Dont abduct me I'm Welsh!

Not the end

Mary stood looking up at the tall modern building feeling distinctly nervous. But after downing the last of her coffee she reminded herself that she needed this job. Through glass doors she entered the air conditioned foyer, wiping her palms against the wool of her suit skirt. Clasping her slim leather portfolio in front of her Mary looked about the vast atrium. The name of the firm was engraved on the welsh slate above the receptionist’s desk, but no receptionist. She glanced down at her watch, Mary was early - and supposed that she must have gone for lunch. “Great, how do find out where I need to go now?” Mary said under her breath. "I supose I have to wait."

“Miss Elgar.”

Mary almost jumped, at the sound of her name. Turning she saw a middle aged man in a sharp suit at the head of the stairs, he stood still but ready like an athlete, or a military man.

“Yes…..”Mary managed. Feeling intimidated by how he stood impassively watching her, a man in a suit.

Well Mary had a suit to, and she wore it like armour. A crisp pale blue shirt, a fitted black jacket, sharp heals, and a string of pearls. The tattoo of heals echoed as she made her way up towards the man in the suit. She extended her hand, smiling brightly.

The man took it briefly, reluctently.

“Mary Elgar I’m pleased to…”

“Follow me Miss Elgar.” The man interrupted in a mild Scottish brogue. After a silent lift ride – Mary assumed he was not the sort of man who engaged in small talk – he then strode down the halls, and Mary was forced to trot after him. She suspected that he did not like her much. It was not the first time she had to deal with chauvinistic men like this in a law firm, but they weren’t normally the silent type; no lawyers generally liked the sound of their own voices, it was more often then not hard to get a word in edgeways. Mary rather liked to talk herself, yet she was reluctent to now. At last he ushered her in to a room biding her to sit, and then decanting out some water. Across from her was another man, grey hair, grey suits, who's sharp gray eyes looked at her over silver rimmed spectacles. “Welcome Miss Elgar.”

Mary shook his hand, she hardly felt welcome, something about the two men now sitting across from her intimidated her, but she put it down to nerves, it had been a while since she had a job interview. She pulled her CV from her portfolio, taking a deep breath before she handed the cream sheets over to the man across from her.

He did not even glance down at it. “Miss Elgar.” He began. “I believe you recently handed your notice in to Barnett and Saunders after receiving a promotion, can I ask why?”

She was taken aback for a moment by the blunt question, expecting ‘What made you choose our firm?’ or ‘What would you say are your strengths?’ Or even giving some speel about the firm itself and what they expected.

Mary was tempted to say personal issues, but something warned her that these were the sort of people who would demand clarification, so she swiftly came up with a reasonable answer. “I wanted to move closer to home. London is a long way from Wales.”

“But you left without having found another job, that seems either very confident in your abilities, or that perhaps there was another reason for you leaving?”

Mary’s blue eyes darkened in ire, and her chin raised but she remained calm. An ice queen. “I understand how it might seem. But I simply felt like moving on and coming back closer to all my ties. I decided to finish at work, and then take a brake for a month. But if you are concerned I’m sure my references will clear up any issues you might have.”

“I’m sure your references are all in order Miss Elgar.” The man with spectacles said unfazed by this show if spirit. He continued to question her, and Mary chafed at his inquisitional tone, only getting more and cagey as the questions grew more and more personal. Some sixth sense warned her of danger, like ice creeping up her spine, but where. Mary looked between them, something had been bothering her from the start but she couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Their suits were good, but not quite expensive enough some how, little hard to notice earpieces, questions were to searching for a job interview. Suspicion gnawed away at her.

“You never told me your names.” She said it softly, already clutching her bag. Mary watched as they realised the game was up. She stood hastily. “Your not Law partners.” Mary accused them. But before she could reach the door the Scottish man had blocked her way. “Let me out, you can’t keep me here!”

“You’ll be wrong girlie.”

“Sit down Miss Elgar.” The other man said. Mary spotted a hand gun within the Scots man’s jacket. She realised that she had no real choice.

Trembling, she did sit, holding her hands so to still them. “Who are you?”

