detective who were about halfway between her and the patrol car under the overpass. As they approached, the dragon swung its head in their direction, craning its neck downward. Mara didn’t think it could actually reach them, but when the creature reared back at if to draw a breath, she didn’t wait to see if it would exhale.
She raised her right hand into the air, her palm facing the dragon. A burst of lightning shot from her hand and struck the creature’s haunches, knocking it off balance and sending it tumbling into the side of the overpass. For a few seconds, it grappled to maintain hold of the balustrade on which it stood. As it pulled back from Sam and Bohannon, the dragon screamed so loudly that the water on the roadway rippled. They stopped running and looked upward, then turned to Mara.
She waved at them and said, “Don’t stop!”
Bohannon tapped Sam on the shoulder, and they jogged into the darkness of the overpass.
“What did you just do?” Cam asked from under her arm. “Did you just emit electricity from your hand, or am I just suffering from some sort of malfunction in my sensors?”
“Shush, I’ll explain later. Just hang on, and don’t freak out, no matter what happens,” she said.
“Given what has already—”
She placed her left hand over his mouth and slowly stepped forward, keeping her eyes locked on the large dark shadow looming above. The dragon had raised its left wing and nuzzled its torso where the bolt struck. Low growls came with intermittent snuffles mixed with the gritty scratching sounds of its talons digging into concrete and metal. It seemed to be nursing its wound, not paying her any attention.
Mara slow-walked forward, toward the dragon, not angling to the wrecked patrol car that presumably held her mother and niece. As she approached, the rain relented somewhat, and it became easier to look up. Fifty feet away she stopped in the middle of the road, standing between the two lanes. She was now close enough to enter the dragon’s peripheral vision, because it looked up from its ministrations and stared down at her. Slowly it lowered its raised wing and glared at her, its eyes brightening like embers in the wind.
Mara stretched her neck and turned her face upward. “You cannot stay here, in this realm, any longer. You do not belong here.”
It pulled back its wet scaly lips, exposing rows of fangs, and hissed. Spittle, clearly more viscous than the rain, ran down its jaw and swung in ropes to the roadway.
“Ping, if you are in there, if some part of you can still understand what I’m saying, I need you to stop this. I need you to get control of this, until I can retrieve the Chronicle and figure out a way to send this … this thing back.” She rubbed her eyes and took a deep breath. “If you can’t do that, then I am going to have to stop it myself, and I’m not sure I can do that without hurting you.”
She stared up into the face of the dragon, seeking some hint of her mentor in the armored countenance that glared back at her. She could detect nothing but raw, seething hate.
“Do something!” she screamed, stomping a foot, sending a small splash of water into the air.
Suddenly the dragon lurched to its left. Mara couldn’t figure out what it was doing, until it lurched to the left again and raised its right claw, ripping a chunk of concrete and rebar from the side of the overpass. Letting out a roar, it tossed the man-size piece of debris onto the roadway below, just twenty feet in front of Mara. Some kind of gauntlet.
Mara took a step back.
“Please, Ping! I know you’re in there somewhere. Help me, please.”
Something fluttered. Mara cocked an ear upward, straining to identify the sound and where it came from. The dragon turned its snout skyward and straightened from its crouch. Something flickered in the clouds, and the sound grew louder, until it became the recognizable chop-chop-chop of helicopter blades cutting through the air.
Mara tensed as she watched the dragon track the sound, its head turning slowly in a circle with the overpass as its center. As she followed the dragon’s gaze to just over her head, the helicopter broke through the clouds, and a beam of light sliced through the night, landing directly on the dragon’s chest.
The creature raised its wings, leaned forward, its whole body coiled like a spring