Blood Debt (Vicki Nelson #5)

Blood Debt (Vicki Nelson #5) Page 12

THEY were still there. Henry knew it before he opened his eyes. As the day's weight lifted off him, the certainty of their presence settled down to replace it. One of two things had to have happened; either the people who'd grabbed Celluci had evaded arrest, or there were other people involved the police investi?gation hadn't yet uncovered.

There is, of course, the third possibility. He lay si?lently listening to the lives around him, senses skim?ming past the absence of life that waited at the end of his bed. Perhaps due process wasn't good enough. They want a vengeance more evisceral and less...  Unfortunately, the only word he could think of to fin?ish the thought, was legal. Which leaves Detective Cel?luci, up until now the most involved, no part of the end result.

But he'd known from the beginning if it came to that evisceral vengeance, it would be in spite of Detec?tive Celluci. For honor's sake, he'd attempted to stay within the parameters of the law; it hadn't worked. And what about Vicki?

Even before the change she'd been willing to ac?knowledge that law and 'justice were not necessarily the same thing. While she couldn't strike the final blow, not without crossing the line Celluci had drawn in the sand, Henry doubted that she'd try and stop his hand. His lips drew off his teeth in an involuntary snarl at the thought.

Finally, because he could put it off no longer, he opened his eyes.

They stood where they had for the past six nights. Doug. The companion he'd acquired in death. And wrapped in shadows too dark for even Henry to pierce, the unseen chorus; an added emphasis from the damned.

Henry sighed. "You guys still here?"

An inferior question at best and not the one he'd intended to ask. Although the spirits clearly didn't like it, it was enough.

Celluci was not in the condo.

Vicki was as certain of that as she was of anything. Teeth bared, she glared around the darkness as though she might scare up an answer or two. Celluci knew when sunset was. If he could be here, he would. Since he wasn't, he couldn't.

And that meant someone, somewhere, was going to pay.

As she yanked on her clothes, muttering threats, a saner voice in the back of her head suggested that perhaps he'd merely been held up by the police, the long arm of the law being festooned as it was in red tape.

Fourteen hours of red tape? she asked it scornfully, rummaging around in the bottom of her duffel bag for a pair of clean socks. Not even in Canada.

And if he's just stayed late talking shop? the little voice inquired.

Then I know who's going to pay, don't I? She had a sudden vision of pinning Celluci to the bed by his ears and grinned ferally.

But she didn't for a moment believe there was such a simple explanation for Celluci's truancy. Something had gone wrong.

"I'm not saying that something hasn't gone wrong," Henry snarled. "I'm saying that charging blindly out to the rescue isn't the answer."

"Then what do you suggest?" She stormed past him, into the condo, aware of his response to the anger she'd thrown at him when he opened the door but ignoring it. His reaction to her, hers to him, territorial imperatives-they were all unimportant under the cir-cumstances. "Shall we wait around until his body shows up floating in the fucking harbor?"

Henry managed not to slam the door behind her, but only just and his success probably had more to do with the mechanism of the door than self-control. "I'm saying two things, Vicki. One, I'm not giving you my car keys and two, before we go anywhere, shouldn't we get a little more information?"

"We?" Vicki repeated leaning over the back of the couch, her fingers imprinting the green leather right next to where her fingers had gone through the green leather on that first night in Vancouver. "You had your chance to get more information at sunset, and you blew it. I am the investigator. You are the ro?mance writer. You called me for help. And I won't hurt your stupid car."

"You're not getting my stupid car, and you were willing enough to use my services in the past."

"That was before I had services of my own."

"With me, Vicki. Or not at all."

She jerked erect, eyes silvering. "Are you threaten?ing me?"

"I want to help you!" he spat through gritted teeth. Vicki stared at him in some surprise, her eyes slowly losing their silver. "Why?"

