“Unless the aliens have gotten to him during the past few days,” I added, and waited to see if any sort of twinge or chill might follow my statement. None did, which meant either Tyler was still in the clear, or my spider sense had packed its bags and left for the Bahamas so it could meet up with Otto.
“But you don’t think that’s the case.”
“No — but how did you know?”
“Maybe some of your powers are rubbing off on me.”
Or it could be that I had the world’s worst poker face. I glanced down at my watch. Ten forty-five. If Tyler wasn’t up by now, then he was sleeping in after an all-nighter, which meant it really didn’t matter what time I called — anything would be inconvenient. “Let me borrow your phone.”
Paul reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out the little prepaid cellular. I had to hope Tyler would pick up, even if he didn’t recognize the number; on occasion, he took side gigs in addition to his regular job at Topanga Digital, and so it wasn’t in his best interests to ignore a call, even if it came from a phone number he’d never seen before.
I did power up my own iPhone, but only to get Tyler’s number from the address book. His phone rang once, twice, three times. I bit my lip and began mentally composing a message in case it rolled over to voicemail, but on the fourth ring, I heard a sleepy-sounding male voice say, “Hello?”
So I had woken him up. Knowing there wasn’t anything to do but forge ahead, I said, “Hi, Tyler. This is Persephone O’Brien.”
“Persephone?” A pause, and then, “Did I miss an appointment or something? It’s been kind of crazy lately — ”
“No,” I broke in. “Nothing like that. I actually just wanted to ask you a couple of questions.”
“Questions?”
“About your work. If you don’t mind.”
“Well, I’ve got to be back at work in about an hour — ”
There went any plans of seeing him in person. I’d have to do this over the phone and hope for the best. “Oh, that’s fine,” I said hastily, and glanced across at Paul and raised my eyebrows, as if to ask whether it really was okay. He responded by lifting his shoulders and giving me a somewhat resigned nod. “I’ll make this fast. You say you’ve been really busy lately?”
“Well, yeah.”
“Have you noticed anything unusual about the projects?”
A note of suspicion entered his voice, but it felt like normal caution to me, not any real attempt at a cover-up. “Unusual how?”
I sent a pleading look in Paul’s direction. How was I supposed to ask the right questions when I really didn’t know what we were looking for?
Paul leaned across the table and murmured, “Ask him if he’s noticed any anomalies in the upper bands of the digital tracks. They might have caused a distortion that he’d have to compensate for across the other bands.”
My knight in shining armor. “Any anomalies in the upper bands? They might have caused distortions that you’d notice, and have to compensate for.”
A long pause. Then he asked, “How’d you know about that?”
I could practically feel the uncertainty and worry pulsing across the ionosphere and working its way down into the cell phone I held. All very human emotions, though…I still didn’t sense anything odd or otherworldly about him. So Tyler was apparently still Tyler. “Um — something another client spoke to me about. I told him I had someone I could ask. Confidentially, of course. I didn’t give him your name.”
“Oh.” Another one of those hesitations, but somehow I knew that, more than thirty miles away, Tyler had relaxed slightly. “Well, yeah, I actually have been seeing stuff like that for the last few weeks. It’s really making my life miserable. I even went to my bosses with it, said that we were getting junk from the studios and that the mix wasn’t going to be clean, but they told me to just do what I could and leave it alone. So I did.”
Which could mean the bosses were controlled by aliens…or just too used to taking their orders from the studios, which of course were everybody’s bread and butter in this town. I knew that things in post-production were often worked on up until the last minute, so the material that had been hitting Topanga Digital and playing havoc with Tyler’s carefully calibrated equipment was probably going to be in multiplexes within the next few weeks, if even that long. We didn’t have a lot of time.
“Thanks, Tyler,” I said, and tried to sound breezy and unconcerned, as if all I’d been doing was collecting data for someone else and not trying to figure out what I was supposed to do to keep the alien hordes from enslaving the entire planet. “That helps a lot. Sorry I woke you.”
“No prob. The alarm was going to go off in ten minutes anyway. Have a good one.”
He hung up, and I snapped the phone shut and handed it back to Paul.
“There’s already a lot of ‘infected’ material in the pipeline,” I told him, and his brow creased.
“Damn. I was hoping we might have gotten a jump on things.”
“Well, all is not lost.” I thought furiously, trying to dredge up all the minutiae of the technical side of the film industry that I’d mentally shoved aside, not thinking it would ever be of much use to me. Guess you just never knew. I went on, “I know all that data has to be stored someplace. And I know actual film also has to be stored, even though more and more places are fully digital these days. But we don’t have much of a lead, that’s for sure.”
Paul was still holding the phone in his hand. It went off, chirping away in the annoying standard ring tone he’d never bothered to change.
I probably would have startled and dropped the thing. But he merely opened it, scanned the number quickly, and lifted the phone to his ear. “Jeff.”
That syllable was followed by a silence of about half a minute, while the line between Paul’s eyebrows deepened and his mouth tightened. Finally he said, “We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
Immediately, I started looking around for our waitress so I could have her bring the bill. “What is it?”
