by Tanya Huff
“Coreen, I. . . .”
“Freeze, both of you.”
The young man who emerged from behind the potted palm was unprepossessing in the extreme. Tall and thin, he carried himself as though parts of his body were on loan from someone else. A plastic pocket protector bulged with pens and his polyester pants stopped roughly two inches above his ankles.
Coreen rolled her eyes and headed directly for him. “Norman, don’t be such a. . . .”
“Coreen,” Vicki’s hand on her shoulder rocked her to a halt. “Perhaps we’d better consider doing as Mr. Birdwell suggests.”
Grinning broadly, Norman raised the stolen AK-47.
Vicki had no intention of betting anyone’s life on the very visible magazine being empty, not when the police report had included missing ammunition.
One of the building’s four elevators was in the lobby, doors open. Norman motioned the two women into it.
“I was looking out my window and I saw you in the parking lot,” he told them. “I knew you were here to stop me.”
“Well, you’re right . . .” Coreen began but fell silent as Vicki’s grip on her arm tightened.
Vicki had very little doubt that she could get the gun away from Norman without anyone—except possibly Norman—getting hurt, but she sure as hell wasn’t going to do it in an elevator with what appeared to be stainless steel walls. Forget the initial burst—the ricochets would rip all three of them to shreds. She kept her grip on Coreen’s arm as they walked down the hallway to Norman’s apartment, the barrel of the Russian assault rifle waving between them like some sort of crazed indicator switch.
Don’t let anyone open their door, she prayed. I can handle this if everyone just stays calm. As she couldn’t count on neighbors not diving suddenly into the line of fire, she’d have to wait until they were actually in the apartment before making her move.
Norman’s place was unlocked. Vicki pushed Coreen in ahead of her. The moment he closes the door. . . . She heard the click, dropped Coreen’s arm, spun around, and was pushed to one side as Coreen charged past her and threw herself at their captor.
“Damnit!”
She ducked a wildly swinging elbow and tried to shove Coreen down out of the line of fire. The dark, almost blue metal of the barrel scraped across her glasses. She caught one quick glimpse of Norman’s fingers white around the pistol grip. Coreen clutched at her shoulder. She didn’t see the steel reinforced butt are around outside her limited periphery. It missed the thinner bone of her temple by a hair—smashing into her skull, slamming her up against the wall, plummeting her down into darkness.
Brows drawn down into a deep vee, Celluci fanned the phone messages stacked on his desk, checking who they were from. Two reporters, an uncle, Vicki, the dry cleaners, one of the reporters again . . . and again. Growling wordlessly, he crumpled them up and shoved them into his pocket. He didn’t have time for this kind of crap.
He’d spent the day combing the area where the latest victim and her dog had been found. He’d talked to the two kids who’d found the body and most of the people who lived in a four block radius. The site had held a number of half obliterated footprints that suggested the man they were looking for went barefoot, had three toes, and very long toenails. No one had seen anything although a drunk camped out farther down in the ravine had heard a sound like a sail luffing and had smelled rotten eggs. The police lab had just informed him that between the mastiff’s teeth were particles identical to the bit of whatever-it-was that DeVerne Jones had been holding in his hand. And he was no closer to finding an answer.
Or at least no closer to finding an answer he could deal with.
More things in heaven and earth. . . .
He slammed out of the squad room and stomped down the hall. The new headquarters building seemed to deaden sound, but he made as much as he could anyway.
This place needs some doors you can slam. And Shakespeare should have minded his own goddamned business!
As he passed the desk, the cadet on duty leaned forward. “Uh, Detective, a Vicki Nelson called for you earlier. She seemed quite insistent that you check out. . . .”
Celluci’s raised hand cut him off. “Did you write it down?”
“Yes, sir. I left a message on your desk.”
“Then you’ve done your job.”
“Yes, sir, but. . . .”
“Don’t tell me how to do mine.”
