Touched by an Alien (45 page)

Terrorists all seem to shop at the same stores. They were as regimented in their outfits as the A-Cs were, only theirs ran to fatigues, flak jackets, and a heavy assortment of guns. It was easy to spot the human and A-C males who weren’t terrorists—they were all bound, most of them unconscious, all of them beaten up.

The women had been herded into an open part of the launch area. There were a lot of them here. Enough for Mephistopheles to do what I knew he wanted—make them all like him. He didn’t want the males so much as he wanted the males out of the way.

I recognized two of the women near the front—Emily and Melanie, Claudia and Lorraine’s respective mothers. “Where are our girls?” Melanie demanded.

One of the terrorists, who wore his love of Che Guevara pretty much all over walked to them. He stroked Melanie’s cheek with the barrel of his rifle. “Maybe you and I will discuss that privately.”

Emily shoved the gun. “Get away from her, you bastard.”

He backhanded her. Melanie grabbed her before she hit the floor. “Why are you doing this to us?” she asked as she moved Emily back.

He laughed, and I decided that as far as targets went, he was number one. “Because we can.”

I pulled the Glock out of my purse. As I did, my hand hit something I’d forgotten was in there—portable speakers. An idea formed. I put my mouth right next to Christopher’s ear. “I’m going to create a distraction. How many of the guns can you get away in about ten seconds?”

He turned and did the same to me. It was far too erotic for the situation. “All of them.”

I nodded, and dug out my iPod, took out the headphones and plugged in the speakers. What to choose, what to choose. Well, why not go with what we’d heard was working so well elsewhere?

Once the iPod was set up, we fanned out, staying low and quiet. I had no idea how Hughes could carry a baseball bat and Duchess while in a crouch, but he was the right man for the job.

The nasties were clearly waiting for someone or something. I didn’t figure I was a genius to assume it was Yates. Who else, right?

We were as well situated as could be, guns out, except for Hughes, who was carrying the loaded pit bull. I saw Christopher scan the room; he did it several times, then looked over and nodded. Okay, he knew where the guns were.

I turned the volume up to eleven again, hit play and slid away as fast as I could. The Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Give it Away” blasted out.

The reactions were immediate—the terrorists, to a man, spun and started to fire toward my iPod. But they weren’t quite fast enough. Christopher might have been tired, but you couldn’t tell from how quickly the guns were flying through the air. The A-C women caught them—they might be scientists, but they sure looked as though they could handle an AK-47 if they had to.

The song was barely to the first chorus and we had the guns. Melanie pointed hers right at the head creep. “Give me another reason.” He put his hands up.

The pilots and I stood up. “On your side.”

Melanie nodded. “Nice to see you.” She shot Christopher a worried look. “They have other hostages.”

“We know,” he answered. He sounded out of breath, and I knew without asking that he was finally out of hyperjuice.

The pilots started untying the bound men. Some of the women helped them and revived the ones who were out. I walked to the head creep; Duchess trotted over next to me. “When is Yates due to arrive?”

He sneered. It was clear he’d practiced a lot in the mirror. “Who?”

“Your fearless leader. You know, the one who always lets his minions do his dirty work? When’s he due for the command performance?” I prayed he wasn’t here yet. If he wasn’t, Martini and the others were likely to still be alive.

“When he comes, he will crush you like the pitiful bugs that you are.”

“Blah, blah, blah, heard it all before, not afraid of the creepy old man or his fugly alter ego.”

“You should be,” another one of the terrorists hissed. “He will remake the world in his own image.”

“And you’re okay with that? I realize that, as a group goes, you’ve all got real potential, if we clean you up and groom you, on a scale of one to ten, to end up somewhere around negative five, but that’s still more attractive than anything Yates is offering.”

“Laugh now while you have the weapons,” the first one snarled as most of the Dazzlers giggled. “When our leader comes, you will pay.”

“You laughed while you had the weapons. It seems only fair we do the same.” I looked around. “Girls, we need to store the trash somewhere it can’t get out or make noise. Any ideas? Me, I’m thinking there’s this warehouse made of corrugated steel in the middle of the freaking desert.”

Emily gave me a smile that should have caused several of the terrorists to wet themselves. “I love that plan.”

“Do the gates work?”

“Yes, they only jammed them,” Melanie said.

I took a deep breath. No better time for it than the present. “Where’s Beverly?”

Emily’s eyes narrowed. “You mean Beverly the traitor, that Beverly?”

“Yeah, her.”

“She has our daughters, James, Tim, a couple of human pilots, and Jeff,” Melanie answered. “If Jeff doesn’t get medical attention soon he’s going to die.”

I’d known that already, but it still sucked hearing it. “That’s the plan. Him and Christopher dead, the rest of you turned into parasitic spawners.” The women nodded—beautiful but not dumb at all. “We need to get these slime-balls trussed up. Anyone have any duct tape?”

“Lots,” one of the gals I didn’t know said. “A lot of it on this level, too. It’s amazing what you can do with that stuff.”

“Good. Can you all handle them? We need to get them trussed up and out of sight before Yates shows up.”

Ah, hyperspeed. All but the Che wanna-be were trussed up within seconds. He smirked. “You cannot touch me.”

I looked down at Duchess. “Puppy girl? I don’t like this mean man.” Then I punched him in the face. And Duchess went for what I’d trained her to do when I was really serious about self-defense—his groin.

The screams were lovely.

“Marry me,” Jerry said as he trotted over, my now-silent iPod in his hand.

“Taken, by the alien you were apparently separated from at birth.” If he was still alive, of course. I dropped iPod and speakers back into my purse. I kept the Glock out.

Jerry sighed. “All the good ones are always taken.”

