Blood Price - By Tanya Huff Page 0,50

me to have to share such a lovely prize with my crew. "

"Fitzroy, what is this shit?"

"Henry, please, not Fitzroy." He saved the file and shut off the computer. "And this shit," he told her, straightening, "is my new book."

"Your what?" Vicki asked, pushing her glasses up her nose. She'd followed him from the door of the condo into the tiny office even though he'd requested that she wait a minute in the living room. If he was going back to close his coffin, she had to see it. "You actually read this stuff?"

Henry sighed, pulled a paperback off the shelf above the desk, and handed it to her. "No. I actually write the stuff."

"Oh." Across the cover of the book, a partially unclothed young woman was being passionately yet discreetly embraced by an entirely unclothed young man. The cover copy announced the date of the romance as "the late 1800s" but both characters had distinctly out of period hair and makeup. Cursive lavender script delineated both the title and the author's name; Destiny's Master by Elizabeth Fitzroy.

"Elizabeth Fitzroy?" Vicki asked, returning the book.

Henry slid it back on the shelf, rolled the chair out from the desk, and stood, smiling sardonically. "Why not Elizabeth Fitzroy? She certainly had as much right to the name as I do."

The prefix "Fitz" was a bastard's name and was given to acknowledged accidental children. The "roy" identified the father as the king. "You didn't agree with the divorce?"

The smile twisted further. "I was always a loyal subject of the king, my father." He paused and frowned as though trying to remember. He sounded less mocking when he started speaking again. "I liked her Gracious Majesty Queen Catherine. She was kind to a very confused little boy who'd been dumped into a situation he didn't understand and he didn't ever much care for. Mary, the Princess Royal, who could have ignored me or done worse, accepted me as her brother." His voice picked up an edge. "I did not like Elizabeth's mother and the feeling was most definitely mutual. Given that all parties concerned have now passed to their eternal reward; no, I did not agree with the divorce."

Vicki glanced back at the shelf of paperbacks as Henry politely but inexorably ushered her out of his office. "I suppose you've got a lot of material to use for plots," she muttered dubiously.

"I do," Henry agreed, wondering why some people had less trouble handling the idea of a vampire than they did a romance writer.

"I suppose you can get even with any number of people in your past this way." Of all the strange scenarios Vicki had imagined occurring during this evening's conference with the over four century old, vampiric, bastard son of Henry VIII, none had included discovering that he was a writer of- What was the term?-bodice rippers.

He grinned and shook his head. "If you're thinking of my relatives, I got even with most of them. I'm still alive. But that's not why I write. I'm good at it, I make a very good living doing it, and most of the time I enjoy it." He waved her to the couch and sat down at the opposite end. "I could exist from feeding to feeding-and I have- but I infinitely prefer living in comfort than in some rat-infested mausoleum."

"But if you've been around for so long," Vicki wondered, settling down into the same corner she'd vacated early that morning, "why aren't you rich?"

"Rich?"

Vicki found his throaty chuckle very attractive and also found herself speculating about.... A mental smack brought her wandering mind back to the business at hand.

"Oh, sure," he continued, "I could've bought IBM for pennies in nineteen-oh-whenever, but who knew? I'm a vampire, I'm not clairvoyant. Now," he picked a piece of lint off his jeans, "may I ask you a question?"

"Be my guest."

"Why did you believe what I told you?"

"Because I saw the demon and you had no logical reason to lie to me." There was no need to tell him about the dream-or vision-in the church. It hadn't had much to do with her decision anyway.

"That's it?"

"I'm an uncomplicated sort of a person. Now," she mimicked his tone, "enough about us. How do we catch a demon?"

Very well, Henry agreed silently. If that's how you want it, enough about us.

"We don't. I do." He inclined his head toward her end of the couch. "You catch the man or woman calling it up."

"Fine." Tackling the source made perfect sense to Vicki