Phoenix

Prologue

All I hear is heavy panting. My breath is ragged; my lungs burning. I'm running and running fast. Faster than I've ever run before. The wind hisses in my ears, protesting to its sudden displacement; tree branches whip my face and leave traces of blood that mingle with my tears, but I don't stop. I ignore the throbbing pain in my legs and press onward as fast as I can. The forest in which I run is strange to me; I've never before ventured into it. I stumble on loose rocks and patches of scattered sand, once or twice trampling into a tree that I didn't know existed. I'm catching up.

I can see wisps of a red coattail disappearing behind a bend a few feet in front of me. I quicken my pace, a feat which I thought was impossible. The vegetation gets steadily thicker as I venture farther into the untamed wilderness, in close pursuit of a creature that had no business being in this world.

Chapter One: An Unwanted Visitor

Phoenix, Arizona, one of the sunniest places in the world…and one of the hottest. But it's a dry heat, or so I've been told. It's also my birthplace and my namesake, or at least one of the dual meanings behind my name. With a name like Phoenix Faryn I was pretty much the prime target of bullying and name calling as a kid, but my classmates had every right to call me a "weirdo" even if they were ignorant to the truth behind their jabs.

In Egyptian mythology, the phoenix possessed the ability to live for extended periods of time by bursting into flames only to be reborn from the ashes. They also were supposed to be extremely fast healers making them almost indestructible. For these reasons they have been used as a symbol of strength, immortality, and beauty. Throughout history these magnificent legends have surfaced in various cultures spanning from the Ancient Aztecs to the Chinese. Many have marveled at the vastness of this myth. How could the same creature be replicated by immensely different tribes with absolutely no contact between them; with the entire Atlantic or Pacific Ocean as an impossible barrier?

The answer to that question is simple. It's not a myth. Firebirds are tangible, completely real creatures, though like every myth, folklore, or fairytale, the facts seemed to have been stretched a bit. For example, phoenixes aren't birds. Not necessarily, I should say. We take human forms because, for the most part, we are human. The gift to transform is highly unusual and revered. It takes a skilled firebird to be able to change his or her molecular makeup and this normally occurs during times or high stress or desperation. Once the transformation is learned, however, it can never be forgotten. Like riding a bike, except in this case the bike ride mutates you into a mythical bird and you'll probably catch on fire. Yeah, the bursting into flames and being reborn from the ashes part of the myth is total rubbish, but if one can transform one can also teleport themselves to any destination by way of flames. It's pretty sick! The phoenix will burst into flames and the ashes will rebuild the human form wherever the end point is, but sometimes the flames aren't entirely accurate and the clothes with not stop burning.

For the rest of us who aren't quite as cool, the only real thing that we have going for us is the fire bending. It's a seriously insane skill regardless! Firebirds have the power to create and manipulate—you guessed it—fire and, if we wanted to, we could set a whole city a blaze in about 10 seconds flat. Of course, we would never do that (I've been told by the Elders that it would be "sadistic" which is a bad thing). Of course, as a six year old with the power to set things ablaze, I was considered the school's fire starter, you know like that Stephen King movie with Drew Barrymore. My kindergarten teacher was supplied with three fire extinguishers after I accidental lit a few puppets on fire. I don't know what the big deal was; the flames only got five feet high at the most! Luckily, we're impervious to flames. I imagine that flames shooting out of a normal person's hands would leave some very nasty burns. Actually, we're impervious to mostly everything. I mean, we can get hurt—we bleed, bruise, and break—but the regeneration process is almost instantaneous. Apparently, our blood contains a powerful healing agent that constantly courses through our bodies keeping it strong and virtually indestructible. The blood can be used to heal others as well, but it's less effective because in order to extract the blood, we have to cut ourselves and the wound heals within a couple seconds. The Elders are all about saving humans at any expense, so they make us carry pocketknives at all times in case we have to slit our wrist to heal a mangled child or something. I'm surprised that I've never been called into the guidance counselor's office for suicidal tendencies.

