Touched by an Alien

mate—rip apart the person they love in front of them. Mephistopheles had definitely gotten ideas from Yates and vice versa.
    Earwig was a lot closer to us. “Jeff, we have to fall back.”
    “Why? Bullets don’t work on that thing. They don’t really work on any of these. The guns make you feel safer, but it’s an illusion.”
    He really had his fatalism on. “Then why are we trying?”
    “Nothing better to do.”
    “I can think of a few things.”
    “Can you? Any of them involve an elevator?”
    I probably shouldn’t have, but I kicked the back of his leg, between the calf and the knee. This was the nice way—I’d been trained to just take out the knee completely. Martini fell to his knees, and I hit him in the head with my purse. He went down and out. Oh, well, he hated me anyway.
    Reader and Christopher raced over. “What the hell did you do to him?” Christopher shouted. Ah, that old thick blood thing.
    “Get Mr. Custer’s Last Stand into the car and keep him from just standing around being a target.”
    “What will you be doing?” Reader asked me as he and Christopher lifted Martini up.
    I looked around and caught my reflection in one of the aerosol cans. I walked to the side of the car and looked at my chest in the side-view mirror. “Improvising.”

CHAPTER 41
    I WENT TO THE DRIVER’S SEAT and dug through my purse. iPod was still there, and, happy day, so was my car radio adapter. I plugged it in, turned the volume up to eleven, and hit play. Aerosmith’s “Back in the Saddle” blared out, and I went around and opened all the car’s doors, so the sound could travel. Then I turned around and watched.
    They call him Screamin’ Steven Tyler for a reason. And my hard rock music mix had a lot of Steven screaming, as well as many others. My parents had complained about my musical tastes for most of my life—I liked something in every genre, and I liked to play it all loud.
    Reader was back with me. “We have a sound track?” he shouted. It was as if we were first row at a concert, only without my wanting to climb on stage and have my way with the singer and lead guitarist.
    I pointed toward Earwig. “One that works.”
    The monster was writhing, and not to the beat. The ears weren’t just lobes—the entire length of his body was ear canal. And he was being assaulted by the best rockers in the business.
    The Humvee barreled up next to us, and Tim popped his head out. “Nice to be here,” he yelled. “What’s the plan, besides us all going deaf?”
    I looked at Reader. “Who’s the better driver?”
    “None better than me, girlfriend. I know, I get to go ram that thing. You want Tim with me?”
    “Is he better off with you or running the stereo?” The song changed to “Last Child.” I noticed the beat was affecting both Earwig and the Serpent.
    “If you don’t want this car trampled, someone needs to drive it.”
    Reader had a point. The Pachyderm seemed unaffected, and it was heading for us. “Do the switch.”
    Reader pulled Tim out of the Humvee, rolled up the window, and then the car-tank shimmered. I took this to mean shields were engaged. Reader peeled out, heading for the Killer.
    I flung Tim into the driver’s seat. “Keep the music going, keep it loud, and keep from being trampled. Oh, and you have a ton of equipment in the back, try not to let it fall out.”
    Mephistopheles was hanging back. This didn’t surprise me so much as piss me off. Typical evil overlord, sending his minions to do his dirty work. No worries, I’d just work my way through to him. Somehow.
    Something very fast ran past me. Make that two some-things. I looked behind me, but Martini was still out and Christopher was with him. That meant the girls had gotten involved. I didn’t have time to contemplate this because Tim drove off, seeing as Earwig was pretty much right on us.
    On me, since I was now alone.
    The good news was it had dropped the trees to hold its ears. The bad news was it was lurching and contorting right toward me. So I had to figure out where the parasite was on this thing and destroy it, without it killing me first. Good practice for the main event.
    The sound track was getting louder. I wasn’t sure how, but I decided not to argue. It was helping me and hurting at least one—and probably two—of the enemy, and that was good enough for right now.
    It was possibly the grossest thing I’d ever done, but as I dodged Earwig’s feet I managed to grab an earlobe and