The Trap

by Michael Grant

  “You are . . . You are . . . Oh, by All-Father Me, you are Franz Müller! In the flesh! It is a great honor to meet you,” Odin said. “I’m a huge fan.”

  The player extended a shaky hand and grasped two of Odin’s salami-sized fingers.

  “I saw you play for the national team against Spain when you scored three goals!” Odin enthused. “The greatest match I’ve seen in . . . well, I don’t want to tell you how long; you’ll think I’m—”

  “A doddering old fool?”

  For split second Mack was sure it was Dietmar. He didn’t know Dietmar that well yet, but the kid had a distinct tendency to blurt out things that would be better kept to himself.

  But it wasn’t Dietmar.

  Thor and Fenrir edged apart, and there she was in the space between them, striding forward with smirking confidence.

  “Hel!” said Odin.

  “Risky!” said Mack.

  “You!” said Nott.

  The daughter of the Pale Queen took a moment to pat Fenrir on his ruff.

  Odin, who had seemed impossibly intimidating just seconds earlier, seemed to shrink and age as he gazed solemnly at the thin wisp of a girl.

  There was no question who was more scared of who. Or whom. Whichever.

  Or maybe there is a question, so let’s clear up the hierarchy of fear: Odin was scared of Risky. Odin in turn scared Thor and Fenrir. Thor and Fenrir scared Nott.

  And all of the above scared Mack. And none of the above scared Stefan, despite the fact that he was the size of a kitten. Jarrah lifted him up and cradled him in her arms protectively.

  “So, Mack,” Risky said, revealing her perfect teeth in a smile that was at least as warm as a penguin’s feet and almost as inviting as a graveyard at midnight, “did you have a nice flight from China?”

  “Wait,” Thor said. But he said it politely. “We have a deal. I have your Magnifica. But before you take them, you have to pay me what you promised.”

  Even when he was shaking with fear, Mack noticed things. And he noticed just the slightest flicker in Risky’s amazing green eyes.

  “Yes, of course; we’ll talk about it later.”

  Nott must have noticed something, too, because she said, “Don’t trust her, you big oaf. She’s lying.”

  Again a slight flicker, quickly hidden by a narrowing of the princess’s eyes and a baring of her teeth, which grew sharp and long and positively vampirish. “I keep my bargains.”

  She snapped her fingers. The nearest of the pool-portals switched from the movie-theater view to a view of the park at the base of the Externsteine. More than a dozen blue-and-white police cars, and two orange-and-white ambulances, and a lot of cops and tourists—all agitated, many snapping pictures of the transformed monument, and some eating sandwiches—appeared and floated hologram-style.

  There, in one corner, sucking on his oxygen while his flamboyantly dressed apprentice chatted with two girls, was Paddy “Nine Iron” Trout.

  Risky’s left arm began to grow. It stretched and turned serpentine. Or more accurately, octopoid (which is a real word). There were suckers lining the bottom of this fantastic appendage.

  Risky extended her octo-arm into the hologram, wrapped it around Nine Iron, and pulled. He disappeared from the hologram and appeared, dazed and breathless, before them.

  Risky didn’t waste time on pleasantries or explanations. “Paddy, the money.”

  Nine Iron’s eyes—yellowish and evil—flitted left and right. He gulped. He fumbled for his oxygen. And for just a moment Mack had the impression that Nine Iron was blushing. Like a little girl. A little girl with very bad skin.

  “The money, Paddy,” Risky said in a low voice.

  “The money, is it?” Nine Iron stalled.

  “Yes. The money.”

  “Ah, well, as to the money . . . My apprentice put it all on one of these newfangled cards.”

  “Your apprentice,” Risky said.

  “The lad with the pantaloons.”

  Using her octo-arm, Risky yanked Valin into the room.

  “Gee-ah-ah-aaah!” Valin said upon seeing Odin, Thor, Nott, the Magnificent Four, the Asgard TV room, and Risky.

  Risky held out her hand. Her actual hand. “The money.”

  Mack was pleased to see that Valin fumbled repeatedly in his effort to extract what turned out to be a debit card.

  “What is this?” Odin demanded.

