Five has a piece of steel sticking out of his sternum. It looks like a broken-off pole from a street sign. He turns to the side slightly so that I can see the jagged other end poking out through his back. Each end comes out only a few inches, and both are twisted and warped like Five had to shorten the pole by ripping it with his hands. It’s straight through and, at the very least, has to be puncturing one of Five’s lungs and part of his spine. The steel pole could even be right up against his heart.
“I was already in my metal form when he drove it through me. That didn’t stop him, though,” Five explains, wheezing his words a bit. He looks at Nine with something close to admiration. “My instincts kicked in. I used my Externa in a way I hadn’t before, made the metal part of me. I can feel it cold inside me, Four. It’s weird.”
Five seems almost casual about this. I take a tentative step towards him and he smiles.
“I’m tired and I can’t hold my Externa forever,” Five says. “So I wanted it to be up to you. You’re the good one, John. The reasonable one. And you were always right in front of me in the order, keeping me alive all those years, whether you knew me or not. So what’s it going to be?”
I take another cautious step towards him. “Five . . .”
“Live or die?” Five asks, and then, without warning, he turns himself back into flesh.
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
FIVE CHOKES ON THE NEXT BREATH HE TAKES. A bubble of blood spews from his mouth. His skin, no longer covered by a layer of steel, goes pale in a hurry. His remaining eye goes wide and, in that moment before I watch it roll back in his head, I see fear there. Maybe Five thought he wanted this. But now, looking death in the face, he is scared.
Five collapses backwards into the grass, seizing and struggling to pull in painful-sounding breaths. Ten seconds. Impaled by a sign pole, that’s how long I’d guess Five has left to live.
He betrayed us. He told the Mogs where they could find us and got Nine’s safe house blown up. Because of Five, Setrákus Ra was able to kidnap Ella, and Sam’s dad was almost killed. He murdered Eight. With that needle-shaped blade that even now tears up chunks of dirt as Five spasms in the grass, Five executed one of his own people. He deserves this.
But I’m not like him. I can’t just watch him die.
“Goddamn you, Five,” I say through gritted teeth as I run forward and slide into the grass next to him. I press both my hands to his chest and use my healing Legacy, putting enough energy into him to at least stanch some of the internal bleeding, buying myself time to do the bigger healing. Five comes back to himself a little, his one eye finds mine and I think I catch the corner of his mouth twist into a knowing smile. Then, he passes out from pain and shock.
I need to get this metal pole out of him. Obviously I haven’t read a whole lot of medical textbooks, but I’m pretty sure removing it will further damage Five’s insides. Therefore, I should be healing him at the same time that metal is removed, hopefully to minimize the damage. I wrestle Five’s limp body into a sitting position, propping him up against me. Then, I wave Sam over.
“I need you to use your telekinesis to push the metal out of him,” I tell Sam quickly. “That way I can concentrate on the healing.”
“I . . .” Sam hesitates. He stares at Five’s mortally wounded frame and swallows hard. “I don’t think so, John.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I don’t think you should save him,” Sam replies, his voice more resolute now. He glances over his shoulder at Nine’s unconscious body. “Nine, uh . . . I think Nine was right with how he handled this.”
My hand is on the back of Five’s neck. I can feel his pulse getting slower. I stabilized him, but it won’t last long. He’s fading. I’m not sure it’ll work if I try using my telekinesis at the same time as my healing.
“He’s dying, Sam.”
“I know.”
“This has gone too far,” I say. “We’re not killing each other, not anymore. Help me save him, Sam.”
“No,” Sam replies, shaking his head. “He’s too—look, I’m not going to stop you. I know I couldn’t even if I tried. But I’m not helping you. I’m not helping him.”
“Hell, I’ll do it,” Daniela says, pushing by Sam and kneeling on the ground next to me.
I stare at Sam for a second longer. I get why he’s refusing to help, I really do. I’m sure Nine wouldn’t be leaping to my aid if he was conscious either. Still, I’m disappointed.
