Sonora and the Scroll of Alexandria (Book #2)

by T. S. Hall

  “Cy, I need to get in there,” she spoke in her uncle’s voice.

  “No one gains access to Zeus’s chambers,” Cy said emphatically.

  “I don’t have much time. Someone is following my every move. I know that there is something hidden in there, and it may be our only hope in saving this world. You’ve got to let me in.”

  “No,” Cy answered in a booming voice, standing and towering over Uncle Ben.

  The tension was palpable, and Ben had to take a step back from the giant.

  “Fine,” Ben said, putting up his palms in a show of surrender. “Just promise me that you’ll at least look inside.” Ben looked defeated. Cy nodded and sat back down, blinking his only eye. “And, Cy, you must protect whatever is in there with your life.”

  The memory began to fade. The image flashed, and the voice became garbled. Pain pierced Allora’s skull, like a nail being driven inside. Her eyes blinked, and a faded image of her friends came into view. She started saying something without meaning to.

  “Cyclops,” she repeated three times before realizing where she was. Allora grabbed her head on the sides, as the headache pain decreased. She was on the ground, with everyone crowded around her.

  “Back up, and give her some room,” Tanner said, motioning with his arms. “You all right?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine.”

  “Are you sure we shouldn’t get her to a doctor?” Brandon asked. “That looked like you had a seizure”

  “Yeah, that happens,” Allora said, grabbing her skull to relieve the pain.

  Brandon got to his feet. Everyone else got back to building the float when Allora got up.

  “You kept saying ‘cyclops.’ What does that mean?” Katie asked.

  “I don’t know, but we need to find this cyclops now,” Allora said, trying to walk forward and falling to her knees. Her eyes blinked, and she almost fainted again.

  “We can ask Mr. Swan about it tomorrow,” Katie said, grabbing Allora’s arm and leading her over to a lawn chair.

  “Where did Marcus go?” Allora asked.

  “He just took off in his car when you collapsed,” Tanner said, kneeling down next to Allora. “Why? Does he have something to do with your memory?”

  “No, but I think he’s up to something.”

  Katie led Allora to the car as Tanya screamed over to them, “Where are you going? The float isn’t done.”

  “We need to get Allora some medicine,” Katie shouted back.

  “Great. I’ve lost Marcus, and now I’m losing you four,” Tanya yelled, glancing around at her dwindling workforce. Brandon tried to sneak away but was caught by Tanya’s wandering eyes. “And where do you think you’re going? Get back over here right now, and get to work. We only have a few hours, and I’m not going to be the laughingstock of Sandy High.”

  The sky turned a light shade of blue, and the birds started their morning spring song as Tanner peeled out in his Bronco. They kept searching for any sign of Marcus. As they got closer to the high school, Katie screamed and pointed down a road that they’d passed. Tanner backed up and took a sharp turn, stopping a hundred feet from a very familiar house. It was the Nelsons’ house, and there was a car parked right near the rosebushes where Allora had hidden a year ago.

  Without saying a word, they all got out of the car and snuck around the side of the abandoned house. Proceeding through the laundry room window, Allora unlocked the back door and then inched through the living room, staying near the walls. They could hear a muffled voice coming from the basement. It got louder as Marcus began walking up the stairs. Allora’s eyes grew wide, and she waved her hands frantically.

  Hiding behind the curtains, Allora peeked out to see Marcus talking on a communication bracelet. The other image was hidden, so she couldn’t see who he was talking with.

  “No, that’s just it. We know that it has something to do with a cyclops, but I have no idea what that would be,” Marcus said, closing the basement door. On his back was a sword. “All I know is that I’ve been compromised. I need to come in for debriefing.”

