by Alan Gratz
* * *
A thing covered in porcupine needles quivered past Archie on his left side. A monster with the head of a lizard, the beak of a bird, and the body of a horse stamped past on the right. A man with jagged rocks growing out through his skin staggered right toward him, a low moan coming from his rock-filled mouth, and Archie quickly sidestepped him. Archie was deep inside the Monster Army now, but Kitsune’s illusion still held. Manglespawn slithered and wriggled and marched past him, oblivious to his existence, moving like mindless automatons toward the fields where General Lee’s United Nations Army waited for them. Archie went in the opposite direction, slipping between them and around them and sometimes, frighteningly, underneath them, toward the center of the army. Toward Philomena Moffett.
Archie held his breath as he narrowly slid between an orange, flaming dog and a gasping fish-woman. He didn’t need to breathe anyway, he thought.
Jandal a Haad, one of the Mangleborn whispered inside his head. Made of stone.
Mountainheart. Enemy to Both Sides, said the second.
Always different, but always the same, said the third.
No. No! Archie was closer to the Mangleborn now, those dark shapes hovering in the green mist beyond the Monster Army. He had to ignore their voices. Remember who he was. What he was doing. He was Archie Dent. He was a Leaguer. A hero.
And he was going to stop Philomena Moffett.
She stood on a low hill about fifty yards away, crowing something at the Manglespawn that swarmed past her. Archie stood still as an elephant-like man lumbered past him, then pushed on.
Something that looked like a cross between a bee and a bear stood on its hind legs off to his side, its nose high in the air. Archie froze. It sniffed in all directions, finally pointing itself at Archie. It might not be able to see through Kitsune’s illusion, but whatever it was, it could smell through it. The Manglespawn stopped walking forward with the rest of the mob and pushed its way toward him, and Archie hurried forward. He still had to be careful not to brush any of the other monsters. Kitsune couldn’t hide him knocking one of them over. And the things didn’t move in straight lines. They stomped and fought and shook and swayed. It was like trying to slip across a dance floor without touching any of the dancers. Only in this case the dancers were super-ugly monsters.
The bee-bear’s wings buzzed in excitement as it got closer and Archie’s scent got stronger. No! Archie was almost to Moffett! He could even hear what she was saying now—
“My fellow monsters, this is our moment! This is our world!” Moffett cried. “And it is time to take back what’s ours!”
Archie wasn’t going to make it—the bee-bear was going to catch up to him before he got to Moffett. Worse, the bee-bear was making a beeline for him, plowing against the current of the other Manglespawn. If Moffett looked in their direction, she would see what amounted to an arrow pointing straight at him. She still might not see him, but she wasn’t stupid. She would know something, someone, was there, and she would kill as many Manglespawn as it took to find him with her sonic scream.
The bee-bear snuffled and grunted through the Manglespawn. The stinger on its snout poked between a rolling ball of cats and a gelatinous blob, coming within inches of Archie. Still ranting, Moffett turned toward them on her tentacles. She was going to see the bee-bear. Find Archie, unless—
Archie thumped the bee-bear on the head. It dropped dead on the ground like a sack of potatoes. Archie froze. Moffett turned. Ranted. Her eyes swept past.
She hadn’t seen them!
Archie let out the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding, and turned. An oozing thing covered with eyeballs walked into him, blinded by Kitsune’s illusion. Archie cried out, stumbled backwards, and tripped over the fallen bee-bear. He knocked three more Manglespawn over, and monsters began to pile up and fight with each other in the chaos.
Moffett quickly looked back. “What was that? What’s going on?”
Slag it! Archie was such a klutz! He kicked and punched at the Manglespawn, trying to get them off of him, but they wriggled and writhed and oozed all over him. Then something was lifting the monsters off him and hurling them away, and there was Philomena Moffett, standing right over him. She frowned at the empty space Kitsune was making her see, until one of her tentacles snaked out and poked Archie in the stomach.
Suddenly the spell was broken. Moffett’s eyes went wide with surprise. She could see him! She took a deep breath and opened her mouth to scream, but Archie was faster. He lunged forward and punched her in the stomach.
