"Still, it is a good sign," Mare said. "Maybe things will go back to normal now."
"If things were going to go back to normal, you'd be going back to the academy," Ellie said.
"I think that ship has sailed."
"Maybe," Phoebe said. "Maybe not. I'm sure your dad could pull a few strings once we get out of here. That bill, that was largely him, you know? He has some clout to use up now that HPS has been downgraded."
"That would be weird," Mare said. "My dad actually helping me out like that. He's always just been too busy to even know what I was up to." Ellie placed her hand on her shoulder, comfortingly, but Mare no longer needed her support for that. "I guess we're going to have to figure out just where we stand in each other’s lives once this is all over."
"Or, maybe some other big cataclysm will happen and the whole thing will suddenly become moot," Ellie said.
"Oh, wouldn't that be nice? Have anything in mind?"
"Well, the Hulandans did something to the Mars transit vehicle. Maybe something related to that?"
"Wait, they did what?" Phoebe asked. She pulled out her phone and started flipping through the contacts. "Why didn't you say something earlier?"
"When? When you were a ball of light or when the building fell on me? It kind of left my thoughts at that point. Besides, I'm surprised it didn't come up while you were hiding on me."
They quickly lost Phoebe to the call she was feverishly making in the back of the car. However, seeing as how they were just pulling into the hospital, they had other items on their mind. The visitors parking lot was packed with cars, except for the row at the front which was blocked off for a triage section. Several people were all sitting or lying down on big tarps covering the ground, each with color coded tags around their necks. A long line fed out from there, heading along the sidewalk. Ellie just drove past the people, trying to find a spot to park in, but she ended up driving right back out of the parking lot. Three blocks over, she managed to find a spot along the road. The meter that was set for the spot was blinking some error code. Ellie just shrugged, hoping that she wouldn't end up with a ticket.
Mare and Ellie left Phoebe in the car. Ellie remembered to crack a window, though the cool fall weather didn't make the effort necessary. As the two of them walked back towards the hospital, they met up with several other people heading in the same direction. Many of these were injured, or helping the injured, like they saw in the parking lot. Others seemed unharmed by the events of the night. Ellie figured they were heading to the hospital to visit someone, but didn't bother to ask. The group generally moved forward in silence, with just the grunts and cries of pain to accent it.
Out of the corner of her eye, Ellie noticed a flickering of black. She jerked her head in that direction, fearing that it was a Hulandan. However, what she thought were eyes was just a ball cap with tape on it, shining in the sun as it filtered through the buildings. She smiled, shaking her head at the thought, the fear. But when she looked back, she saw it for real. Two people ahead of her was one, a Hulandan, walking along with a normal human. The human was injured, with a nail sticking out of his hand and leaning heavily on the Hulandan. When the alien noticed Ellie, she just nodded to her, as all the Hulandans did on campus, but then went back to watching after her friend. It was clear to Ellie that she didn't want any trouble, didn't want anything to do with the group that had destroyed the city. As they walked, though, the Hulandan flitted glances behind her, obviously worried that Ellie was going to cause problems for her.
"What are you looking at?" Mare asked.
"Nothing," Ellie said, smiling. "Nothing at all. Come on. Let's go check up on our friends."
"You mean our family?" Mare asked, smiling back.
As they passed the group running triage, they almost seemed relieved when half the group kept on going through the front doors before jumping to greet those that did approach them. There were large signs hanging next to the front door, pointing all new patients over to triage. Three of the people that had passed by the line circled back around to it at that point. The hospital was still on low power, with the overhead lights dim and every other one of them off completely. The front doors were stuck in the open position, but people were coming and going so often it could just as easily have been from that.
The line at the front desk was almost as long as the one for triage. The three nurses at the desk were stuck with several clip boards, manually searching through each of them for the patients that the visitors were there to see. Figuring it would just be easier to look for themselves, Ellie and Mare passed right by the desk, heading up to the ICU floor instead. It only took them three minutes searching around on the floor to find all three fathers, huddled together in a waiting room.
"Dad," Ellie said, when she saw him. She ran over to Dave, grabbing him up in a big hug, trying not to crush him with her newfound alien strength. He hugged her back, just as desperately, tears already flowing down his cheek and onto her head.
"Dad," Mare said, more stoically. She simply nodded towards Hank, who was sitting off in the corner next to Hero. Hank nodded back, not bothering to move from his seat. It was clear that he wasn't expecting a similar show of affection from his daughter.
"How's Becky?" Ellie asked, once she and Dave broke their hug.
"She's out of surgery," Hank said. "But they're not sure..." He glanced over at Hero, who hadn't moved a muscle since they had entered.
