Not Quite an Angel (5 page)

Adam laughed, a harsh bark of sound. “And I'm Luke Skywalker. Welcome to the twilight zone.”

She ignored him. “I grew up on an agrofarm in the Western parameter. My father was an analog scientist, and my mother ran the baby nursery. There was—” her voice faltered for an instant “—there was an accident when I was sixteen. My parents left the earth plane, and I went to live with my great-grandmother.”

Adam decided to humor her. If she wanted to play science fiction, what the hell. He'd seen a few sci-fi movies himself. “Why a great-grandmother? Why not just one of your ordinary garden variety first generation grandmas?”

“Because we're matriarchal. And my mother's mother chose to emigrate to Balille, back when we were colonizing the asteroids. She invited me to come to her there, but I didn't want to leave Earth, and anyway, Great-Grandmother Kendra had always taken a special interest in me.”

Adam struggled to quell a sinking feeling in his gut. Sameh was so earnest about this bullshit. Maybe a dose of cold, hard reality would help snap her out of it. “She must have been pretty old and feeble by that time, this Kendra. To take on a sixteen-year-old kid when she was already a great-grandmother herself. Let's see, on the average that would make her about—” he calculated quickly “—seventy, at the very least.”

Sameh smiled and nodded. “She was over ten decades, actually, but that's very little. She's an Adept. In theory she could have as many decades as she wanted. She's only now in her prime at one hundred twenty years. See, our lifespans are much longer than yours are now, and of course the Adepts live even longer than average because of their emphasis on meditation and diet. We learned to arrest the aging process just after the millennium, and of course we don't have most of the problems with disease you still have here in the nineties. We have illness, but we manage it differently.”

“That's real handy.” All of a sudden he was fed up with all of it. He felt sick inside, because it had dawned on him during the past few minutes that he might be dealing with a real, honest-to-God loony here. She was seriously deranged, no doubt about it. Probably spent those missing years sitting in some library reading H. G. Wells.

And why did she have to be so damned gorgeous? Why did just listening to that smoky voice rhyming off all this wacky crap make his blood run hot? Humor her. He'd humor her. Sooner or later she'd run down and he'd figure out what he ought to do next about this whole mess.

“So what exactly do you do, Sameh? What, uh, what kind of career do you have? Back, uh, in the future?”

“I'm in awareness training where you learn levitation, telepathy, teleportation, stuff like that.”

Stuff like that. God, this was getting worse and worse. “And when the training's over, what are your job prospects?” Besides once a year on Halloween.

“Oh, awareness is the first step toward becoming an Adept. Some Adepts are master healers, others devote themselves to research. It depends where your interests and talents lie. After awareness, we work as tutors for an undetermined period. The theory is that we teach what we most
need to learn. Eventually I'll counsel or teach, and of course go on studying. It's a long process.” She was quiet for a moment, and then she gave a huge sigh. Her breasts rose and fell, and his blood heated.

“That's if I ever learn the basic disciplines. I'm not exactly a top student.” She sounded dejected, and he wanted to take her in his arms and comfort her.

Comfort be damned. He just wanted to take her in his arms, and that wasn't kosher, because she was one sick lady. He was trying to remember what he'd read about schizophrenia, and whether that might be the kind of mental illness she had. Did it make them worse if you humored them?

Was sex beneficial?

He couldn't believe all the details she'd created for this fantasy world of hers. She seemed to have an explanation for almost everything. Almost. What would happen if he managed to trip her up?

“So tell me, Sameh, how exactly did you manage to get back here from the future? Is time travel as easy for you guys as going to San Diego for the weekend?”

She frowned. “It's a fairly new development with us, and it certainly wasn't as smooth as the tutors seemed to believe it would be, that's for sure.” There was honest irritation in her tone now. “Those techies. They have everybody convinced the method's foolproof, but there're a lot of details they haven't mastered yet, like the landing location.” She shook her head in disgust. “I ended up on a soundstage somewhere in Hollywood. They were filming a movie about dinosaurs, and the techies' transmission method shut down the whole electrical system. I was in delta state for transport, of course, and when I came out of it, I was absolutely terrified. These huge animals were everywhere. I thought those technodolts had misfired me by thousands of years.”

