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throat tightened, but her voice was light as she said, “I was difficult before that.”
    A messenger window popped up. No, my sweet Savitri. Are you in the air?
    Colin. She’d avoided the vampire for seven months, but now her eyes flooded with tears of relief. Except for brief meetings in which his affectations had known no bounds, she hadn’t spoken with him. And he’d never been the least bit apologetic, as if he thought she didn’t remember what he’d done in Caelum. A few times she’d caught him watching her—probably wondering why she hadn’t said anything of it to anyone. It must prick his vanity to be ignored.
    It pricked hers knowing how stupid she’d been to trust him. Now she had no choice but to trust him again.
    Yes. She added the flight number and a link to the news article.
    She didn’t expect an immediate response. Colin would be trying to reach Lilith and Hugh, or one of the SI agents who handled this type of thing.
    This type of thing . Again that hysterical laughter threatened. Seven months ago, she hadn’t known this type of thing existed. Had known nothing of Guardians, who protected humans from demons and nosferatu. Nothing of vampires. What she had known she’d considered little more than a fantasy, spun from books into video and card games—and she’d profited well from it.
    Now she’d probably pay.
    It only took two minutes for Colin to get back to her. Lilith is sending a fledgling to the Gate to collect Michael or Selah.
    Michael or Selah. Both Guardians could use Savi as an anchor, and they could teleport from Caelum directly into the airplane. But the Gate nearest to San Francisco was in southern Oregon. How quickly could a young Guardian fly?
    E.T.A?
    Forty-five minutes.
    Oh, god. Too close. She stared at the screen and willed the number to decrease. But wishing had never helped her before; it wouldn’t now. She didn’t have time, she didn’t have a sword or a hellhound or a gun—what did she have?
    Hellhound venom. Hugh had given it to her along with a few other methods of protection. It was in a perfume vial—a significant payload, enough to paralyze the nosferatu, but she had no way to deliver it. Stabbing wouldn’t work; the creature was too fast. And even if she managed to cut it with a venom-laced blade, it wouldn’t slow it enough to allow her to get away. Not a lot of damage could be done with the few items she had—a plastic fork to the eye?
    The big fat zero was growing morbidly obese.
    As if concerned by her lack of reply, Colin wrote, Do not be afraid, sweet Savitri.
    I’m not. Not for herself. But Nani, the other passengers?
    You should be. A round yellow face suddenly winked up at her.
    “Shh, naatin ,” Nani admonished a moment later. Savi stifled her laughter; it had too sharp an edge, anyway. “You waste too much time with those friends online.” The rest lay unspoken: Had Savi not spent so much time on her computer, she’d have passed her classes, finished her studies, obtained the almighty degree. It did not need to be spoken; it had been said a million times. Nani meant well, of course—it was just that Savi’s idea of what was good for her conflicted with her grandmother’s.
    But it was hard to blame it on a generation gap when a two-hundred-year-old vampire finished a sentence with a smiley.
    She closed her eyes, tried to imagine his expression at that moment. His features were impossible to forget: his short hair, like burnished gold; the darker, slashing brows; thick lashes around wintry gray eyes. A blond god, with a deity’s careless cruelty; the firm line of his mouth suggested it, and his smile was a predator’s.
    Was that wink to reassure her or to mock her?
    Talk to me, sweet. Can you see it?
    Savi turned, leaned out over the aisle. The top of its head. It took only another minute to locate the seating plan from the airline website and send him the link and seat number.
    You’re in first class?
    Nani’s with me. And the reason