The Trap (The Magnificent 12 #2)(44)

And Stefan began to grow.





Chapter Twenty-nine



Stefan began to grow. But it didn’t happen very fast. What did happen fast was Fenrir and Thor untangling from each other. Xiao slipped out from under them unnoticed. Stefan pulling on Thor’s sword had definitely stolen the spotlight.

Now Stefan was sort of dragging the sword across the floor. The point left a scratch.

Thor threw back his head and laughed. “Will you swing Thor’s sword? I don’t think so, little boy.”

Stefan was just getting close to six feet. So he was almost as tall as the sword now. But he was still a long way from going all ninja with it.

Thor wrapped his massive fist around Stefan’s throat.

“Wait!” Mack yelled. “Wait! I thought you enjoyed battle. I thought that was the Asgard way.”

Thor looked at Stefan, now dangling with his feet off the floor and the sword still dragging. “Battle? With this child?”

Thor laughed again, and this time Fenrir joined in. One doesn’t normally think of wolves laughing. And one would be right about that. What Fenrir did was a sort of huffing, snorting sound that could have been laughter but could also have been asthma.

“Look! He’s growing!” Mack said. “If you don’t kill him, he’ll be big enough to take you on.”

Thor looked at Stefan. He weighed him in his hand and nodded thoughtfully. Stefan was definitely growing. As if to prove the point, Stefan lifted the sword up off the floor and made a feeble pendulum swing with it.

“Battle,” Thor said, relishing the word like a toddler with the word candy, or a parent with the word sleep.

Nott spoke up. “Would the thunder god show himself to be a coward in front of Hel?”

“Is she here?” Thor asked nervously.

“Not yet,” Nott said. “But just as Fenrir is not your dog, you are not hers. Or are you?”

“Do not provoke me,” Thor hissed. He set Stefan down. Actually Stefan had almost set himself down by virtue of continuing to grow. He was NBA sized now. And unlike the Lepercons, Stefan’s muscles seemed to grow in proportion.

Stefan took a couple of staggering steps back, and now he managed to actually level the sword, point aimed at Thor’s heart.

Thor smiled. “But I have no weapon,” Thor said. “Just my guitar.”

As Mack and the others stared helplessly, Thor’s massive guitar began to change shape. The strings smoked and evaporated. The neck shortened and thickened. The body lost its bright-polished sheen and became dull gray stone. Plus it looked a lot more like a two-headed ax.

“Every guitar should have a name,” Thor said. “Do you know what my guitar is called?”

Mack shook his head.

But Dietmar nodded yes; he’d guessed. “Mjolnir,” Dietmar whispered.

“MJOLNIR!” Thor roared.

He grabbed the stone ax by its short handle and laughed like the crazy Viking god-warrior he was. “Mjolnir! The hammer of THOOOOOR!”

To emphasize his point, he held it over his head. Lightning shot from it in a dozen bolts, sizzling the remaining hanging tapestries and singeing Fenrir’s fur.

“Flee, human! Flee from the wrath of mighty Thor!”

To which Stefan said, “No.”

Stefan—now only a few feet shorter than Thor, and very able to lift the sword—ran straight at Thor with the sword pointed like a lance.

Stone hit steel, and Thor batted the sword away with practiced ease. Thor hadn’t become thunder god by not knowing how to fight.

But Stefan hadn’t become King of All Bullies by being a wuss.

Stefan took the momentum and swung a 360, came around with his blade low and horizontal, aiming at Thor’s legs. The sword bit. It sliced into Thor’s leggings. But stopped there.

Stefan drew the sword back. There was blood on the blade.

For what felt like way too long a pause, Thor stared at the blood. So did Fenrir. And everyone else, too.

Thor began to breathe hard. His face grew red. His eyes bulged. The veins and tendons on his thick neck all stood out. His grip on the hammer tightened so much you could hear something snapping—probably his sinews, but maybe the actual granite.

“Berserker!” Nott cried. “Run! Run away! He is going berserk!”

Thor took Mjolnir, screamed something incoherent, and threw it with all his might straight at Stefan. Stefan fortunately was not one of those big muscle-bound guys who are slow and clumsy. Stefan was quick as a snake. He bent back, and the massive hammer went flying past his chest—so close that it ripped his shirt.

Mack was almost knocked over by the wind of the hammer’s passing. The tapestries flapped like laundry on a line in a gale. Nott’s gown whipped. Fenrir’s fur ruffled.

Mjolnir flew all the way down the hall. It smashed into the distant wall—crash!—with a sound like a freeway pileup. And then, impossibly, it came flying straight back to Thor’s high-held hand.

“Huh,” Stefan remarked. “Excellent.”

Stefan grabbed the front of his lacerated shirt, yanked it off, and tossed it aside. He was about twelve feet tall now, a giant with glistening muscles.

“Oh yeah, that’ll do,” Jarrah said admiringly. Then added, “I meant he’s big enough now to fight.”