With Nine back on the attack, Eight staggers away from the monster, still in his Vishnu form. He transforms back to normal when I reach him and I can see deep and jagged lacerations covering his right shoulder. I press my hands to Eight’s shoulder, let the icy feeling flow through me and into him, and watch as his wounds close up.
“I could kiss you,” Eight says.
“After we kill this thing, maybe,” I reply.
The monster rears back and swings one of its leathery wings at Nine, knocking him backwards. As soon as Nine is out of the way, Six calls down two more lightning strikes. The lightning knocks the beast down again and tears a hole in the membrane of its wing, but it just struggles back to his feet again and roars. It seems like we’re only making it angrier.
“What does it take to stop this fucker?” shouts Nine.
A high-pitched whistle fills the air, so loud and sharp that it causes my skin to crawl, like fingernails on a chalkboard. I spin around to see Five blowing into an intricate flute carved from solid obsidian. As the shrill note fills the air, he stares unblinking at the monster.
All at once, it’s like the fight goes out of the thing. It folds its huge wings around its body and sinks to the ground, its three heads tucked against its chest, almost like it’s bowing.
“Whoa,” breathes Eight.
“See?” says Five, lowering the whistle and glancing around. “Easy.”
“If you had that thing the entire time, why didn’t you use it?” Nine snaps.
“I thought you might want a workout,” Five says, smiling coldly at Nine.
Six shakes her head. “Would one of you just kill that thing so we can get out of here?”
“Gladly,” says Five, his skin turning into glittering steel. He takes two steps towards the genuflecting beast, but stops right next to Six. “I made the damn thing,” Five says, absently. “The least I can do is put it down.”
“You what?” I ask with disbelief.
Five’s steel-plated fist shoots forward with a force I’ve never seen from him before, hitting Six with an uppercut.
The force sends Six’s entire body into the air and she lands at my feet; I can see her eyes are rolled into the back of her head and twin tendrils of blood are leaking out of her nostrils. A concussion at best, a fractured skull at worst. Instinctively, I move to heal her, but when I try to crouch down something hits me in the chest—not hard, not even with enough force to knock the wind out of me—but I can’t move forward. It’s telekinesis. Five is gently keeping me at bay. I look up at him, confused tears filling my eyes.
Eight breaks the stunned moment of silence, yelling, “Why’d you do that?!” He’s drowned out by Nine’s scream.
Five’s body has taken on the consistency of rubber and his arm stretches like a tentacle, wrapping twice around Nine’s throat. Nine struggles, but Five lifts him off his feet with ease. His arm stretches further, hanging Nine ten feet off the ground, and then plunges downward. He dunks Nine in the swamp and holds him there. Drowning him.
Both Eight and I are frozen as Five turns to look at us. His expression is disconcertingly friendly considering his stretched-out appendage is currently holding Nine under water and Six is lying unconscious at my feet thanks to a vicious sucker punch. I can see vibrations spread up Five’s arm from where Nine must be punching at it, trying to free himself. The blows must not be giving Five any pain because he hardly seems to notice.
He sits down on his Chest and looks at us.
“The three of us should probably talk,” Five says calmly.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
THE CONNECTION TO ADAM ABRUPTLY GOES DEAD. I glance down at the phone’s screen, but Adam called from a blocked number. There’s no way to call him back. Wherever he was, Adam sounded like he was moving fast, practically shouting over the wind whipping around in the background. On the run and sounding panicked. I’m the exact opposite: rooted in place and feeling almost numb.
What would John do in this situation? Get moving, that’s what. I shove the phone into my back pocket and move past my dad, heading for the hallway.
“He said the Mogadorians know where we are, and that they’re on their way. We need to get out of here. Now!” I call back to my dad.
When I glance over my shoulder, he’s still standing next to the bed.
“Come on,” I say. “What’re you waiting for?”
“What if—” My dad squeezes the bridge of his nose. “What if I can’t be trusted?”
Oh, right. The whole possibility that my dad could be some kind of unwitting double agent for the Mogadorians. There has to be a better explanation for how his notes fell into their hands. Maybe he’s not sure if he can trust himself, maybe he’s worried that his memory is failing or working against him. It doesn’t matter. I make up my mind right then and there. I trust him.
“Remember outside of the Dulce Base when I wanted to rush back inside to go help the Garde fight? You told me there would be other moments to make myself useful to the Loric. Well, I think this is one of those times. I trust you, Dad. I can’t do this without you.”
He nods solemnly. Without another word, he reaches under his bed and pulls out the rifle that he used to take down that monster in Arkansas, pumping a shell into place.
“Did Adam tell you how long we have?” he asks.
As if in answer, the building shakes, all the lights flickering. An engine flares outside, the noise above us and dangerously close, followed by a sharp metallic grinding. Something just landed on the roof.
“Apparently, not long at all.”
