Chapter 9
Liling woke as soon as Jaus slipped out of bed, but turned on her side and pretended to be asleep until he left the compartment. She needed time to prepare, to come up with some sort of explanation for throwing herself at him the way she had, and for what she had done to him while he was asleep.
She didn't know if her taking his pain had restored any function to his arm. She had never attempted such a taking, and the type of pain he suffered was not something a doctor could detect. If she had been successful, he would hardly expect her to take credit for it.
The unusual sex would not be as easy to explain away.
Who am I kidding? I loved it. I'm not sorry. I should thank the man for ruining every sexual fantasy I've ever had. Reality is so much better.
What they had done together had been outrageous and vivid and undeniable. Nothing in her experience compared to it. She still couldn't quite believe it had happened to her.
What will he think of me now?
Liling's body ached pleasantly as she inched off the bed and searched the floor for her clothes. She found her jeans and panties wadded up in a ball in one corner, and her shirt tangled up in the sheets. It wasn't until she looked down that she found her bra, still fastened and twisted around her waist.
God, she hadn't even been fully undressed.
She pulled it around and tugged the straps up over her arms. A sore spot made her wince; she felt it with her fingers and found two small puncture wounds in the curve between her shoulder and neck.
She vaguely remembered Valentin biting her, but not hard enough to break the skin. Had she bitten him back? She ran the tip of her tongue over her lips, which felt tender and slightly swollen, but didn't taste blood. She tasted man.
He was not the only one who might be changed by this night. She'd gone into the dark mirror with him, and come out a different woman. She felt no shame, no regret. She'd loved him, and it had been better than any of her lonely, pathetic little fantasies.
Now there was only sorrow that it was over, and that there could be nothing more between them. Even if he wanted to be with her again, she had to protect him. It wasn't only her life that was in danger; the priests wouldn't hesitate to hurt or kill Valentin to get to her.
He would forget her, and she would never see him again. That was how it had to be.
She still had a few minutes before the plane landed, and she was not going to spend them hiding from him. Her head throbbed painfully—a remnant of the taking, perhaps, although it had never had that effect on her before tonight. Liling dressed and went into the small bathroom adjoining the compartment to wash her face.
As the water ran over her hands, she stared at it. Her ears felt hollow with the absence of the bells. Each time she washed or dressed or ate, a part of her felt wrong because there were no bells signaling that it was time to do such things. The priests had trained her and all the other children to respond to them like dogs, so they wouldn't have to speak to them or be present to supervise their activities.
She hated the sound of bells, and still, she listened for them.
The pain throbbing in her temples made her look in the cabinets for a bottle of ibuprofen. She instead found several lipsticks, hairbrushes, and small bottles of perfume. All of them had been used.
The jealousy withering her heart surprised her. She wasn't the first woman he'd had on the plane, and she wouldn't be the last. Valentin was an extremely sensual man; he had a bedroom built into the back of his plane. Naturally he'd use it for something more than simply sleeping.
Idly she took out one of the bottles, a wildly expensive French perfume she could never have afforded, and uncapped it to take a sniff. The heavy floral scent had an unpleasant soapy undertone to it from the chemicals and agents used to boost the perfume's intensity. Why women felt the need to spray themselves with such odors to feel beautiful confused Liling. Certainly no garden ever smelled as vile as the perfumes created to mimic them.
She carefully replaced the bottle of perfume and closed the cabinet. If Jaus preferred women who wore French perfume and expensive makeup, then it was a good thing that she would have only this one night with him. She'd bore him to death in a week.
And she'd never again meet another man like him; she knew that. It had nothing to do with his wealth, his power, or the tragedy that had stolen the use of his arm from him. He wasn't like other men; in some fundamental way that defied explanation, he was much more. In a sense most men were as simple to understand as a page from an open book. They wanted attention and pleasure and gratification; they needed ways to channel their basic aggressions.
Liling knew from the taking that was not the case with Valentin Jaus. The depths inside him had felt like some well-guarded, secret library she would never be permitted to enter. Even when the lust had overtaken them and she had surrendered herself, he had been holding something back. Not to deceive her, but to protect her.
If only she didn't have to run. If only she could be like other women. But she could not let the priests capture her again.
Liling went out to the main cabin, ready to see him and talk with him, and perhaps even give him one last kiss before they parted. She could be as civilized about this as he was, and leave him without regret.
