The Monster War

by Alan Gratz

  “This is where Philomena Moffett has been headed back to all along,” Archie said, looking out one of Buster’s gun ports. “This is where she can get her ultimate revenge.”

  Freckles the giraffe had watched as Moffett hopped a train bound for New Rome, the Dragon Lantern in hand. And Archie was sure she had come to the capital of the United Nations to use it.

  “We made good time,” Clyde called down through Buster’s internal speakers. “She can’t have gotten here much faster than we did.”

  “And I don’t see any raygun fire or burning buildings,” said Hachi. “So if she is here, she hasn’t done whatever she’s going to do.”

  “She’s come for the Septemberist Society,” Archie told them. “That’s who she’s been after all along. Alcatraz, the Shadow League, the Transcontinental Railroad dedication, the Monster Army, Gettysburg—they were all distractions. Opening acts. It’s always been about Dodge City for her. It’s always been about revenge.”

  “So, this Septemberist Society headquarters,” said Gonzalo. “Where is it?”

  “I never knew for sure,” Archie told them. “But I always thought it was under the statue of Hiawatha in New Rome Harbor.”

  Standing just a little taller than Buster and made of copper that had turned greenish blue in the salty air of the bay, the statue of Hiawatha stood sentinel over the city he’d called home some two hundred years before. From the waist down he wore leather pants and moccasins; from the waist up he was naked, but for a leather strap tied around his left arm and the Hiawatha Belt that would become the flag of the United Nations draped over his right shoulder. A bear claw necklace hung around his neck, and the area all around his eyes and down under his ears looked painted, though still blue-green like the rest of the statue. Hiawatha’s hair stood in a short Mohawk, and two eagle feathers stuck out from behind his head on the right side. Over his left shoulder he wore a quiver of arrows, and in his right hand he held a longbow as tall as he was, for the First Nations had then yet to rediscover the raygun.

  “‘By Hiawatha,’” Archie said. “Moffett said ‘By Hiawatha, I’m going to punish the Septemberist Society.’ She must have meant the statue.”

  “But everybody says ‘By Hiawatha,’” Clyde said.

  “No. She was telling me where she was going,” Archie said. He was sure of it. “She wanted me to know. She couldn’t help it. That’s where she is.”

  “Well, the rest of you could take a ferry sub to get there, I guess,” said Clyde. “But me and Buster are gonna have to sit this one out.”

  Archie had seen Clyde and Buster jump from the Golden Gate Bridge to Alcatraz Island in Don Francisco, but the tiny island where Hiawatha stood wasn’t close enough to anything for him to jump.

  “I can carry Buster,” Martine said.

  Archie gave Martine a skeptical glance. “Um, I can’t even carry Buster,” he told her.

  Martine pushed a button on her harpoon, and an enormous steel squid broke the surface of New Rome Harbor, sending three ferry subs in its path into a tizzy.

  “I sent The Kraken up the eastern seaboard, in anticipation of our arrival,” Martine said. “My ship should be able to carry Buster across in its tentacles.”

  “Okay,” said Fergus, “I am definitely riding in the submarine for that.”

  * * *

  Curious airships hovered all around Buster as he traveled across New Rome Harbor in the arms of the squid-like submarine, and the big steam man whistled happily at them and wagged his tail.

  “Not exactly keeping a low profile, are we?” Clyde asked via shell.

  The rest of the League watched through one of The Kraken’s big eye-windows, but Clyde had refused to leave Buster alone on the journey.

  “No,” said Archie. “But I’m done keeping a low profile.” He and Hachi shared a look, and she nodded. There were going to be changes to the way things were done. But only after Moffett had been taken care of.

  The Kraken set Buster on Oyster Island as gently as a pneumatic elevator, and Clyde let the big steam man run free in the grassy area around the base of the statue while Clyde climbed into the sub.

  “If I’m right, there’s a secret submarine entrance to the headquarters somewhere below the surface,” Archie said.

  The Kraken rumbled, preparing to dive deeper, but Señor X told them to wait. “I’ve got it—the Dragon Lantern. I’m picking up its energy signal. It’s here, but it’s not underwater. It’s higher up. It’s … inside the statue of Hiawatha.”

