1 Blood Price

by Tanya Huff

  “You cannot force me to change you.” Raw fury kept the fear from his voice.

  “Perhaps not. You are physically very strong and mentally almost my match. Nor can I bleed you and drink, for a touch would release the bonds.” Turning, the doctor scooped a book up off the desk and held it up to Henry’s face. “But if I cannot force you, I have access to those who can.”

  The book covered in greasy red leather, was the same one he’d held the night before during the ceremony. At such close quarters, the evil that radiated from it struck Henry with almost a physical blow and he rocked back against the unseen chains that held him.

  “This,” said Dr. O’Mara, caressing it lovingly, “is one of the last true grimoires left. I have heard there are only two others in the world. All the rest are but pale copies of these three. The man who wrote it sold his soul for the information it contains, but the Prince of Lies collected before he could use the knowledge so dearly bought. If we had the time, dear vampire, I would tell you what I had to do to make it mine, but we do not—you must be mine as well before dawn.”

  The naked desire in his eyes was so consuming that Henry felt sick. He began to struggle, fighting harder when he heard the doctor laugh again and move away.

  “From months of ceremonies, I have drawn what I need to control the demon,” the doctor remarked conversationally, rolling up the carpet before the fire. “The demon can give me anything save life eternal. You can give me that so the demon will give me you.” He looked up from the pentagram cut into the floor. “Can you stand against a Lord of Hell, vampire? I think not.”

  His mouth dry and his breath coming in labored gasps, Henry threw all his strength against the binding. Muscles straining and joints popping, he fought for his life. Just as it seemed he could no longer contain a wail of despair, his right arm moved.

  The candles lit and a foul powder burning on the fire, Dr. O’Mara opened the book and began to read.

  His right arm moved again. And then his left.

  A shimmering began in the center of the pentagram.

  Power fed into the calling bled power away from the bindings, Henry realized. They were weakening. Weakening. . . .

  The shimmer began to coalesce, falling into itself and forming. . . .

  With a howl of rage, Henry tore free and flung himself across the room. Before the doctor could react, Henry grabbed him, lifted him, and threw him with all his remaining strength against the far wall.

  The doctor’s head struck the wooden wainscoting and the wood proved stronger. The thing in the pentagram faded until only a foul smell and a memory of terror remained.

  Weak and trembling, Henry stood over the body. The light in the pale eyes had gone out, leaving them only a muddy gray. Blood pooled at the base of the wall, hot and red and Henry, who desperately needed to feed, thanked God that dead blood held no call. He’d have starved before he’d have fed from that man.

  His skin crawling at the touch, he picked the grimoire up from the floor and staggered into the night.

  “I should have destroyed it.” Palms flat against the glass doors of the bookcase, Henry stared at the grimoire. He never asked himself why he hadn’t. He doubted he wanted to hear the answer.

  “Yo, Victory!”

  Vicki turned slowly in the open phone booth, her heart doing a pretty fair impersonation of a jackhammer.

  Tony grinned. “My, but we’re jumpy. I thought I heard you didn’t work nights no more.”

  “Any more,” Vicki corrected absently, while her heart slowed to a more normal rhythm. “And do I look like I’m working?”

  “You always look like you’re working.”

  Vicki sighed and checked him out. Physically, he’d didn’t look good. The patina of dirt he wore told her he’d been sleeping rough, and his face had the pinched look that said meals had been infrequent of late. “You don’t look so great.”

  “Things have been better,” he admitted. “Could use a burger and some fries.”

  “Why not.” Henry’s answering machine insisted he still wasn’t available. “You can tell me what you’ve been doing lately.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Do I look like I’m crazy?”

  The three coals burned in the bottom of a cast iron frying pan his mother had bought him. It was the first time he’d ever used it. The gold, the frankincense, the myrrh, had all been added. The three drops of blood sizzled in the heat and Norman backed quickly away, just in case.

