The dungeon reeked. Two large, scaly Inlans held my arms in painful grips as they escorted me to my brother’s cell. When I tripped, the shapeshifting aliens urged me to move faster. The cell door stood open, and Harren Den, the Inlan king, entered first. The other Inlans dragged me in next.
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The flower opened silently. Unremarkably. Alone in the forest’s center, right where I’d planted it. Beautiful. Unnoticed. Deadly.
Smiling, I crouched beside it. They’d never suspect this. Those humans were too busy worrying about World War III, global warming, and zombies to stop and smell the flowers.
Their loss.
It’s not the end of the world.
That’s what her brother would have said if he were here.
But he wasn’t.
Corbin had been called in to work a late shift at the warehouse thirteen miles away. Nora knew because the GPS locator on her phone told her.
If only her phone could pinpoint the monsters, too.
The stout at the Crown is frothy and just a bit sweet. Not sure how many I’ve drunk, but tonight isn’t the night for counting. If I was sure there’d be beer in heaven, I might be elsewhere.
Aliens. The outer-space sort. Came down from beyond months ago and decided last week they’d play
A small bell rang, and Joe looked up from his cup of coffee to the front door of Bob’s Stellar Diner. Darcy and Ben Jackson had stopped at the hostess’s desk, and Lucy smiled before leading them to the same booth they occupied at 7 a.m. every Saturday. As the elderly couple moved past,
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Why, oh why, did the baby and the aliens have to come on the same night?
Joey crouched on the bathroom counter, heart racing. Purple light from the crocodile-shaped spaceship outside bathed the house in an eerie glow. Glass shattered in the kitchen. A scaled figure ripped open the refrigerator and hissed at its contents.
The oil rig’s platform shuddered and lurched into the air.
Matthew Finnburg the Third watched the earth fall away beneath them, then turned to his companion. “Xena, what is happening?”
Xena’s black eyes widened, then clenched shut as the platform picked up speed. Her slender arms quivered from her grip on the rail. “I couldn’t say, sir.”
“Relax, Nana. It’ll be fine.” Lili crossed two fingers behind her back, blowing a frizzy curl out of her face. It would be fine. It must be fine. Or she’d never escape the greasy walls of their tiny spaceship-turned-food-truck. There’s got to be more to life than noodle bowls.
“Ya,” her grandmother muttered.
I pulled the handcuffs from my belt and turned to the drug dealer, whom my partner held at gun point. The guy had somewhere in the area of twenty-seven arms and depending on what family he was from might have another—usually with a gun—hiding up one of his noses. I groaned.
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“Idiots!” Admiral Paul Seward exploded as soon as the doors closed behind him, cutting off the hearing chamber with its three transparent sides showing a stunning starfield view and its dreary bureaucratic interior.
His navigator, who had waited outside, jumped straight. “Sir?”
“Turning down humans, the most promising Lightwarden candidates, just when we’re in dire need of recruits.”
Next up was the Aleuthian. It stood at the front, fidgeting with its hair and clothes with three of its rubbery appendages.
From the seat next to mine, Nimthron yelled, “Hurry it up already. Some of us don’t have three hundred years.”
Nimthron turned to me. “That’s only if it’s female, of course. Males have significantly shorter lives. But it’s nearly impossible to tell.”
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I glance up at the heavens as I stride toward the launchpad. The usual thick, gray clouds churn in their eternal cauldron.
There’s no reason to be nervous, I tell myself for the hundredth time. Most of the tests have gone perfectly fine.
Our airship has the long, rounded body of a submarine, albeit one with massive engines slung along the back. The resizer agent is built into those hefty engines, so I can adjust our size at will. In theory, anyway.
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