by Pamela Fryer
Memories of Amy Farnsworth’s dead body flashed through her mind, mixing grotesquely with the sights and sounds in front of her. Brooke ground her teeth and forced away the living nightmare.
A pile of scrapped metal boxes smashed to the floor with an unholy racket. Brooke tensed, swinging her aim in a wide arc.
She wasn’t alone in here, that much was certain.
She flicked the flashlight back on and held it above her raised weapon. The small LED flashlight was bright, but its beam didn’t travel far. Bluish light passed over clutter to her right and gnarled metal to her left. She spun in a circle. That horrible stench was all around her.
Strange sucking noises came from the toppled crates. Brooke spun back around, the thin beam of light passing over the dead animal responsible for the nasty stench. It lay on the floor about six feet away.
What was that? A moose? It was round and hairy, with the bloated belly of a large farm animal...
And it was moving.
“What the hell?”
Like a dead mouse filled with maggots, the body writhed and squirmed. It shifted, and what appeared to be a giant grasshopper’s head swiveled in her direction. Beady black eyes fixed on her. Four beady black eyes.
Holy shit.
It rose, eight legs unfolding and extending like a great hairy spider waking from a slumber. It was as big as a Rottweiler. Giant mandibles flipped open and a screech emanated a thousand times worse than fingernails on a chalkboard.
I am not seeing this.
It started toward her, scrabbling across the floor and up onto an old steel production table. She staggered backward, firing in rapid succession—once, twice, three times.
Thundering reports bounced off the walls and the muzzle flash illuminated an unbelievable horror.
Was it a spider? A beetle? A giant cockroach? It winced as she hit it dead-on with all three shots, but kept coming.
Two bright orange bursts soared out of the darkness, exactly like those in the forest. One severed the creature’s front leg with a spray of sparks, eliciting another God-awful shriek. The second burst hit a stack of steel crates piled beside the table. They toppled toward her. Still staggering backward, Brooke lost her balance.
The creature leapt, flying straight for her face. She threw her arm up as she fell and dropped her flashlight. Her head hit the cement floor and a flash of stars filled her eyes.
Chapter Two
Someone loomed over Brooke. Instinct, training, and terror all kicked in at once. She drove her palm up, connecting with a jaw. Teeth clacked together. She drew back her left arm and threw a punch that glanced off her intended target, but still brought a good amount of force. She kicked out and connected with something solid that gave way beneath her boot. Brooke rolled out of the way and pushed to her feet.
A man hit the floor with a grunted “Oof.” Brooke dove sideways, feeling through murk to find her weapon first and her flashlight second.
He started to rise. She jumped to her feet and backed away, drawing the Taser from her hip holster. “Hold it!”
“Do not be afraid.”
“Kiss my ass!”
He wobbled unsteadily as he pushed to his feet.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “I said don’t move!”
Brooke didn’t like being crowded into the clutter like she was. She sidled left to a clearer spot. “Sara! Sara Brown, I’m here to help you!”
The man took a step toward her. Brooke staggered back and nearly tripped over a length of steel pipe. It clattered away, the only sound echoing through a suddenly spooky silence.
The guy was gigantic, with muscles upon muscles. He wore a black sleeveless shirt that clung to a massively broad chest. In the darkness she couldn’t see much detail, but his gleaming white arms were cut beautifully, and as thick as her thighs. Thank God she’d had a split second of surprise on him, or she never would have brought him down.
He winced, tucking one arm against his ribs. He was hurt. Another reason she’d managed to gain the upper hand.
“I am Jager Tolon.”
“FBI?” she asked, suddenly afraid she’d assaulted a Company Man.
“No.” He took a step forward.
“Don’t move, I said.” Things were happening too fast. Had she just been attacked by a rabid hedgehog? A rabid boar? A rabid something.
She swiped at a trickle on her forehead. The back of her hand came away bloody. She touched two fingers to the sore spot. “What the hell was that thing?”
