Blood Price

Mike, or God knows what they'll come up with." Celluci glowered at his partner, but Dave refused to back down. "I'll do it if you'd rather not."

    "No." Scowling, he looked out at the pack of jackals. "Anicka Hendle is dead because of the asinine stories you lot have been spreading about vampires. You're as much responsible as those two cretins we took away. Quite the story. I hope you're proud of it."

    Sliding in behind the wheel, he slammed his car door closed with enough force to create echos between the neighboring houses.

    A single reporter moved out of the stunned mass, microphone raised, but Dave Graham shook his head.

    "I wouldn't," he suggested quietly.

    Microphone still in the air, the reporter stopped and the whole pack of them watched as the two investigators drove away. The unnatural stillness lasted until the car cleared the end of the alley then a voice behind them prodded the pack back into action.

    "I seen her before the cops stuffed her in the bag."

    * * *
    "You still have that friend at the tab?"

    "Celluci?" Vicki settled back into her recliner, lifting the phone onto her lap. "What the hell are you talking about?"

    "That Fellows woman, the one who writes for the tabloid, are you still seeing her?"

    Vicki frowned. "Well I'm not exactly seeing her. . . ."

    "For Chrissakes, Vicki, this is no time to be coy! I'm not asking if you sleep with her; do you talk to her or not?"

    "Yeah." In fact, she'd been going to call her that very afternoon to see what could be done to ease Henry's fears about peasant hordes with stakes and garlic. What weird serendipity had Celluci thinking about Anne Fellows on the same day? They'd only met once and hadn't hit it off, had spent the entire party circling each other like wary dogs looking for an exposed throat.
    "Why?"

    "Get a pen and paper, I've got some things I want you to tell her."

    His tone sent Vicki scrabbling in the recliner's side pocket and by the time he started to talk she'd unearthed a ballpoint and a coffee-stained phone pad. When he finished, she swore softly.
    "Jesus-God, Mike, can I assume the higher-ups don't know you're passing this along?" She heard him sigh wearily and before he could speak, said, "Nevermind. Stupid question."

    "I don't want this to happen again, Vicki. The papers started it, they can finish it."

    Vicki looked down at the details of Anicka Hendle's life and death, scrawled across three sheets of paper in her precisely readable handwriting, and understood Celluci’s anger and frustration. An echo of it brushed her spine like a cold finger. "I'll do what I can."

    "Let's hope it's enough."

    She recognized the finality in that statement, knew he was hanging up, and yelled his name.
    The seconds she had to wait before she knew he'd heard her were the longest she'd faced in a while.

    "What?" he growled.

    "I'll be home tonight."

    She could hear him breathing so she knew he was still on the line.

    "Thanks," he said at last and the click as he put down the receiver was almost gentle.

    From where she sat by Druxy's back wall, Vicki could see the door as well as most of Bloor and Yonge through the huge windows. She'd decided this story was too important to chance a possible misunderstanding over the phone and had convinced Anne to meet her here for lunch.
    Face-to-face, she knew she'd have a better chance of convincing the columnist that the press had a responsibility to ensure that there wouldn't be another Anicka Hendle.

    She picked at the rolled cardboard edge of her coffee cup. Henry wanted the press coverage of the "vampire situation" stopped to protect himself, and Vicki had been willing to do what she could. She should have realized that Henry wasn't the only one in danger. The cardboard ripped and she swore as the hot coffee spilled over her hand.

    "Some detective. I could've smacked you on the head with a two by four and you'd never even have noticed I was there."

    "How. . . ?"

    "I came in the little door in the east corner, O investigative one." Anne Fellows slid into the seat across from Vicki and dumped the first of four packages of sugar into her coffee. "Now, what's so important you had to drag me out in the rain?"

    Prodding at her pickle with a stir stick, Vicki wondered where to begin. "A woman got killed this morning. . . ."

    "I hate to burst your bubble, sweetie, but women get killed every morning. What's so special about this one that you've decided to share it with me?"

    "This one's different.