Alien Nation #8 - Cross of Blood Read online

  And that was what scared him. He touched the envelope through the fabric of the jacket. That was what had kept him from reading it right away: the thought that one whole world would be turned into another, like climbing out from the slave ship onto the surface of this planet. It made him feel dizzy; the desire to enfold May in his arms and hang on tight to her was almost overwhelming.

  A glance at the clock told him that now he’d have to run to catch the bus. He reached down and pulled the blanket over May’s shoulder, then headed for the door.

  Outside, as Albert trotted down the cracked sidewalk, the cement glittering with bits of broken glass, it looked like the whole city was waking up. He could see lights coming on in the windows above, shadows moving against the drawn curtains. All those bleary-eyed people trudging up from sleep—for a moment, he wondered what their night dreams had been.

  He spotted the bus coming less than a block away, and sprinted for the corner.

  C H A P T E R 2

  “MAN, I HATE going out in the field first thing in the morning.” Sikes held his arms straight out to the steering wheel, peering at the road ahead with heavy-lidded eyes; he knew that always made his partner nervous. “I haven’t even had any coffee yet.”

  Beside him, George Francisco sat stiff as though a steel girder had been welded to his Newcomer spine—as stiff as when he’d first started working with Sikes. “Do you think, Matt, that, uh, I could drive instead?”

  “Naw, I wouldn’t hear of it—you look worse than I do.” That much was true. For the last several days—actually, the last couple of weeks, come to think of it—George had been shambling into the station looking like warmed-over hell, as though he were going through sympathy pains for Sikes’s cumulative lack of sleep. “Whassamatter, Susan on your case again?”

  “What?” George’s eyes flicked toward the leather briefcase, stuffed full of departmental paperwork, that he’d laid on the car’s back seat. Then he nodded. “On my case—yes, of course. Actually . . .” He locked his gaze straight ahead through the windshield. “Actually, things are going fine for Susan and me. Couldn’t be better.”

  Yeah, right. Sikes one-handed the car around a corner, getting a satisfying squeal from the fishtailing rear tires. God save me from married partners—though now, he realized, he was practically one of those himself. Cathy’s live-in status with him was an open secret all over the station; the payroll office had even dropped onto his desk a form for adding her to his health insurance benefits.

  Above the car, an obnoxious Purple Haze billboard’s sensors had registered their approach. HEY, GENTS—the giant LCD display started rolling through its program, showing both a human and a Newcomer female seductively smiling from behind astonishing cleavage. WANT TO GIT . . . WET? Right now, the invitation didn’t make Sikes feel any better.

  “Though of course,” mulled George aloud, “there’s always . . . tension in even the most successful marriages. You know, small, inconsequential problems.” He turned and smiled thinly. “As I’m sure you’ll find out.”

  “Give me a break,” Sikes muttered under his breath. I’ve been there already. He could feel his own irritation rising. George and Susan had shown a lot of smug satisfaction about the change in his living arrangements—the two of them had been playing Yenta the Matchmaker for him and Cathy for quite a while now. “What was that address again?”

  “It’s just off Wilshiie.” George glanced at the dispatcher slip in his hand, then pointed. “The victim said it would be easy to spot. It’s the only house with . . . with one of those out front.”

  He caught the note of revulsion and anger in his partner’s voice, but made no comment. Sikes’s own feelings about this kind of incident were a close match.

  They had already passed the art museum, with its designer coils of razor wire ringing the buildings on all sides. A left turn brought them into the old Hancock Park district, or what was left of it. His soul settled lower inside him, like a leaking balloon. When he’d been a kid, this had been el primo upscale real estate, old-money mansions that seemed to have been around as long as the tar pits just to the west. Whatever childhood Gatsby-style ambitions he might have once had, now he wouldn’t live here on a bet. The mansions had all been divvied up into flop apartments, with plasterboard walls you could practically read a newspaper through. The encroaching tide of the Little Tencton slums, that had already submerged K-Town and the Guatemalan barrios, was already lapping at the graffiti-stained walls here.

