Blood Debt

by Tanya Huff

Chapter Two

 

  DETECTIVE-Sergeant Michael Celluci closed the heavy metal door quietly behind him and stepped cau?tiously into the shadowed apartment. A dim fan of light that spilled out from the office under the loft was swallowed up by the sixteen-foot ceiling in the main room. The building had been a glass factory before a recession had emptied it and urban renewal had filled it again with barely serviceable living space for the fashionable fringe of Toronto. The majority of the ten?ants dressed exclusively in black and most were in?volved in some way with "the arts"-although some of those ways were pretty peripheral in Michael Celluci's not at all humble opinion.

  His soft-soled shoes making no sound on the rug that defined a right-of-way along one wall, he moved toward the light.

  "So what about the guy you can see? What's he, the union representative?" The silence defined the re?sponse. "I'm sorry. I am taking this seriously. No, I am. Ask it innocuous questions until I get there. " The old wooden office chair creaked alarmingly as it was tipped back on two legs. "Ask it things you know it'll have to answer yes to. "

  Just under the edge of the loft, an arm's length from the chair, Celluci stretched out a hand to grab a sweatshirt-clad shoulder. Just before his fingers closed on fabric, they were captured in an unbreakable grip.

  The woman holding him flashed him a disdainful nice try and kept talking into the phone. "Look, how hard can it be? Did you used to be a man? Are you dead now? Were you once alive?"

  Were you alive? Celluci mouthed as she pulled him around the edge of her chair and pushed him down onto a corner of the cluttered desk.

  Brows lowered, she acknowledged he'd heard cor?rectly with a single nod, then tried to reassure her caller. "It doesn't matter that they're stupid questions as long as it answers yes. I'll be there as soon as I can. I'll. . . " Sighing, she settled back with an expres?sion Celluci recognized-the first time he'd seen it, they'd both been in uniform, and it had been aimed at him. There could be only one explanation for it now; the person on the other end of the line was actu?ally daring to give Vicki Nelson advice.

  She'd never taken advice well. Not when she'd been in uniform and considered herself God's gift to the Metropolitan Toronto Police. Not when she'd made detective. Not when retinitis pigmentosa had forced her to quit a job she'd both loved and excelled at. Not during the time she'd been a private investigator. And not since the change.

  If I didn't know, he thought, watching her features shift from impatience to irritation, I'd never realize what she was.

  She looked much the same, only a little thinner and a lot paler. She acted much the same, having always been overbearing, arrogant, and opinionated. All right, so she didn't used to drink blood. . . . "That's enough!" Irritation had become annoyance and, from her tone, she'd cut off a continuing mono?logue. "I'll be there as soon as I can, and if you're not home when I arrive, I'm heading straight back to Toronto. " Hanging up as the last "oh" left her mouth, she turned her attention to Celluci and said, "Henry has a ghost and would like me to get rid of it for him. "

  Cold fingers touched the back of Celluci's neck. "Henry Fitzroy?"

  "Himself. "

  "Isn't he still in Vancouver?"

  Silver-gray eyes narrowed as she gazed up at him. "He is. "

  "And you've just agreed to travel clear across the country to take care of his . . . " In spite of everything they'd been through-in spite of demons, werewolves, mummies, and the reanimation of the dead, in spite of vampires-his lip curled. ". . . ghost?"

  "I have. "

  "And since you've presented it to me as a fait ac?compli, can I assume anything I have to say be?comes irrelevant?"

  Her brows drew in slightly. "This ghost is scaring people to death, Mike, and it's going to keep doing it until someone finds out why and stops it. Henry isn't trained for that kind of an investigation. " When he opened his mouth, she lifted a hand in warning. "And don't you dare say I'm not either. I'll be stopping a killer. It doesn't matter that he's dead. "

  No. It wouldn't. But the ghost had little or nothing to do with his reaction. He leaped to his feet and pushed past her, out of the office and into the main room where he'd have floor enough to pace. "Do you know how far it is to Vancouver?"

