Blood Trail

there to explain the body...

    "What is taking him so long!" Vicki shoved at her glasses and turned away from the living room window. With the sun down she could see nothing past her reflection on the glass but that didn't stop her from pacing the length of the room and back then peering out into the darkness again.

    "He has to come all the way from Adelaide and Dundas," Bertie pointed out. "It's going to take him a few minutes."

    "I know that!" She sighed and took a deep breath. "I'm sorry. I had no right to snap at you. It's just that . . . well, if it wasn't for my damned eyes, I'd be driving myself. I'd be halfway there by now!"

    Bertie pursed her lips and looked thoughtful. "You don't trust your partner to deal with it?"

    "Celluci's not a partner, he's a friend. I don't have a partner. Exactly." And although Henry could be counted on to keep Celluci from doing anything stupid, who would save Peter, or watch the wer, or grab the murdering bastard - Vicki always saw him with Mark Williams'
    face, convinced that he had been the reason for the deaths even if he hadn't pulled the trigger -
    and ... and then what? "I have to be there! How can I know it's justice if I'm not there?"

    Realizing that some questions weren't meant to be answered, Bertie wisely kept silent.
    Questions of her own would have to wait.

    "Damn it, I told him it was an emergency!" Vicki whirled back to the window and squinted into the night. "Where is he?" With an hour left in the shift, and Colin already back in the station, it hadn't been hard for Vicki to convince the duty sergeant to release him for a family emergency. "Why the ... There!" Headlights turned up the driveway.

    Vicki snatched up her bag and ran for the door, shouting back over her shoulder, "Don't talk about this to anyone. I'll be in touch."

    Outside, and effectively blind, she aimed for the headlights and narrowly missed being run down by one of London's old blue and white police cars. She grabbed for the rear door as it screeched to a stop and threw herself into the back seat.

    Barry slammed the car into reverse and laid rubber back down the length of the driveway while Colin twisted around and snarled, "What the hell is going on?"

    Vicki pushed her glasses back into place and clutched at the seat as the car took a corner on two wheels.

    "Carl Biehn was an Olympic marksman by way of Korea and the marines."

    "That grasseater?"

    "He may be," Vicki snapped, "but his nephew ..."

    "Was charged with fraud in '86, possession of stolen goods in '88, and accessory to murder nine months ago," Barry broke in. "No convictions. Got off on a technicality all three times. I ran him this afternoon."

    "And the emergency," Colin growled, teeth bared.

    "Peter's missing."

    Grasses and weeds whipped at his legs; trees flickered past in the periphery of his sight, unreal shadow images barely seen before they were gone; the barrier of a fence became no barrier at all as he vaulted the wire net and landed still running. Henry had always known that the wer were capable of incredible bursts of speed but he never knew how fast until that night.

    Making no effort to elude him, Cloud merely raced toward her twin, not far ahead but far enough that he feared he could never catch her.

    With her moonlight-silvered shape remaining so horribly just out of reach, Henry would have traded his immortal life for the ability to shapechange given to his kind by tradition. All else being equal, four legs were faster and more sure than two.

    All else, therefore, could not be equal.

    He hadn't run like this in many years, and he threw all he was into the effort to close the gap.
    This was a race he had to win, for if one couldn't be saved, the other had to be.

    Spraying dirt and gravel in a great fan-shaped tail, Celluci fought the car through the turn at the end of the lane without losing speed. The suspension bottomed out as they drove into and out of a massive pothole and the oil pan shrieked a protest as it dragged across a protruding rock. The constant machine gun staccato of stones thrown up against the undercarriage of the car made conversation impossible.

    Stuart kept up a continuous deep-throated growl.

    Over it all, Celluci kept hearing the voice of memory.

    "You're willing to be judge and jury - who's to be the executioner? Or are you going to do that, too?"

    He very much feared he was about to get his answer and he prayed Vicki would arrive too late to be a part of it.

    By the time