Free 1 Blood Price by Tanya Huff

weight. “. . . lover.”
    “Ian Reddick,” Vicki repeated and sat down again. Ian Reddick, the first victim. The body she’d found mutilated in the Eglinton West subway station.
    “I want you to find the thing that killed him.”
    “Look, Coreen,” her voice dropped into the professional “comfort tone” that police officers worldwide had to master, “I recognize how upset you must be, but don’t you think that’s a job for the authorities?”
    “No.”
    There was something utterly intractable in that “no.” Vicki pushed her glasses up her nose and searched for a response while Coreen continued.
    “They insist on looking for a man, refusing to acknowledge that the paper might be right; refusing to consider anything outside their narrow little world view.”
    “Refusing to consider that the killer might actually be a vampire?”
    “Right.”
    “The paper doesn’t really believe it’s a vampire either, you know.”
    Coreen tossed her hair back off her face. “So? The facts still fit. The blood is still missing. I bet Ian would have been drained dry if he hadn’t been found so quickly.”
    She doesn’t know it was me. Thank God. And again she saw him, his face a clichéd mask of terror above the gaping red wound that was his throat. Gaping red wound . . . no, more as though the whole front of his throat had been ripped away. Not ripped through, ripped away. That was what had been missing; the incongruity that had been nagging at her for over a week now. Where was the front of Ian Reddick’s throat?
    “. . . so will you?”
    Vicki slowly surfaced from memory. “Let me get this straight. You want me to find Ian’s killer, working under the assumption that it really is a vampire? Bats, coffins, the whole bit.”
    “Yes.”
    “And once I’ve found it, I drive a stake through its heart?”
    “Creatures of the night can hardly be brought to trial,” Coreen pointed out reasonably but with a martial light in her eye. “Ian must be avenged.”
    Don’t get sad, get even. It was a classic solution to grief and one Vicki didn’t altogether disapprove of. “Why me?” she asked.
    Coreen sat up straighter. “You were the only female private investigator in the yellow pages.”
    That, at least, made sense and explained the eerie coincidence of Coreen showing up in the office of the woman who’d found Ian’s body. “ Out of all the gin joints in all the. . . .” She couldn’t remember the rest of the quote but she was beginning to understand how Bogart had felt. “It wouldn’t be cheap.” What am I cautioning her for? I am not going vampire hunting.
    “I can afford the best. Daddy pays me a phenomenal amount of guilt money. He ran off with his executive assistant when I was in junior high.”
    Vicki shook her head. “Mine ran off with his secretary when I was in sixth grade and I never got a cent out of him. Times change. Was she young and pretty?”
    “He,” Coreen corrected. “And yes, very pretty. They’ve opened a new law practice in the Bahamas.”
    “As I said, times change.” Vicki pushed her glasses up her nose and sighed. Vampire hunting. Except it wouldn’t have to be that. Just find whoever, or whatever, killed Ian Reddick. Exactly what she’d be doing if she were still on the force. Lord knew they were undermanned and could use the help.
    Coreen, who had kept her gaze locked on the older woman’s face, smiled triumphantly and dug for her checkbook.

    “Michael Celluci, please.”
    “One moment.”
    Vicki tapped her nails against the side of the phone as she waited for the call to be put through. Ian Reddick’s throat had been missing and Celluci, the arrogant shit, hadn’t thought to mention whether it had been found or if the other bodies were in the same condition. She didn’t really care at this point if he wasn’t speaking to her ’cause she was bloody well going to speak to him.
    “Criminal Investigation Bureau, Detective-Sergeant Graham.”
    “Dave? It’s