He heard a laugh from the front of his car and he walked to the big woman, who still wore his bomber jacket. The woman with the sword was directly behind him.
She’d found the magazine. Lenny wanted to slap himself for leaving out on the hood of his car. When the aircraft struck the lake, he’d dropped the magazine and forgot about it in the confusion. He was too scared afterwards to think about it again. Lenny lowered his head in shame. It was bad enough to be captured by two Amazons, now they’d found his secret too.
The big woman held up the magazine to the other one who walked around to look at it. She turned and starred at Lenny. Both leafed through the magazine and snickered. The humiliation was horrible. At that very moment, he wanted to die.
As they turned the pages, the lurid cover of Action Women and Pin-Down Girls was visible to him. This was a favorite of his. It even had a center spread of Diamond Diane in the ring with Sweet Jane. Wrestling women magazines were hard to find and his collection was the best.
“You were right,” Shakti said to Kamala. “Thank the Blessed Mother for sending us across the universe to one of her dear servants.”
“And this one won’t even have to pay,” Kamala snickered. “He is one lucky lad.”
Lenny showed the women where to sit in the car and went around on the driver’s side to start it up. As soon as the engine fired, he felt the sword against his throat. He looked over to see the smaller of the two women holding the blade. The engine startled her and she didn’t like it. With care, Lenny showed her how the car worked as he engaged the gear to go forward. Satisfied, she put the sword down. The car moved out onto the dirt road as the headlights lit it up.
He took them into the cabin he’d bought years ago for the nights when he did extended sky watching. It never occurred to him that he might use it for some downed communist pilots, but there wasn’t much else he could do. He found some of his clothes in the closet and was able to get some cover on the bodies of the women. Then he remembered another problem.
“I need to get food for you,” Lenny explained. He made a gesture at his mouth. Both women were in the front room with him listening to the radio.
“Food?” the smaller of the two women said. “No food here?”
“Not enough for the both of you,” Lenny continued. “I need to leave and go the store.”
“I come with you,” she told him.
“If you want to, but the store owner will think it funny you are wearing men’s clothes.”
“I still go.”
Lenny shrugged and opened the door for her. She turned and said a few words in her language to the other woman, who was still absorbed in the women’s wrestling magazine.
“I think he wants to get some supplies,” Shakti said to her friend. “I’ll go with him and tell you what find when I get back. Or do you want to come too?”
“No, you go have fun. I see he has books all over this place. Might learn something even if I can’t read them.” She returned to the magazine.
They came back a bit later with supplies. Lenny explained he’d have to leave them alone for days at a time and would return to check on them. They seemed satisfied with this, although he felt like a traitor. Shouldn’t he report them to the nearest FBI office or something? If they were from Russia, didn’t that make them spies? He decided they weren’t going anywhere without their plane and didn’t seem too interested in anything other than the cabin. If he returned in a few days and they were gone, he’d report them.
“What do you think?” Kamala said to Shakti as they sat in the kitchen and watched him put away the groceries. “It’s not a bad place to stay. Food seems edible and we can stay here until we decide what to do next.”
“I think it’s been a long time since I was with a man who didn’t think he owned me,” Shakti replied. “It has been too long since I’ve had a man period.”
“I don’t think he’ll complain much.”
Kamala walked up to him, still wearing his leather bomber jacket, and put her hand on his shoulder. Lenny turned around to look up at her. She was a good six inches taller than he was. She took her hand and ran it across his face. Gently. If ever there was a universal request, this was it. The other woman stood up and walked to him.
They led him to the bedroom.
He didn’t resist.
Just before dawn, Lenny woke to find himself sandwiched between both of them. The larger woman was snoring gently. He turned to see the other one’s eyes open. She was fully awake. He took her hand and touched his face.
“You’re not from Russia, are you?” he asked her. “That aircraft didn’t have any wings. Where do you come from?”
“No Russia,” she told him.
She took her free hand and pointed it at the window to the faint stars in the sky. They were still visible at daybreak.
“Jesus Christ,” Lenny said as he took both of their hands in his. “This is first contact and I’m in bed with two Valkyries.
Chapter 17
A few months later, Lenny found himself back at the cabin for another extended weekend. He visited his “guests” every few days and checked on them. The cabin was rare in that it had a phone installed in it years ago and they could call him whenever they needed help. At first, once the two women learned how to use it, they called him every day. But now they were learning how to get around and didn’t need to see him very often.
There were few people in the mountains where the cabin was located and Lenny had convinced the locals these women were “war refugees”. He introduced them as “Sharon” and her sister “Kim” from some country no one had ever heard about. Most of the people seemed to buy the story, but he knew it wouldn’t last forever. He’d have to take them to a city where they could become lost in the sea of humanity.
