Xiao said, “Take care of yourselves. We must still attempt to be the Twelve. We can afford no losses.”
Sylvie met Mack’s gaze. “I can afford no loss,” she said.
Mack squared his shoulders. Stefan and Jarrah stood on his right. Valin and Dietmar were on the other side.
“Let’s rock this,” Stefan said.
Eighteen
MEANWHILE, IN SEDONA
For a full day Risky kept the golem, er, the Destroyer isolated, far from anyone. She led him up into the hills, chased away a tentful of hippies, and set to work teaching him the details of being a Destroyer.
Most people think it’s easy destroying things. But . . . well, okay, actually it is easy to destroy things. Any idiot can destroy something. But the golem, er, Destroyer wasn’t just any idiot.
And Risky found herself sadly unable to teach him much because 1) the Destroyer did not pay attention, and 2) Risky didn’t know much about destroying things in the modern world. She had picked up most of her destruction skills thousands of years earlier while attempting to find Gil Gamesh and bring him back to suffer her mother’s wrath. So her advice on the art of destruction tended to be things like 1) set the thatched roofs afire, and 2) release the donkeys, and 3) cause the rivers to run red with blood. Which was all great if you had thatched roofs, donkeys, and a river, but Sedona had none of the above.
Risky wasn’t quite ready at first to make her own move in Sedona. She wanted the entire country’s attention turned on her mother’s more colorful exploits in San Francisco. No one was going to even give Sedona a second look while there were monsters belching forth from a volcano just off the Golden Gate.
Well, except for the people of Sedona. They would probably object when Risky executed her nefarious plan, but this was Sedona—not some tough city like Chicago or Fort Worth or Bakersfield, where people could be expected to be hostile. Sedona was a small, peaceable place whose major industries were bead stringing, cactus cultivation, and the manufacture of dream catchers.
Still, despite her nickname, Risky didn’t want to take any risks. For all she knew, the Magnificent Twelve might have fully assembled.
Strangely enough, now that she had finalized her own plans, she kind of hoped the Magnificent Twelve had assembled. For a long, long time now Risky had been a (basically) supportive daughter. But somehow, since her first encounter with Mack, she’d begun to wonder.
The thing was, the more she’d run into Mack, the more he had come to remind her of Gil. Not in terms of looks or muscle tone or ability to really rock the whole armor look, but in other ways. They both had a sense of humor. They both had spunk. They both foolishly believed they could defy her.
And when Risky thought of Gil, she remembered that it was her mother who had broken them up. Sort of. If her mother hadn’t demanded that ridiculous temple . . . and then taken offense at the massive statue of Pikachu and demanded Gil be dismembered, Risky and he might have eventually been reconciled.
They might have had a loving and mature relationship. Until Gil aged, because, let’s face it, he was mortal, and sooner or later his looks would go and then she’d eat him.
Nevertheless, Risky and Gil could have had something lovely together. Something Risky had never had. Something she’d never even thought about since then. Until she’d met Mack.
All Risky had really wanted to do with Gil was be with him by the rivers of Babylon and remember the good times they’d had together in Zion. She wept a little when she thought of it.
The thing was, obviously the world and all its people should be ruled by a domineering, iron-fisted, twisted, evil, heartless overlord. No sensible person would argue with that. But Risky didn’t see why it should be the Pale Queen: Mother of Monsters, when it could just as easily be her, Risky: Fabulous Redhead.
Although she would have to make people call her Ereskigal when they worshipped her, not Risky. Queen Ereskigal.
Step One would be to await the outcome of the battle between her mother and the Magnificent Twelve. Risky was supposed to be there for that and to help her mother out, but she could always say she forgot. If her mother prevailed, well, Risky might be able to rush in and finish off a weakened Pale Queen.
And if Mack prevailed? He would come back here, to his home, to Sedona. And then Risky would convince him to join her, thus eliminating the threat of the Magnificent Twelve, and rule the world on her own.
Sweet.
But she would need to lay the trap first so Mack didn’t have advance warning. For that, she needed her Destroyer.
“Okay, Destroyer,” Risky said, prodding him with her toe. (He was lying on the ground.) “Time to get back to town. My mother’s assault on All That Is Good and Decent is well under way. Time for me to get busy.”
“Urgh,” the golem Destroyer said. He was not talkative.
“The first thing we have to do is empty the town. We need everyone to flee!”
The Destroyer considered this for a moment. “Flee where?”
“Out into the desert,” Risky said cruelly. “I don’t want Mack finding any support or any help at all. None!”
“Okay,” the Destroyer said.