by Tanya Huff
She read the fear in his voice and lifted the edge of the tray so that the gravy didn't pour out and over his shoes. "I mean I'll be spending the day somewhere else."
"Where?"
"I can't tell you."
"Why? Never mind." He raised a hand as her eyes narrowed. "Don't tell me. I don't want to know. You're going after that other vampire, aren't you? The one Fitzroy told you to leave alone."
"I thought you didn't want to know."
"I already know," he grunted. "I can read you like a book. With large type. And pictures."
Vicki pulled the tray from his grip and set it on the counter. "She's killed two people. Eisler was a scumbag who may have deserved it but the other..."
"Other?" Celluci exploded. "Jesus H. Christ, Vicki, in case you've forgotten, murder's against the law! Who the hell painted a big vee on your long johns and made you the vampire vigilante?"
"Don't you remember?" Vicki snapped. "You were there. I didn't make this decision, Mike. You and Henry made it for me. You'd just better learn to live with it." She fought her way back to calm. "Look, you can't stop her but I can. I know that galls but that's the way it is."
They glared at each other, toe to toe. Finally Celluci looked away.
"I can't stop you, can I?" he asked bitterly. "I'm only human after all."
"Don't sell yourself short," Vicki snarled. "You're quintessentially human. If you want to stop me, you face me and ask me not to go and then you remember it every time you go into a situation that could get your ass shot off."
After a long moment, he swallowed, lifted his head, and met her eyes. "Don't die. I thought I lost you once and I'm not strong enough to go through that again."
"Are you asking me not to go?"
He snorted. "I'm asking you to be careful. Not that you ever listen."
She took a step forward and rested her head against his shoulder, wrapping herself in the beating of his heart. "This time, I'm listening."
*
The studios in the converted warehouse on King Street were not supposed to be live-in. A good seventy-five percent of the tenants ignored that. The studio Vicki wanted was at the back on the third floor. The heavy steel door—an obvious upgrade by the occupant—had been secured by the best lock money could buy.
New senses and old skills got through it in record time.
Vicki pushed open the door with her foot and began carrying boxes inside. She had a lot to do before dawn.
"She goes out every night between ten and eleven, then she comes home every morning between four and five. You could set your watch by her."
Vicki handed him an envelope.
He looked inside, thumbed through the money, then grinned up at her. "Pleasure doing business for you. Any time you need my services, you know where to call."
"Forget it," she told him.
And he did.
*
Because she expected her, Vicki knew the moment the other entered the building. The Beast stirred and she tightened her grip on it. To lose control now would be disaster.
She heard the elevator, then footsteps in the hall.
"You know I'm in here," she said silently, "and you know you can take me. Be overconfident, believe I'm a fool and walk right in."
"I thought you were smarter than this." The other stepped into the apartment then casually turned to lock the door. "I told you when I saw you again I'd kill you."
Vicki shrugged, the motion masking her fight to remain calm. "Don't you even want to know why I'm here?"
"I assume you've come to negotiate." She raised ivory hands and released thick, black hair from its bindings. "We went past that when you attacked me." Crossing the room, she preened before a large ornate mirror that dominated one wall of the studio.
"I attacked you because you murdered Phil."
"Was that his name?" The other laughed. The sound had razored edges. "I didn't bother to ask it."
"Before you murdered him."
"Murdered? You are a child. They are prey, we are predators—their deaths are ours if we desire them. You'd have learned that in time." She turned, the patina of civilization stripped away. "Too bad you haven't any time left."
Vicki snarled but somehow managed to stop herself from attacking. Years of training whispered, Not yet. She had to stay exactly where she was.
"Oh yes." The sibilants flayed the air between them. "I almost forgot. You wanted me to ask you why you came. Very well. Why?"
Given the address and the reason, Celluci could've come to the studio during the day and slammed a stake through the other's heart. The vampire's strongest protection would be of no use against him. Mike Celluci believed in vampires.
