The Heart of the Phoenix

by Brian Knight

  “You knew it would be,” Torin said. “Your trip back there would have been pointless if it wasn’t.”

  “He only hoped,” Tracy said, giving Ronan a wise sideways glance.

  “I suspected,” Ronan corrected.

  “I would love it if someone told me what was going on here,” Michael said. His hand rested on the butt of his service weapon, and he watched the second door, the one in the sepulcher, with a nervous intensity. “Does this mean we can get out of here now?”

  “My other form is somewhat limited,” Ronan said.

  “Meaning?” Michael took his eyes off the door for a second to glare in Ronan’s direction.

  “It doesn’t have hands,” Ronan snapped. “I couldn’t install the other doorknob, only leave it where it’ll be found.”

  Penny, Katie, and Ellen regarded each other through this exchange. Flanna kept a distance from them, focusing on helping Jaiden with her wand work. The new girl seemed to be a quick learner, embracing the strangeness around her with little more than a mental shrug if it meant helping rescue her father from the sinister circus.

  June Riggs stood by herself, arms crossed and her back to the rest of them, ignoring them completely until Ronan’s latest pronouncement.

  “Who do you expect to find it?” June turned back to them and shouted. “If Dogwood isn’t there, who’s going to look for a door in the middle of nowhere and a doorknob laying in the dirt?”

  “Zoe,” Penny said. “Zoe will come back.”

  “You think so?” Tracy seemed more curious than doubtful.

  “Yes,” Penny said.

  “Absolutely,” Ellen said.

  “Wouldn’t you have?” Katie asked her aunt with more curiosity than doubt.

  “I did,” Tracy said, and smiled. “It just took a while longer than I would have liked. “

  June Riggs grunted her disgust with the whole lot of them, crossed her arms, and turned away again.

  There was a pop, loud enough to startle them all, and Erasmus’s foul tempered bird reappeared.

  “You’re about to have company,” the Miniature Plumed King said. “And they don’t look very friendly.”

  * * *

  The Cardinal approached on foot, the fat avian waddling through the tall grass with a half-dozen of his human and humanoid associates close behind him. His fellow avians, another half-dozen mixed tribe fliers, held a loose formation above, and it was the airborne members of the mercenary gang that spotted the Phoenix Girls and their friends.

  They screeched and dropped, skimming low over the heads of their landed friends, and the charge began.

  “Now,” Susan shouted, and leapt into the air.

  Penny watched her for just a second, amazed by the spectacular figure of her godmother flying without a broom or a bike, only her wand.

  She remembered Ronan once saying that Susan had been like a bird.

  She took off after her, and saw Katie and Ellen flanking as they rose to meet the airborne mercenaries. A quick look below showed Ronan leading the charge over land. Michael, Bowen, Jaiden, and Erasmus, who was too pudgy to run, stayed behind to guard the hollow.

  Even flying into danger, Susan’s exhilaration was too great to contain. She whooped as the wind whipped her hair around her head, and she fired a rapid flurry of bolts at the oncoming avians, scattering them.

  Three of the fliers fired back, Susan ducked and dodged between them, and the other three fliers threw spears that fell far short of the mark.

  Penny, Katie, and Ellen kept formation and flew through the scattered avians, firing on those with wands, ignoring the others until they regrouped and swarmed Susan. They surrounded and boxed her in, forcing her toward the ground.

  Penny sent a jet of Phoenix Fire, not at Susan’s attackers, but at Susan. It enveloped her, sheathed her, and when her attackers sent more short shafted spears at her, the fire consumed them before they touched her.

  Katie left formation and flew her bike straight into them, kicking one between the legs, hitting another in the chest with her front tire. She sent a fireball at the third, setting his wing on fire. He veered off, screeching, then crash landed in the middle of the fight below.

  Susan and Ellen took off after the three remaining fliers, dodging magical bolts and returning them. Ellen blasted one in the chest, sending him flying backward in a flurry of dark feathers, and Susan frightened the others off, her shield of Phoenix Fire still burning hot.

  Penny was about to join the fight on the ground when the Cardinal rose up before her. He fired, and she veered away, but too slowly. His bolt exploded against her bike, knocking the rear wheel off.

