Bad Vibrations: Book 1 of the Sedona Files (11 page)

A long pause. Then, “How’d you know about that?”

I could practically feel the uncertainty and worry pulsing across the ionosphere and working its way down into the cell phone I held. All very human emotions, though…I still didn’t sense anything odd or otherworldly about him. So Tyler was apparently still Tyler. “Um—something another client spoke to me about. I told him I had someone I could ask. Confidentially, of course. I didn’t give him your name.”

“Oh.” Another one of those hesitations, but somehow I knew that, some thirty miles away, Tyler had relaxed slightly. “Well, yeah, I have been seeing stuff like that for the last few weeks. It’s really making my life miserable. I even went to my bosses with it, said that we were getting junk from the studios and that the mix wasn’t going to be clean, but they told me to just do what I could and leave it alone. So I did.”

Which could mean the bosses were controlled by aliens…or just too used to taking their orders from the studios, which of course were everybody’s bread and butter in this town. I knew that things in post-production were often worked on up until the last minute, so the material that had been hitting Topanga Digital and playing havoc with Tyler’s carefully calibrated equipment was probably going to be in multiplexes within the next few weeks, if even that long. We didn’t have a lot of time.

“Thanks, Tyler,” I said, and tried to sound breezy and unconcerned, as if all I’d been doing was collecting data for someone else and not trying to figure out what I was supposed to do to keep the alien hordes from enslaving the entire planet. “That helps a lot. Sorry I woke you.”

“No prob. The alarm was going to go off in ten minutes anyway. Have a good one.”

He hung up, and I snapped the phone shut and handed it back to Paul.

“There’s already a lot of ‘infected’ material in the pipeline,” I told him, and his brow creased.

“Damn. I was hoping we might have gotten a jump on things.”

“Well, all is not lost.” I thought furiously, trying to dredge up all the minutiae of the technical side of the film industry that I’d mentally shoved aside, not thinking it would ever be of much use to me. Guess you just never knew. I went on, “I know all that data has to be stored someplace. And I know actual film also has to be stored, even though more and more places are digital these days. But we don’t have much of a lead, that’s for sure.”

Paul was still holding the phone in his hand. It went off, chirping away in the annoying standard ring tone he’d never bothered to change.

I probably would have started and dropped the thing. But he just opened it, scanned the number quickly, and lifted the phone to his ear. “Jeff.”

That syllable was followed by a silence of about half a minute, while the line between Paul’s eyebrows deepened and his mouth tightened. Finally he said, “We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Immediately I started looking around for our waitress so I could have her bring the bill. “What is it?”

“New developments. Jeff wants us there as soon as possible.”

“What sort of developments?”

“He didn’t want to say. Just told me it was urgent.”

Great. After craning my head to survey the other end of the patio, I locked eyes with the waitress and beckoned her over. Luckily she had just finished dropping off someone’s order, because she came over almost at once.

“Anything else for you?”

“Just the check.”

Bless her, she had it in the pocket of her apron, and so was able to extract it and hand it to me on the spot. I thanked her, pulled the money out of my wallet, and handed it over to her. “Keep the change.”

Her eyes widened a bit; she’d probably gotten about a thirty-percent tip, but it wasn’t worth waiting for those couple extra dollars. “Hey, thanks!”

“My pleasure.”

Paul got up, and I rose as well, stuffing the wallet back into my purse at the same time. Without speaking, we hurried out the little gate that led from the patio to the street, and then on to the parking lot half a block down. It wasn’t until we were back on the freeway, speeding eastward, that I spoke. “Did it sound bad?”

“I didn’t get any details. But he sounded…strained.”

In which case it probably wasn’t good news. I fiddled with the strap of my purse and stared out the window as the carefully landscaped freeway embankments slid by. Reapplying my lipstick seemed like a frivolous use of my time, but I didn’t have anything better to do, and Paul didn’t seem inclined to conversation. Too bad that the lipstick reapplication took roughly thirty seconds, while the trip to Fontana seemed to drag on forever.

It was a bright, sunny day, much nicer than the one before, and yet as we drew closer to Lampson Labs, a chill began working its way down my spine. I knew that sensation, and it wasn’t a good one.