The instant she asked she was sorry she had. She’d religiously watched all nine seasons and both The X-Files movies. The last thing she wanted was knowledge that could get her killed.
She just wanted Sara, and to get the hell out of this nightmare.
“Sara Brown! There is a dangerous animal loose in the plant. Stay where you are and I’ll come to you!”
“There is no one else here.”
Brooke realized the man, Jager...something-or-other, held a shiny object in his right hand.
“No one alive,” he finished.
“Drop it,” she ordered.
He looked down at the object as if remembering he held it. Then he looked at her. Her fear jumped to a higher level—and there weren’t many higher levels left. She continued backing away.
“Stop.” He held up a hand.
“You stop.” She gave a threatening nudge with the Taser.
“As you please. Do not go over there.”
“What?” She scowled. “I thought it was me giving you orders.”
“I only wish to help you.”
“Yeah, right.” She smelled it then, the coppery tang of blood. It rose above the rotting odor that faded with the departure of the rabid boar.
“She is dead.”
His words trickled into her awareness like slowly melting ice. Brooke whirled around and took two tentative steps. A Ked sneaker jutted from beneath a pile of sodden newspapers. She took another step.
“Oh-my-God, oh-my-God, oh-my-God.” Brooke rushed forward, but stopped short before she reached the body.
If the day hadn’t turned frighteningly surreal, she wouldn’t believe what she saw was a body, just a cheap Halloween prop dressed up in girl’s clothes.
It looked like a plastic replica of a skeletal corpse, like a gag prop dropped from above to make trick-or-treaters squeal with delight.
Only this wasn’t October thirty-first, and this body wasn’t plastic. It was human. And those weren’t newspapers, but a gooey mixture of disintegrating skin and gore-soaked cloth. What remained of the girl looked like the inside of an uncooked sausage left to congeal in the sun.
“Oh God, no.” Please, no. Not again. How would she ever explain this to a heartbroken parent?
Blood stained the ground around the corpse, but streak marks made it look like someone had hastily swabbed it up.
Had this man killed the girl and been trying to clean up his crime when Brooke interrupted him? In the back of her mind her fear jumped another notch—the topmost notch she was sure—and somewhere through it all she understood shock was creeping over her senses.
Get a grip, Brooke.
The hair was red. Silken, luxurious, wavy red. A medical alert bracelet glinted from a wrist as thin as a strip of beef jerky. Sara was a blond, dishwater blond when natural, but just to be sure, Brooke knelt beside her.
“Do not touch the body,” the man warned her.
His warning came a few seconds too late. Her fingers had already brushed over the dead flesh. The bracelet identified the victim as Emily Randall. She was allergic to bee venom.
Brooke kept him in her peripheral vision, not interested in becoming victim number two. How could this possibly be one of the girls she’d seen fleeing the compound? Degradation like this didn’t happen in forty-five minutes. The body looked like it had been rotting for weeks in a swamp or the desert. Brooke couldn’t even imagine what would cause a body to look like this. But thi
s was definitely the powder blue tunic dress she’d seen slip into the woods, a match to the other cultists’ uniforms.
This girl wasn’t her quarry, yet she was a young girl who would return to her family in a body bag.
Brooke looked up through a blur of tears. “What the fuck was that thing?”
The man leaned on the wall of a tool crib, bent over with one hand pressed to his ribs. His face was a grimace of pain.
“Black Tetra. A queen.”
Brooke stood. “What is that, some South American spider? How the hell did it get here?”
Dimly she remembered the flash in the forest, what had looked like the burnt path of a downed plane. That must be it. Some exotic, South American spider had grown inordinately huge by wallowing in radioactive waste, probably dumped there by a greedy American company, and decided to hitch a ride to meatier feeding grounds.
Brooke pressed a hand to her forehead. I have to stop watching Syfy Channel. But what other explanation was there?
