by Wen Spencer
Covering Eve back up, Hutchinson eyed Ukiah’s bandages, stark white on his ruddy skin. “Why are you half-naked?”
“He got into some poison ivy,” Max lied smoothly. “It will stay on any clothes until you wash them, and you need to wash all exposed skin off immediately or get a nasty rash; it’s an occupational hazard of tracking.”
“Like nosy federal agents?” Hutchinson tapped out a cigarette. “Have you called the police?”
“Yeah,” Max said. “They’ll be here shortly. How did you get here before them?”
Hutchinson considered them, weighing his options, and decided to confide in them. “I’m not sure if it’s the farm I found, or just you. A little while ago, someone hacked into a top-secret spy satellite system and followed a car across country to this farm.”
Max glanced at the Hummer with its distinct profile. “My Hummer? Or the blue Honda that Goodman was driving?”
“Yes, that is an important question, isn’t it?” Hutchinson gave Max a dry smile and lit his cigarette. “The answer is, I don’t know. I’ll have to call my source and see if they have an idea of when the satellite was looking and what at as well as where.” He took a long drag on his cigarette; his hand trembled with micro-spasms from adrenaline.
It hit Ukiah then the stupidity of Hutchinson rushing to this isolated spot without backup, chasing after a cult of religious loons, with no idea what he might find. It was an insane risk. Then Hutchinson’s reaction to Eve connected with what Indigo had told Ukiah and he understood what Hutchinson hoped to find. “You came looking for Christina.”
Hutchinson flashed him an annoyed look. “Yes. I want her back as much as you want your son back.”
“What if she doesn’t want to come back?” Ukiah asked. “Kittanning was taken. Christina walked away from you of her own free will.”
“No, she didn’t,” Hutchinson snapped. “I don’t know what they told her, but they lied to her, played on her weakness somehow.” He took a deep drag on his cigarette. “Christa hated being the spoiled rich kid almost as much as she hated being short, but she knew that there wasn’t much she could do about either one.”
“There are high heels and charities,” Max pointed out.
Hutchinson shook his head. “At four-ten, she was too short to be a cop or firefighter or any of the people she saw as making a direct difference in the world. And until she was thirty, she couldn’t touch her trust fund’s principal. Every year, she did give away most of her allowance. It drove her parents nuts.” Hutchinson stabbed the air with his cigarette. “She handpicked all her charities, and she did volunteer work with them. Make a Wish. Children with AIDS. And then Harris got hold of her. He took her money. He made her vanish. And I don’t know how. I’ve asked myself for two years—what did he do to her to make her give it all up?”
Ukiah shook his head, not able to even guess.
“If the cult didn’t follow you to the farm, then they knew Goodman.” Hutchinson waved his cigarette toward Eve. “Did she say anything about the cult?”
“Nada,” Max said.
“What have you found besides the girl?”
“Goodman.” Max pointed toward the barn, and cut Ukiah’s warning off by saying, “Why don’t you finish getting dressed, kid.”
Ukiah pulled on clothes as Hutchinson walked down to the barn. “That wasn’t nice.”
“I’m not feeling nice at the moment.”
Ukiah watched Hutchinson react. He expected mild surprise from the agent. Even from where they stood, Hutchinson’s stunned dismay was clear. “He’s not taking that well.”
They watched a moment longer, and then Max said, “Oh, hell!” and started for the barn.
Hutchinson retreated from the barn and was sitting on a fallen tree, trying to light a cigarette when they joined him.
“You okay?” Max took the heavy gold lighter from Hutchinson’s shaking hand and lit it.
Hutchinson cupped shaking hands around the flame to light his cigarette. “No one has seen Christa for nearly a year. Hell, no one has seen any of them for months.” He took back his lighter and sat rubbing it with his thumb like a rosary bead. “But it’s one thing to know that the cult are complete nutcases, it’s another that they’ve been killing people.”
It’s one thing to know . . . Ukiah winced as Hutchinson echoed Indigo’s recent words.
“That is if they were following Goodman and beat us here,” Max said. “Goodman, though, was in California until six months ago, and he came East to join his lover, who was a Pittsburgh Steelers football fan. That doesn’t connect him up with the cult.”
