The Vampires' Birthright (22 page)

“I will speak to Racco’s people about leaving the stairs attached, since it is an open invitation to an attack.” He fumed, and hurriedly latched the door shut. “We need to leave now!”

He motioned to Chanson to ‘hold that thought’ while he stepped over to the cockpit and disappeared inside. A moment later, the jet engines began to rev up and before Kazikli returned to us, the airplane was already moving toward the runway.

“It’s so good to be here with you, Txema!” said Nora, as she took her seat in front of Chanson’s. She leaned over to get a better look at Alaia, who rested in my lap. “Oh my, look at our little princess! She is
so
beautiful… so
precious!”

If nothing else, my little girl had a big fan club. That knowledge alone went a long way to making me feel better about things.

Kazikli rejoined us. He seemed much more at ease, and when I asked him if everything was okay, he smiled.

“Now it is,” he said. “We needed to leave twelve minutes earlier than scheduled, but I can live with our 7:49 p.m. departure.”

Like the last time we traveled, I was the only one who had to buckle a seatbelt. Even my baby didn’t need to be tightly secured, since Chanson gently lifted her from my lap and held her in her arms. Nothing short of a bomb blast would loosen her grip.

As we picked up speed along the runway, I looked out through the window closest to me. I watched the jet pass the runway lights, getting faster and faster. A dozen shadowed forms emerged from the darkness, fighting to keep up. They ran like greyhounds, and at first I thought they might be dogs, until two of the figures stood and sprinted in a vain effort to catch us.

I couldn’t help but gasp.

“Yes, those are Ralu’s warriors” Kazikli said. “We didn’t think they’d get this far north—especially once the Indian government stepped up their military patrols at night. However, all a human army can do is slow them down. They can’t kill them with most conventional weapons, since they can regenerate completely, unless staked through the heart, beheaded, or burned.”

“I’ve heard that high quantities of silver can kill any vampire, too,” said Raquel nonchalantly while paging through the latest Marie Claire magazine. “But it has to be a specific kind of silver not easy to come by.”

I hadn’t heard of anything ‘official’ before, beyond the staking or beheading methods and those came directly from Chanson’s mouth. No one ever mentioned burning, but it made sense; they burst into flames and burned in the sunlight. But, I had always looked at silver as a TV inspired fable, not even the early fiction works about vampires had the undead being easily subdued by silver chains and other silly shit like that. I always thought that was a werewolf thing anyway, although I remembered the earlier conversation about the different vampire breeds rising every few centuries to feed giving birth to different legends. Perhaps the silver and werewolves came from that one.

“Perhaps. The silver must indeed be unique and pure,” said Kazikli, almost flippantly.

I got the feeling he was more uncomfortable talking about this means of vampire killing than the other ways. Then he confirmed my suspicion by changing the subject.

“We’ve kept our travel plans secret in order to prevent the enemy from mapping your progress, Txema,” he said, looking over his shoulder at me and at Chanson. “You’re probably unaware, but there are Ralu converts everywhere. Most have come from the ongoing war between his army and the human nations of the world. In November, when we thought your Relance du sang would halt Ralu’s growth, his army was still under seven thousand strong. That number is now over thirty-two thousand, and growing by the day. We expect his Chupacabra army to double in size by the end of this year.”

“Sixty-four thousand vampires?” I was incredulous. “No wonder everyone is aligning themselves with Ralu… and as far as ‘human nations,’ you’re including the United States and other powerful western countries besides India that are at war against these vampires, correct?”

“Yes, your homeland is involved in an extensive effort to rid the earth of these vile miscreants,” he replied, sounding even more uncomfortable. He traded glances with Chanson and then with Nora before continuing. “Txema, you have been out of contact with the Western world for almost six months. Every civilized country across the globe is presently under siege by Ralu’s growing coalition, and he has put us all in grave danger of extinction. Everyone in power agrees with me now that his stated goal of equality with us is a bunch of bull. He’ll never be satisfied until he annihilates us in his bid to take over the entire world―every human being included, as well.”

“How can we stop him?”

I barely mumbled the question, since things were far worse outside my isolated personal space than I realized. I worried about my family in Richmond. How were they dealing with this? For that matter, how were my friends from college―including my ex-boyfriend and Alaia’s daddy, Peter―handling this shit?

“By keeping you and your daughter alive,” he said, after releasing a long sigh. “That will go a long way to throwing him off balance. Also, and this is tied to the first thing, we will need to stay ahead of Ralu’s advances. Right now, he is guessing where we might travel to…”

He looked off into space for a moment, and started to smile—wide enough to reveal the tips from his double fangs.

“I have a great idea where to go after our next stop. For your protection and ours, Txema, I won’t be able to tell you anything about it,” he said. “Ralu seems to have direct access to your thoughts, as we do. The only way we can avoid him correctly anticipating yours and our location, and next moves, is to leave you out of the planning discussions and teach you how to reroute your thoughts.”

