Blood Price - By Tanya Huff Page 0,14

me, I'll lay off."

Technically, he knew he should do exactly that-look her in the eye and tell her he didn't want to talk about it. The Criminal Investigations Bureau took a dim view of investigators who couldn't keep their mouths shut. But Vicki had been one of the best, three accelerated promotions and two citations attested to that, and more importantly, her record of solved crimes had been almost the highest in the department. Honesty forced him to admit, although he admitted it silently, that statistically her record was as good as his, he'd just been at it three years longer. Do I throw away this resource? he wondered as the silence lengthened. Do I refuse to take advantage of talent and skill just because the possessor of those talents and skills has become a civilian? He tried to keep his personal feelings out of the decision.

He looked her right in the eye and said quietly, "Okay, genius, you got a better idea than PCPs and claws?"

"Difficult to come up with a worse one," she snorted, leaning back to allow their waitress to replace the bowls with steaming platters of food. Grateful for the chance to regain her composure, Vicki toyed with a chopstick and hoped he didn't realize how much this meant to her. She hadn't realized it herself until her heart restarted with his answer and she felt a part of herself she thought had died when she'd left the force slowly begin to come back to life. Her reaction, she knew, would have been invisible to a casual observer but Mike Celluci was anything but that.

Please, God, just let him think he's picking my brain. Don't let him know how much I need this.

For the first time in a long time, God appeared to be listening.

"Your better idea?" Mike asked pointedly when they were alone with their meal.

If he'd noticed her relief, he gave no sign and that was good enough for Vicki. "It's a little hard to hypothesize without all the information," she prodded.

He smiled and she understood, not for the first time, why witnesses of either gender were willing to spill their guts to this man. "Hypothesize. Big word. You been doing crossword puzzles again?"

"Yeah, between tracking down international jewel thieves. Spill it, Celluci."

If anything, there had been fewer clues at the second scene than at the first. No prints save the victim's, no trail, no one who saw the killer enter or exit the underground garage. "And the scene was hours old by the time we arrived... "

"You said the trail at the subway led into a workman's alcove?"

He nodded, scowling at a snow pea. "Blood all over the back wall. The trail led into the alcove, but nothing led out."

"Behind the back wall?"

"You thinking of secret passageways?"

A little sheepishly, she nodded.

"All things considered, that would be an answer I could live with." He shook his head and the curl dropped forward again. "Nothing but dirt. We checked."

Although DeVerne Jones had been found with a scrap of torn leather clutched in his fist, dirt was pretty much all they'd found at the third site. Dirt, and a derelict that babbled about the apocalypse.

"Wait a minute ..." Vicki frowned in concentration, then shoved her disturbed glasses back up her nose. "Didn't the old man at the subway say something about the apocalypse?"

"Nope. Armageddon."

"Same thing."

Celluci sighed with exaggerated force. "You trying to tell me that it's not one guy, it's four guys on horses? Thanks. You've been a lot of help."

"I suppose you've checked for some connection between the victims? Something to hang a motive on?"

"Motive!" He slapped his forehead with the heel of his hand. "Now why didn't I think of that?"

Vicki stabbed at a mushroom and muttered, "Smart ass."

"No, no connections, no discernible motive. We're still looking." He shrugged, a succinct opinion of what the search would turn up.

"Cults?"

"Vicki, I've talked to more weirdos and space cases in the last few days than I have in the last few years." He grinned. "Present company excepted, of course."

They were almost back to her apartment, her hand tucked in the crook of his arm to guide her through the darkness, when she asked, "Have you considered that there might be something in this vampire theory?"

She dug her heels in at his shout of laughter. "I'm serious, Celluci!"

"No, I'm Serious Celluci. You're out of your mind." He dragged her back into step beside him. "Vampires don't exist."

"You're sure of that? 'There are more things ... ' "

"Don't,"