Guardians of the Gryphon's Claw Read online

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Todd Gallicano

  Cover art and interior illustrations copyright © 2017 by Kevin Keele

  All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.

  Delacorte Press is a registered trademark and the colophon is a trademark of Penguin Random House LLC.

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  Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at RHTeachersLibrarians.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.

  ISBN 9781524713652 (hc) — ISBN 9781524713669 (lib. bdg.) — ebook ISBN 9781524713676

  Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Author’s Note

  Prologue

  Chapter 1: The Dream

  Chapter 2: Phylassos Returns

  Chapter 3: Dr. Vantana

  Chapter 4: Seeing Is Believing

  Chapter 5: Cut to a Chase

  Chapter 6: Carl Can Help

  Chapter 7: A Claw Full

  Chapter 8: London’s Calling

  Chapter 9: The Lord of the Hunt

  Chapter 10: The Guardians

  Chapter 11: Tashi

  Chapter 12: The Snowmen Are Frosty

  Chapter 13: Knox Knocks

  Chapter 14: No Place Like Home

  Chapter 15: Unguarded

  Chapter 16: Taking Flight

  Chapter 17: A Return to Gaia

  Chapter 18: Phylassos Revealed

  Chapter 19: Sam’s Gift

  Chapter 20: Case Closed

  Epilogue

  Glossary of Mythical Creatures

  Dmw File Classification

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Parks to Visit

  For Squishy and the believers

  * * *

  The following account is based on a case file that originated with the Department of Mythical Wildlife (DMW). In an effort to inform the public of this previously unknown government agency, my sources have provided me with copies of files from the DMW archives. As far as I can determine, “Guardians of the Gryphon’s Claw” is the department’s first case involving Sam London.

  DMW case files consist of witness interviews, investigative notes, research materials, and reports offering comprehensive explanations of the events that transpired. Due to the often dry, fact-laden nature of this information, I have created a dramatic interpretation of the file’s contents. All the details have been maintained, but the narrative has been enhanced for the reader’s enjoyment. I have also included several references to the source material within the text and have appended a legend of abbreviations, codes, and terms to assist in decoding the DMW’s distinct classification system.

  Since these files are classified, dates have been omitted and some names have been altered to protect the identities of witnesses and individuals still in the department’s employ.

  —T.C.G.

  It was the moment Penelope Naughton saw the troll at International House of Pancakes that changed everything. She had never actually laid eyes on a troll before—at least, not in real life. Depictions in Hollywood movies were the extent of her exposure to the mythical creatures. But this wasn’t Tolkien’s Mordor or Rowling’s Hogwarts; it was Eureka, California. A town best known for its Victorian mansions, art festivals, and the state’s oldest zoo.

  That being said, Penelope couldn’t help but notice how similar this troll appeared to the ones she had seen on the silver screen. The creature was large, with tan, leathery skin. His ears were enormous mounds of wrinkled flesh with pointed tops and lobes that drooped past his chin. The massive nose on the troll’s face was crooked and upturned, exposing nostrils with copious amounts of dark, twisting hair. His wide-set eyes featured two distant pitch-black pupils swimming in pools of yellow. He had long, hairy arms that reached down toward his knees and ended in rough-skinned hands with sharp fingernails. The smallest part of the troll was his head, which looked particularly diminutive given the size of his frame. Compared to a human, this creature was entirely disproportionate.

  Upon seeing the troll, Penelope felt her rational mind check out and instinct kick in. She sprang to her feet, pointed, and screamed so loudly that a startled cook flipped a pancake with enough force that it stuck to the ceiling. While the patrons and staff were understandably rattled by Penelope’s outburst, the troll seemed more panicked than surprised. His expression was that of a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar; of course, the troll’s hands were the size of cookie jars. He appeared to purposely avoid eye contact with Penelope as he scurried from his booth and disappeared out the exit.

  If this experience hadn’t been strange enough, Penelope couldn’t shake the feeling there was something familiar about the creature. It was as though she knew him. But how could she? It had to be her recent viewing of Lord of the Rings that had caused this momentary lapse of sanity. Yes, that was surely it. After all, no one else seemed bothered by his presence. He was just a big guy enjoying his breakfast. There was no such thing as trolls.

  —

  Forty-eight hours later, Penelope was on her way to Redwood National Park and she couldn’t get there quickly enough. Her doctor had recommended she not return to work for at least six months. The thirty-three-year-old’s condition, which was diagnosed as a rare type of sudden amnesia, didn’t appear to be triggered by any physical trauma and only affected the last three years of her life. Penelope could easily recall her childhood—a simple one in the suburbs of Tallahassee, Florida. She remembered her schooling and the angry looks she received for wrecking the curve in science class. But most importantly, she retained her love of nature.