  The League of Seven spilled out into the park at the base of the statue and ran for the stone pedestal it stood on. A small ticket office and guard post were leveled as though they had been hit by a tornado, and the door that accessed the inside of the statue was blown off its hinges.

  “Moffett,” Archie said.

  A tall spiral staircase inside the statue went all the way to the top of Hiawatha’s domed head.

  “But what’s she doing up there if the Septemberist Society’s headquarters are down below?” Fergus asked.

  “Whatever it is, it isn’t good,” Hachi said.

  “Guess it’s time to cowboy up and climb,” Gonzalo said.

  “Buster can lift all of us up,” Clyde said.

  Fergus’s gyrocopter popped out of his backpack. “I can give at least one person a lift.”

  “We come at her from all sides,” Hachi said. “We don’t give her a chance to run, and we don’t give her a chance to do whatever it is she means to do.”

  “Which means she can’t see us coming,” Gonzalo said.

  * * *

  Philomena Moffett stood on a walkway along the outside rim of Hiawatha’s head, holding on to one of the two eagle feathers that stuck out from his head. Wind blew the curls of her dark black hair into her face, and a tentacle pushed them back so she could see. The city of New Rome stretched up Mannahatta Island to the north and into Breucklen and Queens to the northeast, and she could see the longhouses and factories of Hackensack territory off to the west, in Jersey. There were hundreds of thousands of people down there, she thought, all busily living their sunny, happy little lives, ignorant of the untold horrors lurking under their feet and beneath the waves and in the shadows.

  For centuries, the Septemberist Society had kept the darkness from their doors. Hidden the truth about the world from the tribes of America. How many lives had been sacrificed to keep them from discovering the awful truth of the Mangleborn? How many people had died so that these stupid, oblivious people could turn off their gaslights at night and sleep in peace without fear of something monstrous going bump in the night?

  Hundreds. Thousands. Philomena Moffett knew from her time as chief of the Septemberist Society. But there was only one life that had been given that she really cared about.

  Not given. Taken.

  Hers.

  Philomena’s mother had died, her good-for-nothing father had abandoned her, and the Septemberist Society had taken her. Taken her and experimented on her, hurt her in ways unimaginable, both physically and mentally, all to try to make her into a hero. A hero to protect a world that had never done anything for her, never loved her, never cared for her. A hero to beat back the evil at the heart of the world so these pathetic, mewling kittens could go on purring and preening and pretending the world was a bright, warm, beautiful place. She had given her life for theirs—no, it had been taken! she told herself again. Her life had been taken, just like the other children’s lives at Dodge City. Sacrificed so these people could live in blissful ignorance. And now it was time to even the score.

  Behind her, the Dragon Lantern hummed. Very soon now, she thought. Very soon now it would be over, and everyone who had ruined her life would pay.

  “Mina,” said a deep voice behind her.

  Moffett spun, and gasped. On the other side of Hiawatha’s bald head was Twelvetrees, the big Navajo boy the scientists at Dodge City had turned into a buffalo-man.

  “No!” Moffett cried. “How could you—?” />
  “Mina, end this,” said Renata, the New Spanish girl who’d been mutated into a feathery lizard by the Dragon Lantern.

  They were all here. Twelvetrees. Renata. Henry, the Acadian horse-boy. Ivan, the Inuit who’d become a mute lobster-like monster with red claws and a hard shell. Ominotago, the Cheyenne girl who was so inhuman, so unlike anything of the Earth, that her organs floated in a semitransparent ooze.

  And gliding in to land on one of Hiawatha’s giant eagle feathers, the Illini girl who’d grown wings and talons. The girl who had been Moffett’s only friend before the Lantern.

  Sings-In-The-Night.

  Horror slipped around Moffett’s heart like a tentacle, but she knew in her brain it was a trick. The fox-girl who had stolen the Dragon Lantern. She was doing this. She’d met Sings-In-The-Night. She knew all about Dodge City.

  But how did she know about the others?

  “You’re not real,” Moffett said, trying to talk herself out of what she was seeing. “You’re all dead. I saw you all die.”

  “I didn’t die,” Sings-In-The-Night said. “You killed me.”

  The Dodge City League wasn’t real; Moffett knew that. They weren’t really here. But what she was seeing meant that Archie Dent’s new League was here, hiding behind the illusion. Distracting her. Moffett smiled. The fox-girl’s tricks could hide them, but they couldn’t protect them.

