She staggered from the sight with her hands over her ears and, through gritted teeth, said to Suter, “Do something. Make them stop saying my name. Do it now!”
From the corner of her eye, she saw movement. A hand reached up from the ladder at the back of the building. Ping saw the look of panic cross her face and followed her gaze.
Raising the mop handle, Ping said, “Go ahead. I’ve got this.” He ran toward the ladder and poked his head over the edge of the roof. “Get started. These things are so slow, I think I can keep up with them for a while.”
Mara nodded toward Suter, who lifted the cowl to cover his head and stood up on the brick ledge. He raised his arms and lowered his head. After a minute, Mara heard a soft hum beneath the ongoing drone of the shedding chant from below, “Join us, Mara. Join us.” She could not tell from where it emanated. And then is grew louder, more urgent, and she turned toward Suter’s cowled profile hanging out over the scene. He hummed the tune the flautist had played during the ceremony she had seen earlier. That seems to make sense. Soon it grew into a moan, the same tune as before, only a quicker beat that flew into a higher register, growing louder with each measure until it became a piercing, keening sound with no melody whatsoever.
Mara leaned forward to see past the edge of Suter’s cowl. His eyes glowed brightly, two pins of light in the shadow of his hood that grew more intense with the power of his voice.
His song, or whatever it was, was so loud, it blended with the chant, then overcame it.
Looking out over the crowd below, Mara realized that Suter had not drowned out the blighted people below. They had stopped chanting. As Mara was about to comment, all of them collapsed in unison, falling to the pavement with a short but thunderous rumble. Bodies were strewn all over the street.
Suter lowered his arms toward the field of prone bodies that stretched for as far as the eye could see, and he too fell silent. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, he raised his arms again. Below, a dark haze formed over the fallen people.
Mara realized it was a huge black mist, coalescing above the street for blocks. Prado has left them. Through the growing fog, she saw the green phantoms dissipate. They’ve gone back to their bodies. The fog thickened, blackened and roiled. The black mist rose up above the buildings and swirled below the clouds, circling above Suter’s upraised arms.
“Come,” Suter said. “Gather to me so that what has been spoken for millennia may come to pass. It is time for the rampage of the darkling wraith to end and for the Battle for Existence to commence. I call to the soul of Juaquin Prado . . .”
Still standing on the brick wall at the edge of the building, Suter turned away from the street and looked over the roof. Mara saw his eyes, ablaze, two yellow beacons in the shadow of his cowl. The swirling black mist gathered above his head and descended in a riotous black sphere before him, casting off gusts of wind that whipped at his makeshift robe, sending it flapping around his body, blowing his hood from his head.
A river of soot flew out of the sphere and pierced Suter’s eyes. He stiffened as if receiving a shock. His shoulders hunched, his arms half bent, as if reaching toward the blackness that was filling him. Soon, the roiling ball of mist was dissipated, directed into Suter’s eyes, which had been extinguished, filled with an inky blackness.
A lecherous smile crossed his lips.
“Ah, I see now,” he said in a deep baritone.
The lisp raised the hair on Mara’s neck.
Suter raised the luminiere into the air and, in his own voice, said, “I call to the soul of Juaquin Prado, take up the mantel of Aphotis, to take this vessel to be your own.”
He turned his head, locked eyes with Mara and threw the luminiere at the ground, shattering it between her feet.
The black mist flew out of Suter’s eyes in two tight streams and struck Mara in the face, lifting her off her feet, the force of the onslaught so powerful, she hung suspended in the air for several moments until all of it had drained from Suter.
She fell to the ground in a heap. Her eyes looked up to the sky, vacant, and then filled with an inky blackness.
