1 Blood Price (20 page)

“The demon is being asked for material goods; it wouldn’t need to kill if it remained trapped in the pentagram answering questions. Look for someone who’s suddenly acquired great wealth, money, cars. And demons can’t create so all that has to come from somewhere.”

“We could catch him for possession of stolen goods?” They couldn’t mark every bit of cash in existence, but luxury cars, jewels, and stocks all were traceable. Vicki’s pulse began to quicken as she ran over the possibilities now open to investigation. Yes! Her hands curled into fists and punched the air triumphantly. It was only a matter of time. They had him. Or her.

“One more thing,” Henry warned, trying not to smile at her-What did they call it? Shadow boxing? “The more contact this person has with demonkind, the more unstable he or she is going to get. ”

“Yeah? Well, it’s another trait to look for, but you’ve got to tie pretty damned unstable to stand out these days. What about the demon?”

“The: demon isn’t very powerful. ”

Vicki snorted. “You might be able to rip a person’s throat cut with a single blow . . .” She paused and Henry nodded. answering the not-quite-asked question. “. . . but no one else I know could. This demon is plenty powerful enough .”

Henry shook his head. “Not as demons go. It has to feed every time it’s called in order to have an effect on things in this world.”

“So the deaths were it feeding? Completely random?”

“They didn’t mean anything to the person controlling the demon if that’s what you’re asking. If the demon had been killing business or personal rivals of a single person, the police would have found him or her by now. No, the demon chose where and whom to feed on.”

Vicki frowned. “But there
was
a definite external pattern.”

“My guess is that the demon being called is under the control of another, more powerful demon and has been attempting to form that demon’s name on the city.”

“Oh.”

Henry waited patiently while Vicki absorbed this new bit of information.

“Why?” Actually, she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. Or that she needed to ask.

“Access; uncontrolled access for the more powerful demon and however many more of its kind it might want to bring through.”

“And how many more deaths until the name is completed?”

“No way of knowing.”

“One? Two? You must have some idea,” she snapped. With on hand he gave her hope, with the other he took it away. The son of a bitch. “How many deaths in a demon’s name?”

“It depends on the demon.” As Vicki scowled, he rose, walked to the bookcase, and slid open one of the glass doors. The book he removed was about the size of a dictiorary, bound in leather that might have once been red before years of handling had darkened it to a worn and greasy black. He sat back down, closer this time, twisted the darkly patinaed clasp, and opened the book to a double page spread.

“It’s hand-written,” Vicki marveled, touching the corner of a page. She withdrew her finger quickly. The parchment had felt warm, like she’d just touched something obscenely alive.

“It’s very old.” Henry ignored her reaction; his had been much the same the first time he’d touched the book. “These are the demonic names. There’re twenty-seven of them and no way of knowing if the author discovered them all . ”

The names, written in thick black ink in an unpleasantly angular script, were for the most part seven or eight letters long. “The demon can’t be anywhere near finished,” she said thankfully. She still had time to find the bastard behind this.

Henry shook his head, hating to dampen her enthusiasm. “It wouldn’t be laying out the entire name, just the symbol for it.” He flipped ahead a few pages. The list of names was repeated and beside each was a corresponding geometrical sign. Some were very simple. “Literacy is a fairly recent phenomenon,” Henry murmured. “The signs are all that are really needed.”

Vicki swallowed. Her mouth had gone suddenly dry. Some of the signs were
very
simple.

Silently, Henry closed the book and replaced it on the shelf. When he turned to face her again, he spread his arms in a helpless gesture. “Unfortunately,” he said, “I can’t stop the demon until after it kills again.”

“Why not?”

“Because I have to be there ready for it. And last night it completed the second part of the pattern.”

“Then it could have completed . . .”

“No. We’d know if it had.”

“But the next death, the death that starts the pattern again, it could complete . . .”

“No, not yet. Not even the least complicated of the names could be finished so quickly. ”

“You were ready for it last night.” He’d been there, just as she had. “Why didn’t you stop it, then?” But then, why didn’t she?

