Broken Spells (Broken Realms, #6)

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 6When the Chronicle deposited them in the back of the shop, Mara glanced to her right, looking for her time-split counterpart. Relieved she had not arrived with them, Mara still sensed something was wrong, something was off-kilter. Ping nodded in confirmation, yet Sam looked enthused, ready for a new adventure.

“That’s a relief,” he said. “There’s a limit to how much of you a younger brother can take at one time.”

Ping noticed the concerned look on Mara’s face. “What’s wrong?”

Mara shook her head. “I’m not sure. I feel uneasy about something that I can’t explain. It’s like the opposite of déjà vu—like I’m not sensing something that I should. I feel like Time’s not right, I think. There’s this feeling we’re standing on a mountain of sand, and someone else is walking above us, causing the sand to shift downward around us. Weird.”

“Might be a side effect of closing the loop with your alter ego during the trip here,” Ping said.

“Maybe.” She didn’t sound convinced.

They stood between two of the shelves next to the large tank of slurry. No one was around, and Mara assumed her counterpart was out front helping a customer or outside in the alley, finishing the car.

A tremor—like a minor earthquake—ran through the planks of the wood floor. Mara held out her arms to maintain her balance. The walls around them groaned.

“Does this place normally shake like this?” Sam asked.

The freestanding shelves around them swayed, threatening to topple. Metallic casings, pieces of gadgets and tools clattered. A round plastic casing rolled across a shelf, knocking several items from its path before it leaped into the air and crashed loudly to the floor.

“Not when I was here before,” Mara said.

A loud scream tore through the air. “Don’t leave me like this!” It came from the front of the shop.

Mara gasped. “That sounds like—” She ran from the shelves, dodging falling objects.

“—Mom,” Sam finished her sentence and followed.

Ping trailed after them. “Please be careful. We don’t understand what we may be getting into here.”

Mara stopped at the wide passageway to the front of the shop and gasped. She couldn’t comprehend what was happening in the gadget shop—or what was left of it. The brass cash register clattered off the front counter as it slid into a swirling mass of brown goo that had replaced the floor. A giant whirlpool spun where wood planks belonged, pulling down the counter, the coat tree and various gadgets that had been shaken loose from the shelves. The billiards lightshade swung on its brass chain, sending jagged bands of yellow and green light careening through intermittent shadows.

“Help!”

On the opposite side of the room, sunken into the floor, clinging to a small bookcase, was Diana, up to her neck in flowing ooze, sinking quickly while being pulled toward the front of the shop by the rotation of the sludge.

Sam sidled up to Mara. “Mom!” he yelled. “We’re coming.”

Movement near the display window next to the front entrance caught Mara’s attention. There, on a narrow strip of floor that remained solid and unmoving, stood a man dressed in a camouflaged belted karate robe—blotched green and brown. Waves of vapor flowed from his arms as he extended them over the edge of the whirlpool. Next to him stood a black-eyed six-foot-tall man-thing with bark for skin, branches for limbs and leaves for hair, his face hewn from his blocky head, etched out of the rough woody dermis that covered him.

Something flew by Mara’s head, and Sam screamed. Turning, she saw a vine wrapped around her brother’s torso. Her gaze followed the wooden rope back to the strange plant-man whose left arm had morphed somehow and extended across the shop to snag Sam. The vine grew taut and yanked Sam toward the gooey pool.

Losing his balance, Sam fell face-first onto the floor, his head extended past the edge of the whirlpool. “Mara! It’s pulling me in,” he yelled.

Ping bent down and grabbed one of his legs. As Mara took the other and pulled backward, Ping nodded to the swirling mass and Diana. “I’ll keep a grip on him. You need to help your mother.”

Diana’s face disappeared into the muck, but she managed to pull herself up by pressing her arms against the thick mass engulfing her. Gasping, she wiped brown slime from her face. Her gaze locked onto Mara. “Please. Help.”

Mara straightened and raised her right arm. With the motion, Diana rose up from the clinging, swirling mass, levitating in the air above what had been the shop floor. A brown tendril leaped out of the whirlpool and wrapped itself around Diana’s ankle, trying to pull her down.

Mara glanced at the camouflaged man across the room and watched him gesture into the pool, summoning the tendril of goo, like a snake charmer.

She splayed her left palm, and a bolt of lightning shot past Diana’s hip and struck the pajamaed man in the chest, sending him tumbling into the display window with a crash. Next to where he stood, the plant-man-thing’s left arm unfurled into another vine that whipped across the whirlpool, snaking toward Mara’s head. She narrowed her eyes at the leafy runner. It froze, then fell apart in a shower of translucent pixels.

A keen of pain pierced the room.

The other vine snapped Sam forward, pulling his upper body into the muck and sending Ping tumbling to the floor at his feet.