Hero actually looked normal, for a father whose daughter might not make it through the day, despite what Ellie knew him to be. He was wearing his trench coat again, or a new one, as Ellie hadn't remembered him wearing it when his wings were out in full. The whole thing seemed odd to Ellie, an angel, there on Earth, wearing human clothes and seeming like nothing but a worried father. Then she remembered that she was an alien and had to try not to laugh at the whole thing. Instead, she sat down next to Hero, taking Dave's vacated seat on the other side of him from Hank, and took his hand in hers. Hero glanced over at her for a split second before letting his gaze fall back to the tiles between his feet.
"I'm sure she'll be okay," Ellie said, despite not knowing anything about Becky's case.
Hero simply nodded at her assurances, showing no other sign that he had heard her. Silence fell over the group, letting the sounds of the hospital around them fill the dead space. Ellie felt drained, in a way that went far beyond her fatigue at the confrontations with the Hulandans. Beyond the tiredness of being up all night. Beyond that from the injuries that she had sustained. Becky was the only friend she had there at the school. She was family, as Mare had put it. The thought of her not making it was unbearable for Ellie, something beyond what she was willing to consider.
Ellie looked to her arm, to the slight vibration of the skin there that signaled her pulse. She had had more than her fair share of bumps and bruises those past few days and had come out healthy, barely a scratch on her. That had to have something to do with her alien powers, some property of the spores that made her heal quickly. Perhaps, she would even be able to heal from injuries that regular humans wouldn't be able to. She didn't know how it worked, how the spores were transmitted between people beyond what she was already told. But she wondered if it would be enough to heal Becky. Ten years of perfect health or a few hours of life before dying. It's not even that hard of a decision for some.
Her eyes scanned the hall, looking for her room. Looking for Becky.
Chapter Sixty
Where Do We Go from Here
Ellie was sitting in the chair next to Becky's bed. The monitor beeped steadily, noting her pulse, though she wondered why that was even necessary anymore. Becky was well on the mend, no longer in any risk of suddenly dying on them. She was even sitting up in bed, spoon sticking out of her mouth as she enjoyed the hospital pudding, often claiming it was the only edible thing in there.
"And to think, we know him," Becky said. She pointed at the TV with her spoon. Dollops of saliva flipped off of it and hit the screen.
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"Yup," Ellie said. "He's my soon to be father in law." She fiddled with the ring on her finger, the new addition that still felt odd to her. It somehow made her hand feel heavy, though the thing was barely a few grams. It wasn't like Mare had much money to put towards a ring, so the diamond was so small that it was barely noticeable. However, she assured her that it was real, not one of those made in a lab, though no one could tell the difference anymore. She also had claimed that she got it back when they first met, back when Mare had first proposed to Ellie, though she was relatively certain that was a lie.
Hank was on the TV, behind a podium with the presidential seal on it. It was obviously in some room in the White House, though not the usual press briefing room. He looked uncomfortable, like he didn't want to be there. In DC. In front of the cameras. In the White House. In his new role. Everything about him said he'd rather be anywhere else, doing anything else, even if it was in Hell itself.
"He looks like he's about to throw up," Hero said. He was sitting in the other chair, on the other side of Becky from Ellie. Hero hadn't left her side since the nurses had started allowing visitors.
The TV was muted, so none of them could tell what Hank was saying. Becky had a roommate, more due to the limited space in the hospital than anything else, and they were trying not to disturb her. The curtains around the other bed were drawn closed, so none of them knew what was happening inside. Still, Ellie had gotten an advanced copy of the speech that Hank was giving, so she had some idea on what he was saying.
Agent Gorning was now Secretary of Inter-Species Relations, in charge of negotiating between humans, demons, and Hulandans alike. Unofficially, he also dealt with the angels, but their numbers were few and they stayed to the shadows enough not to go public with their existence just yet. Ellie was the closest thing Hank had to a representative of the Hulandan race, at least until Leadership appointed someone. That wasn't about to happen anytime soon, though, especially not after the speech. While not naming any names, Hank was revealing to the nation just what had happened in Chicago, who had done it, and why.
This included going public about the Hulandans living amongst them and revealing that the interplanetary transit vessel on the way to Mars was not going to make it there. The Mars colonization program had decided not to tell the colonists just yet, as there was nothing that could be done to help them. The vehicle was already too far out from Earth to send rescue and there wasn't enough fuel onboard to correct their trajectory. It turned out they had known the ship was off course before they got the call from Phoebe, though they hadn’t known why.
In the two weeks since the Chicago Riots on 18, as they were called, most of the Hulandans that had gone to U of C had disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Ellie wasn't sure how many of them were still alive out there, how many were killed during that last confrontation, and how many were on the run with blood on their hands and death on their conscience. Those few that had remained, like Ellie, had no real involvement with the battles, mostly going along with the crowd only so as not to stick out. Rebecca Anne, Barry, and Miranda were all long gone, as were Sam and a bunch of others than Ellie never learned the names of. No one had heard from Leadership, and the number that she had given Ellie was out of service.
