V 10 - Death Tide

by A C Crispin, Deborah A Marshall (UC) (epub)

  “Willie. What is yours?”

  “Lydia.”

  “That is a lovely name, Lydia.” Willie had been a bartender long enough to overhear some of the more common premating ritual words used on Earth; now they might be useful to him.

  “Did you know that I am head of security for the entire Visitor fleet?” She drew herself up proudly, if a little unsteadily.

  “I am not surprised.” Willie poured himself a glass of his special drink and leaned forward. “That is a most important position and must be very interesting. Tell me more about it.”

  “Christ on a pony, Taylor, when are you going to listen to me?” Ham Tyler’s normally impassive features were coldly angry as he paced in the secret downstairs room of the Club Creole.

  “When you suggest something that makes sense.” Folding his arms, Elias Taylor made an effort to keep his voice level. “Kicking out a bunch of my best-paying customers who also happen to be Visitors isn’t in that category.”

  “Do you know who’s up there right now, making time with your bartender?”

  “A whole lot of eaters and drinkers are up there tonight,” Elias said, glancing over some figures in a ledger. “Hard to believe it’s a Monday night with a crowd like that. Word must be getting around—”

  “Yeah. Word’s out all right. We got Lydia, Second Queen of the scalies, slithering around maybe fifteen feet above your goddamn thick head. I’m telling you, Taylor, get rid of the lizards! Put ’em out until we can at least defend ourselves, for chrissakes.”

  Elias felt his mouth tighten. “Maybe it’s time for another one of our talks on who owns and operates this place.” “And maybe it’s time you looked past the dollar signs in your eyes and wised up to what’s going on. We are low, L-O-W on power packs. We get down to our own ammo and guns, and they’ll mow us down like wheat.”

  “I thought Mike’s bringing back some from New York tomorrow.”

  “A few, Taylor. Very few. And when they’re finished, this resistance is finished too, because Uzis and Teflon-coated bullets aren’t going to stop any large assault force of lizards and their new improved body armor. The more of them crawling around this place, the more likely somebody’s going to tumble onto something they shouldn’t, and we’re all dead.” Elias slammed his book shut. “Let me remind you of the way things are. You run things down here, and I run them upstairs. Accordingly, the Visitors stay.”

  “Stalemate.” Ham pulled a toothpick out of his pocket and began chewing on it thoughtfully. “Suppose we get another opinion from a senior member of our little clubhouse down here. Let’s ask Caleb Taylor what he thinks about his son’s decision to put money before the safety—”

  “Tyler, you wouldn’t—”

  “Elias.” Miranda slipped in through the door, her large dark eyes troubled. “There’s an argument starting upstairs over who will get your last shirt. You’d better come up and straighten things out.”

  “Right with you,” Elias said, getting up without a backward glance.

  They were both males, one a Visitor in uniform and the other a twenty-one-year-old with spiky blond hair who sported the latest in punk fashion. Their aggressive and somewhat unsteady stances as they faced one another said they were both pretty drunk. Other patrons at the bar stepped back, their expressions half fearftil, half expectant.

  “. . . saw it first, Lizard-breath,” the young man was saying as Elias came up. “So slither off.”

  “Perhaps we should step outside to settle this dispute.” The Visitor spoke softly, but there was something unsettling under the resonance of Ids voice and in the look he gave the other.

  “Gentlemen, may I help you?” Elias asked, smoothly interposing himself between the two of them. “I’m Elias Taylor, owner and manager of the Club Creole.”

  “Yeah,” the kid said. “Tell Dinosaur-brain here that first-come, first-served is the way we do things around here on Earth.”

  “I had money down on the counter before you opened your mouth, you little—”

  “Why don’t we toss a coin?” Elias suggested, digging into his pocket.

  “Why don’t we toss this alien creep out on his leathery ass?” the youth asked, advancing. His hand moved toward his belt, and Elias recognized the gesture of someone carrying a blade. But before he could react, there was a noise from the other end of the bar.

