The Prince smiled, made a little bow. “From the moment of boarding.”
I nodded slowly, watching the handsome face, though I still understood almost nothing.
“Why all the games? You could have opened one of the windows yourself and fried the caliph and his boys while they slept. That was your original intention, yes?”
“Yes, indeed, Mr. Magee.”
“But you had more fun watching me run all over the aircraft, knocking myself out for you amusement?”
Ivan shrugged from the doorway. “Not entirely out of amusement. I was fascinated by your new-found vampiric powers. Where ever did you come by them, by the way?”
I felt a heavy sweep of sadness suddenly, realizing now that Clancy had never been truly out of Kolcheck’s power, that even that was part of his game. “From an old friend,” I answered.
The Prince lifted a curious brow. “You are friends with a vampire?”
“One or two,” I allowed, “they’re not all assholes like you.”
The hoary chuckle again. “Mind your manners now, Mr. Magee, I was about to compliment you for your adroitness in handling the caliph and his friends.”
“Like you said, I had help.”
“Still, you fought admirably. I was thinking throughout the demonstration how we could use a man of your peculiar talents on our side.”
I sighed, rolled my eyes. “You mean if I defect to the dark side, you’ll spare my life by making me one of the undead? In college we’d call that an oxymoron.”
The Prince waved a long-fingered hand at the air dismissively. “Surely you must realize not all of our colleagues have been turned. We employ a certain number of loyal humans to aid us during daylight missions. Handsomely remunerated, of course. It’s worked out quite well, actually.”
“Yeah. So long as they remain loyal.”
The Prince grunted amusement. “One thing about humans, Mr. Magee, they all have a price.”
“Not all,” I assured him.
He pushed from the door and entered the cockpit casually. “True. Your dedication to muddle in our plans has been remarkably. But even that deserves its own kind of admiration. Besides, we may need more than dedication and hard work to take over the globe. It might, in fact, some—dare I say it—human qualities!”
“I don’t understand.”
“Sure you wouldn’t care for that drink?”
I watched him. “Depends. Where’s this going?”
“Ah!” The Prince smiled and began pacing the cockpit companionably. “As in any war, both sides believe they are justified. In the old days—World War II and before—it was usually about stupid things like racial superiority or some nonsense. At least that’s what the soldiers and civilians were taught. In fact, it has always been about money. Usually, oil.”
“Even to the Huns? Napolean? I thought it was about land.”
“Land is money, Mr. Magee. And power. Would it surprise you if I told you we vampires—the intellectuals among us at any rate—have no particular malice toward humans?”
“You just need our blood.”
Kolcheck smiled. “No more than your government needs Saudi oil. For which they are willing to pay much, both in money and lives.”
“Your point?”
“My point is that this is the iPad Age, Mr. Magee, people know longer hate people for the color of their skin or how they dress or even their take on human rights. People hate what they don’t have. But someday the oil will be gone. Every person born, every car made, uses up a little more. What then?”
I folded my arms, trying not to look at Clancy’s lovely profile, and leaned patiently against the bulkhead, almost conversationally relaxed. “Clearly, the answer is to get rid of all the humans. Isn’t that what you’re in business for?”
“Vampires drive too, Mr. Magee, at night. And we’ve a bigger problem even than that. We live forever! At least humankind does the planet a favor by dying off every seventy or so years. If you think the world’s oil supply is dwindling, imagine how fast the blood supply would last if the planet was ruled only by vampires?”
I had to admit I hadn’t thought about it.
I threw up my hands in submission. “So what’s the answer?”
Kolcheck looked at me a long moment, almost as if he expected me to catch on. “Quite simple, Edward—may I call you Edward?—you kill the vampires.”
I gave him a wry look. “Funny.”
“No. But necessary, I think.”
“You were just talking about world domination. If you kill all the vampires--”
Ivan held up a finger. “Not all at once, mind you. No mass genocide. We simply give the vampire the same trait that humans have enjoyed for years--a finite lifetime.”
