sedona files 06 - enemy mine

by Christine Pope

  A choked little sob escaped Kara’s throat right then, and Kirsten squeezed her hand, then said, “We think that was a little fuck-you from the aliens.”

  “Why?” I asked, mystified. All right, it was clear they wanted all of us to know exactly who had grabbed Kelsey. But I didn’t get the significance of the time.

  “She was born at eleven twenty-two,” Lance replied. His silver-gray eyes narrowed, and he gave the briefest of glances toward Kevin, Kelsey’s twin, who sat in one of the spare chairs placed up against the wall next to the sideboard. Farther down the table, on Kara’s other side, was Kevin and Kelsey’s younger sister, Melissa, who had a robe on over her T-shirt and yoga pants, and who looked very small and frightened.

  I didn’t bother to ask how the Reptilians had known that small detail. They could know anything they wanted, if it suited their plans.

  Gideon spoke up then. “Have you heard anything from them?”

  “Nothing,” Martin said. He sat on Kirsten’s left side, his dark hair rumpled and his chin faintly stubbled. Clearly, the two of them had been asleep when all this went down, just as Gideon and I had been.

  I thought of Kelsey, driving along that dark highway, probably not paying too much attention to the road since she’d driven that way a thousand times before. Had a bright light descended from above and plucked her out of her Toyota, or had the aliens gone for something a little more subtle, instead making her car swerve off onto the shoulder so one of their teams could come along and pluck her out of the driver’s seat? Lance had said there was no sign of a struggle, so I had a feeling the Reptilians must have used one of their “conveyors,” knowing she would be gone in an instant, before the next car came along and spotted anything unusual. At that time of night, there wouldn’t have been too many people out on 89A, but it wouldn’t have been completely deserted, either.

  “I’m sure they want to make us sweat,” Lance said. “They’ve got the upper hand, after all.”

  “But why?” Melissa asked then. Her voice sounded as small and scared as she looked. Right then she seemed much younger than nineteen, just a frightened kid. “I mean, Kelsey isn’t special like Taryn or Callista, or even Grace. She’s just…Kelsey.”

  Kara shook her head. I was sure she thought Kelsey was plenty special, but I thought I saw Melissa’s point.

  “Like Kirsten said, I think it’s a fuck-you.” My mother’s eyes widened at the profanity — I didn’t swear much, and certainly not around my parents or the Joneses or the Rineharts — but I just went on, “They’re taking all these women, and so they wanted to show us that they could take one of ours, too. It’s their way of telling us to back off.”

  “Back off from what?” Kirsten asked. She looked very tired, smudges in the perfect skin under her eyes. “No offense to anyone here, but we really haven’t been doing all that much. A few messages to the right people and a couple of videos that were promptly taken down can’t really count as a major offensive.”

  “True,” Gideon said, “but you also have a team working on the device, attempting to see if there’s a way to block its energy. If that team is successful, then you will be able to disrupt the Reptilians’ abductions, and they can’t be very happy about that.”

  “How would they even know?” My mother looked a little more put together than either Kara or Kirsten, but she’d always been sort of a night owl. I guessed that she and my father hadn’t yet gone to bed when the call came in.

  “How do they know anything?” Lance replied. “They’re surveilling us all the time.”

  “If that’s the case, then why didn’t they go into the maker space and take back Gideon’s device?” my father asked. “It seems as if that would have been easy enough for them to pull off.”

  “You don’t think I’m stupid enough to leave it there, do you?” Lance crossed his arms, the look he gave my father very close to a glare. “I told Oliver and Lena that they couldn’t do anything to the device that couldn’t be undone by the end of the day. And I go by and collect it from them when they call and tell me they’re about to pack it in. We all know this house is close enough to the creek that it’s protected, too. So the device comes home with me and goes in the safe.”

  “Very resourceful,” Gideon said. “I’m actually glad that you have it here, because it makes things that much easier.”

