The Key (The Magnificent 12 3)

But Camaro had never seen what was coming now, never imagined it in her worst nightmare. The golem was changing. He was growing—not like he had when he was going to be a big boy, but taller, broader, more muscular, harder.

His f

ive Mack fingers had melted into two on each hand. These were engorged, swelling, turning the color of dried blood.

Twin fangs, like the teeth of an ancient saber-toothed tiger, grew from his mouth, while twin upthrust tusks pushed through the sides of his mouth.

“Stop me!” the golem pleaded.

IN PARIS …

The leathery wings slowed Risky’s fall, and with a little twist Risky turned over and swept easily around the tower at the height of the second floor.

Below, Paddy and Valin were pushing panicked onlookers aside and forcing their way to the stairs.

But the Eiffel Tower continued to rip its way free of the earth.

Still in his loud voice, Mack cried, “The world is in danger! Everything you’ve seen on YouTube is true! Well … not everything. Just the stuff involving us!”

Risky took a long, slow turn out over the heads of the onlookers and came straight at the Magnifica.

“Beware!” Xiao cried. “She may be able to breathe fire!”

“True that!” Risky shouted gleefully. “And the first thing I fry is you, little annoying dragon person!”

“We need Vargran!” Jarrah cried.

“No!” Dietmar said. “We must stick to our plan!”

“We are going to move this tower!” Mack cried.

“Say what now?” the panicked onlookers cried in various accents of Gallic disbelief.

A jet of flame erupted from Risky’s fanged mouth. But she was a little inexperienced when it came to breathing fire, and the blast of searing napalm shot by overhead. The flames were so intense that the gray-brown paint caught fire. The iron straps bent and twisted from the heat.

Risky swooped away, preparing to make another pass.

“We have to focus!” Jarrah cried. “All our power together!”

“She’s coming back around!” Charlie yelled. “Man, I never thought I could hate a girl that pretty, but I think I’ve got it down now!”

“Here she comes!”

MEANWHILE …

“Stop me!” the golem pleaded.

And then Camaro spoke the words that were a sort of magic at Richard Gere Middle School.38 The words were: “Bully emergency!”

She could yell when she wanted to, Camaro. Her voice carried. And throughout the school, all the bullies—the emo bully, the trendy bully, the goth bully, the nerd bully, the geek bully, and the rest—jumped from their seats and came at a run.

They pelted through slammed-open doors.

They leaped through windows (ground floor only).

They dropped whatever they were doing, and whoever they were about to do it to, and came in a rush.

They saw then what the golem had become—a towering monster of mud with terrifying teeth and lobster claws and feet like a T. rex—and …