  Just as he said this, the floorboard underneath Allora creaked, causing Marcus to freeze. She quickly pulled a knife from the strap on her thigh, ran out from behind the curtains, and lunged toward Marcus, who was spinning around while pulling his sword out. Allora kicked forward, knocking his grip on the hilt and sending the sword clanking toward the other room. Marcus grabbed her wrist and swiped the knife from her grasp. She pushed a hand on his chest as the others joined in. Marcus was able to counter a few of the attacks, but he was outnumbered. Tanner shoved his knee into Marcus’s lower back and dropped him to the floor. He pulled out a knife and placed it against Marcus’s throat, pressing it firmly against his skin.

  “Wait, wait!” he screamed, his hands out. “I’m not your enemy!”

  “Start talking,” Tanner said, pulling up on the knife. A line of red formed, dripping down his neck.

  “I was sent here by the guardian council at Shangri-La.”

  “Why should we believe you?” Allora asked.

  “You have no reason to believe me, but I’m telling you the truth,” he said with a determined stare. “Almas sent me here. He, and the council, wanted to know why Salazar has such an interest in this area.”

  Tanner’s grip released slightly. Allora cocked her head back, and Tanner pulled the knife away, pushing Marcus forward. He glared back while wiping the blood away from his neck.

  “Who were you talking with, and why were you sent here?” Tanner asked.

  “That’s classified.” Katie pulled out her Katana and placed it underneath his chin. “The council wanted to know why Salazar had such an interest in this town. They wanted to know what you four were up to, especially after the incidences in Shangri-La.”

  “How did they know where to find us?” Allora asked. “That information is supposed to be unknown to the council.”

  “You really thought that the presence of a shifter, rover, and wraith in one place would go unnoticed? The energy output that you produced last year when you killed those assassins spiked every piece of detection equipment that we have. We have never seen that much energy in one Sonoran.”

  “I don’t think that we can trust him,” Tanner said.

  “Look, I don’t blame you if you don’t, but trust me when I tell you that you four need to get out of this town immediately. I’ve been tracking the individual who has been sending out communication relays to someone within the royal guard. Those encoded messages came from here. I don’t really know who you guys are, but Salazar seems to want whatever you have.”

  “How do we know that you’re not working for Hades?” Allora asked.

  “Because Hades was responsible for my parents’ deaths.”

  They remained silent, contemplating what to do. Allora looked at her watch. The time was almost eight in the morning.

  “They’re going to be starting the parade soon,” she said.

  “What about him?” Dax asked, pointing to Marcus.

  “We take him with us,” Tanner said, grabbing duct tape from the kitchen drawer and wrapping it around Marcus’s wrists. “We’ll tie him up and put him in the maintenance room until we can verify who he is.”

  “Isn’t that a little savage?” Katie asked, sympathetic to the cute, scared boy sitting on his knees.

  “Not right now,” Tanner said, lifting Marcus up by his bound wrists.

  They walked through the woods toward the football field, which was filled with people and floats. Tanya was busy barking orders, trying to make last-minute preparations. They proceeded to scurry behind the building, entering the school through the back double doors.

  “You don’t understand what you’re doing!” Marcus pleaded continuously, trying to make his case as Tanner grabbed rope in the back corner of the maintenance room. The cement floor was a slightly different color of gray, having been newly poured since their escape from the watery crypt below. “We are on the same side. I can help you.�
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  “Since you’ve been lying to us this entire time, I don’t know that we can trust you,” Allora said, placing a strip of duct tape over Marcus’s mouth as Tanner tied him firmly to a drainage pipe. “If you’re still here when we get back, I may consider your argument.”

  Marcus struggled, trying to get himself loose from the tape that secured him.

  “Sorry,” Katie mouthed to Marcus as she left the room.

  “Now what?” Dax asked.

  “Well, this girl has a May Day court engagement to attend,” Katie said, running her hand through Allora’s dark-brown hair. They made their way toward the football field, while Katie tried fruitlessly to get the knots out of Allora’s hair. “Seriously, we need to get a brush because this hair is not ready for a parade.”

  “I could care less about this thing,” Allora said as they got to the stairway down to the field. “We need to find the cyclops. He may know where the last cube is located.”

  As they walked up, people started to leave in a hurry. Their bracelets began to vibrate all at once.

