Tala Phoenix and the School of Secrets

by Gabby Fawkes

  “Tala,” Demi was saying. “Don’t. I mean it, you.”

  And that was when I shoved my arm in.

  YOU FOOL! my PV shrieked.

  The machine buzzed to life as a white dot blinked on a screen beside me – white, white – it was still deciding, and, if it beeped red, then I sensed, that would be it for my arm…

  Axel was trying to pull me away. But it was too late, the machine was gripping my skin.

  One final beep, and then the light went red.

  A crash and the machine threw me forward, cranking its doors open.

  I staggered to my feet, unable to believe it.

  I still had my arm. I still…

  “You crazy bitch!” Kian was yelling, shaking me. “Do you have a death wish or something?!”

  Finally, even your friends are understanding the peril that is my strife, PV said in a shaken, yet undeniably relieved voice.

  “I…” I couldn’t find the words for it. Couldn’t believe it.

  Next second I had the wind knocked out of me as I was pinned to the wall. Pressing his forehead against mine, Axel’s glare looked ready for murder.

  “Never,” he said in a strained voice, “do that again. Promise me?”

  I said nothing, glaring on back.

  “Do you promise me?” he hissed. His glare faltered, showing sea frost blue eyes that held a different blue than before…. Was he actually sad, scared?

  The rebellious response I had been going to say curdled in my throat.

  “Yes,” I said quietly.

  “We’re getting closer,” Demi called.

  “Bueno,” Kian said. “Wonder what arm-losing obstacle there’ll be this time.”

  “You know what they say,” I tried to joke. “Third time’s the charm…”

  No one laughed. No one said anything as we continued down the long hallway. This had to be the newer area, based on its construction. Every surface was black glass – walls, ceiling, floors, creating the impression we were in a black box.

  “Look up,” Axel said.

  I did and almost fell over at what I saw. “It’s me – us.”

  Kian waved her hand and, as the image on the ceiling screen did the same, frowned, as if a small part of her had hoped different.

  “Why haven’t they come to get us if they know we’re in here?” I wondered.

  “Probably because they figure they don’t need to, with what’s ahead,” Axel said. “Or they’re waiting to find out why we’re here.”

  We walked on in a moody silence for another few minutes. Every time I looked up to check the ceiling screens, I saw my own face looking back down, as rattled as ever.

  “Here it is,” Demi said, although she didn’t sound as pleased as she had before.

  “Great,” Kian said with no enthusiasm.

  On the glass floor, there was a wooden door, with a door knob. Or what was in the position and shape of one. The jiggly-noded thing didn’t look much like a door knob, though.

  Points went to them for combining old and new design,

  Kian turned to Axel. “Do I want to know what that jellyfishy knob thing is?”

  “No,” Axel said, and before any of us could do anything, said, “I’ll try telling it a password.”

  Crouching down so that he was nose to nose with it, Axel said, “Vae victis.”

  A pause, then the nodes shot out, their pinky long tentacles catching Axel in the throat, electrocuting him.

  “Axel!” I yelled, grabbing him.

  He staggered back, twitching. “I’m fine, I’m…”

  “What is that thing?” Demi whispered.

  “A swabee – kind of like a lock for a door.”

  “Just a lock that electrocutes you,” I said. “No big deal.”

  “If I’d said the right password….”

  “Which, of course, there’s no way of us ever knowing,” Kian said glumly.

  “Odds are it is probably in Latin, at least,” Demi said, as if that made anything better.

  I turned to Axel. “You know the most about the DSA, do they have any sayings? Catch phrases? Favorite numbers?”

  “Three?” he said gingerly. “The DSA has three letters, and there’s been three attacks so far, and their blasters have three settings…

  “No, don’t,” I said, but it was too late. Axel had already staggered over to the node door and said, “Alea jacta est.”

  A sickening pause, then the nodes jabbed out again.

  “No!”

  I grabbed on to Axel, getting electrocuted with him for a second before he shoved me away.

