Blood Debt (12 page)

Arms still uplifted, its expression bordered on petulance as it disappeared.

Alone again, Henry swung his legs out of bed, then, as they touched the carpet, he paused. The lingering scent of a second vampire had been acknowledged if not dealt with. The ghost had been banished for one more sunset. And yet, an uneasiness remained. There was something more.

Or more precisely, something less.

Tony.

Although he could hear the throbbing heartbeat of the surrounding city, no bloodsong called from within the limits of his sanctuary. With so many other things there, Tony's absence stood out in sharp relief.

Henry stared at his reflection and realized it felt surprisingly good to be alone.

“What're you looking so excited about?”

“Me? Nothing.” With the denial the gleam of anticipation in Vicki's eyes switched off.

Celluci frowned. The things she thought she had to hide from him were never good—in fact, most of the time they were
very
not good. He watched her carefully as she crossed the living room, pulled out a slat-backed chair, and straddled it but could see nothing that might give him any explanations. “That chair's a Stickley,” he grunted as she tipped it forward on two legs and reached across the table for his notes. “Try not to break it.”

“Chill, Michael. I don't know why you think you can't trust me with expensive furniture. What've you got?”

He pushed a sheet of paper toward her groping fingers. “The reasons Ms. Chou thinks the missing kidney is our motive.”

Vicki scanned the familiar handwriting. “She's pretty convincing.”

“I didn't know you needed convincing.” Before she could answer, he handed her another page. “The reasons Mr. Ronald Swanson thinks it's impractical.”

“You spoke to him?”

“No. It's what I remembered from the cable program.”

“If Swanson works for the transplant programs, it's in his best interest to squash this kind of speculation, so his is not exactly an unbiased opinion.”

“It's in Ms. Chou's best interest to promote scandal. Not exactly an unbiased opinion either.”

“But it's the only possible motive we've got and so should be investigated.”

“What about a simple gangland killing, take the hands to use later?”

“And leave the kidney out of it?” She flashed him a serene and totally false smile as she picked up a pencil and a blank piece of paper. “We have what; a dead body missing both hands and a kidney. We have where; thanks to Henry's ghost's wardrobe which indicates he's local. We have why . . .”

“We have a potential why,” Celluci broke in.

“Fine. A potential why; missing kidney equals organs for profit. So . . .” Flicking the pencil into the air, she watched it rise toward the ceiling, then caught it as it tumbled down. “Next on the list, who. Our only clue is the missing hands, missing hands often mean gangs who are always looking for new profit and who can certainly find and finance crooked hackers, crooked doctors, and loyal thugs.” The gleam of anticipation had returned. “I think that takes care of your Mr. Swanson's objections.”

“And what about Mr. Swanson himself?”

“Why is Mr. Swanson chopping off the hands?”

“I hate it when you answer a question with a question,” Celluci growled.

“I know. There're two reasons I can think of for the killer to remove the hands. One, the prints are on record, and dumping the hands will hide the identity—a belief which shows an appalling lack of knowledge of modern police forensics. If that body had a record, he'd have been identified by now. Or, two, the prints aren't on record and are useful because of that. Which brings us back to the gangs. We can have this sucker solved by morning.”

“How?”

“I find out who's running the top gangs in this fair city.” Her teeth showed, too long and too white. “And I ask them a few questions. The boss men always know what the other gangs are up to—that's how they stay the boss.”

Celluci had a sudden vision of a great deal of blood spilled over very expensive suits. “How are you going to find out who the top men are?”

“I'll ask a few
questions
farther down the ladder.”

There were certain aspects of Vicki's new nature he found so difficult to understand that he didn't even bother making the attempt. This wasn't one of them. “You're looking forward to this, aren't you?”

“And why shouldn't I be?” Her tone was as much defensive as challenging. “You have no idea of how hard it is to always hold back. To be less than you're capable of being!”

