Sam hugged her. “It’s okay,” he said. “We’re going to get out of here now.”
Six addressed Yo-Yo. “Are there any other kids up there?” she asked.
“A few,” Yo-Yo said.
“Ghost or Edwige?” Six said.
Yo-Yo shook his head. “I don’t know who all is there. I only got here yesterday, and they kept me to myself mostly. Except when I saw Drac, and he restored my Legacy.”
“Drac is here?” said Six.
“Yeah,” said Yo-Yo. “Like I said, he’s the one who fixed me up.”
“How did—”
“Six,” said Sam. “We really should get out of here.”
“What’s the hurry?” Dennings’s voice filled the room. Everyone spun around, looking for him. Yo-Yo lifted his hands, forming a fireball. Dennings laughed. “Everybody’s so ready to fight. Settle down. I just want to talk. You think I’d bring you all this way just to kill you? Not that I couldn’t if I wanted to,” he added. “The barn is rigged with enough explosives to send you all back to Lorien.”
“What do you mean you brought us here?” said Six.
Dennings laughed again, his voice crackling through speakers in the barn’s roof. “You think I wanted Rena and Whatshername?” he said. “Hell, no. I wanted you, Six. One of the originals. Why do you think I took your flyboy pal? Why do you think I let those two run around with their implants and their transmitters? I wanted you to hear everything. I wanted you and your human boyfriend there to come running to save these two. I knew you wouldn’t let them get picked off.”
“What do you want with me?” said Six.
“Like I said, I want to talk,” Dennings replied. “Why don’t you come up here to the lodge?”
“We’ve got nothing to talk about,” said Six.
Dennings clucked his tongue. “I’m sorry you feel that way. Well, if you’d rather all of you die right now, I guess we’ll do it your way.”
“You know he means it,” Yo-Yo said. “He doesn’t care what happens to any of us.”
“All right,” Six said. “I’ll come talk. But everybody else leaves.”
“Sure, sure,” said Dennings. “I mean, I can’t promise my clients won’t try to stop them, but four against two is pretty decent odds.” He laughed. “Not that it helped your pilot.”
Six swore and started to say something, but Sam put his hand on her arm. “I can handle this,” he whispered. “It’s two bad guys. I’ll get everybody out, take them to safety, and come back. I’m pretty sure you can handle yourself.” He smiled and lifted an eyebrow. “Okay?”
“No,” said Six. “But I guess that’s the plan.”
“Come to the lodge,” Dennings said. “Alone. And no one else leaves that barn until you’re inside. I’ll tell them when they can go. Oh, and don’t try the going-invisible trick or everyone else dies.”
His voice seemed to evaporate, and the barn was once again still except for the crackling of the fire.
“He’s probably still listening,” Nemo said.
“It doesn’t matter,” said Six. “Here’s the plan. I go up there. When he says you can leave, you get out of here.”
“That’s not much of a plan,” said Nemo. “What’s to stop him from blowing this place up once you’re there?”
“Because if he does, I’ll tear that lodge—and him—to pieces,” Six said. She spoke loudly, assuming that Nemo was right about Dennings listening in. “Besides,” she added in a whisper. “McKenna knows exactly where we are and is sending help.”
“Dennings will just move again,” said Yo-Yo.
“He’s not the one I care about,” Six said. “You guys are. All right. I’m going.”
They walked to the barn door. Six removed the boards they’d used to hold it shut from the inside, opened the door, and looked outside. She didn’t see anything suspicious, but that didn’t mean there was nothing out there. She turned to Sam, leaned in, and kissed him. “Be smart,” she said. “I’ll see you soon.”
She slipped into the dark. Sam pulled the door shut behind her.
Six walked up the slope towards the lodge. She knew Sam was capable of handling himself, but still she worried. He had three other people to take care of—three people who had been through a lot and were frightened, exhausted, and edgy. She didn’t know who those people hunting them were, but they’d already proved that they were more than willing to kill.
