Nayxana Alien Woman Read online

  Oskin always came and went at the same time each day. His punctuality was obsessive. But one day Nayxana forgot to be careful after meeting Uxxl at his workplace where they made love behind the locked door of his office. When she’d looked at the wall-clock she’d almost screamed. “Uxxl, look at the time! Oskin’s going to be furious if I’m not home when he gets there. He’ll punish me for sure.”

  “Hurry up then, Nayx, get back to your boring man. He’d better not touch you though or I’ll give him something to worry about.”

  Nayxana had laughed but inside she was terrified. Oskin had chastised her once before and made sure the bruises were in places no one could see. All because she’d been asleep when he came home for lunch, expecting it to be ready as it normally was. That was before she’d met Uxxl.

  So she phoned for a taxi immediately and hurried back to their home in Seal Bay.

  Uxxl told Aidan he’d received a telepathic message from Nayxana not long afterwards, and had immediately gone round to make sure she was all right.

  “Hey, anyone home?” Uxxl called out as he banged on the back door of the Vascos’ home.

  He thought he heard Oskin hiss, “Don’t answer or I’ll break your arm.”

  “Coming,” Nayxana had called out loudly, fear in her voice.

  Uxxl heard Nayxana cry out in pain, and could only surmise what Oskin was doing to her.

  But then she’d appeared at the door and flung it open, her eyes wide with fear. “Help me, Uxxl. He’s threatening me. He knows.”

  Oskin appeared at the door behind Nayxana and grabbed her roughly around the waist, pulling her back so that she was pressed up against him. “What is it you want, Uxxl Aogan?”

  “I came for Nayxana. I don’t want her harmed. Take your hands off her and let her go.”

  Oskin pulled her back into the house and kicked the door with his right foot but Uxxl was too quick for him and barred the door before it could slam shut.

  “Get out of my house, you Ryxin bastard, and get away from my wife. If you don’t I’ll break her arm.” He grabbed Nayxana’s right wrist again and pulled her arm up behind her as far as he could. She screamed in agony.

  Uxxl could feel the hot redness in his eyes as he strode into the room and made a lunge for Oskin but he couldn’t get to him without hurting Nayxana.

  “Get back, you alien bastard,” Oskin sneered as he backed away, continuing to twist Nayxana’s arm behind her, his other arm around her neck, forcing her head back.”

  “Let her go, Oskin, she can’t breathe. Come on, man, she’s your wife – set her free.”

  Oskin backed up against the lounge room wall and could go no further. “You’d better start praying to your Kieran,” he told Nayxana, laughing. “You’ll need his help to save your life, you slut. Whore, slag,” he cursed, pulling his arm even tighter around her neck and still holding her other arm high behind her back.

  Uxxl made his move by throwing himself at both of them and tearing at Oskin’s face with his massive hands. Oskin could do nothing since both his hands were holding Nayxana, and when Uxxl yanked Oskin’s hair and banged his head against the wall behind him, he could no longer hold onto her. Once she was free she staggered to the other side of the room while Uxxl caught Oskin in a head-lock and dragged him outside.

  “Stay inside,” Uxxl called to Nayxana.

  He threw Oskin to the ground, face down, then sat astride him and hauled his head back by the hair again. “You don’t deserve Nayxana, you pig. She’s coming with me today. And don’t try to come after her. You’ve been keeping her like a pet monkey, you bastard, and she’s had enough. If you try to come after her I’ll break your legs and force you to crawl through mud. Don’t worry, pig, I’ve done it before. That man crawled for a few yards and then I made him start again, and again, and again. After he finally begged for mercy I left him there wallowing in the mud like the swine he was. It was five kilometres to the nearest farmhouse and there was no road.”

  “You won’t get away with this,” Oskin said. “I’ll get the Human police onto you and you’ll be put away for twenty years without trial, you alien scum.”

  Uxxl ripped off his victim’s shirt and tore it up so he could use it to tie his wrists together. Then he took off his belt and tied Oskin’s ankles together.

  Once he had him well trussed and immobile, Uxxl strode back into the house. “Come on, Nayxana. You’re coming to live with us.”

