sedona files 05 - falling angels

by Christine Pope

  “Why should that surprise you?” I asked, knowing I sounded a little too snotty. But maybe that was a good thing. If she thought I was only indulging in some post-adolescent brattiness, she might not try to probe too deeply into what I’d really been thinking. “I mean, weren’t you just trying to guilt me about spending that much money on a necklace?”

  “I wasn’t doing anything of the sort.” She sent a look at my father, as if she expected him to step in. But he only raised an eyebrow at her, which seemed to be his signal that he was all too happy to sit this one out. Looking exasperated, she turned back toward me. “We gave you money for Christmas, and we’d never tell you how to spend it. I don’t think the look I saw on your face had anything to do with that.” She paused then, and I got the distinct impression that she was replaying the scene in her mind in an attempt to pinpoint the exact second when my expression changed. “It was right after I mentioned Raphael.”

  “So?” I picked up the glass of water I’d poured and drank some. “I was just thinking that it was going to take me a while to get used to calling him by that name.”

  “I don’t see why you’d need to get ‘used’ to it at all,” she returned, her gaze still way too focused on me. “His mission is accomplished. I’m sure he’s halfway back to — well, wherever he came from.” As she made the comment, she sent a questioning look at my father.

  I wasn’t really sure what that glance was for. My mother knew just as well as I did that all of the human-appearing aliens — commonly referred to in UFO circles as Nordic aliens, or just Nords, even though not all of them were blond or blue-eyed — came from the Pleiades cluster. But maybe that wasn’t where Raphael’s bosses, the “Assembly,” whatever that was, had their base of operations.

  “Possibly,” he said, his tone neutral. “Although I think it more likely that he’s going to stay in the area for a while, keep an eye on things. Just in case.”

  Of course Raphael was staying around. Maybe he had orders from the Assembly to make sure the Reptilians didn’t try any more funny stuff, but he also had a very strong reason to be hanging out in our solar system for as long as possible.

  That reason being me.

  But damn it, there I was, thinking about him again. I drank some more water and did my very best to look only mildly curious. Too bad I really wasn’t fooling anyone.

  “There it was again,” my mother said.

  It wasn’t really good etiquette to call your mother crazy — especially when she was right. About the best I could do was try to get myself out of there.

  “Um…Taryn texted me while I was driving home. I’d better go see what she wanted.” Horrible excuse, but it was about the best thing I could think of right then.

  “It can wait.” If my mother’s eyes had looked like laser beams before, now they might as well have been diamond drills. “You get the strangest look on your face every time we mention Raphael.”

  “No, I don’t,” I protested. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  Now my father appeared to come to attention. His gaze flicked from my mother to me, and I watched as the line between his brows deepened. “She’s right. You know you always would have made a terrible poker player, Callista. What’s going on here?”

  “I — ” Damn it, I should have sneaked out the side door of the garage and gone straight to the casita. Never mind that such behavior would have also attracted attention, since I always came in through the house first so I could get a drink of water or something. Anyway, that kind of transparent avoidance wouldn’t have delayed the inevitable for very long. And, as Raphael himself had pointed out, I was an autonomous adult. I didn’t need my parents’ approval in this.

  But God, I sure would have liked to have it. We’d always been close, brought together by the secrets all three of us had to keep from the world. I wouldn’t say that we never had our differences, but they were few and far between, and never lasted very long.

  My father’s gaze was fixed on my face. “Were you really shopping that entire time?” he asked, his tone gentler than I’d expected.

  I made myself take a breath, then said, “No.”

  “Where were you?” My mother, her voice quite a bit sharper than my father’s.

  “On Raphael’s ship.”

  The look of consternation they exchanged after that revelation might have been comical, under different circumstances. Right then, though, I wished I could just slink off and avoid the inevitable follow-up question.

  “Why?” my father asked. I could hear the faintest hint of resignation in the question, however, as if he already knew the answer.

  “Because we….” I swallowed, then made myself go on, “Because we both realized during the rescue mission that we were….” Damn, I didn’t even know how to adequately phrase the feeling we shared. “Soul mates” would sound so cheesy if I said it aloud. Ditto for “attracted to one another.” Failing any alternative that made sense, I said, “We’re like you. I mean, connected like you are.”

  My mother leapt immediately into denials. “That’s not possible.”

  “Why not?” I retorted. “It happened for you and Dad, so why is it so impossible for me and Raphael?”

  “Because he’s — he’s — ” She broke off then, looking both frightened and annoyed.

  “A total asshole?” I offered.

  She shot me a very sour look. “I wasn’t going to say that.”

  “Maybe not, but you were still thinking it pretty loudly.”

  My father stepped away from where he’d been leaning up against the counter, then came over and laid a reassuring hand on my arm. “I don’t think either of us meant to offend you, Callista. It’s only that this is a little unexpected.”

  I did my best to push down my own highly flammable mixture of worry and irritation before I said something I knew I would regret. Of course this had to be hard on them. But I also knew I had to act like an adult here, or I’d never get them to accept the situation. “Wasn’t it unexpected when you met Mom?”

