shadow until she stood just outside the circle of police around the body.
Mac Eisler had been a somewhat attractive, not very tall, white male Caucasian. Eschewing the traditional clothing excesses of his profession, he was dressed simply in designer jeans and an olive-green raw silk jacket. At the moment, he wasn't looking his best. A pair of rusty nails had been shoved through each manicured hand, securing his body upright across the back entrance of a trendy restaurant. Although the pointed toes of his tooled leather cowboy boots indented the wood of the door, Eisler's head had been turned completely around so that he stared, in apparent astonishment, out into the alley.
The smell of death fought with the stink of urine and garbage. Vicki frowned. There was another scent, a pungent predator scent that raised the hair on the back of her neck and drew her lips up off her teeth. Surprised by the strength of her reaction, she stepped silently into a deeper patch of night lest she give herself away.
"Why the hell would I have a comment?"
Preoccupied with an inexplicable rage, she hadn't heard Celluci arrive until he greeted the press. Shifting position slightly, she watched as he and his partner moved in off the street and got their first look at the body.
"Jesus H. Christ."
"On crutches," agreed the younger of the two detectives already on the scene.
"Who found him?"
"Dishwasher, coming out with the trash. He was obviously meant to be found; they nailed the bastard right across the door."
"The kitchen's on the other side and no one heard hammering?"
"I'll go you one better than that. Look at the rust on the head of those nails—they haven't been hammered."
"What? Someone just pushed the nails through Eisler's hands and into solid wood?"
"Looks like."
Celluci snorted. "You trying to tell me that Superman's gone bad?"
Under the cover of their laughter, Vicki bent and picked up a piece of planking. There were four holes in the unbroken end and two remaining three-inch spikes. She pulled a spike out of the wood and pressed it into the wall of the building by her side. A smut of rust marked the ball of her thumb but the nail looked no different.
She remembered the scent.
Vampire.
". . . unable to come to the phone. Please leave a message after the long beep."
"Henry? It's Vicki. If you're there, pick up." She stared across the dark kitchen, twisting the phone cord between her fingers. "Come on, Fitzroy, I don't care what you're doing, this is important." Why wasn't he home writing? Or chewing on Tony. Or something. "Look, Henry, I need some information. There's another one of, of us, hunting my territory and I don't know what I should do. I know what I want to do . . ." The rage remained, interlaced with the knowledge of another. ". . . but I'm new at this bloodsucking undead stuff, maybe I'm overreacting. Call me. I'm still at Mike's."
She hung up and sighed. Vampires didn't share territory. Which was why Henry had stayed in Vancouver and she'd come back to Toronto.
Well, all right, it's not the only reason I came back. She tossed Celluci's spare car keys into the drawer in the phone table and wondered if she should write him a note to explain the mysterious emptying of his gas tank. "Nah. He's a detective, let him figure it out."
Sunrise was at five twelve. Vicki didn't need a clock to tell her that it was almost time. She could feel the sun stroking the edges of her awareness.
"It's like that final instant, just before someone hits you from behind, when you know it's going to happen but you can't do a damn thing about it." She crossed her arms on Celluci's chest and pillowed her head on them adding, "Only it lasts longer."
"And this happens every morning?"
"Just before dawn."
"And you're going to live forever?"
"That's what they tell me."
Celluci snorted. "You can have it."
Although Celluci had offered to light-proof one of the two unused bedrooms, Vicki had been uneasy about the concept.
Jorge Luis Borges (trans. by N.T. di Giovanni)