Whatever was behind the screen moved into view: a short bipedal creature with skin the texture and color of tarnished green leather. A yellow aura surrounded him like he stood inside a burning torch.
Yellow aura. Extraterrestrial.
I stood in stunned disbelief. This little goblin was Mr. Big?
Beside being called “mister,” it was the smooth head and masculine form that made me assume this thing was male. His head had the shape of an egg—the narrow end formed his chin—and was the size of a basketball. His almond-shaped black eyes were as large and glossy as billiard balls. I couldn’t discern any features within the obsidian orbs, no separate pupil or iris.
Twin nostrils the shape and size of coin slots occupied the blank space between his eyes and lipless mouth. A pair of tiny, bud-like ears sprouted on opposite sides of the crown of his bald head.
His skinny ankles were attached to dumbbell-shaped feet that had wide circular pads for “toes” and “heels.”
As a vampire, I was used to the grotesque, but this repulsive dwarf belonged in a freak show from hell.
Is this what Odin looked like in his natural state? Or was this alien a different species altogether?
He appeared similar to another alien I’d seen, a corpse recovered from the wreckage of the Roswell UFO. I learned that during my investigation for Gilbert Odin, when he had used me for his own devious ends.
I gave the alien a vampire glare. He took no notice of my naked eyes. When first I tried to zap Gilbert Odin, nothing happened either.
I had also experienced this before with one human. She not only proved invulnerable to vampire hypnosis but used her knowledge of the supernatural to manipulate us—the undead. Didn’t do her much good, ultimately, because another human killed her.
Neither she nor Odin could see my aura and, hopefully, this alien couldn’t either. I still had that advantage.
Yet, when his gaze turned upon me, I sensed a confidence and a paternal charisma, like he was used to being in charge.
He wore a simple gray suit buttoned up the front to a high Mandarin collar. The material looked like satin. The alien carried an unlit cigar. As he walked closer, I was struck by how short he was, maybe four foot six.
He motioned to the love seat with his free hand. He had three digits: two fingers and a thumb. All were thin and sinuous, like tentacles, and ended in flat disks. His mouth curved into a pandering smile that meant “please.”
He climbed on the step and turned around. We sat simultaneously—I, slowly and cautiously.
He planted those weird feet of his on the step, the toe pads drooping over the front. He relaxed and crossed his legs.
I said nothing and waited for him. My sixth sense made the hairs on my arms bristle.
Unlike Odin, this freaky creation had no cabbage odor; in fact, I couldn’t smell anything except for the flowers and tobacco. But the stink of sleaze was as tangible to me as was his aura. I hadn’t come all this way only to stare at his ugly face. Time for Q and A about the only reason I was here. “Where is Carmen?”
His lipless mouth moved again, but it took a second for the words to come out, as if he were being dubbed. “Safe.”
“Not as long as you have her.” I clenched my fist. Careful. At the moment, I couldn’t afford to antagonize this little green spaceman. Goodman and the security complex deferred to this Mr. Big, meaning he was numero uno. I relaxed my hand.
The alien noticed this and nodded once, pleased that I acknowledged the situation. He lifted the cigar and stared at it. “My name is Clayborn.” He repeated his name, as if amused by the sound. “Clayborn.”
I wasn’t surprised that he spoke English, but his squeaky voice threw me off. Was he the one who ordered Gilbert Odin’s assassination? Clayborn, or whatever the hell his moniker was, possessed a gangster’s arrogance, so I didn’t doubt it. I’d find out why he murdered Odin, and why Goodman and our government protected his ET ass. But first, I had to rescue Carmen.
Clayborn swung that black gaze to me. “Goodman told me that he’d found another one of us. But you’re not, are you?”
They knew I wasn’t human, and so assumed I was not of this earth. Good enough. It didn’t matter what they thought I was as long as they didn’t know I was a vampire. “You didn’t answer my question. Where is Carmen?”
