Blood Bank

by Tanya Huff

  *

  "He's up to something," he explained later, "and I want to know what that is."

  "He's going to confront the villagers with what he knows, see who reacts and make their lives a living hell. He'll find a way to make them the first part of his expansion."

  "You're probably right."

  "I'm always right." Head pillowed on his shoulder, she stirred his chest hair with one finger. "He's an unethical, immoral, unscrupulous little asshole."

  "You missed annoying, irritating, and just generally unlikable."

  "I could convince him he was a combination of Mother Theresa and Lady Di. I could rip his mind out, use it for unnatural purposes, and stuff it back into his skull in any shape I damn well chose, but I can't."

  Once you start down the dark side, for ever will it dominate your destiny. But he didn't say it aloud because he didn't want to know how far down the dark side she'd been. He was grateful that she'd drawn any personal boundaries at all, that she'd chosen to remain someone who couldn't use terror for the sake of terror. "So what are we going to do about him?"

  "I can't think of a damned thing. You?"

  Suddenly he smiled. "Could you convince him that you were the spirit of the lake and that he'd better haul his ass back to Toronto unless he wants it dissolved off?"

  She was off the bed in one fluid movement. "I knew there was a reason I dragged you out here this weekend."

  She turned on one bare heel then turned again and was suddenly back in the bed. "But I think I'll wait until tomorrow night. He hasn't paid me yet."

  *

  "Morning, Mike. Where's Vicki?"

  "Sleeping."

  "Well, since you're up, why don't you help out by carrying the barbecue down to the beach. I may be willing to make amends but I'm not sure they are and since they've already damaged my car, I'd just as soon keep them away from anything valuable. Particularly when in combination with propane and open flames."

  *

  "Isn't Vicki joining us for lunch, Mike?"

  "She says she isn't hungry. She went for a walk in the woods."

  "Must be how she keeps her girlish figure. I've got to hand it to you, Mike, there aren't many men your age who could hold on to such a woman. I mean, she's really got that independent thing going, doesn't she?" He accepted a tuna sandwich with effusive thanks, took a bite and winced. "Not light mayo?"

  "No."

  "Never mind, Mike. I'm sure you meant well. Now, then, as it's just the two of us, have you ever considered investing in a time-share…"

  *

  Mike Celluci had never been so glad to see anyone as he was to see a van full of bleary-eyed and stiff caterers arrive at four that afternoon. As Vicki had discovered during that initial phone call, Stuart Gordon was not a man who took no for an answer. He might have accepted "Fuck off and die!" followed by a fast exit but since Vicki expected to wake up on the shores of Lake Nepeakea, Celluci held his tongue. Besides, it would be a little difficult for her to chase the developer away if they were halfway back to Toronto.

  *

  Sunset.

  Vicki could feel maybe two dozen lives around her when she woke and she lay there for a moment revelling in them. The last two evenings she'd had to fight the urge to climb into the driver's seat and speed towards civilization.

  "Fast food."

  She snickered, dressed, and stepped out into the parking lot.

  Celluci was down on the beach talking to Frank Patton. She made her way over to them, the crowd opening to let her pass without really being aware she was there at all. Both men nodded as she approached and Patton gestured towards the barbecue.

  "Burger?"

  "No thanks, I'm not hungry." She glanced around. "No one seems to have brought their kids."

  "No one wants to expose their kids to Stuart Gordon."

  "Afraid they'll catch something," Celluci added.

  "Mike here says you've solved your case and you're just waiting for Mr Congeniality over there to pay you."

  Wondering what Mike had been up to, Vicki nodded.

  "He also says you didn't mention any names. Thank you." He sighed. "We didn't really expect the spirit of the lake thing to work but…"

  Vicki raised both hands. "Hey, you never know. He could be suppressing."

  "Yeah, right. The only thing that clown suppresses is everyone around him. If you'll excuse me, I'd better go rescue Anne before she rips out his tongue and strangles him with it."

  "I'm surprised she came," Vicki admitted.

