Seven Miles Up

“Now are you asking because you’re curious or because you’re interested?”

Lumina’s face felt like it was on fire, and she could only imagine that her face was redder than her hair, which only made her feel even more embarrassed. Thankfully Corinth was sympathetic, and after informing her that he was single and had been for some time, he told her that he was willing to overlook her past mistakes and encouraged her to keep her head in the present. By the end of his brief sermon, Lumina had caught her breath and was calming down, when she noticed that Corinth’s attention had moved onto somebody else. She glanced in the direction he had and spotted the cute, well dressed asian girl at the nearby table and sighed. Men were all alike…

“So, do you go by Lumina or is that a nickname? Should I call you something different? More professional?”

“Lumina is a nickname, but it’s the name I tend to go by. If you’d prefer a more professional name, I guess you can call me Jennifer, Jen, or Miss Hawkins.” Lumina responded. She had never quite recognized herself as Jennifer, as the name had been given to her only upon joining the Templars. Instead, she felt more like Lumina, the bringer of light to dark places. But to Corinth’s point, Lumina was a weird name, and on top of her unusual hair and eye color, could make her stand out more than was ideal in situations where being non-descript would be more ideal.

Just then, she noticed a uniformed airport employee approach them. Perhaps Corinth’s gun had been noticed after all.

“Are you the Sky Marshall for the San Francisco bound plane?”

As Corinth affirmed the employee’s assessment and confirmed the followup question about meeting with the pilot. So that’s how he got permission to carry around a gun.

“Don’t be late for the plane. I would hate for you to have to go back and tell the boss you got left behind. I got you bumped to first class. Thank me later.”

He was being awfully generous Lumina mused as Corinth departed in badass fashion. It would be nice to have that kind of self confidence…

Lumina sat in silence, finished her meal, and paid for her food. The second glass of wine might have gotten her a bit buzzed, but it wasn’t like she had much to do for the next fourteen hours, or however long this flight halfway across the northern hemisphere would last.

==============================================

Boarding had gone smoothly enough. Lumina had never sat in first class before, so she was looking forward to the experience, even if she didn’t really think she deserved it. Hopefully it hadn’t been too expensive for Corinth.

She wasn’t disappointed. Lumina had all the leg room she’d need, plus desk space with a port she could plug her laptop into, and even a TV. And that looked like it might be a fold out bed! Not to mention the relative privacy! Lumina did not see Corinth himself, but assumed he was in the main cabin doing Sky Marshall duties, whatever those were.

Once the plane took off, Lumina set about going sifting through her carry-on bag. There would be no TV for her, she had too much reading to do. She pulled out a couple of occult tomes concealed behind innocuous covers of (somewhat) popular fiction such as The Dresden Files Collection, and The Great Book of Amber, and her own spell book, titled Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, which hopefully nobody would find suspicious at all.

After reviewing her own spell book for any spells she thought she might need to use in the near future, she packed it back up then looked at her other two books. The book disguised in the Dresden Files Collection was an impressive tome of nearly forgotten heretical philosophies, occult lore, and ancient magics. Unfortunately, this book had been written before people thought to write indexes, but fortunately she had had a commentary piece disguised in The Great Book of Amber with such an index along the hundreds of explanatory notes on the many arcane concepts expounded in the former work. Needless to say, the Templars would be more than pissed if these works were lost or destroyed, but given the suddenness and urgency of their mission, she had been allowed to borrow them. Looking through Amber to figure out where to find sections that mentioned ley lines (or at least references believed to be related to ley lines) in Dresden, she went to work…

Hours disappeared as Lumina puzzled over what the authors of Dresden understood of ley lines, how they found them, how drew power from them, and what the costs of doing so were among other things. As a warlock herself, Lumina was familiar with drawing arcane power from artifacts, the environment, supernatural entities, and other such things. As she read on, she found that she may have known more about ley lines than she had known, and she had only not realized that these founts of power she had found in times past were called ley lines. The different writers throughout Dresden used different terminology for similar concepts, and the terminology likely only diverged more in other texts she had read prior. What any of this had to do with the Mothman was a mystery, however. It occurred to Lumina that it might be worthwhile to reach out to Sonnac when it was safe to do so to figure out more precisely what he had learned and what he suspected that relationship was.

All of a sudden, a stewardess rapped on a nearby surface to get Lumina’s attention. “I am sorry to bother you,” the young woman began, “but we have had a medical emergency on board, and we are looking for a volunteer from First Class to give up space for the patient needing attention. You will be fully reimbursed and given a coupon for free services.”

Lumina looked around and sighed. She didn’t want to give up her space, but she knew it was the right thing to do. “Alright, fine, give me a moment to pack. Which seat will I be moving to? Oh, and this seat was paid for by the Sky Marshall, so he will be the one you should reimburse.”

“Of course Miss, thank you so much!” the stewardess gushed, handing Lumina the promised coupon and writing down a note. “You will be taking one of the seats of our unfortunate patient and her spouse, which are at the back of the plane at seats 70B or 70C.”

As the stewardess departed, Lumina packed up her bags and did a quick inventory check to make sure she had everything, then moved toward the back of the plane as instructed. At one point, had to get out of the aisle by standing over a sleeping passenger awkwardly as a gurney carrying the patient, an unconscious elderly woman, was pushed by her, followed by her anxious husband.

When Lumina got to the back of the plane, she immediately recognized the asian girl she had seen at the bar in seat 70A, looking a bit less perturbed than Lumina might have expected someone to appear after watching a person have a stroke or something right next to them, but perhaps she was just good at masking her emotions. People had different ways of dealing with trauma, she supposed. Lumina sat at the aisle seat, leaving an empty seat between them, and did her best to stuff her carry on under the seat in front of her, with only partial success. She was going to miss the legroom of First Class. Lumina thought about saying something to her new neighbor, but seeing that she had headphones on, she decided against it.

Lumina fell back into her seat and sighed. Now what was she to do to pass the time?