An alarm shrilled and the emergency door slammed open. Rose paused in the doorway, illuminated by a blinking red light. She was dressed like an exhibit robot, in brown khaki shorts and a T-shirt, and David was sorry to see that she did not have a gun.
Santana laughed softly. “Rose. I should have known you would come. How is Haas?”
Rose stopped in the aisle-way, and stood very still. David felt sweat roll down the small of his back. Rose smiled, a look David rarely saw, and did not like. Rose moved closer, but without the usual assurance. David bit his lip.
Santana’s hand moved down David’s spine. David’s muscles tensed so tightly he ached.
“Don’t, Rose. I’ll cripple him, just like Haas.” Santana shrugged. “If you care. You could sit them side by side—start your own vegetable garden.”
She was hesitating. Abnormally quiet. Not in control.
David swallowed. “Rose,” he said. “You took Clinton. You can take Santana.”
She looked at David and frowned. As if she didn’t know who he was.
“Hurt him if you want to,” David said. “But please, don’t kill him.”
One corner of her mouth lifted slightly. But still she hesitated. David felt the pressure of Santana’s thumbs on his spine. Blood ran in a steady stream down Santana’s thin, tautly muscled arm. Sweat filmed his upper lip, and he smelled strongly of fear. Afraid of Rose? If so, she’d be the one he’d be watching.
David let his muscles go limp, dead weight sagging. Santana’s grip tightened, then released. David hit the floor and rolled out of the way.
Rose and Santana faced each other, both of them crouched forward, chins tucked down, balancing on the balls of their feet. Had he been right? David wondered. Could Rose take him? Maybe he should—
“Stay,” Rose said.
David settled back. Advantages, he thought, in being married awhile.
Rose and Santana circled each other warily. Santana grabbed for Rose, but she slipped away, exposing her throat. The side of Santana’s hand moved like a knife edge. David lunged forward, but Rose was gone before the blow connected.
It seemed to David that it came down to balance. Santana veered sideways, trying to catch Rose in a headlock. He aimed a blow to her temple. Rose grabbed his wounded arm and pulled him forward, taking advantage of his momentum. She twisted the arm backward and dislocated the shoulder, slowly and cruelly. Santana arched his back and cried out. He sagged, but stayed on his feet.
“This is for David,” Rose said. There was sweat on her upper lip, and her eyes had taken on a peculiar glaze. She brought her elbow down hard on Santana’s shoulder, breaking the collarbone. Santana crumpled, and fell on his back, knees drawn up. Rose kicked him hard, on the right side, over the liver, and David felt a twinge of pain in his own ribs.
Santana groaned deeply and rolled to his belly.
“And this,” Rose said, “is for Haas,”
David lurched forward. “Rose, no—”
She brought her heel down with deadly force two inches over Santana’s belt line. David heard the snap of vertebrae. Santana went limp. David sagged backward, sitting down suddenly.
Rose’s chest heaved as she caught her breath. She wiped sweat off her forehead. David stared at her.
“He’s alive, David. Like you asked.” Her smile made him sad. “But he isn’t going to walk away.”
FIFTY-FIVE
David and Rose sat side by side. Roger Halliday Paced in front of them.
“I suppose you’re going to call it self-defense again.”
The medics were carefully strapping Santana belly down on a stretcher.
“He isn’t dead, Captain,” David said softly. His hands were shaking.
“He’s damn near close to it.” Halliday turned to Rose. “How the hell is it you happen to be here?”
Rose pursed her lips and glared at Halliday.
“I’ve been on David’s tail since last night. No, he did not spill what he was up to, but it doesn’t take a mental giant to know you were setting something up with Santana. Sorry, Captain, but the local Homicide Task Force is no match for somebody like Santana.”
Halliday stopped pacing and scratched his chin. When he spoke, it was with unwonted softness and intensity.
