[Lorien Legacies 03.0] The Rise of Nine Read online

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  The Rise of Nine

  PITTACUS LORE

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  The events in this book are real.

  Names and places have been changed to protect the Lorien, who remain in hiding.

  Other civilizations do exist.

  Some of them seek to destroy you.

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London wc2 r0 rl, England Penguin Group ( USA ) Inc.,375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014 , USA Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700 , Toronto, Ontario, Canada m4 p 2 y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

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  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, Block D, Rosebank Office Park, 181 Jan Smuts Avenue, Parktown North, Gauteng 2193, South AfricaPenguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London wc2 r 0 rl, England www.penguin.com

  First published in the United States of America by Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 2012

  First published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph and Razorbill 2012 001

  Copyright © Big Jim Industries, Inc., 2012

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All rights reserved

  Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book

  Set in 13.5/16 Garamond MT Std Typeset by Jouve (UK), Milton Keynes Printed in Great Britain by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

  ACIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  hardback isbn :978–0–718–15649 – 7 trade paperback isbn :978–0–718–15969 – 6

  www.greenpenguin.co.uk

  Penguin Books is committed to a sustainable future for our business, our readers and our planet. This book is made from Forest Stewardship CouncilTM certified paper.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  1.

  6 A. Seriously? I look at the boarding pass in my hand, its large type announcing my seat assignment, and wonder if Crayton chose this seat on purpose. It could be a coincidence, but the way things have gone recently, I am not a big believer in coincidences. I wouldn’t be surprised if Marina sat down behind me in row seven, and Ella made her way back to row ten. But, no, the two girls drop down beside me without saying a word, and join me in studying each person boarding the plane. Being hunted, you are constantly on guard. Who knows when the Mogadorians might appear.

  Crayton will board last, after he’s watched to see who else gets on the plane, and only once he feels the flight is absolutely secure.

  I raise the window shade and watch the ground crew hustle back and forth under the plane. The city of Barcelona is a faint outline in the distance.

  Marina’s knee bounces furiously up and down next to mine. The battle against an army of Mogadorians yesterday at the lake, the death of her Cêpan, finding her Chest – and now, it’s the first time in almost ten years that she’s left the town where she spent her childhood. She’s nervous.

  ‘Everything okay?’ I ask. My newly blond hair falls into my face and startles me. I forgot I dyed it this morning. It’s just one of many changes in the last forty-eight hours.

  ‘Everyone looks normal,’ Marina whispers, keeping her eyes on the crowded aisle. ‘We’re safe, as far as I can tell.’

  ‘Good, but that’s not what I meant.’ I gently set my foot on hers and she stops bouncing her knee. She offers me a quick apologetic smile before returning to her close watch of each boarding passenger. A few seconds later, her knee starts bouncing again. I just shake my head.

  I feel sorry for Marina. She was locked up in an isolated orphanage with a Cêpan who refused to train her. Her Cêpan had lost sight of why we are here on Earth in the first place. I’m doing my best to help her, to fill in the gaps. I can train her to learn how to control her strength and when to use her developing Legacies. But first I’m trying to show her that it’s okay to trust me.

  The Mogadorians will pay for what they’ve done. For taking so many whom we’ve loved, here on Earth and on Lorien. It’s my personal mission to destroy every last one of them, and I’ll be sure Marina gets her revenge too. Not only did she just lose her best friend, Héctor, back at the lake, but, like me, her Cêpan was killed right in front of her. We will both carry that with us forever.

  ‘How is it down there, Six?’ Ella asks, leaning over Marina.

  I turn back towards the window. The men below the plane begin to clear away their equipment, conducting a few last-minute checks. ‘So far, so good.’

  My seat is directly over the wing, which is comforting to me. On more than one occasion I’ve had to use my Legacies to help a pilot out of a jam. Once, over southern Mexico, I used my telekinesis to push the plane a dozen degrees to the right, only seconds before crashing into the side of a mountain. Last year I got 124 passengers safely through a vicious thunderstorm over Kansas by surrounding the plane with an impervious cloud of cool air. We shot through the storm like a bullet through a balloon.

  When the ground crew moves on to the next plane, I follow Ella’s gaze towards the front of the aisle. We’re both impatient for Crayton to board. That will mean everything is okay, at least for now. Every seat is full but the one behind Ella. Where is he? I glance out at the wing again, scanning the area for anything out of the ordinary.

  I lean down and shove my backpack under my seat. It’s practically empty, so it folds down easily. Crayton bought it for me at the airport. The three of us need to look like normal teenagers, he says, like high school students on a field trip. That’s why there’s a biology textbook on Ella’s lap.

  ‘Six?’ Marina asks. I hear her buckle and unbuckle her seat belt nervously.

  ‘Yeah?’ I respond.

