The Legacy Chronicles: Raising Monsters

by Pittacus Lore

  “Where is Cubby getting this drug from?” Nine asked.

  “There’s this guy,” Jackie said. “I’ve never met him. Supposedly, he has some connection to those Mogs. But Cubby makes a lot of things up, too, so I don’t really know.”

  At the mention of Mogs, Nemo looked at Nine. His expression was, as usual, unreadable.

  “Well, that’s really helpful info, Jackie,” he said. “Thank you. Now, I think Nemo and I need to hit the road.”

  “Already?” Jackie said, sounding disappointed.

  “I’m afraid so,” said Nine.

  Nemo stood up. Jackie did, too, holding out her arms. Nemo stepped into them and allowed herself to be hugged, even though it wasn’t her favorite thing to do.

  “Thanks for everything,” Nemo said. “I really appreciate it.”

  “Anytime,” Jackie said, letting her go. “Oh.” She took a piece of paper from a pad on the kitchen counter and scribbled something on it. “Here’s my email and my cell.” She folded the paper up and handed it to Nemo. “Stay in touch, okay?”

  “I will,” Nemo promised. “Maybe you can come visit us at the Academy sometime.”

  “As long as I don’t have to be nice to Trevor,” Jackie said, making a face.

  “Trevor?” said Nine. “The electricity kid?” He also made a face.

  Jackie and Nemo laughed. Then Jackie walked them to the front door, where she gave Nemo another hug before Nemo and Nine escaped to the safety of the car.

  “She likes to hug, doesn’t she?” Nine remarked as he started the car.

  “You’re lucky she didn’t try to give you one,” Nemo told him. “She’s got a major crush on you.”

  “Smart girl,” Nine joked.

  “Do you think we need to be worried about that drug stuff?” Nemo asked.

  “We’ll have to look into it later. Right now we have something more important to do.”

  “Where are we going?” Nemo asked.

  “To get Six and Sam and Max,” Nine said.

  “You know where they are?” Nemo asked excitedly.

  “No,” Nine admitted.

  Nemo’s hopes fell.

  Nine looked over at her and grinned. “But when has that ever stopped me?”

  CHAPTER THREE

  MAX

  UNKNOWN LOCATION

  “MAX! COME ON! I JUST WANT TO TALK TO YOU!”

  Ghost’s voice chased Max as he stumbled through the hallways of the bunker. His heart pounded as he searched frantically for a way out. But every turn he took seemed to reveal another identical corridor, each one a tunnel of cold, polished concrete lined with locked doors.

  He tried not to think about what had happened back in the room. The blood and pieces of the dead Mog. The revelation that he had been drugged by people he’d thought were his friends. The Mogs and Ghost had used him to lure Sam and Six to that house in the swamp. They’d pretended to care about him. But they didn’t.

  Seamus’s betrayal was bad—he was apparently working with the Mogs—but it didn’t hurt him as much as Ghost’s did. She and Max had been through a lot together. He’d thought that he was rescuing her, helping her get away from people who had done terrible things to her. In reality, she was trying to trap him.

  He rubbed the fresh tattoo on his arm. It had started to itch, and the skin was tender. He’d been so excited to get it, to feel like he was part of something along with Ghost. Now he felt like a fool. Knowing that he’d been under the influence of some kind of drug didn’t help. It made him feel even more stupid.

  “Max!”

  Ghost was right behind him. He had to do something. Although he was furious with her, he still felt a little bad about hurting her earlier. He clenched his hands. His telekinesis had never worked like that before. Never been so strong. He figured it probably had to do with him being angry. He didn’t know if he could do it again, and he didn’t really want to find out. Seeing Seamus and Ghost hit the wall after he blasted them with his telekinesis had shocked him.

  He wished he’d never developed Legacies. It had brought him nothing but trouble. Now he was in even more. He had no idea where he was. He had no one to help him. He was just blindly running, hoping something would happen to make everything okay.

  Again, he came to the end of a hallway. This time, there were no other corridors, only a door. And like all the others, it was locked. He rattled the handle, but nothing happened. He closed his eyes and concentrated, trying to will it open. Nothing.

