Alien in the House

while he might have had a shot at running away from one of them, with there being two, any time he went away from one warrior princess, the other was right there, waiting for him.
    Rhee gave a war cry and swept his legs while Rahmi gave an answering cry and slammed her staff against his chest. Clarence was down, flat on his back, each one of the girls with a foot on his chest, glowing ends of two battle staffs less than an inch from his head.
    “Who has the right of the kill?” Rahmi shouted.
    “Do you really want him dead?” Doreen asked. “He still has information.”
    “We’ll have to torture him to get it, and we won’t be able to trust it anyway. No, we got all we could, and you were awesome with that, I must say. It’s time to end Clarence’s personal family vendetta. Besides, I think Rahmi and Rhee’s Earth Vacation would be considered a total downer if they didn’t get to kill one bad guy. Though if it looks like Clarence is going to get away, I’m all for just shooting him, as long as the girls aren’t hurt.”
    “Are you sure we got everything?” Doreen sounded doubtful.
    “I agree with my ‘niece,’” Surly Vic said. Wow, I’d moved up to official family for him, too. This Operation was just chock-full of surprises. “Anything he says now will be suspect, and he could waste much of your time or cause unrest.”
    “He needs to be dealt with,” the Dingo added. “Permanently.”
    “Oh, I agree.”
    The princesses were arguing about who should kill Clarence. Which meant they weren’t paying attention to him. Not good. Clarence used their distraction to flip and twist his lower body in such a way that he knocked them off his upper body as he flipped back to his feet.
    Which was fine. I’d already aimed and I emptied the clip into him. Clarence fell back again, and this time he didn’t get up. “Clarence, curiosity
did
kill the cat. But satisfaction brought her back.” Dropped the clip, dug around in my purse, got out a new clip, put in it. Rahmi and Rhee stared at me, openmouthed.
    “Princesses, that’s how we do things across the galactic railroad tracks in the dirty downtown that is Earth. In the future, the ‘honor’ of the kill isn’t nearly as important as ensuring that your very dangerous opponent is really most sincerely dead.”
    “I am so proud,” the Dingo said. It was clear that he meant it.
    “Is Raul truly on his way?” White asked as Raj gave the assassins back their guns.
    “I hope not,” Doreen said. “Lorraine texted me when they were rolling. I couldn’t tell her I was with Clarence because that would have blown my cover. But I could warn her. She and I have a password thing where if one of us says one word, we’re in trouble, and if we say the other word, it’s the other person in trouble. I gave her the word.”
    “Good, so they were ready.”
    “Hope so. Clarence called Raul and told him what was going on. Raul said he’d handle it and meet us back here, in time to kill all of you himself.”
    “Who did Raul think he was going after at Georgetown?”
    She shrugged. “A couple of uppity girls. I had to tell him Lorraine and Claudia both were going, Clarence knows us well enough to know that if one was there, the other would be, too. I didn’t share that the ‘we’ Lorraine was talking about probably included Airborne, too.”
    “Actually, the ‘we’ includes Mossad as well. Let’s hope Raul’s toast.”
    “We don’t want him dead,” Gower said, patience clearly forced. “He’s the only one with the answers.”
    “Well, our team knows that. Doreen, you weren’t with Clarence when he hit the Pentagon, were you?”
    “No. We were with him here, setting up the automatic guns, when he got that call from Raul. He told us he had to do something, took off, and was back in about fifteen minutes. Which, considering how fast he could move fit for what he just told you he did.”
    “He didn’t tell us where he’d been until he was back,” Irving added. “So we couldn’t warn anyone until it was too late.”
    “Though I’d assume he wasn’t thinking that, just making sure he didn’t miss Mom’s arrival.”
    “Yeah, I think so,” Doreen agreed. “We waited for you quite a ways away. He set off the guns remotely.”
    “And we didn’t have blanks,” Irving said. “We would have switched the bullets otherwise, but neither one of us knew where to go to get blanks. I’m sorry.”
    “Is anyone on our side of things bleeding?