by Gini Koch
“Down boys, down. Come on now, be good dogs, get down.” Dad was not having the slightest effect.
“Dogs, SIT!” Mom called. Both male dogs’ butts hit the floor.
“Thank you,” Martini said weakly, as he wiped the slobber off. “Can I use your bathroom?”
“Sure, sure,” Dad said, ushering us in while the dogs trotted over to Mom and pretended they were well-behaved. “You know where it is, Jeff?”
“Guh,” Martini said, and walked through their living room. He closed the bathroom door, and I heard it lock.
“Nice digs. Your place is like triple the size of mine.”
“Christopher took care of us,” Mom said.
There was something about her voice that made me look around. “What are you doing here?”
Christopher was leaning against the far wall, standing behind a sofa, petting two of our cats. “I came by to visit your parents.” He said it as if it were a totally normal thing. “Why is Jeff here?” he asked snidely. Ah, the Christopher I was used to was back.
“Because I can’t find anything without an escort. Now, hope you enjoyed, sorry to see you go, catch you at the launch site.” If Mister Pissy was here, I didn’t want him around. I’d kind of liked him for a moment or two when he was being nice, but now I wondered if I should have instead taken the opportunity to throw up on him.
“Kitty, stop being rude.” Mom gave Christopher a sympathetic look. “She gets cranky when she’s tired.”
“She’s tired a lot,” he replied with a grin. They shared their chuckle. I tried to remind myself that I could just use this whole situation later to get my rage going.
“Did you take care of Claudia and Lorraine?”
“My father had already thought of it. They’re both good.”
“Then, again, nice to see you, clear out. I’d like some time alone with my parents.”
“Alone with them, you, and Jeff?” Glare #1 was in full force.
Before I could answer this, Martini came out of the bathroom. He spotted Christopher, and his eyes narrowed. “Nice to see you. Why are you here?”
“I invited him,” Mom said icily. “Unlike you, he wasn’t suggesting using my child as bait for an alien monster.”
Martini winced. “Look—”
“No, I think Angela’s right to be upset,” Dad interjected. “You were intimate with our daughter, and then the next morning you suggest she be tossed into the jaws of death.”
Martini winced again, and Christopher was running through his full assortment of glares.
“Frankly,” Mom said, “I really think we should ask you to leave, Jeff, not Christopher.”
Martini had his eyes closed, and his expression headed from painful headache to total migraine. He looked awful and then started to look worse.
“Mom, Dad, shut up.” I ran and got to Martini as he started to collapse. “I mean, it! All of you shut up and stop hating on him right now!”
I flung his arm around my shoulders and led him into their bedroom. I managed to get him onto the bed. His face was pale, and his skin felt clammy. I stroked his head, and he groaned. “Hang on, Jeff,” I whispered as I kissed his forehead. It seemed to help him a little bit.
I went back out to the living room and spoke to my parents. “I need Jeff, and I need him functioning. He’s an empath, and all his blocks are shot. This is grueling for him—he can’t block out anything right now—and you hating him is making him sick. For all I know, it could kill him. He needs rest, and we don’t have the time. And instead of helping me, you’re sitting around with Mr. Wonderful here plotting against me and ripping Jeff.”
“We’re not plotting,” Mom said. “We’re upset, and, as your father said, I think we have a right to be.”
“No, you don’t. This isn’t about whether you do or don’t like a boyfriend of mine. This is about national freaking security. You of all people should be clear on that.”
“We’re clear, but we don’t like it,” Dad said.
“I don’t care. What you do or don’t like doesn’t matter. You need to stop, to calm down, and if you can’t calm down, to get the hell out of this room. Jeff can’t take it, and he doesn’t deserve it, either. If he hadn’t been smart enough to suggest me as bait, I would have suggested it myself.”
“Why?” Dad asked.