"Because we're friends." His teeth remained locked together, making the pronouncement sound less than friendly, but his hands weren't around her throat and he figured that had to count for something. "Isn't that what you kept saying? That we're friends, and there's no reason for that to change just because you've ac?quired a new lifestyle? Aren't those your exact words? This may come as a surprise to you, but I consider Michael Celluci a friend as well-at the very least, a comrade in arms." His lip curled. "And I do not de?sert my people."

As territorial imperatives went, there were things Vicki was willing to share and things she was not. By the time Henry realized his mistake and remembered that Celluci was firmly entrenched on the side of not-willing-to-share, Vicki's fingers had closed around his shoulders. Over four-and-a-half centuries of experi?ence had no chance against the intensity of her rage. A fraction of a heartbeat later, he hit the floor, her thumbs hooked to rip the arteries on both sides of his neck, her teeth bared, and her eyes blazing silver shards of pain into his.

"Michael Celluci is mine."

There was no possibility of compromise in the words and only one possible answer, for he could not let her get away with intimidation. He was older. This was his territory.

"Trust me, Vicki, he's not my type."

If a soft answer had the potential to turn away wrath, a smart-ass response saved the situation from melodrama.

Vicki blinked, loosened her grip on Henry's throat, and sat back. "I could have killed you," she growled, her tone shading from anger to embarrassment.

"No." With her hands resting on either side of his neck, he decided not to shake his head. The emphasis might end up entirely misplaced. "I think we're past that, you and I."

"Ha! So I was right. I was right, and you were wrong."

He couldn't stop the smile. She was, after all, barely three years old in the night and this was one of those times it showed. "Yes, you were right." When she stood, creating a careful distance between them, Henry rose as well. "Celluci has always been yours, Vicki," he told her softly when they were eye-to-eye again. "If you doubt that, you do him a disservice."

Had she still been mortal, she would have reddened. As it was, she backed away until her calves hit the couch. "Yeah, well, that you consider him to be one of yours will no doubt thrill him all to bits." Since she was at the couch, she sat. "So let's have a look at those news programs Tony taped. Maybe we'll get a better idea of what's going on."

Emotional self-discovery had never been one of Vicki's strong points, Henry reminded himself as he picked up the remote. The prospect of eternity had cracked the protective shell she'd worn most of her life, but there were pieces remaining that still needed to be levered free. Celluci's problem, he acknowledged thankfully and turned on the television.

A Metropolitan Toronto Police officer had not been found tied to a bed in a North Vancouver clinic.

No one had been arrested for selling kidney transplants.

Red-gold brows meeting over his nose, Henry stopped the tape. "I don't understand," he said, more to himself than to Vicki. "I sent the police out to Project Hope."

Vicki's first impulse was to suggest that age had robbed him of persuasion, but June nights were too short for her to provoke another fight merely for the sake of pissing him off. "Then they didn't find him."

"He wasn't exactly well-hidden."

"Then he wasn't there."

"If he's been moved... " Henry let the sentence trail off. Vancouver was a very large city. He shud?dered at the sudden vision of Michael Celluci spending an eternity haunting the end of his bed.

"I'll find him."

"How?"

She stood, the motion fluid and predatory. "First, we make a few discreet inquiries and find out what actually happened last night at the clinic after we left. Then... " Her eyes glittered. "... we play it by ear. Or whatever other body parts we have to tear off to get an answer."

Typical, Celluci thought, craning his head to see the IV line that had been inserted into the back of his hand. Good doctors, evil doctors-none of them ever bother to mention what the hell they're doing to you. Like you haven't any right to know what they're fuck?ing around with. "Excuse me, but it's still my body."

"Yes, it is."

Startled, he swiveled his head around to stare up at the impassive face of the doctor. Then he realized he'd spoken that last thought out loud. Although earlier attempts indicated he wouldn't accomplish much, he supposed it wouldn't hurt to try and continue the con?versation. "Then would you mind telling me just what is it you're doing?"

"Replacing fluids." She packed the bag of blood away in the small cooler.

"You know there's a limit to how much of that stuff you can take out."

Dr. Mui snapped the cooler closed and turned to go. "I know."

