Broken Souls (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 2) (32 page)

Rolling her eyes and grabbing Ping’s arm, she stepped out the door.

And slammed into a wall of a person.

Mara gasped and recoiled, pushing Ping back into the bakery, sure she had just exposed herself to the shedding. As she reached to slam the door, she heard a familiar southern drawl.

“Good Lord, are you okay?” Bohannon said.

Mara froze for a second, allowed her mind to catch up with what was happening, then stepped into the back alley, pulling Ping again outside. Closing the door behind her, she turned to Ping. “You got your friend under control?” she asked Ping. “No breathing fire and breaking the furniture tonight, right?”

Ping nodded. “Right. I’m okay now.”

Shaking her head, Mara turned to Bohannon. “What are you doing here?”

He held up a paper cup with a plastic cover on it.

Mara shook her head. “What? Coffee?”

“I was under the impression you needed Prado’s ashes for something.” He wiggled the cup in front of her face and handed it to her. “I’m assuming I would be better off not knowing what you guys intend to do with them. Promise me it isn’t something weird that’s going to end up on the six o’clock news. I know it’s overly optimistic of me, considering everything that is going on, but I’d like to be a detective long enough to actually call it a career.”

“Oh, I completely forgot about that,” she said. “No promises about the six o’clock news. It seems like the barriers to what they will cover are coming down pretty quickly. But we’ll do our best to keep a low profile.”

“You mean like having all those shedding victims chant your name on television?” the detective said.

“That was completely unforeseen and unavoidable,” Mara said, then added, “And so was the second time.”

“Second time?”

“Yeah, just a minute ago, assuming it got caught on camera.”

“We should go into the shop before Sam releases those creatures, and they begin to pursue us again,” Ping said. “Detective, are you joining us?”

“No, I’ve got to get back. Everyone’s been called in because of the rampant unrest and insanity that’s going on. People are going crazy all over the city. I mean, literally crazy. We are getting dozens of reports of ghosts all over town. I think all these shedding patients lurching around has sparked some kind of mass hysteria.”

“Yeah, it’s mass hysteria all right,” Mara said.

Bohannon turned to walk back to the end of the alley where his car was parked. Mara touched his arm, and he looked back. “Detective, don’t let one of them touch you.”

“I already figured that much out,” he said. He tilted his head at them and added, “You two be careful with whatever it is you’re up to.”

* * *

Sam stepped back from Buddy, who remained frozen, and looked over to his mother, who pulled her coat more tightly around herself. Her nose and cheeks were rosy in the cold air, and she stomped in place to get warmer.

“We can’t stay out here very much longer. It’s not good for him or us for that matter. We look a little conspicuous standing out here like this. Eventually a police cruiser will happen by or a concerned citizen will call it in,” she said.

“Let’s give Mara another minute, and then I’ll prompt him to go home, but I’m a little concerned about doing that,” Sam said.

“Why? What’s the problem?”

“If I prompt him to go back to our house, won’t all the other people Prado has infected begin heading there too?” Sam asked.

Diana’s eyes widened. “Is that possible? I mean, most of them are up in Portland, right? I thought when you prompt someone, it was temporary. Surely they won’t have time to walk down to Oregon City, would they? It’s unlikely that some of them would show up at the house.”

“Unless there are some of them already here in town. The whole thing started over in Clackamas at the bank that Prado and his friend, the giant bug, tried to rob. That’s closer to us than Portland.”

“I do not want these people showing up at the house. One is enough,” Diana said. A trill came from the breast pocket of her coat.

“That’s probably Mara,” Sam said.

Diana answered, “Get your butt home right now, young lady.”

“Mom, I’m a little pinned down at the moment,” Mara said.

“You wouldn’t be pinned down if you had your butt parked in bed like you’re supposed to instead of sneaking out in the middle of the night.”

“Now is not the time for maternal discipline, Mother. I’m sort of in the middle of something serious right now.”

“Where are you?”

“We came in the back door of the shop. There are rotting people and green ghosts running all over town. A bunch of them trashed Ping’s Bakery, and, according to the news, there are more on the way,” Mara said.

