Chemical Burn (14 page)

Den of Iniquity

“So, did you see that article about the UFO sighting over Helsinki?” I asked as I poured Rachel another margarita. We reclined in lounge chairs on her back patio, having said goodbye to the sun an hour earlier. She still hadn’t brought up the conversation with her and Marsha. She acted as if nothing had happened, and I was grateful for it. I didn’t know how to react, though, and she was either wise or scared enough not to chase me down about it.

She wore a simple tank-top and shorts. Her hair was up in a ponytail, and I realized that I considered her beautiful no matter what she looked like. For the first time in my life, I was more interested in knowing a woman than anything else. And I had no idea what to do about it. Up until now I’d had friends—didn’t matter what gender—and I’d had trysts with women when sex seemed like the right thing to do. But I’d never had someone occupy my thoughts the way Rachel did. And frankly, this was uncharted territory. How could I get involved with a woman, I mean
really
involved, without either lying to her for the rest of our lives or risking becoming a freak show if I told the wrong woman what I was. Hell hath no fury, etc. … I had visions of divorce court and gasps when a crazy ex screamed “ALIEN!” in court or on the news.

So I’d posed a question about UFOs to get the lay of the land. I needed to know her stance on alien visitors. I also figured now was as good a time as any to find out if she was up for a more active role in my work. Ultimately, they would go hand-in-hand. A glimmer of a plan was taking shape, and for it to work, I’d need her actively involved. It would also require showing her the phase doors and programming the network so she could use them. Knowledge of them would require her knowing pretty much everything else about me. I
had
to be sure.

“Helsinki? Yeah,” she said and took a pull from the glass, licking some salt along the way. “Saw some footage, too … I forget what channel. Pretty compelling stuff, though.” she added, taking another drink.

The thought of revealing my origins unsettled me quite a bit. I’d spent twenty-seven years keeping that particular secret, but it was wearing on me. Don’t get me wrong. I trust Rachel—with my life, in fact—and I knew she felt the same. But there’s a difference between the trust two good friends share and having her know my whole story. I couldn’t afford to have her freak out on me. There was too much at stake, and I wasn’t in an easy position to disappear if it came to it. I didn’t feel like becoming the talk of the town on late night television, either, right before government spooks came looking to part me out and put various pieces under a microscope. Only one human on Earth knew for certain who and what I was, and he’d tried to do just that the last time we were in the same room together. It’s a long story, and I did
not
want to repeat that particular fiasco.

“You sound like a believer,” I mused, testing the waters.

“In UFOs?” she asked, raising an eyebrow in my direction. “Yeah, I do. There’s too much information—hell, going back all the way to the Stone Age—that supports extraterrestrial life. Granted, most of the stuff we see is pretty shabby, but when you add it all up, it can’t
all
be fake. It comes down to numbers, if you ask me.”

“How do you mean?” This might not be as bad as I had feared, I thought.

“Well, think about all the stars we can actually see. Add to that all the new planets they’re finding with the Kepler Telescope. Then take into account all the stars we can’t see. There has to be more out in the whole of the universe than just this tiny little planet with life on it. And fifteen billion years is a long time for civilizations to rise and fall.”

“Hard to argue with you there.” I took a healthy swig from my margarita and gave her a mischievous look. “So, umm … what would you do if you met one?”

“If it was a he and he was a hunk, I’d take him to bed just for the bragging rights!” My eyes got wide with disbelief, and she started laughing … clearly at my expense. I gave her a smile.

“No, really,” I prompted, trying to sound at least a little serious.

She sobered a bit. “Oh, I don’t know,” she said thoughtfully, “probably pee my pants and run for the hills.” She chuckled. “There’s just no telling what an alien might want with me.”

“That’s a fair point,” I agreed. “And if it turned out that it meant you no harm?”

“Well, I guess it’d be like meeting anyone from a foreign country. You get to know them.”

I was satisfied she could probably handle it, mostly because the alien would be me … but there were still no guarantees. It would still come down to the difference between talking about aliens over a pretty good margarita buzz and sitting across the table from an actual alien, but I couldn’t have asked for a better response from her. It was time for the next piece.

