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

by Christine Pope

  “So what now? You going to use that key card and break me and Paul out of here?” I never thought I’d be so relieved to see Otto. With newfound strength, I got up off the cot and went to pour myself some more water. Might as well be hydrated for The Great Escape, Part 2.

  “I’m afraid it isn’t quite that easy.”

  “Sure it is,” I told him. “Just pull out the key card, swipe it — ”

  “I meant in a slightly bigger-picture way.” He watched me, still with that slightly wistful expression, one I was certain had never decorated the clone’s face while it was still in possession of its limited faculties. “Don’t you realize, Persephone, that you’re here precisely because you were meant to be? That everything which has occurred up until this moment has happened just so you would be here to do what you need to do?”

  “And that sounds as if it’s counter to everything you’ve ever told me about free will,” I protested. “If I’m just being pushed around like a puppet, then what’s the point to any of it?”

  “You’re misunderstanding me. It’s because of the choices you made that you came back here. It’s here that you can put things right.”

  “I don’t see how,” I replied. The warmth that had come over me when I realized it was Otto looking out at me through the hybrid’s eyes began to die away, leaving in its place a sick chill. He hadn’t come here to rescue me. For some ridiculous reason, he seemed to think I was capable of saving myself.

  “You’ll know. You laugh at your instincts, tell yourself they’re fallible, but if you look deeper, reach farther, you’ll understand what it is you’re meant to do.”

  “Fine,” I said, at that point too tired for anything except a dull resentment. “But don’t even try telling me I’m the Chosen One or some such nonsense. That sort of thing never turns out well.”

  He laughed then. I wondered if such a sound had ever come out of the hybrid’s mouth prior to that moment. “I would never tell someone they were ‘the’ chosen one — but I will say that I believe you were the one chosen for this moment, this time. I told you earlier that things were happening you couldn’t possibly begin to understand — ”

  “Which they were,” I cut in. “Alien conspiracies and government cover-ups and — ”

  “And more still than that, on levels far beyond those you’ve just mentioned. Only know that what happens here is of far greater importance than you might think. And also know that I have faith in you.”

  With one hand, he reached out to touch my cheek again. I didn’t flinch from that touch, not when I knew it was Otto touching me. But then his gaze flickered, and a cold, almost reptilian glint entered his dark eyes. I jerked back, almost as if I had been burned. The soldier straightened and stepped away. For an instant, I thought I spied a flash of confusion in his features, but then he only turned and resumed his post at the door.

  So much for Otto. Now I truly was alone. True, Paul was probably not far off, but he wasn’t in any position to help me.

  The door opened, and the agent entered. Judging by the smirk he couldn’t quite conceal, I got the idea he had something fun in store.

  “Ms. O’Brien, come with me.”

  “Where?” I said warily, not because I thought he’d tell me, but simply to stall him. For some reason, it seemed far safer to stay in this cell than go wherever it was he wanted me to go.

  “You’ll see. Someone has arrived who would like a word with you. Get up.”

  I stood, mainly because I’d noticed the guard putting an ominous hand on the sidearm at his hip. Whatever was going on, I had a good idea they weren’t going to put up with any nonsense from me.

  “Good. This way.”

  He motioned me out the door, where two more of the hybrid guards were waiting. They marched me over to the elevators, and we all got in. One of them pushed the button for Level Ten.

  So we were going all the way down into the bowels of the facility. Somehow I got the idea that wasn’t necessarily a good thing.

  Since I couldn’t do much about my current situation, I concentrated on staring at the brushed-metal surface of the elevator doors and pondering Otto’s words to me. As far as I could tell, his confidence seemed more than a little misplaced. I’d certainly made a hash of things so far. And I wouldn’t exactly call being bashed over the head and transported five hundred miles against my will exercising my freedom of choice.

  I also didn’t like the sound of that “someone” who wanted to have a word with me. More than a word, I guessed, and anyone who wanted to conduct such an interview on the deepest level of the base was probably someone I’d prefer to avoid. That someone might not be a person at all, but an alien.

