sedona files 05 - falling angels

by Christine Pope

Logan said, “We’ve come to get you away from here. Where are your two other crew-members?”

  Clearly, he knew enough to know that the crew’s current head count was off.

  Commander Cruz’s jaw tightened. “They took them.”

  “The Reptilians?” Raphael asked. His tone sounded almost too neutral, but from where I stood, I could see the way his shoulders and back seemed to stiffen.

  “Yes,” Cruz replied. His dark eyes were haunted. “They didn’t say anything, just came in a while ago and hauled them off somewhere.” He stopped then, gaze roving over our little group, and I saw the way he gave a half-shake of his head, as if trying to figure out who we were and how in the world we could have gotten down to the surface of Mars when there wasn’t supposed to be another ship in the system capable of making such a voyage.

  Unfortunately, I knew we couldn’t explain. Not really. We weren’t there for explanations, but only to get Gonzalo Cruz and the rest of his crew away from the aliens who had kidnapped them.

  “Logan?” Raphael said then, although he didn’t change his stance, kept gazing forward at the captive crew-members.

  Luckily, Logan seemed to know what Raphael was asking. “If this base is anything like the one back in Sedona — and I have a feeling it is, since the Reptilians tend to stick with what works for them — then the women would have been taken to the bio-labs, which should be a few levels below where we are now.”

  “How can you know that?” the younger man, Leung, broke in. “And why take the women and not the rest of us?”

  An expression of pity moved over Logan’s face. Quietly, he said, “I don’t think you really want to know the answer to that.”

  A complete non-reply, but his meaning seemed to sink in nonetheless, judging by the looks of horror that Leung and his fellow crew-members gave one another.

  I swallowed. My mother had done her best to shield me from some of the more unpleasant truths about the Reptilians, but even so, I knew that the leader of the base she’d finally destroyed had managed to invade her mind several times, had made it clear enough what he intended to do to her once he and his people were victorious. That day had never come, thank God. All the same, I’d gotten the distinct impression that the Reptilians were sometimes a little more hands-on about their genetic experiments than any of us had wanted to believe. It didn’t take a huge leap of the imagination to guess what their captors had planned for the two female astronauts.

  “We’ll get them,” my father said, his voice grim but determined. “How long since they were taken away?”

  “Not too long,” Commander Cruz said. “They took our chronometers, but best guess is half an hour or forty-five minutes ago.”

  “Then we should still have time,” Logan put in. “They are…deliberate.”

  The commander raised an eyebrow.

  “A victim’s fear is something to be savored,” Logan told him. “At least, that’s what I have known of them.”

  “Jesus Christ,” said one of the other crew-members, the man who was standing directly behind Commander Cruz.

  “We will not let it come to that,” Raphael said then. His gaze flicked to my father. “Martin, take them up to the ship. There is no reason for them to remain here. The rest of us will go to secure the two remaining crew-members.”

  My heart seemed to drop somewhere into the vicinity of my stomach at those words. What, was Raphael actually asking my father to leave the rest of us behind?

  Apparently so…and apparently neither of my parents was any more enthused about the idea than I was. My mother snapped, “Are you out of your mind?”, even as my father said,

  “If you think I have any intention of leaving my wife and daughter down here — ”

  “Do you doubt my ability to look after them?” Raphael interjected. He didn’t raise his voice, but something about his tone seemed to cut through both my parents’ protests. Still calm, still unruffled, he continued, “You are the only other person here who knows how to operate the energy-jump device. Take these men out of harm’s way, and I will contact you when we have the women.”

  A long silence as my father appeared to digest those instructions. He shot a single worried glance at my mother and me, then another over at the men from the Mars expedition, all of whom were also quiet as they waited to hear what their fate might be.

  Then, at last, “All right. But if anything happens — ”

  “Nothing will happen,” Raphael said.

  “I’ll make sure of that,” Logan added.

