Magic in the Desert: Three Paranormal Romance Series Starters Set in the American Southwest

by Christine Pope

  He said nothing but stared down at me, face impassive, as if taking my measure. After an interminable second or two, he nodded. “She’s not making it up.”

  “As if I would!” I said, indignant that he would even make such a suggestion. Did he have any idea what I had gone through the past few days — what Paul had gone through? Surely the truth was frightening enough without adding any embellishments.

  “You’d be surprised.”

  Kara waved a hand. “We don’t have time for this. Paul Oliver is in trouble — ”

  “The Paul Oliver?” Kiki broke in, eyes shining. She had a turquoise blue streak in her pale blonde hair, which was pulled into a pair of Swiss Miss braids. If she was a day over twenty-one, I’d be shocked.

  I reflected that I would never have known a few days ago that the UFO world had its own rock stars. And I also wondered what the hell I was doing, dragging these people I didn’t know into my own personal nightmare. Kiki and Adam were just kids, and although you certainly couldn’t say that about Lance or Michael Lightfoot, still, they were strangers. Maybe this had all been a terrible mistake.

  But then I heard Otto’s voice, strong and sure, in my mind. You will have help. Just remember to keep your heart and mind open, and it will come to you.

  I nodded, although whether in response to Kiki’s question, or as an affirmation of my spirit guide’s remembered words, I couldn’t really say. My voice was firm as I responded, “Yes, the Paul Oliver. And he — and I — need your help.”

  Chapter Ten

  It didn’t take as long as I had thought it might to recount the story to them — how Alex Hathaway had come to see me at my office, how Otto had commanded me to go see Paul at the Sheraton Universal. The chase by the agent in the parking garage. Our growing discovery of the conspiracy. The subjugation of Raymond Lampson. Paul’s capture.

  By the time I was done, Kiki’s blue eyes — so like her sister’s — were almost as big as the saucers she hunted in the night sky. Adam similarly appeared far more excited than worried or nervous. Michael Lightfoot’s expression was grave, and as for Lance, well, he didn’t have wear much of an expression at all. Kara seemed more intrigued than anything else, although her excitement was more muted than her sister’s.

  She turned to Lance. “Secret Canyon?”

  One nod. His gaze flickered in my direction for the barest fraction of a second. He asked, “Have you seen him?”

  “What?”

  “You’re a psychic.” There was just the smallest hint of contempt in the word. “Haven’t you tried to see him, made an attempt to find out where they’ve taken him?”

  I almost pulled out my “psychics are not one size fits all” speech, then decided it wasn’t worth the effort, since I had the distinct impression Lance knew very well that his question was guaranteed to irritate me. Technically speaking, I wasn’t a clairvoyant. If Otto wasn’t giving me outright advice, then most of my readings came from hunches, or feelings…like the one that had brought me here to Sedona in the first place.

  “No,” I said. “I just know he’s still alive, and still all right…for now, anyway.”

  Lance’s flat stare didn’t flicker. “Maybe you should try.”

  The middle of the UFO Depot, with a group of people I barely knew looking on, was perhaps not the most ideal situation for attempting that sort of feat. But he had put me on my mettle, and I had done such a thing once or twice before. I just had no idea whether it would work this time, especially when I hadn’t had any time to mentally prepare myself for such spiritual exertions.

  Without bothering to reply, I shut my eyes, closing out the faces of the people watching me, the cluttered shelves of the cramped store, and eased into a calm blankness. The sound of the film playing in the background became tinny, then died away to nothing.

  I thought of Paul, of the quick flash of his smile, the green and gold glints in his hazel eyes. The way his mouth had felt on mine, the warm scent of his skin. All the thousand and one little details I hadn’t even realized I was noticing at the time, but which had been carefully filed away in my mind. I built an image of him in the darkness behind my eyelids, and suddenly, he was there.

