sedona files - books one to three

by Christine Pope

  Martin shrugged again. “It’s a known UFO hotspot. And a thousand miles away from Sedona. It wasn’t too difficult for me to persuade my superiors that I could do a simple check-in here on my own.”

  Exactly what form that “persuasion” had taken, I probably didn’t want to know. I had the feeling that members of Martin’s race could push the bounds of that whole no-interference policy when it suited them.

  I had to hold my questions for a few minutes, though, because we’d pulled into the parking lot behind the building where our destination, the Open Range Grille, was located. Even with the chilly weather, the sidewalks up here were fairly crowded. I knew Kara would have killed to have that kind of foot traffic nearby, but at least she owned the building where the UFO Depot was located, and so her overhead wasn’t that high. Up here you’d have to have serious walk-in business just to cover the rent.

  The restaurant had a large patio with an absolutely amazing red rock view, but even I wasn’t crazy enough to try al fresco dining when it was barely forty-five degrees out. Instead we got a table in a more or less cozy corner and divested ourselves of our overcoats. The girl who led us to our table was a stranger, with an accent that told me she’d probably come here to Sedona recently; she sounded as if she wouldn’t be out of place serving barbecue at a Texas roadhouse. Good.

  I ordered hot tea, and Martin asked for water when our waiter showed up — another stranger. Of course it wasn’t as if I knew everybody in Sedona, but if I’d waltzed into, say, the Secret Garden Café with Martin in tow, I knew I would have had a lot of ‘splainin’ to do.

  Neither one of us said much of anything until the waiter came back with our drinks and then took our food orders. I noticed that Martin didn’t seem to have any problem with ordering a bison burger and fries. So much for advanced races being vegetarians. I got the same thing, mostly because it sounded good.

  A silence fell that was more than a bit uncomfortable. Maybe it was the memory of the kisses we’d shared hanging over us, or maybe it was just that Martin guessed I was about to launch into more questions.

  “So how do you get a gig like this, anyway?” I asked, after stirring some honey into my tea.

  “Like what?”

  “Faux Man in Black. I mean, how come you’re pretending to be a government agent, while Otto gets the whole spirit-guide gig? Not that pretending to be a dead Turkish eunuch sounds like it’s a ball of laughs, either.”

  I’d thought that Martin might smile at that comment, but instead he frowned and used his forefinger to trace through some of the condensation from his water glass on the wooden tabletop. “We’re not all that different from you, in many ways. We have our strengths and weaknesses. Otto is very good at perceiving the time threads, and that makes him a good spiritual advisor. I happen to have some facility at interacting with humans and emulating their behavior, so it makes more sense for me to be stationed where I am.”

  “‘Stationed’?” I repeated. “So you’re all given assignments by someone higher up the food chain?”

  “‘Stationed’ is probably not the best word,” he said, although I noticed he didn’t quite meet my eyes as he said it. “I certainly made the choice to come here. I could have gone to a different posting if I’d wanted to.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “No.”

  Again I got the sense that he was concealing a lot more from me than he was telling. I guessed I shouldn’t be all that surprised. He’d been dealing in secrets for quite some time, apparently. “And you’ve been a Man in Black for how long now?”

  “Five years.”

  His straightforward answer surprised me. I’d expected more equivocating. At least he hadn’t said something like, “Oh, since before you were born.”

  Then he added, “That’s when the base in Secret Canyon was first established.”

  “Really?”

  “You sound surprised.”

  It was my turn to shrug. “Well, there’ve been reports of UFOs there for years and years, so I just figured — ”

  “Some of those were advance scouts. Some were what you might refer to as ‘friendlies.’ But as the situation developed further, and the group in Secret Canyon made their beachhead, it became clear we needed someone on the inside. So here I am.”

  It was stupid of me to feel reassured that he’d only been hanging around ol’ planet Earth for the past five years or so. It was a comfortingly normal timeline, and one that matched his physical appearance, more or less.

  Never mind that he could have lived a thousand years before he ever got here.

