Tala Phoenix and the Dragon's Lair

by Gabby Fawkes

  Tala Phoenix and the Dragon’s Lair

  Gabby Fawkes

  Dragonfire Press

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  1

  Kill us now please, my PV (AKA the psycho dragon voice inside my head) said.

  -If you keep complaining and distracting me, you might just have your wish, I responded.

  Several rocks tumbled down from the cave ceiling. It creaked ominously.

  At this rate, my wish shall be granted shortly, my PV said.

  "Tala…" Demi said nervously, twining a finger in her long, light brown curls.

  "This is ridiculous," Persephone said, her pale, angelic face looking less than angelic with its dark scowl. "I should just go out there, and blast her with-"

  "That's my friend you're talking about," I warned. "And no one is blasting Sammy with anything."

  At that moment, the loudest and most powerful gust of wind yet blasted in from outside, sending spikes of rain digging into my bare arms.

  "You’re right, we should just wait here until she buries us all underneath hundreds of tons of rock," Persephone muttered sarcastically, tossing her blonde, curly-haired head.

  I pretended that I hadn't heard her, although my eyes narrowed instinctively. I still wasn’t sure whether her finally joining us on Olympus was a good thing. For someone who was supposed to be Demi's daughter, she was majorly different from her. More like what you’d get if you combined Aphrodite and Jenna…

  "Sammy’s just dealing with some adolescent hormones, is all," I said hopefully.

  Crack!

  I winced. Yep, that sounded like a tree snapping.

  Amidst the dank smell of the cave, a waft of pine whooshed in.

  I shook some sandy hair out of my eyes so I could see better, then looked pleadingly to Axel. He had a muscle working away in his jaw, and, below his dark thrash of hair, his sculpted face was a pale mask of rage, his icy blue eyes knives.

  "I’m warning you,” he said. “If your friend doesn't calm down soon, I’m going out there myself."

  "It's not her fault," I protested. "She just found out that her parents were murdered. Artemis should have found a way to break it to her better."

  It wasn’t like Sammy and the rest of us hadn’t been through a lot lately. A lot to the tune of: recently escaping from a school that told us we were crazy orphans and fed us meds our entire lives – and finding out the way-crazier reality. That we were magical, were witches or shifters or even Olympian gods, and had powers to go along with it.

  Like Sammy, who was apparently a weather-controlling witch, a tempe-something.

  "Carthago delegeda est," Kian muttered, her way of expressing complete support of what I said.

  Back at school, thanks to Latin class, we’d gotten in the habit of using Latin sayings as inside jokes, and the tradition had stuck.

  In the shadows a few feet away, Kian’s signature bright lips – red this time – were the only thing I could really make out on her. “Artemis messed up big-time.”

  "I am still here," Artemis said pointedly from behind us, "and I can still hear you, in case you forgot."

  "Great," Axel barked. "Solve this, then."

  "Okay,” Artemis admitted. “So maybe I should’ve been gentler breaking Sammy the news, considering how recently she’d developed her Tempestarii powers.”

  Oh yeah, a Tempestarii, that was it.

  As she spoke, Artemis’ dark skin was almost invisible, the whites of her eyes luminous. "But I was just doing what Tala asked – finding out what happened to everyone’s families. Besides, Sammy’s bound to calm down eventually."

  I clenched my burning hands onto the moist stone wall beside me.

  What Tala asked me to…

  Yeah, this was partially – a large partially – my fault.

  When Artemis had discovered a hit on a missing kid description that matched one of us – a girl with a moon face and white-blonde hair - Jennifer – I’d been the one who’d urged her to keep going. To find whatever she found.

  And find she had.

  We'd only been here a few weeks, but Artemis had been hard at work, all huddled up in her techno-cave. She’d scoured the net, hacking into every police, university, library or local newspaper database she could find and dredging up any other records she could. It was long, painstaking, and sleep-inducing work, at least according to Dion, who, for one whole hour, had tried to help for Kian’s sake before calling it quits.

  All that hard work had paid off, too. Artemis had discovered that ten-year-old, curly-haired Maira was from a family of sprites, who’d thought their daughter was long gone and were overjoyed to receive her back – as well as willing to heed the advice to stay away from the DSA, and keep their child's miraculous return under the radar.

  As for my own family, well, I figured that could wait.

  "Better get used to this," Aphrodite said loftily, striding by us, her straight blonde strands fluttering behind her. "All these kids are ticking time bombs."

  "It just so happens that you're in a cave with those time bombs," Kian snapped. "So I'd watch it if I were you."

  Aphrodite didn’t even deign to reply. I watched her curvy leopard-print-clad form strut out of the cave with a mixture of hatred and curiosity.

  "Where’s she going?" I asked Axel.

  He shrugged. "Off to visit her cherub minions. Or stare at her own reflection."

  I swallowed back the question that had been burning at me for some time – What did you ever see in her, then?