We dart into the hallway where Sarah has just emerged from her room. Her eyes widen as she notices my dad carrying a rifle. “What was that sound?” she asks. “What’s happening?”
“The Mogs are here,” I answer.
“Oh, no,” Sarah says, backing towards the room where John and Ella are laid out defenseless.
From the hallway, I have a clear view of the floor-to-ceiling windows that line the penthouse living room. A half dozen ropes come slithering down from the rooftops, the Mogadorians rappelling down the side of the building.
“I have to get to John!” Sarah says.
I grab her by the wrist. “We don’t stand a chance if we don’t get to the weapons.”
The windows shatter, blown open by a synchronized series of blasts from Mogadorian cannons. A rush of cold air flows through the penthouse. The Mogs swing inside, swiftly detach from their rappelling wires and start scanning the space around them for targets. They’re in the living room, standing between us and the penthouse elevator—our only exit. I’m surprised there aren’t more of them. If I was attacking a hideout for the Garde, I’d have sent an entire army. It’s almost as if they aren’t expecting a lot of resistance.
The three of us duck back into my dad’s room.
“I’ll get to John and Ella,” says my dad. “You two make a break for the Lecture Hall.”
I can hear the Mogs moving out of the living room, starting down our hallway. “Here they come. Let’s go on three. One—”
Before I hit two, a ferocious roar erupts from the hallway, immediately answered by wild Mogadorian blaster fire. I poke my head into the hallway in time to see Bernie Kosar, in the shape of a grizzly bear, mauling a pair of Mogadorians. I’d forgotten all about BK! Maybe things aren’t as desperate as they seem.
“Go!” my dad shouts as he makes a break towards Ella’s room. “Get weapons and we’ll hold them here.”
BK lunges from Mog to Mog, tearing through them with his claws, tossing aside the furniture that they try to hide behind. He takes a few blaster shots in the side and the air fills with the smell of burned hair, but that only seems to make him angrier. Crouched in the doorway of Ella’s room, my dad takes aim and starts picking off Mogs.
Sarah and I take off in the opposite direction, towards the Lecture Hall and the armory. Behind me, I can hear blaster fire sizzling into the walls, my dad’s rifle answering back. We have to be quick. More will surely be dropping in from the roof and they won’t be able to hold them off forever.
Suddenly, the bedroom door on my right swings open. I have a second to feel the rush of cool air from the broken window, and then there’s a Mogadorian on top of me. He drives his shoulder into my side, pinning me up against the wall. His forearm presses into my throat and he puts his pale face close to mine, his lifeless black eyes filling my vision.
“Human,” the Mog hisses. “Tell me where the girl is and I’ll kill you quick.”
Before I can ask which girl he’s talking about, Sarah cracks the Mogadorian over the head with an empty vase. The Mog shakes off the blow and spins on Sarah. An anger wells up in me—for all that time in captivity, for what they’ve done to John and Ella. I grab the handle of the Mog’s sword and rip it loose from his sheath. With a scream, I drive it through his chest, turning him to ash.
“Whoa!” Sarah cheers.
I can hear glass shattering from all around the penthouse. Doors to bedrooms all along the hallway are thrown open and Mogs come charging into sight, cutting me and Sarah off from my dad and Bernie Kosar. I remember thinking the empty penthouse was spooky before, but this is horrifying. I’ve lost sight of my dad at the other end of the hall. I can still hear his rifle working, the shots getting more and more frequent. I hear a loud crash, the sound of something tipping over in Ella’s room.
“You’re after the girl?” I yell, getting their attention, hopefully taking some of the pressure off my dad. “She’s this way!”
Sarah and I sprint into the workshop, ten or so Mogs charging down the hallway after us.
Together, we shove over a stack of old appliances and engine parts that are next to the doorway, Sandor’s accumulated clutter coming in handy. A Mog tries to force open the door, but it’s jammed up against all the crap on the floor.
“That’ll slow them down for a second,” I say.
“Do they think I’m this girl they’re after?” Sarah asks breathlessly. “Or do you think they’re here for Ella?”
A chunk of the workshop door explodes in a burst of blaster fire, hot splinters flecking across my cheek and almost into my eye. I guess our second is up. Sarah grabs me by the arm and we stagger through the workshop, the door behind us being pulverized by the invading Mogs.
A stray blast hits the floor between us, knocking us apart, and sending Sarah falling over a table. More blasts are getting through now. I duck low and grab Sarah’s hand, helping her stand up. “I’m okay!” she yells, and we run, hunched over, towards the Lecture Hall.
The workshop door is now just a smoking hole in the wall thanks to all the Mogadorian shooting. They’re shoving in, tripping over the junk we knocked over, but advancing all the same. Next to me, the monitor that’s displaying the location of the Garde explodes in a shower of sparks, a Mog blaster just narrowly missing me.
“How are we going to fight this many off?” Sarah yells as we burst into the Lecture Hall. “I’ve been practicing, but not against ten targets at once!”