She passed through a copse of trees, momentarily engulfed in darkness, then emerged into the moonlight again. Ahead of her, the lodge loomed against the backdrop of the full moon. A lone figure stood on the porch, looking down at her. He waved.
“Come on up,” Dennings called out.
Six mounted the stairs. “Well,” she said. “What do you want to talk about?”
A second later she felt a sharp sting at her neck. Her hand flew to the spot, and her fingers felt something fuzzy and sharp. She pulled the tiny dart away and looked at it. Already her vision was fading. She tried to attack Dennings, but her body went limp. As she fell, he caught her.
“Oh, there are so many things to talk about,” he said as he dragged her through the door and into the house. His voice sounded very far away. “Right after you see the doc.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
SAM
THE MOUNTAINS OF NORTHWEST MONTANA
SAM LOOKED AT THE THREE TEENAGERS WAITING for his instructions. “You guys ready to get out of here?”
“Is Six going to be okay?” Nemo asked.
“Sure she is,” Sam said. “She’s faced way worse than Dennings. I’d be more worried about him than her.”
Nemo snorted. “I don’t care what happens to him,” she said. “I hope Six beats his ass from one end of Montana to the other.”
“She just might,” said Sam, stifling a laugh.
“Okay, kiddies.” Dennings’s voice crackled through the barn. “Time to go. Good luck.” He laughed loudly, and then there was silence.
“Okay,” Sam said. “Let’s move. Remember the plan—we get down the mountain. That’s it. If we run into trouble, you let me handle it. And if for some reason we get separated, just keep going down. Get somewhere warm and dry, if you can. I can find you using your implants.”
“What if something happens to you?” Yo-Yo said. “Those hunters out there mean business.”
“The dude took down a Mogadorian warship,” Nemo said. “I think he’s got this.” She looked at Sam, who was surprised that she knew about that. “Nine told me.”
“You said there was an ATV, right?” Sam asked.
Rena nodded. “Back at the lodge.”
“That would make things a lot easier,” Sam said. “You three could take it and get out of here. Let’s try that first.”
He opened the barn door again, ready to leave. Before he could, an arrow embedded itself in the wood beside his head. Sam slammed the door.
“They found us,” Yo-Yo cried. “Now what?”
“Stay away from the windows,” Sam ordered. “Get into the back.”
Nemo, Yo-Yo, and Rena did as he said, crouching down and moving into the rear of the barn. Sam stayed where he was, surveying the contents of the barn. Mostly it was just junk. But there were some tools—hoes, rakes, an axe—that could be used as weapons. Except that the people out there have a crossbow, he thought.
He risked a peek out one of the windows. The moonlight revealed nothing. But of course the people hunting them would stay hidden. Were they just going to wait out Sam and the others? Or were they planning something else?
He got down and retreated to the back of the barn, where he found Rena, Yo-Yo, and Nemo busily assembling something that looked vaguely like a large human figure made of boards, tools, and other things.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Nemo had an idea,” Rena said.
“You know how Rena makes things come alive?” said Nemo as she used rope to affix a rusty sickle to the end of a broom handle. “Well, I thought we cou
ld make a kind of doll, and she could animate it.”
The figure had a scarecrow-like appearance, an assemblage of odds and ends. And Sam was doubtful that it would even stand up successfully, let alone move.
“I’ve never done it with something this big,” Rena said. “But I can try.”
A faint thwacking sound came from outside.
“Why are they shooting arrows into the side of the barn?” Nemo wondered.
“As a warning?” Rena suggested.
Yo-Yo pointed to the nearest window. “No,” he said. “To set it on fire.”
Flames reflected in the window glass crackled eerily, and smoke drifted across the panes. The fire caught quickly, licking around the window frames.
“This place is going to go up fast,” Sam said. “Especially if there really are explosives rigged. We need to get out.”
Nemo stood back, looking at the Frankenstein’s monster they’d created. “It needs a head,” she said.
Yo-Yo pointed to the mounted head of a black bear that sat atop a stack of wooden crates. “How about that?”
