Blood Trail

opened his mouth to protest, closed it, opened it again, then sighed.

    By the time the elevator reached the lobby, Vicki had managed to stop laughing. The poleaxed look on Henry's face had been priceless and she'd have given a year of her life to have had a camera. If his royal undead highness thinks he's got this situation under control, he can think again. It had taken almost more willpower than she had to walk out of that apartment, but it had been worth it.

    "Begin as you mean to go on," she declared under her breath, wiping sweaty palms against her shorts. "Maybe Mom's old sayings have more value than I thought."

    She was still smiling when she got into the cab, still flushed with victory, then she leaned back and looked up at the fuzzy rectangles of light that were Henry's building. She couldn't see him. Couldn't have even said for certain which fuzzy rectangle was his. But he was up there. Looking down at her. Wanting her. Like she wanted him - and she felt like a teenager whose hormones had just kicked into overdrive.

    Why the hell wasn't she up there with him, then?

    She let her head drop down against the sweaty leather of the seat and sighed. "I am such an idiot."

    "Maybe," the cabbie agreed, turning around with a gold-toothed grin. "You wanna be a moving idiot? Meter's running."

    Vicki glared at him. "Huron Street," she growled. "South of College. You just drive."

    He snorted and faced forward. "Just 'cause you unlucky in love, lady, ain't no reason to take it out on me."

    The cabbie's muttering blended with the sounds of the traffic, and all the way down Bloor Street, Vicki could feel Henry's gaze hot on the back of her neck. It was going to be a long night.

    The tape ended and Rose fumbled between the seats for a new one with no success. The long drive back from Toronto had left her stiff, tired, and too tense to take her eyes off the road -
    even if it was only an empty stretch of gravel barely a kilometer from home.

    "Hey!" She poked her brother in the back. "Why don't you do something useful and dig out. ...
    Storm, hold on!" Her foot slammed down on the brake. With the back end of the small car fishtailing in the gravel and the steering wheel twisting like a live thing in her hands, she fought to regain control, dimly aware of Peter, not Storm, hanging on beside her.

    We aren 't going to make it! The shadow she'd seen stretched across the road, loomed darker, closer.

    Darker. Closer.

    Then, just as she thought they might stop in time and relief allowed her heart to start beating again, the front bumper and the shadow met.

    Good. They were unhurt. It was no part of his plan to have them injured in a car accident. A pity the change in wind kept him from his regular hunting ground, but it need not stop the hunt entirely. He rested his cheek against the rifle, watching the scene unfold in the scope.
    They were close to home. One of them would go for help, leaving the other for him.
    "I guess Dad was right all along about this old tree being punky. Rotted right off the stump."
    Peter perched on the trunk, looking like a red-haired Puck in the headlights. "Think we can move it?"

    Rose shook her head. "Not just the two of us. You'd better run home and get help. I'll wait by the car."

    "Why don't we both go?"

    "Because I don't like leaving the car just sitting here." She flicked her hair back off her face.
    "It's a five minute run, Peter. I'll be fine. Jeez, you are getting so overprotective lately."

    "I am not! It's just. ..."

    They heard the approaching truck at the same time and a heartbeat later Rose and Storm came around the car to face it.

    Only the Heerkens farm fronted on this road. Only the Heerkens drove this road at night. His grip tightened on the sweaty metal.

    "They spray the oil back of the crossroads today. Stink like anything." Frederick Kleinbein hitched his pants up over the curve of his belly and beamed genially at Rose. "I take long way home to avoid stink. Good thing, eh? We get chain from truck, hitch to tree, and drag tree to side of road." He reached over and lightly grabbed Storm's muzzle, shaking his head from side to side. "Maybe we hitch you to tree, eh? Make you do some work for your living."

    "There are none so blind as those who will not see. ..." There would be no chance of a shot now.

    "Thanks, Mr. Kleinbein."

    "Ach, why thank me? You do half of work. Truck did other half." He leaned out of the window, mopping his brow with a snowy white