The only time I've ever used my blood to heal another was when I was twelve. It was also the first time anybody besides another mythical creature learned about our existence. At the time, I had little control over my abilities and would accidentally catch things on fire (like an unlucky puppet) or send flames pulsing up my arms. Madeline, my best friend, and I were playing tag in her backyard. My adrenaline was pumping which is a stimulus for fire; a defense mechanism. Since fire is second nature to me, I didn't notice that my skin was expelling small licks of flames along my arms, but Maddie did…once she tagged me, that is. She reached out to grab my arm and pulled it back in pain. Her entire right hand was on fire, the flames making their way up her wrist. Needless to say, I was in shock. Realizing what I had done, I was able to extinguish the flames on my arms, making it safe to touch Maddie. I grabbed her arm and pulled the flames off of her hand using my fire bending skills and allowed the flames to dissipate into the atmosphere. Her hand was badly burned, though. The skin was an angry maroon color, obviously a second if not third degree burn. I had to help her somehow; her agonizing screams were more than I could bear. Thinking of the knife Karlstadt had given me in case of emergencies, I whipped it out of my back pocket, pushed the switch which unlocked the blade and, in one sweeping motion, sliced a clean cut into my forearm. Only five or six drops of blood had a chance to escape before my skin regenerated and closed the wound, but it was more than enough. Her skin returned to its natural apricot cream color and the scarred skin disappeared without a trace. Her breathing returned to normal leaving only her tear streaked face as evidence of the injury. I remember her brow shoot up into her bangs as her eyes darted from her perfectly healed hand to me and back. There was never a moment of anticipation that rivaled that one. Would she be freaked out? Would she never want to talk to me again, afraid that I would hurt her? She would never tell anybody, would she? What would Grandpa, Grandma, and Karlstadt—the Elders—say about this? My fears were for nothing, though. Madeline replied with the most exceptional statement in the world—"I hope you don't have AIDS." She smiled at me and asked me to tell her everything. It was against the Code of the Firebird to allow any human to be aware of our existence, but how could I refuse her. There will never be another Madeline for me. Our souls were intertwined, the same. We understood each other—I trusted her with my life, and she reciprocated. There were never two sisters that were closer than me and Maddie; we just click. I'm the one person that Madeline can turn to in any sticky situation; her parents are never around to realize what an amazing person she really is. Of course the Elders were furious after I told them. I got screamed at for a full day, but thankfully my age finally did something useful. I was apparently too young to understand my mistake.

Being the youngest member of the firebird population normally doesn't have many perks: you're not allowed to fight the exciting enemies, you're not allowed to listen in on the council meetings, and you're always being ordered about…it sucks!

Firebirds live for an extremely long time, the longest being 3965 years, but have a low reproduction rate. To put this into prospective, my mother and father are 513 and 657 years old and my brother is 153 years old. I'm 18. I was also born on an off century which means that there probably won't be another firebird born for the next hundred years or so. Firebirds mature at the normal human growth rates until the age of seventeen and then they gain approximately a year of aging every fifty years. So as of last year, I will not age another day until the next half century elapses. Our clan's Elders include my grandfather Horus, age 2242, my grandmother Isis, age 2169, and Karlstadt, age 1992. As you can see, my parents, Phoenicia and Thaddeus, are incredibly fertile creatures. Normally, firebirds have one to two children within the span of their entire existence; my parents popped two out within an seventh of their life.

Our life spans are influenced by two factors. The first is physical strength which is directly related to the second factor—birth place. Phoenixes are fire creatures and absorb the heat from their surroundings. At birth, the firebird's life force is fueled by the heat extracted from the environment. As firebirds originated in Egypt, a phoenix born in a desert will live the longest because the greatest amount of heat can be obtained in these environments. That's not to say a phoenix can't be born in a cool environment. Karlstadt, for example, was born in what's now present day Germany, my brother Helios was born in Greece and some clans live in India, Brazil and other lush environments. Lucky for me, I was born in the Valley of the Sun…yippee (sarcasm abounding)! It's not that I don't want to see centuries of change and history, but what am I going to do for that long a time? And what about the human friends that I make? There are only so many evil creatures in the world to destroy, a girl gets bored! My brother's enthusiasm makes it so much worse, too. He's always challenging me to stupid little competitions to see who can throw flames the farthest and who can produce the hottest fire. It's so unfair! Of course he's going to win; he's 135 years older than me!!! And I can't bring any of my mortal girlfriends home out of embarrassment. You'd think that after more than a century of life the hormones would have worn off, but no, he hits on anything that walks! His reasoning for his piggish behavior is that Greek girls in the mid-1800s weren't exactly bleach blonde volleyball players in miniskirts. Helios is not exactly the most couth firebird, but as much as I hate to admit it, he does have a ton of potential. The Elders expect him to transform at a young age, maybe even beat the record. The youngest master phoenix, as we call them (having the ability to transform into the firebird), was 232 years old and even my parents haven't reached that level yet, which isn't out of the ordinary. The average age for mastery is around 650 years old which is totally pathetic if you think about it. Most of the firebird population aren't even able to change into their trademark appearance—the crimson bird! Majorly lame!

