1 Blood Price

by Tanya Huff

  He sighed again. “Yeah. For now. Why?”

  She took a deep breath. There really wasn’t an easy way to do this. “Don’t ask me how I know, because you wouldn’t believe me, but there’s a very good chance the person you’re looking for will be wearing a black leather jacket. A nine hundred dollar black leather jacket.”

  “Jesus Christ, Vicki! It’s a university. Half the fucking people there will be in black leather jackets.”

  “Not like this one. I’ve got a full description for you.”

  “And where did you get it? Out of a fortune cookie?”

  Vicki opened her mouth then closed it again. This was just too complicated. “I can’t tell you,” she said at last. “I’d be compromising my sources.”

  “You hold back information on me, Vicki, and I’ll compromise sources you never knew you had!”

  “Listen, asshole, you can choose to believe me or not, but don’t you dare threaten me!” She spit out the description of the jacket and slammed the receiver down. All right. She’d done her duty by telling the police what she knew. Fine. They could act on it or not. And Mike Celluci could go straight to hell.

  Except that was what she was desperately trying to prevent.

  Grinding her teeth in frustration, she kicked a kitchen chair into the living room and, panting slightly, stood looking down at the twisted piece of furniture.

  “Life used to be a lot simpler,” she told it, sighed, and went back to the phone. York University was the only connection they had and Coreen Fergus was a student there. She probably wouldn’t be able to help-Celluci was right, the irritating s.o.b., finding one leather jacket on campus would be like finding one honest politician—but it certainly couldn’t hurt to check.

  “Coreen Fergus, please.”

  “I’m sorry, but Coreen’s not in right now. Can I take a message?”

  “Do you know when she’ll be back?”

  “ ’Fraid not. She left this morning to stay with friends for a few days.”

  “Is she all right?” If that child had gotten herself hurt going up to some strange man’s apartment. . . .

  “Well, she’s a little shook; she was like really good friends with the girl whose body they found last night.”

  Bad enough, coming so soon after Ian, but thank God that was all it was. “When she comes home, could you tell her Vicki Nelson called?”

  “Sure thing. That all?”

  “That’s all.”

  And that was all, unless Henry had come up with something concrete.

  “This one, this one, or this one.” Henry looked from the map to the page of symbols.

  “Can you find the next point in the pattern?” Vicki bent over the table, as far away as possible from the grimoire. She hesitated to say the ancient book exuded an aura of evil—that sounded so horror novel cliché—but she noticed that even Henry touched it as infrequently as possible.

  Henry, busy with protractor and ruler, laughed humorlessly. “The next three points in three possible patterns,” he pointed out.

  “Great.” Vicki straightened and shoved her glasses up her nose. “More complications. Where do we do first?”

  “Where do I go first,” Henry corrected absently. He straightened as well, rubbing his temples. The bright light that Vicki seemed to need to function was giving him a headache. “It had better be this area here.” He tapped the map just east of the Humber River between Lawrence and Eglinton Avenues. “This pattern continues the least complicated of the three. Theoretically, it will be the first finished.”

  “Theoretically?”

  Henry shrugged. “This is demon lore. There aren’t any cut and dried answers. Experts in the field tend to die young.”

  Vicki took a deep breath and let it out slowly. There were never any cut and dried answers. She should know that by now. “So you’ve never actually done this sort of thing before.”

  “Not actually, no. ‘This sort of thing’ doesn’t happen very often.”

  “Then if you don’t mind my asking,” she flicked a finger at the grimoire, still carefully keeping her distance, “why do you own one of these?”

  Henry looked down at the book although Vicki could tell from his expression he wasn’t really seeing it. “I took it from a madman,” he said harshly. “And I don’t wish to speak of it now. ”

  “All right.” Vicki fought the urge to back away from the raw anger in Henry’s voice. “You don’t have to. It’s okay.”

  With an effort, he put the memory aside and managed what he hoped was a conciliatory smile. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to frighten you.”

  She stiffened. “You didn’t.”

  The smile grew more genuine. “Good.”

  Well aware she was being humored, Vicki cleared her throat and changed the subject. “You said the other night we had no way of knowing if these were all the demonic names.”

  “That’s right.” He’d been trying not to think of that.

  “So these deaths might be spelling out a name that’s not in the book.”

  “Right again.”

  “Shit.” Arms wrapped around herself, Vicki walked over to the window and rested her forehead against the cool glass. The points of light below, all she could see of the city, looked cold and mocking. A thousand demonic eyes in the darkness. “What are we supposed to do about it?”

  “Exactly what we are doing.” It could have been a rhetorical question, but sometimes Henry felt even they needed answering and he wanted to give her what comfort he could. “And we hope and we pray and we don’t give up.”

  Vicki’s head rose and she turned to face him. “I never give up,” she said testily.

  He smiled. “I never thought you did.”

  He really does have a phenomenal smile, Vicki thought, appreciating the way his eyes crinkled at the comers. She felt her own lips begin to curl in answer and gave herself a mental shake, forcing her face to give no indication of a sudden strong wave of desire. Four hundred and fifty years of practice, a body in its mid-twenties, supernatural prowess. . . .

