“That’s your cue,” I whispered. “They will be going through the basement entrance.”
Jolie stepped to the edge of the wall. She dropped and glided down, silent as an owl.
She landed on the grass between the hotel and the annex, where the guards couldn’t see her.
The cart rumbled toward the access ramp. As they turned to drive down the ramp, Jolie bolted around the corner and jumped into the cart behind the guards.
The cart disappeared from view. The door rattled open, then rattled again to close. Jolie was inside. My turn.
The annex roof had two lattice microwave antennas, five dishes pointed upward, and half a dozen whips arranged around a circular dish mounted flush with the roof. This dish sat right over the pedestal in the floor below. What was the purpose of this dish? It didn’t look like a hatch. Was it an antenna? Did it have something to do with the cylinders inside?
I spotted a large square hatch. From its position along the center of the northern wall I knew it lay over the freight elevator that connected the lab to the lower floors. This was my way inside.
I flexed my legs and leaped for the annex. I spun my arms to keep the momentum. As I approached the roof, I summoned my powers of levitation so that I landed on the roof as softly as a pair of women’s silk panties falling against a carpet.
I continued to levitate, and my feet barely touched the roof as I walked to the hatch.
It was made of steel, with two big hinges and a simple handle. No lock was visible. The hatch must be secured from the inside and rigged to the alarm. I knew the moment I pried the hatch open the circus would start.
Voices carried across the hotel roof. A guard called out: “Tom? Jerry? Why aren’t you guys answering the radio?”
Tom and Jerry? Who else was up there? Woody Woodpecker?
From this angle I couldn’t see the guard, but I could hear his boots creep across the roof.
I grasped the handle of the hatch.
He whispered, “Uh-oh.” Then he shouted, “Command Group, two guards down on the roof. Code 116.”
An electronic horn sounded and red lights flashed throughout the compound.
They know we’re here.
I gave the hatch a mighty tug. The handle bent. I pulled again. Something inside snapped and the hatch swung open.
A red light flashed in my face. The alarm shrieked. The hatch opened to a shaft that dropped to the basement four stories below. A wire dangled from inside the hatch. The guards would know I had come through here.
I floated down the shaft and landed on the edge of the elevator door to the third floor, to plan my next move.
I looked across the shaft and stared into the lens of a video camera. The elevator doors opened behind me. A hand emerged and dropped a grenade.
Chapter
49
Nice move, if I were human. I swatted the grenade back through the door and slid it closed.
The voices on the other side yelped in terror.
Anticipating the explosion, I braced myself against the jamb of the door and rode out the blast.
The plan had been to get Clayborn first and then come back to this floor and free Carmen from the cylinder. But the guards knew about me and that I was after Carmen. I had to see if she was okay.
I slid the door open and sprang inside. Acrid smoke from the explosion billowed around me. Peltier and Krandall stumbled about, their faces ashen, and dust settled on their black SWAT garb. Surprise and pain rippled through their auras.
I snatched Krandall’s submachine gun from his hands. I squeezed a burst into his neck and torso. He flopped onto his back. I fired two shots into Peltier and she fell. Krandall had no psychic cloud around his supine body. Peltier’s aura quivered like the flame of a pilot light struggling to stay lit. These two got off lucky, compared to what I could’ve done vampire-style.
A third man wearing SWAT gear stumbled backward from me. He clutched his throat and coughed. I knew the man.
Goodman. He was as good as dead.
The overhead lights flickered, then went dim. The sudden darkness worked in my favor. I had the advantage of night vision, and the loss of power would have also disabled the security system. A couple of seconds later, an electronic hum reverberated through the annex and the lights flicked on again. A generator must have switched on. So much for that advantage.
The humming stopped and the lights went out again. Excellent. Jolie had disabled the annex’s power.
The emergency lights above the door flickered on. I aimed the submachine gun and blasted the lights. Let’s keep it dark.
