Alien Nation #7 - Extreme Prejudice

by L. A. Graf

  George bound the last of his pressure bandage down and began to rise, but a human hand fell on his shoulder and stopped him. “Broken glass can cut Newcomers just like it can cut you,” Sikes told the FBI agent caustically. “Get someone with shoes on to do it.”

  Jordan grunted. “You have shoes on.”

  George could see his partner’s mouth tighten in response. Unusually for him, however, Sikes said nothing. He circled Ann Arbor without looking at her blood-stained chest, then put a hand on either side of the shattered window and leaned so far out into the darkness that Cathy gasped. “I don’t see any rope.”

  “The Purists probably took it with them when they climbed back onto the roof.” Jordan didn’t seem to notice Sikes’s uncharacteristic silence, but George did. He gave his partner a sharp look. “I’ll get dressed, then see if I can spot any sign of forced entry on the roof. Starling, you and Wampler go up and make sure the copter doesn’t blow away all our evidence.”

  “Yessir.” The two agents ducked through the crowd of curious onlookers and disappeared into the fire stairs. With characteristic good sense, the Tenctonese stayed out of the room even after the agents were gone.

  Jordan glanced at the spreading pink stain across Ann Arbor’s bandaged chest. “That life-flight crew should be here any minute,” he said. “Can you guys hold the fort until then?”

  “I think so,” said George, when neither of his companions spoke. Cathy was intent on her bloody, urgent work, and Sikes still stared out at the night, an odd expression twisting his wide mouth.

  Jordan nodded and turned away, then stopped abruptly in the doorway. He swung back to scowl at Sikes. “That’s red blood on your lip,” he said, as if he’d just realized what that meant. “You caught part of that fight with the Purists?”

  Sikes shrugged without turning away from the broken window. “Just the end of it.”

  “You get a good look at any of them?”

  “Nope.”

  Jordan nodded again, accepting that flat statement, but George knew better. He turned to eye his partner with sudden suspicion. Cathy spared a quick glance up from her bloody hands, as if she had sensed the lie, too.

  “Too bad,” was all the FBI agent said. “We could’ve used an immediate witness. Now we’ll have to wait and talk to Ann Arbor in the hospital.” He glanced at the still form on the floor and frowned again. “If she lives.”

  Jordan disappeared into the hall, leaving uneasy silence behind him. The wind clawed through the jagged glass, snuffling at them like an invisible animal. Then George said, “Matthew” just as Cathy said, “Matt” in identical chiding tones.

  Sikes turned away from the window and glared at them both. “What?”

  “You saw something,” Cathy told him.

  “Something you didn’t tell the FBI,” George added. He meant to be admonishing, but it came out with exasperation. “Why not? What did you see?”

  Sikes gestured at the window without answering. “George, come here—no, dammit, you don’t have shoes on. Go into my bedroom and look down at the outside wall for me.”

  Fiercer exasperation tugged at George, but he flattened his lips to a thin line and ignored it. Leaving Cathy to her vital task, he strode into the connecting door, threading his way through the carelessly flung clothes on the floor until he got to the curtained window. “All right,” he said, raising his voice so Sikes could hear. “I’m looking out.”

  There was a pause. “George, could you climb that wall?”

  “From the ground?” George frowned at the smooth metal ribs that separated the windows, seeing no breaks or crenellations that might have provided handholds. “No, Matthew. I don’t think any Tenctonese could.” He retraced his steps through the room and stood staring at his partner from the connecting door. “You saw a Tenctonese in here tonight,” he said, not making it a question.

  “Yes.” Sikes spoke through clenched teeth, as if the answer had been shaken out of him by force. “I mean, no. Oh, hell, I don’t know.” He swung around from the shattered window, scowling. “I saw someone who moved something like a Tenctonese. That doesn’t mean I saw a Tenctonese. Or that I have to blab it to some fed when I’m not sure.”

  “You don’t want them to think that a Newcomer is behind all these murders, do you?” Cathy didn’t look up as she spoke, but her tense voice melted into affectionate warmth. George saw his partner’s face darken with a mulish look of embarrassment.

