Blood Price - By Tanya Huff Page 0,61

couple of weeks which were hanging on the wall by the desk, "have been gone through with several fine toothed combs. Gone through by everyone here and by the boys and girls from your old playground."

"But not by me."

He nodded acknowledgment. "Not by you." His palm slapped down on the papers on his desk. "This last death, this was in my territory and I'm taking it personally. If you know something you're not telling, spit it out now."

There's a demon writing a name in blood across the city. If we don't stop it, it will be only the beginning.

How do you know?

A vampire told me.

She looked him right in the eye, and lied.

"Everything I know, I've told Mike Celluci. He's in charge of the case. I just think it'll help if I look myself."

Iljohn's eyes narrowed. She could tell he didn't believe her. Not completely.

Slowly, after a moment that stretched into all the time they'd ever worked together, he pushed the clipboard across the desk. "I want this to be the last death," he growled.

Not as much as I do, Vicki thought.

How many deaths in a demon's name?

She bent her head to read.

"Victims one and seven were both students at York University. Not much of a connection to base an investigation on."

Celluci sighed. "Vicki, at this point I'd base an investigation on ties a lot more tenuous. Did you call to give me a hard time or did you have something constructive to say?"

Vicki twisted the phone cord around her fingers. Late in the afternoon, arriving at 52 Division, her search had actually turned something up. One of the uniforms corning in off shift change had overheard her talking to the duty sergeant about unusual cases and had filled her in on one he'd taken the call for. Trouble was, she couldn't figure out how to present the information to Celluci. "So you'll be concentrating the search at York?" she asked instead.

He sighed again. "Yeah. For now. Why?"

She took a deep breath. There really wasn't an easy way to do this. "Don't ask me how I know, because you wouldn't believe me, but there's a very good chance the person you're looking for will be wearing a black leather jacket. A nine hundred dollar black leather jacket."

"Jesus Christ, Vicki! It's a university. Half the fucking people there will be in black leather jackets."

"Not like this one. I've got a full description for you."

"And where did you get it? Out of a fortune cookie?"

Vicki opened her mouth then closed it again. This was just too complicated. "I can't tell you," she said at last. "I'd be compromising my sources."

"You hold back information on me, Vicki, and I'll compromise sources you never knew you had!"

"Listen, asshole, you can choose to believe me or not, but don't you dare threaten me!" She spit out the description of the jacket and slammed the receiver down. All right. She'd done her duty by telling the police what she knew. Fine. They could act on it or not. And Mike Celluci could go straight to hell.

Except that was what she was desperately trying to prevent.

Grinding her teeth in frustration, she kicked a kitchen chair into the living room and, panting slightly, stood looking down at the twisted piece of furniture.

"Life used to be a lot simpler," she told it, sighed, and went back to the phone. York University was the only connection they had and Coreen Fergus was a student there. She probably wouldn't be able to help-Celluci was right, the irritating s.o.b., finding one leather jacket on campus would be like finding one honest politician- but it certainly couldn't hurt to check.

"Coreen Fergus, please."

"I'm sorry, but Coreen's not in right now. Can I take a message?"

"Do you know when she'll be back?"

"'Fraid not. She left this morning to stay with friends for a few days."

"Is she all right?" If that child had gotten herself hurt going up to some strange man's apartment...

"Well, she's a little shook; she was like really good friends with the girl whose body they found last night."

Bad enough, coming so soon after Ian, but thank God that was all it was. "When she comes home, could you tell her Vicki Nelson called?"

"Sure thing. That all?"

"That's all."

And that was all, unless Henry had come up with something concrete.

"This one, this one, or this one." Henry looked from the map to the page of symbols.

"Can you find the next point in the pattern?" Vicki bent over the table, as far away as possible