Broken Souls (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 2) (23 page)

“So are the gouges. And our little classroom is back,” Ping said.

The cabinet stood unmarked next to the pristine whiteboard. Three mats sat on the floor in front of it.

* * *

After cutting off all the lights in the warehouse, except those over the makeshift classroom, Ping returned to his mat and sat down. “You even repaired the back door. Isn’t that amazing?”

“Do you think it’s a problem that I needed a talisman to do this? I mean, I’ve done a lot more elaborate things without one before,” Mara asked.

“Your instincts were probably correct when you said you needed to use the crystal to help you concentrate. Those more elaborate things you did while under duress. That has a way of focusing the mind.”

“That makes sense, I suppose.”

Ping leaned forward and pulled a piece of paper from his back pocket and unfolded it.

“What's that?” Sam asked.

“It’s the list of passengers from Flight 559 that we had started to review before your mother got into trouble a few weeks ago. We never got back to it, and I was thinking that we might want to consider it.”

“What exactly do you want us to consider?” Mara asked.

“Let’s get to that in a second. I’ve marked off all the ones who are accounted for—those who have ‘disappeared’ back to their realms, the ones who’ve come to untimely ends, a few that Detective Bohannon has told me about and the ones we have met who seem to be adjusting to life here. There were 121 people on board the flight, and I have accounted for 23, including us.”

“Me too?” Sam said.

“I didn’t count you since you didn’t have a counterpart on the flight when it left in this realm,” Ping said.

“Okay, what’s your point?” Mara asked.

“Before things got out of control, we had started to go down the passenger list to see if there was any way to avert problems with them. Remember?” Ping said.

“We used the list to narrow down the options when we were looking for Missy Harrington, after she had swiped the Chronicle from us. I don’t recall wanting to go looking for problems.”

“Well, given the circumstances with the bank robbery, don’t you think it would be prudent to check up on some of the other passengers? It might prevent unnecessary harm or even bloodshed.”

Mara emitted a long-drawn-out groan of frustration.

“I can’t believe you would simply stand by and watch people get hurt,” he said.

“I understand that, on some twisted metaphysical level, I am responsible somehow for bringing all this about. But don’t you think this stuff is going to sort itself out eventually?”

“Probably, existence has a way of doing that. But how many innocent people are you comfortable with losing in the process? Five, ten, one hundred?”

“Aren’t you being a little melodramatic?” she asked.

“Based on what we saw on that video today, I’m not so sure.”

“Is that the one with the man turning into a big bug?” Sam asked.

Ping nodded and turned back to Mara. “Take those events and multiply them by a factor of a hundred. That’s how many people from other realms are running around out there. Now is it melodramatic to think someone is going to get hurt if we don’t act?”

“Okay, okay. I guess it won’t hurt to check up on the ones who live around here, but let’s keep it low-key. I’d prefer not to get into any metaphysical brawls if it can be helped.”

Ping smiled, folded up the list and slid it back into his pocket. “Excellent. I bet Detective Bohannon would be glad to give us some assistance in return for ours.”

“Speaking of brawls, there’s something else we need to get squared away,” she said.

“What would that be?” Ping asked.

“The dragon.”

“What about the dragon?”

“I’m thinking that we should try to send him on his way—you know, back to his own realm.”

Ping tensed and straightened. “I’m not sure if that’s even possible. We essentially share the same body. How do you propose to accomplish this?”

“I’ve been thinking about it. I was able to pull Diana, Sam’s version of Mom, out of my mother’s body using a crystal to separate their consciousnesses. Why couldn’t I do the same with you and the dragon?”

“My situation is a little different. The dragon isn’t simply an outside entity that invaded my body, as was the case with your mother. Our bodies, the dragon’s and mine, were basically blown to bits during the battle with you on Main Street in Oregon City.”

“I recall,” Mara said.

“When our remains reassembled we became fully integrated. The dragon isn’t simply a squatter inside my body.” Ping pointed to his own chest. “This body is as much his as mine.”

“There’s got to be a way to separate you.”

