Ten minutes later we were ready. Rachel sat in a kitchen chair, arms and legs restrained by some cords from the bedroom closet, and Clint wore two pairs of dishwashing gloves to handle the Master.
“You sure?” I asked. “Are you ready?”
“Just do it.” Rachel looked up. “No peeking down my shirt, Clint.”
He pulled at the cords around her wrists. “You guys do this a lot? Got a safe word?”
“None of your business.” But Rachel grinned. “And yeah, it’s pineapple.”
“Moving on?” I was worried. I wanted to get this over with as fast as possible. And I didn’t want Mason thinking about our sex life while we did this.
Mason popped open the Tupperware, grimaced, then picked up a Master. Its antennae wiggled in his grip. He pulled back on the collar of Rachel’s blouse, peered down, and slid the Master tail first down her back.
Rachel bit her lip. Her body jerked as the first few claws jabbed her skin. She grunted, her head shaking as the Master’s antennae probed her neck. She gasped, gritting her teeth, and then her body went slack, as if she’d passed out.
I waited, Mason’s eyes flicking between me and Rachel. After a minute, Rachel’s head rose and she looked at me. She said nothing.
“Hello.” I stood in front of her, feeling like an exorcist about to do battle with a demon. Which I’ve done.. “Are you awake?”
Rachel blinked. “Y-yes.”
“Do you have a name?”
The question seemed to puzzle her. “I’m Rachel.”
“I mean the thing on Rachel’s back. The creature controlling her. Who are you?”
More confusion. Her face seemed to twist as she tried to think, and then it relaxed in a smile that creeped me out. “My name is Legion, for we are many.”
Mason ‘s eyes popped wide. “What the hell?”
Rachel laughed. “Sorry. Not a demon. It was the first thing I found in my memory. It was either that or, ‘We are Borg, resistance is futile.’”
A sense of humor wasn’t something I’d expected. “So you’re not a demon. Do you have a name?”
She cocked her head to think. “It wouldn’t mean anything to you. Language is—strange.”
“Why are you here? What do you want?”
“Where are you from?” Mason asked. “Outer space?”
Rachel looked at him. Then back to me. “Tom. Boyfriend. Lover.” She turned to Mason again. “Clint. Stranger. Attractive.”
His eyebrows rose. “Uhh . . .”
“Never mind that.” Poking into Rachel’s mind was bound to make us all uncomfortable. “Answer him—where did you come from?”
“We’ve been here.” She looked around the apartment. “Always. Everywhere. Far away and—right here.”
“What do you want?”
Rachel had to think. “To be. Just—to be.”
Survival. A basic instinct, but—“Can’t you do that without taking control of us?”
She closed her eyes. “Breathing. Food. Reproduction.” She looked up at me. “Can anything exist without it? Instinct. You don’t think. You just—are.”
This wasn’t getting us anywhere. The Master was talking in circles, or it didn’t have the vocabulary to tell me what I wanted. Come on, Tom, Rachel’s expecting you to get something out of this thing. I’m not much for making threats, but I had to do something. I took the stun gun out of my pocket. “Do you care about dying? Not being?”
Rachel stiffened. “Why would you harm us?”
“Because we don’t like being controlled.”
She pulled against the cords. Then she sat back and looked me over.
“I love you,” Rachel said.
“I love Rachel. Not the thing sitting on her back. I’ll zap you, and you’ll die. I’ve got a box full of you.” I gestured at the Tupperware. “I don’t need this particular one.”
Now she looked nervous. “You’ll—damage me. Her. The brain, the body.”
I was worried about that, but I couldn’t let the thing see any hesitation. “Rachel’s tough. She volunteered—she insisted, remember? Don’t worry about her. Worry about you.”
Rachel stared at me. Then her head dropped forward, and her body shuddered.
I crouched, wary. “Are you okay?”
Her head rose. She blinked. “T-tom? Tom?”
“What’s going on?”
She leaned back. “Pineapple?” Her voice was a whisper. “Pineapple.”
