Blood Price

what failure would bring managed to deflect the killing stroke that instinct had begun so that it struck bone and not soft tissue.

    The prey cried out and crumpled, silent now but still alive.

    It longed to lap at the warm blood that filled the night with the scent of food but it knew that feeding, once begun, could not be stopped and that this was not the place marked for death.
    Gathering the prey up, it turned its face to the wind and began to run, using all three of its free limbs. It could not take the prey to the earth, nor could it take to the sky with so heavy a burden.
    It must trust to speed to keep it unseen.

    The prey would die. It would obey its "master" in that, but it would obey an older master as well and the prey would die in the pattern.

    Unnoticed, the crushed red glove lay just beyond the edge of the parking lot lights. Beside it was a splash of darker red, already freezing.

Nine
    "And repeating our top story, the strange deaths in the Toronto area continue with the seventh body, found early this morning by police on Foxrun Avenue, just south of the Oakdale Golf and Country Club. Homicide investigators at the site have confirmed only that death occurred after a violent blow to the throat and will not say if this victim had also been drained of blood. Police are withholding the victim's name pending notification of the next of kin.

    "Weather for southern Ontario will be colder than the seasonal norm and. . . ."

    Vicki stretched out an arm and switched off the radio then lay for a moment on the weight bench, listening to the sounds of the city, convincing herself that the rumble of a distant truck was not the tread of a thousand clawed feet and that a high-pitched keening to the east was only a siren.

    "So far, no demonic hordes." She reached down and pressed her palm against the parquet floor. "Touch wood." It looked like she still had time to find the bastard dealing out these deaths and break every bone in. . . .

    Cutting off the thought, she stood and went into the living room where she'd taped the map of the city to the wall. Vengeance was all very well, but dwelling on it obscured the more pressing problem: finding the scum.

    The first six deaths had occurred on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights, a week apart.
    This Thursday night killing broke the pattern. Squinting at the map, Vicki circled Foxrun Avenue.
    She had no idea how this fit geographically or if it fit geographically or if it broke that pattern to pieces as well.

    She pushed her glasses up her nose and forced her teeth to unclench.

    Henry could play connect the dots this evening when he woke; she had other leads to follow.

    If Henry was right, and the person calling the demon was receiving stolen goods for each life, those goods had to have been reported missing. Find the goods, find the demon-caller. Find the demon-caller, stop the killing. It was all very simple; she only had to check every occurrence report in the city for the last three weeks and pull out unusual and unexplained thefts.

    "Which," she sighed, "should only take me about two years." And at that, two years of searching was infinitely better than another second sitting on her ass, helpless. Trouble was, with eighteen divisions in Metro, where did she start?

    She tapped the map with her pencil. The morning reports at 31 .Division would have details on the death the radio hadn't released. Details Henry might need to pin down the next site, the next killing. Also, the two lines from the previous six deaths intersected in 31 Division. That might be meaningless now, but it was still a place to begin.

    Clutching the bag containing the four doughnuts-two strawberry jelly and two chocolate glazed-in one hand and the bag with the accompanying coffees in the other, Vicki lowered her head and rounded the corner onto Nor-finch Drive. With the York-Finch hospital at her back, nothing stood between her and a vicious northwest wind but the police station and a few square miles of industrial wasteland. Squat and solid, 31 Division made a lousy windbreak.

    A patrol car rolled out of the station parking lot as she approached and she paused to watch it turn east on Finch Avenue. At 9:20 on Good Friday morning, traffic was sparse and it would be easy to get the mistaken impression that the city had taken this opportunity-a religious holiday observed by only about a third of its population to sleep in. The city, as Vicki well knew, never did anything that restful. If