  Something had stopped the demon from materializing last night but, as that was the first and only time it had occurred, statistically, tonight, the demon should be able to get through. Norman believed strongly in statistics.

  The air in the center of the pentagram shivered. Norman’s bandaged fingers began to burn and he wondered if it was going to happen again. It shouldn’t. Statistically, it shouldn’t.

  It didn’t.

  “I have called you,” he declared, bouncing forward when the demon had fully formed. “I am your master.”

  “You are master,” the demon agreed. It seemed somewhat subdued and kept turning to look behind it.

  Norman sneered at this pitiful tool. After tonight he would command a real demon and nothing could stop him then.

  Twelve

  “Do you know what a grimoire is?”

  “Yes, master.” It hunched down in the exact center of the pentagram, still leery after the pain that had flung it back from the last calling.

  “Good. You will go here.”

  The master showed it a building marked on a map. It translated the information to its own image of the city, a much more complex and less limited view.

  “You will go to this building by the most direct route. You will get the grimoire from unit 1407 and you will bring it immediately back to the pentagram using the same route. Do not allow people to see you.”

  “Must feed,” it reminded the master sullenly.

  “Yeah, okay, then feed on the way. I want that grimoire as soon as possible. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, master.” In time it would feed on this one who called it. It had been promised.

  It could feel the Demon Lord it served waiting. Could feel the rage growing as it moved farther from the path of the name. Knew it would feel that rage more closely still when it returned from the world.

  There were lives in plenty on its route and as it had so many from which to pick and choose, it fed at last where the life would end to mark the name of another Demon Lord. The name would take another four deaths to finish, but perhaps this second Lord would protect if from the first on the chance that it would control the gate.

  It did not know hope, for hope was foreign to the demonkind, but it did know opportunity and so it did what it could.

  It fed quickly, though, and traveled warily lest it attract the attention of the power that had broken the calling the night before. The demonkind had battled this power in the past and it had no desire to do so now, on its own.

  It could feel the grimoire as it approached the building the master had indicated. Wings spread, it drifted lower, a shadow against the stars, and settled on the balcony. The call of the book grew stronger, the dark power reacting to one of the demonkind.

  It sensed a life close by but did not recognize it; too slow to be mortal, too fast to be demon. It did not understand, but then, understanding was not necessary.

  Sniffing the metal around the glass, it was not impressed. A soft metal, a mortal metal.

  Do not be seen.

  If it could not see the street, then the lives on the street could not see it. It sank its claws into the frame and pulled the glass from its setting.

  Captain Roxborough stepped closer, his hands out from his sides, his gray eyes never leaving the blade. “Surely, you don’t think . . . ” he began. Only lightning reflexes saved him as the razor arced forward and he jumped back. A billowing fold of his shirt had been neatly sliced, but the skin beneath had not been touched. With an effort, he held his temper. “I am
beginning to lose patience with you, Smith.”

  Henry froze, fingers bent over the keyboard. He’d heard something on the balcony. Not a loud sound—more like the rustle of dead leaves in the wind—but a sound that didn’t belong.

  He reached the living room in less than seconds, the overpowering smell of rotting meat warning him of what he’d face. Two hundred years of habit dropped his hand to his hip although he had not carried a sword since the early 1800s. The only weapon he owned, his service revolver, was wrapped in oilcloth and packed away in the basement of the building. And I don’t think I have time to go get it.

  The creature stood, silhouetted against the night, holding the glass door between its claws. It almost filled the tiny solarium that linked the dining room to the balcony.

  Woven like a red cord through the stench was the odor of fresh blood, telling Henry the demon had just fed and reminding him how long it had been since he had done the same. He drew in a long, shuddering breath. I was a fool not to have protected the apartment! An open pentagram like the trap he’d prepared by the Humber. . . . I should have known. Now, it all came down to this.

  “Hold, demon, you have not been asked to enter!”

