Jake Bowers Versus The Firebird

Jake Bowers Versus The Firebird

  Copyright 2014 Laryssa Waldron

  Cover Art 2014 by Jana Friel and Andra Jensen

  For those that carry the future in their hands, and for those that came before and gave the future to us.

  Contents

  1. The Ziggurat

  2. Monterey Historic Raceway

  3. The Gullwing

  4. Farid’s Gift

  5. An Unexpected Phone Call

  6. Commander Bowers

  7. Communication

  8. Night Flight

  9. Hillary

  10. Radio Silence

  11. The Scorpionic Lab

  12. Caleb

  13. The Library

  14. The Teacher’s Gift

  15. Second Flight

  16. Patriotic Lunchroom

  17. Flight for Friends

  18. Ancestral Talents

  19. Ân Dhúin

  20. Tarezh

  21. Portal Transport

  22. Farid’s Flyers

  23. Zharka’s Palace

  24. The Most Beautiful Woman

  25. Doorway to the Bestiary

  26. Reparation

  27. Reunion

  28. Future Plans

  About the Author

  Connect with Laryssa Waldron

  1. The Ziggurat

  The full moon’s light magnified the Ziggurat, throwing massive shadows against the surrounding sand dunes. If any tourists had visited this remote area, they would have been transported in time. Similar temples in ruins can be found throughout the Middle East. This one, however, had been built recently to match the splendor of an age long forgotten.

  In the grand assembly room, a lone figure lay sprawled on the cold marble floor. His fists throbbed and ached from the recent pounding which he had given the ground. A bird circled him, a foot of distance between them. It left a trail of strange green fire that crackled and sputtered around him. When the circle was complete, the bird let out a sound that was a mixture of a melodious harp and a dove’s call.

  The creature boasted golden feathers that swirled through the orange and yellow blaze of its magnificently plumed body. Scarlet quills trailed behind the bird like a peacock with its tail in flames.

  The man on the ground lay still, seemingly unaware of the opulence that surrounded him. The bird called again and then walked over to him and pecked gently at his hand. When there was still no response, the animal cocked its head to the side and shook out its wings. Immediately, the back of the bird split open and, in an odd sort of molting, it turned inside out. A beautiful woman began to emerge out of the body like a two-sided puppet that had just tucked the creature part of itself under, in favor of a more suitable form.

  “Oh, come on now, you’ve always preferred me in that form, admit it. You could never be angry with the Zhar Pteetsa,” the woman’s slightly accented voice was a silk whisper. She teased her long locks of auburn hair and smoothed out the shimmering midnight blue, floor-length dress. She contorted her body into a standing yoga pose, a stretch that was like taking a long breath after a tight confinement.

  Again, the man refused to move. She nudged him with her foot and said, “I did it for you.”

  “For me?” The man raised his bloodshot eyes to gaze at the woman. “You turned my research into weapons. You burned my village. You destroyed my people and you say it was FOR ME?” His voice echoed off of the columns in the grand room.

  “Yes, you can thank me later,” she sneered and brought her face low, to meet his gaze.

  As the man continued to stare her down, he realized that something was different. Before that moment she was flawless, the way he imagined that Aphrodite, the goddess of love would look. Now, her countenance had taken on a twisted quality that marred her beauty in his eyes.

  “Thank you?” He spat the words out and she drew her face even closer to his.

  “Yes, thank me,” she said and rubbed her fingers through his curly black hair. “I have now made it possible for you to become the man you need to be, by cutting out the distractions that were holding you back. You’re welcome.”

  Then she stood up and forcefully kicked his shoulder with her foot. “Now get some sleep, we have three villages to visit tomorrow. Now that we have Tangura, I want to find the Flyer of Destiny by the week’s end”

  Pain swept over his mind as he thought again of his own village smoldering in the aftermath of an attack that he was unable to stop. He choked out, “More villages?”

  The woman rolled her eyes.

  “You’re pathetic,” she said and, disgusted at the sight of him, walked out of the room.

  “You’ll be fine in the morning,” she called back as she reached the doors.

  He continued to lie on the polished marble and listened to her footsteps echo as she left the hall. The cold ground melded together with his cheek, draining him of warmth as the day’s events had drained him of energy. He looked at the strange green fire, dancing in its original spot in the circle around him. If he just moved an inch or two closer, he would be able to feel the fire’s warmth.