  "She thinks he's up to something and she wants to know what it is."

  "Don't we all," Celluci murmured as he walked away.

  The combined smell of cooked meat and fresh blood making her a little light-headed, Vicki started Mike moving towards the floating dock. "Have I missed anything?"

  "No, I think you're just in time."

  As Frank Patton approached, Stuart broke off the conversation he'd been having with Anne Kellough — or more precisely, Vicki amended, at Anne Kellough — and walked out to the end of the dock where a number of large rockets had been set up.

  "He's got a permit for the damned things," Celluci muttered. "The son of a bitch knows how to cover his ass."

  "But not his id." Vicki's fingers curved cool around Mike's forearm. "He'll get his, don't worry."

  The first rocket went up, exploding red over the lake, the colours muted against the evening grey of sky and water. The developer turned towards the shore and raised both hands above his head. "Now that I've got your attention, there's a few things I'd like to share with you all before the festivities continue. First of all, I've decided not to press charges concerning the damage to my vehicle although I'm aware that…"

  The dock began to rock. Behind him, one of the rockets fell into the water.

  "Mr Gordon." The voice was Mary Joseph's. "Get to shore, now."

  Pointing a finger towards her, he shook his head. "Oh, no, old woman, I'm Stuart Gordon…"

  No call-me-Stuart, tonight, Celluci noted.

  "… and you don't tell me what to do, I tell…"

  Arms windmilling, he stepped back, once, twice, and hit the water. Arms and legs stretched out, he looked as though he was sitting on something just below the surface.

  "I have had enough of this," he began…

  …and disappeared.

  Vicki reached the end of the dock in time to see the pale oval of his face engulfed by dark water. To her astonishment, he seemed to have got his cell phone out of his pocket and all she could think of was that old movie cut line, Who you gonna call?

  One heartbeat, two. She thought about going in after him. The fingertips on her reaching hand were actually damp when Celluci grabbed her shoulder and pulled her back. She wouldn't have done it, but it was nice that he thought she would.

  Back on the shore, two dozen identical wide-eyed stares were locked on the flat, black surface of the lake, too astounded by what had happened to their mutual enemy, Vicki realized, to notice how fast she'd made it to the end of the dock.

  Mary Joseph broke the silence first. "Thus acts the vengeful spirit of Lake Nepeakea," she declared. Then as heads began to nod, she added dryly, "Can't say I didn't warn him."

  Mike looked over at Vicki, who shrugged.

  "Works for me," she said.

  * * *

  Someone to Share the Night

  *

  You write for a living, Henry reminded himself, staring at the form on the monitor. A hundred and fifty thousand publishable words a year. How hard can this be? Red-gold brows drawn in, he began to type.

  "Single white male seeks... no..." The cursor danced back. "Single white male, mid-twenties, seeks..." That wasn't exactly his age, but he rather suspected that personals ads were like taxes, everybody lied. "Seeks..."

  He paused, fingers frozen over the keyboard. Seeks what? he wondered, staring at the five words that, so far, made up the entire fax. Then he sighed and removed a word. He had no real interest in spen
ding time with those who used race as a criteria for friendship. Life was too short. Even his.

  "Single male, midtwenties, seeks..." He glanced down at the tabloid page spread out on his desk searching for inspiration. Unfortunately, he found wishful thinking, macho posturing, and, reading between the lines, a quiet desperation that made the hair rise off the back of his neck.

  "What am I doing?" Rolling his eyes, he shoved his chair away from the desk. "I could walk out that door and have anyone I wanted."

  Which was true.

  But it wouldn't be what he wanted.

  This is not an act of desperation, he reminded himself. Impatient, perhaps. Desperate, no.

  "Single male, mid-twenties, not into the bar scene..." The phrase meat market was singularly apt in his case. ". . . seeks..."

  What he'd had.

  But Vicki was three thousand odd miles away with a man who loved her in spite of changes.

  And Tony, freed from a life of mere survival on the streets, had defined himself and moved on.