“Oh, gross!” Sam yelled, turning his head to the side to keep his face from sinking into the brown goo.

A jingle rang out, and the front door slammed shut. Mara glanced up and realized the camouflaged man and his plant partner were gone. The whirlpool solidified, and the wood floor reappeared. “What happened?” Mara asked Ping.

“I believe the perpetrators left and, with them, the effects of their abilities,” Ping said, pushing himself to a sitting position on the floor.

Still floating between the floor and the ceiling, Diana said, “You can let me down now.”

“Oh!” Mara said, still holding out her right arm. She lowered it slowly enough to allow Diana to get her feet below her before touching the ground.

Diana ran to Sam and helped him up. Before he could brush himself off, his mother had wrapped her arms around him and squeezed him into a tight embrace, smashing his face into her shoulder. “It’s good to see you again, son,” she said.

Mara stepped up to them. “We should probably explain.”

“I know who you are. My Mara called and told me that you would be coming. I couldn’t wait for her to bring you to the house, so I came here,” Diana said. After what seemed like several minutes, she loosened her hold on Sam and kissed his forehead. His face reddened. Her voice cracked as she rubbed his cheek with her thumb. “It’s so good to see you alive and well.”

“Hi, Mom.” He didn’t know what else to say. “It’s okay to call you Mom, isn’t it?”

“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” she said. She wiped a teardrop from her cheek and smiled. She looked away for a second and sighed, clearly trying to get her emotions in check.

As Mara helped Ping up, she eyed the shop. Virtually everything that had been on the floor was gone, sucked into the whirlpool. “Who were those people attacking you?” she asked.

“The Coven of the Unbound,” Diana said. “Former luminaries who have forsaken their roles as spiritual wranglers and now use their magical abilities for revenge and subjugation.”

“One of them appears to be a pretender, someone with the metaphysical ability to alter elements of Perception. In this case, I would guess the element of Earth—based on what he did to the floor earlier,” Ping said.

“What’s metaphysical to you is magical to us,” Diana said. “But, yes. The acolyte you saw manipulated the earthen elements of the floor to create the whirlpool.”

“Who, or what, was that thing with him—the plant-man?” Mara asked.

“That was a bowraith—a botanical wraith—a soulless creation of the Coven. I had never seen one before—always thought they were a figment of someone’s overactive imagination. It’s remarkable they’ve developed to the point they can create such creatures. Rumor has it Hood Swamp is teeming with them.”

“Hood Swamp?”

Diana nodded. “The Coven has taken over the entire area east of the city. I’m positive that is where they have taken Mara.”

“They’ve taken Mara? When did this happen?”

“A while ago, maybe half an hour. A dozen acolytes and bowraiths invaded the shop and dragged her, bound and gagged out the front door. When I tried to intervene, the floor beneath my feet gave way. And you saw the rest,” Diana said.

Mara moved toward the door. “We can catch up with them and get her back.”

Diana raised a hand to stop her and shook her head. “We can’t face the Coven by ourselves, even though you appear to have developed magical abilities my Mara doesn’t.”

“Perhaps we should contact the authorities and allow them to pursue the matter,” Ping suggested.

“The police won’t be any help. They refuse to go into the swamp. Besides, they don’t acknowledge the existence of the Coven or their extraordinary abilities.”

“If we can’t go after them, and the cops won’t help, what do you suggest we do?” Mara asked, examining her mother’s features. She’s lost her son, now maybe her daughter. She’s pulling it together, but the strain is showing at the corning of her eyes.

“I have a friend who’s a retired luminary. He understands the acolytes and what motivates them. He has spent a lifetime studying the powers of the pretenders. You might say he’s a professor of magical sciences. If anyone knows how to approach these people and get my daughter back, it will be him.”

“I can’t imagine Mara just stood here and allowed herself to be taken,” Mara said. “I’ve been on the receiving end of those fireballs she throws when she’s pissed off.”

“That’s a simple defense mechanism she developed after encountering another of your counterparts last year, but the fact of the matter is, she resists learning and applying her magical talents. Actually she resents them. She was no match against apostate luminaries wielding a full range of magical abilities. They no longer respect any limits to the use of their powers. That’s why they call themselves the Coven of the Unbound.”

“I’d like to learn more about this Coven and their abilities,” Ping said. “What powers did you see them demonstrate?”

“My friend can explain more about the Coven than I ever hope to. For now I would feel better if we leave here, in case the acolytes return,” she said, wiping damp hair off her forehead. “I assume the three of you have not make arrangements for a place to stay.”

Mara gave her a blank look. “To be honest, it didn’t occur to me. Maybe we could find a hotel.”

“Nonsense. You’ll stay with me at the house in Oregon City. Let’s get out of here before more acolytes or tree people show up. I’m parked out front.”