They ignored her question. “Miss Elgar we are investigating an incident, the charred remains of an arm found in the Black mountains. A car registered to you was found near by abandoned.”

“My car broke down I had to leave it there.” Mary admitted. “That’s not a crime.”

“You misunderstand Miss Elgar, we are interviewing anyone who could have been a witnesses to events of that night.”

Panic seized Mary. Government, they had to be government. They certainly were not police. Mary glanced between the two men. Her suspicions were displayed eloquently on her face. “Your not police. The police would not need to use such subterfuge.”

“Clever girlie aren’t you?” The Scottish man smiled sarcastically. “No we’re not police, we’re a special branch.”

Mary visibly paled, and repeated vaguely. “Special branch.” Her eyes looked around for escape, out through the large glass front of the room that overlooked a foyer below. A youngish man with windswept hair sat on a settle bellow absorbed in what ever he was reading. Even should she call for help, the glass was thick, and the men were ruthless – she knew this unquestionably.

“Miss Elgar, what did you see that night?”

“I can not remember, it was two months ago.”

The spectacled man slid a file over to her. Mary looked down on it in silence for a long while, unwilling. The Scottish impatiently pulled out the pictures, and fanned them out. Reluctantly she looked down. Radiating scorch marks, like lightning strikes, a trail of blood over rocks, a large area of heather flattened, and lastly the charred remain of a hand – blacked and claw like, humanoid but not human.

“Those footprints forensics say are of a small female.” The Scots man said, tapping on a picture. “These larger ones are of a very tall man, possibly the murder.”

Mary's shoes, thank god Val's men had chucked them somewhere when he had abducted her. She realised that these men were grasping at straws.

“What do you remember Miss Elgar?” The spectacled man said, his eyes intent, greedy.

Events of that night played back vividly in her mind. But nothing showed on her face, not a flicker of distress. Mary didn’t know why but she thought that even thinking about it was dangerous. Instead she lent closer, and leafed through them nonchalantly.

After a moment she lent back, and put her hands up. “Look, it was a while ago. My car broke down and I walked down towards town when I could not get any signal. It was dark, pouring down, and I was ….. emotional. I didn’t see anything but rain.”

“Emotional, why?”

“My boyfriend Will and I had just broken up.”

“No one saw you in town until a few weeks later.”

“Yeah, I managed to get a few bars of signal on the way down. I calld my freind and there was no point in going all the way down to town. So I went back to the car. She came and picked me up, I can give you her number if you want?” Mary could tell that the man was far from satisfied with this answer, and the Scottish man was looking at her like she was an outright liar – which she was. Mary rooted through her bag and pulled out her phone, all innocence. “Here you go.”

“Later.” The spectacled man said.

She pointed down at the pictures. “This is terrible. It really is but I don’t know anything about it. I really hope you catch who ever did this but I can’t help.” Mary ran a hand through her short hair. “Scary to think people are about who can do this kind of thing.”

The spectacled man looked up suddenly. “People? We are not looking for a human Miss Elgar.”

Mary’s heart was in her mouth. “What do you mean?”

“Extraterrestrials missy.” The Scots man said gravely, ignoring the warning glance from his college.

Mary laughed incredulously. “As in little green men?”

“It’ s no laughing matter. They are as real as you and me.” There was a fanatical look in his eye, and a stubborn expression that reminded Mary of a bull dog after a rag. “Can you account for your whereabouts for the three weeks following the incident Miss Elgar? It seems no one can account for your whereabouts.”

Mary had no intention in being bullied, she was a trained solicitor if they thought that she was going to be intimidated then they were wrong marshal steal galvanised her voice. “This is ridiculous! I was at my family holiday home, you can ask them! I needed some time alone, You are here on false pretences and now your telling me this crock of shit story? Aliens. I think you must be mad.” Mary stood up, this time they did not stop her, a gesture from the one man stilling the Scots man. He heart was pounding as she reached the door. “If this is where my tax money is going I’m never voting for that party again! Goodbye gentlemen.”

Mary had hoped that she was home free, but before she got a few steps away the Scots man caught her by the arm, then pushed her body up against the wall, all but winding her, glancing swiftly up and down the corridor as he did. “Don’t be thinking about telling tales now lassie. If you go to the tabloids, we will have you taken up by the men in white coats quicker then you can say E.T.”