  By the time the ferry docked, Aidan had had two more beers. He was still grappling with the thought that his father might have murdered Nayxana. He must have hated the idea that she was sleeping with Uxxl and living in his house with his wife, soon to be Number Two Wife. But had he hated her enough to kill her? Aidan couldn’t believe that. It was too terrible to contemplate. That’s why he had to go back next week to Curtis McCoy’s house on Muritai Island. To see the man with the sad eyes, and the thick, black, wavy hair swept back off his face.

  For he was sure this was a man who wanted more than anything to discover the truth in whatever form it presented itself.

  CHAPTER 3

  On Monday morning Curtis prepared for a visit to the Prison for Human Males near Rocky Point. Situated at the northernmost tip of Muritai Island, it was approximately two kilometres from the Ryxin Women’s Maximum Security Prison and far less intimidating. The walls were painted pale yellow as opposed to the cold, grey, concrete walls of the women’s prison. Also the prison for Human males was smaller, with low walls and plenty of windows. Curtis had never had occasion to come here before but wasn’t surprised at its almost niceness.

  Of course if Oskin Vasco was found guilty of murder he would immediately be transferred to the Maximum Security Prison on the mainland, which was on the same grounds as the Ryxin men’s prison. There his treatment would be more punitive as he awaited his day of execution, the mandatory sentence for murder of one’s spouse.

  Aidan’s father had a bullet-shaped, bald head, and a chunky body. He also had a thin, cruel mouth and eyes shadowed by bushy, black eyebrows. Curtis’s first impression was of a caged bear.

  “I din’ kill ma wife,” were the first words he said. “I wuz framed by someone.”

  “Good morning, Mr Vasco. My name is Curtis McCoy. I’m a private investigator hired by your son to find out who did murder Nayxana.”

  “I know that,” he said. “Who wuz it then, Mr McCoy?”

  “Let’s start at the beginning, Mr Vasco. I want you to tell me what happened that day.”

  He sighed and hung his head. “It wuz just a usual day. I went to the office. Nayxana had left me a few weeks before. I wuz gettin’ used to lookin’ after meself.”

  “Right,” Curtis replied. “I guess you were pretty upset about her leaving you?” Curtis wanted to delve deeper into this man’s emotional life.

  “Yeh, naturally I was upset, but I wuz past all that.”

  “Did you try to persuade her to come back?”

  He hesitated. “Yeh, but I mayze well tell yuh. I wuz havin’ her watched. I knew all about her comin’and goin’ at her new home.”

  “So you’d employed someone to do this?”

  “Course, man, she wuz ma wife. I wuz gunna try and get her back.”

  “Did this person report anything to you on the day of the murder?”

  “Nope, never heard a squeak outta him. He never called me again neiver.”

  “So he didn’t come to you wanting to be paid or anything?”

  “He wuz already paid. Cost me a few thousand, he did. He knew his job pretty good though. Used to tell me lotsa details ’bout her comin’s and goin’s wiv Uxxl. He’s ta one who stole her from me. Bloody Ryxin.”

  Curtis didn’t react to this statement. He needed to gain this man’s complete trust. “So why were you arrested?”

  “I gotta phonecall at muh office. Sez ma wife needs me at muh house. One of thuh neighbours, she sez. Yuh better get home, Mr Vasco. There’s a fight or somethin’ goin’ on at yuh house. Who’s ca
llin’, I sez, but she hung up. I got in muh car and races home. When I arrived there the back door wuz open. I went in and there wuz Nayxana, dead on the floor. She’d been stabbed through the heart.”

  “I’m sorry,” Curtis said quietly, watching Oskin’s face, which had paled significantly.

  “Muh beautiful girl. I wancha to find the bastard. Bring him to me so I can kill ’im wiv muh own hands.”

  Curtis saw a tear run down his cheek. “Mr Vasco, it’s my job to find out the truth. I won’t stop until we know what really happened that day.”

  “Yuv gotta help me, there’s no one else. The police think I done it. Theyz takin’ me for trial in a few weeks. I’ll be given the death sentence, yuh know. If a man kills his wife, Ryxin or not, that’s the law.” His eyes had a pleading look.

  “You can count on me, Oskin. I’ll get to the truth, don’t you worry now,” Curtis told him, more to stop the panicked look in his new client’s eyes than out of confidence he could achieve such a perfect thing as to solve his second case. “Do you know much about this guy, Uxxl?”