  Or rather, I was there with him. I saw him clearly as he sat on a mean little cot with a thin Army-issue blanket in a room with dark gray walls. He seemed to be alone. A fresh bruise showed clearly along the fine bones of his jaw, and he was sporting a pretty spectacular black eye. But his gaze as he stared at the metal door of the chamber seemed sharp enough, and I knew he was still Paul, no puppet of the aliens. How long he would remain that way, I had no idea, but at least I knew the universe had told me the truth.

  Oh, Paul…. Seeing him like that made the need clench in my stomach. I almost reached out to touch him, even though I knew such a gesture would be futile. He was still miles away, maybe even farther than that.

  His head went up, and he looked around his prison cell, eyes wide. “Persephone?”

  He couldn’t have heard me. Impossible. But I mentally sighed his name again, and once more his head moved from right to left, as if he could somehow find me within the confines of that stark little room.

  My throat tightened, and the hot, sharp edges of tears began to prick at the corners of my eyes. So we had made some sort of connection, even in the short time we’d spent together. It wasn’t all wish fulfillment and foolish dreams. I’d never been able to make contact like that with anyone else.

  But then a strong, cool hand touched my wrist, and a deep voice said, “Persephone.”

  My eyelids snapped open. Michael Lightfoot stared down at me, his dark gaze not quite as imperturbable as the last time I had looked at him.

  “Why did you do that?”

  His eyes narrowed. “You were gone for almost fifteen minutes.”

  Fifteen — “What?”

  “You totally tranced out,” Kiki supplied. “Lance said to leave you alone, but Michael finally decided if we didn’t do something, you might be standing there all day. You already scared off a couple of customers.”

  I blinked, and realized that my left foot had gone to sleep. Fifteen minutes. I’d never done anything like that before. Jesus.

  Lance asked, “Did you see him?”

  Again, that constriction squeezed my throat, a burden born of need and fear and doubt. I nodded, since I wasn’t sure how well my voice was working.

  “Details?”

  His tone was too even to be called outright annoyed, but I could tell he didn’t have much patience with me.

  I coughed, and forced the words past the thickness surrounding my vocal cords. “He’s in a small room. The walls look like rock. There’s nothing in there except a cot. He’s not bound, but it looks as if he’s been roughed up a little. But he’s alive…and still himself.”

  He nodded. “We’d better not waste any more time, then.” A quick, sharp glance at the rest of the group, and he added, “This could get dicey.”

  “I live for dicey,” Kiki said immediately, while her boyfriend nodded. I felt a sharp thrum of worry from Kara, but she only said, in resigned tones,

  “Guess I’ll be holding down the fort once again.”

  “Your role is valuable as well,” Michael said, and she gave a little shrug, even as a sense of resignation drifted from her in waves.

  “I keep telling myself that.”

  Kiki grinned. “I’m driving!”

  The first true emotion I’d seen so far passed over Lance’s face. His eyebrows creased. “Oh, shit.”

  We all trooped outside, except for Kara, who had turned back to her computer in a vain attempt to look as if she really didn’t mind being left behind. I stopped dead in my tracks when I saw what was waiting for us in the parking lot.

  “You really think you’re going to be inconspicuous in that?”

  The van was black and had “UFO Night Tours” painted across the sides in an acid green almost the same hue as the shop’s sign. An alien with huge teardrop eyes stared at
me from directly above the wheelwell.

  “Protective camouflage,” Kiki responded cheerfully. “Everyone’s used to seeing tour buses and vans all over town. No one takes it seriously. Even the MIBs pretty much ignore us.”

  “MIBs?” I echoed.

  “Men in black,” Lance said. “Not to be trifled with. Get in — time’s wasting.”

  I wondered who, in one of my exes’ pithy terminology, had pissed in his Wheaties, but decided it wouldn’t be prudent to ask. Instead, I climbed into the back of the van, since Adam had already taken the shotgun position. There were three rows of seats, and I settled myself in the one directly behind Kiki, while Michael Lightfoot sat down next to me. Lance, of course, went all the way to the back, where he stared out the window as if expecting a squad of MIBs to descend on us at any moment.

