Free Flight of the Phoenix by Melanie Thompson

susceptible will remain until we return for them.”
    â€œWhy take them at all?” Bryn asked.
    â€œI may need them. They are fierce warriors as I’m sure you can imagine. Bakari and Edfu will accompany me as well as five others I’ve known for many years. They are almost as old as I and can bear the light of the sun even at these latitudes.”
    Quinn, Fenix, Tomlinson, Brighthouse, Fingle, Sam and Tures climbed into one of the boats with Bryn. Several vampires including Father Antonio, the two Egyptians, Bakari and Edfu, and three other crew members climbed into the second boat. They set off for the shore where Tures sent both boats back to the sub.
    â€œWe take the Matadi-Kinshasa train from here,” she said as her crew members hefted all the baggage she planned to take. They trekked, Tures in the lead, down a worn dirt trail to the train station where a train pulled by a small steam locomotive was loading. Three passenger cars sat behind the fuel car and the tanker. Quinn led Bryn and Fenix to one of the cars and helped them aboard. There was no glass in the open windows and the bench seats were very hard. When the train started they were heartily glad of the open windows. Even without the sun shining, it was sweltering and the hot breeze blowing in the windows was welcome. The night wind carried the familiar scents of Africa; moist, strange vegetation, exotic spices, human body odor and animal dung. Bryn breathed deeply as memories of distant times flooded her. It had been a thousand years since she’d been here, but it was a place you never forgot.
    The car they occupied quickly cleared out when Tures, her vampires and Father Antonio boarded. It was as though the local people sensed they were blood drinkers.
    Goats, crates of chickens, skinny dogs and small naked children filled the next car along with very black women wearing sarong-like dresses that did not cover their breasts, and men wearing even less. It was hard to blame them for their lack of clothing. Bryn rarely suffered from the heat, probably because of her Egyptian heritage. Quinn looked cool and calm, Fenix the same, while Brighthouse’s face was turkey-wattle red. He mopped the steady stream of sweat from his balding pate with a red handkerchief. Tomlinson and Sam were riding with the engineer in the locomotive examining the engine and watching it run. They possessed a never-ending curiosity about steam power in all its forms.
    â€œGet comfortable,” Tures said. “We have a long ride ahead of us.”
    The train trip lasted most of the night. They rolled into the newly-constructed station in Kinshasa around four in the morning. Tures hustled them out of the train and into the streets. It was dark. Nobody stirred in this river town. Suddenly, out of the sky a dark shadow appeared. Bryn’s heart pounded. For a terrible moment, she’d thought Priest in his dragon form had arrived in the town ahead of them.
    The shape landed lightly in front of Tures, and she saw it was a vampire. The vampire was a black man. When he saw them, his fangs appeared. Tures laid one long-fingered hand on the vampire’s bare chest and stopped him. “These people are with me. Take us to the ship.”
    She turned to Bryn. “This is not one of my crew members. He lives by killing so be careful and do not trust him.”
    The vampire’s evil intent radiated from him. Only Fenix seemed indifferent to it. She looked around as though she’d just stepped out of a carriage on a Parisian street. Quinn wrapped his arm around Bryn’s shoulder as they wound through the dusty alleys, between shacks and small compounds, as they slowly made their way to the river.
    Kinshasa was on the south bank of the Congo. The train station had been built close to the river. Many travelers going up river used the railway. It was considered a portage railway as it circumvented two hundred miles of rapids, waterfalls and shallow