  "About 4,500 kilometers. "

  He stomped to the door and back again. "Do you realize how short the night is at this time of the year?"

  "Less than nine hours. " Her voice added a clear indication that she wasn't pleased about it either.

  "And do you remember what happens when you're caught out in the sun?"

  "I barbecue. "

  Hands spread, he rocked to a stop in front of her. "So you're going to go 4,500 kilometers, in less than nine-hour shifts, with no sanctuary from the sun? Do you have any idea how insanely dangerous that is?"

  "I've been thinking about buying a used van and making a few minor modifications. "

  "A few minor modifications," he repeated incredu?lously, trying to bury fear with anger. "You'll be a sitting duck all day, no matter where you park-a charcoal briquette just waiting to happen!"

  "So come with me. "

  "Come with you? As a favor to Henry-fucking-Fitzroy?"

  She got slowly to her feet and glared up at him through narrowed eyes. "Is that what this is really about? Henry?"

  "No!" And it wasn't; not entirely. "This is about you putting yourself in unnecessary danger. Don't they have PI's in British Columbia?"

  "Not ones who can deal with something like this and no one Henry trusts. " She smiled, a little self-mockingly, then spread one hand against his chest and added, her words slowed to the rhythm of his heart?beat, "I don't want to become a charcoal briquette. I could use your help, Mike. "

  His mouth snapped shut around the remainder of the diatribe. The old Vicki Nelson had never been able to ask for help. When Henry Fitzroy had given her his blood, he'd changed her in more than just the obvious ways. Celluci hated the undead, romance-writing, royal bastard for that.

  "Let me think about it," he muttered. "I'm going to make coffee. "

  Vicki listened to him stomp into the tiny kitchen and begin opening and closing cupboard doors with more force than was strictly necessary. She drew in a deep breath, savoring the scent of him. He'd always smelled terrific; a kind of heated, male smell that used to make her incredibly horny whenever she got a whiff of it. Okay, it still made her horny, she corrected with a grin. But now it also made her hungry.

  "Don't you ever throw your garbage out," he snarled.

  "Why should I? I don't create any of it. "

  He hadn't needed to raise his voice. She could've heard him if he'd whispered. She could hear his blood pulse through his veins. Sometimes she thought she could hear his thoughts. Although he might be hon?estly concerned about the dangers of travel, where it came right down to it, he didn't want to go to Vancou?ver with her because he didn't want to do Henry Fitz?roy any favors. Neither did he want her to go to Vancouver, and thus to Henry Fitzroy, without him.

  Finishing off the bit of bookkeeping she'd been doing when Henry'd called, Vicki saved the file and waited for Mike to make up his mind, wondering if he realized she had no intention of going without him.

  That Henry was being haunted by a ghost who played twenty questions with deadly results didn't sur?prise her. Nothing much surprised her anymore. There are more things in heaven and earth. . . She'd had it printed on her business cards. Mr. Shakespeare had no idea.

  That Henry had called, wanting to hire her to solve his little mystery, had surprised her. He'd been so definite when they'd parted that they'd never see each other again, that they couldn't see each other again.

  As though he'd been reading her thoughts, Celluci chose that moment to come back into the office and growl, "I thought vampires were unable to share a territory. "

  Vicki's chin rose. "I refuse to be controlled by my nature. "

  Celluci snorted. "Yeah. Right. " He took a
swallow of steaming coffee. "Tell that to the vampire who used to live here. "

  "I was willing to negotiate," Vicki protested, but she felt her lip curling up off her teeth. The other vampire had taunted her with the death of a friend and claimed downtown Toronto. When Vicki had fi?nally killed her, she'd felt no regret, no guilt, and no need to tell Detective-Sergeant Michael Celluci the full details of what had happened. Not only because of what he was-not only because he was human- but because of who he was. He wouldn't have under?stood, and she didn't think she could stand it if he looked at her the way he'd sometimes looked at Henry.

