The Monster War

by Alan Gratz

  “We already make a fortune,” Hachi said. She nodded to Martine, and the science-pirate stabbed her glowing harpoon deep into the dynamo. The lektrical generator sparked and popped and wound down with a whine. Hachi waited for more earthquakes, listened for more screeching, but they didn’t come. She let out a deep breath she didn’t know she’d been holding.

  “Worthless,” Aunt Sawni said. “Worthless at business, just like your father! He never could see the profit from all his foolish tinkering. That was me. All me.”

  Hachi wanted to argue with her, wanted to tell her there were more important things than profit, like tracking down her brother’s killers. But that was an argument for another time. Hachi had bigger problems right now.

  She stared at the smoking dynamo. She was sure Moffett would have taken it with her, not sent it with one of the other pairs. But Moffett must not have cared about the lektric dynamo at all. Had she really just sent her minions out as decoys so she could get a head start on the League of Seven? With the dynamo in her hands, she could have unleashed half a dozen Mangleborn that would have kept the League busy far longer than that—maybe even defeated them once and for all. What was Moffett playing at? She had to have a plan. She had to know they would split into pairs to chase the Shadow League. Had to know they would separate.

  “She separated us on purpose,” Hachi told Martine. “Why would she separate us?”

  Martine tilted her head. “To isolate all of us.”

  Hachi put her hands on Martine’s shoulders. “No. No! To isolate one of us! Crivens, I should have seen it!”

  Moffett knew they would split up and chase her Shadow League, but as Martine had pointed out, you couldn’t split seven evenly. And Moffett knew who they’d send alone after her. The only one who’d ever fought her to a standstill. The only Leaguer she really had to worry about.

  Hachi put a finger to her ear. “Archie! Archie, can you hear me? It’s a trap! Archie, it’s a trap!”

  19

  Archie ducked back behind the corner where Jesse James and Mr. Rivets hid. “She’s here,” he told them.

  “’Bout time,” said James. “You two come any farther on the Underground Railroad with us, you might as well be conductors.”

  Archie peeked around the corner again. Philomena Moffett stood on top of a giant statue of a snake in the middle of Sonnionto, telling the people of the Shawnee city how she was about to reveal their true natures with the Dragon Lantern. She really did love climbing on top of things.

  “I don’t see the lektric dynamo,” Archie said, “but she’s got to have it here somewhere. Jesse, you and I’ll go after Moffett while Mr. Rivets gets as many people as he can to safety.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said James. “I gave you a ride on my railroad. That’s it. I didn’t sign on for fighting some octopus-woman with really bad breath. I’m here to free as many Tik Toks as I can.”

  Archie kicked away a snake that was crawling across his shoe. Slagging Jesse James. Having somebody else to worry Moffett would have helped, and Mr. Rivets wasn’t much of a fighter, even with his Protector Card installed.

  “The machine men of Sonnionto are in just as much danger from Mrs. Moffett as the humans of the city,” Mr. Rivets pointed out.

  Archie sagged. Ever since Mr. Rivets had become self-winding, he’d gotten a lot more vocal about Tik Tok rights.

  “All right,” Archie said. “Jesse James will round up the machine men, and Mr. Rivets, you’ll get the people out of the way. Take them into the Underground Railroad. They’ll be safe there.”

  Jesse James started to protest, but Archie cut him off. “Good public relations,” he told him.

  “In case you forgot, I’m an outlaw,” Jesse James said.

  “So do something good every now and then,” Archie said. “It’ll confuse the clinker out of them. And get you more press.”

  Jesse James seemed to like that idea. He tipped his cowboy hat with his raygun and slinked away.

  A red light flashed around the corner, and a man screamed.

  “Mr. Rivets! The people!” Archie cried. He turned the corner and ran for Moffett atop the Sonnionto Snake. The whole town was mad for snakes. The snake statue was old—as old as the city itself—and strangely shaped. The snake was upside down, with its head on the ground, its body irregularly wavy, and its tail curled at the end to form a big circle, like the eye of a huge needle. That’s where Moffett stood, shining the Dragon Lantern down on anyone and everyone she could.

