Luxuria
by Mojave Dragonfly

Third story in the Seven Deadly Sins series

Luxuria—Extravagance or lust, one of the seven deadly sins

Vicki shut the novel she'd been reading and rubbed her aching eyes, bouncing her glasses against the bridge of her nose. How long, she wondered, would she be able to read books? How long would she be able to see a computer screen or navigate her way to the cab waiting for her at the curb? How long did she have until she went blind?

For some reason she didn't dread not being able to see a television, even though during her years as a cop her tastes in fiction had changed from books to the more passive TV. TV she figured she'd always be able to follow, but the realization that her favorite books might be locked away from her before long filled her with dread. She was rereading like crazy.

Especially the trash. She sighed as she tossed the paperback onto the coffee table and started turning out the high-wattage lights she needed in order to read without a headache. Every book she chose lately seemed to have steamy sex scenes thick within its pages. Some she remembered, others took her by surprise. And she couldn't help but notice that she noticed it too much.

She headed into the bedroom, pulled off her clothes and pitched them toward the hamper, and slid into bed in her underwear. She fell asleep quickly.

And dreamed of hands stroking her body, a comfortable weight on the bed, warm and familiar. A scent of cologne and male musk, so good, so right, just there. She writhed and rubbed, her skin glorying in his caresses. Vaguely she realized she was dreaming, but like the best of such dreams, it was so real...

Vicki woke in darkness and sat up. There was no one in her bed but her. And the faintest hint of cologne.

"Emmanuel," she yelled into the murk. "Emmanuel, cut it out."

Tina sorted the DVDs from the VHS in the return box, checking that there were discs in the covers and that the tapes had been rewound. A customer approached the counter, DVD in hand, the double sided disc of Desperado and El Mariachi. Tina opened the box, confirmed the right DVD was there and rang him up. By the time she was done Tim, her manager, had gone to the back. She grabbed the chance to check her email illicitly.

Still nothing. That morning, before leaving for work, she had posted the latest chapter of her Harry Potter fanfiction story to a mailing list. She had hoped for at least one email from someone saying they liked it. Well, truth be told, she hoped for a flood of emails praising the story, like the kind of feedback Jen always got for her stories. Tina hadn't gotten one, yet. It had been hours.

Hurt and angry, she logged out and went to her next customer. He was renting King Kong. She opened the case, but the DVD was not King Kong. The label was decorated with odd symbols in a drippy red font. Nowhere could she read the movie's name. No matter, it wasn't King Kong. She showed him the problem and the man went to get a different disc from the shelf. While she waited, she fumed. What was the matter with those people? Couldn't they tell a good story when one came into their inbox? How ungrateful to get another chapter in this wonderful epic tale and not even say thank you. She yanked the disc from the case, and it snapped in two in her hand. Shit! She looked around for Tim, but he wasn't there. She tossed the disc in the trash, and pushed some paper in on top of it to hide it just as the customer returned. This time he did have King Kong in the DVD case, so she rung him up and got rid of him.

Since she was still alone at the counter, Tina got on the web and logged into a public community for Harry Potter fanfiction. This was where Jen always posted her stories, but Tina usually wasn't brave enough. It was bad enough to have an empty inbox, but in a place where everyone could see the feedback your story got—it was too humiliating to have everyone see that no one had replied. Jen, who went to Tina's high school, always posted to these public communities, and always got tons of compliments in public for her stories. Jen hogged all the praise. Sure enough, Jen's latest stupid story was being sung to the heavens. "Brilliant!" someone said, and "You are a genius!" someone else said. Tina couldn't believe it.

As if thinking of her had conjured her, Jen herself walked into the store, with her boyfriend, Tiegan. Tiegan was 18, so he could rent from their store where Jen couldn't, so Jen always came in with Tiegan. Tina looked away, pretending she didn't notice them. It was better than letting Jen pretend she didn't notice Tina. Since they both were huge fans of Harry and both wrote fanfiction for other fans, they should have been friends, but Jen and her older boyfriend thought they were too good to associate with Tina. Tina thought Jen's stories were crap and kept waiting for the people with taste in the fandom to recognize that. She logged off the fiction group, hastily.

Jen and Tiegan came to the counter. Jen with her long, straight flaxen hair and her willowy limbs, could have played a graceful elf in the Tolkein movies. Tiegan, slender and pale, with curly dark hair and a cute nose, made Tina's heart beat faster. Tina felt acutely her twenty extra pounds and coarse, unruly hair. These were not the guys to be impressed with her piercings or her skunk stripe, either.

"Hey," said Tiegan, putting Henry V on the counter. Jen gave her a forced smile, acknowledging their acquaintance. Tina forced one back. "Hi," she said. She wished Jen would say something about her story; she must have seen it. But she'd poke sharp sticks in her eyes before she said anything about Jen's story.

She concentrated on ringing up the rental. She had never seen Henry V but had vaguely wondered what the V was for. She opened the case and there was another one of those unreadable discs with the drippy red font on the label. Someone must have gotten an entire shipment of discs misplaced.

She reached to remove the disc automatically, but then stopped herself. As casually as she could manage, she snapped the case closed, placed it on the counter, and took Tiegan's cash. She carried the DVD to beyond the theft control sensors, met the couple there, and handed it to them. "Enjoy," she said. They left without a word.

Ha, she thought. So much for their romantic evening. She risked a quick glimpse of her email, again. There, to her amazement, were twelve messages, all with the subject line of her story title. Twelve feedback emails. As she stared, the computer beeped and a Thirteenth came in. Her heart was pounding, but before she could click to open one of the messages, Tim came back out and headed for the counter. She had to log off.

But, oh God, it was wonderful.

Coreen was late. Vicki was irritated. She hadn't been able to find much on incubi on the internet, not even the sites Coreen had found when she first encountered Emmanuel. She'd gotten little sleep, since she'd been so unnerved she'd turned the lights on. Finishing the steamy novel had not done anything for her peace of mind, either.

She gave up on the internet and concentrated on the missing persons case she might actually get paid for solving, sordid as it was. When Coreen breezed in, even the double mocha latte she placed on Vicki's desk wasn't enough to mollify her.

"Where have you been? You're late."

Coreen arched a sculpted Goth eyebrow. "I have hours?" she asked.

Vicki shut her mouth and rethought what she was going to say. "Well, you're usually in at—"

"Because that would imply I was getting paid," Coreen said. She smiled brightly, which took the edge off the words, but Vicki felt it anyway.

"Maybe you ought to consider getting a real job," Vicki said, reluctantly.

"And miss all this? Nothing doing."

Vicki admitted defeat. She really couldn't demand regular hours from someone she wasn't paying yet. And Coreen had been a help. "All right, well, then find me that information you had on incubuses—incubi. What was the part about taking the woman's soul to Hell?"

"Okay," Coreen sat at the computer, unburdening herself of her jacket and purse. "Why?"

Vicki paced around in front of her desk. "I was just thinking, we never did anything about Emmanuel. I kind of figured what he was doing with the Desperate Housewives was harmless, after the jealousy demon turned out to be the culprit. But, you know, Mike said something about how he was breaking the husbands' hearts, and I swear there was something about if the woman yields to the incubus..." She glanced at Coreen and looked away.

"He's back, isn't he?" Coreen asked. "Did he visit you?"

"You know, that's really none of your business."

"He did! How cool is that?" Then, at Vicki's look, "or not? Okay, okay. I think that part about taking the woman's soul to Hell came from Henry. I never read it in anything."

"Well, look, would you? I'm off to go knock on some doors and ask questions about this, totally non-supernatural, case."

Celluci almost didn't notice. It wasn't his case, it didn't happen on his beat. He wasn't even on duty at the time. But he saw the crime scene photos on Kate's desk. The police photographer had managed to capture the small but elaborate symbol carved into the wood of some piece of furniture near the woman's body.

"Kate, what's this?" Celluci asked. He had to ask. Now that he knew of the existence of the supernatural—some supernatural, anyway—he couldn't let it go. Not that it meant anything to him, not that he recognized it, but it looked wrong.

Kate shrugged. "Dunno," she said. "If it were painted in blood on the wall, and we didn't already know who did it, we'd definitely be thinking cult murder, but that could have been cut years ago by the woman's kids when they were little and got ahold of Daddy's knife."

"What's the case?"

"Woman was murdered by her daughter's boyfriend. She caught the kids making out and the boy went ape-shit with an axe. Ugly."

"That hasn't been on the news."

Kate tightened her mouth. "Watch tonight. The boy's 18, so they'll release his name. The girl's hysterical." Kate shuffled the folder to the school photo of the girl—smiling face with delicate features and lovely straight blonde hair.

"Pretty," Celluci said.

"Good student, too. Same with the boyfriend; no priors. Nothing to explain this."

"Did forensics look at that carving in the—what is that?"

"It's the living room entertainment center. I didn't ask them to. Think I should?"

"Hey, it's your case, I didn't mean to butt in."

"But...?" Kate smiled. She was a promising detective and not too proud to take advice.

"Humor me. Have them look at it."

"Done."

Henry rose, showered, shaved and dressed, his usual routine. In his work area he found the canvas of Christina he had painted for their anniversary. It depressed him. One reason he painted her every year was that he had never been satisfied with any of his attempts to capture her, and this one was no better. He checked his answering machine. No calls. That depressed him further. He knew he'd have plenty of correspondence waiting for him in his email, but if Vicki wanted him, she'd call, and she hadn't.

He considered Vicki as he stared at the painting. He did want to keep her safe; she'd been marked by Astaroth and now it seemed that supernatural and infernal beings were drawn to her. But his own life was dear to him as well, and since meeting her his life had been disrupted, put in mortal danger, and worst of all, judged. He'd actually resolved after the Wendigo to back off some from Vicki and her sleuthing. It was hard to remember back to the better times, before Celluci and Mendoza had changed everything, but the Wendigo had reminded him that Vicki's line of work could kill him. The horror of even those few seconds he'd been turned to stone by the Gorgon stayed with him, too.

And he'd been there because Vicki had been worried about Celluci. Henry hadn't allowed himself the fury and hate he could feel for the man, and he stifled that for Vicki's sake, too. And for what? Vicki had always resisted his affection, despite the fact that physically, as his senses informed him, she was receptive. And after Mendoza he didn't know what she thought of him. He could be risking his life for a love that would remain entirely unrequited. In his youth he had thought dying for love to be romantic, now it looked sickeningly inevitable.

He resolved again to keep more distance from Vicki; protect his heart from any further pain. Get some more work done.

The phone rang and he snatched it. "This is Henry."

"Henry." It was Vicki! "Have you got a minute? I wanted to find out more of what you know about incubuses, or incubi, whatever."

"I've got all night. I'll be right over." He hung up before she could say it wasn't necessary, grabbed his coat and went out his door.

Everyone at school was talking about it. How Tiegan had killed Jen's mom. With an ax! Some people said it wasn't true; he hadn't really done it. Conspiracy theories were spinning. It gave excitement to going to school. Tina herself, didn't know what to think or what to feel. It had happened the very evening she'd seen them! She had resented and even hated Jen at times, but she would never have wished such a horrible thing on her. She didn't think. No, probably not. Her mom, how awful.

But otherwise, Tina was ecstatic. Thirteen compliments was not a deluge, but it was better than the feedback she'd gotten before. No one had contacted her after those thirteen, but it was enough to give her courage. People were finally seeing how good her story was, how fascinating her main character was. Floating on happiness, she posted the first chapter of her story to a couple of the fic communities with public feedback. Then she'd had to leave for work.

The day had been busy, but Tina did sneak a couple of looks at the community and there was still no feedback. Dread began to grow in her stomach, and anger smoldered there as well. She opened a DVD of Little Miss Sunshine and there was one of those mystery discs again. "Tim," she asked. "I keep finding these in the wrong covers. Do you know what it is?"

"No," her manager said. "Just go get the customer another one."

Well, duh. She knew she'd have to get another one. She was just asking what the darn disc was so she could get it in the right case. She stalked off to the shelves and returned with the proper disc. She rang the customer up, and the woman and her kids left. Tim, she saw, had tried to remove the disc but had broken it. Ha. That had happened to her, too.

Finally Tim left her alone and went to stock shelves, so she logged into the web and went to the community. Someone had responded! She clicked on the link eagerly and read:

Did anyone else read this? OMG, can you say Mary Sue? And Sweetie, does your word processor not have spellcheck? I suppose everyone has at least one HP story in them, and in this case, that's where it should have stayed. Beta readers—not just for breakfast anymore.

Tina felt the shock all through her body. No one had ever been this rude in this community before. Not just flat out like that. She couldn't believe it. She almost didn't get the web shut down in time as Tim returned, she was so stunned.

She took her turn restocking the returns onto the shelves, and, as the shock wore off, she wanted to cry. Her character was not a Mary Sue. She wasn't! There was a whole list of reasons why she wasn't. But all someone had to do was throw that label around and the entire story would go in everyone's trash. No one would even read it if they thought it was a Mary Sue. She slammed the DVDs and tapes into place on the shelves, blinking back tears. What should she say? How should she respond? It wasn't fair. Just because a character was female didn't make her a Mary Sue.

She had to put on a more composed face when she returned to the counter. She and Tim and the new guy, Antonio, handled customers for a half hour while Tina wrote angry emails in her head. She felt so wretched, like all her friends had abandoned her. She opened one DVD case of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, and there was another one of those mystery discs. She didn't feel like talking, either to a customer or to Tim, so she just snapped the case closed and rang up the rental. The thirty-ish guy and his little boy walked out with it.

Not long after that, Tina was alone at the counter long enough to get on the web again. She felt sick as she opened the community to respond, and she felt even worse when she saw there were four responses, not to her story, but to the first critic's message. She couldn't help but read them, no matter how bad it was.

They weren't bad. It was totally the opposite. All four messages were angry defenses of her story, listing all the reasons—that's right!—why it wasn't a Mary Sue, and praising her writing. And the fourth message defending her—the fourth one was from the community moderator, an excellent writer herself and a Big Name Fan in Harry Potter fandom, someone who had never even deigned to notice Tina before!

She finished work in a daze of self-righteous happiness.

A boy stood in the freezing rain watching Vicki's office building. His age was indeterminate—middle teens to early 20's. He had clear blue eyes in a heart shaped, pale face. His coal black hair reached below his soft cheekbones, tickling his jaw, and fell over one eye. He had been shivering for hours.

He saw when the friend arrived and drove into the underground parking lot. He crossed the street, not noticing the cars until one almost hit him. He reached the parking garage but stayed out of sight while he watched the man exit his car. He slunk further into shadows when the aura of immense strength brushed over him. A vampire, and of the most powerful kind. One who kept his soul but sacrificed all sight of the light for eternity. Unexpected; someone of such power would make an excellent candidate for a final offering, himself. But the boy could not use him to reach the Marked One.

The vampire, fair and dark, lithe and lethal, leapt into the stairwell. The boy turned away. His hands were so cold he almost couldn't use them, but that was the least of his pain.

Celluci had a full caseload, and he and Dave were close to solving one homicide, but he still made time to drop in on Dr. Mohadevan and ask if there were anything unusual about Kate's case.

"Unusual, Detective?" she asked, switching off the light to her microscope and focusing on him.

"Yeah, the body. Anything—unexpected."

She frowned. "Nothing I noticed. You can read my report. Isn't that case closed?"

"So, humor me. She was killed with an ax?"

"Very clearly. Her skull was split, her spinal cord was severed. I understand the young man found an ax the family used for splitting wood."

"Is there anything missing? Internal organs, unusual blood loss..."

Mohadevan took him seriously. "Nothing like that, no. Perhaps if you told me what you think I should be looking for."

Celluci shook his head. "Nothing. Sorry to have taken your time." He turned to go but turned back. "Has Vicki Nelson or her partner been by?"

Now Mohadevan did smile, and cock and inquisitive eyebrow. "Should I be expecting them?"

"I don't know. Probably not. Thanks."

Celluci went back to his desk. The case was closed. They had the perp. The woman's daughter was a witness. The fact that the carved symbol in a circle reminded him of the tattoos on Vicki's wrists was irrelevant.

He kept telling himself that.

The day had been difficult. Rain had become freezing rain on the very day Vicki had to spend outside trying to cut enough dead foliage to reach the junked trailer once occupied by the man she was searching for. His disgusted landlord had pushed it into a ravine that abutted his property and there it had become entangled with brush so thick and voracious it might as well have been a jungle. Vicki had spent grueling hours with heavy-duty hand clippers, wishing for a squad of flatfoots and heavy machinery. Or at least for a partner who could work during the day.

She had long since warmed up back at the office with food and hot coffee, but now her hands and forearms were aching with a soreness that grew worse each time she thought about it. She almost couldn't hold the phone she'd called Henry on.

Henry arrived at her office promptly, something Vicki had learned to take note of. It meant he probably hadn't fed before he came. Which didn't necessarily mean he was hungry; he didn't seem to need to feed every night. She wished she knew more about his needs, but after Mendoza she couldn't bring herself to ask.

Her own needs were distracting enough. Even tired and sore, something carnal in her responded when he breezed into the office. He exuded youth and strength and vitality and it all hit her like an ocean wave, leaving her wet and alert. Henry hung his coat on the rack and came straight to her where she perched on the edge of her desk, stopping well within her personal space. "Hi," Coreen said, from behind the computer.

"Hi," Henry replied, but smiled at Vicki. "What's this about an incubus?"

Vicki refused to be intimidated into moving away. She lifted her chin. "You didn't have to come over, I just wondered—"

"She's had another visit from Emmanuel," Coreen said.

Vicki turned to her. "What was that spell that took away your mouth?"

Coreen smiled.

"You have?" Henry asked, putting a hand on her upper arm. Vicki shrugged it away by standing and turning slightly. "You saw him or was he in your bed?"

"Can we leave the details out of this?"

"It may matter. Emmanuel entered this world in physical form in order to enjoy his women, but it's more common for incubi to visit in dreams." Henry's tone turned provoking. "Did you have a visitation or a date?"

"A visitation," Vicki said, trying to hide her irritation.

"I've called all the women he was with before," Coreen said. "They haven't seen him since the jealousy demon. Of course, we figured out he could make them lie."

Henry shook his head. "I didn't think he could maintain physical form for long. He had nothing to sacrifice."

"Sacrifice?" Vicki asked.

Coreen answered. "Most forms of arcane power require some kind of sacrifice on the part of the person who wants the power. Right?"

