Blood Pact

city, he would find others pulled back to the hunt by the rising temperatures; some on four legs, most on two.

    He crossed Princess Street, eyes hooded against the blaze of light bracketing the intersection. A young woman waiting for the opposing green studied him as he passed and he acknowledged her interest with a slow smile. The heat of her reaction followed him for several paces. When it came right down to it, cities, and their people, were very much the same the world over.

    And thank God for that, he conceded with a silent salute to the heavens. It makes my night so much easier.

    Division Street spilled him out onto the actual campus and he slid into the shadow of a recessed doorway as a police car drove by.
    Twenty-four hours after a murder, they were likely to ask a number of questions he didn't want to answer. Questions like, where are you headed and why. Over the centuries, he'd found that the easiest way to deal with the police was not to deal with them at all.

    By the time he reached the tiny hidden parking lot where the murder had actually occurred, he'd avoided that same cruiser twice more. The Kingston constabulary were taking their media-delivered promise of increased patrols very seriously.

    Senses extended, Henry ducked under the yellow police tape and slowly crossed the asphalt. At the blurry chalk lines that isolated the victim's final resting place, he crouched and laid his fingers lightly on the pavement. The boy's death lingered; the scent of his terror, the imprint of his body, the instant of change when flesh became meat. Layered over it, layered over the whole area, was the other death; the scent of putrefaction, of chemicals, of machines, of death gone very, very wrong.

    Straightening, trying not to gag, Henry's hand traced the sign of the cross. Abomination. The word lodged in his brain and he couldn't shake it loose. He supposed it was as good a word as any to describe the creature whose trail he had to follow. Abomination.
    Perversion. Evil. Not of itself perhaps, but evil in the creation of it.

    When he tracked the creature to its sanctuary, if he found Marjory Nelson beside it, he would take steps to ensure that Vicki never saw what had been made of her mother. The one quick glimpse she'd already had was all that anyone should be required to live with.

    "Geez, Cathy, don't you ever go home?”

    Catherine looked up from the monitor and frowned. "What do you mean?”

    "You know, home ." Donald sighed. "Home with a bed, and a television, and a refrigerator full of condiments and half a container of moldy cottage cheese." He shook his head and laced his voice with exaggerated concern. "I'm not getting through to you here, am I?”

    It was Catherine's turn to sigh. "I know what home is, Donald.”

    "Can't prove it by me. You're always here .”

    Catherine's gaze swept the lab and her expression smoothed into contentment. "This is where my work is," she said simply.

    "This is where your life is," Donald snapped. "Don't you even go home to sleep?”

    "Actually," pale cheeks darkened, "I have a bit of a place set up down in the subbasement.”

    "What? Here? In this building?”

    "Well, sometimes the experiments can't be left or they have to be checked three or four times in the night and my apartment is way out on Montreal Street by the old train station and, well, it just seemed more practical to use one of the empty rooms here." The explanation spilled out in a rush of words. She watched, lower lip caught between her teeth, as Donald propped a buttock on the corner of a stainless steel table, pulled a candy from his pocket, unwrapped it, and popped it in his mouth.

    "I'll be damned," he said at last, grinning broadly. "You never struck me as the squatting type.”

    "It's not squatting!" she protested hotly. "It's . . .”

    "Caretaking." When she continued to scowl, he tried again. "Behaving in a responsible manner toward your experiments?”

    "Yes. That's it exactly.”

    Donald nodded, his grin returned. "Squatting." She could rationalize any way she liked, but that's still what it was, not that he disapproved. In fact, he considered it an amazing show of initiative from someone he considered too tied to her test tubes. "Why the subbasement?”

    She glared at him for a moment before she answered. "There aren't any windows to seal off." They both glanced at the plywood covered west wall. "And I'm less likely to be disturbed.”

    "Disturbed?" His brows jumped for his