she was forced to think about someone else. Tearing her gaze away, staring in horror at the pulse throbbing among the corded muscle of Mike's neck, she replaced Henry's shame with her own.
Celluci felt their surrender and allowed his arms to drop. He didn't have much choice. Without the pres?sure against them, he couldn't hold them up. The air still held a certain frisson, but strangely it didn't seem to be coming from either Vicki or Henry.
"I think we've forgotten," said a quiet voice he al?most didn't recognize, "that with great power comes great responsibility."
"I think I forgot what mattered." No mistaking Vicki's voice, but it had a ragged edge he didn't often hear.
"Same thing." To his surprise, Henry, just Henry, a man Celluci suddenly remembered he'd come to re?spect and even like, held out a pale hand. "My apolo?gies, Detective. I wish I could promise that it won't happen again, but I can't. I can promise that I'll do better in the future."
His grip was cool, like Vicki's.
Then he was gone.
"Where . . ?"
"Parking level one. The van's on level two. I assume one of us is going to be using it?"
He blinked to clear the sweat from his eyes, and allowed her to slip her shoulder under his arm, taking most of his weight. "You can have it. I'll never find parking."
"I'll drop you off."
"Fine." The parking level had the damp, unair-conditioned coolness that came from being deep under?ground. Celluci found himself thinking of graves. "Vicki. What did I just do?"
"You leaped a tall building in a single bound."
"I don't mean the physical... "
She sighed. It wasn't something she did much any more; she'd lost the habit when she'd lost the need to breathe on a mortal scale. "You reminded us to be more, instead of less."
He stopped and looked down at her. "Try again."
"You told us to stop acting like idiots."
"Yeah, I know, but you don't usually listen."
"This time... " She paused, then reached up and pushed the curl of hair back off his face.
Henry listened.
Wrapping her arms around him, she laid her cheek against his chest and found what comfort she could in the steady beat of his life. "I love you, Mike."
"Hey, I believe you." His chin resting on the top of her head, he wondered just what it was she hadn't said.
Chapter Seven
BY parking across an access alley, Vicki managed to find curb space only two blocks from the video store where Tony worked.
Celluci opened the passenger door, then closed it again. "Will you do something for me?"
"Anything."
His snort was an eloquent testimony to his disbelief. "Just try to be careful. Don't expect anything as civi?lized as the Godfather ..."
"Not even the bit where Sonny gets of fed or the brother-in-law gets strangled? Or where they dump Fredo in the lake?" Her brow furrowed dramatically. "And didn't they kill the Pope in part three?"
"Vicki... "
"Michael," she mimicked. "Look, I was a cop. I helped bag the bodies. I know these aren't the good guys."
"Yeah, well, organized crime has changed over the last few years." He twisted in the seat until he faced her. "Most of the old school has been buried, one way or another, and the new lot's a group of vicious young punks who kill because they can. There used to be rules of a sort. The rules are gone." Once, he might have thought he gripped her arm too tightly. Now, he didn't think he could hold her tightly enough. "Power is an end with these new guys, not just a means."
She smiled, her teeth gleaming unnaturally white in the light from the passing traffic. "Power won't be a problem."
"Maybe. Just keep two things in mind, will you? You're there to ask a few questions, not to clean up the streets." He didn't like the way her brows lifted, but he ignored them because he didn't have a lot of choice. As little as he liked it, he had to trust her judgment. "And don't forget the difference between immortal and invulnerable." He leaned forward and kissed her, then got out of the van before he could give in to the urge to ask her just what exactly she was going to do.
"I won't take any stupid risks, Mike." The pale oval of her face seemed farther away than distance alone could account for. "At the risk of sounding like some whacked-out action hero, I'll be back."
At least she hadn't told him not to worry. "Sunrise is at