Goodman stumbled like a drunk. His aura sizzled with confusion and pain. Blood dotted his face. He crashed against a desk and knocked a stack of notebooks to the floor.
Peltier’s aura brightened as she rallied against her wounds. She fumbled for the submachine gun that lay by her side. She lifted her head toward me and struggled to aim the weapon. The laser pointer illuminated and the thin red light slashed through the smoke.
Stubborn, murdering bitch. Taunt the bull and expect the horns. I leveled my submachine gun and squeezed the trigger. The bullets tore the fabric of Peltier’s chest armor and then chewed her pretty face apart.
Goodman’s head jerked from left to right in confusion. Blood clotted his eyes.
The magazine empty, I tossed the submachine gun aside. “In case you’re wondering, your matched set of killers is dead.”
His expression darkened when he recognized my voice. He snatched a Glock pistol from his thigh holster. “You again.”
“Expecting someone else?”
His aura signaled surprise but not fear. Goodman remained cold as steel.
He panned the Glock in my direction.
“Don’t bother,” I said.
Goodman fired anyway. Blinded, he was only wasting ammunition. The bullet punched into the wall.
I crept toward him, moving as silently as a shadow.
Goodman’s breath escaped from his mouth in ragged gasps. His pistol trembled. He wiped the blood from his eyes and squinted at where I’d been.
I smiled at the futility of his efforts. “I’m right here.”
Goodman swung the pistol at me, fired, and missed again.
I slapped the Glock from his hand. My talons sliced his fingers, and the pistol clattered across the floor.
Goodman retracted his wounded hand, cradling it against his chest, and slid against the desk away from me.
I stared into his eyes, the irises gray and dull, the whites bloodshot. They registered nothing.
Blinded, Goodman posed no threat. I would finish him later. My priority was to rescue Carmen from the cylinder.
The computer monitors presented their blank faces. Without power, the machines lay dormant.
The twenty capsules were still here, sixteen on the floor and four on the pedestal. But I didn’t see any auras. My kundalini noir stiffened in alarm. I rushed to the closest capsule and looked inside. The padding showed the form where a human would be. It was empty.
I dashed down the rows. All were empty. I bounded onto the pedestal and checked out the rest of the cylinders. They were all empty. I pressed my face to the glass and looked up and down, as if there was another place in the capsule to hide a body.
Despairing and then enraged, I grabbed the sides of the capsule. It remained fixed in place. I might as well have tried shaking a mountain.
I turned toward Goodman and shouted: “Where is she?”
Goodman’s aura brightened with defiance. “You mean your friend, the other freak?”
“Where is she?” I grabbed a desk and flung it at Goodman. The desk whirled through the air, the drawers opening and spilling pens and papers. The desk crashed against the wall beside Goodman.
His aura flashed with fright. He jumped, lost his balance on the floor debris, and staggered back to his feet. His aura dimmed to a fearful glow. Good, the bastard needed to be afraid of me.
His face searched for me. “Clayborn took her. And
the others.”
“Where?”
“Away from here.”
“Goodman, I’m way beyond pissed off. Give me a straight answer. Now.”
“Clayborn sent the women up there.” He pointed to the sky with his thumb.
“You mean outer space?” The hairs stood on my arms. I didn’t want to know the answer.
Goodman replied, “Of course.”
The aliens. This had grown worse beyond belief. “When?”
“Yesterday. Right after you got away from us.”
“How?”
“Using more of that alien hocus-pocus.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means, you stupid fucking bastard, that I don’t know and I don’t care. Clayborn doesn’t share everything with us. I don’t trust him but that’s not my job. I only follow orders, like I’ve done my entire life.”
“How do I get Carmen back?”
“My guess is that you hitch a ride to Pluto and start there.” Goodman straightened and squared his shoulders. He chuckled. “In other words, Felix, go back to your home planet and fuck yourself.”
I stepped in front of Goodman. I grasped his upper arms and held him tight. He squirmed to escape but my grip was like iron.
