Chapter Eleven
A bugle played reveille. Loudly.
Hothar bolted upright, dumping me on the floor and in one smooth movement pulled his laser pistol.
“What the hell?” I looked around in alarm.
That wizard kid from the movies stood by the bed with a bugle in one hand. He smirked at us. “Does Zarek know you are sleeping together?”
Hothar holstered his pistol. “What are you doing here Adan?”
“Saving your lives.”
“Our lives? Seriously? When did that amazing event occur?” I got to my feet.
“Have you ever wondered how out of all the ships sailing across the Pacific Ocean, you ended up on the one with Sariel’s stolen armor onboard?”
“Gee, I thought the Good Fairy and her magic wand were responsible.” No sleep made me a very cranky girl.
Hothar’s hands curled into fists. “You sent me the coordinates not Zarek?”
“I simply pointed you in the right direction and put the belt where the female could find it.”
“My name is Casey. I don’t answer to female.”
“But you are a female,” Adan countered.
“Are you always this big of a dick?”
“Do not provoke him,” Hothar warned.
“What’s he gonna do? Blow his bugle again?”
“You must be a Jones.”
I frowned. Adan’s power levels and aura were funky. “I am. What are you?”
“I am a Katanic shapeshifter.” Adan transformed into a huge, heaving, silky black mass with creepy tentacles.
Holy Mother of God. I climbed Hothar. “Get us out of here.”
Hothar patted my leg. “He is Detja’s adoptive father. He won’t eat us.”
“You sure about that?”
“I am,” Hothar said.
If Adan tried anything, I was going to bounce him off the walls and then run like hell. “So, you raised Detja?”
“I did.”
“Well, that explains a lot.” I slid down Hothar’s body. “Do you know if Mary Beth Dunson was at Paraburdoo when it blew?”
“She caught me eating Governor-General Ian Dovers and fled the base an hour before it was destroyed,” Adan replied. A head suddenly bulged out from his hide.
“Is…” Nausea rose in my throat. “Is that Governor-General Dovers?”
“It is. I can regurgitate him, if you wish to question him.”
“No! That won’t be necessary.”
Hothar rubbed my back soothingly. “Adan can keep the general alive for up to three days.”
“Swell.” I swallowed hard as more moving body parts poked out from Adan’s thick mass. How many people had he eaten, and did I even want to know? A part of me cringed at Dovers’s fate, but the warrior in me thought it was a fitting punishment. “Why didn’t you go after Mary Beth?”
“Her quantum logic gate disrupted my ability to teleport for a short period.”
“That’s not good.”
“It is not,” Hothar agreed, then looked at Adan. “What do you want?”
“I need your mate’s help.”
Hothar eyed Adan suspiciously. “To do what?”
“I was able to trace Mary Beth’s logic gate transmissions to a place called Old Tucson. I have never been to an old west theme park before and need Casey to guide me through what is real and what is a reenactment. It will keep me from unnecessarily eating people.”
“Yeah, we wouldn’t want you to eat some poor actor by mistake, now would we?”
“No, it upsets Detja.”
I bet it did. “It’s been years since Earth First used Old Tucson as their base. Uncle Saul has it regularly patrolled and sends me in undercover as Annie Oakley, the famous sharpshooter, every six months to make sure the creeps haven’t established a foothold again. Are you one hundred percent sure that’s where Mary Beth went?”
An enormous mouth edged with hundreds of serrated teeth appeared in the mass. “You doubt my ability to track power sources?”
“No!” I held up my hands. “Not at all, but if I was Mary Beth, I’d dump the belt and run.”
“The belt was disabled, but I know from interrogating Governor-General Dovers she has contacts at Old Tucson.”
“Uncle Saul has personally scanned all the workers there. I find it hard to believe that he missed a traitor,” I replied.
Adan’s mouth grew bigger. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“She is not. Casey is simply not aware of your capabilities,” Hothar said quickly.
“What he says.” I grabbed a sword off the wall and about dropped it. Dang it was heavy. “But if you try to eat me, I will gut you like a fish.”
Eeyore! Eeyore! Eeyore! Eeyore! Eeyore!
“Why is he making a noise like a rabid hyena?”
“He is laughing,” Hothar said, grinning.
“Laughing?”
Hothar nodded. “Yes. At the idea you could actually hurt him.”
