1 Blood Price

by Tanya Huff

  Henry. The tiers of flickering candle flame behind him brought out the red-gold highlights in his hair and created almost a halo around his head. He wore the colors of the Madonna; wide bands of snowy white lace at collar and cuff, a white shirt billowing through the slashed sleeves of his pale blue jacket. His eyes, deep in shadow, narrowed and his hands jerked up.

  The ax haft snapped. The sound of its shattering reverberated through the alcove, closely followed by the rattle of both pieces striking the floor. Vicki didn’t see Henry move, but the next thing she knew he had the axman hanging from his fist by the front of his vest, feet dangling a foot off the marble floor.

  “The Blessed Virgin is under my protection,” he said, and the quiet words held more menace than any weapon.

  The axman’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound emerged. He hung limp and terrified. When dropped, he collapsed to his knees, apparently unable to take his eyes from Henry’s face.

  To Vicki, the vampire looked like an avenging angel, ready to draw a flaming sword at any moment and strike down the enemies of God. The axman apparently agreed, for he moaned softly and raised trembling hands in entreaty.

  Henry stepped back and allowed his captive to look away. “Go,” he commanded.

  Still on his knees, the axman went, scrambling backward until he moved from Vicki’s line of sight. Henry watched him go a moment longer, than turned, made the sign of the cross, and knelt. Above his bowed head, VIcki met the painted eyes of the Madonna. Her own grew heavy and, of their own volition, slid slowly closed.

  When she opened them again a second later, the spotlight had returned, the candles were back in their red glass containers, and a red-gold head remained bowed beneath the mural.

  The inability to move seemed gone, so she pulled herself to her feet and slid out of the pew heading toward the alcove. “Henry. . . .”

  At the sound of his name, he crossed himself, stood, and turned to face her, pulling closed his black leather trenchcoat as he moved.

  “Wha . . .”

  He shook his head, put his finger to his lips, and taking her arm gently in one hand, led her out of the sanctum.

  “Did you have a pleasant nap?” he asked, releasing her arm as the heavy wooden door closed behind them.

  “Nap?” Vicki repeated, running a hand up through her hair. “I, I guess I did.”

  Henry peered up into her face with a worried frown. “Are you all right? Your head took a nasty blow earlier.”

  “No, I’m fine.” Obviously, it had been a dream. “You don’t have an accent.” He’d had one in the dream.

  “I lost it years ago. I came to Canada just after World War I. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  “I told you, I’m fine.” She started down the cathedral steps.

  Henry sighed and followed. He seemed to remember reading that sleeping after a concussion was not necessarily a good thing, but he’d entered the church right behind her and she hadn’t been asleep very long.

  It was just a dream, Vicki told herself firmly as the two of them headed north. Vampires and demons I can handle, but holy visions are out. Although why she should dream about Henry Fitzroy defending a painting of the Virgin Mary from what looked like one of Cromwell’s roundheads she had no idea. Maybe it was a sign. Maybe it was the blow she’d taken on the head. Either way, her few remaining doubts about his ex-royal bastard highness seemed to have vanished and while she was more willing to bet on her subconscious working it out than on God intervening, she decided to keep an open mind. Just in case. Wait a minute. . . .

  “You followed me!”

  Henry smiled guardedly. “I’d just told you a secret that could get me killed. I had to see how you were dealing with it.”

  In spite of her pique, Vicki had to admit he made sense. “And?”

  He shrugged. “You tell me.”

  Vicki pushed the strap of her bag back up on her shoulder. “I think,” she said slowly, “that you’re right. We could accomplish more working together. So, for now, you’ve got yourself a partner.” She stumbled over a dark crack in the pavement, righted herself before Henry could help, and added dryly, “But I think you should know that generally, I only work days.” It wasn’t the time to tell him why. Not yet.

  Henry nodded. “Days are fine. I myself, being a little sensitive to sunlight, prefer to work nights. Between us, we have the entire twenty-four hours covered. And speaking of days,” he shot a quick glance to the east where he could feel dawn approaching, “I have to go. Can we discuss this tomorrow evening?”