  “I just don’t want anyone jumping to conclusions, that’s all,” Sikes growled. “It’ll make catching the bastard that much harder.”

  “The FBI—” George began.

  “The FBI couldn’t find a plastic bag in a garbage dump, much less figure out who’s really behind these murders!” Sikes gave him a grim look. “We’re going to have to do this ourselves, partner, and you know it.”

  George frowned, self-doubt clawing at him. It was one thing to track a killer with the full authority and resources of the Los Angeles Police Department behind him. It was quite another to do it unofficially and against legal prohibitions, with only one belligerent human to help him. Especially when the lives of his wife and his partner’s lover depended on their success. “I don’t think—” he began, but the sound of Susan’s voice out in the hall stopped him.

  “They should be in here.” His wife glanced in from the hall, her strained look fading as soon as she saw George. She stepped back to allow the white-jacketed medical team to swing their wheeled stretcher into the room. Emergency medical technicians and nurses converged on Ann Arbor, taking only a few minutes to clamp the pulmonary vein and release Cathy from her long vigil. The biochemist stood up, swaying with cold, and was promptly dragged into Sikes’s arms, blood and all. He carried her back to their room, looking defiantly careless of who saw them.

  George lingered in Ann Arbor’s room, Susan standing silent and concerned at his side as the emergency team worked over the injured athlete. They exchanged information in the efficiently abbreviated language of medical personnel everywhere, but George sensed an underlying uncertainty beneath their professional calm. It occurred to him that this was probably the first time they’d seen a Newcomer, much less tended one.

  He stepped forward, clearing his throat with a click. “If I can be of any assistance—”

  “Blood,” said the nearest crew member succinctly. George looked down at the short black-skinned female in surprise, not having guessed that she was the one in charge.

  “What can I tell you about it?” he asked.

  “How to get it.” The woman frowned at his uncomprehending look. “We’re going to have to replace what’s all over this floor, and we don’t exactly have a lot of this pink stuff in stock.” She tilted her head. “I assume you guys have blood banks in L.A.?”

  One of the taller men looked up from an instrument before George could answer. “We’re not going to have time to get blood flown out from L.A. Her blood pressure’s dropping too fast.”

  George looked over his shoulder at Susan, asking a question with his eyes and reading the answer in hers. He turned back to the black woman. “I don’t believe that’ll be a problem,” he told her quietly. “Tenctonese were bred to reduce the rejection factors in their blood. There are thirty-five potential donors in this hotel, and you have two of them right here.”

  “What the hell do you mean, we can’t talk to her?”

  It was interesting, George thought, how humans reacted differently to stress. Of the two law enforcement officers assigned to this case, he would have thought David Jordan, the federal employee whose political future rode on his success, would be the one shouting at the doctor. Instead, Jordan leaned quietly against a tiled hospital wall while Jen Protzberg confronted the head of Ann Arbor’s surgical team. Despite the fact that she no longer had any official responsibility for the safety of the symposium guests, real frustration snapped in the Pittsburgh detective’s voice.

  “Anyone feel like explaining why the hell we can’t talk to
her?” This time it was Sikes whose shout rattled the metal gurneys parked outside the operating room. The irritation in his partner’s voice came as no surprise to George. After waiting through the predawn darkness for the operation to be over, Sikes had reached the point of sleep deprivation where irritation replaces fatigue. Of course, with Sikes that never took very long.

  It didn’t help that they had left Susan and Cathy back at the hotel, exhausted from donating blood. Even through the numb tiredness of his own blood loss, George could feel an echo of Sike’s anxiety. In his case, it made him wish everyone would just stop shouting and let him go back to the hotel.

  The older woman who headed the surgical team glared back at Sikes, not intimidated by his bellow. “This isn’t something we decided on, dammit! Your precious witness is in a coma.”

  “Coma?” George frowned up at her, forcing his eyes to focus against the glare of hospital lights. “You mean riasu?”

  The surgeon grunted, scrubbing one hand across her lined face. “That’s what the Tenctonese doctors we teleconferenced with during the surgery called it. They said it was some kind of healing trance. According to them, it was a good sign that she slipped into it, although it scared the hell out of our anesthesiologist.”

