carried a talking stick: the League’s Lawbringer. Archie felt the lektric tingle of discovery. Gonzalo was the sixth Leaguer!
Archie’s excitement wilted like a flower in the hot Texian sun. He didn’t care who the sixth Leaguer was. Or the seventh. He wasn’t going to be part of any League of Seven. Not anymore. The cucuy was finished and the kids were saved. He was done.
Cowboys with ropes had come out onto the arena floor and were circling the cucuy to tie it down when it groaned, then growled, then started to push itself up.
“You gotta be slagging kidding me!” Archie cried.
The cucuy was on its hands and knees when—KaZAAAAAAAAAAK!—neon blue lektricity coursed through its matted hair. It lurched and thrashed, howling in pain, and hit the ground again with a thud, out for good this time.
Archie knew only one person who could throw lektricity around like that—
“Ladies and gentlemen,” the announcer said, “please welcome that Lektric Cowboy, that hero of The League of Seven versus the Giant Snake of New Orleans, that Genius in a Plaid Skirt, Fergus MacFerguson!”
“Kilt,” Fergus said.
Archie ran to where the tall, gangly redhead stood behind the cucuy, all thoughts of not ever wanting to see him or Hachi again gone as soon as he saw his old friend. Archie had never felt so happy to see anyone in his entire life. He skidded to a halt in front of Fergus, suddenly feeling childish for running over. What was he going to do, hug him?
“Does everybody read those dime novels?” Fergus asked.
“How’d you find me?” Archie asked.
“Are you kidding? I just listened for the ‘boom’ and went the opposite direction everybody was running.” Fergus grinned and pulled Archie into a playful headlock, tousling his hair. “Crivens, white! I think you’ve gotten even shorter since you went away!”
Archie pushed him away stronger than he meant to, and Fergus staggered and almost fell.
“Sorry! Sorry!” Archie said.
“It’s all right,” Fergus said, righting himself and balancing with more grace than Archie had ever seen him have. At least since a meka-ninja had sliced the tendon in his right heel, hobbling him. “I’ve got some new tricks up my kilt,” Fergus said.
Fergus hiked up his blue plaid kilt and showed off his new knee brace. Gone was the clunky (but still amazing) leather-and-steel harness he’d cobbled together at Kano Henhawk’s house. In its place was an even more amazing lightweight brass-and-fabric harness lined with ultrathin gears and servos. They clicked and whirred softly as Fergus held up his hands like a magician and raised his leg without touching it. He’d built himself a brand-new, completely automated knee!
“When did you make that?” Archie asked.
“Let’s just say I’ve had a fair bit of time on my hands while Hachi’s been gone.”
Archie felt the temperature in the air-conditioned Astral Dome drop twenty degrees. What would Hachi say when he told her he was the reason her father was murdered?
“She’s not with you?” Archie asked.
“Nae. New Orleans was crazy—do I have a story to tell you!—but in the end she found what she was looking for: the names of every one of the people who did that business to her da and her village when she was little. She left me behind when she went after them, and I haven’t heard from her since.”
Archie sighed with relief. At least he wouldn’t have to drop that bomb today. Maybe he wouldn’t ever have to. Maybe once Hachi took her revenge on the last of the people who’d killed all the men in her village, she wouldn’t care anymore why they’d done it.
Right, Archie thought. And maybe I’m going to move to Texas and become a mechanical bull wrestler.
“Listen, Archie,” Fergus said, suddenly serious, “that isn’t all we found out in New Orleans—”
Gonzalo rode up on Alamo and hopped lightly to the ground.
“Ah, Gonzalo, let me introduce you to Fergus MacFerguson. Fergus, let me introduce you to Gonzalo, his talking horse Alamo, and his talking raygun Señor X.”
Fergus put his hands up. “Aye, I think I just met the raygun.”
Archie turned to find Gonzalo pointing Señor X right at them.
“Gonzalo, what’s going on?” Archie asked.