Henry finally looked at Coreen. "Essentially, yes. A minor demon has nothing to sacrifice and doesn't have the power to do what Astaroth tried." Henry moved to Vicki and took her forearms, turning them up to show the tattoos. He frowned. "What's the matter with your hands?"

Vicki was frozen, torn between wanting to snatch her hands back from him and—not. Inactivity won out. "There's nothing wrong," she said with a dry mouth. "The muscles are sore. I guess I don't keep those ones in good enough shape."

"What were you doing?" He stroked a thumb along the aching muscle just beside one tattoo.

"Squeezing hedge clippers." Now this had gone too far. Vicki took her arms from his and brushed back her hair.

"All day? Why?"

"Because the life of a PI is so very glamorous. What I want to know is how do I get rid of him and am I in any danger from him?" She walked behind Coreen and looked at her computer. "How do you find those sites? I never can."

Coreen looked smug. "You don't have my Google-fu."

"Your what?"

"You also don't have this." She placed a York University ID card on the desk.

"You're on the U library," Vicki said, the light dawning. She'd lost that access when she quit the force.

Coreen shrugged. "I'm deep into their connections with other academia, actually, but I can't find much about getting rid of incubi."

Henry had turned his back when Vicki moved away from him.

"Henry?" Vicki asked. "You seem to be my expert."

Henry turned toward them looking resigned. "I don't think anyone ever found anything that kept them away. There were some herbs."

Vicki thought Henry looked upset.

"St. John's wort, vervain and garlic," Coreen read from the screen. Henry nodded, looking at Vicki across the gulf she had put between them.

"They don't work?" Vicki asked.

"I don't think so."

"Isn't garlic supposed to keep out vampires?" she teased, hoping to dispel the odd look on Henry's face.

He gave his head a small shake and smiled a little. "It stinks, but it would never keep me from something I wanted."

Vicki came around to the front of the desk. She couldn't help herself. She seemed to have a lot of things she wanted to ask him but couldn't. "So, what's the danger from an incubus? Didn't you say it takes the woman's soul to Hell if she..." She didn't finish, for she saw the sadness in Henry's eyes deepen. "Coreen didn't find that anywhere."

Henry looked at Coreen. "The main danger from an incubus was always that the Church might suspect you of having relations with the Devil, and the consequences of that were never good. My source of information about the incubus's motives may be somewhat unreliable."

"What's your source?" Vicki asked.

"The Inquisition."

"No one expects the Spanish Inquisition," Coreen said, then gasped and paled against her dark eye makeup.

That girl's mouth, Vicki thought viciously.

Ignoring Coreen, Henry approached Vicki, the small cross he wore in his sleeve in one hand. He took Vicki's hand and pressed it into her palm. "He's only a minor demon; this might help. I don't think you're in any real danger, but I could guard your sleep, if you like." He looked hopeful, but not flirtatious, which Vicki found more genuine and therefore much more attractive. Her knees felt weak. That would involve Henry in the room with her as she slept. Or tried to. That was so not a good idea. "You have other work to do," she said. He smelled like soap and rain.

"And I'd better go do it," he said, releasing her.

As he gathered his coat, Vicki asked, "Do you really think this will work?" She held up the cross.

"No," he said. "You're a heretic Protestant, anyway." Then he was gone.

Vicki snorted and turned back to Coreen who gazed after Henry with an expression like she'd just come out of a tragic movie.

"What?" Vicki asked.

Coreen composed herself and looked archly at Vicki's computer. "None of my business," she said.

"Probably not. What isn't?"

Coreen gave her a glare.

"What? Not being your business has never stopped you before."

"You wouldn't have an incubus in your bed if you were satisfied," Coreen said. "That much the records all make clear."

"You can stop right there," Vicki said.

Coreen gathered her purse and her jacket. "Fine, I'm going home." As she went through the door she added, "You'd rather have an incubus than Henry, and he knows it."

The man who believed he had a DVD of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift was being watched. Across the street from his house, the boy leaned against a tree. He was growing weak and was grateful for the tree's support. He saw the car arrive and pull into the driveway. A woman emerged, wearing a stylish raincoat and a clear plastic headscarf over her hairdo. She trotted hastily through the rain to the door of the house and rang the doorbell. The man answered the door but did not invite her in. The boy heard the tones of arguing, though not the words, and then the man took out a gun and shot the woman in the face. The clear headscarf hid nothing from the boy of the carnage the shot made of her head. He watched until the police arrived. "Hey Celluci," Kate called.

Celluci stopped on his way to Crowley's office, grateful for any excuse to delay. "Yeah?"

Kate caught up with him, a folder in her hand. "Remember that funny symbol carved in the entertainment center?"

"Yeah?"

"Forensics finally got to it. It wasn't carved; it was burned. And recently, too. You want to see?"

Celluci took the folder from her and scanned the brief report. Although the incisions were small, like what a knife would make, the particle board had been burned into the symbol's shape, possibly as recently as the day of the murder. The report didn't speculate about what tool could have done it, and Mike guessed forensics hadn't cared to put any more work in on a closed case. He looked up at Kate.

"What do I do with that?" she asked.

"I don't know," he told her honestly. He removed the blown up photo of the symbol and handed her the rest of the file back. "Can I keep this?"

"Knock yourself out," she said with a smile and turned away.

Celluci headed straight back to his desk. What was the name of that professor Coreen knew? The one who had helped when Mendoza had Fitzroy prisoner. His thoughts winced away from that memory as his fingers flipped through his rolodex. Segara, that was it. He scribbled a fax cover sheet with a note to her and faxed the photograph to her department machine.

He reached automatically for the phone to call Vicki, and stopped. He and Vicki had been on only cool terms since—what happened. He was probably lucky she was speaking to him at all, and it had been mostly on case-related things. Was this a case? Was he asking for her help, or for Fitzroy's, and if so, with what? He dreaded having to talk to Fitzroy about anything. He rubbed his neck where the vampire had fed on him. There was a memory to stay away from, too. He drummed the fingers of his other hand by the phone.

He picked up the phone and called Dr. Segara.

"Yes, I have your fax here, Detective Celluci," she said, coolly.

"Can you tell me what it is?"

"Is this another matter of life and death?"

"No, I just thought it might be important."

"I don't recognize it and I'm afraid I don't have the time to research it properly for you. I'm sorry." So she was still pissed at him over Fitzroy.

"You aren't curious? It was burned into wood at a murder scene."

"Detective Celluci, any friend of Henry Fitzroy's is a friend of mine, but you aren't in that category. Perhaps one of my colleagues would be curious on your behalf."

Mike was silent, mulling over whether it would do any good to try to apologize or explain. At least she didn't hang up in the interim. Dave was passing by Mike's desk, so he lowered his voice as he asked, "Can you at least tell me if it looks demonic?"

She sighed. "It looks celestial of some sort, and yes, I would guess demonic."

"Celestial? What does that mean?"

"In most Christian mythology and its precursors, Detective, demons are a form of angels. Angels have their secret lore and language as well. But what you have here is most likely demon. Now, if you'll excuse me, good day." She hung up.

Tina had it figured out. It was magic. She believed in magic, sort of. She wanted to, anyway. She brought her wand to work and kept it under the counter. She had made a Hogwarts wand by cutting and painting a dowel the right size from the art store. She had bent a metal strip around the tip making a little cap. She loved how the wand felt in her hand and she liked to practice drawing it and saying, "wingardium leviosa" when she was alone. Her wand, she imagined, had a phoenix tail-feather just like Harry's, but her phoenix was rainbow colored—the rarest and most wonderful kind.

When she saw one of the unreadable discs in a case, she had only to let the customer take it and within an hour—often minutes—praise for her writing and for her spunky original character would pour into her inbox. If she got the customer a replacement disc her story would receive silence, or worse, insults. And then the weird spooky disc would always break when she tried to take it out. A part of her mind said this was just superstition, like having a lucky shirt, but the other part of her mind said magic. And so far, no one had brought the weird discs back and complained.

After she had sent out six discs her story was being publicly recommended on multi-fandom rec sites. She couldn't be happier.

Coreen was wrong. Vicki didn't want an incubus or Henry. To herself she was willing to admit to what Emmanuel had called "longings," but she didn't want anything that wasn't her choice. Hers, not her hormones.

Vicki placed the garlic and the other herbs around her bedroom, particularly the door and the window. She dug out a cross her aunt had given her once for Christmas, and tried to hang it over her bed, but her aching hands couldn't hold a hammer. She placed the cross on her nightstand and put Henry's little one around her neck. She tried not to feel silly doing all of this. Then, utterly exhausted by the day she fell into bed, leaving the bedroom light on.

But the light was out in her dream. And her faceless lover was back and more amorous than before. More insistent, more attentive. And God how she needed it. But somehow, because she was Vicki Nelson, even in her dream she managed to question. "Nothing—keeps—you—out, does it, Emmanuel."

"Do you not know your power, my Vicki? Your beauty? How can I stay away?"

How could there be anything wrong with this? She was aware she was dreaming, but slumber lay so heavy on her she couldn't wake up. Or else she didn't really want to. She smelled that cologne, heard his voice, but still saw no face. Could she choose her partner? She summoned a memory of the smell of soap and rain and there it was. The scent was stronger, mixed with something musky. Her lover's feel changed beneath her hands, his hair grew long and wavy, pearl white teeth glinted in the gloom. He nibbled her ear as he stroked her breast, then moved his tongue down to lick her neck in a way that brought every part of her to attention with anticipation. As they rolled and rocked together, she felt the pulsing length along his thigh rubbing against her thigh. Urgency poured through her and she trembled, groping. Her hands, not sore in this dream, warmed at the wrists as her lover caressed her, murmuring reassurances, rolling his member into place between her legs. Her thoughts grew more fragmented, but she tried to remember—cold, painfully large, pronged—none of that seemed to be true. She needed him in her.

Mumbling incoherent begging, she wrapped her legs around him. Her wrists burned. The burning sensation distracted her at the very moment he entered, finally giving her what she needed, but she looked to the side to see what—in the darkness of the dream, the shape of her tattoo glowed so brightly she began to see the room and the man atop her. She turned her head and saw the other tattoo, radiant with angry heat.

Suddenly the man sat up, withdrew, fell back. Vicki awakened in her brightly lit room with Emmanuel, naked, his head thrown back and howling in agony. He lifted his arms over his head as if in supplication and screamed words Vicki didn't understand. Then to her horror, flames engulfed her bed, not burning her but consuming the creature with her. Before her eyes, Emmanuel blackened, charred and melted, all the while screaming in inconceivable pain.

Henry couldn't work. He couldn't even doodle aimlessly, which is how he often collected his scattered thoughts. He had to admit it; he was heartsick. Hunger nagged him, but his general malaise put even it at bay. For now. It had been such a long time since he'd had someone he could give all of himself to. Vicki's walls were so strong she was almost cruel.

He sighed.

The phone rang. He gave it a baleful look. At this time of night? The few people who knew the hours he kept were work-related and he didn't care to talk to any of them right now. That's why God had invented answering machines.

"Henry? It's Vicki. I know you let the machine pick up when you're working—"

"Vicki, I'm here."

"Oh. Henry, the, uh, incubus is gone. Really gone. He died, I guess you'd say, screaming. With flames all around him. It was—it was awful."

Henry was stunned. He wanted to pepper her with questions, but he wanted to see her even more. "I'll be right over."

"No, wait," she cried.

"What?"

She took in a breath to speak, but didn't for a long moment. "Could I come by your place?"

Vicki arrived, subdued and a little surly. Henry understood. She resented being frightened, and particularly resented being forced to admit it.

"You know," she groused, "you could lay in some coffee or something for your friends."

Coffee had a strong scent he had never wanted in his own house. It was bad enough in all the other places it permeated. "I will," he promised. "Do you have a favorite kind?"

She sank onto his couch and accepted the glass of water he handed her, using both hands to support it. "Strong and black," she said.

She told him what had happened while she finished the water. Henry sat beside her on the couch with a careful distance between them. He had a little trouble concentrating. Her presence dispelled the mood which had suppressed his hunger and now he really wished he'd bothered to feed earlier.

He realized she was waiting for him to say something. "Was there any sign in your room that it had been anything other than a dream?"

"No scorch marks, or anything like that. But the place stinks of—I know how obvious this sounds, but it smells like rotten eggs. Sulfur."

Henry leaned toward her. "You don't smell of sulfur," he said, using the proximity to admire her eyes.

"I showered," she said.

Henry withdrew, but stayed closer than he had been, trying not to think of Vicki in a shower.

"And," she pulled back one sleeve with a hand that clearly still pained her, "I really was burned."

Startled, Henry took her wrist. The mysterious tattoo on it looked more like a fresh brand. He met her gaze. "Did you treat this?"

She frowned. "I ran cold water on it. That's the treatment."

"You need sterile gauze as well." Henry rose to get some.

Vicki allowed him to tape gauze on both her wrists. The blood pulsing there made him a touch light-headed. "Where did you get all this medical training?" she asked, but without the bite in her tone that she probably intended.

"It's first aid, Vicki," he said. He couldn't bring himself to release her wrist.

"The thing is," she said, "what happened? Somehow I don't think the vervain and garlic set him on fire."

He put gentle pressure against her swollen muscles and got an immediate twitch from her. "He didn't burn, Vicki, he went back to Hell, where demons belong." He stroked along her wrist and reveled in her small gasp. If only she would let him do this. It wasn't overtly sexual, and her hands were so sore. He smiled what he hoped was an innocent smile.

"Is there really a Hell?" Vicki asked, breathily, as even the gentle rubbing affected her.

"Do you doubt it?" he asked, moving up to the strong muscle beneath her thumb. Again, she could only bear the gentlest of pressure there or the pleasure he was giving her would become pain. She looked down at her hand and twitched again.

"I doubt a lot of things." She squirmed. "That's really good, but..."

"Trust me," he begged. "Let me do this."

She licked her lips and forcibly relaxed. Delighted, Henry focused more on the job. He took her other hand as well; her wrists were so small his hands could easily reach around them. He worked from forearms up into her palms and squeezed outward along her fingers. He felt her submit. She closed her eyes and breathed.

After the first, gentle pass, he increased the pressure, pressing insistent circles into the soreness. His world shrank to her hands and the feel of so many pulses there.

"Half the world doesn't believe in Hell," she said, somewhere in the distance.

"Hmmm," he managed to answer. He felt the myriad muscles in her hands quiver under his ministrations, the blood cleansing them as he squeezed it gently around. Blood, bringing strength and life and purity—maybe this was not such a good idea. He was so hungry.

"Are you hungry?" Vicki asked.

He glanced up at her, blinking to restore proper vision. He was sure his hunger wasn't showing. And how like her to ask so bluntly. "Um, nothing serious," he said, which was almost a lie. Not starved, tortured and drained of blood serious, no, but yes, he was very hungry. Yes. But the last thing he wanted to do was frighten her.

She smiled. "I think I'm learning to tell." She tugged at her arms and he released them, but it was more of a we're-done-now than a recoil, he thought. She looked down at her arms like she hadn't seen them before, and flexed her fingers. "Thank you," she said genuinely. "You're very good at that."

He found a smug smile to give her back. "I can tell where the swelling is. And I'm very strong."

She shook her head. "You are such a vampire," she said.

He didn't know how to take that and he needed distance from her badly, so he stood. "You need to sleep,"—darn the luck—"please stay here."

"It's true," she said, almost apologetically as she rubbed her eyes. "I couldn't sleep last night, either. And my place stinks. Can I have your couch?"

"You can have anything you want."

"The couch would be fine."

He fetched his most luxurious bedding and settled her in it, her clothes still on. As she lay down he placed a final blanket over her. "Vicki," he said, crouching down beside her, and touching her forearm where her hand gripped a pillow, "this is the only thing you've ever let me do for you."

"What do you mean?" she asked, and yawned. "You do things for me all the time."

"Right. Like drive the car."

"You're my..." her eyelids drooped, "lie detector and...safety net."

"Vicki," he said in a low voice, "I could give you the greatest pleasure you've ever known."

The more alert look she gave him glinted with amusement. "There's that nagging self-doubt again."

"No, it's—"

"I believe you Henry. I do, really." She smiled and yawned again. "G'night."

And with that sleep took her as surely as the dawn would take him.

Henry sat back on the floor, amazed, amused and famished. He had time to go out and feed, but he wouldn't leave her for anything. He'd just have to wait until tomorrow.

The next morning Coreen called in, not sick, but not-coming-in-today. She was still out of sorts with Vicki and was just as glad she got the machine when she called. As she brooded at the kitchen table over her bowl of Frosted Lucky Charms, two of her four roommates breezed in. She shared a three bedroom townhouse with four other college students. She was no longer a student herself, but she hadn't told her parents that yet. She was almost out of her money for the semester.

"Mornin'," said Deb as she pulled a bag of potato chips down from atop the refrigerator.

"Hi," Coreen said, though it was almost not morning anymore. Which meant..."Don't you guys have class today?"

Renee stuck a bag of popcorn in the microwave and turned it on. "Deb and I are going to have a Depp-fest. I need it after yesterday." She held up three videostore DVDs. "Care to join us?" She grinned.

Coreen rolled her eyes, but noticed one of the movies was Edward Scissorhands. She actually liked Edward Scissorhands, the tragic tale of an outcast freak and his doomed love. A dark reality living beside banal artificial suburbia.

"I suppose you have to work," Deb said, opening the refrigerator for dip.

"Nope," Coreen said, "If we can watch Edward Scissorhands first, I'm in."

"Most excellent," said Renee. "I'll go get my lover." She left to bring down her life-sized cardboard poster cutout of Jack Sparrow.

"I'll dish the ice cream," Coreen said.

Vicki closed the case. She found the runaway husband and had the unenviable task of telling her client that her husband had not run off with a girlfriend, but had in fact returned to his first wife and their kids. She watched the shock on the young woman's face as she realized she was the "other woman." Vicki took off her glasses to rub her eyes, and the woman blurred into strange glowing colors. Vicki frowned and put her glasses back on. Her vision seemed to be getting worse and in peculiar ways. She clamped hard on the panic that threatened whenever she considered being truly blind.

But the woman paid, and her check cleared. Feeling celebratory, Vicki wished for someone to take to lunch. Coreen had left a snippy phone message. If only Henry were available during the day. That left Mike. She considered whether she wanted to socialize with him in that way. It would be like saying he was forgiven for betraying Henry to Mendoza. Ah, she really needed some more friends.

