Blood Price

wasn't dead. The dead have a posture the living are unable to imitate.

    Impossible to avoid, glass glittered in the carpet like an indoor ice field. The balcony door, the coffee table, the television-the part of Vicki trained to observe in the midst of disaster inventoried the different colored shards as she moved. Henry appeared to be in little better shape than his apartment.

    She wrestled the solarium door closed, forcing it through drying, sticky puddles of yellow fluid, then dropped to one knee by the couch and pressed her fingers against the damp skin of Henry's throat. His pulse was so slow that each continuing beat came almost as an afterthought.

    "Is that normal? How the hell am I supposed to tell what's normal for you?"

    As gently as possible, she untangled him from the upholstery and discovered that, miraculously, no bones seemed broken. His bones were very heavy, she noticed, as she carefully straightened arms and legs and she wondered wildly if he'd gotten them from the vampirism or from a more mortal heredity-not that it mattered much now. He'd been cut and gouged in a number of places, both by the shards of glass and by what she had to assume were the demon's talons.

    The wounds, even the deepest, bled sluggishly if at all.

    His skin was cool and damp, his eyes had rolled back, and he was completely unresponsive.
    He was in shock. And whatever the validity of the vampire legends, Vicki knew they were wrong about one thing. Henry Fitzroy was no more undead than she was; he was dying now.

    "Damn. Damn! DAMN!"

    With one hand guiding Henry's body so that it slid down onto the torn cushions, she heaved the couch back upright, knelt again beside it and reached for her bag. The small blade of her Swiss Army knife was sharpest- she used it less frequently-so she set its edge against the skin of her wrist. The skin dimpled and she paused, sending up a silent prayer that this would work, that whatever the legends were wrong about, they'd be right about this.

    It didn't hurt as much as she expected. She pressed the cut to his lips and waited. A crimson drop rolled out the corner of his mouth, drawing a line in red across his cheek.

    Then his throat moved, a small convulsive swallow. She felt his lips mold themselves to her wrist and his tongue lap once, twice at the flowing blood. The hair on the back of her neck rose and, almost involuntarily, she pressed the wound harder against his mouth.

    He began to feed, sucking frantically at first, then more calmly when something in him realized he wasn't going to be denied.

    Will he know when to stop ? Her breathing grew ragged as the sensations traveling up her arm caused answering sensations in other parts of her body. Will 1 be able to stop him if he doesn't?

    Two minutes, three, she watched him feed and during that time it was all he was-hunger, nothing more. It reminded her of an infant at the breast and under jacket, sweater, and bra, she felt her nipples harden at the thought. She could see why so many stories of vampires tied the blood to sex-this was one of the most intimate actions she'd ever been a part of.

    * * *
    First there was pain and then there was blood. There was nothing but blood. The world was the blood.

    * * *
    She watched as consciousness began returning and his hand came up to grasp hers, applying a pressure against that of his mouth.

    * * *
    He could feel the life that supplied the blood now. Smell it, hear it, recognize it, and he fought the red haze that said that life should be his. So easy to give in to the hunger.

    * * *
    She could see the struggle as he swallowed one last time and then pushed her wrist away.
    She didn't understand. She could feel his need, feel herself drawn to it. She raised her wrist back toward his mouth, crimson drops welling out from the cut.

    He threw it away from him with a strength that surprised her, the marks of his fingers printed white on her arm. Unfortunately, it was all the strength he had, his body going limp again, head lolling against her shoulder.

    The pain of his grip helped chase the fog away, although it was still desperately difficult to think. She shifted position. The room slid in and out of focus and she realized as she swam up out of the darkness why he'd forced himself to stop. She couldn't give him all the blood he needed, not without giving herself in the process.

    "Shit, shit, shit!" It wasn't very creative, but it made her feel better.

    Settling him back onto the couch,