"So there's a lab involved in this, too, eh?"

One hand on the door, she paused and gave him much the same look he could remember receiving from his third-grade teacher-who, if he remembered correctly, had never liked him much. "Don't be ridicu?lous, Detective. The labs do the work they're sent. There's no need to involve them in the details."

Okay, no evil labs. While that bit of good news had no bearing on his present circumstance, it was encouraging in a larger sense. "What about during the operation? You're going to need an assistant-because as good as you may be you don't have three hands-and with two people under, you'll need an an?esthesiologist as well."

"What makes you think there'll be two people under, Detective? Packed in sterile ice, a kidney can safely last almost forty-eight hours after removal."

"Two separate operations would increase the risk of detection." He kept his voice level, disinterested, as though he were not going to be intimately involved in those operations. "My guess is you do them both at once. Sequentially if not simultaneously."

Dr. Mui inclined her head, acknowledging his the?ory. "Very perceptive of you, Detective. Your point?"

"I was just wondering how you keep those other people from talking."

"Why?"

Shrugging as deeply as the restraints allowed, he gave her his best let's charm the truth out of this wit?ness smile. "I haven't much else to do."

"True enough." The corners of her mouth might have curved upward a fraction, but Celluci couldn't be certain. "The other people involved know only what they must to perform their specific function, so even if they did talk, there'd be a limited amount they could say. However, as they are obviously breaking the law themselves, the odds of them talking fall within a reasonable risk. And you'd be amazed at how little it takes to convince some people to break the law."

Celluci snorted. "No, I wouldn't. But murder... "

"Who said anything about murder? They only know what they need to. Now, try to get some sleep. You're going to have a busy day tomorrow."

Tomorrow. The word lingered in the room long after the doctor had left.

"Check the IV in about an hour and give him a bowl of broth."

"Ball game'll be on in an hour," Sullivan protested, looking sulky.

Somewhat surprised at the way she'd opened up to the detective, Dr. Mui ignored him. Her world had been built from certainties, and if she hadn't believed that Sullivan would obey her implicitly, she'd have left him where she found him.

Lips pulled back off her teeth, her fingers closed around the carved handle with enough force to crack the wood, Vicki yanked open the door and stepped into the clinic.

Michael Celluci's life no longer added its familiar beat to the muted roar.

"Shit god-fucking-damn!"

"Very expressive." Entering on her heels, Henry managed to slide by without actually making physical contact. Keeping her under careful surveillance in case her anger should widen its focus, he added, "And given that the detective has apparently left the build?ing, what exactly does it mean?"

Vicki jerked her head toward the nurse's station. "It means it's a different shift and there's a different nurse on. She's not going to know squat."

"Not that the last one was particularly helpful," Henry observed quietly to himself, allowing a prudent distance before he followed Vicki across the lounge. With her attention so fixated on rescuing Celluci, the ride to the clinic had involved nothing worse than an extended snarling match-unpleasant but survivable and no worse than he'd seen Celluci live through on a daily basis. He wasn't sure whether this meant their relationship had progressed or deteriorated, but if she'd growled "old woman" at him one more time, he'd have been sorely tempted to have defined it by tossing her into traffic.

Unaware that death stood behind her, the nurse turned from the drug cabinet and found herself falling into the dark light of silver eyes. The brown glass bottle she held slipped from suddenly nerveless fingers.

Henry caught it before it hit the floor. "We were here later last night," he said as he straightened. "I can feel healthy lives mixed in with the sick. I doubt all the visitors have left yet. Do what you have to do quickly and don't attract any attention." It was the voice he'd used while teaching her to Hunt; with any luck she'd listen to it. Setting the bottle carefully on the edge of the desk, he moved to stand in the doorway.

Awareness narrowed to the life she held and the life she searched for, Vicki heard Henry's voice as part of the clinic's ambient noise, a noise all but drowned out by the cry of the Hunt ringing within her head. "Last night," she said with quiet menace, "there was a man being held in the hidden room. Where is he now?"

