Blood Price - By Tanya Huff Page 0,72

back on his heels and waited. This afternoon, he'd found where Coreen lived-the student records at York had been almost insultingly easy to hack into. Tonight, there would be no more mistakes and she'd pay for what she'd done to him.

The throbbing in his head grew until it seemed the entire world thrummed with it.

He frowned as the shimmering grew more pronounced and a hazy outline of the demon appeared. It almost seemed to be fighting against something, lashing out against an invisible opponent. Its mouth opened in a soundless shriek and abruptly the pentagram was clear.

At that same instant, the coals in the hibachi blazed up with such power that Norman had to throw himself backward or be consumed. The throbbing became a high-pitched whine. He clawed at his ears, but it went on and one and on.

After three or four seconds of six-foot flames, the tempered steel of the hibachi melted to slag, the flames disappeared, and a gust of wind from the center of the pentagram not only blew the candles out but threw them against the far wall where they shattered.

"That isn't p-possible," he stammered into the sudden silence. His ears still rang with echoes, but even the throbbing had died, leaving an aching emptiness where it had been. While a part of his mind cowered in fear, another disbelieved the evidence of his eyes. Heat enough to melt the cast iron hibachi should have taken the entire apartment building with it.

He reached out a trembling hand and touched the pool of metal, all that remained of the tiny barbecue. His fingertips sizzled and a heartbeat later he felt the pain.

It hurt too much to scream.

When his sight finally returned, Henry dragged himself to his feet. He hadn't been hit that hard in centuries. Why he hadn't assumed it was the Demon Lord breaking through he had no idea, but he hadn't, not even during that first panicked instant of blindness.

"So what was it?" he asked, sagging against a concrete angel and brushing mud off his knees. He could just barely feel the power signature of the naming. It had retreated as far as it could without returning to hell altogether. "Any ideas, mister, miss ... " he asked, turning to read the name off the headstone. Carved into the stone at the angel's feet was the answer.

CHRISTUS RESURREXIT! Christ is risen.

Henry Fitzroy, vampire, raised a good Catholic, dropped back to his knees and said a Hail Mary-just in case.
Chapter Eleven
Coreen slipped through the double doors moments before the class was about to begin and made her way across the lecture hall to a cluster of her friends. Her eyes had the fragile, translucent look of little sleep and much crying. Even the bright red tangle of her hair seemed dimmed.

The cluster opened and let her in, seating her in the safety of their circle, offering expressions of shock and sympathy. Although Janet had been a friend to all of them, Coreen had seen her last and that gave her grief an immediacy theirs couldn't have.

None of them, Coreen least of all, was aware of the expression of hatred that crossed Norman Birdwell's face every time he glanced in their direction.

How dare she still live when I said she was to die.

The throbbing had returned sometime during the night, each pulse reassuring Norman that the power was still his, each pulse demanding that Coreen pay.

Coreen had become the symbol for everyone who had ever laughed at him. For every slut who'd spread her legs for the football team but not for him. For every jock who pushed him aside as if he wasn't there. Well, he was there, and he'd prove it. He'd turn his demon loose on the lot of them-but first Coreen had to die.

Very carefully, he moved his bandaged hand from his lap to the arm of the chair. After spending a virtually sleepless night, he'd stopped by the student medical center before class. If that's what his student funds paid for, he wasn't impressed. First, they'd made him wait until two people who'd arrived before him went in-even though he was obviously in more pain-and then the stupid cow had hurt him when she'd taped down the gauze. They hadn't even wanted to hear the story he'd made up about how he did it.

Briefcase awkwardly balanced on his knees, he pulled out the little black book he'd bought in high school to keep girls' phone numbers in. The first four or five