The Power
Page 15
“Huh,” Stefan said. And by that single word Stefan meant, “That is the bravest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“What do you mean, no?” Risky demanded.
“NO! NO! NOOOOOO!” Mack roared.
And at that very moment, Camaro, squeezed and choking and feeling an awful lot like an overcooked sausage about to burst open, had her first kiss.
With all her strength she pushed her face toward the Destroyer and pressed her lips against his . . . well, they were lips of a sort.
Then she drew back, barely able to breathe, and whispered, “You are not the Destroyer. You are Golem. And I love you.”
It’s an interesting historical fact that the ancient rabbis who first created golems as powerful creatures meant to protect the weak (and of course kill enemies) had never attempted at any time to kiss a golem.
This was unprecedented in golem history.
Also, no one had ever loved a golem before. This is fact, this isn’t something made up.
The golem’s whole personality, character, mission is determined by the placement of a message in its mouth. No one had ever tried to put anything in a golem’s heart.
“I love you,” Camaro said. “The real you. So please don’t kill me.”
Risky heard none of this, of course, because she was busy raging at Mack. “I’ll bury you alive! You diss me? Do you know who I am? I am the goddess Ereskigal, also known as Hel and a bunch of other names. I am the princess of darkness! I am evil made flesh! And I’m far more beautiful than that short French girl there!”
Sylvie could have been insulted but she was far too sophisticated to imagine that life is some farcical contest to see who can best exemplify a superficial aesthetic judgment, a judgment so often based on the needs of a capitalist marketing machine that must by its very nature . . . (This went on for quite a while longer in Sylvie’s head.)
“How DARE you reject ME!” Risky roared, and it was a roar because suddenly she was transforming from a very attractive redhead to a gruesome beast of terrible shape, with a head like a bull and a—
And that’s when the Destroyer punched her. It was just one punch in her bull head. But a Destroyer is very strong, and this particular Destroyer was really tired of Risky yelling at everyone, so that single blow sent her flying. She landed ten feet away, on her monster behind.
She shook her head, dazed, and resumed her usual look.
“Get Mack out of there!” Stefan yelled to the Destroyer, who was already losing his more Destroyerish features and looking more like the golem.
The Destroyer/golem easily ripped the box open, and out tumbled a sweaty, bruised, and very relieved Mack.
Also angry.
“Okay,” Mack snarled. “That’s it.”
Without even being asked, the eleven joined hands. And the golem joined hands, too, because it liked to belong. And Stefan figured, well, why not? So he also joined hands.
They formed a semicircle around Risky, who was still not entirely recovered.
“Like we did to the Pale Queen,” Mack said.
In all eleven minds the Vargran spell replayed.
“One . . . ,” Xiao counted.
“Two . . . ,” Jarrah said.
“Three!” Mack cried.
“No! A life for a life!” Risky shrieked. “Let me live. A life for a life!”
“What do you mean by this?” Xiao demanded sharply.
“You give me my life, I give you a life,” Risky said quickly. “I am a goddess, after all. I can give you back a life. One-for-one trade. I live and . . .” She let it hang there.
“Dietmar?” Mack said. “Do you mean Dietmar?”
“If you mean Dirtmore, yes,” Risky said.
“No,” Mack said, not liking himself right then. “How many people will you kill? We can’t let you loose on the world, Goddess Ereskigal. Not even for our friend’s life.”
“I . . .” She swallowed hard, and her perfect lips quivered. “If I . . .” It was something she could barely bring herself to say. “If I . . . I could . . .” She slumped, defeated. “I would give up my power. Renounce my nature and become . . . just a girl. Just the most beautiful girl in the world and much prettier than Shrimpy McFrench girl there.”
“You can do that? You can bring Dietmar back and renounce your power?” Mack asked.
It turned out she could.
And she did.
Suddenly, there was Dietmar.
“Dude,” Mack said. “You were dead.”
“Surely not,” Dietmar said dismissively. “Perhaps an illusion of death.”
Mack instantly disliked him again, but he was still glad to see him alive. He turned to Risky. “Now the rest. You have to de-goddess yourself and become a regular girl.”
