Inalienable: Book 7 of the Starstruck saga

by S E Anderson

  I cursed that I didn’t have time to admire my surroundings. I tiptoed down the hallway, taking the first door at random, and using the sight through the keyhole to get me inside. Inside the room I had seen when I had followed the sand blob the night before: Smith’s bedroom. Did all the doctors live here? I walked in, looking for anything out of the ordinary, something that was missing from the night before or anything that had since arrived.

  The room was proof that the doctor had perfect taste. Like her office, the warm autumn tones were present in everything, from the oak furniture to the reds and golds in the Italian silk sheets. I sat on the bed, awestruck. Wow, the mattress was comfortable. Amazingly so.

  I fell back on the bed, floating on the cloud of comfort the soft duvet offered. It was amazing. This was coming from the girl who hadn’t slept in a comfortable bed in weeks. You know: Jail. Mental institution. At this point, I couldn’t tell if her bed was the norm that I had once had or an outstanding exception.

  I wasn’t going to pull a Goldilocks. No time to rest now. They would notice soon enough that I had disappeared, and I didn’t want to be caught this far from the patients’ quarters when they did. Back to work, Sally Webber.

  Nothing seemed unusual in the room, that was sure. It seemed perfect, not an item out of place, not a cobweb or a fly. I rose to my feet, fluffing the bed behind me to make sure I left no trace of my visit. I opened the closet quickly, checking for a sand conglomeration that could be hidden inside. Nothing. Good. I didn’t know if I should feel happy or annoyed.

  The hallway was still as silent and empty when I exited the room as it had been when I had first arrived. I crossed it, pushing open the door right across from Smith’s. This one was just as ornate, if not more so, bordering on over the top. The poor man’s idea of a rich man’s luxury. But who cares when the golden quilt that covered the bed was inviting. So warm, so cozy.

  With a muffled fwomp, I landed on the bed, relishing in the softness of it. I was on a cloud. It was perfect.

  An ugly squelch filled the room. I opened an eye tentatively, staring at the ceiling. My hand flew to my mouth to muffle a yelp of shock and horror.

  The blob. It was there, latched to the plaster ceiling right above me. I rose to my feet, edging away as slowly as I could. Would it even see me? Hear me?

  I answered that question quickly enough. In my hesitant walk backward, my shoulder hit a lamp, sending it crashing to the ground. I guess they weren’t bolted down like in the patients’ rooms. The nightstand wobbled, hitting the wall, sending a tremor up to the ceiling, and a ripple spread through the sandy mass.

  The blob stiffened, the silent squelching stopping instantly. Eww, what had it been doing? It froze, and even though it had no eyes, I could feel it staring straight through me.

  With a sound like a suction cup detaching, the sandy blob dropped from the ceiling, falling onto the bed and shooting off into the hallway like a strange liquid bullet.

  Great, just great. I rushed after it, pulling the laser pointer from my pocket. I was out of the room in an instant, glancing up and down the hallway, but it was already gone.

  Shit.

  No time to panic. I took a deep breath, allowing my eyes to focus. No, it wasn’t gone. Something was sliding under the door two rooms up the hallway, glimmering slightly in the sunlight that spilled through the windows on the end of the corridor. I sprinted down to the door, lunging for the blob, failing to grab even a single grain.

  The door flew open. I turned to glance up at the confused face of the oldest doctor on staff.

  Shit. What was his name?

  “Ms. Weaver?” He asked, confused. “What are you …? How?”

  “It’s Webber, Doctor,” I replied. Damn. I could have said literally anything else. I took his hand, allowing myself to be pulled up to my feet. “You’ve gotta get out of here now!”

  “Why?” He glanced up and down the hallway. “Is everything all right, Ms. Webber?”

  “Not really!” I brushed myself off and tried to push past him. He stood in the way. “There’s a shapeshifting alien blob loose in the institute, and I can’t seem to catch it.”

  “You’re not meant to be up here,” he said. Then, squinting, added, “Have you spoken to Dr. Smith?”