Philomena Moffett went flying. She slammed into the hill, bounced over it, and tumbled down the other side in a swirl of tentacles and bustle skirt. Archie chased her, knocking Manglespawn out of the way like bowling pins. Behind him, he heard Buster thundering toward them. Clyde and the others had seen what happened. BWAAAAT! Buster’s raycannon carved a path through the Manglespawn, and in moments Archie and Buster stood together over the limp body of Mrs. Moffett. Archie raised a fist to hit her again, but she didn’t move.
Philomena Moffett was down for the count.
Clyde used Buster’s raycannon again to blast a deep trench around them that kept out most of the swarming Monster Army. Behind them, General Lee’s aether pistol shot a blue beam into the sky, and they heard the UN Army roar and charge the Manglespawn, rayguns streaming. The Monster War had begun.
“Is she dead?” Clyde asked as Buster lowered the other Leaguers, Alamo, and Mr. Rivets to the ground.
“No,” said Señor X. “Tough broad. You didn’t even hurt her that badly.”
Martine passed her harpoon over Moffett and read the markings on the handle. “The raygun is correct. She is alive, but unconscious.”
Kitsune collected the Dragon Lantern and made sure the slats in it were fully closed.
“So, we did it,” Fergus said, amazed. “Moffett’s down, and we’ve got the Dragon Lantern back. It’s party time!”
Hachi punched him in the shoulder. “Except for the twenty-five thousand Manglespawn and three Mangleborn still to fight.”
“Yeah, I don’t want them at the party,” Kitsune said.
“So what do we do about Moffett in the meantime?” Clyde asked. He swatted a leaping frog-woman away with Buster’s hand. “We can’t just leave her here. She’s gonna wake up sometime, and then she’s gonna start in all over again.”
“Can we tie her up?” Kitsune asked.
“Maybe with my lasso,” Gonzalo said. “But I sure don’t have enough handcuffs for all those tentacles.”
“Is there any kind of prison that could hold her with that sonic scream?” Hachi asked.
“Maybe something that canceled out her sound waves? A kind of sonic echo chamber,” Fergus said to Martine.
“Or, you know, we could just kill her,” said Señor X.
27
Señor X’s suggestion that they just kill Moffett got everybody quiet. Archie’d been thinking it, but he hadn’t wanted to say it. Maybe they all had. But could they really kill her? Here? Now? In cold blood?
“No,” Gonzalo said. “I know—the amber!” He turned a knob on his raygun and aimed it at Moffett.
“No, wait,” Hachi said. She reached out a hand to stop him, but it was too late. Kishoooooom. A blue stream from the raygun hit Philomena Moffett, and transparent blue resin splooshed onto her. Gonzalo kept shooting until the resin swallowed Moffett whole, encapsulating her from head to tentacles in a big blue block.
Blue amber, Archie realized. The stuff Sings-In-The-Night had been frozen in at Dodge City.
Gonzalo twirled his raygun and reholstered it. “Boom. Problem solved,” he said.
Archie walked up to the big block of blue amber and put his hand to it. Philomena Moffett lay entombed inside, her eyes closed like she was sleeping.
Martine passed her harpoon over Moffett again. “The blue amber has created a perfect hibernation effect, as anticipated.”
“‘As anticipated?’” Archie said. He l
ooked around at all the other Leaguers. Not one of them seemed as surprised as he was by what Gonzalo had just done. “I don’t understand,” Archie said. “Since when can your raygun shoot blue amber?”
The group grew still again the way they had when Señor X suggested they just kill Moffett. Gonzalo opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. Archie looked from Leaguer to Leaguer, but none of them would meet his eyes. None of them except Hachi.
A cold pit opened up in Archie’s stomach, and an explanation began to form in the back of his brain, an idea that grew and spread like the crack in his arm.
Jandal a Haad, the Mangleborn whispered. Mountainheart. Stone Coat.
Enemy to Both Sides.
Archie tried to shake off the voices. “You said—you said your raygun didn’t have a freeze ray. I asked you in Houston, Gonzalo, and you said no. So does someone want to tell me why his raygun can shoot the blue amber from Dodge City all of a sudden?” He punctuated the words ‘blue amber’ by slamming a fist into the block of the stuff that held Philomena Moffett. The block bounced a foot in the air before thudding back down.
