Chameleon: Alien Castaways (Intergalactic Dating Agency)

by Cara Bristol

  He and his fellow ’Topians could go out into public now. Yesterday they had received new alien ID cards through the Intergalactic Dating Agency. He’d been assigned an alias and a new planet of origin. It was unlikely the High Council would search Earth for them, but you couldn’t be too careful when the Xeno Consortium wanted you dead.

  With their safety as close to assured as it could be, he and the other castaways figured they could begin assimilating into the native population. No one on Earth had wings, though, and he felt conspicuous.

  The little girl caught up with the truck.

  An odd prescience urged him to duck behind a weathered wooden fence and observe through the cracks.

  A man wearing a ball cap with the brim backward leaned out the window. A straggly long beard and sunglasses hid his face. “Well, hello, honey! I didn’t see you there for a minute! What can I get you?”

  “Do you have orange push-ups?”

  “You bet I do!”

  He ducked inside before emerging with a colorful tubular object. “Here you go.”

  “Thank you.” She placed her coins into his outstretched palm.

  In pulling his arm back inside, he bumped the window, dropping the money onto the street. “Oopsie!”

  “I’ll get it!” The girl knelt and retrieved the coins.

  The man jumped out of the vehicle. “You live around here?”

  “That way.” She pointed with her push-up and handed him the money.

  He slipped the coins into the pocket of his jeans. “How about I give you a ride back to your house?” His ingratiating smile caused Wingman’s feathers to sharpen.

  She shook her head. “I’d get in trouble. I’m not allowed to accept rides from strangers. Mom’s gonna be mad anyway if she finds out I left the house to get ice cream.”

  “Maybe she won’t need to know…if I get you home right away.” He slid a panel open on the van. Hop in. You’ll be home in two seconds.”

  “No...I can’t.” She backed away.

  He grabbed her wrist. “You need to come with me.” The push-up fell to the sidewalk, and he kicked it into the street.

  “Stop it! Let me go!” She hit at him with her tiny fists.

  He clapped a hand over her mouth, picked up her thrashing body, and swung around to the van.

  “No!” Wingman roared. His cape fell away as his wings unfurled. He leaped into the air, flying across the distance to land between the man and the open door.

  “Who the hell are you?” The dagger and gun tattooed on the man’s neck suggested he considered himself some sort of badass, but he had no idea who he was about to deal with.

  “Let the girl go.” Feathers sharpened to gleaming points. He hated to dismember the man in front of the child, but he couldn’t allow him to take her.

  The man eyed the blades. “Fuck it.” He dropped the child. “She’s not worth it.” He leaped into the vehicle and screeched away in a blaze of burning rubber.

  Tears ran down the little girl’s face, but she wiped them away and stared up at him.

  “Are you all right?” He retracted the blades and folded his wings.

  “You’re an angel!” Her eyes were wide. “My guardian angel. You saved me!”

  Better she assumed he was an angel—whatever that was—than an Avian from ’Topia, so he didn’t enlighten her. He picked up a bright, shiny penny left behind and handed it to her. “What’s your name?”

  “Izzy Mason.”

  “My name is…Wynn.” The alias coming from his mouth sounded strange. “We’d better get you home.” He motioned with his head, and she fell into step beside him. He shortened his stride to accommodate her. She trusted too easily. She’d almost been abducted, and now she followed another stranger down the street? Why wasn’t she supervised? “How old are you?”

  “Almost six! My birthday is on Saturday.”

  “Where are your parents?”

  She hunched her shoulders, and guilt washed across her cheeks. “Mom is taking a nap.”

  What kind of mother slept the day away, leaving her defenseless child to fend for herself? Not my business. What these humans do has nothing to do with me. But his gut had already tightened into a knot.

  You had to cherish what you had because life was unpredictable. One minute you were ignorantly happy, about to be mated, and in a flash, everyone you loved died, your home was destroyed, and you found yourself hiding on an alien planet. He glanced at the child. Freckles danced across her nose as she innocently skipped beside him. Her mother is sleeping? Sleeping?

