by J. D. Dexter
“Jessica, I presume?” I ask, forcing boredom into my voice as I remain seated.
“Yes, Fyndre—er, Finley. I’m Jessica, or Shavix as my people have told you,” his disembodied voice says.
The man still hasn’t made his physical presence known.
“You might want to uncloak yourself. It’s considered rude to talk to people you can’t see…unless you’re on the phone.” I pick at my nails. I could go for a manicure soon.
“It is also considered rude not to stand in the presence of your superiors.”
All my guys snort, loudly. They slide a little farther down into their chairs, their backs curved, their legs splayed.
“You interrupted our party, Jessica. Not the other way around. Earth rules reign here.” I stifle a yawn, and end up hacking up a lung on the failed swallow.
A slight warmth coats my back as a buzzing sensation, much like the flutter of bird’s wings, disturbs the air directly behind me. Something about this person is giving me the heebie-jeebies.
I wrap myself in my adira, push back from the table, and roll to the side just as a swipe disturbs the air where my head had been. Pushing to my feet on a hop, I whip around, a thread of adira already sprouting from the middle of my outstretched palm.
“Finley, calm your adira. He means you no harm,” Brockten says gently. His hands raised in surrender as he takes a step forward.
I raise my other palm out towards him. “I don’t know who that is, but I don’t get that intrinsic feeling of knowing that you said parents and their young have. His essence feels sick, like how cancer wards smell in hospitals. A decaying scent and feel to it,” I explain to everyone.
My guys scramble away from the table, chairs overturning, glasses tumbling over, spraying the deck with beer and soda. The table gets knocked askew as Brian tries to do an end-run around the far end, jacking his hip on the table.
Keziry and Brockten stand beside me, their swords appearing from the middle of their hands. Ranging herself slightly ahead of me, Keziry’s entire demeanor changes. No longer is she the dutiful soldier in the presence of her superior, she is House Guard Captain, ready to battle.
Switching my vision, I see the vaguely humanoid outline of the unseen intruder. Hovering slightly off the ground, it looks tall enough to jack his noggin on the roof eave.
The body wrapped in invisibility is whippet thin, with long gangly limbs that look awkward and unwieldy. The invader turns its head, and where its eyes should be is a bar of neon green light edged in brown.
“What are you?” I ask, pleased to hear my voice sound steady instead of shaking like the rest of me.
“How can you detect me? Earthling do not possess the right eyes to perceive me,” it says.
“Finley, where is the attacker?” Keziry asks me. She’s facing the same way I am, but apparently, she can’t see him either.
“Brockten, can you see our guest?” I ask him.
“No, Finley.”
“Well, crap on a freaking cracker!” I send a pulse of my adira towards the party-crasher, careful not to keep the end attached to myself like I did with Drake’s adira leash.
The pure white pulse of energy wings like a heat-seeking missile towards the interloper. My adira spark sinks inside the barriers of his outline before disappearing.
“Your attacks do not work on me, young one. You will find tha...What is this? What is happening to me?” The huge paddle-like hands slap and brush at its torso, the edges of his invisible form begin snapping and sparking, the sound like sparklers on Independence Day.
“We see him now, Finley,” Brockten says, his voice tight.
Out of the corner of my eyes, I see the guys stepping back a couple more times. Turning to watch them, I notice that Hunter’s eyes have that peculiar shine in the dark depths once again.
“You okay?” I ask him mentally.
He turns his head to meet my eyes fully. The dark chocolate looks like it’s been backlit, a glow emanating from the pupil.
“Yeah, I’m good,” he sends back.
“Hunter, your eyes,” I say out loud.
All the Hastings men turn to look at him. Brockten keeps his eyes glued on our newest bad guy.
“Holy shit, man, your eyes are glowing.” Josh slaps his shoulder.
“We can barely see the intruder, Finley. We need your attention,” Keziry snarls.
Turning my head back around, I see that the bad guy has shrunk. Now he’s able to fit under the edge of the roof, where he’s cowering away from me, his hands out in front of him in defense.