Adam actually found himself laughing, and after a moment, she giggled, too.

“I guess it does have its funny aspects. The director fired the entire lighting crew, and it certainly wasn't their fault.”

Adam studied her face in the moonlight. She absolutely believed what she was saying, he'd bet his last dollar on it. And for the first time, she'd said something that made at least a little sense. He knew they'd made a big-bucks mega-movie about dinosaurs a few months back. It wouldn't be too hard to find out whether there'd been a major power outage on the set.

Hawkins, what in God's name are you thinking? Are you actually starting to believe this poor kid?

Poor kid, hell. She was thirty, he reminded himself, well past the age of consent. She just looked like a kid because where she came from nobody aged fast.

He groaned aloud. The intoxicating scent of her perfume drifted over him, and her profile was clear and clean in the moonlight. The curves that tantalized him were outlined beneath the wispy dress. It had settled between her long legs and he could see the outline of slender thighs. Damn her for being so provocative, so beautiful. Damn him for wanting her in spite of everything—and everything, in this case, was totally mind-boggling.

She was studying him, head tilted a little to one side. “You don't believe me.” Her voice was sad.

He didn't deny it. It wouldn't take a mind reader to figure out that he was forty-five degrees beyond skeptical. “I'll have to give it some thought,” he finally said. “It's a lot to absorb in a short time.”

She was still studying him when he reached over and drew her into his arms. Her skin felt like cool satin under his hands. Desire twisted in his gut, and he was barely aware of her resistance. He reached out a hand to cradle her head.
Silk strands of hair twisted around his fingers, and he pulled her head gently back so he could kiss her. He had to kiss her.

His lips were on hers, tentative for only a second as he adjusted to the shape and feel of her full mouth. She tasted wonderful, she felt fragile and yet voluptuous in his arms.

“Adam, please…”

“Easy, baby, we'll take it easy….”

“Adam, let me…”

“No, sweetheart, let me. Let me kiss you here, and here…” He was on fire. Need for her was burning within him. He stopped what she was about to say with a kiss that he didn't even try to control. For one intoxicating instant, he felt her begin to melt in his embrace, and smug triumph filled him, along with a flashing, blinding heat. She was female, and he was an artist at this.

Between one breath and the next, the pain hit him.

He cried out and all but shoved her away, bending down and holding his lower body with his hands. It felt as if his testicles were being crushed in a vise. Icy-cold sweat sprang out all over his body, and he groaned aloud. It lasted an eternity that was only fifteen seconds on the dashboard clock. Gasping for breath, feeling weak and nauseous, he dared to straighten up, terrified in case the pain struck again. He took a chance on one deep breath, and then another. When nothing more happened, he slumped back in the leather seat and gave silent but fervent thanks that it was gone.

Sameh was sitting huddled against the door on her side of the car, her wide eyes riveted on him. Cohen had come to the end of the disc and started all over again, and Adam reached out with a trembling hand and pushed the Eject button.

Silence. The breakers swished onto the sand far below, and a breeze ruffled the fronds of a nearby palm.

“Sorry,” he finally managed to say. “I—I don't know what hit me. It's never happened before. I got this—this sudden pain…” His voice was strained, and he stopped talking and cleared his throat, careful not to bring on another attack. His mind was working with feverish speed, running through all the venereal diseases he'd ever heard of. Or maybe it was cancer? A tumor? He felt sick with dread.

“I think maybe we ought to go back to the city now.” He turned the key, and the engine roared to life. He backed and turned, some part of him trying to prepare for the next attack. When it comes, he told himself, take it like a man, Hawkins. Don't show her how much it hurts. Maybe it would hold off until he got safely home.

Home, hell. He was heading for Emergency. He tried to remember which hospital was closest. There was no point fooling around with that portion of his anatomy. He'd find out the worst right away. He gunned the car down the road and onto the freeway.

