by Greg Cox
It took him less than a moment to locate Liz, crouched upon the limestone balcony at the other side of the rocky ledge. The merciless spotlight showed him an exhausted young woman with nowhere to flee. Realizing diat the moment of truth could no longer be avoided, she rose to her feet unsteadily, resolved to face her persecutor, the assailant who had haunted her traumatized psyche, once and for all. "That's right," she said as defiantly as she could, wishing she could manage as withering a remark or glance as Maria or Isabel surely could in her place. "You've found me. Now what?"What now? You want to know what now?" His voice, already hoarse from filling the caverns with his barbaric shouting, was so clotted with murderous hatred that it barely sounded human. "Look what you did to me, you witch! Look!"He turned the flash on himself, revealing a face shredded by dozens of bloody bites and scratches. His thinning hair was askew like a madman's, while loose flaps of reddened skin hung off his torn and ravaged scalp. Crimson stains splattered his collar and shirt, making him look like a homicidal psycho straight out of one of those gory slasher movies Kyle was always renting. "Thought you were pretty cute with that bat trick, didnt you," he snarled, "Take a good look, you outer-space freak! Look what you did to me!"His bulging, bloodshot eyes glared at her with more pure malice than she had ever seen from a human being, or even a Skin, before. This wasn't about the "merchandise" anymore, she realized with a chill. It wasn't even about whether or not she was really an alien. This was about making her pay in blood for the bats and everything else.
"What about what you did to Lieutenant Ramirez?" she challenged him. "What about Okada, and that biker my friend saw you kill in that alley?" She hurled two years of suppressed trauma back at his mutilated face. "What about what you did to me that day in the Crashdown Cafe! You almost killed me, you slimy bastard!"Morton spat contemptuously into the chasm. Blood or tobacco, Liz couldn't tell. "So?" he said callously. The recitation of his victims, even the one she could not possibly have known about, did nothing to dim the predatory bloodlust in his eyes. "Hell, you're not even a person, Tess."My name is Liz," she said. "Liz Parker. And a lot more people care about me than anyone ever will about you."Whatever," Morton muttered, unimpressed. He raised his semi-automatic and aimed it straight at Liz. "Time to finish what I started at that stupid diner."The gun fired, the boom resounding in Liz's ears, and she felt the bullet strike her below the ribs, just like it had two years ago. This time, however, the lethal projectile bounced off the flexible silver foil that she had wrapped around her midsection, underneath her blouse. (In his pain and fury, Morton had never noticed that the glowing handprint was no longer visible.) Unable to pierce the miracle metal, the bullet ricocheted back at Morton, winging him in the right shoulder. "Arrgh!" he shouted, his handgun flying from his fingers into the chasm beside him, falling for several seconds before Liz heard it strike the bottom hundreds of feet below. "What-?" he grunted, clutching his wounded shoulder. "How did you-?"Thanks for the merchandise," she said, flashing open her blouse to give him a glimpse of the silver foil girdling her waist. The shocked look on his face was almost worth all that she had endured since bumping into Morton in another cavern the day before. "This stuff really is worth everything you paid for it."You-!" He staggered toward the ledge, his good arm reaching out for her, his bloody fingers clutching spasti-cally, as though they couldn't wait to choke the life out of her. Liz backed against the cool limestone wall behind her, suddenly afraid that the injured gunman still possessed the strength and the ferocity to kill her with his bare hands. "That belongs to me!" he howled, saliva dripping from the corner of his mouth. Heedless of the fatal drop awaiting him if he slipped, Morton dragged himself onto the ledge and began inching inexorably toward Liz. "I'll take my merchandise from your cold, lifeless body if have to," he vowed, "or even if I don't!"Liz saw her end approaching. It was ironic; in the end, a crimson handprint around her throat would trump the silver handprint that had saved her once before. Good-bye, Max, she thought. I always loved you.
"Liz!"Max's voice rang out in the cavern as he came racing out a tunnel, holding up a glowing hand. His unexpected appearance startled Morton, who pivoted in surprise, losing his balance on the narrow ledge. "Who the hell are you?" he blurted, then toppled over the brink.
