"Well if you ask me Stan, Galen was up to something, and you know what? I don't like it much" The voice floated querulously out onto the night air, through the opening door.
Vicki's eyes lost track of Henry's location as one moment he was a dim shape crouched at the side of the pool and the next instant he was gone.
The door opened wider, casting a wedge of blue-white florescent light out across the concrete and two men emerged into the pool yard.
Stan responded to the stocky short man at his side, "What can Orion be up to? He doesn't know anything about our operation, which pisses me off royally. I mean...you'd think that being what he is, he would hate the bastards." Stan turned to his companion with a look of disgust on his face, as he dug in his jeans pocket.
"I'm telling you Corey, when I felt him out a little bit…you know suggesting that maybe someone should take revenge on the bad asses that are profiting from the hunt, he acted all shocked and shut me down pretty quick. 'Shepherds of the Seals' my ass! If he suspects anything, well he'll keep quiet. All we have to do is tell him that we'll let his little wifey know where he is, and he'll disappear back into the ocean and never come out."
"Yeah, well he sure hared off pretty quick, when that lady cop showed up and started chasing him. I wonder what the hell she wanted with him," Corey said as Stan finally pulled his car keys, jangling, from his pocket.
Vicki jumped and barely stifled an undignified squeak as cool fingers closed on her shoulder and she felt Henry's breath brush her skin as he whispered in her ear, "We need to move to the other side of the building, they're coming this way."
She started to rise and cursed her failing vision for the thousandth time as she was forced to grasp Henry's forearm as he guided her soundlessly through the dark.
He drew her in close to his body so that their hips touched and through the gentle nuances of the pressure on her arm and hip instructed her silently on where to place her feet and how to hold her body, in the same way as a dancer leads his partner. Though his assistance was gentle and unobtrusive, Vicki hated it, as she hated all reminders of her disability. When they came to a halt, deeper in the shadows, Vicki dropped Henry's supporting arm and tried to focus her eyes on the silhouettes of the two men walking away toward the Aquarium proper.
She could still hear their voices in the wet air.
"And he never showed up to meet Ben when he took the rescue truck back to the Island," Corey continued, "so maybe he was so scared he just swam...all the way home," he said with a snicker.
"This way: the car is parked at the loading dock off the Gift Shop. Man, I can't wait to get out of this rain. I feel like I haven't been warm all day," Stan said.
"I know what you mean..." the voices faded out of the range of Vicki's hearing.
She turned her face to Henry and watched as he continued to listen for another minute or two, his eyes unfocused and his head cocked slightly to one side. Eventually he swiveled his head around and regarding the pool where it lay silvered in the moonlight, he said for her benefit, "They had nothing more of interest to say, and I couldn't hear them after they started the engine of their car. The remaining human inside, is at rest. He is reading, but I think he is preparing to sleep."
"What are you a fucking mind reader?" she groused, disgruntled at the display of his extra abilities.
"No, Vicki," he replied in a resigned voice, "But I am Vampire. I can hear him turning the pages of his book, and I can hear his heart beat and breathing slowing down as sleep approaches."
After a moment he continued, "Do you wish to go inside?"
"No, I'll be here tomorrow morning for a meeting anyways, so I'll get a look around then," Vicki said. "Did you see what you wanted or do you want to…sniff around some more?"
If she expected the usual rejoinder from Henry she was disappointed. His eyes were distant with memory as he stared across at the pool. She had the feeling he might have stood for hours locked in that far away place.
"Hey, are we going or what?" she said at last. His attention returned to her and he held out an arm indicating that she should precede him. She resolutely started out across the dark pavement only to misstep at the edge. She nearly went down but for Henry's arm on her elbow in sudden support.
As soon as she was steady Henry dropped his hand away, thereby depriving her of the opportunity to wrench it rudely out of his grasp.
He swept past her, "This way," he murmured as he led the way back to the car.
He opened the passenger door for her and stood to one side waiting for her to enter, his face so remote and pensive that she didn't voice any complaint. She could sense this was not the time for games between them.
When he was behind the wheel and she was belted in he put the key in the ignition. Vicki put her hand over his before he turned it. He stiffened at her touch though he did not pull his hand away.
"Henry, what is it, what's wrong?" She asked in a low voice. "Ever since you talked to that seal guy, you've been so distant, what did he say that upset you?"
Henry sighed and focused his gaze out the windshield of the car, it had started to rain again and the drops fell spreading in wide circles on the glass in front of his eyes. The verdant dark of the park surrounded him and Vicki; his Vicki sat golden not more than a few inches away.
He was filled with hunger, the ever present hunger for blood, the hunger for love that was denied, the hunger for acceptance that was denied, the hunger for kinship and family gone to dust, the hunger for the past so long gone to memory. The living scents of the sea and the selchie that past drifted to him in the night air brought the ghosts of his earliest loves to haunt him and they crowded about him in his memory. They had all passed by with the years leaving him here in this place, hungry for what he could not have.