He’d showed them the camera he kept at the cabin and explained to them how it worked. For some reason, they felt the camera was quaint. Still, they allowed him to take photographs of them sitting out on the porch and in the woods. Lenny enjoyed photography, but never felt his efforts were up the professional level. He knew they paled when compared to the ones in the wrestling women magazines he liked to collect.
He brought his entire collection of magazines to Kamala to read. She found the pictures amusing and spent the days chuckling over them.
“You men,” she told him one night. “Always so predictable.”
Shakti was practicing with her sword near the tree line one day when Lenny stopped to watch her. Kamala was wearing only the leather bomber jacket. This was something he needed to talk to her about as someone might drive by the cabin at any time. He stood and watched them. To his horror, Shakti pulled off the clothes she wore and tossed them on the ground. She continued to practice nude. Kamala thought his reaction was funny and snickered at him. Her companion mistook the laughter for a criticism of her form. She walked over and pushed Kamala.
Kamala pushed back. Shakti dropped the sword to the ground, bent one knee and tackled her. The two wrestled on the ground for a few minutes until Kamala had her in the hold she couldn’t get out of. Laughing, Kamala stood up and brushed off the leaves from her body. Shakti stood up and grunted.
“You want two out of three?” Shakti challenged her friend in English. They had learned a lot by listening to the radio and watching the TV Lenny bought for them.
They heard a click and swerved in the direction of the sound. It was the man who took care of them. He had that image production machine out and pointed in their direction. Even from where they stood, it was obvious his hands shook as he held the camera.
“Could you ladies pose a little closer?” He stammered. “I think I need to get those shots again.” Over the next three hours he used up every roll of film he had taking pictures of them grappling, posing with the sword or simply wearing the leather clothes he’d bought for them.
Chapter 18
“Damn, son,” the magazine owner told him weeks later. “These are hot. Red hot. You say both of these women mo
del for you? And you developed the pictures yourself?”
“Ed,” Lenny told the man, “I discovered both of them working on a farm. They are sisters.”
“I’d sure like to meet them.”
They were in a small office in a seedy part of Los Angeles. The entire building was devoted to producing risqué magazines and was supposedly owned by a crime family. Lenny didn’t care. The operation could be owned by the Red Chinese and he would still have taken the photographs to them. This place was the only operation in the country who dared to publish these kinds of photographs.
“You might get to,” Lenny told him. “I’m marrying the shorter one.”
“Good taste in women,” he replied. “Let me see what I can do with these. Women in leather. Women with blades. There just might be a market for this sort of thing.”
Chapter 19
“Are you awake?” Lenny asked his wife a few years later.
Shakti, now called “Sherry”, had a strange sleep cycle he could never get used to. Just as he could never get used to calling her the name they’d put on the wedding license at the county court house. It was the same one on her citizenship papers. They’d claimed her birthplace was in Baluchistan, since most people couldn’t find it on a map.
She rolled over and faced her husband. He was a good man and didn’t ask too many questions. After all, the Great Mother had found him and she was glad. All she and Kamala needed to do was pose for his pictures and the money poured in. A few photographers had approached her on shoots and tried to lure her away with fancy business cards, but she always threw them away. The same for her “sister”. This was the best life they could hope for and neither one of them wanted to ruin it. Besides, they were here for a reason.
“At least you didn’t touch me in my sleep,” she told him. “I’m glad to see you learned that rule.” Lenny had learned that one the hard way after she sent him flying against the wall.
“I think our daughter is awake,” he told her. Last year their first child was born and they planned for more.
“Kamala can rock her back to sleep,” she said and turned over.
Then it occurred to her. Kamala was spending the evening with some cowboy she met on a shoot. She lived in the spare room in the back. Earlier that day she’d phoned to let them know she had a “guest” for the evening. By now, both she and the cowboy would be very busy.
“I probably need to nurse our daughter,” Shakti said and pushed Lenny to one side as she crawled out of bed. Little Durga Lashmi Meltzer was hungry and her mother could tell by the noise she made.
Shakti walked to the crib and took her daughter out. She looked like both of them. She was a healthy baby. Both Kamala and Shakti decided some time ago they would name the children for the co-wives who hadn’t survived the ordeals that brought them to this new world.
She looked to the fireplace. Her sword was mounted over it. And someday her daughter would learn the truth about her mother.
“Because someone has to protect this planet full of idiots from the wasps and the empire,” she said to the baby as she rocked her to sleep. “Debbie” was nursed for another fifteen minutes before she returned her tiny form to the crib.
“I don’t know why she had to be called Debbie,” Shakti said as she curled up next to her husband.
“It’s safer,” he told her. “People get funny about names they don’t understand.”
Chapter 20
“Salina!” her grandmother snapped at her. “How dare you talk to your mother that way?” The old woman was close to ninety, but people said she looked fifty. It was the off-world genes, her granddaughter knew. Too bad, they couldn’t talk about it to anyone outside the family.
