Touched by an Alien (39 page)

I heard clanking, and then Martini shoved some aerosols at me and into my purse. “On three, we’ll move out.”

“Okay.” I had no intention of moving, but I didn’t think he’d want to hear that.

“One . . . two . . . three!” Martini was out of the car, the passenger’s door behind me open.

Mephistopheles slammed his fist into the windshield, but on the passenger’s side. I knew he didn’t want to kill me, but I was glad the Navigator had shatterproof glass. His horrible hand was feeling around. I waited until it was almost on me, then I sprayed it.

He jerked his hand out, but then bent down, looked at me, gave me what I thought on his face might pass for a smile, and waved. With the hand I’d sprayed. It was unscathed.

I turned on the intercom. Amazingly, it was still working. “. . . get her out of the car!” Reader, sounding terrified.

“Where the hell is Jeff?” Christopher, sounding mad and freaked. “Why isn’t their intercom on?”

“We were fighting. He’s immune to the spray unless he takes it internally.”

“You sprayed Jeff?” Christopher sounded horrified.

“Tempting idea, but no, Mephistopheles. You know, the big fugly waving at me right now?” I had to come up with a plan. Pity I didn’t have one.

Mephistopheles made a fist, still grinning. He pulled his arm back and it was really clear he was aiming for me. I wanted to run, but I was frozen.

My door opened, someone grabbed me, and I was moving at hyperspeed. We stopped miles away—we were so far I couldn’t see any of the superbeings, not even Mephistopheles. Which meant we likely had a few minutes before they found us. Which was good, as I fell to my knees and started retching.

Someone knelt down next to me and put his arm around my waist, keeping me from collapsing. “I told you to leave the car on three.”

“He wants to kill
you
.” I had nothing in my stomach, so all that was coming up was bile. This was gross. I wondered if I could safely drink the Ever-Hold.

“And what he wants to do to you is worse.”

“Yeah, but you don’t care anymore, remember?” I managed to stop retching but then started to cry. Not an improvement.

He pulled me gently into his arms. “Don’t cry, baby.” At this I started to sob for real. Martini rocked me and kissed the top of my head. “I’m sorry, Kitty. I just . . .”

“Don’t want anything to do with me anymore. I got it, I’m clear.”

His arms tightened around me. “I don’t want you to think you have to stay with me when you’re in love with someone else.”

Well, that worked. I stopped being unhappy and got mad. I wrenched out of his arms. We were both on our knees, but that just meant I couldn’t kick him. I could hit him, and I did, not well or accurately but wherever I could reach, which was mostly his chest. Repeatedly. While screaming at him. “I am so sick of your ‘poor me’ attitude! I make one mistake and you’re ready to just walk away. Glad to know how much I meant to you. Hope you enjoyed your fling with a human before you marry some A-C girl like you’re supposed to!”

“Whoa, whoa, stop. Stop!” He wasn’t really trying to block my fists. I got the impression I wasn’t hurting him nearly as much as I wanted to.

“Why? What would that change?” I was still hitting him as hard as I could, but I was getting tired, and I was so miserable that it almost didn’t matter.

Martini grabbed my wrists. “I said stop it.” I tried head-butting him, and he started to laugh.

“It’s not funny!” I slammed my torso into his.

“Do that again.”

I tried to wrench away from him. He let go of my wrists, and I started to fall backward. He leaned forward, caught me, wrapped his arms around my back, pulled me to him, one hand at the back of my head, and then he kissed me.

This wasn’t like the kiss in the car. This was deep and passionate. I tried not to respond, but within moments my arms were around his neck. He slid his other hand down my back and pulled me closer into him.

We were like that for far too short a while when he slowly ended the kiss. His mouth moved to my cheeks, and he started kissing the tears away. “Don’t cry any more, baby,” he whispered. “Please.”

