The Monster War

by Alan Gratz

  It was Martine. She swam through the water with the grace of a dolphin, her webbed fingers and hands pulling her along so quickly she was on top of Archie almost as soon as he saw her. The green glow came from the harpoon she wore on her back—the same one Archie had seen in Galveston, glowing with aetherical power. But Archie didn’t understand—how was she able to hold her breath so long?

  Martine put her long, slender arm under Archie’s, made sure he was secure, and swam up and away from the Mangleborn. As they rose, he saw the flaps of skin on her neck that rose and fell with the currents.

  Gills. Martine had gills that let her breathe underwater.

  Martine was the seventh and final Leaguer. The scholar. The scientist. Martine with her gills and her aetherical submarine and her library.

  They were a proper League of Seven at last: hero, warrior, tinker, scholar, trickster, lawbringer, shadow. Archie felt a thrill—he was a part of something that only came around once every few centuries. He was a member of an honest-to-goodness League of Seven.

  And then Archie remembered why Leagues came together in the first place. Why the world only needed them once every few centuries.

  People only got a new League of Seven when the world was about to end.

  11

  Gonzalo, Fergus, and Mr. Rivets were at the airlock when Martine dragged Archie and Señor X back in. Gonzalo took a rag to Señor X, and Mr. Rivets handed Archie a towel.

  “That was gross,” Archie told them.

  “We’re not out of the water yet,” said Fergus.

  KaFWOOM. The ship lurched, and Archie staggered to stay on his feet.

  “More depth charges?” Archie asked.

  “No,” said Fergus. “Torpedoes!”

  Martine left for the bridge at the same maddeningly slow pace as Gonzalo, and Archie and Fergus hurried ahead to look out the window. A few hundred yards away sat a long, steel-gray submarine with the red, white, and blue flag of the Republic of Texas with its lone star painted on its side. Its name was the TSS Zavala.

  As they watched, a torpedo hissed out of its gun ports and shot toward them through the water.

  KaFWOOM. The Kraken rocked again from the explosion.

  Martine slid into her seat and began flipping switches. With an easy turn of the wheel, she guided The Kraken away from Zavala.

  KaFWOOM. The Kraken rocked again as Zavala shot it from behind.

  Archie strained to look back through the window. “Aren’t you going to fight?”

  “No,” Martine said. “The Lafitte brought this on Galveston. They’re just doing their job. I’m not going to hurt innocent people.”

  “Innocent people?” Archie said. “They’re attacking us!”

  “What kind of pirate are you?” Fergus asked.

  “A bad one, according to the Lafitte,” Martine admitted. “But I see no reason to attack and steal from manned submarines when there are so many wrecked ships full of treasure on the ocean’s floor.”

  KaFWOOM. Another torpedo struck The Kraken, and Archie slammed into a control panel.

  “I thought you built all those octopod raiding ships for the Lafitte,” Gonzalo said.

  “Designed,” Martine said as she twisted and dipped and rose, trying to evade the torpedoes that hissed by. “The Lafitte’s engineers built them. And what they chose to do with them was his affair.”

  What the Karankawan pirates of Galveston were choosing to do with them right then was to engage the Texas Navy. The Kraken dodged and swerved through a maze of octopod raiders, all wrapped around Texas Navy submarines like giant squid attacking sperm whales. The water thudded with exploding torpedoes and bubbled with burning raycannon beams.

  KaFWOOM. A torpedo hit them from the side as another Texas submarine joined Zavala in pursuit.

  “There’s too many of them,” Fergus said. The glowing, spinning scope Archie had been so fascinated with was filled with moving dots. “We’ll never get out of here in one piece.”

  “There is a 73.7 percent chance that you are correct,” Martine said calmly.

  Archie was no scientist, but he knew enough to know those weren’t good odds.

  “Another Mangleborn!” Fergus cried.

  It floated up from the depths like an airship rising through the clouds. Whatever this Deep One was, it was gigantic. Bigger than the other two they had just fought combined. It was a monstrous, yellow-orange, almost transparent gelatinous ooze that undulated like a jellyfish, trailing a mass of dangling tentacles.

  “I—I see it!” Gonzalo cried. It was the first time Archie had heard him slip a gear. Gonzalo backed into the doorjamb and slid to the floor. “I don’t know how, but I can see it!”