The city had quickly recovered from the riots, other than the destroyed buildings. The mayor and police chief, both recently converted Hulandans, had stepped down from their positions. At the time, the official statement had been that they failed to keep the city safe. The police had low response times all that night because the police chief had reduced the number of cops on duty, under the guise of reducing overtime pay. Ellie figured he was trying to protect his new found people, though it wasn’t like he was advertising the fact. But, now that the cat was out of the bag, Ellie wondered if they would reveal the truth of it all. Then again, it wasn't like the city was going to want an alien mayor anyway.
What hurt Ellie the most was her old friends, or whatever they were back before they knew the truth. As everything settled down, she had almost expected them to get over it. Alex had managed to get through the battle relatively unscathed, with just a broken arm and a black eye. The brothers were sharing a room just down the hall from Becky. Both were expected to pull through with no complications. Yet none of them would so much as look at Ellie when she passed by them. It was like they felt betrayed somehow. As if they expected Ellie to tell them that she was an alien, even before she found out herself. She wasn't sure if they were still vehemently against the aliens. But, so far, none of them had tried to attack her... yet.
Members of the human mob had disappeared as well, though Ellie wasn't sure if they were dead, converted, or just on the run. Most notable of the missing was Vern, who left without giving notice at the college. There were missing person posters all over campus, put up by some of his coworkers. Despite all that Vern had put her through, Ellie hoped that he made it through the battle in one piece. Perhaps a little wiser and more accepting though.
"He's not going to out the angels, is he?" Becky asked. She was squinting at the small screen, trying to read Hank's lips.
"I would think he'd give us a heads up if he was," Hero said.
"No," Ellie said. She was having no trouble reading Hank's lips, with her alien sight, and following along with what she remembered from the speech. "He's also leaving out fairies and pixies and all the other groups that he knows about but won't tell us."
Between classes, visiting Becky, and spending time with her girlfriend, Ellie had been practicing her newfound alien powers. So far, she was able to trigger the enhanced strength and speed without the adrenaline, though the sped up time perception was still illuding her. She wasn't bothering to learn how to spit her spores out, as she had no intention of making any more Hulandans anytime soon. Still, she knew it might come in handy at some point, as a defensive maneuver if for nothing else, so she hadn't put it off the list completely. She also figured out how to see far distances with a level of detail better than most binoculars and hear sounds from a mile away, though she never managed to filter out anything specific. Everything was just a big blur when she tried it, but she was still working on it.
"Oh, look, there's the girlfriend," Becky said, pointing at the TV.
"The fiancé," Ellie said.
She smiled as Mare's familiar face flitted across the edges of the screen. Mare was spending a few days in DC before heading back to the academy. The official story was that she had to be pulled out of class so that she could go through the security background checks for Hank's new position, which required blood tests and physicals to make sure that she was still a pure blooded human. Ellie wasn't sure that Mare's CO bought the story, but it didn't seem like he was going to argue the point, or mention the missing helicopter.
The term pure blood had already started being bandied about as the go to designation for non-Hulandan humans. It wasn't intended to be a slur or anything, more of a retronym to distinguish between the two groups without offending the aliens. Hulandans were still technically humans, at least mostly. Many, like Ellie, still thought of themselves as such. And with the rumors of magic users, mostly put out by her fellow Hulandans, she figured there would be plenty of other exceptions to the pure bloods that most people just didn't know about yet.
"Don't you have a class soon?" Becky asked.
"Is that your way of telling me to leave?"
"No, it's just... well, I can't copy off of your notes if you're not in class, now can I? I can't afford to get behind more than I already am. I'm only human."
"No, you're only a pure blood," Ellie said, smiling. "I'm just as human as you are."
"Sure," she said, winking her blue eyes at Ellie. "You keep telling yourself that."
###
About the Author
Cassandra Morphy is a Business Data Analyst, working with numbers by day, but words by night. She grew up escaping the world, into the other realities of books, TV shows, and movies, and now she writes about th
ose same worlds. Her only hope in life is to reach one person with her work, the way so many others had reached her. As a TV addict and avid movie goer, her entire life is just one big research project, focused on generating innovative ideas for worlds that don't exist anywhere other than in her sick, twisted mind.
Other books by this author
Please visit your favorite ebook retailer to discover other books by Cassandra Morphy:
Crowbarland Chronicles
In Time for Prom
The Awakening
Demons Force
Angels Innocence
Crowbarland Prep
Light Through the Windows
Last Scientist
Missing Mars
The Delnadian Invasion
Alien Fireworks
Alien Life
Alien Death
Alien War
Desparian Legacies
The Prophecy
Mountain Princess
Doors of the Mind
Door to the Mind
Door in the Sky
Gates of the Inferno
Heaven's Door
Door to Victory
Connect with Cassandra Morphy
I really appreciate you reading my book! Here are my social media coordinates:
Find me on Facebook: http://facebook.com/crowbarland
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