Touched by an Alien (35 page)

Lorraine hit the button again. We were all quiet.

“I think Jeff’s figured out that you and Christopher, um, got friendly.” Lorraine looked at me. “What now?”

Reader’s car spun around and stopped. He jumped out of the driver’s seat and ran toward us. I unlocked the doors.

“Now, we put my actual plan into action.”

I STOPPED THE CAR NEAR READER
but still far away from the other SUV. He leaped in next to Claudia. “Lock the doors!”

“Jeff’s a lot bigger than Christopher,” I mentioned as Lorraine hit the lock button.

“Christopher’s a lot meaner,” she said reassuringly. I wasn’t comforted.

“Girlfriend, you need to either shoot them or talk to them, but they’re not going to listen to anyone else. Jesus, that was the most hellish ride of my life.”

“How soon did Jeff start?”

“The second you were in your car. He didn’t try to kill Christopher until we were through the gate, though.”

Wonderful. I didn’t want them dead. “Okay. I’m, uh, going in.”

“Take a gun from the back,” Reader suggested.

“Got my mom’s Glock.”

“Good. Aim for the thigh. It’ll hurt but not maim.” He was serious. Oh, this was going to suck.

“I’m hoping not to shoot either one of them.” No sooner did I say this than they tumbled out of the car. It was hard to see because they were moving so fast, but I got the impression they were trying to beat the living crap out of each other. “Real fast, how did Christopher’s mother die?” I wanted their version, not just White’s.

“She went on a trip and got some disease. No one could explain it. Killed her within a week.” Claudia handed me a walkie. “You’ll want this.” I dropped it into my purse.

“Before or after Mephistopheles had first appeared?”

“Right after,” Lorraine supplied. “How will we know to come and back you?”

“If I’m running toward you yelling, ‘Start the car and open the door,’ you’ll know. Otherwise, I think I can stop them.” This was a whopping lie, but I figured only Reader would guess that.

I steeled myself and got out of the car. Reader slipped into the driver’s seat. “Try telling them you’re actually in love with me. Might shock them into stopping.”

“I’d be in love with you, but you’re already married.”

He grinned. “If I were straight, you’d be my girl.”

“Something to contemplate. If this goes poorly, maybe you and Paul can consider the benefits of being bi. I’m open to sharing.”

I put my purse over my neck and started off. They were still fighting. I could tell because Martini had thrown Christopher against the side of the SUV.

“Jeff, stop it!”

He turned to me. “I’ll deal with
you
later.”

That didn’t sound good.

“Back off, Kitty, this doesn’t concern you.” Christopher swung a punch that landed, mostly because Martini had been looking at me. They were away from the car now, lunging for each other.

“I think it totally concerns me. Both of you, cut it out. If you kill each other, you let the big fugly win!”

“Don’t care, thanks for asking,” Martini shouted as he grabbed Christopher again and flung him around

“You always have to push it,” Christopher snarled, leaping from the ground to tackle Martini at the knees. “It’s always all or nothing with you.”

“Like you’re some saint and I’ve missed it all this time?” They were rolling around on the ground, again beating the crap out of each other.

They weren’t going to stop. Okay. I had the Big Gun. I was prepared to use it. “Mephistopheles killed your mother and aunt.”

I said it quietly, but they both heard it. I walked closer to them. “She was a diplomat, and she was his daughter-in-law. She didn’t know Yates was the parasitic host, right, because you all didn’t make that connection until recently. But an in-control superbeing had created. I’ll bet she went to Yates to ask him to help her, help all of you. He infected her, or turned into Mephistopheles and infected her. I’ll bet he did to her what he wants to do to me, maybe what he’s already done to me. But she was an A-C, and it killed her.”

I reached my hands down to them. “Get up.”

Christopher took my hand and let me pull him up. Martini ignored it and got to his feet. “Big boy, already a mess.” But he wasn’t smiling.

I leaned against the SUV. “She was an empath, and I’ve learned that’s rare in your women. Jeff’s the highest level empath you have. What about you?” I asked Christopher. “What level imageer are you?”

“He’s the best,” Martini spat out. “At everything, from what I’ve heard.”

I ignored that one. “Mephistopheles wants to rule the Earth. And Yates wants to destroy it. And to do that, they both know one thing: They have to stop the two of you. Now, why would that be?”

“No idea.” Martini brushed himself off. He looked like a big angry cat to me.

“Because if you procreate, the likelihood of your children being even more powerful is high. It’s called genetics. And evolution.”

Christopher’s eyes narrowed. “So, why would he kill my mother?”

“Because she was so powerful. If he couldn’t use her, and I’m sure he couldn’t, he had to destroy her. Before she had any other powerful children or trained her powerful nephew any further. She was an empath—she must have felt the dichotomy when she was with Yates after he’d joined with the parasite.”

“But she never told us,” Martini said quietly. “We were with her the whole time she was dying. We were with her when she died.”

“My father wasn’t,” Christopher added.

“Why not?” This sounded completely out of character.

“We don’t know. He said he had to go on a matter of national security.” Christopher’s voice was bitter.

“He went to his father for help. I mean, who else? He couldn’t know what had happened.” I knew why White had looked so bad when I asked him about this. He’d figured out that his own father had had something to do with his wife’s death. And he’d told no one, because who could he tell?