  “How about an auction?” The deep, rumbling voice came from behind the crowd, and then a huge black man, at least six-foot-five and weighing over 250 pounds, elbowed his way to the front. His gold chains, rings, and well-cut suit fairly shouted money, and Elias’s mouth dropped open as he recognized an old crony from his street-hustling days, “Honeybee Al.”

  “An’ who’s the clown with the big mou . . .” The young man turned around as he spoke, and the words died in his throat as he looked up into Honeybee Al’s face. “Uh, yeah. An, uh, auction.”

  “The dude what wants it worst pays the best.” Smiling gently, Al held up the controversial green shirt, then laid it down on the bar like a gauntlet between them, and neither seemed inclined to argue with the man-mountain. Three minutes and sixty-eight dollars later, the Visitor walked away with a smirk on his face and the shirt under his arm, while the young man stomped out, muttering not so quietly about “the stinkin’ lizards.”

  “I’ll have more in a couple of days,” Elias called after him, then grinned as he pocketed the cash and turned to the large man. “Well, what do you know? Could have figured you’d come sliding back into my life sooner or later.”

  “Can’t keep eye-den-tee-cal twins apart too long, Elias.” He wrapped his arms around Elias in a bear hug that left the much thinner man gasping for air.

  “Al, my man, dinner and drinks are on the house tonight.” Elias grinned as he freed himself from Al’s grip and led the way to a front table. Miranda, looking sharp in a pink Club Creole sport shirt, came up to take orders.

  “Miranda, I want you to meet Alfred Lewison, alias ‘Honeybee Al.’ He’s an old pal of mine from . . . way back. ”

  “A mover, shaker, and ladies’ heartbreaker. ” Al grinned, revealing a gold-capped front tooth. “How are you, sweet thing?”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Miranda said, and her smile suddenly seemed quick-frozen to her face. “What would you like to drink?”

  “Double margarita,” he said, his eyes lingering on her breasts.

  “Rum and Coke, Miranda,” Elias said, frowning a little. “Thanks.”

  As she disappeared into the kitchen, Al grinned and rubbed his expansive stomach. “I like your little hot tamale there, Elias. You developed a taste for Mexican food these days?” Elias’s jaw muscles tightened. “Al, I don’t want to hear that kind of talk about Miranda. She’s a classy lady, and—” “Hey, the ol’ Honeybee never stings when he can be sweet, you know that. Be cool, brother.” He looked around at the Club Creole’s interior, the well-dressed people and Visitors enjoying themselves, and the expression across his broad, scarred face grew speculative. “This is one fine establishment you got here, Elias. Yessir, mighty fine. Must bring in big bucks.”

  Suddenly wary, Elias shrugged. “It’s all right. Most of it goes to the bank to pay the mortgage and the loans.” “Hard to believe that little Elias Taylor is a serious businessman!” Al looked up at Miranda in exaggerated

  astonishment as she placed his drink in front of him. “Why, I knew him when he was a skinny teenage dude, ripping off little Sony TVs from the rich white folks and selling dime bags of reefer. ”

  “Some people grow up,” she said, dodging his hand as he reached for her behind.

  A1 laughed, a large, booming sound that had little mirth about it. “I like your little taco, Elias—and she’s right. Some people do grow up. How ’bout you? You ready to play with the grown-ups?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Two-for-one specials, happy hour, T-shirts—nickel and dime stuff, Elias, real small time. I watched you and I saw your potential way back, and you c
an do better than this, man. How ’bout doin’ a little work for me?”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “Not so much.” A1 took a large swallow of his drink. “You got a nice place in here. Good location, quiet, discreet—a good place to do business.”

  Elias thought about A1 and his “business.” Numbers running, stolen goods, prostitution, gambling, drug dealing . . . Honeybee A1 had had a finger in just about every illegal pie there was in and around Los Angeles before the Visitors came. While regular society had done a topsy-turvy under the aliens’ domination, the underworld had flourished, with new interests in extortion of scientists, spying, the black market— and A1 had obviously done very well.

