The Trap (The Magnificent 12 #2)(4)

The thing with phobias is that they aren’t reasonable fears, such as a fear of clowns or brussels sprouts or reality shows. Phobias are at a whole different level. The phobia panic builds and builds until pretty soon a person just loses it altogether.

And that’s what was happening to Mack. The grossness of the blue cheese goo—the unbelievable disgustingness of it, the football player’s armpit smell of it—was working on the scared little monkey brain buried deep down inside Mack’s otherwise pretty cool human brain.

Of course the phobia thing wouldn’t be a problem if he were dead. In minutes, if not seconds, one of the needles would hit an artery or an eyeball or go in through Mack’s ear. He realized then that this wasn’t just a fight: it was life and death.

There were words Mack could use, Vargran words, that could freeze time and let him escape. But it was hard to think of them when a dozen evil midgets were jabbing you with needles and when a sick fear was dumping all sorts of panic chemicals into your system.

Then it came to him! He knew the Vargran command. It was ret click-ur.

Not that hard to say, except that just as he was forming the words, a needle jabbed him in the gum. It wasn’t that hard a hit; it just scraped his gum. It didn’t knock out a tooth or anything, but the Lepercon wasn’t backing away. He had hold of Mack’s shirt with one hand and had hauled himself up onto Mack’s chest, and with his free hand he was trying to shove the knitting needle right down Mack’s throat.

Mack bit down hard on the needle. He held it tight with his going-to-need-braces-in-a-few-years teeth.

He tried to pull the Lepercon away, but the thing was swarming him. At least six of the things were on his body, hauling at him, grabbing handfuls of shirt and hair, using belt, nose, and ears as climbing grips.

And smelling like a hobo’s sneakers.

The needle scraped against Mack’s teeth. If he opened his mouth to say the spell, he would die.

“Esk-ma belast!”

But it wasn’t Mack who said this; it was Jarrah.

She was a mess, hair all askew, and somewhat covered in Lepercon goo. She looked scared, wild, and furious.

Stefan stomped a heel onto one of the Lepercons, which popped like a noxious water balloon. He yanked the needle out of his hair, laughed happily—this was Stefan’s idea of a party—and ran (finally!) to help Mack.

But Mack didn’t need as much help anymore. The Lepercon on his shoulder fell heavily to the ground. The one on his chest—the one trying to jab a knitting needle down his throat—was changing. The small, wrinkled ShamWow face was becoming smoother, bigger, fuller. The wrinkles were filling in. Plumping.

Mack felt the weight of the creature grow. He felt his shirt stretch farther and farther until the Lepercon lost his grip and slid, moaning (“Agara . . . agara . . .”), to the floor.

Mack glanced wildly around. All the Lepercons were growing. Larger. Heavier. They were no longer the size of fat cats; they were the size of moderately full garbage bags. And still growing.

They were not moving much.

The needles looked tiny now in their bratwurst-sized fingers.

Mack spit the needle out of his mouth and said, “Whoa.”

“Huh,” Stefan remarked. He seemed disappointed.

Jarrah, looking shell-shocked, came to them. The Lepercons were now the size of cows. Stunned bystanders stared in awe and horror. Some took pictures with their cell phones. YouTube would be getting some very odd uploads. Thumbs flew across touch screens: Twitter was getting the news out.

Other folks stolidly wheeled their luggage past as though the problem of rapidly enlarging, leprous, cheese-stuffed monsters was just another obstacle to be overcome by the weary traveling public.

“What did you do?” Mack asked Jarrah, panting.

“It was all I could think of. I don’t know that much Vargran,” Jarrah said. “I was trying to say ‘follow.’ I was going to lead them away.”

“They would have killed you,” Mack said.

“Eh,” Jarrah said. “They might have tried.”

Mack intercepted an admiring look from Stefan. Jarrah was his kind of girl.

“I think what I actually said must have been ‘grow,’ not ‘follow.’ ‘Grow monster.’”

“‘Grow monster’?”

Jarrah looked sheepish. “Yeah, that could have gone badly, eh?”

The Lepercons were still getting bigger. In fact, they were crowding the baggage area. Lepercons weren’t built to be the size of parade balloons, so they were as helpless as slugs. Big, giant slugs.

“Agara!” the one-legged Lepercon slurred.

“Yeah? Agara you, you big fat scab!” Jarrah snapped.

Mack spotted his bag on the carousel. He snagged it and wedged it onto the luggage cart along with Jarrah’s and Stefan’s luggage.

Nine Iron was just coming around on the carousel, still wedged between a garment bag and a duffel.

“You wait right there!” Nine Iron raged. “I’m coming for—”

He paused. Fumbled for his plastic mouthpiece. Breathed. Breathed.

Breathed.

Breathed.

“—you!”

Mack was breathing as hard as Nine Iron. The fear of death was gone, but he was now surrounded by what had to be a thousand pounds of warm blue cheese or a blue cheeselike product.