  So she'd told him only that she'd won.

  Now she changed her incipient snarl into something closer to a smile. "Henry and I will manage to get along. "

  Celluci hid his own smile behind the coffee mug. He recognized the tone and wondered if Henry had any idea of how little choice he was about to have in the matter. He didn't want Vicki going to Vancouver, but since she'd already made up her mind, he couldn't stop her-nor was he suicidal enough to try. Since she was going, regardless, he didn't want her going alone. Besides, he'd enjoy watching his bloodsucking, royal bastardness get run over by Vicki's absolute refusal to do what was expected of her.

  "All right. You win. I'm going with you. "

  ". . . things are slow right now, and I've got the time. "

  Inspector Cantree snorted. "You've always got the time, Detective. I'm just amazed you actually want to use some of it. "

  Celluci shrugged. "Something came up with a friend of Vicki's out west. "

  "A friend of Vicki's. Ah. " The inspector stared into the oily scum on top of his coffee, the heavy stoneware mug looking almost delicate in his huge hand. "And how is 'Victory' Nelson these days? I hear she's been dealing with some strange cases since she got back in town. "

  Celluci shrugged again. "Someone has to. At least if they're calling her, they're not calling us. "

  "True. " Cantree's eyes narrowed, and the look he shot at the other man was frankly speculative. "She never struck me as the type to get involved in this paranormal, occult bullshit. "

  Celluci only just stopped himself from shrugging a third time. "Most of her work's the same old boring crap. Cheating spouses. Insurance fraud. "

  "Most," Cantree repeated. It wasn't quite a ques?tion, so Celluci didn't answer it.

  Inspector Cantree had narrowly escaped becoming the enchanted acolyte of an ancient Egyptian god. The others who'd been caught up in the spell had created their own explanations, but he'd insisted on hearing the truth. As he'd never mentioned it again, Celluci remained unsure of how much he'd believed.

  The memory hung in the air between them for a moment, then Cantree brushed it aside, the gesture stating as clearly as if he'd said it aloud: Forty-seven homicides so far this year; I've enough to deal with. "Take your vacation, Detective, but I want your butt back here in two weeks ready to work. "

  "Vicki, we will never make it to Vancouver in that. '''

  "I know it doesn't look like much. . . " Hands on her hips, Vicki swept her gaze over the grimy blue van and decided not to mention that it'd probably look worse in daylight. It looked bad enough under the security light in Celluci's driveway. ". . . but it's mechanically sound. "

  "Since when do you know anything about mechani?cally sound?"

  "I don't. " She turned and grinned at him, meeting his eyes and allowing power to rise momentarily in hers. "But nobody lies to me anymore. "

  Because it had been used for deliveries, the van box had no windows to cover. Vicki'd had a partition with wide rubber gaskets installed behind the seats and an?other just inside the rear doors.

  "You got it done fast enough, didn't you?" Celluci brushed at a dusting of sawdust at the base of the front barrier and frowned at the inner bolts that en?sured there'd be no unwelcome visitors. "What hap?pens if there's an accident and I have to get you out?"

  "Wait until sunset and I'll get myself out. "

  "There's no ventilation, and it's likely to get hotter than hell in there. "

  She shrugged. "I doubt I'll notice. "

  "You doubt?" His voice started to rise, and he forced it back down, the dark windows in the sur?rounding houses reminding him that the neighbors were still asleep and very likely wanted to remain that way. "You're not sure?"

  "I'm sure that I won't feel it. Other than that. . . " There were a number of things about being a vampire she was having to discover as the situation came up. Henry had taught her how to feed without causing harm, how to gently change the memories of those who provided nourishment, and how to blend with the mortals who walked the day, but he'd never taught her that swimming was out of the question because increased bone density caused her to sink like a rock-scaring the shit out of the lifeguard at the "Y. " Nor had he mentioned what traveling all day in the back of an enclosed van might do. "The SPCV sug?gests leaving a rear window rolled down a bit and parking out of the sun. "

  Celluci stared at her in confusion. "The what?"