“Because it’s the intelligent and right thing to do. That is, if we want to actually save the world. If we don’t, then, by all means, please keep on raging and sending off emotions that Jeff can’t deal with. Maybe you can kill him and save Mephistopheles some time and effort.” I took a deep breath and tried to calm down. “I have to check on him.” I went into the bedroom and saw an interesting sight.
Duchess, Dudley and Dotty were all on the bed with Martini. He was cuddled next to Duchess as if she were me, but I chose not to take it personally. Dudley was alongside his back, and Dotty had her head on his legs. Duke was on the floor at the foot of the bed, completely alert. All four dogs looked at me, but none of them barked or tried to get up.
Our cats were there, too, all three of them camped out around Martini’s head. Sugarfoot was grooming Martini’s hair and purring. Candy and Kane were curled up and appeared to be sleeping, but they both opened their eyes, and I got the same look from them as I had from the dogs. Martini wasn’t reacting to anything—I got the feeling he was asleep, and I knew he needed to stay that way for a while.
I backed out of the room. “Mom, Dad, come here . . . silently.” I felt them move up next to me. “You want to hate on Jeff anymore?”
They were both quiet for a few long moments. “No,” Dad said softly. “I think it’s clear we were in the wrong.”
Mom closed the door as quietly as possible. “I think we’ll meet you out in the hall.”
We went back to the living room. Christopher still looked angry. I decided I wanted some of this handled before we went out to take on the big fugly, even if it meant I’d have him less angry out there.
“Mom, Dad, do you think you two can calm down so you could stay here and watch over Jeff?”
“Sure, kitten,” Dad said. “We’ll be fine.”
“Good.” I pointed to Christopher. “You, come with me.”
CHAPTER 36
I HEADED OFF DOWN THE HALL. I considered going to my room but figured anywhere on this floor was too close to Martini to prevent his picking up the anger I was feeling toward Christopher. I wasn’t sure if anywhere in the whole complex was going to be far enough away from Martini to be any kind of help, but at least I wasn’t going to be screaming at Christopher right by his head.
Christopher didn’t argue. He followed me out of the room and down the hall to the elevator banks. We got in—I wanted to hit the close button so the doors would slam on him but refrained. I was very proud of myself.
The moment the elevator doors closed, he was at me. “Why did you want me to leave?” He hit the button for Floor 15.
“Because you were trying to kill him.”
He laughed. “Hardly.”
“Right. Glaring and sending off all your nasty vibes wasn’t going to affect Jeff, right? He’s just an empath who’s got no blocks left.” I got right up into Christopher’s face. “You, more than anyone else, should be ashamed of yourself. You know what happens to him if he’s burned out, and he is, and you of all people would recognize the signs even if I hadn’t told you. You went to my parents’ room to get them riled up, so the moment they saw him, they’d be on his case.”
His eyes were flashing. “I didn’t go there with any evil intent. I’m not the one who was intimate with you, after all.”
I didn’t do it consciously, but my handprint was on his face, so I had to figure I’d just slapped Christopher as hard as I possibly could. He stared at me, surprisingly not glaring in any way. “It’s none of your goddamned business if I sleep with every man in the state of Arizona or every A-C on the planet. It’s not my parents’ business, either. It’s mine. And we have a world of
horror heading toward us, and all you can do is play games.”
We were back to patented Glare #1. His eyes flashed, and I noted they were the sort of green that looked almost blue close up. “I’m not playing a game,” he said through clenched teeth. He was leaning toward me. I resisted the urge to head-butt him.
“Then what do you call all the baiting, the insults, you being a nasty smart-ass every single time I’m near you except when I was ready to throw up in the Bat Cave? And what do you call your doing all of this while Jeff’s basically in a state of collapse? Because I call it you being the biggest jerk on the planet.”
We were almost to the 15th floor, but he hit the “stop elevator” button with his fist. I was prepared for alarms, but there weren’t any. My fists clenched, and he must have thought I’d take another swing at him because he grabbed my upper arms. “Look, princess, you have no idea of what you’re getting into.”
