The Secret Cipher (13 page)

“Yes, through the Poseidon Portal.”

“Poseidon is a . . .
portal
?” Tyler's voice cracked. I'd never seen him so happy. He was acting as if Christmas had come in the middle of July.

“Wait a minute.” Jax folded her arms across her chest. “What's a portal?”

“A gate or doorway that opens into a particular place,” Tyler and I both replied, at the same time.

The girl nodded. “It is a temporary means of travel. But I don't understand why your sculptors and painters always portray Poseidon with a beard.” She turned toward the reclining statue. “Why would a god who spends most of his life in the sea possess facial hair? Or any hair, for that matter?”

“Poseidon is bald?” Tyler asked. “Wow. I have to tell Walker to make some changes to our game.”

“How do we know the urn's with Zeus?” Jax asked. “I mean, maybe it's still in your bag.”

The girl turned the leather bag upside down and
shook it. Nothing fell out. “The urn of Hope will remain under Zeus's protection. Once I have delivered all three urns, Zeus will throw them into Hephaestus's fire. Since they were forged together, they must be neutralized together.”

“Hephaestus is the blacksmith to the gods,” Tyler explained to us.

“I know,” Jax said. “I've been reading that book, remember?”

The girl held out the vial of green liquid. I had forgotten all about it. “Now that I have answered some of your questions, will you please drink this? It will relieve your pain.”

Pain? I hadn't noticed Tyler limping, or complaining about a headache.

“I don't know what you're talking about,” he said with a shrug. “I don't have any . . . pain.”

She moved very close to him. They were the same height so their eyes were at the exact same level. As she stared deeply, he didn't blink. “The urn has not completely left you. There is still sadness. I saw it when we first met and I see it now.”

“You're wrong,” Jax said. “He's feeling fine. He told us. Right Tyler?”

She pressed the vial into his hand. “The gods have
sent you this elixir, to remove the urn's ill effects. You will not remember the pain you suffered. You will be free of the lingering darkness.”

Tyler's eyes widened. “Give me that!” He grabbed the vial and pulled out the little cork.

“Wait!” Jax and I both cried.

But the green liquid disappeared in one gulp.

I immediately thought about those drug commercials that list all the side effects. The list might begin with common things like headaches, dizziness, or sleepiness. But then it gets worse, like difficulty breathing, internal bleeding, and sudden death. Uh, sudden death is not a side effect. You can't recover!

After swallowing, Tyler wiped his hand over his mouth and stared into space. Jax and I watched, neither of us saying a word. My finger was poised over the phone, ready to dial 911 at the first sign of trouble—Tyler's lips turning blue, his eyes bugging out, his head spinning around. The liquid had been bubbling. Surely it wouldn't go down without some sort of side effect.

The girl stepped back. “How do you feel?” she gently asked.

“Better,” he said, after a deep, satisfied sigh. “Way better.”

“Your eyes are clearing,” she told him.

“What are you talking about?” Jax stood on tiptoe and looked into Tyler's eyes. “They look the same to me.” I agreed.

Tyler sighed again. “It's gone. It's really gone.” He smiled with amazement, as if he'd been cured of cancer. “There's no darkness. I feel great!”

“What do you mean, there's no darkness?” I asked.

Tyler hesitated a moment. “I didn't want Mom or Dad to know that I was still feeling cruddy, so I pretended I was fine. If they knew, they would have sent me back to the hospital.”

“But now you feel good? What was in that?” I asked. I took the vial from Tyler's hand and sniffed it. There was no odor. “If I take it to Dad's lab, he'd be able to break it down to its elements.”

“That would be a waste of time.” The girl took the vial and tucked it into her bag. “Tyler is cured by the gods. That is all you need to know.”

“Cured,” Tyler repeated. He smiled. “I feel better than ever.”

“Wow,” Jax said. “That's amazing.” Then she laughed. “Do the gods have something that will cure Tyler of his BO?”

“Very funny,” Tyler said, his smile fading. He turned away and sniffed under his arm.