  "The society for the prevention of cruelty to vam?pires. It was a joke. " She patted his arm. "Never mind. What do you think of the bed?"

  He peered past her shoulder. The bed had padded sides ten inches high. "It looks like a coffin without a lid. I'm not using it. "

  "Suit yourself, but remember who's driving nights while you're sleeping. " She mimed steering around a corner and did a fairly good impersonation of tires squealing against the road.

  As Vicki's driving style hovered between kamikaze and Montreal cabbie, Celluci shuddered and checked his watch. Unfortunately, if they planned on leaving before daybreak, they didn't have time to fight about either the bed or Vicki's driving-and if he couldn't do anything about the latter, he certainly wasn't going to insist on removing the padding from the former. "Let's get going, then. It's four-twelve and sunrise is in less than forty-five minutes. " When Vicki lifted both brows, he pulled a battered paperback out of his back pocket. "Farmer's Almanac. It's got sunrise and sunset for the whole year. I decided it might be best to be prepared. "

  "For what?" Vicki drew herself up to her full five-feet ten, her expression dangerous and purely human. This argument, or variations on the theme, long pre?dated the change. "What's the matter, Mike? You still think I can't take care of myself?"

  "Not between sunrise and sunset," he reminded her mildly, refusing to be drawn.

  Vicki deflated. Unfortunately, he was completely and absolutely and inarguably correct. She hated that-not so much that he was right, but that it left her no room for argument.

  And he knew it. Eyes crinkling at the corners, he shoved the book back into his pocket.

  Stepping forward, she brushed the overlong curl of dark brown hair back off his forehead and murmured, "Come evening, however, no one messes with me. "

  Lying in the coffinlike bed, vibrating along with the van's six-cylinder, no-longer-entirely-to-company-specs engine, enclosed in a warm darkness so deep it draped over her like black velvet, Vicki could feel the sun. The flesh between her shoulders crawled. Two years a vampire and she still hadn't gotten used to the ap?proach of the day.

  "It's like that final instant, just before someone hits you from behind, when you know it's going to happen and you can't do a damned thing about it. Only it lasts longer. . . . "

  Celluci hadn't been impressed by the analogy, and she supposed she couldn't blame him-it didn't im?press her much either. While he'd pulled the van up under the security light and methodically checked for pinholes that might let in the sun, she'd almost gone crazy with the need to get under cover. He hadn't listened when she'd told him she'd already checked, but then, he'd always believed she took foolish risks. Risks, she took. Foolish risks, never. Okay, hardly ever.

  Wondering why she was suddenly doing numbers from HMS Pinafore, she licked her lips and tasted the memory of Celluci's mouth against hers. He'd wanted to wait for sunrise before he started driving, but Vicki'd insisted
he start right after she closed herself up in her moving sanctuary. She didn't think she could cope with both of them waiting for. . . oblivion.

  At that hour of the morning, traffic was heading into Toronto, not out of it and, for all its disreputable appearance, the van handled well. Fully aware he would not be able to explain the apparent corpse in the back should he be stopped by the OPP, Celluci drove a careful five kilometers over the limit and re?signed himself to being passed by nearly every other car on the highway.

  "Get your picture taken," he muttered as an old and rusty K-car buzzed by him. Unfortunately, the new Ontario government had recently pulled the photo radar vans, insisting they'd shown no positive effects. Celluci had no idea where the idiots at Queen's Park had gathered their information, but in his personal experience, the threat of the vans had kept paranoid drivers actually traveling at slightly less than the limit.

  He stopped at Barrie for breakfast and a chance to stretch his legs. A tractor trailer accident held him for an hour just outside Waubaushene and by the time he stopped for lunch at the Centennial Diner in Bigwood, he'd heard Sonny and Cher sing "I Got You Babe" on three different oldies stations and was wondering why he was putting himself through rock-and-roll hell for Henry-fucking-Fitzroy.

