by Mike Arsuaga
* * * *
Those were the last words he ever said to her. The medications administered by the corporation doctors had to be withdrawn, also. The unfortunate consequence of the concoction feeding into him was congestive heart failure if administered too long. If not eradicated, the Crud would return as virulent as before. The infection took him midway through the next day’s shift. The head of the facility called her with the news.
On the day of Mike’s funeral, Fate smiled, providing a warm, sunny day, uncommon for late February in Central Florida. All of the OPD attending wore uniforms. Lorna had hers dry cleaned, presenting a crisp image of dark blue and silver braid standing at graveside through the rifle salute followed by the minister’s sad but hopeful words. Commander Bell presented a folded Southeast Region flag to a thin, blonde woman seated in the front row. Beside her, a teenage boy stood, thin like the woman.
Lorna introduced herself.
“Carolyn Geurin. This is our son, Mikey. I’m Mike’s former wife.”
The boy had Mike’s once clear and attractive eyes. “Mike never told me he had a child.”
Lorna understood the bleak prospects ahead of them. With his death, child support stopped. An ex-spouse had no rights to death or retirement benefits. Mike had never been the type to put money away. With a sense of guilt, Lorna looked at the tennis bracelet shimmering around her wrist. She wondered how much she could sell it for.
All eyes of those milling around after the service fell on the large, black car easing up to the edge of the gathering. The driver hopped out, opening the door. Dressed in black formal funeral wear, Cynthia May emerged into the light. She walked toward the grave, followed by the driver, who labored under a large spray of flowers. The beauty of Cynthia Meadows may have been superior to her granddaughter’s, but all of the men turned in awe at the appearance of the tall, lissome presence of kabuki-white skin and black just about everything else. A touch of pink glowed under the prominent cheekbones, accompanied by ruby lips attached like a glossy rosebud to the angular face.
Oblivious of the commotion in her wake, Cynthia’s face brightened when she spotted Lorna, and she approached.
“Janice, place the flowers just here.” After stopping to instruct the driver, she joined Lorna. “Considering what Mr. Geurin did for us, Uncle Edward insisted the family send a representative.”
“That was considerate. I’d like you to meet Mike’s former wife and their son.”
“You’re as lovely as your grandmother.” Carolyn Geurin held out her hand.
Cynthia smiled with polite reservation at the comparison. “You’re kind to say so.”
The three of them spoke for a few minutes before someone pulled Carolyn and Mikey into another conversation.
Cynthia returned her attention to Lorna. “My mother’s in the car. She’d like to say hello.”
Lorna followed her. The driver ran ahead and opened the rear door. Inside the spacious compartment, a familiar square-shouldered figure, not to be confused with Karla May, stirred.
“Hello, Lorna.” The face of Ed White poked into the sunlight.
Her heart skipped a beat. “Aren’t you the guy who never goes out in public?”
Boy that was lame.
He smiled, rolling his eyes playfully. “For the right person, there’s always the exception.” He looked over the scene. “Afterward, I hope we can spend time together.”
“Not sure if I’ll be good company,” Lorna said. “Mike was a very close friend.”
“Then if my mission is to console you, so be it. Grandfather once told me that being with Grandmother at her worst was better than having no Grandmother around at all. For the first time in my life, I think I understand what he meant.”
CHAPTER TEN
A young reporter from the news service passed. Earlier, he wore the pained expression of one who wished to be somewhere else, For certain, nothing news worthy could spring from a simple cop’s funeral. No doubt he arrived believing anything he submitted would either end up in file footage or be edited out—an incorrect assumption, it turned out. A career-making day waited.
A predictable sequence of events unfolded. Cynthia’s appearance gained the reporter’s attention, just like with the other men and the crowd in general. Using a cell phone, the reporter would check the background search engine on the Whites, learning they never attended funerals outside of family, or unless a head of state was involved. Yet there stood a princess of the clan, consoling the poor bastard’s widowed ex-wife.
