Ch. 43
The flight was just over six hours long. I was so grateful that James had arranged for first class seats. Being short, I normally didn’t care about coach seating. But when we would be crushed together with complete strangers for over six hours inside a metal tube of recycled air and questionable meal options, I would take what luxury I could find. I had to remember to thank James properly for the upgrade.
We had both brought books to read for the flights, he tapped a finger questioningly on my choice currently lying idle in my hands.
“What? Consider it homework.” I had chosen a popular book about vampires and humans coexisting peacefully in the world.
“You know that is pure fiction. Our kind will never be able to get along side by side in society. Not as a whole.”
“Would you like to be ‘out of the coffin’ so to speak?” I’d never asked how he felt about having to hide who he was.
“I’ve thought about it.” He admitted with a shrug. “There would be some benefits to it. Getting our nutritional needs met might be a little easier; there will always be a certain segment of the population who would jump at the chance to be donors. But I think the prejudices would be hard to overcome for the majority. We would be hunted as we have been in the past. Humans have too strong a fear of us.”
“When were you hunted before? I thought nobody knew about you.”
“Do you remember the war Henry and I spoke of before? The one that Bradley and his friends have already begun?”
I nodded. How could I forget; the thought of those vampires terrified me.
“We have been fighting humans for millennia, since the time of Lillith. You are familiar with the Bible?”
I nodded.
“It is a story among our kind that she was our first. God created her before Eve and then he cast her out for her rebellious nature.” He picked absentmindedly at an imaginary piece of lint on his shirt. “Since the middle ages whenever covens are discovered, the humans have gone on witch hunts, please pardon the expression.”
Looking around, I saw that most of the people in our area were sleeping. One woman had headphones on, listening to a movie she was watching on her laptop. We were essentially alone, our lights off, lending us a sense of privacy.
“One of the longest and bloodiest hunts took place near Jerusalem when a large coven was discovered under the city. The Catholic church, who by the way keeps our existence hidden as carefully as we do, proclaimed them infidels to prevent mass hysteria and waged a series of wars that lasted nearly two hundred years. The Crusades’ true meaning has been lost to history but we remember. It was the same with the French Revolution. Why do you think they used a guillotine? It is one of the only effective methods of execution for our kind. Those are just some of the more famous large-scale wars. There have been countless others that were smaller and more easily hidden.” He was matter of fact, lecturing without evidence of upset.
“Is there anything I learned about history that’s real?” My whole view of the world was changing. It felt like my legs were being taken out from under me.
He looked down at me, one corner of his mouth twisted up in a derisive grin. “All of history is one sided, none of the stories are wholly true. We only hear the stories the victor wants told. The remaining stories, the plights, justifications and heroics of the losers are gone with time. Ours is such a history. We are stronger, yet rarely fight together because most of us prefer things as they are. Plus, humans have greater numbers and powerful weapons on their side. Too many of ours would be lost if we were to clash on a large scale.”
“So why is anybody looking to start another war if they can’t win?”
“That is what we have been working on for some time now. What our investigations have turned up is that there is something the instigators have in their possession that leads them to believe they can rally my kind and unite us under one banner for an uprising. That would enable them to finally achieve their goal of eradication of humankind.”
Eyes growing wide, I gasped. If there was an army of vampires united against humankind, how could they not win? “James,” I asked deliberately, “how many would they have? There aren’t that many of you, are there? Not all of them would fight for Bradley’s side, right?”
It took some time for him to answer, his brow furrowed in thought. “We aren’t certain on either of your questions, our numbers are not clear. Our lifestyle of existing separately or in small groups keeps us largely disconnected from one another. We are like other top predators and must exist separately, not overlapping hunting territory. It is only those who choose to satisfy their appetites unconventionally that have been able to live successfully in groups like William’s or Henry’s.”
“How big is Henry’s group? Will I meet more of them?” I interrupted.
He held up a hand to stay my curiosity. “You will eventually meet them. The only reason that you haven’t yet is because we have been keeping you under wraps for your own safety.” My mouth gaped. “Because of the seriousness of this war we aren’t certain who might be on which side, or if there are spies in our own coven. It wouldn’t help us in our future ventures to be known allies with humans. Henry is doing me a great favor in helping to keep you alive.”
Staring at him I could see how serious he was. I felt like I was going to hyperventilate. I knew they were keeping things from me, but this was incredible. “Would Henry’s friends really kill me?”
James’ mouth tightened. I watched his eyes darken again, his emotions were close to the surface today. I’d noticed he was having some trouble with control himself. “We are uncertain of any allegiances at this point, so only trust each other and the cats. Because they are bound to Henry, they cannot betray him. They’re compelled to obey through their bond.” He had been holding my hand, as we were now doing constantly, so that I wouldn’t faint or zone out and I was starting to think it was draining him more than he let on. We would have to find a way for him to feed again before seeing the Court so that we could have some autonomy. He squeezed my hand and I flashed him a distracted smile; his corresponding effort felt forced.
There was too much to wrap my head around. A war was coming between my kind and his and because of Bradley’s hatred of my lover and his mentor, my death could come from anywhere. What did being involved with me do to James’ fate? Would a vampire looking to take me out have a moral problem killing James or Stephen as well? It didn’t sound like it. The remainder of the plane ride, we spoke little.
I tried to sleep, unsuccessfully. My head was swimming and every time I started to drift off, I was haunted with visions of James being beheaded or Sasha torturing Stephen or me being chased by an unseen monster. It was not with the usual sense of relief that I deplaned the next morning in Edinburgh. I wasn’t so sure we weren’t serving ourselves up to the very group we were trying to stop.