"I came," Vicki told her, "because some things you have to do yourself."
The wire ran up the wall, tucked beside the surface-mounted cable of a cheap renovation, and disappeared into the shadows that clung to a ceiling sixteen feet from the floor. The switch had been stapled down beside her foot. A tiny motion, too small to evoke attack, flipped it.
Vicki had realized from the beginning that there were a number of problems with her plan. The first involved placement. Every living space included an area where the occupant felt secure—a favorite chair, a window... a mirror. The second problem was how to mask what she'd done. While the other would not be able to sense the various bits of wiring and equipment, she'd be fully aware of Vicki's scent on the wiring and equipment. Only if Vicki remained in the studio, could that smaller trace be lost in the larger.
The third problem was directly connected with the second. Given that Vicki had to remain, how was she to survive?
Attached to the ceiling by sheer brute strength, positioned so that they shone directly down into the space in front of the mirror, were a double bank of lights cannibalized from a tanning bed. The sun held a double menace for the vampire—its return to the sky brought complete vulnerability and its rays burned.
Henry had a round scar on the back of one hand from too close an encounter with the sun. When her burn healed, Vicki would have a matching one from a deliberate encounter with an imitation.
The other screamed as the lights came on, the sound pure rage and so inhuman that those who heard it would have to deny it for sanity's sake. Vicki dove forward, ripped the heavy brocade off the back of the couch, and burrowed frantically into its depths. Even that instant of light had bathed her skin in flame and she moaned as for a moment the searing pain became all she was. After a time, when it grew no worse, she managed to open her eyes.
The light couldn't reach her, but neither could she reach the switch to turn it off. She could see it, three feet away, just beyond the shadow of the couch. She shifted her weight and a line of blister rose across one leg. Biting back a shriek, she curled into a fetal position, realizing her refuge was not entirely secure.
Okay, genius, now what?
Moving very, very carefully, Vicki wrapped her hand around the one-by-two that braced the lower edge of the couch. From the tension running along it, she suspected that breaking it off would result in at least a partial collapse of the piece of furniture.
And if it goes, I very well may go with it.
And then she heard the sound of something dragging itself across the floor.
Oh shit! She's not dead!
The wood broke, the couch began to fall in on itself, and Vicki, realizing that luck would have a large part to play in her survival, smacked the switch and rolled clear in the same motion.
The room plunged into darkness.
Vicki froze as her eyes slowly readjusted to the night. Which was when she finally became conscious of the smell. It had been there all along but her senses had refused to acknowledge it until they had to.
Sunlight burned.
Vicki gagged.
The dragging sound continued.
The hell with this! She didn't have time to wait for her eyes to repair the damage they'd obviously taken. She needed to see now. Fortunately, although it hadn't seemed f
ortunate at the time, she'd learned to maneuver without sight.
She threw herself across the room.
The light switch was where they always were, to the right of the door.
The thing on the floor pushed itself up on fingerless hands and glared at her out of the blackened ruin of a face. Laboriously it turned, hate radiating off it in palpable waves and began to pull itself towards her again.
Vicki stepped forward to meet it.
While the part of her that remembered being human writhed in revulsion, she wrapped her hands around its skull and twisted it in a full circle. The spine snapped. Another full twist and what was left of the head came off in her hands.
She'd been human for thirty-two years but she'd been fourteen months a vampire.
"No one hunts in my territory," she snarled as the other crumbled to dust.
She limped over to the wall and pulled the plug supplying power to the lights. Later, she'd remove them completely—the whole concept of sunlamps gave her the creeps.
When she turned, she was facing the mirror.
The woman who stared out at her through bloodshot eyes, exposed skin blistered and red, was a hunter. Always had been really. The question became, who was she to hunt?
Vicki smiled. Before the sun drove her to use her inherited sanctuary, she had a few quick phone calls to make. The first to Celluci; she owed him the knowledge that she'd survived the night. The second to Henry for much the same reason.