She hopped transit heading for the police station, her thoughts on Henry. She looked at the bandages on her wrists and was suddenly struck by how it looked like she had tried to slit her wrists. She took the bandages off. She had only to flex her hands to remember the intense pain/pleasure of Henry's massage. And that memory sent warmth to all sorts of other places.

She leaned her head against the window. The greatest pleasure you've ever known. She didn't doubt it. If only she hadn't been so tired. The incubus, besides scaring her out of a year of her life, had left her unsatisfied, to say the least. She found herself counting the hours until sunset when she could see Henry again.

She snuck up on Mike at his desk, where he was talking on the phone. She nodded to Dave and slid around in front of Mike. Mike gave her a wry smile and finished his call. "To what do I owe this honor?" he asked.

"You free for lunch? I'm buying."

"You're buying? You must have had a payday."

"Hey, I can't just take an old friend to lunch?"

"Huh." Mike indicated a hamburger wrapper on his desk. "I took my lunch. What are your other plans for your windfall?"

"My windfall," she snorted. "Pay bills, rent, start a fund to buy some equipment."

"Hope you weren't planning to pay Coreen yet."

Vicki frowned. "Coreen? I need to have more regular income before I can afford to commit to a paycheck."

"Good. 'Cause the way I see it, she blackmailed you into giving her the job. You're just paying her hush money. You should get Fitzroy to pay her salary. It's his secret she's keeping."

Vicki was puzzled. "What's this about Coreen? And I'm not getting someone else to pay her salary; she's my employee."

Mike nodded. "Okay, but does she do any work for you? I don't get it. I tried calling your office; she's not even in today."

"I think she's entitled to a day off now and then," Vicki huffed. "And, hello? Silver bullets? Saved all our asses, and that's just to start with."

Mike put up his hands. "Okay, okay. It's none of my business anyway."

"No, it's not. She earns her salary, and I'm gonna pay it." That was right. The equipment fund could wait.

Mike nodded, smiling, and reached for a folder. "I'm glad you came by. I want to show you something." He produced a photograph of a symbol in a circle. Involuntarily, Vicki turned up her tattoos. Mike frowned at the redness around the edges but said nothing. The photo didn't match them.

"Crime scene photographer happened to catch this. It's right by the body, pretty small, but it's burned into the wood, not cut. I've just got a bad feeling about it."

Vicki smirked at him. "A bad feeling? Since when are you the one thinking magic or demons or something? Isn't that my job? You're supposed to be all skeptical."

"I'm a homicide detective trying to do my job," he said. Vicki winced. She wasn't a homicide detective any more. She chased down polygamous husbands.

She looked at the symbol thoughtfully. It did look familiar. "Body drained of blood or anything?"

"Not this time. Mean anything to you?"

"Actually, yeah." Vicki set the photo back on Mike's desk. "Henry has this book. You remember the one he was reading from when—" She glanced around to make sure no one was overhearing. "When we fought the demon?"

Mike shut his eyes and kept them closed a little too long before opening them again. "Yeah?"

"It has some writing in it. It's like demon language, and a lot of things are written inside circles like this." Mike looked at her wrists then back at her. "No, we looked it up. He hasn't got these." She wiggled a hand. "But a lot of what the book has is names and you can bet we looked up how you write Astaroth."

"No shit," he said.

"I'm pretty sure," she said. "You sure you're not free for lunch?"

Coreen and Renee plopped down on the old sofa; Deb sat on the floor hogging the chips for herself. Renee lifted the remote control and pressed "play."

The menu screen appeared on the TV, offering the options of "play movie," "scene selection" "setup" and "special features." Coreen suddenly remembered something.

"Renee, did you turn the page on my calendar?" she asked.

Renee looked at her with a guilty expression. "Well, it's already the third and you still had it on last month."

"I've told you before, I want to turn the page. It's my damn calendar," she yelled. Coreen had a calendar of beautiful pictures of "Dungeons of Europe and the Middle East." All month she would study the striking pictures and imagine visiting the location someday. She never looked ahead, and when it came time to turn the page, she made a small ceremony out of it, anticipating excitedly what the next month would show. Renee had the annoying habit of turning it for her.

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry, all right? Can we watch the movie?" She chose "play movie" and the opening scenes of Edward Scissorhands began.

"Hey," Deb said. "Who's that?" She pointed at the window.

Coreen didn't look. She was growing more furious. "And another thing, I want to know," she yelled, getting to her feet. "Who loaded the new toilet paper roll? How many times do I have to tell you guys? The paper is supposed to hang down the back, not the front. So? Who did it? Renee, was that you?"

Deb stood and went to the sliding glass door. "Coreen, chill, would you? Who's this guy out here? He's cute." She opened the door and a blast of frigid late autumn air blew in.

"I can't believe you're getting bent out of shape over how I hang the toilet paper, Coreen," Renee said. "Deb, close the door. It's freezing."

So it was Renee. It was Renee who did everything wrong. Coreen went to the fireplace and without hesitation picked up the poker. She turned to Renee, just as Renee stood and faced the door. A guy in an inadequate leather jacket and long black hair that hung in his face came in the door, his hands in his pockets. Deb shut the door behind him just as Coreen raised the poker to slam its hooked "thumb" into Renee's skull.

Before she could, the newcomer drew out his hand, palm forward, and a beam of light shot from his palm into Renee's chest. Renee flew back, almost into Coreen, blood spurting from her chest. She fell dead on the hearth, at Coreen's feet. When Coreen looked back at him the boy held a gun and the sound of the gunshot echoed in Coreen's ears.

Deb screamed and ran out the door. After a moment's shock as she looked at the dull expression on the boy's face, Coreen dropped the poker and ran into the kitchen and out the door.

Vicki bought lunch at Happy Garden on North York. Normally they would have lunched at a deli, but solving mysteries required Chinese food. Mike felt almost nostalgic.

"So," she asked, "were there other murders like this?"

"I don't know," Mike said. "It was chance that the symbol happened to be in the picture. Shoot, it was luck that I saw it. If those little symbols are at other murder scenes, maybe no one would know to care. The thing is, Vicki, the case is solved; we have the murderer and the boyfriend even confessed. If that's happened at other murder scenes, who would even notice the little symbols? Case closed."

"You think that's happening?"

Mike waited a long time before answering, struggling with the weirdness of the theory he was building. It had been like this ever since Vicki had met Henry Fitzroy. Weird. "Okay, I know you're going to laugh, but I've been trying to think like a demon."

Vicki raised her eyebrows but didn't laugh. "Go on."

"The last time this thing tried to get to our—earth, we beat it. So if it wants to try again, it has to be sneakier. But I'm thinking, it still has to follow some rules, right? So what are the rules? Do you know?"

Vicki chewed slowly and swallowed. "Last time, there was a human who called up the demon's servant. I got the impression that a human has to start this thing off."

"Norman Bridewell."

"Yeah. The servant committed murders and Bridewell got stuff in return for doing the summonings."

"Stuff?"

"Whatever he wanted most, I guess. Cars, clothes, money, Coreen."

"And the murders were in certain locations, right? Drawing a pentagram on the city?"

"That's right. And there were some mysterious symbols, but I'm not sure if they were at every crime. Did you check your symbol against those?"

"Not yet. I hadn't really thought all this through." God, it was just like old times, bouncing ideas off of Vicki.

"So somewhere some human is getting something in return for—what? Summoning a servant? Sending a demonic greeting card? And is he making a pentagram again?"

Mike finished his moo goo gai pan and started on the bamboo shoots and snow peas. "See, that's the hell of it. The city has a lot of murders. Every day. If they are solved, if there's an obvious perp, then they won't stand out. How would we know if something was being drawn? We wouldn't even know how far along it is already."

Vicki nodded. "If the symbol is somewhere at the scene of every crime, we could look for that."

"You could sit down in Records and go through every solved case in the last month, but see, the symbol was small. It might not have been noticed." Mike finished his drink.

"What about the M.O.? What did the kid have to say for himself?"

Mike nodded. "He does sound kind of possessed. No history of violence and all of a sudden he takes an axe to his girlfriend's mother because she found them doing the dirty in her house. He seems sane enough now, and I gotta say, he seems completely devastated."

"But we've seen that kind of thing before. Insanity, good acting..."

"Uh huh."

"Still, we could look for solved murders where the perp just lost it and has a kind of fishy motive."

"Yeah. But here's the other thing." Mike took her wrist, slowly, so Vicki would let him, turning up the tattoo. "Bridewell's final sacrifice? I was there for that. It was something special, right? With a special person and a pentagram and all that?"

Vicki fidgeted. Mike knew she'd be uncomfortable accepting that she could be a particular target. "You know, none of this might be happening," she said. "We're spinning this tale on the strength of a symbol carved into some furniture at the site of a solved murder."

"Burned, Vicki. The name of the demon. And you've got his mark on you."

Coreen found Deb and together they raced to a neighbor's house, Mr. Leary's, to phone the police. Mr. Leary served them hot tea, but then left them in his living room so he could join the curious bystanders shivering in the cold out on the sidewalk. Deb couldn't stop crying but Coreen couldn't get past the shock. She stood at the window watching as police and an ambulance arrived. She tried to think. There were things she should be doing—people she should call. Her roommates, they were in class, they didn't know. Oh, God, Renee. The police, she should talk to them, tell them, give a description. Oh, God, Renee's parents! Someone would have to tell them. Their landlord. He should be told. It all seemed overwhelming.

She looked at Deb, sobbing on Mr. Leary's loveseat. She should say something, go to her. She needed comforting. But Coreen was frozen. All she could do was drink the tea.

She couldn't dispel the numbness she felt even when she saw the ambulance team trundle a body covered in a sheet out to the back of the ambulance.

"Deb," she forced herself to say. "It'll be all right. It's all right. I'm sure he's long gone now."

"I let him in!" Deb wailed. "I don't know why! I just let him in!"

"It's okay. You couldn't know. He..." Coreen gave up. Her words were stupid and meaningless.

And it was strange. A little of the numbness began to wear off like fog getting thinner and Coreen started to think again. Why did Deb let him in? And did he have a gun or not? Hadn't she seen a beam of light shoot out of his hand? But it was a gun, of course it was a gun. And she—why had she been holding that poker?

Three uniformed police officers came out of their townhouse, and with them was the guy. The murderer, the kid in the leather jacket. He was handcuffed, with his hands behind his back, and with an officer holding each arm. He walked with his head down, dark hair hanging in strings.

"Deb," Coreen cried. "They have the guy, look. He didn't run."

Deb joined her at the window. Whatever she said, Coreen didn't hear it; she was still involved with her own thoughts, her own memories. She had been furious with Renee, more angry than she could ever remember being, and she had taken that poker...

Why on earth hadn't she thought to call Vicki? She ran to Mr. Leary's phone. Or Mike? Mike—homicide detective, duh! Damn, she didn't know Mike's number. She started to dial Vicki at work but froze with her hand hovering over the phone's buttons. What was the number? How could she forget that, she had it memorized. Okay, still in a little shock. It was in her speed dial...but her cell phone and purse were still in the house.

Defeated, she turned back toward the living room, just as the door to the house opened. In came Mr. Leary and two policemen, one in plain clothes. They stomped in Mr. Leary's mudroom, shaking the slush and ice from their shoes.

"Hello there," said Mr. Leary gently, "The police need to talk to you girls."

Coreen nodded and moved to the plainclothes guy. "Please, can I talk to Mike Celluci?"

Henry had only just risen and dressed when there was a knock at the door. Since he'd been on his way out to feed, he hadn't been controlling his hunger and he only just got it leashed before he reached the door. Vicki was there holding a stack of folders. The hunger strained and struggled against the tether.

He wasn't sure what he said to invite her in, but he found himself hanging her coat and returning to her side. He had to tell her this was a bad time. He had to.

She set her folders down on a small table and Henry was there, at her shoulder, admiring the lines of her shape. She wore her hair in her all-business ponytail and he longed to take it down. Involuntarily, he reached out and brushed it off her neck.

"I need to show you something," she said, faltering a little when he touched her. Her heart, already beating fast, sped up.

He murmured something polite and took her forearms. They'd had a day of healing since his ministrations, but he still heard her catch her breath at his touch.

The hunger swelled, pressing against his walls. He swelled in response.

"I shouldn't have come so soon," Vicki said. "I'm sorry. Henry, please stop that."

He heard the warning, the danger, in those words. Not danger from her; from the consequences of being too obvious, of standing out in the crowd, of losing control. The sharp spike of ancient fear brought him to himself and he released her arms.

At least she didn't flee, not even in her Vicki-has-important-business-to-attend-to way. She took off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. When she looked up at him, he saw startlement in her eyes and she hastily replaced her glasses. All his senses told him she was physically receptive to him. So what was the problem?

"But why?" he asked, unable to help himself. Unable to keep the loneliness and hurt from his tone. If she asked for an explanation of what he meant, he'd have to leave. His needs were too serious and his heart was too vulnerable.

She didn't. "I like to make these decisions with my head, not with other parts of me."

He forced himself to consider that. It was true, he had seldom courted a woman in any way other than by appealing to her carnal desires. Even in ages when chastity was a prized and protected virtue, lust had always been his most successful path to what he wanted from a woman. But from Vicki he wanted trust and understanding. "I have better luck with the other parts," he admitted, sounding hoarse to his own ears.

"I can see you do," she said wryly. "Mine included. Don't you see how that makes it kind of manipulative? I don't care to be a conquest for you."

A conquest. Again he forced himself to try to see from her point of view. They'd never had a discussion quite this honest and he guessed this might be his only chance with her. He breathed more heavily than usual, scenting her mood, her arousal, her toughness, her power. Even the hunger paused in its writhing to let him think. He had to get this right. She believed...she believed his interest in her was only because she refused him. And what, he thought with despair, had he done to make her think differently? Somehow he'd assumed she knew. Or that it wouldn't matter if only he could take her to bed. He'd let his habits trap him. Damn, he was a fool.

He swallowed. "Do you think," he asked tentatively, "that I don't know the difference between sex and love?"

She took his question seriously, he sensed that. She seemed to think it over while empires rose and fell. He so needed to feed. He was not in good shape to be having this conversation.

"Well, I do think you have issues about sex and food," she said, turning it into a joke after all. Did she have to say food?

"That's what sustains me, sustains my life." The words poured out of him, unchecked. He had to resist a sudden archaic impulse to drop to one knee and take her hand. "Love is so much rarer and so infinitely more precious. For me, particularly, because it involves trusting someone with my life." He paused, in order to concentrate on brutally shoving the hunger away. Vicki was not weak-minded enough to yield to his suggestions, but like all the living she was affected by his need, and she knew enough to recognize the sensation. He didn't want her feeling it while he asked this. "Whatever you need my help with tonight, it has to wait. I have to feed. Now. Soon. Or else I die." All right, that was a bit of melodrama, but so, what? "I'm asking your head and your heart, but no other part of you, am I dining out or in?"

Dave came up to Mike at his desk. "Mike, Jim says you can talk to the girl now." He nodded to the opposite side of the room where Coreen sat on the other side of Jim's empty desk. Mike scooped up his box of donuts and took them to Jim's desk where he perched on the edge. Coreen clutched her purse on her lap, and looked glad to see him.

"How are you doing?" He held out the box.

Coreen took a donut. "I kind of hate myself."

"Why's that?"

"Renee is dead. She's my friend and she's dead. Part of me wants to start today all over again and have her still alive, but part of me is kind of enjoying all this."

"Yeah, you're a terrible person. It'll hit you hard when you go home. You called Vicki?"

Mike had been pulled in to Jim McReady's case because he knew one of the witnesses and she'd asked to talk to him. He'd been allowed to talk to her, to reassure her and advise her, all in the hearing of his colleagues. But the simple fact that he knew her was potentially a legal liability and protocol said Mike couldn't be on the case. He could only speak to her alone after the investigators had her statement six ways from Sunday.

Coreen wrinkled her nose at him and took another donut. "I can't reach her. I've left messages. Mike, I've got to tell you something about that guy. And about me. It was freaky. Something I couldn't tell—them."

"You can't withhold information in your statement. What were you thinking?"

"I'm telling you, aren't I? You're the police. You're the expert. You decide if anyone else needs to know."

Well that made a kind of sense. "What is it?"

Vicki knew what her answer would be, she just had to justify it to herself, and quickly, so she didn't leave Henry hurting.

Oh, hell, she'd figure out why later.

"Stay," she said, holding out her arms.

Henry's smile really was one of his best features, she thought. He embraced her with a kind of sagging relief that made her feel oddly protective. She hadn't known him five minutes before she stopped thinking of him as young, but under the circumstances his appearance of youth gave her some conflicting signals.

It felt so good to hold him. She breathed in his scent—soap again, and...maleness. He seemed to wear no other scents, perhaps they were offensive to his own nose. There were still so many things she didn't know about him and, and how he was. She was about to learn. She shivered once, and he tightened his arms around her. The hard length pressing against her from within his loose trousers was normal enough, and she smiled to feel it. It was his teeth she was nervous about. His head was already buried against her neck. She started to say something, but was engulfed abruptly by a powerful sense of his need. She responded by going weak at the knees.

With disturbingly little effort, he swept her up into his arms. Startled, she clutched her hands around his neck, though in actual fact she wasn't the least bit off-balance. Not physically, anyway. His grip was strong and sure, but she felt foolish, nonetheless. She checked that her glasses were safely in place; she didn't care to see Henry as the pulsing red blur she had seen without them before. "You romantic, you," she said. His beautiful smile beamed at her. Still no fangs, but..."I, um, should ask, how does this work?"

"I'll show you," he said, his smile broadening, and he carried her to his bedroom.

Mike got permission to talk to the boy when everyone else was done with him and before they hauled him off to Holding. McReady briefed him. He'd had no ID on him and had refused to give them a name. He'd been cooperative otherwise, admitting to killing the girl, though he gave no motive. He'd apparently stayed in Coreen's townhouse after the single murder, his gun dropped on the rug. Officers had found him there and taken him in with no struggle.

"Is he a nutcase?" Mike asked McReady.

"Probably. He'd barely talk to the shrink, but she did get enough to call him delusional. It's early days yet."

Mike nodded. The business of diagnosing insanity in suspects was always blurred at first by ordinary shock, fear and self-interested deception. Even in the sane and innocent.

"One thing, though," Jim said with a shrug, "every now and then he'll look at someone and say, 'You aren't the one.'"