  “I bring in some people, we eat and drink, do a little talkin’, pass a few packages under the table, and you keep your mouth shut. Naturally, there’ll be a little something in it for you—say, a percentage of my gross business?”

  Elias stared into his drink. The club needed a new roof, and he wanted desperately to buy the parking lot next door for eventual expansion. Maybe if he just let A1 use the place for a month or two . . .

  Or would he be getting himself—and the resistance—in so deep that there wouldn’t be any escape, ever?

  “Excuse me, Elias.” Willie approached the table with two menus. “Miranda said she had received a headache and asked that I take your orders.”

  “Willie, I’d like you to meet my old—”

  “A goddamn lizard!” A1 recoiled so fast that he almost fell over in his chair, and his face twisted into the ugliest expression Elias had ever seen. “You gone soft in the head, letting a lizard work for you?”

  Willie looked chagrined. “I ... am sorry. I will request one of the others to—”

  “Stay right here.” Elias’s voice was very soft, but each word carried distinctly so that both Willie and A1 froze in their places. “Willie is my friend, and you’ll remember that while you’re here, or anywhere near me.”

  “Hey, it’s all very fine and good takin’ their money, but I ain’t doing business with any lizard lover.” A1 stood, deliberately tipping over his glass. A dark stain spread into the tablecloth, then began dripping onto the floor. “I figured you for a smart dude, Taylor, but it seems I was wrong. Too bad. ” Elias looked at him and saw an older, fatter version of himself as he once was and might have been today—willing to sell out anyone or anything for money. “I’m smart enough to tell you to get the hell out of my club,” he said, and walked away from the table.

  Elizabeth stared blearily at the clock on her bedside table and wished for the sunrise. But the red digits proclaimed the time in bold, relentless numbers: 11:17.

  She was becoming afraid to sleep. Sleep brought the dreams of red dust and destruction more and more frequently.

  She tried reading for a while, something light and gentle that Kyle had recommended to her. “Alice in Wonderland,” he had said earlier that day, handing the book to her. “It was one of my favorites as a kid. And you remind me of Alice in some ways, with your blond hair and blue eyes, and the way you’re always looking at the world with a kind of wide-eyed astonishment, as though you’ll see six impossible things before breakfast.”

  For a while it helped, and Elizabeth lost herself in Alice’s extraordinary adventures down the rabbit hole. Then fatigue tugged at her eyelids and obliged her to close them just for a moment . . .

  . . . and she was falling down a dark and red-tinged hole herself, and the blood-colored dust was swirling around her. She screamed soundlessly into the void as she tumbled helplessly, down and down into the place facing the glass-walled chamber of death.

  This time it was larger, and she saw the shadow-shapes of a number of people. The dust cleared, and she recognized other faces besides the Visitor’s. Mike Donovan, Julie Parrish, her mother, Elias, her grandfather, Robert Maxwell, and Willie— all the people she had known and loved were wandering uncertainly around in the chamber, their expressions apprehensive.

  She pounded on the glass until her hands were bruised and aching, shouting a warning for them all to leave, get out, but no one could hear her. And then the dust rose again, blurring everything except the people within. Before her horrified eyes, she clearly saw them grabbing their throats, their faces twisting in agony. They tore at their faces, ripping them off, and blood gushed from long, hideous rents, revealing bone-white death’s-heads as they died, one by one . . .

  Elizabeth clutched at her own face, her heart racing in her chest as she jerked upright. Stifling her dry sobs in a pillow— she would not wake up her mother and Kyle again, tonight— she turned out the light and lay in the dark for a long time, shuddering quietly, alone. . . .

  Smoothing the folds of her new red caftan, Juliet Parrish smiled at Mike Donovan’s back as he headed toward the kitchen in search of a corkscrew. He was wearing one of the terrific new outfits the Brook Cove group had given him, and Julie thought she hadn’t seen him look so good since his days as a news anchorman.

  She shifted a little on the couch, her thoughts warm and languorous as she imagined the well-tailored jacket and slacks coming off later that night and being draped across a chair next to her caftan.

  “Give me a hint,” he called from the kitchen.

