“Grace again. You kept mentioning grace after I shot you,” I told him.
“You don’t know Grace.”
Well, that stung. I never knew he was so religious—or judgmental. The two usually go hand in hand, still . . .
“Cassie, I have to tell you something.”
“You’re a Baptist?”
“That day on the highway after I—let you get away, I was very afraid. I didn’t understand what happened, why I couldn’t . . . do what I came to do. Do what I was born to do. It didn’t make sense to me. And in a lot of ways, it still doesn’t make sense. You think you know yourself. You think you know the person you see in the mirror. I found you, but in finding you, I lost myself. Nothing was clear anymore. Nothing was simple.”
I nodded. “I remember that. I remember simple.”
“In the beginning, after I brought you back, I really didn’t know if you were going to make it. And I would sit there with you and I’d think, Maybe she shouldn’t.”
“Gee, Evan. That’s so romantic.”
“I knew what was coming,” he said, and that sure was something clear and simple. He grabbed both my hands and pulled me close, and I fell a thousand miles into those damn eyes, which is why the honey technique doesn’t fit me: I’m more the fly when I’m around him. “I know what’s coming, Cassie, and until now I thought the dead were the lucky ones. But I see it now. I see it.”
“What? What do you see, Evan?” My voice quivering. He was scaring me. Maybe it was the fever talking, but Evan was acting very un-Evanish.
“The way out. The way to finish it. The problem is Grace. Grace is too much for you—for any of you. Grace is the doorway and I’m the only one who can walk through it. I can give you that. And time. Those two things, Grace and time, and then you can finish it.”
44
THEN DUMBO, with perfect timing, popped his head into the room. “They’re back, Sullivan. Zombie said—” He stopped. Obviously he’d interrupted an intimate moment. Thank God I hadn’t unbuttoned my shirt. I pulled my hands from Evan’s and stood up.
“Did they find a canister?”
Dumbo nodded. “They’re putting it in the elevator now.” He looked at Evan. “Zombie said anytime you’re ready.”
Evan nodded slowly. “Okay.” But he didn’t move. I didn’t move. Dumbo stood there for a few seconds.
“Okay,” he said. Evan didn’t say anything. I didn’t say anything. Then Dumbo said, “See you guys later—in Dubuque! Heh-heh.” He backed out of the room.
I whirled on Evan. “All right. Remember what Ben said about the enigmatic alien thing?”
Then Evan Walker did something I’d never seen him do—or heard him say, to be accurate.
“Shit,” he said.
Dumbo was back in the doorway, slack-jawed, red-eared, and in the grasp of a tall girl with a cascade of honey-blond hair and striking Norwegian-model-type features, piercing blue eyes, full, pouty, collagen-packed lips, and the willowy figure of a runway fashion princess.
“Hello, Evan,” Cosmo Girl said. And of course her voice was deep and slightly scratchy like every seductive villainess ever conceived by Hollywood.
“Hello, Grace,” Evan said.
45
GRACE: A PERSON, not a prayer or anything close to being connected to God. And armed to the teeth: She had Dumbo’s M16 in addition to the hefty sniper rifle hanging from her back. She shoved the kid into the room and then blew out my eyesight with her megawatt smile.
“And you must be Cassiopeia, queen of the night sky. I’m surprised, Evan. She’s nothing like I pictured. Kind of a ginger. Didn’t know that was your type.”
I looked at Evan. “Who the hell is this person?”
“Grace is like me,” Evan said.
“We go way back. Ten centuries, give or take. Speaking of taking . . .” Grace motioned for my rifle. I tossed it at her feet. “Sidearm, too. And that knife strapped to your ankle, under the fatigues.”
“Let them go, Grace,” Evan said. “We don’t need them.”
Grace ignored him. She gave my rifle a little kick and told me to toss it out the window with the Luger and the knife. Evan nodded at me as if to say, Better do it. So I did. My head was spinning. I couldn’t grab hold of a single coherent thought. Grace was a Silencer like Evan—that one I could hug tight. But how did she know my name and why was she here and how did Evan know she was coming and what did he mean by Grace is the doorway? The doorway to what?
“I knew she was human.” Grace was back on Evan’s favorite subject. “But I never imagined how completely human she was.”
Evan knew it was coming, but he tried to stop it anyway. “Cassie . . .”
“Fuck you and the horse you rode in on, you f**king alien motherfucker.”
“Colorful. Imaginative. Nice.” Grace motioned with Dumbo’s rifle for me to sit.
Again, Evan shot me a look: Do it, Cassie. So I sat on the bed next to his, beside Dumbo, who was breathing through his mouth like an asthmatic. Grace remained in the doorway so she could keep an eye on the hall. Maybe she didn’t know about Sam and Megan in the next room or Ben and Poundcake waiting for Evan in the elevator downstairs. I understood Evan’s strategy then: Stall. Buy time. When Ben and Poundcake came up to see what the hell was going on, that would be our chance. I remembered Evan taking out an entire squad of 5th Wavers, outgunned and outnumbered, in pitch darkness, and thought, No, when they show up, that will be her chance.
I studied her, the way she leaned against the jamb with one ankle thrown casually over the other, golden tresses flowing over one shoulder, her head turned slightly to display for our admiration her stunning Nordic profile, and I thought, Sure, makes sense. If you can download yourself into any sort of human body, why not pick an impeccable one? Evan, too. In that sense, he was nothing but a big phony. And that’s weird to think about. Deep down, the dude who gave me the Jell-O knees was an effigy, a mask over a faceless face that probably ten thousand years ago looked like a squid or something.
“Well, they did tell us there was risk, living so long as humans among humans,” Grace said. “Tell me something, Cassiopeia: Don’t you think he’s perfectly perfect in bed?”
“Why don’t you tell me,” I shot back. “You extraterrestrial slut.”