sedona files 06 - enemy mine

by Christine Pope

  But how would that even be possible, when it seemed obvious to me that he planned to kill his own father?

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  When Gideon and I got into bed, all we did was hold one another. I was far too exhausted to attempt anything else, and right then, it seemed much more important for us to take comfort this way, in arms holding the other person close, of listening to the other person’s breathing until we fell asleep, both of us wanting nothing but oblivion.

  I woke up too early the next morning, mouth gummy and head aching slightly. If I hadn’t known better, I would have said I was suffering from a mild hangover, although I’d never drunk enough to experience one for myself. The symptoms sounded about right, though.

  But I’d only had one glass of wine in the afternoon, and it had worn off hours and hours ago. Was this the inevitable aftermath of using that strange power Gideon and I shared? If that was the case, I’d have to make sure I used it as sparingly as possible.

  The bed next to me was empty. I put my hand on the place where Gideon had lain, my heart beating a little faster — but then I heard a slight clinking noise from the kitchen and realized he’d probably gone there to make some coffee.

  That sounded like a recipe for disaster, so I pushed myself out of bed and got up, grabbing my robe off the hook on the door as I went. I’d crashed the night before while wearing just a T-shirt and my underwear. I didn’t much care whether Gideon saw me walking around like that, but the cottage tended to be cold in the morning, and I wanted the extra layer.

  Sure enough, he was tending to the coffeemaker when I walked into the kitchen. However, everything seemed to be chugging along just fine, so I decided I wouldn’t offend him by checking on the coffee myself.

  “Your phone keeps beeping,” he said.

  I’d dropped my purse on the counter when we got home the night before. Sure enough, I could hear a plaintive little beep from inside, a notification that I’d gotten a text message.

  Right before I’d gone to bed, I’d texted Michael. He needed to know about Kelsey, and I honestly didn’t know for sure if my parents would have thought to get in contact with him. He was always off in his own orbit, and besides, they hadn’t seen the slightly crumpled and much-loved photo he kept hidden in his desk drawer. They didn’t know that Michael thought of Kelsey as anything except the daughter of some family friends, a girl with an embarrassing crush on him.

  Although I supposed a crush couldn’t be all that embarrassing if it happened to be reciprocated.

  The text was short: I’ll be down in the morning.

  That was all. Typical Michael. I assumed he would head to our parents’ house; there wasn’t any space for him here. Actually, I didn’t even know if my parents had told him everything that was going on with the Reptilians. He wouldn’t have been able to do all that much to help, and they might have figured it was better for him to be safely off in Flagstaff, buried in his studies and far away from the current fray.

  Which meant they might not be all that thrilled to have him turn up on their doorstep.

  I fought back a sigh and dumped the phone into my purse. When I turned, I saw Gideon watching me with a speculative look on his face. “Bad news?” he asked.

  “I don’t think so. Just a message from my brother. I told him about Kelsey, and he’s coming down to Sedona.”

  “This is the brother who’s studying astronomy?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Is he particularly close to her?”

  “It’s a little more complicated than that.” I went over to the coffeemaker. The light had turned green, indicating the brew was ready. Since Gideon had already put two mugs out on the counter, I went ahead and filled both of them up. Most of the time I would have preferred tea, but that nasty little headache was still pounding away behind my temples. Coffee seemed a surer remedy than tea.

  Gideon took the mug I handed to him and sent me a questioning look.

  “Kelsey’s had a crush on Michael since I can remember. I honestly thought he was indifferent, but that turns out not to be the case. So he’s coming down here — not because he can do all that much to help, but because he can’t bear to be away when something so awful has happened to her.”

  “We’ll get her back,” Gideon said, his tone so firm that it seemed he considered the matter a foregone conclusion.

  “I want to think that, but….” I wrapped my hands around the mug I held, glad of its warmth. “I still don’t know exactly how you intend to manage the whole thing.”

  “Simple enough. I’ll go to the base and tell Lir Shalan that I’ll bring you to him, but only if he releases Kelsey.”

