sedona files - books one to three

by Christine Pope

  But I didn’t have much time to enjoy the sensation, because in the next instant I sensed that painful buzzing pressure in my mind, the one that told me Martin was forcing the sort of mental attack he knew the aliens would bring to bear. This time it was much stronger than up at Oak Creek, almost blinding in its brutal force. I flinched, throwing up my hands even though I knew this attack was not physical at all. It ground into my brain, painful as I imagined a migraine must be. I’d never had one.

  All I knew was that my mind seemed to be shattering under the assault, the shimmering energy from the vortex slipping from my fingers. Behind the ferocious pressure I sensed an odd vibration…almost one of triumph.

  Not so fast, buddy.

  I gathered the vortex’s power back to myself, flung it outward, using it like a battering ram against the pressure in my mind. The attack eased somewhat, and I pressed my advantage, coaxing the white-gold light to build on itself, pushing, pushing…

  From somewhere very far away I heard something that sounded like a cry of pain, and I opened my eyes to see Martin slumping against one of the red rock boulders, fingers of one hand wrapped around an outcropping as if it were the only thing holding him up. At once I let go of the energy and ran to his side.

  Oh, God, what if I’d actually hurt him?

  But when I panted out a worried question, he only shook his head and sucked in a deep breath of the cold air. “I’m fine.” A pause, and he added, “That is, I’ll be fine in a minute.” He shut his eyes, his lashes a sooty shadow on his cheeks, and breathed deeply again.

  “Guess I don’t know my own strength,” I told him, the joke sounding lame to me even as I said it.

  “Nothing to feel bad about,” he replied. His voice had begun to sound a little stronger, and he pushed himself upright. “I guess I wasn’t expecting quite that level of defense.”

  “But that’s good, right?”

  “Very good.” He reached out and took my hand in his, leather brushing over the soft angora of my knitted gloves. “Don’t worry, Kirsten. You didn’t do any irreparable damage, and you showed me you can definitely hold your own.”

  I decided it was okay to let myself feel somewhat relieved. Not all the way relieved, but enough so I didn’t have quite the weight of formless fears bearing down on me that I’d had a few minutes earlier. “So we can call it a day?”

  One dark eyebrow lifted.

  “Damn,” I said. “I suppose you want to do that all over again.”

  “More or less.” This time he looked almost amused. “Don’t worry — this is a lot harder on me than it is on you, apparently.”

  Maybe that was true. Then again, the last thing I wanted to do was wear him out so he wouldn’t be any good tonight. My plans for the evening didn’t exactly include passing out on the bed face-first at eight-thirty.

  Well, I’d just have to hope for the best.

  * * *

  Martin did call a halt to things at a little past four. By then it was starting to get dark, and we still had to hike back to the car. We both staggered and wove our way down the parking lot, looking as if we’d been drinking something a lot more potent than bottled water.

  If only.

  I fell onto the passenger seat with a sigh, and Martin edged his way onto his own seat with a visible wince. “Holding up okay, old man?” I inquired, and unscrewed the cap on a fresh bottle of water and held it out to him.

  “‘Old’ is right,” he replied, taking the water from me. He lifted the bottle to his lips and drank almost half of it down in one huge gulp.

  “Leave some for the rest of us, okay?”

  He didn’t reply, but merely handed the water bottle back to me and stuck the key in the ignition. We were almost the last ones to leave the parking lot; I saw one lone F-150 through the rear window as we pulled out onto the highway, but the rest of the hikers had obviously called it a day. I knew the feeling.

  I’d sort of had visions of us going out for a drink as a reward for all that brutal effort, especially since we were close to the Village of Oak Creek and therefore close to PJ’s Pub, a place I used to hate because it was strictly twenty-one and over, and now loved for exactly the same reason. Also, their street tacos were divine. At the moment I felt as if I could have inhaled a whole plateful.

  But that was not to be, as Martin had us headed north, back up to the Forest Houses and our secluded little cabin. I slumped down in my seat and told myself it was better that way. We could cocoon there for the rest of the evening and heal up for the next day…and whatever he had planned for then, he hadn’t told me. Friday. It didn’t leave a lot of time to get ready for the big showdown Saturday night. Sunday morning. Whatever.

