Kitty opened her mouth as if to interject herself into the conversation, but no words came out, as the creature lifted a three-fingered hand like Darth Vader using The Force. It turned back to her, fixing those large dark eyes on Lauren’s. Lauren suddenly chilled at the creature’s gaze. She had been told she was Chosen. The Bigfoot Shaman had told her as much. Had she lost her status? Had she failed in some way?
“Lauren, Truth Seeker, your time will come.” Lauren’s brow lifted. No one called her that except ... Tsul’Kalu. “Your mission will surpass the call of all others, but your place is here. Blessed are you and blessed is your purpose here. Maiden, mother ... magi.” His hand went to her head, but then went to Henry’s.
“Mama ... go.” Henry eyed the alien defiantly.
“Hush, little one,” Enki’s façade seemed to brighten, though it’s face seemed to lack the ability to smile. The large eyes blinked. “When it is time, you may take your mother home.”
“Wait. What?” Rowan puzzled. “What do you mean he can take his mother home?”
“My do,” Henry patted his own chest, and then leaned into Lauren and patted hers. “My go.”
“Wait? Is ... Henry doing that?” Rowan stumbled over the words, and Lauren gasped when she realized what he was thinking. “He’s the one teleporting you. No wonder you didn’t know how it happened.”
“Henry?” She didn’t know who to direct the question to, Enki or Henry. “No. No. That can’t be right.” She turned to Rowan. “But ... he’s just ... he’s just a baby?” Lauren gasped, her hand going to his back. “But ...” Lauren seemed to pale.
“The child is his mother’s son,” Enki said. “As she is blessed, so blessed is her offspring. Lauren,” Enki’s voice softened. “While your powers were bestowed, those of your children are ordained.”
“Children?” Lauren’s brow lifted.
“There will be many,” Enki said, that beatific expression she was accustomed to seeing on Tsul’Kalu’s face passed over the alien features of their host. Enki turned his gaze to Rowan. “A love such as this ... how could there not be? Protector, your job will not be easy. She is your ward, and you are hers.”
“I wouldn’t have it any other way,” Rowan said, forcing a smile onto his face, his eyes going to his wife’s.
“Lauren,” the being spoke softly, turning to her. “You who have sought truth, found it, and used it wisely. You are to serve as our hand, our eyes. When the time comes, your role will require the greatest sacrifice.”
“Sacrifice?” Lauren gulped hard. Her eye went to Rowan first, then Michael, but the being came forward and lifted its long hand to her head, placing it on her crown, then caressing her cheek.
“We will not ask more of you than you can give, and we will guard over your family, and your children.” The hand moved down to her stomach and came to rest over her womb. “But fear not. We will send aid when help is warranted. We will not abandon you in your hour of need ... and you are never alone. You have been given all the gifts you need to complete your mission ... when the time comes.”
“But ...” Lauren’s face contorted as she struggled to make sense of the message and what it could possibly mean. Enki’s strange hand came to her chin and lifted her face. She was transfixed as she gazed into the large dark eyes and could see all the wisdom of the universe contained within. The questions no longer mattered; faith took hold, and she knew whatever the challenge, she would be equal to it.
The creature’s thin lids closed in a slow blink and the spell was broken. She took a faltering step backwards, finding Rowan’s hand in the small of her back, his arm came to wrap around her protectively.
“There is little time,” Enki said calmly, turning to Michael. “You must consent. But I will give you a moment to ... discuss.”
With a bow of its head, it blinked, the door hissed open, then whooshed closed just as softly as the being left them. Michael’s eyes followed it, then turned back to his sister. “What just happened?”
“I’ll tell you what happened,” Rowan smirked. “We got abducted by aliens ... and they want to keep you.” The shock of it all seemed to hit him suddenly. He let go of Lauren and turned to pace. Lauren found herself standing numbly.
