Blood Price (Vicki Nelson #1)

Blood Price (Vicki Nelson #1) Page 9

"And repeating our top story, the strange deaths in the Toronto area continue with the seventh body, found early this morning by police on Foxrun Avenue, just south of the Oakdale Golf and Country Club. Homicide investigators at the site have confirmed only that death occurred after a violent blow to the throat and will not say if this victim had also been drained of blood. Police are withholding the victim's name pending notification of the next of kin.

"Weather for southern Ontario will be colder than the seasonal norm and... "

Vicki stretched out an arm and switched off the radio then lay for a moment on the weight bench, listening to the sounds of the city, convincing herself that the rumble of a distant truck was not the tread of a thousand clawed feet and that a high-pitched keening to the east was only a siren.

"So far, no demonic hordes." She reached down and pressed her palm against the parquet floor. "Touch wood." It looked like she still had time to find the bastard dealing out these deaths and break every bone in...

Cutting off the thought, she stood and went into the living room where she'd taped the map of the city to the wall. Vengeance was all very well, but dwelling on it obscured the more pressing problem: finding the scum.

The first six deaths had occurred on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights, a week apart. This Thursday night killing broke the pattern. Squinting at the map, Vicki circled Foxrun Avenue. She had no idea how this fit geographically or if it fit geographically or if it broke that pattern to pieces as well.

She pushed her glasses up her nose and forced her teeth to unclench.

Henry could play connect the dots this evening when he woke; she had other leads to follow.

If Henry was right, and the person calling the demon was receiving stolen goods for each life, those goods had to have been reported missing. Find the goods, find the demon-caller. Find the demon-caller, stop the killing. It was all very simple; she only had to check every occurrence report in the city for the last three weeks and pull out unusual and unexplained thefts.

"Which," she sighed, "should only take me about two years." And at that, two years of searching was infinitely better than another second sitting on her ass, helpless. Trouble was, with eighteen divisions in Metro, where did she start?

She tapped the map with her pencil. The morning reports at 31 .Division would have details on the death the radio hadn't released. Details Henry might need to pin down the next site, the next killing. Also, the two lines from the previous six deaths intersected in 31 Division. That might be meaningless now, but it was still a place to begin.

Clutching the bag containing the four doughnuts-two strawberry jelly and two chocolate glazed-in one hand and the bag with the accompanying coffees in the other, Vicki lowered her head and rounded the corner onto Nor-finch Drive. With the York-Finch hospital at her back, nothing stood between her and a vicious northwest wind but the police station and a few square miles of industrial wasteland. Squat and solid, 31 Division made a lousy windbreak.

A patrol car rolled out of the station parking lot as she approached and she paused to watch it turn east on Finch Avenue. At 9:20 on Good Friday morning, traffic was sparse and it would be easy to get the mistaken impression that the city had taken this opportunity-a religious holiday observed by only about a third of its population to sleep in. The city, as Vicki well knew, never did anything that restful. If traffic complaints were down, then domestic complaints would be up as loving families spent the entire day together. And in the Jane-Finch corridor, the direction the car had been heading, where there were few jobs to take a holiday from and tempers teetered on the edge on the best of days...

Back when she was in uniform, she'd spent almost a year working out of 31. Remembering certain highlights as she continued toward the station, she found she didn't miss police work at all.

"Well, if it isn't "Victory" Nelson, gone but not forgotten. What brings you out to the ass-end of the city?"

"Just the thought of seeing your smiling face, Jimmy." Vicki set the two bags on the counter and pushed her glasses up her nose with frozen fingers. "It's spring and, like the swallows, I'm returning to Capistrano. Is the Sarge around?"

"Yeah, he's in the ... "

"None of her damned business what he's in!" The bellow would have shaken a less solidly constructed building and following close behind it, Staff-Sergeant Stanley Il-john rolled into the duty area, past Jimmy, and up to the counter. "You said you'd be here by nine," he accused. "You're late."                                                                

Silently, Vicki held up the bag of doughnuts.

"Bribes," the sergeant snorted, the ends of his beautifully curled mustache quivering with the force of the exhalation. "Well, stop standing around with your thumb up your ass. Get in here and sit. And you," he glared down at Jimmy, "get back to work."

