“Well, that certainly explains some things,” I muttered darkly. Maybe my beagle footedness wasn’t the only thing behind my lifetime of freak accidents.
I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Taylor, decisions like these are not made by accident.”
“Whatever.” I scowled and shook off Ranofur’s touch. “Don’t you have some important matters to discuss?”
He turned all business. “Yes, I do. One, never let the sword out of your sight.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I waved him off. “Check.”
“Two, all members must be armed and active in combat.” This time he looked hard at Mike, who retreated to his computer. “I had no idea how underprepared you were for this mission. I will be securing appropriate armaments directly. In the meantime, you all need some instruction in wielding the one weapon you carry.”
I was still smarting from that failure and eager to prove I could handle the sword as effectively as Elena. “I’ve already been trained in swordplay,” I announced.
Ranofur lifted one eyebrow. “Then you wouldn’t mind demonstrating for us.”
I shrugged and unzipped my makeup case.
“Oh, this ought to be good,” Elena grinned. “I’ve seen what he can do.”
Face stony, I gripped the handle with both hands and hefted the tip. The sword must have weighed five pounds. It wavered unsteadily in my hands. With a battle cry that rang in the rafters, I flung the blade in violent arcs that no monster could escape.
Ranofur’s eyebrow inched higher up his face. “Er, very good,” he managed. “But your grip could use a slight adjustment. Your strong hand should be the one holding nearest the guard.”
Elena laughed out loud.
I flung the weapon on the table. “I’m more proficient with the rapier,” I growled and vowed to never, ever admit my training had been exclusively with a tinfoil-covered wooden prop.
“You could both use some work on your technique,” Ranofur said. “May I have the sword?”
Elena retrieved it for him.
“There are four basic stances when using a long sword. The first is the front high guard.”
He held the hilt next to his ear, the blade nearly horizontal. The tip pointed slightly downward at an imagined opponent. From this position he moved into a graceful series of slashes, always returning to the original stance.
“Next is the front middle. Hold the hilt just out from your belly pointed up at your enemy’s throat. It’s useful to parry a variety of attacks and to swing into your own. If he swipes at your feet, drop the tip toward the ground and you have the front low guard.” Again he demonstrated an impressive array of movements.
“Finally, the high rear.” He held the sword over his head with both hands and brought it down in a hacking motion that would have cleaved a heifer in two.
“Now you try.”
I took the sword again and attempted each position. Holding them turned out to be harder than it looked. By the time I finished, my muscles were trembling worse than spaghetti noodles in a spin cycle. Thankfully, Elena proved no better at it than me, and Mike was far worse. I turned away from his efforts lest my contempt show all over my face.
“Very good,” Ranofur praised. “I want you to practice these moves daily. Only constant use will build up the strength it requires.
“My last discussion point is armor. Right now you have no defense against your enemy save offense. This is unacceptable.” He handed Elena and I each a pair of what appeared to be clear latex gloves.
I dangled them in front of me. “Is scrubbing public restrooms part of our training?”
“Put them on,” Ranofur commanded.
We did. Rather than the elastic feel of plastic, these were soft, as supple as a second skin and completely invisible. They reached nearly to our elbows. “What are these?” Elena wondered.
“Schmiel gloves. They are your most important defense. They’re impenetrable. They will block anything your enemy can throw at you.”
“Awesome! Do you have body suits made of this stuff?” I asked.
“They’re in beta testing right now. Unfortunately, they impart such a total sense of security that the wearer enters a coma. We then find the suit impossible to remove.”
I ripped the gloves off.
“Put them back on, Taylor. They’re safe. And leave them on.”
As I reluctantly complied, Ranofur addressed us. “Are the two of you clear on the next step of your mission?”
“We take the first plane to Southampton,” I said. Elena expressed her agreement.
“Very good. I’ll be taking my leave then.”
“What?” Elena and I yelped together. I glanced over at Mike, who was already back at his laptop and totally absorbed in cleaning the screen with a disposable wet wipe. Suddenly the odds of surviving that plane ride seemed to diminish.
“I have an important errand I must attend to. I’ll meet you in Southampton.”
“But where—?” I began.
Too late. We were alone with the dunderhead.
Lesson #7
Sightseeing Is More Fun at High Speed
Crunch!
I bolted upright. I’d fallen asleep in the back of a plane, lulled by the drone of the engine and the incredible stupidity of the in-flight movie. The light was dim. My neck felt as if someone had inserted a car jack between my fourth and fifth vertebrae and given it a few good pumps, and I became aware of a suspicious dampness on my chin.
“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty,” Elena chirped. While we waited for our departure, I had dried my iPod under the airport hand dryer and she had done a little shopping. Now, other than some bruising under her eye, she looked like a Nike ad with her snug-fitting athletic suit and perfect composure—not like she’d just slept for four thousand nightmare-laden miles. I was afraid to look in the mirror.
I dragged my shirt sleeve over my chin as inconspicuously as possible. “It’s morning already?”
“It is here. Back home it’s still the middle of the night.” She used that sickeningly cheerful voice teachers employed when they were about to deliver a pop quiz. I groaned. I hated morning people. “What time is it?”
