Blood Price - By Tanya Huff Page 0,6

damn thing must weigh three hundred pounds!-up and over the lip, and slid it down into the trunk. Resting her elbows on the weather stripping, she paused, half in and half out of the car, inhaling the scent of new paint, new vinyl, new plastic, and... rotting food. Frowning, she straightened.

At least it's coming from outside my car...

Gagging, she pushed the hatchback closed and turned. Let security worry about the smell tomorrow. All she wanted to do was get home.

It took a moment for her to realize she wasn't going to make it.

By the time the scream reached her throat, her throat had been torn away and the scream became a gurgle as her severed trachea filled with blood.

The last thing she saw as her head fell back was the lines of red dribbling darkly down the sides of her new car.

The last thing she heard was the insistent beep, beep, beep of her pager.

And the last thing she felt was a mouth against the ruin of her throat.

On Tuesday morning, the front page of the tabloid screamed "SLASHER STRIKES AGAIN." A photograph of the coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs stared out from under it, the cutline asking-not for the first time that season- if he should be fired, the Leafs being once again at the very bottom of the worst division in the league. It was the kind of strange layout at which the paper excelled.

"Fire the owner," Vicki muttered, shoving her glasses up her nose and peering at the tiny print under the headline. "Story page two," it said, and on page two, complete with a photo of the underground garage and a hysterical account by the woman who had found the body, was a description of a mutilated corpse that exactly matched the one Vicki had found in the Eglinton West Station.

"Damn."

"Homicide investigator Michael Celluci," the story continued, "says there is little doubt in his mind that this is not a copycat case and whoever killed Terri Neal also killed Ian Reddick on Sunday night. "

Vicki strongly suspected that was not at all what Mike had said, although it might have been the information he imparted. Mike seldom found it necessary to cooperate with, or even hide his distaste for, the press. And he was never that polite.

She read over the details again and a nameless fear ran icy fingers down her spine. She remembered the lingering presence she'd felt and knew this wouldn't be the end of the killing. She'd dialed the phone almost before she came to a conscious decision to call.

"Mike Celluci, please. What? No, no message."

And what was I going to tell him? she wondered as she hung up. That I have a hunch this is only the beginning? He'd love that.

Tossing the tabloid aside, Vicki pulled the other city paper toward her. On page four it ran much the same story, minus about half the adjectives and most of the hysteria.

Neither paper had mentioned that ripping a throat out with a single blow was pretty much impossible.

If I could only remember what was missing from that body. She sighed and rubbed at her eyes.

Meanwhile, she had five Foo Chans to visit...

There was something moving in the pit. DeVerne Jones leaned against the wire fence and breathed beer fumes into the darkness, wondering what he should do about it. It was his pit. His first as foreman. They'd be starting the frames in the morning so that when spring finally arrived they'd be ready to pour the concrete. He peered around the black lumps of machinery. And there was something down there. In his pit.

Briefly he wished he hadn't decided to swing by the site on his way home from the bar. It was after midnight and the shape he'd seen over by the far wall was probably just some poor wino looking for a warm place to curl up where the cops would leave him alone. The crew could toss the bum out in the morning, no harm done. Except they had a lot of expensive equipment down there and it might be something more.

"Damn."

He dug out his keys and walked over to the gate. The padlock hung open. In the damp and the cold, it sometimes didn't catch, but he'd been the last man out of the pit and he'd checked it before he left. Hadn't he?

"Damn again," It had just become a very good thing he'd stopped by.

Hinges screaming in protest, the gate swung open.

DeVerne waited for a moment