Before Jager could answer, he collapsed.
“Oh great.”
She looked at the dead girl’s body. He’d said not to touch it. Why—evidence? Or was something about it dangerous?
Brooke reverted to her police training. Priorities: the woman was dead, but Jager was still alive. First things first. She didn’t feel safe without her gun, and her flashlight would help too.
She found the .45 jammed up against a steel cabinet and the flashlight not far away, lying next to an empty beer bottle. She set it on one of the fallen steel boxes, aimed so it illuminated the man on the floor.
Instincts told her to leave. If the FBI was involved, she wasn’t welcome. I don’t need any more trouble than I’ve already got.
But he appeared to be alone, and if he could answer her questions—about that thing and if he’d seen Sara—then Brooke wanted the answers.
She grabbed hold of one corded arm and heaved. He was as heavy as he looked, and it took everything she had to roll him over onto his back. He groaned, but didn’t open his eyes.
Damn, he has a hot bod. As freaked out as she was, she couldn’t deny that.
His sleeveless shirt was one of those polyester bodybuilding shirts meant to help regulate body temperature, but she didn’t recognize the logo at the neckline. His cargo pants looked unusual too. An unusual ornament hung on a silver chain around his neck, currently sitting in the U-shaped divot at the base of his throat. It looked like a pendant, but somehow reminded her of military dog tags.
Brooke focused on the strange shape to keep her thoughts from the dead woman lying a few feet away, yet she couldn’t escape the unpleasant memories nagging in the back of her mind—unpleasant memories about the case that drove her from Oregon five years ago. She’d vowed she would never lose another client, or she’d give up her business for good and take a boring job where she’d never have to see a dead body again. Librarian would fit the bill perfectly.
If she didn’t have Sara to find, she’d do it right now.
She didn’t want anything to do with mutated spiders from South America or mysterious Men in Black or very dark, haunted factories. Most of all, she wanted no part of her dying hometown and the ghosts she’d left buried here.
A sexy hunk in a clingy shirt, however, she might consider a small part of.
Jager’s pants were cargo style, but the pockets didn’t have openings she could find. She patted him down, feeling for a cell phone.
She couldn’t, in good conscience, simply abandon him. If she could find a phone and call someone, that wouldn’t be the same as just leaving him here.
She glanced over her shoulder. The girl’s body looked different, almost drier. Had she grown more dehydrated in the last two minutes?
Don’t look. There’s nothing you can do for her now.
It wasn’t hard focusing on other things. Jager Tolon was a sculpted masterpiece of pure male perfection. He flinched under her touch as if ultra-sensitive. His skin was smooth and unmarred, with no tattoos. None that she could see, anyway. That was strange today, but admirable. She hated tattoos, especially the trendy ones. In her mind, they were as conformist and weak-minded as taking up smoking to look cool.
She smoothed her hands over the oddly soft material of the cargo pants, searching for front pocket contents. She ran up against a solid ridge and jerked her hand back. Heat crawled into her cheeks.
Typical male—hard even when he’s unconscious.
She sat back on her heels. There was something alluring about such a powerful man lying prone before her, as helpless as a freshly caught fish. In another place, another time, she’d be incredibly turned on.
But this wasn’t another time or another place. It was the horrible here and now, and a tragedy had just occurred. She could not forget that a girl lay dead just a few feet away, nor the fact she had lost her only lead to Sara Brown.
Chapter Three
Jager drifted closer, and then farther, from consciousness. He wove in and out of a frightening memory—the pain he felt made him think he was still in the prison facility on Parra Oneous, being beaten by the guard who had broken his collarbone with a strike from a discipline baton. He mentally prepared himself for another blow. Then a light, sweet scent like Rilly flowers slipped over his senses, and he remembered where he was. Earth.
The female was touching him, and it was nice. Very, very nice.
