by Lucy Kelly
“Wow, they can pose for me anytime,” said Judith. “Maybe I should do a series of nudes,” she quipped.
Her sisters knew she was joking. Judith painted music. Her gift was to see music in colors. When people viewed her paintings, they unconsciously picked up on the tune. More than once, they would start humming and wonder why a particular song had come to mind.
The conversation quickly digressed into giggles, as the five McLuckie girls spoke about the packages of the Nephilim men. The jokes and remarks got more risqué as they went on. None of them really delved into the topic of being Nephilim themselves. It was too serious to touch, as yet. They needed to have time to take it in and get comfortable first. Joking about hot men was easier, and a situation they could slip into effortlessly.
Back at the lodge, Mike McLuckie made contact with Jo and Becky, with Sarah’s help. He then issued a BOLO, a “Be On the Look Out” notice to all law enforcement. Since Armus would likely have alien technology, they described him as having a background in physics and engineering. He was a terrorist for hire, and was suspected of planning a terrorist act in the near future. He was considered armed and dangerous. Law enforcement was instructed not to try to apprehend, just locate and call in. Becky provided a picture from security scans transmitted from the Far Star Station.
After all their plans, the capture of Armus Hend was almost too easy.
*****
It was the night after Becky had gone to San Francisco, that Armus landed the shuttle. He was pleased to discover it was equipped with a cloaking device. After disabling the communications system, he left a surprise in the navigation system. No one would be flying the shuttle except him. If those chasing after him found it, they would get a nasty shock. On his first day away from the gate station, he had disabled the shuttle’s emergency tracker. So he knew he hadn’t been followed.
Ignoring the body of the crewman, he pulled the small transport out of the clamps holding it in place. He took a water pouch and left. He was pleasantly surprised with the air he breathed in, and took a careful look around at the trees and foliage. He pulled out a portable compass. Making note of the shuttle’s global position, he started the transport and left, heading toward more populated areas. He knew he would need a town of some size in order to sell his gems and crystals.
It was late when he landed. Luckily, there was enough moonlight for him to see. He noticed a road for ground transports as he drove over, so he went in that direction. There weren’t any humans awake at this hour, so he risked traveling on the road. He passed a sign with numbers, wondering for a moment what they meant. When the road turned south toward where he knew there was a larger city, the numbers changed from two sixes to one seven.
As he neared the city, there were other cars sharing the road with him. A few people stared at his transport which, to the human eye, looked like a souped up Seqway. When he arrived in Boulder, he was hungry. He began looking around for an eating place. What he didn’t understand was that restaurants on Earth were different from the ones on HeVan.
On HeVan, the places serving food were usually run by the farms providing the ingredients. The workers and cooks working for the farms were fed. The farms were owned mostly by the ruling families of each House. Visitors there to do business ate free of charge.
Leaving his transport outside a diner a little after dawn, Armus Hend went inside and asked for food. The waitress thought he looked a little strange in his weird clothing and robe, but he didn’t look homeless. She gave him a menu and poured him a cup of coffee. All the foods were unfamiliar to him, so he asked for the breakfast special he saw advertised on the wall above the pass-through to the kitchen.
Armus liked the food. Since he was a big man, when he was halfway through his plate of eggs, hash browns, and sausage, he asked for a second plate to be prepared. The trouble came when he was finished and tried to leave.
“You sure are a healthy eater, mister. Here’s your check. You can pay at the register,” said the waitress, a tired mother of three who had worked an all-night double shift and was looking forward to heading home and soaking her feet. Her husband was going to have to get the kids to school today.
Armus hadn’t sold any of his gems and didn’t have any Earth currency. He didn’t realize he would need it so soon.
“I have come to this city to sell some of my gems. I can offer you a gem in exchange for the meal. Or you can hold one in surety until I reclaim it with coin,” he said.
“How do I know those are real jewels, mister? They could be nothing but glass and you’re just trying to rip me off. I should call the cops,” she said.
“You must be of low intelligence if you cannot see these are truly fine gems,” he said, holding one up. It was a diamond and it was sparkly.
“How many of those have you got?” she asked.
Not understanding the rate of exchange on this world, he had brought a large number of gems. He had small pouches of them in pockets all through the lining of his cloak. He pulled out a pouch and spilled ten diamonds into his hand.
“This is just one pouch. I have several,” he said.
“Fine, I’ll hold on to this one, then,” she said, taking the pouch from him.
If they did turn out to be glass, she could sell the ten for the price of the meals she was going to have to pay for out of her tips. She was surprised, she was generally a better judge of who was conning her.
“I will return later in the day,” he said and left. He believed he had just been duped. But until he’d visited a gem dealer on this planet, he could not be sure. He decided to act as a buyer first, to ascertain prices before attempting to sell.
Pressing a button in his pocket, he uncloaked his transport. When he stepped outside, he didn’t see it. He walked all around the parking lot, in between the large trucks taking up so much space.
It’s gone! Even cloaked, someone had found it and taken it. This planet is full of thieves!
