Blood Debt

empty-eyed at the monitors.

    The part of Vancouver known as Kitsilano had become overtly yuppie as the tag end of the baby boomers—stockbrokers, system developers, securities analysts, crime lords—in the prime of their earning years had settled down with a mortgage and kids. For all of that, it was a nice neighborhood and not a place Henry'd expected to be Hunting in tonight.
    Gabriel and Lori Constantine were having a barbecue. Standing motionless in the shadows, Henry sniffed the breeze and firmly squelched the desire to sneeze at the lingering scent of seared squid.
    As host, Gabriel Constantine would be among the six lives by the house.
    Two cars, each containing a pair of gunmen, and two men who were definitely not a couple walking along the beach, convinced him that he'd best take an oblique approach. A few moments later, he stepped up onto the neighbor's composter, over the fence and into a pool of deep shadow cast by a clump of lilac, lip curled at the smell of dying blossoms.
    Their yard could have been any of the yards he'd crossed. The house was only superficially different from the rest on the street. The gathering could have been happening anywhere up and down the block.
    Except for the people involved.
    Henry suspected the Constantines seldom entertained their immediate neighbors. After all, predators have only one reason to associate with prey.
    Four large men wearing jackets over golf shirts patrolled the yard.
    Henry waited until one reached the edge of the shadows and came forward just enough to interrupt the constant sweeping movement of the enforcer's gaze. In the instant before awareness dawned, Henry grabbed onto the simple pattern of his thoughts and twisted them into new shapes. "Tell Mr. Constantine there's something he should see over by the fence. Tell him it isn't dangerous, but you thought he should take a look."
    Most people caught in the Hunt responded like a rabbit caught in headlights—conscious thought completely overwhelmed by their imminent and incontestable death. Those susceptible to more overt control were few and far between, but primed to follow orders and only follow orders, the enforcer nodded, turned, and made his way toward the pool. It wouldn't last long. But then, it didn't have to.
    Henry, who could hear the heartbeat of the child sleeping in an upstairs bedroom, had no difficulty hearing the conversations at the other end of the yard. Private schools and music lessons and how hard it was to find a reliable housekeeper and imported cars versus domestic and how certain people never realized that expenses were going up all wrapped around each other like tangled yarn. It was all very innocent; a casual eavesdropper would never know how the bills were paid. Finally, he heard the thread that concerned his meeting with Gabriel Constantine.
    Frowning, waving off a question from one of his guests, Constantine suggested that the enforcer should lead the way. There was something out there, he'd read that off the other man's face, but he had confidence in both his security and in the normality of the neighborhood.
    What could hurt you here? Henry asked himself as they approached. Here, surrounded by satellite dishes, gas barbecues, and lawns all maintained by Mr. Weedman. What could touch you in the midst of all of that? He smiled as the two men reached the lilac. It had been, after all, a rhetorical question.
    Unaware that his enforcer's mind had less in it than usual, Constantine put him on guard and threw a skeptical glance into the shadows. To his horror, the shadows threw it back.
    "If you move, I'll kill you."
    All the death he'd ever dealt returned to greet him. Had their night sight been good enough, his guests might have seen his shoulders stiffen and a spreading patch of sweat darken his T-shirt. Because he faced away from them, they couldn't see the expression of horror that drained the blood from his face.
    A few gentle questions, voiced too low for listening ears, determined he knew nothing of selling organs for profit nor of the identity of the ghost. But he did know a great many other unpleasant things.
    In spite of certain incidents that had occurred during the year Vicki had been his mortal lover, Henry had never considered himself a vampire Batman, a comic book hero out hunting down evil in the night. Although willing to destroy any that put itself in his way, much as he would a cockroach that did the same thing, he had no desire to spend immortality