The Key

by Michael Grant

  “By … supernatural means. You always seem to find me.”

  “Paddy had lost track of you after Stonehenge. You were completely off the grid. Then we heard you were in Scotland.”

  “How did you hear that?”

  Risky shrugged. “Twitter. It was a trending topic. But I found out too late; I don’t check Twitter as often as I should.”

  “How many Twitter followers do you have?” Mack asked, aware that the conversation had taken a rather odd turn.

  “Four,” Risky admitted.

  “You should tweet more. That’s the only way.”

  “I should be tweeting right now,” Risky agreed. “I could say, ‘Found Mack in Paris thanks to—’”

  And that’s when the train reached the next station and the brakes screeched so loud that Mack heard none of what Risky had to say.

  The doors opened. It wasn’t Mack’s stop, but he really wanted to get off anyway. Get off and then run screaming down the platform, up the escalator, and onto the street.

  But he didn’t do any of that. In the movement of bodies on and off the train, Dietmar was suddenly closer. He hadn’t noticed that Mack was talking to Risky.

  “We must get off in two stops and then switch to the—”

  Dietmar stopped talking when Mack made a quick throat-cutting gesture. Then he noticed Risky. She gave him a dazzling smile.

  Dietmar did not smile back.

  “Is this …?” Dietmar asked before his voice dried up.

  “My friends call me Risky,” she said. “But I have many names.”

  “And no friends,” Mack said.

  “You know, I do have feelings, Mack, and that hurts.”

  Mack almost apologized but managed to stop himself. She had no feelings. At least no decent, normal feelings. She was an evil creature. It was just that the red hair and the green eyes and the whole bewitching-beauty thing made her seem like she might have feelings. For just a second. But no: she didn’t.

  And the little glistening tear that appeared in her eye was fake.

  “I have to tell you, Mack, I’ve changed,” Risky said.

  “Changed?”

  “I have come to realize that my mother …” She paused, glanced at Dietmar, and explained, “My mother, the Pale Queen.”

  Dietmar nodded. “Yes, I understood that.”

  “Clever boy. Anyway, I have come to realize that my mother should not be allowed to emerge and crush all life under her heel and enslave all of humanity to her evil will.”

  “No?” Mack asked.

  “No. Instead, I should crush all life under my heel and enslave all of humanity to my evil will.”

  “How would that be better?” Mack asked.

  “Because it would be me,” Risky said, and added, “I thought that was self-explanatory.”

  Dietmar said, “We don’t want to be crushed or enslaved by anyone.”

  And Mack was left to say, “He’s right.”

  “Then you’ll like this part,” Risky said in a conspiratorial voice. “I am willing to let you, Mack, and your little friends be my personal household servants.”

  “No thanks,” Mack said quickly, trying to speak before Dietmar had a chance.

  Risky ignored him. “It’s a good job. All you would really have to do is help me deal with Mom.”

  “How would we even do that?” Mack asked.

  Risky smiled, but it wasn’t her dazzling smile, it was a crafty and cruel smile. “You have the Key. I know you have the Key, Mack. Once you master it, you will have great power.”

  “Great enough to defeat the Pale Queen—and you!” Dietmar said a bit fervently.

  Another stop. More people on and off. And now Xiao moved close enough to see who Mack and Dietmar were talking to.

  “Oh, it’s the littlest dragon,” Risky snarked.

  “Ereskigal,” Xiao said darkly.

  “Guilty,” Risky admitted. “So very guilty. Now be a good little reptile and let me talk to Mack and Dirtmore here.”

  “Dietmar,” Dietmar corrected.

  “Yes, the Key gives you great power. But not enough to stop my mother—not unless you truly become the Twelve. Right now you’re the Five. Maybe you can save the two here in Paris—although I doubt it—and then you would be the Seven. That leaves five, Mack. And one of those is already my servant.”

  The thing was, Mack was starting to worry, because she was making sense. The odds were ridiculous. And even Grimluk had made clear that it would take the united power of all twelve to defeat the Pale Queen.