  Huge, lidless, yellow eyes turned in his direction, features reshaping to accommodate the movement. “Ordered,” it said, and threw the door.

  Henry dove forward and the glass crashed harmlessly to the floor where he had been. He twisted past talons, leapt, and slammed both clenched fists into the demon’s head. The surface collapsed upon itself like wet cork, absorbing the blow and reforming. The demon’s backswing caught him on the way down and flung him crashing through the coffee table. He rolled, narrowly avoiding a killing blow, and scrambled to his feet with a metal strut in his hand, the broken end bright and sharp.

  The demon opened Henry’s arm below the elbow.

  Biting back a scream, Henry staggered, almost fell, and jabbed the strut into its hip.

  A flap of wing almost held him then, but panic lent him strength and he kicked his way free, feeling tissue give beneath his heels. His shoulder took the blow meant for his throat. He dropped with it, grabbed above a misshapen foot, and pulled with all he had left. The back of the demon’s head proved more resilient than Henry’s television, but only just.

  “Down, Owen! Be quiet!” Mrs. Hughes leaned back against the leash, barely managing to snag her door and close it before Owen, barking hysterically, lunged forward and dragged her down the hall. “Owen, shut up!” She could hardly hear herself think, the dog was so loud. The sound echoed, louder even than it had been in the confines of her apartment, and no matter how extensive the soundproofing between units, noise always seemed to carry in from the hall. She had to get Owen out of the building before he got them thrown out by the residents’ committee.

  A door opened at the end of the corridor and a neighbor she knew slightly emerged. He was a retired military man and had two small dogs of his own, both of whom she could hear barking through the open door—no doubt in response to Owen’s frenzy.

  “What’s wrong with him?” he yelled when he was close enough to make himself heard.

  “I don’t know.” She stumbled and almost lost her footing when Owen suddenly threw his powerful body up against Henry Fitzroy’s door, scrabbling with his claws around the edges and when that didn’t work, trying to dig his way under. Mrs. Hughes attempted to pull him away without much success. She wished she knew what her Owen had against Mr. Fitzroy—of course, at the moment she’d settle for knowing they weren’t going to be evicted for disturbing the peace. “Owen! Sit!” Owen ignored her.

  “He’s never acted like this before,” she explained. “All of a sudden he just started barking, like he’d been possessed. I thought if I got him outside. . . .”

  “It’d be quieter, anyway,” he agreed. “Can I give you a hand?”

  “Please.” Her voice had become a little desperate. Between the two of them, they dragged the still barking mastiff into the elevator.

  “I don’t understand this,” she panted. “He usually wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

  “Well, he hasn’t hurt anything but a few eardrums,” he reassured her, moving his blocking knee out of the way as the doors closed. “Good luck!”

  He could hear Owen’s deep chested bark still sounding up the elevator shaft, could hear the frenzied barking of his own two. Then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped. He paused, frowning, heard one final whimper, and then complete and utter silence. Shaking his head, he went inside.

  Dribbling viscous yellow fluid from a number of wounds, it snatched up the grimoire and limped out onto the balcony. The names and incantations made the book of demon lore an uncomfortable weight, by far the heaviest item it had yet retrieved. And it hurt. The not-mortal it had fought had hurt it. Much of its surface changed sluggishly back and forth from gray mottled black to black mottled gray and its right wing membrane had been torn.

  It must return the grimoire to the master, but first it needed to feed. The injured membrane could carry it from this high dwelling to the ground and once there it must quickly find a life to heal it. There were many lives around. It did not think it would have difficulty finding one to take.

  It dropped off into the night, yellow fluid glistening where it had been standing.

  Mrs. Hughes smiled as she listened to Owen bounding around in the bushes. To her intense relief, he’d calmed down in the elevator and had been a perfect lamb ever since. As if aware of her thought, he backed out into a clearing, checked to see where she was, wuffled happily, and bounded off again.