“Adam?” Her voice was tentative, and he tried to smile at her, to reassure her. His face felt as stiff as cardboard.

“Adam, there's nothing wrong with you. I just wanted you to let me go, but you were— Well, you wouldn't listen.” She swallowed hard and then tilted her chin up at a defensive angle. An accusatory note came back into her husky tone. “You really ought to pay more attention to what the other person is saying, you know. Even in this time in history, I know sex is consensual, but you weren't asking. So I used an energy bolt, just a small one, really. I aimed at your arms, but—” she lifted her hands, palms up, and shook her head “—I guess my aim's not very good. Somehow it went crooked, and it hit—” She swallowed hard and shot him a sidelong glance. “Well, anyhow, don't worry
about it. It's just a defensive technique all of us females learn. It's harmless and there aren't any lasting side effects.”

He was passing a semi. It took all his concentration to keep from hitting it. As soon as it was behind him, he turned to look at her. She met his gaze with those huge, innocent blue eyes—eyes so devoid of guile that for a moment, he totally believed her.

“Kissing you was good,” she said. “I liked it at first. You're quite practiced at it, aren't you? I tasted the tactile memory of many women on your lips.”

What the hell was he supposed to say to that? He muttered something that could have been acknowledgment as he took the exit for Hancock Park and Delilah's house.

“I'm not, you know. Practiced at intimate physical communion. It isn't something I've pursued in this incarnation. It made this assignment much easier, too, because I don't think I'd have chosen to come if there was someone in my time I was bonded with. I wouldn't have felt good about leaving him behind.” Her husky voice was just a trifle wistful.

So there wasn't anyone special in her life. He didn't question the feeling of utter satisfaction that knowledge gave him. He turned into the McDonell driveway. Sameh gave him her security card for the gate, and he drove through and stopped under the trees that shaded the drive in front of the house.

“You're telling me that you can—” How the hell could he phrase this to her when “coldcock” was the term that best described what had happened to him? “You have the ability to zap me if I try anything you don't want or like?”

Her head bobbed. “I've hardly ever used it, though. Which is likely why I miscalculated. Not enough practice.”

He nodded.

“I'm sorry about that, Adam. It's not wise to cause pain in the reproductive area.”

Affirmative on that one, Ms. Sameh Smith.

“Can you do it at will?” Proceed with caution, Hawkins. He held up a hand. “Don't, for God's sake, use it on me again like you did. But maybe cut down the voltage, say, and aim at…” He considered. “Aim at my hand, way out here?”

But she shook her head. “The energy required is distinctive. It results from the emotion involved. I couldn't counterfeit it. And besides, we're taught never to use our abilities for demonstration. It lessens the overall field, and puts all Adepts at risk, you see.”

Adepts, fields. He sank back in his seat and closed his eyes. He felt utterly exhausted and confused. “Sameh, I don't understand that stuff. I don't begin to understand you. I don't know who or what you are, and I don't have a goddamned clue whether or not you have the powers you claim to have.” He opened his eyes and looked at her. “I only know you're a lovely woman, a puzzle, and I want to go on seeing you.”

Where in damnation was all this coming from? If he had the sense God gave a goat, he'd cut and run, fast.

“Will you have dinner with me—” He'd forgotten tomorrow was Sunday. He always visited Myles on Sunday. “Monday, how about dinner on Monday?”

“That would be good. I accept.” She was smiling at him now, as if he'd said or done something particularly clever. She slid across the seat toward him, knocking him in the ribs with her elbow in the process.

She cupped his face with both her hands, and pressed her lips to his in an awkward, closed-mouth kiss that shook him to the marrow.

“H
AWK, COME TAKE A LOOK
at this.” Bernie's voice over the intercom had summoned Adam, and they were both now in Bernie's office.

It was Monday morning, and Bernie's eyes were riveted to the computer screen. An oversize mug of coffee rested precariously near the edge of the desk as his deft fingers accessed the daily occurrence log—crime reports from the Los Angeles Police Department.

