Broken Souls (The Chronicles of Mara Lantern, Book 2) (25 page)

Mara stretched up on her toes to look into the peephole on the door but could see nothing but darkness. Turning to her right, she walked across the landing to the door with a big 4 on it and knocked. This time, she felt a slight tremor through her shoes. A chubby elderly woman wearing a striped housedress and a hairnet over a bulging nest of gray hair opened the door.

“Hi, Hilde. It’s Mara. Do you remember me?”

“Of course I remember you. I’m old, not senile. You’re Buddy’s friend. What can I do for you?” she said.

“Have you seen Buddy around lately? I haven’t heard from him in a few days and was getting a little worried.”

“Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him or heard him knocking around over there. He tends to turn up the television quite loud some nights. I pound on the wall, and he turns it down. Been quiet the last couple days. Is he okay?”

“That’s what I’m trying to find out. His bike is parked downstairs.”

She pointed over the railing that ran along the landing behind Mara. “If his bike is down there, he’s in the apartment. He never goes anywhere without the bike. He doesn’t even walk over to the store next door without hopping on that bicycle first,” she said.

“You wouldn’t happen to have a key to his apartment, would you?”

“No, but I can call the landlord if you think it’s necessary.”

“Maybe I’m getting worked up over nothing. I think I’ll call and leave him a message on the phone I loaned him. Thanks.”

The old lady nodded and shut her door.

Mara returned to the car and slid behind the wheel. She didn’t turn the key; she sat and pondered the situation.

“Buddy’s okay?” Sam asked.

“I’m not sure. His bicycle is here, and there is no answer at the door. I don’t really want to call his landlord. The guy can be kind of a jerk when he feels put upon.”

“How do you know Buddy’s landlord?”

“I helped Buddy find this place and move in a few years ago. The clean apartment and low rent was too much to pass up, so I thought the uptight landlord was worth tolerating,” she said. “I don’t want to leave without making sure Buddy’s okay.”

“So go up there and open the door,” Sam said.

“You mean break in?”

“Well, you know. Just . . .” He twitched his nose and smiled.

“What?”

“You know, like that woman on
Bewitched
. Do your thing, your metaphysics thing.”

“You are mocking me, aren’t you? First you compare me to a Mickey Mouse wizard, now a sitcom witch.”

“If you’re going to hang out in this family, you’re going to have to put up with some mocking,” he said, then waved a hand toward the apartment building. “Go up there and pixelate his doorknob and take a look around. You could replace a doorknob in your sleep, right? Come on. I’ll be your lookout.” He opened the door and jumped out.

Mara followed him toward the stairs. “Did you used to mock the Mara in your realm?”

“When we were little. But, when we got older, she lost her sense of humor and developed that obnoxious propensity for blowing up stuff, so it became imprudent to antagonize her.”

“Propensity and imprudent. Big words for such a little man. Hanging out with Ping and Mrs. Zimmerman is rubbing off on you.”

After ascending to the apartment, Sam stood at the head of the stairs, and Mara approached the door. She waved her hand over the doorknob and narrowed her eyes. A sharp squeal of rending metal emitted from the fixture, and it visibly blurred, dissolving into little silver cubes that persisted in clinging to the door. Mara looked over her shoulder and then batted away the translucent pixels, sending them fluttering to the ground where they faded, leaving a round hole in the door.

She pushed the door slowly inward and stepped into a small living room with nothing but a tattered recliner, an end table and a television mounted on the wall to the right. To the left, a linoleum-covered counter provided a boundary between the living room and the kitchenette.

“Buddy? Are you in here?” Mara called into the shadowy living room. She glanced to the short hallway that opened on the back end of the right wall. It led to the only bedroom and bathroom. She turned to Sam at the door. “Keep an eye out there while I check the bedroom.”

He nodded, and she crossed the living room, walking gingerly for some reason, like she was trying not to disturb someone. Half a dozen steps took her to the small hallway and another few took her to the open doorway of Buddy’s cluttered bedroom.

