Taylor Davis and the Flame of Findul (Taylor Davis, 1) Read online

  Elena crossed her arms irritably. “I’ll never eat another cheeseburger again.”

  Davy handed me a pasteboard DVD sleeve with words inscribed on it: For the One of Two Names. “Where’d you get this?” I asked.

  “‘Twas sent by special courier. Very special courier.”

  “You mean, like Netflix from Heaven?”

  “Aye. I think you and the shrew should both take a look.”

  Elena shook her head hopelessly. Davy slid the DVD out of the sleeve and popped it into the player. The television glowed with life.

  A slight man with thin hair and glasses appeared on the screen. He could have passed for your average bean counter—if he hadn’t spoken. When he did, a deep, authoritative voice rolled from his skinny body like the note of a tuba blown from a piccolo. He aimed his words directly at me and Elena, commanding our attention.

  “Greetings, children,” he said in a thick English accent. “The purpose of this communication is to set you on a mission of great importance. Forces from the Abyss have been set in motion. Powers are stirring that have long lain dormant, and one who calls himself the Gray Admiral is rising. The protection of the Tree of Life has been compromised, and we fear now for its safety. We cannot allow its destruction before the appointed time.

  “You, Taylor Davis, have been hand-picked from generations of individuals to combat these forces, your name predicted centuries ago,” the anchorman continued. “Likewise, your partner has been chosen with care. A great task is now being set before you, that of relighting the mighty Flame of Findul. It is the only way to thwart the plans of the dark one. You must find a way to succeed.

  “I realize this is a heavy assignment to place on two children. As with any quest, the experience will be as valuable to you as the knowledge you gain. Therefore, you will only be given these brief initial instructions: Start at the beginning. If you have any hope of success, you must fully understand your adversary.

  “You may be feeling overwhelmed at the newness and enormity of your situation. That is understandable. But please realize you have been assigned additional help that will be arriving momentarily. I have every confidence that the mission given to you will be successful.”

  The screen went dark.

  “Now you know as much as I do,” Davy said. He slid the DVD back into its case and handed it to me.

  I stared at the blank screen. Half of me just wanted to wake up, to return to the world of pimples, peer pressure, and puberty that I had grown accustomed to. But there could no longer be any question about the veracity of Davy’s claims. I had the feeling that everything I’d ever known was about to change, and that I’d beg for biology textbooks and overweight PE teachers before the end.

  The quiet of the moment was interrupted by a knock on the door. Davy moved to answer it, his bulk blocking my view of our visitor. “You!” he thundered.

  A cheerful voice answered the greeting. “Ah, Davy. So good to see you.” There was the sound of sniffing. “I see you still haven’t adapted well to the rules of modern hygiene, have you, my friend? Stand aside. Stand aside. I’ve an engagement to attend to.”

  “Impossible!” Davy cried out. “They couldn’t have sent you!”

  A fellow wearing a stringy black wig, leather pants, and a glittering military style jacket strutted into the room. A white sequined glove covered his left hand. “Ow!” he crowed and spun in a tight circle, ending with a flourish on his tiptoes. It was the worst Michael Jackson impersonation I’d ever seen.

  “Who are you supposed to be today?” Davy muttered with extreme distaste.

  The fellow flipped a black fedora over his wig and held the pose. “Do you not recognize the man who changed rock and roll for all time?”

  Davy cocked one eye skeptically. “No.”

  The man performed a dance move reminiscent of an old woman with a broken hip and burst into song:

  “Just beat it, beat it, beat it, beat it

  No one wants to be defeated—”

  “What in the name of Blackbeard’s boots are you going on about?” Davy bellowed. “Have you taken leave of your senses?”

  Elena broke in with a groan of disbelief. “You have 538 channels and you’ve never heard of the King of Pop?”

  The young man gave Elena a beaming smile. “You seem to be a young lady of rare intelligence. My name is Amikim, but you can call me Mike.” He held out his hand and she shook it automatically. “Elena.”

  Mike turned to me. “And you must be young Davy Jones.”

