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by pulling me to safety. And I guess that was what it looked like to the baggage handlers, who were
wrapped up in their role-playing as Anubis Air attendants. The upshot was, they didn't help me, even
though I yelled, "Let go!" at the top of my well-developed lungs. The "priest" kept yanking at my arm and
trying to run, and I kept digging in my two-inch heels and pulling back. I flailed at him with my free hand.
I'm not letting anyone haul me off somewhere I don't want to go, not without a good fight.
"Bill!" I was really frightened. The priest was not a big man, but he was taller and heavier than me, and
almost as determined. Though I was making his struggle as hard as possible, inch by inch he was moving
me toward a staff door into the terminal. A wind had sprung up from nowhere, a hot dry wind, and if I
sprayed the chemicals they would blow right back in my face.
The man inside the coffin sat up slowly, his large dark eyes taking in the scene around him. I caught a
glimpse of him running a hand over his smooth brown hair.
The staff door opened and I could tell there was someone right inside, reinforcements for the priest.
"Bill!"
There was a whoosh through the air around me, and all of a sudden the priest let go and zipped through
the door like a rabbit at a greyhound track. I staggered and would have landed on my butt if Bill hadn't
slowed to catch me.
"Hey, baby," I said, incredibly relieved. I yanked at the jacket of my new gray suit, and felt glad I'd put
on some more lipstick when the plane landed. I looked in the direction the priest had taken. "Thatwas
pretty weird." I tucked the pepper spray back in my purse.
"Sookie," Bill said, "are you all right?" He leaned down to give me a kiss, ignoring the awed whispers of
the baggage handlers at work on a charter plane next to the Anubis gate. Even though the world at large
had learned two years ago that vampires were not only the stuff of legends and horror movies, but truly
led a centuries-long existence among us, lots of people had never seen a vampire in the flesh.
Bill ignored them. Bill is good at ignoring things that he doesn't feel are worth his attention.
"Yes, I'm fine," I said, a little dazed. "I don't know why he was trying to grab me."
"He misunderstood our relationship?"
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"I don't think so. I think he knew I was waiting for you and he was trying to get me away before you
woke up."
"We'll have to think about this," said Bill, master of the understatement. "Other than this bizarre incident,
how did the evening go?"
"The flight was all right," I said, trying not to stick my bottom lip out.
"Did anything else untoward happen?" Bill sounded just a wee bit dry. He was quite aware that I
considered myself put-upon.
"I don't know what normal is for airplane trips, never having done it before," I said tartly, "but up until the
time the priest appeared, I'd say things pretty much ran smooth." Bill raised one eyebrow in that superior
way he has, so I'd elaborate. "I don't think that man was really a priest at all. What did he meet the plane
for? Why'd he come over to talk to me? He was just waiting till everyone working on the plane was
looking in another direction."
"We'll talk about it in a more private place," my vampire said, glancing at the men and women who'd
begun to gather around the plane to check out the commotion. He stepped over to the uniformed Anubis
employees, and in a quiet voice he chastised them for not coming to my help. At least, I assumed that
was the burden of his conversation, from the way they turned white and began to babble. Bill slid an arm
around my waist and we began to stroll to the terminal.
"Send the coffin to the address on the lid," Bill called back over his shoulder. "The Silent Shore Hotel."
The Silent Shore was the only hotel in the Dallas area that had undergone the extensive renovation
necessary to accommodate vampire patrons. It was one of the grand old downtown hotels, the brochure
had said, not that I'd ever seen downtown Dallas or any of its grand old hotels before.
We stopped in the stairwell of a grubby little flight leading up to the main passenger concourse. "Now, [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]