Page 4 (1/2)

SENSES extended, Vicki sifted the darkness for so to Henry, she should be feeling a chill and a distinct sense of unease It was supposed to be i it," shefor the light

The roo but Henry&039;s scent

Out in the apart

"Who was that?"

Celluci very carefully set the flat, alh-tech receiver back into its cradle "Fitzroy," he said without turning

"Well if he wants to knohat I asked the ghost, he&039;s sol" Vicki dropped a shoulder against the living room wall and crossed her arms over her breasts "Our spectral friend didn&039;t show"

"It showed" Celluci drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly Things had just gotten a lot more compli?cated "It followed Fitzroy Appeared to hi just like always"

"Shit Nohat?"

"He&039;s cohtened and her voice rose "And what does he expect me to do?"

"He didn&039;t say" Hands spread, Celluci finally turned to face her She&039;d thrown on an oversized shirt but hadn&039;t bothered doing up the buttons Momen?tarily sidetracked, he forced hiruffly, "The way I see it, we&039;ve got two choices We go hoet another chance to prove your point"

Her eyes narrowed "If you&039;ll remember, it was Henry&039;s point we proved We can&039;t be together with?out fighting"

Celluci sighed and propped his right thigh on the dining roo, but that doesn&039;t seem to stop us If you can&039;t leave Fitzroy to take care of his own probleetsto have to work soical imperative?"

"You&039;re the one who said you wouldn&039;t be ruled by your nature"

After a "

It had never been difficult for Michael Celluci to figure out what Vicki was thinking, and her recent ed that For her to actu?ally adu?ment and half-a-dozen pieces of irrefutable evidence could only ht to Fitzroy had upset her world view ht "Fitzroy provoked that fight, Vicki He had no intention of giving the two of you a chance to work it out"

Vicki&039;s gaze snapped up off the pattern of pieced hardwood and locked onto his face, her eyes silvering "You know this for a fact?"

"He ad me now&039;"

"Hey!" Celluci lifted both hands to chest height, a syuy here"

"No " Teeth clenched, Vicki fought to free the ht fro it

"You insisted we could work together," he rely

"We could if you&039;d stop this Prince of Darkness bull?shit and back off!"

"Why that lousy son of a " Profanity soers curled into fists, she spun around on one bare heel and headed back toward the bedrooet dressed!"

An innocuous statement on its own, but the way Vicki spat it out, it sounded veryto need the caf?feine, Celluci headed into the kitchen for another cup of coffee

"Sorry I&039;ot clipped by a Caddie on the way over, and " Tony&039;s voice trailed off as Celluci caot a look at his face "What&039;s wrong?"

"Fitzroy&039;s co only to him"

Tony stared down at his helmet A hundred tiny reflections in beads of rain stared back at hi back here?" When the detective didn&039;t answer right away, Tony looked up to aze "What?"

"You don&039;t want hi back here?"

"That&039;s not what I said" He tossed the heled out of his damp jacket "I mean, jeez, it&039;s his condo, isn&039;t it? What&039;s Victory gonna do?"

"Victory&039;s going hunting"

The two men turned toward the voice, theira variation on Henry&039;s Prince of Darkness attire, was surprised to see her in jeans, sneakers, and bright, not-even-reer wore glasses and she&039;d left her shoulderbag back in the bed?room, she looked no different than she had on a hun?dred su on the street

And then she looked very different

And then she didn&039;t again

He blinked Looking at her was like looking at one of those pictures that could be either a vase or two people "Uh, Victory, your va"

She looked startled, and then she laughed With a subtle shift in emphasis, she fitted the civilized mask more firmly in place "Better?"

"Yeah But, uh, if Henry&039;s colanced over at Celluci as obvi?ously going to be no help at all " shouldn&039;t you be here?"

"Are you warningin Henry&039;s territory?"

He knew this hts "Do I look stupid?"

"No" When she se to lift his chin and he released a thankful breath when she turned her attention to Celluci "If Henry gets here before I get back, make my excuses, would you?