  Archie lowered his shoulder and hit the statue at a run. KerRACK! The base of the snake cracked just below its head, and the statue lurched. Moffett caught herself with a tentacle before she could fall, the Dragon Lantern’s beam skewing wildly. As Archie staggered back, he could see Mr. Rivets on the other side of the square chasing the crowds of Shawnee, Powhatan, and Iroquois people away from the circle.

  “Archie Dent! I knew they’d send you after me alone,” Moffett said, a smile on her face. “And you found me. At last.”

  It hadn’t been that hard, really, Archie thought. Moffett had stopped in cities and towns across Shawnee territory to turn more people into monsters with the Dragon Lantern. It had taken him time to take care of the Manglespawn she’d left behind each time, but they had formed a kind of trail east that had been easy to follow. Now he could finish this once and for all.

  Archie punched the bottom of the Sonnionto Snake. Koom! The place he hit exploded into dust, and the statue dropped and fell. Moffett jumped away right before it crashed into the street. KaTHOOM.

  Moffett emerged from the dust. “You and I do know how to bring the house down, don’t we?” she said. “And everything else with it.”

  Moffett filled her lungs, and Archie braced his feet and threw up his arms. WOMWOMWOMWOMWOM! Moffett’s sonic scream ripped up the paved street and knocked down buildings behind him, but Archie stood his ground.

  Archie waited for the sound waves to die away and ran for Moffett, but she was already on the move. People in the side streets were fighting and looting, feeling the side effects of the Dragon Lantern. It was like a portable Mangleborn, driving the weak-willed to insanity.

  Moffett turned to scream again. No! Archie would survive, but she would kill all these people. Archie punched his hands down into the pavement at his feet and lifted, ripping the street up like he was peeling a giant banana. He raised the curled end of the pavement up over his head just as Moffett let loose. WOMWOMWOMWOMWOM! Moffett’s sonic scream destroyed the wall of road he’d lifted, but the asphalt took the brunt of the blast. The people behind him were knocked to the ground, but not too injured.

  Moffett smiled and ran away again. Where was she going?

  Archie turned a corner and found Moffett clinging to the third-story window of a brick building.

  “Do you want to know something interesting about Sonnionto?” Moffett called to him.

  “No,” Archie said. He punched the corner of the building and the wall crumbled. Moffett jumped into the street and hit him again with her sonic scream. WOMWOMWOMWOMWOM!

  “There’s a puzzle trap here without a Mangleborn in it,” she told him.

  Archie ran headlong at her, and she ran around another corner.

  “You learn such interesting things when you’re the chief of the Septemberist Society,” Moffett told Archie from atop a snake-shaped street lamp. Archie waited to attack as frightened Sonniontans scurried for the protection of stairwells and shops. “An ancient League built it—we’re not sure which one—” Moffett said, “for a Mangleborn called Uktena. The horned serpent.”

  The street was clear. Archie brought his hands together with all his strength. THOOM! The thunderclap tore up bricks, shattered glass, and ripped up street lamps. Philomena Moffett went flying. She tumbled along the pavement like a tentacled tumbleweed until she could at last right herself.

  Moffett scowled at her torn dress and bloody arms. WOMWOMWOMWOMWOM! She hit Archie with another blast without taunting him first. It
knocked him head over heels, but Archie didn’t mind. He was finally getting to her.

  Moffett ran into a public park, and Archie followed. The thunderclap had surprised her, but she wasn’t likely to fall for it again. He was going to have to think of something else to tip their stalemate.

  JANDAL A HAAD.

  Archie staggered to a halt, the voice in his head like a punch in the face. There was a Mangleborn close by, a Mangleborn talking to him. But Moffett had just said the puzzle trap here had no Mangleborn in it.

  STONE COAT, the voice said. WITH THE STRENGTH OF ONE HUNDRED MEN.

  Moffett climbed to the top of a grassy mound in the park. Archie shook off the Mangleborn’s song and braced himself for another of Moffett’s sonic screams.

  “Whoever that ancient League was, they fought Uktena and defeated it,” Moffett said, back to her history lesson instead. “But they didn’t have time to seal it inside their trap. Other Mangleborn to dispatch, I imagine.”

  JANDAL A HAAD, the Mangleborn said. MADE OF STONE.

