Blood Price

the other he took it away. The son of a bitch. "How many deaths in a demon's name?"

    "It depends on the demon." As Vicki scowled, he rose, walked to the bookcase, and slid open one of the glass doors. The book he removed was about the size of a dictionary, bound in leather that might have once be red before years of handling had darkened it to a worn and greasy black. He sat back down, closer this time, twisted the darkly patinaed clasp, and opened the book to a double page spread.

    "It's hand-written," Vicki marveled, touching the corner of a page. She withdrew her finger quickly. The parchment had felt warm, like she'd just touched something obscenely alive.

    "It's very old." Henry ignored her reaction; his had been much the same the first time he'd touched the book. "These are the demonic names. There're twenty-seven of them and no way of knowing if the author discovered them all."

    The names, written in thick black ink in an unpleasantly angular script, were for the most part seven or eight letters long. "The demon can't be anywhere near finished," she said thankfully.
    She still had time to find the bastard behind this.

    Henry shook his head, hating to dampen her enthusiasm. "It wouldn't be laying out the entire name, just the symbol for it." He flipped ahead a few pages. The list of names was repeated and beside each was a corresponding geometrical sign. Some were very simple. "Literacy is a fairly recent phenomenon," Henry murmured. "The signs are all that are really needed."

    Vicki swallowed. Her mouth had gone suddenly dry. Some of the signs were very simple.

    Silently, Henry closed the book and replaced it on the shelf. When he turned to face her again, he spread his arms in a helpless gesture. "Unfortunately," he said, "I can't stop the demon until after it kills again."

    "Why not?"

    "Because I have to be there ready for it. And last night it completed the second part of the pattern."

    "Then it could have completed ..."

    "No. We'd know if it had."

    "But the next death, the death that starts the pattern again, it could complete ..."

    "No, not yet. Not even the least complicated of the names could be finished so quickly."

    "You were ready for it last night." He'd been there, just as she had. "Why didn't you stop it, then?" But then, why didn't she?

    "Stop it?" The laugh had little humor in it. "It moved so fast I barely saw it. But the time after next, now that I know what I'm facing, I'll be waiting for it. I can trap it and destroy it."

    That sounded encouraging, if there was a time after next. "You've done this before?"

    She needed reassurance but Henry, who knew he could make her believe anything he chose to tell her, found he couldn't lie. "Well, no." He'd never been able to lie to Ginevra either, another similarity between the two women he'd just as soon not have found.

    Vicki took a deep breath and picked at the edge of her sweater. "Henry, how bad will it get if the named demon gets free?"

    "How bad?" He sighed and sagged back against the bookcase. "At the risk of being considered facetious, all hell will break loose."

Eight
    Norman glanced around the Cock and Bull and frowned. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights, the nights he'd set aside for seriously trying to pick up chicks, he arrived early to be sure of getting a table. So far, this had meant by 9:30 or 10:00, someone would have to share with him. Tonight, the Thursday before the long Easter weekend, the student pub was so empty it looked as if he'd have no company all night.

    It isn't cool to go home for Easter, he thought smugly, running a finger up and down the condensation on his glass of diet ginger ale. His parents had been disappointed, but he'd been adamant. The really cool guys hung out around the university all weekend and Norman Birdwell was now really cool.

    He sighed. They didn't, however, apparently hang out at the Cock and Bull. He'd have given up and gone home long ago except for the redhead who held court at the table in the corner. She was absolutely beautiful, everything Norman had ever wanted in a woman, and he had long adored her from across the room in their Comparative Religions class. She wasn't very tall, but her flaming hair gave her a presence and inches in other areas made up for her lack of height.
    Norman could imagine ripping off her shirt and just gazing at the softly mounded flesh beneath.
    She'd smile at him in rapt adoration and he'd gently reach out to touch. His imagination wasn't up