  Ghost entered the corridor.

  “Max!” she called. She sounded relieved, and for a moment he thought maybe he had made a mistake. Maybe she really was his friend. Max turned and leaned against the door, looking at Ghost. She smiled.

  Then Seamus staggered into the hallway behind her. He was limping, and he held a hand to his head. Blood spotted his cheek. He turned and looked at Max.

  “You’re going to be sorry you did that,” he said.

  Ghost held her hand up. “Let me handle this.”

  Max bristled. “I’m not sorry!” he shouted. “And I’ll do it again!”

  He held his hands up. He saw Ghost and Seamus pause for a moment. Then Seamus laughed. “Oh yeah?” he said. “I think that was a lucky shot. And don’t forget, we have Legacies, too.”

  Max tried to use his telekinesis. He felt a little bit of something flow through his hands, but nothing like the blast he’d managed to produce before. He shook his hands, as if this might somehow clear whatever was blocking the energy he was trying to call up.

  Seamus grinned. “Like I said, you got a lucky shot.”

  “Max, no one wants to hurt you,” Ghost said.

  She was still advancing. Max stared at her hands, as if they were weapons that could go off at any moment.

  “It’s going to be okay,” she said, and Max saw her fingers twitch as if she was preparing to attack him.

  Behind him, something else moved. It was the door he was leaning against. For a second he thought he had somehow managed to make it open. Then he realized that somebody was pushing against it from the other side. This set off a new feeling of panic. He was surrounded.

  The door rattled again. There was no way of seeing who was pushing on it, and Max had only moments to decide what was worse—waiting for Ghost and Seamus to nab him or finding out who was trying to come through from the other side.

  He stepped forward, taking his weight off the door. It opened a crack.

  “This way!” a voice said as a hand reached out and tugged at his shirt.

  Max hesitated. He had no idea who the voice belonged to, or what was waiting for him behind the door. But he knew what was waiting if he stayed, so he pulled the door open, looked at Ghost and Seamus just long enough to see their expressions change to ones of surprise, then slipped through.

  “Get back,” said the boy who was standing there.

  Max stepped away from the door. The boy’s hands began to glow, and a moment later the metal push bar started to melt, twisting into a steaming knot.

  “That should keep them out,” he said.

  “Until Ghost teleports them through it,” said Max.

  The boy was wearing glasses. He pushed them up on the bridge of his nose and frowned. “Good point,” he said. “I guess we need to go to plan B.”

  “What’s plan B?”

  “We run,” the boy said.

  Behind him was a flight of stairs. He took off down them, his sneakers slapping on the steps as he went. Max followed. As they went down, Max got a better look at him. Short and skinny, he had dark brown skin and black hair. He was dressed in shorts and an Aquaman T-shirt.

  “What’s your name?” Max said, trying to keep up with the boy, who was practically jumping from landing to landing as they descended. Each floor had another door on it, but the boy didn’t go through any of them.

  “Kona,” the boy called back. “But everyone calls me Lava.”

  “I’m Max.”

  “I know,” Lava said. “We
’ve been watching you.”

  “We?” said Max.

  “You’ll see,” Lava said as they came to another landing and another door. This one, he finally shoved open.

  They were in another hallway. Lava walked quickly, looking back over his shoulder from time to time.

  “Where are we going?” Max asked.

  “Somewhere safe,” said Lava. “Well, safe-ish. Safer than being back up there, anyway.”

  All around them, Max heard the thrumming of machinery.

  “It’s the pumps,” Lava said, noticing him looking around. “For the lake.”

  “Lake?” said Max.

  “Do you have any idea where we are?” Lava asked.

  Max shook his head. “None. We teleported here. The last place I was in was Alabama.”

  “You’re a long way from Alabama now,” Lava said.

  Max noticed now that the hallway was lined with framed photographs. They showed what looked to be a big construction project of some kind. There were bulldozers, and piles of rock. In one, a group of smiling men stood on top of a case with DYNAMITE stenciled on the side. The landscape in all of the photos was similar—a mountain covered with scrubby pine trees—so the pictures had all obviously been taken in the same place.