  “I did kill you,” she told the illusion. “And I’ll kill the rest of you too!”

  Moffett spun, took a deep breath, and screamed at the empty space around the Dragon Lantern. Kitsune’s illusion evaporated, and suddenly Hiawatha’s crown was full of Leaguers. Real Leaguers. The fox-girl, looking pale and tired. A Texian boy with a tin star and a wave cannon. Hachi and her clacking little toys. The little UN soldier and his giant steam man peeking up over Hiawatha’s head. They surrounded her.

  Two more of them—Fergus and a gray-skinned, tattooed Karankawan girl Moffett didn’t know—were bent over the Dragon Lantern, trying to turn it off. And with them was Archie Dent, the boy made of stone. He leaped in front of Moffett’s sonic scream, protecting his friends.

  WOMWOMWOMWOMWOM! Moffett focused the sound waves on Archie, pushing him back. He tripped over the Dragon Lantern, tumbled backward down Hiawatha’s round head, and disappeared over the side.

  “Now,” Moffett said to the others. “Who’s next?”

  36

  Archie fell. Again. He was always falling off things. Airships, floating cities, giant underground machines. And now the statue of Hiawatha in New Rome Harbor.

  “Slag,” Archie said. He closed his eyes and waited for the thud.

  Shunk. Something caught him long before he should have hit the ground. Buster! Clyde had caught Archie in the steam man’s big brass hand!

  “Need a lift?” Clyde asked.

  Archie smiled. “Yeah. Thanks. I wasn’t looking forward to climbing all those stairs.”

  Clyde put Archie back on top of Hiawatha in the middle of a free-for-all. Moffett stood over the glowing red Dragon Lantern, fighting everyone at once. Hachi struggled in Moffett’s tentacles, her flying circus trying to pry her free. Fergus, his leg brace broken from the sonic scream, knelt nearby and hurled lightning. Ghosts of the Dodge City League appeared randomly around Moffett, surprising her. Martine tried to jab her flaming green harpoon through Moffett’s swirling tentacles. Gonzalo fired a blue beam from Señor X.

  WOMWOMWOMWOMWOM! Moffett screamed at Gonzalo, deflecting the ray that would freeze her in amber. Archie used the chance to rush her. Thoom. He hit Moffett with all his strength, and she dropped Hachi and rolled backward toward the edge of Hiawatha’s head. Her tentacles caught her at the last moment, and she pulled herself up to face them.

  “Give up, Moffett,” Archie told her. “You can’t beat all of us at once.”

  “You’re right,” said Moffett. WOMWOMWOMWOMWOM! Moffett swept the top of Hiawatha’s head with a sonic scream. Archie held his ground against it and Hachi ducked behind Hiawatha’s Mohawk, but everyone else went tumbling off the roof.

  “Kitsune! Fergus! Gonzalo! Martine!” Archie cried, but it was swallowed up by Moffett’s piercing screech. When it died away, Archie took a step toward her, anger welling up inside him.

  “There. That evens the odds a little, don’t you think?” Moffett crowed.

  Hachi leaped over the copper Mohawk and stood with Archie, her flying circus buzzing around them. Behind them, the Dragon Lantern’s humming kept getting louder, its red glow getting brighter.

  “She set it to overload,” Hachi said over the wind. “She means to blow it up, taking Septemberist headquarters with it.”

  “Not just the Septemberist Society,” Moffett said. “When that thing explodes, it’ll destroy the whole city!”

  Archie raised a fist to smash the thing.

  “Go ahead,” Moffett said. “Do it now and I won’t have to wait!”

  Hachi caught Archie’s hand. “Don’t! Smashing it could make it explode!”

  Archie picked the Dragon Lantern up.

  “Then I’ll throw it! I’ll throw it into the ocean!”

  Moffett laughed. “It won’t matter! You can’t throw it far enough. You might save your precious Septemberist Society, but plenty more people will die!”

  Buster’s head appeared beside them, and he held up one of his big brass hands. Kitsune, Gonzalo, and Martine stood on his palm, and Fergus flew up alongside on his gyrocopter.

  “Top floor: Dragon Lanterns, copper feathers, and lady supervillains!” Clyde announced.

  Fergus fired lightning at Moffett, and she leaped out of the way.