  “Why do I have a feeling like something bad just happened?” Dax asked.

  Milly ran down toward the field, motioning them aggressively with her hand. They ran over as she got into her van.

  “We need to go,” Milly said, from the driver’s side window.

  “What’s going on?” Allora asked as they all climbed in.

  “We just got word from Shangri-La that one of our bases is under attack,” Milly said, flooring the gas and peeling out onto the back roads.

  “What base?” Allora asked.

  “It’s the base at Mt. Olympus in Greece,” Milly said, speeding down the road. She pulled into their driveway and slammed on the brakes. After getting into the house, Milly went to her room. Allora, Tanner, Dax, and Katie followed.

  “Can we come with you?”

  “No. It’s too dangerous,” she said, going to the wall and sparking it while rotating her palm. The wall turned to liquid, and she pulled out a large chest. She lowered the chest onto the ground, opened it, and pulled out what looked like a black plate. She placed the plate onto her chest and sparked the material. Then she spread her arms out wide as the material expanded throughout her upper body and covered it. She pulled out thigh plates and repeated. Her whole body was covered in a black suit of armor.

  “It’s a material called kamachi,” she said. “It’s the bodysuit we wear for battle.” Milly grabbed her daughter’s shoulders and looked her in the eye. “I need you and the others to go to Sas’s cave and remain there until I get back. Please promise me that you won’t go anywhere else but there.” Allora just stared back. “Allora, promise me.”

  “Fine, I promise.”

  Then Milly left the room. Sas was waiting in the backyard.

  “They have infiltrated the eastern wing of the compound somehow,” he said. Sas had a sash across his chest, with a sword sheathed on his back. He looked stern, and angry. “We need to go now.”

  “ Sas, I need you to sit this one out,” Milly said.

  “But—”

  “Sas, you know why,” she replied before he could answer. “This is not up for a debate. I can’t have you compromising the counterattack due to your emotional connection to this.”

  Milly whispered something in his ear, and then she went out the back. Aunt May gently grabbed Sas’s arm without saying a word and then followed Milly.

  “I need you four to follow me to my cave,” Sas said in a tone that was low and depressed.

  “What’s going on?” Allora asked as they hiked up the familiar forest path toward Sas’s cave.

  “We be under attack.”

  “Yeah, I got that part,” Allora said. “Does this have something to do with the cyclops?”

  Sas stopped abruptly and spun around quickly. “How do you know about the cyclops?” he asked. Sas looked scary, his eyes glaring as if he was about to attack. This was completely new. It was as if he’d been possessed. There was much more to this attack, but Allora was hesitant to prod him further. He looked as though he would crack at any minute. Tanner could see the anger in his body language and placed himself in between the two. Sas noticed the gesture and stepped back, ashamed at his actions. “I’m sorry. I….” Sas cut himself off and took off up the hill.

  They followed him, moving quickly into the cave, through the liquid wall, and down the walkway to the waterfall pool. Sas had taken off and was nowhere to be seen. Allora took the path down to the secret passage at the back of the large waterfall and into the circular room with the thirteen doorways. Tanner, Dax, and Katie came in after her.

  “Where did he go?” Katie asked.

  Allora ran her hand along the drawn-in doorways, but nothing felt out of the ordinary. Then she had an idea. She grabbed some of the dust and sand that had accumulated on the ground and threw it at the doorways. They mimicked her move.

  “Let me know if anything weird happens,” Allora said.

  After a few minutes, Tanner yelled at the others. Allora went over and watched as Tanner threw the sand against one of the doorways. It ricocheted off the wall, blasting back at them.

  Allora smiled. “Mrs. Ferris said that the residual energy of a portal will cause a sort of negative magnetic effect. Pretty cool, huh?” Allora sparked the doorway, pulling in the hadrons and doing the motions against the wall like she had been taught. The wall swirled inward and then became liquid.

  “Are you sure about this?” Dax asked.

