Crimson Death (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter 25)

I looked out the window of the plane. The sky was still black and star-filled, but I felt the press of dawn. It was the same way I could feel it deep underground in the Circus, or in the pitch-black of a cave when I knew that if I could just fight until dawn the vampires would collapse where they were and we could kill them. Of course, now I knew that if the vampire was old enough, strong enough, and underground far enough they might not "die" at dawn. Damian wasn't the only vampire I knew that could daywalk either. If you read the original book Dracula by Bram Stoker, he has Drac walking around in the daylight, only adding a pair of darkened glasses, so dawn isn't a guarantee of safety from vampires and it does nothing to protect you from their servants and allies, but dawn still meant good things to me. It didn't to Giacomo and Echo, though. Damian didn't burn in the sunlight anymore, but the light still frightened him.

Damian said, "Anita is feeling the sun start to rise."

Fortune and Magda started closing all the blinds over the windows. Ethan started to help. Since one of my issues with planes is that I'm claustrophobic on top of being afraid to fly, it didn't make me happy. In fact, my pulse started to speed up, the first beginnings of panic pumping through my veins.

"Look at me, Anita," Damian said.

I looked into his green eyes, but I didn't fall into a peaceful place again. The fear continued to bubble through me. My breath started to get too fast. "It isn't working this time," I said.

"I'm sorry. I'm afraid of the dawn too."

"Sunlight doesn't hurt you," Nathaniel said.

"But that's a new power for me, Nathaniel. I spent centuries terrified of the light; that kind of fear doesn't just go away."

"You can walk in daylight now. It should make you brave," Giacomo said.

Damian looked up at the other vampire. "It should, but right now it doesn't."

Ethan had stopped closing the blinds and was looking at me. "I understand Damian being afraid, but you're afraid, really afraid."

I nodded. "I don't know if I can ride in the plane with the windows shut."

Giacomo said, "I cannot ride with them open, nor can your beautiful Echo." He had finished closing the windows just behind me, so that the only window left open was the one by me. I was leaning toward it like a flower anticipating the sunrise.

"I know we have to close them. I'm just saying that my claustrophobia is kicking in, that's all."

"We could strap Giacomo, Damian, and me into seats in the back of the plane and you could have your window open," Echo said.

I looked up into that delicate triangle of a face, those blue eyes that could look as light as cornflowers, a blue that was so rich it was almost violet. I unbuckled and all the men let go of me so I could move out into the narrow aisle and reach her. She took my offered hand. The plane wavered slightly in the air, and I had to swallow and clutch a little tighter at her small hand, almost as small as mine. Nathaniel steadied me with a hand on my hip. I patted his hand and then put my hand against the soft paleness of Echo's cheek and kissed the small bow of her mouth. She hesitated and then wrapped her arms around me and kissed me back. I thought, as I always did when I kissed her, how small her mouth was; only Jade's had been smaller, but it may have been the difference in how they reacted to a kiss. Jade had kissed like she did most bedroom things, tentatively, waiting for me to take the lead. Once I made my intention clear, Echo melded her body against mine and didn't need to be led anywhere.

We broke from the kiss at almost the same time, so that we were staring into each other's eyes from inches away. I wondered if I looked as startled as she did. I studied her face and the feel of us holding each other, arms still wrapped around each other's backs. In my high-heeled boots I was almost the same height as she was, and I liked that, too. I had enough tall in my life.

"I value this face more than I fear the window being closed," I said.

She gave me the smile that seemed shy but managed to fill her eyes with pleasure. I was never sure if it was a real smile or one that she thought would please without committing too much emotion. A lot of the older vamps got to a point where they had very few natural facial expressions, because raw emotion had been punished out of them. Jean-Claude had been cautious around me at the beginning, too. I wanted someday to get a smile from Echo that made me sure it was really what she was feeling.

"We should be perfectly safe in the back of the plane," she said.

I shook my head. "Accidents happen, so not worth it."

"So, you do not admire my beauty, too," Giacomo said, and struck a pose, tilting his face up and to the side to show off the scar that cut across his eye.

I laughed, like he meant me to, and said, "You are quite lovely, but I'm not sleeping with you, so I don't care as much."

He looked at me and grinned, and again I wasn't sure if it was all he was feeling, or the expression that was expected. But he could keep his emotional secrets; I'd worry about the people I was trying to have relationships with first.

Fortune came over and wrapped her arms around both of us, so it turned into a group hug. She kissed me, and her mouth was wider than Echo's, the lips a little less full, so that it was more like kissing one of the men once my eyes were closed. Though the breasts pushed in against my shoulder reminded me she so wasn't one of the guys.

"Am I the only one having trouble not making girl-on-girl jokes?" Dev asked.

"No," Nathaniel said.

