by Peter David
At the outskirts of the madness, Sikes’s car screeched to a halt. He jumped out, George at his side, both of them wearing their POLICE windbreakers to make it that much easier for the cops to identify them. If things got ugly—at least, uglier than they were right now—Sikes did not want to have to deal with the possibility of being clubbed from behind accidentally. He already stood a good chance of getting his head caved in; he didn’t need to stack the odds even more in his favor.
A narrow funnel for people exiting from the building had been created. Cops had set up barricades and were standing there to reinforce the cramped aisle as people moved through it like escaping Jews through the parted Red Sea. Waiting at the opposite end were police vans to escort them to their cars, or to their homes for those who had walked or taken public transportation.
As people were siphoned through, Sikes ran up to a cop and flashed his shield. “Why’re you bringing people out here?!” he demanded. “They’d be safer in the building!”
“Bomb threat!” replied the cop tersely, bucking momentarily as a Purist tried to push past to get at an evacuating Newcomer. “We got no choice!”
Sikes fired a quick glance at George, who was right behind him. George immediately knew what was going through Matt’s mind, and simply nodded.
Without another word exchanged, George and Sikes ran the gauntlet. Dodging thrown bottles and rocks, they charged through the police-created funnel and in through the front door, pushing past the evacuees who were waiting to be escorted out.
They didn’t have to go far. Just past the entranceway, he saw Cathy, along with Vivian, the instructor. Cathy, being who she was, was helping to usher people through and giving them words of encouragement so that they wouldn’t panic in the face of such overwhelming hostility. Apparently it hadn’t occurred to her that her safety was anything particularly important. At least, not as important as these others.
“Cathy, you okay?” demanded Matt.
She turned to him, clearly surprised, and it was only then that he saw the fear in her eyes that she was so marvelously managing to keep pent up.
“Matt . . . yes . . .”
Sikes guided Vivian toward George and said, “Take her out, George. I’ll go with Cathy.”
“Ma’am,” said George deferentially.
Shielding her with his body, George eased her out into the funnel.
“Your neck . . .” said Cathy, looking at Sikes.
“Ready?” He took her by the arm, concentrating on sizing up the crowd.
“You’re fine!” she said.
“Let’s go!” He grabbed her by the arm and they moved into the funnel.
“You lied to me!” Cathy seemed oblivious to the danger they were in as rocks and bottles sailed past them.
“Let’s talk about this later.”
“Why did you lie?!”
“Cathy, come on!”
Just ahead of them were the last of the evacuees. The crowd intensified its shouting and taunting, as if sensing that this was going to be their last shot.
Matt looked right and left, looked at the faces twisted in hate, and felt a tremendous amount of embarrassment for his entire race.
And then he heard a scream.
Just up ahead of them in the funnel, one of the larger Purists had managed to shove his arm through, over the shoulders of one of the cops. He had clamped onto the scruff of the neck of one of the Newcomers, and Sikes immediately recognized him as being Noel Parking. Parking was stronger than the Purist, but he was more terrified of the crowd, and the terror paralyzed him.
Sensing a potential victim, the crowd started to surge forward. Cops on the street started to converge to shore up the hole in the funnel.
And then, with a terrified yell, Noel was yanked into the crowd.
With a move borne far more of an instinct to help others than common sense, Cathy started to shove forward to try and help. Sikes grabbed her and pulled her back.
Too slow. Someone else, ducking under the barricade, grabbed at Cathy, snagging her by the leg. Sikes grabbed at her too late, and Cathy was hauled, screaming Matt’s name, into the throbbing mass of humanity.
The crowd started to converge, and George—pushing Vivian forward, turned to see that he’d been cut off from his partner. He shoved Vivian forward into the arms of waiting cops, turned, and started to push through to get to Matt.
And Matt Sikes, without hesitation, hurled himself into the crowd like a linebacker.
The Purists were fueled by anger, but Sikes was spurred on by anger supplemented by fear and desperation. He shoved his way in, yanking people this way and that, kicking, biting, totally heedless of his own safety. “Cathy!” he screamed. “Cathy!”
He found her. She was five rows deep, and she was next to Noel Parking. Parking, now figuratively backed up against the wall, was fighting desperately, and his Newcomer strength was serving him well. Then a bottle cracked across his head and he went down.
Sikes slugged one man in the face. Blood fountained from the Purist’s nose as he staggered back, and Sikes grabbed Cathy around the waist. With one hand she anchored herself onto Matt, but with the other she was reaching out for Noel, trying to save him. And it became quickly apparent to Sikes that she wasn’t going willingly without him.
Noel was trying to get to his feet. Someone kicked him viciously, and he rolled over toward Sikes and Cathy. He looked up at Sikes with terrified eyes, and Sikes yanked out his gun, aiming it at the infuriated Purists who were converging on him. Cathy leaned forward and grabbed Noel, yanking him to his feet. The three of them tried to back up, but there was nowhere for them to go, hemmed in on all sides. Cops were trying to fight their way through to them. The barricades were starting to collapse, and in the distance there was the sound of police sirens, but they were going to be too late . . .
