“You said you would be waiting when I got here,” Mara said.
He threw his book bag into the backseat and slipped on his seat belt. “This crazy woman nabbed me, when I came out the first time, and insisted that I let her buy a pumpkin pie. Ping must be putting something addictive in them. They’re good but not that good.” Settled in, he looked at his sister and said, “What’s the big rush? When I talked to Mom earlier, she said dinner wouldn’t be ready until late.”
“The dragon’s loose again,” Mara said. “We need to get home in case it shows up at the house, in case it’s still stalking Mom.”
“Tell me that you didn’t try to do something stupid to Ping,” he said. “You did, didn’t you?”
Mara pretended she was busy navigating, took a turn south and then said, “It never got that far. I never activated the Chronicle.”
“Yeah, but you did something, because you’ve got that stubborn-but-guilty look on your face that you get after you’ve done something you thought was right but went all wrong.”
“Look, before we went over to the warehouse, I spent all afternoon working with Ping, and I’m telling you that he has completely lost himself to that dragon. Even when he doesn’t physically look like the dragon, it influences everything he says and does. I had to do something to get rid of it.”
Sam shook his head. “I’ve worked with him a lot more than you, and I never saw any of that.”
Mara’s voice grew louder. “His eyes turned red, and he was about to pounce on one of his customers this afternoon. Later at the warehouse, after I repaired the roof, he seemed amazed at my ability, like he had never seen it before. He called it magic.”
Sam eyed her doubtfully.
“He actually said the M word, and it wasn’t metaphysics. After that he gave me another round of the ole red eye. I had had enough.”
“So what did you do, if you didn’t use the Chronicle?”
“I’ve always thought it was more complicated than that. I had to get the dragon out of him, before I could send it back to its own realm—at least that seemed like the logical approach. Remember the crystal I used to separate this realm’s mom from your realm’s mom on the bridge that night?”
“I’m not sure that would work in Ping’s case,” Sam said.
“Why not, hotshot?”
“Mom’s body was taken over by a consciousness from another realm, so it makes sense metaphysically that you could pull it back out again somehow. If I understand correctly from Ping’s explanations, his body—the one he occupies now—is an amalgamation of his and the dragon’s bodies. It’s not just a simple matter of yanking a consciousness out of where it doesn’t belong. They both belong there, metaphysically speaking.”
“Boy, you really have been hanging around him too much. You’re beginning to sound like him.” She paused and glanced over her shoulder, as they accelerated down the ramp onto Interstate 205 heading south. “Anyway it didn’t work.”
“What happened?”
“Mostly I just confused myself and pissed off the dragon. At least that’s how it looked, before it busted another hole in the warehouse roof on its way out.”
“And you think it’s going after Mom again?”
“I don’t have any particular reason to think it’s going after Mom, but, if there’s even a remote chance, we need to be home, until we know what’s going on.” They drove in silence for a few minutes, then Mara said, “Your Mara, the one from your realm, used the Chronicle to visit other realms to collect reptiles and things for your mother’s cult. Am I remembering that right?”
“Yes, why?”
“Was the dragon one of those creatures she brought back to your realm from somewhere else?”
“Well, yeah. It’s not like I come from a realm where there are dragons flying around all over the place.”
“Did your Mara ever tell you where this dragon came from or why she brought it back?” Mara asked.
Sam shook his head. “We never talked about it. I mean, it only made sense that they would get all excited about having a dragon to do their bidding, since they worshipped reptiles. Having a dragon for them would be like a car collector having a Maserati, don’t you think?”
“You say they were excited?”
“Oh, man, it was insane. There were celebrations and rituals and public events to make sure people knew that Diana had a dragon that would do her bidding.”
“Really? How so?”
“How so, what?”
“How did they get the dragon to do their bidding? How did they control it? Did Mara use her abilities to control it somehow?”
“Mara didn’t really have much to do with it after she brought it back, and the dragon always seemed to do whatever Diana wanted. I don’t think she had to force it or train it. It just wanted to please her, I guess, like a pet or something. Why so many questions about the dragon?”
“No reason. Just figuring out if there’s a piece to this puzzle I’m missing somehow,” she said, as they turned into their driveway.
CHAPTER 53
Sam found himself getting drowsy, reading the last page of the colorful children’s book he held on his lap, while sitting on the edge of his mother’s bed. He had tucked Hannah in more than fifteen minutes earlier. Finishing, he closed the back cover softly, preparing to make a quiet exit. Her eyes were closed, and her lips were turned up in a relaxed smile. It still amazed him that this was his daughter and that he could feel so deeply about someone he’d met less than two weeks earlier. When he had crossed over from his own realm and had met the version of Mara and Diana who lived here, he had mixed feelings to sort out. He had to separate his past relationships with them from his hopes of what they might be here. With Hannah, he was smitten from the moment they met, or at least shortly after he’d gotten over the shock of her arrival.
He reached to turn off the lamp on the nightstand, and Hannah’s eyes snapped open. Backing away from the light, he gave her a look of mock disapproval and said, “Are you trying to fake me out? Why aren’t you asleep?”
