Then something hit the Boogeyman’s mask. Behind the holes, Cade saw one remaining eye blink in confusion.
Another hit. This time Cade saw it land on the floor.
A doll. No, an action figure.
The Boogeyman turned.
Candace and Robbie stood there. He had one more toy in his hand, arm cocked back in an absurd parody of a threat.
“Come on, fucker,” she screamed. “Or are you afraid of us?”
Robbie threw the last toy at him. Then they turned and ran for the back of the plane.
The Boogeyman gave Cade a final, contemptuous shove into the window—to Cade it felt like his face was forced into a frying pan—and walked after her.
Cade hit the floor, mercifully out of the sunlight.
Stupid of the Boogeyman to leave without finishing him. But Cade had counted on that. It had taken longer than he thought, but he knew the Boogeyman could not resist the lure of the president’s daughter, of a living, breathing and vital young woman. It was why the Boogeyman came on board the plane and not after the president. It was in the creature’s nature. It abhorred life. It had to chase the girl.
The boy wasn’t part of the plan, however. But no plan survives contact with the enemy. He could save them both.
All Cade had to do was find the strength to stand up.
THE BOOGEYMAN BEGAN walking after the president’s children. Then he stopped and reconsidered. No, he decided. This was not right.
He walked back toward the conference area. Then he went past Cade, facedown on the floor. He picked up a meat cleaver from the ruined galley.
Much better, he thought, and turned and went after Candace again.
He would show her. He quivered with the thought of snuffing that juicy wet young life.
As for the boy—well, why not? He’d meant to get to him sooner or later anyway.
He didn’t know where they expected to run. But he had to admit it: he loved a good chase.
THEY GOT THE BOOGEYMAN’S ATTENTION. Candace immediately wished she hadn’t.
They ran to the place Cade had told her about. But she didn’t see it.
She kept looking at the carpet below her feet. Where was it?
“Candace!” Robbie said.
She looked up. The Boogeyman strode toward her, confident, red muck around one eye of the mask, unhurried and unimpressed. In one hand he carried a meat cleaver.
But that wasn’t what Robbie was pointing at. He was pointing at the floor a couple of feet back.
Candace realized what had happened. She’d overshot the access panel. She had to go back a couple feet to open it. Back toward him.
They scrambled. She struggled with the latch. She thought she could feel his footsteps behind her. The skin on her neck crawled, waiting for the touch of his bloody fingers, for the cold metal to dig into her skull.
And then the hatch was open. She threw Robbie in first. Then she slid down into the underbelly of the plane.
The panel wouldn’t lock. She didn’t waste time trying. She ran as best she could through the cramped space between the cargo hold and the fuel tanks, pushing Robbie ahead of her.
She heard the panel open, heard him actually yank it from its hinges and then drop down into the hold after her.
But she didn’t look back. She didn’t have time. She could hear his footsteps on the metal floor.
Robbie did too. He looked at her. “What are we going to do?” he said.
CADE WOKE WITH A START. He didn’t know how long he’d been out. His senses failed him in the daytime and the sturdy watch Dunn had given him had finally stopped ticking.
The plane was still in the air. Exactly that much was still going to plan. But he had to get up.
He realized he was facedown, very near a pool of the Secret Service agents’ blood. It would be so easy to simply lap up a little. Just a little, to do this one job—
No, a stronger voice inside him said. Get up.
He felt the cross burn at the base of his throat. Cade slowly levered himself upward, which seemed to take about as much time as the construction of the Empire State Building.
But he got to his feet.
Now do your goddamned job, he told himself.
THE ESCAPE POD WAS RIGHT where Candace expected to find it. It sat behind the rear auxiliary fuel tank, with the rest of the space given over to cargo and supplies.
The pod was built of high-tensile-strength titanium with reinforced armor plate. Like a space capsule, it would deploy its own chute after ejection to carry the president down to a gentle landing. Despite its heavy shielding, it could float in case of an ocean splashdown. It had freeze-dried food and its own water supply. The existence of the pod was kept from all but the Air Force One crew and the president’s immediate staff and family. It was considered the last resort in case an enterprising terrorist managed to put a shoulder-fired missile into one of the jet’s engines.
Her half-remembered training session on board Air Force One came flooding back to her, along with relief. Once inside, slamming the door activated the plane’s hidden rear door and caused the pod to slide into the air like a bomb being dropped.
She pulled Robbie along with her, practically dragging him by one arm.
The Boogeyman’s footsteps echoed behind them. He walked at a leisurely pace. As if they had nowhere to go.
But they did. There was, unfortunately, only room for one inside.
She opened the pod’s door.
CADE STOPPED. The Boogeyman had opened all the shades on every window in the back of the plane. Sunlight lanced across the cabin, falling in perfect beams on the carpet. He would have to run a gauntlet of daylight to get to the access panel.
Oh, you sneaky bastard, Cade thought.
He took a few steps back to gain momentum and then ran.
His legs went limp underneath him as soon as he hit the first sunbeam. He landed facedown in the carpet again.
The access panel was still a dozen feet away. It might as well have been a mile.
THE BOOGEYMAN looked at the escape pod. He saw the inviting open door.
