“There’s nothing to keep,” Li answered with a shrug. “You think a girl is pretty. What’s the big deal?”
“She has a boyfriend. The last thing we need is jealousy driving a wedge between any of us.”
“It’s too late for that,” Li muttered and Mortimer noticed an uncharacteristic frown touch her pretty features.
“What do you mean?”
Li took a deep breath. “Cedric and I…”
“I know that the two of you are involved.”
“Involved. That’s a good way of putting it. We’re lovers. He wants to take that beyond the physical.”
“And you don’t?”
“It wouldn’t work.” She looked at him and he was struck by how intelligent her gaze really was. The way she played at being silly and flirtatious, it was easy to underestimate her. “We come from two different worlds. And if his friends found out about my past, it would hurt him badly.”
“Sounds like that’s his decision to make.”
“Not really. I can make my own decisions.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Li threw her head back and laughed. She suddenly looked carefree once more. She stood up and whispered, “I know what you meant, silly. Don’t worry. Your secret’s safe with me.”
Mortimer was about to thank her when the entire cabin suddenly lurched. Debris of all kinds flew into the air as everything that wasn’t tied down began flowing towards the back of the plane. Mortimer grabbed hold of Li’s wrist, preventing her from losing her balance.
Cedric, seated alone in the rear, stood up and crept into the rear cabin. He found the exit door standing wide open and he yanked it closed with extreme effort.
“Something’s wrong,” he bellowed. He turned to find the rest of the team on their feet, looking in his direction. He scanned the area before adding, “I think our stewardesses and the copilot just took a flying leap. They didn’t bother leaving behind any parachutes for us, either.”
Charity and Mitchell exchanged a silent glance, prompting Mitchell to sprint towards the cockpit. He lowered his shoulder and drove the door open, revealing a horrible sight. The pilot was dead, the back of his skull having been caved in by some heavy implement.
Turning back to the others, the Englishman asked, “Does anyone here know how to fly a plane?”
PANDORA STEPPED OUT of the bath, enjoying the feel of warmth on her skin. She plucked up a soft white towel and ran it over her body, finally tying it just above her pert breasts. Locke’s body wasn’t quite as firm as she would like but it was far from being out of shape.
Pandora wandered into the bedroom and turned on the radio. Almost magically, the sound of music filled the room, bringing a grin to her face. She stared at her reflection in a mirror and began to dance softly. Her body swayed to the rhythm and for a moment, she was able to forget about the stresses of her existence, the years of imprisonment, the terrible weight of guilt that she carried upon her shoulders.
Then the song changed and so did her mood.
She remained standing, panting slightly, before dropping her towel. Nude, she began to do a series of stretching exercises, beginning the arduous process of hardening this form. When her new body began to shiver from exhaustion, she stopped and walked to the closet, which was filled with clothes bought for her by Hiroshi. She frowned at the many skirts and dresses, finally selecting a long green gown that she tightly cinched at the waist with a belt. Using a pair of scissors she found in a drawer, she cut the hem of the dress, shortening it. She wanted to be able to move freely, should combat arrive. Pants would have been preferable but she would not allow modesty to impede her, should danger present itself.
Most of the shoes were high-heeled but in the end she did find one pair of leather boots that ended calf-high. They didn’t really go with the dress but fashion was far from a concern.
Marching across the hall, she rapped firmly on Hiroshi’s door and, upon a verbal response from within, entered the room. She found the would-be Emperor staring out the window. The hotel he’d picked afforded an excellent view of the Washington Memorial.
“I need a weapon,” she said.
Hiroshi turned to face her, looking handsome in the crisp white shirt he wore. His black slacks emphasized the long, athletic shape of his waist and legs. Though Pandora considered Lust to be among the Seven Deadly Sins, she was not immune to the man’s good looks. “I knew you would say that,” he responded with a smile. He gestured towards a table, upon which lay two swords. One of them was Hiroshi’s own but the other was new to Pandora. It had a matching hilt and similar design, though it was somewhat smaller in size. “Even before you were freed from The Silver Skull, I commissioned a man to make you a blade.”
Pandora plucked it up and whipped it through the air, marveling at its craftsmanship. “It feels like an extension of my arm.”
“Of your soul,” he corrected. “By the way, you look absolutely stunning.”
“I doubt that I would conform to modern cultural ideals.”
“That doesn’t matter. After all, soon we will be the ones setting those ideals.” Hiroshi strolled over to a chair where his jacket lay across the back. He picked it up and pulled it on. “I have a meeting with Reginald Van Draught. He’s the Secretary of the Interior.”
“What is that?”
“He works very closely with the President of the United States. If I can get him under the sway of our ETD, then we can arrange a meeting with the President himself.”
“So you need for me to be close by,” she said.
“You’ll be in your room across the hall. Prof. Potter thinks you’re so powerful that you could be on the other side of the hotel and still be able to affect our target but there’s no need to take chances.” Hiroshi reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a photograph of Van Draught. “You’ll want to concentrate on this picture. Wait until you can get a signal from Dr. Craig. I’d like to have a polite conversation before we unleash you on him.”
“What emotion do you want him to feel?”
Hiroshi grinned. “Fear, of course. I want him shaking in his boots. He’s going to do whatever I want… for fear of his very life.”
“I’LL ASK AGAIN, anybody here know how to fly a bloody plane?” Mitchell’s words were somewhat humorous but the tension that lay behind them was clear to everyone.
“I slept with a pilot once,” Li offered. She gave a slight shrug of her slender shoulders. “We were in the cockpit but my back was to the controls.”
Mortimer reached out and took Charity’s elbow. “You have the muscle memory of all the previous Gravediggers. Was any of them a pilot?”
“I don’t know.”
“Think! Dig deep if you have to!”
Charity frowned. Her ability to call upon the skills of her predecessors was something that functioned best on an unconscious level. She would grip a new weapon, for instance, and suddenly have the ability to wield it with tremendous skill provided that one of the prior Gravediggers had been an expert in its use.
Mortimer had the same ability but it would have been restricted to the Gravediggers who preceded him and all of them had existed before the creation of aircraft.
Thankfully, Mitchell snapped his fingers and grinned. He looked like he’d just won first prize in a radio contest. “Josef!”
Cedric blinked in confusion. “What about him?”
“Josef was a pilot during the Great War. He told me that he often flew into enemy territory on Gravedigger missions.”
Charity pushed past her lover, reaching out to shove the dead pilot’s body to the floor. His chair was filled with smears of blood and brain matter but she ignored it as she took his seat.