Hutchinson stared bleakly at the barn. “It’s not who he is, but how he died that connects him,” he said, and then went as stubbornly mute as Eve as a wailing chorus of sirens announced that the ambulance and police were arriving en masse.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Linden Farm, Sleepy Hollow Road, Jeannette, Pennsylvania
Wednesday, September 15, 2004
It was hours before Ukiah and Max could leave the farm. Ukiah could sense Rennie, near at hand, while they answered questions and made statements. The Pack ranged farther out, scouring the neighboring area for any clue to Kittanning’s location. He became acutely aware too that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast, and that he had been shot dead the day before. Like a windup toy, he slowed down, and finally stopped, sitting on the Hummer’s bumper. Dusk lay on the shorn wheat fields like a blanket, hazing the air slowly into deeper shades of velvet blue, and filling his brain with cotton.
Despite everything, or maybe because of it, the Invisible Red still jangled in his system. It ate up his attention with sensual input, eliminating his normal ability to sense people approaching him. He found himself startling again and again as people took him by surprise.
“You okay?” Max seemed to appear out of the gathering darkness.
“I need to eat.” If for no other reason than eating would help his system shrug off the effects of the Invisible Red.
Max pressed a hand to Ukiah’s forehead. “Yeah, you’re getting shocky. Come on. Let’s go.”
Pittsburgh possessed a surprising number of all-night restaurants, ranging from quiet family diners to noisy favorites of college students. The nearest proved to be the Park on Route 30. Max called Sam and let them know where they were headed. Max parked the extra wide Hummer in two slots by the front door. With a low rumble that pressed against the skin, Rennie pulled into the parking lot on his Harley Davidson.
It was a mark of how rattled Max was when he didn’t comment on Rennie’s presence, only stood by the door, waiting. Rennie slowly prowled the entire parking lot, checking for unmarked police cars and Ontongard. Finding the parking lot innocent of danger, Rennie pulled in beside the Hummer.
A young, sassy redhead waitress with a pierced tongue made Ukiah painfully aware that the Invisible Red hadn’t completely worn off. “Hey!” she said, coming up to seat them. Her eyes widened as she swept him a head-to-crotch look. “Smoking or nonsmoking?”
“Nonsmoking,” Rennie said.
She gathered up three menus, led them to the back corner, and managed to press full-body up against Ukiah as she stepped back to let Max into the booth. For a moment, he thought she had done it by mistake, and he put his hands out to steady her. She relaxed slightly more against him, turning her head to breathe, “Oops.”
Under the sheath of her cotton dress, she was warm, lithe, and firm. He knew without having to imagine what she would look like naked.
“That’s okay.” He managed to set her away from him, and slide into the safety of the booth.
“Our special of the day is meat loaf and hot, creamy mashed potatoes.” She handed them each a menu, and then rested her right hand on the back of the booth, nearly touching Ukiah’s shoulder. “Or a stack of buttermilk pancakes, smothered with sweet, sticky maple syrup, bacon and eggs. Soup of the day is chicken tortilla. Can I get you something”—she flashed Ukiah a heated glance—“to drink while you loo
k over the menu?”
Ukiah stared at the menu, only aware of her body canted toward his. Rennie ordered something, a rumble of voice from across the table. Max asked a question, and the waitress leaned across Ukiah to point at something on Max’s menu, pressing her full breast against Ukiah’s cheek. He couldn’t resist. He nuzzled into the wonderful softness and breathed in her clean healthy female scent. She wore anklet socks, so he found only warm bare skin under her skirt.
“You don’t take your time running the bases, do you?” she purred, her voice going husky.
“Down, Cub.” Rennie gave him a hard look.
“I’m trying.” Ukiah controlled his hands back onto the table. “She’s not making it easy.”
“No, she’s making it too easy.”
“The fully loaded baked potato,” Max finished ordering. “He’ll have the same. A coffee with cream for me, please, and chocolate milk shake with no contact sport for him.”
“Ah, you’re no fun.” She winked and went off to put their order in.
“How long is this stuff going to stay active in you?” Max murmured.
