Michael Grant - The Power

But isn’t that the case with most of us?

Mack had been given a weighty task: he was to assemble a new Magnificent Twelve to face and defeat the Pale Queen. The first Magnificent Twelve had defeated the evil one three thousand years ago but had, sadly, given her a fixed sentence of banishment, which was now up. The Pale Queen was coming back, baby, and she was looking to bring the pain and the horror and the devastation and the utter ruin of the human race.

Why was a Magnificent Twelve needed? Couldn’t the marines just deal with the Pale Queen?

No, they couldn’t because the Pale Queen had powers beyond anything the marines could imagine. With her magic she could stop a bullet in midair. She could melt tanks. She could cause jets to go off course and fire their missiles at coffee shops. And she had minions, millions of them in a dozen evil species, from Skirrit to Bowands to treasonous Tong Elves to massive Gudridan. All of them would die for the Pale Queen. The marines were totally unprepared for the stuff she and her minions could do.

Plus, she had a secret weapon: her daughter, a goddess of evil who had troubled many civilizations down through history and earned many dark names. To the ancient Greeks she was Hecate. To the ancient Welsh she was Skatha. The Norse called her Hel, and the Norse knew what they were talking about. Her original name came from the most ancient of civilizations, which called her Ereskigal. She was known to Mack (and to you) as Risky.

Prior to his first encounter with Risky, Mack had never really noticed girls all that much. But she, in her evil way, had caused him to notice. Which was a terrible thing. When Risky was around, Mack would notice her quite a lot and then he would sweat and stammer and his voice would change and, basically, well, she had a disturbing effect on him.

Also, she was always trying to kill him, which definitely heightened the disturbance Mack felt. On the one hand, the unsettling effects of puberty; and on the other hand, attempted murder. It’s just not a good combination no matter how you look at it.

The list of people trying to kill Mack was pretty impressive. Certainly Paddy “Nine Iron” Trout was trying to kill him. And so was Valin, his student. And so was Risky. And behind it all, her mother, the Pale Queen.

It was also the case that Thor had beefs with Mack.

Oh, and also William Blisterthöng MacGuffin.

Oh, and the Loch Ness Duck.

Oh, and the whole world had seen YouTube 8proof 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 française 9wanted 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 School 10in 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.

e 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 euros 11each, 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.”