  A shiver worked its way down my spine, but I clenched my fists against my sides and hoped neither the agent nor the guard had noticed. Maybe they’d both seen through my bravado and recognized it for what it was — a desperate attempt to hide a case of full-blown terror — but all the same, I wanted to keep up the act for as long as possible.

  The doors opened, and I was guided, none too gently, down a long corridor that ended in a single steel door. I really, really didn’t want to know what was behind it.

  Too bad, because the guard swiped his card through the lock, and the agent came up and pressed his thumb against the biometric scanner directly above the lock. I supposed it was pointless to use that sort of thing with the clones when all their prints would be exactly the same.

  The door opened, but I couldn’t see much inside. The lighting was dimmer there, just reddish sconces at various intervals around the walls. I got a brief impression of a long conference table surrounded by chairs.

  “Inside,” the agent said, and I did as I was told.

  Then I heard Paul’s voice. “Persephone.”

  I whirled to my right and saw him standing there, flanked on either side by a hybrid soldier. He didn’t seem too much the worse for wear, although the cover-up on his left eye had mostly worn off, the bluish smudge of the bruise showing clearly against his skin

  “Paul!” I gasped, and began to move toward him, only to have the clone grab me by the bicep and haul me backward.

  “Let her go!” he cried out.

  Of course, the guard ignored him — it wasn’t as if Paul was in a position to be giving orders — but I appreciated the sentiment even as I made a symbolic protest by pulling against the clone’s grip. Pointless, of course; the hand circling my upper arm might as well have been made of titanium and steel instead of flesh and blood.

  “Touching display,” came a new voice, one that sounded vaguely familiar. Out of the shadows at the far end of the room, a man stepped forward.

  Well, what used to be a man. Raymond Lampson.

  My stomach dropped roughly to the vicinity of the sensible boots I’d put on earlier that morning. Behind me, I could hear Paul mutter a brief Anglo-Saxon expletive.

  To the casual observer, Raymond Lampson would have looked like, well, Raymond Lampson. But the expression in his light blue eyes was colder than liquid helium. I saw no sign of Jeff Makowski, and wondered what had happened to him.

  Irrelevant, I told myself. Better concentrate on what’s about to happen to you.

  “Hello, Raymond,” I said. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  Just the slightest twitch of his eyebrows, as if his alien-controlled brain had required longer than normal to process my remark. “Oh, not a fancy at all, Ms. O’Brien,” he replied, after the barest of pauses. “We’ve gone to some trouble to make sure you were brought back here.”

  “Really? Should I feel special?”

  “Special for a human, perhaps.” He moved closer, and I backed away. That is, I edged backward a step or two until I collided with the agent. Still, as much of a tool of the aliens as he might be, at least he was human. If I had to make a choice as to which one of them touched me, it wasn’t much of a contest. “We wanted to make sure we had you someplace where we could take care of you safely.”

  That didn’t sound par
ticularly promising…not that I’d really thought they’d dragged me all the way back to Arizona just so they could invite me to tea. “I’ll take that as a yes, then.”

  Paul broke in, “Leave her alone. She doesn’t have anything to do with this. Hell, she didn’t even believe in aliens until two days ago — ”

  “Shut him up,” Raymond said mildly, and one of the guards holding Paul slapped a piece of duct tape over his mouth. Where that had come from, I couldn’t say. Maybe the hybrids kept it in their pockets for situations just like this.

  Raymond gave the barest of nods. “Better. Your companion there is quite misguided, isn’t he? Because we both know that none of this would have occurred if it hadn’t been for you. You just couldn’t leave things well enough alone, could you?”

  “If by that you’re asking whether I couldn’t have just sat back and let you get on with your little plan to mind-control most of the population of the United States, well, no, I really couldn’t. Sorry — I wasn’t raised that way.”

