“Mara?”
It was Diana calling from the darkness under the overpass.
CHAPTER 32
The frozen river of fire blazed brightly though the flames, yet did not flicker, making it impossible for Mara to see into the darkness beyond. She could hear her mother calling to her, sense her footfalls and those of the others as they approached, but she could not make them out, until Sam ducked under the unmoving flames and gave her a wide-eyed expression of amazement. At his side, Hannah held his hand and scampered to keep up with him.
“What do you think you are doing?” Mara said to him. “You guys need to get back under the overpass.”
“Hi, Mar-ree!” Hannah said.
Sam rolled his eyes. “Don’t get in a snit. We’re just here to see if we could help during the intermission. Maybe I could get into position to prompt the dragon, so you don’t have to get into nuclear progenitor butt-kicking mode.”
Diana and Bohannon arrived from the darkness farther to the left, having given the suspended flames a wider berth. Mara’s mother looked disheveled and had a small cut on her forehead. As she approached, her eyes followed the ramp of fire up into the night. Mara tracked her mother’s gaze, thinking it looked like lava flowing down a mountainside, but someone had taken away the mountain. When she turned to look back at her mother, Diana looked horrified as she stared into the face of the dragon hanging in the air above.
Cast in sharp relief by its own fiery sputum, the creature’s blazing red eyes and demonic countenance snarled down on them. Shadows accentuated its horns and bony ridges, yet its scaly hide glistened in the stilled rain, a ravenous reptile with a goatish face flanked by sinewy wings, looming over talons poised to strike.
Diana turned her head toward her daughter but never took her eyes from the nightmarish tableau above and said, “Good gracious, what is happening?”
Mara took a deep breath and said, “What’s it look like, Mom? I’m trying to get this dragon off your back long enough for you to make a break for home. But noooo, instead of getting in your stolen police car and hightailing it out of here, you guys come traipsing out here to gawk at the show.”
“You don’t honestly think we were just going to drive away and leave you?” Diana asked.
“I didn’t think it out of the realm of possibility that it might have occurred to one of you, the grandmother, the fourteen-year-old father, or maybe the police detective, that a tactical retreat would be a better strategy than waltzing into the path of a fire-breathing dragon with a five-year-old.”
Bohannon looked back and forth between Mara and the suspended dragon. “Are you doing this, this pausing-of-the-monster thing?” he asked.
“Yes,” Mara said. “But the point wasn’t to convene a confab and take a vote on what to do next. You guys need to get out of here. Now!” Mara pointed through the flames toward the overpass. “Get in the police car and go home, or at least go somewhere else.”
Hannah tugged at Sam’s pants leg, made a tsking sound and shook her head. “My Mar-ree doesn’t yell so much.”
“She still has some growing up to do, sweetheart, even if she forgets it sometimes,” Diana said. To Mara, she added, “We’re not going anywhere without you.”
“Mom, I can’t do what I need to do if I’m worried about you guys. Just please get away from here, and let me deal with this.” She bent over, picked up Cam’s head and handed it to her mother. “I need you to take this with you. Be careful with it.”
Diana took it without looking at it.
“I wish you people would stop passing me around like some kind of football and stop calling me it,” Cam said.
Diana jumped, yelped and tossed the head back to Mara.
“What the hell is that?” Diana said. “Is that a person’s head?”
After bobbling it for a second, Mara got a firm grasp on Cam’s cheeks and held it out to Sam. “Here, try not to leave him behind the next time you’re in a burning car.”
Hannah lifted up on her toes. “Lemme see. Does he talk?”
Cam frowned at her. “Of course I talk.”
“Can I hold your head? I promise I won’t drop you.”
“You can talk to Cam in the car, bean,” Sam said. As he tucked the head under his arm, movement above caught his eye. Pointing into the air toward the fire, he said, “It’s starting to ooze or something. It’s moving toward us in slow motion.”
Hannah pointed to her aunt. “Look! Mar-ree’s disappearing in and out.”
