“No. No good-byes. I’ll stop it.” I wasn’t sure how, armed with nothing more than three ounces of hairspray, but I was
not
going to let Pryce kill all these people. I brushed my lips against Kane’s and crawled past him.
It was rough going. The plane would dive, and I’d slide or tumble or somersault forward, banging into seats, legs, junk that had fallen into the aisle. Then it’d rock violently the other way, making moving forward like climbing a cliff. I grabbed the seat legs and pulled myself forward with my arms.
Somehow, I made it to the front of the plane. A flight attendant was strapped into a seat by the cockpit door. She clutched the sides of her head; panic contorted her features.
“Get me into the cockpit,” I said.
“You can’t go in there. Federal regulations prohibit—” The plane lurched, and her scream cut off her words. I slid forward, whacking my head on the cockpit door with a bang. I started banging with my fists, too. “Let me in! I can stop the Glitch!”
The door remained closed.
“Stop it,” the flight attendant hissed. “They’re trying to keep this plane in the air.”
“So am I.” I climbed to my knees. I closed my eyes and thought of strength—eight-hundred-pound gorillas, elephants, the Incredible Hulk. Not enough concentration to shift, but enough to bulk up my arm. Strength surged into me. I made a fist and hit the door, right above the lock. The door buckled. I drew back and hit it again, and then once more. The lock gave way. I yanked the door open.
Two pilots sat at an instrument panel that shot sparks like Fourth of July fireworks. The pilot on the left wrestled with the controls. The one on the right aimed a gun at me. Or tried to—the way the plane jumped around, it was impossible to keep steady. “Get out!” he yelled.
“I can help!” I yelled back, grabbing the door frame to keep from sliding away as the plane bucked upward. “A Glitch is a demon. I kill demons!”
His eyes narrowed, and I thought he was going to shoot. I got ready to duck in case by some fluke he got lucky. Instead, he lowered the gun. “It’s a … demon?”
“A Glitch. They hate technology.” Understatement of the year.
He must have decided that anything was worth trying, because he motioned me in. I crawled into the cockpit and braced myself against the wall. The view outside the windshield was dizzying—sea, sky, sea, sky—as the plane seesawed. I focused on the instrument panel. A fountain of sparks shot from its center, showing the Glitch’s location. I dug the hairspray from my pocket and leaned forward.
“Is that
hairspray
?” The copilot clearly thought he’d let a lunatic into the cockpit.
“This? Um, no,” I lied. “It’s a magical Glitch-fighting elixir. I put it in a hairspray bottle to get it through security. You never know when a Glitch might strike.”
Aiming at the sparks, I pumped a dozen quick squirts at the instrument panel, praying it would work.
I held my breath. Nothing changed.
Then a blast of sparks erupted from the instrument panel, and the plane took a nose dive.
“Shit!” shouted the pilot. “I can’t hold it!” We screamed straight toward the ocean. The plane shuddered like it was breaking apart.
With a loud
pop
and a stink of ozone, grapes, and rotten fish, the Glitch sprang from the instrument panel. It landed in the lap of the copilot, who screamed and shook as a couple thousand Glitch-volts zapped him. The demon slashed the man’s face with its claws and ran from cockpit. I nailed it with more hairspray as it leapt over me. It howled with rage and took off down the aisle.
The pilot pulled the plane out of its dive. Slowly, groaning, the plane began to climb.
I ran after the Glitch.
The hairspray had forced the Glitch to materialize in daylight, and it wasn’t happy about that. It leapt around the cabin, landing on seatbacks, on the floor, on people’s heads, trying to avoid the light that streamed in through the windows. Its skin smoked where sunlight touched it, giving off an odor of charred Glitch-flesh.
A woman screamed when the Glitch landed on the back of her seat and grabbed her head with its claws. Electricity sizzled over her skin.
“Open your shade!” I yelled. “It can’t take sunlight!”
Shades flew up along both sides of the plane. The Glitch jumped toward the center row, clawing at people’s ankles as it scrabbled under a seat.
“Over here!” a man called. “What the hell is that thing?”