  “It’s the way they do things now,” Risky said. She was clearly impatient. “Can I take my prisoners now?”

  Odin looked unhappily at the card, turned it over, flicked it with his fingernail, and said, “Strange money.”

  “Yes, time marches on,” Risky said. It was clearly a struggle for her to remain polite. But just as clearly, she didn’t want to be distracted by a fight with Odin and the others. “It’s the money, Odin. I don’t lie.”

  “I doubt that,” Dietmar said. “You are evil, and evil creatures would not hesitate to lie.”

  This time Mack kind of appreciated Dietmar’s bluntness. Because Odin was obviously unconvinced, and Thor kept looking around anxiously, like he was waiting for someone or something.

  Finally Thor asked, “Where are they?”

  An impatient growl escaped from Risky’s perfect white throat. “They are waiting for you,” Risky said smoothly—too smoothly. “In fact, they are very excited to meet you, Thor.”

  “Are they?” The god of thunder looked pleased.

  Mack smelled a rat. “Who?”

  Thor grinned. “Led Zeppelin. I’m playing a real gig with Led Zeppelin.”

  Risky decided to bluff it through. “Yes, that’s right, and the whole band is waiting for you to join them just as soon as I take care of this little bit of business.”

  “I don’t think so,” Mack said. “They’ve been broken up for years. And I think the drummer is dead!”

  Risky struck, quick as a cobra. She leaped at Mack, teeth bared. Before he could so much as flinch, she had him in her powerful hands. “That’s the last nerve I’m going to let you grind!”

  “Throw me!” a squeaky voice cried.

  A small yet shirtless muscular person flew through the air. Stefan landed on Risky’s face, grabbed a perfectly sculpted eyebrow in each tiny hand, and kicked Risky in the teeth with his cute little feet.

  “Get off me!” Risky screeched.

  “You lied to me!” Thor raged.

  “RUN!” Stefan bellowed. But it came out more like “Ruuuun!”

  Mack ran. The others followed. Around the circular room they raced.

  Risky grabbed Stefan and flung him like a rag doll. He twirled through the air as Jarrah cried, “Stefan!”

  Stefan landed with a plop in the farthest of the pools and disappeared from view.

  No choice now, Mack had to follow. He ran, shoved a paralyzed-with-horror Jarrah forward, cried, “Jump!” and plunged after Stefan.

  He swooped through the bubble-membrane—which if you were to make a compound word out of it would be a bubblebrane—and landed in a circle of tall stones.

  Mack knew immediately where he was. He had seen pictures of it before.

  Chapter Thirty-two

  No one knows for sure what Stonehenge is for. But it was surely not built for what was now happening.

  A brief pause while we consider Stonehenge. Stonehenge is a bunch of stones that form a henge. Of course that’s not very helpful because no one knows what a henge is. So let’s start over.

  About, oh, five thousand years ago a bunch of primitive Britons decided they would like to make a big circle of stones. Why? No one knows. Maybe they were trying to build a sort of calendar. Today we create calendars out of paper and photos of Justin Bieber. But in those long-ago days they had no Justin Bieber because anyone who looked as cute and doelike and vulnerable as Justin Bieber would have been barbecued.

  Which, when you think about it . . . No, let’s not go there.

  Anyway, they dug a big circular ditch of stones. And then they p
robably danced and sacrificed some biebers to their pagan gods.

  Flash forward a couple of thousand years, and now it’s about three thousand years ago when a nameless, visionary pagan decided, “That old earthen circle is lame. We could totally build a much better one with stones. And then girls would like us.”

  “Brilliant!” the other pagans cried.

  They set about building. They used really big stones, like fourteen feet tall. Or as they said back then, “about two shaquilles.”

  They built a nice circle of giant stones and topped them with giant horizontal stones, forming lintels. And when you stood back and looked at it, you’d think, “You know, if we put a domed roof on this, it would look kind of like the Jefferson Memorial in Washington. Or like—”

  And then the pagans might well sacrifice you for not knowing the difference between Neolithic and neoclassical architecture.

  The pagans had no patience with architectural ignorance.

  Once Stonehenge was built, they undoubtedly held a pagan dance, but a reserved, unathletic, somewhat awkward and rhythm-impaired dance because they were, after all, English.

