"What do you mean, he turned into a lizard?" He caught Ping's eyes in the rearview mirror.

"Just what I said. All his hair and skin fell off. He turned into this slimy gray-green scaly thing spewing fire like something out of a nightmare," she said, turning to the back of the car. "What are you so freaked out about?"

"I told you. My mother and the basilisks, they worship lizards and reptiles. This can't be a coincidence." Sam's face reddened; he was shaking.

"You didn't wig out when the sand turned into a snake at the warehouse. Snakes are reptiles."

"That wasn't real. That was just some sand that looked like a snake. If the pretender is a lizard, Diana's got to be involved."

"Slow down, Sam. Let's not jump to conclusions," Ping said. "There are many possibilities. Not every reptile in the universe is part of your mother's cult. Let's hear the rest of what happened before we panic." He nodded to Mara. "Go on."

"Well, the longer the questioning went on, the angrier Suter got. The madder he got, the less control he had. He couldn't keep up the pretense, the disguise. That's when his hair and skin fell off," Mara said. "Then he attacked Bohannon, and things really got out of control. He even set Bohannon on fire."

"And then what happened?" Ping asked.

"I think I set off the sprinklers, or juiced them up enough, to put out Bohannon and flood the conference room we were in. Suter grew these long fiery spikes out of his back and heated up the room, turning the water into steam. Then he tried to strangle me with the steam. I freaked out and blew up the room somehow. I think."

"He used the steam to choke you?" Sam asked.

"Yes."

"He's the pretender."

"Ya think?"

"Did you ask him about the Chronicle?" Sam asked.

"We were too busy tearing the place apart," she said. "I did ask him what he wanted, once I realized he was the pretender. He said, 'we have what we want, all we need now is time.'"

"He said, 'we have what we want'?" Ping asked.

Mara nodded.

"That suggests he's working with other people."

"We have to get the Chronicle back. I know he's working with my mom," Sam said.

"How is that possible? She's in a completely different realm, and he is here," Mara said.

"Maybe he crossed over from the same place I did," Sam said. "It wouldn't surprise me if my mother had someone watching Mara during the experiment on the airplane. If that person crossed over, he would still be committed to helping Diana."

"Are there lizard people like this guy in your realm?"

"There could be. I told you. Mara brought all kinds of creatures and people into our realm. If she met a reptilian pretender, she absolutely would have brought him to my mother. The Basiliscans would have gone nuts for someone like that, and my mother would have trusted him."

Mara's phone beeped. Detective Bohannon's name appeared on the screen. She picked up the line.

"How are you doing, Detective? Are you at the hospital?"

"Yeah, both legs in casts, a big dose of painkillers, but they are letting me out tomorrow. I thought I'd let you know, the Oregon City police found my car and towed it. It was in the driveway of an empty house near your house. They reported there was no sign of whoever took it."

"I wonder what he's up to. He hasn't shown up at my mom's house."

"The Oregon City P.D. said they would pa.s.s through the neighborhood a few times this evening in case someone shows up looking for the car. Maybe I could tell them to keep an eye on your mom's place."

"I'm not sure there is much they could do if Suter shows up. I just talked to my mom, and she's fine for now. She promised to lock up and to keep her phone close. Hopefully traffic will clear up, and we'll be down there soon."

"Call if there's something I can do to help."

Mara hung up and turned to Ping. "Tell me Suter is not after my mother. Please tell me."

"We cannot panic. We obviously don't have all the facts. Let's get down there and see what the situation is. Like you said, your mother is okay," Ping said.

"For now, but Suter didn't just happen to park down the street from my mom's house. What could he be up to? What do you think?" Mara looked at Sam.

He pushed back into his seat, grabbing his seat belt as if he expected a rough ride. Wide-eyed he glanced up at the rearview mirror. Ping nodded, encouraging him to talk.

"I-I'm not sure. I don't want to scare you," he said.

"I'm already scared," Mara said. "Just tell me what you think. I'd rather know more than less right now."