  “So the people of Sonnionto buried it themselves,” Moffett went on. “Right here, in this very spot. Today they call it the Serpent Mound and think it only a giant earthwork monument built by their primitive ancestors. But we know the truth: Beneath this mound the Mangleborn Uktena has slept for thousands and thousands of years, waiting for someone to rediscover lektricity and wake it up again.”

  JANDAL A HAAD, Uktena said. ALWAYS DIFFERENT, ALWAYS THE SAME.

  Archie put his hands to his head, willing himself to block out the voice. “And—and that’s what you’re going to do,” Archie said, trying to focus on the problem at hand. “With the lektric dynamo.” He scanned the park for the machine.

  “Oh no,” Moffett said. “I sent that to Standing Peachtree with Sakuruta and Sherman to destroy everything your warrior has left to care about. But maybe the Dragon Lantern will work on it. Let’s find out!”

  Archie barely had time to be surprised that Moffett had sent the lektric dynamo somewhere else. She slid open the shields on the Dragon Lantern, and aetherical red light streamed into the ground.

  The earth shook as Uktena stirred beneath their feet.

  THE HORNED SERPENT WAKES, Uktena thundered.

  “No!” Archie cried. He ripped a tree out of the ground and swung it at Moffett. She jumped out of the way, but the Dragon Lantern’s light wasn’t hitting the mound anymore. The ground stopped shaking. Archie swung at her again, driving her away.

  STONE COAT, Uktena called. FREE ME, STONE COAT.

  “Nothing’s going to stop me from punishing the Septemberist Society for what they did to me. To both of us,” Moffett said. Her voice turned cold. “And by Hiawatha, I’m going to do it.”

  Archie lashed out at her again with the tree.

  “That’s right,” Moffett told Archie. “Hit me. Hurt me!” THOOM. Her tentacles carried her out of the way of Archie’s club again. “You’re the only one who can, Jandal a Haad. Because you’re a monster, like me!”

  MONSTER, Uktena echoed. MANGLESPAWN.

  “No!” Archie cried. He wanted to put his hands over his ears. Fall to his knees and curl into a ball. But he couldn’t. Wouldn’t. He’d promised. He swung the tree again, chasing Moffett out of the park, away from the Mangleborn. “I won’t,” Archie said. “I won’t get mad. You can’t make me lose control.”

  He tried to repeat the mantra Hachi had begun to teach him on the way back from Florida. “Talisse Fixico, the potter. Chelokee Yoholo, father of Ficka. Hathlun Harjo—Hathlun Harjo, the … the surgeon!”

  Moffett kept trying to turn and scream at him, but Archie chased her out of town with the tree like an old man chasing a dog with a broom. “Was that your plan, Moffett?” Archie yelled. He slammed the tree down again and again. THOOM. “Get me to lose control again?” THOOM. “It’s not going to work!” THOOM. “I’m stronger now. More focused.”

  “Ah, well, I hoped it would work,” Moffett told him. She circled a hill outside of town, and Archie stalked after her. “To tell the truth, I’m impressed. But I did make sure to have a backup plan, just in case.”

  Archie panted, still clinging to the tree. It was all he could do not to give in to the anger, the hatred, the pain, and let the monster inside him rage against Moffett.

  “Backup plan? What backup plan?” Archie asked.

  Moffett smiled. “You remember that empty puzzle trap I was telling you about? The one just waiting for a monster to be imprisoned in it?”

  Archie’s feet struck a low, circular wall, and he almost tripped.

  “Archie! Archie, can you hear me?” Hachi yelled, her voice coming to him through the aetherical shell in his ear. “It’s a trap! Archie, it’s a trap!”

  WOMWOMWOMWOMWOM! Moffett blasted Archie with a sonic scream louder and more powerful than any she’d ever hit him with, and he went tumbling over the low wall into a dark, deep hole that had no end.

  20

  Philomena Moffett was gone by the time the League of Seven regrouped in Sonnionto, but she had left them a present. A giant horned snake rose above the city, breathing a foul green gas from its fanged mouth. It was red with yellow spots, yellow gills that stood out from its neck like a salamander, and enormous antlers like a stag. In between the antlers was a diamond-shaped mark that glowed like the morning star.

  “Uktena,” Señor X said. “Aka Misikinepikwa to the Shawnee, Pita-skog to the Abenaki, Olobit to the Natchez, aka—”

  “We get it,” Hachi said. “This thing gets around.”