Then he turned, scanned the darkness, and found Candace and Robbie with almost no effort whatsoever.
They were wedged to one side of the plane, hiding in the cargo netting that held a small army’s worth of survival gear. Candace’s arms were wrapped around her brother. His nerve had finally failed him. His face was buried in her neck. She could feel him shaking.
The Boogeyman pointed at the escape pod and wagged a finger at her. Naughty, naughty. Then he shook his head with exaggerated emphasis, causing the mask to wobble back and forth. No, no. Not going to fall for that one, he was telling her.
He took a step toward her. The blade didn’t gleam. There wasn’t enough light. But it was there, and she could see its dark shadow in his left hand.
He took another step. He seemed to be enjoying her fear as she crammed herself even further back against the plane’s hull. There was no place else to run. She was out of room and out of options.
This wasn’t how it was supposed to end, she thought.
He was right at the netting now. He very gently, almost fussily, began to pick the straps loose from their hooks. It wasn’t easy with one hand mangled and the other holding the cleaver. But he managed.
Candace was shaking harder than she ever had in her life. Robbie whimpered. She wanted to close her eyes, too, but couldn’t force herself to look away from the Boogeyman’s bloody hand plucking at the hooks.
She couldn’t take it anymore.
“Any time now would be good, Cade!” she screamed.
The Boogeyman turned.
Nothing.
He shook his head again and wagged his finger. Naughty, naughty. Then he went back to work on the straps.
Then Cade slammed into him and smashed him viciously into the metal framework of the plane.
THERE WAS NO SUNLIGHT in the hold. Cade felt almost alive again. He tore at the Boogeyman’s body with clawed fingers, taking of
f chunks of flesh, carving it up as it had so many others.
He’d crawled the last few feet to the access panel and then collapsed through the opening. It had taken him several moments to regain his strength once he was out of the light. He had heard Candace shout, but he took another few seconds. He needed them badly. She was still breathing, after all.
The Boogeyman was screaming in full voice now. Music to Cade’s ears.
But they were still not evenly matched. With dizzying speed, it brought the cleaver up with its left hand and sunk it into Cade’s neck. Cade clamped down on the blade as best he could to keep it from digging deeper and separating his head from his body.
The Boogeyman shoved him and they ended up against the escape pod, Cade pinned by the Boogeyman to the side of the craft.
The Boogeyman still had the handle of the cleaver in one hand and was pushing with all his might. Cade had to use both hands just to keep it from cutting any deeper.
“Anytime now would be good, Candace!” he shouted.
She was trying. Robbie would not let go.
She tried not to get angry. He clung to her with terror and out of some misguided effort at protection. He kept screaming: “No, Candace, no, no, no, no, you stay here! Stay here!”
She had to shove him. Hard. He looked at her as if she’d stabbed him in the heart.
But she couldn’t care about that now. She staggered forward from her hiding spot. She swung a leg out as far as she could.
The toe of Candace’s shoe connected with the escape pod’s door. It slammed shut. A red light began to flash and a deafening siren wailed. She danced back to the cargo netting and hung on for dear life.
The Boogeyman looked over and only at the last second realized what was happening and lunged away from Cade. Cade kept his grip on the Boogeyman’s arm.
Then the back of the plane opened and dropped the pod—and both Cade and the Boogeyman—out into the empty air at 37,000 feet.
IT HURT. It hurt worse than he imagined possible. The wind screaming over his skin cooled him not at all as the sun burned Cade and he tumbled through the air. He felt it on his bones.
But he did not let the Boogeyman go. The cleaver had come unstuck and flown away. He was dimly aware of the Boogeyman trying to dig into the exposed muscle of his wound.
The Boogeyman’s mask came off in the wind. There was no shock of recognition for Cade. The face was like hundreds, like thousands, he’d seen in crowds gathered everywhere the president went. It was completely ordinary. It could have been anyone.
The Boogeyman thrashed and struggled and screamed.
But Cade would not release him. Even as the sunlight and windburn closed his other eye, Cade pointed his body like a high diver and aimed them both at the ground.
CANDACE HEARD THE KICKING from the closet as soon as she struggled through the access panel. The plane was still wobbling from the sudden departure of the escape pod. She had to crawl over to the door before struggling to her feet.
It popped open immediately when she pulled on the handle and Butler came spilling out.
He had his arm drawn back to throw a punch when he recognized her. He lowered his fist but still seemed pretty angry. “What the fuck is going on?” he shouted. “Where’s Cade?”
“Gone,” she said. “Cade and the Boogeyman. Both of them.”
He put his rage aside for a moment—she could see it, like he was putting a mental bookmark at its precise location—and nodded. He looked at her, then behind her.
Robbie was still as a statue in the chair where she’d left him.
“Your mother?”
“In the secure room. But I think we’re still in trouble.”
He understood immediately. “The plane” was all he said.
Weaving from wall to wall because of the turbulence, he made his way to the flight deck. Candace followed.
The cockpit door flapped open with each juddering hit of another air pocket. Butler and Candace could see the bodies of the pilots, still in their chairs, heads lolling as the autopilot struggled to compensate for the hole blown in its hatch.
