The Trap (9 page)

DID WE MENTION IT WAS A LONG TIME AGO. . . .

I
n order to be named an official, full-fledged Nafia assassin, Paddy “Nine Iron” Trout had to do some traveling. His bosses gave him a choice.

“Bottomless pit in Greece or volcano in Italy?”

“Say what?”

“You gotta meet the boss: she makes the final decisions on major promotions like this.”

“What if she doesn't like me?” Nine Iron asked.

“Well, then she'll have you for lunch.”

Nine Iron didn't think this sounded too bad. Until he considered that
Have you for lunch
could be taken two different ways.

“Volcano,” Nine Iron said.

So he was booked for a trip on the zeppelin
Furzlassen
. Zeppelins were giant airships. Basically you had a steel frame, and a giant skin stretched tight over that steel frame, and then the whole thing was filled with sacks of a lighter-than-air gas like helium, which was perfectly safe, or hydrogen, which could blow up if you so much as looked at it sideways.

Naturally the
Furzlassen
was filled with hydrogen.

The whole thing altogether was shaped like a cigar, one hundred feet in diameter and about eight hundred feet long. The bottom of the zeppelin had passenger and crew compartments like sleeper cars on a train. There was also a bar, a restaurant, and a smoking room. Which, given that the ship was being floated by giant sacks containing 3.7 million cubic feet of highly flammable gas, may not have been a great idea.

It was a fine trip. Nine Iron was booked into a windowless second-class room. Unimaginable luxury for a man who, as a child, had traveled seventh class.

But Nine Iron had gotten so he enjoyed a degree of luxury, so he moved up to a first-class cabin that became available right after the original passenger was tossed out of a window over Greenland.

No one's saying Nine Iron tossed the poor fellow out, but Nine Iron did end up with the cabin. So draw your own conclusion.

It was a great trip and Nine Iron felt great, just great, as he stepped off the zeppelin in Rome, Italy.

Then he felt good taking a train to the seaside city of Naples.

And he felt okay taking the stagecoach to the small town of San Gudafella.

He felt slightly out of sorts riding a donkey up the side of Mount Vesuvius.

And by the time he reached the top, he was beginning to feel a bit nervous. Because first: he didn't like heights all that much. And, second: he didn't like being perched atop a rocky ridge above a vast sea of steaming hot magma.

His guide mutely pointed to a narrow pathway that led down toward the magma. Then the guide turned his donkey around and took off.

Nine Iron set off down the inside of the caldera—the bowl of the volcano. The volcano was in a sort of constant low-key eruption. The volcano that back in Roman times had totally erupted and wiped out the city of Pompeii, burying everyone in ash and flying rock and a bit of lava. That volcano.

Down he climbed. Down and down and hotter and hotter until he could feel the heat coming up through his shoes.

And that's when Nine Iron saw his first monster. It looked like a giant bug wearing a striped suit and a fedora.

“I have come to—” the monster said.

Nine Iron shot him.

He stepped over the bug's body and kept going down the hill. He didn't know why the bug had talked to him, or what the bug was, but Nine Iron thought he looked like the kind of bug that, if smaller, would attack an oat crop.

And Nine Iron did not approve of oat pests.

He went on for another half hour; and this time as he turned a blind corner, he was confronted by two fellows that might conceivably be human, except that they were very short, with stubby legs, and they were wearing lederhosen with an image of a tree on the front.

They each had a club and they smacked the clubs into their palms in a tough-guy manner. “Now listen, human slime—”

So Nine Iron shot them, too.

The next monster Nine Iron saw was just a leg. At least that's all he saw at first, because the leg itself from ankle to knee was about five feet. Then another five feet from knee to hip. And then about ten more feet from there to the neck.

The head was about twenty-five feet up.

Nine Iron shot this creature, too, but the creature didn't seem to notice. It reached down with one massive hand and lifted him up to examine him more closely.

The creature was covered with white fur that changed color as Nine Iron watched. It was ever so slightly pink.