Mara held up her hands and could see through them.
“Lord have mercy,” Bohannon said.
With strain in her voice, Mara said, “Please get my family out of here. That fire and that dragon are going to come crashing down here in a few seconds, and I don’t think there is anything I can do to stop it.”
She disappeared.
“Mara!” Diana yelled into empty space.
Mara solidified and reached out to her mother, trying to take her by the shoulder, but her hand passed through it. “You’ve got to go NOW!”
A burst of light enveloped them, and they disappeared. Mara stood alone in the road. From below the overpass, her mother called, “Mara!”
“Stay there!” Mara yelled and disappeared again.
The fire poured down from the sky and spattered over the roadway, consuming what was left of Bohannon’s car and the overturned semitruck, and flowing toward the shoulder of the roadway. Finding no more dry fuel, the flames evaporated in a steamy flash. When Mara reappeared, the asphalt beneath her feet felt soft but not sticky enough to hold her up as the dragon swept several feet over her head, sending a powerful gust of wind slamming into her, flinging her across the street and over the curb into the guardrail. By the time she got her wits about her and looked up again, the dragon was at the apex of a vertical loop just beneath the edge of the clouds. Twisting in the air, it did a backflip and dove toward the overpass. Mara was sure it was lining up for another run at her.
Instead the dragon tucked its wings and plunged in a free fall toward the right side of the overpass. Leading with its head, its appendages pulled tightly to its body and its tail trailing in a straight line, the dragon became a missile, cutting through the air, streaking downward. Just before striking the overpass, the dragon unfurled its wings, like a parachute, and its feet swung forward. Slamming into the raised roadway, it sent tremors through the structure down to the road beneath Mara’s feet. Ragged chunks of concrete and rebar tumbled down into the street, followed by a streetlight, twisting away from the lines that powered it.
Mara glanced toward the flashing blue lights of the patrol car below. She could see the silhouettes of Bohannon and Sam leaning over the front of the car, pushing on the hood, attempting to force it past the crumpled guardrail and back onto the roadway. Clouds of dust mingled with rain obscured Mara’s view of what was happening, but she hoped her mother and Hannah were in the car, preparing to make their escape.
A loud crack caused Mara to look up.
The center of the overpass collapsed, sending a huge plank of the roadway from above tumbling down onto the left side of McLaughlin just a few yards from patrol car’s bumper. Mara could no longer see under the overpass; clouds of dust blocked even the flashing blue lights of the police car.
Stepping forward and about to run under the collapsing overpass, she stopped when she saw the dragon, again dropping from the clouds. It dove toward the remains of the bridge above her family’s heads. Just before it struck, giving the faltering roadway another beating, she raised her hand toward the creature.
It disappeared in a flash of light.
And so did she.
When Mara blinked away the spots in her eyes, she stood on top of the crumbling overpass, staring into a black abyss where the road should have been. Waving her arms to keep from plunging forward into the dust and rubble below, she fell back onto her butt. The roadway beneath her inclined, and she felt the pull of gravity as she tried to get her bearings. Below, a r
olling bank of dust-filled clouds obscured the road, where she stood just seconds before. From within she heard a scream that made her skin crawl and then a gust of wind cleared the air. Flapping its wings and running toward her, the dragon craned its neck upward.
Mara wasn’t sure it could reach this high, but she didn’t intend to find out. Scooting up the inclined slope of the damaged roadway, she tried to stand, but the slope was too steep and the surface too wet. Instead she inched backward on the seat of her pants, feeling the vibrations of the dragon’s footsteps as she went. She kept her eyes on the creature. As it approached, the sound of rubber squealing on pavement rang out from below. They were still under there somewhere.
The dragon swung its head toward the noise. Turning away from Mara, it moved to the right side of the road, toward the portion of the overpass still standing, the portion from which Mara’s sloping roadway hung. She could no longer see its head, but could make out the creature’s back and tail as it appeared to stretch its neck in the direction of her family.