“New developments. Jeff wants us there as soon as possible.”
“What sort of developments?”
“He didn’t want to say. Just told me it was urgent.”
Great. After craning my head to survey the other end of the patio, I locked eyes with the waitress and beckoned her over. Luckily, she had just finished dropping off someone’s order, because she came over almost at once.
“Anything else for you?”
“Just the check.”
Bless her, she had it in the pocket of her apron, and so was able to extract it and hand it to me on the spot. I thanked her, pulled the money out of my wallet, and handed it over to her. “Keep the change.”
Her eyes widened a bit; she’d probably gotten about a thirty-percent tip, but it wasn’t worth waiting for those couple extra dollars. “Hey, thanks!”
“My pleasure.”
Paul got up and I rose as well, stuffing the wallet back into my purse at the same time. Without speaking, we hurried out the little gate that led from the patio to the street, and then on to the parking lot half a block down. It wasn’t until we were back on the freeway, speeding eastward, that I spoke. “Did it sound bad?”
“I didn’t get any details. But he sounded…strained.”
In which case, it probably wasn’t good news. I fiddled with the strap of my purse and stared out the window as the carefully landscaped freeway embankments slid by. Reapplying my lipstick seemed like a frivolous use of my time, but I didn’t have anything better to do, and Paul didn’t seem inclined to conversation. Too bad that the lipstick reapplication took roughly thirty seconds, while the trip to Fontana seemed to drag on forever.
It was a bright, sunny day, much nicer than the one before, and yet as we drew closer to Lampson Labs, a chill began working its way down my spine. I knew that sensation, and it wasn’t a good one.
I said, “I don’t know if this is such a good idea.”
“What makes you say that
?”
“A feeling. Something bad is waiting for us.”
He let out a breath and frowned as he turned off Fourth into the little industrial complex where the lab was located. “We already know it’s bad. It’s an alien virus.”
“It’s more than that,” I told him.
“Could you provide a little more detail? A nebulous ‘bad feeling’ isn’t all that helpful.”
I knew that just as well as he did, but at the moment, I didn’t have anything else to offer. “Sorry. That’s it for now.”
“We’ll just have to be careful, then.”
Meaning he might be a little extra wary, but he wasn’t about to turn the car around. I forced down a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself. True, my having a raging case of the heebie-jeebies meant more than it did with most people. However, I knew Paul was determined to meet Jeff and hear his news, so there wasn’t a lot I could do, short of making him stop the car and let me out.
I knew I wouldn’t abandon him, so I knotted my fingers around my purse strap and bit my lip as we turned the corner and pulled up in front of Lampson Labs.
Nothing seemed to have changed. Jeff’s shabby van and Raymond’s shiny Prius still occupied the same spots, which made sense, if they’d pulled an all-nighter. True, the rest of the lots around the building were pretty much deserted, but it was a Saturday, after all; not everyone was as dedicated as Raymond.
We pulled into the empty space next to the Prius and got out of the car. By then, my heart was slamming so hard against my ribcage, I was surprised Paul couldn’t hear it. However, he strode toward the door, chin lifted, and if he had any misgivings about going into the building, he sure wasn’t showing them. I followed a pace or two behind.
As before, the front office was deserted. We headed on back down the hallway toward the lab where we’d left Raymond and Jeff the night before. Sure enough, both of them were still there, although Raymond had apparently abandoned his electron microscope for the time being.
The chill I’d felt on the way over intensified, sending a wave of cold down my back and through my limbs. I looked down and saw the hair on my forearms standing straight up.
“Good,” said Raymond, and although I barely knew him, still I heard something wrong in his voice, wrong as the dissonance that had filled my ears the night before.
I stopped in the doorway, but Paul continued forward until he was only a few steps away from Raymond. I wanted to scream at him, to tell him to back away, but something seemed to be constricting my throat, preventing me from making any sound.
“Glad you could get here so quickly,” Raymond continued. “Better to get this all cleaned up, with no trouble. Humans really should learn not to stick their noses in where they don’t belong.”
Humans…?
Paul caught it, too, and took a step backward. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing you’ll need to worry about.” He nodded at Jeff, who looked as glassy-eyed as someone who’d spent all night smoking some really premium weed. Jeff lifted a hand-held radio of some sort and pushed the red button on it.
From nowhere — or maybe everywhere — Otto’s voice thundered in my head.
Run, Persephone! Run now!
I can’t leave Paul —
You’ll do him no good if you’re captured as well!
Captured?
The door on the opposite side of the lab flew open, and out of it poured men in black jumpsuits, men with what looked like assault rifles held in their hands. Paul glanced back at me, face filled with agonized worry — not for himself, I realized, but for me.
A grip of iron descended on my arm, and without thinking, I raised my other hand and smacked my assailant directly against the temple with my purse. It must have hurt like hell, considering the bag was loaded with emergency supplies. He let out a muffled oath, and I took advantage of that one second of surprise to turn and bolt down the corridor.