* * *
Across the roof at the back of the building, Ping watched the ceremony with one hand on the metal ladder to detect anyone climbing up and the other holding the mop handle, growing more concerned as the dark cloud grew and swirled above the robed figure standing on the ledge at the front of the building. When Suter turned around, now with his back to the street, Ping saw his glowing eyes and took a step forward but stopped himself, not wanting to leave the ladder unguarded. For all he knew, this was perfectly normal for this particular rite. When the corrupt-looking sphere full of swirling black mist formed in front of Suter and spewed into his eyes, Ping tensed up more, not knowing what to expect. He glanced over at Mara, who looked up at Suter awestruck but not particularly fearful. Then the stream of filth gushed out of Suter’s eyes into Mara’s.
Ping dashed across the rooftop, arriving as she fell to the ground after being suspended for several seconds. He knelt beside her and watched the oily blackness flood from the corners of her eyes until they shone like polished onyx.
Gritting his teeth, Ping looked upward at Suter, still standing on the brick ledge, a look of religious ecstasy on his face, and told him, “Undo this. Take this thing out of her.”
“This moment has been foretold for millennia. I would lay down my life to ensure the coming of the Aphotis.”
“Very well,” Ping said, running toward Suter and the edge of the roof.
As he approached, he dived into the air, causing Suter to tense up as if preparing to be tackled. But Ping flew past him, into the open air above Woodstock Boulevard and the dozens of bodies spread out across the pavement. He tumbled downward, his arms and legs flailing, until he was about ten feet above the ground, and he exploded into a cloud of gray dust that hung there for a few seconds.
Suter looked over the edge, cocked his head, unsure of what had just happened, but turned away to step down from the ledge. He walked over to Mara and crouched next to her. “Are you conscious?” he said, staring into her black eyes.
She blinked, as if waking up, reached up and grabbed his neck with one hand. She maintained her grip as she stood, throttling him while getting to her feet. Once she stood, she lifted Suter off the ground effortlessly.
“What have you done, luminary?” the baritone demanded.
Suter swung in the air, making gagging sounds, reaching up to the hand that held him.
Mara released Suter, and he crumpled to the ground, ending up on one knee in front of her.
Rubbing his throat, he said, “I have completed the gathering ritual and given you the body and soul of the progenitor as foretold by our forefathers.”
Prado rotated Mara’s head and craned her neck as if trying to figure out how it worked. When she stopped, her black eyes appeared to be looking upward as if trying to solve a difficult problem.
“No, that is incorrect,” she said in Prado’s voice.
Suter straightened, haltingly standing on both feet. “I gathered the darkling wraith to me and interred you here, in this person. All of you is here now.”
“Yes, all of me is here in this body, but all of her is not.”
“I don’t understand. How can that be?”
“I don’t know. She is fighting me, keeping that knowledge from me.” Mara tapped her own chest.
“What of the book?”
“Book?”
“The ancient book from the future, the Chronicle of Continuity. It did arrive as a herald of your arrival just as the oral histories said it would, sent to this time by a progenitor who can rewrite history.”
“Where is this book?”
“Ping had it,” Suter said, glancing over to the brick ledge at the front of the building. There against the ledge laid the book. He walked over, picked it up and dusted if off. Returning, he held the book open before him. “The pages are blank.”
“She stymies me,” Mara said. �
�She’s trying to prevent the inevitable.”
“I don’t understand.”
Mara smiled. “No, you don’t. Neither does she.”
A shadow slid over them. Something passed over the western side of the building, blocking out the ambient lights of downtown. A large silhouette flapped wings the width of the side street and soared upward, a massive pointed tail swishing rudderlike behind it as it disappeared into the low clouds.
Suter stiffened and turned to Mara.
Mara looked upward and said, without looking down, “Now there’s someone who might be able to help, the Chinese fellow. You might say he has a split personality. Dragons are like schoolyard bullies, all bluster and fire until you smack them on the snout. Then they just go hide in the clouds.”
“Dragon?” Suter looked up, cowering.
“Considering what you’ve unleashed here today, your concern about a flying reptile seems trifling.” Mara’s oily eyes stared through Suter.