  Martine steered straight for it.

  “What are you doing?” Archie cried.

  “It’s not real,” Martine said.

  “What are you talking about, it’s not real?” Fergus said. “Even Gonzalo can see it!”

  Gonzalo held out a hand, as though he could reach out and touch the thing. “It’s—it’s beautiful,” he muttered.

  A Texas Navy submarine ran into the monster’s tentacles, and lektricity crackled around it. The submarine slowed and listed, its tail end rising as it floated dead in the water.

  And still Martine drove right at it.

  “Turn, turn, turn!” Archie cried. Behind them, the Texas Navy subs that had been pursuing them broke off their pursuit.

  “There is no Deep One ahead of us,” Martine said.

  The Mangleborn got closer, and closer, and closer, and Archie closed his eyes and braced for impact.

  Nothing. He opened his eyes. The jellyfish monster was all around them, but The Kraken was still streaming forward. Gonzalo looked all around them in absolute wonder.

  “We must be slicing right through it!” Fergus marveled.

  “There is nothing to slice through,” Martine said. “There is no Deep One here.”

  She was right—they passed through the glowing, gelatinous guts of the thing without splitting it or pushing any of it aside.

  “How did you know?” Fergus asked Martine, still staring at the impossible thing all around them.

  “It’s not on the sonar scope,” Martine said. She pointed to the spinning readout with the ghostly images on it. It showed all the dots of the fleeing Texas Navy and Galveston pirate ships, but not the gigantic Deep One that had scared them off. The thing looked real, acted real, but it wasn’t really there. It was just an illusion. An illusion that even Gonzalo could see.…

  “Kitsune!” Archie cried happily.

  “Kitsune?” Fergus said. “What’s a Kitsune?”

  Collision alarms suddenly went off in the cockpit. Clang! The Kraken jolted as something slammed down on it and yanked it up out of the ocean. The submarine lifted into the air, and as the last of the water sluiced off the window they saw the big friendly brass face of a giant steam man. It whistled happily at them.

  “Buster!” Archie yelled.

  The Kraken’s tentacles wrapped around Buster’s big mechanical arms, and his happy whistle became a frightened whimper.

  “No, don’t!” Archie told Martine. “They’re friends! They’re the ones who made everybody see the Mangleborn so we could get away!”

  Martine pulled The Kraken’s tentacles away, and Buster sat them down on a long, thin stretch of sandy beach. The big steam man whistled and hopped around anxiously as they made their way out of the airlock, pouncing on Archie as soon as he was clear of the sub.

  “Okay! Okay! Hi! Hello, Buster!’ Archie said, laughing, as the giant steam man jumped up and down on him, driving him down into the sand. It would have killed anyone else, but Buster knew he could play rough with Archie. “All right! All right,” Archie told the big brass steam man with the soul of a dog. “Off. Off!”

  “Buster, heel!” Clyde called, and the giant steam man bounded over to the good-looking Afrikan boy in the UN Cavalry uniform who stood on a dune nearby. “Sit!” Clyde said, and Buster thunked hi
s big brass bottom down on the sand, his tailpipe wagging furiously.

  “Archie!” Clyde said, and the two shook hands enthusiastically. “Buster was so happy to see you, I just about couldn’t get out, and that’s a fact!”

  “It’s great to see you again!” Archie told him. He hadn’t realized how much he’d missed Clyde and Buster. “How’d you find me?”

  “When we heard there was a big ruckus, we figured you had to be right in the middle of it.”

  Archie sighed. “I’m not always in the middle of everything,” he said. “Where’s Kitsune?”

  Clyde pointed up to Buster’s shoulder, where the fox-girl sat watching them. Archie waved at her, and she waved back before hopping down Buster’s arm.

  “Mr. R!” Clyde called to Mr. Rivets. “What’s the word?”

  “It is most gratifying to see you again, Master Clyde,” Mr. Rivets said. “And you too, Miss Kitsune,” he said as the fox-girl landed softly on the ground.

  “Thanks for the save,” Archie told her. “The submarine getting caught in the jellyfish was a nice touch.”

  Kitsune grinned. “A good lie is all about the details.”

  “Glad to see you’re still around,” Archie said.

