CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE WORST KIND_CassaFire Blog Book Tour Continues!

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Athee glared at Byron. “It’s your fault that I’m in this ridiculous outfit, isn’t it?”

Byron whispered as he counted off his fingers. “One, I see too much of you aboard my ship as it is without seeing this much of you!”

Athee snorted, “Yeah, right. Like seeing me in this doesn’t ping your radar.”

Byron made a show of ignoring her, which given how little there was of her outfit was something. “Two, we are trying NOT to be noticed so as to rescue this Alex Cavanaugh from the grey aliens.”

Athee did some counting off of her own slender fingers.

"One, there are no such things as ‘grey aliens’ in the known universe.

Two, why should we care what happens to some primitive alien called an Alex Cavanaugh?”

“One,” Bryon started ….

Athee snickered, “I made you lose count.”

Byron’s lips twitched and dust motes swirled about him.

“One, under orders we used that alien artifact to transport us to this alternate universe. Two, this Alex Cavanaugh somehow viewed our universe, writing it down in some manuscript named CASSAFIRE.”



Athee frowned, “CATCH FIRE?”
“I wish you’d catch fire,” muttered Byron.



“I heard that,” snapped Althee.

“I would hope so since we are standing way too close!”

He jabbed a finger at me. “Three, this primitive’s unconscious affects these Shadowlands. So HE is to blame for that wretched outfit.”

Athee snorted, “Wretched? If your eyes stay any longer on my legs, I’ll charge them rent!”



Athee pointed her weapon at me. “So if I kill you, I’ll ….”

“Go up in the same puff of smoke as me,” I whispered.

She lowered her weapon. “Then again, I’ve always wanted to talk to a primitive alien.”

Byron smiled crooked, “I think you’re full of skit.”

She flicked ice eyes to me. “The only way I’ll ever warm up to Byron is if we’re cremated together. Speaking of which, we are at the cabin you said the greys dragged this Alex Cavanaugh.”

I pulled out my note pad and pen. “I’ll rescue Alex. You just cover my exit.”

Athee smirked, “Oh, is that what you humans call your butt?”

Byron frowned, “When they kill you, we’ll show your ghost how a rescue’s done.”

I knew he was only trying to keep me from what he saw as suicide and smiled, “A soldier’s comforting is like a dog walking on its hind legs. It’s not done well, but you’re surprised that it’s done at all.”

I walked into the operating room quickly, scribbling on my note pad, ‘Startled by the human’s entrance, the greys fell dead from shock.’

Such is my power in the Shadowlands, the greys did just that. A hurried undoing of Alex’s restraints and putting back on of his clothes, and we were out of there.

Alex, rubbing his backside, muttered, “This is the last time I let you sucker me into Meilori’s. Do you know where those aliens were trying to insert their probes?”

Athee’s eyes flicked to where Alex was rubbing and smiled drily, “Where?”

Alex turned to her and sputtered in surprise, “Athee?”

Her eyebrow arched. “You call your butt ‘Athee’? Now, I’m insulted.”

Byron smiled wide. “I think it appropriate myself.”

Alex kept staring at Athee. “You can’t be here! You’re just a figment of my imagination.”

She scowled, “I think I prefer being called a butt.”

Byron smiled crooked, “Fine. You’re a ….”

Seeing her fingers tighten on the grip of her gun, I interrupted, “We have to save the ghost of Mark Twain.”

“Why?,” the three of them said in unison.

“Alex, do you want those greys to do to him what they tried to do to you?”

“Yes!”

Byron nodded to the pad still in my hand. “Just use that again.”

I shook my head. “My power is tied to how words work in literature. And in good novels, you can’t use the same trick twice.”

Athee looked at Byron. “Can I shoot him?”

As Alex said ‘Yes’ Byron snapped, “No!” (But he sounded disappointed.)

Before Byron changed his mind, I hurried down the hallway of the greys’ space ship to the next operating bay door. I heard Mark Twain’s raspy Missouri accent.

“Ow! You boys’ fingers are colder than Hemingway’s prose. Lots of luck with inserting that thingy there! Why I have you know the term ‘tight ass’ was coined just for me.”

Mark Twain cackled, “Why the only tighter ass was Miss Ellie Jefferson, poor old filly. She was a good soul -- had a glass eye and used to lend it to old Miss Wagner, that hadn't any, to receive company in.”

Mark laughed and went on, “It warn't big enough, and when Miss Wagner warn't noticing, it would get twisted around in the socket, and look up, maybe, or out to one side, and every which way, while t' other one was looking as straight ahead as a spy-glass.”

As the aliens buzzed in frustration, Mark kept talking, “Grown people didn't mind it, but it most always made the children cry. It was sort of scary.”

Alex began twitching as Mark Twain spun his tale, “She tried packing it in raw cotton, but it wouldn't work, no how -- the cotton would get loose and stick out and look so kind of awful that the children couldn't stand it no way.”

Athee started looking at her gun in a way that made me antsy, while Mark drawled on, “She was always dropping it out, and turning up her old dead-light on the company empty, and making them oncomfortable, becuz she never could tell when it hopped out, being blind on that side, you see.”

Mark cackled, “Somebody would have to hunch her way and say, ‘Your game eye has fetched loose, Miss Wagner dear’ -- and then all of them would have to sit and wait till she jammed it in again – “

I heard the aliens buzz louder as Mark laughed, “Wrong side, as a general thing, and green as a bird's egg, being a bashful cretur and easy sot back before company.”

Byron’s face began to twitch as Mark continued, “But being wrong side before warn't much difference, anyway; becuz her own eye was sky-blue and the glass one was yaller on the front side, so whichever way she turned it, it didn't match no how.”

Alex cried, “I can’t take any more!”

He grabbed Athee’s gun, but before he could race in, the ghost of Mark Twain ambled out with a sly grin. “Would you believe it? Those grubs went and killed themselves!”

“Yes!,” we all said.

There was a patter of bare furry feet behind us, and we turned. It was the Hoka now dressed as Indiana Jones.

"Did I miss all the fun?"
***
The portraits of Athee done by the incomparable Leonora Roy.
***