The Power (The Magnificent 12 4)

“Maybe,” Dietmar said doubtfully.

Valin, with a mysterious look, said, “They will arrive where most needed.”

Sylvie rolled her eyes. Valin might be her half brother, but he had tried to kill Mack, and she did not like that at all. “That is wishful thinking. A superficial analysis at best.”

“Ha. I am descended from Taras Bulba. Don’t tell me I’m superficial!”

Xiao and Mack exchanged a guilty look.

Then Mack glanced up from the table to notice that three separate smartphones were taping them. “It seems like we’re being watched everywhere now.”

“Makes it easy for other Magnifica to find us,” Charlie said. “Of course it makes it easy for the bad guys, too.”

There was a television above the bar and Dietmar said, “Shush!” in that pushy way he had. And then, equally pushy, he said loudly, “Can you turn it up, Mr. Tavern Keeper?”

The man at the bar stared hard at Dietmar but turned up the TV anyway. What had drawn Dietmar’s gaze was a newscast. The video was amazing: in just the space of a few hours the boiling water and plume of ash had become a definite volcanic cone sticking up out of the ocean.

And something else: a ridge of rock was rising from the sea as well, a long spur of wave-washed stone running straight as an arrow and pointing directly at San Francisco.

Just then the ground shook beneath their feet. Dishes rattled, a bottle of soda toppled over, a waiter lost his balance and dropped his tray, and food went flying.

“That felt like a five, maybe five point one,” the bartender said.

The waiter, already busy picking up the dropped dishes, said nonchalantly, “Nah, four point eight, tops. I can’t believe I dropped a tray for a lousy four point eight.”

The TV, which had wobbled a bit during the brief earthquake, had switched to an aerial shot that clearly showed the stony ridge as a long line of gray rocks, some already above water, much just a shadow beneath the water, and the rest only implied.

“She’s building a path, a bridge,” Mack said. “She’s coming right this way. The Pale Queen will come out of that volcano and head straight down that rocky bridge!”

Xiao frowned. “What was it Grimluk told you? About a bridge?”

“Different bridge,” Mack said. “He was talking about the Golden Gate. That’s why we came to San Francisco.”

“Yes, but didn’t he tell you that’s where we would find the remaining Magnifica?”

“Do you think he meant specifically the bridge? The bridge itself?” Mack looked around to see if anyone had any better ideas. None did.

“It will take a while for the YouTube to reach—” Valin began, but at that moment the ground beneath their feet seemed to leap to life.

The entire table jumped. Sylvie fell off her chair. Jarrah jumped to her feet but her knees buckled. Bottles and glasses fell all around them. The plate glass window cracked.

The TV went dark; the lights wavered, brightened eerily, then went out altogether.

People screamed. One of those people was Mack, who now found himself in a tangle on the floor with Sylvie and Xiao. And that floor was still very active, bucking like a rodeo horse, bruising Mack’s knees and the palms of his hands. He wanted to use his hands to cover his ears because the shaking, rumbling, and groaning of the earth sounded like the end of the world.

The quake went on forever. Or maybe three minutes. But it feels like forever when you’re in the middle of an earthquake.

The floor tile between Mack’s hands cracked and split, revealing the wood beneath

.

The quake stopped suddenly.

Mack was breathing hard. All of them were breathing hard. Dietmar looked as pale as a ghost. He was always pale, but now even his lips were the color of vanilla ice cream.

Mack climbed shakily to his feet to see Jarrah high-fiving Stefan. “Now that was a quake!” she said excitedly. “I hope no one’s hurt.”

“Yeah. As long as no one’s, like, dead, it was way cool,” Stefan agreed.