Blood Pact

into a defensive crouch, and glared up at Henry. "Goddamnit!" he snarled. "Don't do that!”

    "Do what?" Henry asked dryly, voice and bearing proclaiming that he did not in any way perceive the other man as a threat. He moved away from the door and walked into Vicki's living room.

    As if he has every right to. Celluci found himself backing up. Son of a bitch! It took a conscious effort, but he dug in his heels and stopped the retreat. I don't know what game you're playing, spook, but you 're not going to win it so easily. "What the hell are you doing here?”

    "I might ask you the same thing."

    “ I have a key.”

    " I don't need one." Henry leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. "My guess is, you've come back to apologize for slamming out of here on Saturday.” He read a direct hit in the sudden quickening of Celluci's heartbeat and the angry rush of blood to his face.

    "She told you about that." The words were an almost inarticulate growl.

    "She tells me about everything." No need to mention the argument that followed.

    "You want me to just back off right now, don't you?" Celluci managed to keep a fingernail grip on his temper. "Admit defeat.”

    Henry straightened. "If I wanted you to back off, mortal, you would.”

    So if I'm a good eight inches taller than he is, why the hell do I feel like he's looking down at me? "Think pretty highly of yourself, don't you. Look, Fitzroy, I don't care what you are and I don't care what you can do. You should've been dust four hundred years ago. I am not letting you have her.”

    "I think that should be her choice, not yours.”

    "Well, she's not going to choose you!" Celluci slammed his fist down onto the table. A precariously balanced stack of books trembled at the impact and a small brown address book fell onto the answering machine.

    The tape jerked into motion.

    "Ms. Nelson? It's Mrs. Shaw again. I'm so sorry to bother you, but your mother's body has been moved over to the General Hospital. We thought you should know in case . . . well, in case . . . I expect you're on your way. Oh, dear . . . It's ten o'clock, April ninth, Monday morning. Please let us know if there's anything we can do to help.”

    Celluci stared down at the rewinding tape and then up at Henry. "Her mother's body," he repeated. Henry nodded.

    "So now we know where she is.”

    "If this call came in at ten, we can assume she got the original call about nine. She didn't tell you . . .”

    Celluci broke off and pushed the curl of hair back out of his eyes. "No, of course, she couldn't, you'd be . . . asleep. She didn't leave a message?”

    "No. Tony saw her boarding the 10:40 train for Kingston so she must have left the apartment just before that call. She didn't leave a message for you either?”

    "No." Celluci sighed and sat back on the edge of the table. "I'm getting just a little tired of this 'I can handle everything myself'
    attitude of hers.’”

    Henry nodded again. I thought we'd gone beyond this, she and I. "You and me both.”

    "Don't get me wrong, her strength is one of the things I . . .”

    The pause was barely perceptible. A mortal might have missed it. Henry didn't. Well, he's hardly going to tell me he loves her.

    ". . . admire about her, but," his expression seemed more weary than admiring, "there's a difference between strength and . . .”

    "Fear of intimacy," Henry offered.

    Celluci snorted. "Yeah." He reached behind him for the address book. "Well, she's just going to have to put up with a little fucking intimacy because I'm not going to let her stand alone in this." The binding barely managed to survive the force of his search.
    "Here it is, under M for Mother. Christ, her filing system . . ." Then, suddenly, he remembered who he was talking to. He wasn't, however, prepared for how fast Henry could move, didn't, in fact, see Henry move.

    Henry looked down at the address and handed the book back to the detective. "I assume I'll see you in Kingston," he said and headed for the door.

    "Hey!”

    He turned.

    "I thought you couldn't leave your coffin?”

    "You watch too many bad movies, Detective.”

    Celluci bristled. "You've still got to be under cover by dawn. I can see to it that you aren't. One phone call to the OPP and you'll be in a holding cell at sunrise.”

    "You won't do that, Detective." Henry's voice was mild as he caught Celluci's gaze with his own and let the patina of civilization drop. He played with the mortal's reaction for a