I turn my attention to Daniela. She’s staring at Five’s impalement like it’s the craziest thing she’s ever seen. She reaches out one hand towards where the metal disappears into his chest, but can’t quite bring herself to touch it.
“Why?” I ask her. “You don’t know Five or what he’s done. Why would you—?”
Daniela cuts me off with a shrug. “Because you asked. Now we doing this or not?”
“We’re doing this,” I say, setting my hands on either side of Five’s wound. “Push. Gently. I’ll heal him as we go.”
Daniela squints at the piece of metal, her hands hovering a few inches away from Five’s chest. I wonder if she has the control for this. If she exerts too much telekinetic force she could end up rocketing the steel pole right out of Five and I’m not sure I’ll be able to heal his torn-up insides fast enough. We have to go slow and steady, or risk Five bleeding out.
Slowly, Daniela starts to push the metal. Five’s breathing quickens when she does and he begins to squirm, although his eyes stay closed. She keeps her focus and has better control than I anticipated. I press my hands to Five’s chest, one on each side of the wound, and let my healing energy flow into him.
“Gross, gross, gross,” Daniela mutters under her breath.
I keep sending energy into Five, sensing his injuries mending but also feeling my Legacy thwarted by the metal still in his body. That’s until I hear a wet thunk in the grass and realize Daniela’s successfully pushed the post out of Five. When that happens, I really amp things up, healing his lungs and spine.
When I’m done, Five breathes easier. He’s still unconscious and, for the first time I can remember, looks almost peaceful. Thanks to me, he’s going to live. Now that the moment has passed, I’m not sure how I feel about that.
“Damn, man,” Daniela says. “We should be surgeons or something.”
“I hope we don’t regret this,” Sam says quietly.
“We won’t,” I say, glancing at Sam. “I did this. He’s my responsibility now.”
With that in mind, and considering he’s still knocked out, I quickly undo the wrist-mounted blade from Five’s forearm and toss it into the grass at Sam’s feet. Sam picks it up, carefully examines the mechanism and then hits the button to retract the blade. He tucks the weapon into the back of his jeans.
I remind myself that even without his blade Five isn’t fully disarmed. I open up both of his hands, looking for the rubber ball and ball bearing that he carries around to trigger his Externa. He isn’t holding them, so I start patting him down. When they don’t turn up in his pockets, I know there’s only one place they can be.
Cringing, I peel back the yellowed gauze pad that covers Five’s ruined eye. Jammed into the empty socket is the glinting ball bearing and its rubbery partner. It can’t be comfortable to have those two things stuffed inside his head. This is the life I’ve saved—a guy who sees losing an eye as an opportunity for more efficient storage. I use my telekinesis to scoop the two spheres out of Five’s eye socket and chuck them into the grass. He moans, but doesn’t come to.
“That’s nasty,” Daniela says.
“No kidding,” I reply. I look over at Agent Walker. She’s been watching this whole scene in silence. I know she probably sided with Sam and thinks I should’ve let Five die. That’s how I know I did the right thing. “Get me something to tie him up with,” I say to Walker.
Having just watched me scoop out hidden treasures from Five’s eye cavity, it takes Walker a moment to react to
my request. She reaches behind her, unclips her handcuffs and tosses them to me.
I catch them and immediately toss them back. “You know that’s a terrible idea, right? He turns into whatever he touches, Walker. Go get me some rope or something.”
“I’m an FBI agent, John. I don’t carry rope around with me.”
“Check the boat,” I say, shaking my head.
Annoyed that I’m giving her orders in front of the other agents, Walker sends Agent Murray jogging off to check if there’s any rope on the coast guard boat.
“You’re soft, Johnny.”
I turn around to see that Nine’s regained consciousness. He’s sitting up with his forearms braced against his knees, his head hunched a bit like it’s still bothering him. He looks from me to Five and back, shaking his head.
“You know how hard it was to shove that signpost through him?” Nine sighs.
I walk over and crouch in front of him. “You mad?”
Nine shrugs his burly shoulders, seeming oddly zen. “Whatever, dude. I’ll just kill him again later.”
