Blood Price

bordered the back of the yard, and disappeared with his burden into the night.

Six
    Dumping the contents of the huge black purse out on his coffee table, Henry dropped to his knees and rummaged through the mess for something that looked like ID; a wallet, a card case, anything. Nothing.

    Nothing? Impossible. These days no one traveled without identification, not even those who traveled only the night. He found both card case and wallet at last in the bag itself, tucked in a side pocket, accessible without having to delve through the main compartment.

    "Victoria Nelson, Private Investigator." He let out a breath he hadn't been aware of holding as he went through the rest of her papers. A private investigator, thank God. He'd been afraid he'd run off with some sort of un-uniformed police officer, thereby instigating a citywide manhunt. He'd observed, over the centuries that the police, whatever else their failings, took care of their own. A private investigator, though, was a private citizen and as such had probably not yet been missed.

    Rising to his feet, Henry looked down at the unconscious woman on his couch. Although he found it distasteful, he would kill to protect himself. Hopefully, this time, it wouldn't be necessary. He shrugged out of his coat and began to compose what he'd say to her when she woke up . . .

    . . . if she woke up.

    Her heartbeat filled the apartment, its rhythm almost twice as fast as his own. It called to him to feed, but he held the hunger in check.

    He glanced at his watch. 2:13. Sunrise in four hours. If she was concussed. . . .

    He hadn't wanted to hit her. Knocking someone out with a single blow wasn't easy no matter what movies and television suggested. Sporadic practice over the years had taught him where and how to strike, but no expertise could change the fact that a head blow slammed the brain back and forth within the skull, mashing soft tissue against bone.

    And it's quite an attractive skull, too, he noted, taking a closer look. Although there's a definite hint of obstinacy about the width of that jaw. He checked her ID again. Thirty-one. Her short dark blond/light brown hair-he frowned, unable to make up his mind-had no touch of gray but tiny laugh wrinkles had begun to form around her eyes. When he'd been "alive," thirty-one had been middle-aged. Now, it seemed to be barely adult.

    She wore no makeup, he approved of that, and the delicate, pale gold down on her cheeks made her skin look like velvet.

    And feel like velvet. . . . He drew back his hand and clamped the hunger tighter. It was want, not need, and he would not let it control him.

    The tiny muscles of her face shifted and her eyes opened. Like her hair, they were neither one color nor the other; neither blue, nor gray, nor green. The tip of her tongue moistened dry lips and she met his gaze without fear.

    "Son of a bitch," she said clearly, and winced.

    Vicki came up out of darkness scrambling desperately for information, but the sound of blood pounding in her ears kept drowning out coherent thought. She fought against it. Pain-and, oh God, it hurt-meant danger. She had to know where she was, how she'd gotten there. . . .

    A man's face swam into view inches above her own, a man's face she recognized.

    "Son of a bitch," she said, and winced. The words, the movement of her jaw, sent fresh shards of pain up into her head. She did what she could to ignore them. The last time she'd seen that face, and the body it was no doubt attached to, it had risen from slaughter and attacked her.
    Although she had no memory of it, he had obviously knocked her out and brought her here; wherever here was.

    She tried to look past him, to get some idea of her surroundings, but the room, if room it was, was too dark. Did she know anything she could use?

    I'm fully clothed, lying on a couch in the company of an insane killer and, although the rest of my body appears to be functional, my head feels like it's taken too many shots on goal. There seemed to be only one thing she could do. She threw herself off the couch.

    Unfortunately, gravity proved stronger than the idea.

    When she hit the floor, a brilliant fireworks display left afterimages of green and gold and red on the inside of her eyelids and then she sank into darkness again.

    The second time Vicki regained consciousness, it happened more quickly than the first and the line between one state and the next was more clearly delineated. This time, she kept her eyes