"Vicki" He placed his hand on her ares soften as she looked up at him "Be careful"

"I&039;o

She paused at the door "Trendy people still gather on Denone

Henry liked to hunt on Denman Tony chewed on a corner of his lip and turned toward the detective "I thought you were going to ask her not to go"

Celluci snorted "Not likely It&039;s safer not to have her around when she&039;s in that mood"

"Yeah, but " He spread his hands, unsure of the words

"I knohat she is, Tony" Celluci&039;s voice was sur?prisingly gentle "I don&039;t always like it, but I like the alternative even less" He cleared his throat, suddenly embarrassed by the spontaneous shared confidence "Have you eaten?"

After Tony pointed out that Henry didn&039;t like the apart of food, Celluci ordered a pizza

"Give hi else to think about"

"Besides Vicki?"

"Besides Vicki"

Expecting to be unco They were just two guys thrown together by est difference between thes to order

Halfway through a large double cheese, mushrooms, tomatoes, and pepperoni, Celluci sat back, wiped sauce off his chin, and said, "You want to tell &039;s " Tony let the protest hang half said He could tell from the expression on the otherit "You wouldn&039;t understand"

"Tony, if it has to do with Henry, the odds are I&039;m the only person in the world ould understand"

"Yeah, I guess" He chewed and sed, unsure if he was trying to think of what to say or if he was avoiding the question entirely He could feel Celluci waiting, not impatiently but like he really wanted to know After a rease on his fingers "This is just between you and me?"

"If that&039;s what you want"

After a few hed "When I first , you know? And I wouldn&039;t be what I ao back and finish high school just because, well, he believed I could, and " He poked at a congealing piece of cheese "I guess that sounds pretty du how he&039;d fallen into position by Henry Fitzroy&039;s side onyou live up to his expectations"

"Yeah, that&039;s it exactly He just expects" Tony ripped his napkin into greasy squares before he con?tinued "Trouble is, sometimes he doesn&039;t really see me in those expectations I mean, he didn&039;t choose for me to know about him, Vicki just kinda dumped me on him and he never really felt aboutto, he col?ored "Sorry"

"It&039;s okay I kno he felt" But it&039;s ly "It seeet out and find a life of your own"

"I guess" He lifted his head and met Celluci&039;s eyes "But how do you just leave someone like Henry?"

Vicki had the taxi drop her off in front of the Sylvia Hotel on English Bay Her hts with Henry in the vine-covered, Victorian building, learning to er a part of, was one of the few memories she had of her "childhood" in Vancouver not drenched in blood She stood for a fewhow Henry had taught her to survive, then she drew in a deep breath of night-scented air and walked the two blocks to Denuely southwest to northeast, Den street- and thatterritory

The rain had stopped and well-lit sidewalk cafes, still glistening from the last shower, had filled Vancouverites never let a little rain bother them-since it rained so frequently, there wasn&039;tthe crowds, Vicki noted certain si and trendy rubbed elboith the old and somehow still trendy, all dressed in what could only be called a sporty and health-conscious style-very un?like the Gothic punk so prevalent in trendy Toronto In spite of the hour, everyone see/sea kayaking after I finish ht have found it alaring a pair of young ht have been ato de?finitively establish her presence in Henry&039;s territory There&039;s never aaround when you need one

Then she saw hi inside one of the cafes, alone, all his attention focused on the notebook in front of hi proto-jocks, he looked disturbingly familiar

He looked remarkably like Henry

A closer examination proved the resemblance purely superficial The clothes were black, the skin pale, but the blond hair was too long, and the face , he&039;d probably be significantly taller

Still

When he glanced up, Vicki lass, held it for a ht Safely hidden in the darkness between two buildings, she watched the front of the cafe and sainst all urgings of co more The kind anted to believe in mystery

Wanted to believe, but didn&039;t quite

The door opened, and he stood on the sidewalk Vicki could hear his heart pounding, and when he closed his eyes she kneas searching for thefor theSlavic accent and his arm across the back of a well-dressed wo to real?ity, the young htly rueful s in the planters that separated the side-walk cafe froer to rise

She followed the song of his blood at a safe distance until he started up the broad steps of a four-story, Victorian brownstone on Barclay Street When he put his key in the lock, she ht, laid a hand on his shoulder, and turned him around Soray as her own, he was expecting her

He wanted to believe in ave him a mystery to believe

"Who do you think&039;ll be back first?"