“I’ve done some research on you, Mrs. Silver. I want it understood. I will not let my … association … with David gloss over your use of my investigation to carry on a personal blood feud.”
“And I will not let your inept and inefficient operation cost my husband—or my children—their lives. Is that understood?”
David put his head in his hands.
“Roger?” Della’s voice. David took a deep breath and made a mental note to buy her dozens of blueberry muffins. “Roger, can you come over here?”
Keep him awhile, David prayed. Give him time to cool down. Rose sure wasn’t going to.
Roger took his suit coat off and draped it with careful deliberation over his arm. “Excuse me.”
David looked at Rose. “You’ve been here all morning?”
At first he thought she wasn’t going to answer; then she nodded.
“Listening in to your transmissions. I’ve been blending in—the orgy-on-the-beach exhibit. Dodging a robot who was trying to feed me plastic pineapple and feel up my shirt. You went right past me two times.”
“God damn it, I thought you’d taken the kids and left me.”
“Glad to see me, weren’t you?”
David smiled sadly. “For more than one reason.” His smile faded. “I don’t like what you did.”
“I know,” she said. “You still want to stay married?”
“Yes. You?”
“For now.”
“For—”
“I’m kidding. Yes.”
He gave her an uncertain smile. She brushed his cheek with blue, swollen knuckles. She didn’t wince, and David realized she was still a long way away.
“We’re going,” David said.
“Can’t until we settle with Halliday.”
“Later, when the two of you cool off. Right now you have to come with me.”
“Where?”
“Hospital. Time to face it, Rose. Time to see Haas.”
The ward for medical hold was in a grey concrete wing of Southern Medical. The corridor leading to the ICU ward was narrow and poorly lit. No one stared at Rose or David as they passed a waiting room. Their air of shock and upset were not out of place.
They passed through grey double doors. A woman in a green cotton jumpsuit and a plastic hair net glared at them.
“No visitors,” she snapped.
David flashed his police ID.
“That doesn’t buy you one thing,” the woman said. “Get out or I’ll call security.”
Rose’s hand shot out so quickly that David felt the air whiz. She held the woman brutally, two fingers pinching her throat.
“When your voice comes back,” Rose said softly, “call anybody you want.”
David felt his face turn red. He went past the desk, looking at the names over the doors. Rose walked past him.
“Over here,” she said.
The light was off and the room was greyish and dim. There was just enough space for the two of them to stand beside the bed. Haas had his eyes closed.
“Haas?” Rose spoke quietly, barely a whisper.
His eyes opened.
“Hello, Rosy.” Haas’s face was pale, lined and weary. His legs were oddly still under the sheets. “David. You bring beer?”
David smiled thinly. The man could be counted on to be good-natured and heroic. Haas turned his head to Rose, then caught his breath, eyes shutting tightly. His face turned ashen, then he relaxed and opened his eyes.
“The doctor says such pain is psychosomatic. Just in the head.”
David remembered Haas in the kitchen, gratefully accepting whiskey and aspirin. Tall, strong, capable.
“I am learning doctors say many irritating things.”
Rose was crying. David watched the tears roll down her chin and neck before they soaked into the top of her shirt. Haas watched her helplessly, then turned to David.
“Please.” He looked back at Rose. “I will heal, Rose. I believe this and so must you. Be patient, and we will track the Santana together.”
“No need,” David said. “She got him.”
Haas’s eyes widened. “Is dead?”
“No.” David swallowed. “He won’t walk again.”
Haas turned his head on the pillow so he could see Rose’s face. “This is good.”
They were two of a kind, David thought. “I’ll be outside,” he said, and left them alone in the room.
EPILOGUE
David dipped a corn chip in salsa, getting the hot sauce by mistake. He took a deep drink of water, and caught sight of String from the corner of one eye. The Elaki dipped chips in the hot sauce and ate without flinching. There were pieces of tortilla embedded in his pink belly scales.