  Kitsune put a hand to the pearl necklace she wore. “I made a promise,” she said. “I may lie, but I never break a promise.”

  “Gonzalo, this is the real Clyde,” Archie told the Texas Ranger. But Gonzalo was still too stunned from his vision of the jellyfish-like Mangleborn to speak.

  Archie introduced everybody else, including Gonzalo’s steamhorse.

  “Alamo?” Clyde said. “Well, that ought to be easy to remember.”

  “Yes,” Martine said. “The name has a pleasing yellow-gray-yellow-blue-white combination.”

  Everyone was quiet for a moment.

  “No, he means because of ‘Remember the Alamo.’ What do you mean yellow and blue and all that?” Archie asked. Alamo was unpainted brass, like Mr. Rivets.

  “Yellow-gray-yellow-blue-white,” Martine said. “The letters in Alamo’s name.”

  “The letters in his name … have colors?” Fergus asked.

  “Of course,” Martine said. “All letters and numbers do. Archie’s is yellow-blue-green-pink-white-orange. A very angry and confused combination.”

  Clyde, Kitsune, and Fergus looked awkward, and Archie cleared his throat. Every one of them had seen him get angry and confused and lose his mind and become a monster.

  “What’s wrong?” Gonzalo asked, sensing everyone’s discomfort.

  “Nothin’,” Clyde said, diplomatic as always. “Great to have you on the team,” he said, holding out a hand to Gonzalo.

  “He wants to shake your hand,” Señor X told him.

  Gonzalo found Clyde’s hand and shook it.

  “Talking raygun?” Clyde asked, clearly impressed. “Where’d you get that?”

  “Found it,” Gonzalo said simply.

  “Helps you see, huh? I knew a guy once who couldn’t see,” Clyde said. “Took a raygun blast in the face at the Battle of Stony Lake in ’63. Name was Cetanwakuwa. Man could cook. Didn’t know it ’til they put him on galley duty after the accident. Said he learned to use his taste buds and sniffer better when his eyes went bad. Guess it’s like Mrs. DeMarcus used to say, ‘One door closes, another opens.’ You can’t see at all?”

  Gonzalo shook his head. “Not until today.” He turned and looked right at Kitsune, even though she’d been quiet for some time. “You do that?”

  “Yes,” Kitsune said. “I can put pictures in people’s heads. Make them see anything I want them to.”

  “Órale!” Gonzalo gasped, and he dropped to his knees in the sand. He buried his face in his hands as tears streamed from his eyes.

  “Stop it!” Señor X cried. “Whatever you’re doing, stop! You’re hurting him!” The turquoise raygun hummed with a devastating charge. “Gonzalo! Gonzalo, pick me up and point me at her! Gonzalo!”

  Kitsune stared at Gonzalo like she was burning a hole in him.

  “Kitsune!” Archie said. He grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. “Kitsune, what are you doing? Stop it!”

  Kitsune came out of her trance and blinked, and Gonzalo sobbed.

  “I’ll kill her,” Señor X said. “Gonzalo, pick me up, and I’ll kill her.”

  “No,” Gonzalo muttered. “No. It’s all right, Señor. I’m all right.”

  “I didn’t hurt him,” Kitsune said.

  “Then why was he crying? What did you show him?” Archie asked.

  “Just this,” Kitsune said. “The beach. The ocean. Us.”

  “Que hermoso es,” Gonzalo said, still crying. They were tears of wonder and awe. “The colors. I never imagined the colors.…”

  “Okay,” Archie told Kitsune. “But maybe you need to go a little easier on the visions with Gonzalo for a little while.”

  Alamo helped Gonzalo to his feet, and Clyde, ever thoughtful, changed the subject while the ranger collected himself. “So you’re the famous Fergus Archie’s always talking about,” he said, shaking Fergus’s hand. “Archie says you can fix just about everything but a broken heart.”

  “Aye, and I might be able to fix even that if you didn’t mind it being brass and clockworks,” Fergus said. “I don’t suppose you’d be needing any help with your steam man, would you?” Fergus hadn’t taken his eyes off Buster since he’d climbed out of The Kraken.

  “Sure could use a tune-up,” Clyde said. “We had to march a far piece to get here for the big meet-up, and fast.”

  Archie looked at all the amazing people gathered around him: Clyde, Fergus, Kitsune, Gonzalo, Martine.