“It would help if she had any clue on personal space.” Ukiah found himself focused on the waitress even as she sashayed away, trailing the scent of her arousal behind her.
“Oh, I’d say she knows exactly where her personal space intersects yours,” Max said.
“Sixty million years of spotting genetically superior stock is hard to override.” Sam’s voice behind Ukiah surprised him. He turned, mentally backtracking, and realized that she had parked the Volvo next to the Hummer and limped into the restaurant while his attention was on the redheaded waitress. “If you want the girls to leave him alone,” Sam continued, plucking at the mesh muscle shirt that Ukiah was wearing. “You shouldn’t let him wear things to show off his buff body.”
“What are you doing here?” Max asked.
Sam waggled her wireless phone at him. “You didn’t ask where I was when you called. That navigation system on the Volvo is slick.” Rennie stood up, and indicated that she was to slide in on Max’s other side.
The waitress returned, their drinks on a tray. She brought a coffeepot, a creamer, and extra sugar. Rennie had gotten a root beer. Ukiah’s milk shake threatened to overflow. She eyed the new seating arrangement—Sam tucked between Rennie and Max—and smiled brightly at Sam. “Hey! I’ll get you a menu. What would you like to drink?”
“Coffee is fine,” Sam said.
The waitress poured out a coffee for Sam and said, “I’ll be right back with a menu.”
Sam eyed Rennie’s root beer. “What’s wrong with caffeine? Ukiah never drinks Coke, and this morning, all of you had cocoa instead of coffee.”
“Caffeine inhibits cell division,” Rennie said. “The cells it effects complain about it. We can drink it, but it’s just easier to drink something without caffeine.”
“Ah,” Sam said, and fell quiet as the waitress returned with a menu.
The waitress repeated the specials for Sam’s sake, once again resting her hand behind Ukiah. As she progressed through the specials, her hand slipped down to rest on his shoulder, her thumb making lazy circles on the exposed skin of his neck.
What divine torture. A goodly part of him wanted to sweep her onto the table and drink her down like honey wine. Could he have resisted her without Rennie’s brooding presence? He thought he could have, but was glad he didn’t have to.
“I’ll just take a cup of the soup,” Sam decided, and thus released Ukiah from the torture. “She’s really hot for you, kid.” Then seeing the various reactions from the men, asked, “What am I missing?”
“The cub’s been hit with an Ontongard drug called Invisible Red; it’s a powerful aphrodisiac to encourage breeding. He’s ready to jump graveyard angels.”
“Oh,” she said, and then enlightenment hit her. “Oh, that’s why I’m over here and he’s over there.”
“Yes,” Max said.
They brought her up to speed on Goodman’s murder and the new twists to the case.
“Goodman painted the walls with it?” Sam said when they hit the Invisible Red. “Why did he do that?”
“Because he was a loon,” Max said.
“One hopes that is all there is to it,” Rennie muttered.
“Well, he must have had access to massive amounts of it,” Sam said.
Ukiah and Rennie flinched at the thought.
“Yes,” Ukiah said, unhappily. “Which makes it likely that he knows the person with the machine well.”
The waitress returned with salad for Max and soup for everyone else. Ukiah’s hand had been on his lap when she arrived; it wanted so dearly to return to her warm thigh.
“If you don’t watch it, that hand is going to jump off the arm to get to her,” Rennie murmured.
Ukiah snorted ice cream up his nose. “Rennie!”
Rennie gave him a smug smile that didn’t reach his eyes; despite his teasing, the Pack leader was annoyed and ill at ease with the situation.
“Soooo, what’s the shelf life of this stuff?” Sam asked after looking puzzled between Ukiah and Rennie. “Could Goodman just have found a stockpile?”
Rennie and Ukiah shook their heads.
“Invisible Red for one host species doesn’t work on the next.” Ukiah wiped his nose with the paper napkin. “It’s specifically keyed to subtle differences in DNA and chemical balances in the hosts. You want it inert in everything but the desired targets, and then you don’t want it killing off breeders or fertile females of the species.”
