Too late to duck!
“(Ch)on-ma Mack i poindrafol!” was shouted with a German accent.
Dietmar!
In a millisecond a huge shield appeared in the air between Mack and the flashing scimitar.
CLANNNNNNNNG!
The blade bit into the shield but not through. Instantly Mack slid his forearm into the straps of the shield, even as he carefully held the jet with his other hand. He knelt, laid the jet on the ground—upside down, but hey, it was better than crashing.
Valin was breathing hard—swinging a scimitar the size of a sequoia isn’t easy, especially if you’re not a practiced swordsman.
Mack, for his part, stuck his now-giant fingers into his giant mouth and winced at the pain from the jet exhaust.
“What is your problem?” Mack yelled at Valin, mumbling because of the fingers in his mouth.
“There is bad blood between our two families!” Valin cried.
Paddy “Nine Iron” Trout wheezed, “Yes, an ancient blood feud of …”
He reached for his oxygen bottle, but Mack was not in the mood to wait politely.
“Whatever it was, I apologize, all right?” Mack said.
“Ah, so you admit that your great-great-great …” This went on for a while, so for brevity’s sake let’s just cut to: “… great-grandfather dishonored my family and destroyed my ancestry!”
“What the … Look, I don’t even—”
“My ancestors swore to Guru Hargobind himself that they would never rest until the insult was—”
“Guru Hargobind?”
“Aha! So you do know! And so, you die!”
Valin stabbed at Mack and missed, but dodging had put Mack off balance. He would not be able to avoid the next sweep of that terrible sword.
Suddenly a new creature appeared on the scene. It was as big as Mack and as big as Valin. But this giant was Stefan—magicked into existence by the combined Vargran efforts of three of the Magnifica below.
“Give me that,” Stefan growled to Mack, and yanked the shield from his arm.
Valin raised the scimitar high as if to strike at Stefan, but Stefan wasn’t having it. Not even a little. He raised the shield over his head and charged straight at Valin like an enraged bull, yelling, “Gaaaahhhhh!”
Valin swallowed hard, clapped a protective hand over Paddy “Nine Iron,” still peeking out of his pocket, and ran away, waving the scimitar ineffectually over his shoulder. “This is not over! I will force you to face your guilt!”
Huge Mack and huge Stefan stared at each other.
“Should I go after him?” Stefan asked.
“No. We’ve already destroyed the airport. We could end up crushing cars and houses.”
“Huh,” Stefan said, and he was not happy about it. Most likely because he had always been a great admirer of Godzilla and would have relished crushing some houses with Mack.
But Mack had a better idea. He looked down at tiny Xiao and said, “That treaty that says you can’t be your dragon self in the lands of Western dragons …”
Xiao nodded, grinned, and said, “This is no longer the West.”
In seconds she had left behind her human form and taken on her own, true form as a wingless turquoise Chinese dragon. She slithered into the air—a remarkable thing to see—and, flying low to the ground to avoid being spotted by Valin, went after him and the Nafia assassin.
EVEN LONGER AGO THAN EVER BEFORE
The Pale Queen had been feared and worshipped since human beings first learned to walk erect. In fact, the Pale Queen had helped that process along. Anytime she saw an early human—whether it was a Homo erectus, a Homo habilis, or even a Homo neanderthalensis—who was leaning too far forward or knuckle-walking, she would say, “Hey! Stand up straight!” And if they didn’t, she’d kill them with an energy bolt or by dropping rocks on their heads.
She was like a very strict teacher.
After many, many years of this, there weren’t all that many early humans knuckle-walking anymore. Standing fully upright turned out to make a lot of sense in terms of survival.
The Pale Queen needed early humans to walk upright because that would free their hands to do the important work of writing about the Pale Queen, building temples for the Pale Queen, and sacrificing sheep and maidens to the Pale Queen. It took her quite a while to get humans to that point, and her efforts earned her a lot of respect in the primitive ancient cities of Ur of the Chaldees, Nineveh of the Assyrians, Sumer of the Akkadians, and Indianapolis of the Pacers.
But when Babylon came along, the Babylonians chilled the Pale Queen. The Babylonians thought they were all that, and they saw the Pale Queen as being last year’s model when it came to godding. So there was no temple to the Pale Queen, and no cult of shaved-headed priests, and no sheep or maidens being sacrificed.
Which was totally unacceptable to the Pale Queen.
But you know how kids are supposed to help around the house? How they are supposed to have a list of chores and just do them without being nagged ten times? Well, same thing in the Pale Queen’s house. Her daughter expected to have everything handed to her: goddess robes, flying sandals, chariots drawn by unicorns, parties with her friends (she had no friends), and she didn’t want to have to do any of the work.
“Listen to me, young lady, I’m giving you a chore to do. You will make the Babylonians worship me. I want a main temple and two smaller—”
“Why are you picking on me?” Risky demanded.
“I’m not picking on you. I’m telling you what I want you to do.”
Heavy sigh. “Okay, what? Gah!”
“I want a main temple and two smaller ones. The main one has to be bigger than Astarte’s. I want a cult. I want sacrifices. And I want some kind of invocation.”
“What’s an invocation? Am I supposed to know that?”
The Pale Queen gritted her thirty-six teeth because Risky was grinding her last nerve. “An invocation is like when someone says, ‘Praise Astarte!’ or ‘Zeus, that hurt!’ or, ‘Where the Baal are my keys?’ That kind of thing.”
So Risky rolled her eyes and promised to do it next millennium. But the Pale Queen wasn’t having it and insisted her daughter get out right now, young lady, and get started.
So verily did Risky go forth into the land of Babylon. Babylon was watered by two rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates. In those very early days Babylon was still a bit scruffy. Some of the best buildings were made of stone, but a lot were just mud smeared over sticks.
Risky was walking through the ox-poop-strewn streets, threading her way past lepers and refusing offers of souvenirs from the many shopkeepers.
And then she saw him.
Yes, him.
He was the strongest, handsomest, most armored-up guy she had ever seen in her life.
To be honest, Risky hadn’t dated much during the first thousand years of her existence. What human males she had even seen had been in the process of being eaten by her mother. Or occasionally by Risky herself. And it’s hard to get a good impression of a guy who is crying and begging for his life, only to be gobbled up.
This, however, was different.