torn comic page into Diana’s field of view, just as she turned to see the commotion. Diana pulled her arm down. “Sweetie, I can’t look at the cartoon right now. Please get it out of my face.”
Hannah continued to wave the colorful pulp paper before Diana’s eyes. “Nana, you need to look.”
Murmurs and whimpers turned into loud groans, and groans broke into screams. Diana snatched the paper from her granddaughter’s hand and turned to look through the window. The dragon barreled at them, wings swept back, flames streaking from its nostrils, forming a burning contrail along its scaly cheeks, flickering out into a river of smoke that ran along its torso. It looked like a giant missile plunging toward them. Diana hugged Hannah to her. Oh, God, it’s going to ram us!
Hannah held up the torn comic page before Diana’s eyes. “Look,” Hannah said. The little girl then placed a hand on each of Diana’s cheeks and said, “You have to pretend!”
Diana felt static run through her face and said, “What?” She blinked and shook her head. “Pretend what? What are you talking about?”
Hannah pushed the comic page back in front of Diana and said, “Be the hero. You have to stop the dragon.”
Diana’s eyes glanced over the page and saw the drawing of a man with beams of light shooting from his eyes, striking the villain in the chest. Movement beyond the page, over Hannah’s shoulder and out the windows, drew Diana’s gaze. The horizon was gone, blotted out by a vista of fire, scales and teeth just a few yards away.
Diana’s eyes widened. And light flew from them, melted away the window and struck the oncoming dragon in the face. Diana’s head snapped back, the recoil flinging her across the cabin, slamming her into the opposite wall.
The dragon fell from view, and wind blew in the fractured tram, whipping Hannah’s hair up into a wild halo, as she stood up and crawled toward Diana. “Nana? Are you okay?”
Diana’s face pressed into the coarse industrial carpet on the floor. From somewhere she heard her granddaughter calling to her. She opened her eyes and could not focus. She heard screams and wind and what sounded like traffic, but she could see nothing but a gray blur. Widening her eyes, straining to clear them, Diana willed the haze to lift, and things came into focus. Inches from her nose were the spilled contents of her purse. Lifting her head, she recognized her phone and grabbed it.
CHAPTER 21
Cameron’s head still rested on the shelf above the gurney that held his body. For the past twenty minutes his eyes were closed, but they appeared to be rolling around under his lids, as if he were dreaming or concentrating on something. Tired of just standing around in the concrete bunker built into the side of the parking garage below the hospital, Mara took a seat on the floor next to the door. Bohannon shuffled around the room, looking restless.
Mara looked up at him and said, “If you want to take off, I can stay with Cam until he gets things figured out. I’ll set up a time when we can sit down and talk to him. He seems harmless enough, so I think we’ll be able to cross him off our list of potential problems.”
“It probably would be a good idea for me to stop by the office and touch base with my lieutenant. I wonder how I’m going to explain this to him,” Bohannon said, pointing to the gurney. “A robot, of all things.”
Mara raised a finger to him. “You know, it might be a good idea if you stopped by on your way out and let Jazz know that I’m going to be down here working on him. Tell her that I’ll be here for a while, and I’ll be taking Cam back to my shop.”
The detective reached for the door and nodded. “I’ll say that we are trying to find who owns him.”
Cameron’s eye snapped open. “Owns me? What do you mean by that?”
Bohannon continued out the door, saying over his shoulder, “You explain it to him. Oh, and prop the door open, if you have to leave the room. I don’t know the code to get back in.” The door closed behind him.
Mara stood up and dusted off her backside. “He was talking about the nurse who brought us down here to see you. As far as she knows, you’re a robot or a mechanical device of some kind. Someone