“Stop it?” The laugh had little humor in it. “It moved so fast I barely saw it. But the time after next, now that I know what I’m facing, I’ll be waiting for it. I can trap it and destroy it.”

That funded encouraging, if there
was
a time after next. “You’ve done this before?”

She needed reassurance but Henry, who knew he could make her believe anything he chose to tell her, found he couldn’t lie. “Well, no.” He’d never been able to lie to Ginevra either, another similarity between the two women he’d just as soon not have found.

Vicki took a deep breath and picked at the edge of her sweater. “Henry, how bad will it get if the named demon gets free?”

“How bad?” He sighed and sagged back against the bookcase,. “At the risk of being considered facetious, all hell will break loose.”

Norman glanced around the Cock and Bull and frowned. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, the nights he’d set aside for seriously trying to pick up chicks, he arrived early to be sure of getting a table. So far, this had meant by 9:30 or 10:00, someone would have to share with him. Tonight, the Thursday before the long Easter weekend, the student pub was so empty it looked as if he’d have no company all night.

It isn ’t cool to go home for Easter
, he thought smugly, running a finger up and down the condensation on his glass of diet ginger ale. His parents had been disappointed, but he’d been adamant. The really cool guys hung out around the university all weekend and Norman Birdwell was now really cool.

He sighed. They didn’t, however, apparently hang out at the Cock and Bull. He’d have given up and gone home long ago except for the redhead who held court at the table in the corner. She was absolutely beautiful, everything Norman had ever wanted in a woman, and he had long adored her from across the room in their Comparative Religions class. She wasn’t very tall, but her flaming hair gave her a presence and inches in other areas made up for her lack of height. Norman could imagine ripping off her shirt and just gazing at the softly mounded flesh beneath. She’d smile at him in rapt adoration and he’d gently reach out to touch. His imagination wasn’t up to much beyond that, so he replayed the scene over and over as he stared across the room.

A beer or two later and voices at the corner table began to rise.

“But I’m telling you there’s evidence,” the redhead exclaimed, “for the killer being a creature of the night.”

“Get real, Coreen!”

Her name was Coreen!
Norman’s heart picked up an irregular rhythm and he leaned forward, straining to hear more clearly.

“What about the missing blood?” Coreen demanded. “Every victim sucked dry.”

“A pyscho,” snorted one of her companions.

“A giant leech,” suggested another. “A giant leech that slimes along the streets of the city until it finds a victim and then . . . SLURP!” He sucked back a beer, suiting the action to the word. The group at the table groaned and buried him in thrown napkins and then Coreen’s voice rose over the babble.

“I’m telling you there was nothing natural about these deaths!”

“Nothing natural about giant leeches either,” muttered a tall, blonde woman in a bright pink flannel shirt.

Coreen turned on her. “You know what I mean, Janet. And I’m not the only person who thinks so either!”

“You’re talking about the stories in the newspapers? Vampire stalks city and all that?” Janet sighed expansively and shook her head. “Coreen, they don’t believe that bullshit, they’re just trying to sell papers.”

“It isn’t bullshit!” Coreen insisted, slamming her empty mug down on the table. “Ian was killed by a vampire!” Her mouth thinned into an obstinate line and the others it the table exchanged speaking glances. One by one, they made excuses and drifted away.

Careen didn’t even look up as Norman sat down in Janet’s recently vacated chair. She was thinking of how foolish all her so-called friends would look when her private investigator found the vampire and destroyed him. They’d soon stop laughing at her then.

Norman, after taking a few moments to work out the best things to say, tried a tentative, “Hi.” The icy stare he received in response discouraged him a little, but he swallowed and went on. He might never get another chance like this. “I just, uh, wanted you to know that, uh, I believe you.”

“Believe what?” The question was only slightly less icy than the stare.

“Believe, well, you. About the vampires.” Norman lowered his voice. “And stuff.”

