Blood Price

dinner, you know, where you sit down in the evening and stuff food in your mouth."
    "Oh, dinner. Why didn't you say so?" Vicki could hear the smile in his voice and her mouth curved up in answer. Mike Celluci was the only man she'd ever met whose moods changed as quickly as hers. Maybe that was why. . . . "You buying?" He was also basically a cheap bastard.
    "Why not. I'll deduct it as a business expense; consulting with the city's finest."
    He snorted. "Took you long enough to remember that. I'll be by about seven."
    "I'll be here."
    She hung up, pushed her glasses up her nose, and wondered just what she thought she was doing. It had seemed, while they talked- All right, while we indulged in the verbal sparring that serves us for conversation -almost like the last eight months and the fights before hadn't happened. Or maybe it was just that their friendship was strong enough to pick up intact from where it had been dropped. Or maybe, just maybe, she'd managed to get a grip on her life.
    "And I hope I haven't bitten off more than I can chew," she muttered to the empty apartment.

Three
    Stumbling to the right to avoid annihilation by a loaded backpack, Norman Birdwell careened into a stocky young man in a leather York University jacket and found himself back in the corridor outside the lecture hall. Shifting his grip on the plastic handle of his attaché", he squared his narrow shoulders and tried again. He often thought that exiting students should be forced to move in orderly rows through the left side of the double doors so that students arriving early for the next class could enter unopposed through the right.

    By sliding sideways between two young women, who, oblivious to Norman's presence, continued discussing the sexist unfairness of birth control and blow-dryers, he made it into the room and headed for his seat.

    Norman liked to arrive early so he could sit in the exact center of the third row, his lucky seat ever since he'd written a perfect first year calculus paper in the spot. He was taking this evening sociology class because he'd overheard two jocks in the cafeteria mention it was a great way to meet girls. So far, he wasn't having much luck. Straightening his new leather tie, he wondered if perhaps he shouldn't ask for a jacket.

    As he slid into his seat, his attaché jammed between two chair backs in the second row and jerked out of his hand. Bending to free it, his mechanical pencil slid free of his pocket protector and rolled back into the darkness.

    "Oh, fuck," he muttered, dropping to his knees. He'd been experimenting with profanity lately, hoping it would make him sound more macho. There'd been no noticeable success.

    There were legends about what lurked under the seats in York University lecture halls but all Norman found, beside his pencil-which he'd only had since Sunday night and didn't want to lose-was a neatly rolled copy of Wednesday's tabloid. Clipping the pencil back where it belonged, Norman spread the paper on his knee. The professor, he knew, would be up to fifteen minutes late; he'd have plenty of time to read the comics.

    "VAMPIRE STALKS CITY!"

    With trembling fingers, he opened it to the story.

    "Get a load of Birdwell." The thick-necked young man elbowed his companion. "He's gone white as a ghost."

    Rubbing bruised ribs, the recipient of this tender confidence peered down at the solitary figure in the third row of the hall. "How can you tell?" he grunted. "Ghost, geek; it's all the same."

    "I never knew," Norman whispered down at the black type. "I swear to God, I never knew. It wasn't my fault."

    He . . . no, it, had said it had to feed. Norman hadn't asked where or how. Maybe, he admitted now, because he hadn't wanted to know. Don't let anyone see you, had been his only instruction,

    He peeled damp palms up off the newsprint and raised them, smudged and trembling, into the air as he vowed, "Never again, I promise, never again."

    The gong sounded for another order of Peking Duck and while it reverberated through the restaurant, a mellow undertone to the conversations occurring in at least three different languages, Vicki raised a spoonful of hot-and-sour soup to her lips and stared speculatively at Mike Celluci.
    He'd been almost charming for this, the first half hour of the evening, and she'd had about as much of it as she could take.

    She swallowed and gave him her best don't give me any bullshit, buddy, I'm on to you smile.
    "So. Still holding tight to that