  "I should've tried harder to talk her out of it. " He yanked a tasseled toothpick out of his club sandwich. So what if there were no PI's on the West Coast Fitzroy could trust. "How's he supposed to make new friends if he never talks to strangers. "

  "Is anything wrong?"

  Celluci manufactured a smile and tossed it up to his teenage waitress. "No. Nothing's wrong. " Watching her watch him on her way back to the kitchen, he sighed. Great. Not only does he expect Vicki to risk her life traveling across three quarters of the country, but now he's got me talking to myself.

  On the flyspecked radio above the pie rack, Sonny Bono once again declared his love in the face of every?thing they said.

  "WaWa?" Knuckles on her hips, Vicki rolled the kinks out of her shoulders. "Why WaWa?"

  Celluci shrugged, eyes appreciatively following her movements. "Why not WaWa? I thought you might want to see the goose. "

  "The goose?" Slowly, she turned and peered up at the nine-meter-high steel sculpture silhouetted against a gray sky streaked with orange. "Okay. I've seen it. I hope we're not sharing the high point of your day. "

  "Close," he admitted. "How're you feeling?"

  "Like my body spent the day bouncing around in?side a padded box. Other than that, fine. "

  "Are you, uh. . . " He broke off in embarrassment as a car pulled into the small parking lot and a pair of children exploded out of the back and raced up the path toward the bathrooms.

  "Hungry?" Stepping into the circle of his body heat, she grinned. "Mike, you can say hungry in front of kids-they'll assume I'll be having a Big Mac, not Ronald MacDonald. "

  "That's disgusting. "

  "Actually, it's given me an appetite. "

  He grabbed her upper arms, halting her advance. "Forget it, Vicki, I'm too old for a quickie in the back of a van. " But his protest had little force, and after the kids and the car disappeared, he allowed himself to be convinced.

  It didn't take much.

  Twenty minutes later, as they climbed up into the front seats, Vicki reached out and caught a mosquito about to land on his back. "Forget it, sister," she mut?tered, squashing the bug between thumb and forefin?ger. "He gave at the office. "

  "We're just past Portage la Prairie?" Celluci looked up from the map of Manitoba with a scowl. He hadn't slept well, and the thermos of coffee Vicki'd handed him when he'd staggered out of the van could peel the residue off a garbage truck. He drank it anyway- after fifteen years drinking police coffee, he could drink anything-but he wasn't happy. The last thing he needed to be told was that they'd gone consider?ably past the point where he'd expected to take over. . "You must've been doing between a hundred and twenty-five and a hundred and thirty kilometers an hour!"

  "What's your point?"

  "Let's start with the speed limit being a hundred kilometers an hour and take it from there. It's not just a good idea," he added sarcastically, fighting to refold the map. "It's the law. "

  Vicki clamped her teeth down on a complaint that a hundred K to someone with her reaction time was ridiculously slow, and merely shrugged. Her opinions didn't make the speed limit any less the law. If he'd suggested she'd been driving unsafely, then she could've given him an argument.

  Leaning back against the van, she stared out at the farmland surrounding the gas station parking lot. With the station closed and the only illumination coming from the stars and Celluci's flashlight, it seemed as though they were the last people alive in the world. She hated that feeling and she'd felt it for most of the night as she'd sped away from Lake Superior toward Kenora and the Ontario/Manitoba border. At 3 A. M. even Winnipeg was a little short of people up and about-except for a sleepy clerk at the 24-hour gas station/donut shop where she'd filled the van and two transients spotted sleeping in the shelter of an over?pass. She'd cut through the middle of Portage la Prai?rie rather than take the Trans-Canada Highway loop around, but it was still too early for anyone to be up and about.

