“Yeah, you could say that.”
CHAPTER 27
Ping slowly lowered himself into the armchair next to the fireplace in the Lanterns’ living room, looking as if every joint in his body ached. He had carried Abby up the stairs to Mara’s bedroom and returned to his car to haul Vanderburg out of the back seat and into the living room, where he now lay on the floor in front of the hearth. Closing his eyes, Ping exhaled steadily, trying to slow his heart and let the tension drain from muscles.
“Thanks for helping me with Vanderberg, Sam,” Ping said as the boy bounded into the room and sat next to his mother on the couch.
“No problem,” Sam said, then turned to his mother. “Mom, Mara tried to feed me to the dragon.”
Diana swept a lock of red hair off her son’s forehead with a finger and, with an expression of mock concern, said, “She did? That’s terrible. Mara, don’t feed your brother to the dragon. Do you understand?”
“I’m serious,” Sam protested. “She practically put me in its mouth.”
“Okay, sweetie. I’ll have a talk with her later when we don’t have company,” Diana said.
From the armchair on the opposite side of the fireplace, Mara rolled her eyes. “Mom, I don’t get the impression that you fully appreciate the gravity of the situation here.” She waved a hand at the charred torso laid out on the floor between them. “This is not company. This man did not stop by for a visit and a cookie. Abby isn’t upstairs having a sleepover. She’s probably having a nervous breakdown.”
“Do you think it would help if the rest of us had a nervous breakdown too?” Diana asked.
“No.”
“Then why don’t you calmly explain to me what happened and why this man is not in a hospital emergency room.”
Vanderberg released a dry, raspy breath sending the smell of singed hair throughout the room.
Mara glared over at Ping and waved an upturned hand toward her mother.
Ping slowly straightened in his chair, but, before he could say anything, Sam piped in enthusiastically. “This man’s partner tried to shoot Ping, and Ping turned into the dragon and ate him. Then he spit fire all over this guy and smacked him with his tail, sent him sliding all the way across the warehouse.”
Diana looked questioningly at Ping.
Ping shrugged and said, “I guess you could call that the unabridged version of what happened.”
“How do you know these men?” Diana asked.
Again Sam interjected, “They were partners with Ping—not this Ping, the one who came from this realm. They smuggled drugs and stolen stuff through the warehouse.”
“And Mr. Ping ate one of them?”
“Whole. In one bite,” Sam said, jerking his head back as if slinging something into his own gullet.
“Technically it was the dragon, not Ping,” Mara added.
“I was under the impression that this creature was under control, Mr. Ping,” Diana said. Sam started to say something, and his mother raised her hand. “Let Mr. Ping speak.”
“Generally I believe he is. It appears he sometimes becomes restive, and I can sense him, and, of course, as we now know, he seems willing to emerge and protect himself if he feels threatened,” Ping said.
“That’s disconcerting,” Diana said. “I wasn’t aware there was such potential danger involved here.”
“Mom—” Mara said, stopped by another raised hand.
“Look, you guys. I’m about as open-minded of a mother as you are going to find in this particular corner of creation, but it’s completely unreasonable to allow you to be exposed to risks like this.” She pointed to the burned man on the floor.
“Sheesh, Mom. Ping would never hurt us,” Sam said.
“Perhaps your mother is right,” Ping said. “It is unreasonable to expose you two to this danger.”
Mara stood up. “No. That is not acceptable, Mom. I need Ping. You said yourself that he was a great mentor for me. I can’t do this without him, and I think that Sam and I proved tonight that we can take care of ourselves.”
Diana had that resolved look that Mara knew all too well. “This situation cannot continue like this. If Mr. Ping cannot assure me that he has the creature under control, I’m going to have to ask him to keep his distance.”
“You were the one who said I would have to face up to who I am, to accept my metaphysical role. Those were your exact words. Well, Ping is a part of that, dragons and all.”
Her mother’s face softened slightly as she turned to Ping. “I expect you to do whatever is necessary to make sure my children are not hurt.”