So, as for me, I'm stuck in a crummy high school learning AP Euro History while I could be learning about Cleopatra and Ptolemy for my grandparents, both of whom were quite chummy with the incestuous couple back in the day…way, way, way, WAY back in the day. It's a total drag, but my mother tells me that it will help me acclimate myself into the human world and learn to control my fire bending. That's total b.s.; I could hardly stop myself from melting Kyle Jefferson's shoes to the floor when he hit-on me last week (to be perfectly honest, I actually did melt his shoes to the floor). I'm not even that good looking, either! That is unless you think bright red curly hair is sexy. I'm pretty much the palest person in the universe, too. It's the perks of being a firebird, we all are insanely fair skinned even though most of us live in the desert. How stupid is that? My grandmother and I are the only redheads in the family though; we're called fairbloods, which means that as a firebird, we'll have crimson-gold feathers. Despite what many people think, phoenixes aren't all reddish-gold in color. When we change our shape we take on our human attributes. I'm told that I'm quite lucky; fairbloods are the most revered of our kind…whoopty-do.

As I entered my senior year, I swore to myself that I would do all that I could to find a bit more adventure. I mean, what's the point of being a firebird if you're not allowed to set anything on fire? Little did I know, things were going to take a completely whacked-out turn for the worse.

*****

"Phi… Earth to Phhiii…PHOENIX!!" Maddie snapped, her thin tan hand waving back and forth in front of my eyes, her sleek brown hair falling in front of her chocolate brown eyes as she leaned closer to me. I blinked out of my daze and gave her a weak smile. With that, she straightened up to her full five foot six height. "Oh, glad you decided to join us."

"Sorry, I must've dosed off," I said.

"No big surprise there…" Maddie said, snatching away the newspaper that I had been looking at. "Massive earthquakes in Tucson, really interesting."

"Nice, Maddie, real nice. Don't you think it's weird?" I asked grabbing back the paper. "There isn't exactly an active fault line near Tucson."

"Whatever. Unlike you, I'm not really into the whole doom and gloom world events. It gets me depressed," she answered back.

"You know that twenty-seven people died?" I asked her as I reread the article.

"You know my saying—live fast, die young," she said offhandedly.

I rolled my eyes. "That should be your senior quote, it's very insightful."

"Good idea! And speaking of the yearbook, notice anything different?" Madeline said, gesturing oh-so-subtly to a clunky black digital camera hanging from her neck by a thick strap.

"Wait…did you get a nose job? I didn't want to say anything before, but man did you have one hell of a snonoz!"

"Haha…very funny. Say cheese, this is going in the yearbook!" Maddie focused the lenses so she could take a close up of me. As the only senior in the yearbook club, she was promoted to head photographer, a position that was starting to annoy. The constant clicking and flashing lights were enough to send anybody into a seizure. I decided that I'd throw her a bone on the first day of school and let her take four or five pictures of me in various vogue posses. "See, you're a natural. The camera loves you!"

"Ugh, I hate you sometimes, Maddie. Can't you find anybody else to annoy?" I asked as I put down the newspaper and turned back to the Bio summer reading that I was supposed to have finished by today but didn't because I had been way too busy with my fire bending. As an eighteenth birthday gift, my mother gave me permission to fire bend whenever I wanted, which was by far the best gift ever! You have no idea how annoying it was to have to practice fire bending with my mother or the Elders as supervision and then get grounded when I slipped up and succumbed to temptation when they weren't around (like when I melted Kyle's shoes to the floor).

"Uh-oh, I think you might get your wish! Major hottie alert," Maddie said as she redirected her camera in true stalker form towards a completely gorgeous boy lounging casually on the school steps. "Who is he? I've never seen him before."

"I don't know, but there's one way to find out," I said as I closed my bio textbook.

