Number nine lay, head to one side as she had left him, waiting for her to come back.
And then she was there.
But she didn’t see him and she didn’t smile.
“Fifteen minutes. It takes fifteen minutes to bleed to death from that kind of wound.”
“I know that!” Henry snapped. He had her heartbeat now, but it was frighteningly faint.
“Of course you do.” His fingers trembling, Celluci looped the arm of her glasses back over the curve of her ear. “You’re a fucking vampire. You know bleeding. So do something about it!”
Henry glared at him. There was no way to do a tourniquet in the joining of torso and leg. No way but direct pressure to stop the bleeding and he was already doing that, even if he did it too late. “Do what?” he demanded, sure there was nothing else he could do.
“How the fuck should I know! You’re the fucking. . . Jesus!”
Pulled by the intensity of Celluci’s terrified stare, Henry twisted around. Across the lab, by the wall of boarded up windows, one of the bodies rose slowly to its feet.
One of them had killed her.
Killed her dead.
The anger number nine had known before was less than nothing in comparison to what he felt now.
My gun? Where the hell is my gun?
Swatting aside panic, Celluci scanned the floor and finally spotted it almost under the cavader’s feet.
Fucking great . . .
Scrambling to his feet, he launched himself forward, dove, got both hands around the weapon, rolled, and pulled the trigger at almost point-blank range.
The bullet plowed through the putrefying tissue with almost no loss of velocity and rang against the brass casing of the oxygen tank directly behind. It ricocheted up the curve, hit the next tank, and sprayed bits of the valve across the room. Oxygen began to hiss free.
“Jesus H. Christ!” Still on the floor, Celluci crabbed back. Although pus and fluid and God-knew-what poured from the hole, the dead man continued to shuffle forward. “What the fuck do you think this is? A fucking James Cameron movie?” His hands were shaking too hard to try a head shot. He watched his second round blow a chunk from the outside curve of the thing’s thigh without any noticeable effect. “Goddamnit, stay dead!”
The third round passed through the abdomen again, rang against brass and sparked.
All hell broke loose.
Henry threw himself over Vicki.
Celluci flattened.
The explosion sent chunks of the oxygen tank flying through the air like shrapnel. Several of the larger chunks slammed into number nine, cutting him into pieces.
He remembered dying.
The last time, she had been there when it was over.
He hoped she’d be there again.
With a whoosh, the alcohol vapor in the air ignited, then the alcohol, then the desk.
Then the emergency light shut off.
Celluci picked his way back to Vicki’s side. “Fucking place is on fire. At least we can still see.” He squinted at Henry, the pale skin of the vampire’s face and chest just barely visible in the flickering light. “You okay?”
“Yes.”
“Vicki?”
Henry hesitated, praying he’d hear something different, knowing he wouldn’t. “She’s dying.”
“Fuck that!” Ripping off jacket and shoulder holster, Celluci yanked his shirt over his head, ignoring the buttons. Folding most of the fabric into a rough pad, sleeves dangling, he shoved it at Henry. “She said your saliva causes clotting.”
“Yes, but . . .”
“Spit on this and tie that wound off. We’re practically on top of a fucking hospital. You get the bleeding stopped and we move her.”
“It’s too . . .”
“Do it!”
Although he knew it would make no difference, Henry took the shirt and bent over the jagged hole. Michael Celluci had lived less than forty years and still thought death could be fought. Four and a half centuries had taught a different lesson. In a battle between love and death, death always won. He could feel Vicki’s life ebbing, knew that nothing they could do would change that.
His fingers maintaining pressure, he covered the still bleeding gash with his mouth. At least when she died, he would have contact with her blood. He pulled the touch, the taste, the scent of her into memory.
You are mortal, my love. I always knew you’d die, but I never dreamed we’d have so little time . . .
Suddenly, Celluci’s fingers were in his hair and the contact broken.
“I said wrap it, Goddamnit. Not fucking take what she has left!”
Henry drew bloodstained lips back off his teeth. “Get your hands off me, mortal!”