“You can’t seriously be considering staying with that ... those ... that ... thing?” Kitty protested as she marched over to Michael. He stood, facing her without flinching. “You don’t know what they’ll do to you.”
“If they were going to hurt me,” Michael said, glancing at Lauren, but not meeting her eye. “They’d have done it by now.” His hand went to where he’d been injured and he added, “That doesn’t appear to be the point.”
“But ...” Kitty started to protest. Lauren felt her anguish. She didn’t want to leave Michael here either, but she was starting to see the logic in it. She didn’t know what was ahead for any of them, but she had to believe this was part of a bigger plan. Something bigger than any of them, especially bigger than herself.
Michael drew Kitty into him. He took a deep breath; the perfume of her shampoo made his knees weak. “You’re not the only one allowed to have secrets,” he said. “I’ve made my decision.”
“You’re staying.” Lauren knew he would. He had found his purpose. She couldn’t deny him that. She didn’t want to leave him behind. They’d finally come to an accord of their own. They still had work to do to rebuild their relationship; to fix their family.
“No!” Kitty stamped her foot like a spoiled child. “You can’t stay here. You can’t go with these ... things. I can’t authorize it! I won’t allow it! I won’t!”
“I don’t think you have a say in this,” Lauren said, stepping in between them. “Michael has to stay with them, and it’s the best way for him to help you establish an accord with these beings. You want them as your allies, don’t you?”
Kitty gasped. It was plainly written on her face. She was stunned at the sudden realization that they were both against her, and oddly enough, maybe they were both right. “Michael, we have to go back and let the authorities know about the Estonian operative’s betrayal. Someone has to explain what happened to India, Lubanzi ... Alexei,” Lauren said, seeing him pale as he realized his boss and his mentor had met a similar fate as his Russian colleague. He nodded.
The color of the room suddenly changed, and the soft blue-white light dimmed to an almost purple tone. The doors swept open. The creature returned, but this time, it was not alone. A compliment of three entered the room.
“We have come for your answer,” Enki said.
“How will we communicate with my brother?” Lauren asked. “We may need his help to convince our governments of this enemy and the war that is coming. We need some way to get a message to him.”
“You need no devices,” Enki said. “When a message is true and urgent, we will know. Michael will know.”
“How long will he need to stay?” Kitty’s voice trembled.
Enki reached for her hand, lowering its head. “You may consider it a lifetime appointment. Though to us, a year is but a day.”
“I’ll never see him again?” Kitty gulped, her eyes shimmering as tears gathered within the dam of her lashes. Lauren felt a pang in her own chest but refused to allow her emotions to well to the surface.
“Perhaps,” Enki said. “But his place will be with us, among the stars.”
“So what are we supposed to do?” Rowan asked, standing, pacing behind the table. “Am I supposed to stand by while my infant son blinks us from place to place?”
“Your job is to protect your wife,” Enki said. The being turned to Lauren. “Your job is to prepare.”
“And what about me?” Kitty’s face had grown red, and she was distraught.
“You will prepare your governments,” Enki said. “You must make peace among your own people. We will show you the way.”
“But ... I can’t tell them about you ...” Kitty said.
“Our presence is ...known.”
Chapter 18
He rolled his head to one side and made out the body of one of the scientists he had shot. He lifted his head, finding the other a few feet away. Two. He only got two? Malakoff blinked back the dots in his eyes and made out the shadow of the weapon he’d brandished earlier. His hand grasped for the gun but missed.
He lay a moment longer, willing his vision to clear. The blur of papers scattered on the floor gave him something to focus on, rather than the bodies that lay around him. Malakoff sat up, fighting a wave of dizziness as his vision began to clear and he realized there were words and symbols scribbled haphazardly in blue ink. The operative got to his knees, forgetting about the gun, focused on the documents. None of it made much sense, but he wasn’t sure if that were a result of the blow to the back of his head or the language, but he gathered the papers together deciding he could study them more later. A cell phone lay beneath the table. Yevgeny took it and switched it on. There was no passcode on it, and only one audio file and one photograph. The operative’s heart flipped in his chest as he recognized the picture, and he came to realize what he was holding in his hand. This had belonged to the Russian Cosmonaut he’d been sent to deal with. He’d searched the man’s apartment before going to the television studio.