  Something in the way the hybrid soldier stood there, pistol in hand, face somehow intent and still at the same time, seemed to reassure my father. He nodded. “Okay.”

  “Are you crazy?” my mother burst out. “You’re just going to leave us down here?”

  A wry smile touched his mouth, and he bent and kissed her on the cheek. “From what I recall, Kirsten, you’re not exactly lacking in defenses.”

  “That was different — ”

  “No different,” Raphael broke in. “Or rather, different only in that this time you have your daughter to help you, and me, and Logan here. And far fewer of the enemy to face. So I believe the odds are rather better now.”

  Commander Cruz spoke up. “We can help.”

  But Raphael shook his head. “No. You cannot help us in this fight, and we cannot risk you being recaptured. The best thing for you to do is go with Martin here. That way you will be safe.”

  The men all exchanged glances, but none of them appeared inclined to argue. That remark about being recaptured seemed to hit home.

  Even though I was scared shitless — more or less — at the thought of having to go after the two captives without my father around as backup, I couldn’t help smiling a little at the look of consternation on my mother’s face as Raphael’s words sank in. She didn’t seem to notice my reaction, though, since she was busy staring up at my father, as if seeking her own reassurance in his features.

  Apparently she found it, because a second later she said, “All right. Get them out of here. I don’t want to think of what could be happening to those women while we’re standing here arguing.”

  He touched her cheek. “Give ’em hell, sweetheart.”

  Then he moved toward the Mars mission crew-members, saying, “This might feel a bit strange — ”

  And a white light surrounded them, and swallowed them, and then they were all gone.

  Raphael wore a look of grim satisfaction. “Good,” he said. “Let us go.”

  * * *

  Logan took the lead, since he seemed to have the best idea of where to take us. Raphael walked beside him, while I followed behind, my mother next to me. From the glitter in her eyes, I could tell she was still angry with Raphael for separating us, even if she understood why he thought it was necessary to do so.

  For me — well, I did the best I could, keeping the energy of the red planet close at hand, not knowing when I might need it. We went down a very ordinary-seeming stairwell, with metal steps and gray-painted walls and those same reddish lights everywhere. Logan did appear to know where he was going, although with every step I could feel the tension in my neck ratcheting up that much further.

  Where the hell were all the Reptilians? All right, so Raphael had said they wouldn’t be able to detect our presence. Still, why hadn’t we encountered any so far? Surely they had to go on routine patrols or whatever. Or maybe not. Was there much reason to keep an eye out for intruders when, at least in their own minds, they thought they were the lords and masters here, and anyone who might come to rescue the Mars crew millions of miles and many months away?

  That thought reassured me somewhat, although I knew there would be plenty of the aliens concentrated at the bio-labs. For all I knew, that was where all the Reptilians were currently gathered, gloating over their captives. Raphael had sounded confident in our ability to go up against them, but I’d never been in an open confrontation with anyone in my life. Well, unless you counted the time Leisha Pend
leton blocked me in the locker room and called me a boyfriend-stealing skank. For the record, I absolutely did not steal her boyfriend. I wasn’t interested in him, and even if I had been, I would never have gone after someone I knew was already hooked up. But I guess Leisha had heard him telling a friend that he thought I was hot, and she’d flipped out.

  Anyway, using the teeniest smidge of my otherworldly powers to push Leisha against a bank of lockers while I made my escape wasn’t quite the same thing as facing down forty or fifty rapacious Reptilians.

  We descended two levels, but Logan stopped at the third one, one hand pressed flat against the door.

  “What is it?” I whispered.

  “I can sense them,” he said. Although his complexion was fairly tanned, something about it looked grayish and pale right then.

  Raphael didn’t blink. “How many?”

  Dark lashes swept down as Logan closed his eyes. His brows pulled together — in concentration, I thought. After several long, agonizing seconds, he said, “Can’t tell for sure. At least ten.”

  Well, ten wasn’t so bad. Four against ten sounded a lot better to me than four against fifty.