This way! came Otto’s voice again, and I zigzagged down a short side hall that ended in an emergency door. The alarms began to shriek the second I pushed it open, but it hardly seemed to matter at that point.
Fleetingly I thought of the car, but I didn’t have the keys, and there was no time to hot-wire the thing even if I’d known how to perform such a procedure. Instead, I darted between two buildings, hoping the maze of the industrial complex would be enough to hide the direction I’d gone. From behind me, I heard shouts and the pounding of booted feet, and I increased my pace, thanking God for all those dance classes with Ginger and their cardio benefits. I also thanked God for my little Kohl’s flats.
To the street, instructed Otto, and I turned toward what I hoped was Fourth Street. Sure enough, I emerged just a few seconds later — only to see a city bus fast approaching.
Did you arrange that?
Just get on!
I raised my hand, and, wonder of wonders, the bus paused, even though I wasn’t anywhere near a designated stop. Trying to keep from panting too heavily, I dug the correct change out of my purse and then staggered back to the first empty seat, where I dropped onto the worn cushions and tried to wrap my brain around what had just happened.
I was safe for the moment, but Paul was in the hands of the enemy.
Chapter Nine
I kept watch out the window, sure that a phalanx of black SUVs would descend on the tired Omnitrans bus at any moment, but it seemed I had shaken off my pursuers, at least for the time being. My hands began to shake, and I clenched them around my purse and willed myself to be calm.
As usual, Otto, your sense of timing is impeccable, I thought sourly.
Otto’s mental voice sounded almost sheepish. My apologies for abandoning you, but there are greater things happening than you can possibly imagine.
So I gathered. What now?
A long pause. You must go forward on your own. I have helped you this once, but the way ahead is your own path to forge.
At first, I didn’t quite get what he was saying. I blinked as comprehension slowly dawned. What, you mean you’re not going to help me?
I cannot help you further…not now. Not more than I already have done. But you will have help. Just remember to keep your heart and mind open, and it will come to you. Another of those hesitations. Trust your instincts. They have served you well in the past…they will serve you now.
And then he was gone. I couldn’t exactly explain how I knew he had left when he had never materialized in the first place, but I sensed a sudden absence, a lightening of a pressure I hadn’t even known was there until it disappeared.
Trust your instincts. I didn’t know how helpful that advice was, considering at the moment my first instinct was to break down into some noisy and much-needed hysterics. But that wouldn’t solve anything, and would only result in my being thrown off the bus.
Instead, I shut my eyes and took a few of the centering breaths that always prefaced my meditations. Not that I was planning to meditate, but now more than ever, I needed a clear head. If I panicked, I’d never see Paul again.
Just for reference, it actually was possible to take mass transit all the way from the Inland Empire to Burbank…if you were willing to give up three or four hours of your life. By the time I limped off the bus and headed toward the long-term parking lot at Burbank Airport, I was beginning to wonder whether I should have parted with some of my dwindling cash reserves to get a cab, or maybe called an Uber.
Somehow that didn’t feel right, just as it seemed the right thing to do to reclaim my car. Probably the last thing my pursuers would be expecting was to have me jump back into my red Volvo. But it was familiar to me, and if I was going to have to do any evasive driving in the near future, better to do it in a car whose reactions I knew as well as I knew my own.
Because I’d begun to feel something, some sort of force that wanted to drag me eastward. I knew, without knowing exactly how I knew, that I needed to head east, that it was somewhere beyond Ontario and even past the borders of California where Paul had b
een taken. In the past, I’d learned to trust these feelings, to let them guide me where they would. No, on the surface it didn’t make sense, just as picking up the Volvo, paying off the attendant, and heading down into L.A. didn’t make a lot of sense. But although I still had some cash on me, I didn’t have as much as I thought I might need, and I knew I had to turn to the one person who would take care of me without question…all right, without too many questions.
“You’re what?” Ginger demanded. She’d just finished her Saturday afternoon salsa class, and her bright red hair stuck to her temples and the back of her neck. She picked up a flyer for an upcoming ballroom dance competition and fanned herself with it.
“I’m driving to Arizona, and I don’t want to pull the money out of my own account. You know I’m good for it.”
“That’s not the point.” She frowned, but delicately, so as not to overly crease the professionally filled skin between her brows. “You disappear for two days, don’t leave word with anyone, there’s these men poking around — ”
“What men?” I demanded, more sharply than I had intended.
“Men in suits. They looked like government types, but they flashed their I.D.s so fast I didn’t have time to see what branch. Not police. I’ve dated a few policemen in my time, and these guys had a totally different smell.”
I should have expected as much, but still, the verbal confirmation that they had been snooping around my friends and my business made my stomach clench. “What did they want?”
“Wanted to know if I’d heard from you, if you’d left any information as to where you’d gone.” Her mouth quirked. “I told them I had no idea but that I hoped you’d hooked a hottie and gone off for a lost weekend somewhere.”
“Ginger!”
A lift of her perfectly toned shoulders. “Well, what was I supposed to say? It was the truth. So did you?”
Magic in the Desert: Three Paranormal Romance Series Starters Set in the American Southwest Page 65