Jimmy, who was working, grinned and ignored him. Vicki did as she was told, and as Sergeant Iljohn settled himself at the duty sergeant's desk, she pulled up a chair and sat across from him.

A few moments later, the sergeant meticulously brushed a spray of powdered sugar off his starched shirt front. "Now then, you know and I know that allowing you to read the occurrence reports is strictly against department regs."

"Yes, Sarge." If anyone else had been on duty, she probably wouldn't have been able to manage it without pulling in favors from higher up.

"And we both know that you're blatantly trading on the reputation you built as a hotshot miracle worker to get around those regs."

"Yes, Sarge." Iljohn had been the first to recommend her for an advanced promotion and had seen her arrest record as proof of his assessment. When she'd left the force, he'd called her, grilled her on her plans, and practically commanded her to make something of her life. He hadn't exactly been supportive, but his brusque goodwill had been something to lean on when Mike Celluci had accused her of running away.

"And if I catch shit over this, I'm going to tell them you used the unarmed combat you private investigators are supposed to be so damned good at to overpower me and you read the reports over my bleeding body."

"Should I slap you around a little?" Although he stood barely over minimum height for the force, rumor had it that Stanley Iljohn had never lost a fight. With anything.

"Don't be a smart ass."

"Sorry, Sarge."

He tapped one square finger against the clipboard lying on his desk and his face grew solemn. "Do you really think you can do something about this?" he asked.

Vicki nodded. "Right now," she told him levelly, "I have a better chance than anyone in the city."

Iljohn stared at her for a long moment. "I can draw lines on a map, too," he said at last. "And when you line up the first six deaths, x marks the spot just north of here. Every cop at this station is watching for something strange, something that'll mark the killer, and you can bet these reports," a short, choppy wave indicated the occurrence reports of the last couple of weeks which were hanging on the wall by the desk, "have been gone through with several fine toothed combs. Gone through by everyone here and by the boys and girls from your old playground."

"But not by me."

He nodded acknowledgment. "Not by you." His palm slapped down on the papers on his desk. "This last death, this was in my territory and I'm taking it personally. If you know something you're not telling, spit it out now."

There's a demon writing a name in blood across the city. If we don't stop it, it will be only the beginning.

How do you know?

A vampire told me.

She looked him right in the eye, and lied.

"Everything I know, I've told Mike Celluci. He's in charge of the case. I just think it'll help if I look myself."

Iljohn's eyes narrowed. She could tell he didn't believe her. Not completely.

Slowly, after a moment that stretched into all the time they'd ever worked together, he pushed the clipboard across the desk. "I want this to be the last death," he growled.

Not as much as I do, Vicki thought.

How many deaths in a demon's name?

She bent her head to read.

"Victims one and seven were both students at York University. Not much of a connection to base an investigation on."

Celluci sighed. "Vicki, at this point I'd base an investigation on ties a lot more tenuous. Did you call to give me a hard time or did you have something constructive to say?"

Vicki twisted the phone cord around her fingers. Late in the afternoon, arriving at 52 Division, her search had actually turned something up. One of the uniforms corning in off shift change had overheard her talking to the duty sergeant about unusual cases and had filled her in on one he'd taken the call for. Trouble was, she couldn't figure out how to present the information to Celluci. "So you'll be concentrating the search at York?" she asked instead.

He sighed again. "Yeah. For now. Why?"

She took a deep breath. There really wasn't an easy way to do this. "Don't ask me how I know, because you wouldn't believe me, but there's a very good chance the person you're looking for will be wearing a black leather jacket. A nine hundred dollar black leather jacket."

"Jesus Christ, Vicki! It's a university. Half the fucking people there will be in black leather jackets."

"Not like this one. I've got a full description for you."

"And where did you get it? Out of a fortune cookie?"

Vicki opened her mouth then closed it again. This was just too complicated. "I can't tell you," she said at last. "I'd be compromising my sources."

"You hold back information on me, Vicki, and I'll compromise sources you never knew you had!"

"Listen, asshole, you can choose to believe me or not, but don't you dare threaten me!" She spit out the description of the jacket and slammed the receiver down. All right. She'd done her duty by telling the police what she knew. Fine. They could act on it or not. And Mike Celluci could go straight to hell.