Lorna took Ed by the hand, coaxing him from the car. Another stir swept through the gathering when the man they knew as a remote, powerful, and wealthy image from television and news stepped among them. Police brass and politicians, together with local dignitaries, exchanged shocked expressions. Ed White mingling and shaking hands at a gathering? Lorna could almost hear their thoughts.
‘What in the world could have convinced Mr. White to change his ironclad policy of isolation? Who’s the attractive brunette hanging on his arm? OPD Lieutenant Lorna Winters is an intimate of Edward White? Who’d have guessed?’
“Our colonies on Mars are doing well,” Ed explained to the reporter. “In two years…” he beamed at the polite young man who seemed a bit awed by the meeting. “That is, in two Earth years, they should be completely self-sufficient.”
Lorna smiled for the camera.
“In view of your policy against public appearances, what brought you out today?”
Ed and Lorna exchanged knowing glances. The Chairman took a deep breath of air rich with the scent of citrus. “This brave man cared enough to preserve items taken in evidence having great personal meaning to our family. His tragic death affected all of us. Attending his funeral was the least we could do.”
Soon, other news services learned about Ed White’s surprise departure from regal isolation and rushed their people to the scene. A pushy female caught up with Ed and Lorna, shoving a microphone in their faces. “Can we assume you’re an item?” she demanded from behind a strawberry peek-a-boo tress trained to fall down over one eye.
The Chairman did a slow turn of torso, facing her in a movement that communicated a careful, massive deliberation. The head craned forward with a focused stare like the one associated with sighting game through a rifle’s crosshairs. “You assume wrong. I hardly know her. She and the late Detective Geurin provided invaluable assistance to my family.”
Lorna felt as though someone had let the air out of her balloon. Her head flew around at Ed. Seeing Lorna’s confused and hurt stare, the reporter seemed to sense an inconsistency, and continued to badger Ed for the truth. For another five minutes, Ms. Peek-A-Boo hung in. She gave up when Ed hustled Lorna back into the car while a bodyguard blocked pursuit. At Ed’s signal, the car lurched forward, a clatter of gravel bouncing off the wheel wells.
Lorna wasted no time. “What was the “I hardly know her” crap about?”
Although he was a foot taller with another fifty pounds, her demeanor caused him to jerk back reflexively. Then the trademark ice-water-in-the-veins self-control reasserted itself. “I should have told you sooner. Being special to me has risks, especially for someone like you who’s out in the public. They can get to me through you.”
“This sounds crazy, even paranoid,” she said in disbelief. “Who would do something like that?”
“Think about it. I’m CEO of one of the two largest corporations in the world. There are many who’d like to gain access to the company’s plans, or other sensitive information, not to mention groups who want our kind dead. Your profession makes you both accessible, and vulnerable.”
The limousine turned out of the cemetery, picking up speed. A jagged pattern of roofs flew by. The heavily padded, insulated backseat compartment enveloped them in a leather-and-fabric cocoon, blocking out all but the loudest sounds, leaving them with each other to deal with.
For a minute, they sat in the burdensome silence. Lorna waited, radiating growing impatience. Finally, Ed gr
imaced, saying, “Remember the Operations Center next to my office back on the island?”
She nodded.
“In addition to doing corporate business, we can track our enemies worldwide.”
“Enemies worldwide?” she repeated. “Are you kidding me?”
“You know, yourself, there are many who think the world would be better off without us. Some blame The Others for the problems of the last hundred years. A few do more than talk. The Operations Center monitors electronic communications worldwide, employing efficiencies comparable to those of the wealthiest and most powerful countries, like Brazil.”
The car horn sounded like a distant blat. The larger vehicle kept pace with hordes of bicycles and mopeds weaving back and forth in front of them. Everyone moved together down the street part of a single mass, like amoeba trapped in a drop of water.
“What do your signals tell you?” she asked, calmer, but still skeptical.
“The largest of them, The Tenth Legion, is planning something important. Whatever it is will happen soon.”
