Love Me or Kill Me (The Cable Denning Mystery Series Book 2)

by James P. Alsphert

  “How’s that sounding?” I asked Saturnalia. The glowing orb came to the back of my seat and conked me gently on the head.

  “I think that’s a 'yes', Cable,” Cass chuckled.

  “So before we decide for sure here, let me recap as I understand it. First, we extract the specific brain cell knowledge of the golden capsule from my noggin, right? Then we invest it temporarily into Cass’s brain and send her to Toggth’s temporary dimension, not her own, mind you—but one comfortable enough for her to hang out for a while. But none of it will stick very long and one of these unsuspecting days, all of a sudden I’ll know I’ve got the knowledge of the golden capsule in my brain again—and at the same time know Cass is back—but where?”

  “Well, frankly, that’s one of the more dangerous risks. We don’t know,” Toggth remarked.

  “Mother is suggesting to me, since I must first be teleported to earth in a physical body, that I set my mind to what she taught me as a child.”

  “And pray tell, what was that?” I asked, my tongue in my cheek.

  “Wish-ports was a game we played when I was very young. It’s all about mind focus… using your mind to direct your body to be where ever you wish it to be…if that makes sense.”

  “Oh, like Phillip K. Dick—I’ve read weird things like that in his way-out-there books—but it’s science fiction.”

  “Who says it’s science fiction, Cable?” Toggth returned. “All things are shades and shadows of what’s true. Manifesting something from the mind or imagination state to the three-dimensional state is simply the art of knowing how.”

  “Easy for you to say,” I said. “Okay…let’s assume we all agree to do this thing. Where and when? You know, you guys gotta remember, I’m still a private detective. I go on facts—show me the facts and I can act on them. We can’t have speculation about—"

  “—fact number one, Cable, is you will be in great danger during this time. As soon as we teleport Cass, Gor will know. He will be angry. He will have you summoned and brought before him. He will want to kill you—but he will realize the knowledge of the Fen de Fuqin has been transferred to his daughter’s consciousness. He’ll be even more angry. Then he’ll express some kind of revenge on you. Not enough to kill you yet, but enough to make you suffer.”

  “Oh, that’s swell. Why do I always end up being the fall guy?”

  Cass grabbed my arm and squeezed. She didn’t say anything, but I could feel a surge of love go through her right up to my heart and down to my groin at the same time. “So…are we agreed?” Toggth continued.

  We all concurred this was the best way to stave off the monster of Gor and the Oculus. But we were now confronted with two things: one, that time was of the essence and two, we needed a facility to do the sending of Cass into another dimension. A very powerful magnetic field was how Toggth put it. We were all puzzled at this one.

  “Mother says to go visit a grave—I’m trying to decipher—oh! It’s your Honey—the one who was murdered? That one.”

  A sinking feeling went through me as I thought about re-visiting Honey’s gravesite. Although it seemed ages ago, it really wasn’t—and I wasn’t sure I was up to it. “Honey? Are you sure Saturnalia hasn’t got her wires crossed?”

  “Trust it, Cable,” Toggth said. “The sooner the better.”

  The Moldering Embers of Love

  We got back to L.A., but by the time we arrived, Toggth and Saturnalia had gone back into their respective dimensions and only Cass and I remained. “Now, where are we going to put you up where it’s safe? Your father has tentacles all over this city. And I’m not so sure he doesn’t sense when you’re not too far away.”

  She put her hand on my leg and squeezed gently. “Let me stay with you. The closer I am to you, the safer I feel,” she purred. I knew exactly what the female in her was thinking.

  “Forget it, Cass. That would be jumping right into the fire—for both of us. No, we’ve got to find a safe place for you to stay until this thing is resolved. I’ll go visit Honey’s gravesite tomorrow. I sure in the hell hope those guys knew what they were talking about.”

  “I’ll go with you, Cable.”

  “I’m not sure how I feel about that, Cass. It’s kind of a private thing, you know.”

