Broken Dragon (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 3) (17 page)

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.

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.
Why 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.

Mara staggered backward from the bumper and, after a moment, appeared to get her wits about her. Catching Sam’s eye, she made a twisting motion with her hand. Sam waved and tried the ignition key. The engine turned over and caught. When he pressed the gas, it revved smoothly. Mara jogged over to the driver’s door and opened it.

“Slide back over. We need to get going,” she said.

Sam lifted Cam’s head and rolled back into the passenger seat.

Mara flung herself into the car, put it into gear and ran through the red light that dangled ahead, nearly missing a bread van in the intersection. She turned toward the passenger seat. “I’ve warned you about prompting me. Next time, I swear I’ll—”

“Just get going, and try not to hit any more cars,” Sam said, then turned down to look at Cam. “Where’s Mom now?”

Cam looked up thoughtfully for a beat, furrowed his brow and said, “I can’t seem to isolate her signal on the network. Her phone could be off, or it just might be the wireless system is overwhelmed in the area. I’ll keep trying.”

Mara shook her head, wiping her forehead, attempting to keep water from streaming into her face. “We’ll have to assume that she’s going to head south, if she gets across the bridge. Hopefully we’ll be able to catch up to her before Ping leaves a trail of carnage all the way to Oregon City.”

That thought squelched all conversation. Sam stared into his phone and tapped its surface every few minutes, hoping to connect with his mother. Cam closed his eyes and didn’t say anything. Mara tried on focus on driving, not wanting to get into another accident. Still she worried about what she would do once they located her mother or, more specifically, when they located the dragon. Something must be done. Ping and the dragon could not continue to coexist if the beast ran wild every time it sensed danger, or if it had some need to stalk her mother, like the other reptiles that crossed over with her mother’s evil twin.
Ignore a dragon’s folly
. Like that’s gonna happen. She didn’t care what that little book from the future said, even if she did write it herself. There was no way she would simply stand by while all hell’s breaking loose, Chronicle of Continuity or not. What could her future self be thinking? The last thing she intended to do was ignore it.

So what’s the alternative? Kill Ping?

Cam’s eyes snapped open. “You’re getting a call. You want me to route it to your speakers?”

“Is it Mom?” Mara asked, glancing down at him, still sitting on Sam’s lap.

The head wobbled slightly. Mara took that as a shake of the head. Not Mom.

“Listed as DetBo in your contact list,” Cam said.

“Detective Bohannon. Yeah, put him through. He might have some info that can help,” she said.

Garbled static came from the hands-free speaker, then a voice said, “Mara, you there?”

“It’s me, Detective.”

“That your dragon flying around over the river dive-bombing the Ross Island Bridge?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t characterize it as
my
dragon, but, if you are asking me if that is Ping’s alter ego, the answer is yes. I think it might be chasing my mother.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m on Powell just past Thirty-Ninth, heading toward the bridge, but it looks like things are getting backed up pretty bad. I’m not sure I’m going to be able to get there,” she said. She tapped her brakes and came to a stop behind a sea of red taillights.

“The bridge looks like a war zone. There are several cars on fire out there. We’re getting calls about giant birds, dragons and UFOs attacking. We’ve got to do something. There are a lot of casualties out there, and it looks like it has the potential for fatalities as well,” the detective said, then asked, “Why’s this thing after your mom?”

“It’s complicated. A few creatures that passed over from another realm were stalking my mother, because they mistook her for their master, mistress or whatever. Most of them were just lizards, little stuff like that, and one big iguana.”

“Uh-huh. What happened to those guys?”

“Look, Bo, now’s not really the time to get into all this. I need to reach my mother. If I can get to her, maybe I can do something to address the dragon problem, but, right now, I’m stuck staring at the back end of a stationary station wagon.”

Cam cut in. “It appears your mother has made it across the bridge, at least her phone has. She exited the bridge onto McLoughlin Boulevard headed south.”

“Who’s is that?” Bohannon asked.

“Cameron. He’s able to track Mom’s phone,” she said.

“So you got him put back together?”

“No, it’s just his head.”

“So, you’re tracking your mother and a dragon with a disembodied robot head?”

Mara rolled her eyes. “You have a better idea, Detective? I’d love to hear one. Anything is better than just sitting here and doing nothing.”

“Pull over and wait for me. I’m a few minutes away, and I’ve got a sedan with lights and a siren. It’ll still probably be a little slow-going, but it’ll be faster than what you’re doing now,” he said.

Turning off Powell onto a side street, Mara found a small industrial office that had closed up for the day. She parked in the small lot and had Cam text the address to Bohannon. Five minutes later Bohannon’s city-issued brown Caprice pulled up behind them. Leaning forward to grab her phone from the charger, she said to Sam, “Bring Cam, and please don’t drop him, okay?”

“What is he, some kind of klutz or something?” Cam looked worried.

“No, she just thinks up stuff to worry about,” Sam said, tucking the head under his arm and opening the passenger door. He stepped out into the light drizzle.

“Mind rotating my head a little, so I’m not looking straight up into the falling rain?” Cam asked.

“Sorry.” Sam placed a palm on Cam’s crown and twisted, while maintaining a grip with his arm, in effect smearing Cam’s mouth across Sam’s wet jacket sleeve.

Cam looked disgusted. “Thanks.

As they approached the detective’s car, Bo stood up behind the driver’s door, waiting for them. “Go ahead and jump in.” He nodded toward Sam but looked at Mara. “Did you have to bring the head?”

“How would you like me to abandon your head in an empty car in this neighborhood for the night? What’s wrong with taking it?” Mara asked.

“
Him
, not
it
,” Cam said.

“We’re likely to run into other people, other cops, and I don’t want to have to explain a talking head, if there’s any way to avoid it.”

Mara opened the back door and waved for Sam to get in. She then opened the front passenger door and said, “We’ll be discreet. Besides, he may be the only way for us to track Mom and, therefore, the dragon.” She got into the car without waiting for a response.

Bohannon got in on his side and slammed the door. He put the car in gear and flipped on the flashing lights mounted in the grill of the sedan. As they pulled from the parking lot, he said, “We won’t need him to track anyone.”