Risky sighed deeply. “It’s no fun being a goddess, anyway,” she said. “Not if you won’t worship me.”
She held up her hands, palms out, then with a sad expression said, “At this time, in this squalid little town, before these inferiors, I hereby renounce my power, my godhood, my immortality, and my membership to the Valhalla spa. I will henceforth no longer be Ereskigal, princess of evil, and will instead be mortal. A regular girl.”
She bowed her head and said, “Make it so.”
And suddenly the sky was darkened by a noisy flight of ravens. And then came the swirl of bats.
And it was finally over.
Well, over except that the sun started spinning in the sky before finally stabilizing.
Finally, the terrible saga had reached an end.
Except for a terrible moaning sound that rose from the very earth itself like a chorus of vengeful ghosts.
And that was it.
Except for a sudden, freezing wind that chilled them all, then blew away.
And thus it was done and over.
Except for the remaining popcorn on the hibachi all popping with a single, gigantic pop that made everyone jump.
And that was it.
No, really.
The End
It didn’t take long to build a new school. It’s amazing how quickly construction goes when you have the help of Vargran. When it was finished, it was christened Mack MacAvoy Middle School.50
And by then Mack was no longer twelve years old. He had turned thirteen. The enlightened puissance still flowed through him, but it was more sluggish than before.
The Magnificent Twelve all went their separate ways: Valin to India, Jarrah to Australia, Dietmar—who still refused to believe he had been dead—to Germany, Xiao to China, Ilya to Russia, Hillary to Canada, Rodrigo to Argentina, Charlie to Britain, José to Brazil.
Sylvie was the last to leave.
“I’ll miss you,” Mack said to her.
“But you will come to visit in the fall, when the school named after me is finished, yes?”
“I’ll be there. You can count on me.”
Sylvie smiled. “Nothing is certain in this world, Mack. Except for the certainty that I can count on you.”
Then she was gone, and Stefan, who had said at least three “Huhs” expressing various emotions on seeing Jarrah off, joined Mack and Camaro and Camaro’s boyfriend for a cheeseburger.
Camaro’s boyfriend looked a little like Mack, but a little not, too. He had his own thing going on, his own style, his own look. A look that involved the occasional twig protruding from his neck. He called himself Mick, not Mack, and he was a renowned dancer.
Mack never heard from Grimluk again, though he often stood staring into bathroom mirrors and fixtures. (This was tolerated because Mack was, after all, the greatest hero on earth.)
“So,” Mack said, biting into his cheeseburger, “I guess it’s all over.”
Stefan nodded glumly and took a cheeseburger from a kid at the next table. (Bully habits die hard.) But then he reluctantly handed it back and bit into his own. “Huh,” he said. And added, “Huh,” which in this case meant, “Look at that.”
Mack turned, and three booths away sat a girl with red hair
and green eyes. She was sitting with three other girls—cheerleaders from the newly renamed Stefan Marr High School.
Standing next to the booth were two boys from the varsity football team.
She had lots of friends.
Risky saw Mack looking at her. And winked. Mack shuddered.
Mack MacAvoy was not an unlikely hero. He was an impossible hero. After all, he suffered from twenty-one—no, twenty-two identified phobias.
The most recent of which was a morbid fear of redheads.
A Note to Fans
The Magnificent Twelve would never have existed but for my editor and friend, Katherine Tegen.
And there wouldn’t have been much point in writing these four books without you, the readers. I am convinced that you are the smartest, most perceptive readers in the world. I suspect each of you has at least a little of the enlightened puissance. Thanks for reading. I hope you had a laugh or two.
— Michael Grant
About the Author
MICHAEL GRANT is the New York Times bestselling author of the Gone series. He has spent much of his life on the move. Raised in a military family, he attended ten schools in five states, as well as three schools in France. Even as an adult he kept moving, and in fact he became a writer in part because it was one of the few jobs that wouldn’t tie him down. His fondest dream is to spend a year circumnavigating the globe and visiting every continent. Yes, even Antarctica. He lives in California with his wife, Katherine Applegate, and their two children. Visit him online at www.themichaelgrant.com.