The girl slung her bag onto her other shoulder. “Time moves much more quickly in your world, so we must make haste.”

“We?” Jax asked.

“We have the same goal—to neutralize the urns. And we each have something the other needs. You can help find the urns in this world, and I can get them back to my world.”

“Your world?” Tyler said. “Hey, what's your name anyway?”

She bowed, then said, “My name is—”

“I know what it is,” I interrupted. “I figured it out.”

Jax and Tyler looked at me with surprise. The girl raised her eyebrows, waiting for me to reveal her name. I didn't want to say it, because the act of speaking her name would be admitting that she was alive. That she was real. That the gods were . . .
are
. . . real.

I took a long breath, then said, “Your name is Pyrrha.”

W
e were on the move again, heading down a path toward Tyler's car. My brain was getting pretty close to overloading.

Pyrrha? Seriously? A girl from a story. A girl who'd been given three urns, by Zeus, to make her happy, and then had those urns stolen by her father. She was here, in Boston. She'd come from the Realm of the Gods. And she wanted to join forces with Tyler, Ethan, and me.

This would make a great movie, no doubt about it.

As Pyrrha walked, her wet sandals left prints on the path. The hem of her tunic was soaked, too.
My feet were still wet inside my sneakers and it was kinda uncomfortable, but I didn't care. I was walking next to a girl from another world!

“I don't mean to be rude, but can you do a trick or something, just to prove you are who you say you are?” Ethan asked.

“She rematerialized in the middle of a fountain,” Tyler reminded him. “She brought me a magic elixir. That's proof enough.”

“Not really,” he said. “If we're going to work together, then I'd like something more. Something I can measure, or record.”

I didn't blame him for doubting. He tried to logic everything, but sometimes you just had to go with the flow. I walked on one side of Pyrrha, Tyler on the other. Ethan was at our heels. She smelled like freshly peeled oranges and mint. I desperately wanted those sandals. They'd look good with my purple jacket. “Are you immortal, like the gods?”

“Immortal?” She laughed. “Only the gods are immortal. But if you measure my life by your calendar, I am much older than any of you.”

“You don't look older,” Tyler said.

“Thank you.” She smiled at him.

I squeezed between them. “I think we'd all feel
better if you explained some things.”

“Which things?” she asked.

“Well, basically all things,” I said. “We need you to explain
everything
.” I turned around and looked at Ethan. “Right?”

“Yes,” he said. “Start with how you found us.”

She pushed her hair behind her shoulders. Lamplight caught in the sparkles, making her hair look wet. “We believed that the urns were forever lost in your world, and therefore, that they would not be a danger to humanity. But your great-aunt dug one up and opened it. The moment the magic was released, its power was felt on Olympus and the gods knew an urn had been found. There was no doubt that the urn needed to be returned to our realm, but there was debate about who to send and how, exactly, to get the urn without causing more disruption. But then your great-aunt went into hiding.”

“You couldn't find her because no more magic was being released,” I guessed. “So no one could sense the urn's location.”

“Exactly.” She continued. “Years later, when you, Jax, opened the urn of Hope in the city called Washington, DC, the gods again felt its power.
I volunteered to retrieve it, since it rightfully belonged to me. So I transported to the location where the magic had been unleashed.”

“The Thomas Jefferson Memorial?” Tyler asked.

“Yes. Unfortunately, the urn was gone by the time I arrived. I watched as you were taken away in a medical chariot. I have been watching you ever since. But when you did not lead me to the urn, I searched your houses. I did not sense the urn's presence in either house.”

“That's because we didn't have it,” I said.

“You were inside our house?” Tyler asked. He scratched the back of his neck, looking a bit uncomfortable. “Did you go into my room? It's not usually so messy. I wish you'd called first. I would have cleaned.”

Pyrrha smiled at him. She didn't say anything mean about how his room looked or smelled. I realized that she'd been nice to all of us through this whole thing. Even while we were chasing her, and even while we were doubting her, she'd been . . . nice. I wished I could be more like that.