  At that moment the waiter showed up with our food, so the conversation came to an abrupt halt. And although I wanted to get more out of Martin while he was still apparently willing to talk, it didn’t seem too smart to let my burger get cold while I gave him the third degree. I took a bite, which told me it would be doing that burger a grave injustice if I ignored it while trying to pick Martin’s brain. So I ate in silence for a few minutes while my mind churned away, trying to decide which questions were mostly likely to get answers.

  It didn’t help that every once in a while I would shift in my seat, or Martin would move in his, and our knees would brush against one another, sending a whole new set of hot shivers up and down my body. Obviously my lizard brain, the one that controlled those lower functions, didn’t care whether the man sitting next to me was human or not.

  Kara must have had a way more obvious “off” switch when it came to that sort of thing. Then again, she’d been in love with Lance for years before Grayson came along. Grayson was the distraction, not the other way around. And while I really didn’t get the whole Lance thing — although he did have a certain tough-jawed Clint Eastwood vibe going on — I couldn’t fault Kara for going with her heart.

  But I sure as hell hadn’t been mooning after anyone. Just the opposite, in fact. No doubt a shrink would have told me my avoidance of relationships was a direct reaction to my mother’s promiscuity, and maybe he or she would have been right. It hadn’t bothered me all that much. And now —

  Now I knew what I’d been missing all this time. Whatever was going to happen, however impossible the situation, I saw something in Martin, felt a connection with him that I’d never felt with anyone else. I knew he sensed it, too. I sort of doubted that getting mixed up with me was part of the grand plan. But he’d kissed me anyway, despite the consequences.

  Whatever those might turn out to be.

  “You’re quiet,” Martin said, setting down his bison burger and reaching for a fry.

  “Oh, I was just wondering if you were going to make me dodge a remote-controlled training device that’s going to shoot laser bolts at my behind.”

  For a second he looked puzzled, and then I saw him nod as the Star Wars reference apparently sank in. “No, nothing like that. It’s more about concentration at this stage. You’ll see when the time comes.”

  I didn’t know if I liked the sound of that, but there wasn’t much I could do about it at this point. So I just nodded, and went on to finish the rest of my meal. I had a feeling I was going to need all that protein to get me through the rest of the afternoon.

  * * *

  Martin’s “backup” retreat was a small cabin called the Bridge House at the Forest Houses resort. I could see why he’d chosen it — the place was right on the creek, so near that apparently the whole house had gotten flooded during the heavy rains of ’93, according to the Forest Houses website, which was full of little anecdotes like that. It was very close to a second, slightly larger cabin, but that cabin wasn’t rented out at the moment.

  “I made sure of that,” he told me, a comment that could have been ominous or completely innocent, depending on how you wanted to look at it.

  “It’s great,” I said, after climbing the stone stairs to the front door and taking a quick look around at the scene below me. There were patches of unmelted snow here and there in the shadows of the trees, and my breath rose in the frosty ai
r, but somehow I felt sheltered and safe here in a way that I hadn’t back at the Creekside Inn.

  “I thought you might like it.” He unlocked the door and went inside, leaving it open for me to follow when I chose.

  I lingered on the stoop for a moment. Maybe I was just trying to delay the moment when I would have to begin my training for real, or maybe I only wanted to drink in the scene, let the stillness of the place sink into my bones. Somehow it seemed important for me to be here, though, to allow the magic of the creek to work on me, prepare me for what was ahead.

  Then I took in a deep breath of cold, clean air, and went inside.

  Martin had already gone to the fireplace and was stacking the wood within — quite expertly, too, from what I could tell. Good thing, since it was very cold in the cabin. It didn’t feel as if the heat had been on at all. Or maybe its only heat source was the fireplace.

  I kept my overcoat on until the fire really took hold, sending its warmth out into the room. The place wasn’t very big — there were a couple of oversized chairs, a kitchenette, and a king-size bed — so it didn’t take long before it was warm enough inside for me to unbutton my coat and sling it on the bed. It was the closest piece of furniture to the fireplace, but I thought sitting down on it might not be a good idea. Instead, I took a seat in one of the chairs and waited for Martin to do the same.

