Blood Pact

and made her feel stronger. Even the panic over Henry calmed a little. Her eyes grew damp.

    I am not going to cry.

    Shoving the words past the lump in her throat, she said, "It doesn't work like that.”

    "Good." He heard, if not acceptance, at least acknowledgment in her tone and was content for the time to leave it at that.

    The room grew perceptibly lighter.

    Vicki turned toward the windows, arms wrapped tightly around herself once more. "Open the curtains.”

    They both heard the silent corollary. You open them because I can't. Because I'm afraid of what I might see.

    "Who was your slave last year," Celluci grumbled to cover it.

    It was going to be a beautiful day. Several dozen birds were noisily welcoming the dawn and the air had the kind of clarity that only occurred in the morning in spring.

    His watch said 6:22. "How long can he last in the sun?”

    "I don't know.”

    "I'm going to check outside. Just in case he almost made it home.”

    No twisted, blackened body crawled toward the door. No pile of ash spread man-shaped in the parking lot. When Celluci came back inside, he found Vicki standing where he'd left her, staring at the window.

    "He isn't dead.”

    "Vicki, you have no way of knowing that.”

    "So?" Her teeth were clenched so hard her temples began to throb. "He isn't dead.”

    "All right." Celluci crossed the room to her side and gently turned her to face him. "I don't want to believe it either." It was true, he didn't. He didn't understand half the responses Fitzroy evoked in him, but he didn't want him gone. "So we won't believe it together.”

    Together. Face twisted into a scowl to stop the threat of tears, Vicki nodded. Together sounded a whole lot better than alone.

    He could feel the dawn. Even through the terror and the frenzy and the panic, he could feel the morning approach. For a moment he fought harder, slamming his whole body up against the lid of his prison, then he collapsed back against the padding and lay still.

    The familiar touch of the sun trembling on the edge of the horizon brought sanity with it. For too long he had known only the all pervasive stench of abomination and the pain he inflicted upon himself to get free. Now he knew who he was again.

    Just in time to lose himself to the day.

    Working on her own, it took Catherine until after seven to finish preparing Donald's body and hook it up in number nine's box.
    She'd intended to use number eight's, but the intruder locked inside had forced her to change her plans. It wouldn't hurt number nine to stay out for a while. It might even be good for him.

    She yawned and stretched, suddenly exhausted. It had been a long and eventful night and she was in desperate need of a couple of hours sleep. The constant pounding from number eight's box had been very irritating and more than a little distracting during certain delicate procedures. She very nearly turned the refrigeration unit back on just to see if that would cool him down.

    How unfortunate that, when the pounding finally stopped, she'd been nearly finished and able to appreciate the quiet for only a short time.

Ten
    Vicki woke first and lay staring blindly at the ceiling, uncertain where she was. The room felt unfamiliar, the dimensions wrong, the patterns of shadow that made up the world without her glasses not patterns she, recognized. It wasn't her bedroom, nor, in spite of the man still asleep beside her, was it Celluci's.

    Then she remembered.

    Just past dawn, the two of them had lain down on her mother's bed. Her dead mother's bed. Two of them, where there should've been three.

    All three of us in my dead mother's bed? The edge on the sarcasm very nearly drew blood. Get a grip, Nelson.

    She slid out from under Celluci's arm without waking him and groped on the bedside table for her glasses, the daylight seeping around the edges of the blinds providing barely enough illumination for her to function. Her nose almost touching the surface of the clock radio, she scowled at the glowing red numbers. Ten minutes after nine. Two hours' sleep. Add that to the time Henry had granted her and she'd certainly functioned on less.

    Pulling her robe closer around her, she stood. She couldn't go back to sleep now anyway. She couldn't face the dreams, Henry burning and screaming her name while he burned, her mother's rotting body a living barrier between them. If she wanted to save Henry, she had to go past her mother. And she couldn't. Feelings of fear and