  A sleety, spattery rain started to fall, telling me that it would probably turn to snow by midnight if the temperature kept dropping. We drove in silence, both of us too tired for conversation. The uptown shops and restaurants slid past, the sidewalks still crowded despite the weather. Holiday decorations glittered from street lamps and signposts. All so normal. None of those people had any idea of what lay ahead.

  Come to think of it, neither did I. Not really.

  Then we were curving up through Oak Creek Canyon, the trees a dark canopy overhead. The entrance to Forest Houses could be hard to see when approaching from the south, especially after nightfall, but Martin swung unerringly into the narrow opening as if he’d done it a hundred times before. Who knows, maybe he had. He still hadn’t gone into much detail about his time in the MIB unit and what he’d done during those five years he was under cover. I sort of doubted he would, considering we had more important things to worry about at the moment.

  He parked, and we both climbed out, neither one of us all that steady on our feet. Always a gentleman — I wondered if his people were just like that, or whether the behavior was something he’d picked up on Earth — Martin came around to lend me a hand as we negotiated the increasingly muddy path to the front door of our cabin. Once I was safely indoors, I dropped my purse on the floor just inside the door and collapsed on a chair.

  “I’d say you know how to show a girl a good time, but I’m not sure how much fun that really was.”

  “It wasn’t meant to be fun,” he said sternly as he unbuttoned his overcoat and went to the closet to hang it up.

  I kept mine on, because it was uncomfortably chilly in the place after being vacant for so many hours. But Martin was right on that, going to the hearth and getting a good fire going in a remarkably short amount of time. In about five minutes I decided it was warm enough for me to take off my coat and get rid of the muddy boots I wore. I unlaced them and then took them into the bathroom to wipe them down before I tracked dirt everywhere.

  By that point I was starting to feel a little more human. It might have been the quiet of the car ride here, giving me a chance to rest and recharge, or maybe the growing warmth in the room, with that delicious smell of wood smoke. Or maybe it was just being here with Martin, seeing him straighten from tending the fire, only to give me a glance that told me he wasn’t quite as tired as I’d thought.

  A heat that didn’t have all that much to do with the fire flickered somewhere deep in my belly. I got up from my chair and padded in my stocking feet to the kitchen, where I pulled out the heavy tumblers we were using as wine glasses before asking, “Chianti or cab?”

  He appeared to consider. “Hmm…what are we eating?”

  “Considering how tired we both are, I’m guessing it’s frozen pizza.”

  “Chianti, then. Definitely.”

  I grinned and got out the corkscrew, and he came into the kitchen to offer assistance. Not that I couldn’t pull a cork with the best of them, but I didn’t mind letting him do some of the work. As he busied himself with cutting the foil and then pulling out the cork, I asked, “So do you have these sorts of things on your world, or do you just really enjoy slumming?”

  The cork came out with a satisfying pop. Martin set it and the corkscrew aside. “What sorts of things? An
d no, I wouldn’t say I was slumming.”

  I waited until he had poured me a glass and taken my first sip before replying, “Wine and pizza and burgers. You know.”

  “Ah.” He helped himself to a measured swallow of chianti, shut his eyes for a moment, and sighed. “Frozen pizza, no. Burgers…not really. Wine? Absolutely. Good wine is a mark of true civilization.”

  “Glad to hear we’re not completely hopeless, then.” Realizing that guzzling too much chianti on an empty stomach, especially after the afternoon we’d had, was not the wisest thing to be doing, I went to the oven and turned it up to 400 degrees, getting it ready for the pizza. In the meantime, I got out a box of crackers and a slab of smoked Gouda we’d picked up with the rest of the goodies while we were at Safeway. “To tide us over,” I explained, after peeling the plastic away from the cheese. “We only have a butter knife to cut it, though.”

  “That’s fine.” He picked up the knife and sliced some cheese for both of us.

