Blood Price

bumping into wizards and warriors and long legged beasties on every street corner."

    "He's such a dork."

    "It's just a game."

    "It's a game we're not playing," someone pointed out.

    "Is Norman in bad trouble?"

    "Yes."

    They stopped talking after that. They didn't have the concepts to deal with the tone of Henry's voice.

    Grace handed him the paper tentatively, although not entirely certain she'd keep her fingers in the deal.

    "Wait a minute," the tall young man protested. "I don't like Norman either, but should we be giving out his. . . ." Henry turned to look full at him. He paled and closed his eyes.

    As he slammed his car into gear and burned rubber the length of the parking lot, Henry checked his watch. 11:36. So little time.

    ". . . and one final join here." Norman straightened up and beamed proudly down at his apartment floor. The white outline of the pentagram had almost been obscured by the red and yellow symbols surrounding it. He caressed the open page of the grimoire, tracing with his fingertips the diagram he'd just finished reproducing. "Soon," he told it. "Soon."

    The smell of the acrylic paint so close to Yield's face added to the nausea and made her eyes sting and itch. She no longer had the strength to ignore it, so she endured it instead. Scrubbing out a bit of the pentagram before it dried had seemed like a good idea until she realized that it would only release the Demon Lord to the slaughter that much sooner. But there had to be something she could do. She would not, could not, admit Norman Birdwell had won.

    Coreen stared from the pentagram to Norman and back to the drying paint. It was real, all of it, and while she'd always believed, now she began to believe . Her mouth suddenly dry and her heart beating so loud she felt sure the skinny geek should be able to hear it, she tried harder to free her right leg. When Norman had tied her back up after taking her to the bathroom, she'd worked a bit of slack into the socks. Ever since, while he'd puttered about doing who knew what, she'd been working them looser, stretching them little by little. Sooner or later, she'd have her leg free. For now, her mind refused to deal with anything beyond that point.

    The five candles Norman placed around the pentagram were new. Red and yellow spirals had been much easier to find than black candles of any description. He kept the grimoire with him, tucked under an arm when he needed his hands free, clutched close to his chest when he didn't. He had begun to feel incomplete without it, as if it had become a part of him, even taking it to Canadian Tire that afternoon when he bought the new hibachi. Holding it, he knew that his wildest dreams were about to come true.

    The throbbing in his head had become louder, wilder, and more compelling. Its tone varied with his actions . . . or possibly his actions varied with the tones- Norman was no longer entirely sure.

    As he pulled the tiny barbecue out of its box and set it up by the balcony door, he checked to see if his audience was impressed. The older woman had closed her eyes again, her glasses having slipped down far enough for him to see over them, but she was still breathing and that was really all that counted. He'd be pissed if she died before he killed her ‘cause then he'd have to use Coreen and he had other plans for her. Coreen didn't look impressed either, but she looked scared and that would do for now.

    "You're not laughing." He prodded her in the back with the grimoire, noting with pleasure the way she flinched away from its touch, then squatted to set up the three charcoal briquettes.

    "There's nothing to laugh at, Norman." Coreen twisted around in her chair. He was a little behind her and to one side and she hated not being able to see what he was doing. Although she wanted to shriek, she tried to keep her voice from rising too high. You should talk softly to crazy people-she'd read that in a book. "Look, this has gone far enough. Ms. Nelson needs a doctor." A little pleading wouldn't hurt. "Please, Norman, you let us go and we'll forget we ever saw you."

    "Let you go?" It was Norman's turn to laugh at her. He didn't think the Demon Lord could give him anything he'd enjoy so much. He laughed at her the way everyone, all his life, had laughed at him. It grew and grew and she shrank back under the weight of it. He felt it echo in the grimoire, felt his body begin to reverberate with the sound, felt it wrap in and around the pulsing in his