Confusion battled fear. "What hidden room?"

"The room at the back of the building."

"You mean the old laundry? There was no one in there."

The menace grew. "He was there."

Caught between what she knew to be true and the truth she saw in the silver eyes, the nurse whimpered low in her throat.

"He was there!" Vicki repeated. The Hunger rose. Her fingers closed around a white-clad shoulder and soft flesh compacted under her grip. "Where is he now?"

"I don't know." Tears trickled down cheeks blanched of color, and the words barely made it past trembling lips.

"Tell me!"

"I don't ..." A strangled sob broke the protest in half. "... want to die."

The staccato pounding of the nurse's heart, the panicked racing of her blood, made it difficult to think. The Hunger, barely held in check, urged Vicki to take the fear and make it hers. To rend. To tear. To feed. She took a half step forward, head slightly back, nos?trils flared to drink in the warm, meaty scent of life seasoned with terror. After the exhilarating experience in the warehouse, it would be so easy to let go.

"Do what you have to do quickly ..."

Yes.

"Those of our kind who learn to control the Hunger, have eternity before them. Those the Hunger controls are quickly hunted down and put to death."

Henry's words again, but a deeper memory, an older lesson.

Nothing controls me.

If "Victory" Nelson lived by any maxim, that was it.

She released the nurse so quickly the woman swayed and would have fallen had she not taken another, less threatening hold. "You have not seen us and you will not see us while we are here."

"I will not see you," the nurse repeated almost prayerfully. "I will not see you." This time when Vicki let her go, she staggered sideways and collapsed into a chair. A heartbeat later, she was alone in the room, certain she'd always been alone, staring at the brown glass bottle in her hand and wondering if it was possi?ble to dream, to nightmare, while awake.

"I almost killed her." The Hunger raged against its restraints and Vicki determinedly ignored the almost painful feeling that she'd left something important unfinished.

"I know."

"Then why didn't you try to stop me?"

"I didn't need to, did I?" Henry glanced over her shoulder as she flipped through the communication book she'd taken from the nurse's station. They were standing in the hall next to the operating room; safely far enough away from everyone else in the building. "I had to trust what I'd taught you, or there wasn't much point in teaching it."

She twisted around far enough to see his face, "You ought to lay off the reruns of Kung Fu, Henry. You're sounding like a pompous ass-and I'm telling you this for your own good because we're friends." Before he could respond, before he'd figured out what to re?spond, she added, "Maybe you should've trusted your teaching all along."

"All along?"

Her lip curled. "All along-from the moment I ar?rived in Vancouver."

"If you remember, I taught you we couldn't share a territory."

"Which just proves what you know," she announced triumphantly and turned her attention back to the communication book. "Ah. Here it is." She tapped an entry with one finger. "5:09 A.M., two cops show up, so does a Dr. Mui-apparently one of her patients was dying-she shows the cops around, they leave. They must've moved him before the cops arrived. Son of a bitch."

"I don't see how... "

"Does it matter? Come on." She tossed the book into the operating room-let them wonder-and started down the hall. "I doubt there's a forwarding address, but they might've left something in that room we can use."

Nothing, except the lingering scent of three men and a woman.

Vicki stood by the empty bed, forcing herself to recognize other lives but Mike Celluci's. "Dr. Mui."

Henry frowned, recognizing Death beneath the re?cent patina of life. "What about her?"

"She's in on it. This... " Vicki waved a hand in the air, scooping it toward her nose. "This is the woman who gave Celluci that shot."

"Are you sure?"

"Trust me. I make it a point to remember the other women he smells like."

I suspect I owe the detective an apology, Henry mused as he stepped back out of Vicki's way. He was definitely better acquainted with territorial imperatives than I assumed. "Now where?"

"Dr. Mui's office."

"... and he's safe at second! Can you believe that speed. From anyone else in this game that would've been a single!"

