Broken Dragon (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 3)

by D. W. Moneypenny

  “Just pick it up and hold it in your lap,” Mara said. She put the car in Reverse and slowly disconnected her crumpled hood from the truck’s bumper. When she turned the wheel to the left to get back out in traffic, it felt a little stiff. Tires must be rubbing against the frame of the car or something. She pressed the gas, drove past the large truck and continued in traffic. She leaned forward to get a better look at the hood, the front of which looked a little accordianed.

  “Just hold on,” she said, rubbing her hand on the dashboard.

  Sam said from the passenger seat, “What is this thing?” He held up Cam’s head and looked at the back of it.

  “Get your fingers out of my ears. I’m not a bowling ball, you know,” Cam said.

  Sam jumped and snapped away his hands, letting the head fall into the footwell in front of the passenger seat. “It’s talking!”

  Mara smacked him on the knee. “Pick him up and be careful. That’s someone’s head.”

  Sam leaned forward and nudged the side of Cam’s head with his foot until his face turned upward. “You’ve got to be … Oh, my God, you’re not joking.”

  Cam looked up and rolled his eyes. “Can you please pick me up and stop rolling me around? I’m getting a little nauseated.”

  “Just hold him in your lap,” Mara said. When Sam didn’t move to pick him up, she motioned her head toward Cam and said, “You can’t just leave him down there. Pick him up. I need his help tracking Mom.”

  Sam grimaced. “I’m not so comfortable holding some dude’s head in my lap. Besides how can you track Mom with a head? Whose head is it anyway?”

  “Would you two stop talking about me like I’m some kind of cantaloupe or something? I’m a real person down here, and I’m not tracking anyone from the floor,” Cam said.

  “Let’s put it in the backseat,” Sam said.

  “It is a person,” Mara said. “Use my jacket to hold him in place on your lap. I want him up here so I can talk to him.” After another moment she jabbed Sam with a finger. “Do it! Now! The dragon is after your mother and daughter, and Cam is the only way we have of finding them!”

  “Okay. Sheesh, don’t lose your head,” Sam said. Looking down to the floor, he added, “Sorry, I was talking to her, not you.” He piled the jacket over his legs and bent forward. Pressing a finger to each of Cam’s temples, Sam gingerly lifted him to his lap. Cam’s face was turned upward at a forty-five-degree angle toward the driver’s seat. “Is that better? You can now talk to the head.”

  “This is still an odd perspective, but it’s better than being on the floor,” Cam said. He rolled his eyes sideways toward Sam and added, “Hi, I’m Cam. Your sister has stolen my head and abandoned my body.”

  “She’s like that.” Sam nodded. “The dragon we are after? She tried to feed me to it one time.”

  “She certainly doesn’t seem to have any reticence taking liberties with the well-being of others,” Cam said. “So tell me about this dragon and what we are supposed to do about it. And did she say you have a daughter? That makes no sense. You’re just a kid yourself.”

  “So says the head,” Sam said.

  Mara glanced down to Cam. “There’s no time to explain everything. Do you still have a bead on Mom? Where is she now?”

  Cam’s eyes rolled up for a second and then focused on Mara. “It appears she is crossing the Ross Island Bridge now, but I think something is going on over there,” he said.

  “What are you talking about?” Mara asked.

  “There are hundreds of cell signals coming from the area. Most of them are dialing 9-1-1. Hold on a minute. Let me see if I can pick up some of the texts.” His eyes rolled up again, thinking. After a moment he spoke in a monotone, as if reading. “Monster … dive-bombing bridge … fire … gigantic wings … crashes … attacking again …” Then he went silent.

  Mara’s eyes widened, as she swerved to miss a car that had slowed ahead of them. “What is going on?” she yelled. “Cam?”

  Cam rolled his eyes toward Sam. “Sam, you still have your phone with you?”

  Sam pulled it from his pocket and waved it.

  “I’m forwarding to your phone a picture someone named Chelsea is posting to her Facebook page,” Cam said.

  A second later Sam’s phone buzzed. He looked down at the screen, and his face went pale.

  Mara’s head snapped back and forth from the road ahead to look toward her brother. “What? What is it?” she said, a slight tremble in her voice.

