Fireheart
Chapter 6: So Close, and Yet So Far...
Loa Shi and Rose returned to the shop to find the others waiting for them, along with Sun Park, Haley, Rose's parents and sister, and Jake's parents.
After a warm welcome from all of them, Rose told them about what had happened to her, and then, she told them about Jake...
"-So now we have to find a way to break the curse on Jake." finished Rose. The others stared at her, trying to take in what she'd told them... Meanwhile, Fu Dog was thinking hard, staring around at the book shelves.
"Ya' say the black lightening came out of that star shaped burn on Jake's chest when he transformed?"
"That's right." said Rose, "Do you know anything about it?"
"I just might..." said Fu thoughtfully. He went up to one of the book shelves and started pulling each book from the shelf, glancing at the title before putting it back.
"But what good is that gonna do us?" asked Trixie when she saw what he was doing, "We've already looked through every magical medicine book in this place, and we still couldn't find anything about that burn!"
"That's because we were looking in the wrong books." said Fu, as he dug through the boxes in the back room, "Ah-Ha! Bingo!"
He came back with a large book that was covered with dust. He set the book down on a stool in the middle of the room as the others gathered around him. Once the dust was blown away, it revealed a black leather binding, cracked with age and filled with yellowing pages. The faded letters of the title were silver in color and read "Dark Magic and Forbidden Curses". Under the title was a silver picture, as faded as the title, but still clearly recognizable. It was the image of a skull and crossbones.
"Grandpa,"asked Haley, astonished, "What are you doing with a book of Dark Magic?!"
"Do not worry Haley." the old dragon said gently, "This is only a journal which recorded the use of Dark Magic and curses throughout history." He turned to look at Fu. "But what are you looking for Fu Dog?"
"Just give me a sec..." said Fu, as he flipped through the book's pages. "Found it!" Fu stared hard at the pages as he read, "Uh-oh... "
"What is it?" asked Susan.
But before Fu could answer- "Hey guys! Look what I found!" 89 came running into the room, holding a small purple canister. He tripped over the rug, and the can flew into the air before Fu Dog caught it.
"Phew..." said Fu, as he looked at the can, "Magical Sneezing Salt, not a good thing to have around a bunch of dragons..." But just as he said this, the lid fell off, and thick purple cloud of salt spread out into the room. Fu Dog started sneezing first, then the humans, and then...
"Uh-oh, everybody out!" cried Fu. He opened the door to the front room and the humans ran out, still sneezing.
"Huh,"said Haley, "I don't feel like sneezing. Maybe this batch doesn't work on dra- dra- drag- ACHOO!" She dragoned up as a fireball shot from her mouth, and landed right on the book!
"Fu Dog! ACHOO! Get the- ACHOO! fire extinguisher!" cried Loa Shi, as he tried to control his sneezing.
"Rose," said Sun, covering her mouth to keep from breathing in the salt, "Flap your wings to clear the air."
"I've got- ACHOO! A better idea- ACHOO!" said Rose. She ran from the room, and came back with a hand held vacuum cleaner.
Just then, Fu Dog ran into the room wearing a gas mask and holding a fire extinguisher. As he put out the fire, Rose used the vacuum cleaner to suck up the rest of the salt. Once the air was clear, and they could all breathe without sneezing, they gathered around the book again, to see how much damage had been done to it.
"Well," said Fu, "It doesn't look too bad. Looks like the only page that got burnt was the page we needed- who am I kiddin' this is terrible!"
"What do we do now?" asked Rose, "That page was our only hope of finding a way to break that curse!"
"Not exactly..." said Fu, squinting down at the remains of the blackened page, "There's a footnote here, about the only thing left of this page, but it says here, that the information about this curse came from an ancient text called the 'Scroll of Secrets'."
"Well what are we standin' around for then?" said Jonathan, "Let's start looking for it."
A few hours later...
"It's no use." said Susan, "We've looked everywhere for that scroll!"
"It's not anywhere at the Huntslair." said 88.
"Yeah," said 89, "We searched that place from top to bottom."
"And we looked all over the Magus Bazaar." said Sun
"But it wasn't there either." said Haley.
"We can't just give up!"said Rose, "That has to be someway to find it!"
"There is one place it might be..." said Loa Shi.
Everyone turned to look at him.
"If the scroll is not here, and the Huntsclan did not have it, then I know of only one other person who might have it..."
As he stared around at them all, he locked eyes with Rose. And in that moment, they both knew that they were thinking the same crazy idea...