The Power

Camaro had put a stop to that. But she was not foolish enough to believe that Risky was done with the golem.

For now, though, it was all good from her point of view. In fact, Camaro was having a really nice time dancing with the golem.

Happiness. Warm, sweet, gentle happiness.

But how long was that going to last with the Pale Queen nearing the date when she would emerge to trouble all of humanity?

Not long, that’s how long.

Camaro looked out over her queendom, out at the two hundred or so kids—some dancing, most standing awkwardly and gawping, or staring fixedly down at their smartphones—and it was then she noticed that some of the kids were unfamiliar to her.

Some were kid-sized in terms of tallness, but broader, thicker, more muscular, and very strangely dressed in lederhosen.

Now that she noticed, some of the chaperones were a little unusual, too. They had a distinctly insect-like aspect to them. As if the moms and dads had been replaced by large grasshoppers wearing human clothing.

Camaro stopped dancing, although the golem kept right on. Her eyes narrowed and she cracked her knuckles just the way Stefan would have.

Something disturbing was happening in the queendom of Camaro Angianelli. She didn’t yet know of the treasonous Tong Elves, who, coincidentally, were about the size of middle-schoolers but broader, thicker, creepier, and more muscular, and very strangely dressed.

Nor did she know of the foul Skirrit species with their unwholesome similarity to grasshoppers.

But she soon would.

She took three bold steps, yanked the golem down off the wall, pinned his arms so he would stop flailing (dancing), and said, “Give me your phone: I need to talk to Mack.”

(#ulink_8efef6b0-71de-5e31-b1e2-3405eaa873ba)

here was a time when a hundred-foot-tall twelve-year-old with a scimitar and a Nafia hit man in his pocket would have scared Mack.

But Mack had learned a few things. He’d been in a few fights. He’d stood up to Skirrit, Tong Elves, Lepercons, even Gudridan. He’d been yanked out of a jet over the South Pacific. He’d been fired through the air by a crazy old Scotsman.

Most of all: after much stalling, he’d actually finally studied some Vargran from the Vargran Key.

The giant Valin raised his scimitar, this time shifting his grip so that rather than readying to bring it down in a broad sweeping cut he could stab it down, point first. Valin could see Mack now; he could see him through the hole in the roof, and his beef was specifically with Mack.

He wasn’t an indiscriminate killer, after all. He wanted to kill Mack, not a bunch of innocent airline passengers.

“Lom-ma poindra!” Mack cried.

Why did he yell that? Because those are the Vargran words for “disappear sword!” In the imperative, or “or else!” tense that is unique to Vargran.

Mack was pretty sure this would work, so he was upset when instead of disappearing, the gigantic scimitar came stabbing straight down at him.

He jumped back, tripped, fell on his butt, and had to scoot away like a dog on a carpet.

The point of the scimitar hit the floor, threw up a spray of broken tile, and plunged clear down through the floor into the underlying dirt.

“What the heck?” Mack asked.

Valin yanked the weapon skyward again. “It’s not a sword, moron,” Valin said in a giant voice. “It’s a scimitar!”

Yes. Well, it was a scimitar, which is a kind of sword, but Vargran spells do require some specificity.

And now Mack could feel that in his panic he had used up his enlightened puissance. He felt the emptiness, the slight sadness (slight because sadness has a hard time competing with terror) that came from the expenditure of power.

Down came the swor— the scimitar.

Mack was so upset he didn’t even move. Fortunately Stefan was not so depressed. He ran, took a flying leap, and hit Mack like a sixteen-pound (the largest size) bowling ball knocking into one wobbly pin.

“Oooof!”

Followed by, ker-RAAASH!

It was a close call. The scimitar passed so near that it actually sliced through the tail of Mack’s T-shirt. Had Stefan been even a millisecond slower, Mack would have been impaled. He would never have survived long enough to have ants bite his eyeballs.

“Thanks,” Mack gasped. He shot a look at his stunned fellow Magnifica and yelled, “A little help?”

Dietmar was quickest to respond. “What is the word for scimitar?”

“Never mind the sword, go after Valin!” Jarrah said, which was a pretty reasonable suggestion, especially since Mack was now running to get out of Valin’s line of sight.

Ker-RASH!

Down came the scimitar again.

“Give up, Mack! Surrender before innocent people are hurt!” Valin cried in a voice that rattled the shattered glass like BBs on a drum.

Mack had ducked under a bench. He was gasping for breath, looking beseechingly at his friends. Really: time for them to do something, because maybe Valin couldn’t see him here but he could still randomly—

Ker-RASH!

The scimitar came stabbing down through a previously undestroyed section of the airport, and this time the point landed just between two little kids. Neither was hurt, but it was too close. Too close by far.

“Okay, stop!” Mack yelled. “Stop. I’ll surrender!”

He rolled out from under the bench. Mack held up his hands.

It was Xiao—she was always a studious one—who came up with just the right Vargran spell. But she knew she’d need help to pull off something this hard.

So as Mack was holding up his hands and Stefan was glaring helplessly up at giant Valin, Xiao joined hands with Jarrah, Charlie, and Sylvie—it felt like a spell that four people could manage—and together they chanted, “A-ma Mack exel-i Valin.”

Or in English: “Make Mack bigger than Valin.”

Yeah. Bigger.

They did not specify a time frame. So it happened with remarkable speed. One second Mack was holding his hands up in surrender, and about three seconds later those hands hit the ceiling of the airport and pushed it up and literally tipped it right off. The airport at Amritsar is a simple rectangle, with a lid-like roof atop plate glass windows, so the roof came away almost as a single piece, a huge steel-and-glass rectangle.

You thought the noise of the scimitar was loud? This was even louder, because all the way around the roof were steel beams held in place by thick rivets and welds, and breaking all that was noisy.