Free Blood Debt by Tanya Huff Page B

you following me?”
    The ghost silently disappeared.

Four
    SENSES extended, Vicki sifted the darkness for some indication of a ghostly presence. According to Henry, she should be feeling a chill and a distinct sense of unease. It was supposed to be impossible to miss.
    â€œSo why am I missing it,” she muttered, propping herself up on an elbow and reaching for the light.
    The room was empty of everything but Henry’s scent.
    Out in the apartment, the phone rang.
    â€œWho was that?”
    Celluci very carefully set the flat, almost featureless, high-tech receiver back into its cradle. “Fitzroy,” he said without turning.
    â€œWell if he wants to know what I asked the ghost, he’s s.o.l.” Vicki dropped a shoulder against the living room wall and crossed her arms over her breasts. “Our spectral friend didn’t show.”
    â€œIt snowed.” Celluci drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Things had just gotten a lot more complicated. “It followed Fitzroy. Appeared to him this evening just like always.”
    â€œShit. Now what?”
    â€œHe’s coming back.”
    â€œHere?”
    â€œHere.”
    Vicki straightened and her voice rose. “And what does he expect me to do?”
    â€œHe didn’t say.” Hands spread, Celluci finally turned to face her. She’d thrown on an oversized shirt but hadn’t bothered doing up the buttons. Momentarily sidetracked, he forced himself past his immediate reaction and added gruffly, “The way I see it, we’ve got two choices. We go home, or we stay and you get another chance to prove your point.”
    Her eyes narrowed. “If you’ll remember, it was Henry’s point we proved. We can’t be together without fighting.”
    Celluci sighed and propped his right thigh on the dining room table. “Vicki,
we
can’t be together without fighting, but that doesn’t seem to stop us. If you can’t leave Fitzroy to take care of his own problem—a course of action which gets my vote, by the way—then the two of you are going to have to work something out.”
    â€œHow do we
work out
a biological imperative?”
    â€œYou’re the one who said you wouldn’t be ruled by your nature.”
    After a moment, she stared down at the floor and growled, “I was wrong.”
    It had never been difficult for Michael Celluci to figure out what Vicki was thinking, and her recent metamorphosis hadn’t changed that. For her to actually admit she was wrong without a three-hour argument and half-a-dozen pieces of irrefutable evidence could only mean that losing the fight to Fitzroy had upset her world view more than he’d realized. Time to put it right. “Fitzroy provoked that fight, Vicki. He had no intention of giving the two of you a chance to work it out.”
    Vicki’s gaze snapped up off the pattern of pieced hardwood and locked onto his face, her eyes silvering. “You know this for a fact?”
    â€œHe admitted it before he left.”
    â€œAnd you’re just telling me now!”
    â€œHey!” Celluci lifted both hands to chest height, a symbolic defense at best. “I’m not the bad guy here.”
    â€œNo . . .” Teeth clenched, Vicki fought to free the memory of the actual fight from the cloud of mixed emotions obscuring it.
    â€œYou insisted we could work together,” he reminded her mockingly.
    â€œWe could if you’d stop this Prince of Darkness bullshit and back off!”
    â€œWhy that lousy son of a . . .” Profanity somehow seemed inadequate. Fingers curled into fists, she spun around on one bare heel and headed back toward the bedroom.
    â€œWhere are you going?”
    â€œTo get dressed!”
    An innocuous statement on its own, but the way Vicki spat it out, it sounded very much like a threat. With the strong feeling he was going to need the caffeine, Celluci headed into