“What? Less violent?” He leaned toward her, forearms flat on the table, biceps straining against the fabric of his golf shirt. “I hate to burst your bubble, Vicki, but we've all got to live with that. It's the price we pay for civilization.”

“Give it up, Celluci.” She leaned forward as well. “You can stop being so god-damned holier than fucking thou! You can't possibly feel sorry for the type of lowlife I'm going to be . . .” As his eyes narrowed, she paused for a heartbeat. “. . . dealing with. What's that?” She stared suspiciously at the list he held out to her.

“It's an easier way. I had Dave pull the names and addresses of the people you want off the computer.”

“Oh.” The paper drooped between thumb and forefinger.

If he'd been willing to risk pandering to her desire for mayhem, he'd have reminded her that she still had to get to those people through what would no doubt be tight security. As he neither wanted to remind her of her potential for violence nor himself of her potential danger, he said neutrally. “There're a lot of names for one night. Why don't you split them with Henry?”

“Henry?” Her eyes silvered. “No. No Henry. This is
my
hunt! Mine!”

“As much as I hate to say this, he's not totally incompetent. He's even done this kind of stuff for you before.”

“Before,” Vicki reminded him, the last syllable more growl than spoken word.

Celluci stared at her for a few seconds then sat back, shaking his head. “So he was right.”

“About what?”

“About your childish inability to work with him.” In spite of her sometimes tenuous control of what she'd become, Celluci'd always believed that Vicki would never hurt him. He'd wondered occasionally, as he prodded at the limits of her new nature, if he deliberately put that belief to the test. He wondered it now as she slowly stood. She seemed taller than he knew she was. The hair on his arms lifted, and he felt his chin begin to rise, an instinctive surrender bypassing his conscious control. He forced it back down.

Eyes blazing, Vicki stepped forward, closed her hands around the chair she had been sitting in, and ripped it into kindling, one handful of wood at a time. A moment later, breathing heavily—not from the destruction but from the effort of regaining control—she snarled, “See what you made me do!”

“I made you do?” His heart beat so loudly even he could hear it. Considering how well attuned she was to that sort of sound, he was a little surprised she could hear his voice over it. “I don't think so.”

“No.” Her eyes were almost gray again. The silver remaining could have been a trick of the light. “I guess not.” She reached across the table and brushed the curl of hair back off his face. “But you've got no right accusing me of living dangerously.”

“No. I guess not.” Capturing her hand, he laid his lips against the cool skin of her inner wrist, a mirror image of a position they'd held a hundred times. “Now what?”

“Now, I'm going to call Henry.”

“Call?”

“Yeah. On the telephone.” She pulled free of his grip and patted him lightly on both cheeks. “You're not the only one who can think of an easier way to get through this, sweet knees.”

He frowned as she walked away. “Sweet knees?”

“. . . suppose one of them turns out to be the man we're looking for?” Henry asked as he folded the list and slipped it into his pocket. He'd tried to sound neither sarcastic nor superior and had been, all things considered, remarkably successful at both. But then, they'd always been able to manage over the phone.

“What? You mean suppose one of your . . . subjects says: Yeah, I'm the guy. I've been selling organs all up and down the West Coast. Usually we dump 'em at sea, but that body in the harbor must have got caught in the tides?”

With an effort, he kept his smile from showing in his voice—Vicki had sounded so incredibly indignant at the mere possibility he might discover the information before she did. “Yes. Suppose one of my . . . subjects says that. If you've given me half the list, the odds are fifty-fifty.”

“You don't need to tell me the odds, Henry. I may be a childish vampire . . .”

He heard Celluci protest in the background and was quite happy to have missed the earlier argument.

“. . . but I have been doing this living thing a lot longer than you did, and I've certainly been an investigator one hell of a lot longer.”

“I hadn't intended to suggest you hadn't.”

“Oh, no, you just intended to suggest you didn't need me here at all.”

Frowning slightly, he went back over the conversation and tried to determine how she'd arrived at that particular conclusion. “Vicki, I may be
able
to strong-arm crime lords, but it would never have occurred to me to do it.”