  George nodded. “Attaining riasu means she has enough strength to begin healing her injuries. Given how badly she was hurt, she could remain in trance for several days.”

  “Damn.” Sikes slapped a hand on the nearest gurney, hard enough to send it crashing into the wall. The surgeon gave him a disgusted look and spun back into her operating room. “Now what are we going to do?”

  “First,” said George, “we’re going back to our hotel.”

  Jordan sighed and detached himself from the wall while Protzberg fished the keys to her car out of her rumpled jacket. “And then we’re going to cancel the symposium,” Jordan added grimly.

  “Finally!” Sikes slammed the wall with his fist again, this time in fierce satisfaction. He grabbed George and hauled him through the trauma center with long, eager strides, heading out to the Doctors Only space where Protzberg had parked. “It’s about time someone around here woke up and started thinking.”

  Bracingly cold air washed away George’s lethargy as they left the hospital, emerging into a fog-wrapped dawn. He took a deep breath of the river-damp, coal-smoke smell of Pittsburgh. “Yes,” he said clearly. “It’s time someone started doing that.”

  “George.” Sikes threw him a warning look as they slid into the backseat of Protzberg’s car. “George, don’t start getting any brilliant ideas about this case. It’s too late.”

  “It’s not too late, Matthew, it’s exactly the right time.” George leaned forward intently while Protzberg edged her car into the morning flow of traffic. “Mr. Jordan, would you be willing to order a news blackout for the attack on Ann Arbor?”

  “Why?” The FBI agent sounded dubious.

  “Because then whoever attacked her will come back to attack her again.”

  Sikes snorted. “George, you don’t know that! These murders have been random! Even if they didn’t manage to kill Ann Arbor, they’ll just find someone else to attack.”

  “No, they won’t.” George swung around to face his scowling partner, energized by the certainty now buzzing past his fatigue. “I think there’s some connection between the murders and the thefts that we’ve been having. Ann Arbor reported her medals stolen, remember, and Emma Bovary said the Frees lost a manuscript.”

  “Oh, there’s a reliable source.” Sikes sprawled back against the torn seat of the police sedan, looking disgusted. “Why the hell would Purists want to collect souvenirs of the people they’re killing?”

  “Why do serial killers do any of the things they do?” George asked slowly. He held his partner’s eyes, reminding him wordlessly of what he’d seen the night before. Sikes glowered. “Maybe I’m wrong and there’s no connection, but maybe I’m right. If we don’t release the news about Ann Arbor, the killer might come back to finish the job he started. If we stake out her room and wait, we’ll catch him, or them.”

  Silence fell in the car. George glanced toward the front seat as they swung into the hotel driveway, catching Protzberg’s eyes in the mirror. She looked thoughtful, and the little he could see of Jordan’s face at least wasn’t frowning. “Well, is it worth a try?”

  “It’s worth a try,” the FBI agent said slowly. “I’ll put the news blackout in effect if Protzberg will staff the stakeout.” The Pittsburgh detective nodded at once. “But I’m warning you, Francisco. One more murder, and this symposium is history.”

  C H A P T E R 1 5

  “MATT, IS MY Puffins sweater in there?”

  Sikes, still groggy from being up since sometime last night, smiled slightly from beneath the shower’s hot spray. “Penguins,” he called back. “And if it is, it’s awfully wet.”

  The shower curtain billowed inward with a rush of chill air, and he realized Cathy had come into the bathroom when an alien-smooth hand darted into the stall to swat his bare bottom. “Ten thousand comedians, all out of work.”

  He blinked his eyes open and twisted to grab her wrist but caught only a jet of water when she jumped away with a squeal. Her movement jerked the plastic curtain outside the tub, spilling water all over the tile. Cathy laughed as she tried to maneuver out of his reach and away from the puddle at the same time. “Matt, don’t! You’ll get me wet!”

  Sikes grinned but desisted. It was enough just to hear her sounding happy. With everything that had been going on lately, the sparkle of alien laughter was something he hadn’t heard in what seemed like forever.

  He flipped the curtain back inside the tub. “Find your sweater?” he asked, reaching for the soap.

  She gave a little sigh of frustration. “No. I must have left it in Lydia’s room last night. Damn.”