The explosion had jerked Vicki back out of the twilight zone of pain and darkness she’d sunk into. She hadn’t thought it was possible to hurt so much and still be alive. She could hear the two men arguing and fought against the weight hanging from her tongue.
“Mi . . .”
“Vicki?” Henry forgotten in the sound of her voice, Celluci twisted around and cupped her face in his hands. The fire licked at the plywood over the windows. Celluci ignored it. The high ceiling drew the smoke up and away. The path to the door remained clear. As long as the fire posed no immediate danger, it could be ignored for more important concerns. The highly polished metal of the isolation box reflected the orange glow of the flames out into the room. In its light, Celluci saw Vicki’s eyelids flicker, once, twice. “Hang on, we’re going to get you to the hospital.”
The
hospital?
She wanted to tell him there wasn’t any point but couldn’t figure out how.
“Michael.” The pain in the detective’s voice damped Henry’s anger and drew his own grief to the fore. With one hand still foolishly, hopelessly holding pressure on Vicki’s leg, he gently grasped Celluci’s shoulder with the other. “There isn’t enough time.”
“No.”
“She’ll be dead even before you get her out of this building.”
“No!”
“I can feel her life ebbing.”
“I said, NO!”
Listen to him, Mike. He’s right.
She thought she was still breathing but she couldn’t be certain.
I’m still here, I must be breathing.
“Damn it, Vicki, don’t die!”
Oh, God, Mike, don’t cry.
She’d thought it couldn’t hurt anymore. She’d been wrong.
“There has to be
something
we can do!”
Henry felt a vise close round his heart and squeeze. “No.” One word, two letters, somehow carried all he felt.
Pulled by the sound of suffering as great as his own, Celluci looked up and met hazel eyes washed almost gold by the firelight. They held a truth too bitter to deny. Vicki was dying.
I’m cold. And it’s dark. And it isn’t fair. I could tell you I love you now. Could tell both of you. Love was enough to bring my mother back. I guess I’m not as
strong
. Her body didn’t seem to be a part of her anymore. The flesh wrapped around her like a badly fitting suit of clothes.
Oh, shit. I can’t feel anything. This sucks. This really sucks. I DON’T WANT TO DIE!
Her eyes snapped open. She could see a familiar shadow bending over her. Her fingers trembled, aching to brush the curl of hair back from his face.
“Vicki?”
She pulled enough strength from him to form a single word. “Hen . . . ry.”
The name pierced into Celluci’s soul and ripped it to shreds with barbed hooks. She wanted Henry. Not him. Wanted to die in Henry’s arms. He bit his lip to keep from crying out and tried to jerk his head away. He couldn’t. Something in her eyes held him. Something that insisted he understand.
She saw the sudden white slash of his smile and carried it with her into darkness. She’d done what she could. Now it was up to him.
Henry had heard his name and was bending forward when Celluci lifted his head. He froze. He’d expected to see on the other man’s face the pain of Vicki’s choice written over the pain of her dying. He hadn’t expected to see a wild and insane hope.
“Change her!”
Henry felt his jaw drop. “What?”
“You heard me!” Celluci reached across Vicki’s body and grabbed a fistful of leather coat. “Change her!”
Change her. He’d fed from her deeply only a short time before. And fed from her the night before that. His blood held enough of the elements of hers that her system might accept it, especially as she had so little blood of her own left to replace. But considering his condition, did
he
have enough for them both?
Change her. If he changed her, he’d lose her. They’d have a little over a year but no more before her new nature drove them apart.
“Do it,” Celluci begged. “It’s her only chance.”
Henry suddenly realized that Celluci had no idea of what the change would mean. That he, in fact, believed the exact opposite of the truth. Believed that if Vicki changed she was lost to him. Henry could read the knowledge of that loss in the other man’s face. Could read how he was willing to surrender everything to another for Vicki’s sake.
You think I’ve won, mortal. You’re so very wrong. If she dies, we both lose her. If she changes, I lose her alone.
“Henry. Please.”
And if you can give her up for love
, wondered Henry Fitzroy, vampire, bastard son of Henry VIII,
can I do any less?
His heart would allow only one answer.