“And you didn’t answer mine. I don’t recognize you as any of the species in the Galactic Union.” Clayborn pointed upward with the cigar.
“Okay, I’m not one of you. There’s your answer.”
“Where are you from?”
“Colorado.”
Clayborn nodded again, his manner less amused than irritated. “What’s your business here?”
“To get my friend Carmen. Let her go and then we’ll chat over tea and cookies. Where is she? Why did you take her?”
He rolled the cigar between his fingers. “That concerns my business.”
“Which is what?”
Clayborn blinked. When his eyes closed, both wrinkled eyelids looked like the butt ends of overripe avocados. That creepy smile deepened. He pressed the cigar against his nose slits and inhaled. “You smoke?”
“No.”
“Pity. This is a Bolivar Belicosos Fino.” For a guy from a million miles away from here, Clayborn’s Spanish pronunciation was pretty good. Clayborn shifted and slid his free hand into a side pocket of his coat.
I flexed my legs. If he took out anything other than something to light his cigar with, he’d end up with a stump.
He produced a cigar clipper. After trimming the pointed end of the cigar, he put the cigar nub and clipper into his pocket and retrieved a cheap plastic lighter. He brought the cigar to his face. The flesh around his mouth extended to grasp the cigar. He sparked the lighter, bellowed his cheeks, and lit the cigar.
Puffs of spicy, aromatic smoke clouded the air between us. Magicians smoked to distract their audiences. What tricks did this alien joker plan?
“You’re here on business, right?” I asked. “Then what do you want for my friend?”
Clayborn lifted his chin. His eyes narrowed to ebony slits. “Ah, a deal? What have you got?”
I’d give anything to guarantee Carmen’s release. I offered Clayborn my most prized possession:
“Me.”
Chapter
42
After a moment, the smoke lost its pleasant notes and the smell became heavy and stale. Clayborn kept puffing on the cigar and fouling the air. A fan clicked on and the smoke swirled upward through a vent in the ceiling.
Clayborn removed the cigar from his mouth and examined it. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?” I curled my hands into fists to hide my extending talons.
“Because your friend is worth more to me than you are.”
“How so?” I fought to keep my fangs from sprouting from under my lip. I wanted to attack Clayborn and make him suffer, but I knew this intergalactic mafioso wouldn’t have allowed me here without a scheme to keep me at bay. If I wanted Carmen back, I had to behave myself.
“Let me put this in a context you’ll understand.” Clayborn put the cigar in his lipless mouth and talked around it. “Among my ‘people,’” he made quote marks with his hands, “the name for this planet is Harnaz, which means ‘the forbidden jewel.’ We have myths of heroes risking everything for Harnaz, often tragically.”
“I can help you get to the tragic part and it won’t be a myth.”
Clayborn pulled the cigar out. He paused and let smoke linger in his open mouth before puffing it out. “Since you’re from ‘Colorado,’” he made more quote marks in the air, “you’re not much of a space traveler, are you? If you were, you’d realize what a treasure this planet is.”
He brought the cigar before his face. “Take this for example. Such an aroma. Exquisite. Reminds me of the Luzee, the inhabitants of Quark-42. They consume these extravagant feasts and then emit wonderful olfactory melodies through their various orifices.”
; “Let me eat some beans and I’ll fart you a symphony.”
Clayborn stuck the cigar back into his mouth. He snorted, “Ha. Ha. Ha.” Little balls of smoke jetted from his ears.
“What’s this got to do with Carmen?” I asked.
Clayborn tapped an ember from the cigar into the ashtray. “You know about the psychic world?”
“You mean Tarot cards and Ouija boards?”
“I’m talking about the many dimensions of the universe. Coincidences are more than random chance,” Clayborn replied. “Living creatures have psychic energy fields that bind them together. Me. You. Carmen.”
“I only know about the here and now,” I said. “That’s all.”