“Look here. See the item about Mrs. Hammerstein. This is another one of those scams—it's the third one that's come up in two months. If we could convince these women to get Blue Knights to check on where their money's going, things like this wouldn't happen.”

“Things like what? For God's sake, Bern, you know I can't decipher that crap on the screen.” Adam knew he sounded grumpy and out of sorts. He was tired. For two nights now, when he ought to have been sleeping, he'd been lying awake thinking about Sameh Smith.

Both nights, in the darkest hours before the dawn, he'd allowed himself to consider the utterly impossible. Maybe she was telling the truth. Maybe she was from the future. Maybe she had supernatural powers and maybe she really could conjure up a bolt of some vile kind of energy and send it winging toward the part of his anatomy that was the most vulnerable. At 3:00 a.m. he was almost ready to be
lieve her preposterous explanations for who and what she was.

Fortunately each new morning brought the return of his reason. But this morning had also brought the loss of his good nature, because he'd called a contact he had at Universal Studios first thing, and after some confusion, his friend had found out that yes, they'd had a major power outage when they were working on the dinosaur flick a few months back.

Besides that disquieting news, Adam had spent all Sunday afternoon and evening with Myles, and it had drained him. Myles Fontaine was the closest thing he'd ever had to a father. Myles had once been the wisest and strongest man Adam knew. To see him now, his body skeleton thin, his long-fingered hands moving aimlessly, his mind wandering in some gray world invisible to anyone but himself, was a wrenching agony for Adam.

Myles seldom knew him anymore, but Adam kept going to the nursing home on Sundays, kept on talking and talking to Myles, hoping against hope that some afternoon his friend and mentor would shake the cobwebs out of his elegant silver head and be himself again. Well, it sure hadn't happened yesterday. Adam knew it probably was never going to happen, and it was a bitter knowledge, a knowledge he hadn't yet come to terms with.

And all afternoon, as he carried on a one-sided dialogue with his old friend, a corner of his mind persisted in going over and over the whole complicated issue of Sameh Smith. He told himself time and again that if he had any sense, he'd hand the whole matter of Sameh straight back to Bernie, break his date with her for tonight, forget he'd ever laid eyes on her and get on with business as usual.

He knew he wasn't going to do any of those things, though. In spite of everything, he wanted to see Sameh
again. He had to see her as soon as possible. Some part of him was already counting the hours until dinnertime. For the first time in as long as he could remember, he was obsessed with a woman, and he didn't like it one bit.

“One of the reasons you don't like computers, Hawk, is that they're not shaped like a woman,” Bernie was saying. “Another just could be that you haven't heard a single word I've said in the past five minutes. You've been staring at that calendar on the wall, and it's two months out of date.”

Adam stared at the computer screen again, feeling put upon. “All I can see on that thing are meaningless abbreviations, Bernie. These damn machines make me itch behind my ears. I'm allergic to them.”

Bernie, oblivious to his partner's lack of enthusiasm, was scrolling through some complex filing system on the screen that made sense only to him. “Here we go. I knew I coded these to see if any kind of pattern might be developing. There's none yet, but you never know.” He sent a minuscule arrow scooting across the screen, ignoring Adam's sour muttering.

“Look here. There's three of these things now. They all concern older women, wealthy women, who trusted some guy to make long-term investments for them. The investments looked legit, too. None of these broads were out-and-out stupid. There was extensive paperwork and the letterheads on all the forms were real. The women each received reams of confirmation and updates on their investments over a period of time. Two of the women died, and when their heirs went to collect on the investments, they found out they were phony. This last one, this Mrs. Hammerstein, is in a nursing home now. She's confused and the daughter's trying to straighten out her affairs and finds out she bought a document for twenty-five grand, and the insurance company it's supposed to be with has no record of the transaction. Prob
lem is, the cops can't do much. None of these women can lay charges, and there's no record of who they bought the documents from in the first place.”