  Hachi and Martine had come by airship; Kitsune and Gonzalo on The Kraken, by way of the Ohio River, which ran through town. Fergus and Clyde had marched straight there from Dodge City. All around them, the people of Sonnionto were streaming away in steamwagons full of children and pets and valuables.

  “Is that beastie what got Archie?” Fergus asked. Every one of them had tried to contact him via the shells, but for some reason Archie wasn’t answering. “How did Moffett raise it without the dynamo?”

  “I don’t know,” said Hachi. “We’ve got to find Mr. Rivets and find out. If he’s still in one piece.”

  “We have to deal with that Mangleborn first,” Clyde told them. “Mr. X, how did the League beat it before?”

  “I don’t know,” Señor X said. “I never fought this one.”

  “All right,” Clyde said. “Like Mrs. DeMarcus says, sometimes you gotta make it up as you go. Kitsune, you and Fergus are on crowd control. If this Mangleborn’s anything like the rest, it’s already got a bunch of cultists dancing around making more trouble. Me and Hachi will wade in with Buster and see if we can’t do some snake wrangling. Gonzalo, Martine, get to a rooftop and shoot at it. See if you can—uh, Martine?”

  All the other Leaguers were pairing off to follow Clyde’s plan, but Martine had wandered off down the street on her own, toward the Mangleborn. Her head was tilted, like she was studying it from a new angle, and when the League caught up to her, they saw the diamond gem on her forehead was glowing bright white.

  Just like the one on the head of the Mangleborn.

  “Crivens,” said Fergus. “I thought that was just for decoration.”

  “Martine?” Hachi said. “Martine? What’s going on?”

  Martine didn’t answer. Instead she made a hard right turn and walked directly through the front door of a hotel. The rest of the League looked at each other in bewilderment. But whatever was going on, the Mangleborn was just as mesmerized as Martine was. It stood stock still in the middle of the street, its body held up like a cobra, the white diamond on its head still glowing bright white.

  “Go go go!” Clyde told the other Leaguers. They ran for the door of the hotel to follow Martine, and Clyde ran to climb back inside Buster. In moments, Martine stepped out onto the hotel’s flat roof, the rest of the League a few yards behind.

  Uktena turned, and the Mangleborn and Martine were face to face.

  “Yes,” she said. There was a pause, and then she said
, “No.” Another pause. “Forty-two.”

  “What’s she saying?” Gonzalo asked.

  “She’s talking with it,” Kitsune said.

  “Purple,” Martine said, “like trees.”

  “She makes even less sense than usual,” Fergus said.

  “When the west wind blows,” Martine said.

  Uktena stayed frozen where it was, and the diamonds on both their heads glowed even brighter.

  “It’s like she’s a snake charmer!” Gonzalo said.

  “Or it’s charming her,” Kitsune said.

  “Yeah. Does anybody else think we need to be shooting this thing while it’s just standing there?” Hachi asked.

  “No, wait a minute,” Clyde said. “I got an idea.”

  It was hard to say Buster “sneaked” up behind the giant horned snake, because Buster didn’t much sneak at all. But if Uktena noticed, it didn’t react. Clyde reached out with one of Buster’s hands, took the Mangleborn by the neck, and lifted it up off the ground.

  “Well, I got it!” Clyde cried. “Now what do I do with it?”

  “Señor X has got something,” Gonzalo said.

  “A deep hole, two clicks from our present location,” the raygun said.

  “I don’t know what a click is,” Clyde said, “but you just point me in the right direction, and I’ll stuff it down the hole.”

  “What about Martine? What if she needs to still be near the thing to mesmerize it?” Fergus asked.

  Clyde reached out Buster’s other hand and picked her up. The Mangleborn in his right hand swiveled to look at her, and their weird conversation continued.

  Gonzalo pulled Kitsune up onto Alamo with him, and together they rode off toward Señor X’s hole in the ground. Buster followed not far behind with Uktena in one hand and Martine in the other. Fergus and Hachi stayed behind to look for Archie and Mr. Rivets.

  “Well, that’s the easiest Mangleborn we’ve ever beaten,” Fergus said.

  “I don’t like it,” Hachi said.