Gonzalo put his hands out like he was trying to settle a shying horse. “Whoa now, Archie. Fergus and Martine just made some improvements to Señor X is all,” he said.
Down in the valley, the United Nations raycannons thoomed. Dirt exploded. Men screamed.
“Archie, we don’t have time for this right now,” Clyde told him. He turned Buster toward the fight. “Leaguers, full steam—”
Archie grabbed Buster’s huge brass foot and wrenched him back.
“No,” Archie said. “Make time.”
“Archie, twenty-five thousand monsters are pouring over that hill,” Fergus told him, “and there’s three Mangleborn besides!”
Monsters. The Mangleborn whispered. Like you.
You know why Xiuhcoatl wields the amber now.
You know the monster it was meant for.
The voices. The voices! Archie grabbed a clump of his white hair, like he wanted to rip it out. “So—so the only place we ever saw blue amber before was Dodge City,” he stammered. “But we didn’t take it with us. So that means—that means Clyde and Fergus went back and got it when they went out west after those Shadow Leaguers, didn’t they?”
Fergus frowned and glared at Hachi, but nobody said yes or no.
“But then, when did you modify Señor X?” Archie asked. “Because I never saw you do it.”
“It’s not a big deal, Archie!” Fergus said. “We did it in no time, didn’t we?” he said to Martine.
“If by ‘no time’ you mean all the time we were together after you returned from Dodge City with the technology until recovering Archie in Sonnionto,” Martine said.
Fergus put a hand to his tattooed forehead. “Oh, crivens,” he muttered.
Monster, the Mangleborn whispered. Beast. Abomination.
“So—” Archie said, trying to focus, trying to put all the pieces together. “So, Fergus and Clyde went back to Dodge City while they were out west. Only nobody told me. Then Fergus and Martine worked on Señor X together in Buster on the way to Sonnionto. So you all knew. You all knew and nobody told me.”
The fox-girl looked at the ground, and he knew he was right.
“And who’s idea was it to begin with, I wonder?” Archie said, looking right at Hachi. “You didn’t go back for it, or modify it, or agree to keep the secret from me. You’re the one who came up with the idea in the first place, aren’t you, Hachi?”
Screams and explosions and howls came from the battle raging a few hundred yards from where they stood.
“We’ll talk about this later, Archie,” Hachi told him.
“No!” Archie yelled. “We’ll talk about it now!” He slammed a fist down on the blue amber again, harder this time. It flipped over and slammed into the ground.
Gonzalo drew Señor X and pointed it at him.
Archie laughed. He laughed so hard he had to put his hands on his knees to keep standing. “That’s right—I should have remembered. When I came strolling out of that puzzle trap in Sonnionto, you all thought I’d gone crazy, didn’t you? My shell was broken, and when you couldn’t reach me, you thought I’d gone crazy down in that deep, dark hole. Gone berserk. When I came out, you were all standing behind the ranger here, and he was pointing his little raygun at me like it could actually do something to me. But you thought it could, because you’d fixed it. You’d fixed it to shoot blue amber. All of you. Together.”
They fear you, the Mangleborn whispered.
Hate you.
They always have.
And they always will.
Archie put his head in his hands. “You were all in on it. Every last one of you. You didn’t modify Señor X to take down Moffett, did you? You modified him to take down me.”
Boom. Ka-thoom. Raaaaawr. Yeaaaaaaa! The battle tore on behind them.
“Archie—” Fergus began.
“No!” Archie yelled. “You don’t trust me! You never did! None of you!” He pointed to Moffett, frozen in the amber, eyes closed like she was asleep. “How long were you going to keep me on ice?” he asked them. “Huh? If you froze me in amber, when were you going to let me out? You couldn’t unfreeze me, because I would still be mad when I came out. Madder.” He spun. “How long, then? A day? A week? Forever?”
Archie slammed his fist into the block of blue amber again—Kooom!—and a crack opened across Moffett’s face.
“Archie, don’t!” Clyde said.
“Or what?” Archie cried. Kooom. He hit the amber again, knocking away a piece of the corner. “Gonzalo will trap me in blue amber like Moffett?” Kooom. He hit it again and more cracks opened.