CHAPTER 57
The first rays of dawn filtered through the clouds that hung low over Woodstock Boulevard, casting a dull grayness over the bodies and debris that littered the street. Mara cocked her head and heard a growing chorus of sirens, clearly getting closer. Mara looked upward to see the clouds ripple, sort of bulging downward as the dragon circled above—with the Mason Fix-it Shop clearly at its center, its focus.
“Time to flush out the game,” Mara said in Prado’s baritone, raising a palm upward.
A bolt of lightning shot out of Mara’s hand, arching upward toward the clouds. It spidered throughout the sky, erupting in a brilliant blue flash, punctuated by the clap of thunder.
A roar echoed from the clouds that made Suter cringe. “What are you doing?” he said.
“Moving things along. It’s time to finish this,” Mara said, jutting her chin upward.
Above, the dragon dove out of the clouds directly toward the roof of the shop. As it approached, it opened its wings, slowed its descent and reared back its head. A torrent of flame rained down.
Mara raised her right hand as if trying to block a stiff wind. The fire rolled around her, pouring off to her sides where it found the hem of Suter’s makeshift robe, catching quickly and rolling upward toward his waist like a wildfire consuming the side of a mountain. He tried to pat out the flames, but billowing black smoke blinded him, and he could no longer see. Throwing himself to the ground, he rolled until he hit the short brick wall that formed the ledge at the front of the building. There he smoldered, unmoving.
The dragon pulled in its wings, releasing the air that held it aloft, and continued its rapid descent. It swept seven feet above the roof, blasting a gust of wind downward. Mara leaned into it, watching the creature pass and climb upward again, rolling onto its back and flipping over to make another run at the roof. As it dove from a block away, Mara held up both palms. Bolts of lightning leaped from them, striking the dragon in the chest, stalling its momentum and sending it tumbling out of the sky.
It careened into the corner of a bank building on the far side of the street, sending masonry and a large plastic sign tumbling onto the sidewalk. The creature bounced back into the air as it rolled head over tail, wings flapping out of control, toward the roof of the shop where Mara stood. Ducking as it passed overhead, Mara lifted her hands above her.
The dragon froze in a knot above her, suspended, unmoving in the air above the shop with its back toward the ground, its tail turned upward toward the clouds, and its wings twisted into useless rags like a parachute that had failed to deploy properly. Its head was tucked down to its chest, hidden in a knot of scales and sinew.
For a beat, Mara’s onyx eyes gazed upward, vacant in their wet blackness, appearing to decide what to do, then she lifted her hands upward and splayed her fingers.
The dragon exploded into a puff of dust but remained still.
Mara clapped her hands together. The cloud of dust collapsed into the figure of a man. And Ping fell out of the sky, landing on the roof with a loud thud.
Mara walked across the roof and looked down at his still form. “Hello, Ping.”
He didn’t move.
Mara nudged the side of his face with the toe of her shoe. “Get up. We need to talk.”
He groaned and pushed up with his right arm, rolling over onto his side. “Release Mara,” he said.
“As far as you are concerned, I am Mara. We are on the verge of becoming indistinguishable. Unfortunately we sense things are not how they are supposed to be. It appears a portion of that person you knew as Mara, her consciousness, does not reside in this body, and she seems bent on keeping it from us. However, we get the impression that you can help us unravel this particular conundrum. Stand up.”
“Go to hell.”
“We command you to stand!” Mara raised her arm upward. Ping grasped his neck, and his jaw lifted into the air, dragged upward by an unseen hand. He rose to his feet and continued moving upward until he dangled six inches above the roof. As his choking and gasping began to fade, he fell from the air, landing on his knees.
“Now tell me. How can Mara keep part of herself apart from us?” Prado’s baritone took on an almost academic quality as if it discussed theories of climate change.
