by M. L. Ryan
I immediately turned my back to where Alex and Angelica were having their conversation. “So, what were they saying?”
Sebastian laughed quietly once again. “Well, she was turned away from us, so I could only catch Alexander’s part. He did say, ‘Hailey is very important to me, so behave yourself’.”
I felt satisfaction wash over me. All right, Alex! My exhilaration was somewhat tempered when I considered that his estimation of my importance might be more related to my harboring Sebastian than because of any feelings Alex might have for me. I turned around just in time to see Angelica’s bottom lip poke out in a pout before she continued her butt swing to the jet. Well, whatever Alex’s motivation, at least I was content with the knowledge that now I wasn’t the only one ticked off.
As I walked toward the extended steps from the now open door of the plane, Sebastian continued the dialog. “I think there’s hope for you yet. You turned away on purpose so Alexander wouldn’t be able to read your lips, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, so what if I did?” I snapped impatiently.
“I meant it as a compliment. You did it almost instinctively, without thought. You possess an inner shrewdness that is commendable. You know, if not for the fact that you are human, you would make an excellent Xyzok.”
“Right. I don’t think I’m enough of a macho bad ass for that.”
“Well, forgoing any obvious retorts concerning the quality of your derrière, one does not need to be particularly physically rugged to be effective in the job. I believe that you possess the intelligence and mental fortitude required.”
I really didn’t agree with Sebastian’s assessment. “Sure, I’m no dummy, but mental toughness? No way.”
“I think you underestimate yourself. I wager that before our adventure is completed, your grit will be revealed.”
Not knowing what else to say, I simply walked past Alex, who was still standing in the spot where he and Angelica had their discussion, and started up the stairs to the plane. I don’t know why I was miffed at Alex. After all, he had tried to rein her in on my behalf. Now I was being rude. I stopped my ascent when I reached the middle stair, where I turned around and said, “Sorry, I thought we were in a hurry” and then waited for him to catch up.
I had never been in a private jet before, so I don’t know what I expected. While smaller, this was way better than any commercial airplane. There were eight large, leather upholstered seats, and the flight attendant, a slim, short guy with a shaved head and a goatee, named Paul, explained that they were fully reclinable if I wished to sleep. Awesome! On the few occasions that I had flown before, I had a difficult time falling asleep sitting up. When I did manage to nod off, my head flopped oddly from side to side, giving me neck cramps for days afterward.
Paul also described the extensive food and beverage choices, which all sounded much more appealing than the overpriced snack boxes offered the last time I flew. I asked for a cup of black tea and a glass full of ice so I could make iced tea and was pleasantly surprised when Paul informed me that, as per Alex’s instructions, a pitcher of freshly brewed tea was already prepared. That’s service.
We chose two adjacent seats, and while Paul went to get our drinks, I realized that, particularly when this close to the Mexican border, our travel could be easily misconstrued by any number of law enforcement agencies.
“Aren’t you concerned that Homeland Security or the DEA will notice a small plane taking off from an isolated airstrip and make trouble?” I asked.
“That’s where the ability to use magic comes in handy. The runway and plane are undetectable to anyone other than us.”
That was a neat trick. “Between keeping the existence of another dimension secret and cleaning up after miscreant Courso, that’s probably a plus in a whole bunch of situations,” I reasoned aloud.
Before Alex could add more, Paul delivered our drinks and made certain we were buckled in before he moved to the back of the plane for takeoff. When we were more or less alone, Alex leaned toward me and said, “Incidentally, I apologize for Angelica’s discourteous behavior. I’m not really sure why she had such an intense reaction to you.”
I looked at him with both amusement and incredulity. “No idea? Did you ever date before?”
“Well, no one really dates Angelica,” he began sheepishly. When I raised a questioning eyebrow, he added, “We had a few… casual encounters, but the last was at least five years ago. But that doesn’t explain her being uncivil.”
