Blood Debt

to ask it any more questions!"
    "I didn't." Henry stared down at the city, listening for the sound of a siren, his fingers splayed against the glass, the muscles rigid across his back. "I told it, it could expect no help."
    "It didn't seem to like that."
    "No. It didn't."
    They stood together in silence, waiting for the sounds of another death.
    Finally Tony sighed and threw himself down on the sofa. "Looks like we got lucky; nobody old enough, close enough. Tomorrow night, why don't you say nothing at all."
    It waited. And it waited. When Henry tried to leave the room, it screamed.
    They watched the ambulance arrive. They learned that the Franklins' baby died in its sleep.
    "Babies. Man…" Two years ago, Tony had watched an ancient Egyptian wizard devour the life force of a baby. The parents walked on, completely unaware that their child was dead. He still had nightmares about it. "This is blackmail."
    "Yes. And it has made me angry." The plastic cracked in his grip as he picked up the phone.
    Swallowing nervously—Henry's anger could be as terrifying as silent ghostly screams—Tony managed a partial smile and asked,
    "Calling the Ghostbusters?"
    "Not quite. I've decided this is not a job for a romance writer."
    "Well, I guess not, but…" He let his next question trail off when Henry activated the external speaker on the phone. After two rings, an answering machine clicked on.
    "Victory Nelson, Private Investigations. There's no one here to take your call right now. Please leave a message after the tone…"
    Two
    DETECTIVE-Sergeant Michael Celluci closed the heavy metal door quietly behind him and stepped cautiously into the shadowed apartment. A dim fan of light that spilled out from the office under the loft was swallowed up by the sixteen-foot ceiling in the main room.
    The building had been a glass factory before a recession had emptied it and urban renewal had filled it again with barely serviceable living space for the fashionable fringe of Toronto. The majority of the tenants dressed exclusively in black and most were involved in some way with "the arts"—although some of those ways were pretty peripheral in Michael Celluci's not at all humble opinion.
    His soft-soled shoes making no sound on the rug that defined a right-of-way along one wall, he moved toward the light.
    "So what about the guy you can see? What's he, the union representative?" The silence defined the response. "I'm sorry. I am taking this seriously. No, I am. Ask it innocuous questions until I get there." The old wooden office chair creaked alarmingly as it was tipped back on two legs. "Ask it things you know it'll have to answer yes to."
    Just under the edge of the loft, an arm's length from the chair, Celluci stretched out a hand to grab a sweatshirt-clad shoulder. Just before his fingers closed on fabric, they were captured in an unbreakable grip.
    The woman holding him flashed him a disdainful nice try and kept talking into the phone. "Look, how hard can it be? Did you used to be a man? Are you dead now? Were you once alive?"
    Were you alive? Celluci mouthed as she pulled him around the edge of her chair and pushed him down onto a corner of the cluttered desk.
    Brows lowered, she acknowledged he'd heard correctly with a single nod, then tried to reassure her caller. "It doesn't matter that they're stupid questions as long as it answers yes. I'll be there as soon as I can. I'll…" Sighing, she settled back with an expression Celluci recognized—the first time he'd seen it, they'd both been in uniform, and it had been aimed at him. There could be only one explanation for it now; the person on the other end of the line was actually daring to give Vicki Nelson advice.
    She'd never taken advice well. Not when she'd been in uniform and considered herself God's gift to the Metropolitan Toronto Police. Not when she'd made detective. Not when retinitis pigmentosa had forced her to quit a job she'd both loved and excelled at. Not during the time she'd been a private investigator. And not since the change.
    If I didn't know, he thought, watching her features shift from impatience to irritation, I'd never realize what she was.
    She looked much the same, only a little thinner and a lot paler. She acted much the same, having always been overbearing, arrogant, and opinionated. All right, so she didn't used to drink blood… "That's enough!" Irritation had become annoyance and, from her tone, she'd cut off a continuing monologue. "I'll be there as