Page 19 of Queen Takes Sunfires 2
“She said something was after her here. That’s why she fled the ER. What did you see? What happened?”
“Nothing much, at least not that I remember. I stepped away… Oh, there was a power outage. The generators kicked on quickly, though.”
“A power outage?” Harris asked. “I didn’t hear anything about it on the radio. No one else was affected.” He gave me another hard look but eased his hand away from his weapon. Evidently he wasn’t going to try me. Today. “A diversion for her to escape?”
I shook my head. “She didn’t do it, and she was terrified. She said they were after her.”
“They who?”
This was the part where I’d lose any credibility at all with the detective and probably the doctor too. I decided to pretend dumb myself. “She said they’re called sunfires, but I have no idea what that is. Have you two ever heard that term before?”
“No, never.”
“That’s a strange word for alien,” Harris quipped, giving me another suspicious look. “Is that supposed to be something from another planet?”
I chose my words carefully. “I don’t think she came from another planet. But I do think she was held against her will in another dimension.”
Harris blew out a disgusted sigh. “Too much bullshit for me, but I can get behind the idea that she was a captive. I saw enough of her condition in the alley to believe she’d been abused. You don’t have anything else on these sunfire things?”
“They come in the daytime.”
Dr. Mason pushed up from his chair to pace around the room. “But that’s impossible. It was night when we lost power, if the two things were related.”
“She said it was possible for them to appear at night, but it was harder, and they were weaker then. Maybe that’s why she was able to escape. Evidently they wanted her badly enough to try for her before she could get help. Look, I’ve seen a lot of unexplained shit in my life, but even I don’t know what these sunfire things are. But I believe her, and judging by the smoky prints on the ceiling, these things are really fucking strange.”
Dr. Mason headed for the door, pausing just inside the room. “I’m going to reach out to a few research sites I know of that might have some insight into her condition. They’re run by reputable scientists, but I’ll be careful what I say. The last thing I want is some government agency coming after her or something.”
“You have my number,” Harris said. “Let me know if you find anything useful.”
With the doctor gone, an uncomfortable silence descended between us. I could feel his cop eyes burning into my back, trying to decide whether to drag me in for some trumped-up charge. Ignoring him, I headed for my car.
Unfortunately, he followed.
I glared at him over my car as he came to the passenger door. “Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”
“Wherever you are, Wild Man,” Harris replied. “Or should I say Alien Man?”
Shaking my head, I slid in behind the wheel. The last thing I needed was a tagalong. But maybe another set of eyes would be good. Someone I could trust to see through the bullshit, though Harris asked too many damned questions. He was already suspicious of me, even before this discussion with the doctor.
Now I’d be lucky to get out of his sight.
Irritated, I slammed the car into gear and pulled out of the lot, ignoring my passenger. I’d intended to go to the hotel next, though that was uncomfortably closer to Helayna’s nest. I needed to see what physical evidence we’d left behind, and if any other weird shit would give me a clue about these sunfire things. Had any smoky prints been left there? Or had the whole place burned down?
I drove in silence while Detective Harris made calls. He left a message with his station that he was with Ivan Hart, the false name I’d given him once upon a time. He rattled off the license plate and the make and model of my car. So if this jaunt went sideways, I’d have to ditch the Mustang. Fucking hell. I loved this car.
A complete and total pain in my ass.
Though he was a pretty decent cop. Hopefully I wouldn’t have to kill him.
9
Karmen
I’m burning alive.
I walked through the dream landscape where I’d met my goddess before but this time, I was on fire. Flames scorched the trees as I passed. I looked at my hands stretched out in front of me, and my arms were gold. Likehis. Droplets of molten gold fell from my fingers to smolder on the ground. Dry tinder sparked. Wildfire spread in my wake, creating a hot wind that tore at my hair.
It was as if all the worst powers of Ra and the sunfires were combined inside me. Molten gold. Fiery solar energy. They were at war, burning me up from the inside out, and in the process, destroying the world around me.