  “I know who you are,” he laughed at her, a staccato squawking that hurt her ears. “Tynan will be very grumpy when he hears you got out.”

  Penny shot a stream of Phoenix Fire at him, and he blocked it with a shield. The flames surrounded him in a perfect sphere, but didn’t touch him. A moment later the shield popped like a bubble, and the flames rained down on the combatants below. Penny extinguished them before they could fall on her friends, and in her second of distraction a flurry of bolts took her bike out from beneath her.

  Penny screamed as she fell, squeezed her eyes shut against the coming pain, and was scooped out of the air by large, hairy arms.

  “Hello, Little Red,” Ronan said. “Thanks for dropping in.”

  Penny laughed as Ronan set her on her feet, took a moment to take in the battle around her, and squared off against a tall tattooed man.

  He grinned and brandished his wand at her like a sword.

  Penny returned the grin and burst into flame.

  Beside her, Flanna opened fire, but the tattooed man blocked her shot without looking.

  His smile was gone though. He regarded Penny’s flaming figure with wide eyes and a nervous backward shuffle.

  The men behind him matched his retreat step for step, firing as they backed away from Penny’s flames. One struck Ronan, staggering, but not stopping him.

  Penny shot a fiery bolt at the man who had shot Ronan, but weakened as he ran away, screaming and in flames. She killed the flames before they could do more than singe him, and a moment later Ellen swooped down and struck him with her bike, knocking him sprawling.

  Ellen and Katie landed behind the retreating mercenaries.

  “Not another step,” Katie screamed at them, and when one turned with his wand raised, two bolts took him down.

  Ronan pushed past Penny, holding a disarmed mercenary before him by the scruff of his neck.

  “Drop your wands and surrender,” Torin advised. “You can’t spend my brother’s gold if you’re dead.”

  The remaining mercenaries regarded each other, then the unconscious bodies of their fallen comrades, and dropped their remaining wands, spears, and crossbows.

  “Flanna, go get Erasmus,” Torin said.

  “I’ll get him,” Penny said, and closed her eyes.

  Rocky, we need Erasmus.

  She heard his acknowledgement in her head, and said, “He’s coming.”

  “Where’s Susan?” Ronan scanned the air above them and saw no sign of Susan or the Cardinal.

  Penny saw that he was bleeding from a cut to his chest, and another on his snout. Looking around she saw other minor wounds, her father still favored the shoulder injured in their escape from the citadel, Flanna’s robe was torn, her hair messed, and a trickle of blood ran from one nostril, Tracy was bent over Nancy, attempting to revive her.

  “She went after the fat red bird,” Ellen said. “He saw we were winning and took off toward town.”

  “I’m going after them,” Katie said, and began to mount her bike, when they heard a distant pained squawk.

  “I think she got him,” Flanna said.

  “Well done!” Erasmus waddled toward them, his top hat discarded, his tentacles waving wildly in his excitement. Two of them held wands, and he clutched a third in his right hand. June was close behind him.

  “Where is she?”
She scanned the combatants, then focused on Penny. “Where’s my sister?”

  Penny saw an alien expression on her least favorite teacher’s face: concern.

  “There she is,” Ronan said, and though she strained, it was several more seconds before Penny saw her returning.

  “Put your hoodoo on them, Erasmus,” Tracy said, walking arm in arm with Nancy. “Give them a good long timeout.”

  While Erasmus was adding the mercenaries to their growing collection of snoozing enemies, the others watched Susan fly.

  “She’s not slowing,” Nancy said. She moved to Penny’s side and dropped an arm over her shoulder, an uncharacteristic show of affection from the woman she’d once called mother.

  She didn’t slow, and didn’t join the others on the ground. She continued on toward the hollow, and Penny felt the first twitch of alarm. A moment later she dropped out of the sky, firing as she descended, dodging bolts that flew up at her.

  Katie and Ellen mounted their bikes and flew toward the hollow. Flanna conjured one of her jump gates and held it open while the others poured through, Penny and Flanna herself last.

  They emerged into chaos.