  Was this a hopeless mission? Was he doomed to defeat anyway?

  And could he possibly, somehow, maybe, work out a deal with Risky? Wouldn’t it be better to have her crushing all of humanity beneath her boot rather than her mother doing it? At the very least, it would mean one evil tyrant rather than two. That had to be an improvement.

  “You will never turn Valin to your side, Mack,” she purred, seeing his hesitancy. “He is ours. So there will never be a Twelve. Perhaps you can fantasize about an Eleven, but never a Twelve. In the end you will be defeated. Unless …”

  “She is trying to weaken you,” Xiao said.

  “I’m trying to help him, annoying little dragon person,” Risky said. “Join me, Mack. Join me, and no harm will come to you and yours. Your family will be safe.”

  With that, the mask of sweetness seemed to fall from Risky’s face. Because that was a threat she was making.

  “My family?” Mack said.

  “Your family, your town, your school,” Risky said. “Go, Fighting Pupfish, right? Figure it out, Mack. Put two and two together.”

  “I … what?”

  “Give me the Key and join me,” Risky said.

  Mack hesitated. Just for a moment, but long enough to earn a hard look from Dietmar and Xiao.

  “I’ll never join you, Risky,” Mack said finally. “And this is our stop.”

  Risky shrugged. “We’ll see.”

  And with that, she disappeared.

  The train pulled into the station.

  They switched trains, and Risky was not on this one. There wasn’t much of a crowd, and the six of them were able to sit close together.

  “We have twenty-eight days left,” Mack said, shouting a bit to be heard over the frantic squeal of brakes and the rattle of the train as it turned a corner in its dark tunnel. “If we can save Sylvie’s friends—”

  “They are not friends. They are Magnifica, but I don’t know them well.”

  “Great,” Stefan muttered.

  “What are their names so we can stop calling them just ‘your friends’?” Jarrah said.

  “One is called Rodrigo. He is from Argentina. The other is Charlie. He’s English.”

  Mack frowned. “I’m trying to find some pattern. It’s like the Magnifica are spread all over the world. The United States, France, China, Australia, Germany, now Argentina and England. Plus India, where Valin is from.” He looked to Sylvie so she could explain.

  “Valin is my half brother, but he is from India,” Sylvie said. “Our father was a French diplomat. Valin’s mother is Indian, and he was raised in the Punjab. Her family is from somewhere in the interior. It was there that in ancient times Mack’s family did a terrible wrong to Valin’s mother’s family.”

  Mack made a frustrated grrrr sound. “My family isn’t even ancient; how could they have done something evil to people in India? Like I said, we’re boring! We live in Arizona!” Mack protested.

  “We have Indians in Arizona,” Stefan pointed out. He had come up behind Mack.

  “Different Indians,” Mack snapped, and then his phone chimed and he made the frustrated grrr sound again. He did not have time for more idiocy from the golem.

  “This is our stop,” Dietmar said.

  They got off the train and started to head up the escalator to the outside world. Suddenly Mack stopped them. He drew them aside into a connecting tunnel, where a woman played a mournful tune on her violin and collected
donations in the open case.

  “Listen, we have the Key now. So how about for once we do the smart thing and actually take a few minutes to learn some useful spells? You know, before we run into whatever gauntlet Risky has prepared for us outside.”

  “Yes,” Dietmar seconded enthusiastically.

  “Awww, homework?” Jarrah moaned. But then she sighed and said, “All right then. A bit of Vargran can’t hurt.”

  It was fifteen minutes before the Five plus Stefan emerged from the Métro stop. And when they stepped into the glittering Paris night near the hectic traffic free-for-all at the head of the Pont de l’Alma, the Alma Bridge, they were a different bunch of kids than they had been before.

  * * *

  Nineteen

  * * *

  They emerged from the Métro.

  Now, no one is saying they looked like, oh, the Magnificent Seven from that movie, all riding their horses and seeming tough.

  No one is saying they were six little Bournes, each a human killing machine. No one is drawing any parallels to the Avengers. (The kids had met Thor, and real Thor was nothing like movie Thor.)