Except that was what she was desperately trying to prevent.

Grinding her teeth in frustration, she kicked a kitchen chair into the living room and, panting slightly, stood looking down at the twisted piece of furniture.

"Life used to be a lot simpler," she told it, sighed, and went back to the phone. York University was the only connection they had and Coreen Fergus was a student there. She probably wouldn't be able to help-Celluci was right, the irritating s.o.b., finding one leather jacket on campus would be like finding one honest politician- but it certainly couldn't hurt to check.

"Coreen Fergus, please."

"I'm sorry, but Coreen's not in right now. Can I take a message?"

"Do you know when she'll be back?"

"'Fraid not. She left this morning to stay with friends for a few days."

"Is she all right?" If that child had gotten herself hurt going up to some strange man's apartment...

"Well, she's a little shook; she was like really good friends with the girl whose body they found last night."

Bad enough, coming so soon after Ian, but thank God that was all it was. "When she comes home, could you tell her Vicki Nelson called?"

"Sure thing. That all?"

"That's all."

And that was all, unless Henry had come up with something concrete.

"This one, this one, or this one." Henry looked from the map to the page of symbols.

"Can you find the next point in the pattern?" Vicki bent over the table, as far away as possible from the grimoire. She hesitated to say the ancient book exuded an aura of evil-that sounded so horror novel clich¨¦-but she noticed that even Henry touched it as infrequently as possible.

Henry, busy with protractor and ruler, laughed humorlessly. "The next three points in three possible patterns," he pointed out.

"Great." Vicki straightened and shoved her glasses up her nose. "More complications. Where do we do first?"

"Where do I go first," Henry corrected absently. He straightened as well, rubbing his temples. The bright light that Vicki seemed to need to function was giving him a headache. "It had better be this area here' He tapped the map just east of the Humber River between Lawrence and Eglinton Avenues. "This pattern continues the least complicated of the three. Theoretically, it will be the first finished."

"Theoretically?"

Henry shrugged. "This is demon lore. There aren't any cut and dried answers. Experts in the field tend to die young."

Vicki took a deep breath and let it out slowly. There were never any cut and dried answers. She should know that by now. "So you've never actually done this sort of thing before."

"Not actually, no. 'This sort of thing' doesn't happen very often."

"Then if you don't mind my asking," she flicked a finger at the grimoire, still carefully keeping her distance, "why do you own one of these?"

Henry looked down at the book although Vicki could tell from his expression he wasn't really seeing it. "I took it from a madman," he said harshly. "And I don't wish to speak of it now."

"All right." Vicki fought the urge to back away from the raw anger in Henry's voice. "You don't have to. It's okay."

With an effort, he put the memory aside and managed what he hoped was a conciliatory smile. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to frighten you."

She stiffened. "You didn't."

The smile grew more genuine. "Good."

Well aware she was being humored, Vicki cleared her throat and changed the subject. "You said the other night we had no way of knowing if these were all the demonic names."

"That's right." He'd been trying not to think of that.

"So these deaths might be spelling out a name that's not in the book."

"Right again."

"Shit." Arms wrapped around herself, Vicki walked over to the window and rested her forehead against the cool glass. The points of light below, all she could see of the city, looked cold and mocking. A thousand demonic eyes in the darkness. "What are we supposed to do about it?"

"Exactly what we are doing." it could have been a rhetorical question, but sometimes Henry felt even they needed answering and he wanted to give her what comfort he could. "And we hope and we pray and we don't give up."

Vicki's head rose and she turned to face him. "I never give up," she said testily.

He smiled. "I never thought you did."

He really does have a phenomenal smile, Vicki thought, appreciating the way his eyes crinkled at the corners. She felt her own lips begin to curl in answer and gave herself a mental shake, forcing her face to give no indication of a sudden strong wave of desire. Four hundred and fifty years of practice, a body in its mid-twenties, supernatural prowess...

Henry heard her heart speed up and his sensitive nose caught a new scent. He hadn't fed for forty-eight hours and he would need to soon. If she wants me, it would be foolish to deny her.... Having long since outgrown the need to prove himself by forcing the issue-he knew he could take what he wanted-he would allow her to make the first move. And what of vows to stay uninvolved until after the demon has been dealt with? Well, some vows were made to be broken.

