Dangerous Creatures (Book 3, Pure Series) (23 page)

              He sat back in his seat then and laughed.

              I sat back, too, and wondered what he thought was so amusing.

Chapter 17.

Eventually I fell asleep on the plane.

              Seven hours is a long time to spend on a flight, and Anton wasn't really in the mood to talk—once the plane took off, he grew silent and abstracted. I spent quite a bit of time pouring over my guidebook, but as the hours passed, I felt my eyelids growing heavy. Before I knew it, I had drifted off.

              I found myself back in my dream—the old dream—in amongst the stars. My dragonfly led me on once more, and this time there was no startling, wrenching sensation—I stayed on the old, familiar path. The stars rippled again as though they were made of water, and I saw the stone slab with its white cloth. After a moment, I heard whispering, and I remembered fleetingly that I'd heard whispering in the dream once before.

              I strained to listen, but I couldn't catch any of the words.

              I began to move closer to the stone slab, and once again, I could see a slim, fragile-looking hand lying on the white cloth. Something in the darkness near the stone slab shifted, and the whispering stopped. I heard a sharp intake of breath.

              After a pause, the whispering began again, and I could just make out two words in Russian:
lyubov moya
.

             
My love
.

              There was a jolt then, and my eyes fluttered open.

              I was sitting in the plane with my head tilted at an angle. I was leaning against something solid and black, and as I turned toward it, I realized that I'd been resting my head on Anton's shoulder.

              I sat up in a hurry.

              "Sorry," I said.

              Anton smiled. "Trust me, I don't mind."

              "I had the dream again," I said quickly. "Just now. Not the one I had in the car about my house. The old one—about the stars and the stone slab. I could hear whispering, too. And this time I could make out a few words."

              "Tell me everything you remember," Anton said.

              I told him about the dream with as much detail as I could recall, and at the end of my recital, Anton shook his head.

              "I don't know," he said. "The dream has possibilities, but then again, it doesn't. I don't see how it gets us anywhere."

              "But you say it has possibilities," I said.

              Anton shrugged. "It's got stars, right? Which legend says the Sìdh used against the Werdulac and his vampire army. But just showing you stars doesn't really tell you anything. If there's a weapon hidden in there, they should place a neon arrow next to it."

              "What about the whispering?" I asked. "Why does someone say 'my love'?"

              "Just misty, dreamy stuff," Anton said.

              "So, there's nothing in it?" I said. "No symbolism? Nothing?"

              "Unless it turns out that the Hunter is deathly afraid of dragonflies, I don't see any leads in it."

              "There must be something," I said.

              "Forget about the dreams," Anton said. "And forget about the Sìdh. We're on our own here. We can't depend on them for any help."

              The flight attendants began to serve dinner then, and a little while after dinner was over, the lights were dimmed and silence settled over the cabin.

              Though I shut off my overhead light, I wasn't in the mood for any more sleep. Instead, I contented myself with watching the little plane on the screen in front of me as it made its slow progress across the Atlantic Ocean. For his part, Anton lapsed into silence once again and stared out the window at the dark sky.

              At long last, the lights came back on, and the pilot announced that we would soon be landing in London. I yawned and stretched, and I realized it was possible that I had fallen into a light doze. If so, I hadn't been troubled by any dreams.

              I wondered then if maybe Anton had been right. Maybe there was nothing in the dreams—I certainly hadn't been able to make any sense of them.

              Before long, the plane landed at Heathrow, and Anton and I made our way out along with the rest of the crowd. Our luggage was going to be transferred to the next plane, and I had everything I needed for fourteen hours in my backpack—so we didn't need to worry about our things. But if we wanted to go out and look at the city, Anton and I had to go through customs. Fortunately, I didn't need a visa to enter the UK, so the slowness of the customs line was the only trouble we suffered.

              At last we were through, and we stepped out of the airport and began to look for a cab.

              "So, what do you want to do first?" Anton asked. "We have some time to kill this morning."

              I glanced at him sharply. "What do you mean by that?"

              "We have fourteen hours," Anton said. "We have to fill it with something."

              "But that's not how you said it," I replied. "You said it like you were thinking of something in particular—you said 'this morning.'"

              "Look who's growing suspicious already," Anton said. "And it's only a little after five in the morning. Do you want to get breakfast?"

              "Not just yet," I said.

              "I know," Anton said. "Let's go to Hampstead Heath. If we hurry, we may still be able to catch some of the sunrise."

              "Okay," I said. "Let's go watch the sunrise."

              "Cheer up. You'll like London—you'll see. And there's nothing to worry about. Really."

              Anton got us a cab, and as we drove along, I stared out the window, watching the city unfold before me. There was highway at first, and then houses—and then we moved on to tall buildings and skyscrapers. Even early in the morning, London was impressive.

              Anton leaned toward me. "So what do you think?"

              "I think it's wonderful," I said. "I've never seen a city like it."

              "I can tell," Anton said. "You should see your face. You look—amazed."

              "I am amazed."

              "Well, we're in luck," Anton said. "We seem to have hit the roads before the start of rush hour. Otherwise, we'd be crawling along. But right now, we're making pretty good time. You probably don't see much in the way of rush-hour traffic in Elspeth's Grove."