Panicking, Mara rolled over onto all fours and quickly scampered up to the level portion of the overpass. She ran to the mangled balustrade and looked down in time to see the dragon’s head disappear below the overpass. The roar of the dragon shook the air, and another squeal of tires pealed from below.
CHAPTER 33
Sam grunted as he strained against the hood of the police car. Next to him, Bohannon’s shoulders rolled as he heaved, sending the heavy vehicle rocking on its shocks. The center of the patrol car balanced on the shoulder of the road, like a plank on a fulcrum, preventing the back tires from gaining enough traction to pull it back onto the road. They had to lift and push at the same time to unwedge the car. The detective relaxed and held up a finger to Diana who sat behind the wheel, pressing on the gas when given the signal. Sam could see the top of his daughter’s head past his mother’s shoulder, strapped into the backseat. He straightened and coughed dust from his throat.
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, Sam said, “It feels like it’s wedged in there in a way that the tires can’t grab the road.”
“The tires are grabbing some, or they wouldn’t be squealing. We just need to time the push right, and I think it will move,” Bohannon said.
Sam looked up at the darkness above, the underside of the overpass, and said, “I don’t know what’s going on up there, but I don’t think we’ve got much more time before this whole thing comes tumbling down. We look like we’re in a tunnel now, a one-lane tunnel.”
“All right, let’s give it one more try,” Bohannon said, leaning forward and nodding toward Diana. “One, two, thr—”
The dragon’s roar shook the air around them. Sam and Bohannon fell away from the car hood, grabbing one of the nearby overpass pylons for support. A large mass moved in the darkness behind the patrol car, into the orbit of the flashing blue lights. Red orbs, hanging in the dark, peeked over the roof of the car, like an alligator in a swamp. The flashes didn’t illuminate the features of the dragon so much as leave a burned afterimage on their retinas.
Sam ran toward the car and jumped on the hood. While he scrambled to get over the windshield, the car suddenly jerked backward, sending him sliding down the hood and bouncing off the bumper.
Bohannon picked him up by the shoulder. “What are you trying to do, get eaten?”
Sam shook loose. “It’s got the car. I’ve got to stop it.”
Inside the windshield, Diana’s confused expression appeared to be sliding back into the dark.
Sam bolted after the car and jumped onto the hood again. He crawled over the bar of flashing lights and pushed himself across the roof, sliding toward the back of the car. Somewhere in the darkness, he heard Hannah calling to him.
As he slid down the back windshield on his stomach, he saw the snout of the dragon clamped onto the back bumper, its lips sliding wetly over the trunk of the car. It shook the vehicle back and forth like a dog with a bone, yanking it backward, trying to unwedge it from its perch on the shoulder. The sound of metal screeched, as the car moved slowly.
Sam tried to lock his gaze onto the dragon’s eyes, but he was too close. He could only see on eye at a time, depending on which way he leaned, and both appeared to be rolled back in its head. The creature snarled, as its teeth crunched metal. Frustrated, Sam slammed his fist into a nostril, striking a pool of goo with a loud slap. He pulled back his hand with a grimace.
“Sam! Get out of there!” Diana called from the front of the car.
He looked back over his shoulder, not sure what to do. Through the back window, he saw Hannah twist in her seat, looking at what was happening behind her. He couldn’t prompt the dragon from this close up, but he wasn’t about to retreat and let the thing drag away his mother and daughter. Standing unsteadily, he paused to take a deep breath and leaped onto the face of the dragon.
“Oooph!” The impact knocked most of the breath from him.
He could feel the spiny scales bite into his skin through his shirt as he landed on the dragon’s forehead, the bottom half of his body dangling over the bridge of its nose, putting his legs between its eyes. Grabbing two small horns jutting from its brow, he dug his feet into some ridges along its nose. The dragon continued pulling on the back of the patrol car. Sam pounded a fist into its forehead but got no response. A kick to the armored bridge of the nose was ineffectual as well.
