Blood Price - By Tanya Huff Page 0,103

in spite of everything, she gave her own bonds an experimental tug; they didn't respond like socks. As it seemed safer than moving her head, she slid her arms up along the floor until she could see them. Ties. At least four, maybe five-the swirling leaps of paisley and the jarring clashes of color made it difficult to tell for sure-and while it might have had more to do with her own weakness than Norman's skill, for she doubted he'd ever been a boy scout, he certainly seemed to know his knots.

"You were about to jump him, weren't you?"

"What?" Vicki looked up and wished she hadn't as her body protested with alternating waves of dizziness and nausea.

"When we came into the apartment and I... I mean.... Well, I'm sorry."

It sounded more like a challenge than an apology. "Don't worry about it now." Vicki swallowed, trying not to add to the puddle of drool collecting under her cheek. "Let's just try... to get out of this mess."

"What do you think I've been trying to do?" Coreen gave a frantic heave that only resulted in bouncing the chair backward less than half an inch. "I don't believe this! I really don't believe this!"

Hearing the tones of incipient panic, Vicki, in the driest voice she was capable of, said, "It is a little like... Alfred Hitchcock does Revenge of the Nerds. "

Coreen stared at her in astonishment, sniffed, and grinned somewhat shakily. "Or David Cronneberg does I Dream of Genie, " she offered in return.

Good girl. It took all the energy Vicki had left to smile approvingly. While there were dangers in Coreen not taking Norman seriously, the dangers were greater if the girl fell apart.

Struggling did more damage to her than to the ties. She kept struggling anyway. If the world had to end, she'd be damned if she let it go down under the ridiculously high, cowboy booted heel of Norman Birdwell, adding insult to injury.

"Enough!" Henry spun away from the window and hurled himself toward the door. He had a name, he had a place, it was time he joined the hunt. "I should never have waited this long."

At the door, he slowed, grabbed his coat, and managed to appear within the parameters of normality as he exited into the hall. He slid the key into the lock, then headed for the stairs, hating the charade that kept him to a mortal's pace.

In the dim light of the stairwell, he let all pretense drop and moved as quickly as aching muscles would allow.

There were slightly less than two hours until midnight.

He completely forgot that the stairwell was part of the building's random monitoring system.

Vicki drifted up into consciousness thinking, This has got to stop. Every time she tried to move, every time she tried to raise her head, she drifted back down into the pit. Occasionally, the blackness claimed her when she was doing nothing more than lying quietly, trying to conserve her strength for another attempt at getting free. I'm going to have to think of something else.

All her intermittent struggling had accomplished was to exacerbate her physical condition and to uncover her watch.

Seven minutes after ten. Henry's probably throwing fits. Oh my God, Henry! Her involuntary jerk brought another flash of pain. She ignored it, lost it in sudden horror. I forgot to warn him about that security guard...

Although he recognized the necessity of the surveillance cameras, Greg had never liked them. They always made him feel a bit like a peeping Tom. Two or three guards on constant patrol with one manning a central position at the desk, that's the kind of job he'd prefer to work. A camera just couldn't replace a trained man on the scene. But trained men had to be paid and cameras didn't so he was stuck with them.

As the attractive young lady in the whirlpool stepped out and reached for her towel, he politely averted his eyes. Maybe he was just getting old, but those two scraps of fabric were not what he'd call a bathing suit. When he looked back again, that monitor showed only orderly rows of cars in the underground garage.

He sat back in his chair and adjusted the black armband he wore in honor of Mrs. Hughes and Owen. The building would be different without them. As the night went on, he kept expecting to see them heading out for their last walk before bed and had to keep reminding himself that he'd never see them again.