The Trap (17 page)

Risky decided to bluff it through. “Yes, that's right, and the whole band is waiting for you to join them just as soon as I take care of this little bit of business.”

“I don't think so,” Mack said. “They've been broken up for years. And I think the drummer is dead!”

Risky struck, quick as a cobra. She leaped at Mack, teeth bared. Before he could so much as flinch, she had him in her powerful hands. “That's the last nerve I'm going to let you grind!”

“Throw me!” a squeaky voice cried.

A small yet shirtless muscular person flew through the air. Stefan landed on Risky's face, grabbed a perfectly sculpted eyebrow in each tiny hand, and kicked Risky in the teeth with his cute little feet.

“Get off me!” Risky screeched.

“You lied to me!” Thor raged.

“RUN!” Stefan bellowed. But it came out more like “Ruuuun!”

Mack ran. The others followed. Around the circular room they raced.

Risky grabbed Stefan and flung him like a rag doll. He twirled through the air as Jarrah cried, “Stefan!”

Stefan landed with a plop in the farthest of the pools and disappeared from view.

No choice now, Mack had to follow. He ran, shoved a paralyzed-with-horror Jarrah forward, cried, “Jump!” and plunged after Stefan.

He swooped through the bubble-membrane—which if you were to make a compound word out of it would be a bubblebrane—and landed in a circle of tall stones.

Mack knew immediately where he was. He had seen pictures of it before.

N
o one knows for sure what Stonehenge is for. But it was surely not built for what was now happening.

A brief pause while we consider Stonehenge. Stonehenge is a bunch of stones that form a henge. Of course that's not very helpful because no one knows what a henge is. So let's start over.

About, oh, five thousand years ago a bunch of primitive Britons decided they would like to make a big circle of stones. Why? No one knows. Maybe they were trying to build a sort of calendar. Today we create calendars out of paper and photos of Justin Bieber. But in those long-ago days they had no Justin Bieber because anyone who looked as cute and doelike and vulnerable as Justin Bieber would have been barbecued.

Which, when you think about it . . . No, let's not go there.

Anyway, they dug a big circular ditch of stones. And then they probably danced and sacrificed some biebers to their pagan gods.

Flash forward a couple of thousand years, and now it's about three thousand years ago when a nameless, visionary pagan decided, “That old earthen circle is lame. We could totally build a much better one with stones. And then girls would like us.”

“Brilliant!” the other pagans cried.

They set about building. They used really big stones, like fourteen feet tall. Or as they said back then, “about two shaquilles.”

They built a nice circle of giant stones and topped them with giant horizontal stones, forming lintels. And when you stood back and looked at it, you'd think, “You know, if we put a domed roof on this, it would look kind of like the Jefferson Memorial in Washington. Or like—”

And then the pagans might well sacrifice you for not knowing the difference between Neolithic and neoclassical architecture.

The pagans had no patience with architectural ignorance.

Once Stonehenge was built, they undoubtedly held a pagan dance, but a reserved, unathletic, somewhat awkward and rhythm-impaired dance because they were, after all, English.

The pagans enjoyed their big stone circle and brought their dates to see it. Until civilization came to Britain and all the pagans had to be killed off. Civilization didn't approve of pointless stone circles. Civilization didn't realize it could be a really great tourist attraction that would bring millions of visitors, each of whom would look around and ask, “What is it?”

In the intervening years, many of the giant stones were hauled off to make forts, castles, redoubts, and the other killing-related structures that civilization loves.

So now what the Magnificent Four had landed in the middle of was a puzzling, half-torn-down series of stone pi symbols.

And they were not alone. Ereskigal appeared just seconds behind them. And then Thor, and he was beyond berserk, because he was embarrassed and humiliated at having been played for a fool by Risky.

Stefan was in Jarrah's jeans pocket. His tiny head was barely able to peek out.

“Hey, I'm still shrinking!” a tiny voice cried.

Nine Iron and Valin dropped in next. Nine Iron drew the blade from his cane with the lightning quickness of a drunk turtle. But Valin was quicker. He had his knives out and was busy flashing them dramatically, slicing the air.