Her heartbeat began to slow and, while he applauded her control, he didn't bother to hide his disappointment.

"So." The word caught and Vicki cleared her throat. This is ridiculous. I'm thirty-one years old. I'm not seventeen. "I learned a few things up at 31 Division that might have some bearing on the case."

"Oh?" Henry raised a red-gold brow and perched on the edge of the table.

Vicki, who would have given her front teeth to be able to raise a single brow without her entire forehead getting involved, frowned at the picture he made. To give him credit, she didn't think he was aware of how the light from the chandelier burnished his hair, and how the position stretched the brown corduroy pants he wore tight over muscular thighs. With an effort, she got her mind back on track. This was not the time for that sort of thing; whatever sort of thing it might end up to be later on. "Several people, mostly employees of the local MacDonald's, reported a foul smell lingering around the parking lot at the Jane-Finch Mall. Sulfur and rotting meat. The gas company sent someone around, but they found no leaks."

"The demon?" Henry bent over the map, trying to ignore his growing hunger. It was difficult with her so close and physically, at least, so willing. "But the body was found... "

"There's more. Someone reported a bear running along the shoulder of Jane Street. The police didn't bother investigating because the caller said he'd only caught a glimpse of it as it passed his car doing about a hundred kilometers an hour."

"The demon." This time it wasn't a question.

Vicki nodded. "Odds are good." She returned to the table and the map. "My best guess is that it picked up the body here and carried it over here to kill it. Why? There had to be people closer."

"Perhaps this time it was told who to kill."

"I was afraid you were going to say that."

"It's the only logical answer," Henry said, standing. "But look at the bright side."

"There is no bright side," Vicki snarled. She'd finished her day with the coroner's report.

"At the risk of sounding like a Pollyanna," Henry told her dryly, "there's always a bright side. Or at least a side that's less dark. If the demon was instructed to kill this young woman, perhaps the police can find the link between her and its master."

"And if it was just indulging in demonic perversity?"

"Then we're no farther behind than we were. Now, if you'll excuse me, with the timetable shattered, I'd better get out to the Humber in case the demon is recalled tonight."

At the door, Vicki stopped, a sudden horrific thought bleaching the color from her face. "What's stopping this thing from showing up inside someone's house? Where you can't see it? Where you can't stop it?"

"Demons," Henry told her, smiling reassuringly as he secured the belt of his trenchcoat, "are unable to enter a mortal's home unless expressly invited."

"I thought that referred to vampires?"

With one hand in the small of her back, Henry moved her firmly out into the hall. "Mr. Stoker," he said, as he locked the door to the condo, "was indulging in wishful thinking."

Henry leaned against the cemetery fence and looked out over the small collection of quiet graves. They were old stone slabs for the most part, a uniform size and a uniform age. The few marble monuments looked pretentious and out of place.

To the west, the cemetery butted against the Humber River park system, and the muttering of the swollen river filled the night with sound. To the north lay residential areas. To the east and south, vacant and. He wondered if the cemetery had something to do with the lack of development. Even in an age of science, the dead were often considered bad neighbors. Henry couldn't understand why; the dead never played Twisted Sister at 130 decibels at three in the morning.

He could feel, not the pattern, but the anticipation of it. A current of evil waiting for its chance, waiting for the final death that would anchor it to the world. This feeling, which raised the hair on the back of his neck and made him snarl, was strong enough to convince him that he'd chosen correctly. This name would be the first to finish; this demon lord the first to break free of the darkness and begin the slaughter.

He must stop the lesser demon in the few seconds between its appearance and the killing blow, for once the blood struck the ground he'd have its demonic master to contend with. Unfortunately, the pattern allowed for a wider area than he could watch all at once, so he'd done the only thing he could-walking a pentagram well outside the boundaries the pattern demanded, leaving the last six inches unclosed. When the demon entered, to attack a life within it or carrying a life in from outside, he'd close it. Such an ephemeral prison wouldn't last more than a few seconds but should give him control long enough to get to the demon and ...

"... and stop it." Henry sighed and turned up the collar of his coat. "Temporarily." Trouble was, the lesser demons were pretty much interchangeable. If he stopped this one, there was nothing stopping its "master" from calling up another. Fortunately, these demons, like most bullies, weren't fond of pain and he might be able to convince it to talk.