“I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“Mara seems to think you do. Something about the true nature of reality. Tell me about that.”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
Sirens screamed from the street below. Red and blue lights from a couple blocks away strafed across the buildings. Mara glared at them and turned back to Ping.
“The progenitor’s games may have vexed us for the moment, but we understand you, dragon man.”
Mara reached out and placed her hand on Ping’s chest. His eyes widened, and he shuddered as he rose up into the air at the end of Mara’s arm. She smiled, and her eyes glistened like wet tar. Ping’s arms raised up, melted into dust and fanned out into massive wings. When they melted back to human limbs, a large tail rose up behind him, lashed at the air and dissolved there. His face erupted with horns and scales, then smoothed to pale skin.
“Can you feel it?” Mara teased. “Dragons are pure instinct, driven by fear. They can sense a threat long before it arrives. Can you feel the danger, dragon man? Do I scare you?”
“Stop. Stop it!” Ping trembled in the air at the end of her arm.
“Tell me what I want to know, and I will release you. You can be free from this beast.”
“No!” Ping looked down at the arm holding him. It flickered. He passed through it, and he fell to the ground.
Mara staggered backward, staring at her hands, which had become translucent. Her entire body spasmed, and she grabbed her head, lunging forward onto her knees. Gritting her teeth, she emitted a guttural groan, a gritty moan of agony that stretched out and turned into a high-pitched scream as light burst from her entire body.
* * *
Abby was sitting at the little break table outside the office in the back of the shop when the building shook. It felt like an earthquake. Being stuck in the dark in the windowless back room made her feel defenseless and unprepared for what might be coming, so she ran out front to see what was happening. Through the shattered display window, she saw debris tumbling from above, following by the loud crashing of a bank sign bouncing off the building across the street and landing on the median out front. As she moved closer to the window, she could see bodies lying everywhere, virtually covering the pavement and sidewalks. Sirens grew louder.
She listened intently to determine if any of the shedding victims were moving around and decided it was safe enough to open the front door. Pulling back on the knob, the door scraped across the shattered glass and ground it into the wood floor. Abby’s silver Nissan Sentra, now with spidered windows and a flattened roof, still blocked the doorway. She closed the door and peered out the hole where the display window had been. Faint red and blue lights strobed across the walls outside. Help was on
the way.
A loud thump from the ceiling drew her attention. Mara and the others were still up there. Wonder what is going on? It looks like whatever was happening outside is over.
Abby returned to the back of the shop and peeked into the office. The little girl remained curled up under the desk, fast asleep. Abby walked to the rear exit door, opened it and stepped into the back alley. Looking up, she saw dawn was about to break. She called up to the roof, “Mara? Are you guys still up there?”
She stepped onto the bottom rung of the ladder and climbed. Looking upward, it struck her as odd that sunlight would be streaming from the south over the building, especially considering the density of the gray clouds directly above. After a few more steps, her head cleared the edge of the roof. When she peeked through the rungs of the ladder, she saw Mara suspended in the air, hovering over the roof in an explosion of brilliance. Rays of light streamed from her body looking like fire bursting through ash in the mouth of a volcano.
Abby held up her hand and squinted into the light. Mara’s silhouette bent backward, against her spine, twisting in agony. She thrashed in the air, as if something struggled to burst out of her.
Abby stepped off the ladder and got her footing. “Mara?” she asked tentatively.
Mara’s head turned to her, her eyes widened, and her body tensed. The light intensified in a sudden blinding burst, swallowing her in luminous waves that radiated outward, shimmering like rings around a planet, floating in an ethereal aurora that hung in the air over the building.
Then the light dissipated, retracted into Mara. She stood facing Abby, looking dazed, below a huge cloud of black mist swirling above. Crouched several feet to her left, looking up at her was Ping and behind her, pulling himself up along a short brick wall at the front of the building was Suter, the bottom third of his robe burned away revealing blackened legs that shook as he stood. He staggered toward Mara with his arms raised to the air.
Broken Souls (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 2) Page 31