  Henry heard her heart speed up and his sensitive nose caught a new scent. He hadn’t fed for forty-eight hours and he would need to soon. If she wants me, it would be foolish to deny her. . . . Having long since outgrown the need to prove himself by forcing the issue—he knew he could take what he wanted—he would allow her to make the first move. And what of vows to stay uninvolved until after the demon has been dealt with? Well, some vows were made to be broken.

  Her heartbeat began to slow and, while he applauded her control, he didn’t bother to hide his disappointment.

  “So.” The word caught and Vicki cleared her throat. This is ridiculous. I’m thirty-one years old. I’m not seventeen. “I learned a few things up at 31 Division that might have some bearing on the case.”

  “Oh?” Henry raised a red-gold brow and perched on the edge of the table.

  Vicki, who would have given her front teeth to be able to raise a single brow without her entire forehead getting involved, frowned at the picture he made. To give him credit, she didn’t think he was aware of how the light from the chandelier burnished his hair, and how the position stretched the brown corduroy pants he wore tight over muscular thighs. With an effort, she got her mind back on track. This was not the time for that sort of thing; whatever sort of thing it might end up to be later on. “Several people, mostly employees of the local MacDonald’s, reported a foul smell lingering around the parking lot at the Jane-Finch Mall. Sulfur and rotting meat. The gas company sent someone around, but they found no leaks.”

  “The demon?” Henry bent over the map, trying to ignore his growing hunger. It was difficult with her so close and physically, at least, so willing. “But the body was found. . . .”

  “There’s more. Someone reported a bear running along the shoulder of Jane Street. The police didn’t bother investigating because the caller said he’d only caught a glimpse of it as it passed his car doing about a hundred kilometers an hour.”


  “The demon.” This time it wasn’t a question.

  Vicki nodded. “Odds are good.” She returned to the table and the map. “My best guess is that it picked up the body here and carried it over here to kill it. Why? There had to be people closer.”

  “Perhaps this time it was told who to kill.”

  “I was afraid you were going to say that.”

  “It’s the only logical answer,” Henry said, standing. “But look at the bright side.”

  “There is no bright side,” Vicki snarled. She’d finished her day with the coroner’s report.

  “At the risk of sounding like a Pollyanna,” Henry told her dryly, “there’s always a bright side. Or at least a side that’s less dark. If the demon was instructed to kill this young woman, perhaps the police can find the link between her and its master.”

  “And if it was just indulging in demonic perversity?”

  “Then we’re no farther behind than we were. Now, if you’ll excuse me, with the timetable shattered, I’d better get out to the Humber in case the demon is recalled tonight.”

  At the door, Vicki stopped, a sudden horrific thought bleaching the color from her face. “What’s stopping this thing from showing up inside someone’s house? Where you can’t see it? Where you can’t stop it?”

  “Demons,” Henry told her, smiling reassuringly as he secured the belt of his trenchcoat, “are unable to enter a mortal’s home unless expressly invited.”

  “I thought that referred to vampires?”

  With one hand in the small of her back, Henry moved her firmly out into the hall. “Mr. Stoker,” he said, as he locked the door to the condo, “was indulging in wishful thinking.”

  Henry leaned against the cemetery fence and looked out over the small collection of quiet graves. They were old stone slabs for the most part, a uniform size and a uniform age. The few marble monuments looked pretentious and out of place.

  To the west, the cemetery butted against the Humber River park system, and the muttering of the swollen river filled the night with sound. To the north lay residential areas. To the east and south, vacant land. He wondered if the cemetery had something to do with the lack of development. Even in an age of science, the dead were often considered bad neighbors. Henry couldn’t understand why; the dead never played Twisted Sister at 130 decibels at three in the morning.

  He could feel, not the pattern, but the anticipation of it. A current of evil waiting for its chance, waiting for the final death that would anchor it to the world. This feeling, which raised the hair on the back of his neck and made him snarl, was strong enough to convince him that he’d chosen correctly. This name would be the first to finish; this demon lord the first to break free of the darkness and begin the slaughter.

  He must stop the lesser demon in the few seconds between its appearance and the killing blow, for once the blood struck the ground he’d have its demonic master to contend with. Unfortunately, the pattern allowed for a wider area than he could watch all at once, so he’d done the only thing he could—walking a pentagram well outside the boundaries the pattern demanded, leaving the last six inches unclosed. When the demon entered, to attack a life within it or carrying a life in from outside, he’d close it. Such an ephemeral prison wouldn’t last more than a few seconds but should give him control long enough to get to the demon and . . .

  “. . . and stop it.” Henry sighed and turned up the collar of his coat. “Temporarily.” Trouble was, the lesser demons were pretty much interchangeable. If he stopped this one, there was nothing stopping its “master” from calling up another. Fortunately, these demons, like most bullies, weren’t fond of pain and he might be able to convince it to talk.

  “If it can talk.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and sagged against the fence. Rumor had it that not all of them could.

  There was an added complication he hadn’t mentioned to Vicki because he knew she’d scoff. Tonight, all over the world, millions of people were crying that Christ was dead. This century might have lost its ability to see the power in believing, but Henry hadn’t. Most religions had marked a day of darkness on the calendar and, given the spread of the Christian church, this was among the most potent. If the demon returned before Christ rose again, it would be stronger, more dangerous, harder to stop.