"If it can talk." He shoved his hands in his pockets and sagged against the fence. Rumor had it that not all of them could.

There was an added complication he hadn't mentioned to Vicki because he knew she'd scoff. Tonight, all over the world, millions of people were crying that Christ was dead. This century might have lost its ability to see the power in believing, but Henry hadn't. Most religions had marked a day of darkness on the calendar and, given the spread of the Christian church, this was among the most potent. If the demon returned before Christ rose again, it would be stronger, more dangerous, harder to stop.

He checked his watch. 11:40. Bound by centuries of tradition, the demon would be called-if it was called at all tonight-at midnight. According to Vicki, all the previous deaths had occurred between midnight and one o'clock. He wondered how the police had missed such an obvious clue.

The wind snapped his coat around his knees and lifted bright strands of his hair. Like all large predators, he could remain motionless for as long as the hunt required, senses straining for the first sight or sound or scent of prey.

Midnight passed.

Henry felt the heart of darkness go by and the current of evil strengthened momentarily. He tensed. He would have to move between one heartbeat and the next.

Then the current began to fade.

When it had sighed away to a mere possibility, Henry checked his watch again. 1:20. For tonight, for whatever reason, the danger was past.

Relief caused him to sag against the fence, grinning foolishly. He hadn't been looking forward to the battle. He was grateful for the reprieve. He'd head back downtown, maybe drop in on Caroline, get something to eat, spend the hours until sunrise not worrying about being ripped to pieces by the hordes of hell.

"Peaceful, isn't it?"

The white-haired man never knew how close he came to dying. Only the returning surge of the pattern, sensing death, stopped Henry's strike. He forced his lips back over his teeth and shoved his trembling hands in his pockets.

"Did I frighten you?"

"No." The night hid the hunter while Henry struggled to resecure his civilized mask. "Startled me, that's all." The wind from the river had kept him from scenting the blood and the sound of the water had muffled the approach of crepe soled shoes. It was excusable that he'd been taken by surprise. It was also embarrassing.

"You don't live around here?"

"No." As he came closer, Henry revised his original impression of the man's age. No more than fifty, and a trim, athletic fifty at that, with the weathered look of a man who worked outside.

"I thought not, I'd have remembered you." His eyes were pale blue and just beyond the edge of a gray down jacket, a vein pulsed under tanned skin. "I often walk at night when I can't sleep."

Hands hanging loose beside his faded jeans, he waited for Henry's explanation. Ridged knuckles testified to past fights and somehow Henry doubted he'd lost many of them.

"I was waiting for someone." Remaining adrenaline kept him terse although amusement had begun to wash it away. "He didn't show." He answered the older man's slow smile with one of his own, captured the pale blue gaze, and held it. Leading him into the shadows of the cemetery, allowing his hunger to rise, he considered this ending to the few last hours and, stifling slightly hysterical laughter, Henry realized there was truth in something he'd always believed; The world is not only stranger than you imagine, it's stranger than you can imagine-a vampire, waiting for a demon, gets cruised in a graveyard. Sometimes I love this century.

"Detective? I mean, Ms. Nelson?" The young constable blushed at his mistake and cleared his throat. "The, uh, sergeant says you might want to hear about the call I had this morning."

Vicki glanced up from the stack of occurrence reports and pushed her glasses up her nose. She wondered when they'd started allowing children to join the force. Or when twenty had started looking so damned young.

Standing a little straighter, the constable began to read from his notes. "At 8:02 this morning, Saturday, 23rd of March, a Mr. John Rose of 42 Birchmont Avenue reported an item missing from his gun collection. Said collection, including the missing item, was kept in a locked case behind a false wall in Mr. Rose's basement. Neither the wall nor the lock appeared to have been tampered with and Mr. Rose swore that only he and his wife knew the combination. The house itself showed no signs of forced entry. All papers and permits appeared to be in order and ..."

"Constable?"

"Yes, ma'am?"

"What item was Mr. Rose missing?"

"Ma'am?"

Vicki sighed. She'd had a sleepless night and a long day. "What kind of gun?"

"Oh." The constable blushed again and peered down at his handwriting. "The, uh, missing item was a Russian assault rifle, an AK-47. With ammunition. Ma'am."

