Necromancing Nim (29 page)

“Flying’s faster,” I said, starting the coffeemaker.

“I’m not flying.” Sebastian spoke firmly. Obviously, that issue had gone from point of argument to nonnegotiable.

“Sebastian—” Colin began, but I broke in.

“Why not?” I directed the question at Sebastian, ignoring Colin. He had to have a reason, or he wouldn’t be so adamant about it.

His gaze slipped away from mine, and I knew immediately what his reason was. Whether he would say it out loud was another question.

“I can’t afford the risk. Any more sun exposure…” He trailed off. That was as close as he was going to come to saying he was scared shitless, I knew, and I supposed it was unfair to expect any more direct admission. He was a man after all.

“I think we can work this out,” I said, pouring my coffee. It smelled unbelievably good. “Commercial airlines are shit for you guys. I get that. But what about a private plane?”

Colin gave me his patented scornful what-the-hell-do-you-know look. “Now how exactly are we going to—” And then he broke off, and it was like he’d seen God when he suddenly realized where I was going. Actually more like God had seen him naked and had chortled. “Oh. Gwen.”

“Yeah. Gwen. Good plan, don’t you think?”

Sebastian grinned at me, relief evident on his face. “Not a bad plan at all.”

Now that everything had been settled by my phenomenal brilliance, I realized what part of the conversation I’d missed. “Why the hell are we going to Illinois, anyway?” I’d lived in Illinois for a while. In fact, the University of Illinois was my alma mater, if you could call a college an alma mater when you’d only attended for eighteen months. After that, I’d moved to Colorado because my parents did. They hadn’t wanted me to, and they didn’t stay there long, heading for Alaska after Dad finished the Colorado-based book project. Then I took the job with Colin because the job market sucked. No pun intended.

“The University of Illinois has a vampire library,” Sebastian offered by way of explanation. “It’s an underground library with tons of old manuscripts vampires have collected over the years. I’ve had feelers out for a long time, trying to find information about the stone. The head of the vampire studies department there, Roland, just got back from Greece with some promising information.”

I made a face. I really wanted to hear the part where Roland had nearly died to get the information, but that didn’t seem to be forthcoming. Plus I had another concern. “You sure Pieter didn’t just plant something to put you at a disadvantage again? I mean, kind of a crazy coincidence, isn’t it? Information showing up just now?”

“Why would he lure us halfway across the country when we’re in the same state right now?” Colin scoffed. I’d hit a nerve.

“Because we won’t expect it.”

“We have to go,” Sebastian put in quietly. “I know Roland. I know what it took to get this information, and we’ve always had a good relationship. We’ve been working on this together for a long time, so I really think any coincidence is just that—coincidence. If we’re walking into a setup, well, we deal with it when we get there. In the meantime…we need to find out whatever we can, and the answers could very well be waiting for us.”

It was a sensible enough conclusion, I supposed. “So we go in aware,” I said. “I’m good with that.”

Colin nodded. “How long before you can set things up with Gwen?”

“Not long. Depends on how much money you want to spend.”

“Money’s not an object,” Colin stated.

“Good. Then I’ll track her down and see what we can do.”

Gwen had bragged to me on more than one occasion that, given an hour or so on the phone, she could get herself to Hawaii or Australia or the Alps on a private plane just about any time of the year, less than twenty-four hours of waiting, no questions asked.

Apparently, East Central Illinois was a different matter entirely.

“I can probably arrange it, but it’s going to cost you extra.” She was at a hotel near the airport in Denver, it had turned out, waiting for a call about a possible flight to Bali, her brain stuck in some Central Asian time zone.

“Extra? Why? It’s a freaking two-hour flight from here.” Okay, three. Maybe more on a Learjet—who the hell knew? But still.

“Illinois is boring. Who the diddly wants to go there?”

“Vampires,” I shot back. “It’s nondescript. They can be low-key there.”

“Yeah, and that’s the other thing,” she said.

