Blood Bank (10 page)

A dark-haired young man who'd been leaning on the side of the building straightened and turned toward her.

Hooker,
Vicki thought, then, as she drew closer and realized there was nothing of either sex or commerce in the young man's expression, revised her opinion.

"My grandmother wants to see you," he said matter-of-factly as she came along beside him.

Vicki stopped and stared. "To see me?"

"Yeah. You." Running the baby fingernail on his right hand over the fuzzy beginning of a mustache, he avoided her gaze and in a bored tone recited, "Tall, fair, dressed like a man..."

Brows raised, Vicki glanced down at her black corduroy jacket, faded jeans, and running shoes.

"…coming out of the alley behind the white TV station." Finished, he shrugged and added, "Looks like you. Looks like the place. You coming or not?" His posture clearly indicated that he didn't care either way. "She says if you don't want to come with me, I've got to say night walker."

Not night walker as he pronounced it, two separate words, but Nightwalker.

Vampire.

"Do you have a car?"

In answer, he nodded toward an old Camaro parked under the NO PARKING sign, continuing to avoid her gaze so adroitly, it seemed he'd been warned.

They made the trip up Bathurst Street to Bloor in complete silence. Vicki waited until she could ask her questions of someone more likely to know the answers. The young man seemed to have nothing to say.

He stopped the car just past Bloor and Euclid and, oblivious to the horns beginning to blow behind him, jerked his head toward the north side of the street. "In there."

At the other end of the gesture was a small storefront. Painted in brilliant yellow script over a painting of a classic horse-drawn Gypsy caravan were the words:
Madame Luminitsa, Fortune Teller. Sees Your Future in Cards, Palms, or Tea Leaves.
Behind the glass, a crimson curtain kept the curious from attempting to glimpse the future for free.

The door was similarly curtained and held a sign that listed business hours as well as an explanation that Madame Luminitsa dealt only in cash, having seen too many bad credit cards. As Vicki pushed it open and stepped into a small waiting room, she heard a buzzer sound in the depths of the building.

The waiting room reminded her of a baroque doctor's office, with, she noted, glancing down at the glass-topped coffee table, one major exception—the magazines were current. The place was empty not only of customers but also of the person who usually sat behind the official-looking desk in the corner of the room. There were two interior doors: one behind the desk, one in the middle of the back wall. Soft background music with an Eastern European sound, combined with three working incense burners, set the mood.

Vicki sneezed and listened for the nearest heartbeat.

A group in the back of the building caught her attention but couldn't hold it when she became aware of the two lives just behind the back wall. One beat slowly and steadily, the other raced, caught in the grip of some strong emotion. As Vicki listened, the second heartbeat began to calm.

It sounded very nearly post-coital.

"Must've got good news," she muttered, crossing to the desk.

The desktop had nothing on it but a phone and half a pad of yellow legal paper. About to start searching the drawers, Vicki moved quickly away when she heard the second door begin to open.

A slim man with a distinctly receding hairline and slightly protuberant eyes emerged first, a sheet of crumpled yellow paper clutched in one hand. "You don't know what this means to me," he murmured.

"I have a good idea." The middle-aged woman behind him smiled broadly enough to show a gold- capped molar. "I'm pleased that I could help."

"Help?" he repeated. "You've done more than help. You've opened my eyes. I've got to get home and get started."

He rushed past Vicki without seeing her. As the outer door closed behind him, she took a step forward. "Madame Luminitsa, I presume?"

Flowered skirt swirling around her calves, the woman strode purposefully toward the desk. "Do you have an appointment?"

Vicki shook her head. Under other circumstances, she'd have been amused by the official trappings to what was, after all, an elaborate way to exploit the unlimited ability of people to be self-deluded. "Someone's grandmother wants to see me."

"Ah. So you're the one." She showed no more interest than the original messenger had. "Wait here."

Since it seemed to be the only way she'd find out what was going on, Vicki dropped down onto a corner of the desk and waited while Madame Luminitsa went back into the rear of the building. Although strange things seemed to be afoot, she'd learned to trust her instincts and she didn't think she was in danger.

The Romani, as a culture, were more than willing to exploit the greed and/or stupidity of the
gadje,
or non-Rom, but they were also culturally socialized to avoid violence whenever possible. During the eight years she'd spent on the police force, Vicki had never heard of an incident where one of Toronto's extensive Romani communities had started a fight. Finished a couple, yes, but never started one.

Still, someone here had named her Nightwalker.

When the door opened again, the woman framed within it bore a distinct family resemblance to Madame Luminitsa. There were slight differences in height and weight and coloring—a little shorter, a little rounder, a little grayer—but a casual observer would have had difficulty telling them apart. Vicki was not a casual observer, and she slowly stood as the dark gaze swept over her. The Hunger rose in recognition of a challenging power.

