Broken Souls (Broken Realms, #2)

CHAPTER 25

CHAPTER 25Sam kept his eyes turned downward to the rough uneven asphalt as he wove through the narrow alleyways between warehouses, storage facilities and what looked like defunct factories. Streetlights were rare here, and few buildings had their own outdoor lights illuminated, making the trek from the bus stop to Ping’s warehouse a pitch-black one. Sam only had a few blocks to go, but it had started to spritz a little, and he didn’t want to slip or twist an ankle. He could hear the echoes of his footsteps bouncing off the walls around him. It sounded almost like someone was following him, making him shiver a bit. He shook it off and continued around the last corner that took him to the back of Ping’s warehouse.

Sam didn’t bother to look up at the vehicle parked next to the loading dock as he passed and stepped up to the door to enter. As his hand grasped the knob, it felt jagged and loose. It was smashed, and the door ajar. He glanced back at the car and squinted, trying to focus on the detail of the vehicle. It clearly was not Ping’s Toyota Camry; this was a large American luxury car, like a Cadillac.

He quietly pushed open the door and silently entered the warehouse. Inside, in front of the whiteboard, stood two men, one of which Sam recognized. Galinsky, the stout, bald, goonish guy who had stopped by the bakery. He was shaking his head back and forth dejectedly, apparently in response to the other man.

“I don’t know where it all went, Mr. Vanderberg. I told you. I stopped by the ceramics store, and it was gone. There’s a bakery there now, Ping’s Bakery. When I went in, he acted like he didn’t know who I was and that everything was perfectly fine.”

“Are you telling me all that inventory is gone? Is that what you are saying?” the other man said, standing in the lit center of the warehouse floor. He looked a little younger, fitter and better tailored than Galinsky. He waved his arms around the empty space causing his camel trench coat to open and flap as he swung around. “All this stuff—dozens, no, hundreds of crates—just gone.”

“I know. I told you.”

“Did he sell everything?”

“Well, he didn’t sell it out of that bakery of his.”

Vanderberg stopped moving and glared at his partner. “Some of the inventory wasn’t regular ceramics, you know? Some of it belonged to Madrazo’s outfit.”

“I figured as much.” Galinsky’s head bobbed up and down.

“Well, we better find out what happened to it, or we are going to regret it. Some of that stuff was supposed to move up to Seattle next week and catch a boat up to Canada. If it doesn’t show up, we’re going to be on the hook, literally.”

Right then Sam’s cell phone beeped.

Galinsky reached into his jacket, pulled out a handgun and squinted into the darkened warehouse.

Sam tapped his phone and slowly backed toward the door, but his movement drew Galinsky’s attention, and the barrel of the gun zeroed in on him despite the darkness.

“You, back there. Get over here,” Galinsky said, waving with the gun. “I promise you, my bullet can get to you before you can get to that door.”

Sam held up his hands with his phone in one of them and walked toward the lit makeshift classroom. “Don’t shoot. I’m coming.”

Vanderberg stepped toward Sam as he walked into the light. “What are you doing snooping around here, young man?”

“Hey, he’s the kid from the bakery,” Galinsky said. “He knows Ping. Maybe he knows what’s going on.”

Sam caught Galinsky’s eyes and stared intently at him. “You want to put that away,” Sam said, nodding toward the gun.

Galinsky got a slack look on his face and slowly slid the gun back into his jacket.

Vanderberg snorted and said, “Why the hell are you listening to that kid, Carl? Keep a bead on him until we figure out what’s going on.”

Galinsky stared toward Sam and didn’t respond. After a moment, Vanderberg shook Galinsky’s shoulders. Galinsky wavered back and forth, swaying as Vanderberg jostled him.

“He’s not going to listen to you,” Sam said. “He’ll only do what I tell him, for the moment. And so will you.”

Vanderberg’s eyes narrowed, and he said, “Yeah, right. What’s going on here?”

Sam turned and locked his gaze onto Vanderberg. “How do you know Ping?”

