The Key (The Magnificent 12 3)

Blam!

Something hit the leonine creature that had Jarrah by the hair.

Blam! Blam!

Mack turned in amazement and saw that the current had carried them closer to the big bridge than he had realized. The bridge where the cops were waiting. It was police marksmen shooting at the gargoyles.

The bullets would only have chipped the stone of a regular gargoyle. But these were living creatures now, however bizarre and unnatural. The bullets struck home and brought forth cries of pain and outrage. Black blood boiled up through skin the color of cement.

“Run! Run!” Mack cried, and windmilled his arm to show the way. “We have to get past the bridge!”

The gargoyles had hesitated and allowed just enough time for the group to haul Dietmar onto dry water, where they were running flat-out now. Valin’s voice still reached them, far-off but shrill and determined.

“Attack!” he cried. “Attack!”

The hesitant gargoyles had no choice but to obey.

Here is the scene so that you have it clear in your mind:

Seven kids running on gray-blue water as if it was some sort of soggy playing field.

One boy in the water, swimming with powerful strokes even as his friends caught up to him.

The famous Pont Neuf, a series of stone arches, beautifully proportioned, stark and white and built to look a bit like the wall of an old castle. And atop that bridge an array of flashing lights, blue uniforms, body armor, and pointed guns.

Police boats, a mismatched collection, some like simple cabin cruisers of the sort you’d see in any marina, others black-hulled and blunt-snouted like converted barges. And a few very small, fast boats with men in scuba suits.

Gargoyles, a dark cloud of them, diving on the racing Magnifica.

“Tirez!” the inspecteur cried, and a volley of shots rang out. Then the firing went on, ragged but continuous. The noise was unbelievable, but the effect was welcome. Gargoyles died in the air, turned to stone again, and plunged into the Seine like a rain of boulders.

Mack and the rest ran beneath the Pont Neuf, out the other side, past the straggling police boats that were now rushing to join the battle of flic vs. gargoyle.

The battered, bruised, wet, and terrified group clambered aboard a passing barge that was hauling a load of sand.

The owner-captain yelled and protested until Sylvie explained in weary French that these eight had escaped from the terror upstream, and that they were also running from les flics.

This engaged the man’s sympathies and he hid them in his small, homey cabin until they were alongside the Eiffel Tower.

“Okay,” Mack said, exhausted. “Now we tell the world. And we make the world listen.”

* * *

Twenty-four

* * *

MEANWHILE, BACK AT RICHARD GERE MIDDLE SCHOOL34

“It’s today,” Camaro Angianelli said, punching the golem in the shoulder. It was an affectionate punch. It would have affectionately given a huge affectionate bruise to anyone else, but Camaro had long since realized that the golem was pretty much impervious to bruising.

“Yes, it is today,” the golem replied. In fact it was always today. It was never yesterday or tomorrow, it was always today. The golem had noticed this.

“Will you be there?” Camaro asked.

This felt like it might be a bit of a trick question. The gol

em had never been anywhere but “here,” just as it was always “today.”