Blood Forever (17 page)

“It’s a deal,” I tell him, rising to my feet. “Now let’s go check out that arsenal of yours. If I’m going to be facing zombies, I’ll be in need of a good old fashioned boom-stick.”

“
A
re they here yet?”

I groan, leaning against the abandoned baggage cart, closing my eyes, as Spider asks me the same question she’s asked me ten times in the last ten minutes. Seriously, I know she’s my best friend and all, but the girl has the attention span of an ADHD-afflicted hummingbird. I can’t believe Teifert thinks she’ll end up a better slayer than me.

“Do you
see
anyone approaching the plane in front of us?” I ask her.

She looks over at the aircraft in question, still sitting dark on the runway, exactly how it’s been sitting since we got here, two hours before.

“Um, no?”

“Well, then I guess they’re not here yet, are they?”

She sighs loudly, letting me know exactly how she feels about our intended targets’ tardiness, and plops down onto the tarmac, Indian style. I’m suddenly reminded how impatient she used to get during our World of Warcraft raids, always rushing in before the other members were ready. It used to drive her ex-boyfriend crazy.

She looks at her watch. “Don’t they know you’re supposed to arrive at the airport at least two hours before takeoff?” she sulks. “I mean, hello, post-9/11, anyone?”

“That doesn’t count for private planes. They don’t have the same security checks,” I inform her, trying to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “Not to mention we have no idea when they’re supposed to take off. In fact, we’re not a hundred percent sure they’re even leaving tonight.” All I do know is that Magnus told Sunny that Jareth and his little zombie queen were taking the larger of the Blood Coven private jets and would meet them in Vegas.

“Why didn’t they just all go together?” Spider asks, peering around the baggage cart to look at the parked aircraft again. “I mean, it seems like a pretty big plane for just the two of them.”

Sigh. “I don’t know, Spider. I don’t—”

“Oh my God!” my friend interrupts, then clamps a hand over her mouth. She turns to me with bulging eyes, pointing furiously in the direction of the airport behind us.

I turn to look, swallowing hard as I realize exactly what’s gotten her so freaked out. A parade of what appears to be more than a dozen zombies trudging down the tarmac, toward the plane, led by none other than Jareth and Queenie herself.

“Crap,” I whisper, ducking down again. “I thought she’d, like, raise them when she got to Vegas. You know, find a local cemetery…” There goes our plan of taking her down before she even boards the plane. We touch a hair on her head and suddenly we’ve got an entire army of darkness to contend with. And judging from my performance during my zombie dream fight, I can’t even manage two, never mind a dozen.

I quickly take a camera phone pic and text it to Sunny. She needs to see what we’re dealing with here!

“What are we going to do?” Spider asks, fingering her fire wand anxiously as I send my text. I pray she doesn’t make any sudden movements with it, giving us away.

“We’ve got to get on that plane,” I decide. That will buy us some time at least. And then we’ll be able to keep an eye on them and see where they go once they land. “Somehow…” Though how to actually slip past twelve some-odd zombies, not to mention my boyfriend and his fake girlfriend, I have no idea.

Spider snorts as one of the zombies trips over his own rotting foot and stumbles. “Ew, they’re so gross looking,” she whispers. “Just like in the movies.” She stretches out her arms in imitation and starts walking haphazardly toward me. “Braaaaaains…” she groans.

I’m about to tell her she needs to get some brains of her own, when a thought hits me. “Spider, you’re a genius!” I tell her.

She stops mid–zombie walk. “I am?”

I reach over and tousle her hair, messing it up. She frowns.

“Um, hello? I just had that blown out, I’ll have you know!”

“Trust me.” I pull out a case of black eye shadow from my
purse and smear it under her eyes. Then I do the same for myself.

“Oh!” Her eyes widen in sudden understanding. She rips at her shirt, then her pants. “Good idea.” Ducking down to the baggage cart, she scoops a handful of grease from the axle and smears it up and down her arms, then covers mine, zombifying ourselves as best we can.

Now I’m not saying we’d score first prize in a zombie walk costume contest or anything, but I have to admit, it’s not a bad job, for short notice. And so, as the last of the zombies stumbles past us, we slip to the end of the line, doing our best undead shuffle as we approach the plane, arms outstretched, legs bowed. Seriously, Michael Jackson and his “Thriller” choreographer would be totally proud.