For a second, Vanderberg looked defiant, but his expression slackened, and he said, “We are business partners. I supply him with discounted ceramics, and he gives me a cut of the profits under the table.”

“That’s it? Discounted ceramics? Where do you get them?”

“Stolen from warehouses all over the western United States. California mostly. Some are brought in from Mexico.”

“Why ceramics?”

“The inventory is usually kept in low-security warehouses and facilities, easy to get at, and it doesn’t spark major investigations when it goes missing. We’re careful not to take the pricy stuff, and we never take too much at a time. It also provides a good cover for moving other items around the country or even to Canada and Mexico.”

“Like what?” Sam asked.

“Cocaine, heroin, sometimes pot. Occasionally we move stolen art or jewels, but mostly things that can be molded into or hidden in ceramic pieces without drawing a lot of attention.”

“So you’re drug dealers.”

“We don’t sell the stuff. We do logistics, like UPS.”

“You mean smugglers.”

“That would be more accurate.”

“And Ping helps you do this? He’s a part of it?”

“No, we supply him with cheap ceramics, and he gives us a legitimate cover to move stuff around. He doesn’t know what we are moving in and out of this warehouse.”

A clatter came from the back of the warehouse near the door.

Mara called from the darkness. “Sam? Are you okay? What happened to the door? It looks like someone broke in.”

“We’re back here,” Sam called over his shoulder. He waited and listened to their footsteps come toward him.

Stepping into the light, Ping said, “We? Who is we?”

Sam raised a hand toward Vanderberg and said, “Ping, meet your partner in crime.”

“I beg your pardon?” Ping asked.

“He says he was using the ceramics business as a cover to smuggle drugs and stolen goods through this warehouse.”

Ping turned to Vanderberg, Ping’s dazed look melted into a look of defiance. “Is that true?”

“Tell him,” Sam prompted.

“Yes. I supplied you with cheap inventory, and you provided me with the perfect way to move things up and down the West Coast,” Vanderberg said, speaking so slowly it was almost a slur.

A few feet away, Galinsky blinked rapidly, and his stance stiffened as he became aware of his boss confessing in front of this group of strangers. He shook his head to dispel the cloudiness that had overcome him and reached into his jacket. Grabbing the butt of the gun, he swung his arm forward in a jerky backhand, striking Sam’s cheek with the top of his hand, but packing the weight of the firearm.

Sam crumpled to the ground, and Galinsky stumbled forward holding the gun before him, waving it at Ping’s chest. He looked at Vanderberg and said, “Shut up, man. Just shut up.”

Turning back to Ping, Galinsky steadied his hand and slowly squeezed his finger.

Mara raised her hands in front of her and shouted, “No, no. Don’t do that!”

Ping exploded into a cloud of gray dust that quickly engulfed them, turning the lit center of the darkened warehouse into a swirling, disorienting storm that dappled the light with its frenetic, chaotic motion, like a swarm of bees attacking. While Vanderberg and Galinsky stood dumbstruck, Mara, holding her hands up in front of her face to ward off Ping dust, crouched next to her brother. He had a large red mark spreading from beneath his left eye to his temple, but he appeared to be breathing.

Bug-eyed with panic, Galinsky turned in circles, slicing his extended arm holding the gun through the cloud of dust, looking for something to shoot. As the cloud coalesced on the periphery of the light, as it thickened and formed the outline of a man, Galinsky stopped his sweep and took aim. In an almost feminine squeal, he screamed, “I don’t know what the hell you are, man, but you ain’t right!”

He fired.

The gathering dust exploded, this time as blowback that washed over Galinsky’s body like a tidal wave that split in half and dispersed into the air around him. The assault sent him staggering for a few seconds, and then he stood his ground, raised the gun again and fired helter-skelter into the air around him. Mara ducked, crouching over Sam as a bullet whizzed past her ear. Another rang out as it pierced the metal cabinet next to the whiteboard.