“The Glitch that was making the plane fall—don’t let it spit at you! And watch out for its claws.” I ran to him, kicking debris out of my way. I had to make sure it didn’t re-infest the controls.
I dived to the floor by the row of seats where the Glitch was hiding—and flinched away as a wad of spit sailed out. But not fast enough. The spit landed in my hair and stung my scalp. Damn. I
hate
getting Glitch spit in my hair. The Glitch snapped and swiped its claws at me, but its movements were restricted by the limited space under the seats. Passengers had barricaded it in with bags and coats and laptops and anything else within reach. Its only way out was the narrow opening I was watching. The demon convulsed, hawking up another wad of spit.
This Glitch wasn’t trying to escape; it was guarding its hiding place. I squirted more hairspray at it and considered. If the Glitch stayed trapped, it couldn’t jump back into the stabilization system. The hairspray seemed to work better than that damn expensive Glitch Gone; I’d never seen a Glitch stay in physical form for so long. The extreme stickiness that did its thing for Ms. Iron Hair’s helmet head kept the Glitch from shifting into its energy form.
Another wad of spit flew out. It missed, and I nailed the Glitch with more squirts. The trouble was, I didn’t know how long the hairspray’s effect would last. And even under the seats, there were plenty of places where the Glitch could go if it switched to its energy form—laptops, cell phones, all the electronic gadgets people carry with them on long flights. Even the aircraft’s entertainment system. It was too risky. We were still over the ocean. We had to fly far enough to land somewhere, and there was no way to stay in the air safely with a Glitch on the plane.
I’d have given anything for a simple bronze knife. A fast stick and it’d be over. I squirted the Glitch, then shook the bottle. The hairspray was getting low. As I rose to my knees, another wad of smelly spit shot past me, splatting against the arm of a seat a couple of rows back.
“Does anyone have anything that’s bronze?” I called. “A pin? Bracelet? Cuff links?”
People stared at me. I probably looked crazy—although I was getting used to that, especially with a sticky purple lump of Glitch spit in my hair.
“Bronze kills demons. It’ll get rid of this Glitch so it can’t crash the plane.”
A buzz went up and down the rows of seats as people asked their neighbors for bronze. I dropped to the floor again to keep an eye on the Glitch and gave it another spritz.
“Here,” said the man who’d pointed out the Glitch. “Will any of this work?”
I kneeled up and he poured a pile of costume jewelry into my hands. Bronze obviously wasn’t on this season’s list of must-have fashion accessories. People had donated gold, gold-plated stuff, even silver, but not a single piece was bronze.
I dropped back down and recoiled as a claw struck, missing my face by a quarter inch. I pressed the pump on the spray bottle. Nothing came out. I unscrewed the top and flung what little was left onto the Glitch. I was out of time. Evening sunlight slanted through the windows, but it wouldn’t for much longer.
I pulled off my leather jacket and wrapped it around my hand to get some insulation against the Glitch’s electrical field. I put my face within striking range. A claw swiped at me. Moving fast, I grabbed the demon’s hand and pulled.
The Glitch howled with rage and lobbed wads of spit at me. The man in the seat next to me reached down to help and got a nasty shock before I could warn him away. Electricity sizzled through the jacket and buzzed up my arm. The leather smoked. The Glitch grabbed at the seat legs with its free hand, but I was stronger. I kept pulling. The Glitch let go and launched itself at me, attacking with claws and teeth. Slashes of electrifying pain tore through my face and arms, but I hung on. The man saw what I was doing and called for a leather jacket. Someone tossed him one. He wrapped it around both hands and hugged the Glitch. A third person joined us.
“Help me get it in the sunlight,” I said, and we made our way down the aisle with the struggling, screeching Glitch to a patch of sun a little longer than the demon’s body. We lowered it to the floor, smack in the middle of the light patch, and held it there. It fought and squirmed and howled and spit, but we kept it pinned.
Sparks erupted from the Glitch, and its body wavered under my hands.
No, not now!