I shook my head. Men. Apparently, cluelessness concerning the female psyche spanned the dimensions.
“You didn’t have to have a relationship with her,” I explained, air-quoting ‘relationship’. “Just because you only hooked up with her a few times over the years doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel some possessiveness over you. She probably thought you were rubbing me in her face.”
Alex looked completely shocked. “Why would she feel that way? I don’t think we ever even went out on an actual date. And it’s not like she ever did anything to indicate that she wanted or expected more.”
“Regardless, she obviously feels her over-developed, sex goddess, self-esteem is being threatened.”
Sebastian chose that moment to add his two cents to the conversation. “Really, my dear, you are making it seem as if you are chiding Alexander and defending Angelica.”
“Believe me, guys, I’m not defending her. I’m just trying to point out why she might be acting like a total bitch.”
In response, Alex and Sebastian simultaneously muttered, “Women,” which made me laugh.
Angelica might be an oversexed bitch, but she definitely knew how to fly. The liftoff was smooth and I settled in for the long flight east. Alex held my hand and eventually began a tactical dialogue with Sebastian. The electrical buzz created by their connection coupled with the constant droning of the plane’s engines made me very sleepy, so I pushed back my seat so I could lay flat and promptly fell asleep.
I woke up a couple hours later to find Alex fully reclined and asleep, and still grasping my hand. His head was angled toward me and I took the opportunity to survey his handsome features. Damn, he was fine. The front of his hair, usually pushed back away from his face, had fallen forward somewhat while he dozed. His hair was naturally that beautiful, light golden color that women paid their hairdressers tons of money to achieve. I had to stop myself from brushing the stray locks off his forehead to see if it felt as good as it looked.
As if he had somehow read my increasingly libidinous thoughts, Alex’s eyes opened. He smiled when our gazes met, and I felt my face begin to redden with embarrassment that I had been caught staring. I thought to myself, really Hailey, aren’t you a little old to still blush? Which made me blush even more. In an attempt to cover my self-consciousness, I moved my seat so I was sitting up and looked around as if I was trying to find Paul. I’m pretty sure that my act didn’t fool Alex one bit, but he didn’t comment and simply squeezed my hand as he closed his eyes once more.
Hours later, Angelica’s silky voice flowed out from the cockpit via the public address system to let us know that we were ready to descend.
When we finally landed, it was daybreak in New Hampshire. The small, private airfield was surrounded by pine trees and snow blanketed everything except where the runway was cleared. A large, dark sedan sat idling near where the plane had stopped, and billowing, thick plumes of condensation from the vehicle’s exhaust indicated it was mighty cold out there.
As we exited the jet, Angelica opened the cockpit door and motioned Alex over to her. I waited on the top stair while they spoke, shivering as the first bite of frigid air cut through my fleece jacket. Just as I was deciding whether to make a break for the warmth of the awaiting car or step back into the plane, Alex placed a hand on the small of my back and guided me down the stairs.
I glanced back to see Angelica glaring at me, a triumphant smile curling across her lips. What the hell? Had she used the thirty seconds she had Alex’s atte
ntion to schedule a hook up later? God, I really hoped not because if I saw her again anytime soon, I might have to put that ho in her place.
~13~
The safe house was on a lake. There was a small town nearby, and while the density of homes in the area was fairly high, it was located on a few acres of land in a less populated stretch. The outside of the house was unassuming; a well-kept but plain, two-story, wooden structure with a pleasant, wrap-around front porch. The interior was similarly modest with simple, but tasteful, furnishings throughout. The first floor had a living room, dining area, kitchen, and two bedrooms connected by a full bathroom; upstairs there were five more small bedrooms and an additional bath.
Jonathan, the guy that drove us, deposited our bags inside and departed, having only uttered a heavily accented “hello” and “we’re here” during the entire journey. He seemed friendly, though, and Alex explained that he was new and hadn’t spent much time outside of Courso, so he was probably not comfortable with human languages.