  “He’s a Ryxin freak. Some kinda lawyer who thinks he can have more than one female.” Oskin almost spat the words out. “I dunno what makes ’em think they’c’n do that. She wuz mine. We wuz married.”

  “Do you know how they met?”

  “I only let ’er out once a week to help at the Ryxin Women’s Refuge. She wuz Ryxin, yuh know. I had tuh keep a constant check on ’er to make sure she din’ stray, yuh know?”

  Curtis sensed a deep insecurity in this man which had obviously made him possessive of his beautiful Ryxin wife. But he could also understand how much she must’ve wanted her freedom from him. “How long had you been married?”

  “Twenty years. She wuz only eighteen when her parents arranged the meeting after I wuz asked if I wuz interested. I used ta work wiv her father. Not her real father, who wuz Ryxin like her mother. That’s why they wuz given a twenty-year sentence, eh? No it wuz her Human parents who adopted her, ey? From a baby. They tol’ me to watch her closely jus’ like they use ta. They sez Ryxins like ta break away and go wiv their own kind. But the law says nah to them havin’ kids so close guarding wuz the only way wiv her. I kep’ to that rule, like her parents sez.”

  “Do you only have the one child?”

  “Yeh. I wanted more but it din’ happen. Aidan’s a neutral. That made me proud. He’s bin studied all his life. I warned ’im though, about takin’ a Ryxin mate. He could spend years behind bars. He knows the penalty, had it tol’ him from day one, what’d happen if they’d had a kid like that, eh?”

  Curtis began to feel depressed at being so close to an example of all that made his people unfree. Most people, like Oskin, believed all the rubbish they’d been taught about Ryxins. He hoped the question of his own heritage didn’t come up at this stage.

  “Well, Oskin, I think that’s enough for today. I’ll carry on with my investigations. Goodbye and I’ll see you in a week’s time.”

  “Don’ let me down, will yuh?”

  “I won’t let you down, there’s no need for you to fear that.”

  They shook hands and Curtis left the prison, shrugging off the heavy feeling of helplessness he’d picked up from his darkly sombre client.

  Curtis made copious notes in his study that same evening. He wanted to get Janux involved and was planning on discussing with her the contradictions he found in Oskin Vasco. The way he appeared to have loved his young wife yet had kept her a virtual prisoner, all because her Human parents had instructed him to do so years ago.

  Curtis thought about Nayxana’s true parents, who wouldn’t know what had happened to their daughter since she’d been taken from them at birth and given a new identity. She would have been labelled as an abandoned, Ryxin orphan, and made available for a childless Human couple.

  CHAPTER 4

  Curtis attended carefully to the cooking of his favourite breakfast, poached eggs on toast. Finally when the eggs were done to perfection he sat down to eat, contemplating his upcoming second visit to his new client. He wanted to ask him who he’d employed to watch his wife, Nayxana, after she’d left him for Uxxl Aogan.

  “Can’t tell yuh, mate,” Oskin said, avoiding Curtis’s gaze.

  “So you were sworn to secrecy by this man?”

  “Part of thuh contrac’, it wuz.” Oskin’s face grew pale. “He tol’ me his name wuz Tony, but I knew that wuzn’t his real name, eh? He was advertising himself on the supermarket notice-board as Tony, along wiv a phone number.”

  “So what did this guy look like?”

  “Kinda short and bulgin’ with muscle. Bloody eyes were small and shifty lookin’.”

  “Was he Ryxin?”

  “I dunno. No way of tellin’. He din’ give no clues neiver.”

  Curtis contemplated Oskin’s unshaven face, his gorilla-like arms, and his hairiness. He certainly didn’t look the picture of innocence, but when Curtis looked into his eyes, he was almost certain this man was telling the truth. Now Curtis needed to talk to Aidan again. Had he told him everything about his parents? Curtis felt sure there had been at least some violence. This man was like a ticking time-bomb.

  He awoke from a restless sleep having dreamt about Marzy, his ex-wife. Her arms were reaching out to him until a large, powerfully built man stepped in front of her. Then she was blocked from his view. He tried to find her but couldn’t. He awoke drenched with perspiration. His eyes throbbed. He grabbed his watch and saw it was already 9 a.m. Aidan was paying him another visit in an hour’s time.

