The Trap (The Magnificent 12 2)

Mack was stalling. First because it seemed crazy, even by the new and lower standards of crazy he had come to accept. He wanted some explanation.

But he was also stalling because Stefan was edging away unnoticed by the arrogant and flamboyantly attired stranger. It was absolutely impossible that Stefan would be fleeing, which could only mean that Stefan was up to something.

“Did you have, like, a bad childhood or something?” Mack pressed.

Valin made a phony sad face and said, “It’s been a hard life for me.

Boo-hoo.”

“Maybe we could get you some counseling.”

Valin’s smirk evaporated. “You know nothing, fool. You don’t know who I am. Or where I come from. Or why it is that I must destroy you.”

“I’ve got some free time,” Mack said. “You could tell me all about it.”

“I think not,” the boy said. “I will only say that when I have destroyed you, my family will be avenged for an ancient injustice done to us by your family.”

“I don’t think my mom and dad ever—” Mack began.

“He’s stalling,” Nine Iron broke in. “Take him, my young apprentice!”

Mack figured he only needed another few seconds. He figured this because, as always, he noticed things. And the thing he had noticed was that the tour bus’s engine had just roared to life. And he had a pretty good idea who was sitting behind the wheel.

“Stalling? Me? I just have an interest in history,” Mack said. It was a statement that would have caused his history teacher at Richard Gere Middle School (Go, Fighting Pupfish!) to laugh and laugh and then start weeping.

There came the grinding of gears, and the bus came wallowing up over the lawn.

Nine Iron spun toward the bus with his usual catlike speed—if the cat you’re talking about is a dead one. But Valin was much quicker. He grabbed his ancient master and threw him to the ground.

The bus swept over them both.

Stefan hit the brakes, and the bus stopped with both Nine Iron and Valin beneath it.

“Go go go!” Mack yelled.

He, Dietmar, Jarrah, and Xiao raced for the path up onto the Externsteine. Stefan brought up the rear.

It took a while for Valin to extricate Nine Iron from under the bus. He had to crawl back under to retrieve his master’s cane-sword. Then he had to wait for Nine Iron to gasp, wheeze, cough, pant, gargle a little phlegm, and take a good spit. And by then the Magnificent Four were pushing past slow-moving tourists and racing up stone steps and across rickety, rusted steel arches, from stone to stone, toward the pinnacle.

They reached the top, gasping for breath and calling out apologies to the middle-aged folks they’d shoved past. Valin was far below, rushing to catch them but still a few minutes away.

“Okay, now what?” Mack gasped.

“Yes, now what?” Dietmar echoed.

“Hey! I thought you knew!”

Dietmar looked very serious. “I have been here many times, it is true. After all, this place is on our family crest. But—”

“Your what now?”

“Our family crest. The coat of arms of the Detmold branch of the von Augestein dynasty. The symbol of our family. It shows the helmet of Helmut der Zusammenhanglos—Helmut the Incoherent—the greatest of the von Augesteins in the fourteenth century, renowned for his inability to make anything clear. Below Helmut’s helmet are three black lions above the Externsteine. And of course our family motto, which was written by Helmut and is therefore completely incoherent.”

“The incoherent thing seems to have been passed on,” Jarrah said. “Didn’t understand a word of that. And by the way: ticktock! That crazy kid is coming!”

Xiao seemed mildly irritated by Jarrah. “You should not show disrespect for Dietmar’s ancestors.”

Mack said, “Why is the motto incoherent?”