“I keep saying I’m sorry, but you don’t believe me.” His lips moved to my forehead as he kissed me softly. I sniffled, and his lips moved down the bridge to kiss the tip of my nose. “I believe you.” He slid his hands to the sides of my face. “In the future, should we have one, if you decide you don’t want to be with me, that’s fine; you tell me, I’ll deal with it. But you do something like this even once more, and I’ll never speak to you or touch you again.”

That seemed fair. I nodded. I was afraid to say anything.

Which was a good thing since my walkie crackled. “Jeff, Kitty,
move
!” Christopher sounded panicked. Apparently, our few minutes of breathing space were over. Oh, well, at least they’d been well spent.

Martini didn’t hesitate; he grabbed me, and we rolled, fast. Which was good, because Mephistopheles’ hoof landed where we’d been. We scrambled to our feet, Martini grabbed my hand, and we started off, but not at hyperspeed. It dawned on me that Martini was probably out of hyperjuice.

Thankfully, the remaining SUV was barreling toward us. It screeched to a halt, skidded and turned sideways. It stopped with its right side in front of us with about two inches to spare. Martini opened the passenger door, picked me up, tossed me in, and leaped in behind me. “Go!”

I was on the floor. “Um, a little help?”

Christopher put his hand down. Martini cleared his throat and Christopher’s hand retracted. “I can handle it, thanks.”

“There’s nothing amorous about pulling someone off the floor,” Christopher muttered.

“There is when I do it.” Martini lifted me up and put me onto the seat. Somehow, he did manage to make this feel amorous. I decided not to question and just go with the fact he didn’t hate me anymore.

“I want my iPod back.”

“Now?” Christopher turned around. “You do know Mephistopheles is right behind us?”

I looked back to see the big red fugly running behind. “I want my iPod.” I needed to hear music, or at least have the means with me. I was getting too nervous and frightened, and all the angst with Martini had made me tired.

Tim pulled the unit out and tossed it back to me. I dropped the car adapter into my purse and dug out my belt clip and earphones. “How does that thing hold all that’s in it and not burst?” Martini asked as we sped back toward the main action.

“It’s big and it’s made out of cheap leather. It works for me.” I hooked the iPod to my waist and put the earphones around my neck. There, ready for whatever was coming next. I looked behind us again—Mephistopheles was falling behind.

“You know, those things can tangle and strangle you,” Christopher said as if he were passing comment about the weather.

“You sound like my mother. I think strangulation by earphones is the least of my worries right now.”

“Good news,” Reader’s voice came through the intercom. “I think the planes with hot water are here.”

We were close to the Serpent now, and it was fighting with the Pachyderm. “Tell them not to drop the water yet!”

“Why not?” This was Gower, and he sounded exasperated.

“Because the Serpent’s pissed at the Pachyderm, and I think it’s winning.” As I said this, the giant snake wrapped itself around the Pachyderm’s neck and torso. The jets were still buzzing around, and the big beast was freaking out. The Serpent sunk its fangs into the Pachyderm’s neck, and some sort of fluid started jetting out.

“We’re out of here!” This was from one of the jets.

“We need to help James,” Lorraine protested.

“We can’t hit that thing, it’s too thin,” the other pilot said.

“Don’t be silly. It’s a simple trajectory.” Claudia sounded annoyed but in a fond way. “Here, let me calibrate.”

“If I’d said that, she’d tell me I was a moron,” Martini mentioned.

There was some arguing in the jets where the girls were occupants, but they were winning. I was proud, but I had to figure much of this was because they probably had their chests very close to the pilots’ heads.

“She’s right,” the pilot with Claudia said. “I’ll give you the info.”

“No need, my girl’s already done.” My girl, huh? Oh, there was going to be some serious hell raised when we all got back to the Science Center or Home Base, but at least Lorraine and Claudia were having a good time now.

Christopher had his head in his hand. “I can’t wait to explain this to my father.”

“I’ll do it, no worries.”

“Oh, I feel so much better.”

