limits of her new nature, if he deliber?ately put that belief to the test. He wondered it now as she slowly stood. She seemed taller than he knew she was. The hair on his arms lifted, and he felt his chin begin to rise, an instinctive surrender bypassing his conscious control. He forced it back down.
Eyes blazing, Vicki stepped forward, closed her hands around the chair she had been sitting in, and ripped it into kindling, one handful of wood at a time. A moment later, breathing heavily-not from the de?struction but from the effort of regaining control-she snarled, "See what you made me do!"
"I made you do?" His heart beat so loudly even he could hear it. Considering how well attuned she was to that sort of sound, he was a little surprised she could hear his voice over it. "I don't think so."
"No." Her eyes were almost gray again. The silver remaining could have been a trick of the light. "I guess not." She reached across the table and brushed the curl of hair back off his face. "But you've got no right accusing me of living dangerously."
"No. I guess not." Capturing her hand, he laid his lips against the cool skin of her inner wrist, a mirror image of a position they'd held a hundred times. "Now what?"
"Now, I'm going to call Henry."
"Call?"
"Yeah. On the telephone." She pulled free of his grip and patted him lightly on both cheeks. "You're not the only one who can think of an easier way to get through this, sweet knees."
He frowned as she walked away. "Sweet knees?"
"... suppose one of them turns out to be the man we're looking for?" Henry asked as he folded the list and slipped it into his pocket. He'd tried to sound neither sarcastic nor superior and had been, all things considered, remarkably successful at both. But then, they'd always been able to manage over the phone.
"What? You mean suppose one of your... subjects says: Yeah, I'm the guy. I've been selling organs all up and down the West Coast. Usually we dump 'em at sea, but that body in the harbor must have got caught in the tides?"
With an effort, he kept his smile from showing in his voice-Vicki had sounded so incredibly indignant at the mere possibility he might discover the informa?tion before she did. "Yes. Suppose one of my... subjects says that. If you've given me half the list, the odds are fifty-fifty."
"You don't need to tell me the odds, Henry. I may be a childish vampire ..."
He heard Celluci protest in the background and was quite happy to have missed the earlier argument.
"... but I have been doing this living thing a lot longer than you did, and I've certainly been an investi?gator one hell of a lot longer."
"I hadn't intended to suggest you hadn't."
"Oh, no, you just intended to suggest you didn't need me here at all."
Frowning slightly, he went back over the conversa?tion and tried to determine how she'd arrived at that particular conclusion. "Vicki, I may be able to strong-arm crime lords, but it would never have occurred to me to do it."
"Oh."
"If I'm going to get rid of my nonblithe spirit, I do need you here."
"Oh." He heard her sigh. "I can't decide whether you're being mature or patronizing."
"Which would you prefer?"
"You know, that's a very Celluci question. I don't want you guys hanging around together any more." But he could hear the sound of her smile, so it was all right.
"I fully understand."
She snorted, a purely human sound. "You couldn't possibly. Whoever gets back first leaves a message on the other's machine."
"You don't think we should meet?" He had an un?expected memory of the pulse that beat at the base of her throat, her skin the soft, sun-kissed tan it would never be again and missed her reply in the sudden surge of loneliness. "I'm sorry, I ..."
Her voice was as gentle as he'd heard it since the change. "I'm sorry, too, Henry."
"Everything all worked out?"
Her hand still resting on the phone, Vicki turned to face Celluci and shrugged. "I gave Henry every other name. He knows what we need to find out. Like you said, he's not totally incompetent."
Celluci's brows drew in at the hint of melancholy in her voice. "And the phone thing went okay?"
"No reason why it shouldn't, is there? Across the country, across the hall, it's basically the same thing."
You miss him, don't you? But that was one question he