Robert W. Walker (38 page)

Even the stewardess who had approached him some weeks before on his flight from Egypt to New York, flirting with him then, pretended now to not know him at all.

Stroud wondered what effect it would have on her if he asked her for a date; wondered what effect he'd have on the pilot if he dropped in on the cockpit and announced himself.

"People," Nathan had said in exasperation, "damned people. Most fear themselves, their own shadows, Stroud. Can you really blame them if they fear you?
Can
you?
A man like you?
A man who has grappled with the supernatural and won?"

"No," he said quietly to himself now. "Can't blame people..."

As for Kendra, she promised to keep in touch, and she had promised to visit him in Andover soon. He knew that she wasn't like most people. He knew that she would make good her promise and that soon, very soon, they would be in one another's arms again. For now, couched in his arms was the carry-on luggage he had hugged to himself the entire way, and inside it, the crystal skull, a "supernatural" gift which had made him
feel
immortal for a time down there in the boiler room of the demon's own hell.
Esruad's
power had coursed through his veins and part of that power still lingered like salt spray in the pores after a walk on the deck of a ship. Stroud had also come away with a new knowledge of his ancestry, and he was a better man for knowing the noble
Esruad
.

"I ... I didn't know you ... you were
the
Abraham Stroud when we first met," said the stewardess, who'd come to him with a pot of tea, remembering how he liked tea. "Maybe when we reach Chicago ... you ... I ... perhaps..."

"A meal, a show?" he asked, surprised at her sudden turn.

"Yes, yes ... I'd like that."

"You don't mind living ... dangerously?"

"Try me."

Stroud smiled inwardly as he watched the beautiful woman return to her duties, giving him another glance as she did so. She was sultry and naturally pouting unless she
smiled,
and her smile was like moonbeams. Perhaps he had misjudged her after all ... or perhaps she was part of an Egyptian plot to recapture the skull on the seat beside him, wrapped in linen and wedged into a carry-on. It had managed to draw curiosity when it was run through the video display at the metal detector baggage check, but Nathan had calmed the guard with a few words. It belonged at Stroud Manse with him, with the ghosts of that place, below his grandfather's portrait.

But
Mamdoud
had already wired him that the Egyptian government believed the "missing" skull belonged in their country and had begun a worldwide search for it. Stolen by common criminals, passed through hand after hand until it was brought to the court of the Pharaoh, Stroud now reclaimed it for his lineage, and damn the Egyptian government.

But there were any number of Egyptians on the plane...

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Robert W. Walker is the author of more than forty published novels, beginning with SUB-ZERO in 1979. He has millions of books in print. You can visit him at www.robertwalkerbooks.com. 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

THE INSTINCT THRILLERS featuring FBI forensic pathologist Dr. Jessica Coran

Killer Instinct

Fatal Instinct

Primal Instinct

Pure Instinct

Darkest Instinct

Extreme Instinct

Blind Instinct

Bitter Instinct

Unnatural Instinct

Grave Instinct

Absolute Instinct

THE EDGE THRILLERS featuring Detective Lucas
Stonecoat

Cold Edge

Double Edge

Cutting Edge

Final Edge

THE GRANT THRILLERS featuring Medical Examiner Dean Grant

Floaters

Scalpers

Front Burners

Dying Breath

THE RANSOM MYSTERIES featuring 19th century detective Alastair Ransom

City for Ransom

Shadows in the White City

City of the Absent

THE DECOY THRILLERS featuring Chicago cop
Ryne
Lanarck

Hunting Lure

Blood Seers

Wind Slayers

Hand-to-Hand

THE BLOODSCREAMS SERIES featuring archeologist Abraham Stroud

Vampire Dreams

Werewolf’s Grief

Zombie Eyes

HORROR NOVELS

Dr. O

Disembodied

Aftershock

Brain Stem

Abaddon

The Serpent Fire

Flesh Wars (the sequel to The Serpent Fire)

Children of Salem

THRILLER NOVELS

Sub-Zero

PSI: Blue

Deja
Blue

Cuba Blue (with Lyn
Polkabla
)

Dead On

Thrice Told Tales (short stories)

YOUNG ADULT

Daniel Webster Jackson & the Wrong Way Railroad

Gideon Tell & the Siege of Vicksburg

NON FICTION

Dead
On
Writing – Thirty Years of
Writerly
Advice