  Other than the fact that her luscious blonde hair and voluptuous hourglass body would have put Marilyn Monroe to shame, of course…

  I still hadn’t forgotten what Axel had said a few weeks back, right after we’d rescued everyone from the School for the Different: “There’s a lot I did before, Tala, that I’m not proud of. I want to tell you about it, all of it. But for today, can we just celebrate?”

  Now wasn’t the time. Although it did remind me that he was hella overdue for that – filling me in. Not that I really needed to know ‘all of it’, but still.

  "Aphie’s not worried about flying trees?" Jeremy asked, with his signature three sneezes. Guess the penetrating wet cold of our surroundings wasn’t doing him any favors either. In his pocket was a cowering lump I was pretty sure was his pet mouse Maurice.

  "Defensive shield, remember?" Persephone said.

  "Then why are the rest of you all in here with us?" I asked the other gods.

  With his clear blue eyes, Apollo gave me a ‘really’ look that, flicking back to the other kids crammed in the cave behind us, clearly said: With your classmates’ behavior, you need all the help you can get.

  He had a point. I’d been mostly tuning it out, but behind me there was the shuffling, muttering and groaning of hundreds of terrified kids.

  In a way, we had all become ticking time bombs as soon as we stopped taking our pills. The meds had been stifling our powers back at the School for the Different. But now, with no medication and a whole new reality to grapple with, a lot of ki
ds were starting to transition already, especially the older ones. One fine windy afternoon, Hulda had transformed into a full-grown bear, (surprising no one whatsoever) and wandered into a nearby village, returning with a pretzel (surprising only some). Marley had healed one of Artemis’ stags, crippled from a fall off a cliff, with nothing more than the touch of her hands.

  Sammy had actually been doing fine the past few days. After her sneeze had sent a rain shower pouring on Stevie and Apollo’s sandy hair flying in all directions (“Thanks,” Stevie had said with a hiss that showed her pointed front teeth before stalking off), Apollo had informed us that she was likely a Tempestarii, one of a rare breed of witches with the ability to control the weather.

  Days later, AKA thirty minutes ago, Artemis had broken the awful news to Sammy – her whole family, the oldest and most powerful group of Tempestarii in the world, had been murdered right around the time she’d turned up at the School for the Different. Yep, more conspiracy and messed-up still inexplicable circumstances surrounding us kids.

  Like how Kian, Demi and I had found Jeremy as a giant mutant bear attacking Times Square, then imprisoned in a freaky Frankenstein-esque lab run by the DSA. Which also seemed to house some of our other former ‘transferred’ classmates.

  High up on my list was finding wherever the DSA had moved their new lab and our classmates and rescuing them.

  Although right now I had way more immediate problems. Like how Sammy was harnessing 73 mph winds and sending hail slashing down in the kind of storm that would’ve made Moby Dick proud. Yeah, this whole weather control thing was turning out to be a pretty bad-ass and inconvenient skill.

  Even potentially dangerous too – when I’d tried talking Sammy down, she’d shrieked, “I need to be alone!” and blasted two thunderbolts on either side of me for emphasis. So yeah, that had failed.

  Luckily, as the storm worsened, it hadn’t been that hard rounding everyone up to take shelter in the caves with the help of the Olympians and my friends.

  Now, I was seriously considering shifting to give Sammy a good tough Dragon love talk. But then again, didn’t she have a right to be upset that her entire family was dead? Anyone would be distraught at that news.

  Hell, no one was outright saying it, but that hope was why kids were looking different, happier. Sure, it was partially because we no longer had to endure Miss Mildred’s Latin or Kakernacker’s gym, or the same boring-ass school schedule and rules, but it was also because, for the first time, we had hope. Not just in a better world or a future for ourselves, but in having a family. And Artemis had ripped that away from Sammy.

  Slam!

  The cave shook, spraying us with more pebbles and water droplets.

  Axel rose. "That's it."

  "Meaning?" I said, getting up too.

  "You’re not coming," he said. "I'll deal with this."

  And before I could utter a word of protest, he was gone, Cerebee trotting behind him. Damn, the three-headed pup had been so quiet and still I hadn’t even noticed her in the cave with us.

  I took a step forward, but Demi stopped me. "He's right – it’s better if you stay. You know how the kids look up to you."

  As if on cue, an agitated voice I was pretty sure was Tamarin’s came from farther back in the cave. "Tala’s still there, right?"

  "She didn't leave, did she?" another voice shrilled.

  Now the clamoring of voices surged into full-on wailing and yelling, mingled with yowling that I was pretty sure was Cog. Jeez. Even the damn cat we’d rescued from the school didn’t want me going.

  I sighed. Looked like me leaving could possibly instigate a full-on riot, if not just the even worse choice of making a run for it straight into the storm.

  "I'm still here!" I yelled back, silencing the cries. "Don't worry."

  Truly, my PV crooned. Why fret? After all, ‘tis not as though outside there rages a storm that will in all likelihood bring this cave right down over our serene heads.

  - More constructive thinking, less complaining, I replied in my head.