Ping nodded and said, “You have my word.”
Turning to Mara, she said, “This conversation is not over, but now’s not the time for a debate.” Looking down to the floor, she asked, “What are we going to do about this man? He needs medical attention.”
There was a knock at the door.
“That would be Denton and Melanie Proctor. I called them on the way down from Portland,” Ping said.
Sam got up, ran to the door and opened it.
Melanie Proctor held out her hand. “Hello, young man. I’m Melanie, and this is my husband, Denton. Is Mr. Ping here?” When she took Sam’s hand in hers, he saw a spark of light form in the back his eyes, a sort of afterimage that he quickly blinked away. Shaking his head, he caught the woman looking intently at him. “We should sit down and talk sometime soon,” she said to him.
“Come on in. Everyone’s over here,” Ping said, waving them into the living room.
As Denton and Melanie walked around the end of the couch, they could see Vanderberg’s body spread out on the round throw rug in front of the fireplace.
“Oh, my goodness.” Melanie held her hand to her mouth.
Ping stood up, offered her his chair and looked to her husband. “Do you think you can help this man? As you can see, he has suffered some burns and probably a few other injuries.”
“What happened to this poor man?” Melanie said as she sat.
Denton stepped past Ping and crouched next to Vanderberg. “We can get to that later, sweetheart. Let’s see what we can do here.”
He placed the palms of his hands on each of Vanderberg’s shoulders, almost appearing to use them for support as his head lolled forward, hanging loosely above. Mara stared intently at Vanderberg’s left arm which lay splayed across the floor about a yard from her feet. Blackened blisters wavered, burbling and then slowly receding into swollen red welts. After a few more minutes, the welts faded into puckered pink scabs that quickly whitened into new pale skin. Vanderberg’s dry rasps turned to regular deep breaths. One of his legs twitched, and he slowly raised his arm, to scratch away some soot from his eye.
A moment later his entire body constricted, every muscle tightened, as his fingers clawed at the throw rug, pulling his torso from the ground, nearly head-butting Denton Proctor in the chest.
The healer yanked back but held out his hands before him. “Whoa, there. Calm down. You’re going to be all right. Sit there for a minute.”
Bug-eyed and trembling, Vanderberg looked beseechingly at Denton. “It, it was a monster. It had red, red eyes and spit fire. A giant monster with wings.”
Denton patted him on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. There are no monsters here. You are safe and should be feeling better in a few minutes.” Deciding to give Vanderberg some breathing room, Denton stood and stepped over to the side of the chair where his wife sat, giving his patient his first clear view of the room and the people in it.
Vanderberg turned his head in a series of jerks, locking on Mara, then Diana, then Sam without a glint of recognition coming to his eye. His head twitched one more time, his gaze settling on Ping, who had moved to sit on the couch next to Sam.
Vanderberg’s eyes widened and rolled up into his head as he howled and crawled backward in a clumsy inverted crab-walk, trying to put distance between himself and Ping. He pushed himself backward until he smashed his head into the stone hearth, crumpling
and dazed to the floor. Rolling back and forth, holding out his arms, Vanderberg moaned, “No, no, no. Make it go away!”
Concerned, Ping stood up. Mara also stood, hopped over the writhing form in the middle of the room and took Ping’s arm, pulling him toward the kitchen. “Come on. You’re this guy’s boogeyman. We need to get you out of here.”
As soon as Ping and Mara left the room, Vanderberg pulled himself up in front of the fireplace, did a wild-eyed turn and bolted for the front door, striking his hip on the arm of the couch on the way. Once he got to the door, he yanked on the doorknob and stumbled backward when it did not open. Whining and gibbering, he flung himself at the door again, punching at the door frame with one hand while trying to turn the dead bolt with the other. After a lucky flip of the wrist and a turn of the knob, the door flew open, and Vanderberg escaped into the night.