Clayborn appeared disappointed by my answer, like he was hoping I’d join him on common ground. He kept tapping his cigar. The tiny bumps undulating across his aura formed larger nodules in the energy sheath.
It was good that I made him uncomfortable. “And this interest in the psychic world is what brought you to Earth?”
“Some of my colleagues died testing an invention, the psychotronic device.” Clayborn took a puff. “The infamous Roswell crash. You’ve heard of it?”
I shrugged. But I did know about Roswell and the psychotronic device. That was the reason Odin wanted me to infiltrate government security at Rocky Flats, to recover the psychotronic device from the UFO. When I learned that the device was designed to control humans by manipulating their psychic energy, I destroyed it. We vampires weren’t sharing our humans with any aliens.
“The psychotronic device proved to be a dead end,” Clayborn said. “For now. Manipulating psychic energy is a frustrating challenge. How then can we control humans?”
“Why do you want to control them?”
“Humans are the most violent and treacherous of all creatures. If we want to do business here, we’ll need every advantage.” Clayborn stared at me, as if trying to peer straight through my skull and into my brain.
I matched his gaze until he looked away. Never try a staring contest with a vampire.
“We’ve studied humans for a long time. Even with our superior technology, we know from their stories that they’d fight a military conquest. I’ve read War of the Worlds.” Clayborn looked back at me. “The ability to wage war is the most developed of their society’s traits. We’d be playing to their strongest suit.”
Given the centuries of art and literature, it was telling that the aliens considered war-mongering humanity’s greatest achievement.
“The situation here requires a delicate hand.” Clayborn’s fingers undulated like snakes.
“Of course it does, considering the quarantine.” I couldn’t help but smile. “Gilbert Odin told me about it. You and he are not supposed to be here.”
I wanted this extraterrestrial scumbag to realize I knew of his part in this murderous game. “Why did you kill him?”
Clayborn withdrew the cigar, looked at it, then at me, and frowned, as if the cigar had lost its flavor and I was to blame. “How does that concern you?”
“Because now it concerns Carmen.”
Clayborn pointed one of those tentacled fingers at me. “Only because you got involved.”
I wanted to twist that finger off his hand. “You’re right. Where do we go from here?” I pressed the argument. “The U.S. government has invested a lot in protecting you. Why?”
“Power.” Clayborn rubbed his fingertips together. “Money. We learned that humans are as greedy as they are violent. Why fight them? Why not make it in their interest to give us what we want? We’d approach those in power, the leaders of the largest governments and businesses, and offer to sell our technology.”
“What technology?”
“The easiest to deliver and the most profitable. What we’d appeal to is human vanity. Sell to the emotion, the intangible. Their culture is obsessed with appearances and the trappings of sexuality.”
Appearances and sexuality? “I don’t follow you.”
“You’ve heard of the actualizers of Rizè-Blu?” Clayborn smirked, the kind of smirk I’d expect from a frog after it devoured its insect prey. “I brought them here.”
What would it take for a vampire to let his jaw drop in astonishment? This news. The months of relentless hype on every venue: billboards, television, radio, print, Internet, podcasts, text-message blasts, even urinal cakes. Take our pills. Grow your hair. Lose your hair. Get bigger breasts. A harder erection. Rizè-Blu was making billions and the campaign was only a few months old. And aliens were behind it all?
I closed my mouth, coughed in embarrassment, and sat up to regain my composure. “Interesting scenario except for one problem. Don’t underestimate the humans. What’s to keep them from copying the formulas and cutting you out of the picture?”
Clayborn nodded, pleased by my question. “The molecular structure is designed to break down after a few weeks. That means that Rizè-Blu must continually update the formula and renew our franchise agreements.”
Clever. “I’m confused about something. Since you come from space, what good would money do?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you wire the money to an account on Jupiter? What’s the exchange rate between dollars and your outer-space pesos?”
Clayborn studied the smoldering tip of his cigar. “We don’t take cash. Instead, Earth has commodities that demand a high price among members of my social circles.”