  “Uh,” I stuttered as he pumped my hand, “actually my name is Taylor Davis.”

  Mike turned to Davy in confusion. “He’s the one, isn’t he? The big kahuna? The VIP? The top cat?”

  I never met Michael Jackson, so I can’t testify to his personality, but I think he might have been appalled at Mike’s representation. Mike was, however, doing a killer performance of an idiot in a bad wig.

  “If by that you mean to ask if he is the One of Two Names, of course he is, you dunderhead,” Davy burst out, his left eye flicking ominously again. “Would he be here if he wasn’t?”

  A wisp of confusion crossed the fellow’s face. “I thought when the two names met they’d be a bit more recognizable.” He turned to me. “But it’s cool. We’re going to have a swell time together, you and I. I’ve been assigned to your case.”

  Davy slammed the door. “Heaven help us all!”

  I was beginning to get a horrible suspicion. “Can I ask how you two know each other?”

  “Davy and I have been swinging together for at least four hundred years.”

  Davy turned to me with a black look. “This here is the jackanapes that let me eat of the tree. He’s the one that caused all the trouble you and I are both in.”

  Oh man! I knew it. I just knew it.

  “Chill out, sailor boy,” Mike told Davy. “This is no time to hold grudges. I have a job to do and I intend to see it done.”

  “What are they thinking,” Davy lamented, “sending a screw-up like you out on assignment? You couldn’t even make it through the music program without dropping out.”

  I glanced at Mike questioningly.

  “Hey, have you ever tried out for an angel choir?” he asked defensively. “You think the competition in band class is tough…”

  Davy waggled a finger in my face. “It falls to you to be the brains of this operation. Don’t trust to the dunderhead’s judgment.” He lifted his eyes skyward. “Thank heaven the lass seems to have some sense. Focus on your objective, watch your back, and above all, never let the sword out of your sight.”

  I remembered the weapon in my hands. “Won’t people get just a mite suspicious if I go about the countryside dragging this thing with me?”

  “Of course they will!” Mike declared. “That’s why I packed this little cherry.”

  He rummaged around in his jacket and produced a pink cloth cosmetic case, the kind girls carry to the bathroom to put on lip gloss and powder their nose. He handed it to me.

  I looked at it suspiciously, not taking it. “What am I supposed to do with that?”

  “Put the sword in it.” He shook it a little, enticing me.

  “It’s, like, four inches deep,” I said, still not taking it.

  “Makes it easy to hide.” He grabbed my hand and forced the case into it.

  “You want me to put the sword in here?” I asked doubtfully, dangling the thing between my thumb and forefinger. It was quilted, I noticed, and covered in little red hearts.

  Elena was making no attempt to hide her amusement.

  “I thought we’d established that already.”

  I shrugged. “Whatever.”

  I flipped the sword over, bracing the hilt between my feet, and positioned the case upside down over the point. Then I jerked it downward, fully intending to slice out the bottom, but the top third of the sword disappeared.

  I froze in shock. Carefully, slowly, I raised the bag. The sword reappeared.

  Ele
na smirked. “Nice trick,” she said. “What is it, some kind of telescoping blade?”

  Without a word, I handed the bag to her. She took it and shrugged, a little cockily, and pulled it over the point. The sword encountered no resistance. It simply vanished.

  Elena faltered and the bag slipped from her grasp. It drifted effortlessly over the blade and rested on my feet, a few inches of sword hilt visible beneath it.

  We glanced at each other. Elena’s face had gone completely pale. I think she figured out her algebra exam really would be taking place without her.

  Lesson #5

  Beware of Cabbies with Killer Tempers

  “It’s time to weigh anchor, me hearties,” Davy reminded us.

  With a sigh of resignation, I nudged the makeup case over the rest of the hilt, tugged at the zipper, and tucked it under my arm. The sword weighed considerably less in a package. “Where to?”

  Mike took charge. “We’re off to your place first, Elena’s next. Just standard protocol. Parental consent and all that. Link up hands, then.”