“It’s keyed to the cub,” Rennie explained more succinctly. “It’s standard procedure when creating a breeder; prior to insertion of the first fertilized egg into the mother, its genetic code is transmitted from the ovipositor to the Ae. While most breeders are basically watered down Ontongard, they’re only as intelligent as their mother’s species. By getting the genetic code early, you have insurance that if the breeder is tyrannosaurus rex in build, temperament, and intelligence, you’ve still got the means to control them.”
“Hex couldn’t have changed the key on that Ae without the ovipositor,” Ukiah said. “Which we know was still on the scout ship.”
“Once Hex realized Prime swapped in his own DNA,” Rennie said, “Hex would have waited for the main ship, its ovipositor, and a chance to restart fresh.”
“Even though it remains a good way to control humans and Ukiah?” Max asked.
Ukiah glanced to Rennie, who shrugged. “Since we’re now dealing with Gets and not Hex, anything is possible. It’s unlikely though.”
“The danger is that there were three Ae that created much more deadly bio weapons stored with the Ae that makes Invisible Red,” Rennie said. “If one Ae is in production, the others might be too. It’s possible we’ve finally pushed Hex’s Gets to a wall, and they’ve decided to eliminate the human race and use monkeys as hosts.”
The waitress returned and put food in front of Max, who ignored it. “Can I get you anything more? More coffee? Maybe some dessert?” the waitress asked Sam.
“No. I’m not hungry,” Sam whispered.
After the waitress left, Max asked, “I’m assuming that these bio weapons work on the viral level.”
Rennie nodded. “The worst is an airborne virus with indefinite lifespan. Once it’s released, there’s no stopping it. The others are more contained, either by duration or spawn rate, or how it’s spread.”
“We need to find these machines,” Ukiah said.
“Does the girl know where Goodman got the Invisible Red?” Sam asked.
“Indigo was going to the hospital to question her,” Ukiah said. “We’re guessing that the source was Goodman’s killer, this Billy.”
“Did you get anything more on him?” Max asked.
Sam shook her head. “I’ve tried getting hold of my dad again, but he’s not at home. I’ve left a trail of messages for him to call me; I’ve put an offer of money for the information, so he should get back to me.
”
“Indigo has requested a list of Goodman’s cell mates,” Ukiah said. “She says it might be a few days until the paperwork goes through.”
“If the girl doesn’t know where Goodman got the Invisible Red,” Max said, “and this Billy wasn’t Goodman’s source, we’re screwed.”
“The problem is that we have thousands of slim possibilities and nothing concrete.” A plan took form in Ukiah’s mind and he fumbled with it, trying to understand its shape. “We could waste lots of time and energy chasing wild geese. Hex took the machine off the scout ship. He wouldn’t have created a stockpile of the Invisible Red while he knew the mother ship was on Mars; once the mother ship arrived at Earth, he’d start the breeding program over, using his DNA instead of Prime’s.”
Max understood enough to now follow his logic. “And any old Invisible Red would be worthless because its protocols are based on you.”
“Yes.” The plan was suddenly crystalline to Ukiah. “Obviously, Hex stored the Ae someplace. If we found that location, then we could probably find out where it went from there. And Hex knew where he kept it.”
Rennie caught sight of the plan in Ukiah’s mind. “Alicia Kraynak? She will only have the memories that Hex accessed while she was infected. Those machines have been in storage for nearly two hundred years.”
“Yeah, but since the mother ship blew up, I’m going to be the only breeder Hex will ever get his hands on.” Just saying it raised Ukiah’s hackles. “When Alicia—when Hex shot me in Oregon, don’t you think he was planning to connect me with Invisible Red sooner or later?”
Rennie nodded slowly. “Yes, you’re right.”
“But Alicia said she couldn’t recall the memories,” Max pointed out.
“She might remember something. Maybe not phone numbers, but maybe a warehouse that the Ontongard used.”
“We could try hypnotism,” Sam said. “Regress her mentally back to being one of those creepy guys, and see if she can remember it better.”
Max glanced at his watch. “We’re not going to find a hypnotist at this time of night. It’s almost midnight. Besides, Ukiah’s about to go facedown into the dishes.” Ukiah made a rude noise, but he knew it was true. “We’ll call Alicia first thing in the morning and set up something.”
