Prosperity

Chapter Nine

When Vicki awoke, it was to feel a surge of immediate embarrassment as she became aware enough to find herself lying with her head in someone's lap. When a tad bit of further inspection found that lap to belong to Henry, she could feel her cheeks turn pink. She felt trembles run through Henry and looked up at him to find that the man was laughing softly - no doubt at her discomfort.

His laughing quickly subsided though and even from her position she could see that his eyes were hardening, looking straight ahead at something else. She turned her head slightly so that she was able to see what he was looking at, but he shifted suddenly so that she was again looking up at him. She felt one of his hands close gently around her right wrist and his thumb ran over the place on her wrist where Astaroth's tattoo was located.

"How do you feel?" he asked, voice low, tone serious. There was something to the question other than a simple concern for her welfare, that much she could tell. What the undertone was though, or who it was directed at, she had no idea. She only suspected that it wasn't her. Who else was in the room then? Coreen, she knew, but Henry didn't have any reason that she could think of to direct that underlying tone at Coreen. But who else then?

Vicki's eyes scanned his face, looking for clues to what could have provoked the tone, as she tried to remember what had happened to have her wake up with her head lying in his lap. She knew they were in his condo, and she remembered the spell that Coreen had been casting. She even remembered the piercing, yet incredibly confused gaze that Arianrhod had bore as the work with the poppet had brought her back to consciousness.

After that though, there was nothing. She didn't think too much time had elapsed between then and now. Well, she hoped too much time hadn't elapsed. "I… I'm okay. Yeah, I think I'm good," Vicki said, putting one hand out to the side so that she could use the floor to push herself up into a sitting position. Henry's hands moved to her lower back to brace her as she sat up, and she told herself that the reason she moved more quickly after that wasn't because the contact made her nervous, but because it was actually helping her to sit up that much quicker.

She couldn't persuade herself of it, and she was pretty sure that it was the last thing that crossed Henry's mind as he pulled his hands away. "Are you sure?" he asked. His voice was still carrying the same undertone and Vicki frowned at him.

"Yes, Henry, I'm sure," she replied. There came a twinkling laugh from behind her and she spun to find the woman who had been previously unconscious on the couch was now quite awake. There was a look in her eyes that Vicki couldn't quite place, but she thought that it might be longing. Longing for what? She allowed herself to wonder briefly.

"You see? I did not harm her. I did nothing," the vampire said softly. Vicki frowned at her, taking in the hospital gown-styled garment that she was wearing. Vicki hadn't noticed it before when the woman had been unconscious - it had seemed normal when she'd been unconscious - but now, Vicki was pretty sure that the woman was going to want clothes. For that matter, she was pretty sure that she wanted the woman to have clothes.

"Keep quiet," Henry growled, eyes turning black and fangs extending for the brief phrase before his fangs retracted and his eyes returned to normal and he turned his attention back to Vicki. The woman muttered something that Vicki couldn't make out, but a scowl briefly crossed Henry's face, though he didn't address whatever it was that she had said.

"Are you Arianrhod Geddes?" Vicki queried of her. Surprise flashed through the blue eyes, and the woman gave a slow nod.

"How do you know me?" she asked softly. Henry let out a low growl beside her and she elbowed him.

"I'm a Private Investigator. I have a client who hired me to look for you and another woman. Do you know a Katrijn?" Vicki asked, quite expecting what the response was going to be.

Just as she'd thought, Arianrhod's eyes lit up hopefully. "You know of Katrijn? You know where she can be found?" Okay, so the foreign name sounded a dozen times better when the vampire said it. It even sounded somehow less foreign when the vampire said it. Almost.

"As of last night―"

"Vicki," Henry interrupted in a warning tone. She looked toward him and cocked her head to one side. His look was eloquent, and she let out a long sigh. This wasn't going to be good. Henry nodded to her as she mimed zipping her mouth shut, and he turned his attention back to Arianrhod.

"You still haven't told me why you're here. Your tag-along―"

"Lover."

"―has threatened my territory. You were incapacitated in my cityand I was the one to help you. You owe me," Henry snarled, ignoring the brief interruption that Arianrhod had made. Vicki and Coreen shared looks. This wasn't going to turn out well. Arianrhod seemed to be thinking along the same lines as Vicki, because suddenly she looked fearful, afraid of Henry.

"I can explain! Please, allow me to!" the stress in woman's voice brought out a strange accent that Vicki couldn't place, but she was sure that Henry could - he certainly looked as though he were able to place it anyway. Unless that look was just his last effort at self-restraint before he lashed out at the invading vampire. Hmm. That was very, very possible.

"One chance," Henry breathed through his fangs. Vicki cringed at the tone of voice. She was pretty sure that she didn't want to be here right now, especially if the shit was going to hit the fan. However, she also knew that there was no way that she was going to leave Henry alone here. Not around a mysterious vampire of unknown power who had just woken up from a state that had to have been induced by a rather powerful enemy.

"You know of the curse," Arianrhod's voice was barely a whisper, and Henry's face showed no emotion as he stared her down. He was going to let her speak, but he wasn't going to give her any sympathy. "I wanted to show Katrijn the world before I drove her away." The woman let out a bitter laugh and then a sad sounding sigh. "Ambrose is our third. Katrijn was torn between us; I didn't - couldn't - make her choose. She will need a companion later."

Henry raised an eyebrow and looked as though he were going to comment here, but then his expression flattened again and he made a brief gesture, telling the woman to continue speaking. Arianrhod grimaced and then continued speaking, her tone a bit frenzied as though she was quite certain that Henry's final judgment would be the same no matter what she said.

