SEDONA
It’s about 626 miles, give or take, from San Francisco to Sedona. The flight lasted about an hour and a half.
Sedona’s airport is basically just a landing strip. It’s not exactly JFK or O’Hare or one of those big, busy places.
The jet landed, and because it was an air force jet there was no Jetway, just a ramp, and they were let off on the hot tarmac under an Arizona sun.
Eleven twelve-year-olds with the enlightened puissance. Jarrah, Xiao, Sylvie, Charlie, Rodrigo, Valin, Ilya, Hillary, José, Camaro, and Mack.
And one fifteen-year-old.
They were not all friends. Some of them had only shown up hours before. Some, like Mack and Valin, had been enemies. But now they were all united by a common experience: they had all faced the Pale Queen.
And they had all seen Dietmar fall to his death.
And they knew who was responsible.
The mayor of San Francisco and the United States Air Force had arranged for a truck to meet them as they got off the plane. The truck drove them into Sedona.
“So, this is your home,” Jarrah said. “Not so different from mine, really. Dry and hot.”
“It was my home,” Mack said. “I don’t know if it still is.”
He was changed, our Mack. And he felt it.
“Where to?” the driver asked.
Mack thought about it. “Back to where it all started. Richard Gere Middle School.”47
“Richard Gere?” Hillary asked. “Seriously?”
Camaro shot the girl a dirty look. “Don’t be dissing our school.”
“It’s Sedona,” Mack said. “It was either Richard Gere or Lisa Simpson.”
He nodded at Camaro and held out a fist. She bumped it. Stefan laid his big hand over theirs. It was a moment of Sedona solidarity.
Stefan said, “We take down the redhead.”
“We do,” Mack agreed.
“And the golem?” Camaro couldn’t keep a tremulousness from her voice.
“It’s not his fault,” Mack said. “He’s innocent. But so was Dietmar. And sometimes life is not fair.”
Suddenly a dozen cars and a few pickup trucks went careening past heading away from the town. They were driven by Tong Elves and Skirrit. In each car were people. Men, women, and children. Many had their pets with them and some had tied bikes to the roof racks.
This mystery would puzzle Mack for some time until later investigations would turn up Risky’s last furious order to her minions: drive the people out of town.48
The truck pulled to a stop and they climbed out. Mack gasped. The school was a pile of broken slabs of stucco and jagged wooden beams and shattered Spanish tile.
In all honesty, neither Mack nor Camaro nor Stefan was entirely distraught at the destruction. So long as no one was hurt, it was . . . Well, what kid hasn’t fantasized about their school being destroyed?
But then Mack heard the sounds of destruction coming from downtown. Sedona’s downtown was mostly just a single street, and in some ways it looked like an old-fashioned cowboy town. The buildings were not tall, nor were they cramped, nor were they all flashy with lots of lights. This was not New York or Los Angeles. Sedona was a small, squat western town overawed by bleak desertscape mountains. It was a place of cozy bed-and-breakfasts rather than big resort hotels. There were far more spiritual healers than there were stockbrokers, but there were also people with real businesses: restaurants, shops, dentist’s offices, hardware stores—useful things.
Some of those useful things were now smoking ruins. An antiques-and-collectibles shop had been crushed beneath a FedEx truck. A tiny café that served all variations on avocado was burning. The cheese shop emitted a horrible smell—it alone was undamaged.
Down the street Mack saw the Destroyer. As Mack watched, the Destroyer snapped a light pole, then ripped one of those big metal mailboxes up off the ground and bit off the top as if he expected to find candy inside. Letters and cards scattered, caught by the breeze.
That was a federal crime.
It made Mack angry. He’d already seen San Francisco devastated. He did not want to see the same in his own hometown.
“Everyone with me,” he commanded.
Yes: commanded. Because this was not the same old, diffident Mack. This was a Mack who had faced down the world’s greatest evil. This was a Mack who had seen a friend fall to his death. He wasn’t playing anymore. He was deadly serious.
The eleven, plus Stefan, began to march down the street toward the Destroyer, who carried on happily smashing things while still clutching the faded-blue steel mailbox.
“Destroyer!” Mack called when they were within range.
The Destroyer stopped.
Slowly he turned.
He no longer looked anything like Mack. He was ten feet tall, a monster of dead eyes and blank visage.
“Urrgh?” the Destroyer said.
“It’s me, Golem. Or Destroyer. Whatever you are now. It’s me, Mack MacAvoy. And I’m ordering you to stop.”
The Destroyer stared at him. Probably. It’s hard to tell where a blank-eyed creature is staring.
Then it began to advance on Mack.
“Get ready,” Mack said to his friends. “We need a spell to destroy him.”
“What?” Camaro cried. “What do you mean, destroy him? That’s the golem!”
“We have no choice,” Mack said.
“No. No, no, no,” Camaro said. “No one is destroying the golem. That’s what she wants you to do.”
Mack knew who Camaro meant by “she.”49 It made him hesitate, but only for a moment. “It has to be stopped. It has to be destroyed.”
“It’s not an it,” Camaro pleaded. “It’s a he. He is a real person underneath all that.”
“No, he is just a golem,” Valin argued.
Camaro got right in Valin’s face. Valin wasn’t scared easily. But he took a step back. A big step.
“You don’t know him,” Camaro raged. “I know him. I can get him to stop.”
By this point the Destroyer was practically on them.
Mack nodded at Camaro. “You can try.” To everyone else he said, “Hold hands and be ready.”
“Golem,” Camaro pleaded. “Listen to me. I know you’re still in there some—”
With startling speed, the Destroyer lunged. With a single powerful hand he brought the torn mailbox up high, then brought it down with shocking suddenness.
Right on Mack.
Or more accurately, right around Mack. It was like someone slamming a glass down to trap a bug. Except that this glass was small compared to the “bug.” The mailbox’s bottom slammed down on Mack’s head. He fell to his knees. His head swam and for a few moments he was completely unconscious.
The Destroyer scooped one big hand beneath the open part of the mailbox, lifted the whole thing in the air, and squeezed.
With a sound like a slow-motion car accident, the metal shards of the opening began to close. For the Destroyer it was like crushing aluminum foil. In seconds Mack was completely trapped, enclosed, inside a steel box.
The Destroyer tossed the metal prison aside. It landed hard and Mack cried out.
Stefan threw himself at the box, trying to pry it open, knowing what would happen.
Mack’s consciousness came back on a wave of dread more awful than anything he had ever felt before. His hands battered at the steel cage. His eyes searched for light. His knees were pressed up against his chest, he could barely breathe, and the Arizona sun was already raising the temperature to more than a hundred degrees.
Mack had twenty-one known phobias. But the greatest of these, the master phobia, the one phobia that outdid all the others, was claustrophobia.
Claustrophobia. The fear of being locked in a small space, unable to get out, unable to breathe, unable . . .
Those outside heard a soul-wrenching wail. It was a sound that started as a cry but rose and rose and with each second became more panicky.
They heard Mack pounding, kicking, battering his hands and knees and feet to pulp trying to smash his way out.
“Don’t panic, don’t panic,” Stefan cried as even his great strength failed to budge the steel.
A single car, a convertible, drove down the street, going at a leisurely pace. Taking its time. Just the one vehicle.
The top was down, and it was easy to see the red hair flowing in the breeze.
Risky was coming to claim her prize.