* * *
DEAR MACK,
I HAD AN EXCELLENT DAY AT SCHOOL. THE WOMAN CALLED MS. CHAPMAN ASKED ME IF I WAS STILL DEVOURING BOOKS. SHE SMILED SO I KNEW THIS WAS A GOOD THING. I SAID THAT I WAS. I DEVOURED ONE FOR HER AND SHE STOPPED SMILING. THEN I MET THE MAN CALLED ASSISTANT PRINCIPAL FURMAN, WHO ASKED ME WHAT MY MAJOR MALFUNCTION WAS. I EXPLAINED TO HIM THAT I CANNOT MALFUNCTION BECAUSE I AM A SUPERNATURAL CREATURE MADE OF MUD. HE TOLD ME TO GO AWAY.
YOUR FRIEND,
GOLEM
* * *
Sixteen
“I’m good right here,” Mack said.
“He’s good right here,” Stefan said, coming as close as he could while keeping his oxygen mask on.
Risky smiled. It was a dazzling smile. But not really friendly.
The temperature in the plane had dropped like a rock. Mack could see his breath steam around the mask as he exhaled.
“Eng Ereskigal, Arbast,” Risky said. “Eng-ma!”
And suddenly Mack was up out of his seat and walking like a zombie. Like an old-fashioned zombie, not like one of the cooler 28 Days Later or I Am Legend kind of zombies who mostly ran really fast.
He walked on stiff legs that were not under his control.
Mack knew his legs were not under his control because taking off his oxygen mask and walking into the howling, freezing wind that came in through that awful open door were not things he really wanted to do.
Really, really did not want to do.
But his legs were moving just the same.
And Risky was grinning.
Mack gasped at thin air. More air than before—it wasn’t completely airless now that the plane had dropped somew
hat—but it was like trying to fill your lungs after a long run while breathing through a straw.
“No!” Mack yelled, not that his voice carried very far. Somehow Risky could make herself heard just fine despite the lack of oxygen, but Mack sounded like he was a squeaking mouse.
Mack’s mouth cried, “No!” but his legs and feet said, “Let’s go!”
Risky leaned close to him, her face just inches from his. She smelled like dark woods at night, and like the perfume counter at Macy’s, and a little like Mack’s aunt Holly, who lived in a converted school bus on a communal farm in Mendocino.
It was an intoxicating smell.
“Poor Mack,” Risky said. “Did you really think you could be one of the Magnifica? Did you think you would rush around heroically and stop my mother from retaking all that is hers?”
Mack didn’t really have a good answer to that. Because he wasn’t really listening. He was marching his lead feet toward the open door, and now he was so close he could reach out a hand and try to grab the frame and try to stop himself, but he couldn’t, he couldn’t, and his fingers were slipping, and OMG, he could look straight down and see moonlight sparkling off the waves miles and miles below.
“Odaz,” Risky whispered. Then, in a shout of triumph, “Odaz-ma!”
And Mack was now in the doorway itself, hands gripping the sides, toes already hanging, like a surfer hanging ten. The wind was beating him up, making his cheeks vibrate, his hair froth, his eyes water.
Risky was behind him now. He felt her hand against his back.
“No way!” Stefan yelled, although his voice sounded as squeaky as Mack’s had. Mack glanced back and saw Stefan swinging something big and black.