A window shattered as a flaming arrow pierced it and flew into a pile of cardboard boxes. The dry material burst into flame, which crawled hungrily up the sides.
“It’ll have to do,” said Rena, helping Yo-Yo drag the bear head down. They tied the head to the rake handle neck, where it hung heavily.
“All right,” Yo-Yo said to Rena. “Do your thing. It’s getting real smoky in here.”
Rena took a deep breath. She closed her eyes and held her hands out over their creation. Nothing happened. She wiggled her finger like Sam had seen her do in her videos, pretending to sprinkle magical dust over the lifeless form. Still nothing.
“I think it’s too big,” Rena said, frustration edging her voice.
“You can do it, Rena,” said Nemo. “Picture it getting up and breaking out of here.”
Rena tried again. Sam could see the strain in her face as she attempted to raise the creature. The heat and smoke were building up in the barn, and he knew they had only another minute or two before they would have to make a run for it. He was about to tell Rena to give up.
Then there was the scraping of metal on metal. One of the scarecrow’s arms moved, lifting off the ground and rubbing against its snow-shovel leg. Rena gasped, and the arm clattered back to the ground.
“It’s working!” Yo-Yo said. “Keep going!”
“It’s hard,” Rena said. “I can feel it draining the power out of me.” But again she concentrated, this time holding her hands out with the palms facing the creature.
It moved. Tried to sit up. With no knees, it was struggling. Nemo and Sam went to it and lifted it. The thing towered over them and wobbled as they tried to steady it. Then it suddenly seemed to find its feet. Sam and Nemo let go, and it stood on its own.
“Can you make it walk?” Sam asked Rena.
The girl nodded, clearly already worn-out. The bear-headed thing moved, its makeshift limbs animated by her Legacy. It ambled towards the barn doors, passing through the smoke without stopping. Sam and the others followed, with Nemo and Yo-Yo helping Rena walk while focusing her attention on the giant figure.
Sam unblocked the barn door. “Stand away,” he told the others. “Once this opens, all hell will break loose out there.”
The others did as he said. Only the cobbled-together beast remained next to Sam. “When I open the door, send it out,” Sam told Rena. “And whatever you can make it do, do it.”
He opened the door using his telekinesis. Then Rena worked her magic, and the thing went striding out of the barn. Sam motioned for the others to come with him.
Outside, the two hunters had emerged from hiding, thinking that they were going to pick off their quarry easily. Instead, they found themselves confronted by something out of a horror film. Confused, they just stood there, looking at the thing coming towards them.
A spark flew from the burning barn and lit on the handle of the scythe that formed one of the arms. It started to burn. As if feeling it, the creature lifted its arm in the air and began to swing it from side to side.
“Come on,” Sam said to the others, using the distraction as cover to make an escape.
Yo-Yo and Nemo followed him as he ran for the cover of the woods. But Rena remained standing behind the monster. Sam stopped and turned to go back for her, then paused. Backlit by the burning barn, Rena looked like some kind of sorcerer commanding her creation to do her bidding. She raised her hands, and the scarecrow moved with her. It was burning now, too, and probably wouldn’t last much longer.
Rena pushed her hands out, as if shoving the giant thing, and it took a step towards the hunters. Startled out of their initial shock, they began shooting wildly, the arrows cutting through string and wood. One of the creature’s legs buckled, and for a moment it seemed about to come apart. But it held, and took another step.
“What the hell is this thing?” the man shouted to the woman beside him.
She didn’t answer. But the bear-headed thing did. It swung its scythe arm again. This time it connected with the man’s neck, slicing through it as if cutting down a stalk of corn. His body slumped to the ground while his head rolled away across the snow, leaving a bloody trail.
Rena sank to her knees. The creature listed. Sam ran to Rena and picked her up, dragging her away as the thing she had been commanding fell apart, its rope tendons shredding as the fire destroyed them. It toppled onto the woman, who screamed as she fell to the ground under the rain of farm implements and wood.
“Can you walk?” Sam asked Rena.