  “This must be it.”

  Sikes pulled the car over to the curb. A Newcomer, looking like a downtown businessman in suit and tie, was waiting for them on the sidewalk. His face held the aggrieved expression of an early Christian martyr who had finally reached his limit and was now seriously pissed.

  Groups of gawking kids, human and Newcomer, scattered a few meters back as the two police detectives got out of the car. At a carefully judged safe distance, the kids watched and whispered among themselves.

  George went right up to the man. “Are you Mister Tartan?” He flipped open his notepad. “Stewart Tartan?”

  The man nodded. “That’s right.”

  “We tried to get here as soon as we could. Now, what time was it when . . .”

  The voices faded to a murmur behind Sikes as he walked over to the scene of the crime. Dead center in the Tartan front lawn, Sikes set his hands on his hips as he gazed at the object before him.

  Sprouting up in the midst of the closely cut grass, like some nightmare weed, was a seven-foot-high cross, scrap lumber nailed together, then wrapped with rags, the whole thing soaked in blood.

  The morning sun had already turned the grisly assemblage rank; Sikes had been able to smell it as soon as the car had turned the corner. Flies buzzed the cross’s still-dripping arms and the dark pool that had soaked into the ground at its base.

  “What’s the scoop?” Sikes glanced over his shoulder as his partner approached.

  “Basically similar to the other incidents we’ve seen.” George still had the open notepad in his hand, but didn’t bother looking at it. “Neither Mr. Tartan or his wife saw or heard anything unusual during the night; they have a four-year-old boy who says he saw ‘shadows’ outside his bedroom window. Naturally, the child can’t give any indication of what time that might have been. Tartan stepped outside his front door about seven A.M., to take the boy to his preschool, and that’s when he found . . . this.” George pointed to the cross with his thumb.

  “What a great way to start your morning.” One of the flies looped close to Sikes’s face; he swatted it away. “How long’s the family been living here?” He glanced toward the house—from the corner of his eye, he had seen a child’s face peering around the drapes pulled across the front window. An anxious-looking Newcomer woman, presumably Mrs. Tartan, had drawn the kid back.

  “Approximately three months.”

  “Well, what d’ya think?” He turned, surveying the neighborhood. The Tartan house was a tiny fortress of order and middle-class values surrounded by ragged urban entropy. He figured they must’ve gotten a good deal on the place and had thought they could turn the neighborhood around with the sheer force of their staunch personalities. “Outsiders, or just the lovely neighbors, dinking with the new folks?”

  “Perhaps,” said George drily, “you should ask them.”

  His partner wasn’t referring to the Tartans. Sikes looked past him and saw that a gleaming white van with dark-tinted windows had pulled up at the curb, right behind their car. The circular emblem of the Human Defense League, that always reminded him of a swastika if he squinted at it, was neatly painted on the van’s side.

  “Oh, great—” Sikes shook his head in disgust. “Now I really am pissed off.”

  “Now, Matt, let’s just keep cold . . .”

  “You keep cool. I’m not in the mood.” He pushed past George’s restraining arm.

  Two members of the HDL’s elite—what a laugh, thought Sikes—Sturm troops, the Marc Guerin
Commandos, had emerged from the van. One of them had a professional-looking Hi-8 video camera. He lifted it to his shoulder and began taping the scene, sweeping the lens from the corner of the block and across the Tartan front lawn.

  “All right, what’re you clowns doing here?” Sikes planted himself in front of the leader of the pair. He’d had dealings with this jerk before, going back to collaring him for shoplifting out of Little Tencton convenience stores. Now the kid had traded his green nylon jacket for a spiff white uniform with a black Sam Browne belt and spit-shined boots. “Admiring your handiwork?”

  The HDL punk turned a smug expression toward Sikes. “We had nothing to do with this.”

  “Yeah? So why show up now?”

  A shrug. “We’re here to document the natural aversion that this beleaguered human community has shown to the introduction of this alien filth in their midst. The debate as to the final solution of this so-called Newcomer problem is, unfortunately, ongoing; we’re merely gathering evidence as to the instinctual human response to these creatures.”