No regret he can see, she amended silently. She had a feeling that emotionally she was going to pay for this night for a long, long time.
The cabin was empty. Liling heard Valentin's and another man's voices coming from the front of the plane, and slowly walked up to the open door leading to the cockpit.
"… can't fire that in here." Valentin was saying, his voice cold. "Hand it to me now and I will not harm you. I give you my word."
The pilot laughed. "The word of the maledicti means nothing."
Liling came up just behind Jaus before she saw the gun in the pilot's hand, and froze. The pilot was going to shoot Valentin.
The scent of camellias became smothering.
"Give it to me." Jaus repeated, holding out his hand.
The other man trembled all over, and then slammed his list into his thigh. "The girl must die." He shouted something else in a strange language as he shoved a handle down.
The plane tilted sharply forward and began to hurtle down in a steep dive.
"God does not want your death." Valentin told him.
"No," the pilot said, his face contorted with pain. "He wants hers, and yours." He fired.
Valentin didn't move, but a sharp pain made Liling stagger backward. She grabbed an overhead handle and then screamed as the pilot reversed the gun, put the end in his mouth, and pulled the trigger.
The top of the pilot's head exploded, sending a horrific splash of blood and gore all over the window behind him.
Liling's fingers and legs went numb, and she found herself on the floor. She felt something wet and tried to straighten out her leg, then curled over with a sharp cry as the pain hit her. She pressed her hand to the hole in her shirt over her ribs and pulled it back soaked with blood.
"Stay there, Liling."
Valentin pulled the dead pilot's body out of the seat and took his place. He adjusted some of the controls, and the plane leveled out of the terrifying dive.
Liling panted and pressed her arm against the bleeding wound in her side. Somehow she had gotten shot; the bullet had missed Jaus. She watched through a haze of pain as Jaus moved the body of the pilot into a storage space behind the seat. He did the same with the copilot, who also hung limp and unmoving, his head flopping. Dread filled her as she glanced at the empty seats in front of the controls.
With both the pilot and the copilot dead, there was no one to land the plane.
"Liling." Valentin lifted her into his arms and carried her to the copilot's seat. "I have put the plane on autopilot." He looked at the blood on his sleeve and pulled up her shin, staring at the wound. "Mein Gott, the bullet hit you."
She swallowed and touched the bullet hole in his jacket over his heart. "I thought he only fired one shot."
"He did. It passed through my… jacket and struck you." He took off the jacket, folded it, and wrapped it around her torso. "I know it hurts, but you must be brave a little longer for me."
"Valentin." She clutched his arm. "Are they both dead?" He nodded. "Do you know how to land the plane?"
"I have watched the pilots do it several times. I will call for help on the radio." He bent over and kissed her. "Whatever happens, I will land this plane."
He put the copilot's seat harness over her and tightened it over her abdomen before he went back to the pilot's chair. There he put on the headset, checked the instruments, and flipped some switches. He took the headset off again and looked out into the night before he turned to her.
"I can't send or receive a signal," he said. "He must have disabled the radio."
She dug her fingers into the armrest as she fought a surge of pain. "Do you have a very good memory?"
"As it happens. I do." He thought for a minute, then reached into his trouser pocket, removing a small mobile phone. "My friend Gregor called me on this a short time ago. I might be able to use it to get help." He flipped it open and dialed a number, listening and then smiling at her before he began speaking in German.
Liling wondered vaguely what airport would have air traffic controllers who spoke German. She intended to ask Jaus when he finished his call, but he kept talking, and the burning in her side spread up her chest, stabbing into her lungs and heart.
She was dying. Mrs. Chen was dead. She had to tell him, to warn him.
"They took us when we were babies," she said as quickly as she could, turning her head from side to side as the fever spread. "They changed us like the others. Separated us. So angry."
"Liling?"
She looked into the cool blue heaven of his eyes. "I knew what they wanted. I wouldn't do it, Valentin. Something happened… the night they tried… to bring us together." Lightning flashed all around her, and she reached out to him. "If he finds us…"
He put his cool hand over hers. "What is it, Geliebte?"
"If he… finds us"—she gasped through heat—"kill me."
Phillipe of Navarre had served Michael Cyprien for centuries as his Kyn seneschal, and before that as his villein during their human lives in rural France. He had taken vows as a priest at Michael's side, and fought at his master's right hand during the holy wars.
No one could question his loyalty, or say that he did not know his duty. Over time, Phillipe had become the standard to which other Kyn lords compared their own men.