  He checked his watch. 11:40. Bound by centuries of tradition, the demon would be called—if it was called at all tonight—at midnight. According to Vicki, all the previous deaths had occurred between midnight and one o’clock. He wondered how the police had missed such an obvious clue.

  The wind snapped his coat around his knees and lifted bright strands of his hair. Like all large predators, he could remain motionless for as long as the hunt required, senses straining for the first sight or sound or scent of prey.

  Midnight passed.

  Henry felt the heart of darkness go by and the current of evil strengthened momentarily. He tensed. He would have to move between one heartbeat and the next.

  Then the current began to fade.

  When it had sighed away to a mere possibility, Henry checked his watch again. 1:20. For tonight, for whatever reason, the danger was past.

  Relief caused him to sag against the fence, grinning foolishly. He hadn’t been looking forward to the battle. He was grateful for the reprieve. He’d head back downtown, maybe drop in on Caroline, get something to eat, spend the hours until sunrise not worrying about being ripped to pieces by the hordes of hell.

  “Peaceful, isn’t it?”

  The white-haired man never knew how close he came to dying. Only the returning surge of the pattern, sensing death, stopped Henry’s strike. He forced his lips back over his teeth and shoved his trembling hands in his pockets.

  “Did I frighten you?”

  “No.” The night hid the hunter while Henry struggled to resecure his civilized mask. “Startled me, that’s all.” The wind from the river had kept him from scenting the blood and the sound of the water had muffled the approach of crepe soled shoes. It was excusable that he’d been taken by surprise. It was also embarrassing.

  “You don’t live around here?”

  “No.” As he came closer, Henry revised his original impression of the man’s age. No more than fifty, and a trim, athletic fifty at that, with the weathered look of a man who worked outside.

  “I thought not, I’d have remembered you.” His eyes were pale blue and just beyond the edge of a gray down jacket, a vein pulsed under tanned skin. “I often walk at night when I can’t sleep.”

  Hands hanging loose beside his faded jeans, he waited for Henry’s explanation. Ridged knuckles testified to past fights and somehow Henry doubted he’d lost many of them.

  “I was waiting for someone.” Remaining adrenaline kept him terse although amusement had begun to wash it away. “He didn’t show.” He answered the older man’s slow smile with one of his own, captured the pale blue gaze, and held it. Leading him into the shadows of the cemetery, allowing his hunger to rise, he considered this ending to the few last hours and, stifling slightly hysterical laughter, Henry realized there was truth in something he’d always believed; The world is not only stranger than you imagine, it’s stranger than you can imagine—a vampire, waiting for a demon, gets cruised in a graveyard. Sometimes I love this century.

  “Detective? I mean, Ms. Nelson?” The young constable blushed at his mistake and cleared his throat. “The, uh, sergeant says you might want to hear about the call I had this morning.”

  Vicki glanced up from the stack of occurrence reports and pushed her glasses up her nose. She wondered when they’d started allowing children to join the force. Or when twenty had started looking so damned young.

  Standing a little straighter, the constable began to read from his notes. “At 8:02 this morning, Saturday, 23rd of March, a Mr. John Rose of 42 Birchmont Avenue reported an item missing from his gun collection. Said collection, including the missing item, was kept in a locked case behind a false wall in Mr. Rose’s ba
sement. Neither the wall nor the lock appeared to have been tampered with and Mr. Rose swore that only he and his wife knew the combination. The house itself showed no signs of forced entry. All papers and permits appeared to be in order and . . .”

  “Constable?”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “What item was Mr. Rose missing?”

  “Ma’am?”

  Vicki sighed. She’d had a sleepless night and a long day. “What kind of gun?”

  “Oh.” The constable blushed again and peered down at his handwriting. “The, uh, missing item was a Russian assault rifle, an AK-47. With ammunition. Ma’am.”

  “Shit!”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I don’t believe it!” Norman kicked the newspaper box, the toe of his running shoe thudding into the metal with a very satisfactory boom. He’d stopped to read the front page story about the seventh victim and discovered that the stupid demon had killed the wrong girl. What was worse, it had killed the wrong girl Thursday night and here it was Saturday before he found out.

  Coreen had been walking around alive for two extra days!

  The throbbing, which had not disappeared with the demon as it always had before, grew louder.

  He dug his change purse out of his pants’ pocket, muttering, “A decent country would have a decent information service.” If he’d known about this yesterday, he’d have called the demon back last night instead of spending the time on the net, looking for someone who could tell him how to operate his new equalizer. Too bad I couldn’t take that to class. They’d all notice me then. What really made him angry was that the demon had come back on Thursday and then gone off and gotten him the rifle without ever letting on it had screwed up.

  When he saw a Saturday paper cost a dollar twenty-five, he almost changed his mind, but the story was about him, in a way, so, grumbling, he fed coins into the slot. Besides, he needed to know what the demon had done so he could find a way to punish it tonight. As long as he had it trapped in the pentagram, there must be something he could do to hurt it.