A shuffling from the hallway made him freeze and he pocketed the phone in his jacket and slid back to the floor, curling up into a ball, groaning as the door opened. “Help ... me,” he feigned as a woman shrieked. The housekeeper turned and ran from the room, abandoning her cleaning cart in the doorway.
Yevgeny managed to snag the gun and use the tail of his shirt to wipe the prints before tossing it over by one of the bodies. He could hear the footfalls of feet running towards the room; feel the vibrations of it through the tiles. He collapsed and prepared to play the role of his life. “Help ...” he moaned as the door flew open and security rushed into the room. “Help me ...” he grasped the hand of one of the guards who stopped to check on him.
“What happened?” the security officer asked. “Who did this?”
“An American spy ... Kitty Donovan ...” he said. “She pulled a gun on the team ... she double crossed me ...”
“Is that ... Director Cameron?”
The lieutenant nodded, kneeling beside her. “She’s dead.”
“So is Dr. Dlamani,” another said.
“Where’s Dr. Grayson?” The lieutenant asked.
“With her ...” Malakoff said. “He’s her lover. They conspired to ... to take the data from his project ... they’re going to sell it to the Russians ...” Malakoff felt a flutter in his stomach as he delighted in his clever delivery as he clutched his supposedly wounded shoulder. It was injured, but not to the degree he exhibited. “His sister too ... they conspired against me.”
“Call the embassy,” the guard at his side said to the lieutenant. Clearly this was the man in charge. “The authorities need to be alerted ... and get this man a medic!”
* * *
Frank White sat, bleary-eyed, in the emergency operations center staring down the Estonian Security Forces Director. It was after midnight and it was too much effort to make coffee, considering the urgency of the matter at hand. He ran a weary hand down his face as he listened to the wild story the director wove.
“Mr. Jääger, I am having a hard time believing what I’m hearing,” he said. “While Kitty Donovan is a lot of things, she’s not a traitor.”
“She turned on our operative and shot two scientists to get her hands on the data,” Jääger clipped. “The South African Consulate has directed local authorities to issue a BOLO for her and her accomplices.”
“Accomplices?”
“Dr. Michael Grayson, his sister and her husband.”
“His sister?”
“You may recognize her name,” Jääger sneered. “Dr. Lauren Grayson ... and her husband, Rowan Pierce.”
Frank sat back in his chair. He did recognize the name. Too well. “Christ...” he muttered under his breath. “Was your operative injured in the attack?”
“Yes,” Jääger said. “He’s being treated in hospital as we speak.”
“I can have agents on the ground in hours,” Frank said.
“Nyet,” Jääger sneered. “South African officials won’t even let me send my teams. They assure they will take care of it.”
“I want to talk to them before anyone else,” he said. “I am enacting Article 3 of the Bishop Convention for my personnel and parties associated. I want International Mediation Services to resolve this conflict.”
“This is not a war, Secretary White.” Jääger said curtly. “Enacting this branch of NATO is reserved for matters of impending war.”
“It isn’t yet,” Frank said. “My goal is to keep it that way. If anything happens to any of these US Citizens — especially a government official — it could easily escalate into an international conflict ... even a war.”
“You fail to mention the obvious, Secretary White.” Jääger glared at him through the camera. “If your scientist has achieved his goal, this could be an intergalactic conflict ... that is the real hazard here.”
“Which is why I want to talk to my people first.”
Chapter 19
That gut-wrenching feeling of disorientation hit Lauren before she was ready for it. She found herself standing in a meadow, surrounded by trembling aspen trees, a cool mountain breeze lifted her disheveled hair. Immediately, her sense of place put her in the meadow where she and Rowan had been married.