“I don’t believe that. They’ve been quiet for so long.”
“That’s because company agents have been successful in thwarting most of their plots.”
Lorna remembered Jerry’s denial of elite forces existing within the corporation. Actually, he’d said to the best of his knowledge they didn’t exist.
“The technical details are a bit beyond me,” Ed continued. “But their communications traffic volume is up dramatically. Daily now, our data bases hit on key words in the unencrypted traffic. The coded messages tell more. Now the word is out about the two of us, I want you kept safe.”
Her expression softening, she touched his cheek. “Okay, what you did made sense,” she conceded, “But next time, trust me enough to be straight.”
“I won’t forget.” Gazing out the window at an open air market that had taken over some abandoned warehouses, he added, “But we need to take precautions.”
“I’m a lycan with a gun. Not an easy target.”
“Until someone slips up behind you with a stun gun.” His statement referred to the particular vulnerability lycans had to the devices. They rendered her kind practically catatonic, while having an opposite effect on vampires.
“I hadn’t thought of that.”
“I want you to move into a company apartment. The complex is guarded twenty-four hours a day. My people will drive you to and from work.”
“I still think I can take care of myself.”
His jaw tightened in frustration, not used to arguing to win his point. “You don’t understand.” Strained patience laced his words. “Before they move on you, they’ll learn all they can—work schedule, the layout of your apartment, even your office, along with your daily routine. They’ll take you when you’re most vulnerable.” He paused. “They’ll learn, for example, where you keep your firearm when you shower or sleep.”
A sobering image came to mind of being in the shower, her weapon in its usual place on the bedroom nightstand, out of reach if someone broke in.
“Okay, I’m convinced. I need to take more precautions, but I don’t think I need to move out of my place.”
The argument continued for the rest of the trip in subdued tones, like a slow-speed car chase. Near the end, he pleaded, “At least let me have my people check your apartment for surveillance devices.”
Worn down by his persistence, she capitulated, but not without misgivings. “I guarantee you won’t find anything. I’m a cop. I check my place out every month with a metal detector.”
“We’ll see.”
* * * *
The next afternoon, Ed rousted a couple of technicians from a local corporation research facility, giving them the address to Lorna’s apartment. “They’ll meet us there,” he said, when his car picked her up from work.
An hour later, six devices lay in a pile on her kitchen bar counter. “Except for ours, these are as good as they get,” the lead technician explained. “Old Department of Homeland Security gear. They don’t make stuff of such quality anymore in this country.”
“You say you found one in the shower spigot?” Lorna asked.
“Yes, ma’am, right alongside the web cam.”
Her skin crawled. “They’ve been watching me shower?”
Ed nodded. “Probably, convinced now?”
“When did they plant them? News of the two of us broke only yesterday?”
“Governments and large corporations survive by keeping abreast of such happenings. I suspect you came into someone’s attention the instant you touched down here after the island visit.”
Three evenings later, Lorna curled up next to Ed on the plush sectional in one of the condominiums he used for overnights. The evening news still made a fuss over what they called Edward White’s “Coming Out”. Images of him in a black suit and white silk shirt engaged in friendly conversation with Mike’s ex and son were most prominent, but there were also a number of Lorna and him, with speculative commentary regarding the degree of their involvement.
Lorna murmured in his ear. “It was decent of you to do what you did.”
He leaned forward. “When you told me about the financial situation Detective Geurin’s dependents faced and asked me to help, how could I refuse?” Turning a verdant-eyed stare on her, he added, “I only did what was right.”
They’d just made love. His scent, like tanned leather, filled the air around them. Idly, she ran hands through thick, straight, ginger hair combed back from his face. With a hot, moist breath, he nuzzled the fine hairs at the nape of her neck. His exhale whispered across the fine cilia, sending shivers through her. Nipples erected, then hardened. Throwing back his head, he sniffed the air with a passion humans couldn’t understand.