The way he said
“and stuff”
sent chills down Coreen’s back. She took a closer look and thought she might vaguely remember him from one of her classes, although she couldn’t place which one. Nor could she be sure if her lack of clear memory had more to do with him or with the pitcher of beer she’d just finished.

“I know,” he continued, glancing around to be sure that no one would overhear, “that there’s more to the world than most people think. And I know what it’s like to be laughed at.” He ground out the last words with such feeling that she had to believe them and believing them, to believe the rest.

“It doesn’t matter what we know.” She poked him in the chest with a fingernail only a slightly less brilliant red than her hair. “We can’t prove anything.”

“I can. I’ve got completely incontestable proof in my apartment.” He grinned at her look of surprise and nodded, adding emphasis
. And the best part of it is
, he thought, almost rubbing his hands in anticipation,
it isn’t a line. I do have the proof and when I show her, she’ll fall into my arms and. . . .
Once again, his imagination balked but he didn’t care that fantasy failed him; soon he’d have the reality.

“You can help me prove that a vampire murdered Ian?” The brilliant green eyes blazed and Norman, transfixed, found himself stammering.

“V-vampire. . . .” Caught up in the proof he could offer her, he’d forgotten she expected vampires.

Coreen took the repetition as an affirmation. “Good.” She practically dragged him to his feet and then out of the Cock and Bull. She wasn’t very big, Norman discovered, but she was pretty strong. “We’ll take my car. It’s out in the lot.”

Her headlong charge slowed a little as they reached the doors and stopped completely by the row of pay phones. She frowned and came to a sudden decision.

“You got a quarter?”

Norman dug one out of his pocket and handed it over. He wanted to give her the world; what was twenty-five cents? As Coreen dialed, he inched toward her until by the time she started to speak he stood close enough to hear perfectly.

“Hi, it’s Coreen Fergus. Oh, I’m sorry, were you asleep?” She twisted to look at her watch. “Yeah, I guess. But you’ve gotta hear this. Of course, it’s about the vampire. Why else would I call you? Look, I met a guy who says he had incontestable proof . . . in his apartment. . . . Give me a break. You’re my detective, not my mother.” The receiver missed being slammed back onto its cradle by the narrowest of margins.

“Some people,” she muttered, “are just so bitchy when you wake them up. Come on.” She gave him a little push in the direction of the parking lot. “Ian’s death will be avenged even if I have to do it all myself.”

Norman, suddenly realizing that he and not the vampire Coreen seemed fixated on had been in some small part responsible for Ian’s death, wondered what he should do next.
Nothing,
he decided, hurriedly buckling his seat beat as Coreen pulled out with a squeal of rubber.
She’s coming to my apartment, that’s the main thing. Once she’s there, I can handle the rest.
His chest puffed out as he thought of what he’d achieved.
When I show her, she’ll be so impressed she’ll forget about the vampire and Ian both.

 

Norman’s apartment was in a cluster of identical high rises perched on the flatland west of York University and completely out of sync with their surroundings. He pointed out the visitors’ parking and with one eye on the York Regional Police car that had been following her for the last quarter mile Coreen pulled into the first empty spot and shut the motor off. The police car kept going and Coreen, well aware she shouldn’t have been driving at all after sharing three pitchers of beer, heaved a sigh of relief.

While Norman fumbled with his keys, she stared through the glass doors at the beige and brown lobby and wondered how he could tell he was in the right building. In the elevator, she drummed her fingers against the stainless steel wall. If she hadn’t been feeling so sorry for herself back in the pub that her mind had been on hold, she’d have never gone anywhere with Norman Birdwell. She’d realized who he was the moment she saw him under the bright lights in the parking lot. If York University had a definitive geek, he was it.

Except . . . She frowned, remembering. Except he’d really sounded like he knew something, and for Ian’s sake she had to follow every lead. Maybe there was more to him than met the eye. She glanced at Norman, who was smiling at her in a way she didn’t like, and realized suddenly where he fit in. He was the vampire’s Renfield! The human servant who not only eased his master’s way in the modern world but who, on occasion, procured. . . .