  * * *

  The first thing Penny saw was flying gray men. She ducked as one flew over her head and through the collapsing jump gate. There was screaming, a confusion of bodies and limbs, and then a massive scaly tail swept Torin and Tracy from their feet.

  The great horned head of Turoc, the snakeman, rose above her, grinning his jagged grin, his slitted yellow eyes burning into her. Penny felt the wound in her shoulder from the great serpent’s bite flaring up, but not with the same intensity as when he’d first bitten her. She grimaced and pushed the pain away, and conjured a ball of Phoenix Fire in the open palm of her left hand. She conjured a shield with the wand in her right to deflect his striking fangs, and stumbled back a step from the force of his impact.

  Bolts flew at him from every direction, most skipping off the hard scales covering the length of his body. Penny threw her fireball against the ground beneath him, and he retreated from the flames.

  “Don’t let him into the sepulcher,” Torin shouted. “Stop him!”

  Tracy, Nancy, and Susan blocked his path, and Erasmus joined them, his goggles down. Turoc was quick to lower his gaze, and Penny saw a flash of reflected light as he raised a polished metal disc, a mirror that caught Erasmus’s gaze and fired it back at him. The strange monk went still, his unfocused eyes pointing up at the sky. Turoc swatted him aside, and Ronan caught him before he hit the ground.

  “No!” Penny screamed as she saw Jaiden rush in where Erasmus had stood. “Get away from him.”

  Jaiden’s eyes darted to Penny for a moment, then back to the monster rearing up above her. She aimed her miniature wand at Turoc, and sprayed him in the face with a jet of water.

  Turoc blinked in surprise, sputtered, and reeled backward.

  Tracy, Nancy, and Susan fired at him, hitting his unarmored belly.

  The regrouping homunculi surrounded him and began to grab hold. Rocky climbed his scaly back and began to pummel him.

  Ronan rejoined the fight, snarling, and punched his old nemesis in the face. He reached for one of Turoc’s wands, but was too slow. Turoc jabbed Ronan in the chest with his wand tip and fired a bolt of purple energy that blasted Ronan off his feet. He hit the ground twitching.

  Another swipe of his powerful tail swept the ground around him clear of enemies. He sprang forward, struck at Tracy, barely missed her throat as Nancy yanked her aside.

  Katie joined the fray with a bolt of her purple lightning.

  Turoc screamed in pain, but bore the attack and returned fire, blasting both Katie and Ellen to the ground.

  “Leave them alone!”

  Penny froze at the sound of that voice. Everybody froze.

  Ellen was the first to acknowledge it. “Zoe?”

  They all turned, even Turoc paused in his assault, and saw Zoe framed in the open door back to the real Earth they had left behind. She rushed through, two women close behind her. Penny knew the first woman from her recent stay in Dogwood, Zoe’s mother, and the second from photographs. The women saw Katie and Ellen laid out on the ground where the dirt of Aurora Hollow turned into the stone floor of the sepulcher, stirring to rise, and rushed to them. Zoe paced them, covering Turoc with her wand.

  “You,” Turoc said, and grinned. “I hoped I would meet you again.”

  “I kinda hoped you were dead,” Zoe said.

  “That can be arranged,” boomed a voice from the other side of the open door, and a furry brown giant began to squeeze its way through the doorway. The doorframe creaked and groaned as the thing’s bulky chest swelled through. One foot cleared the threshold, then the second, as it straightened to its full height.

  “What new monster is this?” Torin screamed, backing away.

  The fighting had stopped, Dana and Janet Beale, also known as Manic Jan of The Blowhards, were pulling Katie and Ellen to safety, and everyone else was staring open mouthed at the new monster that had followed Zoe into the hollow.

  “Calm down,” Janet said. The thick glasses from her high school photo were gone, her hair was short, spiked up, and also rainbow colored, but there was no mistaking her. “It’s only Reggie.”

  Reggie, or rather a large tawny bear that stood even taller than Ronan and made the ground shake when he stomped in Turoc’s direction, spoke again.

  “Is this guy bothering you?”

  Turoc hissed and coiled to spring.

  Roots exploded from the ground beneath the serpent, thick roots that twisted around him, bound him to the ground, slipped and slithered around his long torso and pressed his arms to his side.

