Touched by an Alien (53 page)

“She’s in my head. And she, like me, really thinks you’re a moron.”

I grabbed the aerosol canisters that were on a table and hidden by a couple of well-placed boxes and sprayed, two handed.

There are those who would question how I grabbed and sprayed correctly without looking away from Mephistopheles, but these would be people who hadn’t used hairspray every day of their lives. I knew the feel of a spray button against my index finger better than the back of my hand.

He grabbed me, screaming, as I sprayed his face. I focused on his eyes, nose and mouth. I was going to run out of aerosol, but I was hitting what I needed to.

“Kitty!” I turned toward the sound to see another can flying through the air. Christopher had a great arm. I wondered if he’d consider a career in professional baseball when this was over. Our team could use him.

I dropped the empty cans and caught the one in the air. He threw another, and I caught that too. I went back to spraying.

I could see the parasite. It was moving toward me, slowly, but with a lot of determination. I knew it was going to do the parasitic lunge soon. It was waiting, though, until I was out or had to catch something.

It was on the back of his tongue, definitely within lunging range. And I was almost out of Ever-Hold.

I HEARD THE BAYING OF HOUNDS
. I risked a look to see my dogs barreling toward Mephistopheles’ feet. They were leading the charge, with my parents and most of the other people I knew well right there with them.

It looked like the entire A-C population in the Science Center and a goodly number of the related human personnel were heading toward us. Everyone but the dogs was equipped with aerosols and heavy sticks. Better than guns—there were too many of us to risk the bullets.

The dogs slammed into his feet, causing him to lose his balance. I didn’t want to look down and see someone get squished. I looked back at Mephistopheles. The parasite was quivering. Ready to lunge. “Your people are coming. You might want to stop and say hello.” And, I hoped, good-bye.

Mephistopheles looked at me, the parasite still quivering on his tongue but not moving. “They come to save you. Why?” He didn’t know, I could see it. He was confused by me, by the situation, by all of them.

I felt sorry for him, all of a sudden. “I don’t think I can explain it to you. It involves love and sacrifice and caring. And you’ve never understood those things, have you?”

“There is only survival. And making the world in your image. Nothing else.”

“I wish, I truly wish, I could explain it so you’d understand. So you’d change. People can change, A-Cs and humans alike. But maybe you can’t. Maybe you never could or you’ve forgotten how. And for that lack or loss, you have my sympathy. And my pity.”

“I don’t need your pity.” He was angry again, and the parasite started to move toward me. I was out of spray, and I let the cans drop.

“No, maybe you don’t. You need my soul. But you can’t have it.”

“KITTY!” Ah, that was what a bellow should sound like.

I wasn’t sure what part of Terry had been transferred to me, if it was her or just my own feminine intuition, but as I turned my head, I ducked.

To see Christopher pitching a fastball to Martini. Martini had the bat, and he connected with the ball. It sailed toward us, possibly the best hit I’d ever seen, home run all the way. I ducked lower.

Mephistopheles turned to look as well, his mouth still open. He made an excellent catch, denying the hitter a trot around the bases. I covered my head with my arms.

The explosion was immediate, and I was lucky—Mephistopheles let go. I dropped straight down. And landed in Martini’s arms, just like always. He ran. Everyone was running the other way now, dogs included. “We have to kill him,” I shouted in his ear.

“Stop yelling, I’m not deaf! And, trust me, he’s going to die.”

I looked back. Mephistopheles’ head was exploding, and the explosions were moving down his body. “What did you send into him?”

“High-powered, self-contained nuke.”

“Jeff, that means we’re all going to die.”

“No,” he said as he slowed down. “We won’t.”

“It’s got a lot of Everclear in it, along with our technology. No spread, no afterlife, perfectly safe.” Christopher was next to us. “Did you get the parasite?”

“Sort of.”

“Sort of?” He was shouting. I chose to believe it was because of the explosions. “How the hell are we supposed to be sure it’s destroyed?”

I thought about it and looked up at the ceiling above where Mephistopheles’ head had been. “We have to get up there.” I pointed to the spot where the parasite was clinging. “Or make it come to us. Jeff, put me down.”

He did, unwillingly. “What are you going to do now that’s going to give me a heart attack?”

“You don’t get heart disease, Christopher already told me.”

“I think I’m going to be the first.”

I looked around. “Lorraine, Claudia! Over here!” They came over. “Girls, it’s going to be up to us. I need more Ever-Hold.”

Someone dumped a case at my feet. “Ask and ye shall receive, girlfriend.”

“Thanks, James. Nice to see you.”

Reader grinned. “Nice to be seen. Quite the rave you’re throwing. By the way, all the empaths wanted me to tell you that they got your messages, loud and clear, the first time you emotionally screamed them out, and you didn’t need to keep shouting at them.”

“Oh, duly noted. Next time the world’s in danger, I’ll be sure to whisper my emotions.”

“I wasn’t complaining,” Martini said. “I was too busy wondering if I was in love with a crazy girl or a girl who was crazy like a fox. I picked fox,” he added with a grin.

“Not a lot of time,” Christopher said meaningfully.

I tossed two cans to each girl and took two for myself. “Mom! Need you and a gun, now!”