  The unaccustomed curse surprised Sikes almost as much as the information. “Lydia’s room?” He poked his head around the curtain, stopping her just before she closed the bathroom door on her way out. “I thought we told you and Susan to stay here.”

  Cathy frowned as she swept at the water spots on the breast of her blue-green dress. “Yes, well,” she said easily. “We’re not sardonakked, we don’t have to do everything you tell us.” She glanced up with limpid green eyes before he could shout at her. “What’s the difference between staying here and staying in any other room? Whoever’s killing us will come wherever they want. Maybe there’s safety in numbers.” She shrugged, not looking like she believed herself. “Besides, Lydia was upset by everything, and we didn’t want to leave her alone.”

  He could have yelled at her for caring about anybody else’s emotional state when it put her at physical risk, but he knew it was pointless. Retreating back behind the shower curtain, he turned up the hot water to try and hide his irritation. “I’ll check with Lydia on my way down,” he said gruffly. “Now you get going before you’re late for the first talk.” He was running late and would no doubt be getting later still.

  “You’ll be down in time for coffee break?”

  “You bet.” He closed his eyes and stepped fully under the spray again. “Just promise to find some food I can eat, okay?”

  “You bet.” Her very voice smiled, and he couldn’t help but smile with her. Sometimes it was really good to have a significant other.

  Other times it was just good to have a shower. He didn’t hear her leave through the outside door, so he didn’t have that as a signal of closure to turn off his attention; he worried for a moment that she hadn’t arranged to meet George and Susan before going down, that no one would know when she left or when to expect her. He drove that away by scrubbing his hands over his face and groaning. She was smarter than that, she wouldn’t take the danger lightly. Leaning his shoulder against the cool tile, he closed his eyes and let the water pound all thought out of his head.

  That lasted for maybe twenty minutes before he caught himself falling asleep and decided it might be sa
fer not to pass out on the porcelain. Cranking the water off, he tried to pretend he felt awake and invigorated as he fumbled for a towel. Just enough coolness had already crept under the door that a chill prickled up his legs and back as he hurried to dry himself and retain some warmth. He wondered if Cathy would hate him if he just went back to bed instead of joining her downstairs.

  The deep rumble of a bureau drawer opening sounded from the sleeping area.

  Sikes paused in his drying and frowned. “Cathy?”

  She didn’t answer, but the drawer scraped again, then crashed to the floor as though pulled out beyond the limits of its runners. Sikes turned the knob with one hand and pushed the door open with his shoulder. “Cathy? Are you—”

  Wind streamed in from the wrenched open window, and a naked Newcomer crouched on all fours amid Cathy’s scattered clothing, its face pressed almost flat to the ground in her underwear and stockings. Sikes felt a throb of panic knock his breath away as some subconscious instinct connected the misproportioned body type to the reek of Newcomer blood. He jerked back into the bathroom and slammed the door behind him.

  “. . . Oh, shit . . . oh, shit . . .” He collapsed against the sink cabinet, hands in his hair. It was the thing from Ann Arbor’s room, of that much he was sure. Boy, did that make him glad he hadn’t mentioned the Newcomer resemblance where somebody like Jordan could hear. This thing might be of Tenctonese stock, but it wasn’t any Newcomer as Sikes understood the race. Built more like a dog than a gannaum, with no ear canals and no genitalia, binnaum or gannaum. He was gonna have to ask George about this one.

  Assuming he ever got the chance to talk to George again.

  Overwhelmed by a need to do something besides be cornered naked in the bathroom, he stooped to dig through the pile of dirty clothing he’d worn since the night before. The wool sweater he jerked on straightaway, then had to fight with his blue jeans to extricate his Jockey shorts and socks. The socks smelled like hell, but—

  He froze, one foot suspended half in a sock, half out. The smell. It was out there sucking down Cathy’s smell. It was going to wallow in the very essence of her until it could find her anywhere in this city of two million people, then hunt her down and kill her just as it had the Frees, just as it had tried to kill Ann Arbor. Sikes suffered a stab of fear so intense it brought tears to his eyes. He finished yanking on his socks and jeans while cursing hoarsely under his breath.