The Trap (5 page)

M
y favorite color used to be purple!” Mack cried out as Stefan and Jarrah pedaled frantically.

The Tong Elves were just behind them.

Nine Iron Trout was just ahead, ready to impale them.

Clearly the Pale Queen's minions weren't waiting around for the thirty-five days to be up. They were looking for a quick kill.

Or in Nine Iron's case, a slow kill.

Panicky vendors were trying desperately to save squids and snakes-on-a-stick from the threatening flames. All the commotion was lit by cheery neon lights shining off candy-striped awnings.

Stefan had powerful legs. But the weight of a not-exactly-steady Mack flailing all over the handlebars slowed him down a bit.

Mack didn't snap entirely back to reality until he saw Nine Iron's cane-sword within about eight feet of skewering him like a fried scorpion.

“Hey!” he yelled.

Stefan tried to veer right to pass the safe side of the pedicab, but quick-peddling Tong Elves cut him off.

“Left! Closer!” Mack shouted.

Maybe Stefan obeyed or maybe he just wobbled, but either way Mack's left hand came just close enough to a tray of mixed skewers.

He snatched them up, transferred them to his right hand, and with Nine Iron's deadly sword just two feet from his heart, flung the skewers like darts.

The sudden movement sent Stefan even farther left, crashing through a grease fire and slip-sliding through a couple of dozen frantic lobsters who were no doubt hoping to reach the ocean. (Sorry: no.)

The sword missed by millimeters.

The skewers did not. In a flash of neon, Mack saw that a skewer of fried sea horses had stuck in Nine Iron's gaunt cheek. And a skewer of fried silkworm cocoons had stuck in Nine Iron's green bowler hat.

They flashed past the pedicab and gained speed. Jarrah was alongside, pedaling hard.

“Why am I riding on the handlebars?” Mack cried.

“Look out! Here they come!” Jarrah cried, jerking her chin back toward the Tong Elves. With a glance, Mack could see that the pedicab driver had spun his vehicle sharply, making a teetering two-wheel turn, and now raced after the fleeing bikes.

Ahead was a tall, red-lacquered double door studded with brass bolts as big as a baby's head. Two uniformed guards were just closing a massive filigreed gate behind a departing cleaning crew.

Mack, Stefan, and Jarrah shot through the gap, pursued by Chinese shouts of outrage. Which aren't that different from American shouts of outrage because outrage is a universal language.

The guards slammed the gates closed behind them, locking out Nine Iron and the elves on bikes.

Unfortunately now the guards were yelling at Mack, Stefan, and Jarrah, and blowing police whistles, so while things looked better than they had, they still didn't look good.

“We have to hide!” Jarrah said.

They were in a vast square. Buildings all around formed the edges of a cobblestoned courtyard. The walls on all sides were reddish, although in the dim light it was hard to see very clearly.

Mack was trying to picture the map of the Forbidden City in his mind. He'd glanced at the map but he hadn't exactly memorized the place. After all, it's a huge complex full of numerous palaces—some big, some small, all fabulously decorated with dragons and filigree and Chinese characters.

And still, even now, Mack was thinking just a little bit about Toaster Strudel.

“Which way?” Stefan asked.

They were easily outpacing the guards, who were on foot. But Mack had no illusion that these were the only guards. In a few minutes the place would be swarming with guards and cops and, for all he knew, the entire Chinese army.

Things had loosened up a bit at the Forbidden City, but not so much that they'd let two Yanks and an Aussie ride bikes around the place at night.

“Just keep riding!” Mack yelled.

They were pedaling up a long ramp that led to one of the central palaces.

“If there's ten thousand rooms,” Jarrah said, “we should be able to find someplace to hide.”

“Nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine rooms,” Mack corrected her. “The palace of the gods was ten thousand, and emperors didn't want to look presumptuous by equaling it.”

Jarrah stared at him. Mack shrugged. “What? I notice these things.”

“We have to ditch the bikes,” Jarrah said. “We can hide easier on foot.”

They ducked inside through one of the less grandiose entrances. The lights had been turned off, but emergency exits still glowed and a single distant overhead light shone. They saw a museum, a square chamber filled with ornate clocks and other bits of furniture, which on closer examination also turned out to be clocks.

“Clock museum,” Mack whispered. He had his iPhone out and was frantically web surfing, trying to pull up a map of the Forbidden City.

“Cool,” Jarrah said. “The kind of place Mum would love.”

Stefan backed into a massive, incredibly fragile-looking clock that rocked back on its pedestal.

Mack heard the sound of running footsteps.

He dimmed the screen on his phone.

“This way,” Jarrah said. “Shine a little phone light on this.”