It couldn’t change to energy. I started to ask for hairspray, but the sparks came faster—bigger, brighter—little flickers of flame burning whatever they landed on. I turned my face away.
The Glitch exploded. Energy pulsed, and shreds of slimy purple gunk flew everywhere. A sizzle of blue energy flared up where the demon had lain, then burned itself out.
The plane cruised smoothly through the sky.
I rose to my feet, shaking, as passengers clapped, cheered, and stomped their feet. I thanked the guy who had helped me. His face was dotted with exploded Glitch, like a bad case of purple acne. “Better wash that off.” I explained about Glitch venom.
I turned to thank my other helper and saw who it was: Kane. Somehow, he’d avoided getting Glitch goop all over him. I was glad. I’d hate to see clumps of purple gumming up that beautiful silver mane. I touched my own Glitch-gunked hair.
Kane caught my wrist and gently pulled my hand away, then kissed it. He raised his gray eyes to meet mine.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he said.
Yeah, right. I was scratched and burned and streaked with purple. Ready for my photo shoot as cover girl of
Demon Slayer Monthly
.
“So this is what you do for a living?” he asked.
“Yup.”
He grinned and shook his head. “I think I’ll stick with lawyering.”
He lifted me off my feet and held me close. His mouth found mine, I wrapped myself around him, and we kissed. Again, the plane erupted in applause.
34
THE PLANE MADE AN EMERGENCY LANDING IN REYKJAVIK. The moment we touched down, a lot of things happened fast: Passengers rocketed from their seats, emergency doors flew open, and everyone stampeded to the nearest exit.
A flight attendant guarded the rear exit, directing people down the inflatable slide. She tried to tell me to leave my duffel bag on the plane and take off my boots, but I elbowed past her and jumped, clutching my bag in both arms, keeping my feet up so my heels wouldn’t puncture the slide. I didn’t give a damn about proper exit procedure. I needed my bag. And those were my favorite boots.
Airport workers herded us toward the terminal, and suddenly I realized that I hadn’t felt a twitch from Hellforged since the Glitch infested the plane. Panic shot through me; I stopped and bent over to check its sheath. Someone bumped me from behind, and I nearly sprawled onto the tarmac, but I staggered forward a couple of steps and kept my balance. I felt through the leg of my jeans. Hellforged was there, calm and still like an ordinary dagger. Breathing a huge sigh of relief, I followed everyone into the terminal.
Kane and I got separated. I was escorted, solo, to a room where I answered endless questions—from airport officials, airline representatives, an Icelandic paranormal investigation team. I even did a conference call with some U.S. military brass who wanted to hire me to get rid of a Glitch in their prototype combat helicopter. I don’t know whether they wrote down the brand of hairspray I recommended, but the call ended pretty fast after that.
I’d always wanted to visit Iceland, but the trip I imagined didn’t include being stuck in a windowless room deep in the bowels of the airport. By the time they gave me a boarding pass and said I was free to go, I was more than ready to get home.
IT WAS A COUPLE OF HOURS BEFORE SUNRISE WHEN I CAUGHT a cab outside Logan Airport. The werewolf driver didn’t glance twice at my sticky purple hair. The streets of human-controlled Boston were empty, and we made good time through the tunnel and across the city. As soon as we passed through the first checkpoint, into the New Combat Zone, things got livelier. The bars were closing, and customers spilled onto the sidewalks: humans turning toward their part of the city, PAs heading to Deadtown. The door of Creature Comforts opened, and Axel tossed a vampire junkie onto the pavement. The guy landed on his ass, rubbed his head, and then scrambled to his feet and staggered toward a blonde vampire waiting in line at the checkpoint. Good to see Axel back in business.
Throughout the Zone and Deadtown itself, dozens of posters, plastered over every surface, advertised the free Paranormal Appreciation Day concert by Monster Paul and the Zombie Freak Show. The posters had black text on an orange background, along with a huge picture of Monster Paul’s snarling face. The concert was set for tomorrow night—tonight, now—at seven o’clock on Tremont Street in front of the Granary Burying Ground, one of Boston’s oldest cemeteries.