Mara Lantern: Broken Realms Part 16

He leaned out of her reach, still grinning.

"Give it to me, and I'll leave you alone."

She tightened her grip on the hammer and swung again. This time, she threw it through the window of the shop's front door with a loud crash.

"Ping! Help me! Piiiiiiing!"

She collapsed on the floor behind the counter, enveloped in slugs.

The old man moved behind the counter, opened two cabinet doors, randomly pulled out items and threw them on the floor.

"Come on home, boys," he said. The slugs on the floor skittered toward him, over his shoes and up his pants legs. His pants rippled as they climbed.

He stiffly crouched down and opened the junk drawer.

The bell above the door jangled.

"Mara! Where are you? What happened?" Ping ran into the shop and up to the counter.

The old man stood up. The grin was gone. The swarm of slugs leaped at Ping. He disappeared into a cloud of dust that filled the air in front of the counter. The slugs continued to fling themselves into empty air as Sam walked in.

"Ping? Mara? Where are you guys?" Sam called out.

His eyes widened as he took in the old man standing behind the counter with slugs crawling on his shoulders and over his s.h.i.+rt collar.

Sam wrinkled his nose and said, "Gross."

Most of the surfaces in the shop rippled and s.h.i.+fted as the slugs made their way back to the man. His clothing bulged and rippled.

Sam stepped back as a couple jumped in his direction. Moving forward again, he locked eyes with the old man.

"You don't want to be here now," Sam said.

"I need to leave now," the old man said. "I need to gather my friends."

"No, you don't. You'll make new friends. Leave now."

The old man walked around the counter and out the front door. The slugs left behind melted the instant he crossed the threshold.

A moment later, a hand covered in what looked like motor oil reached up from behind the counter, grabbed its edge, lost its grip, fell out of sight and then tried again. With the second attempt, Mara hauled herself up and flopped down across the counter with a wet slap. Displaced slime oozed over the front of the counter.

"Get me a paper towel," she said.

"Mara?" Sam asked, unable to recognize her through the muck.

Next to Sam, a swirling mote of dust gathered into a cloud, took the shape of a man and filled out with the smiling features of Ping.

Mara wiped slime out of an eye, slung it on the floor, lifted herself off the counter, and said, "Get out, both of you."

CHAPTER 26.

OVERNIGHT THE SLIME covering most of the shop grew snotty and began to get crusty along the edges where it had pooled. When Mara walked in, Bruce stood in front of the work counter trying to get strings of the stuff off his fingers.

"What the h.e.l.l happened in here?" he said, slinging his hand, throwing translucent ropes of goo onto the floor.

"I wish I had an explanation," she said, too tired to make up something. Out of habit, she turned to flip the Open sign on the door. No need. A piece of plywood filled the s.p.a.ce where the window had been. "I'll be cleaning up today."

"My grandfather would have a heart attack if he saw this," Bruce said, turning in a circle, surveying the mess. "What happened?"

"As hard as it is to believe, a customer came in late yesterday and released a bunch of slugs. It was a complete nightmare. Please don't tell your grandfather about this. There's nothing he can do about it, and it will just upset him while he's recuperating. I'll clean everything up."

"I'd stay and help, but we're doing a charity ride down the coast, and I'll be out for a few days," he said.

"Don't worry about it. I'll take care of it."

"Sorry. I wish I could help." He walked into the back.

She moved behind the counter, wiped off a stool with a paper towel and sat down. For the first time since Mr. Mason had left to have his surgery, she wondered if she could actually keep things going at the shop. She put her face into her hands but refused to cry.

The bell above the door jangled. She did not look up.

"Would you like some help cleaning up?" Ping asked.

"Please just leave me alone. I'll take care of it."

"A city inspector halted the work in the bakery because some paperwork did not get filed properly. I have an entire crew of construction and clean-up people who I will have to send home. Why not put them to work?"

"I don't want a bunch of strangers to see this mess."

"Don't worry about it. I told them the shop was vandalized by a group of teenage pranksters. They are glad to help. They can have this place cleaned up in a few hours. It would take you more than a week by yourself. I will send them over. You get them started, and then I'll come take you to an early lunch."

"I want to stay."

"I promise you that they will work faster if you're not lording over them. They are a good crew. Look how fast the bakery has come together. Besides, Sam will be here to keep an eye on things."

"That puts my mind to rest." She rolled her eyes.

"He's a good kid, a great kid."

"I'll go to lunch, but no stuff from The Twilight Zone. Just an everyday lunch."

"I promise. We won't talk about anything you don't want to."

"Look at this," said Mara. She opened the wallet and held it toward Ping as she got into his car, flas.h.i.+ng a driver's license. "It's the old slug man from yesterday. He dropped his wallet in the shop. His name is Bert Reilly." She pulled out her phone and did an online search of his name, got a list of unrelated results and then added Portland to refine the search. The top link now pointed to the Portland newspaper. She clicked. A list of pa.s.sengers from Flight 559 appeared on her phone. "Bert Reilly was a pa.s.senger on our flight," she said.