  ‘You’ve flown before, right?’

  Marina is only a year older than I am. But with her solemn, thoughtful eyes and her new, sophisticated haircut that falls just below her shoulders, she can easily pass for an adult. Right now, however, she bites her nails and pulls her knees up to her chest like a scared child.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘It’s not so bad. In fact, once you relax, it’s kind of aw
esome.’

  Sitting there on the plane, my thoughts turn in the direction of my own Cêpan, Katarina. Not that I ever flew with her. But when I was nine years old, we had a close call in a Cleveland alley with a Mogadorian that left us both shaken and covered in a thick layer of ash. Katarina moved us to Southern California after that. Our crumbling, two-story bungalow was near the beach, practically in the shadow of Los Angeles International Airport. A hundred planes roared overhead every hour, always interrupting Katarina’s teaching, as well as the little free time I had to spend with my only friend, a skinny girl next door named Ashley.

  I lived under those airplanes for seven months. They were my alarm clock in the morning, screaming directly over my bed as the sun rose. At night they were ominous ghosts telling me to stay awake, to be prepared to rip off my sheets and jump in the car in a matter of seconds. Since Katarina didn’t let me stray far from the house, the airplanes were also the sound track of my afternoons.

  On one of those afternoons, as the vibrations from an enormous plane overhead shook the lemonade in our plastic cups, Ashley said, ‘Me and my mom are going to visit my grandparents next month. I can’t wait! Have you ever been on a plane?’ Ashley was always talking about all the places she went and things she did with her family. She knew Katarina and I stayed close to home and she liked to brag.

  ‘Not really,’ I said.

  ‘What do you mean, “Not really”? You’ve either been on a plane, or you haven’t. Just admit it. You haven’t.’

  I remember feeling my face burn with embarrassment. Her challenge hit its mark. I finally said, ‘No, I’ve never been on an airplane.’ I wanted to tell her I’ve been on something much bigger, something much more impressive than a little airplane. I wanted her to know I came to Earth on a ship from another planet called Lorien and the trip had covered more than 100 million miles. I didn’t, though, because I knew I had to keep Lorien secret.

  Ashley laughed at me. Without saying good-bye, she left to wait for her dad to come home from work.

  ‘Why haven’t we ever been on a plane?’ I asked Katarina that night as she peered out the blinds of my bedroom window.

  ‘Six,’ she said, turning to me before correcting herself. ‘I mean, Veronica. It’s too dangerous for us to travel by plane. We’d be trapped up there. You know what could happen if we were thousands of miles in the air and then found out Mogs had followed us on board?’

  I knew exactly what could happen. I could picture the chaos, the other passengers screaming and ducking under their seats as a couple of huge alien soldiers barreled down the aisle with swords. But that didn’t stop me from wanting to do something so normal, so human, as to fly on a plane from one city to the next. I’d spent all my time on Earth unable to do the things other kids my age took for granted. We rarely even stayed in one place long enough for me to meet other kids, let alone make friends – Ashley was the first girl Katarina even allowed over to our house. Sometimes, like in California, I didn’t even attend school, if Katarina thought it was safer.

  I knew why all this was necessary, of course. Usually, I didn’t let it bother me. But Katarina could tell that Ashley’s superior attitude had gotten under my skin. My silence the following days must have cut through her, because to my surprise she bought us two round-trip airline tickets to Denver. The destination didn’t matter – she knew I just wanted the experience.

  I couldn’t wait to tell Ashley.

  But on the day of the trip, standing outside the airport, Katarina hesitated. She seemed nervous. She ran her hand through her short black hair. She had dyed and cut it the night before, just before making herself a new ID. A family of five walked around us on the curb, dragging heavy luggage, and to my left a tearful mother said good-bye to her two young daughters. I wanted nothing more than to join in, to be a part of this everyday scene. Katarina watched everyone around us while I fidgeted impatiently by her side.

  ‘No,’ Katarina finally said. ‘We’re not going. I’m sorry, Veronica, but it’s not worth it.’

  We drove home in silence, letting the screaming engines of the planes passing overhead speak for us. When we got out of the car on our street, I saw Ashley sitting on her front steps. She looked at me walking towards our house and mouthed the word liar . The humiliation was almost too much to bear.

  But, really, I was a liar. It’s ironic. Lying was all I had done since I’d arrived on Earth. My name, where I was from, where my father was, why I couldn’t stay the night at another girl’s house – lying was all I knew and it was what kept me alive. But when Ashley called me a liar the one time I was telling someone the truth, I was unspeakably angry. I stormed up to my room, slammed the door, and punched the wall.

  To my surprise, my fist went straight through.

