She wobbled slightly then catching her balance, continued her pacing. She hated this shit!
The alcohol in her blood stream fueled the burn of her anger. The early evening dimness did nothing for her humor as he vision was reduced to a blurred impression of passing headlights at just a few feet distant.
When the hell had her life become so complicated? Wait… she was pretty sure it had something to do with a certain undead 'Grrraphic novelist'!
"Damn it Henry!" she cursed aloud, and her voice cracked as she spoke his name.
She tightened her lips and resumed her unsteady pacing on the sidewalk a few doors down from Betty Sagara's home.
She fully intended to confront Henry. What the hell did he think he was doing, taking off like that? Didn't he know how worried she was? Yeah OK…he'd had a rough time with Mendoza… damn that Mike…but really…he was almost 500 years old, and after having a little Mike flavored 'Scooby snack', well he'd been all good to go right?
Fucking Mendoza…why couldn't she forget the feeling of turning that key in the device embedded in Henry's chest.
She swallowed and recalled it… the slight resistance to the keys movement. She couldn't forget the way that Henry had pressed his chest into her hand, his black eyes trusting.
Fuck... She rubbed the palms of her hands on the denim encasing her thighs, as though to remove the memory of the sensation.
And then he had taken off, disappearing into the night leaving her to clean up the mess of getting Mike home and cared for, and then getting herself back to the office.
Right and where did he go…. to Betty Sagara.
She couldn't help but recall the confidence of Betty's voice, when she called to tell Vicky that Henry had gone to her. Betty was so confident that she could help him, so confident that she could give him what he needed.
Well maybe she can, thought Vicky morosely…I sure as hell can't!
****
She had awakened in the late afternoon, soaked in sweat and shivering in the aftermath of the most vivid nightmares she could ever remember experiencing. She had fought her way out of the sheets and headed straight to her kitchen.
There she had "breakfasted" on a tumbler of whiskey, and then another. She relished the burn of the liquid, though it failed to thaw the icy fear at her core.
Fear was something that Vicki could not conscience in herself. Its presence made her angry.
Anger she understood. Anger she could use… and use it she had.
She used it against herself.
How could she have misread Mike so completely? She had trusted him, and had convinced Henry to trust him, on her recommendation. Now Henry was the one who had been made to pay the price for her error in judgment.
Then she had used her anger against Mike.
How dare he betray her trust?
Who was he in truth, she thought? As his partner on the force she had trusted her life to him. As her lover she had allowed him as close as anyone had ever been.
How could he have believed Mendoza's lies?
How could he have attacked Henry based on unsubstantiated accusation?
How could he believe that she couldn't take care of herself.
She knew he was obsessed with the fact that Henry was a vampire, but she would never have believed it could have clouded his judgment to that extent.
Judgment she had laughed… now there was a fine term. Judgment implied that you knew the rules to judge by. Judgment implied that you understood the landscape of the reality you were traversing. First the RP and then Henry had changed all that for her. There was nothing she could do about the RP. But Henry…
And then she had used her anger mercilessly against Henry.
She had accepted him as the human man he presented to the world. Sure she knew he was a vampire, she knew he drank blood to survive. But that part of him was separate from the Henry that she had allowed close. That part was to be controlled. It was to be used to help her solve cases, to defeat demons and to confront that bitch Christina.
Henry, he was supposed to guard her back in the nightmare world, she had followed him into.
He was supposed to guard her back in a place where she didn't know the rules.
That feral beast chained inside of him didn't apply to her. She never thought she would see those dark eyes turned in avarice to her throat. She never thought that she would see the beast emerge triumphant, stalking her for its survival.
She had heard again Mendoza's voice. "I have revealed his true nature…. Now do you see?"
Henry had abandoned her as surely as any other man in her life. He had become something other than the Henry she knew.
She had begged, Shehad called his name over and over.
The blank darkness in his eyes when she had finally convinced him to release Mike, like blood on his lips, had chilled her.
It was a stranger who had answered her summons.
Her Henry had left her as had her father to his girlfriends. He had left her just as had Mike from the role of lover and partner. Henry had betrayed her trust as surely as had Mike.
It was that blank eyed stranger, that had driven her to retrieve the Illumination Del Sol from the floor of that church. Even now it sat on the table in front of her.
When she had emerged from the church he was already gone, off to Betty Sagara for the comfort that Vicki couldn't provide him.
She poured a third tumbler of whiskey, the liquid in her glass as golden as the face which gazed up at her from within the eight pointed star.
She sipped the drink rolling it in her mouth then swallowed. Extending her finger she tapped the golden face, pondering…
***
Now here she was pacing up and down on an icy sidewalk outside of Betty Sagara's house.
She knew was more than a little drunk. Her hair was pulled back into a loose ponytail that whipped about her face in the breeze. Vicki hunched her shoulders against the chill. She jammed her hands into the pockets of her leather jacket. Her right hand fingered the Illumination Del Sol resting there.
"Fuck Mendoza" she muttered.
I just want to know that he's alright, she said to herself. Then with the morose guilt of the drunk…I just want to apologize.
It's that bastard Mike's fault.
Then she giggled. Oh wait…it was His Bloodsucking Royal Highness who was the bastard… "Fitz…Roi."
She shook her head, trying to suspend the haze…
I'll just knock on the door, he's probably off having a …an indelicate snort escaped her…'bite' somewhere anyways!