"Wait…what? You're going to go talk to him? Are you crazy? You're gonna make a fool out of yourself, Phi, and I'm gonna have to pick up the pieces!" she screeched. A random freshman scurried quickly away, clearly concerned about Maddie's mental health. "Man, he is soooo gorgeous!" That was no lie. I normally wouldn't attempt anything this bold, but it was like I was being drawn to him. His pale white skin gleamed in the hot Arizona sun while his dirty-blond curls blew in the wind. His tall, muscular frame was stretched out over the steps which caused his white polo to ride up over his perfectly sculpted abs. But it was more than just his beautiful, prefect body that was drawing me to him. I felt like I knew him from somewhere, but couldn't quite put my finger on the actually where and whens. It was like he was an old friend that I couldn't pass on the street without saying hello. I was halfway to the stairs when his eyes flickered open and met mine, flashing silver before fading into a deep emerald green color. Oh, shit! Turns out I did know him after all and he was no friend. I quickly spun around and grabbed Madeline's hand on the way.

"What, you chickening out? I thought you were fearless!" she laughed.

"Just hurry up, okay?" I said tersely.

"What's the matter? He just looked at you, you might've even had a chance," she reasoned.

"Did you see his eyes? They were silver!" I shouted.

"No they weren't. All I saw were the most amazing green eyes in the world," she gushed, clearly not grasping my point.

"Why, thank you. I've never receive a compliment that could revival such kindness," said a soft, velvet smooth voice that had a hint of a British accent. Madeline stopped in her tracks as I continued to pull her forward, but to no avail. She let out a nervous giggle and squeezed my hand. I only had two options: to make a run for it and leave Maddie here drooling or to turn around and act cordial. I decide to play it cool.

"Noah, how've you been?"

"My dear Phoenix, you look stunning, by far the most beautiful fairblood I've ever seen," Noah said with a breath-taking smile.

"Somebody wanna fill me in here?" Madeline asked, finally jolted out of her dumbfounded stupor.

"Oh, how rude of me. I'm Noah Wilder. I've known Phoenix for a very long time. Who might you be?" he asked way too politely.

"Umm… Madeline," she said uncertainly, it sounded more like a question. She turned to me and covertly asked, "Is he a you-know-what??"

"No, he's not. Let's go Maddie, my AP Euro class is on the other side of the school, I can't be late the first day." I pulled at her sleeve and we both made it two steps before Noah interrupted.

"Phoenix what do you have against me? We're so much the same. I'm only trying to help."

I whipped around. The intensity of his eyes caught me by surprise, leaving me momentarily mute, but I recovered quickly. "So much the same? How can you say that? I don't kidnap little girls, Noah!"

"We were trying to protect you, Phoenix. You were young, barely five, and your clan was severely oblivious to the impending danger targeting you. We had to help, it's what we do."

"Oh, you're playing the hero card, huh? You're no better than a sylph or a drac or any other monster that you can think of!!!" I screeched causing a few bewildered underclassmen to dart away quickly

"No, Phoenix. We always had your best interest at heart. The problem with firebirds is that they only register supernatural dangers; it never occurs to them that the creatures they protect could pose a threat! You protect humans; we protect everything else worth saving. And you were so innocent, you still are. We knew that your Elders wouldn't hear us out; they don't understand our calling, they're too proud to accept help from seraphim. The only thing we could do was bring you to a safe haven while we tracked down the threat. How could you think that we ever meant you harm? We treated you with the utmost respect while you stayed with us," he pleaded.

"You better get out of town before my family goes medieval on you," I managed to choke out before turning around. I grabbed Maddie's arm and was able to drag her to the next hallway over, before she stopped me and threw me a severely confused glare.

"What was that about? You were kidnapped by that gorgeous boy when you were five?" she hissed.

"He's not a boy, he's a seraph. And technically his entire tribe kidnapped me," I said.

"Okay…THAT ANSWERS NOTHING, PHI!!! What is a seraph and why the hell did they kidnap you? Why didn't you tell me about this?!" she shouted, thankfully we were in the language hall so the teachers couldn't understand us and the students, not even trying to make it to class on time, were still out in the quad enjoying the morning sun.

I let out an exasperated sigh. "You know how phoenixes are fire creatures? Well, seraphim are light creatures. Not to burst your Catholic bubble or anything, but they probably influenced the angel stories of the Bible. Seeing as though they're practically made out of light, they always have that disgusting halo around them, ugh…"

"Oh, you mean the otherworldly, please take advantage of me glow that Noah had going on?..."

"Madeline, stop it! This is serious!" I snapped.

"I'm being serious, jeesh! I'm just saying, as a completely unbiased third party observer…"

"Maddie, so help me I will light your camera on fire if you don't shut up!"

"Okay, okay, sorry. No need to get all defensive about it."

"You done now? Good. So seraphim also have three pairs of wings that they're able to retract into their skin, they're not anything like firebirds, but they're our closest relatives, like animal kingdom relatives not Uncle Joe and Aunt Cathy relatives…"

"Got it."