Vanderberg waded through the spinning cloud, leaning forward and grabbing Galinsky’s shoulder. “Cut that out. You’re going to kill us all.”

“We gotta get out of here, man,” Galinsky said.

Vanderberg nodded, pressed against Galinsky to turn his body toward the exit at the back of the warehouse. “Stop shooting and let’s go. Look, it’s clearing up a little.”

The cloud of dust had thinned, making it easier to see and move. As the men turned to leave, they suddenly stopped. They could no longer see the back of the warehouse. While it had been dark the whole time they had been here, they had always been able to make out some detail—the outline of the bay doors of the loading dock, the exit doors, conduit and ductwork running along the back wall. All of that was gone, blotted out by a large shifting wall of blackness that grew denser.

From the obscurity came a roar so loud Vanderberg cringed and cowered the way men do only when they know they are prey. Something in the dark snuffled, smacked its lips and ground its teeth. Galinsky shuffled backward and peed his pants. He shakily raised his gun and fired once, followed by several weak metallic clicks. Pausing for a second to stare at his hand in disbelief, he let out a mewling sound and threw the gun into the darkness.

Two glowing red eyes stared back at him, blinked, narrowed and raised up high into the air. Then a river of fire poured out of the dark and engulfed their feet.

Mara jumped up, grabbed Sam beneath his arms and slid him away from the flames. Another bellow reverberated from the darkness, and another cascade of flame fell over the men. Vanderberg’s camel trench coat was now aflame, quickly turning to charcoal. Galinsky, his head turned skyward, howled as flames climbed up to his waist.

The dragon’s head descended from the darkness, ducked below the lit fluorescents and cast a long shadow over Galinsky, who froze and trembled in place. Smoke and ash wafted up from his burning pants as the monster lowered its open maw over him, taking the top half of his torso into its mouth, biting down on Galinsky’s waist and lifting him, feet kicking, screams muffled, into the air.

Mara thought to herself, this has to stop.

And it did. It took her a minute to understand what had happened. Nothing was moving.

“You froze Time again.” Sam sat up on the floor, rubbing his face.

“What else could I do? Look at him. Ping is eating that man.” Mara pointed to the two charred legs sticking out from between the scaly lips and plated jaws of the beast whose muscles were taut, clearly frozen in midchew. A large drop of blood hung suspended in the air just below the dragon’s chin.

“That’s not Ping. It’s the dragon.” Sam stood up, walked over to the creature and grimaced. “Wow, that is gross. Look how big his teeth are.” Sam grabbed two handfuls of dragon jowls and pulled downward, showing the larger back teeth that appeared to be readying themselves to grind Galinsky into digestible bits. Sam let go, causing a wet smacking sound, and wiped his hands on his jeans.

“Stop fondling the dragon, you i***t. I’m not sure how long this is going to hold,” Mara said. “Don’t you find this a little bit disturbing?”

“What?” Sam walked over to her.

With an exasperated expression, Mara jabbed her finger in the air in the direction of Galinsky’s legs. “A man is being eaten alive.”

“I told you, Mom—well, Diana—used to feed people to the meat-eaters all the time. I’ve seen it before.”

“And it doesn’t bug you in the least?”

“Mara, dragons eat meat. That’s what they do. I don’t particularly like watching it and hearing the screaming. The fire, the smoke and the roaring can get on your nerves. But if you’re going to hang out with dragons, a few people are going to get eaten along the way.”

“Unreal. You look like Howdy Doody, but you’re actually Charles Manson.”

“I didn’t feed him to the dragon. Although he did hit me in the face with a gun, so I guess what goes around comes around.”

Mara shook her head. “What am I supposed to do?”

“What do you mean?”

“We can’t just stand here while Ping eats one man and toasts another alive.” She pointed to the almost comical figure of Vanderberg standing on one leg in midhop with his arms raised in midpat trying to put out his flaming coat.

Sam walked over to Vanderberg and made a show of examining him. “We can probably save this one.” He turned and pointed to the dragon. “But Galinsky’s a goner. As soon as Time starts moving again, he’s hamburger. Oh, that reminds me. Did you get my half-pound colossal burger?”