“Goodman, listen to me. I got news for you. I am on my home planet.” I stared into his eyes, the whites now gray and marred with clots of red. His irises dilated in the effort to focus on me. I gave him an ultra dose of hypnosis, and still nothing.
“I’m no alien. In fact, I’m a veteran and every month I collect a disability check for what happened to me in Iraq.”
He squirmed again.
“Goodman, do you believe in the supernatural? You should.”
“What the hell do you want from me?”
“I want you to die knowing the truth. I am a vampire.”
Goodman shook and howled. His spit splattered on my face. “Vampire. Alien. I don’t give a shit.”
I wrapped my arms around him and nudged his head aside with mine. He smelled of burned ammunition and explosive, sweat, and my favorite, raw fear. My fangs rasped against the nubby beard growing from his throat.
I sank my fangs into his flesh. His blood spurted into my mouth, a delicious male nectar flavored with testosterone and adrenaline from his terror.
I pumped enzymes to hasten the healing process and hide my marks. Then I stopped the other enzymes that deadened pain. I’d kill him the way Carmen would have, al dente.
Goodman howled in agony. He wrestled to get free. His face and neck became livid and red. The tendons pressed against the inside of his throat. His hands clutched my side and his boots thumped against my shins.
I let him go and he crumbled to the floor, grasping his throat. He retched and convulsed. Drool seeped between his teeth, over his lower lip, and down his chin. Pain surged through his aura, the penumbra becoming as turbulent as waves in a storm.
He dropped to his side, still retching. His eyes bugged out from their sockets, big as peeled eggs. Blood dribbled from his ears and tear ducts. His legs kicked and his back arched. His aura flashed and dimmed, fading until it disappeared. His corpse lay with his limbs splayed in a death dance.
Goodman was dead, yet I felt empty, unsatisfied. Another death on my slate and what had I accomplished? My friend Carmen was still on her way to another solar system.
I grabbed a desk and hurled it against the computers.
“Where is she?” I screamed at no one. I seized another desk and continued my rampage through the lab, wrecking as much as I could to vent my fury.
Chapter
50
I was wasting time. I returned to the freight elevator and looked down to the floor below, where Clayborn lived. I’d go there and interrogate him, provided Jolie hadn’t ripped him to pieces already.
I smelled a different odor from the burned explosive in the lab. This smell came from below. Was the annex on fire?
I leaned forward and caught the elevator cables. I shimmied down one floor to the next door. The smell grew stronger. I swung from the cable and balanced on the ledge below the elevator door.
I felt heat coming from the metal door. There was a fire. I had to find Clayborn.
I jabbed my talons through the door. Smoke jetted past my fingers. I sawed a gap wide enough for me to use both hands and tear the door in two.
Heat and smoke rolled over me. I started to panic. I had to act fast or I’d lose any way of ever finding Carmen. I dropped to the floor, where the air was clearer.
I shouted, “Jolie.”
“Felix,” she answered from inside the smoke-filled room, “he’s coming your way. Get him.”
Before I could think to ask whom, Clayborn rushed from the smoke, bent over in a stooped sprint, those big clown feet of his propelling him with amazing speed. He clasped a ray gun in his right hand.
I pushed from the floor and clotheslined him. His neck folded over my arm and those Bozo feet of his arced through the air. The gun clattered across the floor and down the elevator shaft. Clayborn landed on his back, and his head smacked the hard floor.
Jolie appeared through the smoke and crouched beside Clayborn. “The little fucker shot at me with the ray gun, missed, and started the fire. Now that we’ve got him, let’s rescue Carmen.”
I didn’t move.
Jolie looked at me. “What’s the matter?”
It was hard to admit my failure. “Carmen’s gone.”
Jolie remained stone-faced. “What do you mean?”
The next admission was even harder. “She’s been taken from Earth. She’s in outer space somewhere.”