  No more warmth from her! The man resolved as he let the cold continue to penetrate his cheek. Then suddenly, new purpose entered his mind bringing with it a resolution, a fire and warmth of his own making. As he stood up, the hours of sorrow gave way to a new determination.

  He stepped over the fire that had burned down to an inch and walked to a remote part of the palace. He would take Tangura, the item that was the reason for the attack on his village. Although he knew that no vengeance could be enough for what she had done, taking the carpet was the betrayal that would do the greatest damage to her plans and seal his destiny as her nemesis from that moment forward.

  Within minutes, the man was out of the main body of the Ziggurat. He walked at a fast pace even though he carried the long and heavy rolled-up carpet. As he passed out the side gates, a young guard addressed him in Arabic.

  “English!” the man commanded the guard.

  The sentry, who seemed used to the order, rolled his eyes but obliged. “Are you going for a ride, Farid?”

  “Yes,” the man replied, barely able to look at one of the boys that had taken part in the attack.

  “But why didn’t you come the usual way?” The youth pointed to the golden stairs that circled majestically around the Ziggurat, signaling the route that the Riders traditionally took. “Why are you carrying the carpet?”

  “Is it your right to question me?” Farid said sharply.

  The young guard jumped to attention and quickly opened the massive iron gate. Farid walked through, trying not to seem in a hurry. He sauntered out of the external courtyard and into the desert, carrying the heavy carpet.

  Behind a sand dune, he dropped the dense roll on the ground. The corner of it opened out and the moon reflected the fibers of gold and green around the outer edge.

  Farid pulled his own miniature carpet out of a leather purse at his side. With a swift movement of his hands, the second carpet grew to the size of an area rug. Then he placed the gold and green roll onto his own carpet and stood in the middle. It began to rise a few inches off the ground and then lurched forward in a sudden movement.

  With great effort to keep balance because of the added weight and awkwardness of the rolled-up carpet, Farid flew low to the ground over several miles, passing acres of dunes until he came close to a mountain range. After passing around the peak, his carpet began to climb higher and move with faster speed until Farid was lost in a cloudbank that gave cover to him and to the moon.

  That night, on the other side of the world, the Flyer would be born.

 
; 2. Monterey Historic Raceway

  The Pre-War sport cars were coming around the bend, and Jake sat up ready to enjoy the restored automobiles in all of their glory. Seeing Model-T’s racing around the track was thrilling. They were slow, compared to the cars that would be racing later, but they were in pristine condition.

  “What do you think it was like?” Jake leaned in and yelled at his uncle over the din of the engines.

  Mark grunted, his eyes fixed, unblinking. He didn’t like being disturbed while the cars were right in front of them. As the last one turned the corner, Mark turned to Jake.

  “What was what like, Bud?”

  “What was it like to live back then?”

  “You’re so like your father!” Mark threw his head back and laughed.

  The comment stung Jake. He wasn’t like his nerdy dad. He was like Mark. Cool and adventurous. They were at the Monterey Historic Automobile Races together, and Dad had opted to stay home and read.

  Mark saw the scowl on Jake’s face, “Listen, I only meant that you think like him. That’s a compliment, Kiddo. He’s a genius. He was always saying crap like that when we were kids.”

  “Well, what do you think about when you see the cars?”

  “I don’t think about anything. They’re cars. What should I think about?”

  “Well, I don’t know. Like how fast they’re going, or how they compare to other cars?”

  Mark shook his head and gave another gut laugh. Two bleached blondes in front of them giggled and turned around to smile at Mark.

  “Ladies,” he smiled back, and then nodded to the cars that were coming around the bend in front of the stands again.

  Jake watched them go around the turn, and then surveyed the crowds. There were more people here than last year. He threw his head back and closed his eyes, enjoying the warm morning sun beating down on his face. Mom would die if she knew that he wasn’t wearing any sunscreen, but that kind of protection was for Dad-type-guys, not Uncle-Mark-guys, which was definitely what he was.

  Mark was chatting with the sun-soaked California hotties in front of them and Jake picked up part of the conversation.

  “Yeah, my brother’s kid, Jake.”