Sam twisted around. With a final shake of its head, the dragon succeeded in unwedging the patrol car from the shoulder and the guardrails. It was now backing out from under the overpass.
Slapping the side of its nose with his fists, Sam screamed, “Let them go! Let them go!” He raised his knee into the corner of the dragon’s eye. The dragon snorted and shook its head, sending Sam sliding down its snout. He found a foothold against the rim of its nostril, but a blast of flame erupted from it, enveloping his foot.
“Hey!” Sam yelled, stomping into the orifice several times. The dragon snarled and cringed, shaking its head some more. Sam looked down and saw his shoe smoldering, but it didn’t appear to be on fire, so he quit kicking. “No fire, dude, and I won’t kick. Now let go of the car.”
The dragon made a yanking motion, seemingly in defiance, pulling the car a foot farther onto the road and angling back toward the open space to the side of the overpass. Sam pushed up from the dragon’s snout and looked around. He could see nothing but darkness and dust. In the distance, he could hear Bohannon calling out to his mother.
“No, no, don’t get out of the car. Stay in there and get down!” the detective yelled.
Then Sam heard a gunshot.
A growl rumbled up the jowls of the dragon. Sam kicked and clawed, crawled up the dragon’s face and landed a punch into its left eye.
Releasing the back of the car and rearing into the air, the dragon slammed its head into the bottom of the overpass, sending more debris crashing down onto the roadway and more dust into the air. Sam lost his grip and rolled over the side of the dragon’s snout. As he fell, he reached out and grabbed something soft and fleshy. Dangling in the air, he looked up to see he had a handful of dragon lip, just as its mouth was about to close. He let go and fell into a cloud of dust. A moment later, he landed on the hood of the patrol car with a crash.
“Ouch, that hurts,” he said, pushing himself up.
Next to the car Bohannon stood, holding a handgun pointed at the dragon, whose head swung toward them. Bohannon fired a warning shot above its head.
“Hey, don’t hurt him! Ping’s in there somewhere,” Sam said.
Bohannon ignored him and crouched down to look into the car. “Okay, get out. Hurry! It’s going to grab the car again!” He opened the back door and grabbed Hannah, while Diana jumped from the driver’s door.
The dragon latched onto the patrol car’s bumper again.
Bohannon grabbed a handful of Sam’s shirt and pulled him off the hood of the car. As he swung the boy to the ground, he said, “Assuming we live through this, y
ou and me are going to have a talk about the proper procedure when dealing with dangerous animals, and it doesn’t involve climbing on them when they are in the process of eating a patrol car.”
A loud clash and flash of light filled the night behind the dragon. Arcs of lightning crawled along its torso. It released the car, jerking its head upward, again smashing into the overpass. Bellowing into the falling debris, it spewed a stream of fire, filling the space under the overpass with a blinding, suffocating mix of dust and smoke. Pounding its wings on the roadway, the dragon, backed up, withdrew from the cramped space below the overpass. Once clear, it lifted it head and swung its tail forward, striking the side of the overpass.
CHAPTER 34
Mara’s hands flickered as she extended them over the edge of the overpass, sending bolts of electricity into the backside of the dragon on the street below. She winced when it howled but continued, until the structure below her heaved upward tossing her in the air. Without a handhold, she staggered down the slope of the collapsed roadway, heading for the cliff into the blackness below. She twisted and fell to her knees, her jeans providing just enough traction to keep her from sliding off. Once again, she found herself scooting up the precarious incline of the fractured roadway, resisting gravity and wet asphalt.
Just as she approached the level portion of the overpass, the dragon’s tail swung up from below and struck the balustrade next to her head, sending a pile of concrete rubble into her face. Blinded, she wildly swung her right arm upward and grabbed something rough and metallic sticking out of the road above her head. With her left hand, she wiped grit from her face, keeping her eyes scrunched closed, until she was sure she’d cleared them. Her eyes fluttering tentatively, she looked around and could see nothing but the black outlines of clouds above.
Broken Dragon (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 3) Page 17