Bernie turned back to his machine and ran a few more cross-checks. He shook his head. “Not much more, but it sure as hell smacks of a scam to me.” He turned away from the machine and tilted his chair back, squinting up at his partner. “So whaddya think, Hawk? Any ideas as to how we could use something like this to publicize Blue Knights, get to some of these women before they hand their bucks over to some con artist?”

Adam thought he needed a stiff belt of Scotch, even though it was only ten in the morning. “I'm with you. I think these ladies would've been smart to hire us before they turned bundles of cash over for investment purposes, but as for publicity, you're on your own,” he growled.

Bernie reached for his coffee. “Maybe Janice can think of a few new advertising schemes. Television would be the way to go if we had the bucks. Maybe we could get one of the talk shows interested, go and be interviewed, mention Blue Knights a few times. Hell, we'd be snowed under with work.” He gestured at the other chair. “Have some coffee and sit down. You get on my nerves looming over me like that.”

Adam wanted nothing more than to go back to his own office, shut the door and disconnect the intercom and the phone. He sat instead. He knew his partner. Bernie had something on his mind besides advertising, and they might just as well get it over with.

“What I was wondering was, whaddya think about Sameh Smith now you know her a little better?” Bernie took a noisy gulp of coffee and wrinkled his nose. “Damn, this stuff's cold.” He got up and dumped it and then poured himself more from the coffee machine set up in a corner of
his office. “Personally, I'm a big fan of Sameh's, Hawk. I haven't seen Frances as relaxed and happy for months as she was Saturday night, and her and Sameh are gonna go shopping together this week. You know how long it's been since Fran agreed to leave the kids with a sitter?”

Adam had some idea. He'd watched helplessly as Bernie and Frances struggled with the reality of Corey's handicap. After the initial shock, Bernie seemed to adjust somewhat, accepting the situation, but Frances was another matter. At first she'd marched relentlessly from one specialist to another with her son, demanding a cure. When each gave her the same diagnosis, the same heartbreaking prognosis, she changed tactics.

For the past six months, she'd been searching out psychic healers, prayer groups, naturopaths, chiropractors, dragging Corey from one to another, spending large amounts of money on people who weren't doing anything Bernie could see to earn it. Adam had to agree, because Corey showed no signs of improving in spite of esoteric diets, healing circles, crystals or psychic healing.

Adam understood all too well the need Frances had for hope. Didn't he, himself, spend every Sunday praying for a miracle for Myles? But he knew, too, that Frances's quest was as futile as his own.

Myles had Alzheimer's.

Corey had cerebral palsy.

Neither Corey nor Myles's diseases were about to succumb to a laying on of hands or an exorcism. In Adam's opinion, miracles were a little scarcer than virgins in L.A.

Bernie was still praising Sameh. “And the kids. Did ya see how the kids loved her?” Bernie drank half his coffee in one long gulp and peered at Adam over the rim of the mug. “I still don't know the whole score on Sameh Smith, but I know in my gut she's clean, Hawk.” He laid the mug
down and lifted his feet to the desktop. “So what'd you do when you two left our place Saturday night?” A frown creased his forehead. “You didn't use that famous line of yours on her, did ya?”

Adam scowled at his friend. “What are you, her big brother now?”

To his astonishment, Bernie shrugged, and his cheeks and nose got red. He recrossed his feet and avoided Adam's eyes. “In a way, yeah, I guess you could say something like that. I just don't want to see her hurt, is all, and I know your track record with women.” Adam gave him a frigid stare, but Bernie stared right back. “You're my friend, Hawk, but I'd never send you off alone with my sister if I had one. And that's how Sameh feels, see? Like my sister.”

Adam rolled his eyes. “Give me a break here, Methot. You met the woman, what, three days ago? And now all of a sudden you're playing the white knight?”

Bernie's jaw jutted out. “I'm serious, Hawk. There's this thing about Sameh, this innocence, y'know? Some fast-talking jerk is liable to come along and take advantage of her, what with that face and figure, and that sort of, sort of…” Bernie searched for a word. “Trust. She's so damned trusting, somehow. It's scary.” He raised his head and looked Adam straight in the eye. “You gonna keep on seeing her?”