Salina was on the other side of the table from her grandmother. The old woman was a force of nature. She’d already out lived her husband by twenty years. Her mother, whom everyone still called Debbie, was sitting next to her with the tea service. One of Salina’s aunts still talked about the way her mother had defied Grandma Sherry once. She never did it again.
“I have no interest in the military,” she told the women across from her. “Let someone else go into the army. I have plenty of cousins who can apply. Why can’t you let me go to art school?”
Both of the other women exchanged a knowing glance. The older woman nodded at her daughter. “Go get it,” she said to her. “It’s time she knew.”
“Know what?” Salina said to them. She favored the Terrain bloodline her grandmother brought to the family and had the same jet-black hair and brown eyes the family matriarch possessed. People still called her “Little Sherry”. Salina wasn’t as tall as her grandmother was, but she made up the height with attitude. She was a terror on the lacrosse field.
“I know all the stories and why they have to be kept in the family,” Salina said to the other women.
“You’ll see,” her mother said and left the room. She returned a few minutes later and dropped a folder in front of her.
“These are real photographs,” her mother said to her as she opened it. Salina failed to notice her grandmother leave the table as she looked at what lay before her. Salina tossed her long hair over one shoulder and shuffled through the pictures.
“I went to a lot of trouble to get these,” her mother continued. “You’re the oldest daughter so the responsibility falls to you. These photographs aren’t supposed to exist and we are in violation of several laws you never heard about just because we know about them.”
Salina turned them over on the table. They were at Grandma Sherry’s compound, where all the important family functions took place. It had grown on the over the years from a small cottage to a huge mountain settlement where the entire family could assemble when needed. It still faced the lake where the shuttle lay at the bottom. Grandfather Lenny bought the land around it and turned the old reservoir into a private lake before he died. His publishing empire no longer existed, but he’d invested the money he earned from it well and the family had all they needed.
The photographs showed a crash of some kind. It looked to be an aircraft from the skid marks on the ground. Most of it was burned and several military officers stood next to it for size comparison. It wasn’t much larger than a private jet, but she couldn’t really tell from the wreckage.
“What am I looking at?” she asked her mother.
“It’s the remains of a wasp attack ship,” her grandmother announced as she walked into the room with a long case. She sat the case down on the table next to the stack of photographs.
“I’ve known about these photographs for the past ten years,” her grandmother continued as she unlocked the case. Salina remembered that case. She’d seen it her grandmother’s room a long time ago and asked about it. Her mother told her it was something she’d learn about when the right time came. She’d let the matter drop.
“The ship crashed thirty years ago in Canada,” her mother told her. “Your grandparents have paid plenty to have a network of informants tell them about certain things. This cost them a lot.”
“Then the wasps know about Earth,” Salina gasped. Why had they never spoke of this to her?
“Perhaps,” her grandmother said as she opened the case. It was made of polished wood and the hinges brass. “We don’t know if this one was near us when the nuclear explosions pushed me and your Auntie Kim to this world. “If that were the case, the ship’s pilot died and it floated in Earth orbit for years”.
“But two weeks ago,” the old woman continued, “I was informed by another source that an identical one went down in the South China Sea. We have the pictures of it too; I’ll show you them later. I can’t risk ignoring the second one. It might be an entire invasion.”
Her grandmother lifted the sword out of the case and raised it in the air. Salina looked at it and admired the way light reflected from the silver blade.
“This was mine,” she explained. “Your mother was my oldest and I trained her how to use it. Now it’s time for you to learn. You’re eigh
teen. I had hoped to wait until you finished your stint at the academy, but now we don’t have that option.”
She handed the sword to Salina. “Don’t touch the edge; it will slice off your finger. Your mother learned the hard way. It’s why she has the scar on her hand.”
Her mother lowered her eyes.
Salina looked at the sword. It was solid, but she could feel the balance. She held it and felt an electric charge to her hand. There were symbols etched in the blade, which she recognized as the language her grandmother taught her years ago. This was the legendary sword that Grandma Sherry brought to Earth from the stars.
“It’s time, children,” her grandmother spoke. “I’ve already contacted a company to raise the shuttle from the lake. All the information is inside it from the Widowmaker. Earth will not be prey to those fiends so long as I breathe.”
“Come along,” the old woman spoke to her daughter and granddaughter. “We need to get started. The rest of the family will be here tomorrow. I’ve been in touch with Auntie Kim too. Her clan will arrive the next day. But first, I want to start drilling you, Salina, on the use of this sword. It killed many wasps. I’m afraid it will have to kill a lot more.”
Salina and her mother followed the old woman to the rear of the compound. There was already a fighting post made set up in the back. The old woman needed a staff to walk. She used it to show her granddaughter the form she needed to learn. By evening, Salina had the first few moves down.
“Don’t assume anything,” her grandmother told her. “A real target doesn’t stand still and let you strike it.”
It was a cool night in the California mountains. But the days were about to get much hotter.
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Angels of Eternity Page 24