  Kiki didn’t wait to see if we’d all fastened our seatbelts, but instead squealed out of the parking lot in a scatter of loose gravel. I clung to the armrest and decided that Lance, despite his sour mood, hadn’t been exaggerating about her driving.

  There was a good deal of traffic on the main drag, despite it being a Sunday morning. To take my mind off the way Kiki was weaving in and out of the cars, SUVs, tour buses, and vans not terribly unlike our own, I leaned toward Michael and asked in an undertone, “So what’s the deal with Lance?”

  He smiled, the lines around his eyes seeming to make them almost disappear for a moment. “Ah, Lance. His way has not been an easy one.”

  “He was part of Project Stargate,” Kiki chimed in.

  “What?”

  “Project Stargate. The army’s remote viewing program,” she added, sounding a little impatient, as if everyone should know what that was. “But he left even before they disbanded it. The whole thing does seem to have made him a little cranky.”

  “Can you stop talking about ‘him’ as if he wasn’t in the same vehicle with you?” came Lance’s sour tones from the back of the van.

  I risked a quick glance over my shoulder and saw him leaning forward in the space between the two headrests. To my surprise, he appeared far less irritated than his comment would have indicated.

  “‘Remote viewing’?” I repeated, curious despite myself. I didn’t really expect him to answer me, but I couldn’t help asking, “Why did you leave?”

  “Saw more than I should have,” he said, and shot me a narrow-eyed look. It was almost as if he got some perverse pleasure in providing me with a reply when I clearly had been predicting that I would get none. “More than I wanted to.” A jerk of his leather-clad shoulder toward the red rock–rimmed canyon toward which we were headed. “And it was up there.”

  Even though the country around me was beautiful — staggeringly gorgeous, actually — I shivered. Something waited out there, that much I knew. What exactly that thing was, whether aliens, MIBs, squads of Army Rangers, or what-have-you, I got the distinct impression it wasn’t going to be rolling out the welcome mat for the motley crew inside the UFO Night Tours van. And how we were supposed to get into what I guessed had to be some sort of heavily fortified facility, I hadn’t the slightest idea.

  “How is that possible, anyway?” Adam asked, turning in his seat to look back at Lance. At the same moment, the paved road abruptly gave way to dirt and gravel. The van lurched a bit, and I hung on to my armrest grimly and hoped the vehicle had decent tires and a sturdy suspension.

  Lance’s gray gaze shifted to Adam for a second before moving straight ahead once again. Although otherwise I couldn’t get a clear read off him, I did sense that Lance didn’t have much patience for Adam. “How is what possible?”

  “How can they be hiding some big operation up there, right under all our noses?”

  “Classic obfuscation. Most people think Boynton’s where the action is — as if the shadow government would be stupid enough to let someone build a resort right on top of its base — so no one pays attention to Secret Canyon.”

  “Shadow government?” I said.

  Lance threw another sour look in my direction. “You really don’t know anything, do you?”

  “Well, not having spent the past five years hanging out on conspiracy theory websites — ”

  Michael broke in, his clear, deep tones overriding my rebuke. “The evidence does seem to indicate that there are elements within the government working independently of its charter. These elements have their own agenda.”

  “Including colluding with aliens?”

  A grave nod. “If it suits their purpose.”

  Maybe I was just being naive, but I couldn’t understand how people in the government would be willing to betray their fellow human beings. After all, this wasn’t like selling secrets to the Russians or something. “So you’re trying to tell me that people funded by our taxes are working behind the scenes to enslave their own people? That doesn’t make any sense to me.”

  “Obviously, you don’t get out much,” Lance remarked. “There are plenty of people in the government who don’t think the American public has the smarts to wipe its own ass. They’ll sell them out in a heartbeat if it means gaining more power or furthering their aims.”