I said, “I don’t know if this is such a good idea.”

“What makes you say that?”

“A feeling. Something bad is waiting for us.”

He let out a breath, and frowned as he turned off Fourth into the little industrial complex where the lab was located. “We already know it’s bad. It’s an alien virus.”

“It’s more than that.”

“Could you provide a little more detail? A nebulous ‘bad feeling’ isn’t all that helpful.”

I knew that just as well as he did, but at the moment I didn’t have anything else to offer. “Sorry. That’s it for now.”

“We’ll just have to be careful, then.”

Meaning he might be a little extra wary, but he wasn’t about to turn the car around. I forced a few deep breaths, trying to calm myself. True, my having a raging case of the heebie-jeebies meant more than it did with most people. However, I knew Paul was determined to meet Jeff and hear his news, so there wasn’t a lot I could do, short of making him stop the car and let me out.

I knew I couldn’t abandon him, so I just knotted my fingers around my purse strap and bit my lip as we turned the corner and pulled up in front of Lampson Labs.

Nothing seemed to have changed. Jeff’s shabby van and Raymond’s shiny Prius still occupied the same spots, which made sense, if they’d pulled an all-nighter. True, the rest of the lots around the building were pretty much deserted, but it was a Saturday, after all; not everyone was as dedicated as Raymond.

We pulled into the empty space next to the Prius and got out of the car. By then my heart was slamming so hard against my ribcage I was surprised Paul couldn’t hear it. However, he strode toward the door, chin lifted, and if he had any misgivings, he sure wasn’t showing them. I followed a pace or two behind.

As before, the front office was deserted. We headed on back down the hallway toward the lab where we’d left Raymond and Jeff the night before. Sure enough, both of them were still there, although Raymond had apparently abandoned his electron microscope for the time being.

The chill I’d felt on the way over intensified, sending a wave of cold down my back and through my limbs. I looked down and saw the hair on my forearms standing straight up.

“Good,” said Raymond, and although I barely knew him, still I heard something wrong in his voice, wrong as the dissonance that had filled my ears the night before.

I stopped in the doorway, but Paul continued forward until he was only a few steps away from Raymond. I wanted to scream at him, to tell him to back away, but something seemed to be constricting my throat, preventing me from making any sound.

“Glad you could get here so quickly,” Raymond continued. “Better to get this all cleaned up, with no trouble. Humans really should learn not to stick their noses in where they don’t belong.”

Humans
…?

Paul caught it, too, and took a step backward. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing you’ll need to worry about.” He nodded at Jeff, who looked as glassy-eyed as someone who’d spent all night smoking some really premium weed. Jeff lifted a hand-held radio of some sort and pushed the red button on it.

From nowhere—or maybe everywhere—Otto’s voice thundered in my head.

Run, Persephone! Run now!

I can’t leave Paul—

You’ll do him no good if you’re captured as well!

Captured?

The door on the opposite side of the lab flew open, and out of it poured men in black jumpsuits, men with what looked like assault rifles held in their hands. Paul glanced back at me, face filled with agonized worry—not for himself, I realized, but for me.

A grip of iron descended on my arm, and without thinking I raised my other hand and smacked my assailant directly against the temple with my purse. It must have hurt like hell, considering the bag was loaded with emergency supplies. He let out a muffled oath, and I took advantage of that one second of surprise to turn and bolt down the corridor.

This way!
came Otto’s voice again, and I zigzagged down a short side hall that ended in an emergency door. The alarms began to shriek the second I pushed it open, but it hardly seemed to matter at that point.

Fleetingly I thought of the car, but I didn’t have the keys, and there was no time to hotwire the thing even if I’d known how to perform such a procedure. Instead, I darted between two buildings, hoping the maze of the industrial complex would be enough to hide me. From behind me I heard shouts and the pounding of booted feet, and I increased my pace, thanking God for all those dance classes with Ginger and their cardio benefits. I also thanked God for my little Kohl’s flats.

To the street
, instructed Otto, and I turned toward what I hoped was Fourth Street. Sure enough, I emerged just a few seconds later—only to see a city bus fast approaching.