"Yes," Pride said.

"I enjoy the sight of three beautiful women together as much as any man, but dawn is near," Kaazim said.

Fortune turned to him, still hugging both of us, and said, "You aren't moved by the three of us together. I honestly don't know what moves you, Kaazim."

"To serve my queen and her kings to the best of my abilities."

"Bullshit," I said.

Fortune grinned down at me, then said, "I agree with Anita: bullshit."

"Jake, is that not what moves me?"

The other man grinned, but it was more a baring of teeth, as if he were snarling more than smiling. "I think I would like to be left out of this discussion."

"Do you not know me after all this time, old friend?"

"I know your innermost desires, as much as you know mine, Kaazim, old friend."

"Translation: You don't know," I said.

Jake looked at me. "That is not what I said."

It was Damian who touched my arm and made me look down at him. "I know I would be perfectly safe here even with the window open, and I may not die at dawn, but I would move to the back of the plane with the other vampires if that is all right."

I leaned down and kissed him. "Of course, sit where you feel safest."

Pilot Jeff came over the intercom. "Sunrise is almost here. Is the cabin secure?"

"Nicky, close the window," I said.

He leaned over Damian and patted my hip--okay, my ass--and closed the window. I swear that the lights in the plane dimmed; I knew they hadn't, but it just seemed darker. Crap.

Echo kissed my cheek. "Thank you, Anita."

"I'm a big, grown-up necromancer. I can do this."

She smiled and went to find a seat to strap herself into, because once the sun rose she would drop like the corpse she almost was; Giacomo joined her in moving toward the back of the plane. Damian unbuckled and stood up. Nathaniel reached up and drew him down into a kiss, which he gave without any hesitation. Whatever magic Nathaniel had worked on the vampire, it was still working. He went back to join the other vampires while everyone else rearranged their seats so the vamps could have the seats farthest to the back of the plane where it was a little bit dimmer, just in case.

Fortune hugged me, just the two of us; I had to look quite a bit farther up to meet her pale blue eyes with their almost bright blue eyelashes like the

coolest mascara ever to frame the forget-me-not blue of her eyes. It had been her eyes that had made me take Sin to the side and stand him in bright light to discover that his eyelashes weren't black like I'd always thought, but an incredibly dark navy blue. It was a very small sampling, but so far only the blue tigers all had eyelashes the same color as their clan name. The gold tigers certainly didn't all have golden eyelashes, or even eyebrows.

"Thank you for taking care of her," Fortune said.

"You're supposed to take care of your lovers, aren't you?"

She smiled down at me from a face that looked about twenty-five and would look that way forever, but she suddenly looked beyond cynical as if the years that didn't show on her face were still there in the depths of her blue eyes.

"Yes," she said, "you are, but a tremendous number of people don't seem to know that. Thank you for not being one of them." She kissed my forehead as if I were a child, and then kissed my mouth like a lover. She left me to go give Echo a good-bye kiss, before the sunrise stole her master and lover away. We had coffins packed in the belly of the plane for the vampires traveling with us, and I knew that Fortune and Magda both had duffel bags big enough to put their masters in and carry them out on their backs if they had to, but that was for short periods of time or if something went horribly wrong. There was a third duffel bag in the cabin for Damian, just in case he died at dawn again. If he did we'd treat him like all the other vampires, though neither Nathaniel nor I had had time to practice carrying him like that. Damian wasn't a big guy, but he was tall, so Nathaniel would probably do the carrying just because he was taller and broader than me.

I took my seat beside Nathaniel again. I could see Magda checking Giacomo's seat belt as he reclined the seat back so he was lying down. She wouldn't be giving him a good-bye kiss, because they didn't kiss, so far as I knew. They weren't lovers. They were fellow warriors, battle buddies, partners in that police way, maybe even best friends, but there was nothing romantic between them. Magda had proved with us that she was bisexual, so I wasn't sure why they hadn't added fuck buddies to their list, but with them it seemed to be strictly mutual respect and a partnership somewhere between the ones I had with Edward and Sergeant Zerbrowski, who was my partner when I worked with the Regional Preternatural Investigation Team back home. Edward and I were about to be best "men" for each other. Zerbrowski had put me and Nathaniel on the short list of people who could come get his kids from school in case of emergency. It would never have occurred to me to cross the line romantically with Zerbrowski. Edward and I had decided long ago that our friendship meant more to us than any friendship with benefits could gain us. You can be friends with your sexual partners, but you can't be best friends, because the sex gets in the way, and if you're trying for a romantic relationship, that means regular friendship is almost impossible. I'm told there are people who can pull off both, but I've never met them. Maybe Magda and Giacomo had done the same relationship math and partnership won, too. Or maybe I didn't understand either of them well enough to hazard a guess yet.