How was he alive? It made no sense.
She didn’t care.
Instead, she ripped open the other backpack, retrieving another substantial length of chain to which she’d attached a dog-collar clip.
She limped to the Opthoid’s cage, where the female and male were cooing at each other through the bars. The male growled dreadfully, as she clipped the chain on the female’s collar.
“What the hell is going on?” Tank had his weapon drawn, and was shifting it from Cait to the creatures in ping-pong fashion.
Aiden stepped in before she could answer. He was holding his side, bent nearly double, and favoring his right leg. Blood trickled down his face, and she smelled burned flesh and the stink of ozone, like lighting had struck close by. His sword was blackened, the once-bright metal twisted and warped. He used it like a cane to keep himself upright.
“You’ve met my neighbor. Tank. Dr. Cait Brennan. She’s helping me out on this one.” Nodding, Tank turned the muzzle of the Glock toward the Ty-Ops.
“That ain’t no fairy tale creature.” He was nearly shouting to be heard over the barking retrievers. “You two,” he called to the dogs, irritation in his voice, overriding the fear that sang there as well. “Sit. Stay. And shut the fuck up.” To everyone’s surprise, the dogs plopped down in identical poses, tails a-wag, panting and seemingly laughing at the whole experience.
“This is not a crime scene, Tank. Not one you’d recognize or care to have to report. Give us…” He turned to Cait and said, “What? An hour? Two?”
“An hour is fine, if he can keep everyone away from here and the car for that long, so we can get loaded up.”
Aiden turned back. “So give us an hour and a half since I’m hurt and so is Cait.”
She jumped in, since she knew how she was going to handle this and Aiden didn’t. It would satisfy the cop.
“We’ll clean up the mess,” she said, looking around. The trees made her wince. Crap. “Except for that.” She pointed to where the bark had peeled down from a sycamore in long grooves, reflecting the path of the skewers and the creature’s blood. “That, I can’t put right. I’m sorry.”
He looked at her, took her measure. Under that stern evaluation, she drew up straight, shoulders back, chin up, to make sure Tank understood what she was, if not who.
The tension was palpable, but finally, he lowered his weapon. Flicked the safety on, and holstered it.
In a tone that brooked no quarter, he said, “Make a donation to the C&O Canal Foundation and we’ll call it even.
He turned to Aiden. “Bayliss.”
Cait finally got a chance to look straight at Aiden, and joy rushed through her at seeing him alive.
“I’m askin’ ya’, Bayliss, an’ you tell me up front. Is she one of your kind and is she good for her word?”
He looked from Aiden to Cait, waiting. Aiden didn’t even glance her way before answering.
“She was a US Marine, Tank. She’s more than good for her word.” Tank visibly relaxed. “Give us time to clean up the scene. We’ll make sure there’s no mark on your slate.”
“Think of it as rat trapping,” Cait managed to say, not sure what made her use the analogy. “We’ll get rid of the rat and the trap.”
“Uh-huh,” Tank said as he came toward them, giving the dead Aurelian a wide berth, even as he couldn’t take his eyes off of it. “And this? You gonna clean it up too?” He pointed to the madly purring, snorting, chortling Opthoids. “That’s just disgusting,” he said, as if he couldn’t contain the words any longer.
“You bet.” Cait managed to be almost cheerful about that question. There was no way he’d want to describe the Opthoids to anyone, much less the Aurelian. They’d send him straight to the departmental shrink.
“I’ll take the dogs,” he muttered, cursing as he went. “If I come down here in an hour and a half and there’s a trace of that ugly, nasty-smelling…rat? Or those…those…”
He gave them both a hard look, and threw a hand in the air, pointing it like a gun. “I’m coming after you both. I know where you live.”
Without another word, he grabbed the dogs’ collars to pull them back down the path. The trio of cop and dogs pushed through the grass at the side of the path.
“You, Brennan,” Tank called as he struggled with the bumping, boisterous canines. “The crazy guy with the dogs said to give you this.” He tossed something to Cait. “Said you’d need it.”
