The Power

“Why should Grimluk die now?” Dietmar wondered. “He’s lived for three thousand years.”

“Who is this Grimluk bloke again?” Charlie asked. Charlie had only recently joined up, along with Rodrigo, and honestly, he sometimes didn’t pay attention.

“One of the original Magnificent Twelve from three thousand years ago,” Xiao explained. She was a patient person, Xiao was. Also not technically a person. She was looking very person-like at the moment, looking like a beautiful Chinese girl, but her true self was a dragon. Not a scary Western dragon—a more serpentine, turquoise, philosophical Chinese dragon. Like if the usual dragon matured and stopped trying to look all punk and took up reading books. “Grimluk has been Mack’s guide from the start.”

Rodrigo raised one elegant eyebrow. “Yes, so your guide—our guide—is a three-thousand-year-old man who speaks from bathrooms.”

Jarrah said, “Mack, unless we have Valin, we’ll never be the Twelve. We best go find that git and see if we can’t change his mind.” Jarrah was always about active verbs. Go. Find. Jump. Yell. Smack. Fight.

“I can change Valin’s mind,” Stefan said, and slammed his fist into the palm of his hand.

“We don’t know where Valin is any more than we know where the remaining four Magnifica are,” Mack said. “Last we saw of Valin, he was here in Paris. All we know is that whatever he has against me started sometime long, long ago in the Punjab.”12

“Then let’s go, right?” Jarrah said, and jumped up. Jarrah had been the first of the Magnifica to join Mack. She had her mother’s dark skin and her father’s blond hair and a wild recklessness that had absolutely captured Stefan’s affection.

No one had a better idea, although Mack waited to hear one. He liked Paris. He liked this fancy hotel. He liked the fact that days had passed without anyone actively trying to kill him. But, nope, no one had a better idea. Darn it.

Thus it was that with croissant crumbs still unbrushed from their lips, the Magnificent Seven cast a quick Vargran spell on the gendarmes, who were caused, by virtue of this magic, to go en masse to the restaurant downstairs and order well-done steaks,13 allowing the Magnifica to escape.

You may be wondering: How does one get from Paris, France, to the Punjab? Well, first you find out that the largest city in the Indian Punjab is Amritsar, then you get onto Expedia and find out it’s a twelve-hour flight and costs 5,139 US dollars if you’re flying first class. And if you have a million-dollar credit card, why wouldn’t you fly first class?

For once it would be an easy flight for Mack. He did not suffer from any flying-related phobias, so long as he wasn’t flying over the ocean. Fly Mack over the ocean and you’d barely hear the in-flight movie over the sound of his chattering teeth, his weeping, his sudden panicky yelps, and the inevitable (but necessary) crunch of Stefan’s knuckles against Mack’s jaw, putting him to sleep.

Long story short, at ten a.m. the next day they stepped, well-rested (hey, first class, remember?), into the Amritsar airport. They were met by the guide Mack had arranged in advance. This turned out to be a man in a purple turban and an amazing beard named Singh. The man, not the beard. Or the turban.

To clarify, neither the beard nor the turban was named Singh, but the tour guide was.

It didn’t matter, because Singh’s beard was a major beard. It was glossy black, and curled up inside itself into a sort of concentrated, extra-strength beard.

“Ah ah ah!” Mack cried, and backpedaled away, crashing into the living dead (the people who had flown coach), who snarled angrily as they pushed past, dragging their squalling children and diaper bags.

“What’s the matter?” Rodrigo demanded. He was a sophisticated kid and did not like being embarrassed in public.

“Oh, my goodness: beard!”14 Jarrah said. Jarrah knew most of Mack’s little “issues.”

“Ah ah ah ah!” Mack continued to cry.

And then … then he looked around. It was as if scales had fallen from his eyes, and he saw, truly saw, that he was surrounded by beards. Beards and turbans, but the turbans were rather attractive, really, coming as they did in a wide array of colors. But beards … beards were a problem.

This might as well have been the annual beard convention. The percentage of people with beards here was greater than the percentage of Civil War generals with beards. And these were not ironic, hipster beards, but full-on, glossy black beards.