"…Because they're light creatures, they can control any aspect of light and can manipulate the wavelength frequencies. That's how they kill, by infecting bodies with gamma radiation, it's completely weird! No creature can function when their cells are getting all messed up from radiation poisoning, but our blood protects us from their little tricks. We won't die, but we still get really screwed up, our blood can't heal us that quickly. Firebirds aren't the biggest fans of the seraphim because they're all high and mighty pretending to be the saviors of the world, but we were able to co-exist easy enough before the whole kidnapping incident.

Noah's tribe was convinced that some Egyptologist had been researching firebird and phoenix myths all his life and had witnessed Karlstadt take down a sand beast while on a dig. He somehow tracked Karlstadt back to Arizona. Genevieve, that's Noah's sister, told me that his research had led him to believe that if he killed me, the youngest firebird in the clan, he would be able to drain my blood, drink it, and live forever…"

"That is seriously messed up! And she told you all of this when you were five? Who does that?"

"Well, not in so many words, but I kinda got the gist after a month of eavesdropping. So I guess the clan kidnapped me in order to "keep me safe" while they tried to find and destroy that human, which doesn't make sense because humans can't kill firebirds even if they have Ph. Ds in Egyptology. Needless to say, when they returned me three months later without any evidence (like a gamma-mutated corpse) to support their theory, my family was extremely pissed off. Hence, family grudge ensued and we've come full circle," I finished.

"Whoa. That's intense. So did they torture the secrets of the Firebird Nation out of you or something?" Maddie asked, seriously curious by this point.

I frowned. "No, of course not. First of all, there is no such thing as "secrets of the Firebird Nation" and secondly, my family would have crucified Noah and his tribe had they done anything that even remotely resembled torture!"

"So what's your grudge against hot-bod?" she asked.

"Are you seriously, Madeline? He. Kidnapped. Me. Kidnapped, as in stealing a child away from her family!" I screeched.

"Okay, okay, calm down, Phi, I understand. It was a joke. Do you want me to make sure that he doesn't bother you anymore? I could ask Luke, Cliff, and Landon to be your body guards. I'm sure they wouldn't mind, especially Cliff, he's practically in love with you," Maddie rambled.

"Maddie, how the hell have I put up with you for so long? I'm fairly certain that Cliff isn't in love with me, he's just afraid that if he makes me angry his possessions will mysteriously end up catching on fire," I replied.

Madeline gave me a skeptical look and rolled her eyes. "You're retarded, you know that? Every guy in this ridiculously large high school would have no qualms against hooking up with you."

"That's because they're guys, Madeline. They wouldn't have any qualms about hooking up with anything that moves," I answered truthfully.

"That's not what I meant and you know it," she retorted.

"Maddie, stop it. It's so not true."

"Oh, really?..." She turned to grab a passerby's arm, one of the only students in the hallway. I vaguely remembered his face and thought his name was Cayden Maloire. "Hey, what do you think of my friend here?" she asked him. I was completely blushing by this point. My cheeks were almost on fire, it took all of my strength to suppress the flames.

Cayden gave me the once over and smirked. I glared at him. "She's probably the most beautiful girl I've ever met." He smiled and reached into his pocket while I muttered an awkward thank you for lack of anything better to say. "Can I have your number, maybe we could hang out sometime? Maybe catch a movie?"

My eyes bulged out of my sockets. "Ummm…well, I…"

"She's not interested, I was just proving a point," Madeline finished harshly. Cayden blinked in surprise before his shoulders slumped in dismay.

"No, wait a minute. You still want my number?" What else was I supposed to do? I didn't want to seem like a bitch.

"Yeah, definitely!!" he said enthusiastically, handing me the scrap of paper and a ball point pen. I quickly scribbled down my number, hoping that if it was messy he wouldn't be able to read it. I forced a fake smile when I handed the paper back to him.

"What the hell was that, Mad?" I snapped once Cayden had skipped away down the hall.

"Hey, I got you an easy out. You're the one who gave him your number," she answered coolly.

"Only because I would seem like a totally insensitive jerk if I didn't," I hissed back.

"Oh well. He probably won't even call you, but still he proved my point. Every guy here has a thing for you including Noah," she stated.

"Okay, not discussing this here. I'll see you at lunch," I said heatedly before turning and heading towards the AP Euro History room.

"Phoenix, don't be mad at me," she shouted as I turned the corner. I made no reply.