  Lava stopped in front of another picture. Only this one wasn’t a photo. It was a map. And it was made of a copper-colored metal, with the various features of the landscape in relief.

  “We’re in Utah,” he said. He placed his finger in the northeast corner of the map, on top of a large raised area that seemed to be a mountain. “Here. In a place called Shilo.”

  He pressed his finger against the mountain. A moment later, a panel in the wall opened inward. Lava grinned. “After you,” he said to Max.

  Max stepped through and into a narrow corridor. Lava followed, pushing the hidden door closed. The hallway they were in was wood paneled. Globe-shaped fixtures at regular intervals along the wall glowed with soft yellow light. The air was cool.

  The corridor went on for about a hundred feet, then opened into a much larger room. Max stood, dumbfounded, as he looked around at what seemed to be the library from an old manor house. The walls were lined with bookcases, each one filled with leather-bound volumes. Oil paintings hung on the walls. Leather couches and armchairs provided numerous spots to sit, and thick carpets covered the floors.

  “How did this get here?” Max asked.

  “They built it when they built the rest of this place,” Lava said. He pointed to one of the armchairs. “Have a seat, we’ll be safe here. And I’ll tell you the story.”

  Max sat down, and Lava sat in another chair across from him. “Like I said, we’re in Shilo, Utah. Specifically, we’re inside a bunker built by a dude named Digby Klumber-Bach.”

  “Bunker?” said Max. “Like a place people hid in during wars?”

  “Exactly,” Lava said. “This Digby guy was megarich. His family owned steel companies, pharmaceutical companies, weapons manufacturing, all sorts of stuff. They made a ton of money during World War One, and they used it to build a mansion way out in the middle of nowhere.”

  “You mean here?” said Max.

  Lava pointed towards the ceiling. “I mean up there. Way up there, like three hundred feet up.”

  “We’re that far down?”

  “Yep,” said Lava. “See, the mansion was just the tip of the iceberg. The real reason for building way out here was to build this bunker.”

  “Why?”

  Lava grinned. “The Klumber-Bachs had a feeling that World War One wouldn’t be the last, and they were pretty sure the next one would be even deadlier. They decided to build a place where they could hide out when it happened. And what could be safer than being inside a mountain?”

  “Not having a war,” Max suggested.

  “Actually, it’s a mountain in a lake,” Lava said. “Which I guess technically makes it an island. But the lake is man-made.”

  “How do you know all of this?” Max asked.

  “Some of old Digby’s great-great-whatevers are still around,” said Lava. “The family still owns this place, but the bunker part is a big secret. Anyway, one of the family got mixed up with the Mogs somehow. I don’t know all the details. She’s apparently kind of nuts.”

  Max thought about the woman who had supposedly paid to hunt Rena, Nemo and the others in Montana. Helena something. He’d heard that she was involved with the group that was responsible for taking kids with Legacies. “How did you end up in this place?” he asked.

  “Some of us were brought here,” Lava answered. “Maybe a dozen or so.”

  “Why?”

  Lava shrugged. “Don’t really know,” he said. “We got moved around a lot.”

  Max had the feeling Lava wasn’t telling him everything. Or maybe he really didn’t know. He guessed it didn’t matter. The important thing was that he had gotten away from Ghost and Seamus.

  “How did you find this place?” he asked, indicating the room they were in.

  Lava grinned. “Cool, isn’t it? It’s Digby’s private hideaway. The place he came when he really wanted to get away from everybody. He didn’t tell anybody about it, not even his family. Bats is the one who found it.”

  “Bats?”

  “My friend,” said Lava. “She sees through walls and stuff. Sort of. Her Legacy is a kind of echolocation. Like bats use to navigate. She figured out there was something behind the wall in the hallway. It took us a little longer to find out how to get in here. That map trick is pretty cool, huh?”

  Max nodded. It was cool. “So, are you and Bats hiding in here?”