  My palms instantly started to sweat. I peeked at Elena. She looked like she wanted to hold one of them about as much as she wanted to pick up dog poo.

  “Cheerio,” Mike called with a little wave at Davy.

  My stomach suddenly rose up into my throat. Once again I was tumbling through blackness. I clung to Elena’s fingers like they were the only lifeline tethering me to the earth. She jerked away as soon as we landed in the street outside my home and wiped her hand on her jeans. My stomach was revolting too much to take offense. I felt like I’d spent the day in heavy seas after eating a whole case of bad fish. “Do we always have to travel like that? My lunch is about to file for divorce.”

  “Aside from the beach, that’s the only way in and out of Davy’s place. It’s called rippling. Sort of a space-warping technique. You can choose your next ride, but right now you have to tell your folks you’re taking a leave of absence.”

  Mike looked absolutely ridiculous standing outside my front door. As much as I didn’t want to face my mom, I wanted the neighbors to see me with Mike even less. But my mind was as blank as a newly painted wall. “Any suggestions?”

  Elena had regained her composure. “Just tell them you joined a traveling hockey team,” she suggested. Then she smirked. “Or would something requiring that much coordination give it away?”

  I narrowed my eyes. Elena was a pretty girl. Most guys would give her a second, even a third look—until she opened her mouth and revealed that sparkling personality of hers. “Do they even have hockey at the equator?”

  She gave a haughty little shrug. “Or you could tell her the truth.”

  “Sure,” I drawled, “I’ll tell her I’m off to see the Seven Wonders of the World with an angel and some girl I just met. Oh, and by the way, there’s this semi-dead guy who’s trying to kill us, and our only defense is a malfunctioning sword.”

  I reflected on that a moment. “You know, that just might work. Mom’s come up with crazier schemes in those books she likes to write.”

  “Excellent!” Mike exclaimed. He treated us to a dance move that I suspect was his version of the moonwalk. It looked more like he was trying to extract his feet from quicksand.

  “What about your dad?” Elena asked with an irritated glance at Mike.

  I curled my lip in disgust. “Dad’s been so busy pouring his life into this godforsaken island that I should have several weeks before he notices I’ve gone missing.”

  She tapped her toe on the pavement. “I hope it doesn’t take you that long to get this over with.”

  I screwed up my courage, marched across the street, and entered. “Mom?”

  “In my office, honey.”

  I found her typing furiously on her laptop. Mike and Elena followed me inside. “Mom, I have to go away for a little while. I’m uh, working on an extra-curricular assignment.”

  “Oh? What is it?” Her fingers never slowed.

  “Well…it’s, uh…sort of a play I’m writing. See, there’s this pirate who guards the Tree of Life—it’s hidden somewhere here in the Caribbean, you see—only his sword went dark. So he’s defenseless if anyone tries to destroy it. And if that happens, the whole entire world will end. So, well, I’m on a mission to help relight it.”

  I’d been half counting on Mom’s distraction to get me through, but somewhere around the Caribbean, she had grown still. I thought all was lost. “You know,” she said after a moment’s pause, “that’s not half bad. But you’re lacking a villain. A good plot should always contain a villain.”

  “Oh, there is one,” I assured her.

  “Taylor,” she beamed up at me, “I’m thrilled to see you developing your dramatic abilities. You have my full support. See your story through to completion, then you must let me know how it ends.” With that she started typing furiously at her project again.

  My shock left me as immobile as a mannequin. I didn’t know if she was joking or if Mike had worked some kind of enchantment on her. Either way, I hoped she didn’t decide to hold supper for me. “Er, okay then.”

  Five minutes later we were back on the sidewalk, me sporting a small backpack with my iPod, a hoodie, and a change of socks.

  “Elena, you’re next,” Mike said.

  “We’re taking a cab this time,” she asserted. I nodded my head vigorously in agreement.

  A few minutes later we were pulling up outside the hugest estate I’d ever seen. It was really a whole gated compound with servants’ quarters, stables, athletic facilities, and a house roughly the size of the Roman Coliseum. I was completely floored. “You live there?”