“Awww, are you worried that Jeff’s gonna break my heart?”
“Stop talking about him!” Christopher gave me a small shake. “This isn’t about him—not everything is about him!” He was shaking, I could feel it. I wasn’t sure if it was from anger or something else. I also didn’t care.
I tried to pull away from him. “Well, then, who the hell is it about?” He didn’t answer, and I tried to get away again, with no luck. “Let me go!”
He got a funny look on his face. Then he pulled me closer and kissed me.
I was so shocked I almost didn’t register what was happening. But either great kissing ran in the family or I was just lucky, because it wasn’t long before my body took over for my confused mind. All the things Reader and my mother had been saying, all the snarling between Christopher and Martini, suddenly made sense, and I realized my mother was right—I was really dense sometimes.
Christopher’s lips were demanding, his tongue almost violent inside my mouth. But it was erotic—fury combined with passion. At first I tried to pull away, but he wouldn’t let me, and after a few seconds I didn’t want to pull away all that badly.
My body started to relax, and he slid his arms around me while mine went around his back. His kiss went deeper as he pulled me tightly up against him. One hand slid up my body to the back of my head; he controlled my movements, forcing our kiss even deeper.
Somewhere in the back of my mind I remembered we were all going to die soon if we didn’t get moving. I tried to end the kiss, but Christopher wasn’t having any of it. My attempts to move knocked us a little off-balance, and as he moved to keep us upright, we hit into the side of the elevator.
He was pressed against me, and our bodies started to move against each other. I tried to grasp at something to keep myself from just giving in to him, but I wasn’t coming up with much. Then I thought about Martini and what his reactions to this were likely to be.
It took all my willpower and strength, but I managed to wrench my mouth away from his. “Christopher, let me go.” I wasn’t demanding, I was begging, my breath ragged.
“I keep trying to, but . . . I can’t.” He looked wild and completely out of control. “We can’t really have you, can’t keep you. But it’s impossible not to want you.” He bent and kissed me again.
It was the same—violent passion. And, let’s face it, I already knew I’d won the Slut of the Month award. Plus, what if I died in a few hours and never found out if all A-Cs were sexually proficient? Maybe I owed it to scientific research and interspecies harmony.
A small part of me wondered if we were being affected by the implanted memories, but then Christopher moved his mouth to my neck, and I forgot to worry about anything.
He used his teeth as well as his tongue and lips—not enough to mark me but enough to arouse me to the point where he could do anything he wanted as long as he kept his mouth against my neck.
As his mouth ensured I wouldn’t do anything other than gasp and moan, he ground against me and ripped my shirt open. The bra I’d been provided was a front-closer—he had it undone in about half a second.
All of a sudden my mind kicked in and suggested I pay attention to where this was going. It didn’t matter if we were being affected by Mephistopheles or were just hot for each other. As arousing as being with Christopher like this was, I realized that what mattered to me was how this was going to affect Martini.
I shoved his head away. “Stop it, now!” I shifted my legs so my feet were against his hips and put my hands onto his shoulders, then pushed with all my might.
It rocked him, but he didn’t really budge. “What’s the matter, princess? You trying to tell me you don’t like this?” He wrapped both arms around my back and pulled my breasts toward him. The thought that A-C men were as strong as they were fast flitted through my brain, but even a small woman can fight a strong man if she knows what she’s doing.
Him calling me princess really helped, and I remembered I’d trained in kung fu for just this kind of situation. I wrapped my legs around his torso and started to squeeze. At the same time, I made an arrow point with my hand and shoved it into the base of his throat. I hooked my other arm around his shoulders to steady myself.
His head jerked back, and he dropped me, but I was still squeezing. As he backed up, I let go and swung my legs down, shoved against his throat again, hard, and landed on the elevator floor.
I backed away from him, but there wasn’t anywhere to go. “Stay away from me.” I wondered if there was an alarm on the elevator I could push.
