I awoke with a start and looked around. I was back in the car with Anton, and my room and the man had faded away.
"Everything all right?" Anton asked.
"Yes," I said. "I just had a strange dream."
I told Anton about it quickly. "Do you think it means something?"
"I don't see how it could," he replied.
"Do you think it's a message from the Sìdh? It was through a mirror."
Anton shrugged. "If it's a message, then you should tell them to speak a little louder."
"You aren't even a little curious about it?" I asked.
"No. But you did wake up just in time. We've arrived at the airport."
Anton parked the car and then looked over at me. "Don't look so sad. I know you were hoping you'd found something, but sometimes a dream is just a dream. Come on, let's go check in."
"I still don't have a visa," I said as I got out of the car.
Anton slammed his door shut and smiled. "I know. You know, I'm actually looking forward to trying to schmooze the airline officials to see if I can get you past them. It's time to shake the rust off the old charm."
"You would really call what you do charm?" I asked.
"Yes, of course. What would you call it?"
"I don't think you want to know," I said.
"Well, whatever you want to call it," Anton replied, "you'll get to see it in action soon enough."
We took a shuttle to our terminal and went to check in.
Our check-in counter wasn't busy, and Anton seemed delighted when he saw that the person staffing the counter was a pretty young woman.
"This should be easier than I thought," he said, as we walked over to her. "I'll have you through in no time. Visa or no visa."
The woman smiled at us. "Tickets and passports, please."
Anton took my passport from me and handed it over along with his own. "I think you'll find everything is in order."
The woman checked our tickets and then checked our passports.
She looked up at me. "I'm afraid, miss, that you appear to be missing the necessary visa."
Anton leaned forward. "No, she isn't." His voice was low and silky.
"I can assure that she is, sir." The woman flipped through the passport to demonstrate.
"Wait," Anton said. "Right there." He put a finger on the passport and pinned down a page. "That looks like a visa right there."
Anton gave her a seductive smile.
"Yes, sir," the woman said patiently. "That is a visa that permits entry into Russia, but as you can see, it has expired."
"Are you sure?" Anton said, his voice low and smoky. "Perhaps you should check the date again."
"I can assure you the visa has expired. And no new visa has been issued."
"Perhaps if you look through it once more."
"All the other pages are blank, sir."
"Even that one?" Anton put a finger on another page.
"Yes, sir," the woman said. "It is quite clearly blank. There is no visa on that page."
"Try looking again."
"I am looking, sir. Still no visa."
I glanced over at Anton. "This isn't looking good," I murmured.
"I can do this," Anton said. He returned to the woman. "May I ask your name?"
"My name is Svetlana."
"That's a lovely name."
"Thank you, sir. Unfortunately, there is still no visa. I don't believe that flattery can help either one of us with that."
As the woman said the words, I was forced to bite my lip to keep from laughing.
Anton glared at me.
"Now, Svetlana," he said. "May I see that passport again?"
"Certainly, sir, but I caution you that if you attempt to write in the correct date, it will not pass inspection."
Anton smiled. "Of course not."
He began to flip through the passport. After he had flipped through it once, he flipped through it again. And then again. He continued to flip through the passport, and the effect became hypnotic.
I found that all I could do was watch Anton's fingers and the flipping pages. Everything else around me seemed to fade away.
"Hello, Svetlana," Anton said to the woman, and his words seemed to come from a distance. "My young friend and I are here to check in. Here are our passports."
He smiled and handed my passport over to Svetlana. She looked down at it, and confusion played across her face.
"We've just arrived at your counter," Anton said pleasantly. "We're going to Russia. And you've just looked over our passports. Everything is in order."
Svetlana looked up at Anton, and her clear blue eyes met his dark gaze.
She stared at him for a long moment. Then she blinked.
"I'm sorry, sir, what was that?"
Anton smiled again, and his face assumed a beatific expression.
"I just said thank you."
"Thank you?" Svetlana said.
"Yes." Anton's voice was mild and friendly. "You said everything was in order, and I said thank you. I think you were just about to give us back all our things."
Svetlana blinked again, and a blush rose to her cheeks. "Yes, sir. Of course."
She typed quickly on her computer and then handed over our tickets and passports.
"Any luggage to declare?"
Anton had a suitcase, and so did I, and I decided to keep my backpack as a carry on.
Soon we were done with everything, and Svetlana smiled at us.
"Enjoy your trip," she said.
Anton grinned broadly. "We'll do our best. Good-bye, Svetlana."
As we walked away, I couldn't help but glance back at the check-in counter. Svetlana was staring down at her computer with a frown on her face, and as I watched, she shook her head, as if trying to clear it. A new customer walked up to her, and she seemed to shrug off her confusion. She smiled as she spoke to the man in front of her.
"So," Anton said. "I believe some accolades are in order."
"You did get us through," I said. "Good job."
"I wonder if something is wrong with my hearing," Anton said. "Because your praise is sounding decidedly lukewarm."
