by Tanya Huff
Henry reached over her shoulder and plucked the dully gleaming object from her palm, holding it up to the light between finger and thumb. “A silver bullet,” he explained, “is one of the traditional ways to kill a werewolf. The silver is a myth. The bullet alone is usually enough to do the job.”
“I can imagine.” A .30 caliber round—and Vicki knew the slug had to have been at least that large to have maintained any kind of shape at all after traveling through flesh and bone and then impacting into the dirt—fired from a high velocity rifle would have left very little of Ebon’s head in the wake of its passing. She turned again to Rose and Peter who had been watching her expressionlessly. “I take it that a similar bullet was not found by your aunt’s body or you’d have mentioned it?”
Rose frowned down at her brother then they both shook their heads.
“Doesn’t really matter. Even without the bullet, the pattern points to a single marksman.” Vicki sighed and leaned forward on the couch, resting her forearms on her thighs. “And here’s something else to think about; whoever shot Ebon was shooting specifically at werewolves. If one person knows you’re wer, others will too; that’s a given. These deaths could be the result of a community. . . .”
“Witch hunt,” Henry put in quietly as she paused.
She nodded, not lifting her gaze from the twins, and continued. “You’re different and different frightens most people. They could be taking their fear out on you.”
Peter exchanged a long look with his sister. “It doesn’t have to be that complicated,” he said. “Our older brother is a member of the London police force and Barry, his partner, knows he’s a wer.”
“And his partner is a marksman?” All things considered, it wasn’t that wild a guess. Nor would it be unlikely that said partner would own a .30 caliber rifle when any six people in any small town would likely own half a dozen between them.
The twins nodded.
Vicki let her breath out in a long, low whistle. “Messy. Has your brother confronted his partner about this?”
“No, Uncle Stuart won’t allow it. He says the pack keeps its trouble within the pack. Aunt Nadine convinced him to call Henry, and Henry convinced them both that we should talk to you. That you might be our only chance. Will you help, Ms. Nelson? Uncle Stuart said we were to agree to whatever you charge.”
Peter’s hand was back on her knee and he was staring up at her with such single-minded entreaty that she said without thinking, “You want me to find out that Barry didn’t do it.”
“We want you to find out who did do it,” Rose corrected. “Who is doing it. Whoever they are.” Then, just for an instant, the fear showed through. “Someone is killing us, Ms. Nelson. I don’t want to die.”
Thus lifting this whole discussion out of the realm of fairy tales. “I don’t want you to die either,” Vicki told her gently. “But I might not be the best person for the job.” She pushed her glasses up her nose and took a deep breath. Both deaths had occurred at night and her eyes simply didn’t allow her to function after dark. It was bad enough in the city, but in the country with no streetlights to anchor her, she’d be blind.
On the other hand, what choice did they have? Surely she’d be better than nothing. And her lack of vision didn’t affect her mind, or her training, or her years of experience. And this was a job that would count for something, it was important, life or death. The kind of job Celluci still does. God damn it! She could work around the disability.
“I can’t leave right away.” Dawning expressions of relief mixed with hope told her she’d made the right decision. “Unfortunately, I have appointments I can’t break. How about Friday?”
“Friday evening,” Henry interrupted smoothly. “After sunset. Meanwhile, no one is to go anywhere by themselves. No one. Both Ebon and Silver were shot while they were alone, and that’s the only part of the pattern you can change. Make sure the rest of the family understands that. And as much as possible, stay in sight of the house. In fact, as much as you can, stay in sight of non-wer. Whoever is doing this is counting on you not being able to tell anyone, and as long as there are witnesses around you should be safe. Did I miss anything, Vicki?”
“No, I don’t think so.” He’d missed asking for her opinion before he started his little lecture, but they’d discuss that later. As for his assumption that he’d be going along, well, it solved her transportation problem and created all sorts of new ones that would have to be dealt with—again, later. She wasn’t looking forward to “later.”
“Over the next two days,” she told the twins, “I want you to write me up a list—two lists actually; the people who know what you are on one and the people who might suspect on the other. Get the input of everyone in the family.”
“We can do that, no problem.” Peter heaved a sigh of relief and bounded to his feet.
Apparently the fact that she and Henry operated as a team had come as no surprise to him. Vicki wondered what Henry had told them before she arrived. “First thing tomorrow,” she buried the slug in tissues and sealed it into one of the small freezer bags she always carried in her purse, “I’ll drop this off at ballistics and see if they can tell me anything about the rifle it came from.”
“But Colin said . . .” Rose began.
Vicki cut her off. “Colin said it would lead to awkward questions. Well, it would in London and, considering your family’s situation, it’s not the sort of thing you want talked about. Good cops remember the damnedest bits of information and Colin handing around silver bullets could lead to your exposure later on. However,” she pitched her voice for maximum reassurance, “this is Toronto. We have a much broader crime base, God forbid, and the fact that I was handing around a silver bullet won’t mean squat even if someone does remember it.”
She paused for breath and tucked the small plastic bag containing the tissues and the slug down into a secure corner of her purse. “Don’t expect anything though, this thing is a mess.”