His falling scream terminated in a final, bone-crushing thud, many long seconds later. Then silence.
"Liz!" As quickly as he could, Max crossed the ledge and took her in his arms. She could feel his body shaking with emotion. "Oh my God, Liz, are you all right?"Yes," she said truthfully. She had stared her worst nightmare in the face, and come out of it alive and well and exorcised, finally, of a lingering demon. Beneath the lifesaving silver foil, her stomach tingled for an instant, and she knew intuitively what had occurred. Pulling away from Max's comforting embrace, just long enough to confirm what she had already guessed, she peeled away the silver wrap, revealing smooth, unblemished flesh underneath.
The glowing handprint was gone, this time for good.
EPILOGUE.
" just think," Alex said with a grin. "Joe Morton was at the center of an international conspiracy to hijack top secret alien technology-and he would've gotten away with it, too, if not for us meddling teenagers."The entire booth groaned out loud, but even Isabel looked like she was having a good time. "Somebody give Shaggy here a Scooby-Snack to shut him up," she quipped, giving Alex a playful look to let him know she was just kidding.
Liz couldn't believe how carefree and relaxed everyone seemed, especially after their weekend from hell in Carlsbad. Maybe the eventful road trip really had been just what they'd all needed, after all. Certainly, Michael and Maria, and Alex and Isabel, had come through for each other during their out-of-town adventures, and seemed stronger as couples because of that. Liz enjoyed seeing her friends so happy together, even as she watched the front door of the Crashdown, waiting eagerly for Max to get back from the sheriffs office.
Five Rigelian Ripple sundaes, and two bottles of Tabasco sauce, were consumed before Max finally joined them. He slid into the booth next to Liz, then brought them up to speed on what he had learned about the official police investigation of the events at Carlsbad.
"According to Valenti," he began, "the FBI wants to keep this case low-profile; after all, they can hardly announce to the media that Morton's rampage in Carlsbad was all about classified UFO technology stolen from the air force. The official story is that Morton killed Ramirez and Okada, possibly as a result of a drug deal gone bad, then fell to his death while hiding out in an unexplored cave."What about the foil and the other fragments?" Michael asked. After recovering the attache case from the bat cave, Liz and the others had safely stowed all of Morton's extraterrestrial "merchandise" in the hidden Pod Chamber, where they could be preserved along with other evidence of the teenage hybrids' alien heritage.
Max shrugged. "Officially, those materials never existed in the first place, so no one's making a public fuss about them being missing-although I imagine that the FBI and the Pentagon will be busy searching that cave for months." He smiled, clearly amused at the prospect of all those dogged Feds wasting their time.
"So that's it?" Maria asked. "No loose ends?"Yep," Liz stated confidently. For the first time in two years, she was no longer afraid of the man who shot her. At last, she could leave that trauma in the past where it belonged. "No more loose ends."
About the Author
GREG COX is the New York Times bestselling author of The Q Continuum trilogy, along with several other popular STAR TREK novels, including Assignment: Eternity, The Black Shore, Dragon's Honor (with Kij Johnson), and Devil in the Sky (with John Gregory Betancourt). In addition, he has written many novels.
FB2 document info
Document ID: fbd-1fd0b5-7194-0848-42ac-8d7a-5cae-871a25
Document version: 1
Document creation date: 10.01.2009
Created using: Fiction Book Designer software
Document authors :
Symargl
Source URLs :
Document history:
1.0 Приведена в читабельный вид Symargl
About
This file was generated by Lord KiRon's FB2EPUB converter version 1.1.5.0.
(This book might contain copyrighted material, author of the converter bears no responsibility for it's usage)
Этот файл создан при помощи конвертера FB2EPUB версии 1.1.5.0 написанного Lord KiRon.
(Эта книга может содержать материал который защищен авторским правом, автор конвертера не несет ответственности за его использование)
http://www.fb2epub.net
https://code.google.com/p/fb2epub/