His attention on the television in the other room, Sullivan crumpled the empty saline bag and shoved the IV stand aside. It hung, suspended for an instant at forty-five degrees and then crashed to the floor, the noise all but drowning out the enthusiasm of the sportscaster.

Kicking the stainless steel pieces out of his way, Sullivan stomped out of the room and cranked up the volume until the sound began to distort.

"What are you looking so happy about," he snarled as he returned to the bed. "You an Oakland fan?"

"Not likely." Unaware that he'd been looking any?thing but pained-the needle had been roughly yanked from the back of his hand and the bandage applied with bruising pressure-Celluci winced as the crowd at the Kingdome responded to a double play and the television speakers squealed.

"Then what?" Sullivan's eyes narrowed as a second of silence led into a commercial, the sales pitch almost deafening in comparison. Grumbling under his breath, he went back to the TV and turned the volume down. "You thought someone'd notice that, didn't you? Maybe complain about the noise." Callused fingers closed on the end of Celluci's nose and twisted. Carti?lage cracked. "Don't ever think I'm stupid."

Blinking away involuntary tears, Celluci snorted, "Hadn't occurred to me." If truth be told, nothing much had occurred to him for most of the evening. It might've been the blood loss, it might've been the residual effect of the sedatives but coherent thought took more effort than he seemed capable of.

"So why're you smilin', shit for brains?"

Except that he had to make the effort and he only had one source of information. If nothing else, he needed to find out more about his jailer. Celluci jerked his head toward the bowl of broth on the bedside table. "The doctor says you've got to feed me."

Deceptively gentle eyes narrowed. "Yeah, so?"

"You're either going to have to turn up the TV and risk attracting attention, or miss the game. Either way, I win."

"Maybe I just won't feed you."

"And make the doctor angry?"

That was clearly not going to happen. The bowl all but dwarfed in the curve of a huge hand, Sullivan grinned unpleasantly. "Open your mouth or I'll open it for you."

Confronted with violent death day after day, police officers coped by either ignoring the inevitability of their own death or by thinking about it so constantly it lost its mystery and became a part of life, like breathing. Choking on broth, Celluci realized he'd never considered drowning in consomme as a serious possibility.

He was still coughing and gasping for breath when Sullivan left the room, snarling, "You can piss later," as he slammed the door.

Struggling to keep from vomiting-if he didn't choke on it and die, he'd have to lie in it, and the second option thrilled him as little as the first-he gradually regained control of his body. Panting, each breath a little deeper than the last, he swallowed hard to discourage one last spasm of gagging.

When it was all over, he lay limp and exhausted, feeling like he'd just gone ten rounds with Mike Tyson. But he had a better idea of Sullivan's temperament.

And he had a plan.

Of sorts.

"Find anything?"

"Vicki, I'm a writer. I turn on my computer, I play a few games of solitaire, I answer my E-mail, and I write. Anything more complicated, I don't worry about." Frowning at the screen, Henry tapped his nails gently against the edge of the keyboard. "This is more complicated."

Vicki glanced up from an aggressive search of the filing cabinet and peered across the room at the moni?tor. "Looks like point and click to me," she growled.

"The whole thing's encrypted. I can't access any?thing without Dr. Mui's password."

"I don't see why the paranoid bitch can't keep a rolodex like everyone else," Vicki snarled, slamming shut one drawer and opening another. All she wanted were a couple of addresses, preferably one marked this is where we're keeping Michael Celluci, but failing that she'd settle for this is where the people in charge live and you can rip the location of Michael Celluci out of them.

With Vicki's anger beating against him in heated waves, Henry decided it would be safest not to re?spond-besides, she had a point, a rolodex would've been much simpler. I can't believe we're doing this. But it wasn't breaking into Dr. Mui's office that he was having difficulty with.

As much as he shared Vicki's concern over the de?tective's safety, he found himself continually distracted by the circumstances. They were working together. Not, certainly, as they had before the change, but co?operating in close contact nevertheless. It was such an amazing experience that he desperately wanted to tell someone about it. Unfortunately, only two people could fully appreciate the ramifications-Vicki wasn't interested, and there wasn't much satisfaction in talk?ing to himself.