“When it became apparent that you no longer possessed the urn, I was afraid it was lost forever. So I begged the gods to allow me to break one of their rules.”

“What rule?” Ethan asked.

“Those of us who live in the Realm of the Gods are not supposed to communicate with this world. But Zeus gave me special permission to speak to you. So I followed you to the merchant's shop known as Merlin's Comics. I needed to get information from you.”

“Information?” Tyler frowned. It was official. She'd talked to him because she'd been trying to find out about the urn. She hadn't been into him after all. He suddenly looked like he needed another hit of magic elixir. “That's why you left so suddenly? Because you'd gotten the information?”

“Exactly. You told me where to find your great-aunt and I needed to secure transportation.” She put her hand on Tyler's shoulder. “But I would have liked to spend more time with you. Your gaming strategies are very interesting.”

Tyler didn't need the happy elixir after all. Just a few words from Pyrrha and he was beaming again.

Pyrrha's strides were long so I had to quicken my pace. “I still don't understand. You got to Sisters of Mercy before us, so how did you find Juniper? She was listed as Jane Doe.”

“As I got close, I felt the urn's presence,” she
explained. “It led me to your great-aunt's room.”

“Of course!” I slapped my hand on my leg. “That's why I didn't feel it. By the time we arrived, you'd already taken it.”

“I climbed in through the window and introduced myself to the woman lying in the bed. She gave me the urn of her own free will.” Pyrrha looked around. “Where is your chariot?”

“Not much farther,” Tyler said, pointing down the path. “This city is crowded. It was hard to find an empty spot. And that has nothing to do with my parking abilities.”

My head was still jammed with questions, but Ethan got the next one. “Why did you help us get away from Ricardo?” he asked. “You had the urn. You could have left the convention center and made it back to the fountain safe and sound, but you risked helping us. Why?”

“You needed help,” she said. “Besides, I realized that I needed your help, too. There is a saying in my world that four heads are better than one.”

“We have the same saying,” I told her. “Only it's two heads are better than one.”

“In my world, there are many multiheaded creatures, so four makes more sense.”

“Cool,” Tyler said.

“You still haven't explained where we're going or what we're doing.” I said.

“My goal is the same as yours—to find the other two urns and neutralize them. The man named Ricardo is clever at hiding and he currently possesses the urn of Faith. We must find the urn of Love before he does.”

“Ricardo has Faith?” I said. “But that means—”

“Ricardo is the bank robber,” Tyler said, completing my sentence, which totally annoyed me. “He used Faith to steal money, then he followed us to Boston because he wanted to get Hope. Next, he'll try to find Love.”

“Exactly,” Pyrrha said.

“Wait a minute.” Ethan scurried in front of us, then turned around and walked backward as he asked the following, über important question. “Why can't the gods find these urns?”

Yes! Exactly! Why were we going through all this when the gods had infinite powers to do whatever they wanted? Why didn't Zeus transport through Poseidon's portal and deal with this himself?

“The gods used to live in the human world but
it was a disaster. While some of the gods protected the human race, others pitted humans against one another for sport. They meddled in daily lives, destroyed without reason, pursued whatever they wanted for their own gain. It brought about a civil war and the only way the gods could save themselves from destruction was to move away. Since that time, they have been forbidden to enter or interfere in the human world.”

“But they gave you a vial of bubbling green stuff for Tyler,” Ethan pointed out. “That's interfering, isn't it?”

“I took the vial,” she said. “They did not give it to me. When I saw the pain in your brother's eyes, I felt compelled to save him.” She looked at him as if she were looking at a cute puppy. “How could I allow such beautiful eyes to be marred by sadness?”

“Beautiful?” Tyler returned her smile. “My eyes are like Satyr dung compared to your eyes.”

Wait a minute? Were they flirting? Eeeew.

“It's getting dark,” Ethan said. “We still have no place to spend the night. What are we going to tell Mom and Dad when they call?” Then he bumped into something. “Oh, cool, look at this.” We all stopped walking.