“Oh.”

“If I'm going to get rid of my nonblithe spirit, I do need you here.”

“Oh.” He heard her sigh. “I can't decide whether you're being mature or patronizing.”

“Which would you prefer?”

“You know, that's a very Celluci question. I don't want you guys hanging around together any more.” But he could hear the sound of her smile, so it was all right.

“I fully understand.”

She snorted, a purely human sound. “You couldn't possibly. Whoever gets back first leaves a message on the other's machine.”

“You don't think we should meet?” He had an unexpected memory of the pulse that beat at the base of her throat, her skin the soft, sun-kissed tan it would never be again and missed her reply in the sudden surge of loneliness. “I'm sorry, I . . .”

Her voice was as gentle as he'd heard it since the change. “I'm sorry, too, Henry.”

“Everything all worked out?”

Her hand still resting on the phone, Vicki turned to face Celluci and shrugged. “I gave Henry every other name. He knows what we need to find out. Like you said, he's not totally incompetent.”

Celluci's brows drew in at the hint of melancholy in her voice. “And the phone thing went okay?”

“No reason why it shouldn't, is there? Across the country, across the hall, it's basically the same thing.”

You miss him, don't you?
But that was one question he wasn't stupid enough to ask. She didn't miss Fitzroy—the undead royal bastard was still around—she missed what they'd had, and he didn't want to remind her of that because she could never, ever have it again, and while he reveled in the certainty, he had no intention of coming across as an insensitive prick.

“Need to feed?” he asked instead.

Melancholy gone, she grinned and her eyes frosted. “No, thanks, I'm dining out.”

“Yeah. Right.” Actually, he found the thought of her gorging on the blood of Vancouver's crime lords less problematic than her gentler meals. Those were the nights he didn't want to think about. Standing suddenly, he joined her on the way to the door. “Hang on and I'll go with you as far as the lobby. Tony's working till nine. I think I'll head over to the video store and see if he wants to join me for a bite.” When both her brows rose, he sighed. “You know, eating never used to come with this many double entendres.”

She'd half turned to answer him as he closed the door. By the time they became aware they weren't alone in the hall, it was too late to do anything that wouldn't seem like a retreat.

“Henry.”

“Vicki.”

Oh, shit. Still, they're sounding practically conversational, so maybe this won't be a complete disaster.
They both wore black jeans and black T-shirts. Vicki wore sneakers and a black cotton sweater. He knew it was cotton; he'd bought it for her. Fitzroy wore desert boots and a black linen blazer. He knew it was linen; he had one just like it, which he was going to get rid of the moment he got home. Celluci'd never noticed before how much alike they looked.

It wasn't the clothes. Thousands of vampire wannabes all over the world dressed with more undead style than these two.

It wasn't their coloring. Although both were fair, Fitzroy's hair had more red in it and Vicki was a definite ash blonde. It said so on the box.

It was just, merely, simply, purely the way they were. They shared a
belle morte
—a deadly beauty. Celluci wasn't sure why the words came to him first in Italian; he was family-fluent only, and it wasn't a language he'd ever thought in, but somehow English—plain old workaday English—didn't seem sufficient.

And not only a deadly beauty; they also shared a complete and utter certainty in themselves and their place in the world.

Certainty, Vicki had never been short of, but her sheer, bloody-minded belief that she was as right as anyone had been refined during the moment she locked eyes with Henry Fitzroy; refined and sharpened to a razor's edge. Fitzroy, of course, had always had it. It was one of the things Celluci'd always hated. Always responded to.

His heart began to beat in time to the power that throbbed between them. That surrounded them. That surrounded him. In that hallway, at that instant, watching the two of them watch each other, he understood the declaration,
I am
.

And that is quite enough of
that! Italian description arriving out the blue he could cope with, but blasphemy was something else again!
Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned; it's been two years since my last confession, but that's only because I've been sleeping with a vampire. Yeah. Right.