The Key (The Magnificent 12 3)

Though not if Grimluk was wearing a bathing suit. Grimluk was 3,012 years old, after all, and had a beard that was rated “three Civil War generals” in size and bushiness. He had eyebrows that would have had Dumbledore reaching for the scissors. He was so wrinkled you could stash french fries down in some of the folds of skin.13

All this, though, was beside the point. The real point was that it was Grimluk who had first informed Mack that he was required to assemble a group of twelve twelve-year-olds possessed of the enlightened puissance.

Or to put it another way: it was all Grimluk’s fault.

“Where have you been?” Mack demanded furiously. “I haven’t heard from you in a long time.”

“This apparition thing isn’t easy,” Grimluk protested. “I’m old. I’m weak. I’m not the man I once was. I fail, I—”

“Get me out of here!” Mack cried. He grabbed the chamber pot and held it close so that he could look Grimluk in the eye. “Listen to me: some crazy person has me in a dungeon and he’s going to kill me.”

“Who?”

“Me!”

“No, Mack of the Magnifica, I mean, who is holding you?”

“William Blisterthöng MacGuffin!”

“Ouch,” Grimluk said, and bit his lip and shook his head and just generally did not look encouraging. “No lotion ever created by man or magic really deals with the symptoms of blisterthong. I had a case back in, oh, I guess it would have been the year—”

“Grimluk! Focus! I have to escape!”

“Have you tried—”

And there the image of Grimluk faded out, leaving Mack staring at the chamber pot.

“No! No! Get back here!”

He was still yelling at the porcelain when he heard the bolt on the door thrown back. He dropped the pot, spun, and leaped for the opening, fast as a tiger.

A skeletal hand closed over his arm and pulled him out into the passageway. Unfortunately two more skeletons were at the ready and grabbed him.

Mack tried his best to think of a Vargran spell. He was seriously cursing his own laziness—he really should have studied—and running through the Vargran he’d used in the past.

The obvious one was the spell he’d used to burn up Risky.

That one he remembered.

Oh, he remembered it just fine.

E-ma edras.

If he could burn Risky, he could surely burn MacGuffin.

* * *

Nine

* * *

MEANWHILE, AT RICHARD GERE MIDDLE SCHOOL14

“Mr. MacAvoy. Are you … are you …? Never mind.”

That was Mack’s English teacher, Ms. Telford. Ms. Telford had asked the golem—who she believed to be Mack, of course—numerous questions over the last week, and she had never liked the answers much.

She had, for example, once asked the golem whether he could please speak up in answer to a question. The golem had said, “Up!” Which might be a perfectly understandable error to make. But she had then said, “I meant could you speak a little louder. Project your voice, Mr. MacAvoy.”