He tilted his head. "No, I believe my hearing is still pretty good. I just heard the man at the counter tell Svetlana that he's allergic to peanuts, and he wishes American flights would stop serving them."
"You did a great job, Anton," I said. "I wouldn't have been able to get through the visa thing without you. But you do have to admit that it didn't start off very well."
"What do you mean?" Anton asked.
"You can't possibly be surprised," I said. "Svetlana wasn't having it at first."
"I don't know what you saw," Anton said. "But I saw a pretty fine performance."
"She was ready to kick us both to the curb."
"I was never worried," Anton said. "Not for a moment. Svetlana thought I was devastatingly handsome. I could tell."
"Is that what she thought?" I asked.
"Yes. And that's what you think, too."
"Oh?" I said.
"I'm handsome. Admit it."
"In an evil sort of way," I said.
Anton smiled. "Isn't that the best way?"
I had a strange feeling then that I was forgetting something important, and I stopped walking.
"Is something wrong?" Anton asked.
"No," I said. "Let's just get going."
We went through security and then sat down to wait for our flight.
As we waited, a persistent feeling that I was forgetting something—or someone—tugged on my mind. The feeling was still with me by the time a loudspeaker crackled to life and announced that our flight was boarding.
Anton looked up. "That's us."
We walked up to the flight attendant together and handed over our boarding passes. Then we walked down the narrow tunnel into the plane.
As we settled into our seats, Anton gave me a steady stare—there was something unnerving in his dark eyes.
"Are you sure
nothing's wrong?" he asked.
"No, it's nothing," I said. "It's just that—"
"Yes?"
"I feel like there's something—or maybe even someone—I ought to remember."
Anton smiled. "That's nothing. I'm sure if it's important it'll come back to you. Then again, maybe it won't."
He sat back in his seat then and laughed.
I sat back, too, and wondered what he thought was so amusing.
Chapter 17.
Eventually I fell asleep on the plane.
Seven hours is a long time to spend on a flight, and Anton wasn't really in the mood to talk—once the plane took off, he grew silent and abstracted. I spent quite a bit of time pouring over my guidebook, but as the hours passed, I felt my eyelids growing heavy. Before I knew it, I had drifted off.
I found myself back in my dream—the old dream—in amongst the stars. My dragonfly led me on once more, and this time there was no startling, wrenching sensation—I stayed on the old, familiar path. The stars rippled again as though they were made of water, and I saw the stone slab with its white cloth. After a moment, I heard whispering, and I remembered fleetingly that I'd heard whispering in the dream once before.
I strained to listen, but I couldn't catch any of the words.
I began to move closer to the stone slab, and once again, I could see a slim, fragile-looking hand lying on the white cloth. Something in the darkness near the stone slab shifted, and the whispering stopped. I heard a sharp intake of breath.
After a pause, the whispering began again, and I could just make out two words in Russian: lyubov moya.
My love.
There was a jolt then, and my eyes fluttered open.
I was sitting in the plane with my head tilted at an angle. I was leaning against something solid and black, and as I turned toward it, I realized that I'd been resting my head on Anton's shoulder.
I sat up in a hurry.
"Sorry," I said.
Anton smiled. "Trust me, I don't mind."
"I had the dream again," I said quickly. "Just now. Not the one I had in the car about my house. The old one—about the stars and the stone slab. I could hear whispering, too. And this time I could make out a few words."
"Tell me everything you remember," Anton said.
I told him about the dream with as much detail as I could recall, and at the end of my recital, Anton shook his head.
"I don't know," he said. "The dream has possibilities, but then again, it doesn't. I don't see how it gets us anywhere."
"But you say it has possibilities," I said.
Anton shrugged. "It's got stars, right? Which legend says the Sìdh used against the Werdulac and his vampire army. But just showing you stars doesn't really tell you anything. If there's a weapon hidden in there, they should place a neon arrow next to it."
"What about the whispering?" I asked. "Why does someone say 'my love'?"
"Just misty, dreamy stuff," Anton said.
"So, there's nothing in it?" I said. "No symbolism? Nothing?"
"Unless it turns out that the Hunter is deathly afraid of dragonflies, I don't see any leads in it."
"There must be something," I said.
"Forget about the dreams," Anton said. "And forget about the Sìdh. We're on our own here. We can't depend on them for any help."
The flight attendants began to serve dinner then, and a little while after dinner was over, the lights were dimmed and silence settled over the cabin.
Though I shut off my overhead light, I wasn't in the mood for any more sleep. Instead, I contented myself with watching the little plane on the screen in front of me as it made its slow progress across the Atlantic Ocean. For his part, Anton lapsed into silence once again and stared out the window at the dark sky.
At long last, the lights came back on, and the pilot announced that we would soon be landing in London. I yawned and stretched, and I realized it was possible that I had fallen into a light doze. If so, I hadn't been troubled by any dreams.
I wondered then if maybe Anton had been right. Maybe there was nothing in the dreams—I certainly hadn't been able to make any sense of them.
