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Wade and the Scorpion’s Claw
Tony Abbott
The quest for the relics continues, picking up right where The Copernicus Legacy: The Forbidden Stone left off. Now Wade, the curious, analytical yet starry-eyed member of the group, leads the chase for another relic through the busy streets of San Francisco while on the run from a treacherous henchman.Wade and the Scorpion's Claw picks up right where The Copernicus Legacy: The Forbidden Stone left off, with the Kaplan family seeking the next Copernicus relic. Now Wade, the curious, analytical, yet starry-eyed member of the group, leads the chase for another relic through the busy streets of San Francisco while on the run from one of Galina Krause's most treacherous henchmen.
Copyright (#ulink_2550b5c9-5fda-595d-91be-6330af02a74b)
First published in paperback in the USA
First published in Great Britain by HarperCollins Childrenâs Books in 2014
HarperCollins Childrenâs Books is a division of HarperCollinsPublishers
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Text copyright © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014
Illustrations copyright © Bill Perkins 2014
Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers 2014, Jacket art © 2014 by Bill Perkins, Logo art © 2014 by Jason Cook/Début Art, Front cover design by Tom Forget
Tony Abbott asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
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Source ISBN: 9780007581870
Ebook Edition © 2014 ISBN: 9780007581887
Version: 2014-08-05
Table of Contents
Cover (#ua216035f-00ec-594d-a476-730f38bebcdd)
Title Page (#ub2d8dcca-e54f-5d57-a3b8-90b827b1fd29)
Copyright (#ueeb10e37-4703-58ed-8afc-a3dfa026ec77)
Chapter One (#u618edd95-a0c2-5e33-ab8d-2a95e7500394)
Chapter Two (#u2d53a689-e6dc-5b11-a812-0361d378fae0)
Chapter Three (#udecb4c43-46b1-5172-96d4-dc38d02e7b8f)
Chapter Four (#u852e6cf4-4c00-585b-9bbf-b75a0c5c2d96)
Chapter Five (#u7fdd5b69-ed0b-5041-8187-e6632f937c21)
Chapter Six (#uf6767596-72ce-524f-a62e-d9a745b2e8ac)
Chapter Seven (#ue53cfd5d-78e4-561b-9a65-5f304e44bf3e)
Chapter Eight (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nine (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Ten (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eleven (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twelve (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Thirteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fourteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Fifteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Sixteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Seventeen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Eighteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Nineteen (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-One (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Two (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Three (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Four (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Five (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter Twenty-Six (#litres_trial_promo)
Acknowledgments (#litres_trial_promo)
About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)
(#ulink_583e2a8f-f8bc-527e-9e0e-426bbaaae0ef)
Somewhere over the Pacific Ocean
Sunday, March 16
3:51 a.m.
It was only a dreamâa dumb, exhaustion-fueled dream.
But knowing me, the way I hold on to stuff forever, I donât think Iâll ever forget it. Iâll probably always remember it as thedream.
To begin with, my name is Wade Kaplan. Iâm thirteen years old and kind of a math geek. I live in Austin, Texas, though I havenât been there for a very long week. At the exact moment I was having the dream, my family and I were squished on the first of three endless flights from the tiny island of Guam in the South Pacific to New York City.
We were on our way to meet someone who could help us understand what had happened yesterdayâthe day my stepmom, Sara Kaplan, was kidnapped.
More on that later.
To go back a bit, Sara married my astrophysicist dad, Roald Kaplan, three years ago, and her son, Darrell, became my new stepbrother and absolute best friend. While I was in the middle of the dream, Darrell was crammed into the row right next to me. Dad sat three seats beyond him, across the aisle. Sandwiched between were Lily Kaplan, my cousin on my dadâs side, and Becca Moore, her best friend.
They were the last people I saw before I closed my eyes somewhere between Guam and Hawaii and my dumb dreaming brain took over.
I was in a cave. No, scratch that. I was in the caveâthe cave where we had found the first of the twelve relics of the Copernicus Legacy.
Yep, thatâs what I said: the Copernicus Legacy.
You see, five hundred years ago, in the early sixteenth century, the astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus went on a secret journey and uncovered the remains of a large astronomical instrument.
