by Lynne Murray
“Don’t mind Rex, he has a thing for authority figures,” Larry said.
Rex ended up draped across Kirby’s chest, long ears tilted back, nose twitching in pleasure.
Kirby petted Rex’s velvety coat. "Larry I'm sorry you had to suffer through visits from the Glow Worms.” Ever the diplomat, he used the polite term.
“They never tried to possess me. I remember that they came in different human forms, but they always glowed blue. They just held me down and drained my energy.”
“That must've been so frightening for a child, well, really for anyone,” I said.
“My mother went through it with me. We couldn’t stop them but she warned me not to talk to them and never to accept anything they offered.”
“Your mother was very wise,” Kirby said.
“It was a good warning, because they offered candy and I have a sweet tooth as you can see.” He gestured to the treats on the table. “I was so scared I just never spoke. Then Angie’s grandfather moved in and somehow he kept them from coming.”
“Do you think Larry could talk to Mia?” I asked Kirby. “Her abduction experience sounds similar.”
“I don’t see why not,” Kirby said. “We were lucky today. The Glow Worm was planning to move from Francine to you, Angie. Most often, the parasite simply uses the current host to find a replacement and moves on. But there was that little pesky problem of consent.”
“Do you think Francine can recover?” I asked.
“We’ll help as much as we can, as much as she wants,” Kirby said.
“She seemed quite taken by my brother,” Wade said, ignoring Larry’s comment of “Uh-huh.” under his breath.
“Often they will kill the body they are leaving,” Kirby said. “She would have granted any of your wishes. Of course, since she controlled your body and mind from inside, she would reap the benefits. We’ve seen that if the host asks for something the Glow Worm couldn’t deliver, they just move on. In their view, the host’s death cancels the debt.”
“I see, the human forgets to include a ‘don’t kill me’ clause in the agreement,” Wade said.
“They’re so focused on getting their wishes granted. They don’t know they’re negotiating,” Kirby explained.
“I guess lawyers for that kind of an agreement aren’t in the phone book,” Wade said.
Rex softly protested when Kirby got up to leave. Wade took his place on the sofa. The rabbit settled in for more petting.
I couldn’t think of a word to say and concentrated on finishing my coffee without choking. Everyone in the room had heard my deepest wishes, and they concerned the man sitting a few feet away, petting Bunnasaurus Rex.
Wade might have grasped that situation. He finished his coffee and another lemon bar and left not long after Kirby. I took over rabbit petting duties while Larry cleared up the dishes. I don’t think I’d ever seen a dirty dish in his kitchen sink for more than the minute it takes to wash it.
Larry came to sit beside me. “I travel in some wild circles but they look tragically lukewarm compared to what we saw today,” he said, gently stroking Rex’s long, silky ears.
“I think it’s wiser not to tell anyone,” I said.
“Oh, I don’t know anyone who would believe it.” He paused, “Well, I do, but they’re not the kind of crazy I want to get to know better.”
“But you can talk to me or Kirby,” I suggested.
“Or Wade?” he asked slyly. Then his narrow face grew grave. “Angie, I need to say this. Mother made me promise. She told me your family had powerful connections.”
“That’s news to me. You mean like the mob?”
“No, not like the mob. Don’t get silly when I’m being serious. I mean like the stuff we saw today and that—um, eye in the sky thing. I’ve had to deal with it from an early age. I called the Glow Worms ‘the visitors.’ You’ve heard my poems, you know.”
“Yes.” I nodded. The honest truth was he’d read them to my aunt and me but I didn’t remember much of his poems. I wasn’t about to hurt his feelings[DP13]. After all that Larry had been through, a little white lie seemed the best way to go.
“I see things,” he said. “Then I write a poem about it and it goes away. But I’ve always secretly hoped someone would read my poems and say he saw things too.” He nudged me with his shoulder. “Preferably someone who looks like those two cute brothers. As your landlord I will totally approve if they want to move in. The eye candy factor alone will raise the whole tone of the place.”
I started to say something but he held up a hand.
“I know, I know, they’re both straight. The super hot one, Chad, right? He looks at his wife like she’s the answer to everything. The only slightly less hot one, your guy, Wade.” He gave me a teasing look. “After today everyone knows you want him. He seems kind of shy, but I’d bet that he likes you.”
This whole encounter with the Glow Worms was going to complicate my life for a long time. But Larry meant well. I felt guilty for my snarky thoughts about his poetry. His poems were full of fantastical creatures and he could see the Ekrot without special eyewear.
“Thanks, Larry,” was all I could manage. I raised my glasses and looked at my landlord. The red letters informed me that Larry was a human-alien hybrid of unknown origin, presumed non-violent. I didn’t share that with him.
“I miss Bess,” Larry said.
“You knew she was gone.”
“I noticed. Why didn’t you say anything?”
“I don’t know anything. And, um...” I didn’t say my name wasn’t on the lease. No sense reminding him he could kick me out.
“Where did she go?”