“Son of a bitch,” Butler said, almost to himself. “He knew.”
“Knew what?” Candace asked.
“Help me,” he ordered. He began unstrapping the pilot’s body from his seat. She didn’t argue. Even though it was hardly the worst thing that she’d seen today, she still trembled like a leaf in the wind as she helped the agent pull the corpse out of the tiny space.
Butler sat at the controls. Then he sat for a long moment.
“Knew what?” Candace asked again, hoping to snap him out of it.
“Secret Service regs,” Butler said without looking up from the control panel. “At least one agent on board the transport for the president or any dignitary is required to be flight-trained and certified in case of a need for an emergency landing.” He sounded as if he was quoting.
“You can fly?”
“Air Force Academy ’95,” he said, eyes still on the instruments. “Cade knew. I’m the designated backup pilot.”
Candace nearly went to the floor with relief.
“Don’t celebrate yet,” he said. “It’s a big damn plane and I haven’t done this in a while.”
He strapped himself in, put on the headphones and looked back at her. “You might want to go back there and buckle up now. This is going to be a little bumpy.”
CADE FINALLY RELEASED the Boogeyman when he felt something in the air shift around them both. He spun away in free fall. He piled into the earth just a fraction of a second behind and thirty feet away from the spot where the Boogeyman left a crater.
Cade lay there and waited. He couldn’t do much else. Fortunately, he didn’t have to. His homing beacon on his phone had been activated while he was still in the plane. Provided it really was as durable as the government contractors promised, it should still be working.
Cade listened carefully. He believed his ears might be the only things on his body that weren’t broken. For a long moment, nothing. Cade feared the whole ruinous effort had been a waste.
Then he was rewarded with a sweet sound. Sobbing.
The Boogeyman, as broken as he was, was still alive, crying in pain, at the bottom of its crater.
If not for his shattered jaw, Cade might have smiled.
We are all the president’s men.
—Henry Kissinger
Cade couldn’t see anything, although he was sure his eyes were open. He felt hands lift him onto a stretcher and into a vehicle. The sun was mercifully cut off as the doors closed.
Zach was there, too, his voice uncharacteristically firm as he gave orders.
“Just run it like you would a regular IV. Open all the way. Both arms.”
“How?” another voice shot back. “I can’t even find a vein. Christ, look at this mess.”
“Just stick the needle anywhere. Go ahead.”
Cade felt a slight pressure somewhere beneath one elbow, then the next, as the IVs poked into his parchment-dry flesh.
“I still can’t get any— Oh my God, what is that? What is that? It’s like—”
“Holy shit,” another voice said. Medics, Cade realized. Zach had brought army medics for him, too. Cade heard the other man gag.
“Christ almighty, it’s like worms—”
“Told you,” Zach said. “You don’t have to find a vein with him. His veins find you.”
Cade felt the life flowing back into him. It was all too familiar to him now. This wasn’t the thin gruel of animal blood. It was human.
Cade began to sit up. He wanted to use his rapidly returning strength to tear out the needles and get back to dying.
But Zach stopped him. “Cade, I’m ordering you not to move. Stay perfectly still. You understand?”
Cade didn’t have enough power to fight the order or his oath at this moment. He lay back and let the blood do its work.
“Uh, the bags are empty already.”
“Plenty more in the cool
er,” Zach said. “Keep it coming.”
Cade heard the medics replace the blood packs. His body began sucking down more. Shapes began to appear in his vision—dim and fuzzy, but definitely light emerging from the darkness.
“Oh my God. Are his eyes growing back?”
“Just keep changing the bags,” Zach said.
Cade found he could speak again. The blood was now running through his veins, providing the raw material for his vampire physiology to rebuild itself.
“Did you—” he began.
“He’s in the other ambulance,” Zach said. “I brought two. They’ve got a much larger team in that one. They’re doing everything they can. But he’s alive right now.”
“It,” Cade corrected, more out of habit than anything else.
“Oh, get bent, Cade. The only thing that should be coming out of your mouth is ‘Thank you.’ You know where I had to get the blood? You should be honored. It’s his personal stash.”
Of course. Air Force One carried a supply of a half-dozen pints of the president’s blood, withdrawn and stored at regular intervals, in case he ever needed an emergency transfusion or surgery while traveling.
That meant the plane had probably landed safely and nearby. Cade regretted the deaths of the Secret Service. But he knew that the First Family was safe.
And really, that was all that mattered.
Cade had only one other question.
“Why?”
Zach knew what he meant. Cade wanted to know why Zach would choose to save him even with the evidence that he’d fed on a human being again. There was no way to deny what Cade was now. And Zach was taking some of the blood on his hands.
“You’re not done yet,” Zach said, voice oddly weary. “Or at least, we’re not done with you.”
Fair enough, Cade thought. Another pint slid into him. Muscle restrung itself around freshly knit bones. He heard the medics change out the bags once more.
“Oh my God, oh my God,” one medic kept saying.
“Hey,” Zach said. “Knock it off. He doesn’t like anyone taking the name of the Lord in vain.”
Cade’s lip curled. Then he closed his eyes and fell instantly asleep.
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