  Sam held up his phone. On the screen a picture clearly showed the dragon, wings spread, diving toward a yellow taxi on the Ross Island Bridge. A plume of flame spewed from the creature’s mouth, enveloping that back third of the car. In the background, traffic was clearly in disarray, with smoke rising from several wrecked vehicles.

  Mara had to glance several times from the road to the phone to take in the whole image. “Oh, jeez. He’s attacking in the heart of the city in broad daylight.” She moaned.

  “It’s not going to be broad daylight much longer,” Sam said. “It’ll be dark in less than an hour.”

  “I’m picking up police radio signals,” Cam said. “They are sending in an air unit to see what is going on, along with a dozen or so patrol units, I think.”

  “A helicopter?” Sam asked. “That’s a bad idea.”

  “A couple television stations have picked up on it too. They’ve got helicopters taking off right now.”

  Mara quickly changed into the left lane as they approached a red light. As the car came to a stop, steam billowed out from under the hood and engulfed the Subaru. Mara looked at the lit panel in front of her. The Temp gauge pointed into the red zone.

  “Just hang on,” Mara said, patting her hands on the steering wheel, willing the car to keep going. Then the Check Engine light flashed on, and the car died.

  CHAPTER 25

  Off to the right side of Highway 26, as the roadway rose up to meet the Ross Island Bridge heading east over the Willamette River, Diana could see a dry dock and the cluster of buildings on the waterfront from which the tram cables stretched upward to the T-shaped tower on their way to the top of Marquam Hill. Neither of the two tramcars were gliding across the sky.

  Even so, it suddenly seemed ridiculous to her that she and Hannah sat in the backseat of a taxi passing just a couple blocks north of where she had parked on their way to Oregon City. Running in fear. She craned her head around, assessing the streets to see if there was an easy maneuver that would allow the driver to drop them off instead of going all the way home. That thought evaporated when the low, stumpy concrete balustrades that bordered the bridge began to whip by her window, and the road grade sloped noticeably higher.

  And fire engulfed the back half of the taxi.

  They were already on the bridge, and, a moment later, when Diana’s brain caught up to what was going on, she realized they were also under attack.

  Even before she could turn to assess what was happening on the road behind them, the sounds of squealing tires and crashing metal erupted close behind them. She turned in her seat. Flame and smoke filled the rear window, but she couldn’t tell if their car was actually burning or if the fire came from another source behind them. The taxi swerved, shoving Diana against the passenger door. Looking across the seat to her granddaughter, she asked, “You okay?”

  “Yeah,” Hannah said. She turned to press her face against the window on the driver’s side. “I think he’s back.”

  Diana caught the driver’s eyes in the rearview mirror. He cocked his head over to look out his sideview mirror. “Hells bells,” he yelled. His face went white, and he slammed on the brakes while cringing over the steering wheel, like he was dodging something coming at him from above.

  Diana slapped the back of his seat with her palm and yelled, “Don’t stop! Whatever you do, don’t stop!”

  The taxi went into a skid on the wet roadway, its back end sliding to a twenty-degree angle before coming to a complete stop. Another crash r
everberated behind them. Thinking an out-of-control vehicle was about to crash into them, Diana wrapped an arm over Hannah and tensed up. Instead of a collision, there came a sudden silence. The droning sound of rubber on asphalt, the chunk, chunk of tires on bridge plates was gone. Instead she heard, in the distance, a car horn bleat, the patter of rain on the roof, the thump of windshield wipers.

  Suddenly the rain patter stopped, and a shadow swept over them.

  The cab driver rolled down his window and stuck out his head to look behind them. When he didn’t see anything, he turned his gaze upward and let out a keening cry. Beating the frame of his door with his fists, he found the handle and opened the door. He fell out onto the wet roadway, landing on his knees directly onto the yellow centerline. Babbling something incoherent, he looked skyward, stood up and ran away.

  The darkness slipped away. Gray light and the sound of rain returned.

  Looking out the back window through smoke and steam rising off the blackened trunk, Diana watched the driver run in the direction from which they came, his ponytail whipping back and forth, as he tried to run and look over his shoulder at the same time.

