Blood Debt

closet—he'd wanted to crawl. He completely understood why the doctor had gone eleven stories straight down to get away from the sound.
    Vicki read some of that time on his face and reached out. Just for an instant, her hand covered his.
    Henry stared down at his hand, then up at her. Less than a week ago, he'd have wanted to kill her for that. Now he regretted the touch could last so short a time. Six days out of four hundred and fifty years and they'd changed the way he deemed what he was. "Do you always rewrite the rules?"
    "If they're bad rules."
    He shook his head. "I wonder how we managed for all those years before you came along?"
    Vicki snorted. "You and me both. Most of our kind changes for passion's sake, Henry—you told me that yourself—and no one does passion like a teenager. You were seventeen. How old were the rest? I could be the first adult to come along in centuries."
    "You're still a child to this life."
    She grinned. "Don't sulk, Henry. It's unattractive in a mortal man and really unattractive in one of the immortal undead."
    "Centuries of tradition," he began, but she cut him off.
    "Haven't changed that much. We're still solitary predators, but now we know why. The scent of another's blood drives us dangerously out of control. We'd kill so indiscriminately we'd be impossible to ignore.
    In time, we'd be hunted down and destroyed, our strength no defense against their numbers. For the safety of all of us, we have to Hunt apart. But we don't have to be apart. Given enough time, territorial imperatives can be overcome."
    Henry raised his hand, palm up toward her. When she mirrored the motion, he moved his hand toward hers. They never touched. "Mostly overcome," he said with a sad smile, letting his arm drop down to his side.
    Vicki nodded, her smile perhaps more rueful than sad. "Mostly,"
    she agreed. "Before Mike gets back, I want to thank you for what you did in that clearing." Her expression changed as she looked back at that night, back at what she'd almost destroyed. "I couldn't stop myself. I was going to kill Sullivan no matter how much Mike would have hated me for it."

    "I know. You may have been an adult when you came to this life, but you're still a child in it. Greater control will come in time. It's the hardest thing our kind has to learn." Looking down at the lights of the city, his city, he listened for a moment to its heartbeat. "That, and how to hide what we are without becoming less than we are." He paused again then continued gravely. "You can't let the detective know what you're capable of, Vicki. He won't be able to stand it."
    "What are you talking about? He knows…"
    "No. He thinks he knows. It's not the same thing. Tell me, how did you feel that night in the warehouse?"
    "You ought to know, your hands were doing the feeling."
    "Vicki!"
    Arms folded across her chest, she shook her head. "I don't like to think about it."
    He turned to face her, and his eyes were dark. "How did you feel?"
    "I don't know."
    "Yes, you do."
    After a moment of facing herself in his gaze, she said quietly, "Free.
    I felt free."
    The darkness lifted. "Can he ever know that?" Henry didn't wait for her to answer. "There are very few we can trust with what we are and fewer still of them with all we are."
    "You were Mystery to me…" The memory came out of her mortal life.
    "Then be Mystery to him."

    "You're not going to walk us to the van?" Vicki asked as Celluci lifted his hockey bag onto his shoulder.
    Henry shook his head, glancing around the borrowed condo. "No, I don't think so. I'll say good-bye here and start cleaning up."
    "Hey! I cleaned up!"
    "Who cleaned up?" Celluci grunted.
    Vicki elbowed him in the ribs, careful of her strength but hard enough that he felt it. "I helped."
    "I'm sure you did," Henry broke in before they started fighting. "I merely want to be sure that there are no questions left behind."
    "You can't trust me to have taken care of that?"
    "It's not a matter of trust, Vicki. It's a matter of responsibility. My territory, my responsibility. If I visit you in Toronto, it will be your responsibility."
    Celluci started. "You're not serious, Fitzroy? I mean, good God, she was territorial before she changed!"

    "Calm down, Mike, you'll burst something. He was making a joke."
    Her expression dared Henry to challenge that assessment. "Good-bye, old man, I'll call when I get home."
    Henry nodded and matched her tone—better to keep it light. There was, after all, no need for