The girl nodded but didn’t speak. She and Sam rejoined Nemo and Yo-Yo.
“That was amazing,” Nemo told Rena as the four of them began to move towards the lodge and the waiting ATV.
“I could feel it,” Rena said weakly. “It wanted to fight. It did exactly what we built it to do.”
“Talk later,” Sam said. “We need to find that four-wheeler.”
When they got to the lodge, Sam looked for the ATV. He found it right where Nemo and Rena had told him it would be. Staying under cover of the trees, he connected with the machine and started it, directing it to drive over to where they were hiding.
“Who knows how to drive one of these?” Sam asked.
“I do,” said Yo-Yo. “My cousin has one we drive around out in the country.”
“Get on,” Sam said.
Yo-Yo swung his leg over the seat of the four-wheeler. Sam instructed the engine to start, and it revved to life. “Rena and Nemo, you’re riding shotgun,” he said.
Rena was seated, and Nemo was about to get on when Sam felt a stabbing pain in his leg and his knee buckled. Looking down, he saw the fletched end of an arrow protruding from his thigh.
“Go!” Sam yelled at Yo-Yo, who wasted no time taking off. Sam grabbed Nemo’s wrist and hobbled away, pulling her with him into the darkness. Ignoring the burning sensation radiating through his leg, he limped on, but every step was torture.
“We need to stop,” Nemo said.
“We can’t,” Sam said. “She’ll know we didn’t all get away, and she’ll be coming for us.”
“Well, we can’t move fast enough with you hurt,” Nemo said. “We’re going to have to figure something out.”
Sam thought. He tried to remember what he knew about the lodge and the surrounding area from the aerial photographs McKenna had sent them.
“There’s a lake,” he said. “On the other side of the lodge. They use it for fishing.”
“How far?” Nemo asked.
“Not close,” said Sam. “But I think I can make it.”
“And what do we do when we get there?”
“There might be a small cabin,” said Sam. “Someplace to hide.”
Nemo nodded. She put her arm around Sam’s waist, and he threw his arm around her shoulders. Moving as quickly as he could, they headed in the direction of the lake. It was slow going, and at any moment Sam expected the remaining hunter
to show up, but for some reason, she didn’t. This worried Sam almost more than if she had, but he pressed on, hoping their luck would hold out.
When they came to the lake, they were disappointed. There was no cabin. However, out on the frozen surface of the water was a fishing hut. It would have to do.
Carefully, Sam and Nemo stepped out onto the ice. Using a sliding technique, they edged farther out, shuffling across the snow-dusted surface.
“Is it going to hold?” Nemo asked.
“It should,” Sam said. “Otherwise the fishing hut wouldn’t be there.”
They were about twenty yards from shore, and the fishing hut was still impossibly far off, when a voice called to them.
“Not the smartest place to go,” the woman called out.
Sam and Nemo stopped. They turned and looked at the shadowy figure watching them from the shore.
“That was some trick you pulled back at the barn,” the woman said. “Impressive. But I don’t see any—whatever that was—to help you here.”
Sam’s heart sank. She was right. He had made a choice, and it was the wrong one.
“Let her go,” he shouted. “She’s just a girl.”
“How noble of you,” the woman said. “But I paid for her, and I’m going to take her. If nothing else, it’s payback for what you did to William.”
“I wish I had a different Legacy,” Nemo muttered. “If I could make fireballs like Yo-Yo, I’d toast her ass.”
Sam, looking down, had an idea. “You’ve got exactly the Legacy we need,” he said. He concentrated on the ice, focusing his telekinetic ability and envisioning tiny cracks forming underneath them. He couldn’t break the ice itself—it was too thick—but he could manipulate it a little bit. He heard the ice creak and groan. It was working.
Next, he focused on the water, drawing it up into the tiny fissures he’d made. The ice cracked loudly.
“What are you doing?” Nemo whispered. “We’re going to fall through!”
“Exactly,” Sam said. “And when that happens, you do your thing and swim for the fishing hut. There should be a hole in the ice.”