Diana switched over to Speakerphone so Sam could hear. “Green ghosts? You mean like Buddy’s apparition at the house?”

“Yeah, when Opie got the bright idea to prompt me into making him visible, apparently it affected all the people who got evicted from their bodies, not only Buddy. Now they are running around all over the place, scaring the bejesus out of everyone.”

Sam leaned toward the phone. “Just trying to help. Why don’t you make them invisible again?”

Mara yelled back loudly enough to overload the phone’s speakers, causing her voice to intermittently crackle, “I can’t remember how I made them visible, genius!”

“Enough bickering,” Diana said. “Mara, come home, and we’ll figure out what to do from here.”

“I’m thinking it might be safer to stay put, at least until the police—or whoever is in charge of rounding up all these people—clear the streets. There are dozens of them out there right now.”

“I want you home as soon as possible.”

Sam tapped Diana’s shoulder to get her attention and pointed at Buddy. His head moved back and forth, as if he were trying to shake off a blow to the head. He raised his hands to his face and brushed fingers over the crags that ran along his cheeks, and he blinked rapidly several times. The blackness in his eyes swirled and faded, like oil floating on water that spun down an open drain, exposing the whites of his eyes. He staggered forward, released from the stillness of Sam’s prompts.

“Back up, Sam!” Diana warned. Into the phone, she said, “Buddy’s moving again. Sam’s promptings must be wearing off.”

“Wait, I don’t think that’s it,” Sam said, pointing at Buddy’s eyes. “I think Prado’s gone.”

Buddy looked around bewildered holding his hands out before him as if something repugnant clung to them. His mouth opened, yet nothing came out but a dry rasp. His distorted features contorted further, and a tear rolled down his cheek.

“What’s going on?” Mara said from the speakerphone.

“It looks like Prado left Buddy’s body,” Sam said. “I think Buddy is back in control.”

“Maybe he released the other shedding victims as well.”

“It’s more likely he got tired of me prompting him through Buddy and figured it was easier to let him go.”

“Get Buddy home. We’ll check on the people here, and I’ll come home as soon as I can,” she said and hung up.

Mara looked up to the ceiling of the bicycle repair area of Mason’s Fix-it Shop in silent prayer as she hung up the phone.
If it could only be that easy
. Maybe Prado simply couldn’t maintain his grip on all those bodies, and he’s on his way to the great beyond—or wherever people from his realm go. Ping stood next to Bruce’s worktable in front of a bicycle wheel, the spokes of which appeared to radiate from his head like some kind of silvery halo glimmering in the muted light from the Exit sign above the back door.

“What did they say?” Ping asked in a low whisper.

“Sam thinks Prado left Buddy’s body. It might mean he’s released everyone. And it that’s true, I’m off the hook—no Chronicle, no crossing over to another realm.” She jabbed the cup of ashes into the air to punctuate the point.

“That shouldn’t be difficult to ascertain,” he said, stepping toward to the front of the shop and waving a hand for Mara to follow.

Streetlights from the end of the block provided a soft ambient glow that spilled in through the display window. Mara became hopeful when no shadows appeared to be shifting around outside, and her pace quickened as she and Ping passed the counter and approached the window. Four feet away from the front door, Mara came to a sudden stop and held out her arm to warn Ping.

A silhouette of a young boy lurched across the bottom of the front window, still walking with the gait of a shedding victim. As he passed from view, two more shadows, these taller, clearly adults haltingly shuffled down the sidewalk. One of them stopped in front of the window while the other continued on without hesitating. The straggler turned toward the shop, staring blankly through the window.

Mara held her breath as the dark figure raised a hand and placed it on the glass, flat-handed, and pressed against it. A thin sound of window molding cracking pierced the darkness. And stopped. The man slowly removed his hand, leaving a foggy outline on the glass, turned and continued his disjointed walk down the sidewalk.

Disappointment swept across Mara’s features as she whispered, “I guess he left Buddy to keep Sam from prompting him anymore. Prado’s still got the rest of them.”

Ping put a hand on Mara’s shoulder and waved toward the back of the shop. “Let’s go in the back. We’re less likely to draw attention there.”