  “‘Easier’?” I echoed, not sure I liked the sound of that.

  “Yes,” he replied, although I noticed he wouldn’t quite meet my eyes, as if he knew I’d care even less for what he was about to say next. “I’ll take the device and go to Lir Shalan, and tell him he must release Kelsey.”

  My body went cold, even though it was fairly warm in the dining room because of all the people packed in there. “He’ll never agree to that. Especially not when he knows you’ve switched sides.”

  “But does he?” Gideon shifted away from me slightly so he could address the entire room. “It’s true that Lir Shalan sent me here to fetch Taryn back, and I have no doubt that he’s impatient with me for taking so long to accomplish that task. But most of our interactions have been masked by the creek. He can guess, but he can’t know for sure.”

  “He’s guessed enough to call you useless,” I replied. “Or had you forgotten about that little exchange I had with him?”

  “Exchange?” my mother broke in, her voice sharp. “What exchange?”

  “Nothing,” I said. “We had an encounter. I got away. End of story.”

  Her expression seemed to indicate that she knew there was more to it than that. But she gave a brief glance around the room before shaking her head. She knew this was not the time to get into it with me, not when I was apparently safe and sound and Kelsey wasn’t.

  Gideon waited a few seconds, as if making sure my mother and I weren’t going to say anything else to each other. Then he said, “Yes, Taryn, he referred to me as ‘useless.’ But that could have only been a comment about my ineffectiveness in bringing you back to his ship. It doesn’t necessarily mean that he knows I’ve switched sides, so to speak.”

  “I appreciate the offer,” Lance said, the drawl in his voice seeming to indicate that he actually felt the exact opposite. But that was Lance for you. “However, what makes you think he’d just hand Kelsey over to you?”

  “Because I’d offer him Taryn in exchange.”

  The room erupted after that, with my parents saying no way would they allow any such a thing, and Kara and Kirsten protesting that it would be far too dangerous, and Martin arguing that you couldn’t make any kind of deal with a Reptilian, that they’d always find a way to renege.

  For myself, I had another one of those uncomfortable icy tingles go down my back, but I understood what Gideon was saying. Lir Shalan had already admitted that he wanted me. What would be the point in hanging on to Kelsey if he could get what he really wanted instead? She was just another human girl, and to him they were probably a dime a dozen. He’d only taken her to provoke us, so it seemed the best thing to do was to make him believe we were ready to deal.

  Martin did make one very good point, though. I didn’t trust Lir Shalan any further than I could throw him, and I doubted that would be very far. The Reptilian leader had to be almost seven feet tall. So there was every chance that he would appear to accept Gideon’s offer, and then take steps to make sure he had both me and Kelsey. What he planned to do with her, I had no idea. Hand her off as a prize to one of his lieutenants?

  That thought made my stomach churn, so I pushed it aside. We wouldn’t allow anything so terrible to happen. After all, Lir Shalan probably thought he had the upper hand, but he couldn’t know anything about the experience Gideon and I had shared down at the creek. That had been power, limitless and stronger than anything I’d ever experienced. The real challenge would be determining whether we’d be able to use it when we were actually away from the creek.

  “It’s actually a very good idea,” I said calmly, once the hubbub had begun to die down.

  �
��You can’t mean that,” my mother protested. “It’s a ridiculous idea. You know Lir Shalan can’t be trusted.”

  “Yes, but….” I looked up at Gideon. His expression was impassive enough, but I could sense the uncertainty in him, his worry that I’d allow my family to sway my decision. “I don’t think he knows what Gideon and I working together can do.”

  “And what’s that?” Martin asked, looking frankly curious.

  “Well….” I paused then and glanced around. Kara’s dining room felt especially crowded because of all the people crammed in there at the moment, but I would have worried about damaging any of the furniture or the paintings on the wall even if a more reasonable number had been occupying the space. “Maybe we should go outside.”

  My father lifted an eyebrow. “Now?”