“The only one who deserves to be taken up by the men in white coats is you?” Mary hissed.

He laughed. “Perhaps your right. Get along then missy.”

Unsteadily, but with great dignity she straighten herself, and adjusted her cloths, patting down her hair. As she walked past the glaring Scots man she sent him a look of cold contempt before she sashayed away angrily down the corridor, holding it together on the lift and out in to the street where she ducked in to the nearest café, and went to the wash room where she promptly jettisoned the coffee and cassiont she had had earlier. Sinking down on to the floor she pressed her aching head on to the cool marble tiles.

Mary looked at her face in the mirror, pale with vivid blue eyes that looked to big for her face, like a child. A frightened child. Part of her wanted to stay hidden in the cubicles, cowering. She had not expected danger to follow her to her own world, and it had shaken her to the core. But Mary’s natural courage soon remerged, she could not live her life in fear. After washing out her mouth, she emerged and brought herself another coffee, a sugary one; jumping slightly at every loud noise.

After she sat down, she began to feel slightly better. Warmer. Even as she remained watchful, not sure what she should have been watching for. But one thing she was certain of, next time she was going to see danger coming.

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“She’s lying.”

“I’m aware of that Mr Boyd.” The grey suited man watched the blond girl crossing the foyer, past the young man who smiled appreciatively at her as she passed by.

“We should bring her in.” Mr Boyd advised, his accent thickening with his annoyance. “Interrogate her properly. A wee girlie like that would brake easy. Some time in the cells would frighten the life out of her.”

“Let’s leave that as a last resort. She is not some drifter and she's middle class white; there would be questions if she disappeared. I have a more subtle plan for extracting information from her. It's not the cold war Boyd - there are repocussions nowerdays, which you seem to forget.”

“Sir?”

There was a knock at the door. And the young man from downstairs popped his head around the door, his dark curls in disorder.

“Any luck agent Baptiste?” The clipped voice said. Mr Gray – well actually Mr Barkley - but with his silver hair, grey suit, and dour personality ,like the English rain, the nick name for the MI7 section D Commander and, chief spook specialising in all the things that the government didn’t want to talk about was more then apt.

“I’m afraid not. Not enough time or proximity, I will need to get more intimate with the little blond.” Louis Baptiste said in his soft Creole accent. “Something I’m looking forward to. You never said how pretty she was.”

“Well if you actually took the time to read the case files then you would have known. Try to keep it professional agent Baptiste.”

“Always.” The dark haired man smiled, saluting irreverently before he left with a chuckle.

“Americans!” Boyd scowled, like it was a curse. “Over sexed and over here.”

“But the boy has some unique skills.”

“Aye, but they are unnatural sir.”

“Boyd, we deal with aliens, what is more unnatural than that? I think your right the girl does know more, but she is protecting someone, or something. We need to find out what.”

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Valdaherion’s was packing his clothes carefully, deliberately. He ran his fingers over the new ceremonial garments he had been given – deepest purple, almost black, the colour of a ruler, success. He let them fall from his numb hands, fall to the floor. Mary. Suddenly he straightened up, hands trembling as he clenched them, he was still burning for her, a deep unrelenting ache that would not dissipate. The Elf fell completely still even his chest; as if he had heard something, it held for a moment, before he let out a long shuddering breath. The emptiness was rising up again, like something physical seeping in to him and threatening to choke him.

Logically this should not be so – it felt as if he were bonded to her. Over years a mated pair of elf’s could become literally chemically dependent upon each other, which is why Elf’s were rarely intimate for a length of time with a single partner, instead taking a number lovers. But Mary was human so such a physical bond could not have been possible, he had thought that he was safe. Yet the moment that he let his guard down the absence of the human girl made a vice clench about his heart, making it feel hard to breathe. Perhaps the truth was he did not want to put the girl out of his mind.