“I really wish you wouldn’t.”
Nine rolls his eyes. “Yeah, yeah. All right, man. I get that you’re against the death penalty and all that shit. Did he beg you to save his life, at least? I would’ve liked to have seen that.”
“He didn’t beg,” I tell Nine. “In fact, I think he wanted to die.”
“Sick,” Nine replies.
“I didn’t want to give him what he was after.”
“Uh-huh. I know we usually lose when the bad guys get their way, John. But, man, I think this one was a win-win.”
“I disagree.”
Nine rolls his eyes, then looks towards Five. “We can never trust him, though. You know that, right?”
“I know that.”
“And if it comes down to it, I’m not gonna hesitate to do it again. You won’t be able to stop me.”
“You must still be concussed,” I say to him with a smile, deflecting the bluster. I gesture to his chest and arms, still covered in scrapes and blaster burns, and his broken hand. “You want me to finish healing all that?”
Nine nods. “Unless you only do work on murderers now,” he replies.
While I heal Nine, Daniela comes over and introduces herself. She gets the usual Cheshire grin from the big idiot. We bring him up to speed on everything that happened while he was brawling across the city with Five. When I’m finished, Nine turns to look out at the water and the burning city beyond.
“We should’ve done better,” he says quietly, shaking out his arms and legs, stretching his muscles. “Should’ve gotten him when we had the chance.”
“I know,” I reply. “It’s all I’ve been thinking about.”
“We’ll have more chances,” Nine says, then claps his hands and turns to Agent Walker. “So, you bringing us to Mexico or what, lady?”
Walker raises an eyebrow at Nine. Just then, Agent Murray returns, jogging back with his arms full of thick rope he must’ve freed from the boat. He hands it over to me and I proceed to tie up the still-unconscious Five, binding his wrists and ankles as tightly as possible. The cuffs of his jeans hitch up as I’m yanking closed the knots and I catch a glimpse of his scars. So similar to mine, identifying us as part of the same nearly extinct people. How did Five ever get to this point? And what happens next?
“What’re we going to do with him?” Sam asks, reading my mind.
“Prison,” I respond, realizing this is what I want only when I say it. “Just because I saved his life doesn’t mean there won’t be justice. We need a padded room for him, one where he can’t touch anything remotely hard.”
“That can be arranged,” Walker says.
She makes this offer quickly. It makes me wonder if she and the government have already designed places like that for us, prisons capable of holding us in spite of our Legacies. Maybe that was something MogPro was working on.
“Arrange it after you figure out how to get us to Mexico,” I tell her. “We’re not waiting any longer, Walker.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that if the president or those generals or whoever the hell’s in charge over there don’t get us on a jet in the next ten minutes, we’re just going to take one.”
Walker snorts at this. “You can’t fly a jet.”
“Bet you somebody’ll volunteer when I start breaking faces,” Nine says, stepping forward to back my play.
Agent Murray unclips his own walkie-talkie from his belt and offers it to Walker.
“Just make the call, Karen,” he sighs.
Walker gives Murray an icy look and produces her own satellite phone and walks a few steps away from us. Despite our history, I’m pretty convinced that Walker really does want to help us. It’s the rest of the government that isn’t convinced we’re a good bet to win this war. She’s doing everything she can in the face of that. Our window to be of any help to Six, Sarah and the others is getting smaller and smaller, though. I can’t stand around anymore hoping that these people will support us in our fight. We’re going to save them, whether they want us to or not. That’s all there is to it.
“You guys aren’t really going to attack the army now, are you?” Daniela asks, keeping her voice low so the agents don’t overhear.
“Shit, I can barely stand up,” Nine replies quietly.
“We do need to get down there, though,” Sam says, and I know he’s thinking about Six as much as I’m thinking about Sarah. “If she can’t help us, what’re we going to do?”
Nine looks at me. “You’d actually go through with it, wouldn’t you?”
“Yeah,” I say. “If they won’t help, we’ll make them.”
Daniela whistles through her teeth. “That’s intense, man.”