His hand slipped from under Vicki's to close around the silver cross that he wore on his chest and he fingered it gently for a moment and then slowly brought it to his lips in memory.
She will not understand, even if I try to explain it, she has nothing to measure by. How can I tell her and have her understand the hunger for people and things which are now dust. How can she understand that sometimes when the memories press so close that I can't keep them away, that I lose the present, I lose today in the hunger for yesterday? She will not understand.
"I need to feed. I hunger," was what he said in the end, as he half turned in his seat towards her.
He steeled himself for some barbed comment about "playing with his food" or "all night take out." What she said surprised him.
"What are you hungry for Henry? What did the seal-man say? Tell me."
"Selchie," Henry said softly, "they're called Selchies"
She waited asthe rain splashed against the windshield, watching him struggle for words to explain. Her heart was torn. Henry was different, there was something wrong, and she feared Celluci was right; she had caused some injury to him.
"The Selchie said nothing wrong Vicki. The Selchies, they are part of some very old memories for me." he said at last, though he did not turn to look at her.
"How old, is very old Henry?" Vicki asked.
Still he did not look at her but dropped his eyes to his lap. He shook his head slightly from side to side. "This path takes me back to when I was first made, Vicki, back to a place so deeply buried; I had thought not ever to resurrect those memories."
"And you don't want to be hungry for something you can never have again?" she asked him softly.
He turned his face to her, surprised. "I didn't think you would understand," he admitted.
"I can't understand what you don't explain to me Henry," she said more firmly. "You have so many secrets, so many things about your life that you won't share. Don't you trust me?" she asked.
"Should I, Vicki?" he asked her, his eyes hardening and a sour smile twisting his expressive lips. "The little you do know frightened you so badly that you rejected me out of hand. You would not leave Toronto with me and chose Celluci instead over the abomination that I am. And when you told me you were not with Celluci I rejoiced until it became clear that I had not lost you to a rival. You would rather be alone than to be...with me."
Vicki caught her breath; here then was the cost, the price that Henry had paid, for his involvement with her. This then was the price of her haughty silence, the price of her fear.
She had kept silent out of fear and Henry had sensed that, but had misunderstood the cause. She didn't fear what she knew about Henry at all. Some things she didn't like, some things were dangerous, but she didn't fear those things. She feared the mystery, even as she was attracted by it. She feared what she didn't know, and worse, she feared that she wouldn't be able to ask of him what she needed.
"I'm not frightened of what I know Henry, but like most people I am frightened of what I don't know." She met his troubled eyes, catching and holding his gaze. "There is nothing I know of you that I fear, Henry Fitzroy, but, with the exception of what happened with Mendoza, I have only ever seen the little that you have been willing to show me."
"You should forget what you saw in that church basement Victoria, it is not a part of me that I wanted you to see, it is not a part of me that I wanted anyone to see." He looked way again to the droplets running down the window behind her. He could see the flush of the blood below her skin, the soft glow of gold from the exposed areas of face, neck and hands.
The hunger roused once more and he thrust it aside impatiently; even as he did he knew he would have to hunt tonight.
"That's just it Henry," she said. "You want me to choose you...to l-love you." His gaze swung hard towards her, sharp focused on her face at her words. "But you refuse to show me who you are, and then you want to tell me that...I don't trust you."
The vampire knew there was a hole in her logic somewhere; she rejected him, not the other way around. He wanted her, she was in his territory, and she was HIS. Yet she did not want him. But her scent, her scent said otherwise. He turned his head away and ran his hands through his hair.
"I need to feed," his voice was neutral; then he added, "I will drop you at your hotel," as he turned over the engine.
"No," she said.
"Pardon me?" Henry questioned.
"You heard me Henry; I said 'no!' You are not going to drop me at my hotel, and then run off and DO your vampire thing in secret," Vicki said as calmly as she could.
"Vicki, I haven't fed for two nights now," he said, his voice resigned, "I'm hungry and I need to take sustenance. Are you telling me that you don't want me to feed?"
"No Henry, I'm telling you that I'm coming with you. No more secrets." There, I said it, she thought.
Henry shook his head. "Not possible."
"Why not?" she challenged, "Are you ashamed of what you are Henry, are you ashamed of what you d..."
She stopped short, as Henry was suddenly on her, pushing her up against the window, his face but a few inches from hers. His eyes were a brilliant blue, glowing in the light from the streetlamp behind her.
"I am NOT ashamed of what I am." His whisper relayed more force that a shout would have.
For a moment Vicki was carried back to earlier in the evening when he had held her pressed against the wall, when she couldn't breathe...she swallowed once and the in a voice that shook only a little replied, "Then prove it."