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Also by Michael Grant
Gone
Hunger
Lies
Plague
Fear
Light
The Magnificent 12: The Call
The Magnificent 12: The Trap
The Magnificent 12: The Key
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Credits
Cover art © 2013 by David McClellan
Logo by Jason Cook
Cover design by Amy Ryan
Copyright
Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.
The Magnificent 12: The Power
Copyright © 2013 by Michael Grant
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Grant, Michael.
The power / Michael Grant. — First edition.
pages cm. — (Magnificent 12 ; 4)
Summary: “Twelve-year-old Mack MacAvoy and a team of other twelve-year-olds travel the globe to find the rest of the Magnifica so they can defeat the Pale Queen and save the world from destruction”— Provided by publisher.
ISBN 978-0-06-183372-4 (hardback)
Epub Edition © JUNE 2013 ISBN 9780062239075
[1. Fantasy. 2. Adventure and adventurers—Fiction. 3. Good and evil—Fiction. 4. Humorous stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.G7671Pow 2013
2013014340
[Fic]—dc23
CIP
AC
* * *
13 14 15 16 17 CG/RRDH 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
FIRST EDITION
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1 She was not a nice person.
2 Why do they call it “the” Punjab rather than just Punjab? There’s a perfectly good explanation, but it wouldn’t fit in a footnote. Also, there’s some more Punjab in Pakistan, but let’s stick with India. One Punjab is plenty.
3 Nope. No idea what a carapace is.
4 “Disappear, beetles!”
5 No, not Mafia. Nafia assassins spit on Mafia assassins and call them “salami slicers,” an obscure sort of insult.
6 Some book authors have that.
7 She doesn’t. Just a little down on her upper lip. You can barely see it.
8 You can’t get any proofier than YouTube.
9 The Parisian Office of Glory, Magnificence, and Defense of the French Language. Totally a real thing. But don’t bother googling it, because they don’t have a web page.
10 Go, Fighting Pupfish!
11 Euros are considered by some to be a type of money, a little bigger than a dollar.
12 See how we came back to the Punjab? Still no idea why it’s the Punjab.
13 A misdemeanor in France.
14 In Australian it’s pronounced “bee-yud.”
15 Surely you know this is a favorite curry dish from the Punjab.
16 Paddy “Nine Iron” Trout. Pay attention; I can’t keep giving you answers.
17 Go, Fighting Pupfish!
18 And whispering, “Choose Jacob, he’s awesome!”
19 Google it. Seriously, you gotta see what lederhosen look like.
20 He did mean to.
21 Newton’s fourth law.
22 Because Brussels is in Belgium, see. Get it? Never mind.
23 French for a crush.
24 I don’t even have the heart to say, “Go, Fighting Pupfish.”
25 Or ever.
26 A large percentage of caves are underground.
27 Ha! Fooled you. You thought it would be gold.
28 Plural of vortex. In case you ever need to know.
29 Go, Fighting Pupfish!
30 The idea of “endangered species” hadn’t really caught on yet.
31 Yes.
32 Metaphysics: a branch of philosophy concerned with the fundamental nature of reality. Lay that word on your teacher someday. Your teacher will call your parents in and tell them you’re a genius.
33 Yep, an early form of Uggs.
34 Today the man would be in Congress.
35 Sneaking is often done quietly.
36 Girls sometimes do.
37 Seven rows among the more elderly Brembles.
38 There’s a whole lot of English history. Unless you really like history, you should go to school in a country with a shorter history, like the United States or Australia. Or a country where nothing ever happens, like Canada or Switzerland.
39 Go, Fighting Pupfish. No, really: go.
40 Most people walk a dog; some people walk abreast.
41 French for “right?”
42 Ouch, Fighting Pupfish!
43 This involves putting the palm of your hand on your face, then sliding it slowly down while you mutter, “Give me strength.” Just watch your mom or dad next time one of the pets pees in the house.
44 You can go with flowe
r or orange. Either works.
45 I’m picturing cheddar.
46 Not much chance of that happening.
47 Oooh, sorry, Fighting Pupfish.
48 Tricky language, English. Very tricky language.
49 Risky, duh.
50 Go, Fighting Magnifica!