  “Don’t forget about the technology — you know, like the Aurora Project,” Kiki put in from the front seat. At least she had her gaze more or less directed forward, but I still worried that she wasn’t paying enough attention to the road. “The aliens trade bits of technology for access and staging areas — like the hidden base up in Secret Canyon.”

  It would have been nice if she hadn’t kept bringing up all this stuff as if it was supposed to be common knowledge. I remarked, my tone a little sourer than I had intended, “It can’t be that secret if you all know about it.”

  Lance shrugged. “We spend our time digging. Most people don’t. And it’s not as if Secret Canyon is off-limits. People hike there, but it’s a rough trail. And more often than not, they don’t make it all the way up the trail.”

  “Too steep?” I asked, even though I knew that probably wasn’t the reason.

  “Let’s just call it bad vibrations. That’s something a psychic can relate to, right?”

  Something almost made me respond that if he had been in the remote viewing program, then he must be a psychic, too, and what was with all the sarcasm? But then I realized the last thing we needed was to keep sniping at each other. Too much was at stake. We had to work as a team…even if Lance was as prickly as one of the cacti that lined the road around us.

  So I just lifted my shoulders and stared ahead as well, watching as we bounced and jounced over the unpaved track and slowly climbed higher. On every side, the red rocks seemed to close in, as if looming over us. I hated to admit it, but Lance was right. Something about the place just felt wrong, and we weren’t anywhere near our destination yet. It was beautiful, yes, but beautiful in a deadly way, like the web of a black widow spider.

  I wondered if we’d be able to escape that web.

  None of us spoke for a minute or two. Maybe they’d all sensed the same thing I had, or maybe they were just picking up on what was a galloping case of the heebie-jeebies.

  “What did you see?” I asked Lance finally. “What made you quit?”

  Surprisingly, he grinned. The expression changed his whole face; I realized he wasn’t as old as I had originally thought he was…maybe ten years or so older than I. “You don’t beat around the bush, do you?”

  “Haven’t got the time.”

  “Fair enough.” Lance paused, and I could actually feel the consciousnesses of the other passengers in the van focusing in on him. I realized then that they’d never heard the whole story, either, that Lance had never been one to reveal much of himself.

  “I suppose it’s only fair you know what you’re heading into,” he said. “I don’t need to go into the whole story — let’s just say that remote viewing is all about staying extremely focused, about finding the target. But after I’d been in the program for a couple of years, I started breaking focus, tracking someplace I shouldn�
��t have been looking. I don’t know why. Up until then, I’d been one of the program’s top agents. You weren’t supposed to do what I was doing.”

  “Which was?” Kiki asked from the front seat. Her eyes were shining as she looked back over her shoulder at Lance.

  “Eyes ahead,” he admonished. “If I’m going to die today, I don’t want it to be because you ran this crate off the road.”

  “Fine.” But although her tone was sulky, she did as he directed and pointed her gaze forward, over the increasingly treacherous dirt-paved lane, which was barely large enough for one vehicle at that point. God help us if some hikers were coming down Dry Creek in the opposite direction.

  “Anyway,” Lance continued, “I kept seeing some sort of facility, apparently underground. Scientific base, I thought — there were a lot of white lab coats. Didn’t think much of it at first…until I got a better look at the men who were guarding the base.” He paused, eyes narrowing as if at some unpleasant memory. “They all had the same face.”

  He couldn’t have meant…. Twisting in my seat so I could look at him more or less directly, I said, “You don’t honestly expect me to believe — ”

  “Yeah, I do. Clones. They could have been the same man sent through a photocopier or something. At first, I just thought I wasn’t seeing correctly — remote viewing’s not really like watching a movie projected in your head, you know — and I thought I was giving them all the same face because I wasn’t getting enough detail. But it kept happening over and over, and I started seeing more, and I began to understand what was going on. They weren’t men. They were hybrids.”

  “Human-alien hybrids?” Kiki demanded, and bounced up in her seat like some middle-school girl who’d just been told the latest teen heartthrob was coming to visit her homeroom class. “For real?”