Cracks like the one in my arm, Archie thought.
Nunyanuwi. Necoc Yoatl. Jandal a Haad.
Made of Stone.
The Mangleborn on the horizon sang to him. Called Archie. And he longed to join them. They were his brothers and sisters. His family.
Buster’s giant raycannon charged. “Stop it, or I’ll shoot you,” Clyde said.
Archie laughed maniacally and raised his fist to hit the block of amber again.
BWAAAAT.
A thundering blue beam erupted from Buster’s arm and destroyed the whole area where Archie stood. Ka-THOOM! The blast blew the League back off their feet and showered them with dirt and rock and bits of blue amber.
When the dust cleared, Archie and Philomena Moffett lay stunned in a huge crater in the earth. The blue amber that had encased her was completely gone.
Buster bent down and whimpered, and Clyde reached one of the giant steam man’s hands out to nudge his friend.
“Archie—?” Clyde said.
Archie’s eyes shot open, and he grabbed Buster’s hand. KEE-RANK! He yanked the huge brass arm from its socket and used it like a club, smashing it into the side of the steam man’s head. KRANG. Buster careened and fell, tearing out another huge crater.
“Master Archie—no!” Mr. Rivets cried.
Archie wasn’t listening. He was too far gone. He tossed away Buster’s arm, punched a gaping hole in the steam man’s head, and pulled Clyde from the pilot’s chair. Before any of the other Leaguers could do anything to stop him, Archie tossed Clyde over his shoulder into the heart of the battle.
Buster growled and bit Archie, bending his brass mouth on Archie’s stone body. Crunk. The giant steam man whistled angrily at Archie and ran off onto the battlefield after Clyde.
Archie stood and panted, glaring at the five remaining Leaguers. They looked at him like he was a, like he was a—
Monster, the creatures on the horizon sang. Mangleborn.
Yes. That’s what the League thought. What they had always thought. That’s why they had betrayed him. Worked against him in secret.
And now Archie was going to make them pay.
Kazaaaaaaak!
Archie staggered back as lektricity blasted him. It burned for a hot second, and then the sensation was gone. Lektricity sti
ll shot from Fergus’s fingers, but Archie couldn’t feel it anymore. He took a step forward, pushing against the force of the kicking, streaming lightning, and Fergus cut the current. Archie’s singed clothes and white hair smoldered.
“Sorry, Archie,” Fergus told him.
“Don’t apologize,” Hachi said, drawing her knives. “Just kill him.”
28
Kishoooooom. A powerful blue beam from Gonzalo’s raygun hit him in the chest, and he felt liquid resin begin to gel around him. The blue amber! Before Archie could think how to fight it, the stuff had swallowed his body, his arms, his legs, his head. Krick-krick-krack. Blue amber filled Archie’s mouth and ears and eyes, consuming him inside and out.
And then it was over. Archie was frozen in blue amber.
“Òrale,” Gonzalo whispered. “It worked.”
Through a blue haze, Archie watched them all walk up cautiously to see and touch the stuff.
“He’s alive in there,” Señor X said. “Best I can tell. He doesn’t scan like a human being.”
Archie pushed with his frozen arms. Pulled with his frozen legs.
“This is wrong,” Fergus said. “I told you so from the start.”
“Tell that to Clyde,” Hachi said.
“We’d better go look for him,” Gonzalo said. “He could be really hurt.”
Archie strained against the amber, his muscles burning. No. Not muscles. Living stone.
“What about Archie?” Kitsune asked.
“I don’t know,” Hachi said. “But we’ve got bigger problems right now. Where did Moffett go?”
They looked around. Philomena Moffett was gone.
Krick. Krick-krack.
“What’s that sound?” Gonzalo asked.
Martine consulted the symbols on the side of her aetherical harpoon. “The structural integrity of the amber is degrading,” she said.
“It’s what now?” Kitsune asked.
“The amber’s cracking!” Fergus cried.
Krick-krick—KRACKOOM! Chunks of amber went flying as Archie broke free. Before Gonzalo could freeze him again, Archie grabbed the turquoise raygun and crushed it in his fist. Bzzzzzz-tish!