  “Mom was at the Whitetail until really late last night.”

  The bar in Argent was called the Whitetail.

  “She told me to stay in the house, but I heard the music. I used to get ice cream all the time in my old neighborhood but not here. Trucks never come by. I didn’t want to wake Mom, so I got some money out of her purse. I waved like you’re supposed to. I thought the truck would stop, but it kept going and going.”

  Almost like it had been leading her away.

  She peered up at him with a hopeful expression. “Do you know my daddy?”

  “No, I’ve never met him.” Why would she think he had? And why didn’t the father keep an eye on her?

  Her face fell. “Oh. I hoped you did. He went to heaven.”

  “I’ve never been to heaven.” He didn’t know where that was. Since landing on Earth, he’d only been to Argent, Coeur d’Alene, and to Seattle once.

  Her brows drew together over bright blue eyes. “But you’re an angel! Where do you come from if not from heaven?”

  “Well, according to my ID card, Dakon,” he replied.

  “Is that in Idaho?”

  “No. Someplace far.”

  “Washington?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Can you play a harp?”

  “No.”

  “Can you float on a cloud?”

  “No.” He stopped and picked up the cape he’d dropped. He pulled his wings in closer and slung the garment over his shoulders.

  She narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure you’re an angel?”

  “You’re the one who called me an angel,” he said.

  “Have you met God?”

  The Xenos, who’d created life on many other worlds, considered themselves to be gods. His fellow castaway, Chameleon, was a Xeno. So, technically…“Yes.”

  Her eyes widened. “Is he nice?”

  “He’s all right. We’ve had our differences, but we get along now.” It had been hard to overlook Chameleon’s position on Xeno Consortium High Council, which had ordered the destruction of ’Topia because its people had refused to pay homage. Rare for a Xeno, Chameleon had a conscience and had fought to save the planet. Wingman owed him his life, so he kind of had to trust him, but letting his guard down had been hard.

  “If you make God mad, you could end up in the belly of a whale or turned to a pillar of salt. He’ll make it rain and flood your house or even send you to Hell,” she said. “Then you burn forever and ever.”

  Her god sounded a lot like a Xeno.

  They reached her house, a small bungalow with a sagging porch and peeling paint. But the grass was neatly shorn, a welcoming wreath of colorful flowers hung on the front door, and white lacy curtains flapped in the faint breeze.

  He opened the chain-link gate. “Go inside. Stay there until your mother awakens. No more running after ice cream vans.” The mother would never know how close she’d come to losing her child.

  “All right. Bye, Mr. Angel.” She entered the yard, and he closed the gate, waiting to ensure sure she went in. She skipped to the front porch and then turned around. “Could you come to my birthday party Saturday?”

  He shook his head. “It wouldn’t be appropriate—”

  “Please? We just moved to Argent, and I don’t know anybody other than Mrs. Beckman, and she’s old. It would be nice to have a real angel at my party.”

  “I’m old, too,” he said.

&nb
sp; “Not as old as Mrs. Beckman!” Blue eyes beseeched.

  Pity the male population when this one grew up. She was laying it on, but her plaintive expression tugged at his chest. “No, I can’t—”

  “It’s at twelve o’clock in the afternoon, after Mom gets done sleeping.”

  This was Thursday, and she already knew her mother would be napping in the middle of the day on Saturday? Maybe the mother should spend a little less time sleeping and more time taking care of her child. Maybe he ought to inform her what had almost happened while she’d slept.

  “Twelve o’clock? Saturday? I’ll be here,” he said.

  “Yay! I’ll tell my mom.” She entered the house and closed the door.

  Chapter Two

  Of all the nights! Although the Whitetail closed at 2 a.m., a couple of regular customers had nursed their last drinks until 2:45 when Marty nudged them out the door. Delia hadn’t gotten to bed until well after 3 a.m.