Mack had slept most of the way on the plane and when he wasn’t sleeping he was playing video games on the in-flight entertainment system. (In first class they let you win all the games.) So he had not noticed that about half the men (and some of the women) on the flight had beards.

But now, as he looked around, eyes darting, breath coming short and fast, heart beating like a gerbil who’d fallen into a silo of coffee beans and had to eat his way out, he realized beards … terrifying beards … were everywhere.

The Punjab was the home office of beards!

Stefan made a grab for Mack but missed, and Mack went screaming off through the crowd, bouncing like a pinball from one nonplussed traveler to the next.

Singh said, “Perhaps your friend has jet lag?”

“Nah, he’s just crazy,” Jarrah said, but affectionately.

Stefan sighed and raced after Mack and finally tackled him, hefted him onto his shoulder, walked toward the men’s room, and as he passed Jarrah said, “Maybe a swirlie will calm him down.”

As a former bully, Stefan had a limited imagination when it came to problem solving. There was pretty much:

1) Threatening.

2) Punching.

3) Dunking someone’s head in a toilet (swirlie).

Mack was still yelling like a madman when Stefan slammed him—as gently as he could—against the men’s room wall and said, “Do I have to punch you? Or will a swirlie do it?”

Mack’s breath was coming in short, panicky gasps. But he had stopped screaming, which was good.

“Get a grip,” Stefan said, using his lowest level of threatening voice. It was almost kind. Not really, but for him.

“You don’t understand. I—I-I-I …”

Stefan let him go, and Mack, still shaking, tried to get a grip. What he gripped was the sink. He stared at his reflection in the mirror. He didn’t look good, frankly. He looked old—really, really old. He had wrinkles that looked like an aerial map of the Rocky Mountains. His teeth were tinged green. His hair was pale and wispy. His eyes were unfocused, blank, wandering randomly around like he was following two agitated flies simultaneously.

In fact, he looked exactly like Grimluk.

“Grimluk!” Mack cried. Because it was true: the reflection was no reflection at all but the familiar, astoundingly old, grizzled, gamy, quite-possibly-somewhat-dead face of Grimluk.

“I fade … Mack of the Magnifica … I weaken …”

“Oh no you don’t!” Mack snapped. “You just got here!”

Grimluk blinked. “Oh? It felt like longer. Where are you?”

“The Punjab!”

“Hmmm. I don’t know that one,” Grimluk said. “In my day we only had seven countries: Funguslakia, North Rot, Crushia, the Republic of Stench, Scabia, Eczema, and Delaware.”

“I don’t care. Grimluk, I’m trying to find Valin and solve whatever his problem is. Plus I still have to figure out who the others are. You have to help!”

“Others?”

“I only have six with me: Jarrah, Xiao, Dietmar, Sylvie, Charlie, and Rodrigo.”

“Just eight?”

“No, that’s seven total, counting me. We still need Valin and four more.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Yes. I can do basic math!”

Grimluk drew himself up with as much dignity as he could while peering out of a smeared bathroom mirror and said, “There is no need to flaunt your fancy modern learning. I fade … I weaken … I was never … good … at math …”

“Where do I find Valin and the other four?”

“Not in the same place, Mack.”

At this point Stefan said, “You’re talking to the old dude I can’t see, right?”

Stefan’s remark caused Mack to look around and take notice of the fact that three very polite tourists from Japan were taking video of what looked like a crazy kid talking—yelling, actually—at a mirror.

“I’m not crazy,” Mack said. No one was convinced.

“Valin is near, though he won’t be when you catch him,” Grimluk said. “The others … the others …”

And sure enough, the image faded, and the ancient voice—a voice so old that when Grimluk spoke, you could practically hear wrinkles—likewise faded out.

“Nooooo!” Mack pounded the mirror because now his own reflection had appeared, replacing Grimluk’s.

Grimluk faded back in. “A gate …”

“A what?”

“Golden … of … I see a pillar of orange …”

“No, no, no, none of that cryptic stuff,” Mack yelled. “We are running out of time!”

“Ants!” Grimluk cried.

“What?”

“Beware of ants!”

“I promise I will,” Mack yelled. “Now just tell me how to find—”

“I see a bridge of orange …”

“What?”