  Jake looked at the women and waved, “Hey.”

  “Hey, yourself!” One of the girls said as she batted her eyelashes.

  Jake grinned crookedly, but he knew how this would end. The girls would be nice to him until Mark chose one and then the other, the one “stuck” as Jake’s babysitter would scowl as the Mark-other-girl-flirt-fest went into full-swing.

  The cars came back around the track. It was the ninth lap, and everyone sat up to watch closely because the drivers actually raced the tenth and final segment.

  “How is it that a 1924 Ford T Barber-Warnock beats a 1939 Alfa Romeo 6C-2?” Jake said in awe at the end of the race.

  “I know, there’s over a decade of difference in production!” Mark was as giddy as his nephew.

  “Well, the Ford is America’s car. It totally kicks Italy’s butt!” Jake was loyal to any 1920’s classic that could outrun a car that was a decade newer.

  “What are you givin’ me? A Ford can’t hold a candle to an Italian Sport’s car.”

  “Uh, I believe it just did!” Jake thumped his Uncle’s arm.

  Mark grabbed Jake in a headlock and gave him a noogie. The girls below were patiently waiting for their chance to jump into more flirting when “boy time” was over. Mark let go of Jake and looked down at them. They smiled brightly, and Jake sighed. Mark turned to his nephew.

  “Hey, Bud. You hungry?”

  Jake pointed to his mildly-protruding belly, “Always!”

  “Yeah, I promised your mom I’d feed you, so let’s go grab something while they get started on the next group.”

  They sat down a few minutes later in a different bleacher section with chili-cheese dogs and sodas.

  “You know that Mom doesn’t consider this food, right?” Jake smiled and then took an abnormally large bite.

  “What mama doesn’t know isn’t gonna hurt anyone, right, Bud?” Mark winked at Jake and dug into his own.

  This was the life – junk-food, cars, and Uncle Mark time. Nothing could top it!

  “I wanted to tell you something,” Mark said as he cleaned his tooth with his tongue. Then he paused and watched Jake for a few moments.

  Jake knew from the look on Mark’s face that whatever the news was, it was going to be bad.

  “I’m getting deployed to Kazhiristan.”

  “Wha-a-a-t?” Jake sputtered out, “When?”

  “Next week.”

  “But, you just got transferred to Fort Irwin. You were going to start training me on the weekends this fall.”

  “Jake, you can train on weights at the gym with your Dad until I get home.”

  “Dad’s not going to take me to the gym, get real!”

  “It’s only going to be a twelve-month deployment.”

  “Twelve months? You mean, like one year?!?! What the heck?” Jake could hear his voice raising, “Why does the Army need you?”

  “Things in the Middle East are getting crazy. My unit just got called-up. It’s our turn to go. All the infantry have to go when they get orders, you know that,” Mark tried to calm Jake with a hushed tone and head motions toward the people who were gawking at them.

  “I need you, Mark,” Jake said desperately pleading. Who was going to teach him not to follow in his father’s nerdy footsteps?

  “You’re twelve now – thirteen next April, you’re practically a man now, you’ll be fine!”

  “But, what if something happens to you?” Jake said in a whisper.

  “Nothing’s going to happen to me. I’ll be behind the action.”

  “But aren’t the infantry like the front-line guys?” Jake blinked in confusion.

  “Um,” Mark gulped, “my guys are so lazy, we’ll be the behind infantry guys. You know, the back-up infantry.”

  “Okay…” Jake was still confused.

  The announcer’s voice blared forth, cutting into the awkward silence. “And the cars are approaching the Corkscrew, getting ready for their final lap here at the Mazda Laguna Seca Raceway, this truly is a gorgeous day to be at the races, ladies and gentlemen. Later on, we’re hoping to break the all-time unofficial lap record of 1 minute, 5.786 seconds...”

  “Let’s go down to the tents,” Mark said and motioned for Jake to follow.

  Jake numbly followed his uncle as they crossed over the track on a sky bridge. Normally standing on the sky bridge was one of Jake’s favorite parts of the day. He loved heights and watching the cars speed under him. Today, he felt like the weight of Mark’s announcement was so heavy that he would break the bridge and fall onto the raceway below.

