Blood Price

kill it. Why? There had to be people closer."

    "Perhaps this time it was told who to kill."

    "I was afraid you were going to say that."

    "It's the only logical answer," Henry said, standing. "But look at the bright side."

    "There is no bright side," Vicki snarled. She'd finished her day with the coroner's report.

    "At the risk of sounding like a Pollyanna," Henry told her dryly, "there's always a bright side.
    Or at least a side that's less dark. If the demon was instructed to kill this young woman, perhaps the police can find the link between her and its master."

    "And if it was just indulging in demonic perversity?"

    "Then we're no farther behind than we were. Now, if you'll excuse me, with the timetable shattered, I'd better get out to the Humber in case the demon is recalled tonight."

    At the door, Vicki stopped, a sudden horrific thought bleaching the color from her face.
    "What's stopping this thing from showing up inside someone's house? Where you can't see it?
    Where you can't stop it?"

    "Demons," Henry told her, smiling reassuringly as he secured the belt of his trenchcoat, "are unable to enter a mortal's home unless expressly invited."

    "I thought that referred to vampires?"

    With one hand in the small of her back, Henry moved her firmly out into the hall. "Mr.
    Stoker," he said, as he locked the door to the condo, "was indulging in wishful thinking."

    Henry leaned against the cemetery fence and looked out over the small collection of quiet graves. They were old stone slabs for the most part, a uniform size and a uniform age. The few marble monuments looked pretentious and out of place.

    To the west, the cemetery butted against the Humber River park system, and the muttering of the swollen river filled the night with sound. To the north lay residential areas. To the east and south, vacant and. He wondered if the cemetery had something to do with the lack of development. Even in an age of science, the dead were often considered bad neighbors. Henry couldn't understand why; the dead never played Twisted Sister at 130 decibels at three in the morning.

    He could feel, not the pattern, but the anticipation of it. A current of evil waiting for its chance, waiting for the final death that would anchor it to the world. This feeling, which raised the hair on the back of his neck and made him snarl, was strong enough to convince him that he'd chosen correctly. This name would be the first to finish; this demon lord the first to break free of the darkness and begin the slaughter.

    He must stop the lesser demon in the few seconds between its appearance and the killing blow, for once the blood struck the ground he'd have its demonic master to contend with.
    Unfortunately, the pattern allowed for a wider area than he could watch all at once, so he'd done the only thing he could-walking a pentagram well outside the boundaries the pattern demanded, leaving the last six inches unclosed. When the demon entered, to attack a life within it or carrying a life in from outside, he'd close it. Such an ephemeral prison wouldn't last more than a few seconds but should give him control long enough to get to the demon and . . .

    ". . . and stop it." Henry sighed and turned up the collar of his coat. "Temporarily." Trouble was, the lesser demons were pretty much interchangeable. If he stopped this one, there was nothing stopping its "master" from calling up another. Fortunately, these demons, like most bullies, weren't fond of pain and he might be able to convince it to talk.

    "If it can talk." He shoved his hands in his pockets and sagged against the fence. Rumor had it that not all of them could.

    There was an added complication he hadn't mentioned to Vicki because he knew she'd scoff.
    Tonight, all over the world, millions of people were crying that Christ was dead. This century might have lost its ability to see the power in believing, but Henry hadn't. Most religions had marked a day of darkness on the calendar and, given the spread of the Christian church, this was among the most potent. If the demon returned before Christ rose again, it would be stronger, more dangerous, harder to stop.

    He checked his watch. 11:40. Bound by centuries of tradition, the demon would be called-if it was called at all tonight-at midnight. According to Vicki, all the previous deaths had occurred between midnight and one o'clock. He wondered how the police had missed such an obvious clue.

    The wind snapped his coat around his knees