"Fitzroy" Celluci surfed a fewwhy someone with Fitzroy&039;s money didn&039;t buy a better TV-from the looks of it, he&039;d spent a fortune on the stereo systeht, won&039;t be ood tiets here, though So that he&039;s not overreacting to things"

"Things uess is she&039;s taken that into account He&039;s going to expect her to be here when he arrives, so she&039;s not going to be- not even if she has to hide across the street and wait for him to drive up" He flicked past three syndicated sitcoms, two of them from the seventies, an episode of classic Trek he&039;d seen a hundred tiame on four channels "Five hundred channels and four hundred and ninety-nine of them still show crap What&039;s this?"

Tony stuck his head out of the kitchen where he was cleaning up the debris fro for a moment "The woht school teachers says she does kah story to get her a network job At least half of City Council is terrified of her, and I heard she illing to go to jail once to protect a source I don&039;t knoho the old guy is"

"The old guy," Celluci snarled, "probably has no more than ten years on me"

Tony prudently withdrew

On screen, Patricia Chou frowned slightly and said, "So what you&039;re saying, Mr Swanson, is that the fears people have about organ donations are couest declared, "is often based on lack on inforood response; Celluci tossed the relass-topped coffee table-Fitzroy had a dis?tinct fondness for breakable furniture-and settled back to watch

Mr Swanson settled back much the same way and looked into the camera with the ease of a man often interviewed "Let&039;s take those fears one at a time

People with influence ora transplant Coan based on bipod type, size, illness of patient, and ti list"

Patricia Chou leaned forward, a slender finger ex?tended to ee of fa transplants?"

"I think you&039;ll find that e is the point to that question, Ms Chou They&039;re getting the cover?age because they&039;re famous, not because they&039;ve had a transplant Hundreds of people have transplants and never make the news I assure you, ht her a transplant"

"Your wife, Rebecca, died of chronic kidney failure?"

"That&039;s right" He had to s before he could go on, and Celluci, who over the years had seen grief in every possible for to bet it was no act "Three years on dialysis, three years waiting for aAnd my asn&039;t alone; approxi trans?plants die Which is why I&039;m an active supporter of the British Columbia Transplant Society"

"But in this time of cutbacks, surely the cost of transplants "

"Cost?" His gaze swung around and locked on her face "Ms Chou, did you know that if all the patients waiting at the end of last year had been able to receive kidneys, health care savings would exceed one bil?lion dollars?"

Ms Chou did not know, nor, fro around her eyes, was she pleased at being inter?rupted "To return to the public&039;s fears, Mr Swanson, what about the possibility of organ-legging?" Her e in the air for a

"That sort of thing is an impossibility, at least in any first world nation You&039;d have to have doctors willing to work outside the law, expensive facilities, you&039;d have to contravene a co it couldn&039;t be done, merely that costs would be so prohibitive there&039;d be no point"

Good answer, Celluci allowed Although slightly less than spontaneous Swanson had obviously been ex?pecting a variation on the question

"So fro standpoint, there&039;d be no profit in it?"

"Exactly You&039;d have to hire thugs to procure un?willing donors and I i, pro?vided you could find such a creature, doesn&039;t cohten the interview, "So the body found floating in the harbor, a body that had a kidney surgically re?"

That, Celluci realized, here she&039;d been head?ing all along

Mr Swanson spread his hands, hts "There are a nuically removed, Ms Chou The human body only needs one"

"And you don&039;t believe that someone needed one of his?"

"I believe that this kind of yellow journalisans and peo?ple liketo pay "

The screen returned to black, and Henry put the remote back on the coffee table

Celluci, who hadn&039;t even been aware he was in the rooht, attempted to relax a number of muscles jerked into knots by Fitzroy&039;s sudden appearance "Did you have to do that?" he snarled

"No, I didn&039;t" The iested that he&039;d achieved exactly the effect he&039;d in?tended "Where&039;s Vicki?"

Glancing over Henry&039;s shoulder and then disre?garding Tony&039;s silent warning fro"