  It had always been Penelope’s dream to work in the outdoors, and her aspirations crystallized at age twelve during a visit to Everglades National Park. Ranger Woodruff Sprite was an eccentric sort who had encouraged and mentored Penelope along her path, which eventually led to Oregon State University. There she secured a bachelor’s degree in zoology and animal biology, as well as a master’s in forestry. The first part of her career was spent indoors in a lab, developing tools to aid the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the U.S. Forest Service, and the National Park Service in protecting animals and conserving natural habitats. Six years later, Penelope’s work culminated in her landing her dream job: park ranger at Redwood National Park. That was where her memory inexplicably stopped.

  Penelope had been recuperating from her amnesia at a friend’s house, but her real home was in the park. She couldn’t even remember moving into the on-site housing the National Park Service provided to all rangers, but she hoped her return might jog her jumbled memory. Unfortunately, when she arrived at her two-story cabin in the heart of the forest, it didn’t look at all familiar. It was small, a touch shoddy, and surrounded on all sides by the beautiful redwood trees that made the park famous. They towered to awe-inspiring heights on trunks so thick you could carve a car tunnel through them.

  Penelope ascended the creaky staircase to the front door of the cabin. As she wrestled with her keys, a noise from the forest froze her. She held her breath and listened intently, waiting for it to
repeat. And it did. It was the whinny of a horse. The sound struck a chord with her. She knew that whinny—

  “Gus?” she reflexively called out.

  Penelope was down the steps and into the forest in an instant. The memory wasn’t clear—it was more of a feeling or intuition. But the name she knew. Gus. He was a friend. And she couldn’t wait to see him again. She followed the sound as it took her deeper into the woods and off the trail. She started to run, racing through the thicket as fast as her legs would allow. She plowed through a tightly packed group of trees and into a clearing, where she could finally see her Gus. But she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.

  Gus was a brilliant white horse with a coat that shimmered in the sunlight. The sparkle was almost enough to distract Penelope from an even more extraordinary realization: Gus had wings. Magnificent feathered wings that spanned at least ten feet and flapped slowly against the wind. As she tried to digest this impossibility, she immediately became aware of a man standing next to Gus, clutching his reins.

  “Penelope?” the man asked, betraying a slight Southern drawl. “You’re back early. I thought Dr.—”

  “Who are you?” Penelope asked quickly.

  “Ah. A little too early, it seems,” said the man, adding with a smile, “I’m Vance. Vance Vantana, and this is—”

  “Gus,” Penelope interjected.

  “Yeah. Gus,” Vance replied. “You remember. Very good.”

  A moment of silence as Penelope took stock of her situation. The stranger was handsome, she thought. Tall, around thirty-five, with an athletic build and a rugged look more befitting a crime-fighting Texas Ranger than a park ranger. But there he was, dressed in the standard ranger uniform—the distinct green jacket and pants along with the signature beige campaign hat.

  “It’s good to see ya again,” he said as he approached, his hand extended.

  “Again?” she wondered. Had she met this man before? Now that she thought about it, his face did seem familiar, but she couldn’t place him. And then Penelope’s eye caught the sun’s reflection off Vance’s badge and she noticed something odd about it. Instead of the typically issued badge, bearing the image of a buffalo and the words “U.S. Department of the Interior,” this one featured a picture of a beast that had the body of a lion and the head and wings of an eagle. She immediately recognized it as the magical creature known as a gryphon. The words surrounding the animal also gave her pause—“U.S. Department of Mythical Wildlife.”

  Preoccupied with the badge, Penelope didn’t bother shaking Vance’s hand. He withdrew it awkwardly.

  “Trevor, Gus, and I were worried about you,” he said.

  “Trevor?” Penelope replied quizzically.

  Vance motioned to the edge of the forest, where a hulking figure emerged. Penelope’s eyes widened with surprise as she found herself staring at none other than the troll from IHOP. She suddenly felt the world go dark. Vance jumped to Penelope’s side, catching her as she fainted.

  “Great. You freaked her out again,” Vance scolded the troll.

  The troll shrugged innocently and responded in a high-pitched voice, “I didn’t mean to, and she scared the heck out of me first, remember? I couldn’t even finish my Rooty Tooty Fresh ’N Fruity.”

  “Tragic,” chided Vance. “Well, pick her up and take her on home. Once she wakes, explain things. And bring Carl—he’s always had a way of calmin’ her down.”

  As Trevor turned and started for the cabin with an unconscious Penelope cradled in his arms, Vance placed a halting hand on the troll’s shoulder.

  “Find out anything you can about what happened, Trev,” Vance whispered ominously. “Her amnesia was not natural.”

  Once again, Sam London found himself wandering in the desert. After fourteen consecutive nights of the same dream, this brown-haired, blue-eyed twelve-year-old had reached his breaking point. As he looked out on the now all-too-familiar landscape, an overwhelming sense of frustration billowed up inside him. He wondered if tonight would prove as utterly pointless as all the other nights spent in this place. Then again, maybe this dream did have a point lurking about, but Sam was simply missing it by waking up too soon. Whether it was the alarm ringing him out of bed for school or his mother’s operatic singing in the shower—the only place she claimed had Carnegie Hall–like acoustics—Sam was consistently roused to reality before anything of significance occurred.

