“These stairs run along the hill, back the way we came, and end up at the base of the elevator,” she said, looking into the pitch black. The lights were out down there as well.
“Is it a tunnel?” Ping looked down the hole lined with gray stone.
“Yes. It passes under the street here and comes out on the stairs. Come on.”
He followed her into the darkness. It took less than a minute to emerge. Mara paused on a concrete landing at the top of a staircase astride the bluff, wrapping back toward the elevator. Ping heard running water off to his left just a foot or so away. He stepped forward to stand next to Mara.
“Is there a waterfall around here?” He looked at her in the dark, could not see her expression. She didn’t reply. “Mara, are you all right?”
“Water, yes. There’s water that runs down. It falls right here,” she said in a dry monotone, pointing over the left edge of the platform on which they stood, then tracing her finger along the ground and pointing off to the right. “It passes under where we are standing and continues down the hill that way.”
She didn’t move. Ping leaned forward, trying to see her expression. “Are you okay?”
“I don’t know. I guess hearing the water reminded me.”
“Reminded you of what?”
She turned away. “Reminded me that I am terrified. You think she picked the bridge because of the obelisks or to use it as a passageway between realms. Do you know the real reason she picked it?”
Ping shook his head.
“She picked it because she knows I’m terrified. It’s the one place where she knows I can’t go.” She looked down. “I’m not sure I can go out there on that bridge.”
“I believe you can do it if you need to. I’ll stay with you the whole time.”
“Until something startles you and you disappear in a puff of dust.”
“I wish I could tell you there is nothing to be afraid of, but that’s not the case.” He put a hand on her shoulder, turned her to face him. “What I can tell you is this. You have the ability to fix this. You are the only one who can. You can shape reality. Believe in yourself as much as I do, as much as your mother and Sam do, and you’ll figure out how to get through this.” He paused for a second. “And I promise you, when and if you need me, I’ll be there for you.”
“I’m going to hold you to that.”
The height of each step varied as the staircase wound down the side of the bluff, making it difficult to rush, especially in the dark. After stumbling several times, they slowed so they would not pitch over the railing and end up splayed across the railroad tracks. They came to another small landing that marked a sharp turn in the stairs, pausing for a few seconds. Trees and brush grew closer the lower they went. So did the rocky side of the bluff. Mara eyed an outcropping.
Ping caught up to her. “Something wrong?” he said.
“No, just paranoid.” She looked down the final flight of steps. It ended at a stairwell leading into a tunnel that passed under the railroad tracks allowing pedestrians access to the elevator from Seventh Street. She looked up into the sky, through the branches and foliage. Blue bands of light strafed the clouds, but there was no sign of the dragon. A thunderclap shook the air, bounced off the bluff wall, jolting Mara into moving.
She stepped off the small landing to the next riser onto something soft that gave way under her weight. Sliding forward, she grabbed the railing. She put her other foot forward, thinking the next step would be clear. It too settled onto something mushy.
“Mara, look behind you, up the stairs,” Ping said. “Something is running down the steps.”
Mara turned. Something thick and mudlike glistened and flowed down the stairs behind them. It swamped the small landing and poured over the edge toward them, overwhelming the steps in a river of sludge. Something wet slid against her ankle. She looked down to her feet.
“Come on, we’ll have to outrun it. We don’t have far to go.”
She took five exaggerated steps, straining against the suction of the muck on her feet. As she approached the suspicious outcropping on the face of the bluff, she paused to check on Ping. He was right behind her. The mud flow had deepened and now reached halfway up her calves. She had to hold on to the railing to get enough leverage to move. Reaching back to help Ping, she lost her balance. She maintained her grip on the railing but the insistent push of muck slid her body out from under her, twisting her around to face downward toward the wall of the bluff.
Two yellow eyes floated in the dark several feet below her. Someone clung to the face of the bluff off to the side of the stairs.