I wanted to smack her for not getting to the point. “What other thing?”

“Vampires. People don’t like to fly vampires on private jets.”

“Why not? They’re perfectly civilized.” Well, most of the time, but I wasn’t going to let Gwen have any sort of victory in this argument, so I kept that thought to myself.

“Well, first there’s the liability. You accidentally get your flight in a little too late or a little too early, accidentally vaporize your passengers, you lose the fare and maybe you get sued. Plus there’s that thing where they sometimes decide to bite you to death. Commercial flights are safer—there are too many people around for vampires to corner you and suck you dry.”

“Vampires don’t like commercial flights.” I felt stupid even saying it. It was a dumb conversation, as many conversations with my sister tend to be. “You’re just bitter still about the biting thing.”

“Maybe.” She sniffed. “I’ll make a few calls. I can probably get you hooked up for a flight out after sundown tomorrow, but like I said, it’ll cost you extra.”

“Just do what you can and get back to me. We need to get out of here as soon as we can. Money’s not a problem.”

I clicked the cell phone shut and found both Colin and Sebastian regarding me pointedly and expectantly, respectively.

“Illinois is too boring for the jet set,” I said, slumping back in my chair. “Maybe Chicago would have worked out, but I guess they’re not so into the prairie. Are there secret vampire libraries in Hawaii?”

“No,” said Colin shortly. “How soon will we know?”

“Soon, I hope. If she doesn’t get back in a couple of hours, we might want to start thinking about driving.”

Colin nodded. “Let’s get packed, then.”

“What about Rufus?”

Frowning, Colin glanced toward the dog, who was sitting in the middle of the vampire’s posh living room rug, studiously licking his ass. “Kennel?”

“Nobody’s going to be open this time of night.”

Suddenly, Colin became as smug as I’d ever seen him, maybe smugger, which is to say he reached heights of smugness heretofore unknown in the history of mankind. Vampirekind. Whatever.

“Call Eric.”

I blinked. “Eric?”

“I told him he should be helpful to you.”

“Oh, good God.” I shoved my hands through my hair. What a pain in the ass. He was right, though. With the whammy Colin had administered, Eric would be more than willing to dog-sit. “Fine.” I pulled out my cell phone and made the call, trying not to think about the fact that Eric’s number was still on my speed dial. Implications? I decided it was just because I was generally lazy.

He sounded a bit muzzy, like maybe I’d woken him up, but when he realized it was me he perked right up. I winced. A perky Eric was so far beyond normal parameters that I was afraid it might bring about an apocalypse if we let it go too long. Gritting my teeth, I asked about the dog-sitting.

“Of course,” he said, sounding genuinely happy about it. “Of course I’ll watch Roofy for you.”

Roofy? I did not name my dog after Rohypnol, thank you very much. I took a breath to keep from saying something that would nix the deal. “Thanks, Eric. I owe you one.”

“Not at all, Nim. That’s what friends are for.”

I clicked the phone shut and glared at Colin. “You need to fix him.”

“He’ll be extra handy this way.”

“He creeps me out.”

“It’s not like you actually liked him.”

He had a point. “We’ll talk about this later.” I poked my phone at him in a threatening manner, but he just grinned.

I was sorting through the suitcase I’d thrown together before we’d hightailed it out of my house, hoping I had enough undies—it was damn hard to pack for a trip when you didn’t know how long you were staying, but then again they had underwear stores in Illinois, so I supposed it wasn’t that big of an issue—when my cell phone rang again.

“I’ve got you set,” said Gwen without preamble. “You guys need to get to the Jefferson County Airport in an hour, and he’ll have you in Champaign before sunrise.”

“No effing way.” Gwen’s non-swearing habits seemed to be affecting me by osmosis.

“Yes effing way. And I’m going too, so you get to have me as a flight attendant.”

“What happened to Bali?”

“No clue. Maybe it fell into the ocean. Tell your boss to bring his checkbook.”