Adam was. But he wasn't going to tell Bernie that he was taking her to dinner in exactly—he glanced at his watch—seven hours and ten minutes, not after what his partner had just said about fast-talking jerks. “I'm going to continue the investigation, and in order to do that, I'll be seeing her, yeah,” Adam temporized. “After all, she's still under surveillance by this company, Bern. As far as I'm concerned, Violet Temple's our client. We took a hefty down payment
from her and agreed to investigate Smith. And there's a hell of a pile of questions that still need answers.”

More now than even Bernie knew, and for some reason, Adam didn't feel like revealing to his partner the depths of Sameh's delusions. He'd have to eventually, of course. But this morning he just didn't feel up to it.

Janice knocked on the door, came in and made her way over to the coffee machine. “Karen Williams is here to see you, Bernie. That creep she was married to is still stalking her. He followed her to the office and tried to stop her coming in. Karen's crying her eyes out, so I gave her tissues and told her I'd bring her some of this acid you call coffee. She's laid charges with the police, but there's not much they can do unless he assaults her, and by then it's too late. I think she wants you to arrange for a bodyguard for her. She's waiting for you in the corner office.”

Janice gave Adam an appraising look. “You're going to have to start controlling those raging hormones of yours, boss. You're looking far more than your age this morning. Haven't you ever heard that too much sex makes your eyes go funny? And yours are well on the way.” Coffee in hand, she turned and sauntered out.

Adam glowered at her back, and Bernie guffawed. When Adam turned a malevolent gaze on his partner, Bernie gave him an elaborate shrug. “You have to admit some of her lines are good,” he said, getting up to riffle through a pile of files on his desk before he turned back to Adam. “About Sameh. Far as I'm concerned, I vote we hand Temple back her money today and tell her to use it on a good shrink.” He stuffed the appropriate file under his arm and shot Adam a hopeful look. “Whaddya say, Hawk? Can't we drop the whole thing?”

Adam pretended to consider it and shook his head. “Like
I said, there's still too many questions need answers. If you figure you'd rather not be involved, I'll handle it myself.”

“I'm already involved, but I think you're making a big mistake here, Hawk.”

Adam remembered last night's wild conversation with Sameh. He remembered all too well the pain in his groin. He figured Bernie could be absolutely right about big mistakes, but he still wasn't about to change his mind about seeing Sameh.

 

“P
ERHAPS THAT'S ENOUGH
for this morning, Sameh.” Delilah slowly eased her body out of its vertical but upside-down position and rolled in one lithe movement to her feet, bending over to give her leotard a few tugs back into place on her slender form. She straightened and staggered, and Sameh moved quickly to take her arm.

“Oops, guess I got up too fast again.” Delilah took Sameh's arm as she walked over to an armchair and collapsed into it. “Thanks, sweetie.” Delilah rested her head against the back of the chair and closed her eyes for a moment. “I'm a teensy bit dizzy, all right. That's such a creative position I always forget that I should come out of it slowly.”

Delilah was in the habit of dictating paragraphs of her new book while she practiced her yoga headstand. She was a great believer in doing two things at the same time, if at all possible, and she believed the rush of blood to her brain made her writing flow better. It certainly didn't do her complexion any harm—her skin looked as fresh and glowing as a girl's.

“That was rather good, that bit about interpreting one's dreams, don't you think?” She opened wide the cornflower blue eyes that had been her trademark years before when she was Hollywood's femme fatale. There were laugh lines at their corners now, a few creases around the lush mouth
that had been kissed by many of the silver screen's leading men, and a certain looseness to her jawline.

Still, Delilah's face and figure were exceptional for a fifty-six-year-old woman in this era, Sameh mused. She was getting used to the fact that people aged so much faster here, but it had been a shock at first to see people her era would consider mere youngsters with wrinkles and white hair.