Mara stiffened, resisted as sludge rose to her knees. The mass accumulated behind her legs, exerted more pressure, trying to buckle her legs and sweep her down the bluff. Ping hugged the railing. The flow had pulled his feet from under him; he lay on top of the mud as it advanced below his backside. If he lost his grip, he would sink.
A loud crack reverberated off the bluff face.
A football-size rock fell out of the night, landing a foot away in the mud with a wet smack, spattering Mara’s face and torso. A smaller rock and tree limb followed, landing even closer. The bluff rumbled from above. Rocks clattered and branches snapped. The stairs shook; the mud vibrated, rippled. Wet slapping sounds surrounded them.
Mara tightened her grip and tried to find the yellow eyes again.
Debris, rocks and brush cascaded out of nowhere, pummeled them. Another crack, this one closer, shook the air. The outcropping of rock snapped off the face of the bluff. Now a boulder, it slowly broke away, arched into the air above Mara’s head, blocking out the avalanche of debris raining from higher above. As a black shadow slid over her, Mara raised her arm and said, “Stop.”
The barrage ceased.
She turned to check on Ping. He nodded to her.
She swung back around, looking for the eyes. They were still there. Staring.
A flame spit out from below them, lit a large branch—a makeshift torch—and illuminated a wet, scaly face.
Suter.
“You are too late, Ms. Lantern. There’s nothing you can do here,” he said.
She glanced upward. The torchlight bounced off a frozen wave of rock and branches, led by the boulder sheared from the bluff. The giant rock hung in the air, suspended ten feet above her. The barrage of sticks and stones dangled in the air motionless, waiting for gravity to reassert itself.
“You know, Special Agent Suter? Considering all that you have done these past few weeks, threatening my family and friends, stealing the Chronicle and God-knows-what-else, there is one thing I can do here, and I’m determined to do it,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“I want you to spend just one moment in my shoes. You know, see how it feels.”
A flash of light enveloped Mara and Suter.
Both disappeared and immediately reappeared in each other’s place.
Mara held the burning branch, lifted a foot and wiggled it at him. He tried to move but was stuck in the mud. He wailed into the air, turned toward Ping and spewed fire at him.
Ping dissolved into a cloud of dust.
Mara raised her hand to the night.
“Good-bye, Suter.”
The avalanche resumed.
Mara looked away as the boulder smashed down and the debris blew over the staircase sending a cloud of dirt into the night sky. When the ground stopped shaking and the dust cleared, she pointed her torch toward the huge rock sitting on the stairway. A four-fingered claw, covered with scales, extended from beneath it, unmoving.
A moment later, Ping reassembled himself next to her.
“Hopefully that will be the last of our delays,” he said, looking down at Suter. He turned to look at Mara in the flickering glow of the torch. “Are you okay with this?”
“He started it,” she said.
A baritone screech from the sky drew their attention. The silhouette of the dragon circled above in the riot of blue strobes radiati
ng from the bridge.
“Would the dragon still be here if Suter had conjured him? I had hoped it would be gone once Suter was gone,” Mara said.
“I don’t think the dragon was conjured by Suter. I think it crossed over from Diana’s realm,” he said.
“That means it’s real,” Mara said.
CHAPTER 63
MARA STEPPED FROM the stairwell into the tunnel, a wide underground ramp below the railroad tracks, leading from the elevator doors and up to Seventh Street. Waiting for Ping to catch up, she turned right and leaned against the elevator doors. From the mouth of the tunnel, indirect light flashed and flickered, reflected off the white tiles lining the walls. Whatever was happening was just one block away—Seventh Street became the bridge immediately after it crossed Main.
Ping took the final step into the tunnel, turned to Mara. “You’ve been using your abilities quite a bit recently. Are you feeling tired?”
“I’m fine. Let’s keep going. We’re almost there.”
“Maybe we should take a break and let you rest before we continue.”
“Straight ahead, one block.” Mara tilted her chin up the dark ramp. She pushed off the doors and started up the sloping floor.
