Blood Pact - By Tanya Huff Page 0,32

"You're talking to an animatronic corpse. It doesn't understand you."

"I think he does." She slid one bony foot into a running shoe, pressing the velcro closed. "And if maybe he doesn't understand all of it now, he'll never learn to understand if we don't talk to him."

"I know. I know. Necessary stimulus. But we're not getting anything back-brain wave wise, that we haven't put in. Granted," he held up a hand to cut off her protest, "we're getting some evidence of interfacing with gross motor skills. You don't need to give every muscle fiber a separate instruction and that's fucking amazing, but face it," he tapped his head, "there's nothing upstairs. The tenant is gone."

Catherine snorted and patted number nine reassuringly on the shoulder. "Great bedside manner. I can see why you got kicked out of med school."

"I didn't get kicked out." Donald set another slide under the microscope lens. "I made a lateral move into graduate studies in organic chemistry."

"Not an entirely voluntary move from what I heard. I heard Dr. Burke had to save your ass."

"Catherine!" Miming shock and horror, Donald spread both hands wide. "I didn't know you knew such words." He shook his head and grinned. "You've spent too much time with single-celled orgasms... "

"Organisms!"

"... you need to get a life."

Catherine moved to number eight's box and adjusted the power. "Somebody has to stay here and take care of them."

Donald sighed. "Better you than me."

Touch.

Her touch.

As electronic impulses continued to move out from the net, more and more words were returning. Hold. Want. Have. Number nine didn't know what to do with those words, not yet.

Wait.

"Is she asleep?"

"Yes." Henry sank down onto the sofa and rested his arms across his knees, the scattering of red-gold hair below his rolled-up sleeves glittering in the lamplight.

"Did you have to... convince her?"

"Very nearly, but no. I merely helped her to calm and exhaustion did the rest."

Celluci snorted. "Helped her to calm?" he growled. "Is that a euphemism for something I don't want to know about?"

Henry ignored the question. "It's late. What are you doing up?"

Lifting his feet up onto the coffee table and stretching long legs, Celluci grunted, "Couldn't sleep."

"Do you want to?"

It was asked innocently enough. No. Not innocently. Nothing Fitzroy did came under the heading of innocent. Neutrally enough. "No." Celluci tried to keep his response equally neutral. "I just thought that if you had any idea of what we're supposed to do next, well, I'd like to hear it."

Henry shrugged and threw a quick glance back over his shoulder toward the bedroom where Vicki's heart beat slow and steady, finally free of the angry pounding it had no doubt taken all day. "I honestly have no idea." He turned to look through the shadows at the other man. "Don't you have a job to go back to?"

"Compassionate leave," Celluci told him shortly, eyes half closed. "Shouldn't you be out, oh, I don't know, stalking the night or something?"

"Shouldn't you be out detecting?"

"Detecting what? It hardly makes sense to stake out the scene of the crime and you can bet that asshole Chen, or whatever his real name is, has vanished. All the profiles in the world won't help us identify a perp we can't find."

Henry reached down and fanned the papers on the coffee table by Celluci's feet. Vicki had spent the evening compiling the day's data and when he'd risen, just before eight, she'd presented her results.

"I spoke to everyone who might have had contact with him, except one of three bus drivers, and I'll speak to him tomorrow. Clothes and hairstyles may change, but tiny habits are harder to break. He smiles a lot. Even when he's alone and there's nothing apparent to smile about. He drinks Coke Classic exclusively. He usually has some kind of candy in his pocket. He most often sits in the seat in front of the rear door next to the window. He'd get on the Johnson Street bus at Brock and Montreal with a ticket, not a transfer. That probably means he lives downtown."

Henry had been impressed; and equally concerned. "Victory" Nelson appeared to have no room in her investigation for grieving. A steady emotional diet of rage, especially at this time, couldn't be healthy. He scanned the pages of notes and shook his head. "She's got everything here but a picture."

Reluctantly, Celluci agreed. Years of training seemed to have gained a foothold in Vicki's emotional response and she was now searching for the person instead of just