Was she—? I hesitated. Maybe the Master was backing off. Or maybe this was a trick.I waved to Mason. “Take a look.”
He stepped behind the chair and tugged at the collar of her blouse. “Still looks stuck.”
“Okay.” I swallowed. If I was right, Rachel would understand. If I was wrong, she’d still forgive me—I hoped. I moved behind her.
“No,” she murmured. “Please . . .”
I pressed the stun gun against her shirt. “See you in a minute, Rachel.”
Her head jerked up. “Wait!”
I looked at Mason and smiled. “She’d never beg. Rachel would curse like one of the Sopranos.”
In front of her again, I crossed my arms. “Well?”
She sighed. “You’re—not easy to understand.”
“That’s what keeps the relationship spicy. Tell us what’s going on.” I held up the stun gun again. “Or make my day.”
Mason snorted. Rachel rolled her eyes, as if somewhere inside she got the joke.
“Where are you from?” I asked. “What do you want?”
“I told you, we want—to exist. We don’t . . .” Rachel shook her head. “Without a host, we’re nothing. No words, no thoughts. Only instinct.”
“To find a, what—host?”
Rachel nodded. “If we separate, there’s nothing.”
Mason leaned against the table. “What if you’re on, like, a dog? Or a horse?”
“I don’t know!” Rachel curled a fist, yanking against the cords in frustration. “I’m here, now! That’s all I know! Without—without . . .” She had to stop. “Rachel? That’s me? That’s all I know, it’s all I am. Just—me.” She groaned. “Can I have some water?”
Mason fetched a bottle from the refrigerator and held it to her mouth. Rachel drank too fast, spilling it down her chest, as if she didn’t quite remember how to swallow. I remembered how we’d eaten nothing but a loaf of bread when I was controlled. Maybe they didn’t think about what their host body needed until it got urgent. Mason hadn’t showered in days, he said.
Maybe we were just disposable vessels to the Masters. Use us until we wore out, then find a new one.
“Where did you come from?” I asked.
Rachel sighed. “We’ve always been here. I mean—here. Somewhere. I don’t know. I think—” She closed her eyes. “I think I slept for a long time. It was dark. Then something changed, and I was—we were—up. Out. We—me—weren’t alone anymore.”
“What happened to the one on me?” Mason stood in front of me. “It just dropped off my back and died. Smelled bad. What went wrong?”
Rachel looked him over. “I don’t know. Something inside your body? Did you feed enough?”
“I ate. I’m not sick or anything. That I know about.”
“I can—feel my body.” She cocked her head, as if exploring inside herself. “It wants water. It’ll need food soon. My leg hurts from something—yoga? I can’t feel the ropes on my wrists and hands. My heart is beating fast, I need to breathe hard. My skin is—sticky.” She looked from Mason to me. “I can smell you. I remember how you taste. I know how you—”
“That’s enough.” I held up a hand. “How much do you know about Rachel? How deep can you see inside her brain?”
She looked down, breathing slowly. When her head came up, she looked directly at me. Into my eyes. “I love you.”
I stared at her, then backed away, out of reach. My own heart was suddenly pounding too.
Part of me wanted to hit her. It. Slap her, shake her, twist her hair to punish it for probing into Rachel’s thoughts and trying to use them against me.
I took a deep breath. But another part of me almost felt sorry for the thing. Like a vampire, it hadn’t asked to be what it was. It could only follow its instinct to survive—at any cost.
Mason was watching me. Maybe he was thinking the same thing.
I stepped toward her again. “I love Rachel. But I can’t let you use her like a parasite or a virus. If I promise not to kill you, will you let her go?”
She looked up at me. Blinked. Tears? I’ve seen Rachel cry only twice since we’ve been together—when her grandmother died, and during the Schitts Creek finale. I didn’t like the idea that this thing was using her emotions to manipulate me.
“It’s your choice,” I said, hoping I sounded more cold blooded than I felt. “I don’t want to kill you, but I will to protect Rachel. Check her memories and you’ll see.”
She sniffed, glared at me, then slowly nodded. “Just—just a minute.” She closed her eyes. Her shoulders tensed.