  “She’s gone, Cable. My energy will be good for you. I can help.”

  Women have a way about them, even if they happen to be extra-terrestrial in origin. So that night I stood guard at my office desk with my .38 on the desktop along with a pack of Lucky Strikes and a bottle of cheap gin. After a change of sheets, I put Cass in my bed. I was thinking what a comedown that must be to a Saturnalian princess, to bunk out in a smelly old bachelor’s lair. But she didn’t seem to mind. In fact, during the middle of the night, the scrumptious Cassiopeia came out to check on me. She was wearing only my bathrobe and her perfectly shaped breasts were solidly outlined beneath the cotton material, her nipples exalted and inviting. Had I not been so exhausted from the trip from Cambria, the intricate conversations and the all-night vigil, I might have sprung up and taken that exquisite creature into my arms and thrown her on my bed and tossed all caution to the winds by making love to her. “Are you alright?” she asked as she approached. She sniffed the sleeve of my robe. “I love your smells, Cable. Your whole bed smells of you. Masculine, independent, like you.”

  I had to make light of things. “If you think that’s potent, you ought to sniff out my laundry. Why aren’t you sleeping?”

  “I rarely sleep. When I was staying at Art Beatle’s, I would walk the pine forests all night sometimes.”

  “Ah, that’s why he said he’d check up on you once in a while and find you absent from your little garden house.”

  “Yes. Sometimes I want to sleep. But I have no human dreams, there’s not much to connect with in my earthly experiences. I’ve been here such a short duration.” She studied me. “If we made love, I would have beautiful dreams, I’m certain. Then I’d have a worthy human experience—and a lovely, positive one at that.”

  “How do you know it would be worthy—or lovely?”

  “I know. I can feel it. You have more inside you than you realize.”

  I took a deep breath. “Well, you know the score, Cass. Believe me, I could say I should…but I can’t…hell, woman, you’re thinking about making love while I’m dreading that visit to Honey’s grave tomorrow. Have a heart!”

  “I’m sorry. That is rather selfish of me, isn’t it? It’s probably a human woman trait, don't you think?”

  “Yeah, it’s called territorial. You see, you want to be the next female to stay in my cave. That means I mark you by breeding with you. Then I become territorial, possessive of you. Then I fight off other guys in some kind of pecking order, a survival of the fittest ritual in which nature demands only the strongest survive to perpetuate the species.”

  She thought for a minute. “Offspring…children…I never thought of that. Can my body bear you a child if we made love?”

  “I don’t know. Do you have monthly menstruation periods?”

  “Like Jane did? No. I think Mother left that part out of me.”

  “Consider it a blessing, lady,” I said, relieved to hear it. “That means you can make love without conceiving a child—or worry about your ‘offspring’ for the next twenty years or so.”

  “I don’t know. My mother conceived from my father’s seeds. I don’t know why I can’t. I’ll have to ask her.”

  “In the meantime, Cass, get some rest. I need some, too. Hell, it’s already four in the morning. We’ll get going around eight or so.”

  She smiled at me with those fire-warm eyes of hers. “This opportunity may never come again, Cable. Are you sure?” She came over to where I sat on my comfy chair behind my desk. She grabbed my head and kissed me hard on the mouth until I could feel it curl my toes.

  “You did that once before, in Cambria,” I said, trying to downplay the sexual stimulation the babe had injected into me with that kiss.

&
nbsp; “So I did it again. I’m only twenty-two of your years, so it’s only natural to have those feelings. Do you blame me?”

  “Naw, kid, but I can’t take you up on it. Please…go lie down, Cass. You’re not helping things, you know.”

  “I’m sorry. Good-night…I won’t come out again.” She moved away from me, gliding back toward my bedroom. How stupid can a guy get! I was thinking.