  “When?”

  “About two hours after sunset? It’ll give me time to grab a bite.”

  He was gone before she had time to react. Or agree.

  “We’ll see who plays straight man to whom tomorrow night,” she snorted and turned west toward home.

  The sun had cracked the horizon by the time she reached her apartment, and with yawns threatening to rip her jaw from her face, she fell straight into bed.

  Only to be rudely awakened about forty-five minutes later. . . .

  “Where! Have! You! Been!” Celluci punctuated each word with a vigorous shake.

  Vicki, whose reactions had never been particularly fast when first roused from sleep, actually let him finish the sentence before bringing her arms up between his and breaking his grip on her shoulders.

  “What the hell are you talking about, Celluci?” she demanded, shielding her eyes against the glare from the overhead light with one hand and grabbing her glasses off the bedside table with the other.

  “One of the uniforms saw a women who looked like you being bundled into a late model BMW, just after midnight, and not more than five blocks from the latest body. You want to tell me you weren’t in the Woodbine area tonight?”

  Vicki leaned back and sighed, pushing her glasses up her nose. “What makes that any business of yours?” There was no point in trying to reason with Celluci until he calmed down.

  “I’ll tell you what makes it my business.” He threw himself off the bed and began to pace the length of the bedroom; three steps and turn, three steps and turn. “You were in the middle of a police investigation, that’s what makes it my business. You were. . . .” Suddenly, he stopped. His eyes narrowed and he jabbed an accusing finger in Vicki’s direction. “What hit you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing does not put a black and blue lump the size of a grapefruit on your jaw,” Celluci growled. “It was him, wasn’t it? The guy loading you into his car.” He sat back down on the bed and reached out to turn Vicki’s face into the light.

  “You are out of your mind!” She knocked his hand away. “Since you obviously aren’t going to let me get back to sleep until you satisfy your completely irrational curiosity; I was in the area. And, as you keep telling me, I don’t see so well in the dark.” She smiled with scorpion sweetness. “You were right about something. Make you feel better?”

  He responded with an identical smile and growled, “Get or. with it.”

  “I went with a friend. When I walked my face into a post, he took me back to his place to make sure I was all right. All right?” She waved a hand at the door and threw herself back on the pillows. “Now get out!”

  “The hell it’s all right.” He slammed his palm against the bed. “Next to my partner, you are the world’s worst liar and you are throwing some grade A bullshit in my direction. Who’s this friend?”

  “None of your business.”

  “Where did he take you?”

  “Also none of your business.” She sat back up and shoved her face close to his. “You jealous, Celluci?”

  “Jealous? Damn it, Vicki!” He raised his hands as if to shake her again but let them fall as her eyes narrowed and her own hands came up. “I’ve got six dead bodies out there. I don’t want you to be the seventh!”

  Her voice dropped dangerously low. “But you should be able to throw yourself in the line of fire?”

  “What does that have to do with
anything? I had half the fucking force out there with me. You were alone!”

  “Oh.” She grabbed the front of his jacket and dragged him suddenly forward until their noses touched. “So you were worried?” she ground the words out through clenched teeth. It hurt her jaw, but at least it kept her from ripping his throat out.

  “Of course, I was worried.”

  “THEN WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY SO INSTEAD OF ALTERNATELY ASSAULTING AND ACCUSING ME!” She pushed him backward so hard she flung him off the bed and he had to scramble to get his feet under him.

  “Well?” she prodded when he’d regained his balance again.

  He pushed the heavy curl of hair off his forehead and shrugged, actually looking a little sheepish. “It . . . I . . . I don’t know.”

  Folding her arms over her breasts, Vicki settled carefully back against the pillows. Given that she’d have done exactly the same thing under similar circumstances she supposed she’d have to let it pass. Besides, her jaw hurt, her whole head hurt, and now she had enough adrenaline in her system to keep her awake for a week.

