Blood Price

all relevant information." She tacked the list to the small bulletin board over the desk. Actually, she had no idea how relevant the names were. It was the slimmest of chances they'd mean anything at all, but so far it was the only chance they had and these twenty-three names at least gave her a place to start.

    9:46. She'd better get over to Henry's and find out just what exactly had happened the night before.

    "The hand of God. Right."

    Demons and Armageddon aside, she couldn't even begin to guess at what would make such an impression on a four hundred and fifty year old vampire.

    "Demons and Armageddon aside. . . ." She reached for the phone to call a cab. "You're getting awfully blasé about the end of the world."

    Her hand was actually on the plastic when the phone rang and her heart leapt up into her throat at the sudden shrill sound.

    "Okay." She took a deep breath. "Maybe not so blasé after all." By the third ring she figured she'd regained enough control to answer it.

    "Hi, honey, have I called at a bad time?"

    "I was just on my way out, Mom." Another five minutes and she'd have been gone. Her mother had a sixth sense about these things.

    "At this hour?"

    "It isn't even ten yet."

    "I know that, dear, but it's dark and with your eyes. . . ."

    "Mom, my eyes are fine. I'll be staying on well lighted streets and I promise I'll be careful.
    Now, I really have to go."

    "Are you going alone?"

    "I'm meeting someone."

    "Not Michael Celluci?"

    "No, Mom."

    "Oh." Vicki could practically hear her mother's ears perk up. "What's his name?"

    "Henry Fitzroy." Why not? Short of hanging up, there was no way she was going to get her mother off the phone, curiosity unsatisfied.

    "What does he do?"

    "He's a writer." As long as she stuck to answering her mother's questions, the truth would serve. Her mother was not likely to ask, "Is he a member of the bloodsucking undead?"

    "How does Michael feel about this?"

    "How should he feel? You know very well that Mike and I don't have that kind of relationship."

    "If you say so, dear. Is this Henry Fitzroy good looking?"

    She thought about that for a moment. "Yes, he is. And he has a certain presence. . . ." Her voice trailed off into speculation and her mother laughed.

    "It sounds serious."

    That brought her back to the matter at hand. "It is, Mom, very serious, and that's why I have to go now."

    "Very well. I was just hoping that, as you couldn't make it home for Easter, you might have a little time to spend with me now. I had such a quiet holiday, watched a bit of television, had supper alone, went to bed early."

    It didn't help that Vicki was fully aware she was being manipulated. It never had. "Okay, Mom. I can spare a few moments."

    "I don't want to put you out, dear."

    "Mother. . . ."

    Almost an hour later, Vicki replaced the receiver, looked at her watch, and groaned. She'd never met anyone as capable as her mother at filling time with nothing at all. "At least the world didn't end during the interim," she muttered, squinting at Henry's number up on the corkboard and dialing.

    "Henry Fitzroy is not able to come to the phone at the moment. . . ."

    "Of all the nerve!" She hung up in the middle of the message. "First he asks me to come over and then he buggers off." It wasn't too likely he'd met an untimely end while her mother had held her captive on the phone. She doubted that even vampires had the presence of mind to switch on their answering machines while being dismembered.

    She shrugged into her jacket, grabbed up her bag, and headed out of the apartment, switching her own machine on before she left. Moving cautiously, she made it down the dark path to the sidewalk, then pointed herself at the brighter lights that marked College Street half a block away. She'd been going to call for a taxi, but if Henry wasn't even at home, she'd walk.

    Her mother attempting to call attention to her disability had nothing to do with the decision.
    Nothing.

    * * *
    Henry grabbed for the phone, then ground his teeth when the caller hung up before the message had even finished. There were few things he hated more and that was the third time it had happened this evening. He'd turned the machine on when he sat down to write, more out of habit then anything, with every intention of picking up the receiver if Vicki chanced to call. Of course, he couldn't tell who was calling if they didn't speak. He looked at his watch. Ten past eleven. Had something gone wrong? He