When she caught it, he seemed to consider the action. “How’d he know you’d be here? Who is that guy?”
The otherwise happy dogs dropped their tails and pulled Tank past the Aurelian, nearly jerking him off his feet.
“I have no idea.” The honest bewilderment must have shown in her face, because Tank shook his head and muttered something about geeks, trouble, and pissant, effin’ Halloween mirages. She didn’t look at what he’d thrown her. There was no time. She shoved it in her pocket to deal with later.
His parting shot, yelled from well down the path was, “Get a fuckin’ move on, Bayliss.”
“You okay?” Aiden finally broke the silence.
“God, no,” she admitted, feeling every bruise and every blow, possibly broken ribs, but not giving a damn. “I thought you were dead.”
“Not dead.” He swayed a little where he stood. “I’m for shit, though. But it could be worse.”
They should both be dead.
“I’m glad you’re alive.” It was all she could manage. If she said anything else, if she loosed any of the emotions racing in her mind, said anything personal, she would lose control. She had to finish, get this wrapped.
“Oh, God,” he groaned as he tried to straighten. “You too.”
She cut off a sob of pain and relief with a superhuman effort. Time was short.
“We’d better get to work,” she managed through gritted teeth. Everything hurt. Tomorrow would be worse. Like a car accident, it always hurt more the next day.
If Aiden felt as bad as he looked, they’d be making an emergency room visit. Then again, she wasn’t sure how he was even alive, much less standing.
Her eyes teared up, and she ruthlessly cut off that line of thinking. She had too much to do. No break downs.
With a bigger laser weapon she hadn’t been able to get to before the attack, she charred the Aurelian’s body to ash. It looked like the remains of a big, greasy campfire. For good measure, she hit the spot again. The rocks glowed and split, and the vegetation at the sides of the path curled and smoked.
“That’s good enough,” Aiden said.
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak.
She tossed the remaining meat to the female Opthoid, who tore it up and fed it in bits and pieces to the male, through the bars.
“Ugh. That’s vile.”
“Mating ritual,” she grunted, managing to still be understandable through a swelling jaw.
“They can’t mate through the bars, can they?”
“No, but we have to keep the male crated. They want water to mate. That’s why she keeps splashing the canal with her tail. She’s trying to get him to come in and play.”
Taking up the canvas case that had held the crate, she pulled out a Leatherman pocketknife and used it to tease the Aurelian’s blades into the weighted fabric, along with the warped and destroyed remains of her tas-knives and Aiden’s blades. Wrapping it tightly, she slung the bag, quiver fashion, over her shoulder.
“Let’s go. We’ll come back for the other bag.”
“I can manage it,” he said. “I think. Let’s not go beyond Tank’s timeline.”
Shuffling and limping down the towpath, they pulled the male in his wheeled crate, the female swimming in the canal at their side. Cait held the chain leash lightly, lifting it over branches, tree debris, and other obstructions as best she could. Aiden dragged the last bag into which he’d packed the still-hot mortar, mangled whip, the sensors, tubes and other paraphernalia they’d brought with them.
They
had to stop frequently to rest.
She knew he was hurting, she could sense it, but he made no complaint. Neither did she, even though each step brought a new bruise or cut to light as the early morning sun played tag with the grey November clouds.
“I’m glad you made it.”
With deliberate care, Aiden looked at her. “I’m pretty happy about that too, for both of us.”
“Not our time, I guess. With special thanks to two rowdy dogs and a pair of lovesick space slugs.”
He looked at the snorkling Opthoids. “A very tentacle-y affaire going on there. And Tank is right, that’s disgusting.” He groaned as he moved.
“The dogs were scant help, but furry help is better than none at all. I thought it was going to kill them, and me too. Then the other Opthoid showed up.” She winced as her knee twisted, adding more pain. “Providence moves in mysterious ways.”
“I’ll take it, if it keeps me alive.”
“What was that thing Tank tossed you, from the Dog Guy?”