“Even if there were a way to do it, I don’t think he would allow it. He doesn’t just defend himself with brute force. He has the ability in intuit danger in a way that I have never experienced before. I’m only now beginning to get a sense of it.”

“Intuit? What do you mean,
intuit
?”

Ping paused and looked upward, thinking. “The closest thing I can think of would be sonar. It’s like the dragon sends out these waves, not sound waves, but something I can only describe as thought waves. Eventually they bounce back, and the dragon can interpret them even before the danger is imminent.” He shrugged and added, “I know that doesn’t make sense, but it’s the best way I have of describing it.”

Sam leaned forward and said, “That is so cool. Is that why he was so restless before Galinsky and Vanderberg showed up?”

Ping nodded. “I believe so.”

“All the more reason why we should be trying to figure out how to get that thing out of you. How can you sit there calmly lecturing me about some guy turning into a bug at the bank while you are harboring a monster of mythic proportions inside you? If I didn’t know better, I’d say you don’t want to be separated from this thing.”

“There may be some truth in that,” Ping said. “There is a certain allure to the power and majesty of this creature that is a part of me.”

They sat in strained silence for what seemed a long time.

“Well, that sucks,” she said.

The following day when Mara parked along the curb on Woodstock Boulevard in front of the Mason Fix-It Shop, she eyed a large man in a trench coat facing away from her, hunched against the cold and drizzle, standing in front of the shop’s display window, alternately stomping his feet as if trying to ward off a chill. She and Sam got out of the Subaru, and he gave her a questioning look. She shook her head and said, “It’s only a customer waiting for me to open up. You can head over to the bakery.”

Sam slammed the passenger door and jogged over to Ping’s brightly lit storefront. As Mara approached the shop’s front door, the man turned to face her with an expression so grave that, for a second, she didn’t recognize him. It was Detective Bohannon.

She raised the hand holding the keys she was about to use to unlock the shop and said, “Detective, I don’t really have time to talk. I’ve got to open the shop and get to work.”

“I didn’t come to talk. I need you to come with me,” he said.

“I really need to get to work.” She inserted the key into the door.

Bohannon placed a hand on her arm and said, “People are dying. I need you to come with me and take a look at this. You don’t need to do anything. Let me know what you think, and then I’ll bring you back.”

“Where are we going?”

“To the hospital over up on Gleason in the northeast sector. I’ll have you back here in an hour. Hour and a half, tops,” he said.

“Let me go get Ping. I would really feel more comfortable if he were with me.”

“He’s on his way. I stopped in and talked to him a few minutes ago. He was waiting for your brother to come in to keep an eye on the bakery while we go.”

Just then Ping stepped out of the front of the bakery, pulling on an overcoat. He still wore his white chef’s smock. He approached them, and Bohannon pointed toward his blue Ford F-150 parked across the street.

* * *

They drove in silence to the hospital. For some reason Bohannon didn’t want to elaborate about who or what they were going to see, and Mara had decided that not asking a lot of questions might be the best strategy for not getting any more deeply involved than she absolutely had to. It was one thing to agree to look into what some of the passengers from the flight might be up to, but it was another to out-and-out go seeking trouble. And taking an impromptu trip to the hospital with the grim-faced detective felt like trouble.

They parked in a small parking lot tucked between two wings of the hospital that didn’t appear to be used by the general public. A quarter of the spaces were occupied by utility vehicles, vans, trucks and one ambulance. The rest struck Mara as employees’ personal vehicles. When she stepped out of the truck, she noticed a loading dock nestled in the portion of the building that connected the two wings. Bohannon pointed in that direction and to the left, to a door with a uniformed police officer standing guard.

“Why are we sneaking in the back?” Mara asked.

“We’re not sneaking. But it’s easier going in this way,” Bohannon said.

As they crossed the parking lot and approached, Bohannon waved a badge at the guard who opened the door with a key card. It appeared to be an emergency exit, not a standard entrance—even for employees of the hospital. The trio headed directly into a narrow institutional hallway with two doors on the left, each with a bright blue sign, one displaying a stick figure of a man, the other a woman. On the right were a couple metal swinging doors under a small sign that read Supplies. Ahead, brighter light spilled out of a larger corridor that ran perpendicular to this hall and bustled with much more activity.