The cadet swallowed nervously, Adam’s apple bobbing above his tight uniform collar. “No, sir.”
Scowling, Celluci continued stomping out of the building. He needed to be alone to do some thinking. The last thing he needed right now was Vicki.
Fourteen
Henry stepped out of the shower and frowned at his reflection in the full-length mirror. The lesser cuts and abrasions he’d taken the night before had healed, the greater were healing and would give him no trouble. He unwrapped the plastic bag from around the dressing on his arm and poked gently at the gauze. It hurt and would, he suspected, continue to hurt for some time, but he could use the arm if he was careful. It had been so many years since he’d taken a serious wound that his biggest problem would be remembering it before he caused himself more pain.
He turned a little sideways and shook his head. Great green splotches of fading bruises still covered most of his body.
“Looks familiar, actually. . . .”
The lance tip caught him under the right arm, lifting him up and out of the saddle. For a heartbeat, he hung in the air, then as the roar of the watching crowd rose to a crescendo, he crashed down to the ground. The sound of his armor slamming against the packed earth of the lists rattled around inside his head much as his head rattled around inside his helmet. He almost wouldn’t mind the falls if only they weren’t so thrice-damned loud.
He closed his eyes. Just until all the noise stops. . . .
When he opened them again, he was looking up into the face of Sir Gilbert Talboys, his mother’s husband. Where the devil did he come from? he wondered. Where did my helmet go? He liked Sir Gilbert, so he tried to smile. His face didn’t seem to be functioning.
“Can you rise, Henry? His Grace, the King, is approaching.”
There was an urgency in Sir Gilbert’s voice that penetrated the ringing in Henry’s ears. Could he rise? He wasn’t exactly sure. Everything hurt but nothing seemed broken. The king, who would not be pleased that he had been unseated, would be even less pleased if he continued to lie in the dirt. Teeth clenched, he allowed Sir Gilbert to lift him into a sitting position then, with help, heave him to his feet.
Henry swayed but somehow managed to stay standing, even after all supporting hands had been removed. His vision blurred, then refocused on the king, resplendent in red velvet and cloth of gold, advancing from the tournament stand. Desperately, he tried to gather his scattered wits. He had not been in his father’s favor since he had unwisely let it be known that he considered Queen Catherine the one true and only Queen of England. This would be the first time his father had spoken to him since he had taken up with that Lutheran slut. Even three years later, the French Court still buzzed with stories of her older sister, Mary, and Henry could not believe that his father had actually put Anne Boleyn on the throne.
Unfortunately, King Henry VIII had done exactly that.
Thanking God that his armor prevented him from falling to one knee—he doubted he’d be able to rise or, for that matter, control the fall—Henry bowed as well as he was able and waited for the king to speak.
“You carry your shield too far from your body. Carry it close and a man cannot get his point behind it.” Royal hands flashing with gold and gems lifted his arm and tucked it up against his side. “Carry it here.”
Henry couldn’t help but wince as the edge of his coutel dug into a particularly tender bruise.
“You’re hurting, are you?”
“No, Sire.” Admitting to pain would not help his case.
“Well, if you aren’t now, you will be
later.” The king chuckled low in his throat, then red-gold brows drew down over deep set and tiny eyes. “We were not pleased to see you on the ground.”
This would be the answer that counted. Henry wet his lips; at least the bluff King Hal persona was the easiest to deal with. “I am sorry, Sire, and I wish it been you in my place.”
The heavy face reddened dangerously. “You wished to see your Sovereign unseated?”
The immediate area fell completely silent, courtiers holding their breath.
“No, Sire, for if it had been you in my saddle, it would have been Sir John on the ground.”
King Henry turned and stared down the lists at Sir John Gage, a man ten years his junior and at the peak of his strength and stamina. He began to laugh. “Aye, true enough, lad. But the bridegroom does not joust for fear he break his lance.”