"When we arrived in the city," she shook her head, confusion smearing itself across her features. "I'm not quite certain what happened, but somehow we were all separated." She let out a bitter laugh, and Vicki said Henry shuffle out of the corner of her eye, as though something about the story was bothering him.

"I thought I had seen Ambrose, but then I lost something. I felt as though I had lost myself - does that make sense?" she shook her head again before continuing. "Then I woke up here," she finished, and though it should have been a rather lame punch line, the way in which the woman delivered it made Vicki actually feel sorry for her.

Henry snarled through bared fangs, "Give me one reason why I shouldn't rip out your throat now, and then go after your child and do the same to her."

Arianrhod's blue eyes flashed as she snapped. "The blood would ruin your upholstery." Henry let out another low snarl, not appreciating the answer, and the woman spoke again. "There is someone in your city with the ability to incapacitate a vampire. If I had not been found, I could easily have been left to meet the sun. You could be next."

"I know this city, for anyone to catch me―"

"That is the cockiness that will get you caught," Arianrhod snarled over him. "I have no care for helping you, but as I suspect that you will not help me to find Katrijn unless I do, I will agree to it."

Vicki blinked. "Hey, wait. We didn't ask you to help us. We're plenty capable of solving this on our own, thanks." The vampire looked at her with something like disdain in her features and blinked twice, apparently trying to comprehend this. Then she returned her attention to Henry as though Vicki hadn't even spoken.

"I agree with Vicki. You will give us a phone number where we will be able to reach you. You will stay out of my way, and you will not hunt in the downtown core. When we have figured out what is going on, we will call you," Henry stated. Arianrhod stiffened, then slowly relaxed and shifted, looking for all the world like a bird ruffling her feathers - or a pissed off cat with her hair standing on end. Something that they didn't need to deal with anyway.

"I will need clothes if I am to travel to my hotel," the woman said. Vicki heard a noise from Coreen beside her that may or may not have been a snort - if Arianrhod heard the same noise, then she ignored it.

"That can be arranged," Henry replied in clipped tones.

---

"Not the friendliest creature, is she?" Vicki asked drolly a little while after the woman had left. Henry let out a brief laugh before smoothing his hands down across his face.

"She was scared," he said blandly. "Which is what I was aiming for. She's more likely to toe the line on the restrictions that I placed on her if she stays scared." He let out a sigh and dropped down onto the couch that Arianrhod had vacated when she left, his eyes following Coreen around the room as she scrambled to try and clean up all of the salt that she'd scattered across the floor.

Vicki nodded. "So, who do you think put the spell on her?" she asked. In her own mind, she already had a pretty strong hunch of who it was, but she wanted to see if Henry thought the same before she suggested it.

"I don't know," the vampire admitted after a moment. "But whoever it is, I think that they were solely after Arianrhod. I don't think she wanted to show Katrijn the world - or at least, that wasn't her only reason for coming to Toronto. Either she knew that someone was after her, or she suspected that someone was after her, and she was hopping across the globe and trying to throw them off."

Vicki raised her eyebrows and nodded slowly. It was a reasonable explanation, however… "Why Toronto though? And why a basement bathroom on a university campus?"

Henry squinted his eyes, staring up at the ceiling for a few long moments as he thought this over. "She may have gotten lost when she arrived in Toronto. If she was thrown off balance, it may have given her stalker enough time to get close to her."

"Why didn't she fight them off?" Vicki asked, right on top of the end of his sentence. "She's a vampire."

"Surprise, maybe? Maybe she knew them," Henry offered. "As for the bathroom location for the spell, maybe whoever cast it was trying not to get caught - and wasn't quite set on what they were doing."

Vicki widened her eyes, "Someone she knew… Someone who was unsure. Henry, could Ambrose have betrayed her?" Ambrose had been her first guess anyway, but it had been almost a shot in the dark. The deductions that Henry had made, however, made it seem far more likely that it had been he who had done the spell casting. After all, he was probably the only human who could get close enough to Arianrhod without her suspecting anything.

"Could be," Henry said quietly. "But why?"

"Maybe he wanted her out of the way so that he could have Katrijn to himself. You know, the jealous lover strives out because they're feeling neglected or as though they're going to lose the other person entirely. And he probably knew that he wouldn't actually have a chance at killing Arianrhod," Vicki offered. Henry nodded, his eyes narrowed.

Vicki's cell phone rang then, and she jumped at the sound before she recognised it for what it was and grabbed it from her pocket. She frowned at the number on the screen, "What do you want, Mike?" she wondered aloud as she hit the button to answer the phone.

"Yeah?"

"Do you know a Jane Deer?" Mike asked. She could tell by the tone of voice that he was in full detective mode, and with the name that he had spoken, she was pretty sure that she didn't want him in full detective mode.

"We've spoken once, briefly, because I had to call her for an investigation. Why?"

"Because she's dead, Vicki. Why else?"

Coreen and Henry both spun, looking at her flabbergasted as she cursed loudly and allowed the phone to drop to the floor. This was the absolute last thing that she needed right now.

Chapter Ten Preview

"It had to be Ambrose. He found out I called her, and he doesn't want to be found, so he killed her," Vicki muttered.

"Great. So now you don't have a lead to follow."

Vicki glanced at the clock on the desk. "Sure I do. Quick, if we hurry, we can get there before sunrise."