  Jake continued to walk slowly as they went down into the center of the field, where the car show was taking place. He looked at the white tents full of the most magnificently restored cars on display and his mood began to lighten a bit.

  “You know, that the Marque is the Mercedes-Benz this year. They haven’t been featured since 1986?” Mark said.

  “Gotta love those Germans,” Jake said, trying to be a good sport.

  They walked through the tents like a couple of little boys with glowing faces. It was a petrol-head’s dream.

  Then a flash of light from the far corner of a tent caught Jake’s eye, and his jaw dropped.

  “Follow me,” Jake said to Mark.

  “What’d you see?” Mark asked as they rounded some people and stood in front of a 1955 Mercedes-Benz 300 SL. The car was a glossy shade of burnt orange that put the fall leaves to shame. It was in perfect condition – like it had just rolled off of the showroom floor. Its Gullwing doors were open, making the car look poised for flight.

  “Where’s the owner, I’ve got to see under that hood!” Jake said as he ran up to the car, “Uncle Mark?”

  His uncle was frozen, hi
s typically tan face drained of color.

  “Are you okay?” Jake ran back and grabbed Mark’s shoulder.

  Mark shook his head, and then tensed his body. He scanned the crowd, looking for someone.

  “Let’s go,” Mark said quietly.

  “But, I wanted to check out the Gullwing.”

  “Maybe another time,” Mark grabbed Jake’s arm and dragged him away from the vehicle.

  “What’s up?” Jake said as Mark began sprinting through the crowd, pulling him along.

  “Just hurry.”

  “Is it because of the Gullwing?”

  Mark stopped and said gruffly, “That’s classified.”

  Then he began to jog up the stairs and over the sky bridge back toward the bleachers, but instead of sitting down for the races, he ran toward the stadium exit. Jake was trying his best to keep pace, but slowed to grab at the painful stitch that was forming in his side. Mark ran toward the parking area and down the aisles until they came to his Jeep. Jake came up behind and jumped into the passenger side while wheezing as he caught his breath. Mark peeled out of the parking area toward the abandoned Fort Ord. Mark’s muscles were tense as he grabbed the stick shift and pushed his jeep faster toward the main street.

  They drove in silence to the freeway. As the distance grew between them and the raceway, Jake could almost feel the tension begin to dissipate, though his uncle’s muscular jaw was still tightly clenched.

  “Where are we going? We just got here,” Jake said.

  “You’re going home,” Mark shot back.

  3. The Gullwing

  Jake looked in the hallway mirror and realized, a little too late, that his light brown hair was too long for his costume. Last night, he should have used his dad’s clippers and buzzed it into a crisp military hair-cut. Maybe he’d have time after school before trick-or-treating. He smoothed down the already crisp army uniform that he was wearing and touched the name tag over his heart that read, Bowers. Mark had been gone for two and a half months, the longest time period of Jake’s life.

  “Bye, Mom,” Jake yelled out, knowing that if he stayed any longer he’d be late for school.

  The walk was routine now - down the hill that his house was on, over five blocks and cross the street. Jake paused before walking into the parking lot and looked at the school that radiated nothing but gloom. He hoped that the excitement of Halloween would help lift the feeling of dread that usually filled the halls of Hale Junior High.

  Suddenly a shiver ran down his spine as he heard someone whispering behind him. He couldn’t make out the words, but the sound was low and deep and the vibrations reverberated inside his body. Jake turned to see where it was coming from.

  The Gullwing was parked on the street across from the school. It was surrounded by an odd assortment of colorful carpets and rugs that were draped around the sides and front, but Jake recognized the Mercedes from Monterey right away. The coincidence had a creepy factor that was off the charts. He crossed the street to examine the car more closely.

  A man was placing a sign under the windshield wiper that read Farid’s Carpets, scrolled in a perfect calligraphic hand. Jake guessed that Farid was foreign, from somewhere in the Middle East because of his olive skin and darker features, but he was dressed like an American. Nothing about the car or its wares looked like it belonged on the streets of his perfect suburban neighborhood.

  Jake tried not to be obvious, but the scene was so strange that he caught himself gawking. Just as he closed his mouth, Farid turned to look at him, flashing a stunning smile. His teeth were bright white in contrast with his black goatee.

  “Hello, young man,” Farid greeted Jake, “are you interested in a carpet?”

