Blood Debt (33 page)

Celluci started. “You're not serious, Fitzroy? I mean, good God, she was territorial before she changed!”

“Calm down, Mike, you'll burst something. He was making a joke.” Her expression dared Henry to challenge that assessment. “Good-bye, old man, I'll call when I get home.”

Henry nodded and matched her tone—better to keep it light. There was, after all, no need for maudlin farewells. “Take care, kid, and try to remember you don't know everything.”

Vicki grinned. “Yet. Come on, Mike.”

“In a minute. I want to talk to Fitzroy.” When she paused, he gave her a shove toward the door. “Alone.”

“Guy talk?” She glanced between them. Henry looked enigmatic, but that was hardly surprising. Celluci looked belligerent, and that was no more surprising. If she couldn't trust them alone together, then she and Henry hadn't actually accomplished anything. Just because Mike couldn't trust her and Henry alone . . . “Okay.” It didn't sound okay, but she got the word out and that was what mattered. “I'll meet you at the van.”

When the door closed behind her, neither man spoke. After a few moments Henry said, “She's on the elevator.”

“Let's make sure she stays on.” After a moment, when Henry nodded, he said, “There was just one thing I wanted to ask you. That night in the clearing, why did you kill Sullivan?”

“If Sullivan had lived, what would we have done with him?”

“You didn't have to do anything with him. The worst he could've done was tell the doctor I'd escaped—something she found out anyway when Swan-son found the body.”

“And without that body, Ms. Chou would never have gotten the footage for her exposé.”

“After the fact,” Celluci pointed out grimly. “Why did you kill him?”

“That's not the question you want to ask me, Detective.” Abruptly, he dropped the Prince-of-Man manner. Michael Celluci deserved more honesty than that. “I won't give you the answer you're looking for, Mike. You'll have to ask her.”

“Will she tell me?”

“She is Vampire. Nightwalker.”

“Like you.”

Henry almost smiled, would have had Celluci not sounded so painfully serious. “No,” he said gently. “Not like me. In fact, I'd be willing to believe she is not like any of us. But she is still the woman you fell in love with.”

“And the woman you fell in love with?”

“
The emotional bond, the love, if you will, that causes us to offer our blood to a mortal never survives the change
.” They were his words to Vicki during their first conversation. He opened his mouth to repeat them and found himself saying, “Yes,” instead.

To Henry's surprise, Celluci held out his hand. “Good-bye, Fitzroy. Thank you.”

Henry took it, released it, and stood alone a moment later in the empty condo, Vicki's scent surrounding him. He missed her already, but the future that he'd thought would be as unchanging as four hundred and fifty years of the past stretched out before him suddenly filled with infinite possibilities.

It had taken her seven nights—
Only seven?
He counted back and shook his head.
Just one short week
—to completely overturn something that had been considered from the beginning of their kind an immutable part of their nature.

Seven nights.

He couldn't wait to see what she'd do with eternity.

They talked about nothing much until they were outside the city heading up into the mountains listening to a local easy listening station. The news was over, the police had discovered four bodies buried in the clearing where Ronald Swanson had been found, and teams were continuing to search. Dr. Mui's finances had come to light and Patricia Chou was piecing the story together for network television. The weather was expected to be clear and hot for the next few days without the ubiquitous showers.

Celluci leaned back in the passenger seat and stared out the open window at the shadows of trees flicking by in the night. As usual, she was driving too fast. “Vicki?”
I won't give you the answer you're looking for, Mike. You'll have to ask her.
“If Henry hadn't killed Sullivan, were you going to?”

The road seemed impossibly narrow. Vicki's eyes locked on the yellow line as the night outside the fragile barrier of the headlights closed in. The memory of rage tightened her fingers around the steering wheel.

“Vicki?”

He didn't want the truth. Not really. She hadn't actually needed Henry to tell her that. She could feel him waiting for her answer. She could smell his fear. “No. Of course not. You asked me not to.”

Vampire. Nightwalker.

“She is still the woman you fell in love with. . . .”

“Mike?” Her turn to throw a question down between them. “You believe me, don't you?”

“Yeah, of course I believe you.” He turned to touch her shoulder, uncertain if he was comforting or reassuring or if it mattered. “You've always been a lousy liar.”

On the radio, the sports report ended, Seattle having beaten the Jays nine to three at the Skydome.

“You're listening to CHQM.” The DJ could've been any one of a hundred DJs they'd heard across the country. “And here's a song for all you star-crossed lovers . . .”

Be Mystery to him.
No, that wasn't how it worked with Mike. Glancing away from the road, Vicki grinned at him. “You think this one's for us?”

“. . . their love may not be paying the rent, but they've still got each other. Yes, it's Sonny and Cher and ‘I Got You, Babe.'”

Mike grabbed Vicki's wrist as she reached forward to turn off the radio. “No. Leave it. I think I'm starting to like it.” He wrapped his warm fingers around her cool ones and brought them to his lips. “Which just goes to prove that you can get used to anything in time.”

A moment later, he tightened his grip and growled, “Almost anything. Don't. Sing. Along.”

 

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by TANYA HUFF

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BLOOD PRICE (#1)

BLOOD TRAIL (#2)

BLOOD LINES (#3)

BLOOD PACT (#4)

BLOOD DEBT (#5)

***

SMOKE AND SHADOWS (#1)

SMOKE AND MIRRORS (#2)

SMOKE AND ASHES (#3)

***

The Confederation Novels:

THE HEART OF VALOR (#3)

A CONFEDERATION OF VALOR

Includes:

VALOR'S CHOICE (#1)

THE BETTER PART OF VALOR (#2)

***

The Keeper's Chronicles:

SUMMON THE KEEPER (#1)

THE SECOND SUMMONING (#2)

LONG HOT SUMMONING (#3)

***

SING THE FOUR QUARTERS (#1)

FIFTH QUARTER (#2)

NO QUARTER (#3)

THE QUARTERED SEA (#4)

***

WIZARD OF THE GROVE

***

OF DARKNESS, LIGHT AND FIRE