He laughed, and I’m sure his humor was inspired by my befuddled expression.

“Trust me, dear,” he said, and then paused to look at everyone as he scanned the entire cabin. “Actually, I believe each of us can show you little tricks to cloak your thoughts. In fact, the very best vampires at doing this sort of thing happen to be sitting close to you now.”

I tried to picture this cloaking process, and some memories started to come to me. These memories involved my paternal grandmother. Grandma Terese actively practiced thought shifting techniques with me as a kid, and taught me how to think of two to three things at once and shuffle the key mental images and thoughts into my mind’s ‘background’ while leaving the decoy subject in the foreground. At the time, I was a young adolescent, and she told me this would help protect me from the wiles of older, more cunning guys that only wanted to get inside my panties.

I became quite adept at recognizing subtle signs of deceit while carrying on seemingly casual conversations with the opposite sex. I wondered now if this training was more designed to protect me from creatures that could readily see inside any human’s mind, like these vampires. After all, Grandma Terese wasn’t at all surprised to learn that not only do the undead exist, but that they had saved me from certain death in Tennessee when I called her from Racco’s yacht on the way to France.

“That’s exactly what we’re talking about,” said Chanson, her eyes taking on an almost gold tint while she studied me intently. “I think those skills handed down through the ages to Terese will serve us quite well, Txema! So grab a magazine, and we’ll practice.”

She motioned to the table beside us that included a variety of publications. Most were in French, but it hardly mattered since Chanson and Kazikli advised that pictures were the only thing we needed. Specifically, we needed pictures of places in the world.

“Here’s one that should do,” said Kazikli, pointing to a National Geographic and an article about Budapest, Hungary. “I can’t think of a better decoy, can you, Chanson?”

“No, I can’t… as long as that’s not where we’re going.” She smiled coyly and handed the magazine to me. “Let’s get started!”

“Now this sounds like some real fun for a change!” enthused Tyreen. She picked up one of the magazines near her and stood to join us, pausing to wait for Raquel to come with her. “It’s about frigging time, ain’t it?”

“Amen, sister!” said Raquel, who grabbed a few more magazines to help out.

Chanson motioned for the guys to come join us, and an instant later all seven of them were gathered around me. She and Kazikli began their lesson plan. It was a painstaking process that lasted for most of the nine-hour flight to our initial destination.

Ralu and his insatiable desire to conquer the world were my biggest worries at the time. While shuffling a variety of images in my head, I focused most on a continual prayer in the background… a simple one, really.

That Ralu’s army wasn’t waiting for us when we landed.

hen we began our long journey, which in effect was a desperate ‘seat of the pants’ escape from danger, I doubt any of us outside of Kazikli had an inkling we’d end up traveling for nearly twenty hours in darkness. The first part of our trip accounted for nearly nine hours of that travel time. We arrived in Frankfurt at what would’ve been early morning in Nepal. However, it was a few minutes after midnight in Germany.

“Wake up, Txema. Have you ever seen absolutely nothing in a big city before?”

“What?”

Armando stood above my head, as I had reclined my seat to better sleep. The irritated look I saw on Chanson’s face told me this interruption of a pleasant dream of frolicking through fields of endless tulips with Garvan wasn’t her idea.

“If you look out the window, you’ll see only a few bright city lights and absolutely no traffic,” he said, sounding almost tipsy. At the moment, he carried a half full glass of plasma. I would’ve bet whatever money I had left in my First Bank of Knoxville savings account that it was spiked with liquor, as I detected something like vodka on his breath. “Go ahead and look… see?”

Drunk or not, he was right… at least looking at the area past the tarmac. Of course, at the time I didn’t know where we were. Only that it was dark outside and I was extremely tired.

“The buildings look like we’re in Europe someplace.” I checked on Alaia, who had been resting next to me. She opened her eyes for a brief moment, let out a slight yawn, and went back to sleep. My angel.

“Very good!” he said, and then his mirthful expression turned serious, well, as serious as a guy lit up from blood poisoning can be. “There’s nobody out there because they have a curfew, and the buildings are dark so that vampires will know there are no people around to eat!”

“Where in the hell—”

“We’re in Frankfurt, Germany, Txema,” said Chanson, sounding perturbed. I readily understood her ire was directed at Armando and not at me. “There’s an eight o’clock curfew throughout Europe, on account of Ralu’s minions. We’ll be staying on the plane while it refuels. It’s the safest place to be. But, in case something unexpected comes up, Garvan and Tyreen are guarding the main exits. Raquel is in the back guarding the rear emergency exit…”

She didn’t finish. A triple knock resounded from outside the door next to the cockpit. Looking out the window I didn’t see a ladder, so unless someone had risen by jetpack twenty feet into the air our caller was of supernatural origin. When the knocks repeated, Chanson and Garvan bared their fangs in preparation for a nasty confrontation.