Staggering under a jocular slap on the back, Henry would have fallen but for Sir Gilbert’s covert assistance. He laughed with the others, for the king had made a joke, but although he was thankful to be back in favor all he could really think of was soaking his bruises in a hot bath.
Henry lifted an arm. “A little thinner perhaps but definitely the same shade.” Rolling his shoulder muscles, he winced as one of the half-healed abrasions pulled. Injuries that had once taken weeks, or sometimes months, to heal now disappeared in days. “Still, a good set of tournament armor would’ve come in handy last night.”
Last night. . . . He had taken more blood from Vicki and her young friend than he usually took in a month of feedings. She had saved his life, almost at the expense of her own and he was grateful, but it did open up a whole new range of complications. New complications that would just have to wait until the old ones had been dealt with.
He strapped on his watch. 8:10. Maybe Vicki had called back while he was in the shower.
She hadn’t.
“Great. Norman Birdwell, York University, and I’ll call you back. So call already.” He glared at the phone. The waiting was the worst part of knowing that the grimoire was out there and likely to be used.
He dressed. 8:20. Still no call.
His phone books were buried in the hall closet. He dug them out, just in case. No Norman Birdwell. No Birdwell of any kind.
Her message tied him to the apartment. She expected him to be there when she called. He couldn’t go out and search on his own. Pointless in any case when she was so close.
8:56. He had most of the glass picked up. The phone rang.
“Vicki?”
“Please do not hang up. You are talking to a compu . . .”
Henry slammed the receiver down hard enough to crack the plastic. “Damn.” He tried a quick call out, listened to Vicki’s message—for the third time since sunset, and it told him absolutely nothing new—and hung up a little more gently. Nothing appeared to be damaged except for the casing.
9:17. The scrap metal that had once been a television and a coffee table frame were piled in the entryway, ready to go down to the garbage room. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do about the couch. Frankly, he didn’t care about the couch. Why didn’t she call?
9:29. There were stains in the carpet and the balcony still had no door—though he’d blocked the opening with plywood—but essentially all signs of the battle had been erased from the condo. No mindless task remained to keep him from thinking. And somehow he couldn’t stop thinking of a woman’s broken body hanging from a rusted hook.
“Damn it, Vicki, call!”
The empty space on the bookshelf drew his gaze and the guilt he’d been successfully holding at bay stormed the barricades. The grimoire was his. The responsibility was his. If he’d been stronger. If he’d been faster. If he’d been smarter. Surely with four hundred and fifty years of experience he should be able to outthink one lone mortal with not even a tenth of that.
He looked down at the city regretfully. “I should have. . . .” He let his voice trail off. There was nothing he could have done differently. Even had he continued to believe the killer an abandoned child of his kind, even had Vicki not stumbled onto him bending over that corpse, even had he not decided to trust her, it wouldn’t have changed last night’s battle with the demon, his loss, and the loss of the grimoire. The only thing that could have prevented that would have been his destruction of the grimoire back when he first acquired it in the 1800s, and, frankly, he wasn’t sure he could have destroyed it, then or now.
“Although,” he acknowledged, right hand wrapped lightly around left forearm, skin even paler than usual against the stark white of the gauze, “had Vicki not worked her way into the equation, I would have died.” And there would have been no one to stop the Demon Lord from rising. His lips drew up off his teeth. “Not that I seem to be doing much to prevent it.”
Why didn’t she call?
He began to pace, back and forth, back and forth, before the window.
She’d lost a lot of blood the night before. Had she run into trouble she was too weak to handle?
He remembered the feel of Ginevra’s dead flesh under his hands as he cut her down. She’d been so alive. Like Vicki was so alive. . . .
Why didn’t she call?
She’d been conscious now for some time and had been lying quietly, eyes closed, waiting for the pounding at her temples to stop echoing between her ears. Time was of the essence, yes, but sudden movement would have her puking her guts out and she couldn’t see where that would help. Better to wait, to gather information, and to move when she might actually have some effect.