I went to tell Colin and Sebastian the good news. They were packed already, both of them equipped with minuscule carry-ons next to my larger suitcase. Within minutes, the two vampires and Rufus and I were packed into the car and heading down the road in the dark.

Gwen had finagled flights for me before on private jets with her swanky customers, and I’d always thought the planes seemed too small and flimsy to take anyone anywhere, much less to far away and exotic locales like Fiji and Hawaii and Monte Carlo and wherever the hell all the rich idiots hung out. This plane was no exception—a tiny little Cessna that could have been manufactured out of a kit from a hobby store.

Gwen was already there, somehow having made the drive from Denver faster than we’d driven from Littleton, which, as far as I knew, was physically impossible. We’d stopped at Eric’s to drop off Rufus, but Eric had been so cooperative the stop had hardly added any time to the trip.

Gwen was dressed immaculately in a dress far classier than the average flight attendant’s uniform while leaving it obvious she was the flight attendant. Next to her stood a scruffy older man in a torn flannel shirt, jeans and a baseball cap. I took him at first for the mechanic, but he introduced himself as Jerry Carlisle, the incredibly rich pilot and Cessna owner who was going to fly us all to the vast and fertile plains of East Central Illinois.

He caught sight of me first as I lugged my suitcase across the tarmac—heaven forbid either of the stupid vampire idiots could help me with my luggage.

“You must be Nimuë,” he said, holding out a hand. I started to reposition everything so I could shake it, but the hand kept moving. Much to my relief, it connected with my suitcase. “Let me take that for you, honey.”

I was so relieved to be rid of the damned thing I didn’t even take exception to his calling me “honey”. “You look just like your sister,” he added. That was a bit harder to take, but hell, he was carrying the luggage.

“Thanks so much,” I said, leaving it up to him whether I meant the thanks for his taking the luggage or for his comment on my appearance. The glare I cast back over my shoulder at Colin, though, I hoped made it clear I did not find him particularly attractive or chivalrous at this moment. He was a terrible boyfriend. If he was, indeed, a boyfriend.

“Thanks for arranging this at the last minute,” Colin said, turning the charm on for Jerry. Jerry gave a small, sympathetic smile, just for me.

“No problem,” Jerry said to Colin. “Can I see your cards?”

Colin grimaced. Most folks didn’t bother carding vamps these days except at hospitals and the blood banks, and often not even then. When vamps had outed themselves in 1969 in response to an overall dissatisfaction with their portrayal in the media, the government had gone a bit nuts with their record-keeping. Cards were still required, but overall, the vampire population had proven to be much like the human population—mostly lazy and generally harmless. As long as they could get into the blood banks and fang bars to get their dinner, and buy things on credit they had no intention of paying for, they were all good.

Noticing Colin’s reluctance, Jerry shrugged apologetically. “Close quarters, you know. Just want to be sure everything’s in order.”

“Of course,” said Colin, who was already fishing through his wallet. Obviously, he hadn’t had his card out in a while; he seemed to be having some trouble finding it.

“He’s fine,” I reassured him. “Kind of a pain in the ass, but not really a random biter.”

Sebastian handed over his card while Colin was still digging for his. Jerry marked down the ID number and name on his clipboard. “Thank you, Mr. Marcheleto.” He took Colin’s card, warped and with the numbers nearly worn off. “Mr…Smith?” He eyed Colin a skeptically. “Your card expired in 1979.”

“I’m still a vampire.”

Jerry seemed unmollified. “You might want to have that seen to.”

“Will do.” His voice was tight.

“How the hell did you get your business license with an expired card?” I asked him, unable to resist the opportunity to give him crap.

“I started the business in ’72, or do you not bother to read any of the newsletters?”

“The newsletters are boring,” I shot back. I turned my attention to Jerry, who looked amused by the proceedings. Gwen had been watching quietly, staying out of the pilot’s business as I assumed was her wont, but she had a thoroughly inappropriate grin on her face. “Are we about ready, then?”