  “Nana, what’s happening?” Hannah appeared more curious than afraid.

  “I’m not sure, sweetie, but I want you to stay right where you are.” She unhooked her seat belt and pulled herself up to look over the front seat. The keys were still in the ignition. “I’m going to move up to the front seat, and we’re going to get out of here.”

  She reached for the door handle and pulled. The passenger side door opened, and she stepped from the car. Standing in the right lane, Diana could see that the taxi sat mostly in the center right lane with the driver’s side bumper poking into the oncoming lane on the left but not enough to stop traffic, which continued coming from the opposite direction, though at a snail’s pace. On the other hand, there was no traffic on this side of the bridge.

  Diana turned to look behind the taxi. What she saw caused her to stagger backward into the car door. She held on to it for support, as she gawked at the string of mangled, burning cars strewn from her location more than halfway across the bridge to the connecting roadway on the western side of the river. Her eyes followed more than a dozen streams of smoke into the air, up to the cloudy, darkening evening. A drop of rain hit the corner of her eye, startling her, breaking the grip the apocalyptic scene held on her.

  As if suddenly awakened, Diana’s head jerked around, quickly scanning the skies. Not seeing the dragon, she slowly turned back toward the front of the taxi, and just as she faced completely to the front, the skies ahead darkened.

  Above the bridge ahead, the dragon lingered in midair, appearing for a second to be suspended, riding an invisible gust of air, as it extended its wings and raised its head. Its red eyes focused on Diana, a predator coiling its strength in the moment before it strikes. It sent shivers down her spine. The creature roared, sending a plume of flame into the air. Tucking its wings, it lowered its thorny head and dove toward the taxi.

  Diana jumped inside and slammed the door behind her. Flinging herself over the front seat, she smacked her knee on the steering wheel and her arm on the dashboard, landing half on the seats and half on the floor. Without pausing, she pulled herself up behind the wheel and turned the ignition key. The dragon filled the windshield, talons extended, its lips pulling back, revealing a toothy maw that seemed to open in slow motion before a burst of flame spewed forward, blotting out the wall of scales and sinew, hurtling toward the taxi.

  The engine roared to life. Diana stomped on the gas, and the vehicle lurched forward into the ball of fire. Instinctively she closed her eyes and gripped the wheel even tighter.

  “Hold on, sweetie. Grandma’s gonna get us out of here!” she yelled, as much for herself as for Hannah in the backseat.

  “Nana! The window!” Hannah screamed.

  Flames licked in the open window of the door next to Diana. Heat seared her left cheek as she struggled to find the button to close it. Slowly the glass inched upward and closed. Taking a deep breath, she patted the side of her head to make sure her hair was not on fire and leaned forward, squinting through the smoke and flame. She couldn’t see if the dragon had flown past, then decided it didn’t really matter. She kept her foot down on the gas pedal.

  A loud metallic screech filled the interior of the car, followed by a violent shudder. Diana was sure they had wrecked—that is, until the roof of the car peeled away, and she could see the streetlights hanging over the bridge whip past overhead. Cold winterlike air laced with acrid smoke swirled into the cab. Cracks spidered across the windshield.

  “You okay back there?” Diana called over her shoulder, taking a moment to look up at the sky above them.

  “Yeah, I’m good.” Hannah yelled over the whipping air.

  Diana swore she heard a giggle in her voice.

  The windshield folded in on itself and fell over Diana and the passenger seat in large clumps of safety glass. The shock of it caused her to inadvertently yank the wheel, sending them into the high curb, protecting the pedestrian walkway along the side of the bridge. Quickly correcting, she shook random bits of glass off her arms. She was just thinking that she didn’t feel any serious cuts when they passed under the lit green sign pointing to the Milwaukie/Oregon City exit off the bridge.

  CHAPTER 26

  Rain fell so heavily that Mara could not tell at which intersection her car had stalled. The traffic light suspended in front of them turned green, and the car immediately behind them honked its horn. Mara rolled down her window and waved an arm, smacking large drops of water in the process, while signaling traffic to go around her. She adjusted the speed of the windshield wipers and looked over to the passenger side.

