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THEY were still there Henry knew it before he opened his eyes As the day&039;s weight lifted off him, the certainty of their presence settled down to replace it One of two things had to have happened; either the people who&039;d grabbed Celluci had evaded arrest, or there were other people involved the police investi?gation hadn&039;t yet uncovered

There is, of course, the third possibility He lay si?lently listening to the lives around hi past the absence of life that waited at the end of his bed Perhaps due process wasn&039;t good enough They want a vengeance more evisceral and less Unfortunately, the only word he could think of to fin?ish the thought, was legal Which leaves Detective Cel?luci, up until now the most involved, no part of the end result

But he&039;d known froeance, it would be in spite of Detec?tive Celluci For honor&039;s sake, he&039;d attempted to stay within the parameters of the law; it hadn&039;t worked And what about Vicki?

Even before the change she&039;d been willing to ac?knowledge that law and &039;justice were not necessarily the sa While she couldn&039;t strike the final blow, not without crossing the line Celluci had drawn in the sand, Henry doubted that she&039;d try and stop his hand His lips drew off his teeth in an involuntary snarl at the thought

Finally, because he could put it off no longer, he opened his eyes

They stood where they had for the past six nights Doug The companion he&039;d acquired in death And wrapped in shadows too dark for even Henry to pierce, the unseen chorus; an added euys still here?"

An inferior question at best and not the one he&039;d intended to ask Although the spirits clearly didn&039;t like it, it was enough

Celluci was not in the condo

Vicki was as certain of that as she was of anything Teeth bared, she glared around the darkness as though she ht scare up an answer or two Celluci knehen sunset was If he could be here, he would Since he wasn&039;t, he couldn&039;t

And thatto pay

As she yanked on her clothes, ested that perhaps he&039;dar festooned as it was in red tape

Fourteen hours of red tape? she asked it scornfully, ru for a pair of clean socks Not even in Canada

And if he&039;s just stayed late talking shop? the little voice inquired

Then I knoho&039;s going to pay, don&039;t I? She had a sudden vision of pinning Celluci to the bed by his ears and grinned ferally

But she didn&039;t for a moment believe there was such a sione wrong

"I&039;," Henry snarled "I&039; blindly out to the rescue isn&039;t the answer"

"Then what do you suggest?" She storer she&039;d thrown at hi it His reaction to her, hers to him, territorial imperatives-they were all unimportant under the cir-cumstances "Shall ait around until his body shows up floating in the fucking harbor?"

Henry ed not to slam the door behind her, but only just and his success probably had more to do with thetwo things, Vicki One, I&039;o anywhere, shouldn&039;t we get a littleover the back of the couch, her fingers iers had gone through the green leather on that first night in Vancouver "You had your chance to get ator You are the ro?mance writer You called me for help And I won&039;t hurt your stupid car"

"You&039;re not getting h to use my services in the past"

"That was before I had services of my own"

"With"Are you threaten?ing ritted teeth Vicki stared at hi their silver "Why?"

"Because we&039;re friends" His teeth re the pronouncement sound less than friendly, but his hands weren&039;t around her throat and he figured that had to count for so? That we&039;re friends, and there&039;s no reason for that to change just because you&039;ve ac?quired a new lifestyle? Aren&039;t those your exact words? This may come as a surprise to you, but I consider Michael Celluci a friend as well-at the very least, a comrade in arms" His lip curled "And I do not de?sert my people"

As territorial i to share and things she was not By the time Henry realized his mistake and remembered that Celluci was fir-to-share, Vicki&039;s fingers had closed around his shoulders Over four-and-a-half centuries of experi?ence had no chance against the intensity of her rage A fraction of a heartbeat later, he hit the floor, her thumbs hooked to rip the arteries on both sides of his neck, her teeth bared, and her eyes blazing silver shards of pain into his

"Michael Celluci is mine"

There was no possibility of compromise in the words and only one possible answer, for he could not let her get aith intimidation He was older This was his territory

"Trust me, Vicki, he&039;s not my type"

If a soft answer had the potential to turn arath, a smart-ass response saved the situation frorip on Henry&039;s throat, and sat back "I could have killed you," she growled, her tone shading fro on either side of his neck, he decided not to shake his head The eht end up entirely misplaced "I think we&039;re past that, you and I"

"Ha! So I was right I was right, and you rong"

He couldn&039;t stop the sht and this was one of those ti a careful distance between them, Henry rose as well "Celluci has always been yours, Vicki," he told her softly when they were eye-to-eye again "If you doubt that, you do him a disservice"

Had she still been mortal, she would have reddened As it was, she backed away until her calves hit the couch "Yeah, well, that you consider him to be one of yours will no doubt thrill him all to bits" Since she was at the couch, she sat "So let&039;s have a look at those news prograet a better idea of what&039;s going on"

Emotional self-discovery had never been one of Vicki&039;s strong points, Henry reminded himself as he picked up the remote The prospect of eternity had cracked the protective shell she&039;d wornthat still needed to be levered free Celluci&039;s probleed thankfully and turned on the television

A Metropolitan Toronto Police officer had not been found tied to a bed in a North Vancouver clinic

No one had been arrested for selling kidney transplants

Red-gold browsover his nose, Henry stopped the tape "I don&039;t understand," he said, more to himself than to Vicki "I sent the police out to Project Hope"

Vicki&039;s first ie had robbed hihts were too short for her to provoke another fighthim off "Then they didn&039;t find him"

"He wasn&039;t exactly well-hidden"

"Then he wasn&039;t there"

"If he&039;s been moved " Henry let the sentence trail off Vancouver was a very large city He shud?dered at the sudden vision of Michael Celluci spending an eternity haunting the end of his bed

"I&039;ll find him"

"How?"

