The Trap (The Magnificent 12 2)

“Sounds a bit grim then, eh?” Jarrah said cheerfully.

Xiao came and sort of hugged the dragon. Shen Long said, “Be careful, Niece. Those you go to see were quick to anger in their youth. And if you happen to see . . .” He trailed off.

“If I see Nott, I will tell her that you remember her with great fondness.”

The dragon tilted his massive head, a little embarrassed. “Just say . . . Yes, as you said. Great fondness. But don’t make me seem desperate.”

“Of course not.”

“Or needy.”

“Absolutely.”

“And don’t set anything up.”

They watched him go up, up into the sky. Mack still had a hard time believing something that big and that pot-bellied could fly. Of course, he reflected, the poor fighter pilots would have an even harder time believing it. On radar Shen Long would have just looked like an unknown plane.

“Now what?” Jarrah asked.

“Breakfast,” Stefan said.

Chapter Twenty-one

DID WE MENTION IT’S A LONG TIME AGO?

Paddy—newly remonikered as Nine Iron—Trout was wondering just how much farther down they had to go. Already the Gudridan had led him so far down that the edge of the volcano’s bowl towered so high above him he felt like he was at the bottom of a well.

It was getting warmer. And the air smelled less and less like air and more and more like someone had bought a lot of expired eggs and then fried them up with some rancid goat meat.

The lava bubbled in sullen pools not thirty feet below them. One wrong step on the narrow path would plunge Nine Iron to his death. There was no guardrail. There wasn’t even a warning sign.

To make matters worse, the Gudridan walked very quickly—as you might expect from a creature with legs that long—and Nine Iron had to trot to keep up.

Suddenly the Gudridan stopped. Nine Iron looked around, baffled. The path just ended. Sheer rock wall to the left, sheer fall into percolating magma on the other side. And the path, which had only been maybe four feet wide to begin with, suddenly narrowed to inches and then to nothing at all.

“Here,” the Gudridan said.

“Where?”

The Sasquatch-looking creature pointed at a circle cut into the rock. It was right around chest level for Nine Iron. Words in an alphabet he didn’t recognize were chiseled in a ring around the circle.

“Is that supposed to be a doorbell?”

The Gudridan shrugged. Clearly he was not going to be helpful. So Nine Iron pushed against the inset circle. The rock gave way, and Nine Iron was just congratulating himself on having gotten it right when his hand plunged in way, way too far.

The circle was no longer a circle; it was a mouth ringed with very sharp, curved teeth. The teeth bit down just enough to keep Nine Iron from pulling his hand back out.

When Nine Iron peered into the hole, past the ring o’ teeth, he saw what looked like a pulsating red tube.

“Hey!” Nine Iron yelled.

The Gudridan smiled cruelly. “Pay the blood price.”

“Pay the what now?”

“The Mother of All Monsters wants a taste.”

“A taste of . . . ?”