  When he opened the front door and saw the young man standing there he thought he noticed fragility and it hardly seemed likely to him that Aidan Vasco was Oskin’s son. He must’ve mostly taken after his mother. And although Nayxana had been the daughter of two half-blood Ryxin parents it was unusual Aidan been born neutral. Such thoughts flashed through his mind in the time it took to usher his client into the office.

  “Why was your father sworn not to reveal the identity of the man he hired to watch your mother?” Curtis asked.

  Aidan frowned. “Dad didn’t tell me about that. But I knew he was very angry at Mum for leaving him.”

  “Angry enough to kill her?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Dad couldn’t do that.”

  “But you’ve already said he was very angry. Perhaps in a fit of temper?” Curtis wanted Aidan to open up and tell him more about his parents. He suspected their marriage hadn’t been perfect.

  Aidan hesitated. “Uxxl told me Mum was abused by Dad when he found out about her affair with him.”

  “How long ago?”

  “About three months, I think. But Uxxl came round and saved her from Dad.”

  “Saved? How did Uxxl know she needed help?”

  “He didn’t say.” Aidan looked down.

  “Was your mum okay?”

  “Yeah, but after that she went to live with Uxxl. I was already flatting on the mainland with my girlfriend, Phoebe-Maree.”

  “Did you know about the affair?”

  “Yeah, Mum told me. She used to tell me just about everything. We were close.”

  The water frothed, churned and sent out rolling mini-waves as the ferry chugged along. Aidan had once again decided not to visit his father even though he was on the island. He felt no guilt at bypassing the prison as he thought of countless instances when his father had treated Nayxana badly. Any physical nearness to his dad always made Aidan feel that he had raw, emotional wounds inside his body, oozing with rage and pain and feelings of helplessness. Whereas his father always seemed calm and relaxed after acting out his anger as though he was pleased with himself.

  Aidan had learnt to feel helpless very early in his infanthood. He’d witnessed slaps, punches, pushes, verbal abuse, and the virtual entrapment of his mother inside their home. She’d had to wear makeup and pretty, expensive dresses every day in order to please her lustful and bullying husband, who kept her like a showpiece.

  As a resu
lt, Nayxana had become depressed, and in desperation, Oskin had taken her to the family doctor. Following the doctor’s advice that Nayxana needed to get out and mix with some of her own people had been extremely hard for Oskin. Then when he found out about Uxxl his potent rage simmered like a pot on a stove element turned permanently to high.

  Not visiting the prison gave him a rare sense of power over his old man. The kind he’d never had at home. His special bond with Nayxana was all he’d had to cling to in his growing years.

  Now he had Phoebe-Maree and she’d helped him to deal with his mother’s death. She was Human and one day they’d marry and have kids. He knew he’d have to follow Flim-Flam law in order to have a family. But it irked him that right from birth there were constraints that Humans never had.

  His mother had taught him from an early age how to retain his own power. “Don’t tell them everything, son. Keep some things just for you. That’s the secret of survival for us Ryxins on this planet. Kieran told that to our ancestors when they first arrived on Earth.”

  Aidan once said, “They don’t teach our history at school, Mum.”

  “No, dear,” she replied, “but there are other ways of learning it. I’ve learnt from the women at the refuge. They’re Ryxin women who’ve had to leave their Human husbands to escape being used as punching bags and scapegoats. But they all know their Ryxin history. It’s what keeps us unique. Don’t ever forget that, son.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Curtis sent an urgent telepathic message to Janux. It’s about an interview. I’ll pick you up.

  I’ll be ready, she sent back.

  By mid-morning Janux was seated in his study and Curtis began to prepare her for an interview with Uxxl Aogan. First he told her what kind of a person Uxxl was. A former wrestler who’d eventually become a popular criminal lawyer, over the past couple of years he’d also become the murdered woman’s lover. Word was that he’d saved several Ryxin criminals from the death penalty and many more from overly harsh Ryxin sentences. Until a few years ago those accused had been unable to defend themselves. There were very few Ryxin lawyers in New Zealand and ordinary Ryxins couldn’t afford to hire one anyway.