Uninvited: A Paranormal Urban Fantasy Novel (The Dark Skies Trilogy Book Two) (13 page)

T
hat’s when I scream
.

With my back pressed against the hallway door, I yell my lungs out.

The raven-haired girl lowers the knife and steps back, surprised that I’m making such a racket.

“Don’t cry out, sister,” she says in a stilted voice. “I am not here to hurt you.”

“Then get rid of that knife,” I say, trying to sound brave.

The only way that she could have alien steel is if she’s either alien or one of their allies. Neither scenario bodes well for me.

She glances nervously at the dagger in her hand as if she’s forgotten that she even has a knife. But instead of lowering it, she lunges, slashing at me.

I block her attack with my forearm. Using my other hand, I manage to twist her wrist forcing her to drop the dagger.

She steps away. Reaches behind her back, and pulls out a second identical long bladed knife. She has two weapons!

She slashes at me again.

“Stop!” I yell out, narrowly avoiding her strike. I dodge to the left, just missing the red blade. I try to push her back, but she resists. She’s as strong as I am.

Maybe stronger.

Backed into a corner, I’m trapped. Hoping someone hears me, I yell, ”Help!!”

All I can do is raise my hands to defend myself. But if she chooses to plunge the blade into my heart or my skull or my gut, I will likely die as quickly as any regular red-blooded human.

“I just need to be sure,” she says, slashing at me again, and I see the faint outline of a seven-sided star etched into the blade. It’s identical to the star etched on BrightSky.

Suddenly, a big hand lands on her shoulder, yanking her backward and away from me.

“Leave her alone!” Waylon has come to my rescue.

He pushes her so hard that she practically bounces off the side wall. Her head snaps back, hitting the solid plaster wall. She crumples to the ground and the knife skitters across the floor.

“Are you okay, Astrid?” Waylon asks, looming over the raven haired girl. “Did she hurt you?”

Ruby, followed by Bella and everyone else, comes running down the hallway.

“Oh my God!” Ruby cries, covering her mouth. “What happened?”

“This girl tried to attack Astrid,” Waylon tells the group.

“I wasn't trying to hurt her,” the girl says, her eyes fluttering open, pleading with us.

"I saw you. If I hadn't stopped you…” Waylon says, anger rising in his voice.

Ruby kneels by my side. “Are you okay?”

“I'm all right.” I nod, then whisper in her ear, “There’s another creepy note. Same paper and writing. Taped to the bathroom mirror.”

Ruby looks perplexed. “Did it come from that girl?”

I can only shrug. “I don’t know.”

“Let me see it.”

“It’s still in the bathroom.”

“I’ll get it,” she says, moving toward the bathroom door.

“She’s injured,” Waylon says.

“She must have accidentally cut herself with her knife,” Bella says, bending to pick up one of the two ornate daggers.

“She’s bleeding,” he frowns, pointing to a pool of bluish blood on the floor. “I mean, I think she’s bleeding.”

The color of her blood is all wrong if you’re human.

I step forward to offer an explanation before anyone else can. “The light is so murky back here. But we should probably call Dr. Maggie or someone at the clinic.”

“Right,” Waylon nods to Bella as they hurry back to the front of the coffee shop. “My phone’s in my bag on the table.”

With Ruby still in the bathroom while Waylon, Bella and everyone else has rushed back to call Dr. Maggie, I find myself alone with this strange girl. She’s lying on the ground, propped up against the wall, holding her arm where she cut herself.

“Sister, please don’t let them see,” she begs me in a weak voice.

As I’m wondering what she’s talking about, I see something amazing, something I never thought I would see. Right before my eyes, her bleeding cut closes up, healing itself.

“No…” I shake my head. “How?”

“I’m just like you.”

“But? Why did you try to stab me?”

She points to the knife. “I just wanted to nick you a little to see if you heal too.”

My eyes must look like they’re going to pop out of my head. “Who are you?”

“My name is Calliope,” she says in a whispered voice. “One of the seven sisters of light. I’m just like you. I’m your sister.”

Practically, the instant we’re alone, she loses her cloaking and her human form.

“I can't hold it anymore,” she says barely above a whisper.

At first, her hand turns a bluish-green. But then it goes back and forth from human skin to the deep rich alien skin that runs up her arm almost to her elbow.

After a moment of initial shock, I ask, “Where is your guardian?”

“Don’t let them take me,” she answers instead, trying to stand and suddenly afraid of some unseen attacker. “He sent me here to find you and your guardian.”

“It's okay,” I say, trying to comfort this girl, who moments ago attempted to stab me. “No one’s going to take you. You're safe here.”

The corners of her mouth turn up into a little smile as her eyes flutter closed. Her entire body turns the deep blue-green. I only know that she's still alive because I hear her gentle rhythmic breathing and see her chest rise and fall.

