The door was open and fresh air actually came into the plane. Something tight and unhappy in my chest and stomach loosened. I could breathe again without fighting the urge to scream.
The pilot said, “Everyone needs to show their medical alert cards, and allow customs on board to compare the vampires’ faces to their passports, since it is daylight and we cannot bring the vampires to them.”
The medical alert cards were the same kind of thing you’d carry if you had severe allergies or other medical conditions that if you happened to be unconscious doctors would need to know about, except that these cards said we had, or carried, lycanthropy. Ireland and most of the rest of the European Union demanded that lycanthropes carry medical alerts. It could be a bracelet, a necklace, a card, an insert in your clothing, but you had to have something. If a lycanthrope tried to simply enter Ireland, England, or much of the EU as a normal human and then got found out, it was cause for automatic deportation with the possibility of jail time. The people who traveled with Micah already had theirs, and he was able to help us rush the paperwork for the rest of us. Apparently, there’s a lot of controversy about it, so the powers that be had made it easier and quicker to get the cards, so that they didn’t get sued again for civil rights violations and other similar things. England had originally wanted to force lycanthropes to be tattooed, but not all tattoos remained on all shapeshifters’ skin. They then suggested forced branding, and lawyers, the press, and people in general began to make comparisons to the Nazis and how the Jews were permanently marked. So we just needed the cards, but if a government official, like a police officer, asked to see our cards and we failed to produce them, it could be grounds for deportation. You were encouraged to have more than one type of card on you at any given time. I felt a little funny with my card, because technically I wasn’t a lycanthrope, but my official paperwork said that I carried lycanthropy, so for government work I needed a card.
I wanted to leave the plane desperately, but I didn’t want to leave Damian behind. I’d never had to travel with a vampire that I was responsible for, and during the daylight dead-as-a-doornail time, Nathaniel and I were his only protection.
Magda spoke from the other side of the curtain where she was standing between the two “sleeping” vampires. “Go. I will wait with our masters, and Damian.”
That seemed to be good enough for Fortune, because she exited the plane with the others. Nicky, Nathaniel, and Dev were still with me. “I thought you’d be the first one out the door,” Dev said with a smile.
“I think I just needed a minute to get myself ready to meet the Irish authorities,” I said.
Socrates poked his head through the open door. “We need you and your passports and cards out here.”
I tried to stand up, and I say tried, because my seat belt was still fastened, and I damn near bisected myself trying to stand. It was the little things that kept me humble.
35
I STEPPED OFF the plane onto the tarmac, or asphalt, or whatever you call the artificial covering of every major airport in the world, and fought off an urge to go down on my knees and hug that rocklike surface. I often felt this way when I got off a plane and back to terra firma, but the urge wasn’t usually this strong. Nathaniel took my hand as I got off the little folding steps from the plane. He looked around us and said, “It doesn’t look very Irish.”
The building and surrounding area were just an airport like almost every other private area of every other airport that I’d ever been to, so it wasn’t that it wasn’t Irish; it wasn’t anything. If you traveled and only saw airports and hotels, then every place was the same. Even internationally, if you stayed in a chain hotel and people spoke English around you, it was like you never left home, except you were away from your actual house, your stuff, and the people you loved. Of course, this time that last part wasn’t true.
I looked at Nathaniel with his auburn hair looking surprisingly red in the watery sunlight. The sky was gray with clouds and there was the feel of rain in the air. We had packed rain gear for all of us who already had some. We’d have to buy some for Nathaniel and Damian, but most of the rest of us had some. Mine had the U.S. Marshal logo all over it, so if the local police wanted me to wear something more neutral I’d go shopping, but until they made me I’d wear what I had. At that moment I was wearing a light leather jacket that probably wouldn’t like being rained on any more than the one that Nathaniel was wearing. Most everyone else either was wearing leather or already had their raincoats on. Most of the coats were lined, so they were probably better for the temperature than the leather jackets and would definitely be winners when the rain started. Though they wouldn’t be nearly as fun to cuddle. I ran my hand down Nathaniel’s back and the leather was soft and pettable. Of course, I could feel the firm line of his shoulders and back under the leather, so that might have made me lean toward leather as opposed to raincoats. I looked around at everyone as they unloaded the luggage from the belly of the plane and thought I’d have to touch Nicky and see if I had the same reaction. Maybe it was just the person and not the coat, or maybe it was both?
A uniformed official came out of the building with Socrates, who said, “Which of you has Damian’s passport?”
“I do,” Nathaniel said, and he went back to the airplane with them so the uniform could look at the “sleeping” vampire and make sure we weren’t trying to pull a switch. Since people look different awake and alive, I wondered how hard it was to be sure the pictures matched the vampires. I could do it, because I looked at people alive and dead a lot, but I let it go and moved into the building with the others. I had my own passport and the card that matched the necklace tucked under my shirt against my skin that said I carried lycanthropy. The last time I’d traveled out of the country I hadn’t needed anything but my passport. I wasn’t really wild about the change.