Mike had nothing to say to that. "You guys give him anything?"

"A confessed murderer? Nah. He hasn't had anything since he got here, not even a bathroom break. You want to play good cop, go ahead. There are two uniforms outside the room. Look, you can't be on the case, so we won't record you or observe, but let me know if he tells you anything interesting, okay? He's pretty tight-lipped."

Mike installed Coreen behind the two-way mirror and prepared to enter the room. Interviewing a suspect in the interrogation room—an ordinary part of his day, but Mike was apprehensive about what he would find in there. He wished absurdly for a cross or some kind of arcane protection. He squared his shoulders, nodded to the officer at the door, and went in.

The room felt normal enough. The boy sat at the table slightly slumped in his chair, his hands still cuffed behind his back. Straight black hair hung limply down, draping his face. He looked up at Mike with blue eyes that held no fear, and raised his head. Mike took the interrogator's seat.

"Who are you?" Mike asked.

"You are the one," the boy said. "But I can't answer that."

"I am the one what?"

"The one I've been waiting for. Ask me your questions."

Well, Mike had just asked one question and got nowhere with it. "Did you kill Renee Chien?"

"Yes."

"But did you shoot her? Not everyone saw it that way."

The boy cocked his head, curiously. "Let those who have eyes to see, see. I killed her. It's enough."

"Why did you kill her?"

"So I could get your attention."

"My attention? Because I'm the one?"

"Yes." The boy looked down at the table.

Mike grew angry. "You couldn't just give me a phone call, write me a note? You had to kill a young girl. You took her life! What kind of monster are you?" He hoped no one had joined Coreen in the observation room. He couldn't believe he was asking a question like this in any official capacity. "Are you a demon?"

The boy looked up at Mike with a deep sadness in his pinched face. "She was already chosen as a sacrifice. I couldn't prevent her death. But I could be the cause of it and deliver my message through you. You would have dismissed a phone call."

Mike's thoughts whirled. Insane. He could be simply insane. His calmness in his circumstances, his disinterested speech—it was Mansonlike, it was sociopathic. Even the sadness. But, while Coreen could have imagined the beam of light—people saw strange things under stress—he found her frightened confession of how close she had come to killing Renee Chien herself, convincing. Coreen would neither imagine nor invent that.

"What message?" It was the first of many questions he had to ask.

The boy fixed him with an urgent stare. "You must tell her, 'Have faith in your vision.'" Then he leaned forward and put his head on the table.

Henry's bedroom was masculine in its general lack of adornment, but tasteful and sensual like its occupant. The walls were painted a vivid burnt orange color with expensive trim done in some wood with a reddish hue. Vicki had been in it before, and in the king-sized bed that dominated the room in shades of black and gray. That had been on one of the oddest days of her life, as she lay beside a corpse-like Henry watching his nearly-mortal wounds heal.

Every movement made with controlled strength, Henry placed her like a jewel upon a cushion, on the bed. He followed her down, to sit with his arms on either side of her. "It was wonderful to wake up to you, that night," he said.

Vicki felt herself smile. Here, in this enclosed room, where even the window had light-proof metal shutters bolted over it, she felt engulfed by his presence. That sense of maleness was everywhere, though she couldn't call it a scent, exactly. She was in a den, a burrow, the innermost chamber of some animal's hideaway. The place where they dragged their prey for later consumption.

Stop being ridiculous, she admonished herself. She gazed at Henry's youthful face, glowing with affection and surprisingly innocent desire. She put her hand to his face and he tipped his cheek into her palm. She ran her hand farther back, so she could play with his curls. He half closed his eyes and continued rubbing his cheek against her hand like a cat, his breath quickening. Vicki remembered him in Mendoza's chains, eyes gone unnaturally black, teeth irretrievably bared in hunger, an animal in a man's body, but the memory brought her no fear of him. Even then she'd felt the strength of his presence, his personality, his sheer will. Human will. Controlled, well-dressed, contained and disguised, Henry was unquestionably the strongest individual she'd ever met. And for some reason, he wanted her.

"Why me?" she asked.

He opened his eyes, wide. Grey eyes, she saw. She'd never been sure of their color before.

"Because," she felt she needed to explain, "I've wanted to ask, but I didn't want to sound so self-serving. So, really. Why me?"

Henry leaned down for a kiss, but slowed as he reached her, for permission. She met him willingly, though she hoped he'd try to answer her. His lips were cool, his tongue busy, begging further entry. She opened to him, tasting his lips for herself, her own tongue exploring. She slid her hands around his back, caressing muscles and ribs through his light cotton shirt. He lay partly on her, a pleasant weight. Abruptly she remembered how unsatisfied she'd been and how much she needed this. She squirmed, and one hand went searching, stroking, seeking a zone that would stoke him, but could only reach his back and buttock. Henry made a low, hungry hum into her throat. He broke the kiss, and rolled to lie beside her. From this position she had better access to the areas she wanted to stroke; his chest, his crotch, and, while concentrating on reaching his skin beneath the cloth, alternating with giving him quick teasing kisses, she almost didn't notice how deftly he freed her from her own clothes. There came a moment when they had to part enough for both to complete the disrobing by yanking over heads, arms and legs. Vicki kicked violently free of her jeans and underwear, like a schoolgirl racing her friends to be first in the pool. Henry shed his clothing with an economy of motion that spoke of long practice.

Then they embraced again, gloriously free of obstacles. Henry pulled away just long enough to gaze at all of her, then he was kissing her again, his hands on either side of her jaw. "Don't you know," he said, "how beautiful you are?" He kissed her throat. "Why you?" He kissed her throat on the other side. "Your strength, your power—" He claimed her mouth then released it. "You are a beacon, a bonfire, a lamp of—life." He mumbled the last word against her breast as he kissed and licked his way to her nipple. Vicki's brain began to misfire, and nothing truly interesting had even happened yet. Henry looked up at her and said, "Don't you know your power?"

Hadn't someone else said that to her recently?

Mike stood, grabbed the boy's shoulder and pushed him upright. The boy caught his head from falling back and focused blankly on Mike. His face paled.

"What are you talking about?" Mike gave his shoulder an angry shake. "Tell who?"

"I cannot say her name," the boy said weakly. "You know her. You must deliver my message."

"I must do nothing. And you can say anything you want. Don't give me this BS." Mike grabbed the boy's upper arm. The boy sagged, almost falling from the chair. Mike hauled him back into place and gave him a good look. He'd seen this stressed out look on junkies and on starving street kids.

"When was the last time you ate?"

The boy managed to focus his gaze on Mike, but said nothing. Mike thought he looked puzzled.

"You know, ate. Food."

Nothing.

Mike left the room with the boy slumped forward again and the uniforms on guard. He joined Coreen in the observation room.

"What does he mean, 'have faith in your vision'?" Coreen demanded.

"I don't know, I don't know. It may not mean anything."

"So he's just a loony tunes?" Mike saw tears forming in her eyes. Just minutes before, she'd been fine. Coreen was careening around the stages of grief. "He comes in and guns down Renee and it's for nothing? Not jealousy, not revenge, just nothing?"

"It's all right," Mike said. "You're the one who told me there might be something fishy about this. I'm going to hear him out. He's talking to me more than he did to McReady."

Mike returned to the boy with a collection of candy and a Coke. He set them on the table and unlocked the boy's handcuffs. The boy brought his arms around to the front, slowly, stiffly.

Mike held his questions while he watched the boy carefully peel back the wrapper, study the candy and then place it in his mouth. He bit, then chewed, slowly. Eventually he swallowed. Mike thought he could feel Coreen's impatience through the wall.

"All right. Now, you said something about Renee Chien being chosen for sacrifice. What did you mean?"

"You know. You've figured it out." The boy eyed the Coke.

"Could you give me a straight answer?"

The boy looked calmly at him. "I am bound to say only what relates to my message. I'm sorry." He looked back at the Coke.

"Your message. Your message to some woman you can't name. Go ahead, drink it."

The boy opened the can and drank. He drank and drank until the can was empty.

"Now, talk some sense. If you've got a message for some woman, why not call her up on the phone, or write her a note?"

"She is marked. She is warded against me. I may not say her name, I may not speak to her. Any power who tries to take what it wants from her will die, because of the wards. What I want is to give her my message. If I try I will die, and then my message is lost. But you can speak to her. Speak for me. You must deliver my message."

Marked?

"So, how come I don't die when I talk to her?"

"You are in no danger. You must deliver my message."

"Do we play twenty questions? Should I name some names? Coreen Fennel?"

"No."

I can't believe I'm playing along with this. "Vicki Nelson?"

The boy said nothing.

"Vicki Nelson." I'll be damned.

"You must deliver my message."

As much as Henry yearned to study every inch and crevice of Vicki, his hunger insisted he get on with things. At least his hunger was largely under control, confident that it would soon be satisfied. Henry had been here many times before.

But never with Vicki. His heart pounded with joy as he moved into position, moved to make the connection that, though pleasant to him, was so much more meaningful to her. She gave him a smile he had never seen on her: impish, mischievous. It told him she had abandoned some of her judgments and barriers. Delighted, he entered her, gently, only to find there was little need for caution. She was warm and open to him. Arching into him, she accepted all of him at once. Tears stung the back of his eyes. How he had ached for her to accept all of him.

He gave in to an impulse to hug her tight, and she hugged him back, tenderly, her fingers playing with his hair. They lay on their sides, Vicki's leg on top, Henry's arm beneath them. Vicki's fingers trailed from his hair over his ear and jaw and down onto his throat. Henry's breathing quickened as she tickled one of his more sensitive areas. "Interesting," she murmured. She leaned in to kiss his neck and he couldn't suppress the shudder. He felt her smile against his throat and he tipped his head back to encourage more. More. He mustn't lose track of the promise he had made her of the greatest pleasure she had ever known, but his own erogenous zones had shifted in his long life, reflecting the changed priority of his needs, and Vicki was licking and breathing dead on one of them and he couldn't. quite. think.

A sound escaped him from deep in his throat. Move. He had to move. As he'd lain sheathed in Vicki's warmth he'd rocked minutely, instinctively, but nothing that distracted her from kissing his neck. He strengthened the motion now, and gasped as she tightened around him like a practiced prostitute. He loved how strong she was. She kissed his mouth, another hot spot for him. Desire intensified, its warmth suffusing him. His hunger hovered, close to the surface, ready. He used it to heighten his senses, feeling Vicki as pulsing patterns of life-bearing blood. Her arousal, so clear to his vision and sense of smell, now glowed in his mind's eye as every part of him that touched her sent detailed reports of where her blood pooled.

He lifted himself into a semi-kneeling position, and slid his hands onto the firmness of her butt. Watching her face, he tilted her pelvis into position, his other arm behind her shoulders, following the messages her blood gave him. She put an uncertain hand on his shoulder, thinking she might need the balance. Neither the position he took, nor the angle he held her in, could be sustained for long by an ordinary man. He smiled, both with pride and in reassurance. "It's all right," he said. She faded from his view as he concentrated on other perceptions. Where did she—there. He found an internal region, highly sensitive, and not easily accessible.

Vicki's eyes flew open wide as she gasped in pure startlement. Possibly she didn't even know she possessed this ultra sensitive area. Celluci wouldn't be able to reach it for more than a stroke or two; no one could who couldn't support her properly. Henry's heart overflowed with gratitude that he could give her this.

He pumped experimentally, twice, and gasped, himself, as she tightened convulsively around him. Like the pressure had on her sore arms, this was giving her such pleasure it bordered on overload. Her grip on his neck became frenzied; she almost clawed at him with her hands. She looked at him with an expression of amazement and apprehension. Henry eased off; if there was one thing he knew about Vicki, it was that she hated having her control ripped from her. She panted against him, tickling again his neck. He moaned briefly.

"At what point," she panted, "do you drink my blood?"

Henry's grin was partly laughing at her. He would never make her a romantic. "At what point," he said in a low voice, "do you think?"

"You're kidding," she said, looking up at him. Her cheeks and breasts were flushed, blood suffusing her skin in delicate, delectable capillary webs. His hunger pulsed with her pulse, making him light-headed.

"Oh, I'm not," he said. He moved within her again, once, and gloried in seeing the delighted shock on her face. But he needed to let her do this. "You can move," he said. "Go ahead. I won't let you go." Never, ever. He just hoped she was in a hurry to enjoy him. He really couldn't last long, tonight.

She tested—wrapped her legs around him and tipped herself into position. Henry never wavered. She weighed nothing to him. He leaned down to lick her breast, the smell of blood there almost overwhelming. "Do I need to," she asked between breaths, "warn you?"

Henry grinned again and arched his torso so he could kiss her lips. "So not necessary," he said against them.

Vicki kissed him back, closed her eyes, and began to move.

Back in the observation room Mike held a tense conference with Coreen. She was an odd confidant, younger than most rookies, wearing eye makeup so thick it could have been for a costume party. At least she looked reasonably normal otherwise; apparently she "dressed up" for work, at home she wore jeans and a sweatshirt. Her hair had a single rubber band making a high ponytail, none of the odder hairstyles Mike had seen her in. Still, her relative experience with the supernatural made her an expert witness in Mike's book. Mike's book held few such experts.

"Do you think he's a demon?" Mike asked her.

He watched as Coreen shifted gears from frightened homicide witness to supernatural researcher. "He killed Renee," she said, her eyes welling again. She walked to the window, the back side of the mirror in the interrogation room, and looked in at the boy. Mike had left his cuffs off, so the boy could finish eating the candy. Unarmed, not on any drugs, the boy didn't seem much of a threat. Unless he could shoot people with only a beam of light from his palm.

"Maybe he's a rival demon, trying to oppose Astaroth. I mean, if he worked for Astaroth, why would Vicki be warded against him?" Coreen asked.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend, Mike thought.

"He said she was warded against any power that tried to take what it wanted from her," Coreen mused. "But he said you weren't in any danger."

"I may not be a 'power,'" Mike said, dryly. "Gee, I wonder if that includes vampires."

They looked at each other.

They both fumbled for their phones.

"You called her home?" Mike asked.

"And work and cell. Nothing. But that was hours ago."

"Did she call you back?"

Coreen studied her phone as it turned on. "No. No messages."

"Did you try Fitzroy's?"

"It wasn't dark."

"It is now. Call him."

"You call him! I can't explain this, not if Vicki isn't there."

"Oh, he so won't want to hear this from me," Mike said. "Just ask him if he's seen her."

Coreen dialed.

Emboldened by being so admired in her on-line fandom, Tina had dared to make changes to her day-to-day persona. She sat closer to the front in class, particularly English class. She spoke to people even if they didn't say anything first, and if they gave her a haughty look like who the hell was she to be speaking, she could smile and take it. Sometimes they treated her okay after that. She was more cautious about changing her appearance. Her clothes, her piercings, her hair—they were her armor. People knew what she wasn't and didn't have expectations of her. If she changed any of that, they'd see and make fun. She was selling out, trying to fit in, be accepted. Well, was that really so bad?

She started with work; school was too scary. She wore a stylish layered top with a scoop neck and low cut jeans like all the fashionable girls were wearing. She couldn't complete the look with long sweeping hair and plucked eyebrows, but it was an experiment.

No one at the video store seemed to think she looked like she was trying to pass for acceptable, so she relaxed some. She hoped to see one of the mystery discs that evening, but she didn't until she was getting ready to go home. As an employee she got free rentals, so she rented Sense and Sensibility even though it was English and old because someone told her Snape played a lover in it. She opened up the case and there it was. Drippy red font and all. And it was for her.

She should have been pleased. All she had to do was take it home and she'd get even more praise for her fanfiction stories. Or maybe she had to watch it first, she wasn't sure. What—what would happen if she watched it? What were these discs, anyway? She hadn't forgotten that Jen's mom got killed the same night Jen and Tiegan took one of them home. She hadn't really wanted to think about it, but Tim had learned that one of their other customers had shot his ex-wife. Tina had checked, because she knew she had sent one of those discs home with the guy. Sure enough, he'd done it the same night he'd rented the disc. She didn't know about any of the other discs she'd allowed out the door, but she did know that none of them had come back. A couple were overdue. It didn't mean anything, right? She could just go and get another copy of Sense and Sensibility, but she was positive that would mean she'd get flamed horribly online and not be able to sleep for days for how upset she'd be. Uneasy, she handed the disc to Antonio to rent out to herself, put it in her backpack, and left for home.

Vicki was drowning in sensation. She had, in fact, never felt pleasure like this. She'd never been so passive in bed, either, but after her own motion in Henry's grasp proved so volatile that her conscious thought was wiped out with each stroke, it had been easier to let him take over. She'd managed to swat his hand away when he tried to remove her glasses, but there was little else she could rally for. She wanted to be sure he was all right, that he was enjoying this too, but the best she could manage was an occasional peek at his face, which reassured her even while some part of her brain found his reactions extraordinary. Most men in her experience, by this point, would be as overheated and sweat covered as she, face contorted with a combination of pleasure and effort, flushed and radiating heat. Henry's skin remained cool and unaffected, even as they thrust energetically together, and his face showed no particular physical tension. Only his hair, tousled and uncontrolled, showed any abandon. It was his expression that reassured her, between suns exploding along her nervous system, of his joy. He watched her hungrily, happily, subtly reacting when she did, perfectly in synch, as if his pleasure derived only from hers. As if he could not be satisfied until she was. His gaze flicked from her face to her neck and back to her face and again to her neck.

It was his voice, when he spoke, that told of his mounting desire, his own hunger for completion. Not only in the words, but in the stress and hoarseness in his tone. "Vicki, I would love to make love to you all night," he said, the inflections an apology as he adroitly quickened his pace and aimed directly at this pleasure center he alone seemed to know about. Vicki had been tossed madly around this engulfing whirlpool and now he urged her directly into its heart. "But—I—can't—" Mournful but desperate. She understood and matched his rhythm, ready to finish. She wanted to answer—tell him yes, she felt his need, she longed to fill it and give him what he desired, but speech was beyond her.

Henry's phone rang. An outside, intruding sound, Vicki did actually hear it. Henry heard it too, no doubt, but thank God, he changed nothing. Vicki changed nothing. Together they pounded toward the finish, Vicki's exploding suns merging into what would soon be one supernova. Henry slowly bent his head to her neck, hovering just above it, so she felt his breath there, ready, staying unnaturally focused considering the athletic activity of the rest of him. At that angle Vicki lost some of the intensity of sensation, but it didn't matter in the least. She was warmth itself, spreading outward, even her wrists burned with it...