  He collapsed onto the ground, panting. “So…” he said, “my guess is it’s not that.”

  “What gave it away?” I said, going over to sit beside him.

  “Axel might be on to something,” Demi said. “Three is a popular number. Tribus.”

  “Not you too,” Kian said.

  “I don’t mean that,” she said. “Just that whatever the phrase is, I’d bet it has three words.”

  “Great, that really narrows it down,” I said.

  I closed my eyes, forcing my mind back to the few Founder’s assemblies we’d had that the DSA had attended over the years. Was I just imagining that they and the Headmistress had quietly exchanged a Latin phrase when they first greeted each other? That they and the agents I’d seen had a familiar-looking symbol on the coats, under the sheened DSA?

  “Do the DSA have a logo?” I asked Axel.

  “Yeah, actually,” he said. “They don’t use it all the time, but it’s kind of like an open-bottom triangle with an extra line through the middle?”

  “Kind of like three I’s joined together?” I said quietly.

  “Tala,” Kian said. “Don’t be hasty-”

  I ducked to the jiggly door knob and said, “Imperium In Imperio.”

  Everyone fell silent. Then the air lit up where I’d spoken, small letters of the words appearing, and then the door swung open and I fell in.

  The sound of shuffling and next second, my friends and Axel and I all landed in a heap. As we righted ourselves, we saw the door we’d come through. It was closed again and floating, up in the air out of reach.

  “What made you realize it was Imperium In Imperio?” Demi asked.

  “Just a guess,” I admitted. “Though I figured that was just like the DSA – to see itself as an empire within an empire, like a self-governing state.”

  “Though some door,” Kian said. “It looks like we just got tossed into another black glass hallway.”

  “No,” Axel said, getting to his feet and looking around. “Look underneath our feet.”

  Sure enough, this glass was black too, but more translucent, and, barely visible below it was grass.

  “We’re here,” Demi said unnecessarily.

  As I stepped forward, the floor lit up.

  “What about the walls?” Kian said, “Do you think…”

  A gasp.

  “G-guys,” she said.

  We hurried over to see her trembling at a black glass wall.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “I just put my hand against the glass, but it went in, almost like a button, and then I saw…”

  “Well?”

  “It was just a flash of light, of… something.”

  “I’ll do it,” Axel grumbled, already pressing his hand into the wall.

  The wall in front of us lit up. I started back. Inside was a horrific sight. Pus and hair splattered the walls, while what lay on the bed in the middle was… not human. It didn’t seem to have eyes, for one thing, and, when it moved…

  “Okay, that’s not Jeremy,” Axel said, withdrawing his arm.

  “What was…” Demi said.

  “I don’t know,” I said, finding my voice, which shook. “And I don’t care. We don’t have time…” I exhaled. “We have to find Jeremy.”

  The next wall we stood in front of for a few seconds, before Axel once again pressed his hand into the wall. This time when
the wall lit up, it was disarming.

  Just a cute wolf pup in the far corner. At the sight of us, it leapt up on its hind legs, bobbing up and down, up and down – and a second later it was splat onto the glass, face enraged beyond recognition, scraping and gnawing at the glass like it wanted to tear us to shreds… And then, with no warning, it collapsed, unconscious.

  “These don’t look like experiments,” Demi said quietly. “They look like failed experiments.”

  A heavy silence.

  “We should split up,” I said, hating myself as I said it. “That way we’ll get through this place faster. Who knows how many… things they have in here.”

  “I’m going with you then,” Axel said immediately, and I knew it was pointless to argue.

  “Okay,” I told Demi and Kian. “We’ll take the left side, and you guys can take the right, and if we see Jeremy...”

  “We’ll yell,” Kian said. “Yeah.”

  We were going in the same direction, at least. Now that the shock had worn off, I noticed the smell around us. A mixture of disinfectant reminiscent of the school… and something more sinister. Something infected, fleshy.

