The Power

“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 saag

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.

(#ulink_c857be97-7dc0-51fe-9b27-b2a788bc748c)

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.

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,

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.