“We won’t. And we’ll tell Aunt Nadine to expect you on Friday night.” Peter smiled at her with such complete and utter gratitude that Vicki felt like a heel for even considering refusing to help. “Thanks, Ms. Nelson.”
“Yes, thank you.” Rose stood as well and added her quieter smile to the brilliance of her brother’s. “We really appreciate this. Henry was right.”
What Henry was right about this time got a little lost in Peter shucking off his shorts. Vicki supposed she’d have to get used to it but at the moment all that naked young man left her a little distracted. The reappearance of Storm came as a distinct relief.
He shook himself briskly and bounded toward the door.
“Why . . .” Vicki began.
Rose understood and grinned. “Because he likes to ride with his head out the car window.” She sighed as she stuffed the discarded shorts back into her bag. “He’s such lousy company in a car.”
“Well, he certainly seems anxious to get going.”
“We don’t like the city much,” Rose explained, her nose wrinkling. “It stinks. Thanks again, Ms. Nelson. We’ll see you Friday.”
“You’re welcome.” She watched Henry walk Rose to the door, warn them to be careful, and return to the living room. The look on his face rerouted the accusation of high-handedness she was about to make. “What’s wrong?”
Both red-gold brows rose. “My friends are being killed,” he reminded her quietly.
Vicki felt herself flush. “I’m sorry,” she said. “It’s hard to hang onto that amidst all the,” she waved a hand as she groped for the word, “strangeness.”
“It is, however, the important thing to be hung onto.”
“I know. I know.” She forced herself not to sound sullen. She shouldn’t have had to be reminded of that. “You never thought for a moment that I might say no, did you?”
“I’ve come to know you over these last few months.” His expression softened. “You need to be needed and they need you, Vicki. There aren’t too many private investiga
tors they can trust with this.”
That was easy to believe. As to her needing to be needed, it was a facetious observation that could easily be ignored. “Are all the wer so,” she searched for the right word and settled on, “self-contained? If my family were going through what theirs is, I’d be an emotional wreck.”
Somehow he doubted that, but it was still a question that deserved answering. “From the time they’re very young, the wer are taught to hide what they are, and not only physically; for the good of the pack you never show vulnerability to strangers. You should consider yourself honored that you got as much as you did. Also, the wer tend to live much more in the present than humans do. They mourn their dead, then they get on with life. They don’t carry the burden of yesterday, they don’t anticipate tomorrow.”
Vicki snorted. “Very poetic. But it makes it nearly impossible for them to deal with this sort of situation, doesn’t it?”
“That’s why they’ve come to you.”
“And if I wasn’t around?”
“Then they’d die.”
She frowned. “And why couldn’t you save them?”
He moved to his usual place by the window, leaning back against the glass. “Because they won’t let me.”
“Because you’re a vampire?”
“Because Stuart won’t allow that kind of challenge to his authority. If he can’t save the pack, neither can I. You’re female, you’re Nadine’s problem, and Nadine, at the moment, is devastated by the loss of her twin. If you were wer, you could probably take her position away from her right now, but as you aren’t, the two of you should be able to work something out.” He shook his head at her expression. “You can’t judge them by human standards, Vicki, no matter how human they seem most of the time. And it’s too late to back out. You told Rose and Peter you’d help.”
Her chin went up. “Did I give you any indication that I might back out?”
“No.”
“Damned straight, I didn’t. She took a deep breath. She’d worked with the Toronto City Council, she could work with werewolves. At least with the latter all the growling and snapping would mean something. In fact, the wer were likely to be the least of her problems. “There might be difficulties. I mean, with me taking this case.”
“Like the fact you don’t drive.” She could hear the smile in his voice.
“No. Real problems.”
He turned and spread his arms, the movement causing the hair to glint gold in the lamplight. “So tell me.”
It’s called retinitis pigmentosa. I’m going blind. I can’t see at night. I have almost no peripheral vision. She couldn’t tell him. She couldn’t handle the pity. Not from him. Not after what she’d gone through with Celluci. Fuck it. She shoved her glasses up her nose and shook her head.
Henry dropped his arms. After a moment, when the silence had stretched to uncomfortable dimensions, he said, “I hope you don’t mind that I’ve invited myself along. I thought we made a pretty good team the last time. And, I thought you might need a little help dealing with the . . . strangeness.”
She managed an almost realistic laugh. “I do the day work, you cover the night?”
“Just like last time, yes.” He leaned back against the glass and watched her turning that over in her mind, worrying it into pieces. She was one of the most stubborn, argumentative, independent women he’d met in four and a half centuries, and he wished she’d confide in him. Whatever the problem was, they could work it out together because whatever the problem was, it couldn’t be big enough to keep her from giving everything she had to this case. He wouldn’t allow it to be. Friends of his were dying.
“I don’t want to die, Ms. Nelson.”
I don’t want you to die either, Rose. Vicki worried her lower lip between her teeth. If they worked together, he’d find out, eventually. She had to decide if that mattered more than the continuing loss of innocent lives. And put like that, it’s not much of a choice, is it? If she wasn’t their best chance on her own, together she and Henry were. Screw it. We’ll work it out.