  “How do you even know he’s there?”

  For the first time, Gideon looked uncomfortable. “Because I’ve spoken with him.”

  The mug almost slipped out of my hands. “What?”

  “Lance gave me the device last night, so it was easy enough to make contact. I did so a while ago, while you were still asleep.”

  “And you didn’t think to talk to me about it first?”

  “We’d already agreed that this would be our course of action. What more was there to discuss?”

  I couldn’t believe I was hearing this. All right, the night before we had basically laid out more or less what needed to be done. But I’d thought we’d talk it over some more before we leapt into action, so to speak.

  “And he actually talked to you?” I asked, trying to sound calm. Getting into an argument now wouldn’t serve any useful purpose.

  “Yes. That was when he confirmed he really was at the base. I told him I would be there in the next few hours.”

  “Just like that.”

  “Just like that.” Gideon seemed to note the worried look I knew I wore, and set down his mug so he could take my hands in his. “He seemed…pleased. So I think he truly believes that I am ready to come back into the fold.”

  “He wasn’t angry that you’re trying to bargain Kelsey away from him?”

  “No. If anything, it proves to him that I have learned something about taking what I want. And to be honest, she might be a friend of yours, but she means nothing to him. Just another human woman. He has plenty of those.”

  Gideon sounded so cold, so matter-of-fact, that a shiver went down my spine. I told myself that he was only being truthful, was trying to make me see the situation the way Lir Shalan saw it, but I couldn’t help being uneasy.

  “So I’ll go with you to the base….”

  “No.”

  “No?” I repeated, sending him a disbelieving look.

  “I will go in first and make contact, and determine that Kelsey is safe and that Lir Shalan is willing to make the trade. After that, I will send the signal to have you come meet me.”

  “Just like that.”

  “It may take some time to persuade him, but in the end I am sure he will agree. I know Lir Shalan, Taryn.” Gideon let go of my hands and went to pick up his mug of coffee. “He is powerful, but he is not powerful enough to withstand the sort of attack we can mount. It will be over quickly enough. And once he is gone, so also will be his control over those who serve him now. I don’t think they will put up much of a defense.”

  That seemed awfully hopeful, but I didn’t protest. Gideon understood Reptilian power structures far better than I did.

  I wanted to ask, And how will you live with yourself, if it turns out you’ll end up being responsible for the death of your own father?

  But somehow I couldn’t find the courage.

  I did call my parents to let them know what we were planning. That seemed the best thing; that way they could get the word out to the rest of the group, and they could be standing by.

  Just in case.

  Michael hadn’t turned up yet, since it wasn’t quite nine in the morning. My mother seemed to appreciate the warning that he was coming, although my father sounded sort of puzzled as to why Michael would be taking the time out to drive down to Sedona. I didn’t bother to enl
ighten him; I hoped he’d be able to see for himself exactly why my brother was so concerned about Kelsey Rinehart’s fate.

  I didn’t know exactly how I was supposed to prepare myself for this kind of confrontation, but a shower seemed in order. Gideon and I squeezed into the cramped stall, soaping one another, touching one another, body slipping on body as the water rinsed the suds away and his fingers caressed me, bringing me to the verge. And then my back was pressed up against the tiled wall as he held me in place, entering me while I clung to him, losing myself in the way our flesh connected.

  Then it was over, and we were rinsing ourselves off. I handed him a towel before wrapping one around myself. Where all that had come from, I didn’t know. Maybe we’d both decided we should reaffirm our connection before going to face Lir Shalan. I did feel closer to Gideon, my earlier doubts washed away with the shampoo I’d just rinsed out of my hair.

  He pushed the damp mass to one side so he could kiss the back of my neck. Warm, delicious shivers went over me, but I knew we really shouldn’t delay any longer.

  “So you’ll use the device to go see him?” I asked, once I’d slipped some underwear on and wasn’t quite as susceptible to distractions.