  “Well, I — ” He hesitated before lifting his hand from my arm. “Somewhat, yes.”

  “But you both came to terms with it, didn’t you?”

  Right then my mother looked like she could use a stiff drink. Visibly fighting for calm, she said, “Sweetheart, that was very different.”

  I forgot about trying to act like an adult. “How was it different?” I demanded. “He’s an alien, you’re part alien. Raphael’s an alien, I’m part alien. And you were only about six months older than I am now when the two of you met. So I’d really like someone to explain this huge, flaming difference, because I’m not seeing it.”

  The two of them looked at one another. I knew they had to be communicating in that silent way of theirs, which only made me that much angrier. If they were going to say things about me, then they could say them to my face.

  When my mother spoke, she sounded a little more composed, although still clearly not happy about the news I’d just sprung on them. “I know it’s different with — with the race that your father and Raphael are from. Their rules are different from our rules. But Callista, you just met Raphael. How much do you know about him? How can you possibly have anything in common?”

  “How much did you and Dad have in common, really? And how long did it take before you kissed each other?”

  “Wait, are you saying — ” My mother shook her head. “God, I really don’t want to know.”

  “Actually,” my father said mildly, “I met your mother almost six months before anything happened between us.”

  “False equivalencies,” I retorted. “You met her briefly when you were here on a case, and then you went away for months, so of course there was a big gap before things started to heat up. I don’t think that really counts.”

  Once again my parents exchanged one of those weary glances.

  “You were the one who suggested she go pre-law,” my father said.

  True enough, although once I gradua
ted, I’d decided I wasn’t that interested in being a lawyer after all. Something had kept me stuck in Sedona. Fate, making sure I’d be here when Raphael returned?

  My mother’s shoulders lifted in a helpless shrug. “I don’t even know what to say anymore.”

  “How about ‘I’m happy for you’?” I asked.

  Neither of my parents responded. Disappointment was sour as bile in my mouth. All right, I hadn’t expected them to jump up and down with joy or anything, considering their history with Raphael, but I’d thought they’d at least try to understand. As I’d attempted to point out, our situations really weren’t all that different.

  Except that neither of them could stand Raphael.

  Problem was, I didn’t think I could get a lot of sympathy regarding the current state of affairs from anyone I knew. Grace, maybe, but she was probably too caught up in worrying that Logan really was okay to have time for my problems.

  Then I realized I did have one sympathetic ear to bend. And it was probably better for me to get out of the house for a while, anyway.

  “I’m out of here,” I said, then grabbed my purse from where I’d dropped it on the kitchen table.

  “Callista — ” my mother said, her voice pleading.

  But I ignored her as I stormed out.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Really?” Taryn Oliver said, green eyes wide with surprise. “Raphael?”

  “Oh, God, not you, too,” I moaned.

  We were sitting in the Red Planet Diner, partly because it was a complete tourist trap that most Sedona natives tended to avoid, and partly because they did have killer shakes and sundaes, and right then drowning in chocolate seemed like a better idea than drowning in wine. Although that might be my next step.

  “Sorry,” Taryn said swiftly. She swirled her spoon through the mixture of partially melted ice cream and hot fudge in the bowl before her. “I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just….”

  I slurped up some chocolate shake through my straw and waited for the inevitable condemnations. Because of course Taryn could find it in her heart to wish for better communications with the Reptilians, but would still tell me Raphael was one big raging asshole.

  Out of the blue, she shook her head. “That’s not what I was going to say at all.”

  I shot her a startled look, and she said quickly, a worried light entering her eyes,

  “Sorry. I really didn’t mean to pry. But you’re sort of broadcasting all over the place. Sometimes it’s hard to shut it out.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” She spooned some hot fudge sundae into her mouth and appeared to savor it as she weighed what to say next. “I mean, my parents don’t talk a lot about what happened back then, but the times they have, they didn’t make it sound as if Otto — I mean, Raphael — was that nice a person.”

  “That’s one way to put it.” As a palate cleanser, I drank some water, then returned to my shake, scooping up some of the whipped cream on top with a long-handled spoon. “And two days ago, I would have agreed with you. But he’s really not like that.”

  “What is he like?” Her tone was frankly curious.

  Good question. Raphael clearly didn’t have too much trouble being curt with people, and I could tell he didn’t suffer fools lightly…but at the same time, I’d seen the doubt and worry in his eyes when we’d spoken, and I knew he wasn’t quite as detached as he wanted people to think. And the tender way he’d touched my face, the heat in his kisses…all right, I wasn’t quite ready to confess all to Taryn, despite our being good friends, but I did think Raphael was in need of a few more allies.

  “A lot nicer than anyone around here wants to give him credit for,” I told her. “I mean, yeah, he can be abrupt. But I think a lot of that stems from worry.”

  “About?”

