The Dragon Lantern

by Alan Gratz

  Archie grabbed a little one-man work sub that sat on the dock and lifted it like a massive club. He slammed it down on her, but at the last moment she turned the force of her scream on the sub. WOMWOMWOMWOMWOM! The sonic scream held the submarine suspended in the air until it vibrated it to pieces around her.

  Mrs. Moffett’s scream gave out, and she collapsed to one knee to catch her breath. Buster had backed into a warehouse near the dock and fallen bottom-first into it, and Kitsune and Sings-In-The-Night were nowhere to be seen. Archie picked up another sub.

  “I’m not going to let you take the lantern,” Archie said. He took a step toward her, and she hit him with another sonic scream. He dropped the sub and stayed on his feet, but he could only move toward her when she backed away.

  “It would appear we are at an impasse,” Mrs. Moffett said when her scream ran out. “I can’t stop you, and you can’t stop me. But you can try again in Don Francisco. That’s where I’m going, if you’re interested. I have one last errand to run before my triumphant return home.”

  Mrs. Moffett used her sonic scream on a crane, bringing it down on Archie’s head. It didn’t hurt, but in the time it took Archie to dig his way out from under it, Philomena Moffett was gone.

  27

  Fergus took a step back. “Bigger snake,” he said.

  Li Grande Zombi’s head rose out of Lake Pontchartrain, water sluicing off it like a surfacing submarine, and it rose high into the air and hovered over them like an Apache Air Liner. As Hachi stared up at it, she wondered idly why she was thinking of airships and submarines.

  Maybe because I want to run as far away as fast as I can, she thought. That’s what the men and women who’d come pretending to be Laveau’s zombi army did, screaming as they disappeared into the night.

  “He come. Li Grande Zombi, he come to make you pay,” Theodosia said in Maman Brigitte’s voice, salt spilling from her mouth.

  “The hurricane!” Marie Laveau cried. “That’s what Maman Brigitte was doing! Li Grande Zombi is just like its loa—put salt in its mouth, and you put it back to sleep. The water in Lake Pontchartrain was just brackish enough, but the hurricane dumped gallons of freshwater into it, diluting the salt water!”

  The giant serpent struck like a flash of lightning, snatching up the steamboat in its giant jaws and smashing it to pieces. The steamboat’s boiler exploded, and Hachi, Fergus, and Laveau ducked as the docks were showered with wood and metal. When the last of the pieces of the steamboat had fallen from its mouth, Li Grande Zombi gave another hissing roar. The explosion hadn’t hurt it at all.

  “Crivens,” said Fergus. “Where’s Archie when you need him?”

  “Yeah,” said Hachi.

  “Your strongman? I told you—you are stronger together than apart,” Laveau told them.

  “Well, he’s not here now,” Hachi said. “So what do we do?”

  Lightning struck Li Grande Zombi, and it seemed to swell and grow taller. The serpent rose and slid up and out of Lake Pontchartrain toward the city behind them.

  “We run!” Laveau said, and she did just that.

  Hachi couldn’t argue with her. She grabbed Fergus by the arm and pulled him back toward the city. But Fergus was too slow on his dead leg. The serpent would overtake them at any moment, crushing them flat beneath its enormous belly.

  Lektricity sparked between Fergus’s fingers.

  “No, don’t,” Hachi told him. “You saw it—it feeds on lektricity just like the rest of the Mangleborn.”

  “I’m not charging up for that,” Fergus said. He pulled a rip cord that dangled from his belt, and up from a harness on his back shot a metal rod with four curved blades like a fan.

  “Oh no,” Hachi said. “Not that thing!”

  “Oh aye,” Fergus said. “Only mine’s better.” With a blue spark, the fan blades started whirring so fast Hachi couldn’t see them. Fergus grabbed her in his arms, and they shot up out of the way of Li Grande Zombi just as it crushed the dock where they’d been standing.

  “Mine’s lektric,” Fergus said.

  Fergus hovered far enough away from the giant serpent that it couldn’t get them, and they watched it pass.

  “I told you—one day one of my inventions was going to save your life,” Fergus said. “And what are you supposed to say?”