Did you arrange that?

Just get on!

I raised my hand, and, wonder of wonders, the bus paused, even though I wasn’t anywhere near a designated stop. Trying to keep from panting too heavily, I dug the correct change out of my purse and then staggered back to the first empty seat, where I dropped onto the worn cushions and tried to wrap my brain around what had just happened.

I was safe for the moment, but Paul was in the hands of the enemy.

I
kept
watch out the window, sure that a phalanx of black SUVs would descend on the tired Omnitrans bus at any moment, but it seemed I had shaken off my pursuers, at least for the time being. My hands began to shake, and I clenched them around my purse and willed myself to be calm.

As usual, Otto, your sense of timing is impeccable
, I thought sourly.

Otto’s mental voice sounded almost sheepish.
My apologies for abandoning you, but there are greater things going on than you can possibly imagine.

So I gathered. What now?

A long pause. You must go forward on your own. I have helped you this once, but the way ahead is your own path to forge.

At first I didn’t quite get what he was saying. I blinked.
What, you mean you’re not going to help me?

I cannot help you further…not now. Not more than I already have done. But you will have help. Just remember to keep your heart and mind open, and it will come to you.
Another of those hesitations.
Trust your instincts. They have served you well in the past; they will serve you now.

And then he was gone. I can’t exactly explain how I knew he had left, when he had never materialized in the first place, but I sensed a sudden absence, a lightening of a pressure I hadn’t even known was there until it disappeared.

Trust your instincts.
I didn’t know how helpful that advice was, considering at the moment my first instinct was to break down into some noisy and much-needed hysterics. But that wouldn’t solve anything, and would only result in my being thrown off the bus.

Instead, I shut my eyes, and took a few of the centering breaths that always prefaced my meditations. Not that I was planning to meditate, but now more than ever, I needed a clear head. If I panicked, I’d never see Paul again.

If anyone ever asks, it actually is possible to take mass transit all the way from the Inland Empire to Burbank…if you’re willing to give up three or four hours of your life. By the time I limped off the bus and headed toward the long-term parking lot at Burbank Airport, I was beginning to wonder whether I should have parted with some of my dwindling cash reserves to get a cab instead.

Somehow that didn’t feel right, just as it seemed the right thing to do to reclaim my car. Probably the last thing my pursuers would be expecting was to have me jump back in my red Volvo. But it was familiar to me, and if I were going to have to do any evasive driving in the near future, better to do it in a car whose reactions I knew as well as I knew my own.

Because I’d begun to feel something, some sort of force that wanted to drag me eastward. I knew, without knowing exactly how I knew, that I needed to head east, that it was somewhere beyond Ontario and even past the borders of California where Paul had been taken. In the past I’d learned to trust these feelings, to let them guide me where they would. No, on the surface it didn’t make sense, just as picking up the Volvo, paying off the attendant, and heading down into L.A. didn’t make a lot of sense. But while I still had some cash on me, I didn’t have as much as I thought I might need, and I knew I had to turn to the one person who would take care of me without question…all right, without too many questions.

“You’re what?” Ginger demanded. She’d just finished her Saturday afternoon salsa class, and her bright red hair stuck to her temples and the back of her neck. She picked up a flyer for an upcoming ballroom dance competition and fanned herself with it.

“I’m driving to Arizona, and I don’t want to pull the money out of my own account. You know I’m good for it.”

“That’s not the point.” She frowned, but delicately, so as not to overly crease the professionally filled skin between her brows. “You disappear for two days, don’t leave word with anyone, there’s these men poking around—”

“What men?” I demanded, more sharply than I had intended.

“Men in suits. They looked like government types, but they flashed their IDs so fast I didn’t have time to see what branch. Not police. I’ve dated a few policemen in my time; these guys had a totally different smell.”

I should have expected as much, but still, the verbal confirmation that they had been snooping around my friends and my business made my stomach clench. “What did they want?”

“Wanted to know if I’d heard from you, if you’d left any information as to where you’d gone.” Her mouth quirked. “I told them I had no idea but that I hoped you’d hooked a hottie and gone off for a lost weekend somewhere.”

“Ginger!”