Diana was the first to reach the open door, but she made no move to chase after the man. She stood looking out for a minute, then slowly closed the door and turned back to the living room.
“Aren’t we going after him?” Sam said.
“What do you think we are going to do with him if we catch him? We can’t make him stay here against his will, can we?”
“Well, I could,” Sam said.
“Yes, I’ve been meaning to have a talk with you about that.”
“What? What did I do?”
“Later,” Diana said, turning to the Proctors. “Why don’t we retire to the kitchen and get a nice warm cup of green tea?”
CHAPTER 28
An intermittent guttural growl broke through the darkness and demanded Mara’s attention. For a second, she didn’t realize where she was, just somewhere dark and, up until now, quiet. She opened her eyes and blinked a few times to clear the film that had formed on them overnight. It took a firm rub of her knuckles to focus, and the first thing she saw was the pale, drawn face of Abby. Though tired-looking, she appeared alert enough to hold an arched eyebrow and a look of determination. She cleared her throat again, loudly and dramatically.
Mara rolled over to face the back of the couch and pulled the blanket over her head. “Go away. I am still sleeping.”
“I will pummel you to within an inch of your life if you don’t get up,” Abby said. “I’ve been sitting here for more than an hour, and I’m all out of patience.”
Mara flipped over to face her and said, “You’ve not been there for five minutes, I bet.”
“How would you know? You were dead to the world.”
“Abby, you haven’t waited an hour for anything since the day you were born. I’m surprised your mother carried you to term.”
“Well, if you must know, I was a preemie.”
“I’m not talking without coffee.”
Abby reached for the table next to the armchair, lifted a cup in toast and took a sip.
Mara scooted up the arm of the couch that braced her pillow and eyed a cup that sat on her own end table. “Thanks,” she said, reaching for it.
“So?” Abby asked.
“So, what?” Mara replied.
“You know what.”
“First, explain to me why you’ve been following me around. You show up at the shop, asking to be an intern, when we both know you’d rather die than hang out in that old musty shop. I saw you at Pioneer Courthouse Square, and then you show up at Ping’s warehouse. What’s your deal?”
“My deal? Are you completely nuts? Don’t make this about me. I was worried about you. Among the many weirdnesses in your life, you have banana boy drop in out of nowhere and act like it’s some kind of soap opera plot twist. Then you go down to the healer’s freak show at the square and do a mind meld with the weird lady with lights coming out of her eyes. And afterward you meet up with Godzilla in the warehouse and shoot lightning bolts up his butt. What’s my deal?”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“How about the truth? I promise you, if you don’t tell me, I will keep following you until I find out anyway.”
“Believe me, I believe you.” Mara rubbed her eyes again, stretched and yawned, trying to buy time to figure out what to say.
“So? And don’t say ‘so, what?’”
“You’re not going to believe it.”
“Try me.”
“Before I do, you have to promise to stop showing up without warning. No more following me around. Agreed?”
“Tell me the whole truth, and I’ll never pop in on you again.”
Mara took a deep breath and said, “I have metaphysical powers.”
Abby stared back blankly.
Mara took a sip of her coffee and waited for the questions to start, but they didn’t. After a long moment, she said, “Abby, are you still with me?”
“Yeah. Metaphysical powers, I heard you. I’m still waiting for an explanation of what I saw last night.”
“You remember Mr. Ping?”
“The guy next door at work who complains about you blowing out the electricity all the time, right?”
“Sort of. He doesn’t do that anymore. You see, that Mr. Ping died in the airplane crash and was replaced by another one from another dimension.”
“I’m still not seeing any dots to connect here. What’s this Ping dude got to do with tyrannosaurus rex running around up in southeast Portland?”
“It was a dragon you saw. Didn’t you notice the wings? It was a dragon, not a dinosaur. Ping is the dragon. Well, his consciousness shares a body with a dragon. They are actually two separate people.”
“Ah-huh. All I really noticed was teeth and scales and some fire, I think. I guess that would indicate dragon, not a dinosaur. The fire, I mean.”