“Actually more of a … I fade … I weaken …”

“Get back here!”

“Reddish orange. A gate of gold.”

And with that, he was gone.

“Grimluk!” Mack howled.

Making a “grrrrrr” face, Mack stormed out of the bathroom, to find the others talking to Singh. Mack kept his distance. In his present state of mind, eight feet felt like the minimum beard-clearance zone. Probably when he calmed down he’d start feeling a little better about it. But right now his head was swimming and he was tired and he was on edge.

And that was when things got really bad. Because as Mack was turning Grimluk’s insane, rambling, incoherent, nonsensical, senile words over and over again in his head, a massive, glittering, impossible wall of steel came crashing down through the roof, down through the huge slanted windows, down through the vegetarian restaurant, down through the adjacent and fortunately unoccupied boarding area.

It missed Mack by nine inches and cut him off from his friends.

Ker-RAAAAASH!

Followed by, Bam! Screeeeech! Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle. And screams!

The noise was deafening. Broken glass, twisted aluminum rafters, screams, cries. It sounded like the end of the world punctuated with an earthshaking impact that hit so hard Mack felt as if the floor had attacked his feet. (He was not at his most rational, just then.)

The wall of steel had come down like a guillotine or a meat cleaver. It sliced right across the airport. Mack’s frantic, terrified glances did not show anyone around him killed—thankfully—but the restaurant was destroyed, the kitchen shattered, and indeed globs of sarson da saag15 struck Mack in the cheek.

He looked, sickened with fear, at the place where the blade bit into the floor. He did not see any body parts there. That was a good thing. His thoughts had gone straight to Sylvie, for some reason, but he did not see her hands or head lying separated from the rest of her.

“Huh,” Stefan remarked from the opposite side of the steel wall.

Just as quickly and noisily as it had come slashing down, the wall of steel pulled back up, revealing a deep gash right across the airport.

Through the chasm in the roof Mack saw that the steel wall was in fact an impossibly huge blade. And he saw that said blade was the blade of a terrifyingly large scimitar.

And he further saw that holding that huge scimitar was a massive hand, a hand the size of a middle school multipurpose room. The fingers were detailed with rings of gold, some with rubies the size of Subarus.

Not surprisingly, there was an arm. You’d expect that arm to be large, and it was; oh, it definitely was. But by the time Mack’s eyes traveled from scimitar to hand to arm, he was more taken by the bare chest as wide as a football field and, beyond, way up in the air, fifty feet or more above the airport, a head.

How big was the head? Have you ever seen the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade with the giant helium-filled floats of, like, Spider-Man? Okay, imagine a pumpkin. Now imagine an evil, supervillain pumpkin so big that if it was a helium-filled float it would make helium-filled Spidey say, “Whoa!”

That’s how big.

There was only one good thing about that gigantic head atop that gigantic body: it did not have a beard. It was a bit young for a beard.

In another odd sort of detail, there was a man in the pocket of the giant’s vest. Yes, the giant was so large that a man could stand in his vest pocket.

That pocketed man was dressed all in green.

“Ha!” the giant roared. “HA!” In a voice that caused decorative flags to tear loose from their poles. “I’ve got you now, Mack!”

The giant was Valin. And you’ve already guessed the name of the man in his pocket.16

MEANWHILE, 7,831 MILES AWAY, IN SEDONA, ARIZONA

he golem was at a dance with Camaro Angianelli.

The golem was a creature … well, that seems harsh, doesn’t it? Referring to someone as a creature? Let’s take another run at that. The golem was a … being. A person, even, made of mud and twigs and magically infused with life and a sense of purpose by the placement in his mouth of a tiny scroll bearing two words: Be Mack.

Grimluk had created the golem to cover for Mack while Mack was off trying to save the world.

Despite the fact that the golem had a tendency to wash away in the rain, and occasionally would grow or shrink in unpredictable ways, and turned in history papers with titles like “What Color Was the Sky in 1812? Green?” no one had discovered his secret.

No one, at least, until Camaro Angianelli figured out that something was very odd about this not-quite-Mack.