“What the hell?” She heard Kitty behind her. She turned, relieved to find Rowan stood with Henry a few feet away. “Where are we?
Rowan studied the trees and turned his gaze towards the babbling river a dozen yards away. “Is that ...?”
“The Big Thompson River,” Lauren said. “Yes.”
“Colorado?” Rowan seemed to sway. Lauren stepped over to him and put a hand on his arm. “We’re home?”
“Mama go,” Henry reached for Lauren. She took him, holding him tightly, relieved they were out of harm’s way ... for now. “My go.”
“We can’t be in Colorado!” Kitty stormed, pacing towards the river, but turning abruptly. “How am I going to explain this to my superiors? How do I ...”
“I don’t know,” Lauren said. “But we are going to need help.”
“What do you mean?” Rowan asked.
“Considering Dr. Cameron and Dr. Dlamani were shot, and we don’t know what happened to your Estonian counterpart, we have to assume the worst.” Lauren patted her pocket. “I don’t have my phone,” Lauren said, realizing she’d left hers on the table in Michael’s office. Rowan fished in his pocket and withdrew his, holding it out to Lauren. She took it and handed it to Kitty. “Who’s more likely to help us?”
Kitty pondered it a moment, looking blankly at the device. She handed it back. “If I could remember his number, I’d call Jack White, but ... all my numbers are programmed in my phone.
“Where was your phone?” Rowan asked.
“In my suit jacket,” she said, running her hand up her bare arms, the cool breeze eliciting goosebumps on her flesh.
“Mama.” Henry patted Lauren’s chest.
Lauren turned to Rowan, handing him the phone back. “Do you have internet? Can you do a Google search?” She put a second hand on Henry’s back, trying to get him to stop squirming.
“Mama!” Henry fussed.
“What, baby?” She turned her attention to him.
“Fishy ...” he pointed up. “Fishy ...” His tone was urgent. “My go.”
One minute, they were in Colorado, the next, they were back on the ship in the room they had waited in earlier. Kitty’s jacket still hung on the back of a chair. Henry’s stuffed
shark lay on the table nearby. “Fishy!” Henry reached for it, nearly slipping out of his disoriented mother’s grasp. “Fishy! Mama! Fishy!”
Lauren recovered enough to grab Kitty’s jacket, feeling the weight of the phone in her pocket. She thought to find Michael and say the goodbyes she hadn’t had a chance to say earlier, but again, the world seemed to blink out from around her, and she stumbled into Rowan.
“Lauren? Jesus Christ...” He startled, catching her before scooping Henry out of her arms as she stumbled a few steps away and collapsed to her hands and knees, retching. Kitty went to her side, catching her braid and pulling it out of the way as she puked repeatedly into the grass. Rowan came around to the other side, offering a hand when she tried to stand, gathering her wits, and allowing her body to orient itself to the sudden change of location.
“Mama?” Even Henry sounded concerned.
“I’m okay.” She turned and spat trying to get the foul tang out of her mouth. “Sheesh.” She bent over and put her hands on her knees to steady herself. “I hate that feeling ...”
“You’d think you’d get used to it,” Rowan said. Clearly, it hadn’t affected him the same way it did her. Of course, she’d done it more than he had, and with each episode it got worse.
“You’d think,” Lauren said. She stood back, taking a deep breath, then moved in leaning on his arm. Resting her face against his bicep she seemed to recover quickly enough. “Kitty, make the call.”
* * *
“The Secretary of Homeland Security?” Lauren lowered her tone as they sat on the patio outside the Starbucks in Estes Park. “That’s your boss?”
“Frank White,” she said. “He’s up to speed on everything.”
“How did you explain how we got back to the US?”
“Aliens,” she said. “I’m pretty sure he thinks I’m crazy, but I told him it was aliens.”
The Alien Accord Page 19