  Right again, my PV brayed. At least after this there will be no need to worry about the whole ‘you haven't shared Axel’s bed yet’ thing.

  -Can you not!

  "Dion!" Kian said sharply, breaking me out of my unfruitful argument with my PV.

  To my questioning look, she only rolled her eyes. I was pretty sure I knew what went down. One of Dion's favorite things to do these days was to squeeze her butt. You’d have thought he was a fourteen-year-old instead of an immortal Olympian god.

  Anyway, I had more serious things to worry about. Way more serious things. Like the fact that the somewhat violent guy I liked was most likely violently confronting the currently violent girl I wanted to protect.

  As I strained to hear signs of how things were going, the howling wind and pelting rain stopped.

  The familiar sculpted V of Axel’s torso appeared in the cave entrance, as well as, lower down, Cerebee’s happily dancing form.

  "All good," he said. "You can all come out now."

  I eyed his drenched yet pleased face suspiciously. “So you talked to her?”

  "In a way."

  "Axel…."

  "Okay, I might've thrown a tree at her."

  "AXEL!"

  I rushed past, stifling the urge to smack him. Not until I knew that Sammy was okay.

  "It’s fine,” he called after me. "She's completely fine. The tree didn’t actually hit her. Just kind of… punted her."

  "We’ve got bigger problems anyway,” he continued.

  I spun around to glare at him incredulously. "Bigger problems than you almost hitting and killing my friend with a tree?"

  Axel's face showed boredom, not remorse. "The tree wouldn't have killed her. And if she didn't want a tree thrown at her, then she shouldn't have brought a biblical storm down on Olympus. Apollo and I have been already having a bitch of a time convincing the other gods and the village people that you and your magically unpredictable friends are okay. And, yeah, we do have bigger problems." His face darkened. "Hera is back."

  I stormed ahead a few more paces before realizing what he said and faltering.

  "Hera’s back?" I said questioningly, as if then maybe it wouldn’t be so.

  "Yeah," he said. "And she is not happy."

  2

  On my way to Hera’s palace, I stopped by Sammy. She was splat on the dirt ground, her face tear-stained, yet oddly serene. I gave her a quick, consoling hug (“It’s okay,” I told her. “I would’ve done the same thing – just with fire – lots of fire and burning trees”) before hurrying on. As much as I wanted to comfort her longer, if I didn’t get to Hera ASAP, there would be no comforting her or anyone. Because we’d all be out of a home.

  "I'm not sure going right away like this, before we’ve figured out a game plan is a good idea," Demi said, in the tone of someone who was certain it wasn't. She and Kian had hurried to keep up with me.

  “How did you find out Hera’s back anyway?” I asked Axel, who, with his Olympian speed, had easily caught up with us too.

  "Hermes," Axel said, scowling. “Told me that she was summoning us.”

  "Yep, I bet he has much bonito tidbits to tell her," Kian said direly.

  "Like that time you smacked him in the face with a bulrush?" Demi asked helpfully.

  "That was an accident," Kian said, although she was smirking. "I was just practicing moving things. Anyway, maybe if he hadn’t been skulking around spying for Hera…"

  "It doesn't matter," I said. "We have to make her see that we need to be here. At least for a bit longer until we can find somewhere else to go. She can't just eject us into the world, can she?"

  No one answered. Not even crickets.

  As we hurried on, I barely took in my surroundings, my brain working on overdrive trying to come up with a convincing argument (You’ll hardly notice we’re here! would be a hard sell after today’s events, and We can help out, whatever you’d like, seemed downright ludic
rous). Hera was the Queen of Olympus after all. She had a whole armada of servants at her beck and yell.

  Hera’s Palace was part of the OFF-LIMITS AREA, as the Olympians had frequently reminded us (stress on the OFF LIMITS), which normally would’ve been interesting for me. But not now. Not with how my nerves were smacking two terrified pompoms in either side of my chest.

  No, right now the only thing I felt like doing, as the landscape changed from itchy tall grass to fragrant waist-high white and pink lilies, was practice debating with the others. At least until I could come up with a decent argument for us staying.

  Too bad it was too late for even that. Already I could see a glistening turret in the distance, growing larger with every step.

  “Doesn’t look very Greek-y,” Kian grumbled.

  “Hera has never been limited by our norms,” Axel said. “Always in the height of fashion.”

  “Hate to break it to her,” I said. “But that looks more Middle Age-y than current.”

  I shielded my eyes against the building’s glare. The way it was shining, all rainbow sheen, almost like-

  “Is that… opal?” Demi asked in an overawed voice.

  “Yep,” Axel said.

  “How is that even possible?” I said.

  “Hera.” He shrugged, as if that explained everything.

  By now we could see the rest of it. To say that it was fit for a queen was an understatement, but then again, I guess Hera was an Olympian goddess, after all. The structure and everything on it was all thin, shining, pointed and trellised, carved and gorgeous.

  “She had Michelangelo work on it personally,” Axel said casually.

  “Of course,” Kian muttered. “Have that guy down for my new bachelor pad.”