“That’s unacceptable.”

“Well, there’s the element of Space, right? You can move things with your abilities, right?”

“So far all I’ve been able to do is swap places with people, and I haven’t done that since the night in Oregon City when your mother crossed over.”

“Well, that wouldn’t be a very smart move. And, by the way, she’s your mother too, but a different version.”

“Whatever.”

The flutter of a flame on the side of Vanderberg’s sleeve caught Sam’s eye. He pointed and said, “Look it’s starting to move. Slow motion but moving. What does that mean?” He looked at his sister as she flickered out of sight for a second. “Uh-oh. You flickered.”

“That’s bad. We’ve got to do something.”

Sam walked behind Vanderberg, grabbed his collar from behind and pulled until his overcoat slipped off his shoulders and arms. The stilled flames made smears of red and yellow in the air, and Sam tossed it away. “Okay, this guy should be all right. You need to let it go, and I’ll try to prompt the dragon to go back to sleep.”

“What about Galinsky?”

Sam shook his head, and, as Mara was about to protest, she flickered again and then disappeared. Time became unstuck.

Galinsky’s muffed screams filled the warehouse, and the dragon continued lifting its head. It reared up, loosened its jaws, throwing Galinsky the rest of the way into its throat with a snap of its neck. With one swallow, Galinsky was gone. With a roar of satisfaction, the dragon spread its wings and extended its head upward, swinging it back and forth until it crashed into the light fixture above the makeshift classroom, plunging the warehouse into pitch darkness.

A second later, one weak fluorescent tube flickered back to life, providing only enough light to let Mara and Sam know something very large lumbered in front of them.

“Why aren’t you prompting him to sleep?” Mara whispered, feeling ridiculous, knowing her voice was carrying anyway.

“Oh, nice of you to reappear for the dragon’s redheaded dessert. I can’t prompt him if I can’t see his eyes.”

“What? Who makes up these rules? What do his eyes have to do with anything?”

“Duh? Eyes are the windows to the soul. Haven’t you ever heard that?”

“I wasn’t aware your ability was governed by quaint little sayings.”

“You’re the progenitor. You do something.”

A bone-rattling roar assaulted them from within the dark, followed by the dry bellowed winds of the creature spreading its wings. Mara flashed back to the night she had first faced this creature and had a sense of dread. She pulled Sam behind her.

“Hey,” he protested.

“Shut up. He’s about to—”

Fire poured out of the night and enveloped them. Mara held up her hands, pushing the flames away in her mind. Then she reached forward, rolled her hands around an invisible sphere and flames followed her, spinning themselves into a roiling ball of fire, floating in front of her. Mara then slapped the sphere and sent it hurdling toward the dragon’s chest.

The dragon swatted it away with a swipe of a wing, sending Mara’s meteor careening into the whiteboard, which exploded, its remains crumpling into a pile of melting plastic and flaming sticks.

“What are you trying to do, kill him?” Sam yelled.

“Last time he turned into a cloud of dust after he blew up, but I guess he learned his lesson.” Mara glanced around at the burning wreckage around them and said over her shoulder, “Do you have enough light yet?”

Sam looked up and said, “No, his head’s way up there in the dark.”

“Let’s see if we can light up this place then.”

Mara held out her hands and focused. Blue streaks of lightning shot out of her palms and arched into the blackness ahead. There was no response, just silence. Then the ground shook and stopped, then shook again and stopped. Scrape, stomp, pause. Scrape, stomp, pause.

“He walking,” Sam whispered. “Where’s he walking to?”

“I don’t know. It feels like he’s going to the back of the warehouse,” Mara said.

The only sound was of giant clawed footfalls.

Then a rattle, a knock. At the door. Followed by a shuffle. “Hello? Mara, are you here?”

“Oh, no,” Mara said.

“What?” Sam whispered. “Who is it?”

“It’s Abby.”