  He also took off his coat and laid it on the bed next to mine, then ignored the one empty arm chair and instead grasped one of the oak farmhouse-style chairs and settled it in front of me before sitting down, facing me. His expression was calm, but serious. “Are you ready?”

  “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I don’t know what you’re about to do.”

  “It won’t hurt. I promise.”

  I bet you say that to all the girls. But I kept my thoughts to myself, and forced myself not to react as he reached out and took my hands in his. My fingers were chilled, even though I’d been wearing gloves outside, whereas his were warm and friendly. They didn’t look extraterrestrial — they just looked like a man’s strong hands, with close-clipped fingernails and the smallest dusting of dark hair along their backs.

  “Have you ever done any sort of meditation?” he asked, his voice gentle, quiet.

  “A little. I mean, I’ve tried. I’m not that good at getting my brain to shut up.”

  A smile flitted across his face before disappearing again. “That’s fine. Just breathe in and out, slowly but deeply. Close your eyes.”

  I did as he requested, even though it felt strange, even though I could sense my body beginning to react to his touch on my fingers. That old lizard brain was saying it didn’t want to meditate — it wanted to pull him over onto that nice king-size bed and indulge in a little rumpty-tumpty.

  Crap. That was not going to get my mind to anywhere near a meditative state. I breathed in and out, forcing my thoughts to stillness, to something quiet and gentle and innocuous, like the gentle ripple of the creek only a few yards away from where I sat. Okay, that was better. Some of the pulsing heat retreated from my midsection, leaving me tranquil, contemplative.

  “Good,” said Martin, as if he had somehow sensed the ebb and flow of my thoughts. Maybe he had. “Now I want you to reach out with your mind. Feel the patterns of energy all around us.”

  Easy for him to say. I wanted to tell him that if I knew how to do that, I’d be doing psychic readings for people instead of building websites for the people who did the psychic readings. But then it was as if I sensed some strange shift in my consciousness, felt it with almost a physical twinge, and the darkness behind my eyelids flared to sudden strange light.

  The light source closest to us was also the strongest, a twisting ribbon of brilliant green that I knew had to be Oak Creek itself, alive with all the myriad insects and fish and birds and mosses and everything else which composed the ecosystem that made Sedona so vibrantly alive. Past it were the more muted skeins of energy running through the woods, of the trees and the animals that moved amongst them. And beyond that was the energy of the town itself, the people bright sparks against black, all moving, all intent on their own business, weaving in and around one another in a pattern so complex and yet so beautiful I almost wanted to weep when I saw it, because in that instant I realized nothing was random, that everything had an order to it, even if we couldn’t always see it for ourselves.

  But then…

  It pulsed with its own dark light, like a lava flow that hasn’t hardened all the way, or like tired blood moving sluggishly under a half-healed scab. The wrongness was something I’d never experienced before, and behind it was a sense that whatever had created that wrongness wanted to have it spread everywhere, so there was no more light, no more green.

  My mind recoiled, and my eyelids fluttered open. I hung on to Martin’s hands as if they were the only thing keeping me in this world. As I stared at him, I realized my cheeks were wet.

  He reached out and brushed the tears away with a gentle finger, still holding on to my other hand with his left one. “You felt them.”

  I nodded, not trusting myself to speak yet. Yes, I had felt that first wave of cold at Kara’s house, and then again as I was driving through the storm on I-17, but that was like turning on a shower and realizing there wasn’t any hot water, compared to being thrown into the middle of the north Atlantic in the dead of winter.

  After blotting his damp finger on his pants leg, he took both my hands in his again. “It’s terrible. I know. But you have to know them before you can face them. Do you understand?”

  “Yes,” I whispered. “I mean, I’m trying to understand.” I pulled in a shaky breath, noting for the first time how my hands were trembling within Martin’s warm grasp, as if I’d taken a chill I couldn’t shake. “Who are they, Martin? What are they?”

