Cheery thought.
Spirits somewhat dampened, I went to retrieve my coat, and Martin did the same. He banked down the fire, then placed the fire screen in front of the hearth. I waited while he performed these tasks, and let myself out the front door, standing in the freezing air as he locked the place up.
The drive back into town was a quiet one. I wanted to text Kara, tell her that she should move the meeting to Michael’s house, but I didn’t get a signal until we were practically back in uptown. Finally a few bars appeared on my phone at a scant fifteen minutes until six, and I sent the text then. Very late notice, and I had a feeling my sister would be less than thrilled about the whole thing. That didn’t matter, though, as long as she followed my advice and didn’t still attempt to have her council of war in a place where the aliens could eavesdrop on the whole thing.
A thought struck me then, and I shifted in my seat so I was facing Martin as best I could. “You keep saying the aliens can’t hear us when we’re near the creek, that something in its energy disrupts their equipment.”
“More or less, yes.”
“So how come they didn’t listen in this summer, when all that was going on with Grayson? For that matter, why didn’t they know Persephone and Lance and Michael were coming for them that first time at the end of March?”
Martin didn’t look over at me as he swung the car through the first traffic circle. “Because they had no reason to.”
“Huh?”
This time he did allow himself a small smile at my confusion. “That first attack caught them completely unaware. Don’t get me wrong — they knew about the UFO Depot, and they knew about your little group of UFO hunters. But of course they didn’t perceive you to be any kind of a threat, so there was no reason for them to waste resources on you. Then, over the summer, they were focused on trying to find Grayson. Their minds aren’t well-suited to concepts of charity and compassion, so they never imagined that a human would take in their lost soldier and care for him when there was no profit in it. They did keep a close eye on Persephone and Paul, but as they settled into a quiet life and didn’t appear to be up to anything much, the aliens left them alone, too. It was more important to focus on rebuilding the base, on getting back to a level where they could exploit the coming solstice and its power.”
“But then?” I prompted. “Something changed, right?”
“You changed,” he replied.
“I what?”
We approached the second roundabout, and were getting closer and closer to my apartment. “Your father’s blood was in you, even if you knew nothing about it. As you got older, it started to manifest — in ways you probably didn’t even notice at the time. You had a birthday recently, right?”
“Yes,” I said reluctantly. Not that it had been a birthday for the ages or anything. Kara’s and my birthdays were only three days apart, and we always had celebrated them together. Two against the world and all that. But this time she was over in New Mexico, hiding her pregnancy and waiting for Grace to make her appearance, so I’d sort of limped along with those few of my friends who were still living in town and tried to make the best of it. After all, it was just birthday number twenty-three; it wasn’t some milestone like twenty-one or twenty-five or — God forbid — thirty.
“Well, then,” Martin told me, as if that explained everything.
Yeah, right. “So, what, as these powers I didn’t know I had started growing, the aliens were able to pick up on it?”
“Something like that. At first I doubt they could tell exactly where they were coming from, but that was bound to change.”
Lovely. So I had some kind of homing beacon in my blood, just broadcasting to the aliens my whereabouts and what I was doing every moment of the day?
“That kind of stinks,” I told him, then added, “If it’s something about this race you and my father are from, then how come they’re not tracking you, too?”
“Because I’ve been trained to block them. It’s something I can show you, too, but first I had to get you to open up, to experience what it’s like when your consciousness expands.”
I had some acquaintances from high school who probably knew all about expanding their consciousness — they were always talking about their mushroom trips — but of course I’d stayed far away, not wanting to be Marybeth Swenson part deux. Although she generally stuck to pills and booze. You know, the high-class stuff.
“Well, I hope it’s something you can show me soon, because I’m not thrilled about the aliens tracking my every movement.”
“Soon,” he said, his tone placating. “All things in their time.”
Time. The one thing we were running out of.
Martin pulled into the parking lot of my apartment complex. There was an empty space next to the van, so he parked there.
“Maybe you should come with me,” I told him. Beyond the obvious hormonal reasons, I just felt better with him around. Safer. The thought of the aliens knowing where I was going and what I was doing almost paralyzed me.
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” I demanded. “I know you could explain all this much better than I ever could.”
His expression was unreadable, stony — just as I imagined a real MIB’s would be. “It’s not my place. I’m here to help you, guide you. But you’re the one it comes down to in the end.” Finally a trace of a wry grin pulled at his mouth. “Besides, do you really feel like explaining me to Kara right now?”
“Probably not,” I admitted, and leaned over and gave him a swift kiss on the cheek. “Although, being Kara, she’ll most likely figure it out anyway.”
He gave a philosophical shrug. “We can deal with that when the time comes. But now — ” And he glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard. 5:58. I was going to be late no matter what, but no point in stalling any further.
“Now I have to go. I know.” I began to turn away, but he caught my hand and pulled me toward him, burying my mouth under his, tongue touching tongue even as his fingers twined themselves around mine.
Then he broke it off and said, “Be careful.”