  They'd left a surprising hole in his life. Surprising and painful. Surprisingly painful. He found himself unwilling to wait for time and fate to fill it.

  "Single male, midtwenties, not into the bar scene, out of the habit of being alone, seeks someone strong, intelligent, and adaptable."

  Frowning, he added, "Must be able to laugh at life." Then he sent the fax before he could change his mind. The paper would add the electronic mailbox number when they ran it on Thursday.

  *

  Late Thursday or early Friday depending how the remaining hours of darkness were to be defined, Henry picked a copy of the paper out of a box on Davie Street and checked his ad. In spite of the horror stories he'd heard to the contrary, they'd not only gotten it right but placed it at the bottom of the first column of Alternative Lifestyles, where it had significantly more punch than if it had been buried higher up on the page.

  Deadlines kept him from checking the mailbox until Sunday evening.

  There were thirty-two messages. Thirty-two.

  He felt flattered until he actually listened to them and then, even though no one else knew, he felt embarrassed about feeling flattered.

  Twenty, he dismissed out of hand. A couple of the instant rejects had clearly been responding to the wrong mailbox. A few sounded interesting but had a change of heart in the middle of the message and left no actual contact information. The rest seemed to be laughing just a little too hard at life.

  But at the end of a discouraging half an hour, he still had a dozen messages to choose from; seven women, five men. It wasn't thirty-two, but it wasn't bad.

  Eleven of them had left him e-mail addresses.

  One had left him a phone number.

  He listened again to the last voice in the mailbox, the only one of the twelve who believed he wouldn't abuse the privilege offered by the phone company.

  "Hi. My name is Lilah. I'm also in my mid- twenties—although which side of the midpoint I'd rather not say."

  Henry could hear the smile in her voice. It was a half smile, a crooked smile, the kind of smile that could appreciate irony. He found himself smiling in response.

  "Although I can quite happily be into the bar scene, I do think they're the worst possible place to meet someone for the first time. How about a coffee? I can probably be free any evening this week."

  And then she left her phone number.

  Still smiling, he called it.

  *

  If American troops had invaded Canada during the War of 1812 with half the enthusiasm Starbucks had exhibited when crossing the border, the outcome of the war would have been entirely different. While Henry had nothing actually against the chain of coffee shops, he found their client base to be just a little too broad. In the cafe on Denman that he preferred, there were never any children, rushing junior executives, or spandex shorts. Almost everyone wore black and, in spite of multiple piercings and overuse of profanity, the younger patrons were clearly imitating their elders.

  Their elders were generally the kind of artists and writers who seldom made sales but knew how to look the part. They were among the very few in Vancouver without tans.

  Using the condensation on a three-dollar bottle of water to make rings on the scarred tabletop, Henry watched the door and worried about recognizing Lilah when she arrived. Then he worried a bit that she wasn't going to arrive. Then he went back to worrying about recognizing her.

  You are way too old for this nonsense, he told himself sternly. Get a...

  The woman standing in the doorway was short, vaguely Mediterranean with thick dark hair that spilled halfway down her back in ebony ripples. If she'd passed her midtwenties it wasn't by more than a year or two. She'd clearly ignored the modern notion that a woman should be so thin she looked like an adolescent boy with breasts. Not exactly beautiful, something about her drew the eye. Noting Henry's regard, she smiled, red lips parting over very white teeth and it was exactly the expression that Henry had imagined. He stood as she walked to his table, enjoying the sensual way she moved her body across the room and aware that everyone else in the room was enjoying it, too.

  "Henry?" Her voice was throatier in person, almost a purr.

  "Lilah." He gave her name back to her as confirmation.

  She raised her head and locked her dark gaze to his.

  They blinked in unison.

  "Vampire."

  Henry Fitzroy, bastard son of Henry VIII, once Duke of Richmond and Somerset, dropped back into his chair with an exhalation halfway between a sigh and a snort. "Succubus."

  *

  "So are you saying you weren't planning to feed off whoever answered your ad?"

  "No, I'm saying it wasn't the primary reason I placed it."