“Well, what was I supposed to say? It was the truth. So did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Hook a hottie. Because unless my eyes are deceiving me, that’s a fairly decent hickey you’ve got there on the left side of your neck.”

My hand rose of its own volition to touch the spot she’d noticed. I had seen it in passing that morning as I’d gotten ready, but as my hair hid it most of the time, I had deemed it not worth covering up. Most people probably wouldn’t have even seen it, but Ginger had eagle eyes when it came to that sort of thing.

“I, um…I did meet someone. But believe me, it’s safer if you don’t know anything about him.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, really. And he’s in trouble, and I need to help him. So are you going to loan me the money or not?”

“Don’t get your panties in a bunch.” She moved away from me to step behind the reception desk of her studio. From the lanyard around her neck she selected a key, then bent down to unlock the bottom desk drawer, which I knew was where she kept her cash box. She opened it and rummaged through the bills inside, then extended a handful to me. “I’ve got about fifteen hundred here. Think that’ll be enough?”

“It has to be. Thanks, Ginger.” I shoved the money into my purse, and leaned across the desk to give her a quick hug.

“Enough of that. Just do what you have to do—and then come back here and give me all the juicy details, because I want to know all about Mr. Mysterious.”

“I will. I promise.” I flashed her a grin and hurried for the door. After my bus ride to get out of Ontario, I didn’t have much change left, and I hadn’t dared to use my debit card on the meter. This visit was by necessity a quick one.

As much as I wanted to go to my apartment and grab some clean clothes, I knew that would be a huge mistake. Just the thought of it made the hair stand up on the back of my neck, which meant my sixth sense was still humming along just fine. Probably there were several agents surveilling the property, just in case I went back there for some reason.

But I didn’t get the same hinky sensation when I considered stopping by the motel in Pomona, and at least I did have some clothing and other items there I could collect. Besides, it was on the eastward route out of town, and so I’d be losing very little time.

That matter apparently settled, I pointed the Volvo toward Highland and hoped the traffic wouldn’t be too bad. Yes, it was a Saturday afternoon, but in L.A. that didn’t necessarily mean much. As it turned out, though, the trip back to Pomona went more smoothly than I had hoped, and it wasn’t quite five when I pulled into the parking lot of the Route 66 Motel. Since I didn’t have all that much to pack, I had the room cleaned out in less than five minutes. And I carefully folded Paul’s few articles of clothing and stowed them in one of the Kohl’s bags, then wrapped his toiletries in another shopping bag.

My throat went tight as I performed these tasks. Was this all just an exercise in futility? He could be dead…or worse, already infected with the alien virus.

No
, the universe told me, and my shoulders loosened just the smallest bit. Whatever they were doing with him, it wasn’t that. Not yet, anyway. The need to head east was strong, but not so much so that I should be panicking yet.

I settled up the bill at the motel, using my own money; Ginger’s cash infusion was insurance, but I wouldn’t dip into it until all of my own funds were depleted. And then, since there was nothing left to hold me, I got back into my car and drove east.

For some reason I’d thought I’d drop down to the 10 Freeway and head toward Arizona along that route, but something told me that was not the way to go. Instead I headed northward and then east along the 40, driving over territory that would take me parallel to the old Route 66 and over the Colorado River before moving on to Arizona’s high country.

I’d never been that way before, and looked around with interest. Well, interest at first, anyway—after the first hundred or so miles of monotonous desert, my attention began to flag. Also, the sun began to set behind me, at once obscuring the landscape with odd gray-blue shadows and illuminating the sky at my back with a bloody light I sincerely hoped was not a harbinger of things to come. Then night fell, and all I could see were the taillights of the vehicles in front of me, and the occasional illuminated road sign.

Maybe it was crazy, driving out into the darkness without even a map. The markers told me Flagstaff was 400 miles away, then 350. I didn’t know if that was my destination or not. Midway through the journey, I stopped at a wide spot in the road to get gas and noted it was almost a dollar a gallon cheaper than in California. And I realized, with a sort of abstract curiosity, that I was hungry, and pulled into a Wendy’s to get a burger and some iced tea. Funny how the body can give you those reminders even when otherwise it seems as if the world is falling apart around you.

