Phoenix (4 page)

I breathed a sigh of
relief as our small pickup truck raced down the road. I was glad to be away from Dr. V, and from Ryan. I still couldn’t believe how much Ryan had changed on the outside, as well as the inside. While he was never a good friend, I did go over to his house a couple of times with Jake to hang out. Ryan wasn’t disrespectful toward his mother then like he was today. In fact, he was so tight with his parents that I really envied him.

When Ryan’s dad died, Grandfather took Jake and me to the funeral. Ryan seemed to appreciate that we were there, but we didn’t know what to say to him. Ryan’s dad and Dr. V had been elite cyclists when they were young, so Jake and I mostly just stood around and listened to the other cyclists who had come to pay their respects. There had been a lot of whispering about whether Ryan would keep riding without his father. Clearly, he had, and while he was in Belgium, he’d
obviously taken it to a whole new level. He was different now, though, and I was certain that Dr. V was responsible.

I turned to Grandfather to talk with him about Ryan, but Grandfather was lost in his own thoughts, so I let him be. I pressed my palms against the dashboard, feeling anxious about what we might find at home. We lived only a few miles from Town Run Trail Park, and the way Grandfather was driving, we would be there in a couple of minutes.

Like Town Run Trail Park, our house was situated along the White River. The home was tiny, but the property was pretty big. It was several acres and there were tons of trees. Maple and oak covered the high ground at the front, while birch and scrub cedar grew in the swampy rear where the land dipped down to the river. It was beautiful and secluded, and from the house you couldn’t see the road or any of the neighbors. It was perfect for Grandfather’s secretive nature, but all those trees might be a problem now. If someone was inside our house, no one would know it.

“Maybe we should stop somewhere and call the police,” I said. “Too bad we don’t have a cell phone.”

Grandfather shook his head. “Let us see what there is to see, first. I do not want the authorities to think that I am a paranoid old man if there is no trouble.”

I wasn’t sure I agreed, but I kept my mouth shut. I shifted in my seat, a million questions running through my mind. The main one was,
What could we possibly have in our house that was worth stealing?
I wanted to
ask Grandfather about this and many more things, but I knew I wouldn’t get any answers. I was becoming convinced he was hiding something. Deep down, I’d suspected this for a very long time. The only thing I really knew about him was his name,
Chénjí Long
, or “Silent Dragon” in Mandarin Chinese. It was a perfect name for someone as tight-lipped as he was.

We turned onto our gravel driveway, and Grandfather wove quickly past the overgrown trees lining the drive. He surprised me by stomping on the brakes a full fifty yards from the house. This was where the trees stopped and the lawn began. I didn’t see any vehicles anywhere.

“Stay in the truck,” Grandfather ordered.

Before I could argue, he cut the engine and slipped out the driver’s-side door. He hurried across the yard, toward our house.

It took me a few seconds to figure out what he was up to. By parking here, he blocked the only exit for vehicles that might be out of view.

Grandfather reached the front door, and I watched him turn the handle without inserting a key. Unbelievably, the door opened. That door was always locked. This was serious.

Grandfather entered the house, and I couldn’t take it anymore. I got out of the truck and was heading across the drive when I heard a tremendous
CRASH!

I rushed toward the house and heard what sounded like someone chopping wood inside. The chopping stopped as I reached the open door.

I poked my head through the doorway, into the family room, but didn’t see anyone. I stepped inside, and my heart sank. Our home had been ransacked. We didn’t have a lot of things, but what we did own looked as though a tornado had ravaged it. Our furniture had been slit open. Pillows had been slashed, and feathers drifted through the room like dandelion fluff. In the kitchen, our table and chairs were upended. The contents of every cupboard and drawer seemed to be on the floor, the drawers themselves among the mess.

Grandfather gave a muffled cry, and my heart nearly stopped. The sound came from his bedroom.

I knew that if I was going to help him, I needed a weapon. I considered going into the garage to grab something from our practice weapons rack, but it would take too long.

I was still wearing my mountain biking cleats, which were similar to the cleats worn by soccer players. They also had a large metal bracket mounted on the bottom at the ball of the foot for clipping into pedals. Those brackets were serious chunks of metal. I took off my shoes, letting them dangle loosely in my grip, and slunk down the hallway toward Grandfather’s bedroom.

His door was open. Just inside the doorway was the hulking back of a man who was holding Grandfather in a tight bear hug. All I could see of Grandfather was his legs. His feet were off the ground and he was writhing like a snake, but he couldn’t seem to break free.

Beyond Grandfather, I caught a glimpse of an ax head swinging through the air. There was a loud
CHOP
, and
the back of Grandfather’s overturned armoire splintered. The man holding the ax was Slim. The other man had to be Meathead.

I lunged at Meathead from his blind side, swinging a shoe with all my might. The metal bracket struck him behind the ear, and the huge man dropped to his knees.

The shoe fell from my hand as Grandfather slipped free.

I stepped around Meathead and shouted, “Look out, Grandfather!”

Slim had raised the ax and was coming at us. I hurled my other shoe at Slim’s face just as Grandfather dove at Slim’s raised arms.

Grandfather managed to knock the ax free of Slim’s hands, but my flying shoe struck Grandfather in the side of the head, and he went down.

“No!” I shouted.

I took a step toward Slim and felt an arm wrap around my neck from behind like a boa constrictor. It was Meathead. He was still conscious. The giant began to squeeze. I felt pressure build in my head as Meathead’s forearm pressed against the side of my neck, compressing my carotid artery and cutting off the flow of blood to my brain. A flash of bright white light exploded behind my eyes, and for the second time in less than an hour, I blacked out.