"If Suter's a lizard, then I think he's working with Diana, and if he's at your mother's house, he's there because Diana needs her for something."

"What could she possibly want with my mother?"

"I don't know," Sam said, looking down at his hands.

"Sam, let's try to walk through this for a minute, okay?" Ping asked looking at him in the rearview.

He looked up. "Okay."

"Why was your mother interested in the Chronicle in the past? What did she hope to gain from it?" Ping asked.

"I told you. She'd have Mara crossover and bring people with unique abilities to her. She'd then perform the extraction rite and take their abilities for herself using the two-headed serpent."

"Okay, Mara," Ping said, "Does your mother have any abilities her counterpart would want? Is your mother a pretender?"

"I don't think so, but I didn't think I had any abilities until just a few weeks ago. I could be as clueless about her as I was about myself."

"Your mother could be a pretender, and you would not know."

"I suppose. If she is, I don't think she knows. My mom does not have a duplicitous bone in her body. She is a terrible liar. She would not be able to hide it, especially from me."

"Unless you were unwilling to believe it."

"Well, there is that."

Ping glanced back at Sam. "You also said your mother wanted to leave her realm to get to a better place, right?"

"Yes, she wanted to crossover to this realm with her followers. That's what Mara was trying to do with the Chronicle, see if she could move a large group of people from one realm to another."

"But she doesn't have a progenitor to activate the Chronicle now," Mara said.

"Like I said, there are facts we don't know. I don't see how she could use the Chronicle, which is in this realm, to crossover from her realm. It makes no sense. Even a progenitor could not do that," Ping said. "You also need to keep in mind that it is pure conjecture that Suter is working with Diana. We have no proof other than Sam's suspicions. Suter could have his own agenda, totally unrelated to Sam's mother. The fact he appears to be a reptile isn't conclusive evidence he's a.s.sociated with her."

Mara looked out the windshield again, staring into a river of taillights cutting through the evening. "Well, I don't think we are getting anywhere, in more ways than one."

CHAPTER 58.

PING PULLED UP to the curb in front of the gray craftsman house. Without a word, Mara bolted from the car. As he and Sam walked to the front door, Mara stood there rattling the doork.n.o.b, unable to turn it even though she had inserted a key. She pounded on the door and yelled, "Mom, it's Mara. Open up." She pressed the doorbell several times. They could hear a m.u.f.fled tone inside, but no footsteps moved to answer.

Ping pointed to a window to the left of the porch. "There's a blue light coming from inside. Is there a television in that room?"

"Yes, but my mother isn't much of a television watcher," Mara said, leaning over the porch railing to get a look.

She saw her mother's back. Diana sat in a lotus position on the floor of the living room inside a blue haze, the source of which her body blocked. The blue light reminded Mara of the Chronicle, causing her heart to skip a beat and then speed up. Ping saw her tense up.

"What is it? What do you see?" He tried to bend around Mara to look inside.

Mara pounded on the corner of the window. "Mom, let me in. My key doesn't work." She turned around. "She's sitting right there, ignoring me. Something is wrong. I can see a light, but I can't see what it is."

She ran down the porch steps and turned right onto a path. "Come on. Let's try the back door."

By the time Ping and Sam stepped off the porch, Mara was out of sight. When they caught up with her, she was tipping an empty terra cotta flowerpot, running her hand beneath it. She held up a key pinched between two fingers. Without saying anything, she walked up two steps onto the back porch and placed the key into the back door. Again, the key would not turn. She turned to Ping, wide-eyed and scared.

"A locked door can't stop you unless you allow it," he said, nodding at the door. "Eliminate the obstacle in your mind."

Mara closed her eyes, lowered her head.

The door groaned. Crisscrossing vertical and horizontal ridges rose up out of the wood, a waffle pattern sweeping up from the foot of the door until it met the windowpane at the top. The gla.s.s spidered, then pixelated. It bowed inward and shattered, sending tiny clear cubes and shards cascading into the house. Air rushed into the window frame as if the house had been vacuum-sealed. Ping and Sam grabbed the porch railing to prevent being pulled in. The door itself buckled, then exploded into brown cubes and splinters that got sucked inside.