Later Nine Iron would learn that this was a Gudridan. And that you never wanted to see a pink Gudridan. And if you ever happened to see one gone full red, it would be the last thing you saw.

Some instinct warned Nine Iron that irritating the giant any further would be a bad thing. Probably it was the sight up close and stinky of the Gudridan's gaping mouth filled with large teeth.

“I have an appointment,” Nine Iron said. “With the Pale Queen.”

The giant said nothing. But a smaller creature, like a skinny dalmatian dog with a disfigured face and chewed-off fingers, said, “Yeah. So follow us.”

Nine Iron jerked his head back up the trail. “Sorry about the others. . . .”

“Don't be stupid,” the Lepercon snapped. “If you hadn't killed them, the Pale Queen would think you were soft.”

“Ah,” Nine Iron said. He thought about it for a second, then shot the Lepercon.

To the giant he said, “Okay, let's go.”

S
omehow—no one saw her move—Risky went from the mountaintop to the wall, just a baseball throw away. She had the same deep red hair and the same scary, intense green eyes.

“I see you've found the dragon folk,” Risky said. “Very nicely done, Mack. And you have this one”—she stabbed a finger at Jarrah—“to help guide you in the magic tongue.”

“Say what?” Jarrah asked.

“Vargran,” Risky explained. She seemed quite friendly. Maybe a little cocky, but no more arrogant or dangerous than any number of cheerleaders back at Mack's school. “And now the littlest dragon.”

Risky's eyes grew colder as she contemplated Xiao. Xiao was still human in appearance. But obviously Ereskigal—aka Morgan le Fay and a host of other evildoers—was not easily tricked by appearances. “I really thought we'd finished the last of you off. But you had only found a nice hole to hide in. Now that we've found your hideaway beneath the Forbidden City, we'll come for your sorry race soon.”

Xiao said, “I take from your words that your evil servants were repulsed from Dragon Home.”

Risky smiled. “Oh, yes. It was a pretty one-sided battle. You dragons may not be fierce, but you do know how to summon the waters and make them do your bidding. So many Skirrit and Tong Elves died. Such a pity: all that tasty meat gone to waste. And I am really hungry.”

“I can still do the burning thing!” Mack threatened.

“Yes,” Risky admitted. “But you know it won't work on me twice, right? Now. The question before us is: What's on the menu? Human meat? Dragon meat?”

Xiao slipped from her human mask and became the dragon once again. Then, without warning, she shot into the sky.

Mack was sure she would do something cool to Risky. Risky seemed a bit concerned herself, but Xiao rose, turned, and raced away along the wall.

She disappeared behind a mountain.

“Okay, then,” Risky said. “Human meat it is.”

“Run!” Mack yelled.

They ran in the same direction Xiao had taken. They leaped down elongated stairs.

“That's good,” Risky called after them. “Get the blood flowing! It makes you more tender.”

Mack risked a quick glance back at Risky, who was already beginning to change in rather dramatic ways. For one thing, wings were growing from her shoulders. For another thing, a new set of arms was protruding from her midriff.

And her green eyes were bulging, bulging, and becoming patterned in thousands of small hexagonal lenses. Like a dragonfly. In fact, exactly like a dragonfly.

But bigger—like something the air force would build if it wanted a dragonfly to use in air-to-air combat.

They reached the closest tower and stopped inside, panting.

“I can't believe Xiao bailed on us!” Jarrah yelled.

“I would if I could,” Mack said. He had a stitch in his side from running. He held it and doubled over.

“I don't think we're safe in here,” Stefan said.

The tower wasn't that big, just as wide as the wall itself and extending up for maybe another fifty feet. It was brick and had been designed to be completely impervious. To arrows.

zzzz-ZZZZZ-zzzz-ZZZZZ

It was a whine like a fingernail scraping a single string on an electric guitar. Mack could see Risky through the arched, doorless opening. Her wings beat the air so fast they became nothing but a blur.

