1 Blood Price (39 page)

She’d been conscious now for some time and had been lying quietly, eyes closed, waiting for the pounding at her temples to stop echoing between her ears. Time was of the essence, yes, but sudden movement would have her puking her guts out and she couldn’t see where that would help. Better to wait, to gather information, and to move when she might actually have some effect.

She licked her lips and tasted blood, could feel the warm moisture dribbling down from her nose.

Her feet were tied at the ankles. Her arms lashed together almost from wrists to elbows; the binding around her wrists fabric not rope. She’d been dumped on her side, knees drawn up, left cheek down on a hard, sticky surface—probably the floor. Someone had removed her jacket. Her glasses were not on her nose. She fought back the surge of panic that realization brought.

She could hear—or maybe feel—footsteps puttering about behind her and adenoidal breathing coming from the same direction. Norman. From the opposite direction, she could hear short sharp breaths, each exhalation an indignant snort. And Coreen.

So she’s still alive.
Good.
And she sounds angry,
not
hurt. Even better.
Vicki suspected that Coreen was also tied or she wouldn’t be so still.
Which, all things considered, is a good thing. Few people get dead faster than amateur heroes
.
Not
, she added as a flaming spike slammed through the back of her head,
that the professionals are doing so hot.

She lay there for a moment, playing
if Coreen hadn’t interfered
until the new pain faded into the background with the old pain.

The residual stench of the demon was very strongonly in a building used to students could Norman have gotten away with it—overlaid with burning charcoal, candles, air freshener, and toast.

“You know, you could offer me some. I’m starving.”

“You’ll eat after.”

Vicki wasn’t surprised to hear that Norman talked with his mouth full.
He probably picks his nose and wears socks with sandals, too. An all-around great guy.

“After what?”

“After the Demon Lord makes you mine.”

“Get real, Birdwell! Demons don’t come that powerful!”

Norman laughed.

Cold fingers traced a pattern up and down Vicki’s spine, and she fought to keep herself from flipping over so that the thing Norman Birdwell had become was no longer at her exposed back. She’d heard a man laugh like that once before. The SWAT team had needed seven hours to take him out and they’d still lost two of the hostages.

“You’ll see,” his voice matter-of-fact around the toast. “First I was just going to have you ripped into little pieces, real slow. Then I was going to use you as part of the incantation to call the Demon Lord. Did I tell you it needed a life? Until you showed up I was going to grab the kid down the hall.” His voice drew closer and Vicki felt a pointed toe prodding her in the back. “Now I’ve decided to use her and keep you for myself.”

“You’re disgusting, Birdwell!”

“DON’T SAY THAT!”

Concussion or not, Vicki opened her eyes in time to see Norman dart forward and slap Coreen across the face. Without her glasses details were a blur, but from the sound of it, it hadn’t been much of a blow.

“Did I hurt you?” he asked, the rage gone as suddenly as it had appeared.

The bright mass of Coreen’s hair swept up and back as she tossed her head. “No,” she told him, chin rising. Fear had crept into her voice but it was still vastly outweighed by anger.

“Oh.” Norman finished his toast and wiped his fingers on his jeans. “Well, I will.”

Vicki could understand and approve of Coreen’s anger. She was furious herself—at Norman, at the situation, at her helplessness. Although she would have preferred to rant and bellow, she held her rage carefully in check. Releasing it now, when she was bound, would do neither her, nor Coreen, nor the city any good. She drew in a deep breath and slowly exhaled. Her head felt as though it were balanced precariously on the edge of the world and one false move would sent it tumbling into infinity.

“Excuse me.” She hadn’t intended to whisper, but it was all she could manage.

Norman turned. “Yes?”

“I was wondering . . .”
Swallow. Ride the pain. Continue.
“. . . if I could have my glasses
.
”
Breathe, two, three, while Norman waits patiently. He isn’t going anywhere, after all.
“Without them, I can’t see what you’re doing.”

“Oh.” She could almost hear his brow furrow even though she couldn’t see it. “It only seems fair you should get to see this.”

He trotted out of her line of sight and she closed her eyes for a moment to rest them.
Only seems fair? Well, I suppose I should be happy he doesn’t want to waste front row seats.

“Here.” He squatted down and very carefully slid the plastic arms back over her ears, settling the bridge gently on her nose. “Better?”

Vicki blinked as the intricate stitching on his black cowboy boot came suddenly into focus. “Much. Thank you.” Up close, and considering the features without the expression, he wasn’t an unattractive young man. A bit on the thin and gawky side perhaps, but time would take care of both. Time that none of them had, thanks to Norman Birdwell.

“Good.” He patted her cheek and the touch, light as it was sent ripples of pain through her head. “I’ll tell you what I told her. If you scream, or make any loud noise, I’ll kill you both.”

