Blood Pact

physical attraction still tied her stomach in knots and caught the breath in her throat even after a year of exposure, what bothered her, almost frightened her, was how much he had invaded the rest of her life.

    Henry Fitzroy, vampire, bastard son of Henry VIII, was Mystery. If she spent a lifetime trying, she could never know all he was.
    And, God help her, she couldn't resist a mystery.

    Now Celluci, she rolled onto her side and layered herself around the curve of his body, Celluci was the yin to her yang. She frowned. Or possibly the other way around. He was a shared joke, shared interests, a shared past. He fit into her life like a puzzle piece, interlocking and completing the picture. And now she thought of it, that frightened her, too.

    She was complete without him.

    Wasn't she?

    Lord, oh Lord, oh Lord. When did my life start resembling country and western music?

    Celluci stirred under the force of her sigh and half roused. "Almost forgot," he murmured. "Your mother called.”

    The late morning sun had nearly cleared Vicki's bay window when she sat down at the kitchen table and reached for the phone.
    Returning her mother's call while Celluci was dressing would make it easier to deal with the questions she knew she was going to have to answer. Questions that would no doubt start with, Why was Michael Celluci in your apartment when you weren't? and escalate from there to the perpetual favorite, When will you be coming to visit?

    She sighed, fortified herself with a mouthful of coffee, and wrapped her fingers around the receiver. Before she could lift it out of the cradle, the phone rang. She managed, just barely, to keep the coffee from going out her nose but it took a half a dozen rings to get the choking under control. "Nelson Investigations.”

    "Ms. Nelson? It's Mrs. Simmons. I was beginning to think you weren't there.”

    "Sorry." She hooked a dish towel off the refrigerator door and swiped at the mess. "What can I do for you?”

    "The photographs came. Of my husband."

    Vicki checked her watch. Nearly noon in Toronto meant nearly eleven in Winnipeg. Hot damn. Truth in advertising; I've found a courier who can tell time.

    "It is my husband, Ms. Nelson. It's him." She sounded close to tears.

    "Then I'll take the information to the police this afternoon. They'll pick him up and then they'll get in contact with you.”

    "But it's the weekend." Her protest was more a whimper than a wail.

    "The police work weekends, Mrs. Simmons. Don't worry." Vicki turned up the reassurance in her voice. "And even if they can't actually bring him in until Monday, well, I personally guarantee he's not going anywhere."

    "You're sure?"

    "I'm sure.”

    "I need to ask him why, Ms. Nelson; why he did such a horrible thing to us?”

    The pain in the other woman's voice tightened Vicki's fingers on the receiver until her knuckles went white. She only just managed to mask her anger with sympathy during the final few moments of the call.

    "God-damned, fucking, son of a BITCH!”

    Her notepad hit the far wall of the apartment with enough force to shatter the spine and send loose paper fluttering to the floor like a flock of wounded birds.

    "Anyone I know?" Celluci asked. As he'd come into the living room barely a meter from the impact point, he supposed he should be thankful she hadn't thrown the coffee mug.

    "No." She surged up out of her chair, slamming it back so hard it fell and bounced twice.

    "Something to do with your found missing person?" It wasn't that difficult a guess; he knew the bare bones of the case and he'd heard her use the name Simmons during the phone conversation. Also, he knew Vicki and, while she was anything but uncomplicated, her reactions tended to be direct and to the point.

    "Lousy bastard!" Her glasses slid to the end of her nose and she jabbed them back up the slope. "Doesn't give a shit about what he put his family through. You should have heard her, Mike. He's destroyed everything she ever believed in. At least when she thought he was dead, she had memories, but now he's fucked those, too. He's hurt her so badly she hasn't even hit anger yet.”

    "So you're getting angry for her.”

    "Why not?”

    He shrugged. "Why not, indeed." Intimately familiar with Vicki's temper he thought he saw something more than just rage at a woman wronged. Lord knew she'd seen enough of that during her years on the force and had never, all right, seldom, reacted with such intensity. "Your mother, did