You could say she was a really big dragonfly, except that her face wasn't a dragonfly's face. It was still Risky, but all distended and distorted, as if someone had tried to stretch her face over a head ten sizes too big. Her lips were smeared into a wide Joker grin. The smile revealed curved, scimitar teeth that could be made of steel.

The six legs were no longer even slightly human. But they weren't quite insect, either. More like long, thin lobster claws.

“Aaah ahha yaarrgh!” the three of them said, more or less in unison.

“We need some Vargran!” Mack cried.

“Like what?” Jarrah yelled.

“Huh,” Stefan said. “It's kind of cool the way she can do that.”

“She's going to eat us!” Mack yelled at Stefan.

The dragonfly creature rose from the wall. For a few seconds Mack couldn't see her. But the drone sound came closer and louder, so loud he could hardly hear his own rasping breath.

She landed with a surprisingly small thump atop the tower. It barely shook the bricks.

She had managed what the swelling Lepercons could not do: she'd kept her weight in proportion. That, Mack reflected, was the key to getting really big: you didn't want the weight going up proportionally.

But that didn't mean Risky wasn't strong. Mack heard a grinding, tearing noise and saw bricks falling outside. Risky was taking the tower apart, brick by brick.

There were a lot of bricks in the tower.

But not enough.

A beam of sunlight shone through a hole in the high, domed ceiling. One big, rainbow-shiny, multifaceted eye stared down at them.

“I can hear your little hearts beating,” Risky said. “Nothing's tastier than a fresh, frightened heart. Did you know it will keep beating for a while after I tear it from your chest, Mack? I'll feel it fluttering in my stomach.”

“Vargran! We need some like, like, like right now!”

“I-I-I-I,” Jarrah cried. “I can't think!”

Bricks fell down through the hole and landed around them.

Stefan snatched one up and hurled it at the big eyeball. It missed.

With a ripping sound, the roof of the tower tore free. It lifted like a hinged lid. Then it collapsed and fell down the outside of the tower.

The tower was now a convertible with the top down.

Nothing was left to stop Risky. Nothing left but for her to decide who to eat first.

But suddenly Risky hesitated. Mack could see her creepy half-human, half-insect head snap up. It's hard to see fear in a face that . . . unusual . . . but Mack definitely heard concern in her voice.

“It can't be,” Risky said. “I killed you a millennium ago!”

The biggest sound Mack had ever heard answered back. A voice so astounding that it was hard even to parse out the words. Which were:

“So long as the four winds blow, I live! I am Shen LOOOONG! And . . . I LIIIIIVE!”

W
hen his insides had stopped quivering and his bones had stopped rattling from the sound, Mack turned and looked through the far door of the tower.

He was used to seeing dragons now. Well, kind of used to it. But this didn't look like the other dragons.

Shen Long had a face that seemed almost human. Maybe half dragon, half human. And at first he looked kind of comical, because he was less like a huge snake and more like a huge snake that had swallowed one of those domed telescope observatories.

His chest and stomach were bulbous, and vast.

He was sucking in air as if he was trying to get it all for himself. It was like standing in the surf when a wave recedes.

Xiao suddenly appeared and zoomed into the tower, knocking Mack flat in her hurry. “Down!” she yelled. “Down and hold on for dear life!”

Mack was already down. Stefan grabbed Jarrah and knocked her flat. The three of them were facedown, and Xiao was already zooming away when Shen Long finished filling his lungs.

Then, Shen Long exhaled.

The top three-quarters of the tower might as well have been a kid's papier-mâché art project. The hurricane, the tornado of wind, blew it away in a single piece.

Mack looked up in time to see Risky flying backward through the air. Not quite as fast as a bullet, maybe, but very fast.

She flew, helpless, in a maelstrom of bricks and chunks of tower and mismatched bits of crenellation.