  But they were prepared for once. Ready for battle.

  Oh, yeah: they were ready.

  Their first battle was getting across traffic to the bridge. Their foes were many and they were armed with bright headlights and horns and French cursing.

  The Magnificent Five plus Stefan made it finally onto the bridge. The entry point to the sewers where Rodrigo and Charlie were hiding was on the other side.

  The bridge itself was kind of a “meh” bridge. Not much fanciness, just a lot of cars. But there were nice pedestrian walkways, too, and our intrepid heroes walked across that bridge until they reached the statues of the giants.

  Wait. If the bridge—Pont de l’Alma—was so boring and “meh,” what’s this about giants?

  Well, none of the Magnificent Five plus Stefan was that familiar with Paris—not even Sylvie, who was French but not Parisian. So for all they knew, the bridge was famous for its statues of giants.

  Furry giants.

  White-furred giants that had just clambered up onto the bridge from down below as they sensed the approach of the Magnifica.

  But by the time Mack noticed them, they were standing stock-still, one on either side of the bridge, and his first thought was, Cool.

  Then his second thought was that traffic was slowing down and people with serious trout mouth were staring in amazement. Local people don’t stare at familiar landmarks. It’s a fact that no Washingtonian has ever seen the Capitol building and no San Franciscan has ever noticed the Golden Gate Bridge and no New Yorker has ever looked up at a video billboard in Times Square.

  So no way a bunch of Parisians were staring in jaw-dropped amazement at statues that were actually supposed to be there.

  “Look out!” Mack yelled.

  Everyone stopped except Dietmar, who kept loping along. He was reaching out his hand to touch the nearest of the giants, no doubt wondering how a statue could be made to appear so realistically furry.

  The giant was about twenty-five feet tall, about five Macks or four Stefans or not quite six Sylvies.

  It was covered with fur like a polar bear’s except that it was turning a shade of pink. It had a massive head that was not bearlike but more feline, albeit with an enormous mouth filled with enormous teeth.

  It had two legs like tree trunks and two arms like slightly smaller tree trunks, and hands that were three-fingered claws, each claw like one of those engraved sperm whale31 teeth you sometimes see in nautical-themed stores.

  It was a Gudridan. They both were. And although Mack had heard that word before, he didn’t know to connect it to these monsters.

  “Dietmar! Stop!” Mack cried.

  Too late. The Gudridan’s hand swung around like a boxer throwing a haymaker. The massive hand snatched Dietmar up and held him effortlessly as he strained, punched, and yelled.

  Mack had a terrible vision of what would happen next. The Gudridan would slam Dietmar against the concrete, and that would be the end.

  Down in the Métro they had each used the Key to learn one Vargran spell. They had twisted the smaller wheel inside the larger wheel. They had stared rather stupidly at various inexplicable symbols. And then they had heard the Vargran words in their heads, as only those with the enlightened puissance could. And they had memorized some of what they heard. Not saying they memorized it all perfectly, but they had the gist.

  But they had learned that magic can’t just be fired off willy-nilly like using a machine gun. Because the true power was in the enlightened puissance that each of them possessed. And that was like a battery that needed recharging.

  So they had vowed to resist using Vargran until there was no other choice, until absolutely necessary.

  This looked pretty necessary.

  But it was Xiao who rushed forward and cried, “Pu kip-ma isnyke!” Which meant roughly, “Hey, you: put him down or else.”

  The Gudridan did a double take, stared down at Xiao, blinked, and dropped Dietmar. The fall was from twenty-five feet, which is about like falling off the peak of a suburban two-story home’s roof.

  It could easily have killed Dietmar. Except that the Gudridan was arched back and waving the boy high over its head, so when it released Dietmar, Dietmar fell into the river.

  “Ahhhh …”

  Splash!

  No time to check on him, no time to worry whether the boy could swim, because the Gudridan lashed out at Xiao with a surprisingly swift and amazingly powerful kick.

  Xiao dodged, quick as a snake, and the massive foot flew past.