“Ready to go again, my pretty?” he asked in a tone of false villainy.
Innocently, she responded. “I can take anything you can dish out, big boy.”
Smoothing the bangs flat against her forehead, he pressed their lips together. His tongue fell into her open mouth as if through a trapdoor. Wedging a hip between her thighs, he rolled on top. At the junction of their bodies lay an aura of humid warmth.
“You think I’m so easy?” she taunted, drawing her legs up with a giggle, following with a flailing barrage of elbows and knees.
“So you want to play hard to get?” He laughed. “Well, I have a few tricks of my own.” His face slid down her body, its tongue leaving a trail of hot moisture ever downward, between her breasts, past her ribs to her navel, then below. When he brushed her pubic mound with a stiff, wet tongue, the playful squirming stopped. Pressing his face to her femininity, she gasped and held him fast. On one level, she didn’t care if he suffocated in her grip. The total focus of her being obsessed over his ability to address the wet, yearning little bud up high between her legs, a task he performed with skill.
After her convulsive climax, he pulled away. “On your hands and knees,” he commanded with a throaty voice.
Presenting twin alabaster globes, she complied. They appeared hard as steel, but were warm and pliant. Between them nestled her aroused core, glowing pink, glistening with nectarous secretions, masked by a sheer wisp of light brown hair.
“Yes!” she cried out when he joined with her. Afterward, in the middle of drifting off, she tried to remember whether she’d renewed her annual her birth control patch.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
There were five in the car. Ed sat in the back with Lorna and Karla. Ethan drove. Beside him was Cynthia. Wives, children, along with the bodyguards under Thomas’ direction, followed in two more automobiles.
In early April, they travelled to Rocket City, the corporation’s space exploration center. For Lorna, the month had burst upon Central Florida like a young lycan experiencing emergence. Youngsters—drab, featureless bodies, slack skin, unresponsive expressions, awkward movements, and feeblemindedness—almost overnight blossomed into adults, with beautiful, sensual, mature bodies to which nothing seemed
impossible. In the same way, April flashed from winter’s bleakness to fresh verdancy and tropical color. Even the drab plains of scrub pine mixed with palmetto displayed a richer sleek texture, gorged with moisture sucked from the rain-saturated ground. The deep green-and-violet of water hyacinths choked the ponds to overflowing. Soon, though, the rains would slow. The mild, diffused sunlight, heats up to flow down like invisible lava. Everything wilts under the relentless outpouring. Many of the ponds dry up to puddles or nothing. Late in summer, before the hurricanes bring rain, brush fires sweep large areas, turning them into a smoldering black ruin, like old fireplace ash. However, on that April day, everything glowed with moist lushness in the mild daylight.
“Today you finally get to meet Ed’s other sons and family,” Karla said to Lorna. Toby, a vampire like Ethan and Ed, had ridden the shuttle coming from the Moonbase, the last leg in the trip from Mars. He hadn’t seen his family in six months. Robert, Ed’s youngest, a hybrid and unmarried, ran the General Electronics Liaison Office. Everyone called him Bobby, a youngster’s name, that Lorna soon learned fit well. Both sons lived in Rocket City.
“He’s my trouble shooter.” That was how Ed characterized Toby. “On the other hand, Bobby’s all public relations. The boy can convince Eskimos to buy ice.” Privately, he admitted to Lorna each was too strong-willed to subordinate to his brother. “My greatest failing is I could never get them to work together. Each thinks he should be in charge. The best I can do is to assign them individual, non-competing projects.”
“Do you think we can get everybody together back on the island?” Cynthia turned the rear view mirror her way, and adjusted a part of the complicated ribbon arrangement woven through her hair.
Ethan didn’t seem to mind the confiscation of the mirror. “I’m up for a good old-fashioned reunion. As a child, they were some of my fondest memories. Also, I’m sure Wendy and the kids will be, too.” He followed with a dissertation about a school project one of his sons worked on, the reason why his family missed the homecoming.