  “Pity.” He smiled then, or at least attempted to. I got the impression that the alien intelligence inhabiting his body hadn’t quite yet figured out how to make all of Raymond’s stolen muscles do what it wanted — and it was probably even more difficult when it came to replicating movements an alien might never have experienced before. Like smiling.

  “Well,” he continued, “what is that expression you people use? Something about an omelette and broken eggs? No matter. Dr. Oliver there is of little consequence. He’s discredited in the academic community, and only people on the fringes of society believe his words to be truth. He can go off and rave about aliens all he wants. No one who matters will be listening.”

  Paul made a few muffled noises, but the duct tape effectively blocked whatever he’d been trying to say. While I wanted to protest, to tell this alien that Paul seemed to be well-respected, I knew it wasn’t worth the effort. Besides, if Paul was viewed as inconsequential, then maybe he might be able to survive all this.

  “I don’t know why you think anyone would listen to me, either,” I said. “I’m a professional psychic, remember? Not exactly someone in the mainstream. Hell, half the time my mother still lies and says I’m a marriage and family counselor when people ask her what her daughter does.”

  At any other time, I would have hated having to make such an admission, especially to such an unsympathetic audience. But I was past caring about my pride. I was just desperately trying to find some way to stay alive.

  “You might be surprised. Your clients appear to trust you, and some of them are placed in sensitive areas, areas we would prefer not to have compromised. So it seems the sensible thing to do is make sure you’re not in a position to say anything to anyone.”

  At that not-so-veiled threat, Paul surged forward, dragging the hybrids with him. Impressed as I was by his show of strength, I knew it would be for nothing. Sure enough, although he had caught them off-guard, they recovered quickly and pushed him down to his knees.

  “Leave him alone!” I exclaimed. I knew better than to try to make a move toward Paul, although every cell in my body ached to go to him, to push myself between the man I loved and the brutal guards.

  “Of course we will — if he leaves off the unnecessary heroics. And as for you, Ms. O’Brien — ” Raymond gestured, and another guard stepped forward out of the shadows, holding a small black case. Raymond took it from him and opened it, revealing a hypodermic with a familiar golden liquid inside.

  I swallowed against the sour taste of bile at the back of my throat. No, they couldn’t —

  Hypodermic held up against the dim overhead lights, Raymond commented, “The spray delivery system works very well, but this method is a bit more convenient, as well as being less wasteful of precious supplies. You see, while it would be easy enough to make you disappear, people would ask questions. And since you were foolish enough to contact Tyler Russo, who might begin to put two and two together, it seemed expedient to simply make sure you would no longer be in a position to ask questions…or disrupt our activities.” He smiled then, a horrific shark-grimace. “Very soon, you’ll be doing everything in your power to help us.”

  More muffled sounds from Paul as he struggled against the hybrids. Somehow, I seemed to have lost all strength in my own muscles. I could only stand there, staring at that hypodermic, knowing inside it was a poison that would destroy everything I was, everything I had ever cared about. The hybrid guard’s hand tightened further around my arm. Behind me, the agent stood, unmoving. I couldn’t see his face, of course. Not that it would have done me any good. He had thrown his lot in with the aliens. Any appeals to his humanity would have only been wasted effort.

  Raymond stepped closer, so close that I could practically feel the heat of his breath against my cheek, smell whatever aftershave still clung to the clothing the alien-infected body wore. “We look forward to having you join us,” he said. And he lifted the hypodermic and drove the point of it into the side of my neck.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Heat radiated outward from that stinging spot on my neck, a cascading wave of pain, as if every cell in my body seemed to be cresting some agonizing tide. I heard myself cry out, but it was though that sound had come from an entirely different body, as if I was listening to someone standing far across the room.

  Slumping, I dropped to my knees. The hybrid and the agent both stepped away from me. All I could do was bend over, body folded on itself as the pain continued to radiate through every nerve. With it came darkness, a rushing black I knew would soon swallow my awareness.