I frowned. “A finite lifetime…”
“Stop thinking of it in terms of war, Edward, and more along the lines of marriage.”
“Now I’m totally confused.”
He nodded superiorly. “In the end, nobody really wins a war. A certain number of people die, but are soon replaced with the next generation. A certain amount of land is shifted around but there’s only so much room on one planet. But marriage! Ah! The answer to a successful marriage is—what, Mr. Magee?”
I stared at him. “Good sex?”
I think I was trying his patience.
“Compromise, Edward! Just as the answer to the oil problem is to find a synthetic substitution, the answer to the human-vampire problem is to create a synthetic vampire!”
A light was beginning to dawn.
“One that doesn’t need blood to survive?”
Kocheck nodded approval. “And one that doesn’t live eternally!”
Now I was pacing thoughtfully. “You’re talking about some kind of…inbreeding…”
“Something like that.”
I looked up at him sharply. “What does that mean?”
The Prince of Vampires gestured toward Clancy.
I had sudden, abhorrent visions of the egg-laying queen in the movie Aliens.
“Ivan, we need to prepare for landing,” Clancy said in front of us.
We turned to her; Ivan, me and Mitzi.
“Iraq already?” Ivan exclaimed, “how time flies with a little intelligent conversation, eh, Mr. Magee?”
I stood looking at Clancy a moment before turning back to The Prince. “I assumed you’ve discussed your little…expansion plan, with Clancy?”
“The formative stages. We’re searching for others with her special properties, of course.”
I nodded drily. “Well, I hope they drive the price of eggs up on you. Will these be range-free or caged, by the way?”
Ivan chuckled and shooed Mitzi from the co-pilot seat. “Do think about my little offer before we land, Mr. Magee. The war is inevitable in any case, you may as well be on the winning side.”
“Very generous,” I allowed emptily.
“Not at all. In drag or out, I’ve always enjoyed your company.” He began to flip toggles on the control panel. “You might want to strap yourself into one of the main cabin seats, Edward.” Then to Clancy: “Shall we put this bird down then, my dear?”
“What about the radio?” I asked, “Don’t you need to arrange with the airport?”
“Not going to the airport, Edward, we have a private strip all our own. Fear not, you are in capable hands! He beamed at Clancy. “Might want to ease off a little trim tab, my dear, increase your airspeed a tad.”
I glanced past her at the panel, a maze of glowing dials and blinking lights wholly foreign in every way: HYD SYS PRES, ENG OIL PRES, ALTITUDE ALERT…dizzying.
I thought I felt mild panic emanating through the back of Clancy’s chair.
Ivan glanced suspiciously at her. “Clancy, dear? Trim tab?”
Her profile, when she turned to him, was pasty, voice tight with tension. “I-Ivan…I’d really prefer if you land the plane…”
The Vampire Prince returned a disapproving look, handsome brow furrowed. “Nonsense. You’v
e had over twenty-hours airtime in my own craft! I watched you go over the specs of Mansur’s plane with a fine tooth comb! You’re ready.”
Her throat moved convulsively. “Yes, but…”
“Take hold of the yoke, my dear, and get hold of yourself. Relax. You can do this.”
But she wasn’t relaxed, you could see it in the muscles riding her slim shoulders, her stiffened posture. She was terrified.
“Ivan, I--”
“Clancy, you will please decrease airspeed, get us below this cloudbank and—“
“For chrissake,” I heard myself bark, “can’t you see she’s scared?”
To my shock, Clancy ripped off her belt, spun out of the pilot’s chair and nearly pounced on me, white cheeks blooming scarlet. “Ed, will you for God’s sake return to the main cabin and buckle in! Now!”
I actually backed up a reflexive step, jaw-dropping. She had the pistol aimed at me.
Ivan pushed calmly from the co-pilot chair and approached her, hand out gently. “Clancy…”
She couldn’t seem to tear her wild-looking eyes from me, the gun lifting to my chest.
“Clancy,” Ivan repeated softly, “you’re overtired. I should have realized. Give me the gun, please…”
She stood unhearing, eyes boring into mine.
