Blood Trail - By Tanya Huff Page 0,110

the shotgun out of Mark's grasp and threw it with such force it broke through the wall of the barn. His fingers closed around the mortal's throat and tightened, blood welling around his fingertips where his nails pierced the skin.

"No!" Celluci charged forward. "You can't!"

"I'm not going to," Henry said quietly. And he backed his burden up; one step, two. The trap snapped closed and Henry released his grip.

The arm that stopped Celluci was an impassable barrier. He couldn't move it. He couldn't get around it.

It took a moment for the pain to penetrate through the terror. With both hands at his throat, Mark pulled his eyes from Henry's face and looked down. Soft leather deck shoes had done little to protect against the steel bite; his blood welled up thick and red. He cried out, a hoarse, strangled sound, and dropped to his knees, pushing at the hinge with nerveless fingers. Then the convulsions started. Three minutes later, he was dead.

Henry dropped his arm.

Mike Celluci looked from the body to Henry and said, through a mouth dry with fear. "You aren't human, are you?"

"Not exactly, no." The two men stared at each other.

"Are you going to kill me, too?" Celluci asked at last.

Henry shook his head and smiled. It wasn't the smile Mark Williams took with him into death. It was the smile of a man who had survived for four hundred and fifty years by knowing when he could turn his back. He did so now, joining Cloud and Stuart beside Storm's body.

Now what? Celluci wondered. Do I just go away and forget all this happened? Do I deal with the body? What? Technically, he'd just been a witness to a murder. "Hang on, if Storm's still alive, maybe... "

"You've seen enough death to recognize it, Detective."

Fitzroy was right. He had seen enough death to know he saw it sprawled at his feet on the dirt floor; not even the flickering lamplight could hide it. "But why so quickly?"

"He," Stuart snarled, "was only human." The last word sounded like a curse.

"Jesus H. Christ, what happened?"

Celluci whirled around, hands curling into fists, even though - or perhaps because - he recognized the voice. "What the hell are you doing here? You're stone blind in the dark!"

Vicki ignored him.

Colin pushed past her, into the barn, desperate to get to his brother.

Barry moved to follow. One step, two, and the floor shifted under his foot. He felt the impact of steel teeth slamming into a leather police boot all the way up his leg. "Colin!"

Colin stopped and half turned back toward his partner, caught in the beam of the flashlight Vicki had pulled from her purse, his face twisted with the need to be in two places at once.

Vicki couldn't make him choose. "Go," she commanded. "I'll take care of Barry."

He went.

Dropping carefully to one knee, Vicki trained the light on Barry's foot. The muscles of his leg trembled where they rested against her shoulder. Tucking the flashlight securely under her chin, she studied the construction of the steel jaws. "Can you tell if it's gone through the boot?"

She heard him swallow. "I don't know."

"Okay. I don't think it has, but I'll have to get it off to be sure." Her fingers had barely touched the metal before Celluci slapped them aside.

"Poisoned," he said before she could protest, and slipped a rusty iron bar in at the hinge. "Hold his leg steady."

Both sole and reinforced toe had taken a beating but had held. Barry sagged against Vicki's arm, relief finally allowing a reaction. I could have died, he thought and swallowed hard. The heat had little to do with the sweat that plastered his shirt to his back. I could have died. His foot hurt. It didn't seem to matter. I could have died. He took a deep breath. But I didn't.

"Are you all right?" Vicki asked, playing the circular definition of her vision over his face.

He nodded, straightened, and took a step. Then another slightly less shaky one back to her side. "Yeah. I'm okay."

Vicki smiled at him and swept the flashlight beam over the interior of the barn. There was a body on the floor. Carl Biehn sat on a barrel of some kind looking stunned. Everyone else - Colin, Cloud, Henry, Stuart - was with Storm."

"Is Storm... ?"

"He's alive," Celluci told her. "Apparently Williams caught him in another one of those traps. Which are buried all over this place so walk only where I tell you."

"Williams?"

"Is dead." Celluci