Blood Debt

strong enough to make a quick trip out to Project Hope worthwhile.
    As he got back into the van, Celluci wondered where the transplant society's computers had come from. In Toronto, where his badge meant something, he'd have grounds enough to make inquiries. Were Vicki and Henry not involved, he'd check out the bar where Vancouver's finest hung out and find out just where their investigation was heading.
    Except, of course, that I wouldn't be involved had that undead royal bastard of a romance-writing vampire, Henry Fitzroy, not gotten Vicki involved.
    " You didn't need to come along ," the little voice in his head reminded him.
    "Yeah. Right." He snorted as he pulled out into traffic. "Like she'd be accomplishing anything on her own." He deliberately chose not to think about what she may or may not have accomplished between sunset and sunrise the night before.
    Unfortunately, he wasn't in Toronto, vampires were involved, and he couldn't think of a plausible reason why anyone should tell him anything.
    Project Hope occupied a fairly large parcel of land on the eastern edge of North Vancouver. Celluci parked the van on the side of Mt.
    Seymour Road, spread out a map over the steering wheel, and cultivated a confused expression in case those passing by wondered what he was doing. From where he sat, some five hundred feet beyond the long driveway on a slight rise, he could see a one-story building designed so deliberately to look noninstitutional it couldn't look anything but, a half-filled parking lot, a dumpster, and a number of empty benches scattered about pleasantly landscaped grounds. The orientation of the building allowed him to see one side and part of the back. The distance from the road meant that he could see bugger all in the way of details.
    Sighing, he pulled a set of folding, miniature binoculars out of the glove compartment. In one of her more whimsical moments, Vicki had ordered a pair of them from a magazine ad that insisted they were exactly like those used by the KGB. Celluci questioned the KGB
    connection, but he had to admit—although not to Vicki—that, for their size, they weren't bad.
    A closer inspection told him only that the windows all had Venetian blinds and that Dailow Waste Removal emptied the dumpster twice a week.

    "So how long do I sit here?" he asked his reflection in the rearview mirror. Stakeouts away from masking crowds were always a pain in the butt, and the lost tourist routine wouldn't be plausible for long.
    "Maybe I should go in and ask for directions. See if they could lend me a hand… Hello."
    A large man in pale jeans and a red T-shirt crossed the parking lot and got into one of the trendy sport/utility hybrids that every second person on the Coast seemed to drive. He had to have come from inside. Through the binoculars, Celluci watched him back the truck toward the clinic. When it stopped, the angle of the building blocked everything but a bit of the front right bumper.
    "Why do you back up to a building? Because you're loading something into the trunk." Squinting didn't help. The clinic remained in the way. "And what are you loading? That's the question, isn't it?"
    It could be anything.
    The odds of it being a body with only one kidney were astronomical.
    "But life's a crap shoot, and sometimes you get lucky." He tracked the truck as it moved down the drive, tossed the binoculars onto the passenger seat, and put the van into gear. Still apparently studying the map, he let the man in the red T-shirt drive by, then pulled out to follow a safe distance behind. Their route led directly into Mt.
    Seymour Provincial Park.
    When his quarry turned onto a logging road, Celluci went on by.
    Even he couldn't be expected to blend into traffic when there was no traffic to blend into. An illegal u-turn later, he parked as far over on the shoulder as seemed safe, hoping the bushes would hide the van should the car suddenly reemerge.
    It wasn't exactly sudden. An hour and ten minutes later, the truck nosed back out onto Mt. Seymour and headed toward the city.
    "All right, wherever he went, it's no more than thirty-five minutes in."
    Fourteen minutes in, Celluci began to realize that, for all they were so close to a major metropolitan area, there was a whole lot of nothing out here. He didn't do well with nothing. Concrete and glass he understood, but trees were a mystery to him.
    Sixteen minutes in, another logging road angled into the first. There were definite tire tracks in the