She licked her lips and tasted blood, could feel the warm moisture dribbling down from her nose.
Her feet were tied at the ankles. Her arms lashed together almost from wrists to elbows; the binding around her wrists fabric not rope. She’d been dumped on her side, knees drawn up, left cheek down on a hard, sticky surface—probably the floor. Someone had removed her jacket. Her glasses were not on her nose. She fought back the surge of panic that realization brought.
She could hear—or maybe feel—footsteps puttering about behind her and adenoidal breathing coming from the same direction. Norman. From the opposite direction, she could hear short sharp breaths, each exhalation an indignant snort. And Coreen.
So she’s still alive. Good. And she sounds angry, not hurt. Even better. Vicki suspected that Coreen was also tied or she wouldn’t be so still. Which, all things considered, is a good thing. Few people get dead faster than amateur heroes. Not, she added as a flaming spike slammed through the back of her head, that the professionals are doing so hot.
She lay there for a moment, playing if Coreen hadn’t interfered until the new pain faded into the background with the old pain.
The residual stench of the demon was very strongonly in a building used to students could Norman have gotten away with it—overlaid with burning charcoal, candles, air freshener, and toast.
“You know, you could offer me some. I’m starving.”
“You’ll eat after.”
Vicki wasn’t surprised to hear that Norman talked with his mouth full. He probably picks his nose and wears socks with sandals, too. An all-around great guy.
“After what?”
“After the Demon Lord makes you mine.”
“Get real, Birdwell! Demons don’t come that powerful!”
Norman laughed.
Cold fingers traced a pattern up and down Vicki’s spine, and she fought to keep herself from flipping over so that the thing Norman Birdwell had become was no longer at her exposed back. She’d heard a man laugh like that once before. The SWAT team had needed seven hours to take him out and they’d still lost two of the hostages.
“You’ll see,” his voice matter-of-fact around the toast. “First I was just going to have you ripped into little pieces, real slow. Then I was going to use you as part of the incantation to call the Demon Lord. Did I tell you it needed a life? Until you showed up I was going to grab the kid down the hall.” His voice drew closer and Vicki felt a pointed toe prodding her i
n the back. “Now I’ve decided to use her and keep you for myself.”
“You’re disgusting, Birdwell!”
“DON’T SAY THAT!”
Concussion or not, Vicki opened her eyes in time to see Norman dart forward and slap Coreen across the face. Without her glasses details were a blur, but from the sound of it, it hadn’t been much of a blow.
“Did I hurt you?” he asked, the rage gone as suddenly as it had appeared.
The bright mass of Coreen’s hair swept up and back as she tossed her head. “No,” she told him, chin rising. Fear had crept into her voice but it was still vastly outweighed by anger.
“Oh.” Norman finished his toast and wiped his fingers on his jeans. “Well, I will.”
Vicki could understand and approve of Coreen’s anger. She was furious herself—at Norman, at the situation, at her helplessness. Although she would have preferred to rant and bellow, she held her rage carefully in check. Releasing it now, when she was bound, would do neither her, nor Coreen, nor the city any good. She drew in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. Her head felt as though it were balanced precariously on the edge of the world and one false move would sent it tumbling into infinity.
“Excuse me.” She hadn’t intended to whisper, but it was all she could manage.
Norman turned. “Yes?”
“I was wondering . . .” Swallow. Ride the pain. Continue. “. . . if I could have my glasses.” Breathe, two, three, while Norman waits patiently. He isn’t going anywhere, after all. “Without them, I can’t see what you’re doing.”
“Oh.” She could almost hear his brow furrow even though she couldn’t see it. “It only seems fair you should get to see this.”
He trotted out of her line of sight and she closed her eyes for a moment to rest them. Only seems fair? Well, I suppose I should be happy he doesn’t want to waste front row seats.
“Here.” He squatted down and very carefully slid the plastic arms back over her ears, settling the bridge gently on her nose. “Better?”