I look over at Walker. She’s keeping her voice quiet, but is making a lot of emphatic hand gestures.
“She knows what’s at stake. Walker will come through.” As I say this, I produce my own satellite phone. I should check in with Sarah and Six, see where they’re at and make sure they aren’t going to try taking on Setrákus Ra by themselves.
Before I can hit the button to dial, there’s a strange and loud whooshing sound from the water. We all turn in that direction just in time to see a large metallic cylinder fly out of the river. It soars high into the air, jets of water shooting off it as it spins towards the nearby docks. The thing is big—big enough that when it lands, with a shriek of crumpling metal, bricks go exploding outwards from the impact. I see the captain of our commandeered coast guard boat go diving overboard into the water to avoid the flying debris.
It’s the submarine we saw in the harbor earlier.
“What—how is that possible?” Sam exclaims.
Something tossed the submarine right out of the water.
We run towards the docks to check for survivors, although it doesn’t look good. The back half of the vessel is crumpled in like a crushed aluminum can and there are jagged trenches clawed in the sub’s side paneling. We can see right through the walls as we get closer—the ship definitely took on water. Loose wires from the fried electrical systems spit sparks as we approach.
“Careful,” I say. “Don’t get too close.”
“What the hell could’ve done this?” Nine asks, his hands braced on his knees as he catches his breath.
As if in answer, the captain of our boat screams. One minute he’s treading water and waiting for us to tell him it’s all clear, and the next there’s a dark shadow growing underneath him. He’s sucked beneath the waves with a sharp cry and swallowed whole by the beast that slowly rises from the depths of the Hudson River.
We all take a step back, then another. Two of the agents break off into sprints in the opposite direction, horrified by the size of the creature before us. Water flows off the monster’s knobby skin, which is translucent to the point where I can see the black blood pumping through its power-line-sized veins. It is hairless, neckless and hunched. Crooked fangs protru
de from its lower jaw and make it impossible for the thing to fully close its mouth, a steady stream of yellowish drool spilling forth. Gills the size of helicopter propellers spasm as the monster takes its first breath of air. It’s on all fours, its hind legs bowed, its front legs more like thick gorilla arms, and already it’s almost as tall as the Statue of Liberty.
The tough-girl attitude drops pretty quickly for Daniela. She screams and Nine has to clap a hand over her mouth. I don’t blame her. The monster is terrifying and I’ve fought plenty of the Mogadorians’ twisted creations before.
“Holy shit,” Sam whispers. “It’s a freaking tarrasque.”
My head whips around to Sam in disbelief. “You’ve seen one of these before?”
“No, I—I—,” he stammers. “It’s a D&D thing.”
“Nerd,” Nine mumbles as he slowly backpedals.
Daniela shoves Nine’s hand away, getting it together enough to glare at me. “You didn’t tell me they have, uh—freaking Mogasaurs!”
This must’ve been what Setrákus Ra dropped into the water when the Anubis left this morning. One last gift for the decimated city of New York. A reminder for the military presence of who’s really in charge. I let my Lumen course over my hands. I’ll have to generate a lot of fire if I’m going to make a mark on this beast.
“I know you can see this thing!” Walker shouts into her satellite phone, probably blowing out the eardrum of whoever she was having a hushed conversation with just moments ago. “Air support! Get me some goddamn air strikes!”
The Mogasaur tilts its flat face towards the sky. The viscous membranes that I take to be nostrils start to twitch. Then it opens its eyes—each one milky white, arranged in a diamond pattern on the beast’s broad forehead. It’s hard to make out at this distance, but I could swear I see a glimmer of cobalt blue in each of those eyes. From the center of each eye, where the pupil would be, I can definitely see a ripple of bluish energy firing into the creature.
The color, the energy—it reminds me of our pendants. Could this be the result of what Setrákus Ra was doing when I glimpsed him on board the Anubis? But what does that mean? Besides being as big as a building, what can this monster do that the others we’ve faced can’t? Are the stolen pendants powering it somehow? Or are they doing something else entirely?