  “‘Fergus, you’re a genius,’” Hachi said. “But I thought you weren’t supposed to build lektric machines,” Hachi said. “That’s what wakes the Mangleborn.”

  “Aye, well, it doesn’t much matter now, does it?”

  He was right about that. They watched as Li Grande Zombi ripped up a building on the outskirts of the city with its giant jaws. While it chewed, its tail flicked out and destroyed a levee, flooding an entire quarter with canal water.

  “That’s it!” Fergus said. “I know what to do. How to take it down. We have to drive it back into Lake Pontchartrain.”

  “Yes, but how?” Hachi asked. “And even if we could, the water isn’t salty enough to keep it down.”

  Fergus flew them higher, out over the heart of the city. In the flashes of lightning, he pointed to the landscape below. “New Orleans sits between Lake Pontchartrain, the Mississippi River, and the Atlantis Ocean. All we have to do is bring the saltwater of the ocean to Lake Pontchartrain. That’s how it got salty to begin with.”

  “And how do we do that?” Hachi asked.

  “We destroy the levees holding the ocean back.”

  “Fergus, if we destroy the levees that hold the ocean back, it’ll flood the city.”

  “Aye. Sweeping Li Grande Zombi back into Lake Pontchartrain, and filling it with saltwater.”

  “And flooding the city.”

  “I don’t know what else to do, Hachi! Besides, if we don’t stop that thing, there isn’t going to be much of a city left!”

  Below them, Li Grande Zombi was smashing and slithering its way toward the center of New Orleans. Hachi had to admit he was right—and she didn’t see any other way. She nodded and Fergus swooped down, landing them on the sea levee near a submarine dock on the other side of the city. All the submarines that hadn’t escaped before the hurricane hit were torn from their moorings. Some of them had washed up and over the levee and lay grounded like beached whales; others were still at sea, trashing the dock as they smashed against it again and again in the churning, roaring waves of the Atlantis Ocean.

  Fergus pulled the gyrocopter harness off and slipped it over Hachi’s shoulders.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “What’s it look like I’m doing? I’m giving you the gyrocopter,” he said. “You have to go back and get anybody out who’s left. The battery’s all charged up.”

  “And what about you?” Hachi asked.

  “I’ll figure something out.”

  “No,” Hachi said. “When the levees go, you’ll drown. You hate water. And you can’t swim. Not without a head in a jar to hold you up.”

  “Anybody left in the town won’t know what’s coming,” Fergus told her. “You have to get them to high ground.” He held her away at arm’s length. “Go. You know you have to.”

  Behind them, they could hear Li Grande Zombi roar as another building was destroyed.

  “I hate you,” Hachi said.

  “I hate you too,” Fergus said. He surprised her by kissing her, and while she had her eyes closed he pushed a button on the controls in her hand and she shot into the sky.

  It took Hachi a minute to get the hang of the gyrocopter, and by that time she was out over the heart of the city again. The rain came down in sheets, and the wind blew her around like a leaf. Maman Brigitte! They hadn’t made sure she was out of Theodosia before they ran, and she must be back at it again. But never mind. They had bigger problems. Much bigger problems. And only destroying the levees would solve them.

  Hachi swooped down and buzzed through the empty streets, looking for signs of life in every window. She saw candles flickering in an upstairs room off Rampart Street and fle
w over, kicking the window open on a startled Creole family.

  “Get to the roof! The sea levee’s going to burst!” she told them. The momentary shock of a girl on a gyrocopter gone, they hurriedly collected their children and pets and ran for the roof.

  Hachi found more holdouts on Bourbon Street, and still more on Dumaine Street. Why were these people still in the city? At least the hundreds who’d seen the Mangleborn rise from Lake Pontchartrain had fled. She flew on through the Seventh Ward, and the Lower Ninth, where she was sure the water would go, and helped anyone too old or too ill up onto their roofs. Why hadn’t Fergus blown the levees yet? The only answer was that he was giving her time to save as many people as possible. But behind her, a black silhouette against the almost black sky, Li Grande Zombi slithered near what must be Metairie Road. If Fergus didn’t do it soon, it would be too late. The water would sweep the Mangleborn into the Mississippi, not the lake, and they would never get the monster back to sleep.