Ping fell in step beside her. Looking out of the corner of his eye, he could not tell if she was flickering. The pulsing blue lights flooding into the tunnel made it impossible to tell.
“Mara, we don’t know the ramifications if you overextend yourself. We don’t even understand what happens to you when you wink out. We don’t know where you go, if anywhere.”
“I’ll rest after I get Mom back.”
Mara stopped at the end of the tunnel, at street level. Light flashed, receded and then intensified. Building facades appeared, disappeared in a blink. One minute the street was ablaze, the next obscured in night. Her eyes could not keep up; ghost images lingered from one burst of light and were overwhelmed by another. She rubbed them, trying to focus.
A rumble, a subtle quaking, rippled through the ground. Something eclipsed the light. A shadow enveloped them, and Ping pulled Mara back into the tunnel. She dropped the hand shading her eyes, looking irked at Ping. Wide-eyed, he gazed into the street.
With a roll of its armored shoulders, the dragon lowered its wings, allowing ambient blue light from the bridge to flood back over the entrance to the tunnel, illuminating its countenance.
Mara gasped, staggered back a step and placed an open hand against the wall to steady herself.
The ribbed wings loomed over its massive back, folding into a leathery dome spanning Seventh Street, arching more than two stories into the air. It stood in the center of the street, facing the tunnel. It lowered its head, peered into the opening.
A brow of bone partially eclipsed the dragon’s red half-moon eyes, sweeping up its skull, erupting into a crown of swept-back horns. Every feature ended in a point. Webbed spines flared from its jowls forming a gristly mane around its face. Spikes bearded its pointed jaw. The face of a reptilian goat. Viscous lips, stretched back to its scaly cheekbones, glistened and roiled, flashing glimpses of fangs the size of pickets. Its nostrils flared, expelled two streams of vapor.
A three-toed talon crashed down in front of the tunnel, turning a curb to gravel and spidering cracks across the sidewalk. A nearby parking sign listed and fell to the ground with a clatter. The creature craned its head toward the noise and bellowed, rattling shop windows on both sides of the street.
The dragon lumbered forward, knocking down a darkened lamppost with its right wing. Turning, it swept its left wing forward, and flattened two signs and a parking-payment kiosk. The creature jutted its face toward them, dipping its head lower as if to get a better look, sampled the air with its damp snout, parted its jaws and let loose another scream—this time directly at them, spewing flame across the front of the tunnel entrance.
A hot wind knocked them farther into the tunnel before flames could reach them. Staggering to their feet, they pulled halfway back to the elevator doors.
“It looks like this path is blocked,” Ping said in the dark.
“No. There’s no other way,” Mara said. “My mother is out there, and I’m not leaving without her. Besides, our only other option is to run back up the stairs, and who’s to say that thing won’t come after us anyway. We have to face it.”
“What do you propose?”
“The dragon looks slow on the ground. I’m pretty sure I can outmaneuver him if I can get out of here. I just need to make sure I don’t get toasted.”
“You can’t run out into the open.”
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do. You keep saying I can shape reality. If I can’t shape this reality, what’s it good for?”
“That doesn’t mean you can’t get killed,” he said.
“I know that, but we don’t have any other option,” she said, turning toward the end of the tunnel.
Outside, the dragon backed up a step and sat on its haunches in the middle of the street, staring down. Mara stepped out of the tunnel, crossed the sidewalk and walked into the street directly in its path. It did not move.
Its eyes tracked something over her shoulder.
She glanced back.
Ping bolted out of the tunnel, running to the right side of Seventh Street.
The dragon stood up and roared, blew fire and stomped after Ping, sending tremors through the asphalt. Storefront windows shattered. Glass cascaded into Ping’s path. He zigzagged along the sidewalk, holding up his right arm against flying glass and his left against the creature stalking him.
“I’ll keep him distracted,” Ping shouted, bending to pick up a toppled green-and-white road sign off the sidewalk. “Hurry.”
Mara ran after Ping. He waved the street sign at her. “No, go down the other side of the street. Go to your mother.”