  Some realities never seem real. “Fly Home to Your Song” was the epitaph Honey’s foster parents requested for her tombstone’s legend. With Cassiopeia standing next to me, part of me was lost in the memory of that vivacious little blonde who loved me when she was sparkling with a song and rising in the world. I was recalling the night when she paid me tribute by saying, “A couple of years ago I fell in love with a young policeman,” she had said. And when she finished, she lifted her glass and toasted me. “So here’s to the boy in my man…I dedicate this song.” I remember the song was Al Jolson’s Sonny Boy and it brought tears to my eyes then, just as it was doing now as I heard her again in my reverie.

  Cass jerked me out of it. “She’s not here, Cable.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Beings don’t hang around their bodies. There’s only discarded chemistry down there, moldering like mulch, to return to the soil.”

  “Yeah, so what? It’s a place to remember someone you cared about, Cass. Doesn’t your kind do that?”

  “You know what else? You didn’t tell me. Honey was an alien—like me, just a different species.”

  I was shocked by Cass’s revelation. “Now just how in the hell would you know that?”

  “I can feel it—pick it up in my senses.”

  Just as I was wondering what the hell I was doing here with this psychic extra-terrestrial, I spotted a familiar figure standing a few yards in back of us. It was Joe Lorena! I turned and motioned him to join us. I went up to Joe and shook his hand. I could see his eyes had been tearing. “Good to see you, Joe,” I said.

  “Likewise, Cable,” he answered. Then he looked long at Cass.

  “Oh, this is Cassiopeia—a friend of mine—"

  “—well, not exactly—she’s a Saturnian. I can see her color orb. Aliens can spot aliens a mile away, detective.” He took Cass’s hand. “Good to meet you, Cassiopeia. She…she was my daughter, you know…”

  “I am pleased to meet you,” Cass said diplomatically. “No, I didn’t know. And her mother?”

  “She was an earth woman I fell in love with. She died shortly after Honey was born.” Joe was sizing up the two of us.

  Cass smiled gently at Joe. “I’m very glad you’re here, because we have another reason for seeing you…other than Cable visiting Honey’s gravesite.”

  “Reason?” Joe queried the young woman. “I just felt called to visit Honey’s place of entombment, that’s all.”

  “Well, it goes deeper than that, Joe,” I chimed in. “You see, Cass here needs to get out of town fast, so to speak—she needs a powerful magnetic boost to teleport her to Toggth’s land near the Cave of the Seven Truths. Saturnalia, Cass’s mother, suggested we come here today and we’d meet someone who could help us get her there.” Then I drew him closer. “You see, Joe, she’s Gor’s daughter and he’s on a rampage both for her and my hide. But Toggth and Saturnalia assured us they can extract the exact knowledge of the golden capsule from my brain and temporarily put it into Cass’s head somehow. Thus when Gor comes on to me like a killer plague, I’ll have nothing to share with him. So at best we’re buying a little time.”

  “You do know, it is temporary and this young woman will be drawn back out of that vibration within a fairly short time? And the magnetized knowledge of the capsule will be zapped back into you.”

  “Yeah, we know. But what other options do we have, Joe?” Joe Lorena thought quietly.

  “Cable, bring Cassiopeia tonight. Here.” He took out a small notepad and wrote a number and location. “Destroy this by setting a match to it the minute you make this phone call. I will be at the other end and give you a pick up address.” He gave Cass a pleasant look. “I think we can help. You are beautiful and intelligent, like my Honey was. Cable’s a lucky man. How does he do it?”

  “Oh, we’re just ships in the night, Joe, Cass is gonna be moving on back to Saturn as soon as Mom can get her energy hopped back up.”

  “That isn’t what I see in her eyes, Detective Denning. You need to learn a thing or two about us aliens.” Cass flushed. “Sorry, Cass. Earth men can really be dense.”

  “It’s alright,” Cass said softly, glancing at me and then away.

  “What time tonight, Joe?”

  “Oh, say about nine? I’ll make sure to be at that number.”

  I took his arm and walked him a few feet away from Cass. “How are you really doing, Joe? Have you been re-structured or whatever you needed to have happen after the Laggore thing?”

