by Alexie Aaron
Ted walked away.
Burt managed to get camera three working when Ted called him. “How’s Cid?” Burt asked.
“Recovering. What’s going on? Mike and Beth are having a hell of an argument over the phone. Is everything okay there? Did Mia break the console?”
He heard Burt take a few deep breaths before speaking, “Ted, Mia’s missing. She had a seizure of some kind. Martha said she was bleeding from her nose and ears. Angelo took her someplace, and we haven’t heard from him yet. I have a call into Father Santos, but honestly I’m at a loss as to what to do now.”
“I left her, Burt. Don’t take it out on Beth. I left Mia. She said she was fine. But she wasn’t even out of the bilocation two minutes when I left.”
“How did Beth get involved?”
“I asked to borrow the keys to her rental. She said she’d drive me. Honest to god, Burt, I didn’t think about the investigation at all. All I thought about was getting to Cid. Mia said it looked like he was alright. But I’m responsible for him while he’s here. I’m sorry, Burt, this is my fault.”
“Let’s not get negative. Mia’s not about the blame game. Mike’s mad at Beth because she’s been playing games instead of using her head. She’s done this before to a few others. She used to undermine Amber if you remember.”
“Amber was a fraud.”
“But she was a member of this team. Doesn’t matter what our backgrounds and abilities are. We have to look out for each other. Number one rule. No one investigates alone, period. I know Beth and you are buddies and you feel guilty because she fancies you, but look at this through Mike’s eyes a moment,” Burt said. “She has made all of us, especially you, uncomfortable. In order to maintain the peace, we all had to tiptoe around her moods. I thought she had it together after her vacation. She seemed on the ball.”
“So what happens now?”
“You stay out of the fight between Mike and Beth, and we will evaluate the situation after we finish this investigation. Hopefully Mia survives this. She’s a strong girl, Ted, you know that.”
Ted’s guilt was crushing him. “She did this for me.”
“Mia did it for Cid. Mia would do it for a stranger. She would say, ‘That’s how I roll.’ I need you here, Ted. I’m not at all confident that just Mike and I can hold this place alone.”
“Cid’s got to stay the night. I’ll get Beth to drive me back,” Ted said.
“You better take the keys. If Mike’s been venting his spleen then Beth’s not going to be in any shape to navigate in the dark.”
“I hear you.”
“And watch yourself. Don’t bring up the subject. Just get back here, and we will deal with whatever when we have time.”
“Yes, sir,” Ted said and hung up.
He walked back to Beth and put his hand out. She looked up at him and asked, “What?”
“Keys. Come on we have to get back.”
“I’m heading for the motel, and then I’m going back to Kansas. I don’t want to have anything to do with you losers.”
“That’s your choice. Ride with me back to the farm first. That way I won’t have to ship your laptop to you,” he said evenly. “I’m sorry, Beth. I took the blame with Burt. We’ll work this out.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, wary of being duped.
“Hand me the keys and let’s get going,” he said. “Cid’s staying here overnight.”
Beth dug in her purse and handed him the keys. He gave her his hand and she got up. He dropped her hand and walked towards the exit. He looked back at Beth once to make sure she was following him. He knew that this was going to be a long and uncomfortable drive back.
Chapter Twenty-four
The DTDs moved out of the foundation and formed a large mass. It was time to get rid of the onlookers at the farm. They were spies, and the punishment for espionage was death. He had been pleased to see the little ones back. This would keep the female shaman in line. In life he couldn’t stop the tribe from accepting her as a healer. Her father trained her well. But females were dangerous when they had power. They forgave their enemies too easily. They sought peace when war was the best way to have dominance over the others. They must be kept down. He kept her father under control by using her existence as leverage. This was a chain of control that took advantage of the love the family shared. Exploit their weakness and you control them.
