Blood Lines

way."
    'Which is?"
    'Compromise, for the most part."
    'Funny, I've never thought of you as a person who compromises well."
    'I don't."
    He reached out and took hold of her wrist, pulling her to a stop and then around to face him. "Vicki, if I said I was tired, that I've lived six times longer than the natural human span and I've had enough, would you let me walk out into the sun?"
    Not bloody likely . She bit back the immediate emotional response. He'd asked her the question seriously, she could hear that in his voice and see it in his face, and it deserved more than a gut reaction. She'd always believed that a person's life was his own and that what he did with it was his business, no one else's. That worked fine in general, but would she let Henry choose to walk out into the sun? Friendship meant responsibility or it didn't mean much and, come to think of it, they'd settled that once already tonight. "If you want me to let you kill yourself, you'd damn well better be able to convince me that dying does more for you than living."
    She'd gotten angry just thinking about it. He heard her bean speed up, saw muscles tense beneath clothes and skin.
    " Could I convince you?"
    'I doubt it."
    He lifted her hand and placed a kiss gently on the palm. "Has anyone ever told you that you're a very pushy person?"
    he murmured against the soft skin at the base of her thumb, inhaling the blood-rich scent of her flesh.
    'Frequently." Vicki snatched her hand away and rubbed it against the front of her sweatshirt. Great, just what she needed, more stimulus. "There's no point in starting something you're not going to finish," she muttered a little shakily.
    "You fed last night from Tony."
    'True."
    'You don't need to feed tonight."

    'True."
    It always annoyed her that he could read her physical reaction so easily, that he always knew and she could only guess.
    Occasionally, however, the question became moot.
    'I am too old for frenzied fucking in the hall," she informed him a moment later. "Stop that." Walking backward, she towed him toward the bedroom.
    Henry's eyes widened. "Vicki, be careful…"
    She tightened her grip and grinned. "After four hundred and fifty years, you should know that it won't pull off."
    'I had dinner with Mike Celluci tonight." Henry sighed, and lightly traced the shadow of a vein in the soft hollow below Yield's ear. Although he'd taken only a few mouthfuls of blood he felt replete and lazy. "Do we have to talk about him now?"
    'He thinks there's a mummy walking around Toronto."
    'Lots of mummies," Henry murmured against her neck. "Daddies, too."
    'Henry!" She caught him just under the solar plexus with an elbow. He decided to pay attention. "Celluci seriously believes that an ancient Egyptian has risen from his coffin and killed two people at the museum."
    'The two people who died of heart attacks?"
    'That's right."
    'And you believe him?"
    'Look, if Mike Celluci called me up and told me aliens had him trapped in his house, I might not believe him, but I'd show up with a flamethrower just in case. And as you're the closest thing to an expert on rising from the dead I know, I'm asking you. Is this possible?"
    'Let me get this straight." Henry rolled over on his back and laced his fingers behind his head. "Detective-Sergeant Michael Celluci came to you and said, There's a mummy loose in Toronto, murdering janitors and Egyptologists . And let me guess, he can't tell anyone else because no one else will believe him."
    'Essentially."
    'Are you sure this isn't just an elaborate April Fool's prank?"
    'Too complicated. Celluci's a salt in the sugar bowl kind of guy, and besides, it's October."
    'Good point. I assume he gave you his reasoning behind this stu… ouch, unusual idea."
    'He did." Tapping out the points on Henry's chest, Vicki repeated everything Celluci had told her.
    'And if PC Trembley confirms that there was a mummy, what then?"
    She wound a short, red-gold curl around her finger. "I was hoping you could tell me."
    'We help him stop it?"
    'How?"
    'I haven't the faintest idea." He heard her sigh, felt her breath against his chest, and lightly kissed the top of her head.

    "Did he ask you to speak to me about it?"
    'No. But he said he didn't mind if I did." He'd actually said, Use a ghoul to find a ghoul ? Why not? But under his sneer there'd been a sense of relief and Vicki had gotten the feeling that he'd been waiting all evening for her to ask, unwilling to bring it up himself. "He had to go to a