Blood Debt (8 page)

“The old guy,” Celluci snarled, “probably has no more than ten years on me.”

Tony prudently withdrew.

On screen, Patricia Chou frowned slightly and said, “So what you're saying, Mr. Swanson, is that the fears people have about organ donations are completely unfounded?”

“Fear,” her guest declared, “is often based on lack on information.”

It was a good response; Celluci tossed the remote onto the glass-topped coffee table—Fitzroy had a distinct fondness for breakable furniture—and settled back to watch.

Mr. Swanson settled back much the same way and looked into the camera with the ease of a man often interviewed. “Let's take those fears one at a time. People with influence or money do not have a better chance of getting a transplant. Computers suggest the best possible match for each available organ based on blood type, size, illness of patient, and time on the waiting list.”

Patricia Chou leaned forward, a slender finger extended to emphasize her point. “But what about the recent media coverage of famous people getting transplants?”

“I think you'll find that media coverage is the point to that question, Ms. Chou. They're getting the coverage because they're famous, not because they've had a transplant. Hundreds of people have transplants and never make the news. I assure you, my wife would still be alive today if I could have bought her a transplant.”

“Your wife, Rebecca, died of chronic kidney failure?”

“That's right.” He had to swallow before he could go on, and Celluci, who over the years had seen grief in every possible form, was willing to bet it was no act. “Three years on dialysis, three years waiting for a match, three years dying. And my wife wasn't alone; approximately one third of all patients awaiting transplants die. Which is why I'm an active supporter of the British Columnbia Transplant Society.”

“But in this time of cutbacks, surely the cost of transplants . . .”

“Cost?” His gaze swung around and locked on her face. “Ms. Chou, did you know that if all the patients waiting at the end of last year had been able to receive kidneys, health care savings would exceed one billion dollars?”

Ms. Chou did not know, nor, from a certain tightening around her eyes, was she pleased at being interrupted. “To return to the public's fears, Mr. Swanson, what about the possibility of organ-legging?” Her emphasis made the last word hang in the air for a moment or two after she finished speaking.

“That sort of thing is an impossibility, at least in any first world nation. You'd have to have doctors willing to work outside the law, expensive facilities, you'd have to contravene a computer system with massive safeguards—I'm not saying it couldn't be done, merely that costs would be so prohibitive there'd be no point.”

Good answer
, Celluci allowed.
Although slightly less than spontaneous.
Swanson had obviously been expecting a variation on the question.

“So from a purely marketing standpoint, there'd be no profit in it?”

“Exactly. You'd have to hire thugs to procure unwilling donors and I imagine that a reliable thug, provided you could find such a creature, doesn't come cheap.”

She ignored his attempt to lighten the interview, “So the body found floating in the harbor, a body that had a kidney surgically removed, had nothing to do with organ-legging?”

That, Celluci realized, was where she'd been heading all along.

Mr. Swanson spread his hands, manicured nails gleaming in the studio lights. “There are a number of reasons you can have a kidney surgically removed, Ms. Chou. The human body only needs one.”

“And you don't believe that someone needed one of his?”

“I believe that this kind of yellow journalism is why there's a critical shortage of donated organs and people like my wife are dying.”

“But wouldn't someone be willing to pay . . .”

The screen returned to black, and Henry put the remote back on the coffee table.

Celluci, who hadn't even been aware he was in the room until he'd crossed directly into his line of sight, attempted to relax a number of muscles jerked into knots by Fitzroy's sudden appearance. “Did you have to do that?” he snarled.

“No, I didn't.” The implication of Henry's tone suggested that he'd achieved exactly the effect he'd intended. “Where's Vicki?”

Glancing over Henry's shoulder and then disregarding Tony's silent warning from the kitchen, Celluci drawled, “She's gone hunting.”

“Hunting.” It was an emotionless repetition that nevertheless held a wealth of meaning.

“You knew it was going to happen when you asked her to come out here.”