The third call would be to the 800 line that covered the classifieds of Toronto's largest alternative newspaper. This ad was going to be a little different than the one she'd placed upon leaving the force.
Back then, she'd been incredibly depressed about leaving a job she loved for a life she saw as only marginally useful. This time, she had no regrets.
Victory Nelson, Investigator: Otherwordly Crimes a Specialty.
* * *
What Manner of Man
*
Shortly after three o'clock in the morning, Henry Fitzroy rose from the card table, brushed a bit of ash from the sleeve of his superbly fitting coat, and inclined his head toward his few remaining companions. "If you'll excuse me, gentlemen, I believe I'll call it a night."
"Well, I won't excuse you." Sir William Wyndham glared up at Fitzroy from under heavy lids. "You've won eleven hundred pounds off me tonight, damn your eyes, and I want a chance to win it back."
His gaze flickering down to the cluster of empty bottles by Wyndham's elbow, Henry shook his head. "I don't think so, Sir William, not tonight."
"You don't think so?" Wyndham half rose in his chair, dark brows drawn into a deep vee over an aristocratic arc of nose. His elbow rocked one of the bottles. It began to fall.
Moving with a speed that made it clear he had not personally been indulging over the course of the evening's play, Henry caught the bottle just before it hit the floor. "Brandy," he chided softly, setting it back on the table, "is no excuse for bad manners."
Wyndham stared at him for a moment, confusion replacing the anger on his face, instinct warning him of a danger reason couldn't see. "Your pardon," he said at last. "Perhaps another night." He watched as the other man bowed and left, then muttered, "Insolent puppy."
"Who is?" asked another of the players, dragging his attention away from the brandy.
"Fitzroy." Raising his glass to his mouth, his hand surprisingly steady considering how much he'd already drunk, Wyndham tossed back the contents. "He speaks to me like that again and he can name his seconds."
"Well, I wouldn't fight him."
"No one's asking you to."
"He's just the sort of quiet chap who's the very devil when pushed too far. I've seen that look in his eyes, I tell you—the very devil when pushed too far."
"Shut up." Opening a fresh deck, Wyndham sullenly pushed Henry Fitzroy from his thoughts and set about trying to make good his losses.
*
His curly-brimmed beaver set at a fashionably rakish angle on his head, Henry stood on the steps of his club and stared out at London. Its limits had expanded since the last time he'd made it his principal residence, curved courts of elegant townhouses had risen where he remembered fields, but, all in all, it hadn't changed much. There was still something about London—a feel, an atmosphere—shared by no other city in the world.
One guinea-gold brow rose as he shot an ironic glance upward at the haze that hung over the buildings, the smoke from a thousand chimney pots that blocked the light of all but the brightest stars. Atmosphere was, perhaps, a less than appropriate choice of words.
"Shall I get you a hackney or a chair, Mr. Fitzroy?"
"Thank you, no." He smiled at the porter, his expression calculated to charm, and heard the elderly man's heart begin to beat a little faster. The Hunger rose in response, but he firmly pushed it back. It would be the worst of bad ton to feed so close to home. It would also be dangerous but, in the England of the Prince Regent, safety came second to social approval. "I believe I'll walk."
"If you're sure, sir. There's some bad'uns around after dark."
"I'm sure." Henry's smile broadened. "I doubt I'll be bothered."
*
The porter watched as the young man made his way down the stairs and along St. James Street. He'd watched a lot of gentlemen during the years he'd worked the clubs—first at Boodles, then at Brook's, and finally here at White's—and Mr. Henry Fitzroy had the unmistakable mark of Quality. For all he was so polite and soft-spoken, something about him spoke strongly of power. It would, the porter decided, take a desperate man, or a stupid one, to put Mr. Fitzroy in any danger. Of course, London has no shortage of either desperate or stupid men.
"Take care, sir," he murmured as he turned to go inside.
