Lesson #5
Beware of Cabbies with Killer Tempers
“It’s time to weigh anchor, me hearties,” Davy reminded us.
With a sigh of resignation, I nudged the makeup case over the rest of the hilt, tugged at the zipper, and tucked it under my arm. The sword weighed considerably less in a package. “Where to?”
Mike took charge. “We’re off to your place first, Elena’s next. Just standard protocol. Parental consent and all that. Link up hands, then.”
My palms instantly started to sweat. I peeked at Elena. She looked like she wanted to hold one of them about as much as she wanted to pick up dog poo.
“Cheerio,” Mike called with a little wave at Davy.
My stomach suddenly rose up into my throat. Once again I was tumbling through blackness. I clung to Elena’s fingers like they were the only lifeline tethering me to the earth. She jerked away as soon as we landed in the street outside my home and wiped her hand on her jeans. My stomach was revolting too much to take offense. I felt like I’d spent the day in heavy seas after eating a whole case of bad fish. “Do we always have to travel like that? My lunch is about to file for divorce.”
“Aside from the beach, that’s the only way in and out of Davy’s place. It’s called rippling. Sort of a space-warping technique. You can choose your next ride, but right now you have to tell your folks you’re taking a leave of absence.”
Mike looked absolutely ridiculous standing outside my front door. As much as I didn’t want to face my mom, I wanted the neighbors to see me with Mike even less. But my mind was as blank as a newly painted wall. “Any suggestions?”
Elena had regained her composure. “Just tell them you joined a traveling hockey team,” she suggested. Then she smirked. “Or would something requiring that much coordination give it away?”
I narrowed my eyes. Elena was a pretty girl. Most guys would give her a second, even a third look—until she opened her mouth and revealed that sparkling personality of hers. “Do they even have hockey at the equator?”
She gave a haughty little shrug. “Or you could tell her the truth.”
“Sure,” I drawled, “I’ll tell her I’m off to see the Seven Wonders of the World with an angel and some girl I just met. Oh, and by the way, there’s this semi-dead guy who’s trying to kill us, and our only defense is a malfunctioning sword.”
I reflected on that a moment. “You know, that just might work. Mom’s come up with crazier schemes in those books she likes to write.”
“Excellent!” Mike exclaimed. He treated us to a dance move that I suspect was his version of the moonwalk. It looked more like he was trying to extract his feet from quicksand.
“What about your dad?” Elena asked with an irritated glance at Mike.
I curled my lip in disgust. “Dad’s been so busy pouring his life into this godforsaken island that I should have several weeks before he notices I’ve gone missing.”
She tapped her toe on the pavement. “I hope it doesn’t take you that long to get this over with.”
I screwed up my courage, marched across the street, and entered. “Mom?”
“In my office, honey.”
I found her typing furiously on her laptop. Mike and Elena followed me inside. “Mom, I have to go away for a little while. I’m uh, working on an extra-curricular assignment.”
“Oh? What is it?” Her fingers never slowed.
“Well…it’s, uh…sort of a play I’m writing. See, there’s this pirate who guards the Tree of Life—it’s hidden somewhere here in the Caribbean, you see—only his sword went dark. So he’s defenseless if anyone tries to destroy it. And if that happens, the whole entire world will end. So, well, I’m on a mission to help relight it.”
I’d been half counting on Mom’s distraction to get me through, but somewhere around the Caribbean, she had grown still. I thought all was lost. “You know,” she said after a moment’s pause, “that’s not half bad. But you’re lacking a villain. A good plot should always contain a villain.”
“Oh, there is one,” I assured her.
“Taylor,” she beamed up at me, “I’m thrilled to see you developing your dramatic abilities. You have my full support. See your story through to completion, then you must let me know how it ends.” With that she started typing furiously at her project again.
My shock left me as immobile as a mannequin. I didn’t know if she was joking or if Mike had worked some kind of enchantment on her. Either way, I hoped she didn’t decide to hold supper for me. “Er, okay then.”
Five minutes later we were back on the sidewalk, me sporting a small backpack with my iPod, a hoodie, and a change of socks.
“Elena, you’re next,” Mike said.
“We’re taking a cab this time,” she asserted. I nodded my head vigorously in agreement.
A few minutes later we were pulling up outside the hugest estate I’d ever seen. It was really a whole gated compound with servants’ quarters, stables, athletic facilities, and a house roughly the size of the Roman Coliseum. I was completely floored. “You live there?”
She sighed and nodded. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”
Mike instructed the cabbie to wait, and the three of us approached the gate.
“Good afternoon, Rodriguez,” Elena spoke into the intercom.
“Miss Elena, we’ve been expecting you,” came the tinny answer.
“What does that mean?” I asked. She shrugged, and so did Mike. The hair rose on my neck. I’d had enough surprises for one day.