“Dominican or European?” she asked as she bit into a dill pickle. Crunch!
“Surprise me.”
“It’s 5:46 as the British await us. We land in fifty minutes.”
“Do you always eat pickles for breakfast?”
“Do you have a problem with that?” Some of the cheerful left her voice.
“Me? No. No problem.”
Her lips formed around some comment I probably wouldn’t have found flattering, but a sound like the intermittent firing of a dirt bike motor interrupted us. Mike leaned against the window of the plane, mouth open, head back, giving his tonsils an aerobic workout.
I shook my head mournfully. “How did I manage to get assigned to the biggest coward in the history of guardian angels?”
“He means well,” Elena said in his defense.
I snorted. “His good intentions are going to get us killed. He’s totally worthless.”
“Ranofur can handle the heavy stuff. And Mike is a whiz with technology,” she pointed out. “I didn’t know angels could, you know, specialize in stuff like that.”
“So he’s a coward and a geek.”
“I think you’re being overly hard on him. Think about it, Davis. Someone with his skills may be really handy to have along on this trip.”
Mike chose that moment to choke himself awake. He fumbled in his shirt pocket and drew out a tube of nasal spray, squirted some into each nostril, and yawned blearily. Then his head fell forward and his wig obscured his face.
“I’ll try not to let my enthusiasm get out of hand,” I pronounced with a sour twist of my lip.
A flight attendant delivered a glass of orange juice to the man across the aisle from me. “Could I have one of those, too, please?” Elena asked her.
“Certainly, miss.”
Elena bit into
another pickle. I tore open the bag of peanuts I saved from last night’s movie. “You live in quite a shack,” I said, popping a handful in my mouth. “What exactly does your dad do?”
“He inherited my grandfather’s sugarcane plantations.”
“Ah,” I said. “That explains it.”
“It’s not what you think. The land was worthless. Dad studied agriculture in America and brought the soil back to life, but he made his money in real estate investments.”
The flight attendant returned with the orange juice. Elena took a swig then shoved the rest of her pickle in her mouth. I shuddered involuntarily and concentrated on pretending my peanuts weren’t stale.
“I envy you,” I admitted. “Growing up on land that’s been in your family for generations. You have no idea what it’s like to be uprooted from your home.”
“Who told you that?”
I looked up in surprise. “It’s the truth, isn’t it?”
“I lived in America for eight years.”
She must have read my confusion. “My mom is from Montana,” she went on. “She and Dad met at college. They married, but my mom couldn’t handle the tropics. She and I returned to Montana when I was four. I came back to live with my dad last year.”
My whole impression of Elena changed in an instant. She wasn’t just a spoiled rich brat. Well, she was, but now we had something in common. “Do you like it in the Dominican?” I asked.
“It’s not so bad, though I do miss the horses.”
“Shoot, I’d give anything to go back to New Jersey.”
“What’s so great about it?” She didn’t sound scornful. She wanted to know.
I shrugged. “Home is home. I wasn’t anyone special, but I had friends who liked me anyway. I belonged. On the island I’m just the sunburned new kid.”
“So why’d you move here?”
“Because my paper route wouldn’t pay the rent after Dad left for his new job.”
She let my cynicism slide. “Yeah, I guess it wouldn’t. So, how long do you have to stay?”
“‘Indefinitely’ is the word Dad used.”
Crunch!
“How many of those things are you going to eat?” I grouched.
She grinned and held up a 32-ounce jar. “Want one?”
“Gross.” I wadded up the cellophane peanut wrapper and tossed it onto my tray table. It was quickly snatched up by a passing flight attendant.
“You know, you can always leave the island when you’re eighteen,” Elena mentioned. “Go to college in the States. That’s not very many years away.”
“If we live that long. I hear Swaugs tend to bump up the mortality rate.”
She snickered, then burst out laughing. Maybe I liked her better in the morning.
“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. This is your captain speaking. We will be touching down in five minutes. Let me be the first to welcome you to Southampton, England.”
Thirty minutes later, Mike, Elena, and I were stepping out the glass entrance of the Southampton International Airport. The breeze off the English Channel had some teeth in it; I was glad I remembered to pack a hoodie.
“Where are we meeting Ranofur?” I asked Mike. His wig was beginning to resemble a Lhasa Apso that had taken itself for a romp through a wind tunnel, but he hadn’t tried any dance moves since before the Swaug.
“At the hotel. I booked a suite of rooms at the Best Western in Chilworth. It’s just down the M27 motorway.”
“You’re sure? You’ve been here before?”
I suppose my derision was radiating off me in waves, because he answered with forced bravado and a horrible British accent that didn’t go with his deteriorating costume at all. “Of course I have, old chap. Set your worries aside. One doesn’t live to be as old as I am without getting to Southampton once or twice.”
I reminded myself that we had GPS.
Elena was down to one piece of luggage, a brand-new carry-on that she toted behind us. She paused to stretch, pressing her hands into the small of her back as we waited for Mike to hail a cab. She pushed dark curls off her forehead and gazed up at the overcast sky. “Not too cheery a place, is it?”