Jolie’s aura blazed as bright as hot, glowing metal. She wrapped her talons around Clayborn’s neck. “Where is she? Tell me or I’ll gut you like a fish.”
Clayborn struggled for breath. He gasped. “There’s nothing you can do for her now.”
Jolie tightened her grip. “You better hope not.”
The fire gained on us. We didn’t have much time.
I peeled her fingers loose. “We better get moving.”
“What about him?”
“We’ll take him with us. He wouldn’t let himself get stranded here without a way to get home.”
Jolie jumped and tore a light fixture from the ceiling. She grasped the wire dangling from the hole and cut a length of about six feet using her talons.
“Here, bind him with this.” Jolie handed the wire to me.
Clayborn remained dazed and docile from the blow against the concrete floor. His black eyes bulged from their sockets. A corona of pain flared around his yellow aura.
I looped one end of the copper wire around his skinny neck and twisted the wire tight. I wrapped the rest of the wire around his torso, cinching his arms against his chest, and trussed him like a pot roast. I picked Clayborn up and tucked him under my arm. He weighed the same as a medium-sized dog.
I returned to the elevator, paused at the threshold, and planned my jump.
Clayborn started to moan.
“Shut up,” Jolie hissed. She tore a swatch from his pants cuff and stuffed the cloth into his mouth.
Flames roared in the room behind us.
I bounded against the opposite wall and zigzagged up the elevator structure to the access hatch I’d torn loose.
We emerged on the roof through the column of smoke pumping out the elevator shaft. Jolie and I coughed to clear our throats. Clayborn gagged and squirmed against me.
Jolie punched him in the head. “I told you to shut up.”
We stepped away from the smoke and crouched on the roof.
Guards shouted in a frenzied chorus. Red and amber lights flashed across the resort. Alarms and claxons blared like wounded animals. Trucks and carts raced over the grounds in carnival-like pandemonium.
“Felix, if your intent was to confuse them, good job.” Jolie dug a cell phone from her hip pocket. She glanced at the phone briefly. “That was Antoine. He’s almost here.”
Jolie lift
ed her head toward the west. The chopping noise of rotor blades approached.
Chapter
51
Low above the trees raced the dark, humpbacked silhouette of a Blackhawk helicopter, showing no lights and with an orange aura behind the controls. Antoine.
“He’s not going to stop.” Jolie rubbed her hands together and flexed her legs.
I noticed the radio masts behind us. I’d forgotten to mention that hazard. Hopefully, Antoine had spotted them.
The helicopter roared over the resort like a specter. I got ready.
“You go left, I’ll go right,” Jolie ordered.
The Blackhawk rocked and altered its course for us. I aimed my jump for one of the main wheels hanging from the struts on either side of the fuselage.
The helicopter lifted its nose to decelerate. I adjusted my hold on Clayborn and kept him tight under my right arm. The helicopter rushed for us, as big and noisy as a locomotive tumbling off its tracks.
The wheel swung toward me. My legs snapped straight and propelled me through the air.
The tire slammed against my chest, and for an instant I panicked and thought I was going to bounce off. My left hand grasped the oleo strut and I swung my leg to sit on top of the tire. Jolie clung safely to the other wheel.
Clipped radio masts and a couple of dish antennas went whirling below us. I guess Antoine hadn’t seen them.
The helicopter dipped its nose and sped toward the Atlantic. We banked north over the sheen of the metallic water. Behind us we left the resort in shambles and chaos. Flames and smoke swirled from the annex. Dozens of flashing emergency lights clustered around the hotel. Spotlights knifed across the grounds and the walls of the buildings.
Jolie squatted in the cargo hold of the helicopter, her hair tangled by the wind. She shouted over the deafening racket: “Let me take Clayborn.”
I handed the alien to her and I climbed in.
I expected the Spartan interior of a military helicopter. This one had the upholstered seats of a limousine. I kept the cargo doors open to air out the smoke. I took the center seat behind the cockpit and strapped in.
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