  I popped some in my mouth sans cracker, enjoying the smooth, smoky flavor of it in contrast to the deep fruitiness of the chianti. The oven made little popping noises as it heated up, adding to the warmth of the fire. Outside, I thought I could hear the patter of rain on stones, and was glad we’d gotten indoors before it really decided to open up.

  Again I was struck by how homey and cozy it was here. Easy to pretend that Martin was my boyfriend and that we were just taking an extended weekend away from it all. But that sort of thinking wasn’t safe. I couldn’t forget we were here because this was the one place where I didn’t have to worry about the aliens invading my mind while I slept. Besides, the man before me wasn’t really my boyfriend. Stupid word, really. It wasn’t as if I was still in high school.

  Lover?

  Maybe. Mentor, teacher, associate…who knew. Trying to put a label on such an impossible relationship probably wasn’t the wisest thing to be doing.

  “You’re quiet,” he said.

  “I suppose I’m trying to talk myself out of being scared shitless,” I replied. Somehow it seemed easier to discuss the situation with the aliens than to admit I was attempting to analyze our affair and not having much luck.

  “Fear is nothing to be ashamed of.” Martin reached for a piece of cheese and ate it slowly, as if contemplating its flavor. “Fear can give you a healthy respect for your adversary, as long as you don’t let that fear get out of control.”

  “It’s kind of hard not to, don’t you think?”

  “Not really. You did extremely well today. I’d think you’d be feeling encouraged by that.”

  I paused. In one way, he was right. I’d faced another challenge and overcome it, and had shown increasing mastery over these strange powers that a few days ago I didn’t even know I had. However, how much did that really prove? Martin was the one training me, and he couldn’t be completely impartial. Somewhere in the back of my head I couldn’t help wondering whether he was throwing his punches the tiniest bit, just to make sure he didn’t hurt me.

  Or to make sure my confidence didn’t flag.

  To cover my hesitation, I went to the small refrigerator and pulled out the frozen pizza. Unwrapping it and putting it in the oven gave me a little grace, but not all that much. I could tell he was still waiting for me to give him some sort of answer.

  I shut the oven door and checked my watch, noting when I’d need to take the pizza out. Finally I said, “Encouraged…a little. It’s just that on Saturday night — Sunday morning — I’m not going to be fighting you. I’m going to be fighting a bunch of aliens. If they’re all as strong as you are, I don’t stand a chance.”

  He set down his glass and came to me then, drawing me into his arms. I burrowed my face into his shoulder, smelling the scent of wood smoke that seemed to cling to the fine wool of his sweater. This — this was what I’d been wanting, to feel his arms around me, to breathe him in, let his warmth surround me and support me.

  “They’re not as strong as I am,” he murmured, stroking my hair, pushing it off my brow. “Collectively, they can be quite strong, but individually? Their mental powers are not as developed as those of my — of your — race. And remember, the very power of your world struggles against them. That’s something on your side as well.”

  “I suppose so,” I said, my tone dubious, and his arms tightened around me.

  “You don’t think I’d ask you to do this if it were hopeless, do you? You have a chance — a good one. A better one than I’d even hoped for. So you shouldn’t, as they like to say here on Earth, borrow trouble. I’m not saying it will be easy. All I’m saying is that it’s far from impossible.”

  His words did reassure me, if not completely. After all, what could he or his people get out of it if there was absolutely no chance of me succeeding? Again I had to wonder at their whole “no interference” policy and its decidedly blurred lines. Apparently highly advanced races were just as good at rationalization as the rest of us mortal schmoes.

  “All right,” I said, “you’ve convinced me. I have absolutely nothing to worry about. So how about you kiss me until that pizza is ready?”

  “I think I can manage that.” And he bent and pressed his mouth to mine, lips parting, tongues touching, sharing the sweetness of the wine and the smokiness of the cheese, and the heat of our bodies running together, bringing us to a perfect moment when the whole world seemed to stop and it was only his arms around me, only his mouth on mine.

  Luckily I wasn’t so far lost in his embrace that I couldn’t smell the cheese on the pizza as it began to burn. “Crap,” I said, and pulled away. A frantic search turned up a couple of well-used pot holders in the bottom drawer, and I grabbed them before opening the oven door and pulling out the pizza.

