the fourteen-year-old father, or maybe the police detective, that a tactical retreat would be a better strategy than waltzing into the path of a fire-breathing dragon with a five-year-old.”
Bohannon looked back and forth between Mara and the suspended dragon. “Are you doing this, this pausing-of-the-monster thing?” he asked.
“Yes,” Mara said. “But the point wasn’t to convene a confab and take a vote on what to do next. You guys need to get out of here. Now!” Mara pointed through the flames toward the overpass. “Get in the police car and go home, or at least go somewhere else.”
Hannah tugged at Sam’s pants leg, made a tsking sound and shook her head. “My Mar-ree doesn’t yell so much.”
“She still has some growing up to do, sweetheart, even if she forgets it sometimes,” Diana said. To Mara, she added, “We’re not going anywhere without you.”
“Mom, I can’t do what I need to do if I’m worried about you guys. Just please get away from here, and let me deal with this.” She bent over, picked up Cam’s head and handed it to her mother. “I need you to take this with you. Be careful with it.”
Diana took it without looking at it.
“I wish you people would stop passing me around like some kind of football and stop calling me it,” Cam said.
Diana jumped, yelped and tossed the head back to Mara.
“What the hell is that?” Diana said. “Is that a person’s head?”
After bobbling it for a second, Mara got a firm grasp on Cam’s cheeks and held it out to Sam. “Here, try not to leave him behind the next time you’re in a burning car.”
Hannah lifted up on her toes. “Lemme see. Does he talk?”
Cam frowned at her. “Of course I talk.”
“Can I hold your head? I promise I won’t drop you.”
“You can talk to Cam in the car, bean,” Sam said. As he tucked the head under his arm, movement above caught his eye. Pointing into the air toward the fire, he said, “It’s starting to ooze or something. It’s moving toward us in slow motion.”
Hannah pointed to her aunt. “Look! Mar-ree’s disappearing in and out.”
Mara held up her hands and could see through them.
“Lord have mercy,” Bohannon said.
With strain in her voice, Mara said, “Please get my family out of here. That fire and that dragon are going to come crashing down here in a few seconds, and I don’t think there is anything I can do to stop it.”
She disappeared.
“Mara!” Diana yelled into empty space.
Mara solidified and reached out to her mother, trying to take her by the shoulder, but her hand passed through it. “You’ve got to go NOW!”
A burst of light enveloped them, and they disappeared. Mara stood alone in the road. From below the overpass, her mother called, “Mara!”
“Stay there!” Mara yelled and disappeared again.
The fire poured down from the sky and spattered over the roadway, consuming what was left of Bohannon’s car and the overturned semitruck, and flowing toward the shoulder of the roadway. Finding no more dry fuel, the flames evaporated in a steamy flash. When Mara reappeared, the asphalt beneath her feet felt soft but not sticky enough to hold her up as the dragon swept several feet over her head, sending a powerful gust of wind slamming into her, flinging her across the street and over the curb into the guardrail. By the time she got her wits about her and looked up again, the dragon was at the apex of a vertical loop just beneath the edge of the clouds. Twisting in the air, it did a backflip and dove toward the overpass. Mara was sure it was lining up for another run at her.
Instead the dragon tucked its wings and plunged in a free fall toward the right side of the overpass. Leading with its head, its appendages pulled tightly to its body and its tail trailing in a straight line, the dragon became a missile, cutting through the air, streaking downward. Just before striking the overpass, the dragon unfurled its wings, like a parachute, and its feet swung forward. Slamming into the raised roadway, it sent tremors through the structure down to the road beneath Mara’s feet. Ragged chunks of concrete and rebar tumbled down into the street, followed by a streetlight, twisting away from the lines that powered it.
Mara glanced toward the flashing blue lights of the patrol car below. She could see the silhouettes of Bohannon and Sam leaning over the front of the car, pushing