“Yes.” With his fingers laced tightly together lest he lose control of his reaction and put his fist through the glass, Henry walked over to the window and stared down at the lights of Granville Island. “I knew it was going to happen.”

“But that doesn't mean you have to like it.”

“You needn't sound so superior, Detective.”

“Superior? Me?”

In the kitchen, Tony winced. He wondered if surviving a number of years as a cop created a personal belief in invulnerability or if that belief was necessary before starting the job. Whichever it was, Detective Sergeant Michael Celluci seemed to be having one heck of a good time flirting with death.

“I told her that you deliberately provoked her attack.” Not as relaxed as he appeared, Celluci watched the muscles across Henry's back tense and untense beneath the raw silk jacket. If it came to it, he knew he couldn't survive an all-out attack. Or even a half-strength attack for that matter—proven the last time he and Henry had tangled.

“If you're attempting to divert my attention from Vicki to you, Detective, the sacrifice is unnecessary. If we are to lay this specter, we have no choice but to work together. It seems I must allow the possibility that we can overcome our territorial natures.”

“Big of you.”

“God damn it, Vicki!” Celluci catapulted off his chair so fast he lost his balance and slammed down on his knees, denim-covered bone cracking against the polished hardwood floor. “Do you have to sneak up on people like that?” He heaved himself onto his feet. “First him, now you?”

Her hands on the back of the chair he'd so recently vacated, Vicki forced herself to smile down at him, forced herself to take her eyes off Henry Fitzroy. “Maybe you ought to cut back on the caffeine.”

“Maybe you lot ought to whistle when you come into a room,” he snarled.

You lot.

Her and Henry.

Impossible now to ignore the heated connection between them. He was standing by the window, his face expressionless, eyes shadowed. She couldn't tell what he was thinking, nor was she entirely certain she wanted to know. His heart beat slower than the mortals they fed from; hers matched it. His blood sang not an invitation but a warning; hers echoed it. His scent lifted the hair on the back of her neck.

“So . . .” If only to prove that she could, she kept the challenge out of her voice and, if the words weren't exactly neutral, at least the tone was purely human. “I hear you owe me an apology.”

“Yes.” He inclined his head. “But I've spent over four-and-a-half centuries believing vampires are incapable of sharing a territory, Vicki. Don't expect me to change my mind overnight.”

Her tone grew distinctly sarcastic. “Apologies usually begin with ‘I'm sorry.' ”

“I'm sorry. You were right. I was wrong. I didn't give us a fair chance. I will this time.”

“Because you have to.”

He shrugged. “Granted.”

“You try that Prince of Darkness bullshit on me again, Henry, and I'm out of here.”

“So you've said in the past.” All at once he smiled, and she saw not competition but one of two men she'd learned to love in spite of herself. “You haven't changed, you know, not beyond the obvious—you continue to be so definitely you. After I surrendered the day, I became an entirely different person.”

Celluci, still standing between them, measuring gaze flicking constantly back and forth, snorted. “Yeah. Right. You were a royal bastard before, you were a royal bastard after—with all the baggage that carries. Since you were barely seventeen when it happened, I'd say if you changed, you grew up, and
that
change comes to everyone.”

Henry opened his mouth and then closed it again, the protest dying behind his teeth. Even Vicki looked slightly stunned.

Pleased with the effect, Celluci moved out into the room until he formed the third point of the triangle and said, “Now that's settled, we have a few other problems to deal with. The first, where's Vicki spending the day? Not in your bed . . .”

“I assume you're implying, not in my bed with me. That isn't actually possible.”

“You bet your ass it isn't.”

Henry ignored him. “There's an empty condo across the hall with an identical layout to this one. It wouldn't take long to secure the small bedroom. The woman who owns it recently died. I called her companion on the way in . . .”

“You have a cel phone?”

“Try to keep up, Detective; these are the 90s. Anyway, Mrs. Munro is leaving to spend the next week with her son in Kamloops and has graciously allowed us the use of her late employer's condo.”

