Blood Pact

her hold on Celluci's shoulder at the edge of the light. "Give it a five count." His breath lapped warm against the side of her face, then he darted across the opening.

    The next five seconds were among the longest Vicki had ever spent as she closed her eyes, leaned her head back against the wall, and wondered if she'd have the courage to look. On five, she swallowed hard, opened her eyes, and peered around and into the room, conscious of Celluci across the doorway mirroring her movements.

    Even with lids slitted against the glare, it took a moment for her eyes to stop watering enough for her to focus. It was a lab. It had obviously been in use recently. It had just as obviously been abandoned. Eight years with the police had taught her to recognize the telltale mess left behind when suspects had cut and run.

    Cautiously, they moved away from the door, slowly turned, and simultaneously spotted the isolation box, humming in mechanical loneliness at the far end of the room.

    Vicki took two quick steps toward it, then stopped and forced her brain to function. "If this is the original lab, we know Catherine moved Henry away . . .”

    "So Henry's not in that box.”

    "Maybe it's empty.”

    "Maybe.”

    But neither of them believed it.

    "We have to know for sure." Somehow, without her being aware of it, Vicki's feet had moved her to within an arm's length of the box. All she had to do was reach out and lift the lid.

    . . . and lift the lid. Oh, Momma, I'm sorry. I can't. She despised herself for being a coward, but she couldn't stop the sudden cold sweat nor the weakness in her knees that threatened to drop her flat on her face.

    "It's all right." It wasn't all right, but those were the words to say, so Celluci said them as he came around her and put one hand on the latch. This, at least, he could do for her. "You don't have to stay.”

    "Yes. Yes, I do." She could be a passive observer, if only that.

    Celluci searched her face, swore privately that someone would pay for the pain that kept forcing its way out through the cracks in the masks she wore, and lifted the lid.

    The release of tension was so great that Vicki swayed and would have fallen had Celluci not stepped back and grabbed her. She allowed herself a moment leaning on the strength of his arm, then shook herself free. From the beginning, she'd declared she was going to find her mother. Why am I so relieved that we didn't?

    Thick purple incisions, tacked closed with coarse black thread, marked the naked body of the young Oriental male in an ugly "y"
    pattern. A collar of purple and green bruises circled the slender column of the throat. Plastic tubes ran into both elbows and the inner thigh. Across the forehead, partially covered by a thick fall of ebony hair, another incision appeared to have been stapled closed.

    Over the years, both Vicki and Celluci had seen more corpses than they cared to remember. The young man in the box was dead.

    "Mike, his chest . . . it's . . ."

    “I know.”

    Two steps forward and she was close enough to reach over the side and gently touch her fingertips to the skin over the diaphragm. It was cold. And it rose and fell to the prompting of something that vibrated beneath it.

    "Jesus . . . There's a motor." She withdrew her hand and scrubbed the fingers against her jacket. Raising her head, she caught Celluci making the sign of the cross. "Dr. Burke never mentioned this.”

    "No. Not quite." He shifted his gun to his right hand and slipped it back into the shoulder holster. It didn't look like he'd be needing it right away. "But something tells me we've finally found Donald Li.”

    The young man's eyes snapped open.

    Vicki couldn't have moved had she wanted to. Nor could she look away when the dark eyes tracked from her to Celluci and back again.

    A muscle shifted behind the purple bruises on the throat.

    Gray-blue lips parted.

    "Kill . . . me . . .”

    "Holy Mary, Mother of God, he's alive.”

    In the box, the dark eyes slid slowly back to Celluci. "No . . .”

    "No? What the hell do you mean no?”

    "He means he's not alive, Mike." Vicki could hear a part of herself screaming. She ignored it. "He's like my mother.” Hands splayed against the glass. Mouth moving soundlessly. "He's dead. But he's trapped in there.”

    "Kill . . . me . . . please . . .”

    Her fingers digging into the bend of Celluci's elbow, Vicki backed away, pulling him with her. She stopped when the high rim of stainless steel