The Heart of the Phoenix (38 page)

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.

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.

Penny found Zoe considerably calmer, she even smiled at Penny’s approach.

“I leave for a few days,” Zoe said, struggling for a light tone, “and everything falls apart.”

Ellen tittered nervous laughter. Katie gave her a look and shook her head.

“It’s good to meet you,” Janet said, and held out a hand. She looked wonderfully exotic to Penny. She held up her new wand, brought back from the secret room in Penny’s basement. “Strange to hold one of these again.”

Zoe hugged Penny again, and whispered in her ear, “How cool is she?”

“Very cool,” Penny agreed.

“We thought you were on tour,” Katie said.

“Just finished. I was looking forward to a nice break from the action when Reggie called and said Dana wanted to visit.” She laughed and ran a hand through her spiked rainbow hair. “About a half hour after she arrived, all my lost memories did too.”

“Everybody,” Reggie called out, and waved them over to him.

They joined him, Penny careful to keep Zoe a safe distance from Flanna. Jaiden listened from her spot next to the sleeping, and now clover-speckled, Erasmus.

“I’m going to town,” Reggie said. “And I’m bringing a few friends with me.”

* * *

Dana and Zoe hugged Reggie, Katie and Tracy hugged Michael, and Flanna bent to give Jaiden a few final pointers on wand use while Bowen waited and watched the open field toward town.

At last they gathered and left, Michael in the lead, followed by Bowen and Jaiden, Reggie at the rear.

“Do you think it’ll help?” Penny asked the group at large, and Susan answered.

“I don’t know, but it can’t hurt.”

“If they don’t get themselves caught,” Katie said, who was not as confident in the plan as her brother was.

“There have to be other people down there who have noticed something is wrong,” Janet said. “And none of them will be hanging around the carnival. They’ll be hiding in their homes or trying to find a way out of town.”

“Tynan won’t stay in town for long,” Torin said. “When Turoc and his mercenaries don’t come back he’ll know something’s wrong, and when he comes, he’ll come in force.”

Tracy nodded her agreement.

“If Reggie can break the Reds control over the carnival workers, they might be persuaded to help.”

“And everyone from town?” This was Penny’s least favorite part of the plan. “If they come to, our secret will be out.”

Penny suddenly wished for her new robe; if Reggie, Bowen, and Michael came back with half the town behind them Penny would appreciate the anonymity. Moments later Rocky scampered up to her with the chest held in his large hands, dropped it at her feet and pulled the key from around his neck.

“Thanks, Rocky,” Penny said, and bent to open it. She pulled the folded robes out and began to pull hers on.

“We’ll need as many people as will come if we’re going to force the Reds to reverse the damage the Chaos Relic has done.”

“The damage can’t be undone,” Erasmus said, and all heads turned to him. He was awake now, picking clover blossoms out of his coat and dreadlocks. “Not all of it anyway, but we might contain it, and we don’t need the Reds for that.”

“Did you have a good rest, my friend?” Ronan looked pleased to see his strange friend awake again, despite his mixed news.

“Informative,” Erasmus said. “I had a good hard think about our problem, and the solution is simple. We get it out the same way it got in.”

“Sounds too easy,” Tracy said. “What’s the catch?”

“The catch is that someone will have to lay hands on it to get it out, maybe more than one of us, and anyone who touches it will...”

Susan didn’t look like she wanted to know, but asked anyway. “Will what?”

“No one really knows for sure,” Torin said. “It’s thought that the Chaos Relic tears a person apart, divides them between an infinity of other worlds... other realities. We just don’t know.”

“It’s a physical relic of a time when all universes were one,” Erasmus said. “It’s a piece of that earlier, primordial universe.”

“The first time I saw it,” Penny said, remembering the nightmarish events vividly, “was when I went into Turoc’s lair beneath the landfill looking for you, Ronan.”

Erasmus was regarding her with morbid interest, his expression rapt, but frowning. The others only waited, adding to the growing atmosphere of dread.

“One of Turoc’s homunculi opened the box and touched it. It burned him away until nothing was left, but I could still hear him screaming even after he was gone.”

“What happened to the box it was in?” Erasmus turned on the spot until he found Flanna trying to make herself small behind Nancy. “That box is one of the only things that can contain it.”

“I don’t know,” Flanna said, trying to avoid everyone’s eyes. “I think I dropped it.”

Without prompting, Rocky sprinted back for the hollow to find it.

Penny saw the many unfriendly eyes turned Flanna’s way and her heart fell a little.

“It’s not her fault,” Penny said, drawing the unfriendly eyes to her. “Tynan caused the accident that killed our mom, then kidnapped Flanna. I was born dead or he would have taken me too.” She made her way to her sister, felt a little braver when Tracy gave her an approving nod. “He told her that he was her father, that Torin betrayed our mother and the Phoenix Girls killed her. Everything she did was to close down the gateway forever, to keep her world safe from us.”

“She’s with us now,” Tracy said. “That’s the end of it.”

“I’m still not certain you’re with us,” Janet said. She’d gotten a very short version of the events that had led Tracy into Tynan’s service, then back again. “
She’s
cute and cuddly though, so I’m inclined to trust her.”

A racket erupted from the hollow, and the homunculi appeared from hiding to guard the path. Shouts, human and homunculi, boomed, a clatter of weapons and the blast of wand bolts.

“They’re here,” Penny said, drawing her wand.

She led the charge to the hollow, but when she reached it her father, sister, aunt, and all of her friends were with her.

* * *

The Red Soldiers spilled through the sepulcher door with spears and crossbows raised, splashed through the narrow remnant of Clear Creek, the border between the sepulcher and the hollow, ducking stones flung by the wild homunculi, countering with wild thrusts from their spears and metal-tipped crossbow bolts. The spears and bolts scratched and scraped, but couldn’t pierce the gray men’s stone hides.

The first wand appeared, held by a robed and red bearded man with the family insignia embroidered over his chest, and the first gray man died with his head blasted to dust and rubble. Penny saw this as she slid down the dirt path into the hollow, and she fired at the man while she was still moving. Her blast missed, striking the wall a few inches from his left ear. He forgot about the homunculi, regarded Penny with surprise even as he leveled his wand at her.

“No, Savas!” Flanna bumped into Penny at the end of the path. From the corners of her eyes Penny saw first Tracy and Torin, then the others lining up with her. “She’s blood... my sister!”

“Flanna? What are you still doing here?” He looked down at Turoc’s still body. “What happened here?”

His surprised deepened as he recognized Tracy, and then became outraged shock when he saw Torin standing with them.

“What are you doing with the
traitor
?”

The Red Soldiers had halted their attack and held their ground, waiting for the man Flanna called Savas to sort out the confusion for them. The homunculi, Rocky among them, clustered together and began to join hands. This was strange behavior to Penny, but she didn’t have the luxury of curiosity.