A bird begins chirping in the trees, the sound louder than usual. Another bird joins. And another.
Pushing the sounds from my mind, I send another short pulse of adira into the cringing attacker. The bird chirping kicks up another notch as the adira sliver pierces his outline once again.
“Is the bird noise coming from him? It? Her? What is it?” I ask the Ankarrahi Natives.
“We do not know. I have never met any creature that sounds like this,” Brockten admits. He sounds a little sad about that.
“Nor have I,” Keziry agrees.
“What’s your name, party crasher?” I ask the shuddering form. The being is now shorter than me, and appears to be shrinking quite quickly. Something about it says masculine to me, the angle of his head, the shoulders.
“Earthlings cannot pronoun—"
“For the love of Pete, pick a freaking name!” I lift my hand again.
It opens its mouth and the sound of bird chirping gets loud enough to begin hurting my ears.
“Screw this, Tweety. Cut out the noise, or I’ll blast you again.”
The sounds stop immediately, although the echo of birds still rings in my ears. “My name is not Tweety, Big Foot.” It snarls.
“Don’t care. You weren’t fast enough to give me a real name; Tweety you shall be.”
“Unveil yourself, Tweety, or there shall be repercussions you do not wish to pay,” Keziry states.
“Can you guys see him any better?” I say mentally to Brockten and Keziry, arrowing the words to their minds.
I’m getting better at all this adira stuff. Thank the good Lord.
“Yes, although to me it looks like a floating blob. The blob looks considerably smaller than the first time you hit it with your adira,” Brockten offers.
“In the words of your men, seconded,” Keziry says.
“Not my fault all your peepers are crap. Don’t shoot me again, either, Chickie.” It stabs the air with one of his huge hands.
“I’ve got an idea. Not sure it will work, but let’s just give it a shot. I don’t think Tweety here is going to give us any more problems.”
Grasping Brockten’s arm, I pull him with me, so I can place my other hand on the exposed skin of Keziry’s bladeless arm. Forcing my adira to do what I want, I bring the adira into both hands and apply the slightest of pressures against their skin.
Shock vibrates through both of them, jolting their arms from my grasp. Almost immediately, they push their limbs back into my hands.
Both exhale heavily, their inhales just as laborious. It’s almost like I can see them breathing, like having a second system in my mind that catalogs their bodies while my adira is running through them.
“I can clearly see Tweety now. He is not of any race I have encountered before. Brian, take your men and move farther into the green expanse behind us,” Keziry says, steel in her voice.
“But –”
“Do not argue. Just do it,” she snarls.
Shuffling and mutters from the middle of the deck as the guys head into the yard.
“I, too, can see Tweety perfectly. I have not met any of his race either,” Brockten says.
A soft chanting, lilting and musical, lifts from Keziry’s throat. Using my adira-enhanced sight, I see the colors of the words floating on the breeze. Brilliant greens, blues, oranges, and browns tumble and weave as they slide across the open space of the deck to Tweety.
&nb
sp; As the colors dissolve under his barrier, he begins to appear more solid. What serves as his flesh is almost neon green in color, reminding me of the bar of light where his eyes should be.
Keziry sing-chants one more phrase. Instead of the words sinking below Tweety’s skin, they form a rainbow sphere around him.
“I need to raise the hand you are touching. Please keep contact in case this does not work the way it is meant to,” she says.
I pull Brockten a little closer, gripping his arm just a little harder. The muscles of his forearm twitch and flex as if he’s getting ready to launch into action.
Keziry lifts her hand, forcing my touch higher on her arm to maintain contact. Three odd clicking noises sound from deep in her chest and the rainbow sphere around Tweety explodes with a blast of sound.
The blow back pushes Keziry, Brockten, and me back a couple of feet before we find our footing.
Shouts of outrage and fear come from the yard, as the sound of feet swishing through the grass moves towards us.
“We’re okay, guys. Give us a couple minutes,” I yell at them over my shoulder, unwilling to turn my back on Tweety.