  The pagans enjoyed their big stone circle and brought their dates to see it. Until civilization came to Britain and all the pagans had to be killed off. Civilization didn’t approve of pointless stone circles. Civilization didn’t realize it could be a really great tourist attraction that would bring millions of visitors, each of whom would look around and ask, “What is it?”

  In the intervening years, many of the giant stones were hauled off to make forts, castles, redoubts, and the other killing-related structures that civilization loves.

  So now what the Magnificent Four had landed in the middle of was a puzzling, half-torn-down series of stone pi symbols.

  And they were not alone. Ereskigal appeared just seconds behind them. And then Thor, and he was beyond berserk, because he was embarrassed and humiliated at having been played for a fool by Risky.

  Stefan was in Jarrah’s jeans pocket. His tiny head was barely able to peek out.

  “Hey, I’m still shrinking!” a tiny voice cried.

  Nine Iron and Valin dropped in next. Nine Iron drew the blade from his cane with the lightning quickness of a drunk turtle. But Valin was quicker. He had his knives out and was busy flashing them dramatically, slicing the air.

  “You tricked me!” Thor thundered at Risky.

  “You’re really pathetic,” Risky said, sneering openly at the thunder god.

  Thor had Mjolnir in one hand, his sword in the other. “They are mine until you pay me what you promised.”

  “You want a piece of me?” Risky challenged.

  “I got a hammer, and you look a lot like a nail,” Thor shot back.

  “Bring it, blondie,” Risky snarled.

  Jarrah pulled out her phone and began frantically dialing.

  Xiao switched to dragon.

  Dietmar yelled that everyone should be careful, Stonehenge was a priceless cultural treasure.

  Mack measured the distance from where he stood to safety. But since Stonehenge is in the middle of nothing but farmland, he couldn’t even guess which way to run.

  “Mom?” Jarrah said into the phone, covering her ear with her hand to block the noise of Thor bellowing and Risky snarling and Mack whimpering and Nine Iron gasping for breath and Valin cheering himself on with admiring “Hah! Hee-yah!” sounds.

  Thor hurled Mjolnir. It caught Risky in the stomach. She flew backward and smacked one of the rocks so hard the lintel was knocked loose.

  It fell—tons of stone—on Risky’s head.

  But by the time it smashed down on her, she was no longer her usual lusciously evil self. Instead she had become a giant, stocky woman with a long blond braid on one side of her head and a kind of twig ponytail on the other.

  In fact, she looked half bad and half good. On the right side she was a blond Viking amazon—powerful, shiny, as healthy looking as a model in a yogurt commercial.

  The left side of her looked like what the right side would look like if you killed it, buried it for a thousand years, and then dug it up. She was half alive and very Xena Warrior Princessish, and half animated corpse, complete with bits of exposed bone, hanging flesh tatters, and cavorting worms.

  It was the corpse hand that stopped the lintel stone and tossed it aside as if it were no heavier than a Wheat Thin.

  “Ah, now there’s the Hel I know,” Thor said. Mjolnir had returned to him.

  “Yes, Mum, I know it’s the middle of the night there,” Jarrah shouted into her phone. “But I’m having a bit of a situation here and I need some Vargran words.”

  Valin advanced on Mack, still slashing away like he was cool. Mack was helpless. But Valin hesitated.

  “Just surrender to Nine Iron, and I won’t have to slice you up,” Valin said.

  “Maybe you’re not a total cold-blooded killer,” Mack said, hoping he was right.

  “It’s Stefan, Mum,” Jarrah said. “I’ve shrunk him and he won’t stop.”

  “Nice try,” Valin said, and rushed at Mack.

  Mack bolted.

  Valin chased and Mack ran, weaving in and around the stones, dodging crazily. Mack was quick and had long experience fleeing. And Valin was slowed somewhat by his insistence on slashing away all ninjalike.

  Risky held up her dead hand and grinned a grin that was half Crest whitening toothpaste and half the picture your dentist uses to scare you into flossing.

  From her upraised clawlike hand shot not a beam but a sort of swirling mist of blue-black light. This struck Thor on his recently stabbed and hastily bandaged leg.