Fitz and Dr. Maggie arrive remarkably quickly. They immediately get everyone outside of the coffee shop, except Calliope and me.

“Her cloaking has failed,” Dr. Maggie says. “We have to keep her covered.” Dr. Maggie turns to Fitz, “She’s Pleiadian. Not Lyrian like Astrid.”

“How do you know that?” I ask.

“Her color,” Dr. Maggie says. “And skin texture.”

As they get her gently transferred to the gurney, Fitz turns a serious eye to me. “Astrid, what exactly did she say to you?”

I repeat everything that just happened. They both nod solemnly, not saying more. Instead, Fitz bends to gently push up the sleeve of Calliope’s right arm.

As he does this, the scar on my arm starts to itch. I have what looks like a seven-sided star on my arm. It almost burns. Fitz turns her arm into the light.

There it is.

Calliope has a scar exactly like mine. Without even realizing it, I gasp. “Do you think she’s actually another one of the seven sisters?”

“Perhaps,” Fitz nods.

“I don’t understand,” Dr. Maggie frowns.

“Legend has it that each of the seven lost sisters has this exact star scar on their right arm,” Fitz explains. “But the true shape of the scar was never revealed to anyone outside the Council of Light because no one wanted the Draconian Threat to have the information. Astrid’s uncle told me this.”

“She has the same scar…” I say, feeling like I am looking at my sister. “And she heals the same way I do.”

“The bigger question is why did she come here?” Fitz asks, and I wonder if he thinks she's some sort of threat. “And why now.”

“We need to get her back to the hospital,” Dr. Maggie says.

“If she is the Pleiadian sister of light then her guardian is dead,” he replies.

“She told me that’s why she came,” I reply solemnly. “She told me that he sent her.”

Fitz’s face darkens. “Did she also tell you that her guardian was your uncle’s brother?”

I
have a hard time sleeping
. So many questions and fears swirl around in my head, making it impossible to nod off.

The news of my uncle’s brother death is confusing. Calliope didn’t tell us the details. Fitz made me promise not to tell my uncle about it for now. He doesn’t want to upset him while he’s not fully recovered.

But there’s more to it. Something else. I don’t know what it is. But I know he’s not telling me everything.

Finally, after tossing and turning for half the night, staring at the ceiling and silently willing the digital clock on my desk to finally get to six a.m., I just give in and get out of bed at 5:25.

I'm relieved to see Ruby sleeping soundly as I tiptoe out of the room. She only asked me somewhere in the neighborhood of 10,000 questions when I got back to the dorm last night.

Most of which I couldn’t answer.

Still, she thinks I shouldn't trust this new girl. And she’s probably right.

It’s just I want to trust her.

Maybe because we're probably the only two teenage alien girls on the planet. You would think that would forge a bond. I've always wanted a sister; desperately so when I was younger.

But she makes me nervous.

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that she tried to stab me when we first met.

The compound is quiet as I step outside into the chilly morning air. I pass a pair of nuns walking to the church, but nobody else. I plan to head over to the hospital to spend a little time with my uncle before school starts, then I can swing by the stables to check on Tom.

But when I arrive at the medical ward, I discover Fitz and a cluster of his team members gathered around Calliope’s bed. By the way everyone sort of lazily slumps, I suspect they’ve been there for a while.

Simmons sees me standing in the doorway and approaches. “Dr. Maggie let us know that she regained consciousness around 4:30 a.m.”

“It’s barely 6:00,” I say lightly. “You can’t give the girl a little time to rest?”

Simmons frowns as she replies, “Unfortunately, a troubling situation has come to our attention.”

Before I can ask what it is, Fitz motions to us. “Why don’t you ladies join us over here.”

As we step to the periphery of the group, I see that Calliope is propped up, looking more alert. I notice that one of Fitz’s guys, an agent who’s unfamiliar to me, records the conversation.

“Tell us again about your guardian?” Fitz asks.

Her face hardens, “Like I already said, my guardian, General Zek, was killed by the Draconian scum.”

Fitz challenges this answer, “We were unaware that General Zek had been assigned to guard a sister of light.”

“That is because he was my second guardian. Twice I have escaped assassination by the Draconian Threat. And twice I have lost a guardian.”

“I'm very sorry to hear that,” Fitz backs off a bit. “When did that happen? Where?”

“I lived in the Alpha Centauri system until my first guardian was killed. For several more years, I lived there unprotected with only a mother and her other children. Finally, General Zek rescued me, and we relocated one star system away to Tau Ceti where we settled on the planet Fluxrun Three.”

“No kidding?” Jax says, his eyes wide. “That’s my system. Fluxrun Two is my home planet. My name is Jax by the way.”