He had turned out to be quite a swimmer, though it was worth your life to mention it to him. The canals, as it turned out, had been full of Elaki. The ready team had netted nine in all.
The Elaki swimming ability came as a surprise to David, though he supposed it shouldn’t have. The Elaki were equipped with an aquatic lung, a balloonlike sack at their top ridges that they could fill with air. They had whipped through the canals like greased pigs on satin.
David watched Lisa drink her Coke—sip, sip, ignoring the food.
They were going after the permanent incarceration penalty for Santana. The plaid-vested Elaki had escaped with the Diamond. Project Horizon had been shut down and the Elaki had announced their cure for human addictive behavior—a carefully constructed societal cure, involving careful nurturing during childhood, job opportunities, support of the family unit. Public reaction was negative. The Elaki were telling people what they already knew. No magic pill? No easy solutions? Maybe Black Diamond could be a safe outlet, but right now it was a killer. And if the Elaki had humanity’s well-being at heart, why did they kidnap people and use them in their laboratories?
David wondered if Dennis Winston would ever have been able to engineer the Black Diamond not to hurt. What had Winston said? It would sure make a cop’s job easier.
Lisa shredded her napkin. “Daddy. They’re bringing food to people who came in after us.”
“I’m hungry,” Mattie said.
“Eat another chip.” David looked at his watch. Even accounting for the size of the group—Rose, the girls, Mel, and String—even so, the wait for a table had been ridiculous, and their order was taking forever.
“You ever come here by yourself?” Mel asked String.
“Twice.”
“Food come quick? Good service?”
“But very much so.”
Mel looked at David, then back at String. “Your mistake, Gumby. Mixing with humans.”
String turned an eye stalk toward Mattie, who was cramming chips in her mouth. “You have a tiny food pouch. Keep room in it for the taco.”
“Don’t need room for taco,” Mattie said, studying the Elaki’s eye stalks. “I’m getting a burrito.”
Mel distributed the last of the pitcher of beer.
“A toast,” he said. “To Dyer. And to Haas.”
David felt Rose take his hand under the table. He squeezed her fingers.
“And to all his animal friends,” David said with resignation. “And their temporary home with the Silvers.” David grimaced. “May they all go away soon.”
Mel grinned. “What’s the tally, David?”
“One pregnant horse, an incredibly obnoxious goose, who does not get along with Alex—”
“Alex that cat?”
David nodded. “On the good side, the goose has motivated Alex to team up with Dead Meat—”
“Daddy. Not Dead Meat. Hilde.”
“Hilde.”
String wiped salsa from a belly scale. “I once knew an Elaki with certain zoological fascinations …”
David glared at Mel, who shrugged.
“Why you always blame me when he does this?”
Turn the page to continue reading from the Elaki series
ONE
It was going to be a heartbreaker. In a nice neighborhood, where things like this didn’t happen.
David moved across the ivy ground cover, plants tearing underfoot. The SWAT team was supposed to be on call only, but they’d already taken positions around the house. An ambulance stood by, red lights pulsing. People and Elaki pressed against the barriers. If the Mother-One inside hadn’t freaked already, she was going to.
“Yo, David.”
A shrill whistle caught his attention, and he narrowed his eyes, searching through the noise and bright lights for his partner, Mel Burnett.
Mel stood under the eaves of the small front porch. The late-afternoon sun sent rainbows of color through the scalelike shingles on the side of the house. The Elaki shockee was tall and narrow.
Mel handed David a vest. “Captain said wear it.”
“She armed?”
Mel blew air through his nose. “Six millimeter Glock with ablative sheath bullets.”
“So much for that.” David tossed the vest behind a bush. “What’s she saying? Got any background?”
“Captain sent String in before you got here. Figured Elaki to Elaki, right? Ever see an Elaki Mother-One have a shit fit? She thinks we’re all Izicho secret police.”
“Izicho not a secret. Elaki enforcement, all aboveboard.”