All I wanted to do was reach out to him and kiss him again. And again. And again. But I knew I had to go.
“I will,” I said, even though I knew it was an empty promise.
After all, if the aliens really wanted to come get me, what could I do to stop them?
CHAPTER TEN
The aliens must have had better things to do with their time, because I made it over to Michael’s house without too much trouble. Oh, I guessed they were probably watching me, but I came and went at Michael’s place usually at least once a week, so there wouldn’t be anything that odd about my movements. And really, although I knew for a fact that people got abducted all the time, the aliens probably didn’t want to do it with a built-in audience. Sedona was way too public when it came to that sort of thing, since so many of its visitors were there to actively look for UFO activity. Better to scoop up your anal-probe victims in East Bumfuck, Kansas, or something.
I saw Lance’s Jeep and Persephone’s red Volvo and Jeff’s battered Astro van ranged up and down in front of the house, so at least I knew Kara had gotten the word out. Since there wasn’t any room on the street directly in front of the property, I had to park almost a block away. As I did so, I cast a suspicious glance up at the sky. No weird lights, but the clouds were getting thick. We’d probably have more snow before dawn.
No reason to knock; I didn’t think Michael ever locked his front door. I let myself in and saw that everyone was clustered in the over-cluttered living room. Paul and Lance sat on a couple of folding chairs, since Michael didn’t have enough real furniture to accommodate everyone.
“Sorry I’m late,” I said, preemptively apologizing so Kara wouldn’t have a chance to give me crap for my tardiness. “I’m glad you all got the message about meeting here.”
“Yeah, about that.” Lance straightened in his borrowed chair and gave me a penetrating l
ook. “Care to elaborate on how you got this intel?”
I hesitated, but I knew I was going to have to mention Martin sooner or later…even if I wasn’t about to tell the whole story. “Agent Jones warned me that Kara’s house might not be the safest place for this conversation.”
At my mention of Martin I saw Kara’s head go up a little, as if she’d caught something in my inflection that didn’t smell quite right. Jesus. If I couldn’t hide anything from her, how the hell was I ever going to manage to conceal my doings from the aliens?
“Oh, yeah, our visiting MIB. He drop any other pearls of wisdom?”
It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that Lance was less than thrilled at what he perceived as governmental intrusion into the situation. “Um…a few things,” I hedged, and then shot a questioning glance over at Kara. I wasn’t sure how much she’d told the others, if anything. After all, she’d been stuck at the shop all day.
She gave a small shake of the head, apparently indicating that everyone except her was still in the dark. Great. I really didn’t feel like having to spill my personal secrets in front of everyone, but it seemed that I didn’t have much of a choice.
“Well, he hasn’t given me much in the way of particulars, but the aliens are planning their final push for the solstice. That’s this coming Sunday,” I added unnecessarily, since I was pretty sure everyone listening to me knew when the solstice was, if not down to the second. Come to think of it, I didn’t, either. I’d have to follow up on that when I had a spare moment.
Not a whole lot of reaction from the crowd, although I thought I saw some sympathy in Persephone’s expression, as if she was sensing something of what I was feeling. Too bad she couldn’t just reach into my brain and pull everything out so I wouldn’t have to be standing there and spilling my guts in front of everybody.
“So…” I let out a sigh and realized I hadn’t even put down my purse or taken off my coat. So I did both those things, and hung the coat on Michael’s now-crowded coat rack. It was a stalling tactic, but I needed some time to figure out how best to phrase what I needed to tell them.
Then I realized there was no way to say any of it without it sounding crazy. Good thing the people watching me with expectant faces sort of specialized in crazy.
“Turns out the father I never knew was some kind of an alien or something,” I announced.
I could tell no one was expecting that, not even Persephone the psychic. Widened eyes and shocked looks greeted my remark — even from Jeff — and I saw Lance give Kara a narrow glance when she didn’t respond with similar astonishment. It was pretty clear that she’d already known what I was about to say, and he was none too happy about being left out of the loop.
Well, they could work out their domestic problems later. I knew I had to forge ahead if I were ever going to get through this. “Anyway, I guess because of that I have some powers that might help with defeating the aliens.”
“What kind of powers?” Lance asked.
It figured that he’d be the one to ask that question. “Well, I don’t know for sure yet. I mean, I’ve been sensing the aliens more and more, and I guess being tuned to them is the first step…. Anyway, Agent Jones is helping me with figuring that out.”
“Why would he know anything about that?” Paul asked, his expression frankly curious.
Oh, crap. I had gotten the distinct impression that Martin really didn’t want the facts of his true identity spread all over the place, so I’d have to figure out a way to make this sound believable. “He’s — well, he’s been tracking the aliens for the past five years. So he knows a lot about their movements and the way they think.”
I hoped that sounded plausible enough. Paul’s eyebrows drew together, as if he were considering the likeliness of the situation, while next to him Persephone cocked her head to one side and stared slightly upward, as if getting advice from on high. Maybe she was. I’d heard via Kara that Otto hadn’t been coming around as much lately, although I wondered if he’d decided to drop in now that things were soon coming to a head.