The collar of her blouse twitched, and the creature’s antennae poked out. It crawled up her neck, circling her shoulder.
Mason fumbled with the gloves and then grabbed it, pulling it out of Rachel’s shirt. Its tail swung back and forth as he dropped it into the container, and it scuttled toward the green material as he slammed the lid on, pressing it down until it was fully sealed.
I knelt beside Rachel and started working on the cords. “Rachel? You all right? Rach?”
Her eyes flickered. “Pineapple is a dumb safe word.”
“We’ll change it.” I patted her arm. “How do you feel?”
“Untie me and I’ll tell you.” She sank back and closed her eyes.
When she was free she stretched and reached around to rub her back. “Am I bleeding? Those stingers hurt.”
“Water?” Mason held out her bottle. “Or whiskey?”
She snatched the bottle and drank. “You didn’t find out much.”
“We know a little more about them.” But she was right. I hadn’t learned anything that would help us fight them.
Rachel smiled. “Good for you, this time I was ready.”
I felt my eyes grow wide. “What do you mean?”
“I could read it. A little.” She looked at Mason. “I’m psychic.”
“Yeah, he told me. You guys make a cute couple.”
“What did you find out?” I asked.
She took another gulp of water. “They’re—connected. They can’t really talk to each other, but they share some kind of identity. They were underground for a long time, and then something happened—there was light, and they could move, and they found us. One or two at a time.”
“Are they from Earth? Are they aliens?”
She scrunched up her face, thinking. “It’s not like I could talk to the thing. They don’t seem to really think on any kind of a conscious level. But I get the feeling they’re from somewhere else. Maybe another dimension or something.”
“What do they want? Do they have a plan for world domination or something?”
Rachel shook her head. “They don’t really think. They just have an instinct to attach themselves to something. People, or whatever’s handy and close.”
“How many are there?” Mason asked. “Lots?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think they have a concept of numbers. Like I said—”
My phone buzzed. The familiar tone sounded strange after the day I was having. I reached for it. “Pelz.”
Rachel frowned. “The guy—”
“He gave me the one I put on you. Quiet.” I took a quick breath, then answered. “Hello.”
“Do you have them?” Pelz’s voice was flat, but with an edge underneath.
“Yes. I’m back.”
“Go to the Silver Blaze. It’s a gathering place of some kind. Lots of people. Go to the back, outside. You’ll meet a woman named Naomi with more of us. You can go inside and take people.”
I got the feeling he’d be suspicious if I asked any questions. “All right.”
He hung up. The time was 7:45.
Rachel looked the Silver Blaze up on her phone. “Dance club. River North neighborhood. Lots of good Yelp reviews. Oops, here’s one that says the drinks are overpriced.” She paused. “Huh. I wonder how alcohol would affect them.”
“Do we call the cops now?” Mason was drinking whiskey again, nervous. “Or someone to help?”
I totally understood his hope for help. I wanted to call somebody too—anyone. But who? I knew some cops who’d worked with me on vampire cases. Maybe they’d believe me about body snatching aliens.
Were the local cops even equipped to deal with this? I didn’t have the number for any government agencies. Who would have jurisdiction? The FBI? Homeland Security? The Men in Black?
“We should stop them from getting more.” Rachel finished her bottle of water. “Grab as many of those things as we can and take them in. They won’t be able to ignore a dozen or more of them.”
She was right. Saving people from getting controlled by the Masters was something we could do right now. Then we could figure out who to contact.
“All right. Get your Taser. I’ll get mine.” I picked up a bottle of water as Rachel stood up. “Clint, you don’t have to come with us. You can go home, or stay here. Or get out of town if you want. That might be a good idea.”
“Yeah.” He set the whiskey down. “But I’m in. I hate these things.”
“I have to change my shirt. Again.” Rachel headed to the bedroom.
I drank some water. I’d gotten up this morning expecting a calm, boring day of wellness checks and internet searches, followed by an evening of TV and maybe sex. Now? My life was officially out of control. Again.
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