by Jaime Rush
Those who knew Eric best watched him, expecting a biting response, no doubt. To their surprise, he turned away, not meeting any of their gazes.
Magnus picked up one of the tapes neatly stacked in a box. “Before our father ordered us to leave him there, he told us what’s in our bodies.” The group fell silent, riveted now on Magnus, on his next words. “He called it Blue Moon. He told me to find this videotape. And he said, ‘I hope you can handle the truth.’”
“We can,” Amy said.
They nodded in agreement.
He stuck the tape into an old VCR and turned on the television. “We’ve seen it, but I will let you form your own conclusion.”
A younger Richard filled the screen, along with flecks of static. He was in a lab, but not this one. His expression was bright and shiny with excitement.
“It is October 30, 1984. I have found my most interesting slime mold yet. From the first time I witnessed a meteor shower when I was seven and trudged out in the snow at dawn hoping to find a piece of it, I have been fascinated with slime molds. On that day I found the most interesting blob of slime. I later discovered they’re called powdre ser, Welsh for star rot. Some call it star jelly or star shoot, that last because it resembles sperm. I prefer powdre ser.
“The specimen I found that day disappeared the next morning. From then on, I made it my life’s ambition to find more. I learned of stories of powdre ser found in backyards, given to NASA for examination, who supposedly found it to be industrial waste. These rare, gelatinous blobs have been found over the centuries and are usually associated with meteor showers. They dry up when the sun hits them.
“I have spent years following sightings of meteor showers and have found four specimens. None exhibit any of the normal characteristics of slime molds other than their jelly-like quality. How this jelly survives its entrance into the Earth’s atmosphere is a mystery, too.”
Lachlan and Magnus watched their father’s image with haunted expressions.
Richard walked over to a table and held up a large petri dish filled with an opaque jelly of a blue-violet hue. He lifted it with the gentleness and awe of a man holding his newborn baby for the first time. “I heard about a particularly interesting sighting in Arcadia, Virginia, and immediately dispatched myself there.”
Nicholas and Olivia looked at each other. “That’s where the aircraft with the eye went down.”
Richard wore a conspiratorial expression. “I found this.” He wiggled the dish. “The small specimen has grown by 30 percent in four days, something I’ve never observed in a slime mold before. I’ve heard what sounds like a heartbeat, faint as can be, though I know it can’t be, because it has no heart. And it moves. Moves! I caught it trying to climb over the edge of the dish. I have cut portions away, to no apparent detriment of the entire piece, and studied its nature. Its cell structure compares to nothing in nature or other powdre ser I have seen. It is fascinating. I think I’m in love.”
The screen went blank for a few seconds, then Richard returned. “The date is November 14, 1984. A most unusual thing has happened. I accidentally ingested Blue Moon. I have a bad habit, as my wife is wont to remind me, of eating while in my lab. I was studying Blue Moon whilst eating tuna salad on rye. I had gone for seven minutes, twenty-four seconds to get more to drink, then I returned, immersed in my notes as I ate. I noticed an odd taste after several bites. That was when I looked at my plate and saw that the mass had moved onto my sandwich. I wasn’t worried, but I did make note of it, should I die. At least Astrid would know what had happened.
“I didn’t die. I did notice that my ability to astral project had increased. Not only could I see my destination—I could touch things, move them.” He wiggled his fingers. “And the process was much quicker. I’m sure it’s Blue Moon. This has helped me immensely in my work on a classified research program. It is amazing. I wonder what would happen if I ingested more?”
Magnus turned off the tape. “Unfortunately, the tape gets warped from here. We’ve searched, but there’s nothing more about BLUE EYES or the program. But you get the idea.”
The Rogues looked at each other as the pieces came together.
Amy said, “Your father believed Blue Moon came from a meteorite.”
Nicholas shook his head. “He followed a report about a meteor shower, but he never said anything about finding meteorites; just the slime. It wasn’t a meteorite. It was the aircraft that crashed, the one I was commissioned to find over twenty years later.” He told the MacLeod brothers about the eye.
Zoe’s mouth dropped open. “That wasn’t a government experimental aircraft, was it?”
Amy’s hand came up to her throat. “Are you saying…?”
Nicholas nodded. “What’s inside us…I think it’s extraterrestrial.”
EPILOGUE
He walked among the smoldering ruins of Darkwell’s estate. Something was smoldering inside him, too. He had learned enough to figure out that the man had revived the program that had nearly ruined his career twenty-five years ago—and still could.
One of the officers came up to him. “We found three bodies. It’ll take some time to identify them.”
He hoped Darkwell was one of them.
The witnesses, men Darkwell had hired unbeknownst to the CIA, described a harrowing night. People they knew only as the Rogues had come in, attacking the building and setting it afire. One man had heard them referred to as Offspring.
The offspring of the original program. Darkwell couldn’t let it go. He had been obsessed back then, endangering people, their country’s reputation, and their careers. Apparently he was still obsessed.
Another officer walked over with a notepad. “I have a list of people who could have been here. There was a woman named Fonda Raine, but she was seen leaving early that day. She has been living here for the last month. Nicholas Braden also lived here until about a week ago, and there was some kind of skirmish involving him.”