He considered briefly going back inside the eating place and complaining, but he didn’t want her to call in the investigators. He began walking down the road into the heart of the city, he needed to find a buyer of gems.
*****
Cissie May Henderson woke early. It was her birthday today! She was going to be eight, and she was having a magic party at the park at eleven o’clock. She was pretty hyper by the time they finally got there. Seeing all of her friends was even more fun because they all brought presents for her!
Her mom wasn’t having the best day. Most of the other parents hadn’t stayed, they just dropped off their kids. She thanked God for Mrs. Lewis, grandmother of Cissie’s best friend. Mrs. Lewis had been the secretary for the chief of police for twenty-five years before retiring. She was four foot eleven and a hundred pounds soaking wet. She also had a way of making people do what she wanted, including tough police officers and small children. Other than Mrs. Lewis, there were only three other mothers.
It was now nearly one. Cissie May and twenty other six, seven, and eight year olds had run all over the park, consumed ice cream and cake, and opened all the presents. The magician her mother had promised her still hadn’t shown. When Cissie saw Armus Hend walking through the park in his magnificent robe with wings, stars, and other symbols embroidered on it, she and her best friend, Brenda Boyer, shrieked, as only young girls can do, and they ran after him. Soon, all the children from the party had him surrounded.
Armus detoured to the park when he’d seen children. He couldn’t remember ever seeing so many children all together in one place. It was amazing! He wondered if there was a way to take female children back to HeVan. They had to be easier to manage than full grown women. He was trying to think about the problems associated with stealing a ship large enough, when the children spotted him.
“It’s the magician!” shouted Cissie May, relieved the promised treat was actually here.
At first, Armus was pleased when they all ran to him. He was sure it meant they recognized his greatness. He b
ecame annoyed when he realized they had him confused with someone else. He became angry when several of the boys and girls grabbed onto his cloak.
One enterprising young boy found a few of the pockets inside the cloak and went looking for doves, playing cards, colored scarves, and other magic tricks. When Armus saw what the young boy had taken from his cloak, he lost patience. He started yelling and pushing the children around, at the same time attempting to pick up his pouches.
A couple of the moms stopped gossiping over the picnic table and watched. They had also assumed this man must be the magician. When he shouted, they tried to figure out why he was angry. Did the kids ruin his tricks?
“I don’t think he’s a very good magician, if he can’t control a group of kids,” said Cissie May’s mom. She was going to give her husband a ration of shit for hiring this guy when the day was over.
When retired police secretary, Mrs. Lewis, saw Armus Hend starting to push the kids around, she got angry and suspicious. There weren’t any fathers at the party, and this man was huge. Never one to back down from a challenge, she pulled her pepper spray out of her purse, along with her pocket Taser. As she walked over to where the children and the magician were now in a tug of war over his cloak, she was ready for anything. She had to be careful, though; she didn’t want to Taser any of the children. That would be bad.
The children were holding their own. When Armus swung his arm and knocked down Cissie May, especially on her birthday, they all jumped him. When he growled like a bear, they all laughed. They still believed he was the magician hired to entertain them. This was just another game to them. Who knew magicians could be so much fun? He was willing to wrestle with them before showing them his tricks.
Armus had never confronted a group of rambunctious children. He barely remembered children. His first flash of joy, seeing so many young ones, quickly turned to annoyance. Then they started shouting something about magic and pulling on his clothes. They were screaming and yelling and not making sense; he wanted to get away. But they had his cloak, and his gems were spilling out on the ground.
When his cloak was ripped away from him, he got angry. He didn’t care if they were children. He pulled out the weapon he’d taken from the warrior on the shuttle and took aim at the three children who had taken his cloak and were now running around with it. When Dawn Lewis saw what looked like a weapon, she acted. At four foot eleven, she was about as tall as the children who were all around her.
Bringing up her left hand, she sprayed him in the eyes with her pepper spray, and then used her Taser to take him down.
“Sit on him, kids!” she shouted.
Screaming with glee, the kids all piled on as he lay on the ground, twitching. The little girls had found the pouches of different colored gems and thought they were party favors. They started trading the different colors. One liked the red ones and another liked the blue ones.
When the police arrived, Armus was still out cold.
“Ma’am, can you tell us what happened here?” the officer asked Dawn. He recognized her. She had been the secretary to the police chief for twenty-five years.
“He’s the magician. To be fair, the children were acting up a little,” she said.
“He’s over an hour late,” put in Cissie’s mom as she gave her daughter a hug.
The second officer retrieved the cloak from the now subdued children.
“There are police officers at Cissie May’s party!” he heard one of the boys saying with glee.
He was smiling at the boys, when he flipped the man over. Something about his face rang a bell. All of a sudden, the situation was no longer funny.
“Hey, Joe, wasn’t there a BOLO out on this guy?” he asked his partner, who was still trying to get a straight story out of Mrs. Lewis.
“Mrs. Lewis says he hit one of the kids. Why don’t you cuff him, just in case? He’s a big guy. She also says he has a weapon. Let’s make sure none of these kids gets a hold of it,” said Officer Joe Franks.