  “Try the second drawer down, Mike.” A moment later, she heard the triumphant pop of the champagne cork, and he reappeared carrying a tray with the bottle and two glasses.

  “Here’s to us,” he said, linking arms as he raised his glass. “I missed you.”

  They sipped. “Ohlihh, that’s fine,” she murmured, feeling her nose tickle deliciously. “I haven’t tasted imported champagne since V-Day.” He nodded, leaning over to kiss her ear.

  “Did you miss me?” he whispered.

  “You know I did,” she said, looking at him seriously, then, realizing if they kept on in this vein she would end up putting the steaks back in the fridge, she sat back. “Tell me all about New York.”

  “Okay. But first, I brought something back for you.” Touched and a little surprised, she looked at him. He had brought back an armload of presents for all of them when he had arrived earlier that afternoon, but here he was producing another tissue-wrapped box with frothy ribbons spilling off it. Her fingers fumbled with the lid for a second, then Juliet pulled out an exquisite sapphire-colored negligee. Two Hershey’s chocolate-with-almonds bars nestled beside it.

  “Oh, Mike,” she said, holding it up to the light to admire the shimmer of the expensive silk. “It’s gorgeous.”

  “You can model it for me later on,” he said, kissing her. “And I’ll thank Pete Forsythe next time I see him. He’s the one who helped me pick it out.”

  “How is Pete and everyone? Tell me especially about Hannah Donnenfeld. How is she?”

  “Everyone’s fine and she’s especially fine—one great lady, even if she is a Boston Red Sox fan.”

  He went on to fill her in on all the East Coast people and events, the important things that hadn’t been dryly explained in the reports that he’d brought back.

  “Hannah, Sari, and Mitchell said they’re issuing a challenge to you and Science Frontiers,” he said, pouring them both more champagne. “First team with the successful warm-climate red dust is the winner and gets a case of imported champagne from the loser. The last challenge worked really well, according to Hannah, even if you did win.”

  “We were all lucky,” Julie murmured, settling into the crook of his arm. “She’s about the best there is, and she has a great team. Sometimes with Nathan Bates, I feel I’m working more for the cause of politics than science.”

  “She really thinks the world of you too, Julie. She’d like you to come work for her.”

  “Oh, God, I wish ...” she said, feeling a brief, sharp stab of regret.

  Donovan looked down at the bubbles rising in his glass. “I got a job offer, too. A possible anchor spot on the CBS morning news.”

  “Oh, wow,” she said. Her stomach, feeling fine until now, twinged s
uddenly. “Are you interested?”

  “You know it,” he said. “Maybe we could both go to New York. We could help the resistance there too, you know.” And in New York, it’s so much safer—safe enough to have a baby. Julie looked at Mike, feeling a rush of closeness with him, and she thought about confiding her fears that she might be pregnant. At that moment, she felt that he would understand, and it would be all right.

  Or was she trying to hold on to him?

  “I’d . . . love to be somewhere where I don’t have to look at red uniforms all the time. But for now, I’d also love to see those steaks get started.”

  “You got it.”

  She was putting the napkins on the table when the phone rang, sharp and staccato over the mellow Neil Diamond record Mike had put on earlier.

  “Hello?” she said, trying to keep the annoyance out of her

  voice.

  “Dr. Parrish? I’m trying to get in touch with Michael Donovan, and I hoped you might be able to help me. It’s very important that I speak to him. I’m from the Denver group, code ID ‘Rocky Mountain Oysters.’” The woman’s voice was soft and tentative.

  “Well, I—” Frowning, Julie looked at Mike as he came back into the living room. “May I have your name, please?” “This is Marjorie Donovan. It’s very important. Please tell

  me how to get in touch with him.”

  “It’s for you, Mike,” Julie said leadenly, holding out the

  receiver to him. “A woman.”

  He stared at her, his expression puzzled, then took the phone. “Hello? . . . Margie?”

  Watching his expression transform into a pleased sort of amazement, Julie’s stomach twisted with a sinking feeling that their romantic evening together was over before it had even begun.

  Chapter 7