Her wrists?!

She managed a look, and yes, her wrists were glowing. No dream. Real life.

"Henry, stop!" she screamed, pushing away from him. Oooh, this was going to be hard. He was stronger than she and wouldn't be pushed. His position, action and intention remained rock strong.

"Vicki," he growled, his voice still at her ear.

She shoved a glowing wrist in his face. "Do you want to die?" she cried.

"Wha—?" he said, pulling back his head enough that she could see his fangs, poised to strike, his eyes gone dark. "I—" His speech ended in a kind of grunt. Panicked, Vicki tried to squirm free of him, but was unable. She was under his control in a way she had never been earlier. Fear for him merged with a sudden fear of him, and, as if in response, he tipped his head back and gave a pained moan. If he was going to escape this thing, it clearly had to be by his own will not hers; all she could do was try to kill her own arousal and talk fast. And God, she'd been so close.

"It's what happened with the incubus," she panted. "I told you how my wrists burned. You saw the burns. You've got to stop or it will kill you. Henry!"

With a howl of frustration, Henry released her, and with that uncanny grace of his, disengaged from her and the bedclothes to leap off the bed. He put his hands on the wall, over his head, leaning forward, like he was gripping bars. "Vicki, get out," he said. "Out of the room. Now."

Vicki had scrambled off the bed, scooped up her clothes and stumbled out the bedroom door before she even noticed how automatically she'd obeyed him. She stood in the living room, naked, trembling as she tried to get her clothes on, rain tapping against his large windows. Normally she hated being told what to do and would reflexively question orders. Perhaps Henry's persuasive powers worked on her after all, or maybe it was just so obviously the smart thing to do. Also, it had been a plea, not just an order. It occurred to her to wonder if he was all right.

"Henry?" she called, her voice quavering. He didn't reply. She finished dressing and studied her wrists. The glow was gone. The marks stung, but she wasn't burned, not this time. We stopped in time. "Henry, are you all right?"

He appeared at his bedroom door, immaculate clothing back in place, hair tamed, expression unreadable. Vicki kept her distance. If she'd thought she could do it without being rude, she'd have moved even farther away. "I have to go," he said, tightly. He took a long, dramatic black trenchcoat from a closet. As he did, Vicki said, "It's all the more important now that I talk to you about this." She indicated her police files on his table.

"Later," he said, and was at the door.

"You'll come back?" she asked, uncertain. Was she imagining it or did he look paler than usual?

"Yes," he said as he opened his door. He forced a slight smile. "It's my house."

After some friends had come for Coreen, Mike returned to the kid. McReady's guys would be by very shortly to take him away. Mike had learned a bit about his future.

"They're taking you to The Don," Mike told him. The Don was a notoriously overcrowded facility for remanded prisoners. Intended as short-term holding it had no amenities, not even phones or meeting rooms for lawyers. "I don't know that I'll be able to talk to you again."

The boy nodded. He smiled gently at Mike. "Don't worry about me," he said. "Nothing here can harm me, only pain me."

Well, Mike hadn't exactly been worried about him. He was a murderer, whatever else he was. "What are you?" Mike asked.

"Only a messenger. After my message is delivered, I am nothing," he said. "You must deliver my message. Thank you for the food. That was kind."

Mike shook his head. "I want to talk to you some more."

"I'm sorry," the boy said. "You have no idea how painful it is for me to be here."

And before Mike could ask him about that, Corrections Officers came in and took Renee Chien's murderer away.

Tired and puzzled, Mike went to his desk to call Vicki again. As he got there, his phone rang. "Celluci."

"Mike, it's Vicki."

"Vicki! Where the hell have you been? Coreen and I have been trying to reach you all afternoon."

"No time for that right now," she said. "I need your help. Can you meet me tonight at the old Lunatic Asylum annex? Not the CAMH, the old annex, down on the waterfront."

"What's going on?"

"I can't explain right now. I need you. Please."

Mike was alarmed. This did not sound like the Vicki he knew. "Should I bring back up?"

"No. Don't tell anyone. But bring your gun. Will you come?"

Bring his gun? Of course he'd bring his gun. "All right, I'm off duty now anyway, but Vicki, tell me more, damn it. What am I getting into?"

"I can't talk. See you soon. Love you."

Mike hung up, stunned. Love you? Oh, this was serious, whatever it was. Mike would have thought she was being held hostage, and was trying to give him a clue, but when they'd been partners they'd had code words for that and she hadn't used them. He checked his gun, clocked out, and left the building.

Henry hadn't felt quite this much like an evil creature of the night in some time. He sped out of his building without a word to the deskman and hit the streets of his city with mayhem in his heart. Grief was there, too, grief that he'd lost what he'd thought he'd found with Vicki, but hunger and anger overrode it. He did not go to the entertainment district, where the hormone ridden and intoxicated would welcome him at any of a dozen nightclubs. There was one human connection more powerful than lust and even love, and tonight he had to have it. Terror.

He turned his collar up against the cold rain. He felt the cold, but it was not the discomfort it was to other people. Unfortunately the weather could deter even the criminal element, and he needed someone to attack him. He was not so desperate that he was willing to seize on an innocent, but he had no compunctions about entrapment. He headed down Dundas, forcing himself to slow to a normal, even leisurely pace, huddling in his coat like an unhappy abandoned soul. His hunger increased his sensitivity to the heartbeats around him, calling to him like sirens, but he sensed no drug dealers or their clients even when he reached Jarvis. He changed direction. The weather might keep the petty criminals inside, but he could count on the hard core finding him in his favorite park.

As he approached he extended his heightened senses to find any lurkers in the park. Two places—one group clustered together near the street with slow heartbeats, probably homeless, and a pair of strong fast heartbeats near the park's center. Perfect. He glided toward them, on the park's main walk, allowing a gold chain to show outside his coat. The heartbeats sped up and he heard the excited whispers. He paused near their hiding place, readjusting his coat and collar, turning his back to them. Come on, come on.

He felt them screw up their courage, heard the whispered order, and knew exactly where they were as they attacked. He let each of them attempt a strike, the first to his head with a vicious looking piece of twisted iron, the second a body tackle. He dodged both with ease, delivered his own blows and in seconds had both men by the throat. His hunger, already striding with him in tandem, slipped free of its final leash. "Big mistake," he said. Even in the rain-drenched dark they could see his face, and their panic soared. Finally!

Their pulses beneath his hands were— were his to drink. No more restraint. He threw one man aside, turned his head and ordered, "Stay." Then he pulled the other's throat to him and sank into the man's life with no finesse. He drank deep, ignoring the unsavory taste of the man's spirit as he reveled in his fear. As tempting as it always was to take the glowing life beneath his hands, he knew better, and had no need. This man was only an appetizer. He broke off before the man lost consciousness. "You will remember nothing of tonight. Only fear and pain. You want to change your life. You will find a way to live without preying on the weak. You will always remember there are greater predators than you waiting in the dark." When the man dazedly agreed, Henry released him and turned to his partner in crime.

This man was his real meal. Forced by Henry's compulsion to stay and watch the assault on his partner, he knew what was coming. His fear swelled through panic into paralyzing terror as Henry approached him, hunger showing. Then the paralysis broke as terror gave him the strength to overcome Henry's suggestion. He got to his feet and ran. Henry smiled and gave chase.

He didn't let him get far; he'd been taught it was unmannerly to play with his food. Henry took him down like a bird of prey on a mouse. The man screamed and Henry waited, letting him see, squeezing any more possible terror out of him. "No, no, please!" the man cried. "Don't kill me, don't kill me, please!" Henry smelled the urine the man released and decided he'd better have him before he gave himself a heart attack.

As he drank in the most delicious elixir a vampire could taste, Henry's cell phone vibrated in his pocket. Vicki, he thought. Only Vicki could be so annoying.

Vicki had always found waiting hard. Even stakeouts had required a special exercise of patience for her. She paced Henry's home, restless and a little frightened. What had been done to her? What did those damn marks mean? She had been in bed with the incubus without incident until she'd allowed him to actually enter her. Then he'd died. But with Henry, they'd gone way past that point before whatever activated her marks had triggered them. What kind of twisted demon wanted her to never have sex? Was that it—she was supposed to be some kind of bride of Satan? She felt a little sick. She wished Henry would get back. God, Henry. She tried not to think of him feeding because it summoned up for her how he felt and how he looked and how he smelled...

She took off her glasses in order to rub the bridge of her nose. She hated opening her eyes with her glasses off, these days. She hadn't wanted to face the reality of how bad her eyesight was getting. She opened them now. The details of Henry's apartment blurred into darkness, but oddly, the edges of walls and furniture glowed faintly. In fact, a number of items in the living room had a nimbus around them. The area where Henry worked on his graphic novels glowed so brightly it could have had a shoplight on.

Curious, she walked toward it, navigating confidently through the room despite not really being able to see the furniture. Not see it normally, anyway. The outlines were clear to her like faint Christmas lights running along the edges. Standing before the inked pages Henry had up on the walls, she was stunned. Unlike the details of the room which faded from her view, the pictures were more clear to her than anything she'd ever seen. Not just the lines Henry had drawn, but other things. There were other scenes, richer details, all overlaid on the drawings. As she looked, she could read the story without any words, and it was vivid and complete. She felt she was looking at the events as Henry imagined them, where his pen drawings could only sketch a skeleton of the living tale.

Enraptured she wandered from wall to wall, page to page, soaking in these levels of unarticulated imagination. Finally overwhelmed, she put her glasses back on and the room returned to normal. She sank into a chair.

What the hell was that?

And what the hell was taking Henry so long? She really had to talk to someone about this. She fished out her phone. She had messages from Mike at work, Mike from his cell phone, and from Coreen's cell. Without listening to them, she called Mike at home. He'd be off duty by now. No answer. She called his cell and got sent straight to voice-mail. Damn. It was late to be calling Coreen, but Goth-girl had been keeping later and later hours as had Vicki herself, since partnering with a vampire.

She played Coreen's voice-mail messages and listened with growing horror. She called her back.

"Coreen, I just got your message. How horrible. Are you all right?"

"So so. Vicki are you at the office? You'd be my hero if I could tell everyone I had to go into work."

"Oh, now you want to come to work?"

"It's awful around here. Have you talked to Mike?"

"No. Was he on your case?"

"They wouldn't let him. But the guy who did it—he had a message for you."

"For me? What do you mean?"

"Seriously, we need to talk. This guy was completely out there and he gave Mike a message for you. You need to talk to Mike, too, if you can get him this late. Can I meet you?"

Vicki thought fast. Henry's was not the place for a pow-wow, not if Mike would be involved. "Okay, meet me at the office."

Mike arrived at the abandoned Annex, very uneasy, and killed his headlights as he approached. This part of the waterfront had had no urban renewal and still consisted of shipping warehouses and empty sheds hulking in the dark like canyon walls blocking the city lights. The Annex itself was much newer than the old Provincial Lunatic Asylum on Queen which had long since been replaced by the Canadian Addiction and Mental Health facility, but it stood condemned and awaiting the Historical Society's bid to raise funds to buy it. Fenced in and locked up, it was still not difficult to see how easily it could be a base for illegal operations. Not a quarter of a mile further along the waterfront was the warehouse which had housed the Necrodome, for instance. He saw no other cars in the vicinity.

The chain link fence surrounding the property had razor wire on its top, but the gate on the drive stood open, its chain lock dangling. Mike parked some distance from the gate, refusing the ominous invitation. He loaded his gun with the remaining silver bullets Coreen and given him, pocketed a flashlight, and checked again that his cell phone had a signal. The rain was unrelenting, but he decided against the umbrella. He intended to do some sneaking around, and it would be too noticeable.

Turning his raincoat collar up, he picked his way around the exterior of the three-storey building. He saw no one, but on the lake side of the building a flickering light shone fuzzily on the top floor. All right, someone was here. Back at the car, mindful of the times his own unexpected arrival had saved Vicki's and Fitzroy's asses, Mike added his tire iron to his weaponry, peered once more around at the rainy night and started through the front gate.

The interior showed signs of vandalism and decay. The beam of Mike's flashlight showed gang graffiti and other murals on the peeling walls. The walls otherwise were intact—they'd been constructed of concrete block, not drywall and lumber. Tile and linoleum floors were cracked and in many places, missing. The place stank of something Mike couldn't and didn't care to identify. The staircase he would have to climb looked less than secure, wooden supports rotted and planks showing breaks and holes. He hunted around for some scrap lumber to carry with him to cover holes with, and found quite a few pieces of sturdy plywood. His hands were getting rather full, now, but he figured he could drop them all if he needed to.

He reached the top floor without incident, quiet and listening, flashlight off. He heard nothing but the muffled rain on the roof. He saw no light, but he knew which part of the building it had been in. He crept toward the only door on the lake side of the landing. Unlike other doors he'd passed, this one was of metal and was securely in place on industrial-strength hinges. Were it not that he knew there had to be a window beyond this door, he would have guessed it housed a proverbial padded cell, it looked so secure. The Annex had had many uses over the years, but at one time it had held the most violent and criminal of the insane.

Mike didn't expect to be able to open the door, but it swung silently out at his touch. Perhaps it needed electrical power to work. The room beyond was not padded, and was rather large. He shone the beam of his flashlight around the four walls, catching reflection from some kind of distorted window, and from of all things, a television monitor installed in the concrete wall, useless wires dangling. The room held nothing else. A recreation room at one time, perhaps? But where was the light coming from that he had seen? He set down his tire iron and one remaining large rectangle of plywood.

The window was actually a portion of the wall constructed using those glass bricks so popular mid-century for letting in light without allowing anyone to see in. That explained why the light had been so fuzzy looking. He supposed they were also effective for keeping criminally insane inmates from smashing a window. The television was decades old and useless, but built in so securely, it couldn't be stolen by vandals. Mike was vaguely surprised no one had at least smashed its face.

As Mike turned back toward the door, his flashlight beam fell on the piece of sturdy plywood he'd set against the wall. There, burned into one corner of it was a familiar symbol in a circle.

"Shit," he swore, forgetting he'd meant to be stealthy. He crossed the room to look at it. It was the same symbol that was at Kate's crime scene. The one Vicki said was Astaroth's name.

"Celluci," said a voice by the door. Mike just about jumped to the ceiling.

"Christ! Fitzroy!" he gasped, grasping his flashlight with two hands since he'd almost dropped it. The man in the doorway flinched away from the light in his face. Mike pulled the beam away. "You nearly scared me to death. Where's Vicki?" He wasn't entirely relieved to recognize the intruder. Meeting a vampire with a grudge against him in the dark in an abandoned building was the stuff of nightmares. And while he'd cautiously accepted that Fitzroy's motives and actions were not by nature evil, the spooky circumstances inflamed all his earlier suspicions.

"I thought she was with you," Fitzroy said. "Actually, I thought you might be her. What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here? Weren't you up here with a light before?"

"I just got here and heard you. Vicki called me and said to meet her here. Where is she?"

"She's not with me. She told me the same thing."

Behind Fitzroy, the door slammed shut. Fitzroy whirled to it and tried to open it. Mike joined him, and confirmed what he somehow knew would be the case. It wouldn't budge. Mike looked at the vampire, who looked back at him with an expression of dismay.

"Shit," Mike said. "It wasn't Vicki."

"Have faith in my vision? That's ridiculous. The guy was a nutjob, Coreen."

They were in Vicki's office. Neither Henry nor Mike could be reached. Besides phone messages, Vicki had also left a written note in Henry's place. His failure to call made her uneasy. Being made uneasy by a man not calling made her angry.

"I'm not so sure," Coreen said earnestly. "And I don't think Mike was sure either."

"We've got other things to work on." She indicated the files on her desk. "These are all the closed homicide cases in the last month where someone unlikely murdered someone else unpremeditated. I think Astaroth is using easily solved murders to hide the ritual slayings it needs to draw the pentagram and come through to our world. I don't know if a month is long enough; I don't know how long it's been going on. We need to find some pattern, so we know which ones count and which ones don't. Until we can draw the symbol on a map we won't know where the next sacrifice will take place."

The file on top of the stack was of the murder where Mike had noticed the symbol. As Vicki talked, Coreen slowly withdrew the blown up photo of the symbol and stared at it.

"Vicki," she said, eyes wide, "this symbol is on a brick on my hearth."

"What, are you sure?"

"Yeah, I noticed it tonight because it kind of looked like your tattoos. It's small though." Coreen looked down at the photo. "Right by the fireplace tools."

"But, your roommate's murder doesn't fit the pattern. That was some stranger off the street, right?"

"Yeah, but," Coreen nibbled on her lower lip, "if he hadn't killed her, someone else was going to. With the fireplace poker."

"Someone else? Not you."

Coreen looked away and then back, looking upset. "I can't explain it," she cried. "It was like being possessed. For real."

"Did you tell the police?"

"I told Mike. We were trying to reach you."

Vicki grabbed the phone and stabbed at the numbers. "Dammit, Mike, why don't you call me back?"

"Did you tell Mike your theory about the killings?" Coreen asked as Vicki clamped the phone handset to her ear trying to will Mike to answer.

"It was his idea," she replied, distracted. Two rings, three...

Coreen bounced a little. "But that's another thing the guy said. The killer. He told Mike that Mike had already figured it out."

Vicki stared at her, then slammed the phone down. "And you think this guy really knew something. I suppose he was cute."

"Hey!" cried Coreen. "He killed my friend. I don't care what he looked like." Vicki was about to apologize, when Coreen shrugged it off. "He was cute. But you should have been there and heard him. And you know what? I'd be under arrest for murder now if it weren't for him. He may have killed Renee but he saved me and that's the truth. So what am I supposed to think?"

Vicki didn't know. A lot of things were starting to come together for her, and she had the feeling that she didn't have much time. Both Henry and Mike being MIA didn't make her feel any calmer, either. "So according to this guy, I'm supposed to trust my vision."

"Have faith in your vision." That's what he said his message was. But he couldn't give it to you because any power that tried to take what it wanted from you would die. Because of those." She pointed at Vicki's wrists.

Vicki sank onto the couch. The incubus wanted sex. Henry wanted blood. "Oh my living God," she said. "But, what vision? My vision of world peace? My vision of me winning the lottery? Some dream? My failing eyesight?"

"I don't know," Coreen said, but Vicki was on her feet and whipping off her glasses.