“I wasn’t pretending to sleep. I was letting you look at me, like you always do when you think I’m asleep,” she said.
“I like to make faces at you when your eyes are closed,” he said. “In the future, when I’m older, do I make faces at you when you are sleeping?”
She pushed his arm. “No, silly. You watch over me, like you did just now.”
“I see.” He pulled up her blanket a little. “So you’re saying I watch like that when I’m a grown-up dad too?”
“You’re the same dad, silly, just older,” she said. “You know, I am going back soon.”
Sam cocked his head. “You mean, back to sleep?”
She swatted at him playfully and said, “No, back home with you and Mom and our new brother that’s coming.”
His heart raced at the thought of a whole family. “Nana told me that you said you wouldn’t be here for Christmas, that you would be gone before then.” He paused for a minute to swallow and make sure his voice didn’t crack. “I’m going to be really sad when you leave.”
“You don’t need to be sad. I will see you when I get back.”
“I know, but it will be years before I see you again.”
She reached out and rubbed his cheek. “You will have time to get bristly.” She giggled, and he blushed, while blinking his eyes dry.
“All this time-travel stuff doesn’t really faze you at all, does it?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, nothing.” He placed the book on the nightstand and stood up. “Are you going to go to sleep now?”
She shook her head. “Mar-ree said she would come say good-night to me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me that you were waiting for Mara earlier?”
“You didn’t ask me.”
“I’ll go get her, but I think you’re just using technicalities to drag this out, so you don’t have to go to sleep. I bet your old man doesn’t let you get a
way with this when he has a beard.” He left the room and headed down the stairs.
Behind him, Hannah called, “Do too! And I’m not dragging it out, I’m just not sleepy!”
Diana stood at the foot of the stairs, looking up at Sam, shaking her head as he descended. “You are a complete pushover. Why is she still awake?”
He squeezed past his mother and stepped toward the kitchen. “What am I supposed to do, spank her? She wants Mara to come up and say good-night. Apparently promises were made that I was not made aware of until the last minute.”
Diana pointed through the living room toward the front of the house. “She’s not in there. I believe she’s on the front porch standing guard, waiting to see if the dragon shows up.”
Sam spun on a heel and reversed course in the kitchen doorway. As he walked past the stairs into the living room, he said, “Of course she is, always looking for the brighter side of life.” He snagged a jacket from the coat tree, opened the front door and stepped onto the front porch, where he found Mara huddled on the steps, looking up into the dark sky. When the cold air hit him, he stomped back and forth in place, as he slipped on the jacket. “Sheesh, it’s cold out here. Any signs of Ping up in the sky?”
“Not so far,” Mara said without looking back at him.
“Hannah says you owe her a good-night, and she refuses to sleep until she collects. If you like, I can keep an eye on things out here, until you get back,” he said.
“Oh, right. I wanted to ask her something, before she went to bed,” Mara said, as she stood up. “I don’t think there is much point in hanging around out here. It doesn’t look like the dragon will be making an appearance tonight.”
“You’re probably right. It only went after Mom that one time. There were a few other times it manifested itself, and it just circled around Mount Hood and stuff. For all we know, Ping might be himself again and resting comfortably at home.”
Mara crossed the porch and opened the front door. “I tried to call him a few minutes ago, and there was no answer, so I’m not as optimistic as you.”
“Anyway it’s cold. So I think hanging out in the living room is smarter than being out here,” Sam said, following her inside.
“Don’t take off your jacket,” Diana said, standing in front of the fireplace. “I need you to run out back and bring in some wood. I’d like to start a little fire.”
Mara took off her jacket, hung it up and said, “It’s nice to have a boy around to do manual labor, isn’t it?” She headed directly for the stairs.
Sam followed on his way to the back door and said, “How do you know she was talking to me?”
As Mara ascended the stairs, she said over her shoulder, “You’re the only one who still has a jacket on. She must have been talking to you.”
After she got to the second floor, Mara stepped into her own bedroom and grabbed the demontoid from the center of her desk, where it sat next to the Chronicle of Continuity and the Chronicle of Creation—or, as she still thought of them—the stupid book of haikus from the future and the doodad that downed a jetliner a couple months ago. Tossing the crystal up into the air and catching it like a baseball, she walked down the hall to her mother’s room.
“Hey, munchkin. You hanging in there okay?” she asked, sitting on the side of the bed.
“Yep, my dad just finished reading me a story.” She pointed to the green crystal. “Hey, you’ve got the demon toad crystal.”
“Actually it’s demontoid, but demon toad does sound better. Have you seen this before?”
Hannah nodded. “It’s a green crystal. It’s your favorite. Nana gave it to you a long time ago.”
“I see. Well, today I was staring into this crystal, and guess what I saw?”
Hannah’s eyes widened, and she smiled. “I bet you saw me, huh?”
Mara was a little surprised. “How did you know that?”
“’Cause a green light shined all over me in the kitchen, and, for a minute, I could see lots of me in the green light.”
“Did that scare you?”
Hannah shook her head. “I wasn’t scared. I was just seeing all of myselves, like in a funhouse, and you were there, so I knew it was okay.”
