Blood Bank (13 page)

He'd probably pulled a late duty and, when she hadn't answered his calls, had thought she was in trouble and brought his partner in with him for backup, just in case. It wasn't hard for Vicki to follow his logic. If they were too late to save her, explanations wouldn't matter. If they were in time, she could easily clear up the confusion he'd caused poor Detective- Sergeant Graham.

Stepping into the apartment, she froze just over the threshold, eyes widening in disbelief. "You've got to be kidding."

"Snuck up on me in the parking lot," Celluci growled, glaring up at the man holding his own gun to his head. "Shoved a pad of chloroform under my nose and jabbed me with a pin so I'd inhale." Muscles strained as he fought to free his hands from the frame of the chair. "Used my own goddamed handcuffs, too."

"Shut up! Both of you!" He was probably in his midforties, with short black hair and a beard lightly dusted with gray, tall enough from the fortune teller's point of view. White showed all around the brown eyes locked on Vicki's face. His free hand pointed toward the door, trembling slightly with the effect of strong emotions. "Close it."

Without turning, she pushed it shut, gently so that the latch didn't quite catch; then she let the Hunger rise. He'd made a big mistake not attacking her in the day when she was vulnerable. Her eyes grew paler than his, and her voice went past command to compulsion. "Let him go."

Celluci shuddered, but the man with the gun only laughed shrilly. "You have no power over me! You never have! You never will!" He met her gaze and, even through the Hunger, she saw that he was right. Like the woman she'd used to gain access to Queen Street, he had no levels of darkness or desire she could touch. Everything inside his head had been locked tightly away, and she didn't have the key. She couldn't command him, so in spite of Madame Luminitsa's belief that she couldn't reason with him, she reined in the Hunger and let the silver fade from her eyes.

"Let him go," she said again. "You have me."

"But I can't keep you without him." The muzzle of the gun dug a circle into Celluci's cheek. "You can't leave, or I'll blow his freakin' head off."

She'd forgotten that she had another vulnerability besides the day. "If you kill him, I'll rip your living heart out of your chest, and I'll make you eat it while you..."

"Vicki."

He laughed again as Celluci protested. "You can't get to me, before I can pull the trigger. As long as I have him, I have you."

"So we have a standoff," she said. The silver rose unbidden to her eyes. "Do you think you can out- wait me?"

His teeth flashed in the shadow of his beard. "I know I can. I only have to wait until dawn."

And he would, too. It was the one certainty Vicki could read in his eyes. She took an involuntary step forward.

He lifted a bright green water pistol. "Hold it right there, or I'll shoot."

"I don't think so." She took another step.

The holy water hit her full in the face. He was a good shot, she had to give him that—although under the circumstances, there wasn't much chance of him missing the target that mattered. Wiping the water from her eyes, she growled, "If this is how you plan to kill me, there's a flaw in the plan."

Appalled that the water hadn't had its intended effect, he recovered quickly. Throwing the plastic pistol onto the sofa, he reached down beside him and brought up a rough-hewn wooden stake. "The water was only intended to slow you down. This is what I'll kill you with."

Celluci cursed and began to struggle again.

The man with the gun ignored him, merely keeping the muzzle pressed tight into his face.

Vicki had no idea of how much damage she could take and survive but a stake through the heart had to count as a mortal wound, especially since he seemed to be the type to finish the job with a beheading and a mouthful of garlic. "What happens
after
I'm dead?"

"After?" He looked confused. "Then you'll be dead. And it'll be over." He checked his watch. "Less than five hours."

Desperately trying to remember everything she'd ever learned about defusing a hostage situation, Vicki took a deep breath and spread her arms, trying to appear as nonthreatening as possible. "Since we're going to be together for those five hours," she said quietly, forcing her lips down over her teeth, "why don't you explain why you've decided to kill me? I've never hurt you."

"You don't remember me, do you?"

"Not remember as such, no." She could tell that she'd fed from him and how long ago, but that was all.

"Do you spread your evil over so many?"

"What evil?" Vicki asked, trying to keep her tone level. It wasn't easy when all she could think of was rushing forward and ripping the hand holding the gun right off the end of his arm.

"You are evil by existing!" Tears glimmered against his lower lids and spilled over to vanish in his beard. "You mock their deaths by not dying."

"The Three of Swords sets an atmosphere of loss."

"Whose deaths?"

"My Angela, my Sandi."

Vicki exchanged a puzzled look with Celluci. "Whoever they are, I'm sorry for your loss, but I didn't kill them."

"Of course you didn't kill them." He had to swallow sobs before he could go on. In spite of his anguish, the hand holding the gun never wavered. "It was a car accident. They died and were buried, and now the worms devour their flesh. But you!" His voice rose to a shriek. "You live on, mocking their death with infinity. You will never die." Drawing in a long shuddering breath, he checked his watch again. "God sent you to me and gave me the power to resist you, so I could kill you and set things right."