This ancient device, a kind of oversize astrolabeâwith seats in itâcontained twelve amazing objects that gave the machine its unbelievable power.
Power to travel.
In time.
Thatâs right. The past, the future, the whole spectrum of time from the beginning to, well, I guess, the end of it.
Anyway, Copernicusâs mortal enemy, a guy named Albrecht von Hohenzollern, learned about the astrolabe. Albrecht was the Grand Master of the superpowerful, incredibly secret, and seriously evil Knights of the Teutonic Order of Ancient Prussia.
Copernicus knew that if Albrecht and his Order got hold of the time machine, theyâd use it to rip the fabric of our universe to shreds.
So Copernicus did the only thing he could do.
He took the astrolabe apart and asked twelve friends around the world to hide and protect its twelve powerful relics. These men and women were called Guardians.
Okay, back to the dream.
Every detail of the caveâs stony walls had been downloaded onto my brainâs hard driveâthe rough limestone, streaked with yellow and red, the constellations painted on every surface all the way up the tapering walls to the opening at the top, the blue handprint that pointed the way to the first relic, and, above all, the incredible silence of the stone. The cave seemed nothing less than a kind of temple from another world.
So I was standing in the center of the cave, whenâwhooshâthere he was, with a cape and a velvet hat, and a sword longer than your arm.
Nicolaus Copernicus, the revolutionary astronomer who proved that the earth revolved around the sun, and not the other way around. He was standing not ten feet away from me next to his awesome machineâa large sphere of iron and brass and bronze, in the center of which sat a pair of tufted seats.
To be honest, the dream Copernicus looked a lot like my dad, with a beard and glasses. That was weird enough. But everyone else was in the cave, too, and they were all sad, like someone had just died.
Lily was sobbing like a baby. âOh, Wade,â she said. âOh, Wade!â
Like Lily, Darrell was crying but also shaking his head and stomping around like an angry bull. (Thatâs actually kind of what heâs been doing ever since he heard about his mother, and I donât really blame him.) Finally I saw Becca, lying on the floor of the cave, not moving, her arms over her chest. I probably dreamed that because Becca was wounded in the cave in real life. But here she looked, you know, the opposite of alive.
âBecca?â No answer. âWhatâs going on? Somebody tell me!â
Nobody told me anything. Then Copernicus-Dad came over to me.
âVela,â he said, his face dark under his hat. âI need it now.â
Just so you know: Vela is the relic of the astrolabe that we found in the cave.
For the last five centuries, followers of the original Guardians have kept the relics safe, using codes, clues, riddles, and mysteries that would twist your brain into a pretzel.
Until last week.
Galina Krause, the Teutonic Orderâs freaky-beautiful new leader, ordered the murder of the communications chief of the modern Guardians, an old man named Heinrich Vogel.
To me, he was Uncle Henry, my fatherâs college teacher and friend.
Donât ask me how we did it, but following a number of clues Uncle Henry had left for us, we found the first relic before Galina didâa small blue stone called Velaâin that cave in Guam.
At that moment, we became Guardians of the Copernicus Legacy. I guess one part of that means having crazy dreams like this one. Another part is that members of your family get taken away from you.
âWade, please â¦â
I handed Vela to Copernicus-Dad. He attached the triangular blue stone to the time machine.
âYou see,â he said. âAll things are possible â¦â
I knew it was my own mind saying that. I mean, it was my dream, right? But it felt like Copernicus-Dad was telling me, too. âCool,â I said.
Suddenly, the big wheels of the time machine began to turn, and the cave became hazy around me.
âAll things are possible, Wade,â he said. âExcept one â¦â
âWait. What?â I said.
Then she was thereâGalina Krause with her nasty crossbow, the one she used to wound Becca. âWhere is the twelfth relic?â she demanded.
I looked around frantically, but now I was alone. Darrell, Lily, Becca, even Copernicus-Dad had vanished. Galina closed in, her crossbow aimed dead at me. I tried to yell, but the oxygen in the cave was sucked away. I couldnât breathe. The cave went pitch-black and as silent as a tomb, until Galina spoke.
âDie, Wade Kaplan, die!â