She hit the next tower, smashed through it, hit the top of the wall beyond, rolled along the crenellations, came loose, flew some more, hit the top of a mountain, took the top of the mountain with her, and disappeared from view.

The hurricane ended as suddenly as it had begun.

Shen Long's stomach was still big. But not as big.

Xiao swept down from the sky and landed on his shoulder. “Uncle! Thanks!”

“Anything for my favorite niece,” Shen Long said in a more subdued voice. “Besides, I can't stand that princess. She's as rotten as her mother.”

“Is she dead?” Mack asked.

Xiao jumped in to do quick introductions.

“No, Mack, she's not dead. Not even killed,” Shen Long said regretfully. “But it will take her a while to put herself back together. You'd better get going. She won't fall for the same thing twice.”

“Actually, Uncle, I was wondering if you could give us a ride.”

“A ride?” Shen Long scratched his chin with one five-clawed foot. “Where to?”

“Germany,” Mack said. “Some place called the Egge Rocks or Externsteine.”

“Externsteine?” Shen Long looked troubled.

“Or the nearest airport,” Mack said. “I know it's a long way.”

Xiao, human once again, gave Mack a significant look. In a whisper she said, “The problem is not the distance. It's the memories.”

Shen Long looked stricken. His jovial face was sad and creased with worry. He seemed to have decided what direction Germany was in and was staring that way, but with eyes that saw something else entirely.

“She wouldn't even remember me,” Shen Long said softly.

“No one could ever forget you, Uncle. But it was a long time ago.”

“I will take you,” Shen Long said reluctantly. “But I am not hanging around. Otherwise she'll think I came to see her.”

“As you wish, Uncle,” Xiao said.

The dragon lay as flat as he could, and Xiao, followed by Mack, Jarrah, and Stefan, climbed up his side and onto his back. Like all Chinese dragons, he rose effortlessly, and headed away from the sun.

“What was all that about?” Mack asked. He was trying not to think about what would happen if he fell off. Shen Long was gaining altitude pretty quickly. Soon they were brushing the undersides of the clouds.

“An old love of my uncle's. Her name was Nott.”

“Not what?”

“Nott. Just Nott.”

Mack waited as long as he could before asking, “Not what?”

“Nott. That was her name. Nott.”

“Is that a joke?” Mack asked. “Like one of those ‘not' jokes? Like if I said, ‘I like your dress . . . not.'”

“What's the matter with my dress?” Xiao asked, a little irritated.

Leaning forward, Jarrah asked, “Not what?”

“Not a what, a who,” Mack explained to Jarrah. “Nothing!” he answered Xiao's question.

“Okay, then,” Jarrah said. “Not who?”

“Are we there yet?” Stefan asked.

“I think Nott was Shen Long's girlfriend,” Mack yelled back to Jarrah. The wind was fierce and cold now that Shen Long was picking up speed.

“Then what's this about nothing?” Jarrah asked.

“It's not about nothing,” Mack said. “It's about Nott.”

There was a moment or two of silence. Then Jarrah said, “You know, I could push you right off this dragon's back.”

Mack thought that over for a second or two then said, “I'd prefer you not. Heh.”

And so the first three of the Magnificent Twelve flew aboard a pot-bellied dragon into the west. And Stefan was there, too.

Mack leaned close to Stefan, not wanting the others to hear him. “Dude, we're cool, right?”

Stefan thought about that for a moment. “I'm cool. And Jarrah is definitely cool. So cool. But I'm not sure about you.”

“That's not what I meant. I mean, you could have died. I probably should have gotten you to a doctor.”

Stefan shrugged. “Why? I'm all fixed up.”

“But I didn't know that at the time. I kind of risked your life.”

Stefan laughed. “You're under my wing. Not the other way around.” Then he punched Mack in the shoulder, one of those “friendly” punches. A buddy punch. Which knocked Mack clear off Shen Long's back and would have sent him spiraling down to plow a hole in some very hard-looking ground except that Stefan snatched him back and settled him in place again.

“See? Under my wing.”