Blood Price

Have you talked to your paper today? Or heard the news?"

    Anne rolled her eyes over the edge of her corned beef on a kaiser. "Give me a break, Vicki.
    It's Easter Sunday and I'm off. It's bad enough I have to wallow in this shit all week."

    "Well, then, let me tell you about Anicka Hendle." Vicki glanced down at her notes, more to settle her thoughts than for information. "It started with the newspapers and their vampire stories. . . ."

    "Not you, too! You wouldn't believe the nut cases that've been calling the paper the last couple of weeks." Anne took a swallow of coffee, frowned and put in another sugar packet.
    "Don't tell me-the kids are scared and you want me to write that there's no such thing as vampires."

    Vicki thought of Henry, hidden away from daylight barely two blocks from the deli, and then of the young woman who'd been impaled with a sharpened hockey stick, the force of the blow not only killing her but nailing her to the ground like a butterfly on a pin. "That's exactly what I want you to write," she said through clenched teeth. She laid out each gruesome detail of Anicka's story as if she were on the witness stand, all emotion leeched from her voice. It was the only way she could get through it without screaming or throwing something.

    Anne put down her sandwich early on and never picked it back up again.

    "The press started this," Vicki finished. "It's up to the press to end it."

    "Why call me? There were reporters at the scene."

    "Because you told me once that the difference between a columnist and a reporter is that the columnist has the luxury to not only ask why but to try to answer it."

    Anne's eyebrows went up. "You remember that?"

    "I don't forget much."

    The two women looked down at the notes and Anne snorted softly. "Lucky you." She scooped them up and at Vicki's nod stuffed them in her backpack. "I'll do what I can, but I'm not making any promises. There's screwballs all over this city and not all of them read my stuff. I suppose I can't ask where you got this information?" Much of it had been minutia not normally released to the press. "Never mind." She stood. "I can work around it without mentioning Celluci's name. I hope you realize that you've ruined my Sunday?"

    Vicki nodded and crushed her empty cup. "Happy Easter."

    "Henry Fitzroy is not able to come to the phone at the moment, but if you leave your name and number and a reason for your call after the tone, he'll get back to you as soon as possible.
    Thank you. If that's you, Brenda, I'll have it done by deadline. Stop worrying."

    As the tone sounded, Vicki wondered who Brenda was and what it referred to. Then she remembered Captain Macho and the young lady with the heaving bosoms. The concept of a vampire with an answering machine continued to amuse her even as she recognized its practicality- creatures of the night, welcome to the twentieth century. "Henry, it's Vicki. Look, there's no point in me coming over tonight. We don't know anything new and I certainly can't help with your stakeout. If something happens, call me. If not, I'll call you tomorrow." She frowned as she hung up. Something about talking to machines made her voice sound like Jack Webb doing narration for old Dragnet episodes. "I had a cheese danish," she muttered, pushing her glasses up her nose. "Friday had a cruller."

    Grabbing up her jacket and her bag, she headed for the door. When Celluci left the station, he'd be expected at his grandmother's to spend Easter Sunday with assorted aunts, uncles, cousins, and offspring. It happened every holiday and there wasn't an excuse good enough to get him out of it if he wasn't actually working. If he couldn't get what he needed from them, and, given what had happened to Anicka Hendle, she doubted he could-however supportive and loving his family was, they didn't, couldn't understand the anger and the frustration-he'd be over no earlier than eight. She had time to go through at least a division's worth of occurrence reports this afternoon.

    As she locked the door, the phone began to ring. She paused, staring into the apartment through the six inch gap. It couldn't be Henry. It wouldn't be Celluci. Coreen was still out of town. It was probably her mother. She closed the door. She wasn't up to the guilt.

    ". . . as well as all cables, a power bar, and a surge suppressor. In short, a complete system."
    Vicki tapped the occurrence report with the end of her pencil. What she knew about computers could be