Blood Debt

fought with the outside door, he could hear Sullivan getting to his feet, yelling a mixture of profanity and threat.
    Then he managed to lift the latch, and he staggered out into the night.

    "Son of a bitch! He's not there."
    Screened from the view of curious neighbors by double rows of cypress, Henry turned off his headlights and sped down the winding drive toward the low rectangle of Swanson's house nestled within its cocoon of security lights. "He could be in bed. We won't know until we're out of the car."
    "He's not there," Vicki repeated, her voice rising in frustration. She didn't know why she was so certain, but the blank stare of the dark windows said empty— not asleep, not sitting with the lights off; not home. The instant Henry stopped the car, she leaped out onto the concrete, senses extended. "I told you we should have gone to Dr.
    Mui," she snarled after a moment.
    "We agreed that the doctor is probably with…" Half out of the car, Henry paused, head lifted to catch the breeze. "Vicki! Do you…" He didn't bother finishing because she was already racing toward the back of the house.
    The way Celluci saw it, he had two choices; he could try to outrun Sullivan on unfamiliar paths, hoping to reach a road and witnesses if not safety, or he could dive into the semi-wild growth the paths cut through and hope to lose him in the underbrush. Ten feet from the cottage, swaying like a sailor with every step, he realized he had no hope in hell of outrunning anyone, not even a man with his balls in a sling. Teeth clenched against the protests of his abused body, he pushed into the darkness.
    The trees blocked the little moonlight that flittered through the cloud cover—he couldn't see as far as his feet, and higher obstacles like trees and bushes were patterns of shadows on shadow. Big mistake. I'm no woodsman. But it was too late to turn back.
    A crashing in the shrubbery behind him flung him forward. Since he had to believe Sullivan could see no more than he could, he had to hope that the sound of his escape was drowned out by the sound of pursuit. It was pretty much the only hope he had.
    He stumbled over something that poked sharp edges through his sock and into his ankle, caught himself before he fell, and realized that he was moving across a forty-five-degree slope. Up or down? Since he had no idea of where he was and no idea of where he was going, down seemed as good a choice as any. Fuck it. Might as well have gravity work for me.
    A branch end slapped him in the face, hard enough to raise a welt.
    Thorns he couldn't see snagged his jeans and dragged bleeding scratches across bare arms. The slope got steeper. He began to pick up speed.
    He flung out his left arm to block a sudden shadow and nearly cried out when his wrist slammed into the unforgiving trunk of a tree.

    The pain brought back the dizziness. Shadows whirled. He missed his footing, and the night tilted sideways.
    Rocks and trees slammed into him as he passed, hard enough to hurt, never hard enough to stop him. He crashed through some kind of bush—it had no thorns, that was all he either knew or cared about
    — picked up speed across an open clearing, and slammed into a concrete retaining wall on the far side.
    The world went away for a while…
    "You better not have damaged anything, asshole!"
    … and came back in a rush.
    Celluci drew in a deep breath—moderately relieved to find it didn't hurt as much as he thought it should— and, as the moon broke through the cloud cover, tried to focus on the man squatting beside him. In spite of the poor visibility, Sullivan's bovine features looked scared. "Doctor won't be pleased… if I'm not good… as a donor. Bet you got kidneys… she could use."
    "Shut up. Just shut the fuck up."
    The open-handed blow rocked Celluci's head back, but everything hurt so much he felt the motion more than the actual pain.
    "All right. You're goin' back to the fucking cottage and I'm going to tie you down so tightly you're gonna need my permission to fucking breathe."
    "You're going to have to… carry me."
    "I'll fucking drag you if I have to."
    "Better not damage… the merchandise." As he finished speaking, he threw himself at Sullivan's feet, trying to knock the big man off balance. With them both on the ground and a little luck…
    Beefy fingers grabbed the front of his shirt and heaved his torso up off the ground. He saw the fist raised, a club-shaped shadow against the sky, then Sullivan disappeared,