At the door to the main house we were met by a sandy-haired fellow dressed in khaki Dockers and a Polo shirt and surrounded by piles of luggage. His fair complexion stood out among the dark-skinned islanders. So did his physique. He looked like he had swallowed the Incredible Hulk.
“Ranofur!” Elena exclaimed. “What’s going on? Why aren’t you in uniform?”
The giant gazed at her serenely. “You are planning a journey, are you not?”
“Well, yes, I am, but—” she spluttered.
“All is arranged. I will be accompanying you. That is your cab?”
“Yes, but how—?”
“We will discuss that later. Manuel, Diego,” he called to two servants who were loitering nearby. “Carry Miss Elena’s things to her cab.”
While they were engaged, the four of us stood in an awkward circle. Elena made introductions. “Taylor, Mike, this is Ranofur, my father’s head of security.”
Mike and Ranofur exchanged a brief nod. I just stared at the newcomer, gaping at pipes the size of my grandmother’s pickle crock.
Within minutes, the four of us—me, Elena, Mike, and Superman—were piled into the back seat of the cab. There were bags overflowing the trunk, bags tied on top, even a suitcase sitting in the front seat. The driver, a chocolate-colored fellow with dreadlocks down to his waist and a nametag that read “Chico,” was more than happy to oblige. He’d seen Elena’s estate as clearly as I had. The dollar signs were reflecting in his sunglasses.
“Where to?” Chico asked.
I looked at Mike, Mike looked at Ranofur, Ranofur looked at Elena, Elena looked at me. If no one else was going to take the plunge, I figured I better. “The airport?”
Chico started the car.
“Wait a second,” Elena protested. “Are you crazy? We don’t even know what we’re looking for. We can’t just hop on a plane and hope we find it wherever we land. If I’m being forced to take part in this, we are going to have a plan.”
“You could have mentioned that during the awkward pause a moment ago,” I pointed out.
“I could have, but I thought this mission had a leader.”
I cringed. “Okay, okay. The floor is open to suggestions. Anyone?”
I looked at Mike, Mike looked at Ranofur, Ranofur looked at—
“Oh, for crying out loud,” Elena exploded. “The video instructed us to start at the beginning. We have to figure out what that means.”
I screwed up my face. “Cr
eation?”
“And just how are we going to get there?”
Valid question.
She narrowed her eyelids thoughtfully. “Actually, you may have a point. Civilization began in the Fertile Crescent. The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Maybe that would give us a place to start.”
I clapped my hands together. “All right, then. The Middle East it is.”
The cabbie put the car in gear.
Elena sighed. “Can we get a little more specific? The Middle East is huge. We need to choose a city with libraries, universities, museums and such.”
“Baghdad?” I asked with some reluctance. It was the only one I could think of without Google Maps, and even I knew from watching the evening news that it wasn’t an in-demand vacation destination.
Ranofur cleared his throat politely. “Might I suggest you start with your adversary? Knowing what you’re up against is one of the first rules of combat.”
“Of course!” Elena burst out. She was thinking now. “We need to locate his beginnings, the town he was born in. Mike, do you have any of that information?”
The angel shook his head.
“Davy would know,” I put in. “He sailed with him for years.”
“Good thinking,” Elena agreed. “We need to get back to the sinkhole as quickly as possible.”
Mike disagreed with a shake of his head, to the great relief of my stomach. “No can do. Skyping is the only way to go.” He pulled a laptop out of nowhere and laid it on his knees. “All we need is an internet connection and we’re all set to do a little investigative work.”
“Perfect. Where’s the nearest coffee shop?”
We all looked out the window and suddenly realized someone should have been keeping tabs on our surroundings. While we’d been discussing our options, Chico had taken us into a seamy part of town. We were at the docks. Dank, fishy-smelling air wafted in the open windows. Huge, rundown warehouses blocked the sun.
“This is just a hunch,” I guessed, “but I don’t think this is the way to the airport.”
“It’s not,” Elena whispered.
Then something happened that I didn’t believe even as I watched it take place. Chico’s dreadlocks began to writhe. They solidified into tentacles of leathery skin that crawled up the back of the driver’s seat and groped for our faces. The cabbie’s beautiful chocolate coloring faded into the disgusting bluish green of a nasty bruise. Milky yellow eyes glared maliciously at us in the rearview mirror. With a screech of brakes and a hideous roar, the monster lunged into the backseat.
“A Swaug!” Mike screamed. He and Ranofur bailed out the doors with Elena and I right behind them.
The monster made slurping, hissing noises as it slithered out of the car. Its face had elongated, its human features swelling into a rubbery snout with an impossibly bulbous nose. Arms and legs had morphed into long, snaky appendages, each topped with two feathery, ropelike fingers that were delicately ripping the rear passenger-side door off its hinges.
