But that doesn’t explain why they look like demons. There are dozens of other ways to design a rainspout. They could have been just pipes. Or Hello Kitties. But no, they were carved to look like demons—bits of hungry lion and screeching eagle and sinister wolf and dragon.
Gargoyles were there to send a message to people—people who, in the Middle Ages, mostly couldn’t read. The message was that the end of the world was nigh and they’d better show up for service on Sunday. Or else.
These particular gargoyles were very old, eroded stone figures, so they’d lost some of their fearsomeness. Unless of course you woke them up with a magic spell and a bolt of lightning, because then, well, then they got very real, very fast, and in very lifelike detail.
“That thing just eyeballed me,” Stefan said.
“Yep,” Mack agreed.
“Fly, my gargoyles, fly!” Valin cackled madly, arms upraised. “Destroy them. Destroy them all!”
Needless to say, he added a crazy laugh that went, “Ahhh-ha-ha-ha-haaaahhhh!”
The lightning-struck gargoyle grew detailed. Long years had worn away the scales, and roughened the edges of its wings, and dulled the sharpness of its talons. Now those emerged from the stone. They became whole and complete and terrifying.
This was no longer a stone sculpture to frighten children. It was a living, steam-breathing emissary of hell.
The gargoyle then emitted a cry. How to describe it? A cry full of furious frustration, sudden unexpected liberation, and a realization that all its centuries of imprisonment as a stone object, all its forced immobility and helplessness, were at an end.
The gargoyle opened its leathery wings, fixed its mad eyes on Mack, and swooped down from its roofline perch.
Others then moved. Others then stared with fixed hatred on the small band of kids standing (rather improbably) in the middle of the Seine.
Dozens?
No, more than dozens. Hundreds!
Some had only half a body—they had been sculpted that way. Some leered lasciviously while others glared furiously. Some had wings; some moved sinuously like snakes through the air. They seemed almost to swim down out of a sky boiling gray and black and riven by bolts of lightning.
“We don’t want to go that way anyhow,” Mack yelled. “Back! Back!”
They turned and ran across the water. Now the current was their friend. Each step was like a step and a half. It was strangely like ice-skating somehow, but dragging Stefan through the water was slowing them down.
The first gargoyle raked Mack’s hair with its talons. Blood dribbled down his face and he made a sort of frightened whinnying sound, like a horse that’s just seen a rattlesnake.
They passed beneath the first small bridge, a temporary—very temporary—respite, then out the other side for a renewed onslaught.
But at the same time his mind was working furiously. He had Vargran. They all did. But the enlightened puissance was an easily exhausted resource: like the patience of a boy who finds himself in a Claire’s store, or a girl who finds herself in a discussion of belching, or a reader forced to wade through an overly long simile.
The point is, the enlightened puissance is like a battery that runs down and then needs to be recharged. So Mack had to take that into account. He’d already used up a whole lot of e.p. walking on water. And they would need all their combined strength to pull off the dramatic stunt they were planning.
On the other hand, it was important not to die.
Beneath the next bridge and out, and beneath and out, and this time the gargoyles encircled them, swooping to cut them off so that they had to push and flail and bat at monsters to get out the other side.
“We must use the Vargran!” Rodrigo cried seconds before a gargoyle struck him in the back and knocked him forward. Rodrigo hit the water, but instead of landing on it as though it was solid, he plunged in, bellyflop-style. He bobbed up after a second, but in order to walk on the water, he needed first to be able to walk.
Sylvie, Charlie, and Xiao grabbed Rodrigo’s arms and hauled him up, up until he could get one foot above the surface. Then he was able to stand. But pulling this off had made the knot of four kids a focus for the gargoyles. They swarmed in a fast-moving spiral, all gray talons and beaks, horns and wings.
“Stefan!” Mack yelled. “Swim for the bridge on your own. Dietmar and Jarrah with me!”
He led them in a body slam against the spinning gargoyles. But that so didn’t work. Dietmar was knocked down into the water, just like Rodrigo had been. A gargoyle had talons in Jarrah’s hair and was dragging her, pulling her away.
Blam!
Something hit the leonine creature that had Jarrah by the hair.
Blam! Blam!
Mack turned in amazement and saw that the current had carried them closer to the big bridge than he had realized. The bridge where the cops were waiting. It was police marksmen shooting at the gargoyles.
The bullets would only have chipped the stone of a regular gargoyle. But these were living creatures now, however bizarre and unnatural. The bullets struck home and brought forth cries of pain and outrage. Black blood boiled up through skin the color of cement.
“Run! Run!” Mack cried, and windmilled his arm to show the way. “We have to get past the bridge!”
The gargoyles had hesitated and allowed just enough time for the group to haul Dietmar onto dry water, where they were running flat-out now. Valin’s voice still reached them, far-off but shrill and determined.
“Attack!” he cried. “Attack!”
The hesitant gargoyles had no choice but to obey.
Here is the scene so that you have it clear in your mind:
Seven kids running on gray-blue water as if it was some sort of soggy playing field.
