At Sword's Point Read Online Free Page B

cheap air travel.
    "Listen," she said.
    "That's what I was trying to do."
    "Huh? Oh, that's funny. Now, as I was about to say, you look a little pale. Are you all right?" Her concern sounded genuine.
    "I'm probably just a little tired. I've been up for several days working with very little sleep." Drummond feigned a yawn. "So, if you'll excuse me?" He smiled his most polite smile.
    "Sure. You go right ahead and sleep. Don't let me bother you."
    She rummaged under the seat again and pulled a thick paperback book out of her flight bag. The lurid cover showed a vampire who bore more than a passing resemblance to George Hamilton ripping the bodice off a well-endowed woman, his fangs bared, ready to sink into her… neck, Drummond supposed, although the cover artist clearly wanted to convey more than that.
    With a private shudder, he replaced the earphone and closed his eyes, trying hard to settle into a nap. His rest was interrupted by the attendant bumping into him with a trolley as she came down the aisle with drinks, and again by the woman next to him, just before mealtime.
    "Excuse me," she said, shaking Drummond's arm. "Excuse me, but my Bloody Mary wants out."
    Half asleep, it took Drummond a second or two to focus on what she had said. "What… ?"
    "I need to go to the little girl's room. So if you don't mind, could you let me out? Please?"
    Drummond stood in the aisle, and the woman wiggled past and headed back to the toilets in the middle of the aircraft. While he was standing, Drummond stretched and absently looked around the cabin of the jumbo jet. For no apparent reason, his attention was drawn to a swarthy man in an ill-fitting suit seated on the aisle three rows behind him, just ahead of the toilets, where Mrs. Albatross now stood impatiently in line.
    A hawklike nose jutted out from between two dark brown, intense eyes. Thick, wiry eyebrows almost met above the bridge of the man's nose, every bit as wild as the thatch of hair on top of his head. There was something about the man that caused a little psychic alarm to sound somewhere in Drummond's subconscious.
    Turning away from the man with the haunted look, Drummond decided that he was glad airlines took extra precautions with passengers. The man had the look of a fanatic.
    She returned. Struggling into her seat, she smiled up at Drummond and stuck out her hand.
    "I'm Bea MacDowell. Twenty-first Century Real Estate." Drummond looked at the hand, it held a business card.
    "John Drummond. It's a pleasure to meet you." Beets again, this time with carrots. He took the card and slipped it into his pocket.
    "Mind if I ask what you do?" Bea sounded like she was about to try to sell him a house.
    Drummond settled into his seat before answering. "I'm between jobs."
    "Well, once you get settled in LA…" Bea MacDowell could tell a No Sale right away.
    "Look, you'll have to excuse me, but I don't feel very well. Perhaps we could discuss this after we land?" No unpleasant vegetables this time; Drummond was feeling slightly queasy.
    Without waiting for Bea's reply, he stuffed the earphones into his ears, turned on the Mozart disk, and closed his eyes. Die Zauberflöte filled Drummond's consciousness, conjuring up images of a great snake that for some reason was trying to eat F. Murray Abraham… Drummond drifted off into dreamland.
    He was flying high above the forest, his cape spread out like two enormous bat wings. It was midnight, and far below he could make out a castle. Swooping down, he could see a beautiful, dark-haired woman sitting next to the open window. There was something familiar about her, but maddeningly he couldn't see her face. No matter how hard he tried to look at her, his gaze was somehow diverted and he found himself staring fixedly at a golden brooch pinned to the front of her gown.
    Frustrated in his attempt to see the face of this woman he seemed to know, Drummond spread his cape wide, rushing headlong over the treetops toward a small clearing where a