Although Phillipe was devoted to his master, he had not always liked Alexandra Keller. From the beginning he had had a bad feeling about the angry, brilliant petite physician he had abducted for Cyprien. Although she had been reputed to be the fastest reconstructive surgeon in the world, he had argued against bringing her to New Orleans to restore his master's pulverized face. Human females, in his opinion, served their purpose best as food and temporary amusement for Cyprien.
To allow one to use a scalpel on his master, after the horrific torture he had already endured… Unthinkable.
Now he could admit that part of his dislike of Alexandra had been jealousy. Phillipe, who had successfully protected his master for seven hundred years, had not been able to save him from the Brethren. The torture Michael had endured during his captivity in Rome had been Phillipe's fault. He had freed Cyprien, but there had been nothing he could do about the terrible wounds his master had suffered while imprisoned.
Then Alexandra had come, and in a single night had restored his master's face to what it had been before the Brethren had beaten and burned it away. Phillipe could not admire her skills with a knife. He had resented her, a human, for doing what he could not.
Or perhaps even then he had sensed how important she was to become to his master.
Time healed all manner of wounds, even the unworthy ones Phillipe had carried in his heart. Alexandra had not usurped the seneschal's place among Cyprien's household, even after she survived making the change from human to Kyn. She had rejected Michael, the Kyn, and even the enormous changes that transition had brought to her life. She had wanted to kill Michael. And while Phillipe worked diligently to prevent that, the anger they both felt had gradually become the foundation of a strange sort of bond between them, and then a friendship. He saw past his own jealousy to the sort of woman Alexandra Keller was, a woman who reminded him of the strong-minded sister he had lost so long ago. By the time Alexandra and his master had settled most of their differences, Phillipe knew he would have killed for her.
He only hoped the life he might have to take in order to protect her would not be that of her human brother.
Phillipe said nothing when Alexandra bullied John into accompanying them to the enormous suite Phillipe had arranged at a small, exclusive hotel overlooking the bay. Cyprien had instructed him to watch John Keller closely, but to intervene only if he proved to be dangerous to Alexandra.
"Finally, I have a reason to order room service." Alexandra said after they arrived in the suite. "John, go get cleaned up and I'll order some breakfast for you."
Phillipe used his own mobile phone to call the hotel manager, and issued a set of instructions before he went into the master's room. He was glad now that he had packed some of the garments Cyprien had purchased for John, as the man looked worse than he smelled. He took them into John's room and placed them on the foot of the bed. He gathered up the pile of crumpled, odorous clothes the human had shed, bagged them, and took them to the service room at the end of the hall to throw them down the garbage chute.
Cyprien met him in the hall on his way back. "You checked his clothes? It has not changed?" When Phillipe shook his head, he glanced at the door to the suite. "She does not realize."
The scent humans shed was not like that of the Kyn; even when it was as pungent as John Keller's clothing was, it had no power to do anything except offend the nose. But most Kyn were sensitive to changes in human scent, and used them to gauge their emotional state. Fear soured their scent, and hatred turned it rotten.
Alexandra's brother had been behaving oddly since returning from Ireland, but one disturbing change had occurred, one that neither Cyprien nor Phillipe could account for.
John Keller's scent had disappeared.
"Alexandra does not hunt, and her mind is on other things when she is with her brother." Phillipe said. "She would not recognize the difference." He hesitated. "Master, could he be trying to hide it by going unwashed and wearing soiled garments?"
"How could he know to mask it?" Cyprien rubbed his eyes. "You will not leave him alone with her until I decide what is to be done."
"She loves him," Phillipe said as they walked back to the suite. "Perhaps you should tell her now, before action must be taken."
Cyprien looked at the waiter rolling an enormous cart toward their rooms. It was stacked with dozens of plates of food. "Not yet, my friend."
The long, hot shower helped revive John. As he dried off, he noticed that his overgrown, scraggly beard had begun to thin out against his cheeks. No wonder the drifter in town had thought he was a homeless drunk.
Hightower would be expecting to see him with a beard. John thought. He took a pair of fingernail scissors from the hotel's large basket of complimentary toiletries and trimmed it close to his face, and then shaved off the remainder.
He found a new suit and shirt in his size lying in a plastic garment bag on the end of the bed, as well as a pair of boxers and socks and shoes. He didn't have to check the tags to know they were designer tailored garments; Kyn didn't dress in off-the-rack. For a moment he was tempted to put on the clothes he had been wearing—they might be dirty and cheap, but they were his—until he saw that they had vanished.
