“And I figured it out when an old fart dressed in green sicced a bunch of lederhosen-wearing dwarves on me,” Charlie said.
“Paddy ‘Nine Iron’ Trout and the treasonous Tong Elves,” Jarrah said.
“What’s that, a rock band?” Charlie asked.
“A Nafia assassin and … well, a bunch of treasonous Tong Elves.”
“Okay then, it’s all perfectly clear,” Charlie said sarcastically. “Can we get out of here now? I doubt you’ve noticed, but it smells a bit down here. And the entertainment options are quite limited.”
“Things are a little dangerous out there,” Mack said. “So we need to be prepared. Let’s take a minute and plan.”
“I’ve got it,” Charlie said. “You stay and plan; I am out of here.”
“Dude,” Mack said, and put his hand on the boy’s arm.
Charlie’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Hey. Who died and made you king?”
“He’s the leader of the group,” Jarrah said, looking every bit as dangerous as Charlie.
“Says who?” Charlie demanded.
“Says Grimluk,” Mack said.
“And the rest of us,” Jarrah said.
“And me,” Stefan said.
Then Charlie had an opportunity to take a close-up look at Stefan because Stefan stepped up to him and stood very close, which brought Charlie’s nose to about the level of Stefan’s muscle-bound chest and swollen biceps.
“Yes, well, all right then,” Charlie said briskly.
Mack sat down on the couch. He sighed. “We’re trapped in this game where we’re trying to get the Twelve together and Risky is chasing us. All she has to do to win is make sure we never get to twelve. And she already has Valin. So, I’ve been thinking about this—in between being stomped by giants—and I think we need to go on the offensive. We need to start hitting back now that we have the Key. Maybe the first thing to do is go right at them.”
“Go at them?” Dietmar asked in a shrill, disbelieving voice. “How do we do that?”
Mack shrugged. He hadn’t figured that out yet.
“If I want a fight, I call someone out,” Stefan said.
“What does that mean, call someone out?” Rodrigo asked, intrigued, as if he liked the sound of it.
“It means I say, ‘You, me, after school,’” Stefan said.
Mack had received just such an invitation from Stefan. So had many others. Stefan had changed, but he had not changed completely.
“We issue a challenge? Why would we do that?” Dietmar asked.
“To throw them off balance,” Xiao said. “To force them out into the open. For all the power of my people, we have survived by remaining hidden. The dragons of China would never have survived if people had known about us.”
“Maybe that’s the takeaway from old Billy Blisterthöng, eh?” Jarrah said, nodding. “He was all tough and bad so long as he was invisible to the world.”
Sylvie said, “People have seen the YouTubes of different things you have done, but I have read the comments and most people think they are fake. Many think they are some strange advertising, as if the display of your raw emotions and the suspension of normalcy is too threatening to accept. They prefer the comfort of self-deception. It is as if to believe this truth is to be cast into the abyss, the bottomless emptiness that is existence without—”
“Riiight,” Jarrah said, cutting her off with a sigh and rolling her eyes. “We gotta make people believe us. Gotta rub their faces in it.”
Mack nodded. “We need help. Which means we need people looking for the Skirrit and the Tong Elves and the Gudridan. We need people to be watching for Paddy Nine Iron. And Valin.”
“Call them out,” Charlie said, adopting the phrase. Then, in a sardonic tone, “What could possibly go wrong?”