“Clancy? The gun? Please?”
Ivan reached over slowly and drew the pistol from her fingers.
“That’s fine. Good. We’re not ready to deal with Mr. Magee just yet. Now please take your seat, my dear.”
Clancy’s shoulders settled a notch and she stepped back, grabbing the back of the pilot’s seat for support.
“In the co-pilot’s seat, please,” from Ivan.
Clancy blinked absently, turned to look searchingly at the vampire a moment, then felt her way to the co-pilot chair and flopped down.
From the corner of my eye I could see Mitzi watching me silently from the decking. Something was in her eyes, but she didn’t say a word in my head.
Ivan pocketed the gun, turned quietly and buckled himself into the pilot’s chair. He took the yoke in confident his hands.
“Mr. Magee, I do recommend you strap yourself into the main cab—“
He broke off, eyes on the panel. “What’s this--?”
He bent to scrutinize the radio altimeter. “…latitude 33”06’1 North, longitude 117”46’7” West…what the hell? Who punched in the INS way-points to Iraq? We’re off course by--”
His head jerked quickly to Clancy.
For an eternity that could only have been a fraction of a moment their eyes locked.
Then Clancy vaulted rebelliously for the instrument panel.
Ivan—ten times her speed—stretched clawed fingers after her but was stopped short by his belt. He managed a defiant “No!” before Clancy’s finger flipped up the plastic guard case and slapped the red button under it hard.
There was a concussive release of pressure as the hidden canopy hatch blew skyward with a shotgun blast. Gage needles spun. A hellish howl of 160 knot wind sucked anything not nailed down ceiling-ward and out through the metal hole.
Ivan had an instant to claw at his buckle before a louder report fired under him—and ejection seat and vampire were jetted through the roof into blinding blue sky.
The aircraft plunged…
TWENTY-SEVEN
The cockpit darkened a moment as we passed back through the cloud bank.
My feet were swept from under me and, shirt and pants flapping, I up-ended as my body was sucked helplessly toward the gale-wind, open canopy.
This is how I die, I thought: spinning dizzily in a cold blue void before the altitude makes me pass out. I entertained a moment’s daydream of Ivan, somehow survived, catching me in mid-air and parachuting me back to earth with him…while feasting on my neck.
I made a desperate grab for the cabin door jamb as I was yanked upward by the hurricane wind, caught a glimpse of Clancy below me, round bottom above the pilot’s chair but held back by her straps, arms fighting the terrible pull of the yoke.
Then, as the cold outside blue caught at my shoes, a stitch of pain lanced my arm as something else caught at my left wrist: Mitzi’s muzzle. She sunk her teeth into my wrist in a death-lock and we dangled and bobbed in a living chain against the suction, man held by dog, dog held by the taunt line of her leash anchored to the co-pilot’s chair.
Clancy was screaming something into the gale, the flight control book slapping her face as it zinged past. The plane yawed sharply as the right wing dipped.
Wouldn’t the autopilot sense the dip, compensate and correct for it? Or was the maddening pressure of the slipstream overriding it somehow? I heard Clancy scream again and saw her fingers scrape at the insanely blinking control panel: the autopilot light was off.
My wind-seared eyes found the altimeter: eight hundred feet and descending—was that possible? I turned and looked past flapping shoulder material at the windshield. A steel colored expanse was rising quickly under us. A farmer’s flat field, tarmac? No. Ocean.
Clancy was braced backward against the unyielding yoke, pulling for all she was worth against implacable inertia. The yoke was rock steady.
The aircraft slewed wildly. I saw her feet grope fruitlessly at the rudder pedals; it must have been like trying to lift lead.
A streamer of gray caught my eye out the windshield at the same time I saw a bright red light pulsing from the overhead panel: FIRE 2 PULL.
The number two engine was aflame. Ivan must have collided with it on his way out, possibly been sucked into the turbo. No wonder Clancy couldn’t regain control.
In my mind I heard Mitzi cry out, “Fire! Number two engine!”