  Thor cried out in pain. The deerskin leggings curled and crisped like plastic wrap in a fire. The skin beneath peeked through and then it, too, began to shrivel and boil with pustules that popped and oozed black goo.

  But Thor wasn’t done. He feinted, pretending to throw his hammer, but at the last minute he leaped high and stabbed downward with his sword.

  Risky dodged, but too slowly, and the sword went through her stomach.

  Shfoomp!

  Unfortunately it cut the left side—the dead side, in case you’ve lost track—and rather than killing the evil princess, it released a swarm of spiders.

  The spiders poured in a black and gray mass from the wound. Like some kind of hideous death vomit. Like the worst flavor of yogurt ever squishing out of a Go-Gurt tube. Like if you did time-lapse photographs of your nostrils over the entire course of a two-week cold. Except instead of mucus it was spiders.

  The point is: spiders.

  You may recall that Mack did not like spiders. He didn’t like them the way dry straw doesn’t like fire.

  “Aaaah-ah-yaaaah!” Mack said.

  He couldn’t stop quickly enough and went crunching crunching crunching across the spider stream.

  Then Valin yelled, “Aaaah-ah-yaaaah!”

  “Spiders!” Mack cried.

  “Spiders!” Valin agreed.

  And yet Valin would not stop chasing him and so Mack couldn’t stop running and both of them were running and shrieking and alive with terror.

  “You’re breaking up,” Jarrah said into her phone. “I can’t use ‘grow,’ I already used it. I need, like, ‘restore.’ Please, Mum, hurry, I have to go! You’re breaking up! Text me!”

  Dietmar was unperturbed by the spiders. He waited patiently for Mack and Valin to do a complete panicky squealing circuit around the henge. Then, as they passed close by, he scooped up a handful of spiders and flung them at Valin.

  That was it for Valin. He’d had enough. A person with arachnophobia may be able to stand stomping on them, but they sure can’t stand having spiders in their embroidered jacket or their pantaloons.

  Valin lost it and ran madly away, beating at his clothing like a crazy person.

  Meanwhile, Nine Iron just about had his blade out.

  “Thanks,” Mack gasped to Dietmar.

  Thor stumbled past as his pustulated leg folded beneath hi
m. Risky was on him in a heartbeat. She yanked Thor’s sword from her side and pressed the point against Thor’s muscular throat.

  “Oh, I’m just going to enjoy this,” Risky said. She said it in a German/Scandinavian sort of accent so that just came out as yoost and enjoy sounded like enyooooy.

  Because, see, she was in her Nordic goddess of the underworld mode.

  Xiao flew up and up then dived and swooped between two of the stones, scraped beneath the lintel, and hit Risky in the back.

  Risky toppled on top of Thor. She lost her grip on the sword.

  “Hang on, Stefan!” Jarrah cried. “Hang on!”

  “ . . . . !” He said in a voice so tiny it can’t be shown using visible letters.

  Jarrah’s phone made a fruity little chime indicating a text message.

  Jarrah stared at her phone. And said, “Can that be right?”

  Risky jumped up and slapped Xiao away with her dead hand. With a weary groan, she fumbled for and found Thor’s sword. The thunder god looked too tired and stunned to do much about it.

  Risky/Hel raised high the sword of Thor. And she smote him the deathblow!

  Or would have. Except that at that moment Mack realized if Thor lost and Risky won, he, personally (and the whole world) was toast.

  So in a moment of total crazy that was his own personal version of berserk, he grabbed Risky’s braid (the blond one) and yanked her head back hard.

  She spun around. Her face, half living beauty and half dead encrusted zombie, froze him to the marrow.

  “I . . . ,” he managed to sob. “I really should have taken some time to learn more Vargran.”

  That non sequitur gave Risky just a second’s pause, during which Thor leaped, passed one arm around her neck and the other behind, and trapped her in the kind of headlock Stefan had often used on Mack.

  Mack breathed a sigh of relief, retreated hastily away, tripped, fell hard on his back, and looked up dazed, only to find that Nine Iron had his blade out and pressed against Mack’s very heart.

  The problem was that although Nine Iron was slow, there wasn’t really any way for Mack to move that didn’t involve impaling himself.