“Thank you.” He spotted a tall man with a shaved head standing alone on the other side of the ruins. “Who’s that?”
The officer turned, blocking his view for a moment. “Who?”
The man was gone. “Never mind.” He walked back to his car, giving his driver Darkwell’s home address. He would discover everything he could about these Offspring and what Darkwell had been up to. He would find the two who’d lived here and question them.
BLUE EYES could not come to light. Not now. Not ever. He would eliminate all evidence…including the Offspring.
Here’s a sneak peek at
BURNING DARKNESS
Book Four in the Offspring series!
Fonda Raine perched on the edge of her sofa and watched the morning news, riveted to the footage from the night before about a Potomac, Maryland, estate on fire. In the glow of the flames licking at the night sky, vile smoke spewed up and disappeared into the darkness. Her fingers curled into the orange velvet cushion, cramping the muscles. Not just any estate. She had lived there for the last month, worked there, loved and lost. Now the estate was gone, and investigators were speculating, so was Darkwell. She knew who had started the fire. The same son of a bitch responsible for Jerryl’s death: Eric Aruda.
He had always been an enemy. First, because he was one of the Rogues. Then the battle became personal between Eric and Jerryl. When Eric set Jerryl on fire, while she and Jerryl were making love, for God’s sake, Eric had become her personal enemy.
She hugged the cushion tight, wishing it were Jerryl. Watching the flames on television brought those horrible moments back: Jerryl’s scream of pain, the eruption of flames, the ungodly smell of burning flesh. She had been right there and couldn’t help him. She’d thrown a blanket over him to smother the flames, but it was too late. She still had nightmares, still heard his screams of agony, and worse, the silence of death.
She couldn’t continue with her life, couldn’t feel worthy of taking another breath if she didn’t kill Eric. For revenge, yes. That was reason enough, b
ut she had another, higher reason: for Darkwell, for her country, to complete the mission Jerryl never got the chance to.
Her eyes narrowed as hatred flowed through her veins. “Eric, if you weren’t one of the three bodies they found in the rubble, you’ll wish you had been.” She doubted that he was dead. The man seemed to be immortal.
All she had left was revenge. It would fuel her, drive her, sustain her until Eric was dead.
She had only been able to use her powers in training sessions. Darkwell had given the important missions to Jerryl and Nicholas Braden. Maybe Darkwell had dismissed her because she was a woman, a petite woman at that. She would show them—no, there was no one but herself to show. That was okay. What had she accomplished in her twenty-two years? Survived growing up in a drug-infested neighborhood with a strung-out father. Fought off a rapist with a razor blade. Managed a vintage clothing store. She’d always told herself she could kill if another sleazy tweak-head tried to force himself on her. She was tough, more than tough. She could definitely kill Eric.
She walked to the kitchen and pulled out a piece of paper and pen from the drawer, then slid into the ice-cream parlor chairs at the table. She stared at the purple lava lamp she used as her centerpiece and brainstormed ways to accomplish her task.
With Darkwell gone, the Rogues no longer had to hide or keep the psychic shield. She should have access to Eric. She would astral project to wherever he was. The only drawback to her ability was that her ethereal form was visible at the target location. If he saw her pop in, he’d probably know who she was and that she was targeting him.
Someone knocked on her door. She rarely had visitors. Her open and charming personality, of course. She peered through the door’s peephole to see a man she didn’t recognize.
“What do you want?” she called out.
“Fonda Raine?”
“Yes.”
“John Westerfield with the FBI. I’m here to ask you about your work with Gerard Darkwell.”
She tried to get a better look at him. He wore a simple suit, hair brushed back in a neat style, posture straight and businesslike, sort of Fox Mulder-ish, she supposed. She’d had a terrible crush on David Duchovny in the X-Files days. He wanted to believe in monsters and psychic abilities, and in oddities like her. The man at her door was handsome, but he was no Fox. She swiped the switchblade she kept in the red acrylic telephone stand by the door and pressed it behind her back as she opened the door.
“Yes?”
The man was probably in his late forties, his brown hair streaked with silver. He glanced in both directions before saying, “You may already know that Gerard Darkwell is—”
“Dead.” She’d almost spit out the word. “Yes, I know.” She heard the tremble in her voice. She had no feelings for the man, but hell, it still affected her.
“The FBI is studying the, shall we say, unusual project you were working on with him. With the fire, some of the data is lost. I need you to fill in the gaps.”
“Will the FBI continue the project?”
“Possibly.”
She liked doing important, top secret work. For the first time in her life, she had felt important. And the money had been great, enough to give her a cushion of security she’d never had.
“Your ID?”
He showed her a badge that certainly looked authentic.
“Come in.”
For the next half hour they talked about DARK MATTER, the Rogues, and she even managed to tell him about what Eric had done to Jerryl without breaking down. Barely. She didn’t, however, tell him her plans. He taped their conversation with a digital recorder. After she told him Darkwell had sent her home because he’d suspected there’d be trouble that night, the agent abruptly stood.