David turned, saw String, raised a hand.
“All aboveboard unless they decide to cho you off in the night,” Mel said.
“You all right?” David asked.
String rippled, shedding scales. He was tall, as were most Elaki, roughly seven and a half feet. His inner pink coloring had a yellow tint, and there was a certain rigidity in his normally fluid stance. He teetered back and forth on his bottom fringe.
“I want only to help,” String said. “Is most distressing. She must know Izicho not hurt the Mother-One.”
“Not what she said.” Mel scratched his left armpit.
“Kids inside?” David felt sweat in the small of his back. It was hot out.
“Pouchlings, yes,” String said. “Four of them.”
“Four?”
“Big litter,” Mel said.
String’s eye stalks swiveled toward Mel. “Large birthing.”
A helicopter passed overhead, blades thudding.
“Aw shit,” Mel said. “Press is here. It’s official; we’re a circus.”
“Media blackout,” David said.
“You’ll get reamed for it.”
“Blackout.” David looked over Mel’s shoulder. “Della? Good. See the techs. Media blackout.”
Della was compactly built, her hair done in cornrows. She put a hand on her hip. “David, don’t we got trouble enough?”
He ignored her. “Mikes in place? Cameras?”
She nodded and handed him a headset. “Captain’s got a command post a mile up the road. Want to ask him about the … okay, no you don’t. He’ll be feeding me info whenever he gets it, and I’ll be watching all the monitors and feeding it to you. Soon as I’m in the truck you go.”
“Do it,” David said. He handed his gun to Mel. “I want you right behind me. I don’t want to scare her, so I’m going in raw. If we have to kill her to save the kids, I want you to do the snipe.”
Mel frowned, chewed his lip. Nodded.
“Trust me to call it?” David said.
“Be right behind you.”
David put the set in his ears, and Della’s voice came through immediately.
“… ready for takeoff. David?”
“Yeah, Della, I’m here.”
“Okay, good, you’re coming through. Wait a sec.” Her voice was muffled. “Okay. I got you on the screen.”
David looked at String. “Any advice?”
String’s belly slits flared. The
Elaki was an unattractive specimen, his scales patchy, his left eye prong drooping.
“She is badly alone,” String said. “Neighbors say no visits from chemaki. This is Elaki—”
“Family?”
String teetered on his fringe. “Something like. Sex group—”
“Dance partners,” Mel said.
“Not sex the human relationship. Elaki responsibility and friendship and procreation connections.”
“Where’d she get the gun?” Mel asked.
“Not known, and very odd,” String said. “Please to see to the pouchlings.”
“What’s her name?” David asked. A fly buzzed his ear and he batted it away.
“Packer.”
“Her Elaki name.”
“Dahmi.”
David nodded. “Going in.”
The front door was ajar. David pushed it open. His hand shook, just a little. The door hinge groaned softly.
It was dark inside, the temperature over ninety. Sweat coated David’s cheeks and slid down his back. The ceiling was high, the hallway so narrow David could touch both walls without stretching.
“Dahmi?”
The heels of his shoes were loud on the ochre-colored clay tiles that Elaki favored. Mel was silent behind him.
“She’s close,” Della said. “Kitchen on the right, some kind of little room on the left. The hall turns a little to the left, yeah, the left, and opens into the living room. She’s in there.”
“The kids?”
“Not sure. Pouchlings are hard to pick up, but we get bursts of something in back. No window in the living room, but there’s a small one in the bedroom. We got a snipe set up from there.”
“Lose it.”
“Captain’s orders, Silver.”
Noise came from the living room, a one-note, whispery whistle that made him stop and listen.
“Dahmi?” David said. He swallowed.
The noise stopped.
David paused where the hall turned to the left, looked at Mel, mouthed the word “stay.” Mel nodded once, his back to the wall. The whistling noise started again.
David moved down the short, dark hallway into the living room.
Alien Blues Page 27