Mara followed him.

Standing in front of the tiny office door, Ping said, “Is the Chronicle in there?”

“Yes, but do you really think this is the right thing to do?”

“I don’t see any alternatives.”

“I just think I need to think this through, talk this out for a minute.”

A loud bang rattled the large garage door that covered half the back wall of the shop. Mara jumped, nearly dropping the cup containing Prado’s ashes.

Ping lowered his voice and said, “There’s no time for talk. Get the Chronicle and activate it. You need to find out what is going on and see if there is a way to undo whatever Prado is doing to these people.”

Mara opened her mouth to protest, but another clatter from the garage door changed her mind. She tensed up, took a deep breath and ducked into the office. A moment later, she returned carrying the jeweled copper medallion, the Chronicle of Creation, on her upturned palm.

“What are you going to do while I’m gone?” Mara asked. “Assuming I actually go somewhere.”

“I’m going into that office, crawl under the desk and hide from those creatures,” he said, nodding toward the back of the shop.

“Take this.” Mara handed him the paper cup. “Stand here next to me and hold it out in front of you.” She extended her hand too and held out the Chronicle before her and said, “Show me creation.”

“Must you say that each time you activate the Chronicle?” Ping asked. “It sounds like some kind of silly incantation.”

From her palm, the copper medallion rose up into the air and floated. After a moment, it spun, and the blue azurite crystals on its face glowed and smeared into bands of light.

“I don’t think I have to say it, but reciting the words seems to help me tap into the part of my brain that makes this thing work. Call it a verbal talisman if that makes you more comfortable,” Mara said, staring into the light.

As it became a blurry disk, it flipped and gyrated in all three dimensions, emitting intermittent bursts of blue light. It hovered in the air before Mara’s face, then it gained speed and power, strafing the walls with streaks of blue light. In a final burst, the medallion completely disappeared, replaced by a spinning orb of blue mercury, pulsing with light that illuminated the entire room.

A blue translucent bubble burst from the orb and expanded to each wall. Within the bubble, bright blue lines drew themselves, running along the periphery of the bubble running into silvery nodes and continuing to split and connect to more nodes. Once the static edge of the bubble became congested with lines and nodes, they turned inward filling the interior of the bubble as well.

Unlike previous experiences with the Chronicle, this time Mara found herself standing outside of it instead of in the center. She looked over her shoulder and realized she and Ping were standing next to the wall of the office. The bubble was constrained by the area in which it formed and could not envelope them. The transparent boundary arched about six inches in front of them. Directly before Mara, a tennis-ball-size node appeared to press against the bubble, straining against the wall, distorting it slightly as if exerting itself to get to her.

She stared at it for a few seconds before it struck her that this node looked odd. Unlike the others, which were pure silver, the one before her looked dull, more gray than silver, with bands of black swirling along its perimeter.

“Why is my node the only one that looks murky like that?” she said.

Ping shrugged. “I suppose it could be related to what is happening with Prado, but that seems unlikely. It would take something of a metaphysical significance to alter how the Chronicles represents creation, don’t you think?”

“I don’t like it. It’s giving me the heebie-jeebies.” She glanced over to her right, and, in front of Ping, three nodes bobbed in the air, pressing against the edge of the sphere in front of him. Mara raised an eyebrow and said, “Three nodes? Why are there three nodes pulling toward you?”

“One for me, one for the dragon and one for Prado’s remains,” Ping said, lifting the cup as high as he could. One of the nodes before him followed the course of the cup, bobbing higher. “Each of us is from separate realms, and it appears these nodes can detect that.”

“Multinodal Personality Disorder,” Mara said. “You’re some kind of metaphysical schizophrenic, aren’t you?”

“I suppose that would be one possible diagnosis, but let’s not waste time analyzing me. We’ve got more pressing concerns to address.”

“Just making an observation.”

“Sam said all you need to do was grab this node and hold onto it,” Ping said, waving the cut toward Mara, guiding the node to within her reach.

“I know. I know.” She reached out tentatively, felt the static of the bubble’s frontier send tiny electrical prickling up her arm and pulled back. “Oh, I don’t know.”