Dr. Fenris smiled. “The important thing is that it seems to work.”
Listening to her talk, Max had a thought. “But it might not work in Sam and Six, then, right? I mean, if their bodies are different from mine.”
“We’re hopeful that it will,” Dr. Fenris said.
The excitement that had been building in Max suddenly lessened. If the antiserum didn’t work, that meant that Six and Sam would die.
“There’s every reason to think it will work, Max,” the doctor said, placing her hand on his shoulder.
Max nodded, but inside he was still worried.
“When will you take the thing out of Max’s head?” Nemo asked.
“Soon,” said Dr. Fenris. “If we take it out, his body might stop producing antibodies, and we need him to keep making those for now.”
A dinging sound rang out, and Dr. Fenris pulled a phone from her pocket and looked at it. “Nine would like the two of you to come to his office,” she said.
Max looked at Nemo. Something was up. “Let’s go,” he said.
When they arrived, they found Nine with Lexa, Dr. Goode and Peter McKenna. There was also a surprise visitor.
“Bats!” Max exclaimed when he saw the teen from Utah sitting in a chair. She stood up, smiling, and Max went and hugged her. “How did you get here?”
“Nine sent a team to secure the bunker,” Bats said. “They got me out. I just got here a little while ago.”
Max’s happiness evaporated. “I’m sorry we left you,” he said. “Everything happened so quickly and I didn’t know where you were.”
“It’s okay,” Bats said, hugging him again. “I know. When everything went wrong, I found a place to hide and waited there until I thought it was safe to come out. Of course, I hadn’t counted on Magdalena’s little pets.”
Max shuddered, remembering the dragon-like monsters that had chased him and Nemo through the halls of the bunker.
“The important thing is, she’s here now,” Nine said.
“What about Lava?” Max asked.
Bats shook her head. “I’m the only one who was left behind,” she said. “As far as I know, anyway.”
“Nobody else was in the bunker,” Nine confirmed. “But we do know Six and Sam are in Vegas.”
“We don’t know that Sam is still there,” Dr. Goode said, sounding concerned about his son. “The Mogs might have moved him again after separating him from Six.”
“Until we have other information, let’s assume he’s there,” Nine said. “Which is why we’re going there.”
“We?” Max said. “As in all of us?”
“Not all of us,” Nine said. “But me and you and Nemo are.”
“I thought I had to stay here,” said Max.
“Do you want to stay here?” said Nine.
“No,” Max said quickly. “I just thought you needed my blood here.”
“And maybe we’ll need it there, too,” Nine said.
“I still don’t like this,” McKenna said tersely.
“I know you don’t,” Nine replied, giving him a dark look. “But you’re not in charge here. I am.”
“Why not call in Earth Garde to handle it?” McKenna suggested.
Nine sighed, as if this was a ridiculous suggestion. “Six is fine,” he reminded McKenna. “And there are only a handful of Mogs left.”
“Dangerous Mogs,” McKenna said. “And they have Sam.”
“They won’t for long,” Nine said. “I don’t think calling in Earth Garde and making a big deal about this is going to help anyone. We can handle it.”
Max glanced at McKenna. He looked exhausted. Max suspected the man was thinking about his son and what he’d done. Seamus had betrayed all of them, and that couldn’t be sitting well with his father, particularly as he had kind of been Sam and Six’s boss and had gotten them involved in all of this in the first place.
Nine nodded at Max and Nemo. “Go get ready,” he said. “We leave in twenty minutes.”
Max and Nemo hurried out. Once they were in the corridor, Max whispered, “Is it just me, or was it really tense in there?”
“Totally tense,” Nemo said. “Something’s up between Nine and Seamus’s dad.”
Max shook his head. “I wouldn’t want to be Seamus right now,” he said.
Nemo grunted in reply. Max knew she was as angry with their former friend as he was. He wondered what she would do if she came face-to-face with Seamus in Vegas. He wondered what he would do.
He had a feeling they were going to find out.
CHAPTER THREE
SAM
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
ELENI WAS IN A RAGE.
Sam, seated on a chair with his wrists shackled to its back supports, watched as she stormed around the room she had dragged him to. Outside the windows he could see the sparkling lights of what he now realized was Las Vegas. The room he was in was very high up, and he had a sweeping view. He recognized a number of the hotel names that flashed in neon colors against the night sky, a number of the faces that appeared on billboards announcing concerts and shows.
He also knew that he was inside the Saturn Hotel. The hotel’s logo was everywhere: on the stationery that sat on the nearby desk, on the pocket of the bathrobe that sat folded on the end of the bed, worked into the pattern of the wallpaper and carpet. He remembered reading about the building of the place in a travel magazine he’d looked at during a flight he and Six had taken from Paris to Venice. It was the Strip’s newest, biggest and most opulent hotel. As he recalled it had only recently opened.
The question was, why was he there, and what connection did the Mogs have to it? They obviously had one, as Eleni knew her way around the place and had used an elevator clearly meant for internal staff to get him up to the room unnoticed. But why were they even in a hotel at all? Why not someplace more secretive and secure? It didn’t make any sense to him.
Not that that was his primary concern at the moment. The thing in his head was. Whatever it was doing, it was getting worse. His whole body hurt, and he knew he was getting weaker. He’d of course tried to use his Legacies to help in some way—any way—and nothing was working. Not his telekinesis. Not his technopathy. He couldn’t so much as change the channel on the enormous television that was mounted to the wall.
“Why are you not here yet?” Eleni shouted into the phone in her hand. She was pacing back and forth in front of the window, one hand on her hip. This was the third time she’d called the person, and the tone of her voice had grown increasingly impatient with each conversation.
The door to the room suddenly opened and in walked Magdalena, also on the phone. “I’m here now,” she said.
Eleni practically threw her phone down on the bed. “What took you so long?”
“There was a lot to get ready for the—” Magdalena began, then looked at Sam. “For tonight.”
Eleni grunted impatiently. “Well, now you can play babysitter with this human. I need to see to the other one.”
“You left her alone?” Magdalena said.
“Did I have a choice?” Eleni snapped. “Besides, she’s weak from that thing you put into her. She can’t do anything. I’ll go get her and be back in ten minutes.” She left the room, slamming the door behind her.