“You tricked me!” Thor thundered at Risky.

“You're really pathetic,” Risky said, sneering openly at the thunder god.

Thor had Mjolnir in one hand, his sword in the other. “They are mine until you pay me what you promised.”

“You want a piece of me?” Risky challenged.

“I got a hammer, and you look a lot like a nail,” Thor shot back.

“Bring it, blondie,” Risky snarled.

Jarrah pulled out her phone and began frantically dialing.

Xiao switched to dragon.

Dietmar yelled that everyone should be careful, Stonehenge was a priceless cultural treasure.

Mack measured the distance from where he stood to safety. But since Stonehenge is in the middle of nothing but farmland, he couldn't even guess which way to run.

“Mom?” Jarrah said into the phone, covering her ear with her hand to block the noise of Thor bellowing and Risky snarling and Mack whimpering and Nine Iron gasping for breath and Valin cheering himself on with admiring “Hah! Hee-yah!” sounds.

Thor hurled Mjolnir. It caught Risky in the stomach. She flew backward and smacked one of the rocks so hard the lintel was knocked loose.

It fell—tons of stone—on Risky's head.

But by the time it smashed down on her, she was no longer her usual lusciously evil self. Instead she had become a giant, stocky woman with a long blond braid on one side of her head and a kind of twig ponytail on the other.

In fact, she looked half bad and half good. On the right side she was a blond Viking amazon—powerful, shiny, as healthy looking as a model in a yogurt commercial.

The left side of her looked like what the right side would look like if you killed it, buried it for a thousand years, and then dug it up. She was half alive and very Xena Warrior Princessish, and half animated corpse, complete with bits of exposed bone, hanging flesh tatters, and cavorting worms.

It was the corpse hand that stopped the lintel stone and tossed it aside as if it were no heavier than a Wheat Thin.

“Ah, now there's the Hel I know,” Thor said. Mjolnir had returned to him.

“Yes, Mum, I know it's the middle of the night there,” Jarrah shouted into her phone. “But I'm having a bit of a situation here and I need some Vargran words.”

Valin advanced on Mack, still slashing away like he was cool. Mack was helpless. But Valin hesitated.

“Just surrender to Nine Iron, and I won't have to slice you up,” Valin said.

“Maybe you're not a total cold-blooded killer,” Mack said, hoping he was right.

“It's Stefan, Mum,” Jarrah said. “I've shrunk him and he won't stop.”

“Nice try,” Valin said, and rushed at Mack.

Mack bolted.

Valin chased and Mack ran, weaving in and around the stones, dodging crazily. Mack was quick and had long experience fleeing. And Valin was slowed somewhat by his insistence on slashing away all ninjalike.

Risky held up her dead hand and grinned a grin that was half Crest whitening toothpaste and half the picture your dentist uses to scare you into flossing.

From her upraised clawlike hand shot not a beam but a sort of swirling mist of blue-black light. This struck Thor on his recently stabbed and hastily bandaged leg.

Thor cried out in pain. The deerskin leggings curled and crisped like plastic wrap in a fire. The skin beneath peeked through and then it, too, began to shrivel and boil with pustules that popped and oozed black goo.

But Thor wasn't done. He feinted, pretending to throw his hammer, but at the last minute he leaped high and stabbed downward with his sword.

Risky dodged, but too slowly, and the sword went through her stomach.

Shfoomp!

Unfortunately it cut the left side—the dead side, in case you've lost track—and rather than killing the evil princess, it released a swarm of spiders.

The spiders poured in a black and gray mass from the wound. Like some kind of hideous death vomit. Like the worst flavor of yogurt ever squishing out of a Go-Gurt tube. Like if you did time-lapse photographs of your nostrils over the entire course of a two-week cold. Except instead of mucus it was spiders.

The point is: spiders.

You may recall that Mack did not like spiders. He didn't like them the way dry straw doesn't like fire.

“Aaaah-ah-yaaaah!” Mack said.

He couldn't stop quickly enough and went crunching crunching crunching across the spider stream.

Then Valin yelled, “Aaaah-ah-yaaaah!”

“Spiders!” Mack cried.