*
Henry quelled the urge to lift a hand in acknowledgment of the porter's concern, judging that he'd moved beyond the range of mortal hearing. As the night air held a decided chill, he shoved his hands deep in the pockets of his many-caped greatcoat, even though it would have to get a great deal colder before he'd feel it. A successful masquerade demanded attention to small details.
Humming under his breath, he strode down Brook Street to Grosvenor Square, marveling at the new technological wonder of the gaslights. The long lines of little brightish dots created almost as many shadows as they banished, but they were still a big improvement over a servant carrying a lantern on a stick. That he had no actual need of the light Henry considered unimportant in view of the achievement.
Turning toward his chambers in Albany, he heard the unmistakable sounds of a fight. He paused, head cocked, sifting through the lives involved. Three men beating a fourth.
"Not at all sporting," he murmured, moving forward so quickly that, had anyone been watching, it would have seemed he simply disappeared.
*
"Be sure that he's dead." The man who spoke held a narrow sword in one hand and the cane it had come out of in the other. The man on the ground groaned and the steel point moved around. "Never mind, I'll take care of it myself."
Wearing an expression of extreme disapproval, Henry stepped out of the shadows, grabbed the swordsman by the back of his coat, and threw him down the alley. When the other two whirled to face him, he drew his lips back off his teeth and said, in a tone of polite but inarguable menace, "Run."
Prey recognized predator. They ran.
He knelt by the wounded man, noted how the heartbeat faltered, looked down, and saw a face he knew. Captain Charles Evans of the Horse Guards, the nephew of the current Earl of Whitby. Not one of his few friends—friends were chosen with a care honed by centuries of survival—but Henry couldn't allow him to die alone in some dark alley like a stray dog.
A sudden noise drew his attention around to the man with the sword-cane. Up on his knees, his eyes unfocused, he groped around for his weapon. Henry snarled. The man froze, whimpered once, then, face twisted with fear, scrambled to his feet, and joined his companions in flight.
The sword
had punched a hole high in the captain's left shoulder, not immediately fatal, but bleeding to death was a distinct possibility.
"Fitz... roy?"
"So you're awake, are you?" Taking the other man's chin in a gentle grip, Henry stared down into pain-filled eyes. "I think it might be best if you trusted me and slept," he said quietly.
The captain's lashes fluttered, then settled down to rest against his cheeks like fringed shadows.
Satisfied that he was unobserved, Henry pulled aside the bloodstained jacket—like most military men, Captain Evans favored Scott—and bent his head over the wound.
*
"You cut it close. Sun's almost up."
Henry pushed past the small, irritated form of his servant. "Don't fuss, Varney, I've plenty of time."
"Plenty of time is it?" Closing and bolting the door, the little man hurried down the short hall in Henry's shadow. "I was worried sick, I was, and all you can say is don't fuss?"
Sighing, Henry shrugged out of his greatcoat—a muttering Varney caught it before it hit the floor— and stepped into his sitting room. There was a fire lit in the grate, heavy curtains over the window that opened onto a tiny balcony, and a thick oak slab of a door replacing the folding doors that had originally led to the bedchamber. The furniture was heavy and dark, as close as Henry could come to the furniture of his youth. It had been purchased in a fit of nostalgia and was now mostly ignored.
"You've blood on your cravat!"
"It's not mine," Henry told him mildly.
Varney snorted. "Didn't expect it was, but you're usually neater than that. Probably won't come out. Blood stains, you know."
"I know."
"Mayhap if I soak it..." The little man quivered with barely concealed impatience.
Henry laughed and unwound the offending cloth, dropping it over the offered hand. After thirty years of unique service, certain liberties were unavoidable. "I won eleven hundred pounds from Lord Wyndham tonight."
"You and everyone else. He's badly dipped. Barely a feather to fly with so I hear. Rumor has it he's getting a bit desperate."
"And I returned a wounded Charlie Evans to the bosom of his family."
