The Power (The Magnificent 12 4)

“Get a grip,” Stefan said, using his lowest level of threatening voice. It was almost kind. Not really, but for him.

“You don’t understand. I—I-I-I . . .”

Stefan let him go, and Mack, still shaking, tried to get a grip. What he gripped was the sink. He stared at his reflection in the mirror. He didn’t look good, frankly. He looked old—really, really old. He had wrinkles that looked like an aerial map of the Rocky Mountains. His teeth were tinged green. His hair was pale and wispy. His eyes were unfocused, blank, wandering randomly around like he was following two agitated flies simultaneously.

In fact, he looked exactly like Grimluk.

“Grimluk!” Mack cried. Because it was true: the reflection was no reflection at all but the familiar, astoundingly old, grizzled, gamy, quite-possibly-somewhat-dead face of Grimluk.

“I fade. . . . Mack of the Magnifica . . . I weaken. . . .”

“Oh no you don’t!” Mack snapped. “You just got here!”

Grimluk blinked. “Oh? It felt like longer. Where are you?”

“The Punjab!”

“Hmmm. I don’t know that one,” Grimluk said. “In my day we only had seven countries: Funguslakia, North Rot, Crushia, the Republic of Stench, Scabia, Eczema, and Delaware.”

“I don’t care. Grimluk, I’m trying to find Valin and solve whatever his problem is. Plus I still have to figure out who the others are. You have to help!”

“Others?”

“I only have six with me: Jarrah, Xiao, Dietmar, Sylvie, Charlie, and Rodrigo.”

“Just eight?”

“No, that’s seven total, counting me. We still need Valin and four more.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Yes. I can do basic math!”

Grimluk drew himself up with as much dignity as he could while peering out of a smeared bathroom mirror and said, “There is no need to flaunt your fancy modern learning. I fade. . . . I weaken. . . . I was never . . . good . . . at math. . . .”

“Where do I find Valin and the other four?”

“Not in the same place, Mack.”

At this point Stefan said, “You’re talking to the old dude I can’t see, right?”

Stefan’s remark caused Mack to look around and take notice of the fact that three very polite tourists from Japan were taking video of what looked like a crazy kid talking—yelling, actually—at a mirror.

“I’m not crazy,” Mack said. No one was convinced.

“Valin is near, though he won’t be when you catch him,” Grimluk said. “The others . . . the others . . .”

And sure enough, the image faded, and the ancient voice—a voice so old that when Grimluk spoke, you could practically hear wrinkles—likewise faded out.

“Nooooo!” Mack pounded the mirror because now his own reflection had appeared, replacing Grimluk’s.

Grimluk faded back in. “A gate . . .”

“A what?”

“Golden . . . of . . . I see a pillar of orange. . . .”

“No, no, no, none of that cryptic stuff,” Mack yelled. “We are running out of time!”