The Magnificent 12 by Michael Grant Read Free Book Online

are vegetarian.” Then, seeing the blank look on Stefan’s face, he expanded. “We do not eat flesh. The meal would perhaps be lentils.”
    â€œI’d kill for a lentil,” Stefan said.
    â€œIs there anything you wouldn’t kill for?” Rodrigo asked. Like Charlie, he was still somewhat new to the Magnificent Twelve.
    â€œBrussels sprouts,” Stefan said without hesitation, and the pure, distilled hatred in his voice convinced Mack that no matter where else they went, they should never go to Belgium. 22
    â€œCould Valin stay in the temple?” Mack asked.
    â€œNot for long,” Singh said. “It’s a very busy place.”
    â€œOkay then,” Mack said forcefully, or as forcefully as he could under the circumstances. “We go after Valin. Then: San Francisco.”
    â€œWhy San Francisco?” Sylvie asked.
    Mack shrugged. “Grimluk said something about an orange bridge, then he said it was more of a rust red. And he mentioned a golden gate. That would have to be the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.”
    â€œSo first the Golden Temple, and then the Golden Gate,” Sylvie said. “If only we could be sure that our futures were so golden.”
    Sylvie didn’t know it yet, but she was right to harbor such doubts. She was in a quandary, Sylvie was. Valin was her half brother. And Mack, well, she had come to care about Mack. Of course Mack was blithely unaware that she had a tendre 23 for him, or that however much she despised what Valin was doing, she still had to hope he would not be hurt.
    â€œWill any of us survive?” Sylvie asked herself quietly. “Will loyalty or love mean anything in the end? Is it true, as Sartre said, that life begins on the other side of despair?”
    Yep, she was philosophical, Sylvie was. She watched Mack slithering away atop Xiao’s rippling turquoise back and felt momentarily abandoned. Jarrah was feeling much the same, gazing after Stefan.
    The two girls’ hands touched, and they offered each other a silent, reassuring squeeze.
    Riding off with the wind in his face and Stefan’s knees in his back, Mack heard his phone ring. He didn’t answer it for fear he would drop it, and how was he going to replace a phone in the middle of all this?
    He made a mental note to check for messages as soon as he landed, but he forgot, and so he did not receive Camaro’s worried voice mail.
    Thus was Richard Gere Middle School 24 doomed.

Six
    MEANWHILE, 7,831 MILES AWAY, IN SEDONA, ARIZONA
    â€œH e’s not answering,” Camaro said, staring at the phone like she might smash it.
    The golem was continuing to dance, but he was dancing on the floor, which was a good thing. “Maybe Mack’s dancing.”
    (Mack was not dancing, as you know perfectly well. He was riding a dragon toward the Golden Temple of Amritsar.)
    Camaro’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “There’s something very wrong here tonight. The question is: What do we do about it?”
    â€œLeave a message?” the golem suggested, which was a pretty sensible suggestion. It surprised Camaro: the golem was not always 25 sensible.
    â€œMack, it’s Camaro. Something very weird is going on here. There’s a bunch of creepy short dudes and a bunch of locust-looking people, too. Call me.”
    She hung up the call, gave the phone back to the golem, and thought. Camaro might be a bit of a thug but she was not stupid. In fact she had good grades and had a particular knack for math and science. She could think when she needed to.
    And she could observe, too. At this particular moment she was observing the fact that all the stocky little dudes and the buggy creatures were watching the golem.
    So. They were there for the golem. This was about him, and, Camaro intuited, about that red-haired girl the golem had told her about. She was the one who’d almost caused the golem to kill Camaro.
    Uncool.
    Camaro searched the