  “I don’t have time for this!” I didn’t even know the guy. I’ve seen him, what, once? It’s not like we had any real orientation. Anyway, not my doctor, not my problem. “You know what? I’m going to show you something. Don’t freak out. “

  I flipped the laser pointer on, pointing it to my arm and slicing down with quick precision. The doctor cringed.

  “Ms. Webber, stop,” he ordered, grabbing my hand, but it was too late.

  “Just look,” I said, feeling dramatic AF. “It’ll prove that everything I’m telling you is true.”

  He watched, eyes going wide as saucers—the UFO kind, not the dinner plates—as the puckered, red skin healed over. I would never get tired of the sight myself. His grip on my wrist slackened.

  “Well, I’ll be the uncle of a monkey,” he muttered, readjusting his glasses.

  “Now do you believe me?”

  He nodded slightly.

  “Come in. We must talk.” He gestured to the room behind him. I glanced over his shoulder, scanning the floor and ceiling for the conglomerate. Pleased with its absence, I made my way in.

  “It attacked me and my friends last night,” I said. “And we’re sure it’s been around for a while, terrorizing other patients at the institute.”

  “If it’s been around for so long, why hasn’t anyone said anything?”

  “The patients here scream every night, and no one cares. Even you sleep right through it. Maybe they have said something, but they’re crazy so nobody believes them? For some reason, though, not many people remember being attacked in the first place.”

  “That’s unfortunate.” He shook his head. “It’s just your word against theirs.”

  “But I’m the immortal space traveler.”

  “Touché. In any case, perhaps forgetting is a blessing to them. Most patients here—if not all—have too much trauma to begin with. The whole point is to unburden them of it, to help them find the tools they need to prosper; not to load them up with more pain. Yes, perhaps it’s better they don’t remember.”

  “You believe me, right?”

  “Yes, I do.” The doctor nodded. He has this kind solemnity to him, like making eye contact was some kind of promise. The relief that washed over me was as thick and warm as tomato soup.

  “Good. Now, it’s our word against theirs. They’ll believe their doctor.”

  “What’s your plan?”

  “Um, I guess we find the creature first?”

  “You said it could change forms. How do we find it?”

  “I don’t know. But it seems to be engineered to scare us: the clown with a murderous vendetta, the dying boyfriend, the accusatory imaginary friend—”

  “Maybe there’s a connection between the form and its victim? The clown, who did he attack?”

  “Zander.”

  “And the imaginary friend?”

  “Daisy-May.”

  “Ah, Jeffrey?”

  “Yuuuuup.”

  “This is worse than trying to scare their victims.” The doctor shook his head. “They’re trying to traumatize them. This is malicious.”

  “How so?”

  “Daisy-May … is not right in her head.”

  “She can’t be that bad. She has an imaginary friend … who makes her go heisting. So?”

  “Jeffrey’s not imaginary.” He bit his lower lip. “Jeffrey Grant, Daisy-May Grant’s husband. Though I should say late husband.”

  “She …?”

  “She murdered him, and she robbed a bank. In that order. She’s so torn up about it she’s convinced he’s always been nothing more than a friend. Imaginary.”

  “That’s horrible,” I said. I had no idea she’d been through that. I cast a glance to the vent, d
ragging my mind away from the horrible truth of a terrified girl. The paint under the wall there was dull as I ran my fingers over it, as if sanded down or worn down from years of use. “Are you meant to be telling me any of this? I thought there was doctor-patient confidentiality.”

  “Hum,” the doc muttered.

  “How does it know its victim’s fears, though? It has to be close to the patients. I don’t know. Maybe he’s one of them; I mean us. And he’s hiding right among us.”

  “Hum,” he repeated.

  “That would explain a lot,” I continued. “It gets close to someone then uses that knowledge of them to scare them, but to what end? And why does it stab them behind the ears?” I paused, but the doctor said nothing. “Is it to feed? The fears thing seems to connect us all, but why would it think Zander was afraid of clowns?”

  “Sally!”

