The Call (The Magnificent 12 1)

Grimluk barely heard her. He just shook his head.

“The job of honored hero is yours if you wish. It pays well, and you’ll be given a small farmhouse.”

“I…I can’t…” Grimluk began to cry, and because the concept of “macho” would not be invented for many centuries, he cried without shame.

“Those of the remaining Magnifica who so choose will scour the world searching for Princess Ereskigal,” Drupe said. “So long as she lives, we cannot destroy the Pale Queen.”

“I will go. The others will go with me.”

“You have not very much time. As each of you ages, your powers will fade. All too soon you will be too weak to defeat the princess. And remember that the princess is not easily killed. She must die twelve deaths before she will truly be dead.”

Grimluk said, “I feel like we just invented this new number twelve, and now we’re using it for everything.”

“Progress,” Drupe said doubtfully.

“And if we fail?” Grimluk asked.

“Then there may be another future for you,” Drupe said cautiously. “It would be a long, very long, but terribly lonely life.”

“What could I ever be but lonely?” Grimluk whispered.

“In the secret places of the earth, in the ancient habitations of the Most Ancient Ones, death comes but slowly.”

“I don’t understand,” Grimluk said.

“You would find such a place. And there you would live alone, cut off. You would be a sentinel. A lone watcher. You would live and wait and watch.”

“Watch for what?”

“For the possibility that the Pale Queen may rise again.”

Twenty-four

Mack woke too early. It was the high whine of the winch that penetrated his conscious mind.

He opened his eyes and saw…nothing.

“Wha…?” he said.

He was aware that he was still tied up. And aware that he was facedown. On something hard. That was moving.

In a downward direction.

In the dark.

“No,” he whispered.

“Be cool, now,” Stefan said. His voice was from somewhere very close. Mack could feel something that might be Stefan’s elbow jammed against his ear.

The truth hit him all at once. They were in the shaft. And dropping.

“Aaaahhhhh,” Mack moaned.

“Dude. Relax.”

“Aaaaaahhhhhh aaaaahhhhhh aaaaaahhhhh!”

See, the thing with phobias is that they aren’t just regular everyday fears. They aren’t even slightly more intense versions of regular fears. Phobias are like wild beasts that crouch, waiting inside your brain until something wakes them up. And once they are awake, they go crazy. Imagine a gorilla losing its mind inside a cage, beating on the bars until its paws are bloody, trying to bite through the metal until its teeth crack, slamming itself in sheer panic against walls that will break its bones.