Tweety has completely solidified, and is roughly three feet tall. Not quite the twelve-foot monster from first acquaintance. He looks like a garden gnome who got bread and battered before getting slapped silly with an ugly stick. Multiple times..
His skin, looking distressingly like crunchy fried chicken, is still neon green, and in the place of his eyes, about the size and shape of a regular Hershey’s bar, is a glowing green light rimmed in golden brown.
Sprouting from the sides of his head, where we have ears, is some type of gangly dark purple tree limb with what looks like leaves. It looks a little like the ivy plant that grew on the outside of my parents’ house.
His hands are quite long and gangly, even though he’s not twelve feet tall any longer. Overly long for the length of his body, they almost drag on the floor, next to his canoe-size feet. Both hands and feet look slightly webbed, as if he spends a lot of time in water.
His bright pink mouth looks like ours, but the lips are too big for his squished face. A quick protrusion of virulent purple leaves behind a wet looking slime. His lips quirk, like he’s trying out a smile.
I hope he doesn’t try it again.
“What the hell, bro? What the hell?” His voice is high-pitched and clear as a bell.
“I have made you visible to our eyes,” Keziry explains.
“We can see you, too,” Brent offers from behind us. Clearly much closer than the middle of the yard where Keziry banished them earlier.
A burst of bird chirping springs from Tweety’s mouth. It almost sounds as if he’s in the trees, and the wind is carrying the chirps and tweets down to us. Not as if he’s standing a few handfuls of feet away from us.
“You are not Shavix. Why did you say such?” Keziry demands, her sword glinting in the dying light of day.
“I am one of Shavix’s informants. My name is—"
“Tweety. We’ve already established that,” I jump in.
“I done told you, bitch, my name ain’t Tweety.” He glares at me.
“Whatever you say, Tweety. Why are you Jessica’s informant?”
“My name is Oshtulando, and I am a Veritan,” he snarls.
“Where are the Veritan from?” Keziry asks.
Brockten snorts.
“We are a moon species from Ankarrah System Seven.”
I can’t help myself; I almost fall over from laughing.
“Laugh all you like, Legs. Bitches always be hating,” he snarls.
I lift my hand up, needing a minute.
“Sorry. It just struck me as funny that you are a moon species from ASS.” I barely get the words out before I’m laughing again.
“’Bout done?” Tweety asks grumpily.
“My bad.” I pat my chest. “You were saying, Tweety?”
He flips me off. Which looks crazy with his super long fingers.
“El Jeffe sent me here as an informant when Finley was removed from Ankarrah. He heard whispers that Legs here was hiding out. Because I slide by the peepers of both Earthers and ‘Karrahi, ain’t no thang. I would like to get back to the home spot thought. Earth is a drag.” Tweety’s eye bar pulses with light, like it’s all my fault.
“I’m not keeping you here, Tweety Lando. Take it up with Jessica.”
“Last Chance, bitch,” he screeches at me.
“Why do you sound like a pop-culture reject, Tweety Lando?”
He dive-bombs my feet.
Wrapping his oversized hands around my ankles, I’m knocked off balance. Crashing into the rail behind me, it’s only the weight of Tweety around my feet that keeps me from flying through the rail and into the yard.
Over the ruckus the boys are making, I hear a loud, put-upon sigh. Brockten leans down, pinches one of the leaves springing on the plum-colored limb from Tweety’s head. Tweety immediately goes still, his entire body slack, his mouth hanging open. The deep purple tongue lolls out the side of his mouth like a dog sitting on a car seat with his head out the window.
“Hey, how does that work?” I ask Brockten.
Keziry helps me get upright, her own censure shining from her emerald and amethyst eyes. I can feel the heat crawling up my cheeks. Ducking my head to avoid her eyes, I shuffle a couple steps away from Tweety.
Brockten releases the ear vine and stoops down so he’s the first thing Tweety sees as he comes back online. Tweety’s tongue slurps back into his mouth, his body bristles, and he gets ready to lunge once more.