  “Oh, I don’t know, Cable. I’m kind of a ship without a rudder these days. I think I’ll go home someday soon, like Cassiopeia. She’s absolutely stunning. Where did you find her?”

  “Long story, Joe. Met up with her gorgeous mother—the one who had eight children and Cronus-Gor, her husband, ate seven of them?”

  “Oh, that one…no wonder you’re in hot water.” He waved to Cass and started to walk away. “I’ll see you tonight, Cable…”

  Easy Come, Easy Go

  Most of that evening seemed like a blur to me. Cass and I reached the public phone Joe Lorena indicated, and made the call. We were picked up and driven to the bottom of a steep hillside just north of Altadena. We were blindfolded and led into what I assumed to be some kind of underground facility—one I’d heard Joe speak of during Honey’s time. It was very quiet except for some deep hum in the distance. We were brought to some kind of waiting room and, still blindfolded, helped to sit down on some pretty comfortable chairs.

  Cass was nervous. She reached for my hand, directed by the sound of my voice. “Cable, what—what if I never see you again?”

  “I don’t know, angel. I try not to think about it.” Secretly, I loved holding this captivating young woman’s hand. “Even though my gut tells me you’ll cycle back into my life. Seems I’ve been tossed into a mixer with your family. First your mother, then your dad, and now you. Who’s next, I wonder?”

  “Well, if you must know, I’ll tell you a secret.” She squeezed my hand and tittered a little. “My sister, Hestia, is really—really—oh, another word for angry I’ve heard you use—"

  “—pissed—"

  “—Yes, pissed…at my father. She’s going to challenge him for the earth. Our brother Zeus would still have been here ruling over you mortals if he hadn’t gotten bored with it all. But there’s never been a female ruler over your planet that I know of.”

  I was rather confused, but delighted at this prospect. “How do you know this—and can she do it? Overthrow your unredeemable father?”

  “I don’t know.” Then she took a big breath and a sigh came to her voice. “I just wish…I just wish you and I could have been lovers…I mean, just to experience the bonding—to feel what it feels like—to know and trust a human man inside me, holding me, mating with me—"

  “—come back to reality, Cass. This is the eleventh hour here—let’s stick to the task at hand. I’m sorry if I sound hard, but I’ve learned not to get too sentimental. It always comes back to bite you.”

  She withdrew her hand just as Joe Lorena came back in the room with a couple of other men. They led us further down a hallway and then removed our blindfolds. We were in a gigantic room where the hum I had heard earlier was now obvious and we had to speak loudly to be heard. “We need to leave you here, Cable,” Joe said. Immediately Cass threw her arms around me just as Toggth showed up through the portal of another room.

  “Hey, I was wondering if you were coming,” I said just as Saturnalia’s brass orb came in behind him. I unclenched myself from Cass’s arms. “Nice work if you can get it, kid—and it looks
like you’ve got a great team on your side. Hell, you keep having these kinds of adventures and you’ll be the talk of the town,” I kidded her.

  They pulled the beautiful Cassiopeia away from me and disappeared down a hallway. My first impulse was to follow and yank her back and tell her I needed her to help heal the pain she had stirred up inside me, the one that had my name on it and I had hoped to the heavens was healing up. But when a babe like Cass kisses you and throws that body of hers onto yours, curves and all, it’s hard because the instinctual need of the moment is to hold on to the beauty and covet it as long as you can, take that exquisite body and pound it into the sheets of a luxury bed somewhere on a tropic isle.

  I stood there for what seemed the longest time. Soon Joe came back. “It was successful, Cable, thanks to Toggth. That little guy knows his stuff. Cassiopeia is now safely ensconced in his dimension. For the time being, that is.”

  “What about my head thing?” I asked. For all I had felt was a little stab of pain while I was waiting for Joe earlier.

  “It’s done.” He took my arm and led me back to the waiting room where he blindfolded me once again. “For your own protection.” We began the walk back up to the surface. “By the way, that stunning redhead is in love with you. Just like my Honey was. What’s your secret?”