Crimson Death
Page 119

   Nolan turned to Pride, who had moved up beside his cousin. “And you are?”
   “Pride Christensen.”
   “Is Pride a nickname?”
   He just held his passport out for Nolan. It read, Pride Christensen. No middle name, because he had never chosen one.
   “If you had the same last names, I’d ask if you were brothers.”
   “Cousins,” Dev said, smiling and clapping Pride on the back.
   Pride raised an eyebrow at him and frowned. “Will you ever grow up?”
   “Will you ever get the stick out of your ass and learn to have fun?” Dev countered.
   Pride rolled his eyes and moved away from his smiling cousin.
   Nolan actually did smile, so there was a human being in there somewhere. Good to know. He turned to Fortune, who was next closest. “And you are?”
   “Sofie Fortunada,” she said, smiling.
   Edward interrupted, “Captain Nolan wants to see everyone’s passports and get names, which he’ll run through every database he can find.” We’d already been warned this was not just likely, but a given, which was why everyone had chosen identities that had nothing questionable attached to them. It would so have ruined the trip if someone’s name came up on an Interpol list for something. But there would be no issue with Magda Sanderson, Jacob Pennyfeather, Ethan Flynn, Domino Santana, Kaazim Fath, Russell Jones, or Nicky Murdoch.
   Everyone just lined up and showed him their passports, much as they had for the nicer and more polite customs officials. In fact, the woman said, “We’ve already checked their passports and their cards.”
   “I don’t need to see their cards to know they’re shifters,” Nolan said, and he made the last word sound like it was something nasty. He was rapidly losing all his brownie points with me.
   He looked at the passports as if he expected some of them to be fake. The customs officials were all getting a little insulted, because he made it obvious that he didn’t trust them to have checked the documents sufficiently. That extra energy that rode around him was beginning to prickle along my skin like insects marching. It was almost like some lycanthrope energy I’d felt before I carried my own flavor of it, but if he’d been a shapeshifter himself, why would he need us to bring our own to play with his team?
   “I guess you’ll do. Grab your other gear off the plane and let’s go,” he said at last.
   The female customs official said, “If there’s more luggage coming off that plane, we have to inspect it.”
   Nolan turned back to her, took an ID out of one of the Velcro pockets on his pants, and showed it to her.
   She scowled at him, very unhappy. “You can’t keep doing this.”
   “This says I can,” he said, and put the ID back in his pocket. He smoothed his hand over the closure as if to make doubly sure it was secure. I wondered what kind of ID it was, and thought it was very interesting that the woman had said, You can’t keep doing this, which implied we weren’t the first special guests of Captain Brian Nolan.
   “Get your bags and follow me,” he said.
   “To someplace where we can change into something less comfortable?” I said.
   Nolan frowned at me, and again the lines in his forehead looked almost painful, like scars instead of frown lines. How many years had he been this unhappy to mark his own face up like that?
   “Just grab your gear, darlin’; you can suit up later.” He turned and started walking toward the plane as if it were all settled.
   “I thought I left Bobby Lee at home. He’s the only one who gets away with calling me that.”
   Nolan turned around and stared at me. That more-than-normal energy that I’d felt when he hit the room spiked and danced along my skin. I had to fight not to shiver like someone had walked across my grave. It didn’t mean that his psychic gift was death related, or even scary per se; it just meant he was really powerful.
   “Grab your gear, and we’ll talk in private,” he said, his voice proving that any accent, no matter how lyrical and movielike, could thin down to serious and threatening.
   “Will do,” I said. Edward, Pride, Dev, and I followed in Nolan’s wake. When we got outside I went for the steps leading up into the plane to check on Nathaniel and Damian. I got there in time to see them zip the bag up over Damian’s face. He was so still, so . . . dead that it was like watching them put him in a body bag. I think I stopped breathing for a second, my heart just sitting in my chest waiting for the rest of me to tell it to catch up, so that when I breathed again it was a gasp.
   Magda glanced at me, but Nathaniel stayed focused on getting Damian safely zipped up. “Are you all right, Anita?” Magda asked. Her eyes looked very gray in the dimness of the plane, as if all the blue had been sucked away.
   I nodded, not trusting that my voice wouldn’t shake. What the fuck? I’d seen so much worse; why had that small moment bothered me? Or why this much?
   Nicky spoke from behind me. “Come outside for a minute.”
   I shook my head. “I’m fine.”
   “Don’t give me fine. I feel what you’re feeling no matter how much you shield from the others.” He held his hand out to me, and after a second I took it. He led me a little away from everyone else and looked at me, still holding my hand. “What made you feel that way?” he asked.
   I told him.
   “You think it’s a preview of what could happen?”
   “Yes,” I said.
   “Don’t borrow trouble, Anita.”
   “We’re hunting monsters. People die doing that.”
   “You knew all that when you let them get on the plane.”
   “You know, you’re not always that comforting,” I said.
   He smiled. “But you’re less scared now and more irritated. My job is to make you feel better; sometimes that’s just choosing which emotion you like better. You’d way rather be irritated with me than scared and worried.”
   I frowned at him harder, but I couldn’t argue with him. In the end I squeezed his hand tight and we went to get the rest of our bags. Normally I’d have kissed him for that, but Nolan was watching me and he was going to have enough issues with me bringing so many “boyfriends” and “girlfriends”; I didn’t need to add fuel to the fire.
   We grabbed our bags, full of all sorts of things that would never have made it through normal inspection. Echo and Giacomo went in large lightproof duffel bags just like Damian had. Fortune and Magda strapped their masters across their bodies and helped Nathaniel get his own balance with Damian. Watching them balance the full literally dead body weight of their masters along with both sets of weapons in other bags made me realize why most vampires chose bigger people for human servants. You needed the size just to carry everything. I wasn’t sure I could have toted Damian and the rest of my gear. Once Nathaniel got the bag balanced he moved easily. Of course, he wasn’t carrying and wearing as many weapons as I was.