“Sorry, sorry,” I say hastily, raising my voice over the clambering of the guys as they breach the deck. “I shouldn’t have made fun of your name. I can’t pronounce it, not well. Do you mind if I call you Lando?” I ask him.
“Only if I can call you Legs.”
“As long as you’re not ogling them,” I say.
“Bitch, please,” he snorts. He lifts one of his paddle-like hands to his forehead and bows.
Keziry looks at me expectantly.
I raise an eyebrow at her. What?
She rolls her eyes, giving me a quick eye flick towards Lando. She widens her eyes at me again.
I look at Lando. His mouth is starting to turn more into grimace.
I’ve got no idea. I turn back to Keziry.
“For the love of your Pete, Finley. Tap your head, and give it a bow. You are not this stupid.”
Oh.
I turn to look at Lando once more, his edges of eye bar narrowing slightly. I stifle a snort. I tap my right index finger to my head, and bow slightly.
His eye bar clears, the colors brilliant and clear once again. He even gives me a smile, exposing razor sharp teeth.
I try to smile back, but I’m pretty sure it just looks like I’m constipated. Lando goes for it, however. He leans forward and says something back to Brockten that has both snickering.
I glare at the wide expanse of Brockten’s back. Little turd.
Keziry, Hunter, and Josh all start laughing. I’ve apparently forgotten my mental shield again. Brockten’s shoulders tighten right before he turns to look at me over his shoulder.
And winks.
13
Everyone’s gathered around the table once more. A couple of citronella candles struggle to keep the horde of mosquitoes back as the last vestiges of light fade away. Those little bloodsuckers are the bane of my existence. And reason number three hundred and eighty-two why I hate summer.
Lando is squatting on a couple of medical tomes on a chair so that he’s tall enough to see us all and chat. He’s got a small bowl of sugared milk sitting in front of him. Watching him lap it up like a dog is both fascinating and nauseating. Not to mention the fact that it’s sugared milk.
I swallow my revulsion back down. Hunter pats my thigh sympathetically. He almost chucked when he found out what Veritan drink.
And the little dude was parched. Lando went through three bowls of milk and sugar
before he was finally able to get more than three intelligible words out in one go.
“So, Jessica sent you here in 1988? What have you been doing all that time?” I ask him, careful to keep my eyes focused on his eye bar.
“Watching you. Which has been very boring. Only of late, have you been even mildly entertaining. Of course, Shavix was quite upset when that S’valquot almost killed you in your health building.” Lando rubs his throat.
“A S’valquot was here? On Earth?” Keziry sounds both excited and horrified.
“Uh, for the other of the group.” I raise my hand.
“They are one of the races from one of worlds that do not like us. From the Antienta world, they can take any shape they wish,” Keziry explains, her eyes still glued to Lando.
“Great, shape shifters,” I grumble.
“Have any vampires, werewolves, ghosts, witches, magicians?” Hunter asks, ill-humor ripe in his voice.
“I have no idea what you just said,” Keziry says.
“Exactly. That’s how we feel.” Hunter nods.
“Back to Lando and Jessica. I would like to be able to go to bed at some point this evening. And hopefully before the clock tips over into tomorrow,” I say a little wearily.
“Earth time moves wicked fast; I’m not a fan.” Lando glares at me once again.
“Suck it up, buttercup. I’m not the one who forced, or even asked, you to come here. Take it up with Jessica.” I wave away his concern.
His light in his eye bar narrows. The brown rim getting bigger, smothering the edges of the neon green light.
“Anyways. Back to the subject at hand.” I say overly loudly. Rolling my eyes at Brockten, he just stares back at me. “So the shape shifter who came to kill me in the hospital was an alien?” Turning to look at Hunter, “Do you know what happened to his body?”
He just shakes his head. “No, it was quarantined. Then we got blackmailed into going to the FBI, so I haven’t even thought about it since that night.”
“I’ll make a note to ask Sarah about it, see if she has any idea,” Brent says. He taps at his phone screen.
“I bet you will,” Brian rags on him.
Brent jabs him with his elbow.