Somewhat refreshed, I pushed on. Small towns flashed past—Seligman…Williams…Ash Fork. Pools of light in the surrounding darkness, little flickers to remind me I wasn’t alone in the universe.

I crossed the city limits into Flagstaff and waited for the twinge, the one that would tell me I had come to the right place. Nothing, and I drove on, my forehead creasing into a frown. Had I been wrong? Was I supposed to continue on into New Mexico, to some hidden base in Paul’s own home state?

And then I saw the sign that said “89A Sedona,” and the surge that went through me almost made me swerve off the road. I gripped the steering wheel, following the road to an odd turn-off that didn’t even have a signal, and then swung off onto 89A, which turned out to be only a two-lane road headed down into almost absolute blackness.

No one followed me, and I saw no taillights ahead of me. True, it was past eleven o’clock, but Los Angeles on a Saturday night was barely waking up at that hour. I got the distinct feeling I wasn’t in L.A. anymore, though.

The first several miles went smoothly enough. Then I saw a sign that warned me of a twenty-five mile-per-hour speed limit, and I slowed accordingly. That wasn’t nearly enough, though; the road switched back on itself like a demented pretzel, and I slowed far below the recommended speed. Thank God there wasn’t anyone behind me to protest my glacial pace. My headlights did little to illuminate the route, showing only patches of rock, scrubby trees by the side of the road, an improbable pale flash of something that might even have been snow in a forgotten little meadow. Then I saw a portion of hillside covered by some sort of net—presumably to prevent rock slides, and I slowed even further. If they were putting up nets to keep the hillsides from sliding, then the whole area couldn’t be all that stable.

Somehow I twisted and slalomed my way down into Sedona, fingers wrapped in a death grip around the Volvo’s steering wheel. I had to hope that the universe didn’t intend for me to end up a wet smear on the narrow canyon road, but I also had to question its wisdom in sending me down such a route in full dark.

When I finally reached the town, the transition was almost shocking in its suddenness; one moment I was banking cautiously through a narrow canyon, and the next I had emerged into what looked like a fairly civilized street, with shops and restaurants and pedestrians.

All right, not that many pedestrians. Still, even that minor sign of life was enough to reassure me, and I drew in a shaky breath as I made my way down what was obviously Sedona’s main drag. At that hour, all of the shops and even the majority of the restaurants seemed to have closed for the night, but there was enough foot traffic to let me know I wasn’t completely alone in the world.

I didn’t know where I was headed. I had to let the instinct within guide me as I continued down the street through the heart of the town, and hope that whatever I was seeking, it wouldn’t be too late for me to find it.

Then I saw a modest building off to my left, one with a brilliant neon green sign that proclaimed it to be the “UFO Depot.” I slammed on the brakes and made a precipitous left. Lucky for me the traffic was pretty thin at that hour.

I pulled into the poorly paved parking lot and stopped. My heart had begun a quick, irrational beating, but I tried to ignore it as I slid out of the car and faced the storefront.

Of course it was closed. I could tell that at once, from the darkened windows and complete lack of any other vehicles in the lot. What else had I expected? It was well past eleven and pushing on toward midnight. Most shops in Los Angeles wouldn’t have been open at that hour, either. Restaurants and clubs, sure, but not retail establishments…not even the ones that catered to a fringe population.

The sign at the door had one of those little clock faces, the ones with the hands you could move to represent the hour of your return. This one said, “We’ll be back at ten.”

All right. I didn’t like to wait, felt the weight of those intervening hours like a stone on my back, but I knew I didn’t have much choice. The universe had told me Paul would be all right for now. I had to trust its communication, have faith that the intervening time wouldn’t make a difference. What else could I do?

There was a motel down the street, one where they were happy enough to take my cash and enter my name on an old-fashioned ledger at the front desk. No computers, a fact for which I was profoundly glad. Computers could give away my location. I still had that sense of being compelled, of being shown the path to follow, but there was no use in taking chances. I couldn’t risk making a foolish mistake that might reveal my position.

Somehow I knew that my strength lay in being unknown, undetected. With any luck, they wouldn’t know what hit them.