The Power (The Magnificent 12 4)

Oh, and the whole world had seen YouTube proof8 that something very strange was going on with Mack, so the paparazzi were after him.

Oh, and Le Bureau parisien de la gloire, la magnificence, et la défense de la langue française9 wanted Mack to put the Eiffel Tower back where it belonged. But only if he could do it in French.

You’re probably getting the wrong impression now. Mack was a very nice person. Really.

On Mack’s side he had the Magnifica, six of them so far in addition to himself: Jarrah, Xiao, Dietmar, Sylvie, Rodrigo, and Charlie. They were from, respectively, Australia, China, Germany, France, Argentina, and Britain. Each was twelve years old. Each had the enlightened puissance. Each had learned at least a little of the magical Vargran tongue.

They’d been through some fights together, the seven existing Magnifica. They had been welded into a single, tight unit. They were like SEAL Team Six but without guns or muscles.

In addition to the Magnifica, Mack had Stefan. Stefan was the former King of All Bullies at Richard Gere Middle School10 in Sedona, Arizona. But he had to give up bullying for bodyguarding. Stefan was not one of the Magnifica because, sadly, he did not possess the enlightened puissance. What he did possess was largeness, strength, scariness, and a total inability to be afraid.

He was also loyal to Mack. Mack had saved Stefan’s life and so Mack was under Stefan’s wing, by which Stefan meant that if you intended to hurt Mack, he would stop you—by any means necessary.

You may be wondering where Stefan is now that Valin has Mack staked out and ant-bitten. Good question. The answer will take a while. So strap yourself in and prepare yourself, because this is the story of the final confrontation between good and evil, between Mack and the Magnificent Twelve plus Stefan on the one hand and Risky, Paddy, a whole horde of creatures and monsters, and the Pale Queen herself on the other hand.

There will be terror.

There will be dragons.

There will be widespread devastation. Because I have to warn you: if your definition of a happy ending is that everyone lives happily ever after, well, this isn’t going to end that way.

There is evil in the world, and evil always exacts a price from good.

Two

“We have to find the remaining four and somehow convince Valin to join us,” Mack said. He was pacing thoughtfully up and down the suite at the Plaza Athénée hotel in Paris. It was quite a large suite and quite extravagantly beautiful. It was morning, so there were croissants and hot chocolate in silver service on the sideboard.

There were also croissant crumbs on the carpet and all three beds, and ditto hot-chocolate stains. This was the main boys’ room—Mack, Dietmar, and Stefan had slept here. The secondary boys’ room had been shared by Charlie and Rodrigo and was across the hall. The girls’ suite was down one floor and had been enjoyed by Jarrah, Xiao, and Sylvie.

The two large suites cost 2,000 euros11 each, while the smaller suite cost a mere 1,200 euros. Breakfast for seven cost just under 300 euros, which was kind of a lot, and given that they were spending 5,200 euros a night for the rooms, you’d have thought the Plaza Athénée would kick in a free breakfast. But no.

Fortunately Mack still had the special credit card with most of a million-dollar credit line.

There were gendarmes outside each of the three doors to the suite, but Mack wasn’t too worried about evading them. If you can fight Risky to a draw, you can cope with a handful of French cops.

Everyone was in the largest suite now, lounging on the beds, the sofas, the fancy chairs, and the floor—seven of the most important and powerful twelve-year-olds in human history. Plus Stefan, the world’s most intimidating fifteen-year-old.

And they were all watching Mack pace thoughtfully. (Jarrah was watching suspiciously since it seemed to her that Mack kept pacing closer and closer to the last remaining croissant.)

“We need Grimluk,” Dietmar said. “He will give us a clue to the remaining Magnifica.”

“We’ve been here two and a half weeks, guys. I’ve spent a lot of time in the bathroom staring at the fixtures and I haven’t seen him,” Mack said.

Grimluk had a tendency to appear in shiny objects—sometimes mirrors, sometimes chrome bathroom fixtures.

“Maybe he is dead,” Sylvie suggested. “It is the fate of all, is it not? We can perhaps delay the tolling of that final hour, and yet will it come.”

Sylvie was philosophical. She was short and pretty and French with a sort of goth-emo look, and Mack found her fascinating. She was also Valin’s half sister. But not evil like him.

“Why should Grimluk die now?” Dietmar wondered. “He’s lived for three thousand years.”

“Who is this Grimluk bloke again?” Charlie asked. Charlie had only recently joined up, along with Rodrigo, and honestly, he sometimes didn’t pay attention.

“One of the original Magnificent Twelve from three thousand years ago,” Xiao explained. She was a patient person, Xiao was. Also not technically a person. She was looking very person-like at the moment, looking like a beautiful Chinese girl, but her true self was a dragon. Not a scary Western dragon—a more serpentine, turquoise, philosophical Chinese dragon. Like if the usual dragon matured and stopped trying to look all punk and took up reading books. “Grimluk has been Mack’s guide from the start.”

Rodrigo raised one elegant eyebrow. “Yes, so your guide—our guide—is a three-thousand-year-old man who speaks from bathrooms.”

Jarrah said, “Mack, unless we have Valin, we’ll never be the Twelve. We best go find that git and see if we can’t change his mind.” Jarrah was always about active verbs. Go. Find. Jump. Yell. Smack. Fight.