Authors: Lynn Hightower
Alien Blues (37 page)
“Please. Cream, no sugar.”
The receptionist was human, a skinny blonde, her lips a thin, tight slash. She frowned at the blood on his shirt.
“Sir, we can't treat you here.”
David walked past without a second look. He stepped off the thick black carpet, onto a white tile floor, and passed through double swing doors labeled
EMERGENCY
.
The staff was a mix, Elaki and human. An Elaki glided toward him, stethoscope wrapped around its waist.
“You need medical aid?” the Elaki said. The voice was feminine, warm. Her side slits were tight.
No Mother-One, David thought.
“Detective Silver.” David flashed his badge. “I need to seeâ”
“Ah. You are the policeman. You wish to interrogate my patient?”
“Talk to her,” David said.
“Did she ⦔ the Elaki doctor hesitated. “Did she in real effect kill her pouchlings? I understand she cut them in half?”
David's voice was gentle. “Where is she?”
“Please to follow.” The Elaki moved toward a white-curtained cubicle. The emergency-room doors opened and David heard a familiar voice.
“Hey, lady, do they pay you extra to be nasty, or do you do it free of charge?”
David turned around. String came into the ER, followed by Mel, who was cramming an Elaki pastry into his mouth.
“My associates,” David said.
Mel waved and held up a foam cup. “Old guy out there told me to give this to you.”
David waved it away. “Later,” he said. “What did you find out?”
“She is ideal Mother-One,” String said.
David looked at Mel, who shrugged. “He's right, David. Everybody says how great she was. She sounds perfect, other than the one thing.”
“One thing?”
“You know. Killing the kids.”
“String,” David said. “I hate to say it, butâ”
“I will stay here. She is most afraid the Izicho.” His left eye prong drooped.
“See if you can get anything from the doctors,” David said. “Mel, wipe the crumbs off your mouth.”
Mel gulped down the last of the coffee. “Cinnamon.” He grimaced. “Next time, David, you don't drink your coffee, order it black.” He crumpled the cup and handed it to the Elaki doctor. “Take care of this for me, will you, sweetheart?”
David tried not to smile.
THREE
Wires ran from Dahmi's midsection to an ivory machine on the table nearby. The S-curved hospital bed made David's back ache.
“Dahmi?” David said softly.
The Mother-One rustled in the bed. Heavy restraints had been buckled across her body, and thin strips of webbing ran from thick leather bands.
“I see they made you comfortable.” Mel pulled up a chair and straddled it. “Jesus. David, surely all this ain't necessary.”
David sat down on the other side of the bed. “Dahmi?”
The Elaki was rigid. Her eye stalks twitched.
“Izicho coming.” Her voice dragged.
“She drugged?” Mel said. “This won't hold up, if she's drugged.”
“It won't hold up anyway,” David said. “Dahmi? All the pouchlings are dead.”
“Yes,” Dahmi said. “All the little baby ones are safe now.”
“Safe from what?” David said.
“Cho invasion.”
David and Mel looked at each other. David felt a chill.
“Uh-oh,” Mel said.
David scooted his chair closer. The Elaki tried to turn and shift, but the webbing held her tight.
“Please,” she said. “I will not hurt them. Go home. Please to go home.”
“Is there somebody we can call?” Mel said. “A friend. A ⦔ He looked at David. “Somebody from your chemooki?”
“Chemaki,” David said.
“Yeah,” said Mel. “Chemaki.”
“No one. All gone. All gone.
Guardians
.”
“The Guardians? What about the Guardians?” David asked.
The Elaki stilled and said nothing.
“Dahmi, what happened with the pouchlings?”
“Izicho.”
“The Izicho killed them?”
“I kill them.”
David kept his gaze steady. “You killed them, Dahmi? You killed your pouchlings?”
“I kill them.”
“Why?” Mel asked.
“To keep them safe.” Dahmi shifted, and the restraint buckles rattled. “Mikiki did not stay asleep.” Her voice was raw, hoarse. “
Mikiki open him eyes
.”
Outside Dahmi's cubicle, the noise level was rising. David stepped outside the curtains. Not exactly business as usual. There were few patients, but a profusion of personnel, many of them grouped around a small TV on the counter. There was an almost electric feel of excitement, and Elaki stood off together in groups, murmuring. David watched for belly ripples. Sure enough, he decided, looking around. Something they thought was funny.
David squinted at the television. The Elaki were tall, he could not see over their heads.
“David?”
String slid close, the Elaki doctor in tow.
“What's going on?” David said.
“Toilet paper,” String said.
“At the Houston Stock Exchange,” the doctor added. “Close it down one hour before time. A ton of toilet paper, dropping from the skies. Everything clogged.”
“From ceiling,” String said.
“Angel Eyes again?” David said. “The Guardians?”
“You need to ask?” Mel's voice was loud beside him.
“Is she not wonderful?” the Elaki doctor said.
“Childish,” String said.
The Elaki doctor stiffened and twisted sideways, her eye stalks slanted at String. “I forget. You Izicho.”
String said something in staccato syllables that David could not understand. It was rare for an Elaki to speak Home-tongue in front of a human, and it was only the second time David had heard it.
The Elaki doctor answered in kind, her voice a whistling hiss. David watched them grimly. So much for the heart-to-heart he wanted to have with the doctor.
He realized that the ER had gone suddenly quiet. He looked up and found them watching, looking from him to the television. He moved toward the screen.
He could not make out what the reporter was saying, but the image onscreen was clear. He saw himself emerging from the dark Elaki house, Dahmi in his arms.
He wondered if Rose was watching. He hoped she wouldn't notice the shirt.
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About the Author
Lynn Hightower grew up in the South and graduated from the University of Kentucky, where she studied creative writing with Wendell Berry and earned a journalism degree. She is the author of ten novels, including two mystery series, one featuring homicide detective Sonora Blair and the other featuring private investigator Lena Padgett.
Flashpoint
, the first Sonora Blair mystery, was a New York Times Notable Book.
Satan's Lambs
, the first Lena Padget mystery, won the Shamus Award for Best First PI Novel. Hightower has also written the Elaki series of futuristic police procedurals, which begins with
Alien Blues
.
Hightower's novels, which have been translated into seven foreign languages, have appeared on the
Times
(London) bestseller list and have been nominated for the Kentucky Literary Award, the Kentucky Librarians First Choice Award, and the Mary Higgins Clark Award. She teaches at the UCLA Extension Writers' Program, where she was named Creative Writing Instructor of the Year in 2012. The author lives with her husband in Kentucky.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1992 by Lynn Hightower
Cover design by Michel Vrana
ISBN: 978-1-5040-2125-8
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
345 Hudson Street
New York, NY 10014
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