  Sikes could feel the muscles of his face tightening. He knew that the other was choosing his words for maximum offensiveness—and succeeding. “I oughta final solution your ass, creep.” His right hand had already balled into a fist at his side.

  “Matt . . . perhaps right now’s not a good time for that.” George had grabbed his partner’s arm. “We have company, I’m afraid.”

  Another van had shown up across the increasingly crowded street. On its side was the emblem of a local news station; the top bristled with remote-broadcast antennae. Another, bigger camera was already pushing its way through the onlookers.

  “What’s going on, officer?” The lens was stuck right in Sikes’s face; he could see his distorted reflection in its glass. “Kind of a heavy response for a simple act of vandalism, isn’t it?”

  Next to the cameraman was another familiar face; Sikes had seen him before, both on the TV screen and in encounters like this. Mike Bolander or Wolander or something like that—he had built up an audience by first editorializing that Purists like the Human Defense League might have a worthwhile point, then coming right out later and saying they did.

  “No comment.” Sikes pushed the newsman’s microphone away. “Why don’t you talk to my partner? Maybe he can stomach you.” He turned and walked a few steps away.

  “All right.” The camera and mike swung toward George. “How about it? What’s the deal?”

  George kept his face carefully expressionless. “The Los Angeles Police Department takes seriously all such incidents of this nature. It’s not just vandalism; technically, it comes under municipal, state, and even federal hate-crimes statutes—”

  “Come on.” Bolander/Wolander/whatever had a face like a fox terrier that had been dropped on its muzzle as a pup, giving him a crooked, knowing smile. “Some people might say that was an example of obvious favoritism toward your own kind.”

  “Hardly.” The Newcomer police detective stayed cool. “This is a routine crime-scene investigation. If anyone is treating it with more attention than it deserves, it’s you.” He pointed toward the camera.

  A younger, more excitable clone of Bolander, complete with tape machine on a shoulder strap, trotted after Sikes. “Any chance this is human blood? Or Newcomer?” He used his mike to point toward the cross.

  “Don’t be an idiot.” Sikes rolled his gaze up to the sky. “They get this stuff from some butcher shop. ‘Human blood’—jeez.”

  He gazed over the twerp’s head. Not looking good, thought Sikes. The crowd had swelled exponentially since the arrival of the news van. The mass of people was reaching the jostling density that usually spelled trouble. The two uniformed HDL members had retreated to alongside their own van, and were watching—and videotaping—developments with evident satisfaction.

  “Hey! The guy’s right!” The shout that Sikes had dreaded rang out from the crowd. He spotted a gangly, unshaven human—male, early twenties—gesturing angrily over the heads surrounding him. “Goddamn slags think they own the place!”

  “Yeah?” A burly Newcomer in an Adidas tracksuit drew himself to full height. “At least we can pay for it, tert.”

  “Call for backup,” said George in a low voice. A roiling, seismic motion passed through the crowd, accompanied by more shouts and curses.

  Sikes was already pushing his way toward the car. As he dived inside and punched the radio’s call button, he could see George shoving Mr. Tartan back into the safety of the house.

  Knots of fighting bodies had already formed by the time the sirens could be heard coming down Wilshire Boulevard. The news camera caught all the action.

  “Should we go help them?” George had made his way back to the car; he watched the blue-uniformed officers slapping on plastic wrist-restraints. A row of Newcomers and humans lay facedown on the sidewalk, hands trussed behind their backs.

  “Naw, let the grunts handle it” Sikes turned the key in the ignition. Everything was over—except for the paperwork. Both the news van and the HDL vehicle were long gone. “Keeps ’em in shape.”

  George shook his head as his partner made a U-turn in the now vacated street. “That certainly could have gone better.”

  “Yeah, well . . .” Sikes slumped down, driving one-handed. He fished out his shades and slipped them on against the daylight glare. “I knew I should’ve had my coffee first.”

