Blood Trail

that, it took her two further days to discover how and to gather enough evidence to bring charges. Tomorrow she'd go in, lay the report on Mr. Glassman's desk and never go near the place again.

    Tonight, she wanted a shower, something to eat that didn't smell like coffee, and a long vapid evening spent sucking at the boob tube.

    She kicked the filthy T-shirt into a corner as she peeled off her jeans. The only up side about the entire experience was that smelling as she did, she'd gotten a seat on the subway coming home and no one had tried to crowd her.

    The hot water had just begun to pound the stink and stiffness away when the phone rang. And rang. She tried to ignore it, to let the shower drown it out, but had little success. She'd always been a compulsive phone answerer. Muttering under her breath, she turned the water off, quickly wrapped herself in towels, and raced for the receiver.

    "Oh there you are, dear. What took you so long?"

    "It's a very small apartment, Mom." Vicki sighed. She should have known. "Didn't it occur to you at about the seventh ring that maybe I wasn't going to answer the phone?"

    "Of course not. I knew you were home or you'd have had your machine plugged in."

    She never left her machine on when she was home. She considered it the ultimate in rudeness.
    Maybe it was time to reconsider. The towel began to unwind and she made a grab for it - a second floor apartment was not high enough up for walking around in skin. "I was in the shower, Mom."

    "Good, then I didn't get you away from anything important. I wanted to call you before I left work ..."

    "So that the Life Sciences Department would pay for the call," Vicki added silently. Her mother had been working as a secretary at Queen's University in Kingston for longer than most of the tenured professors and she stretched job perks as far and as often as she could.

    "... and find out when you had vacation this year so maybe we could spend some time together."

    Right. Vicki loved her mother but more than three days in her company usually had her ready to commit matricide. "I don't get vacations anymore, Mom. I'm self-employed now and I have to take what jobs come my way. And besides, you were here in April."

    "You were in the hospital, Vicki, it wasn't exactly a social visit."

    The two vertical scars on her left wrist had faded to fine red lines against the pale skin. It looked like a suicide attempt and it had taken some extremely fancy footwork to avoid telling her mother how she'd actually gotten them. Being set up as a sacrifice for a demon by a sociopathic hacker was not something her mother would deal with well. "As soon as I get a free
    weekend, I'll come by. I promise. I have to go now, I'm dripping on the carpet."

    "Bring that Henry Fitzroy with you. I'd like to meet him."

    Vicki grinned. Henry Fitzroy and her mother. That might be worth a weekend in Kingston. "I don't think so, Mom."

    "Why not? What's wrong with him? Why was he avoiding me at the hospital?"

    "He wasn't avoiding you and there's nothing wrong with him." Okay, so he died in 1536. It hadn't slowed him down. "He's a writer. He's a little . . . unusual."

    "More unusual than Michael Celluci?"

    "Mother!"

    She could almost hear her mother's brows rise. "Honey, you may not remember this, but you've dated a number of unusual boys in your time."

    "I'm not dating boys anymore, Mom. I'm almost thirty-two years old."

    "You know what I mean. Remember that young man in high school? I don't recall his name but he kept a harem. ..."

    "I'll call you, Mom."

    "Soon."

    "Soon," Vicki agreed, rescued the towel again and hung up. "Dated unusual boys in my time. ..." She snorted and headed back toward the bathroom. All right, a couple of them may have been a bit strange but she was over one hundred percent certain that none of them were vampires.

    She turned the water back on and grinned, imagining the scene. Mom, I'd like you to meet Henry Fitzroy. He drinks blood. The grin widened as she stepped under the water. Her mother, infinitely practical, would probably ask what type. It took a lot to disrupt her mother's view of the world.

    She'd just dumped a pan of scrambled eggs onto a plate when the phone rang again.

    "It figures," she muttered, grabbing a fork and crossing into the living room. "Damn thing never rings when I'm not doing anything." Sunset wouldn't be for a couple of hours yet - it wasn't Henry.

    "Vicki? Celluci." With so many Michaels on the