“She didn’t tell me. Recently I got a message saying she’s okay, but no indication when she might come back. I’ve tried tracing her, but no luck. I hope she’s okay.”
“So she might come back?”
“I hope so.”
“Angie, you don’t have to worry about losing your apartment. My mother was right about your family protecting our place. I want you to stay, it’s yours, whether your aunt comes back or not.”
“Thank you.”
I felt fear tighten my chest. I was so far out of my depth that my main source of comfort was the knowledge that Grandmother Spider was patrolling outside and so long as I didn’t blow it, she wouldn’t kill me.
Epilogue
Kirby called and told me to take as much time as I needed. For three days I slept a lot. I walked across the street to the Park and hugged a few trees. I returned my library books and went to the grocery store for the first time in a week.
Then I cleaned the Gauntlets. The Medallion told me how to scrub them with a new sponge wet with a rock salt solution and rinse them with filtered water. Once they were dry, I put them in the cabinet, which was stacked with things I wasn’t ready to explore.
All the while I was in my grandfather’s room, I kept glancing at the place in the wall where Francine had stood in a portal I hadn’t known existed. Finally I faced the wall. It looked the same as it ever had and asked the Medallion.
Is the portal in this room secure from intruders?
Yes.
That had to be enough for me.
On the third day Sophie called to report that Francine was firmly convinced she had taken a few days off with the flu. She had no memory of how she had got to my house or why and no interest in talking about it. She went back to work feeling better.
I didn’t ask about Wade or Chad and Sophie didn’t volunteer anything. I put on a work outfit pant suit and took the bus down to Wolfe Savage & Steele with a Bookeepers Do It By the Numbers gift mug full of the M&M candy Francine liked.
She accepted the gift with a wrinkle of her nose that suggested she found the mug a little too racy. “Why was it that you quit your job here anyway?” she asked, with a not-so-subtle hint that my taste in coffee mugs might have been a contributing factor.
“I found a better job,” I said.
“It’s been suc
h a busy year, I just lost track of a lot of things.” Her eyes kept flicking back to the spreadsheet on her screen. She seemed eager to get back to work. Or maybe to be alone with the M&Ms. I wished her well and left.
There wasn’t really a greeting card for: So sorry you were infected with an alien parasite. Glad you escaped with your life.”
She appeared to be returning to the nice woman I met when I first went to work at the law firm. We were never going to be friends but I was glad she survived.
On the fourth day, I met Sophie at her café and we both went back to the Angel Island Station through the Brannan Street portal. Workers came and went with no signs of the emergency or the Death Dealer attack.
My call to Kirby went into voice mail.
“I’ve got some security meetings. All the defenses here have been tightened up even more. I have to report that Francine is no longer a threat,” Sophie told me. “Chad and I will be having lunch at the canteen. Meet us and we’ll let you know anything we find out.”
It wasn’t even 10:00 a.m. yet, and I had no idea what to do. I went to the data center where Star showed me her database of human-alien hybrids known to be involved in criminal actions or connected to criminal factions.
“So many!” I said.
“This is the West Coast population. Most of them well-disguised, peacefully co-existing with humans but we monitor them. We can talk more over nutrients at the canteen.”
Mia joined us for lunch. Chad and Sophie already had a table and they waved us over. We piled food on trays and joined them. Star hovered next to me explaining how they tracked humans with alien implants.
“The man you dispatched a few days ago was human but he showed evidence of implants. You couldn’t see his info with your glasses?” Mia asked, tipping her pink-framed glasses up and down.
“That was before I knew about ETPA. By the time I got the glasses, he was already dead. What does that mean?”
“You did just what the Glow Worm wanted you to do—lose control and display the extent of your power,” Mia said. “But it kind of backfired for the Glow Worm, didn’t it?”
“So far.” I let it go at that. I didn’t feel safe yet, but having people around who would fight to keep me alive was a new sensation. “It ended up getting me here.” I looked around at Chad and Sophie, Mia and Star. “So that was good.”
“The first week you got here, you got assessed by the armory,” Chad said. "Some of us didn't get to do that for a year.”
“You need some additional weapons beyond your fatal charm?” Joel’s voice came from behind and above me. His words made Chad stare up in alarm.
I twisted back to see Joel hovering in the air a few feet away. “I didn’t hear you come up,” I said.
“This thing doesn’t make much noise,” Joel floated down to put his tray of food on the table
Chad’s face was expressionless. He fixed his gaze firmly on his plate.
"Angie is a weapon," Joel said, picking up a fork, but not yet touching his pasta. He put down the fork turned to me. “I also hear you have a cabinet full of secret weapons,” he said to me.
“I have a cabinet. Haven’t looked into it yet.”
“Let me know when you do. We scanned your medallion but we can’t access areas that are keyed to you.”
“As you discovered when you tried.” I stated rather than asked.
“Yup. It's up to you to share whatever you want to.” He turned back to his plate and dug in. “Good food here.”