Mary’s beguiling sent lingered on his pillows, taunting him with memories of her in his arms. She haunted his dreams. Such wonderful dreams that made him loathe waking. Dreams of her so real that when he woke still bleary he reached out to touch her, he fancied that he could still feel the warm impression where she had just lain. Then he would open his eyes and curse the day. He would have to try to put her out of his mind as he went about his work, strong, stoic, and astute when all he wanted was to seek his covers and that sweet dream again.

He could ignore it; he had ignored it keeping himself busy even if his wounds were still healing. He had his new duties to think of now, yet more responsibilities, getting ready to leave for the Altine system. His feelings were irrelevant - as his mother would say. He should ignore them. It was better for all of them if he did. His sister had informed him that he had a lucky escape. He wished that he could have believed that. But he knew that such a feeling was misguided. Valdagerion felt that they had both been unjustly punished, and he cursed the maker for making the only female he could ever love a human, or that he was born of Elf kind.

“Rhi’Arran, Valdagerion?” It was Peran’s voice that broke through to his thoughts. He sounded far away. He sounded worried. “Rillian, why didn’t you say that he was like this sooner?”

“I thought it was just melancholy. This hasn’t happened before.”

A light was shone in his eyes, dazzling. “Stop it.” He growled, and swatted them away, cracking his eye open to look at his friends.

“False alarm.” Paren sighed in relief.

Valdagerion sat up. “What is this about? What are you worried about?” He demanded.

Paren looked at Rillian, “Do you want to tell him or should I?”

“It’s your finding healer. You tell him.”

“Tell me what exactly.” Valdagerion was growing annoyed.

“I was worried that you might have actually bonded with the girl. That it was showing at the very least mild symptoms. Lathery, withdrawal, your mood changes, depression, health decline.”

Valdagerion groaned. “She’s human, it is impossible. She would not have the pheromones. The chemistry it doesn’t match. I just……miss her. We have already been through this. I just miss her. Can you not just leave it be.”

“Well, that’s not strictly true.” Peran temporised.

“What?”

“True, a human is not compatible with an Elf but…..”

“Peran, just get to the point.”

“The girl’s body is no longer strictly human. It probably was not when she was here.”

Valdagerion stood up, his eyes burning. “What do you mean Mary is no longer strictly human how is this possible? What have you found?”

“I sent some blood samples from Mary to the lab. At first I thought that it was nothing more then a mix up. But I ran my own tests and confirmed it. Mary’s blood, it’s mutating, she is becoming an elf. Your bond with her, thankfully not a full one, is thus explained. ” Paran became more animated. “I’m still not sure how this happened, but in her blood I found nanites. They seem to be the driving force behind the change.”

Valdagerion felt his legs wobble, and he lent against the pillar, his mind wheeling. “This can not be possible.”

“I thought the same thing. But there can be no doubt. The nanites are defiantly changing her DNA, cell by cell. Though it is a mystery how this could have happened, though I have a number of theories.”

“So what does this mean?”

“I do not know. I’m not sure whether it is even possible for a human to go through such a change. I have seen experiments on organ systems, but never a whole body.There were mixed results. In any case we need to get the girl back. We cant risk our kind beeing found by accident.”

“This might kill her?”

Peran would not answer, but Rillian would not lie. “It is a possibility.”

“No.” Valdagerion choked. Worse, the thought that she might already be dead. It would be painful this tranformation, nanites were always painful; the thought of Mary suffering was agony for him.

“It’s not certain.” Paran tried to assure him. “Nothing is certain, until we find her.”

The elf prince made a noise somewhere between a sob and a laugh. “My wounds, when we first met. Mary helped me apply the nanites without gloves. She was covered in cuts as well. ”

Paran’s mind worked on this data swiftly, coming up with a new hypothesis. “Yes, your blood as a DNA code, and the virulent kind of nanites used in the field packs. But in that case we might not have much time.”

“I guess this means we won’t be going to the Ataline system after all.” Valdagerion said softly, looking at Rillian hoping for his support but unable to ask for it. They would leave that night, no time to waste.

Rillian shrugged one elegant shoulder. “I never really wanted to go in the first place.”

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A/N
Circe, Lovelyl, MnMs, glad your all still enjoying the story, and thank you for your continued support. Hopefully this chapter has answered a few questions.

SecretQuill always glad to have a new reader. Thank your for reviewing.