  “We need to find out what that cyclops knows,” Allora said. “He may be the key to finding the last piece. I think that it’s somewhere in Mt. Olympus, and Hades is trying to get there first.”

  With that she went through the portal with reckless determination.

  Twenty-One

  OLYMPUS

  The night was misty and cold. Large droplets of rain pelted them as they trudged through the muddy mountainside. Without much tree cover, they had to move slowly. Through the fog, the crescent moon shone on a large cliff. It looked like the fin of a shark, jutting out of the mountain peak. Up ahead Sas was congregating with the other guardians. They turned upon hearing the heavy footsteps mushing through the thick mud.

  “Oh, hi!” Yeti said, running and giving the four a large, furry hug.

  “What are you four doing here?” Sas asked.

  “We’re here to help,” Allora said, stopping in front of the hairy creatures. Their eyes glistened in the moonlight, furiously focused on their mission.

  “You guys shouldn’t be here,” Sas said. “This is going to be dangerous.”

  “ Sas is right,” Abe added. “This is no place for children.”

  “Well, then don’t slow us down, you big ugly ape,” Dax said, patting him on the back.

  Allora crossed her arms and took a determined stance, giving no room for negotiation. The other three mimicked her, knowing that Allora had her mother’s gift of overwhelmingly stubborn persuasion.

  “All right, but you are staying with me the entire time. Got it?”

  “Got it,” they said.

  “Like I was saying, there is a back entrance that we can take. It should lead us into the main level of the fortress. It’s a pretty good bet that no one is guarding it, since they probably don’t know about it.”

  They began hiking up the steep incline, unable to port because of the inhibitor capabilities inside Mt. Olympus. The cold wind bit the tips of Allora’s fingers like metal daggers. Sudden gusts sprayed the cold rain against their faces, the moisture soaking their clothes. Nature was questioning their every step. Allora stared at the flat mountain to her left as if expecting a sudden flurry of activity, but it remained still. When everyone arrived at the top, Sas placed his palm on a round rock. Sas’s hand turned green, and he began an intricate combination of turns. Once complete, Sas disappeared into the rock wall.

  “Time to go,” Yeti said, following Sas into the secret passage.

  Allora went through next, arriving in a
chamber of obsidian, marble, and steel. It was like stepping into both the past and the future. The interior of Mt. Olympus was a mix of an ancient cavern city and the interior of a spaceship. Steel and metal covered the wall, next to perfectly polished rock. Along the corridor were the remnants of the ancient city. Walking slowly in the darkness, they drew weapons in preparation for whatever came through the black corridor. Nothing stirred in the darkness. Sas stopped suddenly. He turned his head slightly and put up his hand. He stood still with his right ear fixed forward.

  “Something’s wrong,” Sas whispered. “We should have already seen the main chamber.”

  “That is because you walked into a trap,” a voice said. The room erupted in light. The main chamber was a long assembly room hundreds of feet high, with long balconies on either side. Upon the balconies were hundreds of drow elves with arrows fixed on the small group that stood in a circle with their backs to each other. On the bottom level, they were surrounded by hooded royal guards brandishing their swords.

  “I know that voice,” Sas said with a low growl.

  Parting the line of royal guardsmen, a figure emerged. An obvious warlock strutted into view, proud at his triumph. The creature was tall, with dark-brown fur, a brown sash crossing his chest, a sword on his belt, and a smirk of eagerness.

  “Barmanu,” Sas said.

  “Hello, big brother,” Barmanu said. “I have been looking forward to this day for a very long time.”

  He paced in front of them, admiring his army. He held his chin high and walked with his arms behind his back.

  “I should have known you be behind this,” Sas said, taking a step forward. The sudden motion caused the drow elves to pull their bows taught. The familiar sound of stretching string echoed in the chamber.

  “Ah, ah,” Barmanu said. “You should be careful, brother. We wouldn’t want my elves getting angry.”

  “Brother?” Allora said.

  Barmanu’s sinister laughing made Sas shake with anger.