And then there was an explosion like a thunderclap, followed by a second and then a third. It was absolutely deafening. Purists were clapping their hands to their ears, staggering under the pure noise and ferocity of it.
And then came a voice through a megaphone. As it spoke, booming everywhere, Sikes seized the opportunity to push his way through, dragging Cathy and Noel behind him. And as he shoved the two of them over the battered barricades, into the arms of waiting police officers, he recognized the voice.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” it said with the calm drawled assurance of an airline pilot. “I’m not going to see any police officers injured. Now if it means shooting a few of you with this assault rifle, that’s fine by me. I’m a month from retirement, so if they suspend me it’s a vacation for me. Who’s going to be the first to volunteer for target practice?”
There was uncomfortable murmuring from the crowd. This had taken a turn they weren’t expecting. Then they started to get noisy again, apparently building up their nerve, feeding off each other.
George was at the wheel of Matt’s car, having headed there the moment he saw Matt, Cathy, and Parking break from the crowd. Matt dashed down the funnel, pushing the two of them ahead. A human woman was standing to one side, and then she shrieked Noel’s name, pointing and yelling. Sikes practically pushed the staggering Newcomer into the arms of his woman.
Parking turned, blood trickling down his face, and he looked at Sikes with surprise. “You had a gun . . . because you were a policeman,” he said thickly.
“Ma’am, get him to an ambulance,” Sikes told her. “They’re over there.”
Parking was reaching out, and he touched Sikes’s temple. “Thank you . . .” he managed to get out, and then the woman pulled him away as they headed toward where Sikes had indicated.
“Matt, come on!” called out George. “This isn’t over yet! We’ve got to get Cathy out of here now!
Matt pushed the shaken Cathy into the back of the car, jumped in behind her, and slammed the door. The car took off with a roar, George cutting hard to the right. A thrown rock glanced off the driver’s side window but only left a small nick in the glass.
The man was dressed in plainclothes. His hair was thinning and black with speckles of gray. He had a large jaw and a wide, muscular body. Then the car turned out onto the main road and he was lost from sight.
“Who was that?” George asked, not necessarily expecting an answer.
He got one anyway. “That was Jack Perelli,” said Sikes.
“The man you told me about?” asked Cathy.
“Yeah. Him.” He looked at her, but the expression on her face said that the fact that he had lied to her was still very fresh on her mind.
“So that is the legendary Jack Perelli,” George said from the front seat. “Very fortunate that he showed up when he did. You may owe him your life, Matt.”
“Won’t be the first time,” said Sikes. He turned to Cathy. “You okay?”
“Yes. Just a little shaken. I owe you my life, too, Matt. Thank you.”
It was the last words out of her for the rest of the ride over to George’s house. And after Sikes dropped George off there, she was silent the rest of the way to their apartment building.
He parked outside it and killed the engine. For a few seconds the two of them just sat there, saying nothing. Finally, unable to stand it any longer, Sikes said, “Okay, I confess, I lied about my neck. Okay? I’d think that saving your life would make up for a lie.”
She gave a small sigh. “Your saving my life makes me feel even more for you than I did already. But . . . it still bothers me, Matt. How can you care for me enough to risk your life but not enough to risk the truth?”
“Because you don’t want to hear the truth!”
“And what is the truth?”
“The truth is that I can’t sit around with a bunch of strangers and talk about my sex life! Sex is something you do. It isn’t something you talk about!”
“How can you learn anything if you don’t talk about it?”
“I’ll read a book!” said Sikes in exasperation. “What’s the big deal?”
“Matt, sex is the most intimate form of communication there is. You seem embarrassed about it.”
He clapped his hands. “Bingo! To me, intimacy isn’t something that I like to stand up in public and discuss. Intimacy is . . . intimate. You want to know what sex is? Sex is a nasty thing you do in the dark. And you’re lucky if you get away with it!”
If he’d announced that he fantasized about sheep wearing negligees, he could not have gotten a more surprised look from Cathy. “Where do you get ideas like that?”
“What makes you think your ideas are any better?” he shot back. Then he sank down a little in the seat. “Let’s try it my way,” he said. “We’ll take it slow. We’ll take it easy. We won’t discuss it with every Tom, Dick, and Harry . . .”
“Matt, it won’t work,” she said flatly. “We need to understand each other’s bodies.”
“Cathy, I’ve had sex a lotta times, and I never understood a woman’s body.”
“This is a defense?” she asked.
“No, it’s a statement. Men don’t want to know that much about it.”
She shook her head sadly. “Matt.” She took his hand in hers and squeezed it. “With me, ignorance is not bliss. It’s suicidal. You have to decide what you want.”
She got out of the car and Sikes watched, feeling torn, as Cathy headed inside.
He thudded his fist against the top of the car and snarled, “That’s just great.”
C H A P T E R 2 0
SOMEWHERE IN THE background, music was playing.
The city was spread out below Sikes, twinkling invitingly. A blimp cruised overhead for no apparent reason.