In a sea of strewn clothing and magazines sat a twin bed next to a nightstand on which stood a plastic lamp whose shade was tilted toward the head of the bed, presumably to accommodate reading. For the moment, it acted as a spotlight to accentuate the gray, cracking skin that comprised Buddy’s features.

“Sam!” Mara yelled.

He ran to her side and stopped short in the doorway, caught by the sight of her friend in the bed. “My God, what happened to him?”

“It’s that illness, the shedding,” Mara said. Her voice quavered.

Mara kicked a path through the clothes, loose papers and magazines to stand at Buddy’s bedside. Leaning over, she could see his chest rising and falling, rasping for breath. She rubbed her eye to make sure tears weren’t escaping and took a deep breath of her own.

“Oh, Buddy. I should have checked on you sooner. Now what are we going to do?” she said.

“We should call an ambulance and get him to the hospital,” Sam said, holding up his phone getting ready to dial 9-1-1.

“No, let’s take him home with us. Maybe we can get Denton Proctor to come over and do something for him.”

“That is completely crazy. Mom will have a cow. She wants us to come home so that we don’t get exposed to this disease, not to pack it up and bring it home with us. Besides, you said it’s getting passed around by touch. How are we going to get him out of here, down the stairs and into the car without touching him?”

“Maybe we can wrap him in a blanket?” Mara said, unsure. Then her jaw set, and she glared at her little brother. “We are not abandoning him here. I have to watch out for him. He doesn’t have another soul in the world to take care of him.”

“Okay, assuming we can get him out of here without catching this shedding thing, how is Mr. Proctor supposed to cure him if he can’t touch him?”

“I don’t care if Denton can’t cure him. I am not leaving here without him. Is that understood?”

“All right, all right, but we are not carrying him out of here in a blanket. That’s too risky.”

“What would you suggest we do then?”

Sam rolled his eyes impatiently. “You’re supposed to be able to alter the element of Space, aren’t you? Zap him into the car and let’s get on our way so Mom can ground us for the rest of our lives.”

“I can’t just zap him into the car. I have never moved something that way.” She snapped her fingers. “The only times I’ve ever been able to use that ability is to switch places with someone, and it’s only been when I’ve been in a pinch. It’s been more reflexive than something I’ve done intentionally. Besides, what good would it be for me to move him a couple feet?” She pointed to the ground at her feet.

“You know for someone who works with tools all day long, you have a very weak grasp of the tools available to you. You need to follow Ping’s advice and start practicing with your abilities, so we don’t keep getting stuck like this,” he said. “For now, why don’t you use your head?”

“Out with it, Opie. What are you talking about? I’m losing my patience here, and Mom isn’t getting any calmer either.”

“Go downstairs and crawl into the backseat of the car,” he said.

“Why would I do that?”

“Think about it. You can switch places with him.”

“What?” Then she understood. “Oh! That makes sense.”

As she walked out of the room, she stopped in the hall and turned. “Whatever you do, don’t touch him.”

“No problem,” he said. “You know, the next time I have to connect the dots for you, I think I’m going to make you twitch your nose before I do it.”

“That’ll be the day.”

Sam heard the door close with the hollow thud that comes from a missing doorknob. He leaned against the door frame and winced at Buddy. He had seen a lot of nasty stuff in his life but nothing quite like the blackened fissures running down Buddy’s skull. The poor guy looked ancient, an old man turning to dust before Sam’s eyes.

A flash of light consumed the young man in bed, and, as it receded, Mara appeared, lying under the covers where Buddy had been. Sam squinted at her, trying to get the spots to leave his eyes. “Impressive. Ping would be proud of you.”

Mara grimaced and pulled away the blanket pinched between two fingers. “I hope this shedding isn’t communicable through bedding.” She stood next to the bed and nodded toward the front of the apartment. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Are you going to call Mom and give her a heads-up?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Leaving Buddy behind is not an option, so why call her and let her try to make it one.”

“She wouldn’t do that.”

“No, but there would be a lot of weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth before she came to that conclusion. This way is more efficient. Let’s go.”