Clancy groped through teary, red-rimmed eyes, got a grip and managed to throttle back the number two engine, flip the start switch off, reach up and yank the number two fire handle.
I crashed to the decking with Mitzi as all the fuel to the number two engine and hydraulics were cut off. I saw Clancy punch the CO2 bottle button, dumping it, and the nose of the big jet rose sluggishly, the gray ocean outside the windshield finding a blue slice of horizon. Still, the fire light remained stubbornly blinking.
The plane began to wallow as I climbed into the pilot’s chair and grabbed the yoke impotently. I turned helplessly to Clancy’s fear-strained face. “How can I help?”
She shook her head in confusion, then nodded at the throttles in front of me. “Forward! All of them! We need air speed!”
I pushed the obstinate throttles as far forward as I could, felt the plane slew wildly. Clancy gripped the yoke with white knuckles, fighting to keep the wings level. “I can’t keep the goddamn nose up long enough to level her! We’re going to ditch!”
The word was like an arrow through my heart. All I could envision were sharks.
I glimpsed the altimeter: two hundred feet and still descending.
She grabbed the throttles and leaned into them, jammed them to their forward stops, trying to trade what speed we had for altitude, but still we sank.
A hundred fifty feet...hundred thirty…ninety six…
A loud beeping filled the cockpit: the stall warning sounding. The stick-shaker began vibrating at my yoke.
“Roll in trim!” Clancy shouted.
I didn’t know how to do that. I looked over helplessly.
“Never mind!” she cried, eyes on her airspeed dial, “we’re going to pancake in!”
I didn’t know what that meant, but I had a pretty terrifying idea.
Clancy gave the plane thirty-degrees flaps and locked us into a final approach at a way too fast 150 knots; I found out later she was attempting excess airspeed to help keep the nose up. If we plowed in nose first, it would all be over quickly.
I glanced at the altimeter: seventy feet off the water…sixty five…
Clancy eased gently off her power and I heard the jets wind down.
There came an eerie sensation of just floating…
The altimeter read fifty f
eet.
Then a terrible roaring jolt somewhere behind and below us. The tail section had snicked a wave.
There was a hard whacking at my rump, a sledgehammer through my pedals as the plane’s belly bounced off surface water hard as concrete. Two more consecutive, neck-snapping jolts, then a grinding shriek and the horizon disappeared in the windshield like a vehicle’s in a carwash. Everything vibrated before my eyes in colors of green and yellow dial lights…
…then darkness.
* * *
SEAT CUSHION MAY BE USED AS FLOTATION DEVICE.
One of them floated by us as we sat on the port wing tossing easily at sea.
Small waves, fortunately, slapping the Bunny’s black metal flaps, but still we were surely sinking fast, or so it seemed to me. Clancy roughly gauged we had anywhere from fifteen minutes to half an hour. Nevertheless, lined up there in a huddled row, man, woman and dog, we all three kept our individual seat cushions nearby.
The whole scene was unreal.
But then, looking back, I was trying hard to remember a scene within recent memory that hadn’t seemed that way.
I sat there on the rocking wing next to the girl of my dreams with my legs pulled up, wavelets slapping at my shoe tips, and craned around once again beside and behind me.
I don’t know what I expected to see; it was the same gray sheet of undulant ocean, the same blue sky above it as ten minutes ago.
Once in a while I’d turn my head, catch Clancy’s eye and smile, or she’d turn and smile bravely my way. Mostly, though, we just rocked there in the short lees and shallow troughs of the waves and sat silent.
I didn’t give much for our chances and I knew both Clancy and Mitzi felt the same. Once the plane actually slipped under I wasn’t even sure if the poodle could properly cling to a seat cushion designed for humans. Maybe I could figure some way to hold onto her. Maybe take turns with Clancy. Maybe. Or maybe before very long I’d be holding onto Clancy and her me. The only question was would that happen before or after the first pangs of thirst and, eventually, of hunger. The water felt cold but well above freezing. Still, floating hour after endless hour in it, would it still feel that way? Would the vaunted ‘flotation devices’ even last that long?
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