“No idea. I’ll look at it eventually.” Cait grunted as she carefully set down the weapon bag on the concrete by the car. The blades were heavy. She worried about the poison leaking through the fabric. It took her a moment, leaning on the fender, to work the keys from her pocket, and open the hatchback. “We’re at our time limit, we have to get out of here before Tank releases the traffic.”
They loaded the crate into the Subaru, encouraging the female to slither into the back with the last of the bloody meat. The two creatures made wet, repulsive, squelching sounds as they continued to pet one another through the crate.
“I hope none of these things plops down here on my watch again,” Cait muttered, wishing for gloves as she pushed at the female’s trailing tentacles, struggling to get them in the car without others sliding out again, so she could close the hatch. “I do not want to repeat this.”
It was, as Aiden had joked, totally gross.
With the utmost care to cover every trace of the Opthoids, weapons and crate, Cait shut the hatch.
Aiden leaned on the door, eyes closed, face etched with new lines, and covered in drying blood. His face was taut with pain, but there was a faint smile on his lips. “It’s been an adventure.”
“It has. That it has.” It took her four tries to get out of the waders. Aiden finally pulled a knife from his boot, sat down on the ground, and cut them off. The waders, already sliced to hell, came apart in his hands.
“Well, that’s one way to do it,” she muttered, shoving them under the seat. She levered a groaning Aiden off the ground. She wanted to grab him and hold him forever.
Instead, she said, “We’d better get going.”
They both moved like they were well over the century mark, hobbling and gasping. With ridiculous care, they eased painful bodies into their respective seats.
When they had backed out of the deserted lot, she crept down Canal Road. At Aiden’s direction, she pulled up a back road that was one way on weekdays, driving into a neighborhood to park.
“I’m going to call Tank, have him release traffic and reopen everything.”
When he hung up, she asked, “And we’re up here parked because?”
“We want to blend into the flow of traffic, not be the lone car coming out of a blockaded area. Someone would be bound to see that. Check the plate.”
She mentally kicked herself for not thinking of it. “Yeah. That would both suck and blow. I’d hate to have to call Tank for help again.”
“Do those things always do that?” Without opening his eyes, he pointed over his shoulder at the sniggering, snorking, wetly growling Opthoids, fully covered by the tarp.
“No idea,” she grunted, every muscle in pain. “I’ve never seen a pair before, only singles, on ship, in containment tanks. And I don’t really want to see another one, ever again. Not on-planet. Not on ship.”
“Ditto.”
They sat in numb silence for ten minutes before they gauged it safe. She pulled into traffic, then turned up the heat to compensate for the cool day and the onset of the reaction shakes.
Her thoughts moved like sludge, she was so exhausted. Another thought occurred and she turned the seat heaters on as well, to soothe their aching bodies.
“Go McArthur, head in that way,” he directed, but kept his head on the headrest, eyes closed. “The heat feels good.”
“How badly are you hurt?” She realized she should have asked it earlier. “Do we need to go to the ER?”
Smiling faintly, he hummed, then sang, “I am not dead yet…”
Chapter Thirty-One
“No ER. Too dangerous.”
“How bad?” she insisted.
“Cracked ribs, maybe broken,” he muttered, eyes still closed. “First, maybe second degree burns on my side where I trapped the electric blade between my body and my arm. Sore head. Pretty dizzy, so maybe a concussion. Pulled a hamstring, maybe tore something in my calf when I landed in the drink.” He rolled his head sideways and opened one eye to peer at her.
Stopping at a red light, she looked back. He was the most fabulous thing she’d ever seen. He was alive.
“I heard that,” he said, and grinned. “And back atcha.”
He shifted in the seat and groaned. “Sprained or cracked something in my ankle. I stink like canal water, which is pretty foul. My cuts and bruises have cuts and bruises,” he said, wincing. “You?”
