Blood Pact - By Tanya Huff Page 0,33

blindly clutching at the name. "Detective Fergusson says he'll try to free up the police artist tomorrow."

"Why do I get the feeling that Detective Fergusson doesn't think that's necessary?"

"It's not that. It's resources. Or specifically lack of resources. As he pointed out, and this is a quote, 'Yeah, it's a terrible thing, but we can't hardly keep up with indignities done to the living.'" Celluci's lips thinned as he remembered various "indignities" he'd witnessed done to the living that had gone unpunished due to lack of manpower, or departmental budget cuts, or just plain bad management. He didn't, by any means, approve of Vicki's recent conversion to vigilantism, but, by God, he understood it. The satisfaction of knowing that Anwar Tawfik was dust and this time would stay dust, of knowing Mark Williams had paid for the innocents he'd slaughtered, of knowing that Norman Birdwell would loose no further horrors on the city, all of that weighed heavily against law in the scales Justice held.

He peered blearily at Henry Fitzroy from under heavy lids. How many others had there been? Hundreds? Thousands? While he'd been busting his butt and walking his feet flat, had Fitzroy and others like him been spending the night methodically squashing the cockroaches of humanity? Celluci snorted silently. If they were, they were doing a piss poor job.

Vampires. Werewolves. Demons. Mummies. Only for Vicki would he even consider accepting such a skewed view of reality. Maybe he should've listened to his family, married a nice Italian girl, and settled down. Much as Henry had done earlier, he shot a glance over his shoulder toward the bedrooms. No. A nice girl, Italian or otherwise, couldn't hope to compete. Vicki was a comrade, and a friend, and, as asinine as it sounded, the woman he loved. He'd stand by her now when she needed him, regardless of who, or what, stood by her other side.

He didn't want to have anything to do with Henry Fitzroy. He didn't want to respect him. He sure as shit didn't want to like him. He appeared to have no choice regarding the first point, had months ago lost the second, and strongly suspected, in spite of everything, that he was losing the third. Jesus. Buddies with a bloodsucker. Responses had to be filtered through the memory of power he'd been shown in Vicki's living room. Safer to play with a pit bull.

Henry felt the weight of Celluci's gaze and tried to remember the last occasion on which he'd spent this much time alone with a mortal he hadn't been feeding from. Or hadn't intended to feed from. The situation was, to say the least, unusual.

In all his long life, Henry had seldom felt so frustrated. "We can't resolve this," he said aloud, "until the body is found and interred, and her grieving is over."

Celluci didn't bother pretending to misunderstand what this referred to, although he was tempted. "So find the body," he suggested, a yawn threatening to dislocate his jaw.

Henry arched a brow. "So easy to say," he murmured.

"Yeah? What about that funny smell Vicki says you ran into last night?"

"I am not a bloodhound, Detective. Besides, I traced it as far as it went, to the parking lot."

"What did it smell like?"

"Death."

"Not surprising. You were in a body parlor." He yawned again.

"Funeral homes go to a great deal of effort not to smell like death. This was something different."

"Oh, lord, not again," Celluci groaned, dragging a hand up through his hair. "What is it this time? The creature from the Rideau Canal? The Loch Ness fucking monster? The Swamp Thing? Godzilla? Megatron? Gondor? Rodan?"

"Who?"

"Didn't you ever watch Saturday afternoon monster movies?" He shook his head at Henry's expression. "No, I guess you didn't, did you? Every weekend thousands of kids were glued to their sets for badly dubbed, black and white, Japanese rubber monsters stomping on Tokyo. Not to mention Jesse James Meets Frankenstein's Daughter, Abbott and Costello Meet the Mummy, The Curse of the Werewolf."

A car door, slamming in the parking lot, suddenly sounded unnaturally loud.

"Jesus H. Christ." Celluci's eyes were fully open. Still tired, he no longer had any desire to sleep. He sat up and swung his feet to the floor. "A motive. You don't think... "

"That Tom Chen was playing Igor to someone else's Dr. Frankenstein?" Henry smiled. "I think, as I said before, that you watch too many bad movies, Detective."

"Oh, yeah? Well, you know what I think? I think... "

Bam. Bam. Bam.

They faced the door,