  “Yes. The vortexes here interfere with their utility somewhat, but not when I can use my device to directly lock on to one at the base.”

  “Or when you know exactly where the target is.”

  “Yes.” We were standing in front of the bathroom mirror while I combed through my hair. One byproduct of Gideon’s Reptilian DNA was that he never seemed to need a shave, so his early morning bathroom rituals didn’t take nearly as much time as mine. While I scrunched some product into my hair to tame the frizz, he went on, “The closer you are, the better.”

  “I know.” I wanted to shiver at the thought of being scooped up like that and dropped right into the base, but I told myself that Gideon knew what he was doing. “I’ve already discussed it with my parents. The whole gang is going to go with me to the Secret Canyon trailhead. Then they’ll wait there for us to come back with Kelsey.”

  “Good.” His ruby eyes scanned my face, and he reached up to touch my cheek. “It is going to be all right.”

  He sounded so confident that I could only nod. I just prayed that his confidence wasn’t misplaced.

  Not long after we shared breakfast — yogurt and toast — he kissed me again, then pressed a button on the device. He vanished at once, leaving me alone in the living room.

  His departure was my cue to get moving. I texted my mother’s cell, letting her know that the plan had been set in motion. Then all I could do was tidy up a little before retrieving my keys and locking up the cottage. Gideon and I had already decided that it would be better for me not to bring anything along, not a purse, not a backpack. That way, it would look more like I really had been grabbed right in the middle of doing something else. We didn’t want Lir Shalan to think that any of this had been planned.

  My parents’ SUV pulled up in front of the house, and I hurried down the front walk and climbed into the back seat. I startled a little when I saw it was already occupied, then realized Michael was the one sitting back there.

  “Hey,” I said.

  “Hey,” he replied, and that was about it. We both knew what was at stake here, but since I still didn’t have a clue as to whether he’d openly confessed his feelings for Kelsey, I decided it was better not to say anything else.

  “Lance and Kara are already on their way,” my mother said, turning slightly in her seat so she could look back at my brother and me.

  “What about everyone else?”

  My father replied, “We all talked it over and decided it would look a little too suspicious to have such a big group loitering around the area. So Martin and Kirsten and Raphael and Callista are staying put. Kirsten wasn’t too happy about that, as you can imagine.”

  Yes, I could. I doubted she wanted to stay on the sidelines while the fate of her niece hung in the balance. And maybe that was a mistake, because if things really did go sideways, having people with powers like Kirsten’s and Martin’s — or Callista’s and Raphael’s — around might make the difference.

  On the other hand, I understood the need to avoid attracting too much attention by having a huge group descend on the Secret Canyon trailhead. It was a Saturday, and so there probably would be a lot of hikers out and about, but we couldn’t count on that as protective camouflage. Also, my parents and the Rineharts were just ordinary humans, even when you took my mother’s psychic powers into account. They wouldn’t ping the Reptilians’ radar the way having a bunch of Pleiadians loitering around might.

  When we pulled up to the trailhead, I saw that Lance and Kara’s dark gray Jeep was already parked there, along with several other vehicles. In fact, my parents snagged the last open space, so my hope that the trail would have a decent amount of foot traffic from hikers and tourists seemed to be rewarded.

  Like my parents, Kara and Lance were wearing the sort of thing you might expect to see people wearing for a day hike — all-weather pants and T-shirts, hiking shoes. Michael wore jeans and the same nearly destroyed tennis shoes he had on most of the time, but he still didn’t look that out of place. A baseball cap with NAU’s lumberjack logo on it helped to hide his face.

  “So he’s already there?” Kara asked me as my family approached. Her face was strained, shadows prominent under her dark blue eyes. I wondered if she’d slept at all the night before.

  “Yes,” I said. “He went about twenty minutes ago. So now it’s just a waiting game. I have no idea how long it’s going to take for him to bring Lir Shalan around, but he made it sound as if it might take a while.”