  I steeled myself as I pressed into the next button. This one was the worst though. Riddled with scrapes and grime, it was empty. What had been in here? Surely not Jeremy?

  We continued racing from cell to cell as fast as we could, although what we saw became increasingly harder to shake. The humans with bear feet and hands, bashing on the walls with madness in their eyes. The fork-tailed, two-headed fairy dog that ran into the wall repeatedly. The unearthly luminous being curled up into itself in the corner.

  I lingered by that one. It looked so gentle… sad. “Do you think, if you punched…”

  Axel shook his head. “You don’t know what any of these things are capable of, how dangerous they really are. If you set them free, they could kill us on the spot.” His expression was grim. “As for punching through the walls, if we do that, I’d bet we got one shot before the DSA come running. I’d save it for Jer.”

  “Why haven’t they come yet? The cameras…” Not to mention that I kept having the unmistakable feeling that we were being watched. Call it overactive paranoid dragon sense, but still.

  “I don’t know,” Axel said.

  All there was to do was continue on, trying to avert our gazes as soon as we saw that whatever cell we were looking into wasn’t Jeremy’s.

  After a few minutes of this, I heard Kian’s cry from up ahead. They’d gotten a bit ahead of us, and when I went over to look, I stopped in my tracks and fell to my knees. A low groan rolled out of my throat.

  “Jeremy – no.”

  I had to look at him in slashed-out glances. At what they’d done to him.

  The electrified chains.

  The patches of fur missing.

  The glassy, given-up look in his eyes.

  Both my fists pounded against the glass. “No!”

  “I’m sorry,” Axel said quietly.

  “We have to get him out,” I gasped. “We have to… you said you could punch through?”

  “Maybe,” he said. “It may trigger some kind of alarm.”

  I started to pace. We were so close – so goddamn close.

  “No,” I said. “There has to be another way.”

  I walked a bit further down the passageway, looking frantically at the seeming endlessness of black glass.

  “How do the DSA get in themselves?” Demi was saying from further down the hallway.

  “My guess?” Axel said. “Their DNA is recognized by the wall makeup and the wall automatically opens up.”

  I pressed my hand hard against the glass, my PV stirring as heat seeped into my palms.

  Didn’t anyone ever tell you about how dragon fire can burn through anything?

  I shook my head. No, not that. As tempting as the rage closing around my heart was, I couldn’t give in to it.

  Raging power like that could destroy everything. Maybe the bars that imprisoned Jeremy – but Jeremy too. Even my friends. No, it was too risky.

  Suit yourself, my PV said with a huff.

  “Tala?” Kian said quietly. “I tried a spell and Demi did this vine thing… it’s not working.”

  That left us one option, aside from me going dragon or just wandering these glass halls for eternity.

  Steeling myself for what was to come. I nodded to Axel. He nodded back.

  As soon as knuckle connected with glass, several things happened.

  One: it cracked.

  Two: An alarm began to shriek. The kind of pulsing shrill that was made my eardrums feel like they’d burst. I clapped my hands over my ears.

  “Shit!” I yelled.

  Axel backed away.

  “No!” I pleaded with him, indicating the wall, which had sprouted a long patchwork of cracks. “Look, it worked.”

  But the whole hallway was flashing white light. Kian grabbed my arm. “Tala-”

  I ripped it free. “We have to.”

  Axel’s next blow onto the wall cut off further conversation. Now the glass split further, a whole continent-like shard clattering to the ground.

  A shrill voice joined the melee: “Intruders. Intruders. Welcome. We will meet soon.”

  I froze, shivered. Why was that voice familiar?

  “They’re coming,” Demi said, grabbing my other arm.

  What was she… oh damn. Yeah, those were the sounds of countless footsteps, heading our way fast.

  I dug in my heels. “I’m not leaving.”

  Axel’s voice cut through the latest overhead voice’s “Intruders. Welcome. We will-" with “We have to go now!”

  But it was already too late. Black-suited agents were pressing in from all sides.