“Right. Anyway there was a man who fired a gun at Ping, and he turned into the dragon, and all hell broke loose.”
“And the lightning coming out of your hands?”
“I was trying to distract him so that he wouldn’t hurt you.”
“Ah-huh. That’s this metaphysical power that you have.”
“Part of it. It’s a little difficult to explain. It involves Consciousness, Time, Space and Consequences. Those are the elements of reality. I can alter those elements.”
“You can alter them, what, with your mind?”
“Something like that.”
Abby rolled her eyes. “You had a cattle prod or something, didn’t you?”
“You can believe there was a dragon in front of you but not that I have metaphysical powers?”
“I know I saw something big and hungry last night. Do I believe it was the Chinese guy next door to your work? No. Quit jerking me around. What happened last night?”
“Okay, let’s try this.” Mara pointed at Abby. “Close your eyes.”
Abby looked doubtful, but raised her hands to cover her eyes.
“Okay, now lower your hands.”
Abby sat on the couch where Mara had been. Mara sat in the armchair sipping her coffee. It took Abby a second to get her bearings, and then her head snapped back and forth quickly. “How did you do that?”
“That’s the element of Space.” Mara flung her arm holding the coffee cup toward Abby, sending a liquid brown arc into the air. As it was about to land on Abby’s chest, it stopped, suspended, a smear of coffee hanging motionless between the two of them. “That’s Time. See? I can stop Time.” A creak from the stairs drew Mara’s attention.
Diana stood at the foot of the stairs at the entrance to the living room in a bathrobe and said, “I hope for your sake you know how to clean that up before you start Time again.”
Mara turned to the suspended coffee, narrowed her eyes. It made a tinkling sound and then blurred, breaking up into little tiny squares that tumbled toward the floor and faded into nothingness.
“That’s the pixel thing she does. She turns things to pixels and then erases them. She did it to my basketball one time, and it exploded,” Sam said, now hanging over the railing of the stairs behind his mother, twisting his head sideways to see into the living room.
&
nbsp; Everyone turned to look at Abby, who stood up expressionless and then dashed for the front door.
Mara turned to run after her, but Diana said, “Mara, let her go. She has seen a lot in the last twenty-four hours, and it’s going to take her some time to digest everything.”
“She doesn’t even have her car. I should at least give her a ride home.”
Diana walked to the door and shut it. “She used to walk over here all the time when she was a kid. I’m sure she’ll make it home fine. Give her some space. Maybe text her later and tell her you’re ready to talk when she is.”
“I don’t want her to be freaked-out.”
“She’ll be fine. She’s a tough girl. Why don’t you guys come into the kitchen, and I’ll make some breakfast.”
They walked into the kitchen, and Diana pulled items from the cabinets and refrigerator. She placed three juice glasses on the round kitchen table, and indicated Sam and Mara should take a seat. While filling each glass with orange juice, she said, “How about some scrambled eggs and bacon?” No one objected, so she turned to the counter, popped four slices of bread into the toaster and cracked some eggs. Quickly glancing over her shoulder, she said, “To be honest with you, I’m surprised you came right out and told Abby.”
Mara set aside her juice, stood up, grabbed the coffeepot and filled the empty cup she’d carried in from the living room. “I didn’t think I had any choice.”
“Why do you say that?” Diana asked.
“With Sam showing up out of nowhere, she started getting suspicious that something unusual was going on. She followed me and Ping down to Pioneer Courthouse Square on Thursday, and I suspect she followed Sam to the warehouse last night. Telling her to cut it out wasn’t going to work. You know how she is. Telling her not to do something is like a dare to her. The only way I could think to discourage her from nosing around was to tell her the truth.”
“You did more than just tell her,” Sam said. “I think all the magic tricks freaked her out.”
“She didn’t believe me. I had to show her. But you may be right. That may have been a little too much for her to deal with.”
Broken Souls (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 2) Page 15