The Call (The Magnificent 12 1)

DEAR MACK,

IT SEEMS A STOMACH ALONE IS NOT ENOUGH. YOU CAN’T JUST PUT FOOD IN, ALL THE TIME. ANYWAY, MINE BECAME TOO FULL AND I NEEDED A WAY TO GET THE FOOD OUT OF MY BODY.

DAD’S POWER DRILL WAS VERY USEFUL, MUCH BETTER THAN A SPOON.

YOUR FRIEND,

GOLEM

* * *

Twenty-eight

A REALLY, REALLY LONG TIME AGO…

Grimluk left the island continent after the death of Miladew.

He had failed to kill the princess. And so long as she lived, her mother, the Pale Queen, must live as well. She at least was bound for all eternity. Or three thousand years. Whichever came first.

Well, it turned out that three thousand years was not eternity.

He remembered it all still.

His body had rotted. His powers had faded. But he still remembered Gelidberry. And the baby. He even remembered the cows. And he remembered Miladew, murdered by Princess Ereskigal.

Of the long, long walk to his final home, the lightless cave where he had remained ever since, he remembered only a little.

Grimluk no longer remembered the spot. He could not have found his hiding place on a map.

But he remembered those he had loved.

And now, with evil once more rising from its foul World Below pit, he would strive with all his power to take his revenge and do all he could to guide the new Magnificent Twelve to ultimate victory.

Then, and only then, could Grimluk allow himself the peace of death….

Twenty-nine

It was many hours before the ambulance came and took a battered and injured Karri away to the hospital in Alice Springs.

At the hospital Mack’s broken nose was bandaged. And the strange sunburn that Stefan and Jarrah had suffered despite being in the lee of the overturned buggy was covered with salves.

Karri would be in hospital (as they say in Australia) for at least two weeks. Jarrah promised she would call her father and go with him to somewhere safe.

But once outside the hospital room, Jarrah looked at Mack and said, “Okay, where to?”

“What do you mean?” Mack asked. “You’re going off with your dad.”

“Like fun, I am,” Jarrah said. “We’re the Magnificent Twelve, right? I only see two of us, plus Stefan.” Actually, she didn’t see Stefan just then because he was in the men’s room.

“Jarrah, we almost got killed. And I don’t think we’re done with her. Or the Nafia or the Tong Elves or the Skirrit or—”

“No, we’re not done,” Jarrah said grimly. “Not by a long shot. So I’ll ask again: where to?”

Mack took a deep, shaky breath. He missed home. He missed his parents. He felt terribly alone in some ways, but at the same time he was beginning to see himself as part of a history that stretched a long way back—maybe for eternity. Or at least three thousand years.

And there was the fact that he didn’t want to live in a world dominated by Risky. Or her mother.

Well, he thought (wrongly as it turns out), at least Risky’s done for.