They waited in silence for a few minutes, and finally Dallas asked, “What’ll you do if Gurtz manages to leave?”
Charlotte’s breath was ragged. “I don’t think I can go back to that apartment in the Grove. I still can’t believe the assassin was right there next door.” Dallas couldn’t believe he’d almost had a tryst with the guy.
She sighed and leaned her head back. “I’ll probably look for a place close by. Maybe Coral Gables, somewhere like that. If he ever comes back…” She’d be waiting for him, Dallas thought, especially if he came in a human shell.
An idea took root in Dallas’s mind. “I want it, the house in Hallandale. I’ll take it over when you move out.”
Charlotte gave him a weak smile. “It’s just the right size for a single guy. Secluded, functional, cheap. Landlady who doesn’t ask too many questions.”
Dallas grinned. “It’s perfect.” All he needed was an income.
They continued to sit. Charlotte opened the window, giving the terrier a chance to sniff the air outside. “Buster doesn’t smell anything. Maybe we got here ahead of the gate.”
Dallas was feeling antsy. “I don’t want to just sit here and wait. We might run out of time. I’ll cruise around the neighborhood and see if we get lucky.”
Dallas didn’t like the way the alien’s skin had turned a dull muddy brown, its form hovering just above its host’s body as if too traumatized to stay fully engaged. A yellowish second membrane seemed to have slid over its eyes, although it was hard to tell as the alien got more transparent by the minute.
“Dallas, open your hand.” The sorcerer’s voice was a rough whisper.
Dallas was shocked — Gurtz never addressed him by name. “What, like this?” He held out his hand, palm up. Gurtz slowly unfurled one long digit and pushed it toward Dallas.
“Hey,” Dallas snatched his hand away. “I’m not falling for that electric eel trick of yours again.”
“You mistake…” Gurtz wheezed. “I,, want to show you something… won’t hurt.”
Heart thudding, Dallas opened his hand again. The sucker pod of the alien finger brushed lightly over the center of his palm, right across his lifeline. Primary colors exploded in his mind, painting a surreal landscape. Saturated hues and fluid shapes formed sky, jagged landmasses, and a sinuous river whose pearlized surface resembled an oil slick. There were no pastels to rest the retinas. The wide river wound its way around tall mounds and high peaks in bright sulphur yellow, dusky orange, and darker ochre — massive shapes folded, rounded and featureless, as if carved from foam or shaving cream. On the horizon two enormous moons of mottled cerulean dominated the sky, one so close half its spheroid shape was hidden below the mountain range while the other hung low and full in a poisonous lime green sky so bright it hurt Dallas’s eyes from the inside out. Further beyond the two satellites, the sky darkened to cyan and then to cobalt and finally black where a sprinkling of stars dusted the heavens.
But most astonishing was the gate, or what Dallas assumed must be the portal that allowed travel from this strange world to places unknown. The track began as a pinpoint far out in the starfield and as it homed in on the alien landscape, it resolved into two distinct crimson tracks that paralleled each other much like the twin east/west bridges of the MacArthur Causeway. The trackways then spread into a wide red Chinese-fireworks flare when they reached what he guessed must be the gate itself. Straddling the river, it seemed a marvel of fractal engineering, with strands like dazzling gemstones arching up over the oilslick surface of the river, forming whorls and spirals on a deep purple field that held a center point of blinding white light.
It was terrifying, and beautiful.
“This is your homeworld?”
The Gultranz didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to.
Dallas drove in silence up one street and down another, passing Charlotte’s old digs at Jacaranda Apartments at one point. The storm had mostly blown through, leaving the air damp and steamy. Finally, he stopped at a red light near the entrance to a gated community and looked over at Charlotte. “I give up, he’s got to give us some direction.” He touched her shoulder gently.
“Gurtz? Can you hear me? We’re just going in circles. Can you slip back in for a few seconds, just to see if we’re anywhere close?”
The Gultranz sorcerer shut his eyes and faded from sight. Charlotte shivered and opened one eye. The alien’s voice was muted. “…so much pain.”
Suddenly Buster barked sharply from the back seat and poked his nose out the window.
“It’s close!” Gurtz’s voice was barely audible.
“How far? Should I keep driving straight or what?”
“Turn left.”
“That’s a dead end. It doesn’t go anywhere.”
“Just do it!” Dallas knew Charlotte hadn’t meant to yell at him, but clearly this was the life-threatening situation he’d signed on for. Failure was not an option.
The Cherokee lurched as Dallas pulled a hard left.
“Are you sure? I don’t see anything weird looking.” Dallas scanned the sides of the road, having no idea what he was looking for. Buster was yipping, his head out the window.
Charlotte gripped the seat. “Doesn’t matter… smell’s strong.”
They cruised past hacienda-style homes deep in foliage, then a clutch of mango trees, then a few more houses. Charlotte shuddered. Blood seeped around her sutured side and belly. The alien inside tried to talk, his voice grinding like a shot transmission. “You know, Dallas… at first, I thought you were… the most… inept human I ever met.”
Dallas squinted. Was that a shadow across the sidewalk? It stretched into the street ahead of them and turned the bright crimson Dallas had seen in Gurtz’s vision of home.
Gurtz rasped, “I was wrong. You were my frien—” The Gultranz sorcerer suddenly lifted out of his host’s body and dissolved with no fuss right in front of Dallas’s nose. Charlotte’s body went slack.
The SUV slowed and rolled to a stop.
“Hey, I think it worked! Is he gone?” Dallas touched her arm. But Charlotte was dead.
His mouth settled into a hard line.
How lucky do you feel? Dallas wanted nothing so much as to punch Recruiter Rigel in the middle of his ugly face.
“I want your fucking job.”
“What?”
Dallas stood in the entrance to Rigel’s cube. “Just what I said.”
“That wasn’t in your contract.”
“That contract was crap and you know it. I did the job but it nearly got me killed, twice. But maybe you knew that too, huh? Maybe I wasn’t supposed to come back. How big was your bonus if the assassin took out Gurtz and me before we could find the gate?”
“I don’t know anyone named Gurtz.” Rigel looked unperturbed, but Dallas plowed ahead.
“Of course you know who Gurtz is. An innocent woman is dead because of him!”
“I hired you to be a dog walker. Recruiters are not allowed to interfere with the execution of a job once the applicant is hired.”
Dallas was hyperventilating in his fury. He took a deep breath and tried to connect the dots. “I see. So you hired someone you figured was incapable of performing the job to the end.”
He glared at the toad man, who glared right back.
“Well, surprise, I survived… so I’m here to collect my bonus. And that’s what I want.” He dragged the wrinkled contract from his jeans pocket and spread it out on the desk. “See, right there.” His finger stabbed the fine print at the bottom. “It says to tell the recruiter what you want if a bonus is earned, so I’m telling you.”
Rigel looked at the contract and then back at Dallas. Without a word, he reached into his jacket and pulled out a cell phone, popped it open, and thumbed a number. He texted something and waited, then texted back. Waited. Finally he closed the phone with a snap and slipped it back into his jacket. Without a word he got up, removed his badge and laid it on the desk blotter. He gave Dallas a squint-eyed look, then turned and went out through the door in the wall behind him.