  Katarina slammed my door open, wielding a kitchen knife and ready to strike. She thought the noise she’d heard must be Mogs. When she saw what I had done to the wall, she realized that something had changed with me. She lowered the blade and smiled. ‘Today’s not the day you get on a plane, but it is the day you’re going to start your training.’

  Seven years later, sitting on this plane with Marina and Ella, I hear Katarina’s voice in my head. ‘We’d be trapped up there .’ But I’m ready for that possibility now, in ways that Katarina and I weren’t.

  I’ve since flown dozens of times, and everything has gone fine. However, this is the first time I’ve done it without using my invisibility Legacy to sneak on board. I know I’m much stronger now. And I’m getting stronger by the day. If a couple of Mog soldiers charged at me from the front of the plane, they wouldn’t be dealing with a meek young girl. I know what I’m capable of; I am a soldier now, a warrior. I am someone to fear, not hunt.

  Marina lets go of her knees and sits up straight, releasing a long breath. In a barely audible voice, she says, ‘I’m scared. I just want to get in the air.’

  ‘You’ll be fine,’ I say in a low voice.

  She smiles, and I smile back at her. Marina proved herself to be a strong ally with amazing Legacies on the battlefield yesterday. She can breathe under water, see in the dark, and heal the sick and wounded. Like all Garde, she also has telekinesis. And because we’re so close in order – I’m Number Six and she’s Number Seven – our bond is special. When the charm still held and we had to be killed in order, the Mogadorians would have had to get through me before they could get to her. And they never would have gotten through me.

  Ella sits silently on the other side of Marina. As we continue to wait for Crayton, she opens the biology book on her lap and stares at the pages. Our charade does not demand this level of concentration and I’m about to lean over and tell her, but then I see she isn’t reading at all. She is trying to turn the page with her mind, trying to use telekinesis, but nothing’s happening.

  Ella is what Crayton calls an Aeternus, someone born with the ability to move back and forth between ages. But she’s still young and her Legacies have not yet developed. They will come in their own time, no matter how impatiently she wills them to develop now.

  Ella came to Earth on another ship, one I didn’t know existed until John Smith, Number Four, told me he saw it in his visions. She was just a baby, which means she’s almost twelve now. Crayton says he is her unofficial Cêpan, since there wasn’t time for him to be officially appointed to her. He, like all of our Cêpans, has a duty to help Ella develop her Legacies. He told us that there was also a small herd of Chimæra on their ship, Loric animals capable of shifting forms and battling alongside us.

  I’m happy she’s here. After Numbers One, Two, and Three died, only six of us remained. With Ella, we number seven. Lucky number seven, if you believe in luck. I don’t, though. I believe in strength.

  Finally, Crayton squeezes down the aisle, carrying a black briefcase. He’s wearing eyeglasses and a brown suit that looks too big for him. Under his strong chin is a blue bow tie. He’s supposed to be our teacher.

  ‘Hello, girls,’ he says, stopping
next to us.

  ‘Hi, Mr. Collins,’ Ella responds.

  ‘It’s a full flight,’ Marina says. That’s code for everyone on board looks okay. To tell him everything on the ground appears normal, I say, ‘I’m going to try to sleep.’

  He nods and takes his seat directly behind Ella. Leaning forward between Marina and Ella, he says, ‘Use your time on the plane wisely, please. Study hard.’

  That means, don’t let your guard down.

  I didn’t know what to think of Crayton when we first met. He’s stern and quick tempered, but his heart seems to be in the right place and his knowledge of the world and current events is incredible. Official or not, he has taken his Cêpan role seriously. He says he would die for any one of us. He will do anything to defeat the Mogadorians; anything to exact our revenge. I believe him on all counts.

  However, it’s with reluctance that I’m on this plane headed to India at all. I wanted to get back to the United States as soon as possible, to get back to John and Sam. But yesterday, standing on top of the dam overlooking the carnage at the lake, Crayton told us that Setrákus Ra, the powerful Mogadorian leader, would be on Earth soon, if he wasn’t here already. That Setrákus’s arrival was a sign that the Mogadorians understood we were a threat, and we should expect them to step up their campaign to kill us. Setrákus is more or less invincible. Only Pittacus Lore, the most powerful of all the Lorien Elders, would have been able to defeat him. We were horrified. What did that mean for the rest of us then, if he was invincible? When Marina asked this, asked how any of us could possibly stand a chance of defeating him, Crayton told us even more shocking news, knowledge that all the Cêpans had been entrusted with. One of the Garde – one of us – was supposed to hold the same powers as Pittacus. One of us was supposed to grow as strong as he had been, and would be able to beat Setrákus Ra. We just had to hope that that Garde wasn’t One, Two, or Three, that it was one of the ones still alive. If so, we had a chance. We just had to wait and see who it was, and hope that these powers showed themselves soon.