Blood Pact

forever.”

    He understood the smile.

    He understood forever.

    That was enough.

    His walk had degenerated into a lurch and a shuffle as he followed her from the room.

    He remembered joy.

    The level in the bottle of single malt whiskey had dropped rather considerably over the last . . . Dr. Burke peered at her watch but couldn't quite make out the time. Not that it mattered. Not really. Not any more.

    "Nothing can stop me from garnering the glory." Bracing her elbow, she poured a little more whiskey into her mug. "I said that.
    Nothing can stop me." She took a long drink and sat back, cradling the mug against her stomach.

    "Doc . . . tor . . .”

    She couldn't hear him. He was locked in a stainless steel box in another building.

    "Doc . . . tor . . .”

    She took another drink to drown out the sound.

    "Are you all right?”

    Vicki slid into the outer office and started across the room. Why was he asking her now? She'd managed to regain control before they left the car. "I'm fine.”

    "Would you tell me if you weren't?”

    Unable to see, she slammed her knee into the side of a desk and bit back a curse. Obviously, her memory of the office layout was less than perfect. "Fuck off, Celluci.”

    Aware she could no more see him than she could see anything else, he rolled his eyes. She certainly sounded a lot better.

    Dr. Burke heard the impact of flesh against furniture even through the covering noise of the whiskey. Her heart stopped. She had latched the isolation box. It couldn't have climbed out and followed her.

    Could it?

    Then she heard the voices and her heart started beating again.

    "How nice." The alcohol she'd consumed, while not yet enough to insulate her from the memory of what she'd left in the lab, was enough to make her feel removed from the rest of the world. "I've got company.”

    Bending carefully down from her chair so as not to put more stress on an already overloaded sense of balance, she lifted Donald's jacket from the carpet and laid it on the desk in front of her.

    "Please come in, Ms. Nelson. I can't abide a person who lurks.”

    Celluci pivoted to face the door. "Sounds like we've found the doctor." Through the light grip around Vicki's biceps he felt her shudder, but her voice remained steady.

    "So let's not keep her waiting.”

    Together they moved into the inner office.

    The street lamp, outside the window and five stories down, provided enough illumination for Celluci to see the doctor sitting at her desk. He couldn't make out her expression, but he could smell the booze. Twisting around, he stretched back a long arm and flicked on the overhead light.

    In the sudden glare, no one moved, no one said anything, until Vicki stepped forward, watering eyes squinted almost shut, and said with no trace of humor, "Dr. Frankenstein, I presume.”

    Dr. Burke snorted with laughter. "Good God, wit under stress. We could use a little more of that around here. Grad students are generally a boring, academically intensive bunch." One hand closed tightly around a fold of the jacket on her desk, the other lifted the mug to her mouth. "Generally," she repeated after a moment.

    "You're drunk," Vicki snarled.

    "A-plus for perception. C-minus for manners. As obvious as it obviously is, that's not the sort of thing you're supposed to point out.”

    Vicki charged the desk, barely stopping herself from going over it with a white-knuckled grip on the edge. "Enough bullshit!
    What have you done with Henry Fitzroy?”

    Dr. Burke looked momentarily surprised. "Oh, good lord, is that what this is about? I should have realized he was too good to be an accident. I should have realized he was with you. You strike me as just the sort of person who'd keep company with vampires.
    Detective-Sergeant!" She swung her head around to face Celluci who'd come up on her right side. "Do you know that your buddy here aids and abets the bloodsucking undead?" She set the empty mug carefully on the desk and reached for the bottle. Celluci was faster.
    Shrugging philosophically, Dr. Burke sat back in her chair. "So, what brought you to the conclusion that your Mr. Fitzroy was with me?”

    "Realizing that you killed my mother." Behind her glasses, Vicki's eyes blazed. Although she remained motionless, every line of her body screamed rage.

    "And what makes you say that?" The question could have concerned a thesis footnote for all the emotion Dr. Burke showed.

    Vicki glared at her. Her voice trembled with the