“Are you Jaxorus Flux Dyious?” she ask. “Master of the long sword and the way of the silent warrior?”

This long title surprises all of us.

“…Yes,” he nods, looking a little embarrassed by the big name. “I mean, that is my formal name on my home planet. No one calls me that here.”

“I heard tales of your bravery during my training on Fluxrun,” she tells him.

“I haven’t met someone from my system for quite a while,” Jax replies with a warm smile. “How are things there?”

She hesitates. “You don’t know?”

His face flattens. “Know what?”

“I am sorry to tell you all that the Tau Cetian system has all but been destroyed by Draconian forces.”

“What?” Jax says. “But there are 15 planets?”

“Last I knew, they were all gone except Fluxrun 14 and 15 on the outskirts of that solar system,” Calliope informs him.

Jax looks like someone just punched him in the gut.

“I was barely able to get out with my life. The Draconian-Grey forces infiltrated our system. Initially, their attempts were stopped by the armies of the Alliance. If the Draconians could not rule Fluxrun, then they would not let it remain. Instead, they destroyed the whole system. I’m sorry to have to tell you.”

Rattled, Jax abruptly turns away. “Excuse me…”

The gravity of the situation permeates the room. There’s a long solemn silence. Finally, Fitz continues, “How did you get to Earth? How were you able to navigate?”

“I came in an old Suncraft pod that my guardian refurbished,” she explains. “The coordinates were set when I left the system. I had nearly four months alone in the craft.”

“Those old Suncrafts were slow and famously unreliable,” Tanaka, the tech guy, interjects. “It’s amazing she made it at all.”

“It was the only star-worthy craft we had access to,” Calliope continues. “The war had destroyed everything else by then. When I entered your atmosphere, I was able to manually fly this ship.”

“So then you came all by yourself?” Dr. Maggie asks like a concerned mother.

“Not all alone. Just me and Raki.”

“Who is Raki?” Fitz asks.

“My Drolgon guardian. He came too, of course.”

“You have a Lesser Valarian Drolgon as well?” Simmons inquires.

“I have a Greater Valarian.”

The adults exchange worried looks.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

“That must be what attacked Tom the other night,” Fitz states.

“Impossible,” Calliope shakes her head defiantly. “Raki would never attack another creature. Unless, of course, he believed it to be a direct threat to me.”

“He might feel threatened in a foreign environment,” Simmons suggests.

“Where is he now? Your valerian guardian?” Fitz asks.

“We landed deep within your forest. Half an Earth day from here. Raki has taken the form of a green-headed, flock creature with wings that nests along your flat waters.”

“Green headed? A bird on the lake?” Fitz translates. “Does it say “quack quack?”

“Yes,” her face brightens for the first time since she spoke of her guardian and the doomed world from which she came.

“Your Raki has been hanging out with a flock of ducks.”

She smiles. “These winged creatures seem benign.”

The word benign makes me wonder. “How did you learn English?”

“My craft’s computers. I had four months to study the ways of this planet. I have consumed much of your local entertainment. Books, movies, songs. I believe I speak 22 of the most common dialects on this planet.”

“And you left notes for Astrid?” Fitz asks.

“Yes. I was initially unable to tell if she was being held here against her will, so I did not want to make direct contact until I knew it was safe.”

“Why did you not return to the Pleiades?” Fitz asks.

“My guardian entrusted the memory stone with me. I am to give it to her guardian.”

Fitz reacts like he’s been slapped. “The memory stone? Are you certain that’s what you have?”

She seems surprised by his reaction. “Yes, I was told to give it to Astrid’s guardian when I arrived.”

The mood in the room has changed. Everything feels more serious.

“Where is it now?” Fitz asks.

“It’s safe,” she replies. “On my craft.”

“You have done well, Calliope,” Fitz says. He sounds impressed by her. Proud of her. For getting here. For learning our language. For surviving. “Is your craft still intact?”

“Oh yes, I was able to bring it in for a landing it is in an open stretch of field,” she says. “My guardian made sure that I was a well-trained pilot.”

“Where is it now?”

“In the woods near the duck lake,” she replies.

Fitz looks to his men. “Her craft must be the object we picked up on satellite.”

One of his men speaks up, “Sir, that's a densely forested area. Even a one-mile area will take us more than a day, possibly two, to search.”

Fitz nods then turns back to Calliope. “Do you have any more specific details? Any landmarks?”

She thinks for a moment. “On my way out, I passed several long structures built along a lake. They had many long land vehicles filled with dead trees.”

Reading the map on his tablet, Tanaka says, “There’s logging camp to the north of us. Not far from the radar sightings.“

Fitz is on his feet and heading out the door. “Let’s go.” Fitz turns to his team. “We need to find her ship and get that stone. Before anyone else does.”