“Okay, look, I have classes to get to,” Mack said. “But you have to stop bothering me. I’m not looking for trouble.”
“Well, trouble has found you,” Nine Iron said. “You think the Great Queen is blind and senile? That old fool Grimluk has put the queen’s mark on you, young meddler.”
“Queen’s mark?”
“You and all those who would help you carry the mark upon them. All who worship the Pale One will pursue you unto death! Until you and all you love are dead! Dead!” He held up both shaky hands and lifted his watery eyes to the bathroom ceiling. “She comes, bringing everlasting youth and great power to all those who serve her! And for you?” His ancient, wrinkled face was suddenly hard, and his eyes, despite their unfocused yellow look, were lit from within by a hard glint of hatred.
“You”—he pointed his arthritic claw at Mack—“you shall suffer and die! And I will laugh!”
He then laughed, but Mack decided pretty quickly that Nine Iron’s prediction wasn’t really funny.
“Let’s get out of here,” Mack said.
“Look you, boy,” Nine Iron said, and his voice had grown silky smooth. “I’ll make it quick and painless for you. Better to let me do it now than to see your family go first, and you only at the end, and painfully. More painfully than you can possibly imagine.”
Mack and Stefan left the old man in the boys’ bathroom. A line had formed outside. “Go somewhere else,” Stefan said.
Mack walked quickly down the hall. Stefan fell in beside him.
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know,” Mack said. “But you heard the guy. Anyone around me could be in trouble.”
“You got no worries,” Stefan said. “You are under my wing.”
“Dude. I seriously appreciate that. But you didn’t spend part of your morning grinding up poisonous snakes in a garbage disposal.”
“You scared of that old guy? Paddy Wacky, whatever his name was?”
“Yeah,” Mack said. “Maybe it’s just me, but I start getting kind of nervous when people violate the laws of physics, talking out of toilets and all. Not to mention the whole boy-made-out-of-clay thing. Call me a wuss, but my weird limit has been reached.”
“Who’s made out of clay?”
“The golem,” Mack said. “It’s like a medieval creature, a sort of robot made out of clay. I have one.”
Stefan nodded thoughtfully. “If I had a robot, I wouldn’t want him to be mid-evil. I’d want one that was, like, high-evil.”
Mack decided against trying to explain further.
“Where are you going to go?” Stefan asked.
Mack turned and walked backward, holding his hands out in a helpless gesture. “I guess I’m going to go save the world.”
“Yeah?” Stefan said. “Okay, then; I’ll go, too.”
The assistant principal stepped out of his office as they passed. “Just where do you think you’re going, Mr. MacAvoy?”
“Saving the world, sir.”
They burst through the doors outside. Waiting in the driveway, where parents in minivans would later in the day be lining up to pick up their kids, sat a very long black limousine.
Mack and Stefan came to a stop.
The rear window lowered. Inside sat a woman.
She did not appear to be armed. In fact, she was quite beautiful. Asian, Mack noticed, hair perfect, makeup perfect. Probably not dangerous. But by the same token, probably not there to pick up her kids.
“Come,” the woman said.