  It was a little crispy around the edges, but the center still looked gooey and more than viable.

  “Close call,” Martin commented with a grin.

  “Your own damn fault for distracting me like that.” I set the pizza down on the countertop, glad it was tile and not Formica so I didn’t have to worry about scorching it. “Plates?”

  “Of course.” He retrieved them from a cupboard and set them on the cramped counter so I could dish us up.

  Of course there was nothing as civilized as a pizza cutter in the clutter of old utensils in the drawer, but I did find a fairly sharp knife shoved toward the back and used that to saw the pizza into more or less equal slices. After this operation, we collected our plates and our wine — Martin expertly grabbing both the bottle and his glass in his left hand — and went to sit in front of the fire.

  Somehow it seemed the most natural thing in the world to settle on the worn rug there as we used the end of the bed as a back rest, our feet stretching toward the hearth and the wonderful heat coming from it. We ate quietly, watching the flames, as the rain outside the window gradually shifted to snow, light and feathery and lovely. It wouldn’t last; snow here in Sedona rarely did. But something about it seemed to increase my sense of shelter, as if the weather itself was wrapping a protective cocoon around us, giving us some grace, a chance to relax.

  It came to me then that I felt as if I belonged here, sitting next to Martin, in a silence that had nothing of awkwardness in it. Belonging. A concept I’d always had a hard time wrapping my head around. It was as if there had been this little piece of me that never felt as if it fit in, as if there was something about me that always kept me on the fringes. If I stopped to think about it at all, I blamed it on my mother abandoning me at such an early age. Sure, my grandparents gave me a loving home and took care of everything I — or Kara — might need, but deep down that didn’t erase the feeling that there had to be something wrong with me for Marybeth to walk out like that.

  I’d had friends, but I’d never been what you’d call popular, even if I looked like I should have been on the cheerleading squad or something. Kara had, but Kara worked at it, just as she worked hard at everything. I’d found it easier to play with computers, to read books and graphi
c novels and hang out at the store, listening to the wild tales spun by some of Grandpa’s friends when they thought I wasn’t paying attention. Boyfriends, sure, here and there, but we all know how well those relationships had turned out.

  But now…

  Scary, what I was feeling for Martin. Sure, he could dress it up in talk of lifemates and all that, but even so, the thought that I could be in love with him — could love him — when I’d only known him for a few days frightened the hell out of me. It was easy to sit back and be flip and be “kooky Kiki,” the girl who dyed a blue streak in her hair one day because she felt like it and spent her weekends looking for UFOs. That girl didn’t have a care in the world.

  I didn’t think I recognized her anymore.

  And what scared me even more was that I loved Martin, even though I knew next to nothing about him. What I did know was that when he held me, when he kissed me, touched me, I didn’t want anything else. One glance from those sea-blue eyes, and I was lost. Not exactly what I’d expected of myself, when I’d decided several years back that I just wasn’t the romantic type and had little patience for all the swooning and heavy breathing and drama I saw going on with my friends who were in relationships.

  I set down my pizza rind and picked up my glass of wine. Martin was staring into the fire, shadows dancing over his fine profile, which looked like something that should be stamped on a coin. I couldn’t begin to guess what he might be thinking.

  Tentatively, I reached out with my mind, still unsure of this new talent. You’re not saying much tonight.

  His mouth lifted slightly at the corner. Neither are you.

  True. I drank the one swallow left at the bottom of my glass, and he silently poured me some more, filling it about halfway. Guess I’m just tired.

  How tired?

  I caught the hint in the unvoiced question. Well, not that tired.

  And although I wasn’t quite sure exactly how it happened, I found the glass plucked from my hand, and Martin was lifting me as easily as if I weighed nothing, carrying me to the bed, his hands urgently pulling the sweater over my head, fingers working at the button on my jeans. Normally I would have reached out to him, but for some reason I found myself content to lie there as he tossed my clothes onto a chair, unhooked my bra, pulled down my panties.