  “Yes. I know it’s almost one o’clock in the morning and it’s cold out, but I doubt Kara wants us to wreck her dining room.”

  For a second, Gideon appeared puzzled, but then he nodded, clearly understanding what I intended to do. “Yes, I think that would be better. And I hope that once everyone sees, they’ll realize our cause is not quite as hopeless as they might think.”

  There were some murmurs and creased brows, but the whole group did follow Gideon and me outside once we started moving toward the front door. Off to the left, opposite the large area that served as overflow parking for the Rinehart household, was an equally open space that in the summer had a large patch of grass, which Lance carefully cultivated so it could be used for picnicking or touch football or simply lying out in the sun. Now, though, it hadn’t been reseeded yet, since we could get a hard freeze as late as mid-April in Sedona. The bare dirt seemed like the perfect spot for our demonstration.

  I could also sense the creek, and worried that we were too close. But at least it was a hundred yards away, and it wasn’t as if Gideon and I were standing in it. We’d just have to see what happened.

  It wasn’t quite cold enough to see our breath in the air, but I noticed Kara shivering, and saw Lance wrap his arm around her to help keep her warm. Or maybe her shivers had nothing to do with the temperature.

  Gideon and I stopped in the center of the open area. His eyes were on mine, glinting in the darkness. There was just enough light coming from the house windows and the lamp on either side of the front door that I could see him clearly enough. His face was calm as he waited for me to take the lead.

  I pulled in a deep breath of cool night air. The taste of it was damp and somehow green on my tongue, as if evoking the flavor of the moss that grew on the banks of the creek. And then I recalled that tingling in my limbs, the way the energy had shimmered up and out of the water to surround me. I willed it to do the same thing now, only it would come from within me, rather than from the water.

  The night became alive with the same sparkling pale yellow light that had risen out of Oak Creek, this time emanating directly from my body, wrapping me in a veil of shimmering illumination. Distantly, I heard the collective gasp of the people watching, but I couldn’t allow myself to be distracted by them.

  I held out my hands to Gideon.

  He took them, and immediately the energy jumped to him, enveloping his body as well. I nodded, and we raised our hands in unison, feeling that same deep hum, as if it had come from the earth itself.

  I didn’t want to destroy anything. But I did have to show everyone what the energy could do. The light arcing between Gideon and me was bright enough to light up the area as if it was daytime, and I gave a quick glance around.

  Off to one side was an old tree stump, one so stubborn even Lance had given up on having it removed. I turned slightly so I was facing it, and Gideon moved with me.

  Then I gathered the energy, feeling how it coiled within me, using Gideon’s strength as ballast so I could fling the light outward.

  It hit the tree stump like a fireball, blowing the remnants of the old oak that had once stood there up and out, showering all of us with chunks of wood, the light searing my retinas. I blinked as I attempted to clear my streaming eyes, and noticed that Gideon was rubbing at his as well.

  When I was able to focus again, I saw that the tree stump had disappeared completely. In its place was a black hole in the ground about two feet deep.

  “Holy shit,” someone said. Since my back was to the group and my ears were still ringing slightly, I couldn’t tell for sure who had spoken. I had a feeling it was Martin, though.

  In the next instant, everyone was surging past us, going to look at the gaping hole where the tree stump had once stood.

  “Well, that’s effective,” Lance remarked. He still had his arm around Kara, but he reached up with his free hand to rub his jaw. “If you ever want to give up being a psychic, you can always go into stump-clearing.”

  “How….” My mother this time, her face pale in the semi-gloom. Then she paused, looking away from me and Gideon, and off toward the creek. We couldn’t really see it where we stood, but it was close enough that the rustling of its waters was just barely audible. “That’s where it came from? The creek?”

  “To begin with,” I replied. “But I learned something today. The power is in me, too. I don’t need the creek to access it. And when I join with Gideon, the way I did just now, it’s much, much stronger.”

