The Key (The Magnificent 12 3)

But then the boat reached the bottom of its plunge and rose, fighting its way back to the surface. The bow caught Nessie right in the neck. Mack heard an underwater bellow of pain, and all at once the bow was bursting up through the silvery barrier between water and air.

Mack gasped for air. His fingers were so numb he couldn’t feel the Key, but through dripping eyes he confirmed that both pieces were still in his hands.

Nessie was a hundred feet away, twisting her neck back and forth above the water like an athlete limbering up.

Stefan did what Stefan could be absolutely relied upon to do. He shoved all throttles forward and aimed the boat for the All-Mother of clan Begonia.

“My turn,” Stefan said.

The sudden attack threw Nessie off her game. At first she stared like she couldn’t believe it. And in that time the boat closed half the distance.

By the time she realized that yes, yes, they were actually attacking her, she only had time to run. Or swim; let’s not get literal here.

“Get some of that encapsulated pissant going!” Stefan yelled down at Mack. “She’s faster than the boat!”

Mack and Xiao fumbled with the Key. “I don’t know how to use it!” Xiao cried.

“Me neither!”

“Verbs and nouns. What do we do with them? And what about modifiers?” asked Xiao.

“Look!”

Mack pointed with one trembling finger. “That’s a picture of rocks!”

“So what?”

“And that symbol with two hands making a ball … I think that means ‘make.’”

“Quick, line them up!”

They did that. And instantly … nothing!

“Are we making a rock?”

“I guess not,” Mack gibbered.

“Wait, wait. I have it! Okay, first line ‘make’ up with that monster. Then the rocks. We’ll sink her!”

“Say what?” Mack asked.

But together they did it.

And instantly … still nothing.

But then, two instants later, there came a voice.

The voice said, “A-ma belast dafee.”

“Did you hear that?” Mack asked.

Xiao nodded, or maybe just shivered in a vertical direction, but it looked like a nod and, anyway, Mack had no better plan. Because now, as Stefan had predicted, Nessie had outrun and outmaneuvered them. She had come around behind them, and although the boat was going heck-for-leather, battering its way through the light chop, sending spray everywhere, and despite the fact that Mack had a sneaking suspicion that Stefan was having the time of his life, Mack said to Xiao, “Together. Let’s try it.”

He took her hand. He didn’t actually feel it, but he took it. And together they cried, “A-ma belast dafee!”

It didn’t happen all at once.

Nessie was rearing up ready to smash the stern and probably kill the engines, leaving them helpless, when feathers suddenly rippled all across her rubbery, reptilian flesh.