"Shit!"

"Yes, ma'am."

"I don't believe it!" Norman kicked the newspaper box, the toe of his running shoe thudding into the metal with a very satisfactory boom. He'd stopped to read the front page story about the seventh victim and discovered that the stupid demon had killed the wrong girl. What was worse, it had killed the wrong girl Thursday night and here it was Saturday before he found out.

Coreen had been walking around alive for two extra days!

The throbbing, which had not disappeared with the demon as it always had before, grew louder.

He dug his change purse out of his pants' pocket, muttering, "A decent country would have a decent information service." If he'd known about this yesterday, he'd have called the demon back last night instead of spending the time on the net, looking for someone who could tell him how to operate his new equalizer. Too bad I couldn't take that to class. They'd all notice me then. What really made him angry was that the demon had come back on Thursday and then gone off and gotten him the rifle without ever letting on it had screwed up.

When he saw a Saturday paper cost a dollar twenty-five, he almost changed his mind, but the story was about him, in a way, so, grumbling, he fed coins into the slot. Besides, he needed to know what the demon had done so he could find a way to punish it tonight. As long as he had it trapped in the pentagram, there must be something he could do to hurt it.

Paper tucked under his arm-he'd have taken two, but a single weekend edition was bulky enough on its own-he continued into the small corner store for a bag of briquettes. He had only one left and he needed three for the ritual.

Unfortunately, he was seventy-six cents short.

"What!"

"The charcoal is three dollars and fifty-nine cents plus twenty-five cents tax which is coming to three dollars and eighty-four cents. You have only three dollars and eight cents."

"Look, I'll owe it to you."

The old woman shook her head. "Sorry, no credit."

Norman's eyes narrowed. "I was born in this country. I've got rights." He reached for the bag, but she swept it back behind the counter.

"No credit," she repeated a little more firmly.

He was halfway around the counter after it, when the old woman picked up a broom and started toward him. Scooping up his money, he beat a hasty retreat.

She probably knows kung fu or something. He shifted the paper under his arm and started back to his apartment. On the way past, he kicked the newspaper box again. The closest bank machine closed at six. He'd never make it. He'd have to head into the mall tomorrow to find an open one.

This was all that old lady's fault. After he worked out a suitable punishment for the demon and made sure that Coreen got hers, maybe he'd do something about the immigrant problem.

The throbbing grew louder still.

"Look at this!"

Scrubbing at her face with her hands, Vicki answered without looking up. "I've seen it. I brought them over, remember?"

"Is the entire city out of its mind?"

"The entire city is scared, Henry." She put her glasses back on and sighed. Although she had no intention of telling him, she'd slept last night with the bedroom light on and still kept waking, heart in her throat, drenched with sweat, sure that something was climbing up the fire escape toward her window. "You've had since 1536 to come to terms with violent death. The rest of us haven't been so lucky."

As if to make up for the lack of news over Good Friday, all three of the Saturday papers carried the seventh death as a front page story, emphasized that this body, too, had been drained of blood, and all three, the staid national paper finally jumping on the bandwagon, carried articles on vampires, columns on vampires, historical and scientific exploration of vampires-all the while claiming no such creature existed.

"Do you know what the result of all this will be?" Henry slapped the paper he held down on the couch where the pages separated and half of it slithered to the floor.

Vicki swiveled to face him as he moved out of her limited field of vision. "Increased circulation?" she asked, covering a yawn. Her eyes ached from a day spent reading occurrence reports and the news that their demon-caller had turned to more conventional weapons had been all she needed to hear.

Henry, unable to remain still, crossed the room in four angry strides, turned, and came back. Bracing his hands on the top of the couch, he leaned toward her. "You're right, people are afraid. The papers, for whatever reasons, have given that fear a name. Vampire." He straightened and ran one hand back through his hair. "The people writing these stories don't believe in vampires, and most of the people reading these stories don't believe in vampires, but we're talking about a culture where more people know their astrological sign than their blood type. Somewhere out there, somebody is taking all this seriously and spending his spare time sharpening stakes."

Vicki frowned. It made a certain amount of sense and she certainly wasn't going to argue for the better natures of her contemporaries. "One of the local stations is showing Dracula tonight."

