The Power. Michael Grant

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      “Others?”

      “I only have six with me: Jarrah, Xiao, Dietmar, Sylvie, Charlie, and Rodrigo.”

      “Just eight?”

      “No, that’s seven total, counting me. We still need Valin and four more.”

      “Are you sure?”

      “Yes. Yes. I can do basic math!”

      Grimluk drew himself up with as much dignity as he could while peering out of a smeared bathroom mirror and said, “There is no need to flaunt your fancy modern learning. I fade … I weaken … I was never … good … at math …”

      “Where do I find Valin and the other four?”

      “Not in the same place, Mack.”

      At this point Stefan said, “You’re talking to the old dude I can’t see, right?”

      Stefan’s remark caused Mack to look around and take notice of the fact that three very polite tourists from Japan were taking video of what looked like a crazy kid talking—yelling, actually—at a mirror.

      “I’m not crazy,” Mack said. No one was convinced.

      “Valin is near, though he won’t be when you catch him,” Grimluk said. “The others … the others …”

      And sure enough, the image faded, and the ancient voice—a voice so old that when Grimluk spoke, you could practically hear wrinkles—likewise faded out.

      “Nooooo!” Mack pounded the mirror because now his own reflection had appeared, replacing Grimluk’s.

      Grimluk faded back in. “A gate …”

      “A what?”

      “Golden … of … I see a pillar of orange …”

      “No, no, no, none of that cryptic stuff,” Mack yelled. “We are running out of time!”

      “Ants!” Grimluk cried.

      “What?”

      “Beware of ants!”

      “I promise I will,” Mack yelled. “Now just tell me how to find—”

      “I see a bridge of orange …”

      “What?”

      “Actually more of a … I fade … I weaken …”

      “Get back here!”

      “Reddish orange. A gate of gold.”

      And with that, he was gone.

      “Grimluk!” Mack howled.

      Making a “grrrrrr” face, Mack stormed out of the bathroom, to find the others talking to Singh. Mack kept his distance. In his present state of mind, eight feet felt like the minimum beard-clearance zone. Probably when he calmed down he’d start feeling a little better about it. But right now his head was swimming and he was tired and he was on edge.

      And that was when things got really bad. Because as Mack was turning Grimluk’s insane, rambling, incoherent, nonsensical, senile words over and over again in his head, a massive, glittering, impossible wall of steel came crashing down through the roof, down through the huge slanted windows, down through the vegetarian restaurant, down through the adjacent and fortunately unoccupied boarding area.

      It missed Mack by nine inches and cut him off from his friends.

       Ker-RAAAAASH!

      Followed by, Bam! Screeeeech! Tinkle, tinkle, tinkle. And screams!

      The noise was deafening. Broken glass, twisted aluminum rafters, screams, cries. It sounded like the end of the world punctuated with an earthshaking impact that hit so hard Mack felt as if the floor had attacked his feet. (He was not at his most rational, just then.)

      The wall of steel had come down like a guillotine or a meat cleaver. It sliced right across the airport. Mack’s frantic, terrified glances did not show anyone around him killed—thankfully—but the restaurant was destroyed, the kitchen shattered, and indeed globs of sarson da saag¹⁵ struck Mack in the cheek.

      He looked, sickened with fear, at the place where the blade bit into the floor. He did not see any body parts there. That was a good thing. His thoughts had gone straight to Sylvie, for some reason, but he did not see her hands or head lying separated from the rest of her.

      “Huh,” Stefan remarked from the opposite side of the steel wall.

      Just as quickly and noisily as it had come slashing down, the wall of steel pulled back up, revealing a deep gash right across the airport.

      Through the chasm in the roof Mack saw that the steel wall was in fact an impossibly huge blade. And he saw that said blade was the blade of a terrifyingly large scimitar.

      And he further saw that holding that huge scimitar was a massive hand, a hand the size of a middle school multipurpose room. The fingers were detailed with rings of gold, some with rubies the size of Subarus.

      Not surprisingly, there was an arm. You’d expect that arm to be large, and it was; oh, it definitely was. But by the time Mack’s eyes traveled from scimitar to hand to arm, he was more taken by the bare chest as wide as a football field and, beyond, way up in the air, fifty feet or more above the airport, a head.

      How big was the head? Have you ever seen the Macy’s Thanksgiving parade with the giant helium-filled floats of, like, Spider-Man? Okay, imagine a pumpkin. Now imagine an evil, supervillain pumpkin so big that if it was a helium-filled float it would make helium-filled Spidey say, “Whoa!”

      That’s how big.

      There was only one good thing about that gigantic head atop that gigantic body: it did not have a beard. It was a bit young for a beard.

      In another odd sort of detail, there was a man in the pocket of the giant’s vest. Yes, the giant was so large that a man could stand in his vest pocket.

      That pocketed man was dressed all in green.

      “Ha!” the giant roared. “HA!” In a voice that caused decorative flags to tear loose from their poles. “I’ve got you now, Mack!”

      The giant was Valin. And you’ve already guessed the name of the man in his pocket.¹⁶

      

      MEANWHILE, 7,831 MILES AWAY, IN SEDONA, ARIZONA

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