“Now that one monster’s down for the count, it’s time to take care of the other one,” Gonzalo said. The hum from the serpentine raygun in his hand rose in pitch as it charged with aether. “Archie Dent, aka Jandal a Haad, you’re under arrest for murder.”
6
Fergus dropped his hands. “Whoa, whoa whoa. You’re arresting Archie for murder? You can’t be serious.”
“Dead serious,” Gonzalo said.
“Nae nae nae,” Fergus said. “First off, Archie’s a hero. He just helped you take down this hairy, ugly beastie, for cog’s sake! Second of all, Archie’s never killed anybody—not anybody that wasn’t already a monster, or trying to kill him first.”
Archie grimaced. He loved Fergus for defending him, but if his friend knew the truth, knew what had really happened at Chuluota when Archie was born, he wouldn’t be standing up for him right now.
“Fergus—” Archie started, but Fergus cut him off.
“Nae. You’re not a criminal, Archie. And I’m not letting this wee cowboy arrest you, whether he’s a real Texas Ranger or not.”
“I’m real enough,” Gonzalo said. “And so is this raygun.”
“And how do you plan on capturing him, anyway?” asked Fergus. “Archie’s walked away from a ten-thousand-foot fall before. You think that raygun is going to do anything but tickle him?”
“Archie Dent, Señor X says you’re a monster,” Gonzalo said without looking at him. “That true?”
“Yes,” said Archie.
“Archie!” Fergus said.
“I’ll ask you again—you ever kill anybody?” Gonzalo said.
Archie had told Gonzalo no before, but the ranger knew he’d been lying. Even if you didn’t count all the people he’d killed who’d become Manglespawn and all the bad guys who’d attacked him first, there were the hundred men of Chuluota that had died to create him. It wasn’t just Archie’s hands that were covered in blood—it was his whole body. He’d literally been soaked in the blood of the men who’d been murdered to make him.
“Yes,” Archie said. “I’m responsible for the deaths of one hundred men at Chuluota, and lots more people who were ki
lled there besides.”
“Have you slipped a cog?” Fergus said. “That’s ridiculous!”
“No, Fergus. You don’t understand. I’m what Blavatsky and Edison and the others were making in Florida. I’m the reason Hachi’s dad was killed.”
“I know!” Fergus said. “I know all about that!”
Archie frowned. “You do?”
“Aye, and so does Hachi. Blavatsky told us everything after she died.” Fergus paused, realizing how strange that sounded. “I’ll explain later. Anyway, it’s not your fault that all those people were killed. How could it be? You weren’t even born yet!”
Archie shook his head. It wasn’t a dark corner of a hotel room where he belonged, he realized that now. He belonged in jail. Someone had to pay for what had happened to all those people, and it was going to be him. He put his hands out.
“I’ll come quietly,” he told Gonzalo.
Gonzalo pulled a pair of handcuffs out from under his shirt and latched them onto Archie’s wrists.
Fergus threw up his hands. “This is clinker, Archie. Total clinker.”
“It’s the right thing to do,” Archie said. “I don’t deserve to have a life. Not when all those people lost theirs to create me.”
THOOM! Something exploded outside the Astral Dome, big enough and near enough to make them all stagger. It was followed by more booms, and the sound of screaming.
“Crivens!” Fergus cried. “What now?”
THOOM. THOOM. THOOM. THOOM. Something was coming closer to the Astral Dome.
Gonzalo’s raygun hummed, and Fergus’s arms crackled with lektricity. Archie backed away, his wrists still handcuffed.
CRUNCH! Something metallic and snake-like punched through the ceiling of the Astral Dome, ripping off part of the roof. The thing curled inside like an octupus’s tentacle and pulled, tearing out a huge chunk of ceiling.
Framed in the hole against the bright blue sky was a massive machine with a bulbous, seaweed-draped steel passenger compartment atop eight writhing mechanical tentacles. Stenciled on the side of the thing was a black flag with a white skull over two crossed swords.
“Pirates!” one of the cowboys on the arena floor cried. “Pirates from Galveston!”