Camaro had recently been promoted to Queen of All Bullies at Richard Gere Middle School.17 She had been anointed queen when Tony Pooch, her last competition for the job, had run from a fight with her. Of course if Stefan came back, she would have no choice but to return the title of Bully Supreme to him—even Camaro didn’t want to have to take on Stefan. But for now Camaro was riding high. She had appointed many new sub-bullies, changing the categories to keep up with the times. For example, the category of “nerd” was now combined with “dork” and they had a single bully. (Geeks had been exempted from bullying after paying Camaro a bribe in the form of cheat codes to Halo 4.) Preppies had disappeared altogether, to be replaced by hipsters.

Twilight fans were assigned a new bully—the old one had been found actually reading one of the books,18 which was totally against the spirit of things.

Camaro had also brought a new level of humaneness to the organized bully system that Stefan had created. For example, she had set limits on the amount of lunch money that could be extorted (20 percent for most kids, 40 percent for rich kids).

More revolutionary still, Camaro had created the brand-new position of Popular Mean Girls Bully. The PMGs had never liked Camaro, and Camaro could hold a grudge. The Popular Mean Girls’ bully, whose name was Jennifer Schwarz, was not especially big or strong, but she made up for it by being incredibly obnoxious and absolutely relentless. She bullied through nagging and refusing to go away, and it was quite effective. In fact, Jennifer Schwarz had set up a nice little business on the side selling the lip gloss, earrings, and cell phone skins she extorted from the PMGs.

Anyway, before we got distracted by the politics of bullying, we were at a dance. Camaro was a pretty good dancer. The golem was … Hmmm. Well, as a dancer, the golem was … What’s a good word? He was … original. Yes, original. For one thing, he took up a fair amount of room when he danced. In fact, it was best to stay at least ten feet back because the flailing, falling, plunging, and temporary body-part loss could endanger innocent bystanders.

Everyone kind of liked the way he could dance up the walls, but most folks thought dancing on the ceiling was just show-offy. And, too, he yelped at odd times.

But no one said anything or even looked at him funny because he was Camaro’s boyfriend. And in case it isn’t clear by now, Camaro was not a girl you messed with. For her part, she liked the golem’s exuberance. She alone knew that he was not really Mack. She alone knew that there was something supernatural about him. And that he had secrets. And that he could, if controlled by the wrong person, become very, very dangerous.

Risky had placed a cell phone in the golem’s mouth at one point hoping to use texts to reprogram the golem from playing the part of Mack to becoming the Destroyer.

Camaro had put a stop to that. But she was not foolish enough to believe that Risky was done with the golem.

For now, though, it was all good from her point of view. In fact, Camaro was having a really nice time dancing with the golem.

Happiness. Warm, sweet, gentle happiness.

But how long was that going to last with the Pale Queen nearing the date when she would emerge to trouble all of humanity?

Not long, that’s how long.

Camaro looked out over her queendom, out at the two hundred or so kids—some dancing, most standing awkwardly and gawping, or staring fixedly down at their smartphones—and it was then she noticed that some of the kids were unfamiliar to her.

Some were kid-sized in terms of tallness, but broader, thicker, more muscular, and very strangely dressed in lederhosen.19

Now that she noticed, some of the chaperones were a little unusual, too. They had a distinctly insect-like aspect to them. As if the moms and dads had been replaced by large grasshoppers wearing human clothing.

Camaro stopped dancing, although the golem kept right on. Her eyes narrowed and she cracked her knuckles just the way Stefan would have.

Something disturbing was happening in the queendom of Camaro Angianelli. She didn’t yet know of the treasonous Tong Elves, who, coincidentally, were about the size of middle-schoolers but broader, thicker, creepier, and more muscular, and very strangely dressed.

Nor did she know of the foul Skirrit species with their unwholesome similarity to grasshoppers.

But she soon would.

She took three bold steps, yanked the golem down off the wall, pinned his arms so he would stop flailing (dancing), and said, “Give me your phone: I need to talk to Mack.”

here was a time when a hundred-foot-tall twelve-year-old with a scimitar and a Nafia hit man in his pocket would have scared Mack.

But Mack had learned a few things. He’d been in a few fights. He’d stood up to Skirrit, Tong Elves, Lepercons, even Gudridan. He’d been yanked out of a jet over the South Pacific. He’d been fired through the air by a crazy old Scotsman.