They moved in the darkness until they reached the edge of where the floodlight made darkness into day. He could not move into the light easily, nor could most of his followers, but the shape shifter could. He motioned for one of her babies to be brought forward. He dangled Beanie in the light, enjoying the torture on her face. She agreed.
The first trap camera went off. Burt quickly accessed the data and saw a distortion in the scene. He touched the com and talked to Mike. “We have movement four yards from the house. Be alert. Make sure Martha is in a well-lit area,” he ordered.
“Understood, over,” Mike said adjusting his ear communication piece. “Martha, we may be getting company,” he warned. “Let’s light this house up and make it an undesirable place to be.”
Martha nodded and began to turn on every light, lamp, and for good measure, she lit the wood they had prepared in the living room fireplace. She looked out the window and saw car lights moving up the drive. “Someone’s coming!”
Mike hit dial and speaker on his phone. “Ted, is that you?”
“Yes, Red Leader,” Ted said devoid of emotion.
“We have movement at the back of the house. Get in here fast.”
Mike watched as Ted drove the car across the lawn and parked it passenger side to the front door. Beth vaulted up the steps and into the house.
“Here,” Mike said as he tossed her a com. She put it in her ear.
Ted burst through the door and moved over to Mike asking, “Did you get the stuff I asked for?”
“Yes, it’s in the command vehicle with Burt. Grab a com before you venture out there,” Mike instructed.
Ted put a com in his ear and ran out the door announcing, “Burt, I’m four seconds from the truck, open up.”
The door began to slide up as Ted reached it. He didn’t wait for it to finish opening. Instead he chose to roll under the rising door. “I’m in. Shut it!”
Burt did, and the two of them began to work in tandem on the design Ted had worked out in his head. Ted was in full mechanical mode. All Burt could do was follow Ted’s terse instructions while keeping an eye on the monitor.
Chenille moved steadily through the yard. Her objective was the lifeline from the house to the big box on wheels that made the clicking noises. She needed form in order to be able to pull the cord. She moved to the flowerbed and under the white cone. She touched the clipped back remains of the rose bush. She became the wood. The vines moved around her body acting like tendons holding the wood together. She flexed her thorny fingers and burst out of the white shelter. Pieces of it clung to her and started to grow into the mass, making parts of her reflective to the light. A flash of light went off close to the back door. She waited, and when no one ventured out, she moved towards the connection.
“Trap camera three went off,” Burt said.
Ted mechanically leaned over the console and with one hand brought up the digital picture sent to the command center. “Oh my god, look at the size of that thing!”
Burt glanced over and did a double take. A monster made of wood, vine and thorn stood suspended in time. Flecks of white clung to the massive body. “Where’s it headed?”
“Heads up, inside, we have a creature headed for the back door,” Ted warned.
Suddenly the power went out. The heaters stopped. The portable outdoor floodlights stopped working. “It’s pulled the plug on us,” Burt exclaimed.
“Battery backup has the command console, and that’s about it. Put on your coat, it’s going to get cold in here,” Ted instructed.
“Mike, we’ve lost the power connection. We still have comm
unication but no eyes outside,” Burt reported.
“We’ve moved upstairs,” he informed them. “I’ll take a look outside.”
A slam of noise and vibration hit the side of the command vehicle. It sounded like someone taking a bat to the outside. It happened again and again. Burt feared the rivets would pop and leave them exposed to whatever was attacking them. The command center then began to rock with each new slam.
“It looks like a big black wave is hitting you guys,” Mike reported. “I can barely see it, but what I can see is massive. It hits you and retreats. It acts just like a breaker in Hawaii. How are you doing in there?”
“It’s trying to tip us over,” Burt said. “Not sure how long we can hold on. Ted says he needs five more minutes for whatever we’re working on. Can you distract the wave somehow?”
Mike looked around the room he and the women had occupied in their retreat from the first floor. He smiled when he spied a box tucked in the corner. God bless Henry and his larcenous ways. “Hang on, guys. I’ve found some fireworks.” Mike shouted, “Get me something to light these with!”