  Hachi was just about to give up and go back for Fergus when she turned a corner and saw a streetcar named Desire rattling its way toward the city center.

  A streetcar filled with children.

  Hachi cursed loudly and swooped down, landing on the back of the streetcar with less grace than she would have liked. She killed the gyrocopter’s engine and grabbed the first adult she could find, a woman in a long white dress, gray apron, and white nurse’s hat.

  “What are you doing?” Hachi cried.

  The stunned Haitian woman was still staring at the gyrocopter. Hachi shook her. “What are you doing?” she asked again. “Where are you going with all these kids?”

  The woman snapped out of it. “I’m Miss Jakande, head of the Gentilly Orphanage on Elysian Fields Avenue. I’m trying to get the children downtown, away from the ocean and the lake.”

  And toward the giant snake monster destroying the city, Hachi thought. But there were too many little eyes looking up at her for her to say it and scare them.

  “The sea levees are going to go any second,” Hachi told her. “We have to get these kids to a rooftop!”

  “But—but how?” the nurse asked.

  “Hang on!” Hachi called to the kids. She pushed the nurse away from the streetcar’s controls and threw the brake. The streetcar screeched and squealed as it lurched to a halt, but none of the kids went tumbling out. Hachi grabbed the first one she could reach, fired up the gyrocopter, and lifted off. As she set him on the flat roof of the five-story hotel next door, she heard the first of the explosions.

  Fergus was finally blowing up the levee.

  There would never be enough time to ferry each of the kids up to the rooftop one by one. “Take the big kids up the stairs!” Hachi told the nurse when she flew back down. They heard another boom, and the streetcar shook as another part of the sea levee was destroyed.

  “What about the rest of them?” Miss Jakande said.

  “Just go! I’ll fly them up! They’ll slow you down too much!”

  Miss Jakande took two of the orphans by the hands. “Fives, Sixes, and Sevens with me!” she called, and hurried toward the front door of the hotel.

  Another boom. Fergus wasn’t playing around.

  “Circus! Showtime!” Hachi cried. Four little animals burst from her bandolier this time, not three, and Hachi almost cried for joy at the sight of them. “Mr. Lion, Tusker, follow Miss Jakande. All those boys and girls have to get to the roof. No stragglers!”

  The little lion and elephant darted away, not-so-gently herding the slowpokes with nudges in the back. Hachi looked around at the five children who were left—what she guessed were the Fours. At least there aren’t Ones, Twos, and Threes too, she thought.

  Another boom, and this time, the distant sound of rushing water.

  Hachi grabbed one of the Fours and started the gyrocopter.

  “Everybody, this is Freckles and Jo-Jo,” she told the other children, who were already delighted by the flying gorilla and giraffe. “They’re going to keep you company until I can come back for all of you, all right? Jo-Jo, Freckles, parade! But don’t let any of them wander off!”

  Hachi’s little wind-up animals started a two-animal song-and-dance routine, and Hachi lifted off. One by one, she flew the Fours up to the rooftop, but each time, Hachi could feel the gyrocopter getting slower and weaker.

  “Come on, come on,” Hachi urged it. “Just a couple more.”

  On the next-to-last child, Miss Jakande and the other kids were there to take the Four from her without her having to land. She swooped down and grabbed up the last of the children, who was happily applauding Freckles’s antics, and hauled her up. One story. Two stories. Three stories … The gyrocopter started to flag. Four stories … The gyrocopter topped out and started to dip. They weren’t going to make it!

  And then Jo-Jo and Tusker and Freckles and Mr. Lion were there, grabbing on to her harness and pulling up for all their little wings were worth. The gyrocopter and Hachi’s circus lifted her just enough to pass the last Four off to the reaching hands of Miss Jakande and the Sevens, and then she was falling, spiraling down toward the street as the last of the lektricity drained from the gyrocopter’s battery with a whine.

  Hachi landed with a thunk on the rooftop of the streetcar and looked up to see a giant wave of seawater towering over her. Fergus’s invention wasn’t going to save her this time.

  Nothing was.