  “The League of Seven,” he said. “We’re the League of Seven. Seven heroes brought together to save the world.” He didn’t have to tell them what from—every one of them had seen or fought a Mangleborn or a Manglespawn, and knew what they could do. “Fergus is the Tinker. Kitsune’s the Trickster. Martine’s the Scientist. Gonzalo’s the Lawbringer. Clyde’s the Leader,” Archie said. “And I’m the Shadow.”

  “I already have a job,” Gonzalo said. “I’m a Texas Ranger.”

  “You can be both, G-man,” Señor X told him. “Trust me. You belong with these guys. We both do.”

  Archie remembered the vision he’d had inside the Hippocamp, of Señor X in the hands of a League lost to the sands of time. How many Leagues had the raygun been a part of before?

  “All right,” Gonzalo said. “Me and Señor X are with you. I just need to send word to my parents that I’m okay first.”

  “They won’t care that you’re off chasing beasties?” Fergus asked.

  Gonzalo shrugged. “It’s what we do. We’re Texas Rangers.”

  “Well, unless somebody’s better at hiding than I am,” Kitsune said, “I only see a League of Six, not a League of Seven.”

  “Your math is correct,” Martine said.

  “So where’s number seven?” Kitsune asked.

  The tattoos on Fergus’s face rearranged themselves, and his nose suddenly flashed blue like a lektric light and buzzed, making them all jump.

  “Speak of the devil,” Fergus said.

  “What in the Sam Hill is that?” Clyde asked, staring at Fergus’s nose.

  “When Hachi and I split up, I gave her a homing beacon, like the one that meka-ninja had that I kept hearing at Atlantis Station,” Fergus said. “I told her to turn it on when she was finished … doing what she needed to do.” He tapped the side of his nose. “Looks like she just turned it on.”

  Everyone but Archie stared at him like he was crazy.

  “Thomas Edison turned Fergus into a kind of lektric computational device,” Archie explained, as best he understood it.

  It didn’t seem to help.

  “Where is she?” Archie asked.

  Fergus turned slowly in the sand until the flashing light and buzzing sound got quicker. “East,” he said.

  “Well, that’s specific,” Kitsune said.

 
“All right, slightly east-southeast,” Fergus said testily.

  “How far?” Clyde asked.

  Fergus shrugged. “Not sure. We’ll find out when we get there.

  “Some of us can ride in Buster,” Archie said. “The rest of us can take The Kraken.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa,” Clyde said. “The whole plan was for everybody to meet up in Houston so we could go together and head off Moffett’s monster army.”

  “Moffett? Monster army?” Fergus said.

  “The Dragon Lantern turns people into Manglespawn,” Archie explained, forgetting that he hadn’t brought Fergus, Gonzalo, and Martine up to speed. “Only some people, though. People who have some part of the Mangleborn in them already.”

  “Deoxyribonucleic Acid,” Martine said, and it was her turn to be stared at again. “DNA. I have been studying ancient Mu medical textbooks about it. It’s the genetic sequence all living organisms use to develop and function.”

  No one understood what she was talking about, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “Mangleborn and Manglespawn have interbred with humanity for hundreds of thousands of years. It’s likely that most of us have some latent Mangleborn chromosomes in our DNA.” She looked at Kitsune. “Some of us more obviously than others.”

  “Says the girl who sees colors in letters,” Kitsune mumbled.

  “Your supposition is correct,” Martine told Kitsune. “I too am descended from a human-Mangleborn union. I am an eighth-generation Deep One–human hybrid.”

  “Wait—so you’re saying your great-great-grandfather got all kissy-kissy with one of those water beasties we just escaped?” Fergus asked.

  “Great-great-great-great-great-grandmother,” Martine said. “Yes. I have made the study of the Deep Ones my life’s work. I would like to find the Mangleborn who made me what I am today.”

  “And then what?” Archie asked.

  “Kill it,” Martine said.

  They were all silent for a moment. Martine was the only one who didn’t look uncomfortable.

  “Okay,” Fergus said, trying to get back to the matter at hand. “So the Dragon Lantern can activate the wee bits of us that are Mangleborn and turn us into monsters. So what?”

  “So Philomena Moffett has it,” Clyde said.