Sikes pulled anxiously at the jacket of his tuxedo as he paced the roof of his apartment building. He turned toward the young boy who was seated nearby wearing a sequined sweatshirt, and snapped his fingers. In response, the boy raised a mirror for Sikes to look into. Sikes straightened his hair, adjusted his tie.
He heard the telltale click of the door that opened out onto the roof. He turned and there was Cathy, wearing a long blue chiffon gown. Her fingers were interlaced in front of her. Her expression was one of love and understanding.
“Cathy . . .”
She smiled broadly. “Matt.”
They moved toward each other. Sikes felt as if his feet weren’t even touching the ground. “All this has been my fault,” he told her.
“No, mine,” she replied dreamily.
They came together, hands clasping and intertwining. At that moment Sikes was painfully aware that what they felt for each other was far more important than the differences that threatened to keep them apart.
Off to the side, the boy in the sequined T-shirt lifted the tone arm on a record player. He dropped the needle down onto the spinning surface of an old 78. A moment later, the voice of Fred Astaire began to warble “The Way You Look Tonight.”
Cathy and Sikes drew closer together, and then suddenly they separated. Their hands still clasped, they stretched in opposite directions, throwing their free arms wide dramatically. He spun her around, her dress swirling about her, and then the music carried them away.
Cathy sailed into Matt’s arms and the two of them moved in time to the music. Matt had never taken dancing lessons, but it did not matter. He was a natural, leading Cathy with style, elegance, and grace. She was totally comfortable, totally at ease, and totally swept away in the romance of the moment. The rooftop became their ballroom, the small record player their orchestra, and the world their own.
Bubbles sailed past them, blown through a bubble wand by the impish looking boy. As they danced, the bubbles seemed to surround them. Lights sparkled off them, and it was as if they were dancing through stars.
Cathy whirled through Matt’s confident arms, and then he swung her down in a stylish dip, followed by an elegant swing upward.
And then he was gaping at her in amazement.
She was human.
Her long auburn hair, thick and rich, accentuated her exquisite eyebrows. Her ears were small and round and perfect. In the background, Astaire was singing “Oh, but you’re lovely, with your smile so warm . . .”
Energized by the miracle that had been handed them, Cathy and Matt resumed their dance with more power and enthusiasm than before. Someone had once said that ballroom dancing was two people doing vertically what they’d really like to be doing horizontally. That might very well have been the case with Cathy and Matt. For now, with the final barriers removed, any possible trepidation and uncertainty that had remained between them was gone. Now there need be nothing between them, spiritually, physically, or otherwise.
Sikes knew that he was flying now. Knew that nothing could possibly bring him down to earth. He was sailing through the cosmos with Cathy, who had crossed a galaxy to find him, and he could not remember a time when he had ever been this happy.
He looked down at Cathy, to see if she was as captivated by the moment as he. But she was looking at him in a way that he had not expected. There was . . . surprise. No. Not just surprise. Shock.
He mouthed the words, “What is it?” but found he couldn’t make his voice come out. She shook his hands away, gaping. What in hell was wrong with her?
Or was there . . . something wrong with him?
He stretched out a hand and snapped his fingers. Instantly the smiling boy was there, once again holding a mirror in front of Sikes. He stared into it.
A stranger stared back. A Newcomer.
Slowly Sikes raised his hand to his face . . . and the Newcomer in the mirror did likewise.
He reached up and put his hands to the sides of his head. His ears were gone. Frant
ically his fingers searched his face and the top of his skull, looking for hair, along with the frightened mirror reflection.
There was nothing. Nothing except large brown spots decorating his skull in a random pattern.
Cathy the human was staring at Sikes the Newcomer with unremitting dread. Time seemed to slow down and distort, stretching endlessly off into nowhere. Sikes was rooted to the spot.
Out of nowhere, Jack Perelli was in front of him, speaking in mocking tones through a megaphone.
“I warned you, Sikes,” he said, his voice drowning out the dance music. And now the music was shifting, and it was no longer Fred Astaire. It was the steady thudding of the kana drum, the relentless thump, thump, thump. “When they first landed, remember? I told you that it was going to happen. They’re going to take over. They’re going to ruin the human race. They may have two hearts, but they’re heartless. They’re soulless. They’re not human, and they have no business being on this world. And you agreed with me, Sikes . . . remember? But it didn’t stop you, did it.”
Matt was clutching at the top of his head, as if it were one of those skin wigs that made you look bald, like he’d had when he was a kid. He was trying to pull it off. But he couldn’t. It was there. It was him.
Thump, thump, thump intoned the kana, louder and more deafening, and he put his hands to his non-ears but could still hear the boy’s mocking laughter coupled with Perelli’s diatribe.
“You had it coming, Sikes!” Perelli was shouting. “I warned you about them! I warned you! I—”
Thump Thump THUMP THUMP
Thump!
Sikes sat up so fast that he slammed his head against the headboard of his bed.
He sat there for a moment, stunned. His apartment was in darkness. He sat up, reflexively running his fingers through his hair before it occurred to him that he should be surprised that it was there.
There was, of course, no rooftop dance. No human Cathy. No little boy. No Perelli . . . well, at least not on the roof at that moment. No . . .