The Call - Michael Grant [49]
Jarrah cried, “Mum! Mum! Wake up!”
Mack pushed his way through the open window, fighting Stefan’s weight. He crawled out onto the sand, still warm from the day’s heat. His mouth was full of blood. His nose had been smashed earlier by the Tong Elf’s club, but his arms and legs all seemed to still be working.
He rose on shaky legs to find himself standing inside a whirling maelstrom, like the calm eye of a hurricane.
The storm whipped around. The beasts waited, panting, staring wildly, doing the bidding of the evil girl who walked forward with an arrogant swagger.
“I’ll bet you’re ruing the day you ever listened to that old fraud Grimluk,” Risky said.
“Kind of,” Mack admitted.
Risky nodded. “Grimluk and his twelve were just a temporary impediment. This world belongs to my mother. And to me.” She grinned her fabulous this-is-what-orthodontia-can-do-for-you smile. Then she threw back her head and laughed. “Mine! All of it, mine!”
Mack couldn’t think of much to say about that, but he’d had some experience in defying bullies. “You know, there are medications that can help people like you.”
“There are no people like me,” Risky said.
“You’re a thug, a punk,” Mack said. “A murdering creep with deep mental problems. Sorry, but there are lots of people like you. Unfortunately.”
“Ah, defiance. That’s good: it makes it more fun. Grimluk was defiant, too. In fact…” She looked around, like she was trying to remember something. “Yes, it was very near this spot. No, no, wait: it was on the other side of Uluru. I remember now. Yes, that’s where I killed Grimluk’s little girlfriend, the next-to-last of the so-called Magnifica. I forget her name. I killed her, and I could see the way it broke Grimluk’s spirit. I watched the hope die in him. Unfortunately he was able to escape. And now”—she sighed theatrically—“he’s still making trouble, all these years later.”
“Looks like he was tougher than you thought,” Mack said. “Maybe you didn’t quite break his spirit.”
Risky’s smile turned steely. “It’s a very bad idea to fight me. You do realize I’ve survived for ten thousand years, don’t you? I know that to you I’m just the most beautiful girl you’ve ever seen, but—”
“No, you’re not,” Mack blurted.
The smile disappeared. “You’re a very bad liar, Mack. I see the truth. It’s always been the truth: no male can resist me.”
She came closer. And somehow, despite the howling wind, he could hear her whisper.
“Young or old, it doesn’t matter,” Risky said. “They all die the same way: screaming in pain. I hold the keys to the Thirteenth Pair, Mack: Life…and Death.”
She was so close now that Mack could smell her and yes, yes, the smell of her, the colors of her hair, the slow way she blinked and then revealed again her startling green eyes, it all reached inside of him.
Took him.
“And yet, and yet…even as their eyes fail, and their breathing stops and their minds invent visions of welcoming lights; even as death steals their souls; even then, even as the final terror seizes them and they experience the awful silence of their own hearts, they love me.”
Mack swallowed. He was frozen. Unable to move. Unable to look away.
“Have you ever been kissed, Mack?” she asked. “No. I see that you have not. What a pity.”
She touched him then, her hand on his cheek, cradling his face. “To die so very young. To die without ever being kissed.”
And yes, he wanted her to kiss him. He wanted it more than he had ever wanted anything ever or could ever imagine wanting anything ever—and he was just twelve years old, so really kissing girls had not moved to the top of his agenda.
And yet…
Mack was vaguely aware of Karri Major stirring, waking. And of Jarrah and Stefan hauling her out of the far side of the buggy.
Risky drew him to her, unresisting. Her lips parted just slightly. She tilted her head. Her lips were so close.
A voice from a million miles away yelled, “Dude. No! Noooo!” Stefan’s voice. Mack