Blood Pact

she isn't there, what then?”

    "Then we rip her office apart. We look for anything that might tell us where Henry is.”

    "And if we don't . . .”

    "Shut up, Celluci." She spat the words in his direction. "We'll find him.”

    He drew in breath to speak again, then let it out silently.

    Vicki twisted back around in the passenger seat, her grip on the dashboard painfully tight. We'll find him. All she could see through the windshield was the glare of the headlights, nothing of what they illuminated, not even the surface of the road. The lights of other cars appeared suspended, red and yellow eyes on invisible beasts. She felt the car turn, then slow, then finally stop. Silence fell, then darkness.

    "I parked around beside the building," Celluci said. "A little less obvious if we have to slip past Security.”

    "Good idea.”

    For a moment, neither of them moved, then Vicki turned toward her door just as Celluci opened his. The interior light came on and for a heartbeat she saw herself reflected in the car window.

    Pressed up against the glass, fingers splayed, mouth silently working, was her mother.

    "Mike!”

    He was at her side in an instant, the door mercifully closing as he slid across the front seat. She backed into the circle of his arms, squeezed her eyes so tightly shut they hurt, and tried to stop shaking.

    "Vicki, what is it? What's wrong?" He'd never heard his name called in such a way before and he hoped like hell he'd never hear it called that way again.

    The pain in Vicki's voice not only gouged pieces out of his soul, it clutched at him in a way she wasn't able to. She had her back pressed so hard against his chest he could barely breathe, but her fingers were folded into fists and her arms wrapped tightly around herself.

    "Mike, my mother is dead.”

    He rested his cheek against the top of her head. "I know.”

    "Yeah, but she's also up and walking around." A hint of hysteria crept into her tone. "So, it just occurred to me, when we find her, what are we supposed to do. I mean, how do we bury her?”

    "Jesus H. Christ." The whispered profanity came out sounding more like a prayer.

    "I mean," she had to gulp air between every couple of words, "am I going to have to kill her again?”

    "Vicki!" He held her closer. It was all he could think of to do. "Goddamnit! You didn't kill her the first time! As much as it seems cruel to say it, her dying had nothing to do with you.”

    He could feel her fighting for control.

    "Maybe not the first time," she said.

    The Hunger clawed and fought to be free and it took almost all the strength he had left to contain it. Released, it would quickly drive his abused body back into unconsciousness, probably breaking more bones as it fought to feed. Henry had no intention of allowing that to happen. He had to remain aware in case his captors should actually be stupid enough to open the box between dusk and dawn.

    With so little left to fuel fear, he was able to view his imprisonment almost dispassionately. Almost. Memories of being trapped in darkness flickered mothlike against the outside edges of his control but worse even than that were images of the experiments that would begin when sunrise made him vulnerable once more.

    Henry had seen the Inquisition, the slave trade, and the concentration camps of World War II and knew full well the atrocities people were able to commit. He'd seen his own father condemn men and women to the pyre for no better reason than temper. And these particular people, he thought, have already proven themselves less than ethically bound. There had been three containers. He was in one of them. Vicki's mother was, no doubt, in one of the other two.

    Turning his head slightly so that the flow of fresh air through the grille, through the unbreakable grille, passed over his mouth and nose, he concentrated on breathing. It wasn't much of a distraction, but it was one of the few he had.

    A minor comfort that I don't have to worry about suffoca . . .

    The stench of abomination suddenly engulfed him. He jerked back against the far side of his prison, shoulder blades pressed hard into the plastic, laboring heart pounding in his ears. The creature was right outside the box; it had to be.

    Cupping his injured hand against his chest, Henry fought for calm. This might be his only chance for freedom; he couldn't allow blind panic to take it from him.

    Something dragged across the top of the box, something large and soft. Henry had a