  Used to living, and hunting, among three million people, at least one million of whom never seemed to sleep, the isolation made her feel vulnerable and exposed.

  "Give me that. " She reached down and snatched the partially folded map out of Mike's hands. "All you have to do is follow the original creases. Why is that so difficult?"

  Vulnerable, exposed, and in a really bad mood.

  Meeting Celluci's astonished glower with a half-apologetic wave of the map, she growled, "All this scenery is beginning to get to me. "

  Recognizing that on a perfectly straight, completely flat stretch of road no one was going to drive at one hundred kilometers an hour, the speed limit through Saskatchewan was one hundred and ten. Almost ev?eryone did one twenty. Considering his cargo, Celluci compromised at one fifteen.

  A lifetime's worth of wheat fields later, at 7:17 P. M. local time, he pulled into a truck stop just outside Bassano, Alberta, and turned off the engine wonder?ing if there was a Sonny and Cher revival going on he hadn't heard about. If he had to listen to "I Got You, Babe" one more time, he was going to have to hurt someone. Parking the van so that Vicki could exit without being seen, he walked stiffly across the asphalt to the restaurant. Sunset would be at 8:30, so he had little better than an hour to eat.

  Soup of the day was beef barley. He stared down into the bowl and remembered all the meals he and Vicki had eaten together, all the gallons of coffee, all the stale sandwiches grabbed on the run. All at once, the thought that they'd never again go out for dim sum, or chicken paprikas, or even order in a pizza while they watched Hockey Night in Canada left him feeling incredibly depressed.

  "Is there something wrong with the soup?" A middle-aged woman in a spotless white apron peered down at him with some concern from behind the counter.

  "The, uh, the soup's fine. "

  "Glad to hear it. It don't come out of a can, you know. I make it myself. " When he couldn't find an immediate response, she shook her head and sighed. "Come on, buddy, cheer up. You look like you've lost your best friend. "

  Celluci frowned. He hadn't exactly lost her. Vicki remained everything to him she ever had been, except a dinner companion and weighed against the rest that shouldn't mean much. But, right now, it did. I thought I'd dealt with this. . . .

  He barely noticed when the waitress took the empty bowl away and replaced it with a platter of steak and home fries.

  Vampire, Nightwalker, Nosferatu-Vicki was no longer human. Granted, she'd made a commitment to him in a way she'd never been able to before the change, but, given immortality, how important could the few years of his life be?

  The rhubarb pie tasted like sawdust and he left half of it on the plate.

  Shoulders hunched and hands
shoved into his jacket pockets, he headed back across the parking lot toward the van. Vaguely aware he was wallowing in self-pity, he couldn't seem to stop.

  When the van's engine roared into life, it took him completely by surprise. Standing three feet from the front bumper, Celluci stared through a fine film of bug bodies smeared over the windshield and into the smug face of a young man in his late teens or early twenties. He didn't realize what was happening until the young man backed the van away from him, cranked the steering wheel around, and laid rubber all the way out to the highway.

  The van was being stolen.

  Instinct sent him racing after it, but halfway across the parking lot, the fact he didn't have a chance of catching up penetrated and he rocked to a halt. He checked his watch. 8:27.

  Vicki would be awake in three minutes.

  She'd know immediately that something was wrong, that he wasn't driving. She'd pull open the partition behind the seats .

  . . . and their young car thief was about to be in for one hell of a surprise.

  Watching the grimy back end of the stolen van dis?appear into the sunset down a secondary road, Celluci started to laugh. His only regret was that he wouldn't be there to see that punk's face when Vicki woke up. He was still laughing when the waitress met him at the door of the restaurant, a worried frown creasing the smooth curves of her face. "Wasn't that your van?"

  "It was. " He grinned down at her, feeling better than he had in hours.

  "Would you like to use our phone to call the police?"