"There's nothing in this thing but patients' records. You getting anywhere?"

He dragged his attention back to the task at hand. "Dr. Mui has a modem-could she get into those other systems from here?"

"Back in Toronto, I could make six phone calls and get half a dozen people who could do it in their sleep. So the short answer is yes, but that doesn't help us ... Ha!" Straightening, Vicki lifted a file folder out of the bottom drawer. "At least the government's still supporting the pulp and paper industry. According to the BC Department of Motor Vehicles, the good doc?tor just bought a new car. Must be nice." Her voice trailed off as she flipped through the legal documents. A few moments later, she shook her head and glanced up at Henry. "Did you know you two are neighbors?"

She jerked toward him as he snatched the file from her hands but kept herself from snatching it back.

"No, she's in the other tower, phase two. It just went on the market this spring, and it's pricey." Al?though it twisted muscles into knots, he managed to stop himself from grabbing Vicki's arm as she started toward the door. This wasn't the time to test the limits of their new boundaries. "Where are you going?"

"We know where Dr. Mui is. Dr. Mui knows where Celluci is." There were now three points of light in the office, the monitor and Vicki's eyes. "He might even be in that condo. We might've spent the day a hundred feet from him."

"I doubt it. The selling point for these units is the security system. They've got full video coverage. It would be far too dangerous for her to take him there."

Her fingers dimpled the back of the chair. Metal creaked. "She's still going to know where he is!"

"She's probably with him." He didn't need to say why. Glancing back down at the paperwork, Henry frowned. "She bought the unit from Swanson Realty."

"Swanson? His name just keeps coming up," Vicki snarled. "On that cable show, regarding transplants, donated computers to street clinics, here ..."

They got the idea at the same time, but Vicki made it to the keyboard first.

His name did, indeed, keep coming up, and it got them into Dr. Mui's system.

"What are you looking for?"

"Swanson's home address." It came out sounding like a threat. "He's not going to be at the scene; he's no doctor, there's no need. The puppet master stays in the background pulling the strings." The need to rescue Celluci fought with curiosity as she raced deeper into the files; this would be her only chance to gather information, and she couldn't just walk away from it.

Dr. Mui had extensive E-mail archives, neatly cate?gorized and most of them going to financial institu?tions.

"Swiss bank accounts," Henry hazarded.

"Among other things not quite so old-fashioned. The doctor appears to be sending a great deal of money into off-shore tax shelters."

"Doctors make a great deal of money."

"Yeah, well this is considerably more than you can explain by extra-billing even in BC-and there's still the car and the condo. I'd say we can safely assume Swanson's bought her and that she didn't go cheap. He must be charging a fucking fortune for those kid?neys in order to make a profit on it."

"What price life?" Henry asked her quietly.

Vicki turned and met his gaze. After a heartbeat, after the slow, languorous beat of an immortal heart within a body that would never see the day again, she nodded. "Good point."

For a moment, Henry thought they might be able to touch, without blood, without passion, in friendship. The moment passed, but the feeling lingered. "Let's not forget that Swanson can reinvest the money he offers to his donors."

"Another good point." Lips pressed into a thin, white line.

Vicki -shut down the system. "Now we know where he is, let's go.... "

They heard the life approaching the office in the same instant. Leather soles slapped against tile, com?ing closer, cutting off their escape.

"What about heaving the desk through the window?"

Henry shook his head. "It'd attract too much atten?tion. They'd see us leave and trace the plates, so we'd do it only if we wanted to abandon the car, and we don't."

The office door opened into the hall. Vicki moved to the right and waved Henry to the left.

Sensitive eyes turned away from the fluorescent glare streaming in from the hall, Vicki grabbed the hand that reached in for the light switch and yanked the stranger into the room.

Henry closed the door.

