The Key (The Magnificent 12 3)

This almost worked. It worked in the sense that Nessie sheered off and the boat wallowed wildly in its own wave. Water rolled over the sides, drenching everyone.

The captain hit the throttle—going forward this time—and the boat began to move slowly.

Nessie was way too quick for that move. She came racing alongside, and before the boat could gather way (get going), she soared up out of the water like a whale showing off, twisted just slightly in the air, and landed directly across the bow.

It was like an elephant dropping from the sky.

Fortunately there was some yielding give in her rubbery flesh because Sylvie and Dietmar were both slammed to the deck, crushed beneath her massive bulk, and only saved from being popped like a couple of stomped hot dogs by the fact that the boat hit a trough and dropped away, lessening the impact.

Nessie slithered off, leaving two kids down, unable to move. And all of a sudden, things had gotten very, very serious. There was blood coming from Dietmar’s eyes and nose, gushing and mingling with water on the deck.

Sylvie didn’t move at all. She just lay there like she was unconscious. Or something worse.

“That breaks the deal,” Mack snarled. “Stefan, Jarrah, get them inside. Xiao: with me. We need to do some fast decoding.”

* * *

Thirteen

* * *

The boat was under way again, but the captain had been injured in the latest attack. He was up on the flying bridge with what might be a broken arm and leg, trying bravely to keep going, but looking like a guy who was likely to pass out cold at any … and there he went.

The wheel spun free and the boat veered straight for a rocky shore.

“Stefan!” Mack yelled.

Stefan swung out through a shattered cabin window and swarmed up to the bridge with the powerful agility of a chimpanzee. Although it would be a bad idea to ever compare him to a chimp to his face.

The boat turned away from shore. Mack fumbled the pieces of the Key together. The center stone fit perfectly.

For the first time he had a chance to really take a look at the two pieces together.

In the very center was a symbol of an eyeball. The eyeball didn’t do much but stare at you.

Around the outer edge of the outer ring were a large number of pictures—tiny images carved into the stone. Some were fairly easy to understand. For example, a circle with rays coming out was probably the sun. Three wavy lines probably meant water. A wild boar with puffed-out cheeks was surely wind. Or maybe just a wild boar.

Others were even more obscure. There was the head of an animal that might be a horse but might also be a cow. It wasn’t that easy to tell. Mack didn’t have time to count, but there were 144 symbols: twelve times twelve.

“They are objects. Nouns,” Xiao said, pointing.

Mack had noticed that, too.

The inner circle was a different set of symbols but with some overlap. For example, there was a second puffy-cheeked cloud. There were also really odd symbols like a fist, a held nose, a sign on a stick, what looked like a rabbit in a hat, a foot with wings, a fluttering leaf, a knife, a wheel, and so on.

“Those are verbs,” Mack said, rushing to get it out before Xiao could.

“Verbs and nouns. But …,” Xiao said.

And that’s when Nessie dived under the boat and surfaced beneath it. The entire boat, but especially the bow, rose up out of the water. All the way clear. As in, the bow was pointing roughly at the highest part of Urquhart Castle.

Mack and Xiao slammed back into the front cabin window. Mack held on to the Key for dear life.

Then Nessie rolled beneath the boat and, just as the bow was beginning to plunge, she raised the stern. The Heather Lochlear went down like a skipped rock that had had its last skip. Mack was underwater. All the way under.

Freezing, foaming loch was in his clothing and in his nose and ears and smearing his vision. His fingers gripping the Key were instantly numb. And it’s funny just how quickly you start to need air when you’re underwater and you were caught on the exhale.

Both Mack and Xiao floated free of the deck, which fell away beneath them, farther and farther, and then, right in their faces, there was the monster. Her dolphin grin wasn’t looking so quirky now because she opened her jaws and showed row upon row of very white, very sharp teeth.