  “You been home yet?” she asked.

  Celluci rubbed a weary hand across his eyes. “No. Not yet.”

  Settling her glasses back on the bedside table, she patted the sheet beside her.

  A little later, something occurred to her.

  “Wait a minute—watch my jaw—you gave me back your key to my apartment months ago.” He’d thrown it at her as a matter of fact.

  “I had a copy made.”

  “You told me there were no copies!”

  “Vicki, you are a lousy liar. I am a very good one. Ow, that hurt!”

  “It was supposed to.”

  “No, Mom, I’m not sick. I was just up late last night working on a case.” Vicki wedged the phone between her shoulder and her ear and poured herself a mug of coffee.

  On the other end of the line she heard her mother sigh deeply. “You know, Vicki, I had hoped that when you left the force I’d be able to stop worrying about you. And here it is, three in the afternoon and you’re not out of bed yet.”

  What the second observation had to do with the first, escaped Vicki entirely. “Mom, I’m up. I’m drinking coffee.” She took a noisy swallow. “I’m talking to you. What more do you want?”

  “I want you to get a normal job.”

  As Vicki was well aware how proud her mother had been of her two police citations, she let this pass. She knew that in time, if it hadn’t happened already, the phrase “my daughter the private investigator” would begin peppering her mother’s conversations much the way “my daughter the homicide investigator” had.

  “And what’s more, Vicki, your voice sounds funny.”

  “I walked my face into a post. I got a bit of a bump on my chin. It hurts a little when I talk.”

  “Did this happen last night?”

  “Yes, Mom.”

  “You know you can’t see in the dark. . . . ”

  It was Vicki’s turn to sigh. “Mom, you’re beginning to sounc like Celluci.” On cue, Celluci came out of the bedroom, tucking his shirt into his pants. Vicki waved him at the coffeepot, but he shook his head and stuffed his arms into his overcoat. “Hold on for a minute, Mom.” She covered the receiver with one hand and looked him over critically. “If we’re going to keep this up, you’d better bring a razor back over. You look like a terrorist ”

  He scratched at his chin and shrugged. “I have a razor at the office.”

  “And a change of clothes?”

  “They can live with yesterday’s shirt for a few hours.” He bent down and kissed her gently, careful not to put too much pressure on the spreading green and purple bruise. “I don’t suppose you’ll listen if I ask you to be careful? ’

  She returned the kiss as enthusiastically as she was able to and said, “I don’t suppose you’ll listen if I ask you to slop being a patronizing son of a bitch?”

  He scowled. “Because I ask you to be careful?”

  “Because you assume I won’t be. Because you assume I’m going to do something stupid.”

  “All right.” He spread his arms in surrender. “How about, don’t do anything I wouldn’t do?”

  She considered saying, “I’m paying a call on a vampire tonight, how do you feel about that?” but decided against it and said instead, “I thought you didn’t want me to do anything stupid?”

  He smiled. “I’ll call you,” he told her, and left.

  “You still there, Mom?”

  “They won’t let me go home until five, dear. Where else would I be? What was that all about?”

  “Mike Celluci was just leaving.” She tucked the phone under her arm and with the extra long cord trailing behind her, got up to make toast.

  “So you’re seeing him again?”

  The last piece of bread was a little moldy around the edges. She tossed it in the garbage and settled for a bag of no-name chocolate chip cookies. “I seem to be.”

  “Well, you know what they say about spring and a young man’s fancy.”

  She sounded doubtful, so Vicki changed the subject. Her mother had liked Celluci well enough the few times they’d met, she just thought that temperamentally they’d both be better off with someone calmer. “It’s spring?” Gusts of wind slapped what could’ve been rain but looked more like sleet against the windows.

  “It’s April, dear. That makes it spring.”

  “Yeah, what’s your weather like?”

  Her mother laughed. “It’s snowing.”