  WOMWOMWOMWOMWOM! Moffett screamed again. Fergus went spinning away, and Clyde closed Buster’s hand around the three Leaguers he held to protect them. Moffett turned the scream on Archie and Hachi, and he grabbed her hand to keep her from flying away. Hachi kicked in the air like a wind sock, but Archie held tight.

  Moffett’s scream died away, and Hachi began to fall back to Hiawatha’s head. Archie hurled her instead, throwing her right at the sagging Philomena Moffett. Hachi did a somersault in the air and hit Moffett feetfirst—oomph!—driving her back over the edge.

  Clyde set the others back on Hiawatha’s head. “Did she fall?”

  Hachi inched toward the side, her flying circus flitting ahead of her to see. Hachi was almost to the edge when Mr. Lion, Jo-Jo, Tusker, and Freckles began chittering and fluttering around like mad. Hachi turned and leaped away, but a purple tentacle shot up over the edge of the statue and grabbed her, flipping her away into the sky.

  “Hachi!” Fergus cried, diving after her with his gyrocopter.

  Moffett pulled herself back onto the head. Behind Archie, the Dragon Lantern reached an ear-splitting vibrato.

  “Why are you protecting them?” Moffett asked Archie. “How can you fight for a society that sacrifices children for their own comfort? They used you, just like they used me!”

  “We’re not the Septemberist Society,” Archie yelled back. Behind him, Martine bent over the Dragon Lantern again, and Gonzalo and Kitsune spread out on Hiawatha’s head, bent low against the thrashing wind. “The Septemberists have a lot more than Dodge City to answer for,” Archie told her. “But not like this. Not this way. You’re going to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people!”

  “Innocent!?” Moffett cried. She pointed at the city behind her, her long skirt whipping in the wind. “You think they’re all innocent, just because they don’t know? They’re the ones who benefit from our sacrifice! They’re the ones who allow it to happen so they can live their lives in blissful ignorance!”

  KaPOW! Señor X fired a blue beam at her again, and she dove away. Archie pried one of Hiawatha’s big copper feathers from the statue’s head and swung it down in front of Kitsune and Martine, deflecting the sound waves as Moffett screamed again. WOMWOMWOMWOMWOM!

  Fergus and Hachi landed to one side of Moffett as her scream ended. Hachi brandished her knives. Fergus glowed with
lektricity. Gonzalo circled with his wave cannon. Buster peeked up over the edge. They had Moffett surrounded.

  Archie raised the huge copper feather, threatening to flatten her with it.

  “Tell us how to shut it down, Moffett,” Clyde said. “It’s over.”

  Moffett stepped back toward the ledge. “Never!” she cried.

  “Leaguers, full steam ahead!” Clyde cried.

  Fergus shot lightning. Hachi threw knives. Gonzalo fired his blue amber beam. Archie slammed the copper feather.

  Moffett dodged them all by diving over the edge. She grabbed for the closest of the two feathers still sticking out of Hiawatha’s head, but her tentacles passed right through it. Whoosh. The illusion vanished, and with wide-eyed horror Moffett fell three hundred feet to the ground below. She hit the ground in a squall of writhing tentacles, and was still.

  Kitsune limped up behind the others on Gonzalo’s shoulder. “Funny,” she said. “All those times she saw the statue of Hiawatha, and she didn’t remember he only had two feathers, not three.”

  “The Dragon Lantern!” Clyde reminded them all.

  The ancient Mu device trembled and glowed redder, the pitch from its overloading circuits almost deafening. Martine still sat staring at it as she had been for minutes.

  “I’ll throw it in the ocean!” Archie yelled over the wind and the whine. “It’s all we can do!”

  “Nae,” Fergus said. “I can get it farther carrying it on my gyrocopter!”

  “No! You’ll die!” Hachi yelled.

  “If I don’t we’re all gonna die!” Fergus yelled back.

  “I’ll freeze it in blue amber!” Gonzalo cried.

  “It won’t help!” Hachi told him.

  “Well somebody do something,” Señor X said.

  “All right, here’s what we’re gonna do—” Clyde told them.

  Martine reached out and touched the claw of one of the four silver dragons that snaked up the corners of the lantern. Feuuuuuuuw. The awful screeching and shaking stopped all at once, and the Dragon Lantern’s dangerous red glow faded away into nothing.