Martha scrambled to the bathroom and came back with a butane candle lighter. She handed it to Beth who had finished ripping down the drapes as Mike opened the window. He kicked out the screen, wrapped one hand in a rain slicker from the closet, and told the women to get out of the room. He lit the Roman candle and held it out of the window, pointing it close but not at the truck. It sparked and caught fire. The firework burst out of the tube and exploded in magenta flashes of light and fire, two feet from the wave. He watched as the black mass shrunk back but didn’t leave. Black feelers resembling tentacles moved out to investigate.
“Cover your eyes, Ted’s heading out,” warned Burt.
Ted took the flash bombs and nodded to Burt who raised the door, pulling his shoulder out as he jerked it open. The tech jumped out and faced the mass that had moved back into position after determining that the threat of the red fire was no longer a danger. Ted tossed the first one at the wave, turned around and fell to the ground.
The bomb fell through the middle of the wave and when it hit the ground exploded in the brightest light imaginable. It ripped the core out of the mass. The surviving DTDs scattered and fled back to their lair.
Ted launched another bomb at the retreating black wiggling masses. It exploded, sending some of the creatures into the air.
Chenille watched from the side of the house. She had taken refuge in the clapboards of the exterior of the house. She climbed higher and watched as the tribe fled. She counted a loss of fourteen warriors. They fell into ash, forever lost to the spirit world. She prayed her father and children were not among the lost.
Mike tossed a smoldering child’s raincoat out of the window. He stood coughing on the smoke from the Roman candle as he surveyed the backyard. Ted had already reattached the plug. The floodlights came on illuminating the battleground. Beth and Martha squeezed next to him. Martha gasped at the two large burn areas of her lawn.
Ted’s flash bombs were designed for a flash of light but not to maintain a fire. The grass on the frozen ground was covered with an inch of snowfall which helped keep the burn damage to a minimum. Beth handed Mike a camera and he took a few shots. “Sorry about your lawn.”
“It was just crab grass, it will grow back. How’s those boys?”
“Burt, status report, please,” Mike requested, touching his com link.
“I have thrown my shoulder out but what else is new,” his voice sounded perturbed. “The truck’s a bit messy inside but main systems are still up.”
“Ted, status report.”
“Seeing little blue dots everywhere. Suggesting we bring the equipment inside and move all vehicles to the front of the house. I have a few ideas to work out about protecting the house. We know they learn with each assault. We better be creative with the next defense. Any word from Angelo?”
“No. Hang in there. Mia’s a tough cookie,” Mike said.
~
Mia smelled the rich aroma of coffee. It nudged her to open her eyes. She did so and was greeted with a high corniced ceiling. She turned her head and was taken in by the warm sand-colored walls setting off rich wall hangings. There woven in vivid greens and browns were several depictions of the Tree of Life. Mia mused about how trees seemed to be taking center stage lately. Perhaps they always had, but she was noticing them now. She moved her arms and flexed her fingers under the soft bamboo duvet. She was gowned in a nightshirt of fawn silk. It skimmed her body. She pushed herself to a sitting position and took inventory of her body parts.
Her legs moved, and as she wiggled her toes, she felt a ticking feeling she hadn’t felt since her plunge into the well. She felt the call of nature and swung her legs around and carefully eased herself down from the massive four poster bed. She found a set of slippers near her size at the side of the bed. She slipped them on and shuffled towards what she assumed was the bathroom. She was wrong. It was a closet filled with black suits, white shirts and Italian leather shoes. She shut the door and sought out another door and was rewarded with the entrance to a large bathroom.