It was a cabinet at the bottom of an armoire-sized clock decorated with elephants and griffins and little gold leaves. The clock was maybe nine feet tall. But the cabinet wasn't much bigger than a large toy box.

“We could hide in there,” Stefan said. “The guards are closing in on this place.”

“Are you nuts?” Mack whispered back. “I'm not getting in there! It's tiny! We could be locked in there forever. No air. Suffocating! I won't be able to breathe. . . . Already I can't breathe. . . . Like being buried alive! I can't!”

Running footsteps were approaching. Flashlight beams cast skittery pools of light by the nearest entryway.

“Dude!” Stefan hissed. “Where did the Tong Elves hit you?”

Mack pointed to his left temple. So Stefan hit him in his right temple.

It was a while before Mack regained consciousness.

It was a while longer before he realized he had his head in Stefan's armpit. And Jarrah's head between his ankles.

Then it really hit him.

Mack opened his mouth to scream, but Stefan's hand was clasped firmly over it, so all he could do was yell, “Mmmm! Mmmmm! Mph-puh-rrrnnn!”

“I think the coast is clear,” Jarrah said.

“Mmmm mmmm hhhrrggh!” Mack shouted as Stefan and Jarrah unpacked themselves.

“I'm going to take my hand away, Mack,” Stefan said. “No screaming, okay?”

Stefan released Mack, who sucked air for several minutes, like Nine Iron Trout after a marathon.

“Sorry,” Mack said. “I realize I'm nuts. Okay? I know it's craziness.”

Jarrah patted him on the back. “No worries, mate; we're all nuts or we wouldn't be here, would we?” Then, more serious, she said, “I felt something in there. Something carved inside the cabinet. Give us the phone light for a minute.” She aimed his phone light into the cabinet. “Yeah. You can't see it; it's carved in bas-relief.”

She fumbled for Mack's hand and pressed it against the carving. Mack felt intricate bumps and swirls.

“It's decoration,” he hissed.

“Nah. I don't think so. It was squashed into me bum for the better part of half an hour.”

Mack focused and ran his fingers carefully, delicately over the carved area. “It's like letters.”

Jarrah looked over Mack's shoulder, then reached past him to feel the letters. “I think it's Vargran. It has the same letters.”

“Can you read it?”

“Not all of it. Just a bit. Feel that? That's the number nine. Nine snakes? Nine snakes on a wall?”

“I saw that movie. Awesome!” Stefan said.

Mack listened hard. No more footsteps. The guards had definitely gone on to search the other 9,998 rooms.

“Yeah, that's Vargran,” Jarrah said. “Nine hidden snakes. I think. And then a math problem.”

“A what?”

“A math problem: what is three fours?”

“Eight?” Stefan guessed. Then, in the embarrassed silence, “I'm not that good at math.”

“Twelve,” Jarrah said. She squeezed Stefan's arm, comforting. “You're good at other things.”

“How do we get out of here, that's the question,” Mack said.

He turned reluctantly from the clock cabinet and stood up, sore knees cracking. Just in time to see Nine Iron thrust with his cane-sword.

Stefan saw it a split second sooner and was a split second quicker to react. He jumped in front of Mack. The blade pierced Stefan in the center of his chest.

Stefan cried out in surprise and pain.

Jarrah rushed at Nine Iron and shoved him onto his butt. The sword went flying, twirling across the polished tile floor.

Mack caught Stefan as he slumped forward.

“Dude!” Mack cried.

“Huh,” Stefan remarked. He put a hand over the hole. Blood seeped through his fingers.

Mack heard shouts and rushing feet. No way to know whether it was guards or elves, and it probably didn't matter.

“Run!” Mack hissed.

They ran, with Stefan moving at half speed and looking as if he'd soon be going slower.

Much slower.

R
un!”

They ran. Out into the courtyard. Dozens of flashlights stabbed the darkness like light sabers. Chinese voices were yelling.

Mack didn't know what they were yelling, but it was probably “Get them!”

They passed beneath an arch, up a ramp, down a staircase, running blind, no idea where they were going, just running.

But as they ran, Mack kept thinking he really should stop, give himself up. The guards would call an ambulance for Stefan. They could probably save his life.

But if they gave up, Mack would be kicked out of the country and sent home. What would become of the Magnificent Twelve then?

This was not the kind of decision Mack liked to make. Doom Stefan or doom the world. That wasn't like choosing between shorts and jeans. This was life and death.

But it probably wasn't going to matter much. Because suddenly Mack, Jarrah, and Stefan had run out of places to run.

They were boxed in. Guards were closing from three directions, and the fourth direction was a wall beautifully decorated in tile. Ten flashlights were in their faces, blinding their eyes.