“This is so cool!” Spider whispers as she starts up the stairs in front of me. “Like a real-life video game!”

I shush her and start moaning loudly to keep up the act and drown out anything else she might have to say as we board the plane. As we round the corner into the main cabin, it’s all I can do to stop my jaw from hitting the floor.

It’s a sight I never thought I’d see. Twelve or so zombies all sitting quietly in their seats, seatbelts securely fastened. Some look eager to get going, while others look ready for an in-flight nap. And is that one in the back actually perusing the Sky Mall catalog?

Flight of the living dead, for realz.

At the very back of the plane stands Queenie, her gaze sweeping over her creatures like a shepherd keeping watch over
her flock. Her eyes settle on Spider, who’s stopped short in front of me and is currently staring at the scene with an appropriate, yet dangerous level of horror on her face. I shove my friend forward, before Queenie starts getting suspicious, and she quickly picks up the act again, muttering nonsense under her breath as she takes a seat next to a rather dapper old dead guy, dressed in a three-piece suit, accessorized with a crimson cravat. Whatever killed this dude, he definitely died in style.

Now that Spider’s found her seat, I scan the plane, looking for a place to sit myself. I realize there’s only one spot left. A middle seat between two zombies that look scarily similar to Charlie and Meredith from my dream. Pretty much the last place I want to hang out for the next five hours. But, I realize, as I feel the queen’s eyes settle on me, I really have little choice in the matter. And so, swallowing hard, I squeeze past Charlie and plop down into the empty seat, praying that Queenie fed her creatures before the flight. Because I’m guessing the complimentary peanuts aren’t going to cut it for this crew.

Once we’re all seated, the plane starts its engines and before we know it, we’re taxiing down the runway to a point of no return. Once we take to the air, a pretty, blond flight attendant, a vampire by the looks of her, appears at the front of the plane and reminds the undead passengers to remain seated and keep their seatbelts securely fastened until the captain has turned off the sign. As if a little turbulence is going to trouble the corpse in the front row who has already had half his head blown off.

But safety first, I guess.

When the flight attendant’s finished, she presses a button and little TVs slide out every three rows and the zombies prepare themselves for the in-flight entertainment movie trailer. And what do you know? They’ll be playing
Zombieland
, which is evidently a crowd favorite, judging from the way the audience moans in delight. At least I hope it’s delightful moaning. And, you know, not hunger cries.

I try to relax. Close my eyes and go to sleep. But Charlie is laughing way too loudly at every joke in the film—especially when we get to the Bill Murray bit. And Meredith, while keeping mostly to herself, keeps losing her eyeball out of its socket. Which would be gross, in and of itself, but is ten times worse when it drops into my lap and she asks me nicely, through hand gestures and grunts, if I can pop it back in for her.

And just as I’m about to lose my lunch over squishy undead eyeballs, the flight attendant starts wheeling the serving cart down the aisle. And I realize she’s not serving peanuts and Pepsi. No, these zombies are getting a full-course meal. Of what appears to be actual brains. And they’re chowing down with great gusto.

Horrified, I watch as Spider, three rows up, takes the plate of gray matter that’s offered to her with a grim smile affixed to her pale face. She glances back at me, then shrugs and sticks a glob in her mouth. I shudder, realizing I can never speak badly of her slayer skills again. Talk about taking one for the team!

When the attendant reaches my row, I attempt to decline, but Charlie so helpfully grabs a plate and sets it on my tray. I stare down at the squiggly gray matter, which smells overpoweringly
like rotten flesh, trying to get up my nerve. But in addition to being a nonzombie, I’m also a vegetarian. And the sight and smell proves too much.

I puke all over my meal, effectively giving my humanity away.

T
here was a time when I would have given anything to have Magnus take me out on the town, wine me and dine me, maybe take me to a show, and never once be interrupted by Blood Coven business. To have my boyfriend all to myself—even if it was just for one night. Of course, back in the day that kind of uninterrupted date was nothing more than a sheer fantasy on my part. Even if Magnus did have a so-called free night and agreed to go out, every five minutes the coven would be calling, and he made it clear from the start they were his number one priority.