One boy in the water, swimming with powerful strokes even as his friends caught up to him.
The famous Pont Neuf, a series of stone arches, beautifully proportioned, stark and white and built to look a bit like the wall of an old castle. And atop that bridge an array of flashing lights, blue uniforms, body armor, and pointed guns.
Police boats, a mismatched collection, some like simple cabin cruisers of the sort you’d see in any marina, others black-hulled and blunt-snouted like converted barges. And a few very small, fast boats with men in scuba suits.
Gargoyles, a dark cloud of them, diving on the racing Magnifica.
“Tirez!” the inspecteur cried, and a volley of shots rang out. Then the firing went on, ragged but continuous. The noise was unbelievable, but the effect was welcome. Gargoyles died in the air, turned to stone again, and plunged into the Seine like a rain of boulders.
Mack and the rest ran beneath the Pont Neuf, out the other side, past the straggling police boats that were now rushing to join the battle of flic vs. gargoyle.
The battered, bruised, wet, and terrified group clambered aboard a passing barge that was hauling a load of sand.
The owner-captain yelled and protested until Sylvie explained in weary French that these eight had escaped from the terror upstream, and that they were also running from les flics.
This engaged the man’s sympathies and he hid them in his small, homey cabin until they were alongside the Eiffel Tower.
“Okay,” Mack said, exhausted. “Now we tell the world. And we make the world listen.”
* * *
Twenty-four
* * *
MEANWHILE, BACK AT RICHARD GERE MIDDLE SCHOOL34
“It’s today,” Camaro Angianelli said, punching the golem in the shoulder. It was an affectionate punch. It would have affectionately given a huge affectionate bruise to anyone else, but Camaro had long since realized that the golem was pretty much impervious to bruising.
“Yes, it is today,” the golem replied. In fact it was always today. It was never yesterday or tomorrow, it was always today. The golem had noticed this.
“Will you be there?” Camaro asked.
This felt like it might be a bit of a trick question. The gol
em had never been anywhere but “here,” just as it was always “today.”
“Where?” the golem asked cautiously. They were in the hallway, standing next to the golem’s locker. The locker contained his schoolbooks, several twigs, a plastic trash can full of moist mud—just in case he did end up taking a shower—and a sketch he had drawn of Grimluk and taped to the inside of the door. The sketch wasn’t very good—it was recognizably Grimluk, but it lacked perspective.
“What is that?” Camaro demanded, noticing the portrait for the first time. “Is that your grandpa?”
“That is Grimluk, my creator,” Mack said.
Camaro frowned. “God? God’s looking like he needs dental work. No offense. Anyway, you’ll be there, right? You said you would.”
Well, there she had him. He must have said he would. Now he just had to remember what he’d said he would do. And where. Asking why would probably be greedy.
“Yes. I will be …” At this he hesitated. Because he had never been anywhere other than “here” and indeed didn’t see how it was possible to be “there.”
“The usual place,” Camaro said helpfully.
“Ah.”
“Me and Tony Pooch. All you have to do is watch my back.”
“You have a flat back.”
“Are you insulting my back?”
“No. I like watching your back. I see it whenever you walk away.”
Camaro narrowed her eyes, suspicious that this was an obscure insult. “Just be there,” she said, and showed him her back as she walked away.
The golem checked his phone. Still nothing from Mack. It was worrying him, and worry was a very new emotion for him. He didn’t know how much of it to do at a single stretch. Was it good to worry constantly? Or should he pick a time or place and worry really hard, then stop?
One of the things that worried him was that he had, in addition to his own phone, brought Risky’s phone with him to school. It was in his pocket. He had intended to either leave it home or smash it with the dining room table, but he had found he couldn’t quite bring himself to do either.
And now it was in his pocket. Waiting to ring.
“I don’t know how to worry,” he said to the portrait of Grimluk. “You didn’t teach me that.”
WWMD? What would Mack do?
Slowly he drew out both phones. The one that came from Risky. The one that led to Mack.
Still no response from Mack.
He had been told—in very definite terms—not to call Mack, only to text or email. That instruction came directly from Mack himself, which meant it was right.
Unless it wasn’t.
That was a crazy thought. The golem laughed.
But what if it was possible? What if Mack … was wrong?
The golem hit the home button, slid the bar aside, and punched in his password: 1111.35
* * *
Twenty-five
* * *
The Eiffel Tower.
It’s big. Especially when you’re right up under it, which is where our wet, bloodied, scratched, scarred, scared, and very determined little band was.
There are four big legs to the tower. Each is planted on a massive concrete pedestal. Around each pedestal are the ticket booths, a place where you can buy snacks, the base of the elevator, and a lot of people craning their necks to look up.
The tower is built out of millions of individual pieces. It’s not like they molded it all out of a single block of steel—you see each and every piece, every crossbar, every strut, every beam—15,000 pieces. And you see the fat rivets used to hold each piece in place. It’s as if it were built entirely out of Popsicle sticks—if Popsicle sticks were iron and coated with thick gray-brown paint. But from a little distance it appears very delicate, as if it were made out of lace.