From the clothes, she surmised that she was in Angelo’s Chicago home. And as she moved by the massive marble bath, she tried to remember how she had gotten there. Her dream was a bit fuzzy but tendrils of it clung to her. Gone was the darkness Angelo had put in there. She knew it was something to do with ATzxes but couldn’t pull the pieces together to know exactly what it was. The water closet had a toilet built for the large man. Mia hefted herself up and took care of business. After, as she was washing her hands, she braved a look at herself in the mirror. She expected to see some evidence of the nosebleed. Her skin around her nostrils was fine. In fact it seemed better than fine. Gone were the broken capillaries from hitting the water so hard. She whipped off her gown and stared at her body. There were no scars there. She turned around. Aside from a few freckles from her misspent youth, there were no souvenirs of living the last few years as hard as she lived them.
Okay, this was a dream. She leaned into the mirror and pulled her lower lids down and watched her eyes for evidence of drugs. Not there. She moved her hands up and down her soft skin and found no needle marks. Her hair was as uncooperative as ever. A little wave had formed from the contact with the pillow as she slept. She lifted the back of her hair and was rewarded with a red mark. It was fading, but she knew what it was from. The head cradle. It wasn’t a dream after all.
She caught a movement in the corner of her eye and turned to see Angelo staring at her. “You may want to put your gown back on. It’s pretty chilly.”
Mia blushed and tossed it over her head in a panic. She got caught up in the sleeves and moaned as she found she had put it on backwards.
“Here, let me. You are so impatient,” Angelo said as he moved gracefully towards her. He pulled off the nightshirt and looked at her as he pulled the sleeves right side out. Angelo’s gaze was loving but without desire. He was dressed in black silk pajamas. If he was interested in Mia, it wouldn’t have been hard for her to tell.
“Don’t worry, little one. I am here to protect not devour you,” he explained.
Mia blushed again.
“Lift your arms.”
She did, and he slid the gown effortlessly over her head. It fell down her body as if it were water.
“What happened to me?”
“Let’s have some food, and then we will discuss it. I do hope you like pasta, I made it fresh.”
“You cook?”
“A man has to eat,” he said and guided her from the bedroom.
Mia was so surprised by the view, she clapped her hands. They must be in a high rise near the water. She walked dreamily towards the window. “It’s beautiful. You’re so fortunate.”
“It isn’t as beautiful as my home in Italy, but I like it.”
“Are we on the top floor?” she said as she moved along the windows until she found a glass door. “Can I go outside?”
“It is cold and windy. Here,” he said, pulling a cashmere throw off the large leather couch. “Wrap this around you. Don’t be long. My fettuccini will be ready in minutes.”
Mia nodded, wrapped herself in the soft warm fabric and opened the door. It was more than cold, it was freezing out. But she wanted to experience the penthouse from the outside. The wind had blown the snow off the stone patio. Mia moved through the expanse until she reached the stone wall. She raised herself up on her toes and took in the lake in front of her and the skyline on either side. She saw the twinkling lights of the Ferris wheel at Navy Pier and sighed. This man had to be richer than Midas.
Behind her Angelo had turned on the lights. Little twinkle lights glowed on deciduous trees bereft of leaves and shone through the snow on the topiary pines and yews. She was pleased that no tacky statuary depicting gods were anywhere to be seen. The simplicity moved her. She walked back into the welcomed warmth of the room.
Angelo moved forward and took the throw from her.
“You have quite a place here.”
“Thank you.”
“Do the ladies like it?”
It was Angelo’s turn to blush. “Some, yes.”
“Atta boy,” Mia teased. She thought a moment and voiced, “Have you found the right woman?”
“Not yet. For me she must be large. Have a good appetite. No skinny bitches for me.”
Mia smiled. “You’ll find her. There is a world full of women who would love you and your Italian ways.”
“Perhaps. But there is time. First my work, and then my play. Come and sit down. Let me serve you.”
Mia did as she was told. She was led to a beautiful table set for two. Wine glasses twinkled, reflecting the light that danced from the candles on the table. Angelo held the chair out for her, and as she sat, he moved it in with poise.
“Thank you,” Mia said and added, “My manners are equal with the barnyard gang, but I will do my best.”