  Now the second giant was crossing the bridge. In the flash of headlights Mack saw that its fur was no longer white but shading into pink and possibly heading toward red.

  Mack didn’t know this, but a Gudridan’s fur changes color with its mood. The madder it is, the redder it gets. And no one has ever—ever—met a red Gudridan and lived to offer descriptions.

  Xiao was up on her feet but wobbly, and Jarrah grabbed her hand and yanked her away, heading in a mad rush toward the far side of the river. Dietmar’s cries floated up from below.

  The Gudridan leaped.

  It was impossible to imagine. It leaped as easily as a gymnast, that gigantic thing, and landed so hard the bridge rocked. It landed clear beyond Xiao and Jarrah, blocking their path.

  The second Gudridan kicked aside a Fiat 500 like it was a football. The car rolled twice and hit the stone railing and came to a stop on its side. Traffic in both directions screeched and slammed. That second Gudridan now focused on Mack. It raised its giant feet and stomped. Stomped. Stomped again, each massive hammer blow causing the bridge to shake. It was trying to crush Mack; too angry to waste time grabbing him, it wanted to stomp Mack into strawberry jam.

  Mack dodged and tripped over his own feet, which sent him plowing forward. A foot slammed beside him and struck a glancing blow against his shoulder. It was like being hit by a truck. Mack went flying into the road. Had traffic not already stopped, he’d have been run over, killed instantly.

  Dazed and numb on his left side, Mack rolled to his feet, stumbled, and smashed face-first into a car’s hood.

  He made eye contact with the driver, a middle-aged man with an astonished and offended look on his face, just as the Gudridan made a grab for Mack.

  Mack jerked back, and the claw bit into the car’s sheet metal like it was Play-Doh.

  Okay, time for some Vargran, Mack told himself, but his brain wasn’t working too clearly now. He heard a scream. He saw Stefan, suddenly revealed in a beam of light, armed with nothing but his fists and swinging like a madman at a Gudridan’s knee.

  Get them all together, all but Dietmar, Mack’s brain told him, and unite them in a Vargran curse. But oh, it is so much easier to think that than to do it while one of your crew is yelling and gurgling in the dark waters of the Seine, and your bodyguard has just been casually kicked aside to land like
a rag doll, and a reckless Aussie has thrown her arms in a bear hug around a monster’s leg, and a tiny goth girl is wiping the blood from her mouth, and a dragon in human form is crawling away across the concrete.

  Things had gone very bad, very fast.

  Stefan was up and racing to the Fiat, which still lay on its side. With brute force he yanked the car back onto its wheels and pulled open the twisted door while the car was still rocking.

  Mack saw what he was up to. He also saw the first Gudridan take one giant step, reach down, and knock Stefan flat.

  No time to think, Mack raced for the car, jumped over Stefan’s horizontal form, and slid into the seat. The engine was still running! He twisted the wheel and stomped on the gas. Nothing!

  Stupid gears!

  Mack pushed down the clutch, rammed the car into gear, stomped on the gas, and bam—into the leg of the closest Gudridan.

  The air bag exploded in his face, almost knocking him silly in its attempt to save him.

  A roar of rage!

  A bellow of pain!

  Like ten lions together at feeding time when they really, really want some meat, the Gudridan’s outrage shook every living thing within a mile. It was awful and awesome.

  Mack’s windshield was filled almost entirely by a single leg. A single leg now turning from pink to red.

  To redder.

  Mack jammed the car into reverse. Even in the midst of panic, a small part of his mind was thinking, Hey, I can drive as well as Stefan.

  The car lurched back, sputtered, and stalled.

  So maybe he wasn’t a great driver, either.

  He started the car again, put it in gear, and rammed the Gudridan.

  Smash!

  Back. And again.

  Smash!

  This time the Gudridan had sidestepped, but Mack twisted the wheel and caught it in the Achilles tendon. Or at the least the Gudridan equivalent.

  The knee buckled.

  “YAAAAAARRRGGGHHH!” the Gudridan roared.

  The second Gudridan was bounding over to help its friend/companion/homey/colleague when shots rang out.