  The overt sexual attraction turned off, Lilah swirled a finger through a bit of spilled latte and rolled her eyes. "So you're a better man than I am, Gunga Din, but I personally don't see the difference between us. You don't kill anymore, I don't kill anymore."

  "I don't devour years off my..." He paused and frowned, uncertain of how to go on.

  "Victims? Prey? Quarry? Dates?" The succubus sighed. "We've got to come up with a new word for it."

  Recognizing she had a point, Henry settled for the lesser of four evils. "I don't devour years off my date's life."

  "Oh, please. So they spend less time having their diapers changed by strangers in a nursing home, less time drooling in their pureed mac and cheese. If they knew, they'd thank me. At least I don't violate their structural integrity."

  "I hardly think a discreet puncture counts as a violation."

  "Hey, you said puncture, not me. But..." She raised a hand to stop his protest. ". . . I'm willing to let it go."

  "Gracious of you."

  "Always."

  In spite of himself, Henry smiled.

  "You know, hon, you're very attractive when you do that."

  "Do what?"

  "When you stop looking so irritated about things not turning out the way you expected. Blind dates never turn out the way you expect." Dropping her chin she looked up at him through the thick fringe of her lashes. "Trust me, I've been on a million of them."

  "A million?"

  "Give or take."

  "So you're a pro..."

  A sardonic eyebrow rose. "A gentleman wouldn't mention that."

  "True." He inclined his head in apology and took the opportunity to glance at his watch. "Run Lola Run is playing at the Caprice in ninety minutes; did you want to go?"

  For the first time since entering the cafe, Lilah looked startled. "With you?"

  A little startled himself, Henry shrugged, offering the only reason that explained the unusually impulsive invitation. "I'd enjoy spending some time just being myself, without all the implicit lies."

  Dark brows drew in and she studied him speculatively. "I can understand that."

  An almost comfortable silence filled the space between them.

  "Well?" Henry asked at last. />
  "My German's a little rusty. I haven't used it for almost a century."

  Henry stood and held out his hand. "There're subtitles."

  Shaking her head, she pushed her chair out from the table and laid her hand in his. "Why not?"

  *

  Sunset. A slow return to awareness. The feel of cotton sheets against his skin. The pulse of the city outside the walls of his sanctuary. The realization he was smiling.

  After the movie, they'd walked for hours in a soft mist, talking about the places they'd seen and when they'd seen them. A primal demon, the succubus had been around for millennia but politely restricted her observations to the four and a half centuries Henry could claim. Their nights had been remarkably similar.

  When they parted about an hour before dawn, they parted as friends although it would never be a sexual relationship; sex was too tied to feeding for them both.

  "World's full of warm bodies," Lilah had pointed out, "but how many of them saw Mrs. Siddon play Lady Macbeth at Covent Garden Theater on opening night and felt the hand washing scene was way, way over the top?"

  How many indeed, Henry thought, throwing back the covers and swinging his legs out of bed. Rather than deal with the balcony doors in the master suite, he'd sealed the smallest room in the three bedroom condo against the light. He'd done the crypt thing once, and didn't see the attraction.

  After his shower, he wandered into the living room and picked up the remote. With any luck he could catch the end of the news. He didn't often watch it but last night's... date?... had left him feeling reconnected to the world.

  "...when southbound travelers waited up to three hours to cross the border at the Peace Arch as U.S. customs officials tightened security checks as a precaution against terrorism."

  "Canadian terrorists." Henry frowned as he toweled his hair. "Excuse me while I politely blow up your building?"

  "Embarrassed Surrey officials had to shut down the city's Web site after a computer hacker broke into the system and rewrote the greeting, using less-than- flattering language. The hacker remains unknown and unapprehended.

  "And in a repeat of our top story, police have identified the body found this morning on Wreck Beach as Taylor Johnston, thirty-two, of Haro Street. They still have no explanation for the condition of the body, although an unidentified constable commented that 'it looked like he had his life sucked out of him.'