"Oh, great." Henry threw up both hands and began to pace again. "More fuel on the fire. Vicki, you and I both know there's at least one vampire living in Toronto and, personally, I'd rather not have some peasant, whipped into a frenzy by the media, doing something I'll regret based on the tenuous conclusion that he never sees me in the daytime." He stopped and drew a deep breath. "And the worst of it is, there's not a damned thing I can do about it."

Vicki pulled herself to her feet and went to stand beside him at the window. She understood how he felt. "I doubt it'll do any good, but I have a friend who writes a human interest column at the tabloid. I'll give her a call when I get home and see if she can defuse any of this."

"What will you tell her?"

"Exactly what you told me." She grinned. "Less the part about the vampire actually living in Toronto."

Henry managed a crooked grin in return. "Thank you. She'll likely think you're losing your mind."

Vicki shrugged. "I used to be a cop. She thinks I lost my mind ages ago."

Her eyes on their reflection in the glass, Vicki realized, for the first time, that Henry Fitzroy, born in the sixteenth century, stood four inches shorter she did. At least. An admitted snob concerning height, she was a little surprised to discover that it didn't seem to matter. Her ears as red as the young constable's had been that afternoon, she cleared her throat and asked, "Will you be going back to the Humber tonight?"

Henry's reflection nodded grimly. "And every night until something happens."

Anicka Hendle had just come off an exhausting shift in emergency. As she parked her car in the lane behind her house and stumbled up the path, all she could think of was bed. She didn't see them until she'd almost reached the porch.

Roger, the elder brother, sat on the top step. Bill, the younger, stood in the frozen garden, leaning against the house. Something-it looked like a hockey stick although the light was too bad to really tell-leaned against the wall beside him. The two of them, and an assortment of "friends," rented the place next door and although Anicka had complained to their landlord on a number of occasions, about the noise, about the filth, she couldn't seem to get rid of them. They'd obviously spent the night drinking. She could smell the beer.

"Morning, Ms. Hendle."

Just what she needed, a confrontation with Tweedledee and Tweedledum. "What can I do for you, gentlemen?" They were usually too dense, or too drunk, for sarcasm to have any effect, but she hadn't given up hope.

"Well ..." Roger's smile was a lighter slash across the gray oval of his face. "You can tell us why we never see you in the daytime."

Anicka sighed; she was too tired to deal with whatever idiot idea they had right now. "I am a night nurse," she said, speaking slowly and enunciating clearly. "Therefore, I work nights."

"Not good enough." Roger took another long pull from the bottle in his left hand. His right hand continued to cradle something in his lap. "No one works nights all the time."

"I do." This was ridiculous. She strode forward. "Now go back where you came from before I call ..." The hands grabbing her shoulders took her completely by surprise.

"Call who?" Bill asked, jerking her up against his body.

Suddenly frightened, she twisted frantically trying to free herself.

"Us three," Roger's voice seemed to come from a distance, "are just going to stay out here till the sun comes up. Then we'll see."

They were crazy. They were both crazy. Panic gave her the strength she needed, and she yanked herself out of Bill's grip. She stumbled on the porch stairs. This couldn't be happening. She had to get to the house. In the house she'd be safe.

She saw Roger stand. She could get by him. Push him out of the way.

Then she saw the baseball bat in his hand.

The force of the blow knocked her back onto the lawn.

She couldn't suck enough air through the ruin of her mouth and nose to scream.

Her face streaming blood, she scrambled up onto her elbows and knees and tried to crawl back toward the house. If I can get to the house, I'll be safe.

"Sun's coming up. She's trying to get inside."

"That's good enough for me."

The hockey stick had been sharpened on one end and with the strength of both men leaning on it, it went through jacket and uniform and bone and flesh and out into toe ground.

As the first beam of sunlight came up over the garage, Anicka Hendle kicked once more and was still.

"Now we'll see," Roger panted, retrieving his beer.

The sunlight moved across the yard, touched a white shoe, and gently spread out over the body. The blood against the frozen dirt burned with crimson light.

"Nothing's happening." Bill turned to his brother, eyes wide in a parchment pale face. "She's supposed to turn to dust, Roger!"

Roger took two steps back and was noisily sick.