Lifting his own wrist to his mouth, Henry opened a vein. “It might not work,” he said as he pressed this smaller wound into the hole in her leg, forcing the flow of his blood to act as a barrier for hers. A moment later, he lifted his arm and threw Celluci back his shirt, the motion flinging a single crimson drop across the room like a discarded ruby. “Bind it. Tightly. This could still kill her in spite of everything I do.”
Celluci did as instructed, lifting his eyes in time to see Henry open a vein over his heart with Vicki’s Swiss army knife. Even with so prosaic a tool, it held the shadow of ancient ritual and he watched, unable to look away, as blood welled out of the cut, appearing almost black against the alabaster skin.
Sliding his arm behind Vicki’s shoulders, Henry lifted her and pressed her mouth to his breast. Her life had dropped away to a murmur in the distance; not dead, not yet, but very, very close.
“Drink, Vicki.” He made it a command, threw all he was into it, breathed it against the soft cap of her hair. “Drink to live.”
He was afraid for a moment that she could not obey him even if she wanted to; then her lips parted and she swallowed. The intensity of his reaction took him completely by surprise. He could vaguely remember how it had felt when Christina had fed from him. It was in no way comparable to the near ecstasy he felt now. He swayed, wrapped his other arm around her body, and closed his eyes. This rapture wasn’t enough to make up for the eventual loss of her, but, by God, it was close.
Celluci tied off the makeshift pressure bandage, his hands operating independently of conscious direction. There was something both so blatantly sensual and so extraordinarily innocent about the scene that he couldn’t have looked away had he wanted to. Not that he wanted to. He wanted every second of Vicki he could have before he had to face the rest of his life without her.
The firelight turned Vicki’s hair the color of spilled honey, danced orange highlights down the black leather enveloping her, and reflected crimson in the puddles of her blood spilled on the floor.
Jesus H. Christ! The fire!
All at once, as though it had been waiting to be remembered, he could feel the heat licking against his back. He turned. The entire wall of boarded windows was aflame. The smoke had a greenish tinge and an unpleasant taste—spilled chemicals or burning plastic, it was irrelevent at the moment. They had to get out.
“Fitzroy!”
The voice seemed to come from a long way away, but it held an urgency difficult to ignore. Henry opened his eyes.
“We’ve got to get out of here before this whole place goes up! Can you move her?”
It took a moment for Henry’s eyes to clear, but gradually he, too, became aware of the danger. He glanced down at Vicki, still nuzzling like a blind kitten at his breast, and pulled free enough to find his voice. “I’ve never done this before, Detective.” He had no energy left for anything but the truth and the touch of her life was still so tenuous. “She’s dying slower than she was, but she’s still dying.”
“Christ! What more will it take!”
“More, I’m afraid, than I have right now to give.” He swayed, Vicki’s head rising and falling with the motion. “I told you it might not work.”
Fucking great
. Vicki was still dying, Fitzroy looked like hell, and the building was burning down around them. He coughed and scrubbed his forearm across his face.
God-damned cup’s not half empty if I say it’s half full.
Grabbing jacket and holster and gun up off the floor, Celluci stood. “If she’s still dying, she’s not dead. Let’s try to keep it that way. Come on!”
Shifting his grip, cradling Vicki in his arms as though she were a child, Henry tried to stand. The room tilted.
Eyes streaming from the smoke, Celluci shoved his free hand into a leather-covered armpit and helped heave Henry and his burden off the floor. “Can you hold her?”
“Yes.” He didn’t actually think he could let her go but he didn’t have enough strength for the explanation. Henry leaned on the larger man’s strength as his knees threatened to buckle and, together, they staggered toward the door. Unable to see where he was placing his feet, he stumbled over a piece of something wet—he didn’t want to know what—and nearly fell.
“Oh, no, you don’t.” Muscles popping, sweat streaming down his chest, Celluci somehow kept all three of them up and moving. “After everything we’ve been through tonight, we aren’t fucking quitting yet.”
Arms locked around Vicki, holding her life with his own, Henry dredged up the ghost of a smile. “Never say die, Detective?”