  I spun on my heels, and—what the hell—Zander was panting in the doorway, sweat dripping down his brow. “That’s not the real Winfrey! He’s getting away and probably going to call security on you!”

  Ah! That was his name!

  Winfrey, the blob. It all made sense! Unless the blob wasn’t always Winfrey and was just pretending because I’d gotten close. Was the real Winfrey at breakfast this morning?

  But there were even weirder questions to answer. Zander wasn’t supposed to be here. “How did you get up here?” I asked.

  “Same way you did! Come on, we need to go now!”

  “I thought you were in couple’s therapy?”

  He laughed. “Yeah, as if that was going to work out.”

  I waited for him to add something, yet he still stood, finger pointing in expectation, face twisted with worry.

  “Come on, we don’t have much time!”

  “Teach me the basics of quantum geometry!” I ordered.

  “What?”

  “Seriously. Lightning fast, just the basics of it.” I gave him my most seductive smile, which was unpracticed and probably looked more like I was gassy. “Please?”

  “Sally, we gotta go—”

  I swung my arm, punching him square across the jaw, something which would have been nothing more than a mosquito bite to Zander, yet he crumpled on the floor like a dropped sock puppet.

  Wow, that was a freebie.

  Whether it was the real Winfrey or not, it was still the blob I had been hunting. I ripped a sheet off his bed, spreading it out on the floor, rolling the unconscious alien life form onto it. I tied the ends as tight as I could, bending over to hoist the heavy weight of the shapeshifter onto my shoulder.

  A single blow to the head was enough to bring the shapeshifter down, it seemed. Easier than I had expected. What wasn’t so easy was hoisting the mass over my shoulder, which, let’s face it, I was in no shape to do.

  Thank goodness for inter-dimensional travel.

  Focus now. I have to do this right.

  I closed my eyes, holding tightly to the sheet. Same planet, same building, one floor down: Zander was a light in the darkness, a lighthouse to lead my ship through the void. I dissolved into nothing, whizzing through the in-between space, weightless, senseless. All too soon, the sensation of pure freedom and exhilaration was gone; my eyes flew open to the warm office of Dr. Smith.

  The Tibetan singing bowl was still singing when I interrupted their meditative circle, dropping the unconscious mass of Winfrey onto the oil diffuser.

  Zander flew to his feet, untangling his meditative legs in mid-air, grabbing the puddle off my shoulder before I fully materialized. Smith flew backward into her desk, a silent yelp passing her lips.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, helping me lower the sheet to the floor.

  My face was red hot, beaming with pride. “I’m fine. For real, this time. I caught it!”

  Now it was his turn to light up that smile. “Really?”

  “It was imitating you. Again”

  “I dare to think what gave it away,” he said, pointing at the sheet.

  I finally turned my attention to Smith, who was standing with her hands grasping the edges of her desk. It looked like she was halfway between calling security and passing out.

  “How did you—?” She tried to stand, but she fell back against the desk again, catching herself before she toppled to the floor. Blayde took a step toward her, but Smith waved her away.

  “I didn’t lie to you. I’m an immortal space traveler,” I said, then found myself giggling. Just pure anxious giggles. “It really does sound stupid when I say that, doesn’t it? I thought it would be way more badass.”

  “Well, you can probably see why I didn’t believe you,” she muttered. Her hands were shaking, and she clutched the desk tighter.

  “Yeah. But, hey, I’m not holding it against you.”

  “Somebody help me!” came the feeble voice of a young girl muffled by the sheets. Instantly, the doctor rushed to our side, crouching down to work at the knots that held my captive.

  “Don’t do that!” I shouted. “It’s a trap!”

  She took no heed of my words, ripping open the sheet with quiet determination. Daisy-May gave a frightened look around the office, her face bloodied and bruised.

  “Where am I?” she asked, bewildered and shaken. An extra-long sniffle graced her button nose. “What happened?”

  “You’re in my office. You’re safe.” The doctor ran a soothing hand through Daisy-May’s hair.

  “She … she hit me over the head. I—” Then she burst into sobs, leaning her head against Smith’s chest. All other eyes in the room were riveted at me with varying degrees of shock.