  “Where?” Raphael asked.

  What a cool customer. He sounded as if he was asking Logan where to meet for lunch, not the location of a bunch of hostile aliens.

  “Down…to the left. About fifty meters.”

  “Any closer than that?”

  “Not that I can sense. They seem to be concentrated in one location.”

  Which made sense, if they were all gathered around the women, drawing straws to see who got to play with them first. I swallowed the sudden rising bile in my throat and forced that mental image away. Despite the whispers and rumors, I didn’t know for certain that was what the Reptilians were up to. They could have been prepping their captives for their first round of experiments. It was a bio-lab, after all.

  Okay, that didn’t sound much better.

  Raphael turned slightly so he could look back at my mother and me. She’d been quiet the whole time, listening to the exchange between the two men, but her chin went up as she locked eyes with the alien man who had once been her adversary.

  “You and Callista will need to shield us,” he said. “Can you manage that?”

  She nodded, then sent a faint questioning look in my direction.

  “Sure,” I told him. Surprisingly, I sounded calm and confident, the exact opposite of how I was feeling right then.

  “Good.” I thought I heard approval in his voice, and flushed faintly. Good thing it was way too dark in there for him to notice. He went on, “I need you to concentrate on our shielding, because I’m going to be focused on obscuring our presence.”

  “How can you do that?” My parents had never mentioned that particular ability to me. But then, maybe they’d thought it wasn’t the best thing in the world for their daughter to know how to come and go without anyone noticing.

  For a second he looked annoyed, as if he was thinking that he really didn’t have time for these sorts of explanations. But then his shoulders lifted, and he said, “It’s simply a matter of bending light around you, of pushing the perception of others in your vicinity away from you. Not difficult, precisely, but if you haven’t been trained in it, the technique can be tricky.”

  I shot an accusing look at my mother, and she frowned, saying, “I’d never heard of it before now, either. So you can take this one up with your father, Callista.”

  Maybe I would…if I survived the next few minutes. Right then, though, I knew it was best not to argue. “Thanks for explaining.”

  “You’re welcome.” Raphael inclined his head at Logan, who nodded and opened the door with the hand that wasn’t clutching a pistol.

  I found myself holding my breath, but in reality, nothing happened. Our little group stepped out into the corridor, which again seemed way too prosaic for a Reptilian base to me, with its gray polished concrete floor, gray walls, and reddish lights at regular intervals along the hallway. Inventive interior decorators they were not.

  Beside me, I could feel my mother gathering the planet’s energies around us, weaving them into a lattice of protection. I joined in, taking the flows of power and intertwining them with the barrier she had created, making something that felt impenetrable enough to stop a bullet.

  If the Reptilians even used bullets, which I somehow doubted.

  We moved down the corridor. The farther we progressed, the more I could see Logan tensing up, even though the hand holding the gun never shook. I guessed he must be sensing the presence of the aliens growing ever stronger. What that could do to him, I didn’t know for sure. Both he and Grace had made it sound as if he’d broken completely free of their control, but how could they know for sure when there hadn’t been any Reptilians left on Earth to bend him to their will?

  Finally he said, in a hoarse whisper, “There.”

  The doorway set into the wall looked exactly the same as the other doors we’d passed. Another one of those lighted panels was embedded in the concrete, same as the one Raphael had opened earlier, using that strange opalescent stone of his. Only he’d given it to my father to get the Mars crew-members back up to our ship, so I wasn’t sure what Raphael had planned here.

  We all stopped, clustered around him. I couldn’t keep myself from glancing up at the ceiling and at the walls, worried that I’d see some kind of surveillance equipment catching our every movement. But both the ceiling and the walls looked blank and smooth, except for the doors with the locking panels next to them. Which didn’t mean a whole lot; even on Earth, our surveillance technology was so sophisticated that it was almost impossible to detect unless you really knew what you were looking for, and so I had a feeling whatever the Reptilians had set up here to keep watch over their labs was light-years beyond that. It definitely wasn’t the sort of thing you’d be able to see with the naked eye.

