Blood Price

with the demon as it always had before, grew louder.

    He dug his change purse out of his pants' pocket, muttering, "A decent country would have a decent information service." If he'd known about this yesterday, he'd have called the demon back last night instead of spending the time on the net, looking for someone who could tell him how to operate his new equalizer. Too bad I couldn't take that to class. They'd all notice me then. What really made him angry was that the demon had come back on Thursday and then gone off and gotten him the rifle without ever letting on it had screwed up.

    When he saw a Saturday paper cost a dollar twenty-five, he almost changed his mind, but the story was about him, in a way, so, grumbling, he fed coins into the slot. Besides, he needed to know what the demon had done so he could find a way to punish it tonight. As long as he had it trapped in the pentagram, there must be something he could do to hurt it.

    Paper tucked under his arm-he'd have taken two, but a single weekend edition was bulky enough on its own-he continued into the small corner store for a bag of briquettes. He had only one left and he needed three for the ritual.

    Unfortunately, he was seventy-six cents short.

    "What!"

    "The charcoal is three dollars and fifty-nine cents plus twenty-five cents tax which is coming to three dollars and eighty-four cents. You have only three dollars and eight cents."

    "Look, I'll owe it to you."

    The old woman shook her head. "Sorry, no credit."

    Norman's eyes narrowed. "I was born in this country. I've got rights." He reached for the bag, but she swept it back behind the counter.

    "No credit," she repeated a little more firmly.

    He was halfway around the counter after it, when the old woman picked up a broom and started toward him. Scooping up his money, he beat a hasty retreat.

    She probably knows kung fu or something. He shifted the paper under his arm and started back to his apartment. On the way past, he kicked the newspaper box again. The closest bank machine closed at six. He'd never make it. He'd have to head into the mall tomorrow to find an open one.

    This was all that old lady's fault. After he worked out a suitable punishment for the demon and made sure that Coreen got hers, maybe he'd do something about the immigrant problem.

    The throbbing grew louder still.

    * * *
    "Look at this!"

    Scrubbing at her face with her hands, Vicki answered without looking up. "I've seen it. I brought them over, remember?"

    "Is the entire city out of its mind?"

    "The entire city is scared, Henry." She put her glasses back on and sighed. Although she had no intention of telling him, she'd slept last night with the bedroom light on and still kept waking, heart in her throat, drenched with sweat, sure that something was climbing up the fire escape toward her window. "You've had since 1536 to come to terms with violent death. The rest of us haven't been so lucky."

    As if to make up for the lack of news over Good Friday, all three of the Saturday papers carried the seventh death as a front page story, emphasized that this body, too, had been drained of blood, and all three, the staid national paper finally jumping on the bandwagon, carried articles on vampires, columns on vampires, historical and scientific exploration of vampires-all the while claiming no such creature existed.

    "Do you know what the result of all this will be?" Henry slapped the paper he held down on the couch where the pages separated and half of it slithered to the floor.

    Vicki swiveled to face him as he moved out of her limited field of vision. "Increased circulation?" she asked, covering a yawn. Her eyes ached from a day spent reading occurrence reports and the news that their demon-caller had turned to more conventional weapons had been all she needed to hear.

    Henry, unable to remain still, crossed the room in four angry strides, turned, and came back.
    Bracing his hands on the top of the couch, he leaned toward her. "You're right, people are afraid.
    The papers, for whatever reasons, have given that fear a name. Vampire." He straightened and ran one hand back through his hair. "The people writing these stories don't believe in vampires, and most of the people reading these stories don't believe in vampires, but we're talking about a culture where more people know their astrological sign than their blood type. Somewhere out there, somebody is taking all this seriously and spending his spare time sharpening