“Then why didn’t she tell us, tell him, tell someone?” Christopher asked, the anger rolling off him.

“Maybe she didn’t want you two to grow up knowing your grandfather was the most evil man on the planet. Maybe she didn’t want her husband to carry any more burden than he already had over his father.”

“That would be stupid, and my mother wasn’t stupid.”

“No,” Martini said slowly. “I can see why she’d lie. She probably thought our agents would take care of Mephistopheles right away, and then no one would know. She thought like you.” He looked right at me, and his eyes were cold. I knew he wasn’t ever going to forgive me.

“Why are you the catalyst for all this?” Christopher still didn’t sound as though he believed any of it.

I couldn’t think of a polite way to put it. “You’re both fighting over me. As flattering, and unusual, an event as that is, it’s also why I’m the catalyst. Yates is an empath. He could feel how you two felt about me, couldn’t he?”

“Yates, yes. Mephistopheles, we don’t know.” Martini wasn’t looking at me now.

“Let’s assume the talents have bled over. So he’s coming here to make sure the two of you never procreate, and the only way to do that is to kill you.”

“So does he want to kill you so we don’t procreate with you?” Martini asked, still looking anywhere but at me. “And if so, why?”

“Probably and evolution. Paul’s normal. You haven’t said that he’s the only normal hybrid. What if he’s stronger or if the potential is there? What if your entire generation marries humans, spreads out, mixes in as the rest of our races have? You’ll make humans stronger, not weaker, because the A-C internal organs are dominant.”

“That would make us more appealing for Mephistopheles,” Christopher countered.

“Maybe. Maybe it would mean we could fight him on a more even playing field. We don’t know what would happen if a parasite attached to, say, Paul. Maybe he’d become stronger, or better, or both. Evolution’s tricky, but this is what it’s about—Yates and Mephistopheles both want to stop your evolution.”

“I think she’s right.” Reader’s voice came from behind me. “Sensors are showing that we have company coming.” His voice sounded odd. I turned to look at him. He was pale. “Jeff, Christopher . . . there’s a lot more than one heading for us.”

AT LEAST THEY KNEW HOW TO SWING
into action when it mattered. “Get everyone armed,” Martini snapped. “Aerosols may work on Mephistopheles, but we don’t know about the others, so everyone should also take guns. You, too,” he said as he moved past me toward the back of the SUV. Christopher and Reader both went to the other car.

I followed Martini to the back and grabbed a couple of spray cans. I could just barely get them into my purse. With everything in it, it weighed a ton. “Make sure none of this gets inhaled by any of you.”

“I think we can manage to figure that out.” Martini picked up what looked like a machine gun and handed it to me. “Here.”

“I can’t carry that.”

“Take it.”

“I can’t even lift it, and I’m not going to try to lift it.”

“Take it.” He shoved it at me.

I shoved it right back. “Look, it happened, okay? We stopped it. Because of you. Get over it before we’re all dead.”

“Sorry to get in the way.” He slammed the gun back into the car. “Hope you two will be very happy together.”

“Why are you just assuming that I’m in love with Christopher?” Before he could answer the ground shook. “What was that?”

We both turned and saw what was coming toward us.

Mephistopheles was flying, horrible bat wings flapping lazily. Beneath him were five other monsters, all bigger than he was. It was clear he was herding them. The only aspects these things had in common were they were all awful to look at and their eyes were that horrible glowing red so popular with the superbeing set.

One had huge ears that draped down the side of its head and touched the ground. It was green and scaly and looked like a really bad cross between a dinosaur and a caveman. It had clawed hands and carried what looked like small trees in each one.

“Is that Earwig?” I pointed at this thing.

“Yes.” Martini’s voice was an angry growl.

“Then he killed Lissa under Mephistopheles’ orders.” Which made sense and confirmed my theory. How I hoped we’d live long enough for me to explain it to someone back at the Science Center.

“How do you know about that?”

“I have my sources.” The next monster to capture my attention looked like that blind men with the elephant parable—as if someone who couldn’t see and had never seen an animal had tried to create one. It lumbered on huge feet, six of them, and it was the reason the ground was shaking. Its body was pinkish purple and grotesquely rotund while its head was like an elephant’s but with no trunk or tusks. Instead, it had fangs, and yet, somehow, a humanish face. “What’s that one called?”

“The Pachyderm.”

“Fitting. Sort of.” I was trying not to be scared and failing utterly, no matter how many times I tried singing “Pink Elephants on Parade” to myself.

“You want to go be near Christopher?”

I spun around and looked up at him. “Stop it. You want to be mad at me? That’s fine. Please give it a rest right now. I had a great plan. It’s worked well. Mephistopheles is here, thanks for getting really angry. But I didn’t know these others were going to show up, and I’ve got no guess as to what to do. Plus, before you go all righteous wrath on me, let’s just discuss all those ‘marry me’s’ you’ve been passing the last two days when you’re actually forbidden
to
marry me. You’re not exactly Mr. Clean here.”

I spun back around to examine another superbeing and tried to stop caring about whether or not Martini was going to be nice to me, let alone kiss me, ever again. The giant black snake that moved out from behind the Pachyderm was certainly a good distraction. I was afraid of snakes, but this one was so big fear didn’t begin to cover my reaction. And seeing a caricature of a human face shoved into the snake head was promising to give me nightmares for the rest of my life. If I got to have a rest.