“Enough about aliens. It’s not like they’re gonna show up any time soon and introduce themselves.” I paused and changed my tone. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask you.”

She knew my business voice. “What is it?”

“This DiMarco thing. I wanted to know if you might be interested in doing more than research and driving the car.” Suddenly the thought of Rachel involved directly in what I did—and the risks that went along with it—filled me with a great deal of anxiety. I worried about all my friends when they got involved with my cases, but having her even more in harm’s way and the possibility of losing her stirred up a feeling in my chest I didn’t quite understand.

“You mean, field work?” she asked. “With you?”

“Yeah, pretty much.”

“That sounds fantastic!” she shouted.

“It’s not all fun and games,” I warned. “It didn’t work out so well for Natalia,” I reminded her.

She sobered up quite a bit at that. “I’ve been thinking about Natalia … and the people you’ve killed. I mean, people die around you all the time, don’t they?”

I paused, took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Well, there’s no denying that I’ve left a fair number of corpses in my wake, but not many of them were people I was working with.” I looked into her eyes and felt that feeling again, that worry for her safety. It occurred to me that the old part of me, that part that always rose to the surface when the killing started, he’d never cared what happened to anyone. For him there was always just the job, and the rush of killing. But the part of me that cared for Rachel ached at the thought of something happening to her. Was I crazy to even suggest bringing her into the fold? I had similar feelings for Xen, Marsha, and Yvgenny, but they weren’t nearly as intense as they were for Rachel.

“Could you have done anything for Natalia?” she asked, searching my face.

“I did everything I could to protect her,” I added sincerely. The image of Natalia sinking beneath the waves filled my thoughts, and a strange twinge hit my guts. The truth was, if I’d gone in after her, Bennie and his thugs would have killed her anyway. I still held out one slim hope, but it was a long shot. “There’s always risk in this game, and she accepted that risk years before she ever met me. That’s the choice you’re making here, Rachel. You’re accepting the risk, but know that I’ll kill anyone whoever even tries to hurt you. I can make that one guarantee … the rest is up to the universe.”

She looked at me for several long seconds. Maybe it was the tone of my voice. Maybe it was the allure, the excitement of doing the things I do. She pulled her gaze away and stared up at a starry sky.

“Okay. I’m pretty sure I’m in,” she said quietly, “but I want some time to think about it.” She sounded resolved, and I’d expected to hear at least a little fear in her voice, but there was something else in her tone that I couldn’t put my finger on.

I nodded my head. “I understand. You’ve got a few days to mull it over.”

When it came right down to it, my plan would probably require her and Marsha as well as Xen, and possibly Yvgenny, to make it all happen, and anyone involved would have to be exposed to some of my story, which scared me not a little. But if I couldn’t trust these people, I might as well chuck it all in anyway. As I’d gotten older, I realized how isolated I was. Not lonely, per se—I had lots and lots of friends—but none of them knew who and what I really was. I guess somewhere along the way I decided I needed to change that. It was strange. The old me, tucked deep inside mocked me for my weakness. But Mag just wasn’t enough anymore, and I got the sense she might be feeling the same way. We’d always been alone.

The rest of the evening turned into the simple, very comfortable sort of chat only long-time friends can have over a few pitchers of margaritas. I’d never felt so comfortable around a person, and I had been tempted to make a pass at her. I’d gotten the sense that she wanted me too. Maybe that’s what I’d heard in her voice, but the truth was, an affair now would only complicate things if I decided to tell her everything.
One step at a time
, I thought to myself.

O O O

I woke with cottonmouth at four in the morning. I lay in my bed and felt the thud of a mild headache. Mag wasn’t around, so I figured she had gone hunting. I rubbed my temples to clear the headache.
Not bad for eleven margaritas
, I thought. Rachel’s seven had put her down completely. When she had finally fallen asleep in her lounge chair, I’d put her to bed, tucked her in, and used the phase-door connecting her bathroom to my front door.