  “Um, no,” Jake said thinking about the rugs at his home. “I just …”

  Jake had nothing to say.

  “Well, I have some very fine quality pieces here,” said Farid, “would you like to take a look?”

  “Sure,” Jake walked closer to the car. He was vaguely aware that students were entering into the school behind him, and he probably should have joined them, but he just couldn’t. He was trapped in the moment.

  The bewitching whispering began again, but it came from inside the car. Jake and Farid looked at each other and then turned toward the noise. An unseen force pushed the car door open to reveal a rolled up carpet that lay on the driver’s side seat. The corner of the carpet opened slowly, like time-lapsed photography of a leaf reaching to the sun, revealing fibers of green and gold around the outer edge. The whispering grew louder, ringing on the wind.

  Ela ba’an, Ela ba’an, Ela ba’an.

  The strange words became tangible pulses of electric blue energy that swirled around Jake.

  “Cool trick, Mister,” Jake said, and act which effectively broke the mood and stopped the whispered energy.

  The salesman looked like he had seen a ghost.

  “I guess, uh, you sell a lot of those carpets with that show,” Jake tried to lighten the moment.

  Farid held his hand up and composed himself. Then he took a long look at Jake, scanning him up and down. Finally, his eyes locked on the military name tag.

  “Bowers?” Farid’s eyebrows knotted up in disbelief.

  “Yeah,” Jake shifted uncomfortably.

  “BOWERS!?” Farid said, in a louder voice.

  “Uh, I gotta go,” Jake said and pointed at the school, “the bells gonna ring, so see ya –”

  He took off toward the school without looking behind him, melting into the daily morning grind of kids streaming through the front doors.

  Jake ran into his math class and hoped that the school’s privacy policies would protect him from being hunted down by a weird carpet salesman.

  The fifty-minute class seemed to stretch into days before the bell finally rang and Jake walked to his locker. He went the long way around the school’s halls to see if he could glimpse the classic Mercedes through the large windows but the car wasn’t where it had been that morning.

  SMACK!

  Jake felt a surge of pain as his eye and nose hit the combination of a locker. Blood began to gush, and for a moment Jake couldn’t grasp what had just happened to him.

  “John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt,” sang a sneering voice.

  Abel, Jake thought. He straightened up and looked the bully in the eyes.

  “Haa, haa!!!” Abel laughed as he straightened the thick silver chain around his neck.

  Jake just stared in disbelief.

  Abel slapped his own chest and then tugged at his baseball shirt in a wannabe-gangster move.

  “What, Bowers? You got somethin’ to say?” Abel cracked his neck, ran his hand over his short spiked hair, and then sneered and walked off.

  The blood began to run down Jake’s face and onto his shirt. Always ready to witness a fight, the crowd of students that had formed a circle, now began to talk in muted whispers. Jake avoided their expectant eyes and ran through the crowd toward the nurse’s office.

  As he waited in the tiny room, Jake looked around. A skinny black kid was asleep on one of the beds. He looked at the other bed. The once white sheets had an odd tinge, and there was a faint brownish stain on the blanket. Jake began to itch.

  He turned away from the bed and looked at his reflection in the mirror. A bruise was forming under his left eye, but luckily his nose had stopped bleeding. He grabbed a paper towel from the sink, wet it, and tried to clean himself up while waiting for the nurse. He wondered why the students at school had secretly nicknamed her Frau Helga and not Miss I’m-not-in-my-office-when-the-students-need-me.

  Just then the nurse walked in.

  “What happened?” The woman asked as she began to examine Jake’s face.

  She wore German braids crisscrossed over her head and a giant mole protruded from her upper lip. Jake fought back the urge to yodel.

  “I tripped and fell into a locker,” Jake said stupi
dly.

  “Uh-huh,” Frau Helga’s expression made it clear that she didn’t buy the story.

  “Here,” she said, handing Jake some aspirin, and then with amazing force she tossed Jake onto the germ-ridden bed.

  In a flash, the nurse gave Jake an icepack and a paper cup of water from the sink. Jake could taste the pipes in the warm water as he swallowed down the medicine.

  “Stay here and rest,” the nurse said, and then left the room, leaving the door slightly ajar.