“So you could see me sitting on the floor?”
She nodded again. “Then the light went away, and Nana freaked out a little.”
“Strange lights tend to freak out Nana, when she doesn’t know where they come from. But you don’t seem to have a problem with them, do you?” Mara paused and watched Hannah shrug off the experience. “Did you see anything else in the light?”
“Nope, just lots of me and one of you.”
A loud rumble and a blue flash drew Mara’s eye to the window across the room. She glanced over, expecting to see the night sky outside, but a blue light continued to flicker, seemingly from somewhere below the window in the backyard.
“That’s strange. I didn’t think we were going to get any rain tonight and certainly not any lightning. Wait, that doesn’t even look like lightning,” she said, standing up. She ran to the back window, and, just as she pulled back the curtain, Diana screamed from downstairs. “Mara! It’s got Sam! Hurry!”
Mara looked out the window. A large blue bubble filled the back lawn.
CHAPTER 54
Mara dropped the curtain and ran for the door, but, when Hannah flung back her blankets and bounded from the bed, Mara stopped in the doorway, pointed toward the headboard and said, “No way. You stay right there in bed, so I know you’re safe. I don’t need to be worried about you running around, while all hell is breaking loose.”
Hannah crossed her arms and pouted. “But …”
“No buts, get back to bed. I’ll be back in a few minutes to check on you,” Mara said, turning into the hall. She ducked into her room, grabbed the Chronicle and ran for the stairs. As she slipped the copper medallion into her back pocket, she wondered what good it would do to have it. After all, the bubble—the portal to the other realms—was already floating around in the backyard. What would a second Chronicle do? She wasn’t sure, but the first thing that came to mind when she saw the bubble was the Chronicle.
“Mara, you have got to hurry! He’s disappearing!” Diana screamed. Mara bounded down the stairs, ran through the kitchen, knocking over a chair next to the table with a hip and going out the back door without stopping.
Diana stood on the back porch, one hand over her mouth and the other pointing to a thin trail of iridescent mist sparkling in the glow of the translucent sphere. The bubble spanned their backyard and stood nearly as tall as their two-story house. Mara’s eyes widened when she realized the mist flowed from Sam, and his legs were gone. The rest of him was quickly disintegrating, seeping through the static shell of the bubble and disappearing into a large vertical rip-opening at its center.
“He’s slipping away! Do something!” Diana said.
Mara paused on the porch long enough to say, “Stay here.”
She ran over to Sam. Though most of his body remained visible, it was spreading apart as if he were losing cohesion at a molecular level. An unseen force was pulling him apart and sweeping him away. She waved a hand in front of his face, but his shocked expression looked through her.
Looking around for some way to stop what was happening, Mara could see the lines and nodes appearing and filling the interior of the sphere, but she did not see Abby anywhere. She had to be doing this. The bubble looked exactly the way it did when it had appeared in Stella Reese’s kitchen, with that odd opening at the center. It also had that smog—the remains of people abandoned between realms—polluting the blue light that comprised the bubble.
She approached the static periphery of the sphere and pressed her hands against it. The thrumming and smell of ozone brought back memories of the night on the Oregon City Bridge. Groaning with effort, she leaned into it, sending bolts of lightning streaking from her palms throughout the electrical barrier. It flashed and sputtered, spewed a cascade of sparks like a power line
shorting out. The translucent wall flickered but reconstituted itself, before Mara could pass through.
“Mara!” Diana called from the porch.
She glared over her shoulder, about to say something caustic, but her mother looked horrified and pointed into the night sky. Before Mara could turn to see where her mother pointed, a blast of fire came out of the night somewhere above the transparent sphere. Flames poured down over the back wall of the house, igniting the siding and turning it black with a loud whoosh. Windows exploded and a high-pitched scream filled the air.
“Mar-ree!”
Black smoke poured off the house and rolled across the lawn toward Mara in a billowing wave that blotted out any light coming from the window. She could no longer see her mother and turned to run back to the porch.
“Mom! Are you hurt?” Mara yelled.
“I’m okay! The porch roof covered me. Stay here and help Sam. I’m running upstairs to get Hannah!” Diana yelled. Mara heard the back door rattle and then felt the ground vibrate—the trembling footfalls of the dragon. She suspected it had landed somewhere near the corner of the house, but it was camouflaged by smoke and flame. When roiling clouds parted, a dark silhouette loomed high above the ground; its red eyes glared down at her.
“I do not have time for this!” she screamed. Raising her arms above her head, she threw them forward and flung bolts of lightning from her palms directly at the dragon’s eyes. “Get out of here, or I swear your wings won’t be the only thing you lose this time.” She flung her arms forward again, sending more jags of electricity ricocheting through the haze.
A wall of wind bore down on her, driving the smoke into the grass. For a moment she could see the back of the house; now a wall of fire lapped at the roof two stories above. Looking upward, she saw the scaly tail of the dragon whip past the corner of the house as it ascended from sight beyond the light of the flames. Turning back toward the transparent sphere, Mara caught a glimpse of Sam. He was almost half gone.
Broken Dragon (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 3) Page 29
