Violets Are Blue (Alex Cross 7)

“We’re into just about everything!” Michael volunteered, and laughed. “I mean that too, Callie. I’m serious. We’re into just about everything that’s worth getting into.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Callie said, and held Michael’s eye for a few seconds. “Well, let’s do it, then,” she said, and they climbed up into one of the Otters.

Less than ninety seconds later, the small plane was pounding down the hardscrabble runway. The brothers were laughing and hollering at the top of their voices as they donned parachutes.

“You guys really seem pumped up, I’ll give you that. You’re free-fallers, right? You’re both certifiable,” Callie shouted over the airplane noise. She had a throaty rasp that William found, frankly, a little irritating. He wanted to rip a gaping hole in her neck, but that didn’t seem too smart at this particular time.

“Among other things, yes. Take her up to sixteen thousand,” William shouted back at her.

“Whoa! Thirteen thousand’s plenty. You know, temperature at thirteen thousand feet’s under forty degrees. You lose ’bout three degrees every thousand feet. Hypoxia sets in at sixteen. Too much for you thin-skinned boys.”

“We’ll tell you when it’s too much for us. We’ve done this kind of thing before,” said Michael, a little angry now, his teeth bared, but maybe she took it for a seductive little smile. It wouldn’t be the first time that had happened.

William slid the pilot another twenty dollars. “Sixteen thousand,” he said. “Trust me. We’ve been there before.”

“Okay. You’ll be the ones with frostbitten fingers and ears,” Callie told them. “I warned you.”

“We’re hot-bodied boys. Don’t worry about us. You an experienced pilot?”

Callie grinned. “Well, we’ll just have to see, won’t we? Let’s just say that I’m probably not losing my cherry up here.”

William watched the gauges to make sure she took them high enough. At sixteen thousand feet, the Otter leveled off smoothly. Not too much wind up here today, and a view to die for. The plane was practically flying itself.

“This is not a real good idea, guys,” the pilot warned again. “It’s cold as a motherfucker out there.”

“It’s a great idea! And so is this!” William shouted.

He took her on the spot. He bit deeply into Callie’s exposed throat. He held her neck firmly with his teeth and strong jaw. He began to drink, to feed at sixteen thousand feet.

It was the height of sado-eroticism. Callie screamed and kicked, struggled fiercely, but she couldn’t get him off. Bright red blood splattered around the cockpit. He was so powerful. She tried desperately to get out of her cramped pilot’s seat and dislocated her hip.

Callie’s knees cracked against the instrument panel several times, and then they stopped suddenly. Her brown eyes glazed over and became still as stones. She gave in. Both of them greedily drank her blood. They fed quickly and efficiently but couldn’t come close to draining the prey inside the cockpit.

William then opened the plane’s door. He was struck with a blast of freezing-cold air. “C’mon!” he yelled. The two brothers jumped out of the plane—free-falling.

It was a bad name for what they were experiencing. The sensation wasn’t like falling, it was more like flying your body.

When the two of them went horizontal, they were soaring at about sixty miles an hour. But when they went vertical, they zoomed up to over a hundred miles an hour, closer to a hundred and twenty, William figured.

The thrill was incredible, absolutely amazing to experience. Their bodies trilled like tuning forks. Callie’s fresh blood was pumping through their systems. The rush was otherworldly.

At these speeds, the slightest leg move to the left jolted the body to the right.

They got vertical quickly and stayed that way. Almost all the way down.

They still hadn’t pulled the cords on their chutes. That was the best thrill of all: the possibility of sudden death.

The wind pushed and pulled incredibly against their bodies.

The only sound they heard was the wind.

This was ecstasy.

They hadn’t opened their chutes yet. How long could they wait? How long?

The only thing that kept this from being perfect, William was thinking, was the absence of pain. Pain made any experience better. Pain was the secret to pleasure, which so few understood. He and Mi

chael did, though.