The Trap (The Magnificent 12 2)

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.”

Chapter Eighteen

Somehow—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.