Before long, the plane landed at Heathrow, and Anton and I made our way out along with the rest of the crowd. Our luggage was going to be transferred to the next plane, and I had everything I needed for fourteen hours in my backpack—so we didn't need to worry about our things. But if we wanted to go out and look at the city, Anton and I had to go through customs. Fortunately, I didn't need a visa to enter the UK, so the slowness of the customs line was the only trouble we suffered.
At last we were through, and we stepped out of the airport and began to look for a cab.
"So, what do you want to do first?" Anton asked. "We have some time to kill this morning."
I glanced at him sharply. "What do you mean by that?"
"We have fourteen hours," Anton said. "We have to fill it with something."
"But that's not how you said it," I replied. "You said it like you were thinking of something in particular—you said 'this morning.'"
"Look who's growing suspicious already," Anton said. "And it's only a little after five in the morning. Do you want to get breakfast?"
"Not just yet," I said.
"I know," Anton said. "Let's go to Hampstead Heath. If we hurry, we may still be able to catch some of the sunrise."
"Okay," I said. "Let's go watch the sunrise."
"Cheer up. You'll like London—you'll see. And there's nothing to worry about. Really."
Anton got us a cab, and as we drove along, I stared out the window, watching the city unfold before me. There was highway at first, and then houses—and then we moved on to tall buildings and skyscrapers. Even early in the morning, London was impressive.
Anton leaned toward me. "So what do you think?"
"I think it's wonderful," I said. "I've never seen a city like it."
"I can tell," Anton said. "You should see your face. You look—amazed."
"I am amazed."
"Well, we're in luck," Anton said. "We seem to have hit the roads before the start of rush hour. Otherwise, we'd be crawling along. But right now, we're making pretty good time. You probably don't see much in the way of rush-hour traffic in Elspeth's Grove."
"No, not really," I said. "And I don't think my grandmother would stand for that, anyway. She's kind of a speed demon. If she didn't have the space to drive the way she wanted, I think she'd go insane."
"Your grandmother?" Anton said. "The nice lady I saw in the auditorium?"
"That's the one."
"Interesting," Anton said. "I never would have guessed."
Eventually, the cab deposited us at the heath, and as it drove off, Anton and I were left standing on a road at the edge of a residential area. In front of us stretched a dirt path that led up a grassy hill that was well-populated by trees. In the center of the path sat a small gate. The gate was closed.
"It looks like it's not officially open yet," I said.
"I don't see any police around, do you?"
"No."
"Then let's go," Anton said.
He stepped around the gate, and with one last glance over my shoulder, I followed him.
Anton moved at a rapid pace through the heath, and I had trouble keeping up with him. Eventually, he raced up a hill so quickly that his figure blurred and disappeared.
"Anton, wait," I said, running up the hill after him. "What's the rush?"
Anton glanced back at me as I joined him. "That's the rush."
The vast metropolis of London stretched before us, and the bright orange disk of the sun sat just beyond it, bathing the city in shades of gold and orange and rose. We had arrived just in time—the sunrise was already well advanced, and the brilliant colors would be gone soon.
I stood with Anton and watched as the sun completed its slow climb into the sky. Before long, the sunrise had softened into daylight, and the sky had faded to a hazy blue.
"That was beautiful
," I said.
"This is Parliament Hill," Anton replied. "It's a good place to watch a sunrise from. You can also see a lot of landmarks from here. That's the district of Canary Wharf over there."
"Where?" I said.
"Do you have that guidebook I gave you?"
I got the book out of my backpack and handed it to Anton.
He flipped to a page and pointed to a picture of Canary Wharf. "You see that group of buildings? They're right over there. You can spot them pretty easily by the tall one with the pyramid roof."
Anton pointed to the skyline.
"Oh, yes, I see it," I said.
"And then there's the building known as the Gherkin." Anton pointed again.
"It's actually very pretty," I said.
"And then there's the Shard," Anton said. "You can see the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral below it."
"I see it," I said. "There's a bench just over there. Can we sit down for a little while and take it all in? Or do we have to hurry on?"
"We can stay here for a little while," Anton said. "We're in no hurry today."
We sat down on the bench together, and I continued to gaze out over the city. But even as I did so, a sense of unease began to steal over me.
"Are you sure this is a good idea?" I asked. "What if Emmanuel shows up here?"
"We're safe enough during the day," Anton said. "Even the most powerful vampire has to be careful while the sun shines. And London is very crowded—crowds are our friends, remember? I don't think we'll get attacked unless we wander down any dark, lonely alleys. So we'll just have to avoid those."
"So we have to get going," I murmured. "But at the same time we're going slowly."
"All the better to confuse Emmanuel," Anton said.
"I must confess it's confusing me a little, too," I said. "And what about the Hunter? You said you didn't know much about him. What if going slowly allows him to catch us?"
"During the day, we should be okay. He needs to preserve secrecy. I told you that."
"But night is coming," I said. "We can't stop it."
"And by then we'll be on another plane to Russia. As long as we get you to the house in Krov by the end of the month, we should be okay."
Dangerous Creatures (Book 3, Pure Series) Page 20