Lance, of course, appeared suspicious, but since he tended to look that way a majority of the time, I wasn’t all that worried about it. Michael gave a small nod, as if accepting my explanation at face value. And Jeff — well, he was scowling, which wasn’t strange at all, since that tended to be his default facial expression.
And Kara wore an odd look of her own, as if she were doing some mental calculations and trying to see whether my story fit in with them or not. Oh, well. I knew she and I were going to get into it at some point, probably, but as long as it wasn’t here in front of everybody, I’d just have to count my blessings.
“Anyway,” I went on, knowing I needed to get off the topic of Agent Jones as soon as possible, “Jeff was just telling me this morning that he’d figured out the frequency of the aliens’ transmissions. Any closer to cracking the code, Jeff?”
As I’d hoped, all attention transferred itself to Jeff, who appeared decidedly not happy at being put on the spot.
“And when exactly were you going to mention this?” Lance inquired. His irritation only appeared to be getting worse.
“When I had something concrete to report,” Jeff replied in tones of equal annoyance. “I can track their transmissions now, that’s true, but if I can’t figure out what they’re saying, that doesn’t help us very much, does it? Besides, I knew trying to have a meaningful conversation about it while you were babysitting was probably a futile endeavor.”
“Boys,” said Persephone. She sounded calm enough, but there was sufficient steel in her tone that they both subsided…somewhat.
Despite everything, I had to fight to keep a smile off my face. She’d sounded just a little too much like Ms. D’Antonio, my eighth-grade English teacher, who’d always been able to strike fear into even the most hormone-crazed thirteen-year-olds.
“Well, if you can come up with anything, that would be really helpful,” I said. “Because right now although we have a date, we don’t have much more to go on than that. I’m going to work on picking their brains from my end, but coming at it from both sides might get us to a solution a lot faster.”
“Working on it,” Jeff mumbled. “Would’ve still been doing that if you hadn’t called us all here.”
Although I was tempted to fling a retort back in his direction, I held my tongue. Jeff and I had fallen into a pattern of bickering like an old married couple most of the time, but there was no point getting into that now. “I know you are,” I said, hoping that my tone of conciliation read as more or less genuine. “Because I did learn one thing today, and it’s that these aliens aren’t taking any prisoners this time. They want this world for themselves, and they’re going to do whatever they have to in order to achieve that goal. No more messing around with mind control and trying to turn us into slaves — they’re going for the whole scorched-earth thing.”
“How do you know that for certain?” Paul asked.
I noticed that Persephone had reached out and was gripping his hand, as if to reassure herself that he was there. And Kara clutched Grace a little closer to her, one hand cupping the baby’s head. Her expression was worried, but somehow fierce. The old mama-bear instincts coming out in the face of danger, I supposed.
“I just do,” I replied, not wanting to say much more than that. “I sensed it today, felt something of what they intend to do, even if I don’t have all the details.” Okay, so that was only part true. A lot of my information had come from Martin, but I really didn’t feel like going into all of that now. Some misdirection wasn’t that big a deal, as long as everyone got the point that the aliens were done messing around with fun stuff like mind control and possession and were going straight through to total global domination.
“It doesn’t matter how she knows it,” Michael put in, speaking for the first time. “The important thing is that she sees the truth of the matter.”
I wanted to hug him. But Lance still looked far from convince
d.
“Okay, so the truth of the matter is that things are going sideways fast,” he said. “What can we do about it? I think we’re all agreed that another assault on the base is out of the question.”
“Of course it is!” Kara exclaimed. “They’d see you coming from miles away.”
“Kara’s right,” I said. “The thing is, I’m not sure how much any of you can do. Agent Jones made it pretty clear that this one is on me. “
My sister made a sound of protest, but I just shook my head at her. I knew she only wanted to protect me — after all, she’d been doing it for most of her life — but I was beginning to realize that I couldn’t be sheltered forever.
“What I want you all to do,” I continued, my voice picking up a strength and confidence that startled even me, as if I were channeling some energy not entirely mine, “is to stay together, and stay safe. Their power is in darkness, in isolation. I’m not asking you all to bunk here at Michael’s or anything — ”
“Thank God,” Lance muttered.
“ — but I do think Jeff at least should come to stay here, or maybe take the spare room at Paul and Persephone’s or something.”
Persephone looked aghast for a second or two before she could adjust her features into something a little more socially acceptable. Jeff was giving me a narrow glare, as if he were trying to figure out why I didn’t just offer to have him come crash on my couch. But I knew that would never work, not with Martin coming and going at unexpected intervals. I really wanted to keep those two out of each other’s orbit for as long as possible.
“He should be here,” Michael said. “He’s working on a sensitive project. Better that he be here by the creek where the aliens can’t tap into what he’s doing.”
sedona files - books one to three Page 66