"Good. Now we know who we are, we can put it aside and get on with things." The woman's voice held a faint trace of Eastern Europe. "You'd best come in." She stepped aside, leaving the way to the inner room open.

Curiosity overcoming her instinctive reaction, Vicki slipped a civilized mask back into place and did as suggested.

The inner room was a quarter the size of the outer.

The ceiling had been painted navy blue and sprinkled with day-glo stars. Multicolored curtains fell from the stars to the floor and on each wall an iron bracket supporting a round light fixture thrust through the folds. In the center of the room, taking up most of the available floor space, was a round table draped in red between two painted chairs. Shadows danced in every corner and every fold of fabric.

"Impressive," Vicki acknowledged. "Definitely sets the mood. But I'm not here to have my fortune told."

"We'll see." Indicating the second chair, the woman sat down.

Vicki sat as well. "Your grandson neglected to give me your name."

"You can call me Madame Luminitsa."

"Another one?"

The fortune teller shrugged. "We are all Madame Luminitsa if business is good enough. My sister, our daughters, their daughters..."

"You?"

"Not usually."

"Why not?" Vicki asked dryly. "Your predictions don't come true?"

"On the contrary." She folded her hands on the table, the colored stones in the rings that decorated six of eight fingers flashing in the light. "Some people can't take a dump without asking advice—Madame Luminitsa gives them a glimpse of the future they want. I give them the future they're going to get."

Arms crossed, Vicki snorted. "You're telling me you can really see the future?"

"I saw you, Nightwalker. I saw where you'd be this evening. I sent for you and you came."

Which was, undeniably, unpleasantly, true. "For all that, you seem pretty calm about what I am."

"I'm used to seeing what others don't." Her expression darkened again for a moment as though she were gazing at a scene she'd rather not remember, then she shook her head and half-smiled. "If you know your history, Nightwalker—my people and your people have worked together in the past."

Vicki had a sudden vision of Gypsies filling boxes of dirt to keep their master safe on his trip to England. The memory bore the distinctive stamp of an old Hammer film. She returned the half-smile, another fraction of trust gained. "The one who changed me said that Bram Stoker was a hack."

"He got a few things right. The Romani were enslaved in that part of the world for many years and we had masters who made Bram Stoker's count seem like a lovely fellow." Her voice held no bitterness at the history. It was over, done; they'd moved on and wouldn't waste the energy necessary to hold a grudge. "I've seen you're no danger to me, Nightwalker. As for the others..." The deliberate pause held a clear warning. ". . . they don't know."

"All right." It was an acknowledgment more than agreement. "So why did you send for me?"

"I saw something."

"In my future?"

"Yes."

Vicki snorted, attempting to ignore the hair lifting off the back of her neck. "A tall, dark stranger?"

"Yes."

Good cops learned to tell when people were lying. It wasn't a skill vampires needed; no one lied to them. So far, Vicki had been told only the truth—or at least the truth as Madame Luminitsa believed it. Unfortunately, truth tended to be just a tad fluid when spoken Romani to
gadje.

The other woman sighed. "Would you feel better if I said that I saw a short, fair stranger?"

"Did you?"

"No. The stranger that I saw was tall and dark, and he is dangerous. To you and to my family."

Now this meeting began to make sense. Intensely loyal to their extended families and clans, the Romani would never go to this much trouble for a mere
gadje,
even, or especially, if that
gadje
was a member of the bloodsucking undead. Self-interest, however, Vicki understood. "I'm listening."

"It isn't easy to always see, so I look only enough to keep my family safe. This afternoon I laid out the cards, and I saw you and I saw danger approaching as a tall, dark man. Cliche," she shrugged, "but true. If you fall, this stranger will grow so strong that when he turns his hate on other targets, he will be almost invincible."

"And the danger to you?"

"He hates you because you're different. You haven't hurt him or anyone near him, but neither are you like him." Madame Luminitsa paused, glanced around the room, and spread her hands. "We are also different, and we work hard at keeping it that way. In the old days, we could have taken to the roads, but now we, as much as you, are sitting targets."

"You're sure he's just a man?" Vicki asked, twisting a pinch of the tablecloth between thumb and forefinger. She'd met a demon once and didn't want to again.

"Just
a man? Men do by choice what demons do by nature."

Vicki'd spent too much time in Violent Crimes to argue with that. "You've got to give me more to go on than tall, dark, and male."

From a pocket in her skirt or perhaps a shelf under the table, Madame Luminitsa pulled out a deck of tarot cards. "I can."

"Oh, come on..."

Shuffling the cards with a dexterity that spoke of long practice, the older woman ignored her. She placed the shuffled deck in the center of the table. "With your left hand, cut the cards into three piles to your left," she said.

Vicki stared down at the cards, then up at the fortune teller. "I don't think so."

"Cut the cards if you want to live."

Put like that, it was pretty hard to refuse.