“Depends on what?”
“Well, on a lot of things,” Taos said. “Like whether we crash during the day or the night. If it’s the daytime… fugedaboudit.” His switch into a perfect New England accent was jarring. “That sun will make short work of us. Unless of course we can dig ourselves into the ground or crawl in some dark hole.” He eyed the blisters on Jerusa’s face and seemed, for a moment, to doubt the hilarity of his taunt. “But even the dark of night won’t do us much good if the plane explodes. Fire is not our friend. Really our best option would be to hit the water at night. Plane sinks, we stay underwater until it’s safe to come out.” He pointed at Thad. “Of course, that won’t do chuckles here much good. But don’t worry, kid, if it comes to that, I’ve made sure you won’t stay down long.”
Thad whipped around so hard that Debra’s legs fell from his lap and she uttered a sharp cry, as if startled by the devil. Thad’s eyes were wide with fury. Taos’s smile bordered on maniacal. Over the past six months, Jerusa had become accustomed to the domesticated Taos, but now, in the glimmer of his eyes, she saw traces of the beast he once was.
“Enough,” Shufah shouted. “This will not do. You two must put aside your quarrels and competitions. Like it or not, we need each other, now more than ever. The Stewards are the craftiest serpents to slither the earth. Don’t think for a moment that they wish us anything but harm. They will do what they can to twist our union, pit us against each other, for their own gain. We must be wise. We must be strong. Something is amiss. Can you not feel it? If we lose our wits, we may lose our freedoms or even our lives.”
“If they hate us so much, why don’t the Stewards just have us killed?” Thad asked. “Why all the pomp and circumstance? I’d rather they just get it over with.”
“Because they are kings and queens of a glass kingdom,” Shufah said. She wrinkled her nose, as if the very mention of the Stewards brought a rank odor to the air. “Though they are each powerful in their own right, they know that they cannot withstand an uprising. They hoard the most powerful vampires to their cause, brainwashing the Hunters on the belief that they are saving the world, keeping it clean of undesirables that would easily go savage. If there is no pomp and circumstance, if there are no mock trials, no sifting the powerful from the weak, the beautiful from the ordinary, then there would be no veil to hide their ravenous hunger for control.”
“Why don’t you tell this to other vampires?” Thad asked. “Why not warn them before they fall into the Stewards hands?”
Shufah turned to look at him. “I have been, for thousands of years. But you’ll find, soon enough, I’m afraid, that it is easier to kneel with the crowd than stand alone.”
A door opened in the side of the jet, dropping to the ground, to provide a staircase to the inside. Ming stood in the opening, motioning for them to hurry up. Though the sky was still dark Jerusa could feel the approaching sunrise.
They slid out of the car and stood for a moment in the cool autumn breeze. Taos and Thad each offered to carry Debra, but Jerusa waved them off. She didn’t know what was going to happen once they boarded the plane and she wanted as much close contact with her mother as she could get, no matter how brief.
Jerusa pulled her mother out of the back seat, cupping her under the armpits, then scooped her up like a sleeping child. Debra’s eyes snapped open—the whites stained pink from countless burst capillaries—and glared about in panic, for a second or two, before drifting back down into the murky depths of fitful sleep.
No one exited the control building asking to see passports or even to question what they were doing. Vampires may thirst for blood, but humans thirst for money. Something the Hunters had provided well in advance, it seemed.
Ming stood to the side and allowed them to climb the stairs. Jerusa came up last, clutching her mother’s shivering body close to her chest. She hesitated in the doorway a moment, turned and looked out into the night. The wind plucked the remaining leaves from the trees at the far end of the airfield, leaving only skeletal branches scratching at the starry sky. She had a sudden fear that the umbilicus would burst from the forest like a pair of smoldering demons. They would rush forward with all the speed of the damned, rip open the jet like a bloated fish and ignite the jet fuel with their boiling blood.
Nothing stirred in the tree line, however.
“Are you coming?” Ming asked, with an irritated little sigh. “Or do you wish to catch the sunrise?” She flashed a smile that looked more like a silent snarl. Jerusa stepped away from the door, wondering what she would see when it opened again and Ming pulled it shut.
