“Camaro?”
“Mack?”
“You?”
“Here?”
“I had no idea.”
“Me, neither.”
“So, how’s everything in Sedona?”
“Bad. Here?”
“Worse.”
Mack waved his hand toward the volcano where the world’s greatest monster was literally ripping her way up out of the earth.
“Yeah, I noticed,” Camaro said.
“Huh,” Stefan said to Camaro.
“Yo,” Camaro said back. They fist-bumped.
HHHUUUURRRGGGGAAAAAAWWWWW!
That last sound came from the Pale Queen. She was perfectly capable of speaking, but there was no one around to tell her to use her words.
She was a creature half insect, half human, eerily like the ant Mack had earlier had crawling across his eyeball, but with human hands and a mostly humanlike head, and well, okay, there was nothing about the Pale Queen that was really familiar.
If nothing else, she existed on a scale that was simply impossible without great magic. The largest dinosaurs were cocker spaniels compared to her.
The air force and navy were fully awake now, and missiles—small ones, big ones—were zooming in from all directions, from jets overhead, from submarines far out in the ocean, and they would hit her with unerring accuracy and she didn’t even notice. The pale plastic-like armor that covered her wasn’t even stained by the explosions.
The naval destroyer that had come racing from the fleet far at sea was firing its deck guns and machine guns and missiles, and it may as well have been throwing spit wads.
In fact, at least people notice spit wads. The Pale Queen didn’t even bother destroying the ship or the jets or the helicopters that swooped with crazy courage to fire machine guns straight at her face.
They were nothing to her.
They didn’t even exist as far as she was concerned.
They could have all just slept in.
What the Pale Queen did notice was twelve kids standing on the Golden Gate Bridge.
Her terrible eyes were on them. Mack felt her gaze like a beam of fire and ice. He felt chilled to his core and shivered like you do when you have a really bad fever. Uncontrolled shivering.
But at the same time it felt as if his skin was burning. He had to look to convince himself it wasn’t turning as crispy as rotisserie chicken.
Run, a voice in Mack’s head said. Just run. Run far away.
He glanced left and right and saw fear in every eye. Well, except for Stefan. But all of them felt that fear, felt that temptation, felt that urge to turn and run away.
Fear is normal. Everyone has fear. (Okay, except Stefan.) Everyone wants to survive. Everyone wants evil to be someone else’s problem. Don’t they? Don’t you? Don’t I?
Most people live their lives and never have to come right up close with evil. Those people are lucky.
But some people can’t escape it; some people are just standing there on a bridge when evil comes looking for them, and they could run. They could turn away and try to save themselves.
That’s what most people do.
But fortunately for all of us, some people don’t.
Some people stand their ground no matter how much their insides turn liquid and their muscles turn weak and their chests feel weighted down so they can hardly breathe.
We call those people brave.
On that day, at that time, facing an inconceivable evil and armed with only a few words and the strength inside them, the Magnificent Twelve did not run away.
The Pale Queen saw that resolve. And she felt fear, too.
Not that it stopped her. I mean, she’d been looking forward to this for three thousand years.
She began to move, and her speed was shocking. She was no ponderous, shuffling, slow-moving monster. Her six hands/legs churned the stone pier and the water on either side, and she moved!
“Hold hands,” Mack ordered.
“What words?” Dietmar asked. For once he was letting Mack take the lead.
“We want this to end,” Jarrah said. “We don’t want someone else to deal with this in some distant future.”
“End it,” Sylvie agreed.
“Stib-ma albi kandar,” Xiao whispered. “Kill the Pale Queen.”
The Pale Queen was a whole lot bigger than an express train and was moving as fast as one. She would hit them and snap the cables like threads and bring them all crashing down to their deaths.
“Everyone got that?” Mack asked.
“No problem,” José said.
“This is so bogus,” Hillary complained. But she repeated the words quietly to herself, ensuring she had them right.
“Five seconds,” Stefan said.
“Yep,” Mack said tersely.
Then he felt it. Like someone had hooked them all up to a power line. It was a vast and amazing thing. He had felt inklings of it before, but here, now, at last: they were the Magnificent Twelve, and the power that flowed through them and united them was like the power of exploding suns.
“Four,” Stefan said
“Three.”
“Two.”
“Now!” Mack cried.
And with one voice, staring through tear-streaked eyes at the Pale Queen, focusing all their power on her, they shouted,
“Stib-ma albi kandar!”