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there, son."
Ukiah struggled to take another breath, and forced out, "Something's in my
lung."
"In? Something that will work itself out, or something that needs removed?"
Max asked.
As if his body took it as a suggestion or perhaps a threat, Ukiah started to
cough. Each cough was
an explosion of pain, and he doubled over, trying to ease it. Something was
forced up and out. He covered his mouth and coughed the wet, bloody mass into
his hand. Immediately, he could breathe, and gasped in a huge sweet lungful of
air. He slumped back in the seat, still cupping the mess, just enjoying the
deep, unhindered breathing.
Max got some Kleenex and lifted Ukiah's cupped hand. "Here. Is this all dead?"
Ukiah considered. "No. Something's alive in there."
Max carefully cleaned away dead tissue from living. The mass resolved down to
a black cocoon, which shuddered open as the air hit it. An insect, looking
like a cross between a wasp and a butterfly with too many legs crawled from
the thin black silk.
Max gave him a look that clearly asked, What the hell?
"It's a v'vrex." Ukiah let Rennie coax the alien into inspecting a clean,
empty Gatorade bottle. "It's from Prime's home."
"That's new." Max tucked the bloody tissue of dead-cells into the plastic
wrapped around Ukiah.
Zoey darted to Ukiah's side and laced her fingers through his. "I know you're
going to be okay.
You're Magic Boy even if you don't think you are. It's just that the scientist
in me is at odds with the granddaughter of a medicine man. But that's nothing
unusual. I think this time I better listen to the granddaughter."
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"I'll be fine." Ukiah was glad that he could reassure at least one person.
"You take care of Cassidy.
She actually needs you more."
"Here, take this." Zoey slipped a small beaded bag on a thong of rawhide over
his neck and kissed his cheek. "It wards off evil spirits."
"Evil spirits," Rennie said, as his big motorcycle rumbled to life, "are the
least of our worries."
***
The Lyrids were falling the last time he really talked to Alicia. He had been
doing a surveillance stakeout as the meteors streaked the April night sky in a
rain of wishes. Since it was a matter of just sitting, and watching, it made
sense that he and Max took turns.
Alicia came to him quietly, dressed all in tight black, shivering with cold
and excitement.
"What are you doing here?" His breath smoked in the freezing night air. Alicia
had not worked for them for nearly a year now, despite her frequent visits.
"I dropped by the office for a shoulder to cry on, or an ear to bitch into."
She pressed a tall thermos into his hands. "Max said I could bring you
something to eat."
He cracked open the thermos and found it filled with Max's beef stew, steaming
hot. "What's wrong?"
"Oh, same old, same old." Alicia peered through his telescope at the storage
yard he had under surveillance while he juggled cap, lid, and spoon to gulp
down the first cupful. "I really should learn not to think with my hormones.
Wild and crazy guys might be oh-so-hot, and great for messing around with, but
they're not cut out for stable relationships."
He wasn't sure what to say to that. He was too new to civilization to
understand the complex social dance everyone else breezed through. He wasn't
even sure what "messing around with"
entailed. "I'm sorry if you're hurt."
"I'm not hurt, just
pissed off and mostly at myself." She wrapped her arms about herself
and rubbed at her arms. "Damn, is it cold!"
"Where's your coat?" He finished the stew and screwed the lid back on.
"It's screaming yellow. I didn't think I should wear it up here. I might give
you away."
"Here." He started to unbutton his coat.
"I can't take your coat! " she protested.
He stood with his coat hanging open, unsure what to do, then said, "We could
share it."
So she snuggled into his chest and he hugged her close. His coat barely
covering her sides, he rubbed her back to warm her.
"You always smell so good," she murmured.
"It's the stew," Ukiah told her. "Max makes it with light cream and cashew
paste, kind of like
Indian korma."
She laughed into his chest. She smelled of arousal, but he had lots of
practice around his mothers at ignoring the scent.
"How do you feel?" he asked, steering his mind and body away from her
pheromones.
She looked into his eyes. "Safe."
He had expected "warmer" or "still cold" or something other answer. He puzzled
over it. He supposed she felt that way because he wouldn't let anything hurt
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