I put my arm around his shoulders. “My love, take a look, a close look, at the mass of women before you, and then take heart. Most of the ones under thirty aren’t married, and—here’s your special bonus—they only want to marry human males.”

He smiled. “I knew helping you land was the right thing to do.”

THE TERRORISTS WERE TRANSPORTED
to the warehouse. The A-C males went there to guard them—it would be too hot for the humans we didn’t actually want to roast, especially since the A-Cs planned to turn the thermostat up to broiling.

That left us a goodly complement of military personnel, but not as many as I’d hoped. Turned out most had gone to Home Base when White had realized they needed to move the base of Operation Fugly there.

Emily and Melanie wanted to come with us, but I wanted people I knew I could trust to pull the trigger up on this level. Their daughters were in danger—they’d shoot to kill without question.

“Who else is in on this with Beverly?”

Emily shook her head. “We don’t know.”

“I’m with you that she couldn’t have pulled this off by herself,” Melanie added. “But she hasn’t indicated any accomplices.”

“Figure out who’s missing or might have been acting funny the last couple of days, last few hours in particular, but after you fix the gates. No one can get in here from Home Base. Just be sure that my mother and father are with whoever comes through. If they’re not, then that side’s been infiltrated, too.”

“Got it. Kitty, please get them back safely.” Melanie’s voice broke.

“I’ll do my best. Make sure Yates doesn’t get away.”

“He won’t,” Emily said.

I left Duchess with the Dazzlers. I didn’t want her at risk, and, besides, she was getting so much attention and praise for her part in the chomping of the head terrorist that it seemed a shame to drag her off.

We went back, just our crew of five. All the guys had big guns now, though Hughes still had the baseball bat and Christopher still had the ball. I got the feeling they were both finding comfort in holding them, and who was I to argue? I wasn’t going to give up my purse, either.

We slunk downstairs to see the same four terrorists guarding the doors. Thankfully, we hadn’t made much noise upstairs, and the Che wanna-be’s screams must not have traveled.

“How do we get them out of action and us inside that room?” Christopher whispered in my ear. “I can’t move fast yet.”

I thought about it. “Leave that to me.” I dropped the Glock into my purse, crawled on the floor a little way, then stood up and sauntered over. “Hey, what’s going on?”

Four big guns pointed at me. “Who the hell are you?”

“Gosh, I was going to ask you the same thing. I was napping. Where is everybody? Are we having some sort of a drill?” I did my best to look and sound as inane as possible.

The terrorists exchanged glances. “Why don’t we take you inside?” one suggested.

“Sure, is that where we go for this drill?”

“Yeah, babe, that’s right.” He put his arm around my waist. I managed not to recoil or hit him, but it required a lot of self-control.

One of the others opened the door. It was a large medical bay, and there were several people in the room. As my personal escort shoved me through the doorway, I saw Lorraine and Claudia huddled next to their pilots. The men had been beaten up but were conscious, and they looked angry. Tim and Reader were near them, also looking worse for wear. There were six other terrorists in the room, four of them with guns trained on the six against the wall; two of them were flanking Beverly. But my eyes were drawn to the center of the room.

Martini was on his knees, hands tied behind his back. He looked worse than when I’d last seen him, and I could tell he’d been beaten up like the others. Beverly was standing over him, and her expression of triumph and viciousness made my blood cold.

She was doing something to Martini—his body was reacting as if she were kicking him, but she wasn’t moving. He was trying not to make noise, but grunts of pain escaped. Even like this he was gorgeous. But I couldn’t stand to see the pain etched into his face and body.

I looked back at her face, and I realized she was sending an emotional onslaught at him. The fear and anger from the others in the room would be bad enough, especially considering the state he’d been in when they’d kidnapped everyone, but she was adding on more. And it was killing him.

I’d thought I hated the terrorist who’d hit Emily. I knew I hated Yates for trying to kill my family and Mephistopheles for killing Cox. But I’d never, ever, known what it was to see someone and know, without a shadow of a doubt, that I’d do anything and everything I had to do in order to kill her or him for what they were doing to someone I loved.

“Well, well, if it’s not our little Miss Katt.” Beverly’s eyes shot daggers at me. “Come to help make Jeff’s last minutes truly horrific?”

“You seem to be all over it.”

Martini looked over at me. “Baby, get out of here.” It sounded like every syllable cost him.

“Oh, she can’t do that,” Beverly purred as she sent another emotional hit toward him. “She’s required.”

“Yeah, I know. Yates wants to meet me.”

Beverly nodded. “He has something special planned for you.”

As long as I could talk and keep her talking, we had time. This room had glass on the wall opposite the door, so I could see behind me. The terrorists hadn’t closed the door, probably because they wanted to hear what was going on.

“Funny that he’s more interested in me than in you. And, you know, you’d think, since you’ve been his mistress all this time, that he’d want you.”

“He has greater plans for me,” Beverly snarled.

“Yeah, um, right.” I nodded my head toward the girls. “I’m sure. ’Cause, you know, Yates is
known
for dating, ah, mature women. Not girls younger than Lorraine.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What he chooses to amuse himself with doesn’t matter to me.”

“Really? Wow, are
you
understanding. Now, if it were me, and my so-called main man was shagging every hot young thing under the age of twenty-five, I’d be kind of pissed. So you’re either gullible or stupid. Or both.”

“You have no idea of what he plans,” Beverly hissed.

“Oh, come on. It’s so freaking obvious.” I could see my guys moving up. They each had a cloth in their hands. I hoped they’d found some chloroform as opposed to just having allergy attacks. “Yates is dying, and Mephistopheles wants to make babies. But he doesn’t exactly seem to have the right equipment. Believe me, I’ve been up close and personal, and there are no reproductive organs on any of Team Fugly. So they can only reproduce via parasitic infection.”