“Social circles? You mean your fellow crooks?”
Clayborn didn’t challenge the slur. “No, they’re similar to the humans who run the show here on Earth. The politicians and corporate leaders.”
Of course. Crooks. The universe was full of them. “You said commodities? The quarantine means no contact or trade so it must be contraband. You guys violating the quarantine means that whatever you’ve come for must be worth the risk.”
“They are.” Clayborn blew on the cigar tip and the ember glowed. “These cigars for example. One box pays for a trip here.”
“Give me another example. I’m not convinced you’ve traveled all this way for stogies. You mentioned trading your technology for contraband. There’s got to be more to your visit than shilling hair products and filling larger bras. What about intergalactic communicators? Stellar-drive engines? Blasters?”
“Don’t be stupid. We give humans blaster and space-drive technology and within a century they’ll do to the Galactic Union what the Europeans did to the Indians.”
Smart thinking. The alien’s regard for human treachery rivaled mine. “What is this commodity?”
“This planet has two great treasures. Water and women.” Clayborn relaxed, his aura smoothing with confidence. “They can keep the water.”
I stayed quiet, to absorb this revelation. Odin had said the reason for his murder had to do with saving the Earth women. I never dreamed it would be from alien gangsters. But what did the aliens want with the women? Why and where were they taking them? And what about Carmen? I forced myself to remain calm. “How so? Earth women have a completely different anatomy from yours. Try as you might, good intentions will only get you so far.”
“So what? Despite our physical differences, your females are remarkably alluring.”
“Meaning everyone likes Earth pussy. It’s quite a compliment.”
“We don’t have to mate with them to enjoy their company.”
“Then you’re missing out on the best part. What kind of outer-space geniuses are you guys anyway?”
Clayborn’s laugh came out more as an annoyed chuckle. “Quit thinking with your gonads. Earth women possess an intuitive sense much more developed than the males. They have an awareness for the psychic world that we didn’t expect from such primitive thinkers as the human race. Because of that, Earth women make great companions.”
Companions? “I don’t understand.”
“Think nice collars. Lots of pampering.”
Collars? Pampering? “You mean like pets? You’re trading your advanced technolog
y for Earth women and turning them into pets?”
“You say that like it’s a problem.”
“Of course, it’s a problem. A huge problem. A crime.”
Clayborn gave a gloating laugh. “Crime? According to whom?”
“Me.”
“Why do you care?” Clayborn asked. “The women will be well taken care of.”
“But pets? You said ‘collars’? What about leashes? Are you going to make them do tricks?”
“That’s up to the owners.”
“Owners?”
Clayborn gave a confused look, as if I didn’t understand the meaning. “This is a business.”
The revulsion made me sick and dizzy. What other plans lurked in the fine print of their pact? How long before the aliens figured out what I was, and then what? The extermination of us, the undead?
I asked, “Do the women know of this arrangement?”
“Their government does and that’s all that matters. They’ve weighed the moral concerns versus the material gain to society and decided it’s worth the cost.”
Those bastards. Selling out their fellow humans to the aliens. “Guess it’s easier to count the profits when someone else’s sister is sold into slavery.”
“How is this slavery? The women will do no work. They’ll live in undreamed-of luxury. Only the wealthiest among us can afford them.”
“You can’t buy human beings. It’s wrong.”
“Too late for that. We already have. The U.S. government, acting as an agent to its corporate sponsors, sold them to us. I can show you the bill of lading.”
“But the government doesn’t own the women to sell.”
Clayborn raised his hands in a sly, innocent gesture. “That is a domestic matter. Out of my control completely.”
“You’re forgetting murder. Not just Gilbert Odin’s. What about Marissa Albert and Karen Beck? What about all the passengers on the commuter plane killed to hide the disappearance of Vanessa Tico and Janice Wyndersook? And there are other missing women. Did you abduct them all?”
The Undead Kama Sutra Page 20