  Vicki brushed cookie crumbs off her sweatshirt and got herself more coffee. “Look, Mom, this is going to be costing the department a fortune.” Her mother had worked for eighteen years as the private secretary of the head of Life Sciences at Queen’s University, Kingston and she abused the privileges that had accumulated as often as possible. “Although you know I enjoy talking to you, did you have an actual reason for calling?”

  “Well, I was wondering if you might be coming down for Easter.”

  “Easter?”

  “It’s this weekend. I won’t be working tomorrow or Monday, we could have four whole days together.”

  Darkness, demons, vampires, and six bodies, the life violently ripped from them.

  “I don’t think so, Mom. The case I’m on could break at any time. . . .”

  After listening to a few more platitudes and promising to stay in touch, Vicki hung up and went to her weight bench to work off equal parts of cookies and guilt.

  “Henry, it’s Caroline. I’ve got tickets to the Phantom for May fourth. You said you wanted to see it and now’s your chance. Give me a call in the next couple of days if you’re free.”

  It was the only message on the machine. Henry shook his head at his vague sense of disappointment. There was no reason for Vicki Nelson to call. No reason he should want her to.

  “All right,” he glared at his reflection in the antique mirror over the telephone table, “you tell me why I trusted her. Circumstance?” He shook his head. “No. Circumstance said I should have disposed of her. A much neater solution with much less risk. Try again. She reminded you of someone? If you live long enough, and you will, everyone will remind you of someone.”

  Turning away from the mirror, he sighed and ran his fingers through his hair. He could deny it all he wanted but she did remind him of someone, not in form perhaps but in manner.

  Ginevra Treschi had been the first mortal he had trusted after the change. There had been others with whom he had played at trust but in her arms he was himself, not needing to be anything more. Or less.

  When he found he could not live in Elizabeth’s England—it was both too like and too unlike the England he had known—he had moved south, to Italy and finally to Venice. Venice had much to offer one of his kind for the ancient city came alive at night and in its shadows he could feed as he chose.

  It had been carnival, he remembered, and Ginevra had been standing by San Marco, at the edge of the square, watching the crowd surging back and
forth before her like a living kaleidoscope. She’d seemed so very real amidst all the posturing that he’d moved closer. When she left, he followed her back to her father’s house then spent the rest of the night discovering her name and situation.

  “Ginevra Treschi.” Even three hundred years and many mortals later it still sounded in his mouth like a benediction.

  The next night, while the servants slept and the house was quiet and dark, he’d slipped into her room. Her heartbeat had drawn him to the bed and he’d gently pulled the covers back. Almost thirty and three years a widow, she wasn’t beautiful, but she was so alive—even asleep—that he’d found himself staring. Only to find, a few moments later, that she was staring back at him.

  “I don’t wish to hurry your decision,” she’d said dryly. “But I’m getting chilled and I’d like to know if I should scream.”

  He’d intended to convince her he was only a dream but he found he couldn’t.

  They had almost a year of nights together.

  “A convent?” Henry raised himself up on one elbow, disentangling a long strand of ebony hair from around the back of his neck. “If you’ll forgive me saying so, bella, I don’t think you’d enjoy convent life.”

  “I’m not making a joke, Enrico. I go with the Benedictine Sisters tomorrow after early Mass.”

  For a moment, Henry couldn’t speak. The thought of his Ginevra locked away from the world struck him as close to a physical blow. “Why?” he managed at last.

  She sat up, wrapping her arms around her knees. “I had a choice, the Sisters or Giuseppe Lemmo.” Her lips pursed as though she tasted something sour. “The convent seemed the better course.”

  “But why choose at all?”

  She smiled and shook her head. “In your years out of the world you have forgotten a few things, my love. My father wishes me for Signore Lemmo, but he will graciously allow me to go to God if only to get his overly educated daughter out of his house.” Her voice grew serious and she stroked a finger down the length of Henry’s bare chest. “He fears the Inquisition, Enrico. Fears that I will bring the Papal Hounds down upon the family.” Her lips twisted. “Or that he will be forced to denounce me.”