The Power (The Magnificent 12 4)

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 h

ad 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.