  His fingers tightened around mine. “They are an ancient race, but in their case, with age did not come wisdom. Their home world was depleted of its resources long ago, and so they moved on. That’s what they do — go from world to world looking for a new planet to exploit once their current one is used up. They are brilliant, and strong, but in this case they may have finally made a fatal error.”

  It was a story I’d heard before — rampaging aliens determined to suck Earth dry were a staple of sci-fi action films. Too bad the concept wasn’t merely fiction. “What error is that?” I asked.

  “They’ve underestimated the resiliency of the human race. Persephone dealt them a horrible blow, even if she wasn’t powerful enough to eradicate their base completely. They couldn’t believe that one of their own would turn on them, but Grayson did, the humanity in his genetic material overcoming the alien DNA. And now — ”

  “Now?”

  “Now there’s you, Kirsten. Again a blend of two worlds, a combination they didn’t foresee and don’t know how to combat.”

  Those words only made me feel colder. Okay, so I’d opened my mind enough to really sense the aliens, to know that they were just as alive as I’d feared. But it was a long way from that to somehow making sure none of them ever harmed anyone or anything on this planet again.

  “I’m scared,” I said.

  At once he let go of my hands and came to me, reaching out and lifting me from my chair so he could enfold me in his arms. “I know,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with being frightened — as long as it doesn’t keep you from doing what needs to be done. You can’t let it paralyze you, because then they have all the power.”

  Logically I understood what he was saying. Trying to deny the fear wouldn’t make it go away. But surrendering to it would be even worse. And beneath the fear was the beginning of a tiny spark of anger, fury at these beings for coming here and thinking they could do whatever they wanted with our planet. Sure, we’d done enough already to screw it up, but it wasn’t so far gone that it couldn’t be saved. And I knew it was worth saving.

  “Okay,” I told him, feeling braver than I would have otherwise, simply because it didn’t se
em as if anything could go too terribly wrong while he held me in his arms. “So what now?”

  “Now you rest, and then I take you back into town so you can meet up with your friends and family.”

  Was he joking? I pulled away from him slightly and stared up into his face. He looked serious enough, those gorgeous eyes of his meeting mine directly.

  “I don’t need to rest. I can do more.” As I spoke I realized I did feel as if I had much more energy to expend. “We’ve only got five days left.”

  The corners of his eyes crinkled a little, as if he were amused by my statement but trying hard not to show it. “The sort of focus you just learned requires more energy than you might think. And it certainly takes a lot more time than you know.”

  “Oh, come on — ” I began, but then I glanced down at my watch and almost let out a yelp. Five-thirty? Seriously? I’d closed my eyes and gone into that trance or whatever you wanted to call it at a little past two. So I’d been lost in that strange darkness for more than three hours?

  “Yes,” Martin said gently. “Time functions differently in the world of the mind. I didn’t want to rouse you, not when you were doing so well, but now I need to get you back.”

  “No kidding,” I said, noticing for the first time how stiff I felt, as if I’d just stood up from watching Avatar or some other three-hour epic. “Kara’s already on edge, so I know she’ll flip out if I’m not there on time.”

  “Well, we can’t have that.” He leaned down and kissed me then, his mouth warm and welcome.

  Any stiffness or weariness I might have been feeling disappeared immediately. I wished with all my heart that we could stay here in this cozy cabin, keep the fire going…and progress to better things. Any suggestions on that front would probably be shot down, though, so I didn’t bother. I only let him kiss me, and kissed him back, letting him know just how much I loved the feel of his mouth on mine.

  When we pulled apart, I could tell he was thinking that it would be nice if we didn’t have to worry about alien invasions and all that crap. Well, I’d just have to hope for the best. If by some miracle we actually won, then Martin and I would have all the time in the world to enjoy one another. And if the aliens managed to defeat us, well, then, I guessed we wouldn’t be worrying about much of anything, because we’d be dead.