“Come on. I want you guys to stay close to me. Do not touch anyone. Do not talk to anyone. Is that clear? That includes the hospital staff. If anyone talks to us, let me do the talking. Is that clear?”

Ping nodded. “We understand, Detective.”

Mara swallowed and tried to get her stomach to stop clenching.

When they got to the end of the hall, they took a right into the larger corridor, which was lined with heavy wooden doors, each bearing a small numbered plaque. They had entered the hospital between patient rooms without passing any check-in desks. Dozens of whispers echoed in the corridor, prompting Mara to look over her shoulder. At the opposite end of the corridor stood a knot of perhaps thirty people in front of a nurses’ station. The tone of the voices seemed urgent, more like discontented murmuring than hushed consultations with concerned loved ones, maybe a mob in the making.

They passed two doors on the right and stopped in front of the third. The door was emblazoned with a sign that read Quarantine—Authorized Personnel Only. Glancing down the hall, Mara noticed several doors had the same sign.

Bohannon pushed against the door, and Ping grabbed his arm. “Detective, should we be going in there? Is it safe?”

“As long as you don’t touch anyone or anything, you should be fine. Just do what I said. Observe. Don’t talk or touch anything.” He shifted his weight against the door and it slid out of his path.

Mara glanced doubtfully at Ping but followed Bohannon.

Inside, they found a small generic hospital room with a single bed, occupied by a man in his thirties. He was attached to several monitors but not to anything that helped him breathe or provided any kind of medicine, which struck Mara as surprising given the state of the man.

“Oh, my God,” Mara said. “What is wrong with him?”

Blackened cracks ran down the man’s skull, across his face and down his neck. His slate-colored skin appeared puckered and curled away from the fissures. Mara glanced down at his hands, laying on his chest over the sheet that covered him, and saw the same jagged tears running from the backs of his hands and up his arms. Small pieces of skin had sloughed off onto the bedding.

The cracks subtly widened and narrowed as the man breathed, answering Mara’s next question before she could give it voice.
He was alive
.

“Is he asleep?” Ping asked.

“The doctors think he is in some type of coma, but they aren’t sure. They say his brain patterns are unusual, not like anything they’ve ever seen before.”

“Who is he?” Mara asked.

“This is Jeff Maddox, the security guard at the bank. The one you saw on the video.”

“Is this somehow related to the events we saw on the video?” Ping asked.

“Nobody really knows. The video was shown to the doctors, but they don’t know what to make of it. They say that this guy’s vital signs—heartbeat, blood pressure—are all normal for the time being. But they don’t think it is going to stay that way. He’s in this coma. His brain patterns are all scrambled, and he appears to be slowly decomposing.”

“Decomposing? You mean he is rotting away, even though he’s still alive?” Mara said.

Bohannon nodded. “That’s how they describe it. They say he is not decomposing as quickly as a cadaver would, but there are some differences.”

“Differences, what do you mean?” Ping asked.

“Well . . .” Bohannon grimaced. “There’s no bloating or smell. Yet. They say that may come later.”

Ping walked up to the man’s bedside. “How long has this been going on? When did this man first report symptoms?”

Bohannon tensed. “Please be very careful not to touch him.”

“Believe me, Detective, I have no intention of touching him, but why are you so concerned about it? Do you have reason to believe his condition is contagious?”

On the bed, the man’s arm fell from his chest to his side. Mara’s eyes widened for a second, and, as she was about to relax, she saw a finger twitch.

“He moved. He just moved his finger!” She pointed and looked to Bohannon. “Has he done that before?”

“I don’t kn—”

The man’s eyes snapped open. The irises remained black, bleeding into his pupils, making his eyes look like bottomless pits scooped out of dead white stones. He tilted his head and slid his eyes to the side as if trying to steal a glance at the room without being noticed. Turning upward, the corner of his mouth crinkled the parched skin of his cheek.