Chapter 16

The sounds of the planes engines were the only comfort I had left. Nick had continued to stare at me until finally he had lost interest and gone to shelf of books. My fear of the 'Night Hunters' continued to grow. Furlow had told me enough about them to fear them without question. Looking over at Nick, who was now reading a French novel, I ask, 'Do you have any blood relatives among the 'Night Hunters'?'

He looks up at me and says, 'A cousin from the Frumso side.'

The Dracul Pureblood had several branching lines. There was the main branch, the Hanivarian side, the Trepelus side, and finally the Frumso side. The closest branch was the Frumso side born from two ruling Pureblood lines. The Dracul and Elrics and among the most hated among all their generation, considered traitors of all. If he was a cousin it led to more questions I wasn't willing to ask. But Nick seemed conversational and continues, 'His name is Viktor, we have never seen eye to eye, but he is blood.'

'What is his standing in the 'Night Hunters'?'

'Commander.'

Thus makes my insides turn to mush. Fear and adrenaline spike inside me as I stare at Nick who had now gone back to reading, now uninterested in the conversation. I should have run when I had the chance. The 'Night Hunters' would take one look at me and want me dead. If I had anything to do with, even as a victim, to a group who was causing vampires and bitten humans to turn to ghoul I would be on the chopping block quite literally. My breathing was calm but all my senses went into high alert. I had to find a way to change course because if we landed where Nick wanted I would not see another sunrise.

Closing my eyes, I let my senses stretch out, I hear Nick's sluggish heart beat. The hallmark of a vampire. How physiology wasn't much different from a human, but everything inside of us was more efficient. I could hear his slow even breaths and the loud crinkle as he turned a page. Then I hear a murmur of a voice and turn my senses to it. It had to be the pilot. I felt like a mist as I slowly crawled into the cock pit and heard him says, 'Delta Niner, what will be my set down time?'

A loud crackle came from his speaker as I slowly slide into his mind. I had never done this and felt as if I could see what he could as adrenaline surged through me out of survival. Finally I glean from him our London destination and whisper into his mind, fuel?

He looks down at the gage and I feel in his mind distance to fuel ratio. Then I whisper into his mind as I continue to glamour him, 'Zurich, go.'

I feel hesitation in him, as if he's fighting back against me, but his hand reached for the latitude and longitude dial and I see him put in the destination I have in mind, pushing him to think this is what Nick wants. I could feel myself weakening and my grip on him. Nick's booking voice comes through my system like a shock wave, 'Are you tired?'

I jerk away from the pilot, seemingly back into my body, and say in a knee jerk reaction, 'No, just resting my eyes.'

'Is that a good idea with a Pureblood opposite you?'

I smile softly and answer, 'You said yourself that I am a possible asset.'

He puts down the book beside him and I can sense his power slowly settle on me again as he asks, 'An asset you may be, but u wonder how you lived so long without becoming a member of a clan. Most clanless make it maybe thirty to fifty years before they join. We are pack animals, not lone wolves. We hunt together, and change human history. So why have you not?'

'I find the conflict among the Five Great Clans to be meaningless...'

I feel the slight shift in the plane, tilting and so does Nick. He frowns and picks up a small phone in the wall beside him and asks, 'Why are we changing direction?'

I can hear from the headpiece, 'Bad weather, sir. I'm going around to prevent possible complications.'

Nick puts the phone up and looks back at me saying, 'Meaningless how?'

'We Phantom have been around so long that by now conflict should be over, there is no land to fight over, human kind had been divide like cattle among the clans, and fewer and fewer humans are being turned, or so I have heard. So it leave little to squabble about.'

A slow boil smile comes to Nick's face as he replies, 'That only shows how naive you are Nina, what we have are Kingdoms and people's we must protect. To be called the oldest ruling Clan is to show strength in wisdom and knowledge. The wealthiest Clan to show power in commerce. We eat our own to protect those we call our own. We are the monsters under the bed, and among the shadows. We were breed to be brutal and so we are. Time doesn't change our character, you should know this better than most.'

'Then do you think the Silent Phantasma is our boogie monster?'

This sobers the cruel smile on his face. He was silent for a moment before saying, 'It is a possibility, however small.'

After what I had suffered at the hands of this group and seeing what had happened at the Dracul's mansion only made me worry. I was an insignificant piece, but what if I was the corner stone to what they wanted, though I had no clue as to what.

Looking at Nick I ask, 'Nick, earlier you said your clan was being decimated as were the rest. I know that the Elrics Clan leader was killed and now his son rules, but what did you mean by that statement?'

Nick went stone cold silent and simply stared. Finally after an indefinite and intolerable minute he said, 'I meant what I said.'

It shocked me and I ask, 'Are you the last Dracul Pureblood?'

'Not officially.'

He was trying to smooth over his earlier outburst of words and I ask, 'What about the other clans?'

His jaw twitched and I knew he wasn't going to say anything. Letting out a haggered sigh, I look back up at him, feeling again that surge of fear and panic from his power, 'Look, I understand your hesitation. I am a hated clanless, one who has lived alone for centuries. I only came to your attention do to this group called The Silent Phantasma, and I understand your fear that I may be working with this group. I also know I am not, but as you put it I'm naive. So tell me more, explain to me about the Phantoms would I do not know.'

Nick was quiet for a moment, his blue eyes piercing through me, considering. I needed to know the extend of the world I had hide from for so long, as well as distract him from where I was planning on going. He finally seems to decide his response, jaw twitching slightly before he opens his mouth and says, 'The Romane have almost been completely wiped out, only their leader Leo and a small sub clan remain. The Zula are being attacked now and a major amount of their sub clans are being decimated. My clan is being wiped out, the main clan has now very few Purebloods and only a few of my sub clans remains. They hit at the heart of the Elrics and Tyberius is young and bull headed. Trying to get him to listen will be a feat in itself. The Won has started to see some of their sub clans being pulled apart, so it's only a matter of time before they are swept away. I only know small bits about the Won as they are the most secretive of our world.'

This chilled me. To see the upheaval among the clans, the stability that had been so hard won millennia ago being pulled apart by a group that seemed so shadowed. I lower my head, thinking back to the mansion, the ghoul, and the herding of them. There had to be more to this, and I ask, 'Do you know how their sub clans were attacked.'

He shook his head and I knew this was more desperate than he let on. The Phantoms were being hunted by a wraith and if this creature wasn't stopped, the world I lived, the edge I teetered on would shatter.