“I’m going to go do my teeth now,” he continued, straightening up. “I brush after everything I eat.” He pulled what looked to be a thick pen out of the pocket protector and unscrewed the cap. It turned out to be a portable toothbrush, with paste in the handle. “You should get one of these,” he told her, demonstrating how it worked, his tone self-righteously smug.
“I’ve
never had a filling.”

Fortunately, he didn’t wait for a reply.

Some lucky providence had put Coreen directly across the small room, making it thankfully unnecessary for Vicki to move her head. She studied the younger woman for a few seconds, noting the red patch on one pale cheek. Even with her glasses, she seemed to be having trouble focusing. “Are you all right?” she called quietly.

“What do you think?” Coreen didn’t bother to modulate her voice. “I’m tied to one of Norman Birdwell’s kitchen chairs—with socks!”

Vicki dropped her gaze. At least six socks per leg tied Coreen to the chrome legs of the kitchen chair. Gray and black and brown nylon socks, stretched to their limit and impossible to break. Intrigued, in spite of everything, she gave her own bonds an experimental tug; they didn’t respond like socks. As it seemed safer than moving her head, she slid her arms up along the floor until she could see them. Ties. At least four, maybe five—the swirling leaps of paisley and the jarring clashes of color made it difficult to tell for sure—and while it might have had more to do with her own weakness than Norman’s skill, for she doubted he’d ever been a boy scout, he certainly seemed to know his knots.

“You were about to jump him, weren’t you?”

“What?” Vicki looked up and wished she hadn’t as her body protested with alternating waves of dizziness and nausea.

“When we came into the apartment and I . . . I mean. . . . Well, I’m sorry.”

It sounded more like a challenge than an apology. “Don’t worry about it now.” Vicki swallowed, trying not to add to the puddle of drool collecting under her cheek. “Let’s just try . . . to get out of this mess.”

“What do you think I’ve been trying to do?” Coreen gave a frantic heave that only resulted in bouncing the chair backward less than half an inch. “I don’t believe this! I really don’t believe this!”

Hearing the tones of incipient panic, Vicki, in the driest voice she was capable of, said, “It is a little like . . . Alfred Hitchcock does
Revenge of the Nerds.”

Coreen stared at her in astonishment, sniffed, and grinned somewhat shakily. “Or David Cronneberg does
I Dream of Genie,
” she offered in return.

Good girl
. It took all the energy Vicki had left to smile approvingly. While there were dangers in Coreen not taking Norman seriously, the dangers were greater if the girl fell apart.

Struggling did more damage to her than to the ties. She kept struggling anyway. If the world had to end, she’d be damned if she let it go down under the ridiculously high, cowboy booted heel of Norman Birdwell, adding insult to injury.

“Enough!” Henry spun away from the window and hurled himself toward the door. He had a name, he had a place, it was time he joined the hunt. “I should never have waited this long.”

At the door, he slowed, grabbed his coat, and managed to appear within the parameters of normality as he exited into the hall. He slid the key into the lock, then headed for the stairs, hating the charade that kept him to a mortal’s pace.

In the dim light of the stairwell, he let all pretense drop and moved as quickly as aching muscles would allow.

There were slightly less than two hours until midnight.

He completely forgot that the stairwell was part of the building’s random monitoring system.

Vicki drifted up into consciousness thinking,
This has got to stop
. Every time she tried to move, every time she tried to raise her head, she drifted back down into the pit. Occasionally, the blackness claimed her when she was doing nothing more than lying quietly, trying to conserve her strength for another attempt at getting free.
I’m going to have to think of something else.

All her intermittent struggling had accomplished was to exacerbate her physical condition and to uncover her watch.

Seven minutes after ten. Henry’s probably throwing fits
.
Oh my God, Henry!
Her involuntary jerk brought another flash of pain. She ignored it, lost it in sudden horror.
I
forgot to warn him about that security guard. . . .

Although he recognized the necessity of the surveillance cameras, Greg had never liked them. They always made him feel a bit like a peeping Tom. Two or three guards on constant patrol with one manning a central position at the desk, that’s the kind of job he’d prefer to work. A camera just couldn’t replace a trained man on the scene. But trained men had to be paid and cameras didn’t so he was stuck with them.

As the attractive young lady in the whirlpool stepped out and reached for her towel, he politely averted his eyes. Maybe he was just getting old, but those two scraps of fabric were not what he’d call a bathing suit. When he looked back again, that monitor showed only orderly rows of cars in the underground garage.

He sat back in his chair and adjusted the black armband he wore in honor of Mrs. Hughes and Owen. The building would be different without them. As the night went on, he kept expecting to see them heading out for their last walk before bed and had to keep reminding himself that he’d never see them again. The young man he’d relieved had raised an eyebrow at the armband and another at the explanation. Young people today had no real concept of respect; not for the dead, not for authority, not for themselves. Henry Fitzroy was one of the few young people he’d met in the last ten years who understood.