The Magnificent 12 (2 page)

He was also loyal to Mack. Mack had saved Stefan's life and so Mack was under Stefan's wing, by which Stefan meant that if you intended to hurt Mack, he would stop you—by any means necessary.

You may be wondering where Stefan is now that Valin has Mack staked out and ant-bitten. Good question. The answer will take a while. So strap yourself in and prepare yourself, because this is the story of the final confrontation between good and evil, between Mack and the Magnificent Twelve plus Stefan on the one hand and Risky, Paddy, a whole horde of creatures and monsters, and the Pale Queen herself on the other hand.

There will be terror.

There will be dragons.

There will be widespread devastation. Because I have to warn you: if your definition of a happy ending is that everyone lives happily ever after, well, this isn't going to end that way.

There is evil in the world, and evil always exacts a price from good.

Two

“W
e have to find the remaining four and somehow convince Valin to join us,” Mack said. He was pacing thoughtfully up and down the suite at the Plaza Athénée hotel in Paris. It was quite a large suite and quite extravagantly beautiful. It was morning, so there were croissants and hot chocolate in silver service on the sideboard.

There were also croissant crumbs on the carpet and all three beds, and ditto hot-chocolate stains. This was the main boys' room—Mack, Dietmar, and Stefan had slept here. The secondary boys' room had been shared by Charlie and Rodrigo and was across the hall. The girls' suite was down one floor and had been enjoyed by Jarrah, Xiao, and Sylvie.

The two large suites cost 2,000 euros
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each, while the smaller suite cost a mere 1,200 euros. Breakfast for seven cost just under 300 euros, which was kind of a lot, and given that they were spending 5,200 euros a night for the rooms, you'd have thought the Plaza Athénée would kick in a free breakfast. But no.

Fortunately Mack still had the special credit card with most of a million-dollar credit line.

There were gendarmes outside each of the three doors to the suite, but Mack wasn't too worried about evading them. If you can fight Risky to a draw, you can cope with a handful of French cops.

Everyone was in the largest suite now, lounging on the beds, the sofas, the fancy chairs, and the floor—seven of the most important and powerful twelve-year-olds in human history. Plus Stefan, the world's most intimidating fifteen-year-old.

And they were all watching Mack pace thoughtfully. (Jarrah was watching suspiciously since it seemed to her that Mack kept pacing closer and closer to the last remaining croissant.)

“We need Grimluk,” Dietmar said. “He will give us a clue to the remaining Magnifica.”

“We've been here two and a half weeks, guys. I've spent a
lot
of time in the bathroom staring at the fixtures and I haven't seen him,” Mack said.

Grimluk had a tendency to appear in shiny objects—sometimes mirrors, sometimes chrome bathroom fixtures.

“Maybe he is dead,” Sylvie suggested. “It is the fate of all, is it not? We can perhaps delay the tolling of that final hour, and yet will it come.”

Sylvie was philosophical. She was short and pretty and French with a sort of goth-emo look, and Mack found her fascinating. She was also Valin's half sister. But not evil like him.

“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!”
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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!