Alex entered a series of numbers into a keypad affixed to the wall near the front door and then turned to me and said, “Now you are about as safe as is possible in either dimension.”
“Okay, I’ll take your word for it, but aside from the burglar alarm you just activated, it seems just like any other house to me.”
With a mischievous grin, Alex guided me to what appeared to be a storage closet tucked under the stairs. He opened the door, yanked a string hanging from a ceiling fixture to turn on the light, and pulled me inside. The interior was exactly what one might expect—cramped, with coats hanging from a rod, and a few small boxes of stuff on a shelf above. I looked around the small space, and then arched a curious eyebrow toward Alex.
“No offense, but I’m pretty sure the first place someone would look is in here.”
“My dear, you really need to start thinking outside the box. Or the closet, as it were,” Sebastian chided.
Alex pushed aside the coats, ducked down, and moved into the angled space created by the rise of the staircase. Above his head, he touched a section of the wooded slats that comprised the ceiling and a small piece flipped down, exposing a panel with buttons and a flat, glassy surface. He laid his hand on the glass, which activated what seemed like a scanner as a beam of light moved underneath his palm. Then he punched in a five number sequence, and the floor at the farthest end of the space soundlessly slid open.
Incredulous, I peered wide-eyed into the hole in the floor. There was a spiral staircase, illuminated only by tiny lights along the edges of the treads, leading down.
“After you,” Alex invited and I cautiously stepped onto what looked surprisingly like one of those lighted, spiral Christmas trees people use to decorate outdoors, but with the larger swirl on the top instead of at the base. I descended a few feet, then Alex followed and touched another pad that closed the closet floor over us. When what was now our ceiling was completely shut, lights came on, allowing an easy descent.
At the bottom was a small, concrete-walled chamber with an imposing metal door. Once again, Alex flattened his palm against a scanning device on the wall, this time speaking a short phrase rather than punching in a code, and the door swung open to reveal a large room, bustling with people and activity.
It was like an entire office building underneath the house. Directly in front of us was an armed guy in a gray uniform that saluted Alex and nodded at me as we passed. There was a bank of cubicles on one side of the room, each manned and outfitted with a computer and other unidentifiable electronic devices. Glass-walled offices lined the opposite side; apparently, that’s where the higher-ups worked. In the center was a lounge area, with people relaxing or socializing.
“Shit.”
“I knew you would be impressed. Overwhelming, isn’t it?”
I was whatever is beyond overwhelmed —mega-whelmed?
“What the hell is all this?”
Alex laughed. “I told you this place was safe. The house itself is like a mini fortress; ballistic glass on all windows, reinforced steel doors, and sophisticated security systems. Plus, there are screening methods in use that mask magical activity. If somehow someone with bad intent managed to slip past all that, there’s this hidden escape route. Down here, you have at least forty highly trained Xyzok in one of our classified command posts that provide additional monitoring of the area. Beyond these offices are extensive living spaces that are crisscrossed with a number of tunnels that extend under the lake that provide a variety of ways for entrance or egress.”
I was having some trouble taking it all in. “Wow, this must be like Dick Cheney’s secret, undisclosed location he used when he was Vice President.”
“Oh, that pales in comparison. This is much more secure. Only a very few of the most select and trusted Xyzok even know this place exists.”
“Well, and now me,” I added with growing unease.
“Do you know where we are?” Alex inquired.
Now that I thought about it, all I knew was that we were in New Hampshire. That could be a ruse as well, except I remembered seeing a lot of New Hampshire license plates on other vehicles while we were driving here.
“Ah, no, actually, we could be almost anywhere.”
“Exactly. And if you had to recall how you got here from the jet, could you?”
I wracked my brain to try to conjure details of the ride, but for the life of me, I couldn’t recollect a single landmark or geographic feature that could help pinpoint our location.
“Did you do something to me to screw with my memory?” I grumbled accusingly.