  “Lir Shalan won’t know what hit him,” Martin said grimly. “All right, it seems you do have the power to take him on. What’s the plan?”

  I glanced over at Gideon. That part was really up to him, since he was the one who would have to reach out to his father, make him believe that he would willingly return.

  “I think it’s better if we can have him come here to Sedona,” Gideon said slowly, as if sorting through possibilities and then discarding them as he decided what would work best. “There’s actually a good chance that he’s already begun rebuilding the abandoned base. He has the freedom to do so now, since no one with any authority would dare to stop him.”

  “They’re back here?” Kara asked. She burrowed into Lance’s side, her blonde hair and stricken face a pale blur in the uncertain light. “Since when?”

  “We don’t know for sure,” I said, wanting only to comfort her. “But I don’t think I would have run into him the way I did last night if he wasn’t close. Anyway, it would be better to confront him here. For one thing, he won’t be surrounded by so many of his people, and so we won’t risk being overrun once we do manage to take him out. Also, the power may be within me, but I’ll feel a lot more confident accessing it while I’m here in Sedona. Obviously, Gideon and I haven’t tried this trick anywhere else.”

  “Will he come?” my father asked. For the first time, I noticed how his fingers were knotted with my mother’s, although I couldn’t say for sure who was seeking reassurance from whom.

  Gideon hesitated. Then his gaze fell on me, and I shivered. The expression in his abnormally dark eyes was very bleak. “Oh, yes, he’ll come,” he said. “We have something he wants.”

  It was nearly two by the time we got back into my car and headed toward West Sedona and the cottage. Not for the first time, I was very glad of the Honda’s self-driving mechanism, because it allowed me to pillow my head on Gideon’s shoulder and have him hold me during the drive home.

  He was silent for most of the way, no doubt brooding on what seemed to be an inevitable confrontation with his father. As we stopped at a light, I asked, “Can you do this, Gideon?”

  “Do what?”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Another long silence. The car lurched forward — I really needed to have its accelerator looked at — but he still didn’t speak. At last he said, “I know I can.”

  “But he’s your father.”

  “Biologically speaking, yes. Otherwise….” Gideon reached for my hand and took it. “If it hadn’t been for my mother, I wouldn’t have known what a kind word was. Or a hug. Even a smile.”

  “Reptilians don’t smile?” I asked, chilled by what he’d just said. Maybe that
was why I’d latched onto something trivial. I didn’t want to think about what an emotional wasteland his life must have been after his mother passed away.

  “They smile…in a fashion, I suppose. But not from true joy. Instead, they smile at the suffering of others, or when they’ve gained the upper hand.”

  “All of them are like that?” I knew I sounded aghast, but I couldn’t help myself. I was too tired, and worried, to control my tone. In my mind, I’d always thought of Lir Shalan as a particularly nasty case, and that the other members of his race couldn’t be quite as pure evil.

  “Most.” Gideon hesitated, his fingers playing with mine. He wouldn’t quite look at me. “My tutor — Sal Galen — he was as good-natured as one of his kind could manage to be. He did show me some kindness, especially after my mother died. I think he pitied me in a way.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I wasn’t human, and I wasn’t Reptilian, only something perched in between, trying desperately to be what my father wanted because there was nothing else I could do.”

  His voice was very calm, but I didn’t just hear the pain running through it, I could feel it as well, like tiny cracks making their way across a glass surface. I tightened my fingers against his. “You’re both those things, Gideon. But they don’t have to define you. What defines you is here.” Very gently, I freed my hand so I could place it against his chest and feel the strong, heavy beat of the heart within. “And here.” I touched his temple, and he leaned his head against my hand.

  “Have I told you how much I love you?”

  “You might have mentioned it once or twice.”

  He chuckled, but it was a rusty sound, not one I found all that convincing. But I wouldn’t push it. He was fighting his own inner battles, and all I could do was be there for him and hope he came out of it all unscathed.