"That's interesting." Ping said, looking straight ahead.

"You don't think that's a coincidence, do you?"

"What do you think?"

"I don't believe in coincidences. But the way things have been going lately, I'm not sure what I believe anymore."

Ping pulled away from the curb and stopped at the light at the end of the block with his left blinker flas.h.i.+ng. "I thought we'd go to this little Spanish tapas place not too far away. That okay?"

"Sounds great."

The light turned green, and Ping took a left heading north. After two blocks of garages, consignment shops and insurance offices, the road pa.s.sed through a neighborhood of older wood-frame homes connected by intermittent sidewalks that turned into dirt paths on some blocks. After two miles they pa.s.sed an athletic field behind a brick building on one side and a well-worn park on the other. Stopping at an intersection next to a stand of trees on the periphery of the park, Ping turned right into a parking lot in front of a row of brown-trimmed brick retail fronts backed up to and hidden by the trees. He parked in front of a door below a large yellow-and-red sign that read Anda! and in smaller type below it was Spanish Tapas and Cuisine.

They sat opposite each other at a round table large enough for four, located in the back of the small restaurant. There were no other customers. It was still a little early for the lunch rush. Ping took it upon himself to coordinate the various plates of tapas they were sharing, randomly picking up plates and offering shrimp, tortilla, chicken and vegetables to Mara before loading up his own plate.

"I've been taking baking lessons in the evenings from a neighbor. We've been focusing on cakes, cupcakes, cake decorating and cookies," he said. "Next week we start on breads. Next month we'll do pastries and then cheesecakes."

"So are you going to open with a limited offering?"

"No, we can stock or custom order what we don't make onsite until we get up to speed. It'll take a few months, but it will be fun."

"So you have no background in baking, but you decided to open a bakery."

"It was Sam's idea. I hated the idea of the ceramics business, and he thought I would like being a baker."

Mara looked at him, thought for a minute and said, "He said you were a baker where Sam comes from, right? Yet you guys aren't from the same place, the same realm."

"You said you didn't want to talk about that."

"Just let me take it at my own pace, and I won't freak out on you." She popped an olive in her mouth.

"Okay. He mentioned there was a Ping's Bakery where he is from, in the location where the ceramics shop is located here. He never met the Ping that lives there. It struck a chord with me when he mentioned it."

"Why not be a professor here?"

"This Reed College doesn't have the same curriculum I am experienced in teaching. And I have no credentials here. No one would hire me to teach."

"What did you teach?"

"Metaphysics and applied philosophy. The concepts I taught aren't even considered in the inst.i.tutions in this..." He paused.

"Reality, realm, possibility, dimension," Mara said.

"So are you...?"

"Coming around? No, I don't think so. But my mother believes things I don't, and we get along fine. I figure I can do the same with you. We are neighbors, after all."

"May I ask you a question? And you can say no, if you wish. I don't mean to pressure you." He placed his silverware on his plate.

"Go ahead."

"If I show you evidence other realms exist, would you be willing to consider it?"

"I guess I would have to be open to it, if it is actual evidence, right?"

"Can you go somewhere with me tonight, say about nine o'clock? It shouldn't take more than an hour."

"I suppose. I can just tell Mom I'm working late. If you do me one favor."

"What's that?"

"Explain to me that popping in out of nowhere thing you did in the shop yesterday."

"Why don't I do that after tonight? It might be easier to explain then," he said.

CHAPTER 27.

THE INTERIOR OF the Camry plunged into darkness as Ping turned off the ignition. He looked up to the roof. As the engine and the blowing defroster went quiet, the drumming noise from the rain filled the car. They had parked in the unlit s.h.i.+pping company lot across from the hulking outline of the hangar across the street. It was difficult to see much detail other than the muted glow of the security lights at its corners.

"Even though it's raining, it's not cold enough for both a sweater and a jacket," Mara complained. "I don't understand why you insisted on this."

Ping shook his head. "You'll thank me later." Then he turned in his seat. "You know what to do, right?" Ping asked to Sam, who sat in the backseat.

He nodded, flipped up the hood of his jacket and reached for the door handle.

"No improvising this time. Stick with the plan. Got it?"

"This time?" Mara sat in the front pa.s.senger seat. "You guys have been here before?"

Sam got out, slammed his door closed and disappeared into the sheets of rain as he jogged out of the parking lot toward the hangar. Mara had no idea what they were doing here at nine o'clock at night.

"We'll follow him over in about two minutes," Ping said.

Sam crossed into the hangar parking lot, walking directly under a streetlight on the way. He headed for the front door, pacing himself to arrive at the same time as a guard making his way from the corner of the building. When Sam was thirty feet away, the guard noticed him and stopped.

"Stop right there," he ordered.