Free Blood Bank by Tanya Huff

beginning of a mustache, he avoided her gaze and in a bored tone recited, "Tall, fair, dressed like a man..."
    Brows raised, Vicki glanced down at her black corduroy jacket, faded jeans, and running shoes.
    "…coming out of the alley behind the white TV station." Finished, he shrugged and added, "Looks like you. Looks like the place. You coming or not?" His posture clearly indicated that he didn't care either way. "She says if you don't want to come with me, I've got to say night walker."
    Not night walker as he pronounced it, two separate words, but Nightwalker.
    Vampire.
    "Do you have a car?"
    In answer, he nodded toward an old Camaro parked under the NO PARKING sign, continuing to avoid her gaze so adroitly, it seemed he'd been warned.
    They made the trip up Bathurst Street to Bloor in complete silence. Vicki waited until she could ask her questions of someone more likely to know the answers. The young man seemed to have nothing to say.
    He stopped the car just past Bloor and Euclid and, oblivious to the horns beginning to blow behind him, jerked his head toward the north side of the street. "In there."
    At the other end of the gesture was a small storefront. Painted in brilliant yellow script over a painting of a classic horse-drawn Gypsy caravan were the words: Madame Luminitsa, Fortune Teller. Sees Your Future in Cards, Palms, or Tea Leaves. Behind the glass, a crimson curtain kept the curious from attempting to glimpse the future for free.
    The door was similarly curtained and held a sign that listed business hours as well as an explanation that Madame Luminitsa dealt only in cash, having seen too many bad credit cards. As Vicki pushed it open and stepped into a small waiting room, she heard a buzzer sound in the depths of the building.
    The waiting room reminded her of a baroque doctor's office, with, she noted, glancing down at the glass-topped coffee table, one major exception—the magazines were current. The place was empty not only of customers but also of the person who usually sat behind the official-looking desk in the corner of the room. There were two interior doors: one behind the desk, one in the middle of the back wall. Soft background music with an Eastern European sound, combined with three working incense burners, set the mood.
    Vicki sneezed and listened for the nearest heartbeat.
    A group in the back of the building caught her attention but couldn't hold it when she became aware of the two lives just behind the back wall. One beat slowly and steadily, the other raced, caught in the grip of some strong emotion. As Vicki listened, the second heartbeat began to calm.
    It sounded very nearly post-coital.
    "Must've got good news," she muttered, crossing to the desk.
    The desktop had nothing on it but a phone and half a pad of yellow legal paper. About to start searching the drawers, Vicki moved quickly away when she heard the second door begin to open.
    A slim man with a distinctly receding hairline and slightly protuberant eyes emerged first, a sheet of crumpled yellow paper clutched in one hand. "You don't know what this means to me," he murmured.
    "I have a good idea." The middle-aged woman behind him smiled broadly enough to show a gold- capped molar. "I'm pleased that I could help."
    "Help?" he repeated. "You've done more than help. You've opened my eyes. I've got to get home and get started."
    He rushed past Vicki without seeing her. As the outer door closed behind him, she took a step forward. "Madame Luminitsa, I presume?"
    Flowered skirt swirling around her calves, the woman strode purposefully toward the desk. "Do you have an appointment?"
    Vicki shook her head. Under other circumstances, she'd have been amused by the official trappings to what was, after all, an elaborate way to exploit the unlimited ability of people to be self-deluded. "Someone's grandmother wants to see me."
    "Ah. So you're the one." She showed no more interest than the original messenger had. "Wait here."
    Since it seemed