"Wait. There's something I forgot to tell you."

Henry felt the door long enough to sense the magic in it and snatched his hands away in disgust.

"Don't you have super-sensitive hearing or something?" Celluci demanded. "Didn't you hear someone out there about to close the door?"

"There was no one there," Henry said. "There's no one else in this building." He looked around the room. Sturdy cinder-block construction on all walls. Floor of reinforced concrete.

Celluci had his cell phone out, so Henry tried his as well. No signal. By Celluci's irritated shaking of his phone, he had none either.

"You knocked a heavy door down back in that school for the gifted with practically your pinky," Celluci said. "I remember you were pretty pleased about it."

"Not this one," Henry said, keeping ahold of his temper. Celluci was only scared and it was no time for them to be at each others' throats. So to speak.

He heard Celluci take a deep calming breath. He'd figured out the same thing. He switched off his flashlight to save the batteries. Henry approved. "You'll be surprised how well your eyes adapt in a little time," he said.

"What the fuck is going on?" Celluci asked in a low, forcibly calm voice.

"Something's happening with Vicki's tattoos," Henry told him. "I assume it's Astaroth again."

Celluci was quiet for a moment then in almost a normal tone of voice, said, "I think he's been committing murders again. He's found a way to keep them off the radar screen. So are we the final sacrifice? I thought that was Vicki's gig."

"We may be bait for her."

"Or he keeps us locked up here so we can't help her."

Henry hadn't thought of that. His own heart beat faster with fear. They had to escape. He started a more thorough search of the room.

"So how long have I got?" Celluci asked.

"What do you mean?"

"How long until...I'm your dinner, vampire?"

Henry's angry retort died unsaid as he stood before the layers of glass bricks that served the place as a window. He regarded them with a horrible feeling in his stomach. They were as rigid as the masonry that held them. The room was utterly empty, nothing to block them with. "I wouldn't worry, Celluci," he said. "You've got longer than I do."

Tina was trapped and terrified. A few moments after starting Sense and Sensibility she was no longer in control of her body. She tried to call for help, to tell her mother, but she wasn't allowed. Only her dog knew. He barked and growled and ran and hid whenever Tina came near. Whatever controlled her made her go through enough motions to keep suspicion away from anyone but the dog.

And then it had other tasks for her, down by the waterfront.

"But that's so great!" Coreen cried. "It means. . ." Coreen paused.

"What does it mean?" Vicki asked, sarcasm in her tone.

"It means you can see without your glasses, right? And you can see in the dark?"

"I don't know," Vicki said. It had been pretty dark at Henry's place. He seldom bothered to turn many lights on.

"What do I look like?"

Vicki looked at her, really looked at her, without her glasses. She had been cringing away from using her un-aided sight but now she paid attention.

"I can't see your face. It's a blur of colors, like a wet watercolor. And you have a glow all around you that shimmers in color."

"Like an aura," Coreen enthused.

"Oh, God, I suppose so," Vicki said. Auras. Once upon a time, she'd been a hard-boiled skeptic. Now look at her. "But what about the things I can see? Things don't have auras."

"How do you know?" Coreen was practically bouncing. "How do we know anything? Maybe you just have to learn to read things."

Vicki put her glasses back on. "I don't have time to learn. That symbol on your hearth is Astaroth's name. That demon is trying to come through again. If I'd solved this a little sooner, your roommate might still be alive."

Coreen sobered, as Vicki had hoped. "I've got a bad feeling that pentagram is already finished and Astaroth is waiting for just the right moment to make his final sacrifice. I'm going to try to make sense out of these files to find out where the sacrifice will be, and I want you to use your google-fu to figure out when the sacrifice will be. Okay?"

Vicki poured over the files looking for anything to tell her which murders were demonic. Crime scene photos didn't record any more symbols. The crimes occurred all over the city, with a slightly higher concentration in the west, but only slightly. She tried placing all of the locations on a map of the city, but nothing resembling a pentagram resulted. The clock on her wall inched toward midnight, and she still hadn't heard from either Mike or Henry. Midnight. Would Astaroth try something at midnight? It seemed like a significant time. "The Witching Hour," the phrase came to her from somewhere.

Why didn't they call?

"Vicki, I think I've got something," Coreen said from the computer. "A black moon."

Vicki stood from her crouch over the table with the map, stretching her back. "What's a black moon?"

"You've heard of a blue moon?"

"Not very often."

"Well, it's a—oh, very funny. A blue moon is a full moon and a black moon is the same thing but with a new moon."

Vicki moved to her desk, where Coreen sat. "So, the second new moon in a calendar month is a black moon?"

"That's only one kind of black moon. The older meaning, the kind with real occult power is the fourth new moon in a season."

"A season? I don't get it."

"The time between an equinox and a solstice." Coreen grew more animated. "Calendars are invented by man. A season is a natural thing. Most seasons have three new moons, but every now and then there's a fourth one. That's what has real power, because why would a demon care about our calendar?"

Or our clock, Vicki thought. So maybe midnight didn't mean anything, either. She steeled herself. "When?"

Coreen swallowed. "Tomorrow."

I knew it!" Vicki cried. "So Astaroth has already completed his pentagram. He'll make the final sacrifice tomorrow night. We've got to figure out where."

In the upper room of the abandoned Annex, things were not going well. Mike huddled against the cold in his coat as Fitzroy pounded against the "glass" bricks with the tire iron Mike had brought. Whatever material they were really made of, it stood up to the vampire's increasingly desperate blows.

Mike's feelings were on a roller-coaster. It wasn't the first time he'd seen Fitzroy fearful of the death dawn would bring him. Since then, he'd seen with his own eyes Delphine Guillame suffer the incendiary death Fitzroy faced in a few hours. He felt almost as frightened as if it were his own life in danger.

Which might well be the case, too. Mike hated how he always seemed to be in the dark about what was going on. Were they sacrifices, bait, or just indefinite prisoners?

"If brawn isn't going to work, maybe we should try our brains," Mike said.

"Oh, you think that's your forté, do you?" Fitzroy replied.

Mike clenched his jaw. "Information exchange. What is it you know about Vicki's tattoos?"

Fitzroy stopped pounding and studied the bricks, running one be-ringed hand over the surface. "They chip, but they don't shatter," he said. "I might be able to chip through."

Mike came closer, to see for himself. It was true what Fitzroy had said: his eyes eventually showed him the dark room almost as clearly as if a bright moon shone in. He saw the chips and considered the hour. Dawn came late this time of year, but Fitzroy wouldn't chip his way through those in time. It was not certain to work even with a lot of time.

"Vicki's tattoos?" Mike asked again.

"None of your business," Fitzroy replied, surly. He threw down the tire iron.

"None of my business," Mike yelled. Great. That meant it had to do with sex. Or blood. Or both. "It looks to me like I'm stuck here, too. Everything is my business. Maybe if we can figure this out, we can find a way to save your life."

"How?" Fitzroy demanded with a dramatic gesture of both arms. Despite the cold his coat was off, his white sleeves rolled up above the elbow, flashing in the gloom like semaphore. "What are we going to figure out that will stop the sun from rising? Stop the Earth from turning on its axis as it's been doing for over four billion years? How is your brain going to miracle this?"

"Not a miracle, just get us out of here. No one closed the door, so unless it was remote controlled, and there's no electrical power to this building, the only other option is magic, right?"

"It was magic," Fitzroy said, still surly. "I can feel it in the door."

"All right. That's information. Does your spidey-sense tingle for any other magic in the room? How about this?" Mike pulled forward the piece of plywood, and pointed to the small symbol burned into it.

"I saw that," Fitzroy said defensively, and maybe he had, but something in his almost childish tone made Mike think he hadn't.

"Vicki thought this was the symbol of Astaroth's name."

"That's right."

"It showed up at the site of at least one recent murder. Any thoughts?"

"I suppose it means this was a site of one of the ritual murders."

"Or is going to be. Okay." Mike put the plywood back against the wall. "What is it about Vicki's tattoos?"

Fitzroy said nothing, and for a long moment all Mike heard was the rain.

"Emmanuel visited her again," he said, finally. "Her tattoos burned her and he went up in flames. Like I'm about to."

Whoa. Mike remembered the redness he'd seen on Vicki's wrists. Why hadn't she told him? He struggled with the intense wave of jealousy that rolled over him. At least Mike felt he had Fitzroy's attention now, even if the vampire did seem increasingly despairing. He told him about the kid who murdered Coreen's roommate.

As he listened, Fitzroy rolled down his sleeves and put his coat back on. "He said she was warded against 'powers'?" Fitzroy asked, sounding almost normal.

"Against any power taking what it wanted from her. So, have you drunk Vicki's blood since she got those tattoos? And don't tell me it's none of my business."

Fitzroy was silent, a weak image to Mike's sight, in his dark coat. "No," he said quietly.

"And you haven't tried," Mike said.

Fitzroy leaned against the wall where the glass bricks were, and slid slowly down to sit beneath them. "There are things I will regret not doing," he said.

Mike stifled his impatience.

Fitzroy tipped his head back and said, in his usual irritating tone, "You asked about magic in the room, Celluci. There's some in the television set, the door, that symbol, and, I'm sorry to say, on the floor."

"The floor?" Mike resisted the impulse to pick up his feet.

"If you look close, you'll see cracks in the concrete. They form the shape of a pentagram around the whole room."

Shit, shit, shit. "That's good," Mike said.

"Good?"

"It's the detective work I'm trying to get you to do. We were either bait, sacrifice, or else we were being kept here to keep us away from Vicki. Now we can rule the last one out."

"Probably not bait, either. Did I mention that I was Astaroth's choice for a final victim once a few centuries ago?"

"No," Mike said, matching the man's forcibly conversational tone. "But that might have been good information, too. Out of curiosity, how did you get out of it?"

"That option isn't available here, trust me. I'll be the sacrifice once the sun comes up."

Mike had been considering something. Now he hefted the rectangle of plywood and walked to stand beside the seated Fitzroy. He held the wood up: it covered the "glass" bricks with about an inch to spare on all sides. "No, by God, you won't."

Vicki called Mike's work number again. Mike had been on days and a cop's day shift started well before sunup. When she couldn't reach Mike, she called his new partner.

"Dave, this is Vicki Nelson. Can you get me Mike?"

"It's his day off, Vicki, sorry."

"I was afraid of that. Look Dave, we've never really had time to get to know one another..."

"I know."

"And there's no time now. I think Mike's in trouble. I need your help."

"In trouble where?"

"That's what I don't know. Can you have the guys be on the lookout for his car? I don't mean a national warrant, obviously, just in—house."

"Ms. Nelson, I don't think that's a good idea."

"What do you mean?"

"Look, whatever is between you and Mike is your business, but it's not any of mine."

"Didn't you hear me? I think he's in trouble."

"What kind of trouble?"

He's being used by a demon for a ritual sacrifice. "I can't explain right now."

"Uh huh. It's just that, you know, it's his day off. His two-day. And how he spends it isn't something I should be telling someone if he didn't tell them. It's not right."

"Dammit, Dave, this is not a lover's quarrel. You do know where he is. Would you rather have Mike PO'd at you or dead?"

"See, you should hear yourself. If Mike were really in that kind of danger, you'd tell me what it is and we'd be getting the whole force involved. I understand how you feel, really, but I'm not getting in the middle of this."

"Dave, listen to me. You're Mike's partner. You know he's been involved with some things with me that he can't tell you about. I know you know that. And you know me, by reputation at least. Give me the benefit of the doubt on this one, I'm begging you. Where is Mike?"

There was silence on the line for what seemed a very long time. "He left me a phone message last night. He said he was going fishing."

"Fishing?"

"Yeah, I've heard of it. It's something white guys do when they need to think."

"Not in the dead of winter."

"There's ice-fishing."

"Mike doesn't fish."

"Just maybe there are some things you don't know about him."

Vicki ground her teeth. "Answer me one thing. Does Mike usually call you to tell you what he's doing on his two-day?"

"Well, no, this is the first time, but..."

"Thanks loads for your help, Dave." She hung up.

The rain drummed more loudly on the roof of the Annex as Mike faced Fitzroy in the dark.

"You can't," Fitzroy said. "You think I didn't think of that? I can't help you, and you have no idea what it will involve."

"It's not heavy. Yeah, I'd love to have a table to set it on, but I don't, so I'll have to hold it up."

"All day. Every moment. Celluci, Mike, I appreciate what you're offering, but it's not a solution. You'll have to stand there, still, for hours, barely moving, with your arms up. An Olympic athlete would have trouble doing it. You can't."

"Maybe I won't have to all day. Maybe we'll be found. Someone might see our cars, my partner might come looking for me, Vicki might find us somehow. A vagrant—anything could happen."

"So someone finds us and somehow opens the door. Then I die. It's still daytime."

"I can't believe you're arguing with me about this. Have you got a better idea?"

He was sorry when he saw the hopeless look that put on Fitzroy's face. The man shook his head and turned away. Mike almost put a hand on his shoulder. It felt like this was killing him, too. "I'm sorry," he said gruffly. "But what else can we try?"

Vicki stared out her office window at the rain. Somewhere beyond the overcast the sun would come up in minutes. Henry hadn't called, and there was exactly nothing she could do about it. Was he safe home in that luxurious bed they'd shared? Or had she failed him? She fingered the cross he'd given her.

Maybe he was piqued with her for calling a panicked halt to their lovemaking, and that was why he didn't call her back, but she'd had Coreen call him, too. She glanced at Coreen, asleep at her desk. Coreen had been worried too, but exhaustion had taken her. She'd had a hell of a day.

Alone for the moment, she cautiously removed her glasses. The night before her transformed from dreary into dreamy. Raindrops, millions of them, sparkled darkly, each alone and together, making her head spin with their beauty. She had to look away. In her hand, Henry's cross glowed brightly. Very brightly. She gripped it hard and thought a small but earnest prayer for his safety. Couldn't hurt.

Forgetting to restore her glasses, she glanced at her worktable full of crime files. Their auras writhed with grief and violence. Some of them had a dark theme that she was abruptly very curious about. She went to the table, and withdrew those certain cases, slowly, bracing against the impressions of violence and death that came with looking at them. She compared them to the others, and these definitely felt—abominable.

"This is it," she yelled, waking Coreen with a start. "These are the ones."

"It's time," Fitzroy said.

They'd been sitting, not together, but not too far apart, against a wall. Mike got to his feet, lifted the plywood, and pressed it against the "glass."

Fitzroy positioned himself nearby, in front of the window, wrapping his long coat around himself. Mike assumed the coat was not sufficient protection, or Fitzroy would have said so.

"At least get away from the window," Mike said.

"No," the vampire said, quietly. There's nowhere safe, and I'd rather go quick."

Horror flooded Mike. He couldn't let this happen. He wouldn't. He gripped the wood harder, then relaxed. He had to save his strength. "I won't let you die," he said.

There was a long moment of silence, and Mike wondered if Fitzroy were unconscious.

"Celluci," came his voice.

"Yeah?"

Another long pause. "Nothing."

Then Mike was alone with the rain, the dark, a sleeping vampire, and his own demons.

The pattern of the murders didn't make a pentagram. Vicki couldn't believe it. She and Coreen tried everything. Every orientation, every pattern of connecting lines—they all led to too many places that couldn't fit into a pentagram. Vicki checked the files again and again. These were the ones that felt demonic when she looked at them with her glasses off. She was sure of it. And the problem wasn't an incomplete pentagram; there were too many murders, not too few. They double-checked every location, every address. Nothing. It was shaping up to be the worst day of Mike's life. After two hours he was aching, and after three he was in pain. Boredom mixed with fear ate at his mind, but worst of all was thirst. He noticed it suddenly, as if the damp and rain had somehow disguised it, but once he was aware of it, he couldn't push it away. He tried to distract himself from the thirst by thinking of the pain in his arms and back, but then he had to distract himself from the pain by thinking of the thirst. Both only got worse. Vicki threw her marking pencil across the room in frustration, where it bounced against the wall and into the wastebasket.

"This makes no sense," she cried. "The last time it was a pentagram."

"You said he was disguising what he was doing, this time," Coreen said. "Maybe there's a different symbol that will work."

"Get on that, would you?" Vicki said, gesturing at the computer. "If only I had that book of Henry's here. Did you reach Segara?"

"She's away at a conference. I emailed, but..." Coreen shrugged and sat down at the desk.

"Okay, that's it." Vicki found another pencil and picked up a yellow tablet of lined paper. "We're going back to old-fashioned detective work. I happen to have an eyewitness to one of the murders right here." Vicki sat down on the couch and crossed her legs. "I'm sorry to make you go through this again, but tell me everything about your roommate's murder. Include what you all had for breakfast, what she was wearing, everything that was in the room. Everything."

By noon, Mike was in Hell. He might as well be; Hell couldn't be any worse. So why not drop the planking, let Fitzroy die, and let Hell come through to Earth? He had that thought every minute of every hour. Followed by an injection of terror-laced adrenaline. No! The cycle of pain, thirst, despair and adrenaline blast was exhausting him. And on top of it all, incredibly, his body remembered how desperately it needed sleep. Doubt, that insidious serpent, was slithering into his soul. Maybe, just maybe, he couldn't do this. Damn Henry, anyway. Vicki paced while Coreen ate the Chinese food they'd had delivered. Coreen had insisted. Vicki couldn't think of eating but Coreen said she was famished. Between bites of Kung Pao chicken Coreen told Vicki everything she could think of. Vicki quizzed her, but Vicki had long since stopped writing anything down; her over-stimulated brain couldn't seem to focus on the notepad. She downed cups of coffee, which both kept her alert but worsened her concentration.

"Wait," Vicki said, interrupting Coreen. "You were watching a movie. What movie?"

"Edward Scissorhands."

No, that wasn't anything. But still, something nagged at her. "You know, I think the people in some of these other cases were watching TV, too."

Coreen swallowed some food. "Lots of people watch TV. And this was a movie."

Vicki rifled through the files. "That's what I meant," she said absently. "Tape or DVD?"

"DVD."

"Here's one. Guy shot his ex-wife. He and his little boy were watching a rented movie when she came to pick up the son. Do you own Edward Scissorhands?"

Coreen's eyes grew wide. "Renee rented it. What movie were they watching?"

"It doesn't say. Here's another one. Woman killed her neighbor while watching some rented movie. And here's another one!"

"But not all of them," Coreen said. "I read some of them."