  Blinking sleep out of her eyes, she forced a cheerful face. Nothing could be allowed to ruin this day. “Happy Birthday, sweetie!” She kissed the top of her daughter’s head as she sat at the kitchen table. “What would you like for breakfast? Pancakes? Waffles? Bacon and eggs?” She didn’t even suggest cereal, which Izzy ate most days. This morning was special.

  “Waffles with strawberries. And whipped cream.”

  “Good choice.” An easy choice, thank goodness. After pouring herself a cup of coffee, she dropped two frozen waffles into the toaster. She got her daughter a glass of milk and then sliced some strawberries.

  “You excited about your party?” Guilt gnawed at her. The party would be attended by two people: Izzy and herself.

  “Uh-huh.”

  Having fled Pittsburgh the day after school ended for the summer, they’d only been in Argent three weeks, so Izzy hadn’t had a chance to meet other kids. Delia intended to compensate. She’d asked for extra hours at the Whitetail where she worked as a cocktail waitress so she could buy some nice presents, including a big surprise, which the sitter, who lived a couple of houses over, had picked up this morning and was keeping for her.

  Izzy had asked for a tea party like they had in England, so Delia had ordered scones and petit fours online. She would serve sandwiches cut into little triangles. The living room would be decorated with streamers and balloons.

  The waffles popped up. She placed them on a plate, topped them with sliced strawberries and a generous squirt of canned whipped cream.

  “Syrup, too, please.”

  She set a bottle of Log Cabin on the table and stifled a grimace as her daughter doused her breakfast. She’d had way too little sleep to stomach food this early. “Tell me again who you invited to your party?” She needed to know how many chairs to set around the play table.

  “You, Bubbles, Jessica, Emma and Emily, and the angel.”

  Bubbles was Izzy’s teddy bear, Jessica her favorite doll, and Emma and Emily were imaginary identical twins her daughter had “met” after leaving her friends behind in Pittsburgh. The angel was a new one.

  “Oh, we have a last-minute guest?” She reminded herself many kids had pretend friends, but she would be glad when school started in the fall and Izzy could meet some real children.

  “Uh-huh. His name is Wynn. But I call him Angel.”

  “He? A boy angel?”

  “Angels can be boys.”

  “Of course they can.” Until now, all the imaginary friends had been girls.

  “I asked him if he knew Daddy, but he said he’s never met him.”

  Josh had been killed in a traffic accident when Izzy was five months old. Delia had done her best to keep her high school sweetheart and husband alive in memory and in heart, placing photos around the house and sharing stories about him.

  “Well, Heaven’s a big place,” she said.

  Josh had adored his baby daughter, and he would have been thrilled to see what a bright, beautiful, imaginative child she’d become. He’d been robbed. She and Izzy had been robbed.

  The world had lost a good man.

  “Oh, he’s not from Heaven. He’s from Dakon. I think that’s in Washington,” she said, her whipped cream-smeared face perfectly serious.

  The stuff her daughter came up with! Although her imagination sometimes concerned her, Delia was proud of Izzy’s cleverness. Dakon, Washington? What detail!

  Very specific detail. She frowned. New to this part of the States, she’d never heard of Dakon. Her heart stopped beating. What if this angel named Wynn wasn’t make-believe? Izzy spent her time at home or at Mrs. Beckman’s, so she shouldn’t have been able to meet anybody Delia didn’t know about, but after what had happened with Colson… “Sweetie, your angel is like Emily and Emma, right?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Is he pretend, or is he a real person?”

  “Oh, he’s real!”

  Her pulse skyrocketed. “How old is he? Is he a grown-up?” Please let him be another kid.

  “Oh, yeah. He’s old.”

  Don’t panic. “Tell me more about him.”

  “He has wings out to here!” Her daughter spread her arms wide. “He has feathers, but they’re sharp. And he can fly fast. He wears a cape, too. He’s like Super Angel!”

  Not real. She exhaled her relief in a whoosh that Izzy hadn’t been approached by a pedophile, but that still left her concerned about the imaginary friends. Had her daughter lost the ability to distinguish between make-believe and reality? Maybe it had been a mistake to humor her fantasy life.

