And then it started.
He lost his most recent self first: the night's work, all the other nights of work before it, his wife, their daughter, her birth, red-faced and screaming- "Honestly, Doc, is she supposed to look like that? I mean, she's beautiful but she's kind of squashed? "-the wedding where he'd gotten pissed and almost fallen over while dancing with an elderly aunt. He lost nights drinking with his buddies, cruising up and down Yonge Street-"Lookit the melons on that one!"- The Grateful Dead blaring out of the car speakers, the smell of beer and grass and sweat soaking into the upholstery.
He lost his high school graduation, a ceremony he'd made by the skin of his teeth- "Think maybe now you can get off your ass and get a job? Now you got your fancy piece of paper with your name on it ?"
"I think so, Dad." He lost the humiliation of not making the basketball team- They're not going to call my name. I 'm the only guy who tried out they didn't want. Oh, God, I wish I could sink through the floor.- and he lost the pain when football broke his nose. He tasted again his first kiss and felt again for the first time the explosive results of masturbation, which did not grow hair on his palms or make him blind. And then he lost them.
In quick succession he lost his mother, his father, too many siblings, the house he'd grown up in, the smell of a winter's worth of dog turds melting on the lawn in the spring, a teddy bear with all the fur chewed off, the sweet taste of a nipple clutched between frantically working lips.
He lost his first step, his first word, his first breath.
His life.
Yes.
With iron control, Henry drew his mouth back from the soft skin of the young man's wrist and laid the arm down almost gently, pulling the jacket cuff forward until it covered the small wound. Although he preferred to feed from desire-it had natural parameters for the Hunger that anger lacked-it was, on occasion, good to remember his strength. He rose slowly to his feet, brushing at the decayed leaves on his coat. The coagulant in his saliva would ensure that the bleeding had stopped and all three would regain consciousness momentarily, before the damp and cold had time to do any damage.
He glanced down to where they sprawled in the darker shadow of a yew hedge and licked a drop of blood from the corner of his mouth. As well as the bruises, he'd given them a reason to fear the night, a reminder that the dark hid other, more powerful hunters and that they, too, could be prey. He was in no danger of discovery for their memories of the incident would be of essence, not appearance, and intensely personal. Whether or not he'd changed their attitudes or opinions, he neither knew nor cared.
I am vampire. The night is mine.
His mood broke under the weight of that pronouncement and he left the quiet oasis of the park, smiling at the news-reel quality of the voice in his head-And thanks to the vampire vigilante, the streets are safe to walk again-the dream and his earlier disquiet washed away by the blood.
Celluci sighed and stuffed the parking ticket into his jacket pocket. From midnight to seven the street outside Vicki's apartment building was permit parking only. The time on the ticket said five thirty-three; if he'd gotten up five minutes earlier, he could have avoided a twenty dollar fine.
It had been hard to drag himself away. He must've lain in the darkness for a good twenty minutes listening to her breathe. Wondering if she was dreaming. Wondering if she was dreaming about him. Or about Henry. Or if it mattered.
"What I mean, Celluci, is no commitments beyond friendship. "
"We're going to be buddies?"
"That's right."
"You don't ball your buddies, Vicki. "
She'd snorted and run a bare foot up his inner thigh until she could grab the soft skin of his scrotum with her toes.
"Wanna bet?"
So it had been from the beginning?
He scratched at his stubble and got into the car. Their friendship was solid, he knew that, the scars they'd both inflicted when she'd left the force had faded into memory. The sex was still terrific. But lately, things had gotten complicated.
"Henry's not competition, Mike. Whatever happens between him and me, doesn't affect us. You're my best friend. "
He'd believed her then, he believed her now. But he still thought Henry Fitzroy was a dangerous man for her to get involved with. Not only was he physically dangerous, and that had been proven last August beyond a doubt, but he had the kind of personal power it would be easy to get lost in. Christ, I could get lost in it. No one with that kind of power should be, could be, trusted.
He trusted Vicki. He didn't trust Henry. That's what it came down to. Henry Fitzroy made up the rules as he went along, and for Detective-Sergeant Michael Celluci that was the sticking point. More than supposedly supernatural, un-dead, powers of darkness. There were a number of very definite rules surrounding his and Vicki's relationship, and Celluci knew damned well Fitzroy wouldn't honor them.
Except he had so far?
'Maybe what it all comes down to," he mused, maneuvering through the maze of one-way streets south of College, "is that I'm ready to settle down."
It took a few seconds for the implications of that to sink in, and he had a sudden vision of what Vicki's response would be if he brought up marriage. He couldn't stop himself from ducking. The woman was more commitment shy than any man he'd ever met.
He frowned as he guided the car around the Queen's Park circle. It was too early in the morning for deep philosophical questions on the nature of his relationship with Vicki Nelson-things were going well, he shouldn't fuck with that. Gratefully noticing the ambulance and the police car pulled up in front of the museum, he made a U-turn across the empty six-lane road and dumped the problems of his love life for more immediate concerns.
'Detective-Sergeant Celluci, homicide." He flipped his badge at the approaching constable as he got out of the car, forestalling a confrontation about the less than legal U-turn. "What's going on?"