Alien Tango

of Martini’s neck, the worse the experience. I discovered it was much worse when I was in starvation mode—the nausea was intense.
    But, as always, it didn’t take too long. We were through, and I looked around. Large room, not overly furnished. Christopher was the only person there. “Where are we?”
    “Basement of my parent’s house.” Martini put me down, and I took my bag from him. “Welcome to hell.”
    “It’s worse,” Christopher said. “All your sisters are here, and their husbands, and their kids.”
    “Oh, God.” Martini sounded ready to die.
    “And,” Christopher added, “they’re all upset with us for being so late.”
    “Are you kidding me? How did they expect us to get here on time, whatever that was? We were busy. What time is it, anyway?”
    “Around eight,” Christopher sighed. “The family usually eats at six.”
    “I suppose eating without us and doing the family dinner, say, tomorrow wasn’t an option?”
    “It never is,” Martini said, in a voice of doom. “Seriously, if we break up after this, I’m prepared. Sort of.”
    “Jeff, I’m not breaking up with you over your family’s oddities.”
    “She says that now.” Christopher sighed. “Kitty, just trust us—it’s going to be grueling, and they’re going to piss you off.”
    “Oh, good.” My stomach growled. Loudly enough to be heard.
    “Food, first,” Martini said briskly. “Torture for dessert.”
    He took my hand, and we headed upstairs, but not at hyperspeed, more as if we were heading to the gallows. Neither one of them wanted to join everyone else. I thought about what Christopher had said. “How many people are upstairs?”
    “An unreal number. Something like forty, maybe more. I lost count.” Christopher sounded serious. Martini just groaned.
    “Jeff, do you have blocks up?”
    “Not as many as I’ll need.”
    I shot a worried look at Christopher. He gave me a weak smile in return. “You have Jeff’s adrenaline, right? And Claudia and Lorraine have medical kits. We’ll be okay.” His voice said he was a terrible liar, but I knew that already.
    “How are you both feeling, physically?”
    “Okay,” Christopher said.
    “I’ll live.” Martini sighed. “I may not want to, though.”
    We crested the stairs, and I was greeted by the sight of . . . not too much. Long hallway, basically. We walked down it; I kept hearing a dirge in my mind. Rounded a corner and finally saw what looked like a room. A huge room, as we got into it. “What room is this?”
    “Entryway. Both the gate room and the front door lead here.”
    “Um, how big is your family’s place?”
    “About twelve thousand square feet,” Martini said, as if this was no big deal.
    “Come again?”
    “Twelve thousand square feet, give or take,” Christopher confirmed.
    “So, your family lives in a mansion?” We could pretty much put five of my parents’ houses inside Martini’s one. For some reason, this made me feel a little uncomfortable.
    “There were six of us kids, seven when Christopher was here,” Martini said, again, as if this were no biggie.
    “Your dad said there was a guesthouse.”
    “Out on the grounds, yeah. It’s smaller, though.” The grounds. He said it as though, again, it was no big deal.
    “Your family’s loaded.”
    “I guess.” He looked down at me. “Does it matter?”
    “No.” I hoped not. I had a horrible, sinking feeling in my stomach, though. But maybe A-Cs didn’t go in for class and money prejudices, just as they ignored skin color and sexual preferences as issues. Then again, Martini’s mother didn’t approve of me—maybe she knew I didn’t have a clear idea of which fork to use, ever.
    The rest of our team’s luggage was here, so we dropped ours off and kept on going.
    I could hear children now, shrieks and cries and so forth. We finished the trek through the entry room and got into what I assumed was the family room. Either that, or it was where they performed Shakespeare. Huge, but very filled with people, most of whom were male or under the age of twelve. I saw the majority of our team in here.
    A voice screamed, at the top of its lungs. “Uncle Jeff!”

CHAPTER 48
    I COULDN’T DETERMINE THE AGE or gender of the child who’d spotted Martini initially, but it hardly mattered. We were dog piled in moments.
    Or he was. Christopher managed to drag me aside just in time. Martini was being overrun by children—they were climbing on him, hugging him, clamoring for