"I was thinking of the lock, rather than the entire door," Ping said.

Mara ran into the house.

Ping turned to Sam. "Wait here."

"Oh, come on. I might be able to help." Sam stepped toward the door and Ping grabbed his arm.

"This could be a trap, and I don't think all of us should step into it at once. Also, if your mother is involved, you might be in particular danger," Ping said. "Stay here. Better yet, wait in the car. Be the cavalry if we get in trouble."

"Ten minutes. If you don't come out in ten minutes, I'm coming in."

"I'll call your phone if we need more time." Ping walked into the house.

Splintered wood and shattered gla.s.s covered the kitchen floor. Ping's footsteps crunched as he stepped into the room.

"Ping, watch out!" Mara yelled.

Two butcher knives flew at his head.

His eyes widened. He exploded into a cloud of gray dust. The knives sliced through the billowing particles, sinking into the wall with two rapid-fire thuds.

Mara stood in the center of the kitchen, turning in circles, kicking debris out of her way, looking for more flying knives. A retractable cutting table slid from beneath the counter and hit her hip, knocking her to the floor.

Drawers opened and closed of their own volition, filling the room with wood clapping against wood and metallic utensils clanging against themselves. Adding to the din, cabinet doors banged against their frames.

Silverware flew from a drawer and hovered in the middle of the room, rotating as if trying to acquire a target. Forks and knives floated into parallel formation, angling downward forty-five degrees, pointing directly at her. She held up a hand as the flatware dived at her.

"No!" she screamed.

The silverware disappeared in a burst of glittery pixels.

A can of tomato paste smashed into her ankle.

"Ouch, hey!" She curled up to rub her injury.

Cans of beans, corn and soup flew out of cabinets, pummeling her. A jar of applesauce shattered next to her head, flinging globs into her hair.

She rolled toward the counter trying to get out of the line of fire. Countertop canisters flopped onto their sides, popped their lids and took flight, pitching their contents into the air. A cloud of flour formed and thickened, obscured the source of sugar sprinkling down from somewhere. A bag of popcorn levitated into the center of the room and exploded, dispersing kernels throughout the kitchen's airs.p.a.ce where they floated suspended amid the dusty haze.

Dried spaghetti fell out of the chaos spreading across the floor like Pixy Stixs. A metallic clank rang out from the sink, followed by a stream of water arching up to the ceiling and cascading back to the floor. Mara rolled in a sticky white paste trying to coagulate into dough.

Pots and pans flew out of the cabinets below the counters, while brooms and mops flung themselves from a cupboard on the far side of the room. Their handles slammed against the floor, rolled toward Mara, lifted up and slammed again as they made their way across the room.

Softened spaghetti squirmed in the deepening water, swimming toward her, wrapping itself around her ankles. She kicked at it, scooted into a corner, pushed her weight back, grabbed the edge of the counter and lifted herself. The cupboards had emptied, nothing flew at her for a moment, but the noodles were insistent, trying to crawl up the legs of her jeans. She kicked some more, slipped in the floury goo, found herself on the floor again.

The floating popcorn ricocheted off every surface. Dozens of kernels struck her, stinging. One flew into her left eye. While rubbing it, she tried to keep the other open, shielding it with a cupped hand.

Darker dust swirled within the airborne flour. The particles coalesced, took the shape of Ping a few feet from the back door.

Ping raised his voice over slamming doors and splashing water. "Mara, this is a distraction, a delay tactic. We need to find your mother."

"What should I do?" she said.

"Make it stop. Concentrate."

Mara closed her eyes, tilted her head down, placing it on her chest as she lay on the wet floor. She envisioned the kitchen when it wasn't possessed by a poltergeist.

The noise stopped.

She opened her eyes. The water, the flour, the popcorn, the pots and pans were all gone and hopefully back in their respective places.