She stood, the motion fluid and predatory "First, we make a few discreet inquiries and find out what actually happened last night at the clinic after we left Then " Her eyes glittered " we play it by ear Or whatever other body parts we have to tear off to get an answer"

Typical, Celluci thought, craning his head to see the IV line that had been inserted into the back of his hand Good doctors, evil doctors-none of the to you Like you haven&039;t any right to knohat they&039;re fuck?ing around with "Excuse me, but it&039;s still my body"

"Yes, it is"

Startled, he swiveled his head around to stare up at the impassive face of the doctor Then he realized he&039;d spoken that last thought out loud Although earlier attempts indicated he wouldn&039;t accomplish much, he supposed it wouldn&039;t hurt to try and continue the con?versation "Then would you ?"

"Replacing fluids" She packed the bag of blood away in the small cooler

"You know there&039;s a limit to how much of that stuff you can take out"

Dr Mui snapped the cooler closed and turned to go "I know"

"So there&039;s a lab involved in this, too, eh?"

One hand on the door, she paused and gave hi frorade teacher-who, if he remembered correctly, had never liked him much "Don&039;t be ridicu?lous, Detective The labs do the work they&039;re sent There&039;s no need to involve theood news had no bearing on his present circuer sense "What about during the operation? You&039;re going to need an assistant-because as good as you may be you don&039;t have three hands-and with two people under, you&039;ll need an an?esthesiologist as well"

"What makes you think there&039;ll be two people under, Detective? Packed in sterile ice, a kidney can safely last alht hours after removal"

"Two separate operations would increase the risk of detection" He kept his voice level, disinterested, as though he were not going to be intiuess is you do them both at once Sequentially if not si his the?ory "Very perceptive of you, Detective Your point?"

"I was just wondering how you keep those other people fro as deeply as the restraints allowed, he gave her his best let&039;s charm the truth out of this wit?ness sh" The corners of her ht have curved upward a fraction, but Celluci couldn&039;t be certain "The other people involved know only what they must to perform their specific function, so even if they did talk, there&039;d be a limited a the law the fall within a reasonable risk And you&039;d be amazed at how little it takes to convince some people to break the law"

Celluci snorted "No, I wouldn&039;t Butabout et so to have a busy day to after the doctor had left

"Check the IV in about an hour and give hia sulky

Somewhat surprised at the way she&039;d opened up to the detective, Dr Mui ignored him Her world had been built from certainties, and if she hadn&039;t believed that Sullivan would obey her implicitly, she&039;d have left him where she found hiers closed around the carved handle with enough force to crack the wood, Vicki yanked open the door and stepped into the clinic

Michael Celluci&039;s life no longer added its fa-daed to slide by without actuallyher under careful surveillance in case her anger should widen its focus, he added, "And given that the detective has apparently left the build?ing, what exactly does it mean?"

Vicki jerked her head toward the nurse&039;s station "It means it&039;s a different shift and there&039;s a different nurse on She&039;s not going to know squat"

"Not that the last one was particularly helpful," Henry observed quietly to hi a prudent distance before he followed Vicki across the lounge With her attention so fixated on rescuing Celluci, the ride to the clinic had involved nothing worse than an extended snarling match-unpleasant but survivable and no worse than he&039;d seen Celluci live through on a daily basis He wasn&039;t sure whether this ressed or deteriorated, but if she&039;d growled "old woman" at him one more time, he&039;d have been sorely te her into traffic

Unaware that death stood behind her, the nurse turned froht of silver eyes The brown glass bottle she held slipped froht it before it hit the floor "We were here later last night," he said as he straightened "I can feel healthy lives mixed in with the sick I doubt all the visitors have left yet Do what you have to do quickly and don&039;t attract any attention" It was the voice he&039;d used while teaching her to Hunt; with any luck she&039;d listen to it Setting the bottle carefully on the edge of the desk, he moved to stand in the doorway

Awareness narrowed to the life she held and the life she searched for, Vicki heard Henry&039;s voice as part of the clinic&039;s ambient noise, a noise all but drowned out by the cry of the Hunt ringing within her head "Last night," she said with quietheld in the hidden room Where is he now?"

Confusion battled fear "What hidden roo"

"You mean the old laundry? There was no one in there"

The ht bethat she knew to be true and the truth she saw in the silver eyes, the nurse whimpered low in her throat

"He was there!" Vicki repeated The Hunger rose Her fingers closed around a white-clad shoulder and soft flesh corip "Where is he now?"

"I don&039;t know" Tears trickled down cheeks blanched of color, and the words barelylips

"Tell led sob broke the protest in half " want to die"

The staccato pounding of the nurse&039;s heart, the panicked racing of her blood, er, barely held in check, urged Vicki to take the fear and make it hers To rend To tear To feed She took a half step forward, head slightly back, nos?trils flared to drink in the warm, meaty scent of life seasoned with terror After the exhilarating experience in the warehouse, it would be so easy to let go

"Do what you have to do quickly "

Yes

"Those of our kind who learn to control the Hunger, have eternity before theer controls are quickly hunted down and put to death"

Henry&039;s words again, but a deepercontrols me

If "Victory" Nelson lived by any maxim, that was it

She released the nurse so quickly the woman swayed and would have fallen had she not taken another, less threatening hold "You have not seen us and you will not see us while we are here"

"I will not see you," the nurse repeated almost prayerfully "I will not see you" This tiered sideways and collapsed into a chair A heartbeat later, she was alone in the roo at the brown glass bottle in her hand and wondering if it was possi?ble to dreahted against its restraints and Vicki deter that she&039;d left so important unfinished