“I can’t just leave you here,” she said and ran to him. Ping pulled her back toward the building where they crouched under a canvas awning. He lifted the heavy sign and charged out into the open, waving it like a sword, smacking the dragon’s underbelly. The dragon reared on its hind legs, spread its wings and blew a torrent of fire that engulfed Ping. His body split the flame into two streams that licked at Mara. The awning evaporated in a puff of ash. Ping exploded into a cloud of dust.
The dragon dropped forward, extending its head into the spreading cloud and blinked. It sniffed the air, tilted its snout sideways and inhaled deeply, drew in some of the particles. Cocking its head, it swallowed, a large bulge bobbing up and down its scaly throat. It jutted its head deeper into the cloud and inhaled, using both its mouth and snout. Soon the cloud was gone. The dragon swallowed again.
Closing its eyes, the dragon sneezed and snorted while shaking its head. After a low growl and a wet cough, it opened its eyes, glared at Mara. It sidestepped, centering itself on her, roared and spewed a torrent of fire at her.
Mara dived into the center of the street and rolled until she hit the curb on the far side, just below a darkened streetlight. She could feel the steps of the dragon reverberating the ground. She looked up to see it turn toward her. The dragon spread its wings and screamed into the sky. Lowering its head, it fixed its red eyes on Mara and lumbered toward her, sending shivers through the street. She backed up and fell over a fire hydrant. She scooted along the sidewalk, crab-walking on her hands and feet as the dragon swept a wing toward her, striking the streetlight, causing it to fall into the street like a felled tree.
The dragon reared its head into the air, inhaling, its chest expanding. Mara raised her arm and looked around for somewhere to hide. The fire hydrant caught her eye. It blurred into a lattice of pixels. The dragon jutted its head forward and spewed fire across the sidewalk. Swinging its head back and forth, it swept flame over the fronts of three shops. Windows exploded and hot air blew back toward the street. The fire hydrant disintegrated, and a geyser of water exploded into the air, showering the smoldering jowls of the dragon. It shook its head, backing away from the founta
in of water. Roaring with confusion, the dragon flapped its wings, kicking up a tempest that blew down another streetlight and several more street signs. Holding up her arm to block flying debris, Mara staggered to her feet, but a wall of wind pushed her back the way she came until her calves struck a bench that stood off to the side of the entrance to the tunnel leading to the elevator. She collapsed onto the bench, ducked her head against the wind and held on.
The bench began to shake.
Mara raised her head, looked down Seventh Street. The dragon, its wings swept behind its body, its head tucked down almost to the pavement and its lips pulled back in a snarl, charged toward her. It emitted a scream and leaped into the air, flinging itself at her. A ball of flame blossomed before the low-flying serpent as it approached.
She jumped to her feet and held her hands in front of her.
The dragon froze. It hung suspended in the air, hovering over the road’s center line, behind an unmoving, unfurling ball of fire, stopped in front of the elevator tunnel as if it were an exotic tractor trailer waiting to make a turn onto Railroad Ave.
Mara walked up to it, reached out to touch the frozen flame, jerked back her hand. Hot. She rubbed her fingers and looked down at them. They flickered several times. Movement out of the corner of her eye distracted her. A flame at the edge of the suspended fireball flitted back and forth in the wind, like a candle. Then something emitted a low, almost imperceptible swooshing sound.
Mara’s eyes widened, and she dropped to her knees.
The fireball flew over her back and slammed into the cement wall at the front of the tunnel, exploding into a cloud of smoke and ash, into which the dragon flew, crashing into the wall, sending tremors through the ground as the wall and the tunnel collapsed. A roar shook the air. Dust and smoke billowed up the side of the bluff, then rolled over and fell onto Seventh Street. Flapping and scraping sounds came from the haze. The tangled metal bench she had just sat on now flew out of the cloud, landing in the center of the street with a clang next to a downed streetlight.
Broken Realms (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 1) Page 33