“Do you think the Death Dealers will try again?” Sophie asked.
Joel nodded. “They don't really seem like the kind of folks to give up.”
We all ate in silence until everyone stop to stare at the buffet line. I looked too and saw Wade pick out a sandwich and a bottle of juice. He waved and came to stand over to the table. “Looks like you’re full up,” he said.
“We were just leaving,” Sophie said, pulling Chad by the hand. Chad seemed glad to go. Mia followed reluctantly.
“Race you ‘round the corridor,” Joel said to Star.
“You all go ahead, I’ll bus your dishes.” I half dreaded the conversation to come with Wade but I sure didn’t want witnesses.
Star zipped up to ten feet above floor level and headed for the door. Joel followed her, both of them slipping down just enough to clear the door frame.
Wade sat down. “I heard you were back. Did you get caught up on sleep?” he asked, taking a bite of his sandwich,
“Yes, I did. Did you?”
“Amazingly, yes.” He took a drink of juice and sat back to look at me. “We all learned a lot the other day.”
“Um, yeah.” Most of the stuff the Glow Worm dug out of my mind was horribly embarrassing, but I didn’t deny it.
“I talked to Kirby and he confirmed that no one has ever witnessed a Glow Worm in action trying to take over a new host.”
“Not an experience I recommend to anyone,” I managed to keep looking him in the eye, but I felt my face reddening.
“She didn’t bother to try to control me.” He paused, blinked and continued. ‘But she did have a go at Kirby.”
“I could tell. The pressure on me let up when she turned her attention to him.”
“He told me it was like something trying to violate his mind.”
I couldn’t meet his eyes. I stared down at my half empty plate. Would I ever eat pastrami again?
“I’m sorry you had to go through all that. But I admire how you dealt with it. Everyone who was there saw you repel the intrusion and find a way to kill the parasite.”
“With a lot of help from Feeney.”
“True, but Feeney doesn’t usually get involved where there’s no profit in it for him.”
“I think he wanted the Bodysnatcher dead too.”
“True. We can’t ask Feeney much. Too expensive. So we’re going to have to play it by ear. Is that okay with you?”
I didn’t know what to say so I nodded. He stayed silent so I looked into his amber eyes. “Yes. Sorry to put everyone in danger.”
“That’s part of the job, the ‘Protection’ part of ETPA. But working together we can triumph over them. I’m behind you. So is Kirby and everyone else you’ve met here. Your Medallion may have suggestions. Are you okay with us working together?”
I got it. He wasn’t going to talk about the Bodysnatcher’s offer to make him my consort. If anyone was gossiping about our encounter with Francine and Feeney’s solution, they weren’t doing it openly.
“I’m okay with it if you are.”
He held his hand out across the table and I shook it. No need to ask the Medallion on this one. Simply shaking his hand still set off thrills in places I didn’t feel like focusing on. But not working with him, not seeing him, was unthinkable.
This seemed like the right thing.
For now.
End
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Valkyrie on Planet Fury – An impossible mission. A planet where death lurks at every turn. Sybil of Planet Valkyrie can’t go home to her four husbands (or will it be five?) until she confronts the rulers of Planet Fury, where assassination is a popular pastime.
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About the Author
Lynne Murray lives in San Francisco with a small group of formerly feral cats, all of whom were rescued and who daily return the favor.
For more information, visit
http://www.lmurray.com
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my father, Channing Wayne Murray, for a uniquely empowering upbringing including bedtime stories from Brave New World, songs from The Mikado and jokes from Ferdinand Feghoot. I think he would have liked this one.
A
cknowledgements
I offer this and all my work to my friends, who make my life possible, and my cats, who keep things in perspective. Thanks to Jacqueline Stone, Jaqueline Girdner, Gregory Booi, Barbara Landis, Ann Reasoner and David Cooper.
Thanks to Ravenborn for the stunning cover, to Sadie Moss for beta reading and to Andrea R. Cooper who helped with both beta reading and expert copy editing and to Dawn Pennington for insightful proofreading.
Other Books by Lynne Murray
The Dragon Planet Romance Series
Runaway Dragonette
Bachelor Dragon Blues
Billionaire Dragon's Secretary
The Falstaff Vampire Series
The Falstaff Vampire Files
The Falstaff Vampire Werewolves
The Falstaff Vampire Ghosts
The Gravitas Series
Gravitas: Valkyrie in the Forbidden Zone
Valkyrie in the Demon Realm
Valkyrie on Planet Fury
Bride of the Living Dead
The Josephine Fuller Series
Larger Than Death
Large Target
At Large
A Ton of Trouble
Termination Interview
* * *
[DP1]?
[DP2]Delete. Repetitive
[DP3]Death Dealer
[DP4]in the future
[DP5]counters
[DP6]I was in too much shock
[DP7]Change to a comma
[DP8]Lowercase
[DP9]Spacing??
[DP10]Delete comma
[DP11]city
[DP12]Delete
[DP13]Missing a word