Blood Price

eggs sat like a lump of lead in her stomach and her throat had closed up into an aching pillar that bore little relation to flesh. That was okay. She could work around it. With luck, there'd be time to sort her feelings out later.

    She should've taken a copy of the list to Henry's the night before. She didn't want to take the time now-not to copy it, not to drop it off.

    "Henry, it's Vicki." Fortunately, his machine took an unlimited message because the list of names and her plans for the day used over five minutes of tape. "When I know more, I'll get back to you."

    Five to seven. Seventeen hours. Vicki threw the list into her bag, grabbed her jacket, and headed for the door. An hour to get out to York would leave her only sixteen hours to search.

    She was already at the door, fumbling with its lock, when the phone rang. Curious about who'd be calling so early, she waited while her message ran through and the tone sounded.

    "Hi, Ms. Nelson? It's Coreen. Look, if you've been trying to reach me, I'm sorry I wasn't around, but I've been staying with some friends."

    The lock slipped into place. She'd talk with Coreen later. One way or another, by midnight the case would be closed.

    "It's just I was pretty upset because the girl who got killed, Janet, was a good friend of mine.
    I can't help but think that if I hadn't been so stupid about Norman Birdwell she'd have waited for me to give her a ride home."

    "Shit!" The lock proved as difficult to reopen as it had been to close. Norman Birdwell was one of the names on the list.

    "I guess if you find the vampire that killed Ian you'll find the one that killed Janet, too, won't you? I want it found now more than ever."

    She paused and her sigh was almost drowned out in the rattle of the chain falling free.

    "Uh, I'll be at home all day if you want to call. . . ."

    "Coreen? Don't hang up, it's me, Vicki Nelson."

    "Oh. Hi." She sounded a little embarrassed, caught talking to a machine. "Did I wake you up?
    Look, I'm sorry I'm calling so early, but I've got an exam today and I want to get over to the library to study."

    "It's no problem, trust me. I need you to tell me about Norman Birdwell."

    "Why? He's a geek."

    "It's important."

    Vicki could almost hear the shrug. "Okay. What do you want to know?"

    "How well do you know him?"

    "Puh-leese, I said he was a geek. He's in my Comparative Religions Class. That's all."

    "How were you stupid about him?"

    "What?"

    "You said earlier if you hadn't been so stupid about Norman Birdwell, Janet might have waited for a ride home."

    "Yeah, well. . . . I wouldn't have gone with him if I hadn't had the beers, but he said he could prove that vampires existed and that he knew who killed Ian. Well, I guess he didn't really say that . . . but something like that. Anyway, I went up to his apartment with him, but all he wanted to do was score. He had nothing to do with vampires."

    "Did you happen to notice if he had a computer system? A fairly large and complicated setup."

    "He had a system. I don't know how complicated it was. I was busy trying not to get squeezed and being fed some bull about calling up demons."

    The world stopped for a moment.

    "Ms. Nelson? You still there?"

    "Trust me, I'm not going anywhere." Vicki fell into her desk chair and rummaged for a pen.
    "This is very important, Coreen, where does Norman live."

    "Uh, west of the campus somewhere."

    "Can you give me his exact address."

    "No."

    "NO?" Vicki took a deep breath and tried to remember that yelling wouldn't help. Tucking the receiver under her chin, she heaved the white pages up off the floor by the desk. Bird . . .
    Birddal . . . Bird of Paradise. . . .

    "But if it's so important I could probably take you there. Like, I drove that night so I could probably find it again. Probably."

    "Probably's good enough." There was no Birdwell listed in the phone book. It made sense, he'd probably moved into his apartment in the fall, at the beginning of the school year, and new numbers were listed around the end of May. "I'll be right there. Where can you meet me?"

    "Well, I can't meet you until five. Like I said, I've got an exam today."

    "Coreen, this is important!"

    "So is my exam." Her tone showed no willingness to compromise.

    "Before the exam. . . ."

    "I really have to study."

    Okay, 5:00, was still early enough. A little over two hours until sunset and still seven hours until midnight. They had a positive identification and seven hours would