“Thank you, Ms. Blaine. I don’t have to tell you that this remains a highly classified subject that should not be discussed with anyone. I trust you haven’t.”
“Who would believe me?”
“True.”
“Do you believe me?”
“We’ll be in touch.”
She watched him walk to a black sedan parked out on the street and get in, though the car remained in its spot for several minutes. She backed away from the window. Tonight, she would pay a visit to Eric Aruda. And if she was lucky, tonight he would die.
The man posing as John Westerfield closed the car door and dialed his brother. He knew Malcolm would be in a private place awaiting his call.
“It’s Neil. Darkwell was doing exactly what we suspected. He re-created the program with the offspring of the original program. Blaine seems to know nothing about that part.”
He could feel Malcolm’s fury pulsing in the silence but knew restraint would overcome it. After all, restraint had been bred into them from birth.
“Why didn’t he come to me?” he said at last, a rhetorical question, but Neil answered anyway.
“Because he knew you would shut him down. You have a lot more to lose now if this gets out. There are seven offspring who are an immediate problem. Darkwell called them Rogues. Interestingly, his daughter ran off with one of them.”
He chuckled. “I’ll bet he loved that. First take out Blaine. We don’t want her mouthing off to anyone about all this.”
Neil’s mouth watered. “Now? She’s still in her apartment, so small, my fingers could go around her neck twice.”
“You’re salivating, aren’t you?”
Neil swallowed the excess saliva. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been able to kill someone.”
“Not now. We have to be very careful. Everything we’ve worked for is at stake. Someone might have seen you. Wait. Watch her. She’s bound to go someplace where you can take her out neatly and quickly. Then you can work on finding the rest of them. You’ll get to kill plenty.”
Eric Aruda stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. He had alien DNA in him. That friggin’ rocked. Yeah, it was freaky, but it opened up possibilities. What could he do? Who were his ancestors?
The Rogues had finally found out what substance their parents had been given while they were in the first classified program: meteorite slime. Something extraterrestrial had boosted their psychic powers, and the Offspring had inherited that as well as their abilities.
He flopped down in bed, but his eyes were open, his brain wired awake. Why couldn’t he sleep?
Psychosis.
The warning he’d gotten echoed in his head. Another offspring had suffered from sleeplessness right before he went whacked and killed his mother. Eric hadn’t slept since he’d burned Jerryl.
“Too much on your mind, that’s all.”
He opened his nightstand drawer and took out a Ho Ho. As his teeth sunk into the chocolate cake, his mind went to his next task: find Sayre Andrus, who’d been menacing the Rogues. Then Eric would stop using his pyromania, unless absolutely necessary. He no longer had the taste for watching the flames. Yes, he’d felt victory when he’d sent Jerryl to his fiery hell, but something had changed in him, erasing that sensuous pull of destruction. He wasn’t even pissed that he hadn’t been the one to kill Darkwell.
There was one other enemy Offspring out there. Fonda Raine could astral project, which was like remote-viewing; nothing deadly there. He didn’t feel the need to hunt her down. There could be others, though, who should know about their heritage, their skills. He would find them.
But first, he had to sleep.
Fonda waited until four in the morning, when she thought Eric would likely be asleep. She stared at the bathroom mirror. During DARK MATTER, they had learned that she retained her overall appearance when she projected, though it was diaphanous in nature. Nicholas might have described her to the Rogues, and perhaps they’d even seen her. She had to change her look.
“It’s wartime.”
Her blond hair curled up just past her shoulders, giving her a soft look. Jerryl had said he liked it that way. Even the diamond stud in her nose and quadruple piercings on her right ear lent no toughness. Now she had
to become a warrior. Like she had when she was thirteen and her father’s drug buddies began to see that the sulky girl was becoming a woman. When one of them had gone too far. She’d chopped off her long hair and camouflaged her body in oversized clothing.
She’d been entranced by Helen Slater in the movie The Legend of Billie Jean who’d cut her blond hair as she prepared for war in a beachside town. Fonda grabbed the shears from the kitchen drawer and stared at the mirror. Her mouth in a tight line, her eyes narrowed in determination, she cut her hair. Hanks of light blond hair rained into the sink. When she was done, she gave her reflection the hard smile of someone with a hard task in front of her.
“Time to kick Aruda ass.”
She dug into the cabinet beneath the sink and pulled out a box of hair dye. Thirty minutes later she had a dark pink streak on her right side. Her fingers sifted through her locks, still longish in front and short in back. She reclined on her bed and got into the meditative state she’d been getting into since she was twelve, when escaping her surroundings became imperative to her sanity.
The memory of the picture of Eric that used to be on Jerryl’s bulletin board filled her mind. Her soul lifted out of her body. She loved the weightlessness of this state, the freedom. The humming sound started here, pleasant but pervasive.
All around her, clouds swirled like a gentle tornado, sweeping her through the ether. She had learned to go along for the ride, keeping her mind clear. The humming turned into a loud buzzing that hurt her ears and vibrated right through her. Just when she couldn’t stand it anymore, the sound faded, the clouds cleared away, and she stood in a bedroom.