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"How are you feeling?"
The young y to actually lift his shoulders " &039;M okay," hethe doctor warily The incision throbbed, and he was too tired to take a piss without the huge orderly holding his pecker, but he wasn&039;t going to tell the doctor that Some people said he had authority problems So what
He had his money; all he wanted noas a chance to spend it "When can I go?"
"Go?"
"Leave," he growled
"That&039;s what I came in to tell you" Her face ex?pressionless, she stepped away fro this afternoon"
"When?"
"Soon"
When she was gone, he swung his legs out from under the covers and carefully lowered the slowly, he released the rail and stepped forward The room whirled He would have fallen except that a beefy hand wrapped around his arht
"You walk too fuckin&039; quietly,to face the orderly "Daot lost in sudden pain as the fin?gers tightened
"Hey, littered in the depths of soft brown eyes, so usually buried beneath an expression of unquestionable docility
The setting sun brushed ilded a pair of joggers on Sunset Beach Park, traced currents of gleah the tinted glass on the fourteenth floor of the Pacific Place condohed as he watched it set Nestled between the ia, Vancouver, Brit?ish Columbia, enjoyed some of theto do with the younga hand to shade his face, Tony Foster stared out theand counted down the an to buzz Pale blue eyes still locked on the horizon, he shut it off and cocked his head back toward the interior of the condo-ht had truly begun
Lying in a darkness so complete it could only be deliberate, Henry Fitzroy shook off the bindings of the sun The soft sound of the cotton sheet ainst the rise and fall of his chest told him he had safely survived another day As he listened, the rhyth? in the room beyond his bolted door and then in the myr?iad noises of the city beyond the walls of his sanctuary
He hated the way he woke, hated the extended vul?nerability of his slow return to full consciousness Every evening he tried to shorten the ti helpless and seood, but the effortagainst his skin, the utter stillness of the air
And a sudden chill
Which was impossible
He&039;d had the air conditioner disconnected in this, the smallest of the three bedrooms Thehad been blocked with plywood, caulked, and curtained The door had flexible rubber seals around all four sides-not air-tight by any means, but the cracks were far too se in temperature
Then he realized that he wasn&039;t alone
Someone was in the room with him Someone with no scent No heartbeat Fleshless Bloodless
Demonic? Possibly It wouldn&039;t be the first tiish arm to move, Henry reached over and switched on a lamp
Sensitive eyes half closed-even forty-watt bulbs threw enough light to teat the foot of his bed before the faint, translucent i on the wide arreen leather couch and shook his head "You&039;re kidding, right?"
"Wrong"
"Cool I wonder what he wants They alant so," he added in answer to the question iold brow "Everyone knows that"
"Do they?"
"Come on, Henry Don&039;t tell me in four-hundred-and-ninety-five odd years you&039;ve never seen a ghost?"
One hand flat against the cool glass of the , the other hooked in the pocket of his jeans, Henry Fitzroy, bastard son of Henry VIII, once Duke of Richht in the late 1800s when he&039;d watched the specter of a terrified young queen run screa once more for a mercy she&039;d never receive Over two hundred years before, Katherine Howard had at?tended his wedding to her cousin Mary He hadn&039;t gone to hers-her e to his father had occurred four years after his supposed death Made a queen in July, 1540, she&039;d been beheaded in February, 1542, nineteenand foolish and very likely guilty of the adultery she&039;d been charged with, but she hadn&039;t deserved to have her spirit trapped, replaying over and over the soul-destroyingto die
"Henry?"
"Whatever he wants," Henry said without turning, "I doubt that I&039;ll be able to give it to hie the past"
Tony shivered The centuries had gathered about the otherhioff his ed a wry s haunted"
Glad to have hied, a trace of the street kid he&039;d been lingering in the jerkyyou, notwith you for the last two years and dealing with the weirdos at the store, I&039;ve learned to take the unexpected in stride"
"Have you?" Not at all pleased with being com?pared to the weirdos at the video store where Tony worked, Henry&039;s ser man&039;s heartbeat quicken, he crossed the room and wrapped an ivory hand around a slender shoulder "So I&039;ve lost the ability to surprise you?"
"I didn&039;t say that" Tony&039;s breathing grew ragged as a cool thumb traced the line of his jaw
"Perhaps not exactly that"
"Uh, Henry "
"What?"
He shook his head It was enough to know Henry would stop if he wanted hi he didn&039;t want him to "Never h a fold of skin, the sharp points pierced a vein and, for a ti
The warainst her face, Cor?poral Phyllis Roberts cruised along Co the latest Celine Dion hit and tapping her fingers against the top of the steering wheel Al?though the new Ports Canada Police cars had air-conditioning, she never used it as she disliked the en?closed, spaceship feeling of driving with the s rolled up
Three hours into her shift, she was in a good
Three hours and fifteen
Turning into Vanterm, as of this moo and cruise ship terures of three istered container ship The pole lights that turned the long wooden pier into a patchwork of stacked containers and hard-edged shadoashed away features so thoroughly she was alnized one of the , rubber-handled flashlight, touched her nightstick, ht have to use it, and walked toward the, Ted?"
Ted Polich, the shortest of the three longshoreantry crane that loomed over the dock like a mechanical bird of prey "Controls have stiffened up and the son of a bitch is jerking left We&039;re trying to get it fixed tonight, so it doesn&039;t slow loading toe in?crease in Pacific Ri to keep up "Where is it?"