On the way down the stairs to the parking lot, Mara pointed to the phone that was still in Sam’s hand. “I want to call Ping and ask him to get in touch with the Proctors. Tell him to ask them to come to the house to see if they can help Buddy.”

After getting into the car, Mara looked over the back of her seat to check on Buddy. For a moment, she feared she might have zapped him to some indeterminate location.
That would have been perfect
. Not so, at least this time. He appeared to be breathing regularly, oblivious to his predicament and mode of transference to the car. Mara backed out of the lot and headed for Interstate 205. She needed to hurry. It was starting to get dark, and her mother was going to call at any minute.

Sam lowered the phone from his ear. “I got Ping here on the phone. He says Mom has developed a closer relationship with the Proctors. It might be better for her to call.”

“I’m not telling Mom before we get there. Just tell him to please call them.”

Sam lifted the phone and, without saying anything, turned back to Mara. “He heard you and said okay. He says he’s been watching the news, and he thinks this thing is getting out of hand.”

“I’m getting that feeling too.”

“He says he watched the bank video again and has some things he wants to discuss.”

Mara raised her voice a little. “If you want to talk, you’ll probably need to come down to our house. I can’t talk now while I’m driving, and Mom isn’t likely to let us out of the house after we get there, especially if the world is going crazy.”

Sam listened on the phone for a moment, then tapped it. “He says he’ll come down in a little while, after he gets in touch with the Proctors.”

The back door leading into the Lantern residence rattled, despite the fact that it was newly installed after Mara had blown up the previous one, making the kind of subtle announcement that someone who lived in the house would pick up on from any room. As Mara and Sam stepped into the kitchen, Diana called from the living room, “Is that you kids back there?”

“Yes, Mom, we’re home,” Mara called back, and then turned and whispered to Sam. “You distract her for a few minutes, and I’ll run upstairs to my room.
DON’T
tell her yet. Got it?”

“Got it. She’s going to kill you,” he said.

“
Us
. We’re in this together.”

“She’ll know whose idea it was.”

“Go.”

“You guys need to come out here and see what they are reporting on the news in Portland. This thing looks horrible.” Diana shook her head as Mara and Sam went into the entryway to the living room. “You should see some of the footage they are showing. It is absolutely terrifying.”

Mara turned toward the staircase while Sam sat on the couch next to his mother.

“Where are you going in such a hurry, sweetie?” Diana said. “Why don’t you come in here and let me have a look at you?”

“I’m fine, Mom. Why don’t you look at Sam while I go to the bathroom.” She clomped up the stairs.

Diana turned and smiled at her son. “You have a good day with Ping and Mrs. Zimmerman?”

Sam nodded, already engrossed in the reports on the television, which was tucked into a bureau beneath the large window overlooking the front porch and lawn. Suddenly he sat up straight and pointed. “What is that?”

On the screen, a video displayed two women standing in what appeared to be a department store. One of them brushed against the other as they passed in an aisle. A black mist appeared to flow out of the ears of the woman facing away from the camera and stream into the nose and mouth of the woman walking toward the camera. The video froze, and the picture zoomed in on the face of the woman, showing the black vapor wrapping around her head, clearly entering her body. The video continued, and the woman’s eyes widened as blackness spilled out from the pupils to fill her irises. A tiny smile played at the corner of her mouth, and the video stopped again.

The news anchor continued talking, “Unnamed sources with the city health department are speculating that this black mist, which is not visible to the naked eye and can only be seen on video footage like this, is the transmission mechanism for the illness that is spreading rapidly throughout the Portland metro area. Direct physical contact appears to stimulate the emergence of the oily-looking vapor from the carrier, which then seeps into the body of the contactee. Onset of the condition, which has been dubbed ‘the shedding,’ takes about eighteen hours after infection according to our sources. Symptoms of the disease include coma, some unidentified psychosis, and severe necrotizing or rotting of the skin and flesh.” A still shot of a man with gray cracked skin and blackened eyes flashed onto the screen.

The back door rattled again, and Diana perked up. “Who could that be? Did you guys lock the back door when you came in?” She started to get up when Mara walked in from the kitchen.