“Spiders!” Valin agreed.

And yet Valin would not stop chasing him and so Mack couldn't stop running and both of them were running and shrieking and alive with terror.

“You're breaking up,” Jarrah said into her phone. “I can't use ‘grow,' I already used it. I need, like, ‘restore.' Please, Mum, hurry, I have to go! You're breaking up! Text me!”

Dietmar was unperturbed by the spiders. He waited patiently for Mack and Valin to do a complete panicky squealing circuit around the henge. Then, as they passed close by, he scooped up a handful of spiders and flung them at Valin.

That was it for Valin. He'd had enough. A person with arachnophobia may be able to stand stomping on them, but they sure can't stand having spiders in their embroidered jacket or their pantaloons.

Valin lost it and ran madly away, beating at his clothing like a crazy person.

Meanwhile, Nine Iron just about had his blade out.

“Thanks,” Mack gasped to Dietmar.

Thor stumbled past as his pustulated leg folded beneath him. Risky was on him in a heartbeat. She yanked Thor's sword from her side and pressed the point against Thor's muscular throat.

“Oh, I'm just going to enjoy this,” Risky said. She said it in a German/Scandinavian sort of accent so that
just
came out as
yoost
and
enjoy
sounded like
enyooooy
.

Because, see, she was in her Nordic goddess of the underworld mode.

Xiao flew up and up then dived and swooped between two of the stones, scraped beneath the lintel, and hit Risky in the back.

Risky toppled on top of Thor. She lost her grip on the sword.

“Hang on, Stefan!” Jarrah cried. “Hang on!”

“ . . . . !” He said in a voice so tiny it can't be shown using visible letters.

Jarrah's phone made a fruity little chime indicating a text message.

Jarrah stared at her phone. And said, “Can that be right?”

Risky jumped up and slapped Xiao away with her dead hand. With a weary groan, she fumbled for and found Thor's sword. The thunder god looked too tired and stunned to do much about it.

Risky/Hel raised high the sword of Thor. And she smote him the deathblow!

Or would have. Except that at that moment Mack realized if Thor lost and Risky won, he, personally (and the whole world) was toast.

So in a moment of total crazy that was his own personal version of berserk, he grabbed Risky's braid (the blond one) and yanked her head back hard.

She spun around. Her face, half living beauty and half dead encrusted zombie, froze him to the marrow.

“I . . . ,” he managed to sob. “I really should have taken some time to learn more Vargran.”

That non sequitur gave Risky just a second's pause, during which Thor leaped, passed one arm around her neck and the other behind, and trapped her in the kind of headlock Stefan had often used on Mack.

Mack breathed a sigh of relief, retreated hastily away, tripped, fell hard on his back, and looked up dazed, only to find that Nine Iron had his blade out and pressed against Mack's very heart.

The problem was that although Nine Iron was slow, there wasn't really any way for Mack to move that didn't involve impaling himself.

“For the Pale Queen,” Nine Iron croaked, and leaned forward. “And for my one true love!”

“Well, let's give it a birl,” Jarrah said.

J
arrah gave it a birl, which is Australian for “gave it a try.”

“Arb harid fie-ma!”
Jarrah shouted.

And instantly nothing happened.

“Arb harid fie-ma!”
Jarrah cried again.

And still nothing.

“My
enlightened puissance
is run down!” Jarrah cried. Which was a sentence she had never imagined she'd say. “Mack! You try it!” Jarrah shouted.

Nine Iron said, “Now ends the . . .” He paused, fumbled with his free hand for his oxygen line.

“What is it again?” Mack cried.

“Arb harid fie-ma!”

“. . . last hope of . . .” Nine Iron wheezed.

“Arg?”

“Arb!”

“. . . humanity!”

“Arb harid fie-ma!”
Mack cried.

And Nine Iron shoved the blade into . . . Well, we'll have to assume he shoved it into the ground. Because Mack was no longer staring up at a triumphant Nine Iron.

He was staring up at a tall, ghostly white woman with no eyes, mouth, nose, or hair. She had hands like flippers.

Mack blinked.

It was a mannequin.

