Blood Price - By Tanya Huff Page 0,77

came around the desk to hold the door open for Mrs. Hughes and her mastiff.

"Get down, Owen! He doesn't want your kisses!"

Wiping his face, Greg watched as the huge dog bounded into the elevator, dragging Mrs. Hughes behind him. The lobby always seemed a little smaller after Owen had passed through. He checked that the lock on the inner door had caught-it was a little stiff, he'd have to have a word with maintenance-before returning to the desk and picking up his paper.

Then he paused, memory jogged by the smell of the ink or the feel of the newsprint, suddenly recalling the first night the vampire story had made the paper. He remembered Henry Fitzroy's reaction to the headline and he realized that Tim was right. He'd never seen the man before sunset.

"Still," he shook himself, "man's got a right to work what hours he chooses and sleep what hours he chooses." But he couldn't shake the memory of the bestial fury that had shone for a heartbeat in the young man's eyes. Nor could he shake a feeling of disquiet that caressed the back of his neck with icy fingers.

As the light released its hold on the city, Henry stirred. He became aware of the sheet lying across his naked body, each thread drawing a separate line against his skin. He became aware of the slight air current that brushed his cheek like a baby's breath. He became aware of three million people living their lives around him and the cacophony nearly deafened him until he managed to push through it and into the silence once again. Lastly, he became aware of self. His eyes snapped open and he stared up into the darkness.

He hated the way he woke, hated the extended vulnerability. When they finally came for him, this was when it would happen; not during the hours of oblivion, but during the shadow time between the light and dark when he would feel the stake and know his death and be able to do nothing about it.

As he grew older, it happened earlier-creeping closer to the day a few seconds at a time-but it never happened faster. He woke the way he had when he was mortal- slowly.

Centuries ago, he'd asked Christina how it was for her.

"Like waking out of a deep sleep-one moment I'm not there, the next I am."

"Do you dream ?"

She rolled over on her side. "No. We don't. None of us do. "

' I think I miss that most of all."

Smiling, she scraped a fingernail along his inner thigh. "We learn to dream while we wake. Shall I show you how ?"

Occasionally, in the seconds just after he woke, he thought he heard voices from his past, friends, lovers, enemies, his father once, bellowing for him to get a move on or they'd be late. In over four hundred years, that was as close as he'd come to what the mortal world called dreaming.

He sat up and paused in mid-stretch, suddenly uneasy. In absolute silence he moved off the bed and across the carpet to the bedroom door. If there was a life in the apartment, he'd sense it.

The apartment was empty,- but the disquiet remained.

He showered and dressed, becoming more and more certain that something was wrong-worrying at the feeling, poking and prodding at it, trying to force an understanding. When he went down to the desk to pick up his package, the feeling grew. The civilized mask managed to exchange pleasantries with Greg and flirt a little with old Mrs. McKensie while the rest of him sorted through a myriad of sensations, searching for the danger.

Heading back to the elevator, he felt the security guard's eyes on him so he turned and half smiled as the doors opened and he stepped inside. The closing slabs of stainless steel cut off Greg's answering expression. Whatever was bothering the old man, he'd have to deal with later.

"Private Investigations. Nelson." As she had no way of knowing what callers were potential clients, she'd decided to assume they all were. Her mother objected, but then her mother objected to a number of things she had no intention of changing.

"Vicki, it's Henry. Look, I think you should come over here tonight."

"Why? Have you turned up something new we should talk about before you head out?"

"I'm not heading out."

"What?" She swung her feet down off her desk and glared at the phone. "You better have a good reason for staying home."

She heard him sigh. "No, not