Henry nodded briefly and looked out to the dark mass of the North Shore Mountains as he began his story.
"When I…when I first came to this territory, Vancouver, I was, as Augustus so often put it, 'in bad shape.' I was staying temporarily in a safe house in the West End, as the renovations of my condo were not yet completed. The house was in an older neighborhood; large homes, tree lined streets, quiet. Somehow the streets all looked…"
"Foreign," Vicki volunteered. Her hand stealing across to rest on his denim clad thigh.
"Yes," he said with a bitter smile, "foreign." Henry turned her hand over and linked his cool fingers through hers, her palm warm against his.
The breath of the ocean was everywhere. I could not escape the sound, like the beating heart of a great beast; it wore on me. It was a new and strange place. Augustus and the 'Community' were supportive and kind, but I was alone, adrift and…" Henry paused, and for a moment it seemed that he would not continue.
"No more secrets Henry," she said quietly, "especially to spare my feelings, I already know the part my pride and indecision played in this."
"When I first arrived I spent…a lot of time in sanctuary. I would wake at dusk in a strange room, and unless the hunger was unbearable I would stay, eyes closed, between the sheets waiting for the dawn. After a week of this…behavior, Augustus came to me one evening and took me to see my new home. He was concerned…"
Henry paused for a long moment, looking down, his brow furrowed at the memory.
"He gave me a 'good talking to' and basically told me to stop moping around and…and that he wouldn't defend my territory for me against an interloper. He knows my kind too well Vicki; well enough to know it was the one threat that I could not ignore."
"After that night I took to the streets at each sunset, acquainting myself with my new home."
He smiled crookedly though he did not look at her; a soft huff of a chuckle escaped him. "I even hunted in Stanley Park, hiding in the bushes, waiting to waylay a 'meal on wheels' as they rode by."
He felt her hand tighten in his and looked sharply at her as a choked sob escaped her, the light across the water reflecting on the tears that shimmered in her eyes. "Henry," she said on a sigh, "I'm so sorry, I thought, I thought…"
Henry just shook his head and continued, "It was during this time that I found a small coffee house, Arteros, reminiscent of the old ones in the 50's; the kind of place where art students and artist, poets and musicians would gather. I am sure that Coreen would love it," he said, his lips lifting slightly at the Goth's name. "It was open to all hours and was always full of…interesting people."
"They hang the work of an artist each month, in kind of an informal gallery. The second time I hunted there I saw Gillian's work. She was a student at Emily Carr, I have never seen such raw talent, such vision and such a focus on beauty." Henry began to speak more quickly now. "I made it my business to meet her, and began to encourage her as best I could. We would meet and talk for hours about her work. I brought her supplies, books…"
"No more secrets Henry," Vicki said, her voice wavering only slightly, though she suspected that Henry could hear what felt like the painful thumping of her heart. "Were you…lovers?"
Henry shook his head, his eyes clear as he said, "No, I never told her what I am Vicki. I never…tasted her. She gave something to me, that I couldn't find anywhere else, something I needed."
"Then one night, I saw her at a club. She was with some friends and she was different. I could scent the drugs on her. When I asked her about it later, she said that she had just tried it once, that some guy had 'given' it to her. That she wasn't interested in doing it again."
Henry ran a hand over his face and then continued, "I didn't see her for three weeks at Arteros and she didn't answer my calls." If he noticed Vicki's indrawn breath he gave no sign.
"I was hunting in Strathcona one night and I came across Gillian and her…pimp on Hastings. She was so stoned that she could barely recognize me, and when she did, even when Jared offered to sell her to me, though she was willing to do any number of things, she refused to talk to me, nothing but the drug mattered to her anymore."
"Two weeks later, her body was found naked and mutilated in the woods surrounding a public park in Duncan on Vancouver Island. I saw the story in the paper and a picture of the Jane Doe. She had died of her wounds but the levels of drugs that were in her blood would have been lethal anyway and Jared…" his voice hardened "Jared was responsible. It may not have been his hand that killed her but he is responsible all the same. All that talent, all that promise…lost. One of her instructors at the college recognized her picture and identified the body."
Henry fell silent for a moment and Gillian's young and avid face rose in his mind's eye as she sat in conversation with him. He saw the artist's hands flutter with her enthusiastic speech. He saw again the fragile pattern of her life branching across her flesh. I should have compelled her, he thought; it would have broken her spirit, but...
"And so I began to visit Jared," he said as he turned in the seat towards Vicki. "He admitted the first time I, visited, that he had used the drug to bend Gillian to his will and to keep her his slave. On another, visit, he confided that he had arranged the 'assignment' on the Island for her, through his 'boss' in Victoria…Joseph Fletcher."
"Do you think that Fletcher had some involvement in Gillian's murder?" Vicki asked.
"Undoubtedly, at least to my mind. However, Victoria and in fact the whole of Vancouver Island is another's territory. When I have…finished with Jared, I may ask Augustus to intercede for me with the resident."
The thought of the constraint of territorial imperatives on the being beside her brought Vicki up short, yet she thrust the idea aside for later consideration.
"Why don't you just kill that bastard Jared and be done with it, then Henry?" she said, the image of the beautiful and bizarre pattern of bite scars rising again.
"Spoken like a true supporter of due process," Henry said wryly. "I believe you have been spending entirely too much time with Celluci and his vigilante views when it comes to dealing with personal issues." Vicki had the good grace to blush, wondering, does he sense the blood rising to my cheeks the same way I do?
Henry shook his head in negation and she watched the expressive eyes narrow. "Firstly that would be too small a wergild, for what he has robbed me of and secondly once I had fed upon him, I understood that Jared is the way he is for a reason." The distaste on Henry's face was plain.
"So, I continue to feed upon him, and compel him and terrify him. But he is under no compulsion of mine to stay here within my territory. He is free to leave, but his own greed keeps him here. I have taken the better part of his strength; when he is hospitalized I will consider that he has made his choice, and then, I will drain him."
The ancient implacability of the vampire's voice both chilled and thrilled her.
Henry brought their still clasped hands up and placed a kiss on the back hers. Then he released her and reached to turn the key in the ignition. As she drew breath to protest, he said simply, "This level of openness is difficult for me Vicki, I am weary and the dawn is not far off. Allow me to take you to your hotel and then seek the respite of my own sanctuary."
The ten-minute ride to the Georgia Annex was conducted in silence, as Vicki went over in her mind what she had seen and heard tonight. When they arrived Henry walked with Vicki arm in arm to the courtyard and the French doors of her room.
Vicki pulled the ornate key from her jacket pocket but before she could fit it into the lock Henry took her in his arms and drew her gently to him. There was no trace of the predator that had attacked her earlier in the evening; his touch was gentle and sensuous when he lowered his lips to hers. And when she parted her lips, and he explored her mouth and she his, she was aware of how tightly leashed he held the vampire.
"I must go," he said reluctantly after a few moments, and he loosed his grip.
"Henry," Vicki said as he began to turn away and he swung his body back to her.
She regarded him as he stood silhouetted against the background streetlamp—virtually featureless but for the glitter of his eyes in the dark shadows of their sockets, his hair a russet and gold aura of curls lit from behind. He was poised for her words; he waited, ancient, and deadly.
"Tonight, when you waken, I'll be waiting," she said.
There was the flash of a broad white smile and then he was gone, and the night flowed around her, empty.