Blood Pact

Mrs. Shaw's greeting but continued into her office without pausing. She couldn't decide what she hated more, bureaucracy itself or the sycophants that fawned around it. Why, she wondered, does it have to be so difficult to end a term? Just send the students home and hose down the blackboards.

    The last thing that she needed, after not one but three meetings in which she valiantly attempted to impose logic onto rules and regulations, was to see Marjory Nelson's daughter wandering the halls of the Life Sciences building, peering through windows into labs and lecture halls and generally making a nuisance of herself. Watching the younger woman's progress from the anonymity of a shadowed recess, she'd very nearly called Security and had her escorted out. The presence of the Toronto police officer, whom she'd been introduced to briefly at the truncated funeral, changed her mind. Arbitrary actions were just the sort of thing that tended to make the police suspicious.

    Besides, the chances of Vicki Nelson stumbling onto the lab, and her mother's body, were slim. First, she'd have to find the access passage into the old building. Then, she'd have to negotiate through the rabbit warren of halls that crossed and recrossed the hundred-year-old structure-halls that had occasionally, in the past, defeated freshmen armed with maps, to find the one room in use.

    No, Vicki Nelson had no chance of finding her mother's body, but that didn't mean Dr. Burke liked seeing her hanging around.

    Why the hell doesn't she just go home? She dropped into her chair and fanned the pile of messages on her desk. Without her prodding, the police would've back-burnered this before they'd even begun.

    If only the coffin hadn't been opened; no one would have been the wiser.

    If only Donald hadn't allowed Marjory Nelson to walk out of the lab and home.

    If only the sight of the mother reanimated hadn't convinced the daughter that the answer lay at the university.

    Vicki Nelson was an intelligent woman; even allowing for maternal prejudices, the facts spoke for themselves. Eventually, in her search for her mother, she'd stumble onto something that would jeopardize Dr. Burke's position. Dr. Burke had no intention of allowing that to happen.

    Slowly, the Director of Life Sciences smiled. The incredible circumstance that had dropped a vampire into her hands had also given her an easy answer to the problem. "If Ms. Nelson wants to find her mother so badly," she murmured, tapping out the number for the lab, "maybe she should.”

    Catherine answered the phone on the third ring with a terse, "What is it, Doctor? I'm busy.”

    "How are the tests going?”

    "Well, you want rather a lot done and . . .”

    "Isn't Donald helping?”

    "No, he . . .”

    "Has he even been in today?”

    "Well, no, he . . .”

    "I don't want to hear his excuses, Catherine, I'll deal with him myself later." This wasn't the first time Donald had taken an unscheduled holiday, but it was time she put her foot down about it. "Have you run into anything this afternoon that might prevent us developing an AIDS vaccine?”

    "Well, actually, I've observed that certain nonphagocytic leukocytes have a number of specialized functions on a cellular level that might possibly be developed into just that." She paused for a moment, then continued. "We'd have to practically drain Mr. Fitzroy to acquire a serum, though, and his pressure's already awfully low. I keep having to take new samples because even a minute amount of ultraviolet light destroys the cell structure.”

    "For pity's sake, Catherine, don't let any ultraviolet light fall on him. We can always replenish his blood . . ." The thought brought an interesting evisceral response that could possibly be explored later when they had more time. ". . . but if he loses cellular integrity, even your bacteria won't be able to rebuild him.”

    "I am aware of that, Doctor. I'm being very careful.”

    "Good. Now, then, since Mr. Fitzroy so fortuitously fell into our hands, I've altered our plans somewhat. Here's what we're going to do: run one final analysis on numbers nine and ten, no point in wasting data that might be useful later, then terminate them, strip them of all hardware, do the usual biopsies, and process both of them out through the medical morgue. We'll work up the standard paperwork on number nine, but someone's sure to recognize Marjory Nelson. I'll see to it that she can't be traced back to us, everyone will claim