Alex was pouring coffee into a delicate porcelain cup when he came out of the bedroom. "You should have been a girl. You take forever in the bathroom." She looked up and the pot wobbled in her hand. "Holy shit, what happened to the beard?"
"It was time to get rid of it." He rubbed his chin. "Feels a little strange."
"I hardly recognized you. Jesus, how much weight have you lost?" When he shrugged, she pointed toward the table. "Get over here and grab a fork, pal."
"In a minute. Were you able to contact Jaus in Chicago?" he asked as he went to the glass doors leading out to the balcony.
"Val went down to Atlanta for a couple of days, but his tresora said he'll be back by Friday." She came over and closed the curtains he had just opened. "If you don't mind, daylight makes my eyes itch."
"Sorry, I forgot." He went over to the dining table, then stopped in his tracks. Plates crammed every inch of it with enough food to feed an entire camp of lumberjacks. "Dear God, Alexandra. I can't eat all this."
"I didn't know what you wanted, so I ordered one of everything on the menu." She glared at him. "Don't give me that what-about-the-starving-children-in-China look, either. You're starving."
After what had happened with the drifter, the amount of food before him killed what little appetite John had. "You could have simply asked me what I wanted."
"True," she said. "Tell you what: I'll have what's left over put in bags and taken to the nearest homeless shelter. Okay?"
She would, too. Alex may have changed, but she still remembered what it was to be hungry. "Okay."
She handed him the coffee. "Eat."
Liling slumped in the chair, still muttering in her delirium. Valentin knew blood loss could cause humans to go into shock, but her skin was hot to the touch, and she had said her wound was burning. The other things she had said, disjointed as they were, had sounded equally as ominous.
He couldn't worry about the man who frightened her so much she would rather die than have him find her. He had to get this plane down before she bled to death.
His mobile phone rang, and Gregor told him that he was putting Jonas Frank, one of the standby pilots, on the line.
"Talk quickly." Jaus told Frank. "I may lose this signal any moment. Tell me where the nearest airport is, and how I am to land this plane."
"Sir, if the readings you gave your assistant are correct, you don't have enough fuel to make it to an airport." Frank said bluntly. "You'll have to make an emergency landing. Let's review the procedures you'll follow to bring the plane down safely."
Jaus listened as the pilot told him step-by-step how to use the instruments to make the landing. He repeated them back to Frank's satisfaction.
"Your signal is starling to fade. Find an open, flat road or a clearing for your approach," the pilot said. "We're sending search and—" The line went dead.
Valentin tried to call back, only to discover that his battery had run too low.
Storm clouds were closing around the plane, pelting the windows with tiny hail. He had dropped altitude to move the plane out of the commercial airline lanes, as he could not receive any radio transmissions to change course. Outside it was still night, but Jaus's Kyn eyes could easily make out the features of the land below.
Wherever the dead pilot had flown them, they were over what appeared to be uninhabited forests, rivers, and lakes. No towns or houses appeared, increasing his frustration. He couldn't land in a deserted area. Liling needed to be taken to a hospital.
The storm lashed the plane with rain and buffeted it with ferocious wind gusts at the same time a low-fuel indicator light blinked on. Valentin couldn't risk running out of fuel or being forced down by high winds. Some miles ahead, he saw a narrow but cleared area stretching out in front of a large lake, and decided that would be his landing site. He disengaged the autopilot and began guiding the plane down.
As he descended, he reduced airspeed and went through instrument procedures, methodically following the instructions that the pilot had given him. He was only too aware that one mistake would end in disaster, and looked over at Liling. She had already been seriously hurt by the bullet that had gone through his body.
He would not crash. He would not snuff out her young life.
The meadow was not meant to be a landing strip, and the plane jolted and rocked as the landing gear touched the ground. He applied the brakes, slowing the plane as quickly as he dared, seeing the lake looming in front of them.
There was not enough meadow, he realized too late, and at the last moment released his harness and lunged across the cockpit, covering Liling's body with his.
The plane gave a sickening lurch as it ran out of land and slid over the banks into the lake. The windows of the cockpit imploded, water blasting in through the broken frames. A support frame broke loose and slammed into Jaus, knocking him away from the girl. The surge of water flooding the cabin swept him off into the darkness.