The Trap (The Magnificent 12 2)

“Big wall,” Stefan commented.

“Yes,” Xiao agreed. “An enormous structure built by humans. A sacred place of great power. Millions labored for many years to build it. And many of those who built it died in the process. Their bones are now beneath our feet.”

Stefan carefully stepped aside.

“I meant all through the wall, not just right here beneath your feet,” Xiao explained. “When workers died, they were added to the wall.”

She looked at Stefan as if expecting a response, but he had turned away and was no longer listening.

“This way,” Xiao said, and pointed downhill.

“Yeah, let’s go that way,” Stefan said. “Because you know what? I think dragon girl is right. Risky? She’s not all that dead.”

Slowly Mack turned. The hair on the back of his head was standing up.

There, at the top of the closest mountain behind them, stood Princess Ereskigal.

She waved.

Waved like she and Mack were old friends.

“Hi, Mack!” she cried cheerfully. “Stay right there. I’m coming to kill you!”

Chapter Seventeen

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

In 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.