Christopher was against the other side of the car, and he looked dazed. “What am I doing?” he asked under his breath as he stared at my chest and rubbed his throat. I closed my bra, pronto. He looked up at my face. “I’m sorry.” He looked almost like Martini had just before he passed out. He slid down the wall, ending up in a squat with his head in his hands.
It might have been a trick, but I was perfectly willing to ram my knee into his face, so I went to him and touched his shoulder. He jerked and looked up at me. “I don’t know why I did that. I mean, I never intended to tell you, let alone . . .”
So he did like me. Then I had a good idea of why he’d gone all Kitty Does Roswell on me. I knelt down next to him. “It’s the memories, or whatever they are. They affected Jeff, too.” He winced at the mention of Martini’s name. “Jeff thought I was hating him when I wasn’t. It’s probably something like that.”
“I don’t try to make love to someone I hate,” Christopher snapped. Nice to see he was recovering quickly.
I chose to refrain from mentioning that what he’d been doing felt more like ravaging than making love. Not that I hadn’t enjoyed it. I had. A lot. But that wasn’t important now. “I don’t know what was being sent toward you, Christopher. Maybe it was giving off lust pheromones to you the way it was giving off feelings of hatred to Jeff. I think the memories are trying to do things that will cause you and Jeff to be out of control. Mephistopheles wants the two of you dead, after all.”
He nodded. “Makes sense.” He rubbed his forehead. “Please don’t tell my father.”
“I should think you’d be more concerned about my telling Jeff.”
Christopher stood up and pulled me to my feet. “Jeff’s going to know the minute he’s around either one of us. He’ll just keep it between us, though; he’s not big on telling the authorities what really happened.”
Considering Martini and Christopher were the authorities, this was funny. But I knew what he meant. “No worries, you stopped. I don’t see any reason to run to your father. Of course, you’re the one who usually tells on Jeff.” The last line slipped out, and I realized with horror that I wasn’t the one saying it.
Christopher shot Glare #3 at me, but before he could say anything I put my hand on his mouth. “That wasn’t me. That was . . . him, I guess.” My hand shook. “Please don’t get mad, please don’t get amorous. Please help me.”
The glare left his face. He moved my hand down and pulled me to him, gently. “Okay.” He stroked my back, and I leaned my head against
his chest. “What does it feel like?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t know I was going to say that until it came out.” The tears came, again without my being able to stop them. “It’s something emotional, I don’t cry all the time like I have been,” I managed to tell him.
“I want to take you to the hospital section.”
“No. We don’t have time for me to get examined, and if someone wants to hold me for tests, we’re all dead. He’s coming. I think he’s going to track based on me, and I’m here in the middle of your stronghold. And he has A-C blood, so that means he can see whatever you have cloaked.” I could talk through these tears; this was getting freakier by the moment.
Christopher rocked me. “It’s okay.” He was quiet for a few moments while I made his shirt wet. Whoever did their laundry was not going to like me much. “We don’t know for sure if an in-control superbeing can see through the cloaking or not. But the Dome is safe, so figure they can’t. Right now, it’s probably the least of our worries.”
Something dawned on me, a question I hadn’t asked. “What was Yates’ power? I mean, when he was on your home world? Like Jeff’s an empath and you’re an imageer.”
“We have a variety of talents aside from those two. But Yates was unusual, a combination of both empath and imageer. Very rare. It’s one of the reasons he was made Sovereign Pontifex.”
Things started to click together. “Can empaths make someone feel an emotion?”
“No. Not even Jeff. They feel them, but they can’t manipulate them.”
“But imageers manipulate images, right? Any image?” Thinking made the tears dry up. A double win.
“Sure.” Christopher shifted me so we could look at each other. “Any image. We can create them, too. It’s molecular movement, really.” He looked wistful. “I used to think it was fun.”
I considered how to phrase my next question. “Could you rearrange an image that wasn’t on a surface?”
He gave me a look that said I was an odd girl. No argument there, especially after the last day and a half. “I don’t know, you mean, like on the air?”