  She knew she was supposed to keep him on the leash, even in the ravine, but when they came down at night with no one else around she always let him run—both for his enjoyment and for hers. Neither one of them was happy moving at the other’s pace.

  Tucking her hands into her pockets, she hunched her shoulders against a sudden chill wind. Spring. She was certain, had arrived before Easter when she was a girl and they’d never had to wear gloves sixteen days into April. The wind made a second pass and Mrs. Hughes wrinkled her nose in distaste. It smelled very much like something at least the size of a raccoon had died over to the east and was now in an advanced stage of decay. What was worse, from the way the bushes were rustling, Owen had already found it and was no doubt preparing to roll.

  “Owen!” She advanced a couple of steps, readying the leash. “Owen!” The fetid smell of rotting meat grew stronger and she sighed. First the hysteria and now this—she’d be spending the rest of the night bathing the dog. “Ow. . . .”

  The demon ripped the second half of the word from her throat, caught the falling body in its other hand, and pulled the wound up to the gaping circle of its mouth. Sucking noisily, it began to ingest the blood it needed to heal. It staggered and almost dropped its meal as a heavy weight slammed into it from the back and claws dragged lines of pain from shoulders to hip. Snarling, drooling red, it turned.

  Owen’s lips were drawn back, his ears were flat against his skull, and his own snarl was more a howl as he threw himself forward again. He twisted in midair, spun around by a glancing blow, and landed heavily on three legs, blood staining his tan shoulder almost black. Maddened by the demon’s proximity, he snarled again and struck at the dangling bit of wing, crushing it in his powerful jaws.

  Before the dog could bring his massive neck and shoulder muscles into play, the demon kicked out. One long talon drove through a rib and dragged six inches deep through the length of the mastiff’s body, spilling a glistening pile of intestines into the dirt.

  With one last, feeble toss of his head, Owen managed to tear the already injured wing membrane further, then the light blazing in his eyes slowly dimmed and with a final hate-filled growl, he died.

  Even in death, his jaws kept their hold and the demon had to rip them apart before it could be free.

  Ten minutes later, a pair of teenagers, searching for a secluded corner, came down into the ravine. The path had a number of steep and
rocky spots and with eyes not yet adjusted to the darkness it was doubly treacherous. The young man walked a little out in front, trailing her behind him at the end of their linked hands—not from any chivalrous need to test the path, he was just the more anxious to get where they were going.

  When he began to fall, other arm windmilling, she cast the hand she held away lest she be dragged down, too. He hit the ground with a peculiar, damp sound and lay there for a moment, staring into shadows she couldn’t penetrate.

  “Pat?”

  His answer was almost a whimper and he scrambled backward and onto his feet. Both his hands and knees were dark as though he’d fallen into mud. She wrinkled her nose at a smell she could almost but not quite identify.

  “Pat?”

  His eyes were wide, whites gleaming all around, and although his mouth worked, no sound emerged.

  She frowned and, after taking two very careful steps forward, squatted. The ground under her fingertips was damp and slightly sticky. The smell had grown stronger. Gradually her eyes adjusted and, not bound by any social expectations of machismo, she screamed. And continued to scream for some time.

  Vicki squinted, trying desperately to bring the distant blur of lights into focus. She knew the bright white beam pouring down into the ravine had to be the searchlight of a police car, although she couldn’t actually see the car. She could hear an excited babble of voices but not make out the crowd they had to be coming from. It was late. She should be at Henry’s. But there might be something she could do to help. . . . Keeping one hand on the concrete wall surrounding the ManuLife head office, she turned onto St. Paul’s Square and aimed herself at the light.

  It never failed to amaze her how quickly an accident of any kind could draw a crowd—even at past midnight on a Monday. Didn’t any of these people have to be at work in the morning? Two more police cars screamed past and a couple of young men running up the street to watch nearly knocked her down. She barely noticed either of them. Past midnight. . . .