"Cops might not have put it in the report. It wouldn't seem important, and they didn't know they were looking at a serial killer." Vicki snapped her fingers. "That symbol of Astaroth's name was on an entertainment center at one of the scenes. Your hearth. How close is it to the TV?"

"Pretty close, but it's really close to the fireplace tools."

"Where did she rent the movie from?"

"I don't know. Maybe the Video Tyme at the Student Union."

"Coreen, we have to get that DVD."

Mike was existing on will alone. Despite the cold, he was slick with sweat. No part of him didn't hurt. His muscles had long since gone past shaking and were now just globs of jelly that he kept pressed to the plywood with naked determination. His world had shrunk to a mantra he'd read in a survival manual. Feed the will, starve the imagination.

Coreen's townhouse was eerily quiet in the late afternoon, but the wet umbrellas in the stand said there were probably people home. Vicki hoped not to encounter Coreen's other roommates or any mourners. They didn't have time for condolences.

There was some crime scene tape discreetly placed around the living room, but there had been no need to cordon off the house and no manpower for a guard. They had the murderer, after all, Vicki thought. What's left was for the lawyers.

Speaking in hushed tones, Coreen found the plastic bag with Edward Scissorhands and two other DVDs in it, and gave it to Vicki. The bag was from a large chain of many video stores, and Vicki's heart sank, but the receipt in the bag gave the address.

"Let me go change," Coreen said.

"Be quick," Vicki replied.

While Coreen was gone, she studied the room, trying to take in everything. The rainy day made the room too dark for her impaired vision, and she had to turn on lights. There was the small symbol of Astaroth's name, burned into a brick. She turned her attention to Edward Scissorhands, and removed her glasses. Nothing. She opened the case. It was empty. The DVD must still be in the machine.

Behind her, the grey day darkened as the hidden sun set. First donning a latex glove she kept with her, Vicki pushed the power button.

Henry woke in a strange place, cold, hard, but not confined. Around him he sensed magic—evil magic—and he smelled terror, exhaustion, Celluci. A second later he knew where he was and a second after that he was overjoyed to be alive.

"You're—awake?" Celluci croaked, suffering in his voice. "Does that mean...?"

"The sun's set. Yes. Mike, you did it!"

Celluci collapsed to the floor with a quiet groan, not stopping his fall, heedless of the plywood that fell on top of him.

Without thinking, Henry moved toward him. From somewhere in his coat Celluci produced his gun and held it in two palsied hands, still lying on his side. "Stay back," he rasped.

Henry halted, startled. Given Celluci's condition, Henry could easily take the weapon from him before the detective could squeeze the trigger, but dominating the man who had saved his life at no small cost hardly seemed right. What had happened to bring this on?

Henry put his hands at shoulder height. He studied the other man, senses alert, hearing his frantic heartbeat and smelling his perspiration. Celluci was hurting, badly.

"I bet—this would kill you—if I shot you in the head," Celluci said. His hands shook the gun so badly, Henry doubted he could hit his head, even at this range. Henry's initial impulse had been to embrace his fellow captive and savior, even though it was the irritating and once traitorous detective, and see if he could help him. Clearly this would not be welcome.

"I bet you're right," Henry said quietly. "Mike, you're not going to save my life and then shoot me, are you?"

The shaking gun shivered out of Celluci's grasp. "No. Just—leave me alone."

"All right." Henry sat down against the wall across from the window that should have meant his execution. He said nothing, watching Celluci as he trembled and gasped with cramping, tortured muscles. For his own part, relief at being alive still had him giddy, and he longed to help. He was really good at massage. He forced himself to think about what Celluci had been through, and came to a tentative guess at the source of the detective's hostility. He was going to have to squash the remnant of his pride and dislike for the man.

"Mike," he said. "I can only imagine what today must have been like for you. I didn't think you could do it, and I'm more grateful than I can say. I didn't have the grace to thank you before dawn, but let me say it now. Thank you."

"Didn't do it for you," Celluci said.

For some reason, that hurt. "I know. To prevent the sacrifice." And he did know that. But it still hurt. "Thank you anyway."

"Can't do it again," Celluci said. "Not without sleep and water." Henry heard agony in the final word.

Water! Henry was thirsty, himself, and his own need for water was minor compared to that of the living. He'd forgotten how Mike would be tormented by thirst. Stifling an oath—now was no time to be racking up sins—Henry got to his feet.

Vicki pressed "eject" and the little drawer glided open to present her with the disc. She took it in her gloved hand and frowned at it. This was Edward Scissorhands? The silver plate had a label on it, but the only printing was in a red font with unreadable symbols. Symbols?! Vicki whipped off her glasses. "Oh my God," she said.

"What?" Coreen asked, at her elbow. She was dressed in an all new outfit of black and purple, with straps on the arms that looked like veins in some insect's wings.

Vicki startled. She should have been more aware. Fatigue was wearing her down. "This is the disk you were watching," she said. "Don't touch. And I can read it."

"You can read that?" Coreen breathed. "What does it say?"

"'Control, kill, open, escape.' Something like that."

"What about those?" Coreen pointed at Vicki's wrists. "Can you read those?"

Vicki couldn't believe she hadn't thought of trying this vision of hers on her wrists. She looked now. "No trespassing," she said. "Violators will be prosecuted."

As Mike's body recovered, he had more energy for thought and some of his usual sanity returned. He thought he'd been out of his mind for most of the afternoon, and he didn't care to ever go there again. His thinking was still numb and shocky, but he could move his limbs again. Weakly. But he was thirsty beyond belief.

Henry had taken his tire iron and moved to a corner of the room. He pressed the side of his head against the corner, then withdrew and nodded.

"What are you doing?" Mike asked. He pushed the plywood off of himself, but decided against trying to sit up just yet.

"This is the corner of the building," Henry said. "This kind of construction usually has interior drainpipes. I can hear the rainwater in here."

"But those are cement blocks," Mike said, though hope grew in his chest.

"Not in the joints where the pipes go," Henry said. "They had to be able to reach them. This corner is drywall." He took aim and delivered three powerful blows with the tire iron to the corner. Sure enough, the drywall material crumbled. Henry had opened a half meter high hole in the wall. Mike began gathering his strength to move to the corner without falling and embarrassing himself. Henry didn't look at him. He peered into the hole. "There's the drainpipe," he said, sounding pleased with himself.

Hope went a long way toward restoring Mike's mobility. Supporting himself against the wall, he limped to the corner and sat gracelessly down on the other side of the hole. "How do you know so much about construction?" he asked.

Henry grinned at him. "You have to know these things when you're a king, you know," he said, and peered back into the hole. "But there's a problem."

Mike had just begun to work on the problem of whether or not the 488 year old bastard son of Henry VIII had just quoted Monty Python to him. Now what?

"I can't reach it," Henry said with dismay. "This joint is full of rebar and iron conduit reinforcements." He poked the tire iron in experimentally, but withdrew quickly. He leaned back against the wall, sagging.

Mike took out his flashlight and lit the hole so he could see. Henry squeezed his eyes shut against the light. Mike's own eyes took a long moment to adjust, but then he clearly saw the maze of obstacles between them and the aluminum drainpipe. If broken, the pipe would bend and fit, but no hand could contort that way.

Disappointment brought back Mike's exhaustion. He flicked the flashlight off and sagged against the other wall.

"I'll get it," Henry said quietly.

"How?"

Henry sighed. "I'll break my arm."

Coreen pulled Vicki's car into the videostore parking lot between a highly chromed motorcycle and a minivan. Vicki made a beeline into the store, leaving Coreen behind because her assistant tarried to admire the motorcycle.

"Your manager?" she asked the young man behind the counter. The employee gestured with his thumb to an older young man Vicki would still have classed as a "kid," but who did look managerial.

"Can I help you?" he asked.

"Yes, Tim," Vicki said, reading his name badge, "My name is Vicki Nelson and I'm assisting the police in a homicide investigation. These DVDs were rented by a young woman who was murdered yesterday." Was it yesterday? That was right. Time was going by too fast. The sun was already down and it was the night of Coreen's "black moon." Vicki had no time to waste. "This one," she opened the case and showed him the disk, "is not Edward Scissorhands. Have you seen a disk like this before?"

"Uh, yeah I have," he said. "One of my employees found one or two of those. Why? What is it?"

"Who found them?" she asked, glancing over at the other young man, who was now in deep conversation with Coreen. "I need to talk to him."

"It's a her," he said. "But, did you say—are you with the police?"

How Vicki longed to have a badge to flash. Or Henry's mojo. "No, I'm a Private Investigator assisting the police. It's a homicide investigation. This is very important." She couldn't just rough him up. He wasn't a recalcitrant bartender and he had every right to be protective of his people. She took off her glasses and glanced around the now oddly colored store, looking for employees.

"Well, I'm sorry, but—"

"I know, I know," she said. "Tell me this, then." She took out the city map that had the locations of the murders and the victim's name at every site. "Are any of these people customers of yours?"

"Look," said Tim. "I can't tell you that, either. I'm really sorry about the murder, but I don't know who you are. I'll be happy to talk to the police." He reached for the bag of DVDs. "I'll take those, though."

Clenching her jaw, Vicki snatched Edward Scissorhands from him, removed the disk and snapped it in two. "Hey!" Tim complained.

Vicki's gaze fell on the map. If Tim had anything else to say, she didn't hear it. With her glasses off, the map showed connecting lines between the murder sites, in a creepy black. The symbol was clear—the name of Astaroth. And the final stroke needed an endpoint in the warehouse district, on the waterfront.

Tina watched, helpless, as the thing controlling her took her yet again to the waterfront. She couldn't drive, and this thing didn't either, but it made her take her bike and load it on the front of a city bus, then ride the bus to the nearest stop to that old building and take her bike from there. Tina never rode her bike, it made her feel like a little kid, and she would never go in the warehouse district at night. She was terrified.

She was doing magic, she was pretty sure. It gave her no thrill; in fact, it made her feel sick. Every time she did something at the old building-chipped a pentagram into a floor, placed her Harry Potter wand by a door, inserted the creepy DVD into her Discman which then played on that old dead TV, even from outside the building—every time, she felt like something in her was dying. Like she was a tree with more and more dead branches. She was trapped in a nightmare. Her family and school seemed more and more distant, her expectations for her future faded. Fanfiction and praise were ludicrously insignificant. She was losing her soul.

The wheels of her bike slid in the mud and the remains of ice on the long grade down to the lake. She was cold and wet. Whatever controlled her took no care with such things as coats or umbrellas. She had only her backpack with the Discman DVD player and the disk that should have been Sense and Sensibility. The rain and darkness were so thick, she could hardly even see where this thing was taking her, but she knew she was returning to that old abandoned building. She had no idea why.

Mike watched, aghast, as Henry studied the angle necessary inside the joint, glancing at each arm and positioning himself experimentally, looking for the right placement of the break in his arm as if he were preparing his tools for a bit of carpentry. Part of Mike wanted to say, "Wait, you don't need to do this," but he couldn't. Dehydration had given him a headache to rival any migraine, and without the water his body needed, his recovery from the day's rigors had halted. He was still weak and in pain, and they both needed all the strength they could manage if they were to fight off whatever the demon had in store. He just didn't know if he could watch this.

But he couldn't look away as Henry braced his right forearm between the floor and the wall, palm up and limp, as if his bone were a piece of lumber. Henry raised his gaze to Mike's, dispelling the sense of alienness Mike had felt watching these preparations. The look in Henry's eyes was very human. Apprehension and resigned determination. But definitely some fear. "I've done it before," Henry said as if to reassure Mike.

Mike nodded. Henry raised his left arm, the heel of his palm forward, fingers curled, reminiscent of a martial arts striking position, took a breath and—halted. He repositioned his arm minutely and set his jaw. A second time he started to deliver the blow but stopped. He didn't look at Mike. This was about working up his courage, Mike could see that. The tightness in his chest reminded Mike he had to breathe.

The third time, Henry's hand came down too fast for Mike to see, but he heard the appalling crack that resulted. Henry cried out and curled protectively around the arm, making no attempt to be stoic about his agony. He lay with one cheek on the concrete floor, his cries lessening as he conquered the pain. Mike was frozen with horror. Even Henry's approach to pain had a look of familiarity and plan. What did a guy have to go through to make breaking a bone a commonplace tactic?

Henry sat up, his features slack, mouth slightly open, and leaned back against the wall. He held his broken arm in his lap. The fracture was compound, Mike saw. Henry didn't seem to bleed as much as Mike would expect, but the white of his bone showed through torn skin. "Christ Almighty," Mike breathed.

Henry glanced at him and slid closer to the gash in the drywall. He leaned forward, the better to move his arm into place without actually using it. He used his good arm to lift the broken one through the hole, but then was forced by lack of space to take his good arm out. Mike saw his whole face tighten with pain as he moved his broken arm under its own power within the small space.

The attempt didn't appear to work at first. Henry's gasps and tiny sobs spoke of the difficulty he was having. Mike had broken his arm once as a child, and he remembered now how hard it had been to grasp with his hand. Maybe it was different for a vampire, but, watching Henry's struggle, he doubted it. He felt growing dread that Henry couldn't do this.

Then came the groan of rending metal, quickly silenced as Henry jerked slightly. He dropped his head forward and squirmed. The sound returned; aluminum bending and breaking. He lifted his head and Mike saw the gleam of fangs. His face contorted with pain and effort, interrupted by repeatedly losing his grip and having to recover it, Henry worked the dingy grey drainpipe out into the room.

Dingy grey, and dripping. Mike worked his throat in what would have been a swallow had he had any saliva. As he moved toward the pipe, it gurgled and surged as rainwater found its new route through the twisted metal. Water flowed as if from a tap and Mike seized the pipe, leaned down and drank.

The second Vicki and Coreen were out the door of the videostore, before Vicki could even put up her umbrella, they both spoke at once.

"I can see the symbol. I know where the final murder will be—"

"Her name is Tina Lemke. She's been acting really strange—"

The rain poured on them. Thunder rumbled.

"What?"

"What?"

"Let's get in the car!"

They scrambled into the car where the rain was only a noisy curtain insulating them from the rest of the world. "Take me here," Vicki said, placing her finger, not based on accessible streets, but where the name of Astaroth should end. "No, here," she said, backing her finger up to the nearest busy street to that area. She didn't want Coreen with her all the way.

"You know what the symbol is?" Coreen asked, starting the car. "How?"

"I looked at it without my glasses. It's Astaroth's name. Damn, that should have been obvious. How did you learn the girl's name?"

"I chatted with Antonio. It's his Harley out front. Nice ride. Didn't you ever look at it without your glasses before?"

"Hey, I needed to see the map. Like now." She turned on the car's interior light and read street names. "Turn left. What else did the good Antonio tell you?"

"She's sixteen, about five foot two and 135 pounds. Thick dark hair with a bleached skunk stripe and tongue and lip piercings. Turn here?"

"No, head for the waterfront."

"She finds these weird DVDs in the cases sometimes. Antonio has seen her open them, see the DVD and then close it up and let the customer walk out with it. He never finds them, just her."

"And then someone at that house gets killed, I betcha. Hey, watch it! Don't hit anyone. And don't get a ticket, we don't have time."

"Mike could fix it for me, though, right?"

"Not if he's not alive."

They both fell silent.

"Okay, stop here."

"Here? But—"

"Yeah, here!"

Vicki folded up the map, and opened her bag. She checked her baton and her cell phone, and she put her glasses away. She couldn't see in this darkness anyway, she might as well try navigating with this other sight of hers. In her bag, Henry's cross was glowing brightly. She took it out. She hadn't noticed before that it was on a cord with wooden beads. A rosary. Each bead for a prayer, but that was the extent of what she knew about rosaries. It felt warm and beckoning, and smitten with a sudden attack of sentimentality—who knew if Henry were even still alive—she put it around her neck. She took out the cash she'd been paid just the other day, though it seemed like a year ago, and handed most of it to Coreen. "Here's your back pay," she said.

"What?" Coreen cried. "Why are you giving me this?"

"Because you earned it, of course. You don't want your pay?"

"Why are you giving it to me now? Vicki!"

"Because I have it, that's why. You can thank Mike, that manipulative bastard, once I rescue his ass. Coreen, I need you back at the office. If I don't find Henry or Mike I'll call a cab. I want you where you can research things for me."

Coreen's face, completely indistinct to Vicki without her glasses, was a mournful blur of melting makeup. Vicki was pretty sure she was crying, on the inside if not on the outside.

"Oh, come on," Vicki said and popped her umbrella as she opened the door. "It's not like that." She hopped out of the car and slammed the door. Thunder boomed, closer now.

At least I really hope it's not.

Tina reached the outside of that abandoned building. She was soaked to the skin and shivering. The temperature had teetered on the edge of freezing all day. Lightning flashed over an angry Lake Ontario, blinding her. Not that it mattered. She was only a puppet, responding to her strings.

She stopped her bike, took off her backpack and removed her Discman, despite the pouring rain. Inside she was wailing. She was about to do some magic; she just knew it. She would die a little more. But there was nothing she could do. She opened Sense and Sensibility and popped the disk into her little machine.

When Mike took a rest from drinking, Henry gripped the drainpipe and bent to take a few swallows of his own. Water was pooling on the floor. Henry sighed. Yet another thing to worry about. It wasn't good for Mike to get wet; he was probably on the verge of hypothermia as it was. The agony from his arm was wearing on him. Additionally, the feeling of evil magic in the room was growing stronger, making him feel almost physically sick. He had to concentrate. Where was their greatest danger from, and what could he do about it? He tried to think while Mike drank again.

Finally Mike leaned back from the drainpipe like a man pushing himself away from a feast, already looking healthier to Henry's senses. Mike picked himself up out of the water and moved away from it. He was moving better, too. Henry was pleased. Now he needed to get himself in better shape. Thank God he had fed so well the evening before—he had to swerve his thoughts away from Vicki—but his arm would have to be dealt with. Healing it would soak up any excess benefit from his feeding. And first he'd have to set the bone.

He looked up, surprised to see Mike seating himself on the floor before him, on his right side, facing Henry across the resting arm. "You want me to set it?" he asked, his voice recovering its usual timber.

"I can do it," Henry said.

"Sure, but who wants to set their own broken bone?" Mike held out his hand, now steady. "I can do it."

"It's growing worse in here," Henry said. "The evil. Can you feel it? The demon hasn't given up."