  Lava’s grin faded away. “That’s complicated,” he said. “I am. Mostly. I come out sometimes when I need stuff. Bats still lives out there with the others. She’s not one of them, though. She’s only doing it because of Kalea. My twin sister.”

  He sounded sad. Max waited for him to say more.

  “Kalea has a Legacy, too,” Lava continued after a moment. “She’s an earth mover. Basically, she causes earthquakes. That’s why we call her Shaky. Which she hates, by the way.” His grin returned, but only for a moment. “She tried to get everyone to call her Pele, after the Hawaiian goddess of fire and volcanoes, but I already have the lava thing going on, so she got stuck with Shaky.”

  “And she’s here?” Max asked.

  “Yeah,” Lava said. “I tried to get her to leave with me, but she wouldn’t. They’ve got her convinced that the world is going to be a bad place for people like us soon.”

  “Like us?” said Max. “You mean people with Legacies?”

  “Right,” Lava said. “They keep saying that things are going to change, and that pretty soon people with Legacies will be rounded up. They say we’ll only be safe if we stay here. Stay together. It’s this whole conspiracy theory thing. Kalea’s always been a little paranoid, which is how she and I ended up going underground in the first place.”

  Max thought about Nemo. “Sounds like a friend of mine,” he said.

  “You were on the run, too?”

  “For a while,” Max said. “Then we went to the Human Garde Academy. It’s a long story. Short version is, they’re really great. Only . . .” His voice trailed off as he thought about the events of the past few days.

  “Only what?”

  Max sighed. “Only now we’re in trouble again.”

  “Obviously,” Lava said. “I mean, you’re here and those two were after you. Heard a Mog got killed, too.” He shook his head. “They’re not going to like that. Especially if a human kid killed him.”

  “You keep saying ‘they,’” Max said. “Are you talking about the Mogs?”

  “Them and the humans who are working with them.”

  “How many are there?”

  “Not many Mogs,” Lava said. “Maybe half a dozen or so. About twice that many humans. It’s hard to say. They come and go.”

  “And how many kids are here?”

  “Seven,” said Lava. “Not countin
g your two buddies. There’s me, Bats and Shaky. Scotty you probably already know.”

  Max nodded. “Who else?”

  “Boomer and Spike,” Lava said. “Boomer makes things explode, and Spike causes temperature fluctuations. Oh, then there’s Freakshow.” He shuddered visibly.

  “Wait,” said Max. “I know that name. That’s the girl Rena met at Dennings’s camp. The one who makes you experience your biggest fear.”

  “That’s her,” Lava confirmed. “She’s the worst. She did it to me once.”

  “What did you see?”

  “Nothing good,” Lava said. “If you ever run into her, turn right around and get out of there.”

  “I thought Rena said that guy Drac took her Legacy away,” Max said, recalling the story.

  “Just temporarily,” Lava said. “As punishment. That’s what they were using to keep people in line. Making us afraid they could take our Legacies.”

  Max thought about Six and Sam, and how something was interfering with their Legacies now. He didn’t say anything about it to Lava, though, as he didn’t want to worry him even more. Instead, he tried to get him to say more about himself. “When did you decide you wanted to leave?”

  “Couple of weeks ago,” Lava said. “When I found out the Mogs are planning something. Something big.”

  “What kind of something?”

  Lava shrugged. “That’s the problem. We don’t know. Bats overheard a couple of the humans talking about it, but they didn’t say anything specific. We think it might be some kind of an attack. But the Mogs only speak their own language to each other, so it’s hard to say. None of us can understand them.”

  “I can,” Max said.

  Lava looked surprised. “You know Mog?”

  “I know every language,” Max said.

  “Piha‘ū o‘u mokukauaheahe i nā puhi,” Lava said.

  “Your hovercraft is full of eels?” said Max. “I don’t have any idea what that means.”

  “You need to watch more Monty Python,” Lava said. “Anyway, that’s really cool. And useful. Now all we have to do is get you near the Mogs so you can figure out what they’re saying.”

  Max stiffened. The thought of going anywhere near the Mogs made him uneasy. “Can’t we just get out of here?” he suggested. “Then we could call someone who can really help.”