My mother shoved her way through the crowd. She had her shoulder holster on. “What are you doing?”

“I’m really hoping you’re a sharpshooter.” With that, I ran back to stand under the parasite. Lorraine and Claudia came with me. “Get ready. It’s going to drop, most likely on me. It can’t connect immediately, it needs a few seconds.”

“We’re ready,” Lorraine said, as the parasite dropped down, right toward me.

I wanted to duck or run, but I sprayed instead. So did the girls. But we didn’t have to. Mom shot it fifteen times before it hit the ground. My mother, the Annie Oakley of Antiterrorism. Maybe one day I’d be as good as her, but at least the last few days had been a decent start.

The girls and I sprayed all the parasite parts until they dissolved. Reader had to bring over reinforcement cans, but finally it was all gone, the last bits of the devil incarnate destroyed by things most would say he’d invented himself.

Ironic justice. I could dig it. And it would make a great title for a monthly comic, too.

THE NEXT FEW DAYS WERE A BLUR
. Christopher and the top imageers had to spend inordinate amounts of time altering footage, including showing Ronald Yates’ plane crashing in the Nevada desert. There was a lot of mourning for his passing around the world that, strangely enough, wasn’t shared by anyone connected with our group.

My appointment as the head of the Airborne Division was confirmed. I couldn’t tell who was trying harder not to laugh—Reader, my parents, Christopher, or Martini—but I decided not to care. I’d been given the rank of Commander, and that made me equal to the heads of Field and Imageer Divisions. They could snicker all they wanted to—they’d had to work years for it, and it had taken me less than a week. I decided to save that tidbit for when I was angry with them. It would be more satisfying that way.

I brought my resignation in to work, and Reader went with me to clear out my office. We caused quite a stir, to the point where people I’d never met from the neighboring office buildings came by to say good-bye to me, just to get a look at him.

He made sure to let drop that he’d left male modeling because of me and was thrilled I’d finally consented to stop working and run off with him to the Mediterranean so we could make love on the beach every day. Reader was right—if he’d been straight, Martini would’ve really had something to worry about.

My parents offered to let me move back home, at least until I could find a new apartment. But I didn’t want to for a variety of reasons, all of them related to Martini.

I had my pick of rooms at the Science Center, and while moving next to Claudia and Lorraine sounded kind of fun, I still didn’t have a lot of faith in the soundproofing.

“I need to figure out where I’m sleeping,” I said to Martini as we left the dining room on the first quiet night since we’d taken out Mephistopheles a week prior.

“What’s wrong with where you’ve been sleeping?”

“Nothing, other than the damned morning alarm system. And the fact that I really think everyone can hear me, more so from your room than the one I was in before.”

“Awww, you’re shy. Who knew?”

“Not my personal empath, apparently. Besides, that’s the transient floor, and pretty soon someone’s going to suggest you go back to your own place.” I didn’t want to dwell on that.

“So? Come back to my own place with me.”

I took his hand. “Jeff, I love you, but I need time to love you before I live with you. Do you understand?”

He stopped walking and pulled me into his arms. “Yeah. I’m not wild about it, but I understand it.” He kissed me, and I stopped thinking about anything else for as long as that lasted.

Martini had a funny look on his face as he pulled away from me.

“What?”

“You know . . . I have an idea.” He took my hand again and led me to the elevators.

“Love this idea.”

He laughed. “Not right now.”

I felt his forehead. “Who are you and what have you done with Jeff?”

He swung me up into his arms as the elevator doors opened. He hit a button and we went down. Sadly, only in the literal, in-an-elevator sense. My disappointment was somewhat appeased by him kissing me the whole way.

We got off on the fifteenth floor. Martini put me down and led me into his human lair. But we didn’t stop at the couch. Instead, he walked us through the room to something I hadn’t noticed before—a door.

He opened it, and we walked into a full bedroom suite. But it was a real, human bedroom, not a hotel room. “This was where she stayed when we were here. Christopher and I were usually with other kids, but we stayed here sometimes, too.”

I looked around. “I love it.”

“No alarm down here. She hated that too.” He pointed to the clock on the nightstand. “The lighting, though, has to function here like everywhere else, or you’d be wandering around in the pitch black.”

“Lighting I can ignore with a pillow over my head.”

“I’ll be sure to get you up in a timely manner.”

I leaned against him. “It’s a king-sized bed.”

“Yeah. Comfy, too, as I recall.”

We tested it out. Yep, it was very comfy.

“I’ll have your things brought down here,” he said as we were lying together in the happy afterglow.

“Bring some of your things down here, too. You trotting back to your room when we were on the same floor was one thing. This is another.”

He kissed my forehead. “Yes, ma’am, some of my things will be brought down as well, ma’am.”

“Oooh, I feel all military and official.”

“I think you’re cute when the power goes to your head.”

“I like it when the power goes to your head, now that you mention it.”

He grinned and pulled me on top of him, just as a woman’s voice spoke in the room. “Commanders Martini and Katt, Pontifex White requests your presence at a briefing tomorrow at oh-nine-hundred. Can you confirm attendance?”

I looked at Martini. “You didn’t mention the intercom system.”