“Not specifically, your inability to retrace your journey is just one of the safeguards.”
“So how come you remember where this place is? And what about Jonathan, you trust him with this information?”
“I have the highest security clearance, so I am exempt from the magical obfuscation. All those with lower-level clearance you see here today have agreed to have their memories altered when their deployment is over so they won’t be able to reveal anything either by accident or coercion. As for Jonathan, he knows only that he drove us to a house. He has no idea what lies beneath, nor does anyone else that lives around here. All these workers come and go via the tunnels.”
I don’t know why any of this should surprise me given everything that had happened of late, but I was pretty overwhelmed. Before I could fully process the complexity of the underground complex, Alex leaned in close and whispered, “By the way, almost everyone here will be able to sense Sebastian when they are close to you. Because we believe it is best to limit the number of people that are aware of the deconvergence, we had to devise a plausible explanation for his signature within you.”
From the sheepish look on his face, I was sure whatever he and Sebastian had come up with, I wasn’t going to like it. “Okay, out with it.”
Alex took a deep breath. “I’m saying that you are pregnant and Sebastian is the father.”
“And that would explain his signature in me?”
He seemed relieved that I wasn’t freaking out, so he continued with much more enthusiasm.
“Well, generally a developing fetus would emit a detectable pattern, albeit much weaker, of the Courso parent or parents. Even though Sebastian’s aura in you is much stronger than what would be usual during pregnancy, people should chalk that up to Sebastian’s prodigious power.”
I wasn’t completely comfortable with people thinking I was carrying Sebastian’s child, but I couldn’t put my finger on why it bothered me. Maybe I just didn’t want to be seen as someone who got knocked up by a notorious womanizer. Maybe I was unsettled by the fact that there was no need for Coursodan paternity tests because everyone could essentially sniff out who’s your daddy. Regardless of the reason, if it made things easier for Alex, I could manage to deal with it.
“At least my mother will be thrilled if she hears about my virginal conception. She’s always wanted me to embrace religion.”
While I tried to
decide how to play the role of the expectant paramour, Alex mentioned that he needed to confer with someone regarding any new information about Otto. I sat on one of the leather couches in the common area in the room’s center and concentrated on appearing nonchalant despite being anything but.
Soon, I was distracted from my efforts at character development when a woman with short, spiked, purple hair, and a septum piercing between her nostrils, slammed a stack of papers on the coffee table and flopped down next to me on the sofa. She cradled her head in her hands and let out an exasperated sigh before barking out something in Courso.
I had no clue why she was so pained, but not wanting to appear unfeeling, I said, “Unfortunately, I only speak English.” She lifted her head and stared blankly. I was concerned that my response may have seemed rude, so to lighten the mood I quickly added, “But, I can curse in about eight different languages.”
“Oh, sorry. You have a pretty strong signature, so I figured you were Courso. Anyway, I said this assignment is going to drive me insane!”
I tried to convey my understanding of her dilemma—after all, who hasn’t been given some annoying task at work—with a shrug and a knowing nod. She took my limited response as an invitation to continue her complaints, however.
“I’ve only got one test left before I am fully certified in Decryption and Code Breaking, but I’ve been at this for days and I can’t seem to get a toehold. I told them when I was accepted that I would suck at this, but would they listen? I wanted to specialize in Incursions, but instead they stick me in DCB.”
To be polite, and because I really didn’t know what else to say, I glanced over at her work, which was now strewn haphazardly in front of me. She pushed the papers around until she yanked out a page filled with only numbers. “I’m supposed to decipher this. I’ve tried everything and nothing has worked,” she practically shouted.
“So what’s all the rest of this?” I asked, as I flipped through the first couple of pages left on top of the mess. It was all written in, what I assumed, was Courso, because there wasn’t a single letter that I recognized. The unusual script was beautiful with both graceful swirls and almost geometric shapes—kind of like a combination of Greek and Arabic.