Armus was a dead weight; it took both officers to cuff him and load him into the back of the patrol car and get him locked in. By the time he started waking up, they had found the BOLO, ‘Be-On-the-Look-Out’ notice the FBI had posted.
The officers called for backup to take statements from the witnesses. Dawn Lewis had sat in front of the chief’s office in the administration building for twenty-five years. In all that time, the only criminals she had come in contact with were, in her opinion, the politicians working there. Now, she was the heroine of the hour, having nabbed a wanted man.
The police actually recognized the weapon. It had been one of a few items included in the BOLO, along with his physical description. The prisoner was listed as a former professor of physics and an engineer. He was supposed to have invented some weird weapons included in the all points bulletin. This looked like it could be one of them. The two officers handled it with care, besides anything else they found on the prisoner.
When they contacted the Chicago FBI office listed on the BOLO, they were told agents would be coming to take the prisoner off their hands right away. He was linked to possible terrorist activities. When Armus Hend complained loudly about his lost gems, it added credence to the story. They figured he’d gotten the gems as payment for terrorist acts—either already done, or in the works.
The five o’clock news reported what happened. By six o’clock, people were combing the park looking for jewels. The police had a hard time keeping them out of the area.
A certain waitress, listening to the news as she got ready for another night’s work, made plans to take a certain pouch of diamonds to a good jeweler on the weekend.
Late that night, Special Agent Mike McLuckie and Special Agent Josephine March arrived with the proper paperwork, supplied by Becky, and took Armus Hend into custody. Waiting in the SUV in the parking lot were Kai and Ari, Sarah’s Ankida. Ishme and Nyal, Becky’s Ankida, were waiting at the Boulder airport. They would be taking Armus Hend into custody and flying him by private jet back to Illinois immediately. From there, he would be driven to The Sanctuary.
By the time they landed, Becky had wiped their trail from the computer and Armus Hend no longer existed. Any police, reporter, or anyone else from Boulder, asking questions, would be told no comment; other than the fact the fugitive was in custody and being questioned. No terrorist acts had actually occurred, just an interrupted birthday party and no deaths. The public would go on to the next story in the headlines and Armus Hend would soon be forgotten.
What happened to the souped-up Segway? It was road kill for an eighteen-wheeler.
Chapter Twenty-Three
HeVan…
Only a couple of minutes after she’d been introduced to Margan and Trake—the real names belonging to Hot and Yummy—Sarah came and dragged Jo away to talk to Charl. Charl wanted to know everything Armus had said pertaining to his brother, Karlo. The only lead she was able to give him had to do with Highway 66. Armus had off-handedly mentioned his confusion with a numbering system going from 66 to 7. Charl thanked her profusely and began pouring over maps.
Then it was time to leave. After a hasty goodbye to Sarah and her sister, Jo approached the door to the shuttle with her roller bag bouncing over the ground. Yummy—make that Margan—stepped in front of her, blocking her way.
“We have a mission to complete, Lady Josephine. We are unable to take passengers to the gate station,” he explained.
Jo fished into her pocket, got her ID, and flashed him her creds and badge.
“He’s my prisoner. Where he goes, I go,” she stated emphatically.
So, the pretty female was an investigator?
Margan moved out of her way and waved his arm in a go-ahead gesture. This would be both good and bad. He and his brother, Trake, would have a chance to get to know a female they now knew was not mated. At the same time, they could not allow any distraction from the female to interfere with their sacred mission.
As they strapped into their seats,
Margan, Trake, and Jo were thinking similar thoughts. While they all lusted after each other, they had duties that had to come first. It would take a few hours to rendezvous with the KowLer warship waiting on the far side of Mars. Then they would travel for a day and a half before reaching the gate station. A decision was made to keep Armus on the KowLer vessel. He was too familiar with Nephilim technology and methods; he might even have a way of bypassing the locking mechanisms. When they arrived at the KowLer warship, Jo hit some serious opposition.
The KowLer people were still a male-dominated society and culture. Malpha had only been queen for a few months and not much had changed. Since Jo’s actual goal was to find out more about the Nephilim, she allowed herself to be persuaded. She would travel on the Nephilim ship. Margan and Trake were disappointed their duty demanded they stay with the prisoner. They would be separated from Josephine for the duration of the voyage.
For now, though, they were all on the KowLer ship headed at top speed back to the gate. Margan offered to take Jo to get a meal when she mentioned she was hungry. She didn’t know what to expect with alien foods. Margan had heard a few stories from Justyn about his wife, Grace, so he had an idea of what to ask for that she’d like.
“Why are they all staring at me?” she asked them after they sat down.
“KowLer women do not work. They also do not wear pants,” he told her with a smile.
“Do you agree with that attitude?” she asked him in a silky voice.
“No. On HeVan, we live in a female-dominated culture. Even though the males outnumber the females, we’ve learned through our long history that having the males in positions of power leads to wars. We’ve had peace on HeVan for twenty thousand years,” he explained.
“That explains some of the things Armus was talking about. Are you sure some of the males wouldn’t like things to be different?” she asked.