Dr. Wallace believed there was very little he hadn't seen. He'd joined the Navy at seventeen, gone to Korea, came home in one piece unlike so many others, gone to university on his military benefits, spent time in Africa with the flying doctors, and finally settled into a comfortable family practice in North Vancou?ver. He'd seen death arrive without warning, and he'd seen death settle in for a long, intimate final journey, but he'd never seen it wear the face that bent over him in Dr. Mui's office.

The diffuse illumination from the parking lot de?fined only shadow features around a pair of silvered eyes. Cold silver, like polished metal or moonlight, and they drew him in to depths much darker than logic insisted they should have been.

He'd always hoped he'd face death calmly when it finally came for him, but now he realized that given any encouragement at all, he'd do whatever he had to to stay alive.

"What do you know about Ronald Swanson?"

Not what he'd expected. Too mundane, too human.

"Did you hear me?"

No mistaking the danger. "He's rich, very rich, but he's willing to spend money on causes he considers worthy." Maintaining a clinical detachment, a lectur?ing tone, helped keep the panic from ripping free. "After his wife died of kidney failure, he began sup-porting transplant programs. He buys them advertis?ing, pays for educational programs-many doctors haven't a clue of how to deal with the whole donor issue. Swanson paid for this hospice."

"That's it?"

Impossible not to tell more even if there was noth?ing more to tell. "I don't actually know him. Dr. Mui... "

"What about Dr. Mui?"

Wallace had a sudden vision of companions thrown to the wolves to lighten the sleigh in a wild race to safety. "Swanson handpicked her to run this place. Before that she was a transplant surgeon, a good one, too, but there was an allegation of carelessness. It turned out to be completely unfounded. Hardly any?one even heard about it outside the hospital."

"Would Swanson have heard?"

"I don't know, but it happened around the same time his wife died." Had his heartbeat always been that loud? That fast? It shouldn't be that fast. A drib?ble of sweat rolled into one eye and burned. "It might have been why he offered her this job."

"An unjust accusation turned her against the medi?cal establishment."

"I wouldn't go so far as to say that." He was bab?bling now; he knew it, but he couldn't stop. "Dr. Mui told me, that is, we spoke after one of my patients came here-that's why I'm here tonight, to check on a patient-that she wanted to work more with people and less with hospital administrators and their legal bully boys. Hello?"

The eyes were gone, the darkness lifted, and he was sitting alone in an empty office, talking to himself. It was over. Best not think too long or too hard on what it had been. He was alive. He wiped damp palms on his thighs, stood, and walked quickly to the light switch by the door.

The room was full of shadows. The shadows, in turn, were full. He suspected they'd never be empty again.

"You handled that very well."

"Don't patronize me, Henry."

"I wasn't." He shifted the BMW into reverse and backed carefully out of the parking spot. The last thing he wanted was to attract attention, license plates could be traced. "You gave him nothing to remember but fear. I was impressed."

"Impressed?"

"Try to remember that you're still very young to this life. You show a remarkable aptitude."

Vicki snorted. "Now you're patronizing me."

"I was trying to compliment you."

"Do vampires do that? Compliment other vam?pires? It's not against the rules?"

Henry turned the car onto Mt. Seymour and sped up, swinging almost immediately into the passing lane and around two trucks in a maneuver a mortal would not have been able to complete. "I know you fight with Michael Celluci to relieve tension," he growled through clenched teeth. "I understand that. But I'm not him, and if you pick a fight with me, you'll find the results are regrettably different-surely it's become apparent that neither of us will be able to stop a disagreement from escalating beyond mere words."

"I can control myself."

"Vicki!"

"Sorry." She strained against the limit of the seat belt, one hand on the dash, the other clenching and unclenching in her lap, her eyes locked on the road between the twin blurs of streetlights. "Jesus H. Christ, Henry, can't you go any faster?"

He had a sudden memory of the guilty relief he'd felt when she'd finally returned to Toronto after her year of learning to live a new and alien life. When she left this time, he strongly suspected there'd be no guilt mixed in with the relief.

That is, if they found Michael Celluci alive.