  “That means not real, Isabella. You scared me half to death. Your angel is pretend like Emma and Emily.”

  “No, he’s real, Mom! He’s coming to my party, you’ll see.”

  She rubbed her eyes, gritty from lack of sleep. For the hundredth time, she second-guessed her decision to pull up stakes in Pittsburgh and move to a town she’d visited only once. She’d believed she’d been doing the right thing to keep Izzy safe, but back home her outgoing daughter had been happy and thriving. Having just finished kindergarten, she read at a third-grade level. She’d had many friends. Live, real kids.

  They had to have a serious talk.

  But not on her birthday. She couldn’t ruin this day for her. She would proceed with the tea party for Izzy, her dolls, and the imaginary friends. But after today, Izzy’s “friends” might not be invited over anymore.

  * * * *

  “Can I come out now?” Izzy yelled from the bedroom.

  “Not yet! Couple more minutes!” Delia swatted at a helium-filled balloon that floated into her way, pushed the thumbtack into the HAPPY BIRTHDAY banner, and climbed off the stepladder. The sign was a little lower on the right than the left, but Izzy wouldn’t notice.

  She stowed the ladder in the garage then dashed to the kitchen to bring out the food: tiny peanut butter and strawberry jam sandwiches, egg salad sandwiches—mostly for her—some raisin scones, and pretty pink petit fours. She filled a teapot with fruit punch and then arranged the food on the tiny table set for six with delicate china teacups and dessert plates she’d picked up at the antique store in Argent for cheap.

  “Now? Can I come out now?” Izzy called again.

  “Two minutes!”

  “That’s what you said the last two times.”

  Darn kid remembers everything. “Just a little longer!” Delia grabbed Bubbles the bear, snapped a tiny party hat on him, and plunked him in one of the kid-sized chairs. She put Jessica the doll next to him and stuck a hat on her, too. She set two more pint-size hats by the places set for the invisible Emma and Emily, a big hat where she would sit, and the biggest, fanciest hat at Izzy’s place.

  She stepped back and surveyed the living room. Wrapped presents on the side table, check. Guests present and accounted for, check. Food, cake, balloons, birthday banner—check, check, check, and check. One task remained—retrieve the surprise present.

  “Okay! You can come out now!” she yelled.

  Izzy ran into the living room and
skidded to a stop. Her eyes danced at the sight of the decorations, the table setting, the presents. “It’s beautiful!” She threw her arms around Delia. “I love you, Mom!”

  “I love you more. Happy Birthday, sweetie.” She kissed her. I promise next year you’ll have a real party with real kids. I’ll make it up to you. “Let’s sit down and have some lunch.”

  “Tea,” Izzy corrected.

  “Right. Tea.” Technically, it should have been served later in the day, but it fit in better with their meal schedule to have it at lunchtime.

  Izzy started to sit but then froze. “There aren’t enough seats.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “There are only six chairs. Where is Angel going to sit?”

  “Can’t he sit there?” She pointed at a vacant seat.

  “Emily is sitting there.”

  “We don’t have extra chairs. Your play table only came with six.”

  “Then he can sit here.” She grabbed Bubbles, removed his hat, and tossed him on the sofa.

  Apparently her daughter had established a pecking order among her toys and invisible friends. A pretend angel ranked above a teddy bear.

  Izzy took her seat and donned her hat.

  Taking care not to bump the table with her knees, Delia sat and put on her hat.

  Her daughter picked up the teapot and said in a formal tone, “Would you care for tea, Delia?”

  “Delia?” She arched her eyebrows.

  “Mom?”

  “That’s better. And, yes, I would. Thank you.”

  She poured punch in all the cups.

  Delia’s stomach growled. She’d been so busy getting ready for the party, she hadn’t eaten anything. She reached for an egg salad sandwich.

  Izzy cleared her throat.

  “What?”

  “Angel isn’t here. It’s polite to wait for all the guests before starting to eat. Isn’t that what you always tell me?”