Most of all: after much stalling, he’d actually finally studied some Vargran from the Vargran Key.

The giant Valin raised his scimitar, this time shifting his grip so that rather than readying to bring it down in a broad sweeping cut he could stab it down, point first. Valin could see Mack now; he could see him through the hole in the roof, and his beef was specifically with Mack.

He wasn’t an indiscriminate killer, after all. He wanted to kill Mack, not a bunch of innocent airline passengers.

“Lom-ma poindra!” Mack cried.

Why did he yell that? Because those are the Vargran words for “disappear sword!” In the imperative, or “or else!” tense that is unique to Vargran.

Mack was pretty sure this would work, so he was upset when instead of disappearing, the gigantic scimitar came stabbing straight down at him.

He jumped back, tripped, fell on his butt, and had to scoot away like a dog on a carpet.

The point of the scimitar hit the floor, threw up a spray of broken tile, and plunged clear down through the floor into the underlying dirt.

“What the heck?” Mack asked.

Valin yanked the weapon skyward again. “It’s not a sword, moron,” Valin said in a giant voice. “It’s a scimitar!”

Yes. Well, it was a scimitar, which is a kind of sword, but Vargran spells do require some specificity.

And now Mack could feel that in his panic he had used up his enlightened puissance. He felt the emptiness, the slight sadness (slight because sadness has a hard time competing with terror) that came from the expenditure of power.

Down came the swor— the scimitar.

Mack was so upset he didn’t even move. Fortunately Stefan was not so depressed. He ran, took a flying leap, and hit Mack like a sixteen-pound (the largest size) bowling ball knocking into one wobbly pin.

“Oooof!”

Followed by, ker-RAAASH!

It was a close call. The scimitar passed so near that it actually sliced through the tail of Mack’s T-shirt. Had Stefan been even a millisecond slower, Mack would have been impaled. He would never have survived long enough to have ants bite his eyeballs.

“Thanks,” Mack gasped. He shot a look at his stunned fellow Magnifica and yelled, “A little help?”

Dietmar was quickest to respond. “What is the word for scimitar?”

“Never mind the sword, go after Valin!” Jarrah said, which was a pretty reasonable suggestion, especially since Mack was now running to get out of Valin’s line of sight.

Ker-RASH!

Down came the scimitar again.

“Give up, Mack! Surrender before innocent people are hurt!” Valin cried in a voice that rattled the shattered glass like BBs on a drum.

Mack had ducked under a bench. He was gasping for breath, looking beseechingly at his friends. Really: time for them to do something, because maybe Valin couldn’t see him here but he could still randomly—

Ker-RASH!

The scimitar came stabbing down through a previously undestroyed section of the airport, and this time the point landed just between two little kids. Neither was hurt, but it was too close. Too close by far.

“Okay, stop!” Mack yelled. “Stop. I’ll surrender!”

He rolled out from under the bench. Mack held up his hands.

It was Xiao—she was always a studious one—who came up with just the right Vargran spell. But she knew she’d need help to pull off something this hard.

So as Mack was holding up his hands and Stefan was glaring helplessly up at giant Valin, Xiao joined hands with Jarrah, Charlie, and Sylvie—it felt like a spell that four people could manage—and together they chanted, “A-ma Mack exel-i Valin.”

Or in English: “Make Mack bigger than Valin.”

Yeah. Bigger.

They did not specify a time frame. So it happened with remarkable speed. One second Mack was holding his hands up in surrender, and about three seconds later those hands hit the ceiling of the airport and pushed it up and literally tipped it right off. The airport at Amritsar is a simple rectangle, with a lid-like roof atop plate glass windows, so the roof came away almost as a single piece, a huge steel-and-glass rectangle.

You thought the noise of the scimitar was loud? This was even louder, because all the way around the roof were steel beams held in place by thick rivets and welds, and breaking all that was noisy.

But break it Mack did, and as he rose, as he grew, as he soared high up into the air, he pushed the roof off. It crashed atop a parked jet—empty aside from the cleaning crew, who managed to survive by cramming into the tiny bathroom.