  The same agents with the DSA label and logo on the top left of their uniforms. The same ones who’d taken Jer away. Who’d tortured him. Maybe even the same ones who knew about my school.

  Burn them all.

  Axel was the first to move. In a flash, his fist drove several agents to the ground like an oversize row of dominos. Kian was next, her magic lifting the shards of glass and driving them at the agents closing in on us. As several agents rushed us, Demi grew a brawny pumpkin in each hand, which she flung at them.

  For those few seconds, as the noise shrilled and the white lights flashed and the overhead voice shrieked laughter and my friends fought bravely, it looked like we had a chance.

  But then more agents flooded in. And more and more. The new mass of agents stepped over the fallen ones easily, attacking immediately, their guns blasting us with beams of light. We were flung up high – then slammed into the ground.

  Idiot, PV shrieked, amidst my spinning head, do something!

  But as soon as I started to scramble up, I was thrown to the floor again.

  It was by black tentacle things. They had to be from the agents’ guns. Though I had no idea how. They had wrapped my legs, were binding them higher and higher.

  “Guys!” I cried out.

  “I can’t get free, sorry,” Kian said. “They got my hands first and I…” Her voice became muffled.

  “Kian, no!” I screamed, thrashing against my binds.

  The DSA wouldn’t actually kill… no, they wouldn’t dare, right?

  Demi screamed.

  I flailed back and forth, but it was no use. The tentacles were binding me higher and higher, had already reached my lower abdomen.

  “Tala,” Axel was saying in a strained voice. “You have to, you have-”

  He never finished the sentence.

  “No!” I screamed, bucking uselessly against my binds once again. Not my friends. The DSA wouldn’t dare. “Kian! Axel! Demi!?”

  But no one answered. The tentacles were wrapping around my shoulders now, advancing to my neck.

  “Intruders. Goodbye,” the voice said.

  Stewie’s voice. The realization slammed into me. This was all my fault. Again. He’d told me that whole thing about the red light and canal th
ing from the start. He’d intended this to happen the whole time.

  The tentacles wrapped around my neck, my chin.

  Something hot was bubbling inside me.

  The tentacles sealed over my mouth.

  “No!” I yelled.

  My vision went black.

  Everything burned.

  I would not let this happen. I. Would. Not.

  All the energy, the burning, I held – then released.

  There.

  Bits of tentacles exploded outwards.

  I was free.

  Laser beams were flowing out of the guns, but it didn’t matter anymore.

  Nothing did. I was fire, and I was going to burn them all.

  Yes. I was as tall as the ceiling. As wide as the corridor. My breath was fire, and I was going to burn them all.

  I took one look at the puny ants with their puny guns and laughed. A laughter that roasted everything.

  Yes. Fire gave cleansing and fire made anew. And I was going to raze this evil place to the ground.

  Amidst the burning melee, a bear struggled through heated-up glass.

  Nothing escaped my all-powerful flame, nothing. I stood and basked in it.

  My power. My creation.

  I stood and basked in the screams. The yells. The smoke.

  Yes. My fire had claimed much. But not all. Not yet.

  When sensation prickled into my legs, the ants trying to bite with their puny guns, I let out a mere puff of fire. Yes. A pleasing orange engulfed all.

  Yes. Burn them. Burn them all. All the liars and their gilded lying walls.

  I stormed ahead, breathing more flame where I went. Walls sizzled into molten mush as I crashed upwards, higher and higher, through the ceiling, whole chunks raining down.

  And already I was out of their lair. Out, but not finished. Not until I’d burned out the very last trace of them. I sent another arc of flame ripping through the building. But it wasn’t enough. Wouldn’t be.

  Yes, I could see that now. I’d have to scorch the whole structure in which their lair was hidden. Burn them. Burn them all.

  Yes, now I was airborne. Ready.

  Burn the liars. Burn their palace of lies.

  Only – there was buzzing. From far, far down.

  I reared my head back. My final cleansing flame curdled in my throat, rising and rising…

  “Tala!”