The cabin of the jet was simple, yet still luxurious. A double row of cushy armchairs, made of pale, supple leather, lined both sides, enough to seat all of them plus ten more. The walls were painted a soft pink and were without windows. Dim light emanated from indirect-lamps recessed in the ceiling, giving the cabin a mellow, evening-at-home feel to it. Jerusa moved to a set of empty seats, lifted the arm rest between them to form a short couch and gently eased her mother down onto the plush cushions.
The engines roared to life and the jet shuddered as if chilled by the prospect of flight. An ear-popping hiss echoed through the room as the cabin became sealed and pressurized. It was then that Jerusa became acutely aware of the humans piloting the jet.
She listened as they spoke pilot-jargon, both to each other and to the people in the tower. She could hear their hungry lungs pulling in breath after breath, the drumming of their hearts—one man seemed to have an irregular beat—until they seemed to blend with the rumble of the jet. The scent of their skin, of their breath, wafted to her, even through the sealed door of the cockpit and there came that terrible pulling within her. That maddening, insatiable itch that crawled beneath her skin, that called in a singsong voice to her humanity, lulling it to sleep as it drew forth the beast within. Her fangs burned as though the nerves within had become tiny threads of molten steel.
A soft hand fell upon her shoulder. Jerusa turned, expecting it to be Shufah, but instead there stood Alicia. Jerusa flinched for fear that a jolt of electricity was about to fry her synapsis, but the ghost simply looked her over with a doctor’s interest, nodded, then faded into nothing.
With Alicia gone, Jerusa was free to see the room full of questioning eyes staring back at her. A bark of dry laughter erupted from her chest. The quizzical glances turned toward one another, seeking out an answer to her sudden hysteria. Jerusa laughed all the harder.
It really wasn’t funny, but it was better to laugh than cry. Jerusa feared that if the blood-tears started falling from her eyes that they wouldn’t stop until she had become a desiccated, dry husk.
So Jerusa laughed. She laughed because, in one way or another, those same quizzical, pity-filled eyes had daunted her every day of her life. If it wasn’t Debra Phoenix and her coworkers staring down at the poor little girl with the heart condition, then it was Jerusa’s classmates watching her from the corner of their eyes, as if she might drop dead at any moment. The way they unconsciously wrinkled their noses when they caught a glimpse of her scar, how they wiped their hands after touching her, as though she were infectious. The way she stared off at nothing or sometimes talked to herself. Yes, the lingering dead, along with her malformed heart, had conspired to make her an ignominy.
And now she was a vampire. Wasn’t this the dream of every lonely, awkward teen? To rise above the social sheep bleating to each other about cell phones, video games, fashion and all other mortal nonsense. To inspire awe with your beauty or strike fear with your power. To be everlasting. But the stares of concern, of pity, were not so easily shaken. They had followed Jerusa into immortality. Would most likely follow her into the afterlife when the Stewards saw fit to send her there.
She felt dizzy, queasy, on the verge of hysterics. She was also hungry, or thirsty, whichever best described her all-consuming need for blood. If she didn’t get ahold of herself she might burst through the cockpit door an
d gorge herself on the pilots’ blood, or worse, turn her fangs on Thad. Alicia would try to stop her. She would pump Jerusa full of that inexplicable spectral electricity. Maybe that would halt her attack again, maybe it wouldn’t.
Jerusa choked back her laughter. It was like wrestling a swarm of angry bees into a burlap sack, but somehow she managed. It wasn’t until she noticed Thad bent over, his hand pressed to his ears, as though he were trying to keep his skull intact, that she realized her vampiric voice had been a sonic assault booming off the walls of the tiny cabin. Even her mother, still lost in fevered dreams, had cast her hands up to her face in search of her ears, though they seemed lost to her. The banter of the pilots had ceased as well.
“I’m sorry,” Jerusa said.
No one answered her.
Jerusa turned to go to her mother. At that moment, the jet shifted as it started to taxi down the runway and Jerusa, still dizzy, stumbled. Celeste reached out to steady her. She caught Jerusa by the shoulder and her other hand drifted down to Jerusa’s wrist. Celeste gasped when her fingertips touched Jerusa’s bare skin. She looked to the left, startled by Foster. Jerusa jerked her arm away.
