are you?"
"Just ... do it, you... son of a bitch."
"Not until you answer a few questions."
He swallowed and fought the urge to lift his chin. "Fuck... you."
Henry growled low in his throat.
A few minutes later, as another song began, the enforcer in front of the door pushed it open a crack. "You okay, Mr. Chen? Mr. Chen?"
There wasn't a mark on the body. No way to show how he died.
Harry Chen had known nothing. Henry threw the leather driving gloves down on the seat beside him, slammed the BMW into gear, and jerked it out into traffic. He needed to feed, needed to let the Hunger free to wash away the memory of men he'd questioned with blood. He'd barely been able to stop himself from feeding on Harry Chen.
But to feed on such a man would mean he fed on all the lives that man had destroyed, and that he would not do.
But he needed to feed.
Bars were closing. After hours clubs, tucked into lofts and behind stage entrances, were opening. There was a lot more traffic on the streets than Celluci had expected.
"It's 'cause people live in the West End, they don't just drink and shop here." Tony waved a hand to in?clude the apartment towers that rose to block the stars amidst the five- and six-story brownstones tucked along both sides of the street. "It's not like Toronto, it's all mixed. Last fall, some American guys came up from Seattle to see how we make it work so well."
Celluci smiled at the pronoun, then jerked around as a crash of falling cans, a soft thud, and assorted profanity spilled out of the alley they'd just passed.
"Relax." Tony grabbed his arm. "It's just dumpster divers."
"It's just what?" Celluci asked, allowing himself to be pulled to a stop.
"Street people who go through dumpsters looking for stuff they can sell. Some of 'em got hooks, some just dive right in." He shoved his hands into the front pocket of his jeans and kicked at a bit of broken side?walk. Although his face was in shadow, Celluci got the impression he was embarrassed by his comparative affluence. "Lotta homeless people here. Well, it makes sense, doesn't it? I mean, it beats freezing your ass to death back East." You wanna make something of it, his tone added.
But Celluci, who'd bagged the bodies of those who froze to death every winter huddled at the base of million-dollar office towers, exposed skin stuck to the steel grates of the subway air vents, said only, "Good point."
They walked in silence for a few minutes.
"I got a new life here," Tony announced suddenly. "I got a job, I got school, I got a chance; and I wouldn't have if it wasn't for Henry."
"And you feel like you owe him for that?"
"Well, don't I?"
"Has Henry suggested you owe him anything?" Cel?luci knew damned well he hadn't. Henry Fitzroy might be an arrogant, undead romance writer, but he wasn't the type to put a lien on a man's soul.
"He doesn't have to. I feel it." One hand slapped a dramatic punctuation against his chest. "Here."
"All right, what about the things you've done for him?"
Tony snorted. "What things?"
"The things that have to be done in daylight. The people who have to be dealt with. The arrangements that have to be made during office hours." He glanced down to find Tony's pale blue eyes locked on his face. "Leaving aside certain other aspects of the relationship ..." His right thumb rubbed the tiny scar on his left wrist. "... I think you'll find things haven't been all that unequal."
"He trusts me with his life." It almost sounded like a question.
"You trusted him with yours."
Overhead, a streetlight buzzed, the recent hit of a popular grunge band throbbed through a dark but open window, and both men jumped back as a con?vertible Ford Mustang roared down Granville Street toward the bridge.
"What does sixty k mean to you, asshole!" Tony yelled, leaping out onto the street and flipping the car the finger as bright yellow molded bumpers disap?peared into the night. "Idiots in fast cars think the bridge is a goddamned highway," he muttered as they crossed to the other side. "Probably wouldn't slow down if they fucking ran over you."
"Feel better?"
Uncertain whether the older man referred to his outburst or the conversation preceding it, Tony shrugged and discovered he did, indeed, feel better. "Yeah." After they'd walked another block, he added, "Thanks."
When she opened the warehouse door, the blood-scent