“We have to give up,” Mack said to Jarrah.

Mack's phone rang. He jumped about three feet in the air. “Aaah!”

“Two . . . three . . . seven . . . nine!” Jarrah said.

“What are you counting?” Mack pulled out his phone. The display showed his home number. No way he could answer it, no way.

Today Mack's teacher said, “Where is your English paper, Mr. MacAvoy?” I said, “In England?” The teacher sent me a very hard look. “Your English paper, Mr. MacAvoy. The one I assigned last week.” This was confusing, so I said, “ I don't understand ass sign.” So now I have extra detention. Double detained. I think I had better call Mack about the English paper. I hope he's not busy.

“The wall! Look at it!”

Mack turned away from the advancing guards. The decorated wall wasn't just pretty tile. Jarrah was right: nine brightly colored dragons cavorted down the hundred-foot length of it.

“Huh,” Stefan said, but he wasn't appreciating the wall. He was noticing that some small shadows were creeping up behind the guards, even as the guards were edging closer.

“Back off, you quivering jelly bags of mucus!” one of the Tong Elves said. “They're ours!”

It's possible the guards understood them. But it's more likely they were just startled to see that they were surrounded.

By elves in lederhosen.

That would startle most people.

“What?” Mack yelled into the phone. “Who is it? I'm kind of busy!”

“Hi, Mack! It's me, your golem!”

“What?” Mack shrieked.

“I'm looking for the English paper. Do you know where you might have put it? It's already late, and our teacher—”

“What?
What?
”

“The English paper—”

“I'm kind of busy right now!” Mack screamed. “It's in my laptop. The folder marked ‘Useless Stuff.'”

“Thanks! Bye-bye, real Mack.”

The flashlights all swung around to highlight the new threat. Probably seventeen or eighteen—Mack wasn't really concerned with counting—Tong Elves, each armed with a chubby billy club, formed a menacing semicircle.

“The walking human slime are ours,” the elf leader snarled. “So step aside in the name of the Pale Queen, you sock puppets stuffed with pig filth!”

One of the guards evidently understood this well enough. He translated for his comrades. Suddenly the guards—who had been pretty determined to catch Mack and his friends—found a whole different motivation.

The guards wore green uniforms with white belts that went around their waists and over their right shoulders. They had brass buttons and red epaulets, and the only weapons they had were their flashlights. Mack was pretty sure he was going to witness an elf-on-guard massacre.

But then one of the guards shouted an order. Moving as one, the guards holstered their flashlights, laid their hats carefully aside on the cobblestones, and adopted martial arts stances.

“Kee-
yah
!”

The guards leaped!

The Tong Elves rushed!

It was kung fu fists versus Tong Elf clubs.

“Cool. They should totally make a game of this,” Stefan said. Then, “Owww. My chest kind of hurts.”

“The nine dragons in Beijing,” Jarrah shouted, to be heard over the sounds of kicks and grunts and kung fu punches. “It wasn't the hotel. It was this wall!”

“Yeah,” Mack agreed. “But when this fight's over, we won't be either place.”

Jarrah stared with amazing concentration, totally ignoring the fight that raged behind her.

“The Magnificent Twelve,” she said.

“Not yet we're not,” Mack said.

“In Vargran. ‘The Magnificent Twelve' in Vargran! I remember seeing this at Uluru. It was one of the keys to deciphering the whole alphabet.” And then, she said it. Aloud. In Vargran.

“Eb Magga Ull-tway.”

And then! Nothing!

“That didn't work,” Jarrah said, sounding a bit surprised. “You try it, Mack.”

So Mack said,
“Eb Magga Ull-tway!”

The wall, all one hundred by ten feet of it, tilted back and then slid straight down into the ground with a slight grinding noise.

A wide, dark staircase led into the earth.

“Oh, fine, it works for you.” Jarrah pouted. “Go or no go?”

Mack hesitated. If he kept going and didn't get Stefan to a doctor immediately, Stefan might bleed to death.

Stefan had become a friend. That realization came as a shock to Mack. In the space of just a few days, really, Stefan had gone from bully to protector. Mack had realized that part, the bodyguard thing. But until this moment he hadn't really noticed that he actually liked Stefan.

Stefan had been hurt protecting Mack. That had to count for a lot.

But the fate of the world might rest on this decision. And the single word
trap
was definitely bouncing around inside his head like a Ping-Pong ball with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.

Sure, Ping-Pong balls can have ADHD. Absolutely.

But this wasn't the time for Mack to contemplate the problems of Ping-Pong balls. This was decision time.

Stefan was a friend. But he was a friend who would want Mack to save the world.

Mack tightened his supporting grip around Stefan. And he stepped across the threshold into an unimagined realm.