Blood Pact

and leave the mopping up to the police.”

    "Mike . . .”

    "Don't Mike me. And I want that wrist of yours looked at by a doctor before you get gangrene in it and have to have your fucking hand chopped off.”

    "The wound won't infect," Henry said with quiet assurance. "And I am going to the lab." He stretched out both arms. Although the bruising had faded from purple to green and the broken bones in his hand had begun to knit, the marks of needles were still very evident. "If, as you say, Catherine didn't move me until late afternoon, any samples, any test results, will be there. They have to be destroyed.”

    "Oh, come on, Fitzroy," Celluci sighed. "No one's going to believe anything these people say after their attempt to play Dr.
    Frankenstein has been discovered.”

    "I can't risk that.”

    Celluci looked from Henry to Vicki and back again, then he savagely shoved both hands up through his hair. "Jesus, there's nothing to choose between you. All right, all right, we'll go.”

    "I said I was going," Henry pointed out. "You don't have to come with me.”

    "Fuck that," Celluci told him bluntly. "We went through too much to find you. You're not moving out of our sight until we stuff you back in that god-damned closet come morning. Unless? . . ." He raised an eloquent brow.

    Henry half smiled. "You're both perfectly safe. Although I still hunger, Vicki's blood was more than enough to return my control.”

    Celluci's hand rose involuntarily to the place on his throat that Henry's teeth had grazed. Angrily, he turned the motion into an abrupt gesture at the wall of wiring and electrical panels. "We still shutting off the power?”

    Vicki nodded and instantly regretted the motion as her head seemed to want to keep on falling. "The reasons for doing it haven't changed. If there're any more of those . . . experiments in this building, I want them shut down." She paused and swallowed, hard. Dr.
    Burke had said her mother was up and walking around. It wouldn't be so easy to turn her mother off; to see that her mother died a second time. "We should have about forty-five minutes on the emergency lighting, not that it'll make any difference to me. Plenty of time to get to the lab, do what we have to, and get out. Then the police can handle the rest." She caught Celluci's gaze and held it. "I promise.”

    "Fine." He moved toward the corner of the room where a thick plastic pipe came through the wall and disappeared into a metal box about two feet square. "This is the main feed, so this must be the main disconnect box.”

    Close behind him, Vicki peered over his shoulder. "How do you know? I thought your father was a plumber?”

    "It's a guy thing, you wouldn't under . . . Ow! Damn it, Vicki, that was the last bit of unbruised flesh I had.”

    "Had," Vicki repeated, flicking on her flashlight. "Just pull the switch.”

    The switch, about a foot long and rust-pitted down its entire length, refused to surrender so easily. "This thing," Celluci grunted, throwing his weight on it, "hasn't been moved since they wired the building." He managed to force it down to a forty-five-degree angle but could budge it no farther. "I need something to lever it with. The pipe we used on the door . . .”

    "May I?" Henry reached past Celluci, wrapped long pale fingers around the switch, and slammed it down in one, fluid motion, snapping it off at the base.

    The light in the electrical room went out.

    "I thought you hadn't regained all your strength." Celluci squinted in the circle of illumination thrown by Vicki's flashlight.

    Henry, who'd stepped back to shield sensitive eyes, shrugged, forgetting for the moment that he couldn't be seen. "I haven't.”

    "Jesus H. Christ. How strong are you?”

    Resisting the urge to brag, to further advance himself over a rival who had somehow become much more, Henry settled for a diplomatic, "Not strong enough to get free on my own." Which was, after all, only the truth.

    Catherine frowned down into the microscope. There had to be a way to use the regenerative properties of the vampire's cells to extend the limited life of her bacteria. Once found, she could tailor new bacteria for number nine and keep him from decomposing like all the rest. She looked up and shot a smile across the room to where he sat patiently watching her from the edge of the bed.

    All at once, the lights went out and the constant hum of her computer was swallowed by the silence that swept in with the darkness.

    "It's