  28

  Buster sat in a park near the top of Nob Hill in Don Francisco, watching the city’s streetcars. Every time one of them clanged, Buster took the bell as an invitation to play chase, and Clyde had to remind him to stay. Thanks to his Dog Soldier training, Buster hadn’t gone chasing after a single streetcar. But he longed to.

  “Good dog,” Clyde told him, petting a rail on the bridge. “That’s a good dog. Stay. I know you want to play.”

  They had been sitting atop the hill in the city by the bay for three straight days now, looking for some sign of Philomena Moffett. While Buster watched the streetcars, Clyde, Archie, and Mr. Rivets watched the rolling hills of the city and the open-air submarine docks for trouble. So far, there hadn’t been any. Sings-In-The-Night hadn’t seen anything on her daily flights over the city, and Kitsune hadn’t found her on the streets. Every morning the fox girl disappeared into Don Francisco, and every evening she came back with sacks full of food. Archie never asked where or how she got it, but he had a guess.

  All five of them met up again in Buster’s galley, where Mr. Rivets inserted a Chef talent card and made them dinner. Archie looked around the table at his new friends and teammates. They were four of the League of Seven. The hero, the trickster, the scholar, and the shadow. In New Orleans were the tinker and the warrior—five and six—leaving only a seventh to join their League: the lawbringer. Would they find him or her here, in the Republic of California, on the other side of the continent from Septemberist headquarters?

  “I don’t think she’s here,” Kitsune said.

  “What?” Archie said.

  “Mrs. Moffett. I think she tricked us,” Kitsune said. “Told us she was going to California to mislead us, then took off for the United Nations.”

  “It’s possible,” Clyde said.

  “No,” Archie told them. “No, she’s here. I know it. She told me she was coming here because she wanted me to chase her. She’s messing with me. With all of us. She hates me. She hates all of us, and she wants to hurt us.”

  That made everyone quiet for a while.

  “I have an idea how to counteract that sonic scream of hers,” Sings-In-The-Night said. “I’ve been thinking about it during my flights over the city.” She spread a large piece of paper filled with scribbles and equations out on the table. “It all has to do with resonant frequencies. If we can find a way to turn Buster into a tuning fork, or maybe install one on him, we might be able to reach an equilibrium with her sonic scream.”

  “And then Buster wouldn’t shake all to pieces?” Clyde asked.

  �
��That’s the idea,” Sings-In-The-Night said. “I know the theory is sound, if you’ll forgive the pun, but I don’t know how I could actually build it.”

  “Leave that to Fergus,” Archie said. “You guys are going to love working together.”

  Mr. Rivets was just bringing the food to the table when they all heard it—a piercing alarm ringing out over the city, and a low womwomwomwomwom that vibrated in the air.

  “Mrs. Moffett,” Archie said.

  He and the others raced to the bridge, leaving Mr. Rivets holding an enormous steaming bowl of fish stew. “I’ll just keep this warm for later then, shall I?” he asked the empty room.

  Buster was already honed in on the ruckus, and Clyde activated his magnifying eye lens as soon as he was in the driver’s seat. The glass panes clicked down, zooming in on an island in the bay near the Golden Gate Bridge.

  “That’s Alcatraz Island,” Sings-In-The-Night said, studying a map at the navigator’s station. “It says the Republic of California has a high-security prison there.”

  “What’s she doing there?” Clyde asked.

  They watched as a building on the island crumbled. “Whatever it is, it isn’t good,” Archie said. “But how are we all going to get there?”

  “I can fly you and Kitsune over one at a time,” Sings-In-The-Night said. “But that doesn’t get Clyde and Buster there.”

  “I know how to get there,” Clyde said. “Hold on!” A streetcar was just coming over the crest of Nob Hill, and Clyde pointed Buster at it. “Buster, fetch! Get it, Buster, get it!”

  Buster leaped to his feet and charged after the streetcar, whistling happily. The driver of the little red-and-gold trolley looked back over his shoulder and panicked as the ten-story-tall steam man bore down on him. He released the hand brake and the streetcar shot away, but all that did was make Buster happier. Steamcars and horse buggies scattered, and people screamed and dove for shop doors as Buster ran back and forth behind the trolley, nipping at its bumpers.