She was a contradiction to all he was accustomed to: beautiful and robust with the dark, lustrous hair of a noble; forceful and authoritative like a soldier; yet now sliding her hands over him in a sensuous caress like a trained Rashee.
Whether she was one of those, all three, or simply an Earthling as his rational mind was trying to convince him, she was just as unattainable.
Even if it were allowed, there was no room in a warrior’s life for consorting. His sworn duty as a soldier was to serve the Interplanetary Alliance and defend protected worlds like this one. Marriage was forbidden, and sexual intercourse was so strictly regulated he didn’t bother to hire a Rashee on the rare occasions he returned to Ocreon, or encountered an Arissian harem vessel.
His jaw ached. The Earth female threw a hearty punch. He might have chipped a tooth when she caught him under the chin. Those were the least of his worries. Two, maybe three ribs were broken. He had to get back to his ship and into the medical chamber so he could mend his broken bones and return to the hunt as soon as possible. The death of the Earth inhabitant meant he’d already failed his mission.
The Tetra had to be destroyed, or this planet was doomed.
He had to concentrate, and allowing himself to be distracted by a beautiful Earth female was completely unacceptable.
* * * * *
Brooke caught a whiff of the noxious odor. Heavy fear came rushing back. She slapped Jager lightly on each cheek. His brows drew together.
“Wake up. The stinky spider is back. Get up, or I leave you here.”
“Incubating.”
“Say what?” When he didn’t answer, she tapped his cheeks again, twice. The extra slap just for good measure.
His eyes blinked open and fixed on her. Only now did she notice they were the most unique mint-green color she’d ever seen. Silver flecks lined the outer edge instead of typical brown. Silver-green eyes. God, could he get any better?
If he offers to cook me dinner, I’ll take off my clothes right here.
“It has fed. It is incubating.”
“Do I want to know what that means?”
He shook his head. All right. Then I won’t ask.
“We should leave anyway. I need to report a dead body.”
He lifted his hand. One finger touched her arm. “Help me.”
She hesitated. “I can take you to a hospital.”
He closed his eyes. “No. Please...wait with me.”
She heard a snap pop open. He took a Palm Pilot from one of his thigh pockets and pressed commands into its face. It beeped and started to hum. He reached over his stomach and p
ressed it to his ribs. He winced, squeezing his eyes shut as he bit out an oath in a foreign language.
The Palm Pilot slipped out of his grasp and beeped out a fast warning. When he strained to grab it, she reached over and helped him. It just seemed like the polite thing to do.
As she leaned over, she caught him staring. He examined her face unabashedly, making that hot embarrassment creep up her neck again. Had he felt her touch his...?
“I am sorry for your Sara Brown.” He spoke with the severe tone of a high-ranking official, like a sergeant or general, but his voice rang genuine.
“That isn’t Sara. Her name was Emily Randall. But it’s a terrible thing nonetheless.”
He groaned and eased his head back. She was starting to feel bad for punching him.
“Was there a war here?”
It was such a strange question, she didn’t understand at first. Obviously his clothes weren’t the only odd thing about him. “What? No.”
“What is this place?” His gaze searched the high ceiling of the cavernous tomb.
“It’s just old. Nobody uses it anymore.”
“Where I come from, no place is left to decay like this. Land is too rare to waste.”
The unit in her hand beeped. Jager reached over his chest with the opposite arm. His hand covered hers as he gently took the device. His touch was tender, which was generous considering she had pounded on him without mercy not five minutes ago.
The unit’s screen glowed more brightly than anything she’d ever seen, and strange symbols danced around its face. He groaned as he sat up. Brooke jumped to her feet and helped him.
Just touching that incredible body made her fingers tingle, not to mention other parts she had nearly forgotten about.
He bent over, drawing deep breaths, barely managing to remain on his feet.
“You seem like you’re okay, so I’m going to go.” She hooked a thumb toward the door. An overwhelming urge to get the hell out of there wound tight inside her.