Blood Lines

for magic. Somehow he doubted that rendering up a Canada goose would have the same effect.
    Suddenly he sat bolt upright in the chair and twisted to face the windows. It was out there. And it was close. He scrambled to his feet and began to throw on street clothes. His ka would not need to search again, simple awareness of the young man would be enough to find him.
    He didn't know how that glorious light had been hidden during the day, although he expected he'd soon find out. One way or another.
    Henry had traced the scent to the southeast corner of Bloor and Queen's Park Road where it split, one track going north, the other south. Slowly he stood, brushed off the knee that had been resting on the concrete, and considered what he should do next. He knew what he wanted to do, he wanted to go back to Tony, say he couldn't find the creature, and deal with the younger man's fear instead of his own.
    Except that wasn't the way it worked. He had made Tony his responsibility. Honor had driven him out onto the streets and honor would not let him return.
    Night had followed day, cold and clear, the kind of weather where the scent clung to the ground and the hunt rode out behind the hounds.
    His best friend, the brother of his heart, Henry Howard, the Earl of Surrey, rode beside him, their geldings tearing across the frozen turf neck and neck. Ahead, the staghounds bayed and just barely ahead of the pack the quarry raced in a desperate attempt to outrun the death that closed upon its heels. Henry didn't see the exact moment the dogs closed in, but there was a scream of almost human pain and terror and then the stag thrashed on the ground.
    He pulled up well back from the seething mass of snarling dogs who darted past striking hooves and tossing antlers to worry at the great beast, but Surrey took his horse as close as it would go, leaning forward in the stirrups, eyes on the knife and the throat and the hot spurt of blood that steamed in the bitter November air.
    "Why?" he asked Surrey later, when the hall was filled with the smell of roasting venison and they were sitting bootless, warm before the fire.
    Surrey frowned, the elegant line of his black brows dipping in toward the bridge of his nose. "I didn't want the death of such a splendid animal to be wasted. I thought I might find a poem…"
    His voice trailed off so Henry prodded, "Did you?"
    "Yes. " The frown grew thoughtful. "But a poem too red for me I think. I will write the hunt and keep the stag alive. "
    Four hundred and fifty odd years later, Henry answered as he had then. "But there is always death at the end of a hunt."
    The track to the south had almost been buried beneath the other footsteps of the day. The track to the north seemed better defined, as though it had been taken more than once; to and from a hotel room perhaps. Henry crossed Bloor, drew even with the church on the corner, and froze so completely motionless that the stream of Sunday night pedestrians flowed seamlessly around him.
    He knew the dark-haired, dark-eyed man approaching.
    Chapter Twelve
    Henry waited, motionless, while the other man drew closer. He felt like a rabbit caught in headlights, fully aware that death and destruction bore down on him but unable to move. The sun grew brighter and brighter behind his eyes until he struggled to see around it.
    I have no way to fight this …
    And then, suddenly, he recognized what he faced. His kind could sense the lives around them, not only through scent and sound but also with an awareness peculiar to those who hunted the night. What he felt approaching was a life, ancient, unlike any life he had ever felt before, and the sun only a symbol created to deal with it.
    I have been aware of his life from the moment he awoke, most aware in the times I am most vulnerable. Blessed Christ, he has driven me almost to death just by existing.
    Brows down and teeth clenched, he fought to drive this life from the foreground of his mind, finally managing to push it back and dim the light although he could not banish it entirely. It existed now as a background to all he did, but at least it no longer blinded him.
    The night returned, Henry blinked, and found himself sinking into irises so deep a brown they looked black. Just before this darkness closed over bun, he snarled and pulled free.
    'I will not go unresisting like a lamb to the slaughter!"
    Force of will slammed at the spell of absorption and shattered it. In all the centuries since his god had changed