A mannequin wearing a green dress and standing beside another mannequin wearing a purple dress.

Xiao was sprawled across a table piled with sweaters.

Dietmar stood nearby, blinking at the same mannequin as Mack.

Jarrah was still staring at her phone.

The four of them were in a department store. The women's department.

Xiao quickly resumed her human form.

The store did not seem to be open. There were no customers. No clerks. And the lights were low.

It would take some time for them to figure out what had happened. The short version is: it's best not to use magic words you don't know very well.

Because what Jarrah had asked her mother for were the words to say “Restore my friend,” meaning “Return Stefan to his normal size.” That would have been
Arb harut-ma
.

Whereas
harid
is the Vargran word for
store
. Not
re-store
. Just
store
.

And of course, since she'd yelled at her mother that she had to go, her mother had texted back the word
fie-ma
, which as we all know is the Vargran form of the verb “to go.”

So what she had said in effect was “Friend store go!”

Her friend was now, in fact, in a store. All her friends were. They were all in a large London department store called Harrods. Which, to be fair, did sound a lot like
harid
.

We can't really blame Vargran for any of this. And on the plus side, the proper Vargran words, properly pronounced, did restore Stefan to normal size.

With two careful, delicate fingers, Jarrah drew a butterfly-sized Stefan from her pocket and set him atop a soft silk scarf.

She dialed her mother back and said, “One more time, eh?”

Once the store opened, they were able to buy a shirt for the newly normal-sized Stefan.

Mack's phone chirped for a text. He read,

Mack, what should I wear?

Mack frowned and said, “What?” Then he texted,

What?

And then the golem texted back the words that would strike terror into Mack's heart even from a distance of five thousand miles, and even after all he had endured.

Camaro asked me if I know how to dance. I do know how to dance. All golems can dance. On the floor. On the walls. On the ceiling. In fact, we can detach our legs and let them dance all by themselves. I said, “Yes.” So she said, “Then you're going to dance your feet off. Saturday night.” This worried me because as I mentioned earlier, I got into trouble when I came to school without feet. I decided to call Mack, but he didn't answer. So I sent him a text.

2 the dance w/ Camaro. It's Friday night and I don't know what 2 wear.

Camaro wasn't making the golem dance. She had asked him to a dance. Camaro had always thought Mack was cute, and now . . .

“Mack, you look pale,” Jarrah said.

“I'm dating Camaro,” Mack said with a whimper. “She . . . she's built like Thor.”

What good would it be saving the world if he got home someday only to find himself in a relationship with Camaro Angianelli?

They all stepped out of Harrods onto the street.

They headed down Victoria Street, walking off the terror, walking off the ickiness, trying to get their wits together. Every now and then Mack would mutter “Camaro” in a despairing tone.

But that was a problem for another day. Maybe, Mack reflected, the Magnificent Twelve would fail, the world would be conquered, and he would never have to find a way to break up with Camaro.

For now, it seemed he would have to get to the tomb of William Blisterthöng MacGuffin. And then dig him up. Which oddly enough did not sound as frightening as dating Camaro.

As they walked, they exchanged solemn vows that they would never let themselves be caught unprepared in such a deadly mess again.

They agreed that they should instantly move on to locating MacGuffin. They agreed that once they did that, it would be time to really buckle down and learn all the Vargran they could. And really understand the
enlightened puissance
.

“Okay, so we're agreed,” Mack said.

“Absolutely,” Jarrah said.

“We must find this second disk and study very hard,” Dietmar said. “We don't know enough words.”

“And we don't know all the rules,” Xiao said. “Why was Jarrah unable to use the spell, but it worked when Mack said it? Only by learning can we hope to survive.”

“And we have only thirty-three days left,” Mack said grimly.

But then they reached the river Thames and saw the massive Ferris wheel called the London Eye.

“Huh,” Stefan said.

“Cool, huh?” Mack said.

Dietmar said that they should very definitely buckle down and study, not go off to ride some silly Ferris wheel.

It would be very stupid to go and play when they should be learning, Xiao said.

So they blew off studying and crossed the bridge to the Ferris wheel.

Which did end up being a very, very stupid choice. But that's another story.