By Blood We Live (47 page)

And what of the rest? Gods, magical sacrifices, dreams, clues, coincidences, synchronicities, destiny, the occasionally overwhelming intimation that there was a pattern to things, a purpose, a grand architecture, a meaning, a
plot
?

I remembered something I’d read somewhere, though I couldn’t recall where.
It’s all right to believe in these things. It’s just not a good idea to rely on them.

“Ma’am?” the stewardess said, bending towards me. “Can I offer you another glass of champagne?” She was pretty. Blonde hair pulled back in a French plait, flashy green eyes, red nail polish (
not
“Scarlet Vamp”) that almost exactly matched the red of her tight skirt. She smelled of make-up and Dune, though
wulf
knew she’d eaten a chicken tikka samosa and a fruit salad in the last couple of hours. In the moment it took me to say “Yes, please” all her details gathered with a compact precision that gave me a sudden rush of how good it would be to kill and eat her.

After she’d refilled my glass and moved on, I plugged the headset in and hit a radio channel at random. A moment’s silence, then the track started. Dylan. “The Times They Are a-Changin’.”

Hard not to smile.

It’s all right to believe in these things. It’s just not a good idea to rely on them.

I settled back in my seat, wondering how long it would be before one of the humans on this flight—one of yours, one of you—lost someone to one of ours, one of us. You. Yours. Us. Ours. The days ahead would bring the division out of the shadows and into the light. The Cardinal and his holy soldiers were the vanguard force in a new war. There would be others.

There will be others.

We know you’re coming.

We’ll just have to make sure we’re ready for you.

My thanks to: Jonny Geller, Jane Gelfman, Kirsten Foster, Francis Bickmore, Jamie Byng, Jenny Todd, Vicki Rutherford, Lorraine McCann, Cate Cannon, Anna Frame, Jaz Lacey-Campbell, Andrea Joyce, Diana Coglianese, Sonny Mehta, Kim Thornton, Ruth Liebmann, Peter Mendelsund, Mandy Brett and Jane Novak. Love and special thanks, as always, to Kim Teasdale.

Glen Duncan is the author of nine previous novels. He lives in London.

Other titles by Glen Duncan available in eBook format

The Last Werewolf
• 978-0-307-59663-5

Talulla Rising
• 978-0-307-95843-3

For more information, please visit
www.aaknopf.com