Blood Debt

urge to scratch. Now if we can just make it to the lobby without anyone else getting…
    The elevator stopped on the seventh floor.
    The doors opened.
    Both vampires whirled to face the intrusion.
    Celluci didn't know exactly what the couple waiting at the seventh floor saw nor did he want to. Faces blanched of color and the spreading stain on the front of an expensive pair of silk pants gave his imagination information enough. Teeth clenched, he jerked forward and jabbed a finger at the panel.
    The closing doors cut off a rising, mindless wail. All at once, he was no longer worried about either of his companions losing control. He lost it himself.
    "That's it!" he snarled as he turned. "I've had it up to here…" The edge of his hand chopped at the air over his head. "… with the two of you. You can both stuff that creature-of-the-night shit back where it belongs! Did you see what you did to those two kids? Did you! Did either of you even notice they got in the way of your petty little power struggle?"
    "Petty?" Vicki began, but he cut her off.
    "Yeah. Petty. No one fucking cares which one of you's top ghoul except the two of you! And that'd be fine except there's a whole goddamned world around you and neither of you seems to give a fuck who gets hit with the shrapnel!"
    " You're still alive…"
    He whirled toward Henry. "Well, whoop de fucking do!" Too furious to consider the consequences, he dared the dark gaze to do its worst.
    Henry's lips drew off his teeth.
    Vicki moved to deny him.
    Celluci threw out both arms. Muscles strained as he held them apart, one hand on each chest, the utter audacity of the attempt allowing him to succeed for one heartbeat. Two. Three. Teeth clenched, he refused to give in. His vision started to blur.
    Impossibly held, memory rose to overwhelm Hunger.
    The three of them had just laid Vicki's mother to rest for a second time. The two men were physically wounded and emotionally flayed—
    but Vicki had been dying. Henry had done what he could, but he hadn't been strong enough to finish; he needed more blood. Michael Celluci had offered his, even though he believed that it meant he'd lose everything.
    In over four hundred and fifty years of living as an observer in humanity's midst, it had been the most amazing thing Henry Fitzroy had ever seen.
    Until now.
    Detective-Sergeant Michael Celluci was very large and very strong; but it wasn't his physical strength that stopped the Hunger. It was the attitude that dared to announce, "I will not allow this!" even knowing he didn't stand, as he himself might say, a snowflake's chance in hell of being listened to.
    Once again, Henry was shown the quality of the man, and he was ashamed that he had to be reminded.
    Eyes still locked with Henry's, Vicki remembered what he remembered and felt what he felt. For the first time in his presence she was forced to think about someone else. Tearing her gaze away, staring in horror at the pulse throbbing among the corded muscle of Mike's neck, she replaced Henry's shame with her own.
    Celluci felt their surrender and allowed his arms to drop. He didn't have much choice. Without the pressure against them, he couldn't hold them up. The air still held a certain frisson, but strangely it didn't seem to be coming from either Vicki or Henry.
    "I think we've forgotten," said a quiet voice he almost didn't recognize, "that with great power comes great responsibility."
    "I think I forgot what mattered." No mistaking Vicki's voice, but it had a ragged edge he didn't often hear.
    "Same thing." To his surprise, Henry, just Henry, a man Celluci suddenly remembered he'd come to respect and even like, held out a pale hand. "My apologies, Detective. I wish I could promise that it won't happen again, but I can't. I can promise that I'll do better in the future."
    His grip was cool, like Vicki's.
    Then he was gone.
    "Where ... ?"
    "Parking level one. The van's on level two. I assume one of us is going to be using it?"
    He blinked to clear the sweat from his eyes, and allowed her to slip her shoulder under his arm, taking most of his weight. "You can have it. I'll never find parking."
    "I'll drop you off."
    "Fine." The parking level had the damp, unair-conditioned coolness that came from being deep underground. Celluci found himself thinking of graves. "Vicki. What did I just do?"
    "You leaped a tall building in a single bound."
    "I don't mean the physical…"
    She sighed. It wasn't something she did much any more; she'd