“Lights,” I said, and the main area of my loft filled with light. I threw back the comforter, got out of bed, and walked over to the refrigerator. I opened it, pulled out a jug of orange-juice, a glass, and a large, stainless steel container of sugar from the counter, I poured an inch of sugar into the glass then filled it with orange-juice. Half of the orange juice went down in big gulps, and then I paused to swirl the contents around and get the rest of the sugar. A few more gulps finished off the mixture, and I set the glass on the counter.

As I reached the desk, I heard the cat-door in the back of my closet swing open. I turned to see Magdelain slink halfway out of the closet with a limp monkey in her mouth.

“What are you doing?” I asked with a mild but accusatory tone. “You know you can’t bring that in here.” Mag stopped just outside the closet doors and looked at me. “Is it still alive?” I asked.

She nodded her head.

“When that thing wakes up, it’s going to freak out. You know what happened the last time. It got crap all over the place, and you don’t have hands to hold the broom and dustpan. Monkey shit stinks!” I added in a scolding tone. “Go on, put it back. We’re leaving soon.”

Magdelain got a dejected look on her face and hung her head low.

“Awwww … don’t look like that, girl. We’re going to go
play
.” Mag’s face brightened into a smile wrapped around the unconscious monkey, looking more like a snarl. She spun around and leapt into the closet. I heard the door swing open. A few seconds later she came bounding into the room without the monkey. “Thanks, girl. Let me check my mail, and then we’ll get going.”

I sat down in front of the computer. She followed and walked around me, rubbing her face on my legs. I pulled up the email client, scrolling by mostly junk. There was one from Rachel dated the previous morning. I opened it and it simply said, “MEMO: Put door out at reservoir … whatever that means.”

I chuckled, remembering my request.

“Right,” I said to myself, smiling. I scrolled through the rest of the email and, not finding anything of import, locked down the workstation.

“Slight change of plan Mag. One errand and
then
we’re going to play. Will that work for you?”

Mag smiled and rasped happily.

I scratched her behind the ears, and the rasping increased in volume.

“Good girl.” I stood up and walked towards the front door. “Go on, get in the van. I’ll be right there. Can’t go out like this, can I?” Mag looked at me, smiled and bolted for the back of the loft. I walked over to the coats hanging on the wall and grabbed the next clean one in line. The first two were still filthy. It would take me all day to clean them up. “On the seventh day … I did laundry,” I said to myself, shaking my head. I put on a pair of baggie, black pants and a black t-shirt, and added a pair of lightweight, black boots. Grabbing my black trench coat, I stepped around the closet to where my vehicles were parked and walked to the driver’s side of my van.

I got in, dropping the black coat between the seats. Mag sat in the passenger seat, having slipped her head and body through the shoulder strap of the seat belt. She turned and looked at me expectantly as I buckled in.

I fired up the motor and rolled up the darkly tinted windows halfway. Pulling forward onto the rectangle area of the floor, I lowered the visor and hit the remote. The twenty-by-thirty slab of flooring dropped slowly and silently through the floor. Halfway down I hit another button, and the garage door slid quickly up. I pulled into the dark alley, headlights slashing at the darkness, and hit both buttons of the remote. I watched the platform rise as the door came down.

Exiting the alley, I rolled down empty streets, not surprising at four in the morning. It took us twenty minutes to return to the reservoir where Rachel had picked me up two nights before. Pulling off Montlake Drive, I drove slowly down the dirt road and into the small parking lot. Thankfully, the lot was empty.

When I’d first stepped onto the dam, I’d seen an old steel door on the east side, partially obscured by a tall bush about twenty feet to the right of the steps. My headlights briefly illuminated the rusty, steel door set in the side of the dam as I turned the van around and backed up to it. I cut the engine and got out. The weak streetlight overhead was even darker than I remembered, barely illuminating the parking lot.

“Watch the road, girl.”

Mag jumped over to my side, slid out the door and slipped around the front of the van. As she did, her coat rapidly changed from the normal forest green and gray stripes to a rusty-gray color almost perfectly matching the badly lit parking lot. I lost her blur quickly in the shadows as she darted across the parking lot and disappeared into the shrubs near where I had hidden.