  “Look, I swear it was Zander when I first knotted the bag,” I said defensively. “And it was Winfrey before that. Shapeshifter!”

  “How could you?” Smith spat. “You …”

  “That is not the real Daisy-May!” I shouted. “This is Winfrey! Or, at least, it looked like Winfrey. Shapeshifters! I just freaking appeared out of thin air in your office. Would I be lying about this too?”

  Blayde took a step toward me, frowning. “Are you certain?”

  “Positively, without a doubt. This is not Daisy-May.”

  “I believe you,” said Blayde.

  “So do I,” Zander added.

  “You three are sick. Immortal space travelers, sure. Maybe. Still trying to process that bit. But just because that’s true doesn’t mean that you aren’t still sick.”

  “Hand the shapeshifter over, Doctor,” Blayde ordered.

  Smith hugged the girl closer. “I am not letting this patient into your hands! You’ve done enough already!”

  “Hand her over, Smith, or I’ll have to take her by force.”

  “Are you … threatening me?”

  “I guess I am,” Blayde said sternly, placing a hand on her hip. “So, hand her over.”

  “No.”

  “I warned you.”

  “And I’m warning you. You need help.”

  Blayde stepped forward, grabbing the doppelganger by the crook of her arm and gently trying to drag her away from the doctor. Fake Daisy-May shrieked like a banshee. Even stone-cold Blayde saw her resolve falter, a frown flickering on her stony features.

  “It’s not her,” Zander repeated, taking a step back and locking his arms around the handles of the large wooden door. “It’s a shapeshifter, Blayde.”

  Blayde shoved the doctor back heavily to the floor, grabbing the shapeshifter around the waist as the fake Daisy-May kicked and screamed. The shapeshifter balled her fists and hit Blayde across the chest, her legs falling behind her. Blayde dropped her down on a sofa, keeping a tight grip on the tiny woman’s wrist.

  “Shut up!” she spat. “We have questions!”

  Daisy-May stopped her fighting suddenly, leaning back on the chair with a look of smug satisfaction on her face. She chuckled slightly, her form morphing back to Dr. Winfrey.

  “‘Figures,” Blayde sneered. “The doctor is the monster.”

  “Too bad I can’t think of any Frankenstein jokes right
now,” I muttered. Shit, not the right time. Thankfully, I was the least interesting person in the room right now.

  “You really are the real Dr. Winfrey, aren’t you?” Blayde continued. “You seem to have better control of this form. More detail. Your version of Daisy-May was sloppy. You didn’t even make her hairs individually; it looked absolutely horrendous while Dr. Smith hugged her.”

  “Spur of the moment,” he replied sharply. “You caught me off guard. I was stressed, and stressors can infringe on our ability to perform even our most basic tasks. Which you would know, if you listened to me at all during our session.”

  “So, you’re the one who’s been sneaking into the rooms? Scaring the patients?”

  He chuckled. “Sharp as a tack, this one.”

  Blayde was frustratingly bored. “May I ask … why?”

  “You can ask as much as you want, I don’t have to tell you. I know my rights.”

  “Rights?” Blayde laughed. “What, you think you get to call on the protection of Terran law?”

  “Vigilante?” he asked. He didn’t seem to know who we were. Either he was a poor actor from the Agency or he really was just an off-worlder acting alone.

  “In a way.” She took a step back, giving me a curt nod. I came to her side, an extra set of hands if she needed one. “Okay, answer me this: Where are you from?”

  He shook his head. “My lips are sealed.”

  “Then tell me who you pray to,” she snarled, “because you’re going to meet him soon enough.”

  He sighed heavily. “You think you have control over me? You think because you can speak big, act big, threaten me and my staff that you can push me around?” He threw his head back, laughing with every muscle in his abdomen.

  “Guess again.”

  In an instant, the form of the former Dr. Winfrey lost its shape, crumbling to the floor, the glob of sand rushing across the floor. It climbed the wall in an instant, disappearing through the vent faster than dirt up a vacuum cleaner.