  I waved vaguely heavenward. “Everything that’s going on right now.” Since we were in a public place, there was a limit to how much we could really discuss the situation. No one around us — mostly families with kids, since the diner was that kind of place — seemed to be paying any attention to what Taryn and I were saying, but we’d all been raised to be careful what we said when we were out in the world. All our truly important discussions took place at home, but my house was out of the question at the moment, for obvious reasons, and I really didn’t want Taryn’s psychic mother eavesdropping on our conversation, either. At another time of the year, I probably would have asked Taryn to meet me out on one of Sedona’s numerous hiking trails or something similarly outdoorsy and away from other people, since at least that way we could have some privacy. Unfortunately, that solution didn’t work so well when temperatures were in the low forties and the sky looked like it might start snowing, or at least sleeting, at any moment.

  “So he doesn’t think what you all did at the Mars base was the end of it?”

  I shrugged and took another sip of my milkshake. “He’s not sure. But he does know certain people can’t be trusted any farther than you can throw them — and these dudes are pretty big, if you know what I mean.”

  Being Taryn, of course she did. She gave me a troubled nod and fished a chunk of mostly solid hot fudge out of her sundae, then spooned it into her mouth. I could tell she was thinking over everything I’d told her, poking at it, trying to figure out the best way to reply without giving anything away.

  When she spoke, though, her words startled me. “I think I’m jealous.”

  I goggled at her. “What?”

  She let out a little sigh and pushed her hair back over her shoulders so it wouldn’t get too close to the sundae on the table in front of her. Like her mother, Taryn had gorgeously curly long hair, although it wasn’t quite as dark as Persephone’s. “Well, Grace found Logan, and now you and Raphael….”

  “It’s not exactly peaches and cream, you know.”

  A laugh, and she shook her head, although whether at me or at herself, I wasn’t quite sure. “Obviously, or you wouldn’t have asked me to help you drown your sorrows in chocolate. But still…never mind. I’m just being stupid.” Her expression sobered, though, and she went quiet, as if she was turning something over in her mind, something she wasn’t sure she wanted to talk about right then.

  “You’re not stupid,” I said. Actually, it felt good to turn the conversation toward her instead of my own “woe is me” dialogue. Wondering what it was that had her so preoccupied, I added, “But what happened with you and Noah? I thought that was kind of a thing.”

  Her gaze slipped away from mine, and she pushed another nugget of calcified hot fudge around in her bowl, although it didn’t look as if she had any intention of eating it. “It was, for a while. But then we took sort of a wrong turn.” She shrugged. “It’s all right. We hadn’t been going out that long anyway.”

  A few months, though, which was longer than I’d managed in any of my own relationships. I wondered what had gone wrong with the two of them. Noah Lerner seemed like a nice enough guy, although even when they’d first started dating, I could tell he was no match for Taryn in the brains department. Still, he was easygoing and funny, someone I thought would be good for my friend, who often took the world a little too seriously. But then, I supposed it was hard to do anything else when you had the ability to read other people’s minds.

  “Anyway,” she went on, her tone falsely brisk, “I suppose I just need to be patient. I’m sure a handsome alien will fall into my lap any day now.”

  I gave her a sour look at that remark. “Well, if we’re going in order of precedent, it’s probably Kelsey who should be next. She is almost six months older than you are.”

  “And totally gone on my brother,” Taryn replied, then finally scooped up the lump of fudge she’d been pushing around and ate it. “She wouldn’t give a handsome alien the time of day.”

  I couldn’t really argue with her assessment. “Does he know?”

  “Michael?” Another shrug. “I think so. But he’s a lot more opaque to me than most people, so I
don’t really know for sure. Not that I’d ever pry. Anyway, he’s so focused on his doctorate that I’m pretty sure he isn’t paying a lot of attention to anything else.”

  “Except Mars landings.”

  “Well, obviously, because that’s all part of the same obsession, isn’t it? I swear, he and my father have been out every clear night with that new telescope Dad bought, pointing up at the stars and arguing about something or other. My mother’s sure they’re going to catch pneumonia one of these days.”

  Her tone was wry, even though I could tell she was very proud of them. Taryn might not have been quite as obsessed with the heavens as her brother or her father, but she knew enough to keep up. She’d been talking about going to Northern Arizona University the next year, although to get a degree in psychology, not astronomy, since she’d about exhausted the resources at our local community college. Anyway, I figured that anyone as psychic as Taryn could probably do pretty well as a shrink. That’s what her mother had been, more or less, although from the way my mother described it, I got the feeling that Persephone had done family counseling instead of one-on-one therapy before she abandoned her practice to become a full-time psychic.

  “I’ll ask Raphael if he has a brother,” I joked.

  Something about Taryn’s eyes went blurred, dreamy. We’d been friends long enough that I knew what such a shift meant. She was seeing something, although whether her vision was of an event that would take place sometime in the future or merely what might be happening across town, I didn’t know for sure. Either way, it was still a little disconcerting to watch, even though I’d seen it happen before.

  “What is it?”

  A blink, and then she was back with me. “Oh, nothing important. I think Grace is going to ask for an indefinite leave of absence from work.”