Page 49

Chapter20

The demon knownas Steven pulled the hood of his black jacket farther down over his face, as did the other demons following him. Still, humans gave them strange looks as they entered the airport in Dalian, China.

Was it the way they looked, or the way they smelled, he wondered.

The vampire bodies they possessed were deteriorating rapidly now. It could mean only one thing: the female vampire who created them, Leeha, was dead. He couldn’t say that he would miss her. She was nothing but a means to an end, and he’d never had any plans of keeping the promises he’d made her. No. She would’ve been one of the first ones he eradicated once he had no more use for her and their reformation was complete.

Steven hefted the duffle bag he carried onto the counter.

“Be right with you,” the human male said in a too-cheerful voice. Placing the last traveller’s suitcase on the conveyor belt behind him, he turned around with a wide smile. “Good evenin—” He inhaled sharply, his mouth hanging open, shock and horror filling his features.

Steven caught his gaze and burrowed into his mind. “We need tickets to the next available flight to Washington in the United States. If it’s full, you will make room for us.” It had taken them all a while to learn the new geography of the earth, so named by the humans. It was ridiculous, of course, they owned nothing and had no right to fly their flags or stake out parts of the earth for their particular group. African, American, Russian…it didn’t matter. They were nothing but gnats, soon to be removed from this planet.

The human put a hand to his head, squinting like he had a headache, but he smiled and said, “Of course. There’s a flight leaving in thirty minutes. How many would youlike?”

“Five. In the front of the plane.”

“First class, then?” the human asked, typing away on his computer.

“Yeah, whatever. Just make sure they’re at the very front of the plane.”

“I’ll just have to bump these guests…okay. We’re all set.” He handed Steven the tickets he’d just printed. “May I check yourbag?”

“No,” Steven answered. “The bag stays withme.”

“Of course,” he said again. “Can I do anything else for you today?”

“Yes.” Reaching in with mental razor blades, he removed the memory of this conversation from the human’s mind. “You never saw us.” As the human searched for something to catch the blood running out of his nose, Steven turned on his heel and left the counter, waving at the others to follow.

Bypassing the security lines with a wave of his hand and a mental suggestion that the skinny young nerd punch the woman behind him until he pulverized the bones in her face, they headed for thegate.

Fellow travelers gave them a wide birth, which was lucky for them. When they reached the gate, they were the last ones on the plane.

“Why don’t we just take over the entire aircraft?” one of the others askedhim.

Steven gave him a look. “It’s not time to draw that much attention to ourselves. Yet,” he added with an ominous smile, made more so by the cracked, discolored skin around his mouth. “We need to try not to draw an overdue amount of attention until we have the final clue and find what weneed.”

“Are you sure it will lead us to our blood?”

Steven clicked his seatbelt. “It better, or we’ll be stuck in these rotting corpses we currently inhabit.”

“And if it no longer exists? What if the ones that drained us and chained our souls to that fucking altar got rid of our blood somehow?”

“It exists,” Steven told him. “And we will find it.” The flight attendant did a double take as she walked by doing a final seat check. “Take care of her,” Steven said. Then he leaned back in his seat and settled in for the long flight.

* * *

When the planelanded at the Seattle/Tacoma airport, the captain taxied in to the gate and took off his seatbelt. Laughing with the co-pilot, he unlocked the cabin door. His wife was waiting for him, but he liked to watch the passengers disembark before he left the plane.

Opening the door, the smile froze on his face. A moment later, his hand clutched at his chest over his heart as he stumbled back away from the bloody carnage that filled his plane.