“Are you all right?” Ming asked Celeste.
Celeste recovered her composure with practiced simplicity, casting a bright smile to counter Ming’s shovel-nosed scowl. “I’m fine, thank you.”
The jet sprinted down the runway. It made the great leap into the air, pinning them all back in their seats momentarily. The jet evened out and soon it was impossible to tell they were skirting miles above the ground at several hundred miles per hour. In fact, without any windows to glance out of, Jerusa found it easy to imagine they were in a car or even a train, churning through some enchanted forest.
Jerusa sensed the strength of the sun, a kind of menacing hum, lift up over them. It droned in her ear like a large, angry hornet. The blisters on her face tingled and several burst, coating her cheeks in a briny lacquer. She absently wondered how Quinn was doing with his own blistered face. He was seated somewhere behind her and she thought of turning around to have a look, but decided to stay put. A warm numbness filled her limbs, like being drunk, only she had never had a drink of alcohol in her life, thanks to her mother and now she would never know the taste of alcohol or being buzzed or outright drunk, thanks to Silvanus.
She didn’t know when her eyes closed, but at some point her eyelids eased their way down. She listened for a while to the pilots chit-chatting in the cockpit, nothing interesting except for a piece about a change in the flight plan. But Celeste had warned them about that. Jerusa’s breathing slowed, may have even stopped completely. Turbulence rocked the plane from side to side and she indulged in a light dream of being adrift on the ocean. Just her, alone on a raft, staring into a red sunset as the water ebbed and flowed, glittering with millions of red, glowing rubies. The sunlight didn’t blister her skin, didn’t rupture her cells, reducing her to a boiling, churning puddle. The dozing star warmed her with the last of its tender light and she felt sublimely happy. No fear. No anxiety. No one to judge her or hate her. Just her and the sea.
The plane jostled her from sleep. Shufah stood near her, a hand on her shoulder.
“We’ve landed for a moment. Just to refuel. Then we’ll be off again.”
Jerusa nodded, but to be honest, she didn’t understand what Shufah was talking about. Landed? What did that even mean? She had been in the middle of the ocean just a moment ago and hadn’t seen even a hint of land in any direction. Her face still felt hot from the rays of the setting sun. She closed her eyes again. The conversations surrounding her melted into mumblings, then into silence. Then she was in a great, sticky darkness, where no sun could ever shine.
When Jerusa next opened her eyes, she exploded out of oblivion with a start. Shufah, who was kneeling beside her seat, gripped Jerusa by the shoulder and shushed her before she could cry out. The room was almost in total darkness, only the glow of an exit light illuminated the cabin. They were no longer moving. Jerusa could feel the jet at rest upon the earth. The sun was still up, not far from setting, but Jerusa could not say if this was the sun setting on the same day they had left or not.
She started to ask Shufah what day it was and where they were at, but Shufah pressed her fingertips to Jerusa’s lips, silencing her once more. Shufah pulled her hand away, stuck her thumb in her mouth and then pretended to press it to her left fang. She pulled the thumb out and held it first to her left eye, then to her right, then proceeded to run the tip around her lips.
Jerusa nodded that she understood. Shufah glanced about the cab of the tiny jet, seemed satisfied by what she saw and then motioned for her to go ahead. There was an urgency about that motion, though. Jerusa could feel it prickle on her skin like an icy drizzle.
Without thinking too much about it—she still felt a bit squeamish about tearing into her own flesh—Jerusa jabbed her thumb into her mouth and bit down hard. Her fangs were as sharp as a razor blade and slid through skin and muscle, clicking at last on the thin bone beneath. A yelp rose in her throat, but she choked it off. She hadn’t meant to bite down that hard, but Shufah’s anxiety washed over her, leaving her jittery and clumsy.
The blood gushed from her thumb, falling across her tongue. An involuntary quiver, not unpleasant, rocked her in her seat. A deep ache filled every muscle. Her senses sharpened, carrying to her all the sounds and smells of Thad’s human body. Somewhere deep down, maybe even on a cellular level, her body understood that the blood on her tongue would do her no good. It was a dream-feast, a useful diversion, but not at all fulfilling. How wonderful would it be to taste Thad’s blood? The urge to find out burned in her bones.
