Alien in the House

shooting.
    “Richard, there’s no one manning those guns. Can you get to them without being hit?”
    “As long as the friendly fire ceases.”
    “Uncles Peter and Victor, please stop shooting. You’re wasting ammo we’re going to need.”
    They stopped and White took off. He had to run around Rahmi in order to not get hit by bullets or battle staffs, but he was up in one of the offending trees in just a couple of seconds. The shooting from that tree stopped. White climbed down the one tree and up the other. The gunfire stopped completely. The princesses stopped spinning their staffs.
    “Why the elaborate charade?” Gower asked.
    Been asking that myself. “My guess is that we need to turn around and be ready for an ambush.”
    “You do.” The voice wasn’t Clarence’s. It was Doreen’s. “Stand up, too, please.”
    Did as requested to see Doreen and Irving standing there. It was dark out but my eyes were adjusted and A-Cs had better night vision, which I’d also inherited, so it was easy to see that they were holding guns. Clarence was between them.
    “Wow. Did not see this one coming.” Though, as I thought about it, I hadn’t seen Doreen and Irving all day or night.
    She shrugged. “Clarence was my father’s Chief Aide. He was like a second father to me. When you told me he was back, I used an old method I’d heard my father talk about to reach him.”
    “You nursed him back to health?”
    “No,” Clarence said. “That was my new friend who also hates you.”
    “Raul, or someone else?”
    “I don’t know,” Doreen said. “I haven’t cared enough to ask. We only connected yesterday.”
    There was something about the way Doreen was talking, her choices of words. And her tone of voice—she was Over-The-Top Evil Genius About To Twirl Mustache. And yet, there were three of us holding guns, and she hadn’t told us to drop them. An idea nudged. “Is Raul here, too? Or is he killing Esteban Cantu?”
    “I took care of that already,” Clarence said with a grin. “And your mother and the two kings with her are dealing with the blame.”
    “Who tipped you off that they were going there?”
    “Clarence says he has friends in high places,” Doreen answered, sounding incredibly impressed. The idea solidified. Now, how to share it with the others?
    “Like who? Langston Whitmore?”
    “That idiot?” Clarence laughed. “He’s not as important as he thinks he is.” But since Clarence knew who he was, it was likely Whitmore was one of the Apprentice Wannabes.
    “How did you get in? I mean, it’s impossible. I wanted to go there, but realized there was no way any of us here could manage it.”
    Doreen snorted. “Especially since everyone with you is really untrained in any kind of Field work, let alone the skills needed to do what Clarence did.” Hoped the others were catching the clue by now, but couldn’t risk looking at their expressions.
    “Don’t buy it. Clarence has never struck me as that smart.”
    He smirked. “Your mommy had to call for clearance. We have the right people on our side, and they contacted Raul. It’s hard to get into the Pentagon, sure, if you’re a human,” he sneered the word. “But I just waited around until they showed up and ran past them.”
    “Just like you did in order to kill Edmund Brewer earlier.”
    “Yeah, and you’d think your genius of a husband would have thought of that, but it didn’t occur to him at all. So, once in, it was easy enough to move so fast no one could see me and get where I needed to go.”
    “Oh, I’m sure it wasn’t easy,” Doreen said. “Did you have to kill a lot of people?”
    “No. That wasn’t my part to play in this instance. Stole a keycard off of someone and used it to get down levels. Card stopped working? Grabbed another card. Places like that, once you’re in, they think you should be in. Found Cantu’s cell, gave him a nice drink filled with arsenic. Your ‘team’ came in, I left. Cantu died while they watched.”
    “Why kill him?” Was clear on why they’d use arsenic—Reyes had died from arsenic poisoning at our party and every person there with Mom had been at that party, too. They were going to be questioned, potentially for hours. Brilliant move, really. Therefore, I knew Clarence hadn’t come up with it. “Uncles Victor and Peter, you said you thought Cantu was the Mastermind.” They hadn’t, and I hoped that would give them a clue.
    “Him? He was never in charge. He wanted to