There are three decks on the Eiffel Tower. The first one is about a quarter of the way up. A second deck is closer to the halfway point. And the very top, le tip top, is 990 feet up there. Way up.
There’s an elevator connecting the three decks. There are also stairs to the lowest two decks.
The whole thing is placed plop beside the river Seine, at one end of a long, rectangular field called the Champ de Mars, or the Field of Mars. Because the French love them some Mars bars.36
“Let’s take the elevator,” Mack said wearily. “I don’t think I could handle stairs.”
Easier said than done. There was a line, and tickets had to be purchased, and then another line. Finally the elevator, which, in keeping with the whole Eiffel Tower look, was an open iron cage sort of thing. It rose at an angle as it swept up the arc of the tower’s leg, and straightened as the tower straightened.
Suddenly, as the iron-bound view of Paris widened, Mack was terribly homesick. He missed his parents. He missed his room. He missed his school. He even missed the kids at school. And he almost missed some of his teachers.
He hadn’t wanted to look at any pictures from home because they would make him sad. But now he was weary to the point where sad would be a real improvement. He pulled out his phone and opened his personal photos. Pictures of kids at school. Pictures for some reason of the school bus. A picture of his parents playing volleyball at some beach somewhere some long, long time ago.
He tapped on his messages. The golem, of course.
Mack almost didn’t open it.
Then he did.
* * *
I’m afraid. A girl named Risky was here. I think she will make me hurt people. Your golem. >:-(
* * *
Mack stopped breathing.
“Are we getting off here?” Xiao asked.
The elevator had come to a stop, and many of the people were exiting. It was the first level.
“Is this it?” Charlie prodded when Mack didn’t answer.
Risky. She had been there. In his home. In his actual home!
I think she will make me hurt people.
“Let’s go on up to the second floor,” Jarrah said, speaking for Mack.
It had always been possible, Mack knew. Sooner or later they would go for his family. After all, Paddy “Nine Iron” Trout had already tried by shoving snakes in through the window of Mack’s house.
But Mack had hoped that when he left Sedona they would go after him and him alone. Not his family.
He swallowed, but his mouth was dry.
Could the golem be made to hurt people? The golem was a sweet goof, not some kind of monster.
But Mack’s logical brain argued back: No, he’s whatever he’s made to be.
And his logical brain was also replaying Risky’s offer. Join her. Join her now and his family, maybe his whole town, would be safe.
Other families … Other towns …
“You okay, mate?” Jarrah asked him.
What had he thought? That this was all a game and that no one would get hurt? Had he imagined they’d leave his family alone? The Pale Queen would leave no one’s family alone.
The elevator came to the second floor. Mack was swept along with the rest as they got out.
“Okay, now what?” Rodrigo asked.
“Mack.” Xiao put her hand on his arm.
They were all staring at him. There was no putting off the decision. A decision that might doom his family.
“Text message,” he said flatly. “Risky has been to my home. She got to my golem.”
“What? That is intolerable!” Dietmar cried.
Mack liked him for that. The German boy’s outrage was genuine.
“What do we do?” Charlie asked. And Mack liked that, too. We. What do we do?
Mack took a deep breath. “We—”
His phone rang. His phone never rang. But it rang now.
He saw the caller ID. It was the golem.
“Yeah,” Mack said.
“Mack. It’s me, your golem.”
“I know. I got your text.”
“Mack, I’m afraid. Risky has given me a second phone. I think she can use it to make me … to make me not ‘Be Ma
ck’ but be something else.”
“Listen to me: smash that phone she gave you.”
“I … I tried, Mack.”
“Smash it now, Golem. Smash it right now!”
“My hands won’t....”
Mack closed his eyes and fought down a wave of panic. “Where are you?”
“At school.”
“Listen to me, Golem. Who can you trust there? Who can you go to? Who can help?”
The golem was silent for a minute. Mack waited, eyes closed, unwilling to meet the worried gaze of his friends.
The golem came up with a name.
Mack breathed. “Yeah, Golem. That’s what you do. Right now!”
The line went dead.
“What must we do?” Sylvie asked.
With shaking fingers, Mack shoved his phone back into his pocket.
“We have a plan,” Mack said softly. “We carry it out.”
He walked on legs gone wobbly to the railing that looked down over the Champ de Mars. They were too high up for people down below to hear, but the kids had prepared for that.
“Tine ovol ebway!” Mack said in a loud, sure voice. In Vargran it meant, “Loud voice us.” It was the best they could do with the clumsy ancient tongue. They could only hope the meaning was clear, or clear enough.
No worries, as Jarrah liked to say: once he had spoken the words, his voice was suddenly as loud as if he were talking through a bullhorn.
“People,” he bellowed. “People down below. Cameras on!”
There were perhaps a hundred people down below on the concrete and a few spreading out onto the grass, and they all looked. And those who had cameras turned them on.
“People of Earth!” he cried. “We are here to warn you of a terrible danger. The Pale Queen rises after three thousand years of captivity to enslave the human race!”
The Key Page 13