“Hey, my girl’s handled things so far,” Martini said with a grin.

“So glad you two worked that out,” Christopher said snidely. “Of course, you almost died.”

“And that makes today different from every other day how?”

“Good point.”

“Okay, we’re all set,” Lorraine’s pilot said. “Tell your boy on the ground to move out.”

“I’m on the intercom too, flyboy.”

“No need to get touchy, son,” Claudia’s pilot shared.

“I don’t take orders from you, either, Top Gun. Girlfriend?”

“Move out, James. Meet us at the rendezvous point.”

“You got it.”

“Rendezvous point?” Martini asked quietly.

“Where we first parked. He’ll know. Head there, too, Tim.”

“Absolutely, your in-charge-ness.”

“A trip back to Triple A could be in your future.”

“The owner likes me. I think I’m safe.”

“Don’t count on it.” I looked closely at the Pachyderm and Serpent. They were rolling around on the ground, but the big purpley thing seemed to be slowing down. “Can one of the extra jets do a flyby and tell me if the butt-ugly elephant-thing’s eyes are still glowing red or not?”

“Will do, ma’am.” This was a new voice. Apparently the whole team was patched in. It was chummy in a weird sort of way.

“He called me ma’am. I like that better than little lady.”

“He thinks you’re a superior officer,” Martini shared. “Little lady will be back the moment he finds out you’re a civilian.”

“Humph.”

“Ma’am? Butt-ugly elephant-thing’s eyes are not glowing now. Repeat, not glowing now.”

“I like him. And, um, boys in the big planes? I think we can dump the water now. If it’s boiling.”

“Yes, ma’am,” a new voice crackled. “We’ve maintained appropriate temperature.”

“Good, good. Carry on. Hit the huge black snake.”

“Roger that.”

“I feel all military and official.”

“She’s drunk with power again.” Christopher looked back at Martini. “I thought you said you could handle her.”

“I think she’s cute when she’s giving orders.” He reached over and stroked the back of my neck. It made me want to purr.

We pulled up by the semicrushed SUV. Reader was a few moments behind us. The Humvee was covered with goo. “Can James get out of there safely?”

“Ummm . . . I’m not sure.” Christopher sounded much less than not sure.

“Paul?”

“Yes, Kitty?”

“How much heat can a Humvee withstand?”

Silence.

“You’re not going to suggest what I think you are, are you, girlfriend?”

“Yes, she is,” Gower’s voice came back. “It can withstand the water, but it’ll be hot as hell in there, Jamie.”

Jamie? It was a cute pet name. But it occurred to me that the danger we were in had to be higher than I thought, if Gower was using it over a wideband intercom system.

“Why me?” Reader asked. “I know, because the humans have to stick together.” He barreled off toward the mass of superbeing flesh on the ground.

As he did so, the jets started firing at what was left of the Killer. I could see them hitting, and the thing started to disintegrate. “Bullets work on that.”

“Wish we’d known that earlier,” Reader said.

“It’s only working because you weakened it so much, James. It’s superstructure was damaged by the repeated—”

“Lorraine? Hon? I don’t care right now as I’m heading for the boiling carwash.”

Reader reached the mass of dying fugly just as the first plane dropped a load of boiling water onto the area. The Serpent writhed and screamed—a sound best not described, ever.

The second plane dropped its load. The Serpent bubbled, writhed, and screamed some more, and the Humvee seemed clean. But it wasn’t leaving the area. A third plane dumped water and the Serpent exploded.

There were cheers from the various aircraft. But the Humvee wasn’t moving.

A scary thought occurred to me. “At what heat level does rubber melt?”

THE BEDLAM STARTED
, with a lot of male voices talking over each other. I tried to make out what the girls might be adding, but I couldn’t. The men in my car were suggesting their thoughts as well. What no one was doing was offering any kind of idea if Reader was stuck, trapped, alive, dead, or dying.