The Power

“Aha! I see they are biting,” Valin gloated. “That’s very bad news, Mack, my timeless foe, because once one ant starts, they all get into it. Within a minute, a hundred ants will sink their painful stingers into you! You will cry out in pain. Then you will swell up. And of course die. And thus will my family’s honor be avenged!”

“I am not your timeless foe, you lunatic!”

Valin was standing over him but providing no shade from the blazing sun above. He was dressed flamboyantly in puffy zebra-striped pantaloons, black leather boots that rose to his knees, and a purple vest over no shirt. To top it all off, he had an amazing hat that looked like the kind of thing Puss in Boots or maybe a pirate might wear. It had an actual pink feather. From his wide belt hung a dagger and a short sword.

It was an eccentric look.

Beyond Valin stood the terrible Nafia

assassin Paddy “Nine Iron” Trout. Paddy was an elderly gentleman dressed all in green. Green suede shoes, green slacks, a green-and-yellow waistcoat over a very pale green shirt but beneath a bright-green sport coat. And on top of his shiny, bald head, there was a green bowler hat.

Even in India, which is a diverse and tolerant country known for interesting clothing, Valin and Paddy stood out. It’s not every day you see a pantalooned twelve-year-old with a sword traveling with a green-clad hundred-year-old Nafia assassin.

“Just let me kill …,” Paddy wheezed. He stopped, pulled a clear plastic respirator mask from his inside coat pocket, put it over his mouth and nose, and drew a deep breath. Then another.

And … another.

And …

… one more.

“Him,” Paddy said finally, concluding the sentence which had begun, “Just let me kill.”

Valin shook his head. “You are my mentor, Nine Iron, but this is a matter of family honor. First he must endure a hundred fiery stings!”

“As you …,” Paddy began.

And … breathed.

Okay, one more …

“Wish,” Paddy concluded.

“Let me go!” Mack cried. He pulled at the chulks, but no, he wasn’t pulling his way out of this one. The Brembles had him. Valin had him.

And the ants had him.

A second ant stung.

A third.

And now the stinging signal went out through all the ants.

Mack was about to die a most terrible death.

Really.

A fourth and fifth sting made Mack yell and thrash wildly. But now there was no more counting: the stings came fast and furious, a wave of them, pain upon pain, and already Mack felt himself swelling up, felt his airway constrict, felt his heart hammering way too fast, felt …

… felt death itself approaching, extending its bony claw to snuff the very life from him.

He pulled at the bony chulks, but each tug was weaker … weaker … until …

But before you’re subjected to the awful details of the death of a heroic young boy, you should probably be told just how we got to this terrible situation.

So, for the moment just put that whole death-by-ant thing on hold. We’ll get back to it. First we need to fill in a few details. Now, where were we when last we checked in with David “Mack” MacAvoy and the Magnificent Twelve?

I’ll tell you where we were: we were in trouble. So much trouble you would not believe it. If we were to pause right here and explain all the many kinds of trouble Mack was in (not even counting the ants!), we would never be able to get on with the exciting (and deadly) conclusion of the story.

So we’ll just do the short version.

In just a few days the Pale Queen would rise from her underground prison to destroy all freedom, crush all hope, deface all beauty, litter the landscape, cause the previously blemish-free to break out in unsightly pimples, and so terrorize the human race that even the bravest of folks (combat soldiers and sixth-grade teachers) would wet their pants in sheer, gibbering panic.

That’s what the bravest of folks would do, but Mack was not counted among the bravest of folks. Mack had twenty-one identified phobias. Phobias are not regular fears; phobias are irrational fears. Crazy fears. So fearing the Pale Queen? That was not a phobia, that was just sensible. But being deathly afraid of beards? Well, that would be a phobia.

Mack had that fear of beards, which was called pogonophobia. Arachnophobia, a fear of spiders; dentophobia, a fear of dentists. And of course pupaphobia, a fear of puppets. Pyrophobia, which is a fear of fire; selachophobia—sharks; vaccinophobia,

a fear of shots.

A few others.

The worst of all the fears, the king of all fears, was claustrophobia, a fear of small, enclosed spaces. Small enclosed spaces that you’re inside of. Like, say, a coffin. Or if someone locked you in a box.

Or a coffin.

People with claustrophobia really, really don’t like coffins. Most people don’t. But a person with claustrophobia will start sweating if you even just mention something like being buried alive.

I know! What a wimp, right?

And yet, to be shoved into a tiny space, unable to move your arms or legs, to feel yourself closed in, not enough air, all noise muffled, to hear perhaps the sound of dirt being shoveled onto …

So, maybe not so crazy, right?

Oddly enough, while Mack was afraid of all those things, he was not afraid of much else. He was irrationally terrified of many things but, no, Mack would not be among the wet-panted if he were to face the Pale Queen. If the Pale Queen had a beard,

then, sure, Mack would be paralyzed with fear. Or if she was carrying a shark. Otherwise, no. He was brave … except for where he was scared.

But isn’t that the case with most of us?

Mack had been given a weighty task: he was to assemble a new Magnificent Twelve to face and defeat the Pale Queen. The first Magnificent Twelve had defeated the evil one three thousand years ago but had, sadly, given her a fixed sentence of banishment, which was now up. The Pale Queen was coming back, baby, and she was looking to bring the pain and the horror and the devastation and the utter ruin of the human race.

Why was a Magnificent Twelve needed? Couldn’t the marines just deal with the Pale Queen?

No, they couldn’t because the Pale Queen had powers beyond anything the marines could imagine. With her magic she could stop a bullet in midair. She could melt tanks. She could cause jets to go off course and fire their missiles at coffee shops. And she had minions, millions of them in a dozen evil species, from Skirrit to Bowands to treasonous Tong Elves to massive Gudridan. All of them would die for the Pale Queen. The marines were totally unprepared for the stuff she and her minions could do.

Plus, she had a secret weapon: her daughter, a goddess of evil who had troubled many civilizations down through history and earned many dark names. To the ancient Greeks she was Hecate. To the ancient Welsh she was Skatha. The Norse called her Hel, and the Norse knew what they were talking about. Her original name came from the most ancient of civilizations, which called her Ereskigal. She was known to Mack (and to you) as Risky.

Prior to his first encounter with Risky, Mack had never really noticed girls all that much. But she, in her evil way, had caused him to notice. Which was a terrible thing. When Risky was around, Mack would notice her quite a lot and then he would sweat and stammer and his voice would change and, basically, well, she had a disturbing effect on him.