It was that dreary hour past dawn when the sun was still too weak to burn away the clouds but nobody really cared because all they wanted to do was crawl under a blanket and go back to sleep. At least if they were anything like me.
“What kind of bird is that?” Elena asked, pointing to a largish bird wheeling over the airport. “Some kind of falcon?”
I glanced up, not really interested. “Could be. Say, did you see a vending machine anywhere? I sure could use a Mountain Dew.”
“This early in the morning?”
“The taxi’s here, kids.” Mike called us over to a cab that could have been the offspring of a minivan and a roller skate. The driver had already popped open the trunk hatch to accommodate Elena’s suitcase, but she was still focused skyward. “You know, I think that bird is getting bigger.”
I didn’t bother to look. “It’s probably just flying lower.”
“No, it’s growing.” A note of alarm sneaked into her voice.
I shaded my eyes from the brighter gloom of the sky. The bird had nearly doubled in size. I could see it swelling as I watched. Then it swooped into a dive and got a lot bigger. In a hurry.
“Get in the car!” Mike screamed. “It’s a Churkon!”
We had learned to obey that tone of voice promptly. Elena tossed her bag in the trunk and dove in after it. Mike knocked the driver on his rear with an apologetic, “Sorry, you’ll be safer,” and I launched myself into the passenger seat. 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. “Where to?” I yelped.
“Just stay on pavement.”
He would name the very thing I was quickly running out of. “Mike! Which way?”
“It doesn’t matter. Just drive!”
Suddenly, something the size of a bloated elephant slammed into the back of the cab. I caught a glimpse of scaly black wings as the tires screamed, and I fought to keep the vehicle under control. Elena threw herself into a seat and yanked a seatbelt across her lap as I skidded into traffic.
“It was scanning for us. Somehow the Churkon caught wind of us,” Mike explained.
The road ended at a roundabout. “Are you kidding me?” I wailed and threw the wheel to the left. You haven’t experienced a true adrenaline rush until you’ve taken a roundabout at forty miles per hour with a bloodthirsty pterodactyl chasing you.
“There!” Mike gestured as we rocketed past a turnoff for the third time. I got it on the next pass. I’m pretty sure I was the first one to ever do it on two wheels.
Motorists kindly made way for us as we screeched onto the thoroughfare. The city skyline lay in the frame of the windshield as green fields quickly gave way to the geometric outline of buildings. But not for long. A giant black wing covered the glass just as the roof of the car crumpled in. Eight-inch claws protruded through the metal.
“Mike, I can’t see!”
I was swerving like a lunatic with the gas pedal pegged. The creature’s wing must have caught an updraft because it ripped away. So did the roof.
“Taylor, where’s the sword?”
“In my backpack.”
I shrugged out of it and tossed it to him. In a moment he was standing waist-high in our new convertible with the sword poised in high guard position. Just another morning commute in Southampton.
“Can you kill it?” Elena asked.
“No. I’m just trying to keep it off the car so it doesn’t kill us. Drive faster, Taylor!”
“It doesn’t go any
faster!”
The wind yanked Mike’s wig off his head. In the rearview mirror, I watched it roll down the motorway like a sick tumbleweed until an eighteen-wheeler put it out of its misery. All had been silent for several minutes when Mike pulled himself back inside and I dared to ask, “Is it gone?”
“It’s about a quarter mile back.”
“What’s the plan?” Elena asked.
“We keep going straight ahead and get ourselves to the waterfront.”
The miles move along pretty quickly at the speed we were traveling. I had already squealed through several intersections, horn blaring, ignoring the traffic lights. In a matter of minutes I reached another roundabout. I threw the taxi into the curve and held on.
Mike was navigating on his laptop. Halfway around the circle he waved frantically. “Cut through the park. It’s more direct.”
I jounced over the curb, narrowly avoiding an oncoming car and a pair of early morning joggers, and screeched onto a walking path.
“Follow it all the way to the end.”
That involved crossing two more roads. At the third, the grass ran out and a line of buildings blocked our path. I swung hard to the right and careened around a corner.
“The Churkon is gaining on us!” Elena called from the backseat.
I blasted around another corner. Suddenly, a section of medieval castle loomed in front of us, right in the middle of the road. I had no choice but to steer through the middle of the archway.
“That was the Bargate,” Mike informed us as we shot out the back side. “Built in the twelfth century, it’s one of the most popular tourist sites in the city.”
“Glad we got to see it,” I mumbled.
“Taylor, go, go! It’s right behind us!” Elena screamed.
I floored the accelerator but another heavy thud sent the taxi spinning across an intersection, straight into the corner of a building. We hit backward. The impact caved in the rear hatch and exploded the air bags.
I glanced around, stunned. “Is everyone okay?” Elena gave a feeble nod.
“Out! Out!” Mike ordered, pawing through the deflated fabric. “To the church!”
The heavy stone face and towering steeple of an ancient church dominated the end of the street about a hundred yards away. I grabbed the sword and we started sprinting, but I knew we’d never make it. The Churkon seemed to know it, too. With a hoarse cry, the creature swooped over our heads and landed on the pinnacle of the steeple.
Taylor Davis and the Flame of Findul (Taylor Davis, 1) Page 5