  Fight it! I heard someone call out to me. It could have been Otto’s voice.

  It could have been mine.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. The Raymond/alien, the hybrids, even Paul — I couldn’t think of anything at that moment, but only of those microscopic carriers of soul death coursing through my veins.

  You were the one chosen for this moment.

  I had to believe that. Had to believe somewhere within me lay the power to fight this thing.

  Heat then, but not the searing pain of the nano-invaders. No, this surged out from somewhere deep within my core, soothing and yet inexorable as the early summer sun, warming my body. With the warmth came light, pure white, flowing through my veins, overriding the sickly yellow glow of the alien virus. The light washed over me, surrounded me in a shell of pulsing luminosity.

  I opened my eyes then, but I didn’t see the dim conference room, or the shapes of the men who encircled me. Instead, there was only the white light, but now I perceived that whiteness had millions of pale ghost colors flickering in it, opalescent and more beautiful than anything I had ever seen before. And in the center of that light stood a man.

  Only I knew he wasn’t a man. No man could have features that perfect, that unearthly calm. I had never seen him before, and yet, paradoxically, there was something familiar about him, about the dark eyes that met mine frankly.

  When he spoke, his voice was instantly recognizable. “Welcome, Persephone.”

  “Otto?” Somehow I had a difficult time reconciling that baritone with the figure of perfection from which it emerged, but I would have known those rounded tones anywhere. “More possession?”

  He smiled. “Not at all. What you see now is my true form.”

  “So you — you’re not the spirit of a dead sixteenth-century eunuch?”

  “My apologies for the deception. It was decided that it would be best if I came to you in such a guise.”

  “‘Decided’?” I paused, mind racing. Some psychic I was…I’d never even seen through the false face Otto had assumed. Then again, it wasn’t as if I could have asked him for his driver’s license. I forced myself to put that aside for the moment. So many questions, and yet in the back of all of them was the most basic, and so the one I decided I should ask first. “Am I still…me?”

  “Of course you are, or you wouldn’t be able to even ask that question.” With a wave of his hand, a section
of the luminous shell around us seemed to part, and it was as if I floated above the conference room and gazed down on its occupants. But they were frozen in some sort of tableau, the Raymond/alien staring down at my doubled-over figure with a gloating expression on his face, Paul still straining against the grasp of the guards who held him.

  “Time is not constant, of course. Rather, it can be perceived differently, depending on where you are. But here, now, with me, you are still you. Your spirit is free.”

  “But down there…?” I trailed off, not sure I cared for this new perspective on the world. While some psychics counted astral projection as something within their repertoires, it wasn’t anything I had ever experienced before. Dreams and visions, yes. Watching my own body as if it belonged to someone else…not so much.

  “Down there — although you realize that ‘down’ is not exactly the precise word — your body is milliseconds away from succumbing to the alien virus. The question is, do you want to fight it?”

  “Do I want to — ” I broke off and stared at this new and improved Otto, incredulous that he would even ask such a question. “Of course I want to fight it — I have more now to live for than ever!”

  “Ah, yes.” He appeared to consider the little group in the conference room. “This Paul Oliver. We had hoped this would come to pass, but even we can’t always predict the future.”

  “No kidding,” I remarked, “or my last few sessions would have gone a lot more smoothly.”

  The Otto I had known before, the pudgy-faced eunuch who floated in my living room and dispensed pithy comments about my personal life, might have taken offense. This new serene Otto, however, appeared not to notice my acerbic tone. “I realize a great deal has happened at once. My question to you is this, however — are you willing to fight, not merely here and now, but on into the future, in order to prevent this darkness from taking over your world?”

  “Yes,” I said without thinking, as if the word had come from somewhere deep within me. It was something true and unhesitating, like my feelings for Paul. All the platitudes I’d mouthed to my clients over the years about knowing when something was right seemed suddenly confirmed. I hesitated for a few seconds, then decided I might as well ask. “But…couldn’t you fight? You, and others like you?”