  She looked up and saw the love of her life in the thick of a mob that looked as if they were about to kill him.

  Oh, great, thought Cathy. It wasn’t even noon yet, and Matt was out in the city somewhere, getting his butt into a jam. She could’ve almost laughed—it was so typical of him—if she hadn’t also been concerned about his safety. The crowd surrounding Matt and George’s car appeared to be mixed human and Newcomer, and had, even on the TV screen up in the corner of the clinic’s waiting room, the churning, chaotic look of imminent violence. The volume was turned down too low for her to tell exactly what was going on; she only relaxed when the video camera turned toward the flashing lights of the back-up units arriving on the scene. There was a brief glimpse of Matt safely ensconced in the car, radio mike still in his hand and a disgusted look on his face. My man—she shook her head. It figures.

  Nobody else in the waiting room showed any surprise or even interest in the events on the morning news. They all kept leafing through old issues of The New Yorker and National Geographic, barely even glancing up at the screen. Stuff like this, Cathy supposed, was pretty much dog-bites-man here in Los Angeles.

  That was a gloomy thought. She felt a small, familiar weight settle upon her soul. The news show had gone to a commercial—a trio of evening-gowned Newcomer women draped themselves across a grand piano, smiling at the enormous animated White Gold bottle working the keys. Cathy looked away, to a framed picture on the wall, the snowy Cascade Mountains, the trees’ shadows interlacing across the perfect whiteness. What a pretty world, she thought. Even now . . .

  She felt tired. She hadn’t been sleeping at all well lately. Perhaps when she had come in to see the doctor before, when he had run all the regular tests on her, she should have mentioned the weird dreams she had been having. They seemed to have been going on for weeks or even months now, which put her even more in sympathy with poor Matt. She had known him long enough to be familiar with how much job pressure a police detective carried around inside him. And now that he was revving up to take the Detective Two exams again, it was no wonder that he was popping awake at all hours of the night and prowling around the apartment with the lights off. So far she had managed to keep him from discovering that she had usually been lying there awake as well.

  She had done that, keeping her back to him in the bed, her breathing low and still, even though it would have been so nice to have turned to him for comfort, letting him wrap his arms around her, soothing away with a kiss on her brow the disquieting image of the silhouetted figure, arms outstretched before streaming light. Every night’s d
reaming had brought the figure closer, the faceless shadow falling across her vision, its voice whispering her name. And then saying more . . . but what? Nothing that made any sense, at least nothing that she could remember in the daylight hours. Something about blood . . .

  Cathy shook her head, closing her eyes to the magazine page on her lap. She knew she had done the right thing by not telling Matt about the dreams; he had enough piled on his shoulders right now.

  “Ms. Frankel?” A voice broke into her thoughts. From the counter’s little window of frosted glass, one of the doctor’s office staff smiled and called to her. “Could you come on back? Dr. Takata’s ready for you now.”

  The white-coated doctor came into the small consulting office a couple of minutes after she had taken a seat. “Cathy—how’s it going?” Under his arm, he had a manila folder stuffed with computer printouts and X-ray transparencies.

  “I thought you were supposed to tell me.”

  “Sure thing.” Dr. Takata sat down behind the desk, flipped open the folder, and spread out the papers before himself. “I think I’ve got some pretty good news for you here—it’ll explain a lot of these minor symptoms you’ve been experiencing.” He spoke a few words, then looked up at her and smiled.

  Cathy didn’t smile back at him. A few seconds passed before she spoke. “What did you say?” She couldn’t have heard that right.

  Dr. Takata leaned back in his chair, spreading his hands like a magician who had pulled off a small but deft bit of legerdemain. “Pregnant,” he repeated. “In the family way, as they used to put it here on Earth. So, congratulations.”

  I knew I should have gone to a Newcomer doctor. She meant, in her unspoken thoughts, a Newcomer who was a doctor. There were only a few of those, and they were usually outside of the health insurance loop. Most doctors who specialized in Newcomer medicine were humans, just like Takata sitting across from her now.