“Yeah, what you said about the cuts and bruises. I’ve got them everywhere. I have a long gash on my shoulder that feels like it goes all the way to the bone. One on my leg where I hit the corner of the crate dodging a blade, or the claws, I can’t remember. That burns like fire. I know I hit a big rock when I fell, so I have a massive bruise on my ass. The shoulder’s either stopped bleeding or it’s so bad can’t feel it anymore. Same with the leg. Could be either. Oh, and my face hurts like seven hells.”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “It’s swelling a lot, and that eye’s swelling shut too. You’ve got spectacular shiner coming on there, slugger.”
“I hit the crate, and the ground, hard, on the same spot. Twice. I may have cracked the cheekbone. I think I cracked some ribs too. Maybe my wrist is broken.”
“Ouch.”
“I’ll say,” she said, feeling the swelling in her cheek increasing as the minutes passed. “Hurts to talk.”
In the garage, she parked in the farthest, darkest reaches of the lowest level. There was only one other car, and it wasn’t nearby. Many of the building’s residents didn’t even own cars, so there were plenty of empty spaces. Especially as most people were either sleeping off Halloween excess elsewhere, or had already headed out to find whatever fun could be found, early on a cloudy Saturday morning.
“How will you get them out?” Aiden asked, jerking a thumb toward the still-sniggering Opthoids.
“Truck,” she said. “Within the hour, someone from Joe’s Detailing will be here to clean my car. Joe will arrive, looking perfectly normal and innocuous. That’s because Joe is an android. Joe and his truck will pull into the garage. Joe will detail my car, removing the Op-sey-whoosits. Both of the damn things. They’ll take care of the Aurelian’s weapons too, thank goodness, and the mortar, and the other damaged stuff.”
“Whoosit disposal. Excellent name for a rock band,” he said, eyes still closed.
She laughed, then gasped in pain.
“So, no trophy from the great Aurelian hunt?” he asked. “You don’t get to keep a blade or a…what did you say they collect? Fingers?”
“Nope,” she said, and laughed again. “No way.” As much as laughing hurt, it felt good. It made her feel less fragile, more alive. More…human. “Not this time.”
Aiden pulled out his phone. Despite his canal dunking, it still worked.
“Hey Jay, its Aiden.”
Cait looked at him, wondering what he was up to.
“You know that other work I do?” She heard the faint acknowledgement. “Well I had to do some of it last night. I’
m not looking very pretty. Any chance you could distract those guards on Three-A? Let me slip in?” He paused, listening. “They’re not? Interesting.”
“What’s up?” she asked when he ended the call.
“There’s only one guard, and he’s been doing rounds with Jay. Jay will take him off on a building check if we’ll give him five minutes.”
“Excellent. Why only one?”
“They found the other senator, the one from New Mexico.”
“DiMarco?”
“Yeah. All the focus has shifted to him, since he’s alive. He was barricaded in his house in Falls Church, Virginia. Scared to death and raving that an awful eight-foot monster was after him.”
Cait rolled her head on the headrest, looking at him in astonishment. “What the hell?”
“Word is, he had all the forks and knives in the house hanging in the windows, over the door, stuffed up the chimney. He’d ripped out the stainless steel grab bars in his shower and blocked the basement stairs with them.”
“Oh, my God. I guess somebody told somebody something.”
“Yeah. Saved one of their asses, anyway.” He paused, shifted carefully in the seat. “They’re thinking he’s total looney tunes. But according to some sources, the basement was destroyed, like a ferocious wild boar or bear had mangled the glass doors and torn the place all to hell.”
“Sounds like a personal problem,” Cait said dryly.
Aiden laughed.
Cait grinned. Then laughed. And it hurt like hell.
But it felt so, so good.
It took most of the day to sort through things, use her portable medical repair unit on them both, and write her reports. The med unit dealt with the major injuries, and they traded off using it to heal the worst of the damage.
They’d cut away her jeans to deal with the gash on her leg. Every stitch of their clothes were a total loss.
By nightfall, they were soaking their aches away in a tub full of hot water. Her cheek still hurt like hell, but the swelling was nearly gone. The sore muscles would heal on their own.
They’d separated only long enough for him to get some fresh clothes and for her to run the bath.
Modern Magic Page 121