“Nice of her.”

“Isn't it; but I assure you my persuasions were, for the most part, monetary. While Mrs. Munro is likely to receive the lion's share of the estate, she's just lost her job and will have no income until after the will clears probate. I swung around and picked up the keys and I think it should suit our purposes.” He drew a key chain out of his pocket and threw it to Vicki who snatched it one-handed out of the air.

And threw it back. “It never occurred to you to ask me what I thought?”

“You can always spend the day locked in your van,” he reminded her.

“The hell you can, it's already been ripped off once.” It gave Celluci great pleasure to ignore Henry's startled exclamation. “Take the keys, Vicki. He asked you to come here, it only makes sense he finds you accommodation.”

Reluctantly, Vicki held out her hand. “If you put it that way . . .”

“That's exactly how I put it.” He waited until the keys had changed hands once again, then he continued. “My second point concerns territory and keeping the two of you from each other's throats. This is a big city. Why can't Vicki hunt an area you don't use? You seemed to have implied that was possible back when that other vampire moved into Toronto.”

“Unfortunately, Detective, it isn't just the hunting, it's all contact. I have shared cities in the past, but there have been very clear boundaries drawn with neutral areas in between. Our paths never crossed.”

Vicki broke in before Celluci could respond. “Wouldn't work, Mike. If I'm going to find out who offed our restless spirit, the restrictions of the night will be more than enough. I don't know, can't know, where leads are going to take me until I'm there, and
very clear boundaries
will only get in the way.”

“Uh, I've got an idea that might help.”

Vicki spun around, then glared, not at Tony but at the other two men. “Why didn't you tell me he was there? Both of you were facing the kitchen!”

“Very careless, Vicki.” Henry fell easily back into his role of teacher and guide because at least that role had parameters he understood. “You should have known he was there. Caught his scent. Heard his heartbeat.”

“His scent permeates this apartment. And his heartbeat got lost in the sound of the dishwasher.”

“The perils of the modern vampire,” Celluci muttered.

Tony grinned as he stepped forward. “And that's my point. You guys are modern vampires. I mean this not sharing a territory stuff probably made sense back in the Middle Ages when villages were only like a couple hundred people and more than one vampire would be kind of noticeable, but this city has nearly three million people in it.”

“He has a point,” Vicki allowed. “There're probably as many people in this condominium complex as in a good-sized village of the 1500s.”

“But it is my city . . .”

“Jeez, Henry, you've never even been to West Vancouver. There could be another vampire, six ghouls, and a family of aliens over there for all you know, and you already said cities can be divided. That has nothing to do with this.

“Look, it's an attitude thing.” Tony stopped just outside the perimeter of the triangle. “You've said it yourself, Henry, times don't change you, so you have to change with them or be left behind. And when you get left far enough behind, well, the next thing you know, you're spreading your towel for that last suntan.”

“Last suntan?” Vicki repeated with an incredulous look at Henry.

“I never said that.”

“Maybe not those exact words,” Tony admitted, “but that was what you meant.” He grew suddenly solemn and fixed both Vicki and Henry with an intent, worried stare. “Change or die, guys.”

After a long moment, Vicki shrugged. “Look, I'm not trying to take over your territory, and there's plenty of food here for both of us, so we can't logically be a threat to each other. There's no reason we can't put up with each other for the duration.”

“Listen to your blood and tell me you believe that.”

“I'm listening to my brain, Henry. You should try it some time.”

He growled. She echoed it. They each took a step forward.

“HEY!” Celluci's voice didn't so much cut through the tension as smash it aside. “Get a grip! I expect this sort of thing from mongrel dogs but not from two supposedly sentient people.” No longer able to blush, they both suddenly became interested in the toes of their shoes. “Times change. Change with them, or admit you can't and stop wasting my time—I've a hell of a lot less of it than you do.”