  "No, thank you. But I would like another piece of that delicious rhubarb pie. "

  Completely confused, she followed him across the restaurant and watched wide-eyed as he dropped onto a counter stool. She shook her head as he looked at his watch and snickered. He'd seemed like such a nice man and although she was glad to see that whatever had been bothering him obviously wasn't bothering him any longer, she couldn't understand his attitude. "But what about your van?"

  The corners of Celluci's mouth curved up as he reached for a fork. "It'll be back. "

  Something was wrong.

  Vicki lay in the darkness and sifted through sounds and scents and sensation.

  The van was still moving. Celluci had insisted, for safety's sake, they be parked at least half an hour before sunrise and sunset. Somehow, considering the completely unnecessary fuss he'd made over it, Vicki doubted he'd changed his mind. Either he'd lost his little book, he'd been unable to get off the highway, or he wasn't the driver.

  The smell of the engine-gas and oil and heated metal-laid over the lingering scent of Celluci clinging to the padding of the bed made an enhanced sense of smell next to useless. The three little pigs could be driving, and she wouldn't be able to sniff them out.

  Kneeling next to the plywood barrier, she filtered out the sounds of internal combustion and heard a stranger's heartbeat.

  She growled low in her throat. Resisting the urge to crash through the barrier and rip the stranger's heart out, Vicki silently pulled back the bolts. Anger wouldn't get her the answers she needed. Anger wouldn't discover what happened to Mike Celluci. First, I get some answers . . .

  To the young man behind the wheel, it seemed as though one moment the passenger seat was empty and the next there was a woman sitting in it, smiling at him. Her smile was terrifying.

  "Pull over," she said softly.

  More frightened than he'd ever been in his life, he braked and swerved onto the shoulder. By the time he fought the van to a standstill, his heart was pound?ing so violently, he could barely breathe.

  "Shut off the engine. "

  He whimpered as he turned the key. He didn't know why, but he couldn't prevent the sound from escaping. When cool fingers grasped his chin and forced his head around, he whimpered again.

  "Where is the man who was driving this vehicle?"

  Her eyes were impossibly silver in the twilight. He didn't know what the rest of her looked like because all he could see were her eyes. "He's, he's at Ruby's Steak House. Maybe five miles b-b-back. "

  "Has he been hurt?"

  Although not an imaginative young man, he had a sudden flash of what was likely to happen should he answer in the affirmative. His stomach spasmed, and his throat worked.

  "If you puke," she told him, "you'll eat it. Now answer my question. "

  "He was f-f-fine. Really. " When she seemed to be waiting for more, he added, "I looked b-b-back and he was laughing. "

  "Laughing?"

  "Yes, ma'am. "

  Frowning, Vicki released the young man's jaw. Why would Celluci be laughing? She'd never suspected that he considered grand theft auto to be amusing. Okay, he stopped for supper and someone stole the van. Why would he think that was funny? Then she looked up at the streaks of gold and rose lingering on the hori?zon. All of a sudden, she got the joke.

  If Ruby's Steak House was only five miles back, this poor sucker had driven off with a sleeping vampire moments before sunset.

  When she noticed him fumbling with the door latch, she grabbed his arm. "Not so fast," she murmured, the threat softened but still there. "What's your name?"

  "K-Kyle. "

  He was really quite attractive in an unshaven, out?law sort of way. Slender but with nice muscles. Pretty blue eyes. Her gaze locked on the pulse in his throat. "How old are you, Kyle?"

  "T-twenty-two. "

  Old enough. She let the Hunger rise.

  Kyle saw her smile change. Almost understood it. Her face was very pale. Her teeth, very white.

  "Actually, I think young Kyle's decided to give up stealing cars. "

  "Oh?" Celluci grinned at her profile, just barely vis?ible in the pale green glow from the dashboard lights. "What makes you say that?"

  "Well, I think he came to the decision when I pointed out how lucky he'd been. "

  "Lucky?"