  She sighed and nodded. “Come on. Let’s get this over with.”

  Mike instructed the cabbie to wait, and the three of us approached the gate.

  “Good afternoon, Rodriguez,” Elena spoke into the intercom.

  “Miss Elena, we’ve been expecting you,” came the tinny answer.

  “What does that mean?” I asked. She shrugged, and so did Mike. The hair rose on my neck. I’d had enough surprises for one day.

  At the door to the main house we were met by a sandy-haired fellow dressed in khaki Dockers and a Polo shirt and surrounded by piles of luggage. His fair complexion stood out among the dark-skinned islanders. So did his physique. He looked like he had swallowed the Incredible Hulk.

  “Ranofur!” Elena exclaimed. “What’s going on? Why aren’t you in uniform?”

  The giant gazed at her serenely. “You are planning a journey, are you not?”

  “Well, yes, I am, but—” she spluttered.

  “All is arranged. I will be accompanying you. That is your cab?”

  “Yes, but how—?”

  “We will discuss that later. Manuel, Diego,” he called to two servants who were loitering nearby. “Carry Miss Elena’s things to her cab.”

  While they were engaged, the four of us stood in an awkward circle. Elena made introductions. “Taylor, Mike, this is Ranofur, my father’s head of security.”

  Mike and Ranofur exchanged a brief nod. I just stared at the newcomer, gaping at pipes the size of my grandmother’s pickle crock.

  Within minutes, the four of us—me, Elena, Mike, and Superman—were piled into the back seat of the cab. There were bags overflowing the trunk, bags tied on top, even a suitcase sitting in the front seat. The driver, a chocolate-colored fellow with dreadlocks down to his waist and a nametag that read “Chico,” was more than happy to oblige. He’d seen Elena’s estate as clearly as I had. The dollar signs were reflecting in his sunglasses.

  “Where to?” Chico asked.

  I looked at Mike, Mike looked at Ranofur, Ranofur looked at Elena, Elena looked at me. If no one else was going to take the plunge, I figured I better. “The airport?”

  Chico started the car.

  “Wait a second,” Elena protested. “Are you crazy? We don’t even know what we’re looking for. We can’t just hop on a plane and hope we find it wherever we land. If I�
��m being forced to take part in this, we are going to have a plan.”

  “You could have mentioned that during the awkward pause a moment ago,” I pointed out.

  “I could have, but I thought this mission had a leader.”

  I cringed. “Okay, okay. The floor is open to suggestions. Anyone?”

  I looked at Mike, Mike looked at Ranofur, Ranofur looked at—

  “Oh, for crying out loud,” Elena exploded. “The video instructed us to start at the beginning. We have to figure out what that means.”

  I screwed up my face. “Creation?”

  “And just how are we going to get there?”

  Valid question.

  She narrowed her eyelids thoughtfully. “Actually, you may have a point. Civilization began in the Fertile Crescent. The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. Maybe that would give us a place to start.”

  I clapped my hands together. “All right, then. The Middle East it is.”

  The cabbie put the car in gear.

  Elena sighed. “Can we get a little more specific? The Middle East is huge. We need to choose a city with libraries, universities, museums and such.”

  “Baghdad?” I asked with some reluctance. It was the only one I could think of without Google Maps, and even I knew from watching the evening news that it wasn’t an in-demand vacation destination.

  Ranofur cleared his throat politely. “Might I suggest you start with your adversary? Knowing what you’re up against is one of the first rules of combat.”

  “Of course!” Elena burst out. She was thinking now. “We need to locate his beginnings, the town he was born in. Mike, do you have any of that information?”

  The angel shook his head.

  “Davy would know,” I put in. “He sailed with him for years.”

  “Good thinking,” Elena agreed. “We need to get back to the sinkhole as quickly as possible.”

  Mike disagreed with a shake of his head, to the great relief of my stomach. “No can do. Skyping is the only way to go.” He pulled a laptop out of nowhere and laid it on his knees. “All we need is an internet connection and we’re all set to do a little investigative work.”