  Even though he was without his little miracle device, Raphael didn’t look worried. He began to lift his hand toward the panel.

  Keeping my voice low, I asked, “How is that going to work? You gave your stone to my father.”

  He didn’t look back at me, only kept his palm hovering over the little rectangle with the lights that seemed to flicker from deep within it. “Yes, but using the stone that one time gave me the knowledge necessary to break any of their codes.” A pause before he continued, his tone laced with amusement, “Do you really think I would have handed it over to your father if I needed it for this mission to succeed?”

  “I guess not,” I said, feeling foolish — but not so foolish that I let myself release my grip on the energy fields swirling around us.

  No reply, but I thought I saw him incline his head slightly before he moved his hand over the panel in a strange pattern — down, then up, then from right to left. As soon as he completed the final pass, the door hissed upward, and a whole lot of things happened at once.

  Logan surged forward, gun up, while Raphael stayed parallel with him. My mother followed, and I couldn’t do anything except remain lined up with her as best I could, since I knew that our proximity only helped to strengthen the protective energy fields we’d been maintaining the whole time.

  There were — well, I hesitate to call them people, since they certainly weren’t human. Tall, and covered in shimmering dark bronze scales, and with eyes that glowed dull red. At least ten of them, although my shocked brain wasn’t really up to keeping an accurate count at that particular moment. As soon as we entered, they moved toward us, calling out in a sibilant language that made me want to cringe the same way that listening to fingernails drawn over a blackboard might.

  A flare of blue-white light from Logan’s gun, and two of them were knocked down immediately. The loss of their comrades didn’t appear to deter the ones remaining, however, who continued to advance. Raphael raised a hand, and a wave of that same bluish light seemed to erupt from his palm, pushing outward in a wave that knocked down the approaching aliens the same
way a shockwave from a bomb blast would flatten anyone in its path. They collapsed onto the concrete floor and didn’t move.

  As I stared in surprise, trying to reconcile what I thought I’d known about Raphael with this decidedly more warlike incarnation, he strode forward, going to a set of long metal tables at the far end of the room. On two of those tables were the limp forms of a pair of human women. They were still clothed, thank God, although it looked like the zippers on the front of both their jumpsuits had been yanked down, exposing the thin white T-shirts they wore underneath.

  “Dr. Cheng?” Raphael said, bending over her.

  Eyelids fluttered, and she stared up at him with unfocused dark eyes. “Wha — ”

  “You’re safe now.” He gestured toward my mother, and she hurried forward to the other astronaut.

  “Marta? Dr. Levin?”

  The woman, who looked to be a little older than Alexis Cheng, put a hand to her forehead. “Who — ”

  “No time for that now,” my mother said briskly. “Can you stand?”

  Marta nodded, then pushed herself up to a sitting position. She didn’t appear to have been restrained in any way, but her expression was as bleary as someone who’d been bar-hopping for the past few hours. The Reptilians must have drugged her or used some kind of mind control on her.

  Looking wobbly, she lowered herself to the floor and then held on to the table for a few seconds to steady herself. At the same time, Raphael helped Alexis, who seemed even shakier, get up from her own table.

  I was so preoccupied with watching them that I wasn’t paying any attention to the felled Reptilians, probably because I figured they were down for the count. But then I heard a scraping noise from behind me and whirled just in time to see one of the aliens pull a gun of his own from his belt and point it directly at Logan, who had turned away briefly to scan the opposite side of the room, in case any more enemies might come through the door set into the wall there.

  “Logan!” I cried.

  He turned so fast he was almost a blur — but not quite fast enough. A pulse of reddish light flashed across the space that separated him from the alien, and then it caught him high up in the chest, almost at his shoulder. He let out a shocked grunt and crumpled to the floor.