Henry watched her expressions change and smiled. Over his long existence he’d grown very good at reading people, at picking up the delicate nuances that mirrored their inner thoughts. Most of the time, Vicki went right past nuance; her thoughts as easy to read as a billboard.
“So, Friday night after sunset. You can pick me up.”
He bowed, the accompanying smile taking the mocking edge off the gesture. “As my lady commands.”
Vicki returned the smile, then yawned and stretched, back arched and arms spread out against the red velvet.
Henry watched the pulse beating at the base of her throat. He hadn’t fed for three nights and the need was rising in him. Vicki wanted him. He could scent her desire most times they were together, but he’d held back because of the blood loss that she’d taken in the spring. And, he had to admit, held back because he wanted the timing to be right. The one time he’d fed from her had been such a frenzied necessity that she’d missed all the extra pleasures it could bring to both parties involved.
The scent of her life filled the apartment and he walked forward, his pace measured to the beat of her heart. When he reached the couch, he held out his hand.
Vicki took it and hauled herself to her feet. “Thanks.” She yawned again, releasing him to shove a fist in front of her mouth. “Boy, am I bagged. You wouldn’t believe the time I had to get up this morning and then I spent the whole day working essentially two jobs in a factory that had to be eighty degrees C.” Dragging her bag up over her shoulder, she headed for the door. “No need to see me out. I’ll be waiting for you after sunset Friday.” She waved cheerfully and was gone.
Henry opened his mouth to protest, closed it, opened it again, then sighed.
By the time the elevator reached the lobby, Vicki had managed to stop laughing. The poleaxed look on Henry’s face had been priceless and she’d have given a year of her life to have had a camera. If his royal undead highness thinks he’s got this situation under control, he can think again. It had taken almost more willpower than she had to walk out of that apartment, but it had been worth it.
“Begin as you mean to go on,” she declared under her breath, wiping sweaty palms against her shorts. “Maybe Mom’s old sayings have more value than I thought.”
She was still smiling when she got into the cab, still flushed with victory, then she leaned back and looked up at the fuzzy rectangles of light that were Henry’s building. She couldn’t see him. Couldn’t have even said for certain which fuzzy rectangle was his. But he was up there. Looking down at her. Wanting her. Like she wanted him—and she felt like a teenager whose hormones had just kicked into overdrive.
Why the hell wasn’t she up there with him, then?
She let her head drop down against the sweaty leather of the seat and sighed. “I am such an idiot.”
“Maybe,” the cabbie agreed, turning around with a gold-toothed grin. “You wanna be a moving idiot? Meter’s running.”
Vicki glared at him. “Huron Street,” she growled. “South of College. You just drive.”
He snorted and faced forward. “Just ’cause you unlucky in love, lady, ain’t no reason to take it out on me.”
The cabbie’s muttering blended with the sounds of the traffic, and all the way down Bloor Street, Vicki could feel Henry’s gaze hot on the back of her neck. It was going to be a long night.
The tape ended and Rose fumbled between the seats for a new one with no success. The long drive back from Toronto had left her stiff, tired, and too tense to take her eyes off the road—even if it was only an empty stretch of gravel barely a kilometer from home.
“Hey!” She poked her brother in the back. “Why don’t you do something useful and dig out. . . . Storm, hold on!” Her foot slammed down on the brake. With the back end of the small car fishtailing in the gravel and the steering wheel twisting like a live thing in her hands, she fought to regain control, dimly aware of Peter, not Storm, h
anging on beside her.
We aren’t going to make it! The shadow she’d seen stretched across the road, loomed darker, closer.
Darker. Closer.
Then, just as she thought they might stop in time and relief allowed her heart to start beating again, the front bumper and the shadow met.
Good. They were unhurt. It was no part of his plan to have them injured in a car accident. A pity the change in wind kept him from his regular hunting ground, but it need not stop the hunt entirely. He rested his cheek against the rifle, watching the scene unfold in the scope. They were close to home. One of them would go for help, leaving the other for him.
“I guess Dad was right all along about this old tree being punky. Rotted right off the stump.” Peter perched on the trunk, looking like a red-haired Puck in the headlights. “Think we can move it?”
Rose shook her head. “Not just the two of us. You’d better run home and get help. I’ll wait by the car.”
“Why don’t we both go?”
“Because I don’t like leaving the car just sitting here.” She flicked her hair back off her face. “It’s a five minute run, Peter. I’ll be fine. Jeez, you are getting so overprotective lately.”
“I am not! It’s just. . . .”
They heard the approaching truck at the same time and a heartbeat later Rose and Storm came around the car to face it.
Only the Heerkens farm fronted on this road. Only the Heerkens drove this road at night. His grip tightened on the sweaty metal.
“They spray the oil back of the crossroads today. Stink like anything.” Frederick Kleinbein hitched his pants up over the curve of his belly and beamed genially at Rose. “I take long way home to avoid stink. Good thing, eh? We get chain from truck, hitch to tree, and drag tree to side of road.” He reached over and lightly grabbed Storm’s muzzle, shaking his head from side to side. “Maybe we hitch you to tree, eh? Make you do some work for your living.”