“The sword! The sword!” Mike was shouting at me. “Where is it?”
The Swaug lunged at me, fangs snapping shut only inches from my face.
I leaped backwards. My hands patted my pockets instinctively. The sword wasn’t there, of course. “In the makeup bag!” I shouted.
“And where is that?”
“In the backseat of the cab!”
Mike clutched his head in his hands. “You put it down?”
I remembered Davy’s warning then and shrugged helplessly. “So what do we do now?”
Ranofur had been following this exchange closely. Now he took charge. “I’ll distract it. You get the sword.”
The security guard threw himself at the Swaug, a silver mace appearing in his fist with a magician’s sleight of hand. The Swaug roared and deftly dodged the glittering spikes. Ranofur swung again. The monster ducked and counterattacked, slicing the air with a whiplike motion of its arm. I watched, entranced. Theirs was a vicious dance, performed at lightning speed.
“Get the sword!” Ranofur reminded me.
I jerked into motion, but the Swaug anticipated every move. Just as I reached the still-intact driver’s side, I felt a burning pain grip my ankle. The feathery fingers had entwined my left foot and jerked me into the air. “Ranofur, help!”
Dangling seven feet above the pavement, I watched—upside-down—as Ranofur moved in to attack the arm holding me captive. A powerful swipe of the mace took the appendage clean off. I was flung onto the roof of the car and quickly scrambled inside.
There was the pink case! It sat in the seat on the far side of the vehicle. I lunged, but just as my fingers closed around it, the car jerked beneath me. I was pitched onto the floor. With a groan of twisting metal, the car began to crumple around me.
“Ranofur!”
“Get out of there, kid!” the guard screamed.
A glance out the gaping hole where the door had been showed Ranofur struggling to free himself from a tentacle arm that wrapped around him tighter than a boa constrictor. His arms were pinned to his sides; the mace hung limply from one hand.
“Mike!” I screamed. “Elena! We could use some backup!”
The car shuddered again, shrieking like a thousand unoiled hinges. My foot was crushed under the front passenger seat as it merged with the floor. I was trapped!
“Taylor, throw me the sword!”
It was Elena.
“Where’ve you been?”
“Never mind. Just throw me the case.”
I reached for it, stretching as far as I could, but the twisting of the car had torn the back seat away from the trunk. The case had fallen among Elena’s luggage.
“I—can’t—reach—it!”
Elena dove for the open car door, but the creature swatted her away as if she was no more troublesome than a mosquito. She sailed into a nearby wall and lay still.
Then the car began sliding toward the waterfront. The tires squealed in protest. The frame shuddered and crumpled around me more tightly.
“Taylor, get out of there!” Ranofur screamed again. “The Swaug is trying to drown you!”
Only I would trap myself in a doomed automobile. With my free foot, I began pounding away at the seat binding my ankle. It wouldn’t budge. “Mike!” I screamed again.
The car slid onward. I could see the water now. The road ended at a massive steel dock. The channel beside it probably accommodated ships with a twenty-foot draft—far too deep for me to keep my nose above water. The creature’s ropy arms groped forward, twisting around trees, drains, pipes, whatever it could use to drag itself and the cab relentlessly toward the depths.
I left off kicking and twisted my body so my back was braced against the crumpled rear seat. With all my might, I strained against the metal holding my foot.
The car was on the dock now. The water was turquoise and so clear that I could see a school of fish swimming near the bottom.
“Taylor, throw me the sword!”
Elena was back with a bump on her head the size of a Mississippi bullfrog. With one last supreme effort, I wrenched the seat off my ankle and fished for the makeup case in the trunk. The front tires were over the water. The car’s underbelly shrieked as it grated against the steel of the dock.
“I got it!” I screamed.
Just as the car plunged into the ocean, I flicked the case out the door to Elena. The next moment, green seawater closed over my head.
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The story continues…
Flame of Findul, Episode 2
Now available.
“Get in the car!” Mike screamed.
We had learned to obey that tone of voice promptly. Elena tossed her bag in the trunk and dove in after it. I launched myself into the passenger s
eat. Only it wasn’t the passenger seat.
“Go! Go! Go!” Mike screamed, slamming himself in the side of the car that should have had the steering wheel.
I had driven a car exactly once in my life. I’d been six years old and sitting on my dad’s lap. But when that oversized vulture rocketed out of the heavens on a missile path toward our windshield, I didn’t hesitate. Cramming the car into gear, I shot out onto the concourse.
Follow Taylor as his quest for Findul’s forge carries him to England and plenty of new predicaments…
Or…if you can handle the intensity all at once…Taylor’s serial adventures have been consolidated into two complete novels.
Titles by Michelle Isenhoff
Taylor Davis: Flame of Findul Episode One (Serial Adventures, 1.1) Page 6