  “I want you to crawl over here and start the car when I tell you,” she said, reaching for the handle of the door.

  “What are you going to do?” Sam asked.

  “I need to take a look and see if there is anything I can do to get this heap rolling,” she said. “Don’t do anything until I tell you. Got it? And while you’re waiting, why don’t you see if you can get in touch with Mom.”

  “I’ve tried her number several times, but I’ve not been able to get through. I’m not sure if the network is overwhelmed or she simply can’t answer,” Cam said.

  Mara opened the door, jumped out and slammed the door behind her. Sam tucked Cam’s head under his arm, lifted his legs under him and crab-walked sideways over the center console and flopped into the driver’s seat. As he fell into place, Cam’s head struck the steering wheel.

  “Hey, watch what you are doing!” Cam said, wincing.

  “Sorry, dude. Let me set you over here.” Sam placed him back on the passenger seat on top of Mara’s piled jacket. Sitting back, he looked down at the head. “How exactly are you trying Mom’s number and not getting a response? It’s not like you’ve got anything to dial with.”

  “I’m able to tap into the cellular network directly with my own signaling capabilities,” Cam said.

  Sam tapped on his mother’s listing in this contact list. After a moment, a rapid stuttering sound emitted from the phone. “I can’t get through either.”

  “Tell me something. How did you get here so quickly? You appeared out of nowhere, and that truck driver disappeared. Did I see that correctly?”

  “Yeah, Mara did it. She can move things and people around like that. So you’re saying she swapped me with the guy who was driving the truck she hit?”

  Cam looked as if he were attempting to nod and said, “He went where you were?”

  “Yeah, and I hope he doesn’t trash Mrs. Zimmerman’s place, or I’m going to have a lot of explaining to do.”

  “So, if Mara has this ability to move people from one place to another, why doesn’t she just bring your mother and daughter here or transport them somewhere else away from the dragon?”

  The corners of Sam’s mouth turned downward, as he pressed his lips together and pondered the notion. W
hy couldn’t she? He glanced out the windshield to see Mara standing in front of the crumpled hood, leaning over, trying to find the release lever to open it. After a moment, she straightened and then pounded on the car with her fists, sending tiny splashes of water into the air.

  Still looking at his sister, Sam said, “I don’t know why she hasn’t done that. Sometimes she forgets what she can do.”

  He rolled down the window and leaned out into the rain. Holding his hands around his mouth, he shouted toward this sister, trying to be heard over the drumming rain and the swish of tires from vehicles passing by. “Why don’t you just bring Mom and Hannah here?”

  Mara shook her head and held up a hand to her ear.

  Sam waved her over to him.

  Mara stomped over, clearly put out. “I can’t get the hood open. What is it?” she said, red-faced and soaked.

  “Why can’t you just zap Mom and Hannah here, like you did me?”

  “Doesn’t work like that. I can’t visualize where they are. I’ve seen Mrs. Zimmerman’s place dozens of times. Mom and Hannah are on the move, and I don’t have a clear-enough idea of where they are to do it, to see it in my head and make it happen.”

  “I think you are underestimating what you can do and how you do it,” he said.

  “Thanks for the constructive criticism, but, unless you have some suggestions for how to pry open a smashed hood and fix a broken radiator—and God knows what else—I’d recommend you stick your head back in the car and wait for me to tell you when to try the ignition.”

  Sam rolled his eyes at her. “I’m not sure how your moving-people-around abilities work, but I know you can fix stuff without even trying.” He looked at his sister and prompted, “Fix the car, Mara. Fix it now.”

  Mara’s eyes glazed over, and she walked through the downpour to the front of the car. Leaning forward, she placed her hands on the hood. A loud groan followed by a metallic screech drowned out the patter of rain and the drone of traffic. Several loud hollow pops rang out from beneath the hood, and Sam felt a vibration ripple through the frame of the car. He ducked back inside, mopped his wet hair with a hand and gazed out the windshield at the hood of the Outback. It shifted and moved in waves, as if coming in and out of focus, pixelating and solidifying, then smoothing and extending forward. The sounds of rending metal ceased, and the vibrations dissipated. The car looked intact.