              "No, not really," I said. "And I don't think my grandmother would stand for that, anyway. She's kind of a speed demon. If she didn't have the space to drive the way she wanted, I think she'd go insane."

              "Your grandmother?" Anton said. "The nice lady I saw in the auditorium?"

              "That's the one."

              "Interesting," Anton said. "I never would have guessed."

              Eventually, the cab deposited us at the heath, and as it drove off, Anton and I were left standing on a road at the edge of a residential area. In front of us stretched a dirt path that led up a grassy hill that was well-populated by trees. In the center of the path sat a small gate. The gate was closed.

              "It looks like it's not officially open yet," I said.

              "I don't see any police around, do you?"

              "No."

              "Then let's go," Anton said.

              He stepped around the gate, and with one last glance over my shoulder, I followed him.

              Anton moved at a rapid pace through the heath, and I had trouble keeping up with him. Eventually, he raced up a hill so quickly that his figure blurred and disappeared.

              "Anton, wait," I said, running up the hill after him. "What's the rush?"

              Anton glanced back at me as I joined him. "That's the rush."

              The vast metropolis of London stretched before us, and the bright orange disk of the sun sat just beyond it, bathing the city in shades of gold and orange and rose. We had arrived just in time—the sunrise was already well advanced, and the brilliant colors would be gone soon.

              I stood with Anton and watched as the sun completed its slow climb into the sky. Before long, the sunrise had softened into daylight, and the sky had faded to a hazy blue.

              "That was beautiful," I said.

              "This is Parliament Hill," Anton replied. "It's a good place to watch a sunrise from. You can also see a lot of landmarks from here. That's the district of Canary Wharf over there."

              "Where?" I said.

              "Do you have that guidebook I gave you?"

              I got the book out of my backpack and handed it to Anton.

              He flipped to a page and pointed to a picture of Canary Wharf. "You see that group of buildings? They're right over there. You can spot them pretty easily by the tall one with the pyramid roof."

              Anton pointed to the skyline.

              "Oh, yes, I see it," I said.

              "And then there's the building known as the Gherkin." Anton pointed again.

              "It's actually very pretty," I said.

              "And then there's the Shard," Anton said. "You can see the dome of St. Paul's Cathedral below it."

              "I see it," I said. "There's a bench just over there. Can we sit down for a little while and take it all in? Or do we have to hurry on?"

              "We can stay here for a little while," Anton said. "We're in no hurry today."

              We sat down on the bench together, and I continued to gaze out over the city. But even as I did so, a sense of unease began to steal over me.

              "Are you sure this is a good idea?" I asked. "What if Emmanuel shows up here?"

              "We're safe enough during the day," Anton said. "Even the most powerful vampire has to be careful while the sun shines. And London is very crowded—crowds are our friends, remember? I don't think we'll get attacked unless we wander down any dark, lonely alleys. So we'll just have to avoid those."

              "So we have to get going," I murmured. "But at the same time we're going slowly."

              "All the better to confuse Emmanuel," Anton said.

              "I must confess it's confusing me a little, too," I said. "And what about the Hunter? You said you didn't know much about him. What if going slowly allows him to catch us?"

              "During the day, we should be okay. He needs to preserve secrecy. I told you that."

              "But night is coming," I said. "We can't stop it."

              "And by then we'll be on another plane to Russia. As long as we get you to the house in Krov by the end of the month, we should be okay."

              "That's just a few days away," I said. "What happens at the end of the month?"

              'Nothing," Anton said. "It just seems like a reasonable time frame."

              "I'm not sure I believe you," I said.

              "It's nothing—really," Anton replied. "You worry too much. Let's just enjoy the day. "We can start worrying again once we land in Russia."

              I made no reply to that, and we sat for a little while longer, gazing out over the city. Eventually, Anton and I went back down to the gate, and he called a cab.

              We went to have breakfast at a small café, and once again, Anton ordered a cup of coffee that he had no intention of drinking, while I ordered actual food.

              While we waited, I looked over a newspaper that I'd bought from a street vendor—the headline had caught my eye.

              As I read, Anton began to browse busily and impatiently on his phone, causing me to look up a few times, and he was still working away when our order arrived.

              I waited until our waitress had retreated behind her counter, and then I glanced around—luckily the café wasn't terribly crowded.

              "Is something wrong?" I asked.

              "No," Anton said shortly.

              "If it's something to do with Emmanuel or the Hunter, I need to know," I said. "Keeping me out of things won't help."

              "It's nothing like that." Anton set his phone down on the table. "I was just looking at the Tower of London website, and I was finding it frustrating."

              "Were you looking for something in particular?"

              "I was looking at the Crown Jewels collection, and it doesn't show you too many of the pieces—only the most famous ones."

              I stared at Anton in surprise. "You're interested in the Crown Jewels?"

              "Let's just say it's a new hobby," Anton replied. "Anything exciting in the news?"

              "There was a robbery last night at the British Museum," I said, "and it was a pretty spectacular and costly break-in. Whoever did it did some real damage to the building."