  “So I brought some snacks, bottled water, that kind of thing,” my mother put in. “Just in case.”

  Lance nodded in some approval, the slightest flicker of surprise registering in his expression as he took in Michael’s presence. He didn’t comment on that, though, but only said, “And your Gideon really thinks Lir Shalan will be willing to make a trade?”

  “He’s very confident.” I hesitated then, not sure what else I should say. Repeating Gideon’s remark about how Kelsey really wasn’t of that much use because she was just an ordinary human didn’t seem very tactful, so I stopped there.

  If either Lance or Kara thought I was leaving something out, they didn’t show it. Kara shifted so she was staring off to the northeast, in the direction where the alien base was located. “I hate knowing she’s so close, and yet there isn’t one damn thing we can do about it.”

  “There is something,” my father pointed out. “We’re doing it right now. Waiting is never easy, but it’s all we can do for the time being. Everything is in Gideon’s hands at the moment.”

  That remark made me swallow nervously. Yes, Gideon had said he could handle this, and of course he knew Lir Shalan better than I or anyone else present did, but still….

  My mother murmured in my ear, “Taryn, can I talk to you for a moment?”

  “Um, sure.”

  We stepped away from the group, over to a semi-private little spot guarded by a scrubby manzanita bush and a couple of large boulders. I could see how everyone else sent us a curious look, but no one tried to stop us. After all, it wasn’t too terribly strange that my mother would want to talk to me in private.

  She wasn’t always the easiest person for me to read, because she’d had years of experience in building up her mental barriers and only letting out what she was okay with allowing me to know. Right then, though, she was so stressed that I could feel the pings of worry and anxiety coming from her, the very real fear that she would never see me again.

  “It’s going to be okay, Mom,” I told her. “Gideon will be able to outmaneuver Lir Shalan. And then when we’re both there….” I let my words trail off, but I could tell from the flicker in her eyes that she knew what I meant. “You saw our demonstration last night. Lir Shalan won’t know what hit him.”

  “I suppose so. It’s jus
t that….” She stopped there and shook her head. For this expedition, she’d pulled back her unruly curls, so like mine, but a few tendrils had escaped the barrette she wore and danced around her face. “Do you trust Gideon?”

  I really didn’t understand how she could even be asking that. How would I have ever agreed to something like this if I didn’t trust him implicitly? “I love him.”

  “That’s not what I asked.”

  Anger flared in me, but I pushed it back. Getting into an argument now wouldn’t help matters at all. “For me, it’s one and the same. I trust him because I love him. And I love him because I trust him. Implicitly.”

  Those facile words didn’t seem to reassure her. She crossed her arms, but I didn’t see any irritation in her face. Just more worry, naked enough that I would have been able to recognize it even without those little flashes of distress that spiked out from her in all directions, red and orange and dark yellow. “You barely know him.”

  “How long were you with Dad before you knew you loved him?”

  A weary smile touched her lips. “Not all that long. But this isn’t the same thing.”

  “Why? Because Gideon is half Reptilian?”

  “Yes, exactly that. And don’t bother to bring up Callista and Raphael, because their situation is completely different.”

  Well, she’d cut me off at the pass there, because that was exactly what I’d been about to do. So I tried another tack. “What, you don’t want to have a green-skinned son-in-law?”

  My question actually made her chuckle. “That’s actually the least of my worries. At least now the general population knows that aliens really do exist, so we’ve crossed one hurdle. No, it’s that the Reptilians are so very different from us. Not just physically, but the way they think, the way they see the world. Gideon was raised in that world, and he may have a very difficult time adjusting to this one.”

  “You might have said something about all this earlier,” I remarked. “It’s a little late to be bringing up any second thoughts.”

  “When was I supposed to bring it up?” she said simply. “This has all happened at such a breakneck pace that there hasn’t been much time to process the possible ramifications. I suppose it was just seeing you standing there, ready but frightened, that brought it all home to me.” She paused, the strain clear in her face. “You’re my only daughter, Taryn. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”