Blood Price - By Tanya Huff Page 0,31

dawn a sixth body would turn up to end the line.

Just west of York University, the lines crossed.

"X marks the spot." Vicki pushed her glasses up her nose, frowned, and pushed them up again. It was too easy. There had to be a catch.

"All right... " Tossing the ruler onto the map, she ticked off points on her fingers. "First possibility; the killer wants to be found. Second possibility; the killer is just as capable of drawing lines on a map as I am, has set up the pattern to mean nothing at all, and is sitting in Scarborough busting a gut laughing at the damn fool police who fell for it." For purposes of this exercise, she and the police were essentially the same. "Possibility three"; she stared at the third finger as though it might have an answer, "we're hunting a vampire even as the vampire is hunting us and who the hell knows how a vampire thinks."

Celluci was as capable as she of drawing lines on a map, but she reached for the phone anyway. Occasionally, the obvious escaped him. To her surprise, he was in. His reaction came as no surprise at all.

"Teach your grandmother to suck eggs, Vicki."

"So can I assume Toronto's finest will be gathered tonight at Mortimer and Woodbine?"

"You can assume whatever you want, I've never been able to stop you, but if you think you and your little Nancy Drew detective kit are going to be anywhere near there, think again."

"What are you going to do?" How dare he dictate to her. "Arrest me?"

"If I have to, yes." His tone said he'd do exactly that. "You are no longer on the force, you are virtually blind at night, and you are more likely to end up as the corpse than the hero."

"I don't need you babying me, Celluci!"

"Then act like an adult and stay home!"

They slammed the receivers down practically simultaneously. He knew she'd be there and she knew he knew it. Moreover, she had no doubt that if their paths crossed he'd lock her away on trumped up charges for her own safety. Better than even odds said that, having been forewarned, he'd lock her up now if he thought he could get away with it.

He was right. She was virtually blind at night.

But the police were hunting a man and Vicki no longer really believed a man had anything to do with these deaths. Blind or not, if she was there, she might even the odds.

Now, what to do until dark? Maybe it was time to do a little detecting and find out what the word was on the street.

"At least he didn't scream about Mr. Bowan," she muttered as she shrugged back into her coat.

"Yo, Victory, long time no see."

"Yeah, it's been a couple of months. How've you been, Tony?"

Tony shrugged thin shoulders under his jean jacket. "I've been okay."

"You clean?"

He shot her a look out of the corner of one pale blue eye. "I hear you ain't a cop no more. I don't got to tell you."

Vicki shrugged in turn. "No. You don't."

They walked in silence for a moment, threading their way through the crowds that surged up and down Yonge Street. When they stopped at the Wellesley lights, Tony sighed. "Okay, I'm clean. You happy now? You going to bugger off and leave me alone?"

She grinned. "Is it ever that easy?"

"Not with you it ain't. Listen," he waved a hand at a corner restaurant, less trendy than most of its competitors, "you're going to take up my time, you can buy me lunch."

She bought him lunch, but not the beer he wanted, and asked him about the feeling on the street.

"Feeling about what?" he asked, stuffing a huge forkful of mashed potatoes into his mouth. "Sex? Drugs? Rock'n'roll?"

"Things that go bump in the night."

He threw his arm up in the classic Hammer films tradition. "Ah, the wampyre."

Vicki took a swallow of tepid coffee, wondered how she'd survived drinking it all those years on the force, and waited. Tony had been her best set of eyes and ears on the street. He wasn't exactly a snitch, more a barometer really, hooked into moods and feelings, and although he never mentioned specifics, he'd pointed her in the right direction more than once. He was nineteen now. He'd been fifteen when she first brought him in.

"Feelin' on the street... " He methodically spread the last roll a quarter inch thick with butter. "Feelin' on the street says, paper's right with