Crap. I knew Katanic shapeshifters were notoriously hard to kill, but it was a slap in the face to be considered harmless as a kitten. On the other hand, it was to my advantage to let him think that. All I needed him to do was take me to the traitorous bitch and I’d do the rest. I lowered the sword. “You got yourself a guide.”
Alarm filled Hothar’s eyes. “Wait! Does Zarek know you are on Earth and do you have his permission to hunt Earth First soldiers?”
“He does, and I do. He had me assume the form of the Rodan commander Bay Kal after he was killed in combat. I was able to infiltrate the Rodan command center and retrieve their battle strategies for destroying the Alliance. This planet, the Legionnaires and Earth First are key to their plans.”
I ran a hand over my tangled curls. “How does that moron Waewae fit into their plot?”
“The Rodan intend on replacing Zarek with Waewae. He has agreed to give them all of the hybrids.”
“The fool believes his mother’s lies,” Hothar snarled.
“Are you a screamer?” Adan asked suddenly.
“What?” The word came out as a squeak.
Hothar shoved me behind him. “You are not taking my mate anywhere without me.”
“As you wish.” Ropy tentacles shot from Adan’s gloppy hide and wrapped around us.”
I yelped as he pulled us close. “What’s he doing?”
“Adan is going to teleport us to Old Tucson,” Hothar said unhappily.
“No! Wait! Zoey said teleporting with tentacled aliens is a really bad idea.” I tugged frantically at the sticky appendage. “Why can’t we just fly there?”
“This is much faster,” Adan answered. An incandescent orange light formed around us. The light spun faster and faster and faster until it became a vortex.
Slurppp! We were sucked inside. It was like going from zero to Mach 12 in ten seconds flat. The horrific, twisting funnel of energy rocketed us across a weird black void. “Holy Mother of God!” I buried my face in Hothar’s back and fought back a shriek. Zoey had warned me to never teleport with a Gorum because it was like falling down the eye of a tornado at warp speed. This was ten times worse.
“Relax, the Executioners no longer have a death warrant for Adan,” Hothar said.
“And that’s a good thing?”
“It is. The death authorization gave them the right to kill any creatures caught with me. If it was still valid and the Executioners managed to capture me, they would have eaten you and Hothar.” Adan flashed me the image of dark, wraithlike creatures with dozens of tentacles.
“Color me happy.”
The violently rotating walls began to collapse. After what seemed to be an eternity, the vortex spat us out in the rear parking lot of Old Tucson. Slashes of lightning danced and pulsed over the asphalt.
Adan released us.
I shuddered and shook and would have done a face-plant on the blacktop if Hothar hadn’t clamped me to his side.
“Breathe, Casey.”
“Breathe? I can’t feel my face! Oh ick! I’m covered in slimy goop.”
Hothar gently wiped the crap off my face. “Riding the vortex can be difficult.”
“Ya think?”
Adan transformed into a cowboy, complete with ten-gallon hat, western-style shirt with fringe on the sleeves, chaps, and six shooters strapped on his hips. No moving body parts showed on his muscular human frame.
What the hell had happened to Governor-General Dovers when Adan altered his form? Was he still inside him or had he been consumed?
Hothar scanned Adan with his bracelet. “Are you Wild Bill Hickok or Wyatt Earp?”
“Wyatt Earp, the most dangerous lawman in the west.” Adan stroked his mustache.
Huh? I had to admit he was a dead ringer for Earp. “The Spanish spurs on your boots are a nice touch.”
“I found pictures of Wyatt Earp and his attire on your internet.” The expression on Adan’s new face reminded me of a kid playing dress up.
Slime dripped off Hothar’s face and splattered on my nose. “Ugh. We need to get cleaned up and changed into something more appropriate for undercover work.”
“An excellent idea. I will be Wild Bill Hickok.” There was a touch of glee in Hothar’s voice.
“Works for me. Yippee-ki-yay!
Hothar queried, “Yippee-ki-yay?”
“It’s a cowboy thing,” I replied.
“Yippee-ki-yay,” Adan hooted repeatedly and started dancing around the parking lot. It was a weird combination of the Texas Two-Step, the Traveling Cha-Cha and with a touch of hip-hop thrown in. Had Aunt Tess been giving him dance lessons?
Adan did a couple of roundhouse kicks and broke into an Irish jig.
Oh, God, she had.
“Yippee-ki-yay. Yippee-ki-yay.”
I had created a monster.
“Yippee-ki-yay.”