Albigard strode in as though he owned the place. I watched with undeniable fascination as all eyes gradually turned toward him, the activity in the hangar ceasing. The way the humans seemed helplessly drawn to him twisted something in my gut unpleasantly, and I couldn’t help thinking of Len.
“We have need of transportation to another island, immediately if possible,” the Fae declared, his clear voice carrying around the building. “To whom should we speak?”
“Subtle,” Guthrie muttered, sotto voce.
Several of the people around us exchanged confused looks. Beside me, Rans sighed and spoke a couple of sentences in what I was fairly sure was French. After a bit of back-and-forth, a man who’d been tinkering with the propeller of an ancient-looking plane answered in the same tongue.
“Come on,” Rans said, leading the way out of the hangar and toward one of the outdoor parking areas. “We’re looking for a woman named Anaica Jeune.”
Anaica wasn’t hard to find. There didn’t seem to be many women here, and her plain, oil-stained jumpsuit did little to hide her willowy curves. She was unstrapping the wings of a white plane from a pair of iron rings set in the concrete of the storage lot, and looked up warily at our approach.
Guthrie waved at us to stay back, and walked up to her alone, speaking in rapid-fire French. Her wary expression didn’t clear completely, but it did soften. I was unaccountably irritated by the way her eyes kept creeping away from Guthrie in favor of running over Albigard. She looked at him like someone might look at a freakin’ unicorn they’d unexpectedly stumbled across. It was all I could do to keep from making gagging noises.
“For what it’s worth, he can’t really help it,” Rans said, the words pitched for my ears alone. “He’s not consciously rolling her emotions; at least, not yet. At this level, it just sort of happens when humans are around him, unless he consciously shields himself from them.”
Apparently, my look of disgust hadn’t been very subtle. “Yeah?” I whispered back. “Well, it still makes my skin crawl.”
“Says the succubus hybrid who draws every bisexual, lesbian, and heterosexual male eye wherever she goes,” Rans said, not without a touch of amusement.
I glared at him and tried not to examine my own hypocrisy. Albigard shot us a wary look, perhaps sensing that we were discussing him behind his stupid Fae back. Rans gave him an insincere smile that was all teeth, and I swallowed a sigh.
Meanwhile, Guthrie and Anaica seemed to be wrapping up their discussion, based on the handshake and the wad of money that changed hands. A worrying thought occurred to me as I watched the interaction.
“Is Guthrie going to be okay stuck on a tiny plane with a human?” I asked Rans, still keeping my voice low. “Because, y’know, I’m not keen on plunging to a watery death if he goes ‘full horror movie’ again and rips her throat out while we’re in the air.”
“We’re admittedly throwing him in the deep end when it comes to learning self-control,” Rans said. “But he just ate, and there are enough blood bags packed to get him through the next forty-eight hours. After the near miss with Len, he’s far more aware of his urges, and he’s doing a bang-up job of keeping on top of things so far.”
“Okay,” I told him with a shrug. “You’re the expert.”
I still had the mental image of Guthrie springing at Len playing on a video loop inside my head, but I also remembered his absolute horror when he realized what he’d nearly done. Not to mention the care he’d taken while drinking from Len in more controlled circumstances. Guthrie was strong. He wouldn’t have survived everything that had happened during his long decades of life otherwise.
The newly fledged vampire in question wandered back to us, hooking a thumb behind him to indicate the plane and its pilot. “It’ll take her thirty minutes or so to complete pre-flight checks, and then there will be a bit of a wait until we’re cleared by air traffic control. It’s about a six-hour flight to the airport on Anguilla, and roughly four miles from there to the port at Blowing Point.”
“Will the ship still be there when we arrive?” I asked, figuring we were looking at a good eight hours... and that was if everything went smoothly.
“It’s supposed to be, yes,” Guthrie said. “Worst case, we’ll have to grab a ferry to St. Kitts and catch it there tomorrow.”
I nodded, since it seemed that the guys had things covered. We stood around waiting while Anaica finished whatever witchcraft was involved in ensuring that her small plane didn’t plummet from the skies unexpectedly. To say that I wasn’t looking forward to the journey was putting it mildly.
I wasn’t exactly the biggest fan of planes—and the only ones I’d been on were commercial monstrosities with engineering teams and corporate money behind them. This was a tin can with wings and propellers, owned by a woman with a stained jumpsuit and a smear of oil across her cheek.
“What could possibly go wrong?” I muttered.
Rans made a noise of jaded amusement. “Look at it this way. This plane is ancient. If it were going to crash, it would have done so long before now.”
I glanced at him side-eyed. “Not helping.”
Finally, Anaica waved us over. “Come... come. Get in,” she said in heavily accented English. She pointed at a hatch. “Bags in storage compartment, please.”
Rans rummaged in his bag before stowing it, pulling out something wrapped in brown paper and handing it to Guthrie, who stowed it inside his suit jacket. I guessed it was a blood bag for emergencies. Once everything was arranged to the pilot’s satisfaction, we went around to the side door with its fold-out staircase.
As we passed by the fuselage, Rans’ eyes caught on the black writing painted onto the white metal, and he