Jerusa closed her eyes and forced herself to concentrate on the task at hand. A firm hand pressed against the scar on her chest and she didn’t need to open her eyes to know that Alicia was standing in front of her.
What was the ghost getting from all of this? Jerusa didn’t understand why she couldn’t just leave well enough alone and allow her to do what was natural to her. The spectral shocks Alicia delivered seemed to hurt her just as much as it did Jerusa. Was it because she has lost her life young and now found all human life precious? Or could it be that she feared that when Jerusa at last yielded to her thirst that that final step would drop an impassible veil between them as it had for Shufah and spirits she once communed with?
Shufah gripped her arm, bringing her out of her thoughts. Jerusa pulled her thumb from her mouth and squeezed a couple drops of blood into each eye.
This time the burn was intense, like pepper spray, nevertheless her corneas lapped up the blood and begged for more. Jerusa pressed another blob of blood from the wound and rubbed it on her lips as though it were balm.
Shufah, still holding onto Jerusa’s arm, stared up into Alicia’s face. She glanced about and Jerusa knew she was using this moment of contact to search for Foster. He appeared as if bidden and reached out to touch Shufah’s cheek. She nuzzled her face against his hand even though she could not feel his touch. Her smile was so happy and wretched at the same time that Jerusa couldn’t bear to look at her.
Suddenly, both Alicia and Foster glanced toward the back of the cabin. Ming appeared out of the gloom like a fairy tale monster, hovering over Shufah’s shoulder.
Jerusa quickly wrapped her fingers around her wounded thumb and tucked her hand underneath her leg. She didn’t know if it was within her power, but she willed the hole in her thumb to close, bending so much of her mind toward that goal that she didn’t at first hear what Ming said to her.
“I’m sorry, what?”
Ming’s lower jaw protruded, then clicked back with a loud clack. “I asked what you two are over here conspiring about. If your ears are so weak, I pity what the High Council will think of you.”
“She heard you just fine,” Shufah said, standing to her feet. “And there is no conspiracy. I was simply checking Jerusa’s wounds.”
Jerusa had forgotten all about the blister
s on her face. She reached up with her other hand and caressed the skin of her cheek. The blisters were gone and her skin was once more smooth and flawless.
Shufah looked down on her. “She seems in fine order to me. Beautiful as ever. Don’t you think so?”
Ming bristled at this insult and Jerusa couldn’t help but enjoy the moment. True it was unfair that Ming’s lack of physical beauty—as deemed by the Stewards—had doomed her to eternal servitude, but Jerusa had a feeling Ming’s insides were just as hideous as her outsides.
Ming opened her mouth to answer Shufah, but her cell phone buzzed, cutting off her thought. She pulled her phone from a pocket inside her leather trench coat and read the text message.
“Our transport is here. It is time to go.”
Ming opened the door. Though it was night, a muted glow filled the cabin from outside. A blustery breeze charged in, howling as it came. Jerusa crossed her arms to fend off the cold. Though the frigid weather had no power to harm her, she felt its sting more now than she ever had as a human. She was disappointed that they had landed somewhere even colder than where they had left. She had hoped for some place tropical.
Two sets of headlights struggled to cut through the wall of blowing snow that had whitewashed the outside world. Jerusa couldn’t shake the disconnected feeling the snow storm brought her, as though they had not flown a plane to a different city, but a spacecraft to another planet.
Shufah touched Jerusa’s shoulder. “It’ll be okay,” she said, giving her a reassuring smile. Jerusa tried to return it, but she seemed to have forgotten how to smile.
Ming exited the jet, followed by the rest of the Hunters. Taos and Thad came up and stood near Jerusa. They seemed almost as nervous as she was. Jerusa didn’t want to move, but she knew there was no other choice. So she scooped up her mother and pushed her way to the door, wincing at the biting cold as she descended the stairs.
Perpetual Creatures, Volumes 1-3: A Vampire and Ghost Thriller Series Page 39