  Adding to Sam’s frustration was the fact this was a lucid dream, which meant he was fully aware he was dreaming. Unfortunately, for some reason it wouldn’t allow him to take advantage of this favorable circumstance. The only other time Sam had experienced lucid dreaming, he had bestowed superhuman powers upon himself and saved the world from an army of bloodthirsty werewolves. In contrast, on night three of Sam’s desert odyssey, he attempted to defy gravity, only to learn that falling in a dream hurts about as much as it does in reality, at least until your eyes open. No matter what he tried, the Sam in this dreamworld was, as he considered it, as “un-special” as the Sam in the real world.

  That word “un-special” was a wholly Sam creation. He used it to describe people who lacked a definitive skill or purpose. In Sam’s eyes, some kids were born to play sports, some had a genetic predisposition to genius, and others were natural artists with boundless creativity. Sam London couldn’t boast any of these qualities. He was just your average kid of average height with average looks and average grades. And except for its recurring nature and other peculiarities, his dream was like Sam—pretty average.

  Each night for the last two weeks, Sam was transported to a desolate two-lane road surrounded by a seemingly endless desert. The only hint of civilization was a gas station that sat about a half mile up the highway. The night before last, Sam was able to reach the station and have a look around. Much to his dismay, the structure proved as stark as the landscape. The shelves in the mini-mart were bare, and worst of all, the ICEE machine refused to function. But Sam was not the type to give up easily. He held on to the hope that this dream would reveal a surprise or two. Though he did entertain the thought, if just for a moment, that this environment was on some level a metaphor for his life.

  In addition to inspecting the gas station, Sam had used his time to explore several rocky outcroppings that peppered the terrain. Though he had yet to find anything of interest, there was one remaining possibility. The largest of the outcroppings was positioned about three hundred yards from the station. Sam had been avoiding this formation, as it was the tallest and consequently the most intimidating of the bunch. But tonight was the night to leave no stones unturned, no matter how high they were stacked.

  Time was not on Sam’s side. His alarm clock was ticking down to seven a.m. At any moment he could be yanked from his slumber—and his search. With that squarely in mind, Sam sprinted to his target—a mountain of granite boulders piled high atop granitic bedrock. The formation stood at least thirty feet and culminated in a plateau, which could very well be hiding the answers Sam so desperately sought. He picked his first “step,” a large misshapen boulder that was easy to climb. His sneakers slid a bit against the gritty rock face—his hands could have used some of that chalk real climbers relied on. But soon enough he was within a few feet of his goal. Yet this part of the climb would prove especially difficult, as the rock had given way to loose bedrock and leverage was a precious commodity.

  Sam reached out for a crook in the surface. Grabbing hold, he attempted to pull himself to victory, but the rock crumbled beneath his grip, and he suddenly found himself sliding back toward the ground. He scrambled, his arms moving like the tentacles of a panicked octopus, trying desperately to hold on to anything that would stop his rapid descent. He finally made contact with an area of the rock that jutted out a few inches. He clutched it and began the process of pulling himself back up the side of the formation.

  By the time Sam hurled himself over the edge of the plateau, he was thoroughly exhausted and downright filthy. He stood up and surveye
d the scene. Except for the spectacular view, this plateau was just as exciting as the ground below. He sighed—the frustration had officially transformed into resignation.

  “Why?” Sam said aloud for the universe to hear. The universe didn’t bother to answer. He decided he would no longer wait for his alarm or his mom to rouse him from his slumber. He was going to protest the dream by waking himself up. He quickly found it was easier said than done. Sam tried jumping up and down but remained in the desert. He shook his head briskly but only succeeded in making himself dizzy. He shut his eyes tightly, squeezing hard, then opened them again to see…he was still there. So Sam went for all three moves: he shook his head, clenched his eyelids, and stomped his feet hard on the rocky surface.

  “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!” Sam shouted.

  He brought his foot down hard on the plateau and the earth shook beneath him, a quick and powerful tremor that drove him to his knees. A cloud of dirt plumed around him and he choked on the dusty air. Sam was blinded by a veil of grime, but as the murkiness melted away, he found he was no longer alone in this desert. When the dust settled, Sam’s eyes narrowed and his lips parted in absolute bewilderment. The creature that stood before him was at least fifteen feet tall. It had the head of an eagle framed by a majestic crest of white feathers. Its beak was hooked downward to a sharp, lethal point. Emerald-green eyes glowed in the sunlight. Wings that were a mix of tan and pure white feathers extended several feet from its body. Although at first glance it appeared to be a bird, Sam’s eyes were distracted by the beast’s chest, which was covered not in feathers but in fur. A chestnut-colored coat spread across its body to its four powerful legs, massive paws, and a long, tufted tail. This eagle was also a lion.