Blood Price

past it, keep walking west to Huron Street and home, but, in spite of everything, she wasn't tired and didn't want to enclose herself with walls until she had banished all the dark on dark from the shadows. She watched a streetcar rattle by, the capsule of warmth and light empty save for the driver, and continued south to Dundas.

    Approaching the glass and concrete bulk of the Eaton's Center, she heard the bells of St.
    Michael's Cathedral sound the hour. In the daytime, the ambient noise of the city masked their call but in the still, quiet time before dawn they reverberated throughout the downtown core.
    Lesser bells added their notes, but the bells of St. Michael's dominated.

    Not really sure why, Vicki followed the sound. She'd chased a pusher up the steps of the cathedral once, years ago when she'd still been in uniform. He'd grabbed at the doors claiming sanctuary. The doors had been locked. Apparently, not even God trusted the night in the heart of a large city. The pusher had fought all the way back to the car and he hadn't thought it at all funny when Vicki and her partner insisted on referring to him as Quasimodo.

    She expected the heavy wooden doors to be locked again, but to her surprise they swung silently open. Just as silently, she slipped inside and pulled them closed behind her.

    Quiet please, warned a cardboard sign, mounted in a gleaming brass floor stand, Holy Week Vigil in progress.

    Her rubber soled shoes squeaking faintly against the floor, Vicki moved into the sanctum.
    Only about half of the lights were on, creating an unreal, almost mythical twilight in the church.
    Vicki could see, but only just and only because she didn't attempt to focus on anything outside the specific. A priest knelt at the altar and the first few rows of pews held a scattering of stocky women dressed in black, looking as though they'd been punched out of the same mold. The faint murmur of voices, lifted in what Vicki assumed was prayer, and the fainter click of beads, did nothing to disturb the heavy hush that hung over the building. Waiting; it felt like they were waiting. For what, Vicki had no idea.

    The flickering of open flame caught her eye and she slipped down a side aisle until she could see into an alcove off the south wall. Three or four tiers of candles in red glass jars rose up to a mural that gleamed under a single spotlight. The Madonna, draped in blue and white, held her arms wide as though to embrace a weary world. Her smile offered comfort and the artist had captured a certain sadness around the eyes.

    Like many .of her generation, Vicki had been raised vaguely Christian. She could recognize the symbols of the church, and she knew the historical story, but that was about it. Not for the first time, she wondered if maybe she hadn't missed out on something important. Peeling off her gloves, she slid into a pew.

    I don't even know if I believe in God, she admitted apologetically to the mural. But then, I didn't believe in vampires before tonight.

    It was warm in the cathedral and the nap she'd had that afternoon seemed very far away.
    Slowly she slid down against the polished wood and slowly the Madonna's face began to blur. . . .

    In the distance something shattered with the hard, definite crash that suggested to an experienced ear it had been thrown violently to the floor. Vicki stirred, opened her eyes, but couldn't seem to gather enough energy to move. She sat slumped in the pew, caught in a curious lassitude while the sounds of destruction grew closer. She could hear men's voices shouting, more self-satisfied than angry, but she couldn't catch the words.

    In the alcove the spotlight appeared to have burned out. Wrapped in shadow, illuminated only by the tiers of flickering candles, the Madonna continued to smile sadly, holding her arms out to the world. Vicki frowned. The candles were squat and white, the wax dribbling down irregular sides to pool and harden in the metal holders and on the stone floor.

    But the candles were enclosed . . . and the floor, the floor was carpeted. . . .

    A crash, louder and closer than the others, actually caused her to jerk but didn't break the inertia holding her in the pew.

    She saw the ax head first, then the shaft, then the man holding it. He charged up the side aisle from the front of the church, from the altar. His dark clothes were marked with plaster dust and through the gaping front of his bulging leather vest Vicki thought she saw the glint of