most direct route was straight across the field but even with the masking darkness, Storm had no intention of being that exposed. Not far to the south an old fence bottom ran from the woods to the road, passing only twenty meters from the barn on its way, the scraggly line of trees and bushes breaking the night into irregular patterns. Secure in the knowledge that even another wer would have difficulty spotting him, Storm moved quickly along its corridor of shifting shadows.
Although he longed to give chase, he ignored the panicked flight of a flushed cottontail. Tonight he hunted larger game.
Neither the East nor West Germans had ever had a Carl Biehn on their shooting teams. Vicki sighed as she flipped through the binder looking for the lists from the Netherlands. When she closed her eyes, all she could see were little black marks on sheets of white.
The way people move around these days, Biehn could come from anywhere. Maybe I should do this alphabetically. Alphabetically... She stared blankly down at the page, not seeing it, and her heart began to beat unnaturally loud.
Rows of flowers stretched before her and a man's voice said, "Everything from A to Zee. "
Zee. Canadians pronounced the last letter of the alphabet as Zed. Americans said Zee.
She reached for the binder that held the information on the U. S. Olympic teams, already certain of what she'd find.
Henry stood in the shadows of the lower hall and listened to Celluci patiently explain to Daniel that it was now too dark to play catch with the frisbee. He hadn't thought the mortal the type who cared for children but then, he hadn't thought much about this mortal at all. Obviously, he would have to rectify that.
The man was close to Vicki, a good friend, a colleague, a lover. If only through Vicki, they would continue to come into contact. Their relationship must therefore be defined, for the safety of them both.
Like most of his kind, Henry preferred to keep his dealings with the mortal world to a minimum and those dealings under his control. Mike Celluci was not the sort of man he would normally associate with. He was too...
Henry frowned. Too honest? Too strong? Was this where a prince had fallen then, avoiding the honest and the strong for the weak and the rogue? In his life, he had commanded the loyalty of men like this one. He was not now less than he had been. He stepped out into the light.
Mike Celluci didn't hear Henry's approach, but he felt something at his back and turned. For a moment, he didn't recognize the man who stood just inside the kitchen door. Power and presence acquired over centuries hit him with almost physical force and when the hazel eyes met his and he saw they considered him worthy, he had to fight the totally irrational urge to drop to one knee.
What the hell is going on here? He shook his head to clear it, recognized Henry Fitzroy, and to cover his confusion, snarled, "I want to talk to you."
The phone rang, freezing them where they stood.
A moment later Nadine came into the kitchen, glanced from one to the other and sighed. "It's Vicki. She sounds a little strange. She wants to talk to... "
Celluci didn't wait to hear a name, but even as he stomped into the office and snatched up the receiver, he had to acknowledge that Henry Fitzroy had allowed him to take the call; that without Fitzroy's implicit permission, he wouldn't have been able to move. If that man's nothing but a romance writer, I'm a... He couldn't think of a sufficiently strong comparison. "What?"
"Where's Henry?"
"Why?" He knew better than to take his anger out on Vicki. He did it anyway. "Want to make kissy-face over the phone?"
"Fuck off, Celluci." Exhaustion colored the words.
"Carl Biehn was a member of the American shooting team in the 1960 summer Olympics in Rome."
Anger no longer had a place in the conversation, so he ignored it. "You've found your marksman, then."
"Looks that way." She didn't sound happy about it.
"Vicki, this information has to go to the police."
"Just put Henry on. I don't even know why I'm talking to you."
"If you don't report this, I will."
"No. You won't."
He'd been about to say that their friendship, that the wer, couldn't come before the law but the cold finality in her voice stopped him. For a moment, he felt afraid. Then he just felt tired. "Look, Vicki, I'll come