Mike nodded. "Give me your arm," he said. "We've got to be ready. I've been thinking. If you were supposed to be the sacrifice at dawn, then the demon needs a plan B."

Henry held out his arm and let Mike take it. He hoped whatever medical training Mike had had was good enough. Maybe he should have insisted he do it himself, but he had such a weakness for human contact. Sometimes any human contact. "Do you want us to be ready or do you just want an excuse to hurt me?" he asked.

Mike smiled faintly, probing gently around the break. "Why can't it be both?" he replied. He gave Henry a serious look. "On three."

Henry's arm trembled minutely in Mike's grip and Henry had to force it to steady. He almost braced his good arm on Mike's shoulder, but thought better of it and braced against the floor. "One, two, three." Mike's pressure was sure and strong. Henry cried out and bent forward, pulling his arm to himself. He'd never absorbed the modern idea that there was something shameful about showing pain. Sometimes yelling helped.

The set was good. "Thanks," he gasped.

As Mike flinched away he gave a snort. "Any time," he said. He bent down to drink again, still showing some stiffness.

Warmth suffused Henry's arm as precious blood and life-force rushed to the area. Henry took a deep breath as the pain started to fade. "I've been thinking, too," Henry said.

"Do tell," Mike said between swallows.

"About your kid. The murderer. Do you know what Hell is?"

"After today I do," Mike muttered. Then he looked up at Henry, shrugging. "I know what they taught me in Sunday School. Hell is the pain of separation from God."

Henry nodded. "And physical torment, as well as the spiritual. Demons want to come to this plane for a lot of reasons, but one of them is to lessen their pain. If your kid were a demon, why would he say it's painful for him to be here?"

Mike shook his head. "I don't know. If he's not a demon—who would find earth painful?"

"Exactly," Henry said. "Do you know what 'messenger' is in ancient Greek?"

"I suppose you're going to tell me."

"Angelos. Angel."

Against whatever was left of her will, Tina pressed "play" on her Discman. Lightning outside flashed on the interior wall, lighting the TV screen behind Mike. Henry saw it, though Mike couldn't.

"Well, that's just great, then," Mike said. "Because our angel friend is locked up in The Don, and completely inaccessible until he gets a court date. Because he murdered someone. How very angelic."

Now it wasn't lightning. The TV was on, showing static. Henry leaped to his feet. At his action, Mike whirled around.

"It's not possible," Mike said. The broken wires from the TV set were still clearly visible, one black, one red.

Thunder, but not thunder; sound on a sub-sonic or sub-ether level roared in the air. A wind with no source whipped around the room. At their feet, in the center of the room, the concrete floor where the water was pooling lost its form and became a swirl of darkness. Both men backed away, but it grew.

Grasping at anything, Henry yelled, "Water. Pour running water on it. It insulates against magic."

Grabbing the drainpipe, Mike yelled back, "That might have been good information to have."

"I don't know that it will help. The pentagram is engraved; we can't rub it out."

The TV screen flickered and settled, to Henry's amazement, into a cheerful daylight summer scene with Emma Thompson's face. "Sense and Sensibility" appeared on the screen, along with a DVD menu. And suddenly, horribly, Henry was overpowered by all the fury he had ever had with Mike Celluci. All the jealousy, the betrayals, the insults. Celluci had to die.

With his last shred of willpower, he yelled, "Mike, shoot me!"

Vicki was faced with an unexpected problem. She stood on the lake side of the street, facing toward the warehouse district, unable to see. Not because of the darkness, but because of the beauty of the raindrops. More than drops, they were curtains of shimmering color, more stunning than any northern lights, but draping in a similar way. She was vaguely aware of other shapes in the lights, but the sparkling rain made it hard to see them. Then a lightning flash over the lake, glorious, transcendent and otherworldly almost knocked her to her knees. How—how could she have lived her life unaware of this? And how could she see past it to what she needed to see?

"That's enough," she yelled into the rain. "I don't care." Which wasn't really true. Part of her was so enthralled by this vision of beauty she only wanted to lose herself in the light.

But that part wasn't the real Vicki Nelson. The real Vicki Nelson was not impressed with things that weren't useful in the Real World. And the two most important people in the real Vicki Nelson's world were out there, somewhere, in danger. She just knew it. Irritably, she refused the siren song of Nirvana and concentrated. After a moment, she began to see the outlines of things in the rain. The chain link fence that cordoned off the industrial yard—she saw where the break in it was, though it was far enough down that she wouldn't have normally seen it even on a bright day with good eyes. This other vision of hers operated on different rules. She collapsed her umbrella and started to jog, the pretty rain sliding down her neck.

She found herself sliding on mud and ice as she hit a grade. She was learning to see through the rain, and ignore the heavenly vision of lightning bolts. Before her she saw shapes of the warehouses on the waterfront, and she slowed. How was she to figure out where to go? The symbol on the map was large; all she knew was a general area.

She headed for the water's edge. If she were signing her name on geography, she reasoned, she'd consider the shoreline to be the edge of the paper.

She was learning fast how to use her funny glowy vision to get around. The rain was still a distraction, but beyond it, most good-sized obstacles had their own holiday lights winking at her. She almost couldn't believe she was jogging, in the dark, without her glasses, but it seemed to be working. If only she knew what she was looking for.

If the warehouses in the area had had any workers earlier, they were now either inside sheltering from the rain, or warm in their homes. She saw no one in the area.

Except, over there. Who was that? Someone else was standing in the rain, alone. Vicki saw a human aura, but with a black stain in it. A black stain? How very promising. Vicki gripped Henry's cross, which had been bouncing on her chest as she jogged, and headed toward the person.

Whoever it was, saw Vicki and fled. Also promising. With a cautious glance at the terrain, since she had to perceive it so differently now, Vicki broke into a run. Her quarry was on a bike, she realized. A child? For a moment she doubted her course, but the writhing black in the person's aura reassured her. Child or not, this was someone she needed to talk to. She ran faster. It would take an experienced mountain biker to make good progress in these conditions on a bike, and Vicki, on foot, closed the distance easily.

"Hey," she yelled through the storm. "I want to talk to you."

The person dropped the bike and started running uphill, toward the road, and Vicki had to run faster, but, with both of them scrambling in the mud, Vicki managed to grab hold of an arm. "Let go of me," cried a girl's voice.

A girl? "Tina? Tina Lemke?"

At the sound of the name, the colors not obscured in her aura by the black stain flashed and brightened. Vicki grabbed the struggling girl in an arm-lock, her face on the ground. "Who are you?" Vicki demanded. "What have you done?"

"You're too late," the girl said. "You can't stop the sacrifice now."

Mike had no time to reach his gun. Henry was on him too fast. For a second time he felt the vampire's teeth tearing into his throat, seeking his jugular, demanding, robbing. Not again, he had time to think, before some arcane outside control clamped over his thoughts, like before, eliminating his own consciousness.

But then awareness returned. He tried to struggle, but was immobilized in the vampire's grip. With awareness he felt the pain of Henry's teeth in his neck, the frantic beating of his own heart, the swift draining of his life. But he could think, and that was new. Whatever vampiric control Henry had reflexively hit him with, he had withdrawn it. Henry was fighting, too.

But not winning, he realized, as his arms and legs began to tingle from blood loss. He had to reach his gun. And wounding a demon-possessed vampire wouldn't be sufficient to stop him; he'd have to kill him. A shot to the head, or possibly the heart—Mike found his gun. The demon had won. One of them would be the final sacrifice tonight. It's either Henry or me.

Vicki's panic peaked and she shook her captive. "Where are they? What have you done?" She couldn't see the girl's face but she could see the growing cloud of black. The brightness of Henry's cross made an eerie contrast to it, and, on impulse, Vicki took it off and hung it on Tina's neck. The black turned grey, and Tina went limp in Vicki's grasp.

Vicki shook her again. "Talk to me! Where are they?" The colors in the girl's aura froze like a video with a stuck tape. Tina didn't speak. Vicki suspected she couldn't.

"Damn!" Vicki released her, and as she'd half expected, Tina didn't move, though she did begin to shiver. Vicki pulled her phone from a pocket.

"Coreen, I've found Tina but she's—possessed or something. I can't make her talk. How do I un-possess her?"

"Wha—possessed?" Coreen's tinny voice was broken on the cell connection. "Vicki, you're talking about an exorcism. You're not in any position to do that."

"Well, what do I do with her? You said you felt like you were possessed when Renee got killed. How did you get out of it?"

"I don't know! It was the DVD. I just snapped out of it when it was over. Where are you?"

"Out in the rain. That's about all I know."

"One thing, though," Coreen said. "It wasn't a full possession, because I was still there, underneath. Do you think Tina's still there?"

A particularly loud thunderclap made Vicki wince. "I can see her aura underneath," she said.

"Then maybe it's just a surface thing! Maybe she would snap out of it if you just remove whatever's doing it."

"Like what?"

"I don't know. It's not like you're near a DVD player. Something on her."

"Just a sec." Vicki dropped the phone in the mud and snatched the girl's backpack. She hadn't noticed things on the girl before, other than her bicycle, but now she saw the pack and it almost looked like—the second she had it open, she saw the cloud of black. Her vision couldn't actually resolve what was in there, so she reached in. She found only one item, a device. A machine. A disk player.

Vicki ripped the player open and pulled out the disk so violently that she broke it in half.

Through the thunder and the rain, Vicki heard Tina start to cry.

Desperate, Henry struggled, but he couldn't stop. This wasn't hunger, and the anger was counterfeit, dredged up, based in old grudges he wasn't nursing tonight. This wasn't him. Still, he drained Mike's blood like he'd been starved for weeks. The evil roared around them, triumphant, almost free, a whirlpool of sewage ready to spew forth. No, no!

So much of Henry's life he'd tried to stay clear of the evil so easily accessible to one of his kind, stay clear of the magic which tainted the soul, continue his existence in a manner that allowed him to still hope for salvation, and now he'd be the agent that brought Hell to earth.

He felt Mike move against him, groping for his gun. Henry wouldn't try to stop him. Maybe there was still some hope.

Mike fired the gun—four shots—something snapped and Henry was abruptly free. Mike became a dead weight in his arms. The triumphant howl of the demon turned furious, echoing against the walls and then fading, as Henry, hunkered against the windstorm, shielding Mike's body, tried to figure out if he'd been shot.

Mike opened his eyes, slowly, reluctantly. He was in the same hated room, on his back, with Henry's long coat over him. Henry had a hand pillowing Mike's head and another hand pressing on his chest. Mike's feet were elevated, resting on the small lip of the plywood board as it leaned against the wall. Henry looked down at him with a worried expression.

Mike's neck hurt, distantly, and his other pains also seemed detached. He floated, weak and dazed, but he had to speak. "You. Bit me. Again," he said.

Henry's worried expression shifted through guilt, apology and irritation. It settled on confusion. "You didn't shoot me?"

"Not. The point. Sacrifice," Mike said faintly.

"You shot the TV set?"

"And," Mike said, "the—thing. Did it work?"

"Something did. How could your gun affect a demon?"

"Demon penicillin. She said. Silver bullets."

"You had silver bullets? That might have been useful information to have."

"Tough. Shit."

Henry smiled, but the smile had a strange poignancy to it. Henry's eyes held a fearful, defeated look. He looked exhausted. Though, Mike thought irritably, he should be in the peak of health after stealing all Mike's blood.

"What's wrong?"

Henry looked away. "The demon wanted me to kill you." He looked back, at Mike. "I—Mike, I may have done it. I drank too much."

Mike felt like shit but he was clearly alive. He frowned. "What do you mean?"

Henry nodded toward the hand he held pressed against Mike's chest. "I'm keeping your heart beating. I didn't break our connection. If I had, your heart would have stopped. You don't have enough blood to live."

Mike looked at Henry's hand. "Blood—comes back." It was still hard for him to speak.

Henry took in a shuddering breath. "I'll do this as long as I can," he glanced at the window, "but it may not be long enough." He almost looked like he was fighting tears. "Celluci, if I've killed you—I'm truly sorry."

"You're sorry?" Mike said, horrified. Silence was heavy in the room. Henry turned his face to where Mike couldn't see it. Damn! Mike didn't want to die. His life 'til now—had he done what he'd meant to? Was he finished? No! Dammit. He wanted kids, he wanted—his thoughts swirled frantically around things he'd never really thought about before.

Damn Henry anyway! He paused his thoughts there. He knew it wasn't Henry's fault. And Henry was keeping him alive, but...

"You'll die, too," he said.

Henry nodded and glanced back at him. "You'll have that satisfaction," he said in his old, superior tone.

"Noo. The demon wins."

"I don't think so." Henry shook his head and looked around at their prison. "Something's changed. Some deadline is passed, some spell is broken."

"The door?"

"Not that spell."

"Go figure."

Vicki called Coreen to come back and take the hysterical Tina in hand. It turned out Coreen hadn't gone back to the office at all and was only five minutes away.

"I needed you for research," Vicki scolded when Coreen found them.

Coreen draped a raincoat over the shivering, weeping Tina. "Like we had time for me to Google how to do an exorcism," she said.

"What about all the stuff you told me?"

"I was making it up. Couldn't you tell? Come on, Tina, we've got a nice warm car at the top of the hill." She guided the girl ahead of her and looked back over her shoulder. "Go find the guys."

Mike was feeling stronger, but he didn't have the strength to spend on grief over his own likely death, so instead he moved into a place of ironic acceptance. Funny how things turn out.

"So after all that," he said, "we beat the demon and now we wait for death."

Henry gave him an irritated look. Henry was clearly not in an accepting emotional state. Stress and dread were written on the vampire's face in big letters.

"I'm not letting you die," Henry vowed.

"Didn't think you would. Strange denouement, though."

"I've never liked you, Celluci," Henry said, though the insult was weakened by his attempt at a smile.

"Feeling's mutual. Really pissed if you've killed me." Mike tried to lighten his own words, but he wasn't sure it came out right. He found, to his surprise, that he didn't blame Henry and he hoped Henry knew that. "In that whole house full of people—I hope you notice—that jealousy demon went straight for you. Not me."

"I did notice," Henry said with a quizzical look.

"Hah. Just so you know. I'm not the jealous one."

"You're very talkative," Henry said speculatively. "How do you feel?"

"Really, really bad."

"Uh huh." Henry frowned in concentration at his hand on Mike's chest. Mike knew what he was going to try and he found himself trying to will his heart to beat. He locked gazes with Henry and Henry removed his hand.

Mike flushed and his vision greyed. He opened his mouth to pant. His heart faltered and beat, faltered and beat. Then it caught its familiar rhythm and beat regularly.

In a flurry of movement, Henry hurled himself back from Mike and threw his hands over his face. Then he pulled them down and tipped his head back as if he were suddenly breathing free air. "You. Are going to live," he said.

But Mike wasn't sure he was going to stay conscious. "Yay," he said through numb lips. "But—you..."

"At least I won't have you on my conscience," Henry said, and his huge grin looked genuinely rejoicing. As Mike faded out of consciousness he thought, That's the last time I'll see him. Vampire.

Vicki set out as fast as she dared. Between sobs Tina had explained about the room at the top of the Annex and how she'd set the door to lock with her—this part strained Vicki's credulity—her Harry Potter wand.

As creepy as the old building was, it was a relief to be out of the rain. Vicki took the stairs three at a time. On the top floor she put on her glasses so she would have no trouble identifying the heavy metal door, and, there beside it, the black dowel with a silver cap. A magician's wand. Vicki picked it up, broke it, and hurled it across the landing. Extending her baton in one hand, her heart in her throat, she opened the thick door.

Mike lay on the floor, Henry's coat over him, his legs elevated against a wall. Henry sat beside him against the same wall. There was water on the floor. Relief flooded her for Henry, but for Mike—

"What the hell happened here?" she demanded.

Henry smiled at her, his huge happy smile. "Vicki," he said, getting to his feet. "What took you so long?"

Vicki spent most of the day dozing in Mike's hospital room while Mike slept off the transfusion he'd been given. After dark, Henry joined them and Vicki and Henry sat in the institutional chairs provided in the room. Mike looked better, despite having various IVs running into his arms. After giving vent to her feelings in a lengthy tirade about what she'd do if either of them ever vanished on her like that again, Vicki settled in to watch the two men. They'd listened to her with identical patient expressions on their faces, occasionally exchanging knowing glances. It was starting to piss her off.

Henry had attacked Mike and drunk his blood. Again! And rather than be pissed at him about it, Mike was actually joking with Henry like they were old war buddies. And Henry kept waxing poetic about how close brushes with death made you appreciate your life all the more. At least that allowed Mike and Vicki to exchange knowing glances about him.

After one of his more flowery speeches, Mike said, "Vicki's right. You should write greeting cards."

Henry stood to go, and gathered his coat. Vicki stood to follow him. They'd had little time to really talk the evening before.

Henry paused in the doorway and gave the patient a long-suffering expression. "How many times do I have to tell you, Celluci, they're called Graphic Novels."

Vicki and Mike both laughed, Mike's laughter following them into the hallway. Henry stayed close to her as they strolled through the hospital maze in the direction of the parking garage. But then, he always did stay close to her.

"You know, buster," she said, jabbing him with an elbow. "I walk in on you and Mike with Mike passed out from blood loss, and it doesn't look good. You're just lucky Mike corroborates your story."

She felt him stiffen as he turned his head to look directly at her. At his stricken expression, she said, "Kidding. Only kidding. I was a cop, you know."

Henry shook his head. "Please don't joke, Vicki. Don't you know what my greatest fear is?"

She glanced at him, uncomfortable. Were all artists so emotional?

"My greatest fear is that you won't trust me."

"Huh. My greatest fear is that my mom will visit without calling first."

Henry stopped dead, heedless of the busy corridor, turned to her and took her forearms in his hands, turning up her wrists. Vicki fidgeted. Okay, yeah, there were a lot of things she was more scared of than her mom. Geez, he was serious.

"Yeah, I know," she said reclaiming her arms. "You want to know what scares me? I was scared to death I wouldn't find you alive."

At this admission he smiled. "Me too," he said.

"These haven't gone away," she said, indicating her tattoos. "That means you can't..."

"I know," he said sadly. He gave her a look that clearly said, "I want a kiss."

No way. Here in the hall? What is this, middle school? But she felt sorry for him. For them both. She took his arm and headed them back into the corridor.

"Well, maybe we could cuddle," she said.

"I'll take what I can get," he replied.

I bet you will, she thought fondly. Vampire.

The End.

feedback?