"God doesn't work that way," Celluci objected.

His smile was almost beatific. "Mine does."

Uncertain of where to go next, Vicki was astonished to hear footsteps stop outside her door. A soft touch eased it open just enough for a breath to pass through.

"Nightwalker, his name is James Wause."

Then the footsteps went away again.

There was power in a name. Power enough to reach through the madness? Vicki didn't know, but it was their only chance. She let the Hunger rise again, this time let it push away the masks of civilization, and when she spoke, her voice had all the primal cadences of a storm.

"James Wause."

He jerked and shook his head. "No."

She caught his gaze with hers, saw the silver reflected in the dilated pupils as his madness kept her out, then saw it abruptly vanish as she called his name again, and it gave her the key to the locked places inside. The cards had said she couldn't reason with him, so she stopped trying. She called his name a third and final time. When he crumpled forward, she caught him. When he lifted his chin, she brought her teeth down to his throat.

"Vicki."

There was power in a name.

But his blood throbbed warm and red beneath his skin, and sobbing in a combination of sorrow and ecstasy, he was begging her to take him.

"Vicki, no."

More importantly, he had threatened one of hers.

"Vicki! Hey!" Celluci head-butted her in the elbow, about all the contact the handcuffs allowed. "Stop it! Now."

There was also power in the sheer pigheaded unwillingness that refused to allow her to lose the humanity she had remaining. Forcing the Hunger back under fingertip control, she dropped the man she held and turned to the one beside her. The cards hadn't counted on Detective-Sergeant Michael Celluci.

Ignoring the Hunger still in her expression, he snorted. "Nice you remembered I'm here. Now do you think you could do something about the nine millimeter automatic—with, I'd like to add, the safety off— that Mr. Wause dropped into my lap?"

*

Later, after Celluci had been released and James Wause laid out on the sofa, put to sleep by a surprisingly gentle command, Vicki leaned against the loft support and tried not think of how close it had all come to ending.

When Celluci picked up the phone, she reached out and closed her hand around his wrist. "What are you doing?"

He looked at her, sighed, and set the receiver back in its cfadle. "No police, right?"

"Would the courts understand what I am any better than he did?" She nodded toward Wause who stirred in his sleep as though aware of her regard.

Celluci sighed again and gathered her into the circle of his arms. "All right," he said, resting his cheek against her hair. "What do we do with him?"

"I've got an idea."

*

This time the back door was locked, but Vicki quickly picked the lock, slung James Wause over her shoulder, and carried him into the church. Celluci had wanted to come, but she'd made him wait in the car.

Laying him out in a front pew, she tucked the box of unused communion wafers under his hands and stepped back. His confession would be short a few details— this time she'd successfully removed all memory of her existence from his mind—but she hoped she'd opened the way for him to get the help he needed to cope with his grief.

"The vampire as therapist," she sighed. She nodded toward the altar as she passed. "If he's one of yours, you deal with him."

*

It didn't surprise her to see the beat-up old Camaro out in the church parking lot when she emerged. Lifting a hand to let Celluci know he should stay where he was, she walked over to the passenger side door.

"Did the cards tell you I'd be here?"

Madame Luminitsa nodded toward the church. "You gave him to God?"

"Seems like it."

"Alive."

"Didn't the cards say?"

"The cards weren't sure."

On the other side of the car, the grandson snorted.

Both women ignored him.

"Did the cards tell you where I lived?" Vicki asked.

"If they did, are you complaining?"

Without his name, she'd have never stopped him. "No. I guess I'm not."

"Good. You've less blood on your hands than I feared," the fortune teller murmured, taking Vicki's hands in hers and turning them. "Someday, I'll have to read your palms."

Vicki glanced over at Celluci, who was making it plain he wasn't going to wait patiently much longer. "I'll bet I have a really long life line."

An ebony brow rose as, across the parking lot, the car door opened. "How much?"

The Vengeful Spirit of Lake Nepeakea

*

"Camping?"

"Why sound so amazed?" Dragging the old turquoise cooler behind her, Vicki Nelson, once one of Toronto's finest and currently the city's most successful paranormal investigator, backed out of Mike Celluci's crawl space.

"Why? Maybe because you've never been camping in your life. Maybe because your idea of roughing it is a hotel without room service. Maybe"
—
he moved just far enough for Vicki to get by then followed her out into the rec room
—
"because you're a…"

"A?" Setting the cooler down beside two sleeping bags and a pair of ancient swim fins, she turned to face him. "A
what
, Mike?" Grey eyes silvered.

"Stop it."