When I came to, I
found myself atop what remained of my bed. Like the furniture in our family room, my mattress had been sliced to ribbons. Grandfather was sitting in a dining chair beside me.

“Phoenix,” he said. “How do you feel?”

“Like someone tried to hang me with a noose,” I groaned, rubbing my neck. I tried to sit up, but felt dizzy and lay back down. “Ugh. How are you?”

Grandfather pointed to a large lump beneath his long gray hair. “Perhaps you should consider giving baseball a try. You have a strong throw.”

“I’m so sorry, Grandfather.”

“No need to apologize. You had the right idea, only I got in the way.”

“I still feel bad that I hit you. Did I knock you out?”

“You did. It seems they incapacitated you, too. The
bruising on your neck leads me to believe it was a choke hold.”

“Yeah, the big guy was still conscious. He latched on to me after you went down. Are my bruises bad?”

“The bruising is fine. You can rub it out later with some
dit da jow
ointment. Right now, I want to take another look at your eyes.”

I opened my eyes wide, and Grandfather leaned over me, his peculiar smell filling my nostrils.

“Very good,” he said, leaning back. “I see no broken blood vessels, and no signs of concussion. I was afraid you might have been dropped on your head after you passed out. You will feel dizzy for a few hours, but after that you should be fine. I will make you some ginseng soup. It will help you feel better.”

“Thank you,” I said. “How long have you been conscious?”

“Not long. I was awakened by the sound of an outboard motor.”

“They must have come on the river.”

Grandfather nodded. “I am very grateful they did not harm you. It seems they only took what they came for.”

“What was that?”

Grandfather didn’t reply.

I thought about his antique Chinese armoire. There was a secret panel at the back in which he hid all of his most important things. He had shown me the contents once, and I remembered a few pieces of gold jewelry, some old photographs, and a couple of faded scrolls that
Grandfather refused to show me. Slim had been chopping at the armoire with the ax.

“They took your scrolls?” I asked.

“Scrolls?” Grandfather said; then he shook his head slowly. “No. They are of no consequence.”

“Then why are you so upset? What did they take from your armoire?”

“Nothing. What they took was hidden in plain sight.”

“I don’t understand.”

Grandfather looked me in the eye, and his face filled with sadness.

“Phoenix, they took my dragon bone.”

I was confused. It didn’t seem like such a big deal to me. Grandfather normally kept the dragon bone in an ornate porcelain container alongside his other Chinese herbs in a cupboard over the sink. The substance was a grayish white powder, and he put a minuscule amount of it into his tea every morning. He consumed lots of different herbs every day. He had them shipped to him from China by an old apothecary friend he called PawPaw. She had come to visit us once, and she regularly shipped him things like peony flower root, which was good for blood circulation;
Astragalus
, which was good for digestion; and wolfberries, which contain large amounts of natural antioxidants. Grandfather taught me about all the things he ate, and he even made me eat some of them sometimes. However, he never said a word about dragon bone.

I looked up dragon bone on the Internet, though, and found that it is technically a mineral, not an herb. It’s
basically fossilized animal bones that have been cooked and ground into powder. Grandfather’s powder looked a little different from the pictures I saw on the Internet, but not much. His was more gray.

The descriptions said that dragon bone is high in calcium and potassium, and that it’s often used as a calming agent. Apparently, it helps lower a person’s heart rate. It’s good for people who suffer from high blood pressure. People with insomnia use it, too. I figured Grandfather was embarrassed that he took it, which is why he never talked about it or explained the mineral’s uses to me.

“I do know a little bit about dragon bone,” I confessed. “It’s pretty common on the Internet. Can’t you just order more?”

Grandfather looked disgusted. “Calling that stuff you can buy on the Internet dragon bone is like calling a Pekingese puppy a Mongolian wolf. It is made from the bones of common animals. My dragon bone was made from the bones of actual dragons.”

“You mean, dragons really existed?”

“Of course they did. As did dinosaurs and any number of currently extinct creatures. Is it really that difficult to believe?”

“I guess not,” I said. “What makes real dragon bone so special compared with the other kind?”

“While modern dragon bone does have some legitimate uses, true dragon bone has different properties and provides enhanced … results.”

“Like what?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“Why not?”

Grandfather said nothing.

I frowned, knowing there was no point in pressing the issue. “Can’t PawPaw ship you more?”

“There is no more.”

“Well, can’t you just eat more of something else? Wolfberries, maybe?”

“No.”

“Is there someone else who can get you more?”

His eyes darkened. “I told you, there
is
no more.”

I sat up, fighting another round of dizziness. Grandfather had never used that tone of voice before.

He must have seen the fear and confusion on my face. His voice softened. “I am sorry, Phoenix. I never expected this to happen. Not here in the United States, at least. True dragon bone is special.
Very
few people have heard of it, and until now I thought only three people in the world knew that it really existed.”

“What does it do?”

He shook his head. “I cannot tell you.”

“Why not?”

“Are you questioning my judgment?”

I considered saying yes, but then thought better of it. The last time I crossed him, my daily kung fu training sessions were so intense that it even hurt to sleep. I decided to change the subject.

“I’ll call the police,” I said.

“No police,” Grandfather snapped.

I was dumbfounded. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful,
but we have to report this. They destroyed our home and almost killed us!”

“We do not have to do anything of the sort. This is my business. I will handle it.”

“But—”

“Phoenix, I understand that you are only trying to be helpful, but I cannot risk any more people learning about dragon bone. I am upset enough that you know about it. If you were not such a trustworthy person, I would never have told you what it was called in the first place. I would have made up some other name for it. You have not mentioned dragon bone to anyone else, have you?”