  "Sure. When he took this van, all he got was me. " Vicki turned to face her companion, allowing the van to speed down the highway momentarily unguided. Her eyes gleamed, and her voice made promises for later. "I merely reminded him that another time, he might drive off with something. . . dangerous. "

  Sunrise the next morning was at 4:56, Pacific Time. At 4:30, Vicki pulled over onto a deserted scenic view and stopped the van. Driving west through the Rock?ies, she'd gained an hour of night. Since they'd left home, she'd gained three, but this would be the last, they'd crossed into British Columbia during the night and would reach Vancouver before evening. From now on, sunrise and sunset would occur in the same time zone.

  Twisting around in the driver's seat, she stared into the shadows of her sanctuary. Celluci refused to sleep with the front partition up and she supposed she couldn't blame him although the song of his blood behind her was a constant distraction. Considering the demands of the road as it passed through two national parks and crossed most of a mountain range, it was fortunate that, having fed deeply from young Kyle, she'd been able to keep most of her attention on her driving.

  Sleep smoothed out the lines and shadows layered onto his face by fifteen years of police work and he looked much younger than his thirty-eight years.

  Thirty-eight.

  He had a scattering of gray hair at his right temple.

  How many years were they going to have? Fifty? Forty? And what was she going to do for the rest of eternity without him? Facing immortality, she found herself mourning his inevitable death while he contin?ued to live. Henry had warned her about falling into that kind of fatalistic despair, but it was a hard warning to remember while listening to a mortal heartbeat pounding out its few remaining years.

  Oh, for God's sake, Vicki, get a grip! Leaning for?ward, she grabbed Celluci's shoulder and shook him hard.

  "Wha. . . !"

  "Sunrise in twenty minutes, Mike. I'll leave you alone to put your face on. " Getting out of the van, she walked over to the railing and stared up at the Rockies. Rising in majest
ic silhouettes against the gray, predawn sky, they looked so definitively like mountains they almost looked fake.

  Now this is immortality, Vicki acknowledged. Next to these hunks of rock, I'm just going to live a little longer than average. She heard Mike walk around from the other side of the van and said, "I left a message on Henry's machine when I stopped for gas. He knows we'll get to his place today. "

  "Yeah? Will he still be there?"

  Eyes narrowed, she pivoted on one heel. "Why wouldn't he be?"

  "Oh, I don't know. Perhaps he's willing to recognize his limitations. " Three nights on the road, had left Celluci tired and stiff and not all the glories of a spring dawn in the midst of some of the most beautiful sce?nery in the world were going to make an impression until he had a piss and a coffee.

  "He'll be there. "

  "What makes you so sure?"

  "I told him not to leave. "

  Should've seen that coming, he muttered silently, following Vicki to the van. He caught her wrist as she lifted her hand to rub the back of her neck. "Did it ever occur to you that Henry Fitzroy knows better than you do what it means to be a vampire?"

  She turned within his grip although they both knew she could have easily broken it. "Maybe he does, but Henry Fitzroy doesn't know what it means to be me, and I'm not buying into his territorial imperative crap. "

  Because he could see the doubt in her eyes, he let it go. They'd find out soon enough.

  When he heard the bolts shoot back and the front barrier move, Celluci threw the last of his burger to a gull patrolling the strip mall parking lot and rolled up the window. He couldn't see anyone in earshot, but the last thing they needed was an eavesdropper.

  The silver of her eyes flecked with lingering gold from the setting sun, Vicki's gaze swept past him. "Where are we?

  "Cariboo Street, east end of the city. I thought you'd like to be awake when we arrived. "

  Vicki stared out the front window, across Vancou?ver, toward the ocean, toward Henry Fitzroy. Then she looked at Mike Celluci, really looked at him.

  He had the strangest sensation that no one had ever seen him so clearly, and he could feel himself begin?ning to sweat. Just when he thought he couldn't stand another minute of it, she smiled, reached out, and brushed the long curl of hair off his face.

  "Thanks. That's pretty perceptive for a guy who tapes Baywatch. "