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warm.
    Oh, God, the crazy Observer from the diner. I got over my 25
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    fear of touching him long enough to tug at the hand over my mouth, but to no avail. I tried to scream, but only a muffled sound emerged, and the hand tightened. This was way worse than anything I'd ever cooked up in my mind.
    "I apologize for the crudeness of my methods. But it is important that your law enforcement officials attribute your death to human causes–in this particular case, a burglary gone awry. Your thief became quite distraught when he found nothing of value. He decided to vandalize the premises, and you walked in at just the wrong moment." The voice didn't sound like the one from the diner. This guy sounded cultured, elegant, and not the least bit disturbed about discussing my death. The little bit of his sleeve I could see appeared to be part of a suit coat. The alien at the diner had been wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt.
    "Ah, yes, Caelan. It is unfortunate he interfered. Because of him, I was forced to end the life of an otherwise agreeable human, who could no longer be trusted after failing on his mission," the stranger said with a sigh. "So, now I'm here instead of tucked away in some little restaurant drinking mediocre Chablis. One would have thought that being so technologically immature you would have spent this time improving something." I'm going to die. He's going to kill me. My throat immediately closed in panic. I tried to look over my shoulder to see what my captor looked like, in case I managed to survive. Or, in case I got to come back and haunt somebody. But he held my head firmly. I caught a glimpse of a jaw and that was it, not that I would have recognized him if I'd seen more. I'd heard enough from him to know that.
    "In a way, your death is truly tragic, Ms. Mitchell." I started at the sound of my name. He knew who I was. This wasn't some bizarre case of mistaken identity. He really was after me. I yanked harder at his hand, tried to step back on his foot, and jab an elbow in his gut. But the hand stayed firm, his foot wasn't 26
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    there when I stepped down, and his free hand captured my elbow before it landed a blow.
    Desperation flooded through me, making my knees shake. I could hear the panicked wheeze of my own breathing, air being forced too quickly through my nose instead of my mouth. But even if I could have reached my inhaler, I doubted he'd be kind enough to let me use it before he killed me. I shifted in every direction, muscles burning with the strain, searching for that second of weakness that would set me free.
    "Given more time, I would have enjoyed finding out if what she told me was true," he said in a voice that indicated no exertion of effort.
    By then, I wasn't paying much attention to what he said. I was focused only on getting free. In a moment his other hand would come up on the opposite side of my head, and with a simple twist, it would be over.
    "You look exactly as she said you would," he whispered next to my ear. My stomach lurched, and I gagged.
    He pulled back a little. "You aren't going to vomit, are you, Ms. Mitchell?" He sounded annoyed.
    I gagged again, and he loosened his grip around my mouth a little, which was just enough for me to get my teeth over one of his fingers. I clamped down until blood flowed, filling my mouth with a bitter, metallic taste.
    He didn't scream, but he shoved me away with such force that I thought I heard something crack in my ribs when I landed. Fire spread through my chest when I tried to breathe. But at least he wasn't holding onto me anymore. You've got another thirty seconds to think of something, I told myself. He came to loom over me and I got my first good look at him. I guessed that this just might be the mysterious "him" the crazy Observer had referred to.
    I blinked back tears from the searing pain in my chest. I 27
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    couldn't believe that first alien had been sane and beyond that, he'd been