"Up by the bow It&039;s caught in one of the into step be?side her, Polich shoved his hands in the pockets of griured they&039;d send the city police"
"Sorry You&039;re stuck with me until we know for sure you sahat you said you did"
"You think wearound his colare at the cop
Corporal Roberts shook her head and sighed "I couldn&039;t possibly be that lucky"
She wasn&039;t
Bobbing up and down in the narrow triangle be?tween the bow and the dock was the body of a naked man, his back a pale, flesh-colored island, the strands of his hair sweeping against it like dark seaweed
"Shit"
Polich nodded "That&039;s what I said You figure he&039;s a juet jue, they hadn&039;t had one yet who&039;d stopped to take his clothes off Pointing her flashlight beam at the water, she sloept the cir?cle of illue and sainst the pale skin Not very old-and not going to get any older, she told herself gri
"Funny what makes some of &039;em float and souy&039;s skin and bones, should&039;a gone right to the God dashore forward, Corporal Roberts tottered on the edge of the pier, saved at the last erous swim by a muscular arm thrust in front of her like a filthy, cloth-covered, safety rail Breathing heavily, she thanked Polich and snarled a warning at the other two
As they backed up, too intent on the body in the water to be properly penitent, one of them muttered, "What the hell could&039;ve happened to his hands?"
Sunset the next night occurred behind cloud cover so heavy only the fading light gave evidence that the sun had set at all At 7:23, Tony turned off his watch alar in a rain delay for a Seattle Mariners&039; hoan donors when they aiting to watch baseball? He never drea back in his chair, he glanced down the hall, listening for the first sounds of Henry&039;s return and straining to hear the rattle of ghostly chains
As the sun released its hold and his senses slowly began to function, Henry sifted through and ignored a hundred faers across his cheek He willed his arhost stood where it had the day before-a nondescript younga haircut and shave, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt Its edges were indistinct and although Henry could see writing on the shirt, he couldn&039;thadn&039;t fully host&039;s semitranslucent torso distracted him, he wasn&039;t sure As far as Henry could re man alive
He half expected the specter to vanish when he sat up, but it re If a noncorporeal being could be said to have posture, the ghost&039;s stance screaainst the headboard "What do you want?"
Slowly, the ghost lifted its arer at the place where it had been and wondered what could have possibly happened to its hands
"It had no hands at all?" When Henry nodded, Tony chewed his lower lip in thought "Were they, like, cut off or ripped off or chewed off or what?" he asked after a moment
"They just weren&039;t there" Henry took a bottle of water out of the fridge, opened it, and drained it The growing popularity of bottled water had been a god?send; while blood provided total nourish chemicals added by nored Chlorine, it rebelled against Tossing the e bin, he leaned on the counter and stared down at his own hands "They just weren&039;t there," he repeated
"Then I bet that&039;s what he wants-vengeance They alant vengeance"
Raising an eyebrow at Tony&039;s certainty, Henry asked just where he&039;d acquired his knowledge of what ghosts alanted
"You know, ainst the guy who took his hands"
"And how am I supposed to do that?"
"Jeez, Henry, I don&039;t know You worked with Vicki; didn&039;t she teach you nothing?"
"Anything"
Tony rolled his eyes "Okay, anything"
Vicki Nelson, private investigator, ex-police detec?tive, ex-lover, vampire-Henry had worked with her for one short year before fate had brought theether as was possible with his kind and then had driven thee her to save her life and forced, by the change, to give her up Highly territorial, vampires hunted alone She&039;d returned to Toronto and her mortal lover He&039;d ht hi to do with handless ghosts?
No
When he repeated his thoughts aloud for Tony&039;s benefit, he added, "One thing she did teach me is that I&039;m not a detective I&039;o write" Not entirely certain why memories of Vicki Nelson alwaysat the televi?sion on his way through the living room "Your rain delay see realized that the expected staccato clicking of keys hadn&039;t yet begun, Tony pushed open the door to Henry&039;s office Standing on the threshold, he noted that nothing showed on theand a lot of blank screen
"This spook really has you spooked, doesn&039;t it?"
"Why do you say that?" Henry asked without turning
"You&039;re just sitting there, staring at your hands"
"Maybe I was deep in thought"
"Henry, you write bodice rippers There&039;s a liht is allowed"
Seventeen years a royal duke, over four hundred and fifty years a vanize when he was being teased Once or twice, Tony had coaze frohed "All I can think of is, why hed, but the sound held no humor "Which see haunted and was not the one killed and onomic chair away froet out Be distracted"
"Great" Tony grinned "Braht at the Caprice"
"Why not" Enjoying Tony&039;s poleaxed expression, Henry turned the young ently out of the doorway "I hear Gary Oldman is terrific"
"You hear?" Tony sputtered as Henry&039;s inarguable touch moved him down the hall "You heard it froo to vaed et a bite while we&039;re don"
The elevators in the Pacific Place toere as fast and as quiet as htly on the brushed steel doors, Henry cocked his head and s the character of another cabbie"
Tony winced "Man, I&039;lad she likes us"
As the chime announced the arrival of the elevator, the two loved hand clutching the arrinned a very expensive and perfect grin as she shuffled into the corridor The gleahastly ee finally triu out for a late night on the town?"
"Just a htHe scooped up her free hand and raised it to his lips "And you, I expect, have been out breaking hearts?"
"At e? Don&039;t be ridiculous" She pulled her hand free and shtly on the cheek, then turned on her co about, Munro?"
Not the least bit chastised, Mrs Munro continued to s about Mr Swanson"
"Swanson&039;s interested in my money, not these old bones" But she preened a little and patted the head of the mink stole she wore over a raw silk suit Once the mistress of a Vancouver lumber baron, she&039;d made a nu into a tidy fortune "And besides, I&039; a twinkling gaze over Henry and Tony, she added, "Or gay"
"Miss Evans!"