He was the Master. They were his people. They needed him and he had to be there for them—even if it meant stepping out in the middle of a movie and leaving me alone with my bucket of popcorn. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t cool. And there were times,
I have to admit, when his workaholic tendencies almost ended our relationship altogether.

But that, it seems, was the old Magnus. The new Magnus, the one who is supposed to be second in command of the coven, seems pretty content to let his boss do all the heavy lifting. When we first arrived in Vegas, I had assumed we’d head straight to the Consortium headquarters, to find Pyrus and make arrangements to present Project Z. (Giving me an opportunity to figure out a way to stop it all from happening.) Instead, Magnus presents me with reservations to the hottest restaurant in town.

“But don’t you have business to take care of?” I ask, staring at the tickets, bewildered.

He smiles. “My first order of business will always be to take care of you,” he tells me gallantly. “The rest of it can wait.”

It would have been a dream come true, back in the day. But now it’s more like a nightmare. Pyrus is ready and waiting. Lucifent’s preparing the show. And there’s a plane full of zombies landing at Las Vegas airport in only a few hours, from what I’ve been able to glean from my sister’s disturbing text. How the heck can I justify dining out?

“But shouldn’t we be helping Lucifent?” I ask. “I’m sure he needs some assistance for his big presentation to Pyrus tomorrow night.”

But Magnus only shakes his head. “He told me he and Jareth have it all under control,” he assures me, reaching out to squeeze my hand. “We just need to relax and enjoy our time together.”

I wonder if he even knows about the zombies. Did Lucifent ever clue him in on Project Z? I’m guessing no—I’m thinking if he did have a clue as to what his boss was really up to, he wouldn’t be acting so cavalier. He’s Magnus, after all. Protector of the people. The fairest ruler of them all. There’s no way he’d be down with letting loose an army of the dead on Slayer Inc., never mind the general population.

Unfortunately every time I try to bring it up, he cuts me off, telling me he doesn’t want to talk business tonight. He doesn’t want to think about vampires or the Consortium or any kind of projects—from A to Z. Tonight he wants to spend time with a pretty girl and enjoy all of what Vegas has to offer.

So I do my best to enjoy myself. Try to remind myself that this is exactly what I wanted. But in the end I find I can barely hold a conversation. And by the time we get back to our hotel room at the Wynn, I can tell Magnus thinks something’s wrong.

We stand outside the room and he pulls out a key card, handing it to me and inviting me to open the door. From the anxious look on his face, I get the feeling there’s something special inside and my heart starts fluttering as I slip the card into the reader and step into the room, wondering what on earth it could be.

The first thing I notice is all the candles, placed on every available surface and giving the room a warm, golden glow and sweet scent. Then my eyes find and follow the trail of dusty pink rose petals winding toward the king-size bed. On the white cloth–covered bedside table is a bottle of champagne—
Cristal—chilling on ice, alongside two silver flutes. It’s a scene of seduction right out of a Hollywood film. But I’m guessing it’s not sex Magnus has in mind. At least not only sex…

As I stare at the room, too shocked to move, the vampire steps in beside me, snaking a hand around my waist. My body lurches at his unexpected touch. “Do you like it?” he whispers in my ear.

Do I like it? Once upon a time I would have thought I’d died and gone to Heaven to see such a love nest, created by my busy boyfriend. Back then he was too preoccupied to ever do something so romantic. Now, I realize, because of Rayne’s and my actions, he has nothing better to do than to spend his existence trying to make me smile.

And I should be smiling. I should be thrilled. Instead, I’m filled only with dread.

“Wow,” I say, forcing my feet to step farther into the room, escaping his tender touch. “It’s really beautiful. And so…unexpected.”

He comes up behind me, wrapping his arms around my waist again, dragging me close to him and nestling his head against my back. “I wanted to surprise you,” he says, stroking my stomach with gentle fingers, sending my pulse skittering like a frightened cat. “I wanted to make sure tonight was special for you.”

“It’s…very special,” I stammer, inhaling sharply. Can he hear my heart hammering in my chest? I’m almost positive it’s drowning out the soft jazz, drifting from hidden speakers.