  Penny saw Zoe with one palm pressed to the trunk of one of the magic door’s supporting trees, eyes closed.

  Turoc shouted in frustration, then struck out at the only one still in reach, Reggie.

  He didn’t come close.

  Reggie boxed the serpent on the side of its huge, horned head with one massive paw, almost casually it seemed.

  They all heard the thud, the crack that sent Turoc’s head flopping back, then lolling forward. Penny watched the crimson brand on his forehead fade to a dim rose color, then disappear.

  “Dad!” Zoe almost shrieked. “You didn’t have to actually kill him!”

  The giant bear fell back to all four paws and regarded the clearly dead monster suspended in front of him.

  “He would have killed you if he had a chance,” Reggie said. “Now he won’t get one.”

  “I’m not complaining,” Torin said.

  The roots retracted, slipping back beneath the earth, and Turoc hit the ground at Reggie’s paws.

  “June,” Susan called out, and when her sister poked her face through the hanging willow limbs and peered down into the hollow, Susan waved her down. “If you want to get out of Dogwood, this is the way.”

  June did not move, only stared past Susan, then screamed.

  “Bear!”

  “We know, Miss Riggs,” Penny said.

  “Don’t worry,” Ellen said. “He’s very friendly.”

  June looked from Reggie, who was on his hind legs again to see her over the crowd, to the dead monster at his feet, and ran away still shrieking.

  “You should change back, dear,” Dana said. Her voice was still low, but no longer incomprehensible. “You’re scaring people.”

  Reggie gave a low growl and fell back to all fours. “Yes dear.”

  The giant bear faded to mist, then faded away entirely, and a few seconds later Reggie stepped through the open magic door in his human body.

  “Zoe said if there was a way back, it would be here.” He bent to give Zoe a brief hug. “She said you’d all be here waiting, but I didn’t expect this big of a fuss.”

  “We have some catching up to do,” Janet said, looking from Susan, to Tracy, to Nancy. “But I guess I’ll have to settle for an abridged version.”

  “Penny,” Zoe said
, finally finding her best friend in the crowd. Tears welled in her eyes as she first walked, then ran to Penny, and threw a fierce hug on her. After a moment she reached out and grabbed Katie by the sleeve of her shirt and pulled her close. Ellen joined them, and the circle was complete again.

  “I’m sorry I left,” Zoe said.

  She straightened, wiped her eyes, and caught sight of Flanna standing next to Jaiden.

  “This is all your fault!” Zoe broke from her friends, stormed over to Flanna. “You did this!”

  “Zoe, I…I,” Flanna stammered. “I’m sorr…”

  Zoe punched her in the face.

  Chapter 19

  Return of the Blood King

  Five minutes later they were back on the grassy hill above the hollow, Zoe glaring at Flanna, but held in check by Katie, Ellen, and her mother.

  Flanna stood surrounded by Susan, who dabbed at her split lip with the tail of her shirt, Penny, Nancy, and Torin. Penny was trying not to take sides in the fight, but couldn’t help being impressed by Zoe’s unexpected ferocity.

  Erasmus was still asleep, knocked out cold by the reflection of his own hypnotic eyeballs, but was stirring a little. Jaiden sat next to him, serenely picking the last of the booming clovers around her and putting them in his tangle of dreadlocks.

  Michael, Bowen, and Reggie stood a little way off, speaking quietly with each other.

  Rocky and the rest of the homunculi had returned to their posts surrounding the hollow, watching out for the reinforcements from Galatania.

  “Are you sure you’re okay?” Penny’s loyalty between her old friend and her new sister was pulling her in two directions.

  Flanna rubbed at her swollen lips and examined them for blood again, but the flow seemed to have stopped.

  “I’m fine. Go see your friend.” She suddenly couldn’t hold Penny’s gaze. “Tell her I’m sorry for what I did.”

  Penny nodded. She would, but was doubtful Zoe would listen. Katie and Flanna were still nursing their grudges, and Zoe was not likely to forgive her soon.

  Penny was walking to her friends when Reggie waved Torin over to him, and Flanna was left with no one but Susan and Nancy to protect her, should Zoe try for a second round.