  Jake closed his eyes and tried to fight off the headache that was forming when he heard a conversation being held just outside the tiny room.

  “It’s never reacted that way before,” said a man with a slight foreign accent. Jake knew in his gut that it was the merchant, Farid. “It’s never reacted to anything before. Absolutely nothing for hundreds of years! It was like it woke up. Regular ones don’t react like that to their riders.”

  “Hmm,” said a second familiar voice, “Tell me again, what did you hear?”

  “Ela ba’an.” Farid said, “It was like a whisper that went into the bones. I can’t explain it more than that. Do you know the word?”

  “Maybe, hmm, maybe,” the second man said. Jake placed the voice. It was Mr. Lewis, his history teacher. “It sounds almost like Assyrian … maybe even older.”

  “Baan, in Persian means –”

  At that moment, Jake opened the door to take a better look, but its squeak covered the end of Farid’s sentence. Jake held his breath.

  “Maybe we should give it to him and see what happens,” said Mr. Lewis.

  “But it’s Bowers!” Farid was noticeably upset.

  “I appreciate the irony here,” said the teacher, “but I am positive that he is not Commander Bowers’ son. This boy’s father is a professor at Pepperdine, not the special forces military man.”

  Jake walked close to the door. He wasn’t able to see anyone through the tiny opening, so he concentrated on hearing as much as he could. Were they talking about him? His Dad was a professor and did they mean Uncle Mark? He was in the military, but not some Special Forces commander.

  “Give it to the boy and see what he does with it,” Mr. Lewis urged.

  “Are you insane? Don’t you remember how I got it? What if she finds him, or the carpet? You know that she intends to open the Doorway to the Bestiary?”

  “She has the journal from Prague, but not the Bestiary of Augustine. Besides, we need the Rider as much as she does.”

  “He couldn’t possibly be the Flyer of Tangura,” Farid spat out.

  “All of your candidates have failed, and you said yourself, it’s never reacted to anything before,” the teacher urged.

  With intense ferocity, the foreign man hissed, “If I give Tangura to this boy, you will not interfere, you will not train him, and you will not clue him in. If he is the Flyer, he will instinctively know what to do.”

  Jake’s mind flashed back to the green and gold carpet in the Gullwing that morning. He could feel his body tensing up as he waited to hear more.

  “Hey,” Jake’s spying was interrupted by the boy who had been sleeping, “what are you doing?”

  Jake snapped to attention and whirled around, “Nothing… I, uh, was just trying to hear something.”

  “Hey, you’re John Jacob,” the kid said, sitting up in bed.

  “It’s Jake,” Jake shot back, still trying to hear the conversation outside the door.

  “Really? I thought it was John Jacob. Everyone calls you that.”

  “Well, it’s not, it’s just Jake,” Jake wished that life had a volume control or at the very least a mute button, so he could hear the conversation over the boy.

  “You look like a John Jacob though, or a JJ,” said the kid shaking his head.

  “Nope,” Jake said as he gritted his teeth, “Jake is fine. Ok?”

  “Well, why does everyone call you that?”

  The conversation outside the nurse’s office was over and Jake sat down on the crusty bed in defeat.

  “My parents used to call me that. Just a little kid name, you know,” Jake said.

  The kid in the bed nodded solemnly, as if he were sharing a moment with his new best friend.

  “Then, one day last year, I forgot my lunch at home. So, my mom brought it in to my class. She waved the sack in the air, and sang out, ‘where’s my John Jacob?’”

  “Wow,” the kid said, “that’s embarrassing.”

  “Yeah,” Jake said. “Some kids picked it up and started calling me that.” By ‘some kids’, Jake meant Abel and his gang of bullies.

  “Did you tell your mom?”

  “No,” Jake said. “I just asked my family not to call me that anymore.” The truth was that Jake didn’t want his Mom to feel bad that the teasing started because of her.

  “I’m Caleb Jones,” the kid said and stuck out his hand to shake.

  “Why are you here?” Jake asked ignoring the friendly gesture.

  “I feel sick,” Caleb pointed to the bucket on the floor.

  The bell rang.

  “Well, see you around,” Jake said and left the nurse’s office, entering the corridor that was thick with human soup. The men had left, but Jake couldn’t shake the feeling that he would see Farid again. Soon.