Her scent pervaded his sanctuary, when he returned. He was surrounded by it, in his car, in the elevator, and now as he opened the door. Her fragrance hung on the air, a shimmering veil that abruptly changed the landscape of his existence.

He lowered himself to the seat she had occupied, and allowed himself to be enveloped, in the intoxicating mix of adrenalin and the sweet human scent that was distinctly Vicki…his Vicki.

Chosen, the word arose unbidden, my chosen. I am besotted. I know it and yet, and yet, can I not allow myself this brief instant, to rejoice? His lips lifted in a widening and totally irrepressible grin. She had come; she came to me, here, in my place. She said she will be here in Vancouver when I wake. She will be here when I wake, in spite of what I have shown her, in spite of what she has seen.

He crossed to the window and looked down to the street below, now devoid of traffic in the hour before dawn and then looked past the street to the beach and the water beyond. He wrapped his arms around himself, and looked out south and westward. In that direction laid Vancouver Island.

Vicki had told him that that was where Celluci had gone, where she thought her Orion Gaelan, the selchie, was hiding. She would want to travel there he knew, and he wanted…he wanted to stay with her, to guard her; he didn't want to be parted from her again…so soon.

He could sense the undercurrent of evil here, of avarice and of violence. He could sense the involvement of those in organized crime, those who had robbed him of Gillian, and those who owed him her wergild. He had done his research, and Jared's frenzied confessions had only confirmed his information. He knew who was controlling these murderers and criminals, Joseph Fletcher. Henry had his own business on the Island, and tonight sharing Gillian's story with Vicki had reminded him of that.

He crossed to the telephone and punched in a preset number. After a moment, when a male voice answered, he said, "This is Henry Fitzroy. Yes, I know that Augustus is in Montreal. No, I am calling on another matter. I wish to negotiate a dispensation to enter the territory of the resident in Victoria. I need it as soon as possible. Yes, yes, finalize as much as you can. I'll call you at dusk tonight. Yes, thank you."

Adrienna Morris. He knew her by name though he had never met her personally. Their territories abutted each other, and Henry had made it his business to find out all that Augustus would share.

She was old, far older than he, almost twice his age. That meant she was powerful, but reclusive. She had held her territory on Vancouver Island for more than 150 years as Augustus's records showed. A very long time in one location, he thought, what kind of alterations must she make to keep herself hidden through so many generations? She had been human in Scotland; I suppose that means that she might not be kindly disposed towards the bastard of Henry VIII, though there are some who simply cease to care about human affairs once they are turned. Well it is in the Community's hands now; they will arrange what they may, and I will worry about it tonight.

He could feel the dawn approaching; he had perhaps a half an hour. He lowered the shades and crossed through to his bedroom. Closing the doors and once again lowering the shades against the threat of the dawn.

I need to wash away the stain of Strathcona, he thought, as he headed to the shower, and then he smiled grimly to himself. I am willing to feast on Jared's blood, and yet I don't want the stench of his terror or the trace of the streets on my person. Shaking his head at the vagaries of his sensibilities he turned on the hot water and stripped off his clothing.

The sun was closer by the time he emerged from the steamy air of the bath; he had another ten minutes or so. Turning back the sheets, he slid between the cool surfaces and as he laid his head on the pillow, wet ringlets drenched and darkened the material beneath him.

He composed his body, aware now that the sky was lightening on the other side of the shutters. Vicki will be here when I waken, he reminded himself, a gentle smile tugging at his lips. Vicki is here.

At the last as his breathing began to slow, each exhalation slower and shallower than the last, and as he relaxed into the arms of the dawn, he sent his mind out questing along the link he had forged this evening. Augustus thinks me impulsive, I know, but Augustus doesn't know this, couldn't understand this. He edged close to the flickering sleeping mind of his foundling, an infant consciousness full of dreams of warmth and dark and the beating of a heart that pulsed and pulsed…the liquid dark and the milky warmth…

***

She lay flat on her stomach, one arm bunched under her pillow, her head turned to the side. Her eyes were closed, dark lashes against fair skin. Her lips moved though no sound emerged; she was dreaming. Whoever it was who answered her in that dreamland, a smile was her response and then a sigh, as she rolled over to her back. Her hand brushed the night side table and Coreen Fennel joined the waking world again.

It took a moment for her to register where she was. She stared at the pattern of light on the wall and ceiling, small squares with rainbow refractions, not the yellow wedge of the streetlight that shone through her bedroom window at home…home?

She sat up suddenly, pushing her hair back from her face. I am in Vancouver, at the hotel, with Vicki…Vicki? Oh my God! I wonder what happened. How could you fall asleep, Coreen, when she wasn't back yet? Right, not back yet…what time is it? She swung around to look at the clock on the side table.

Five thirty AM, and it was already getting light. I wonder if she is back yet? Well I mean I'm sure she is, but if she wasn't, I mean if she wasn't, that could mean that she spent the night with Henry. Oh now that would be perfect. Of course if she spent the night with Henry, then that would have put her in a really good mood. She couldn't possibly be angry with me if it all worked out the way I planned. But what if it didn't? I saw her face as the elevator door was closing, jeez; I might be out of a job…but if they….

Coreen threw back the covers and slipped out of the bed. She peeked through the curtains and though the courtyard was empty and covered with dew, the sky was definitely brightening and she could hear the low murmur of chirps and bird song, interspersed by a sharp warbling whistle now and again.

She turned away and crossed to the bed, wearing a t-shirt and sleep pants, and though the room wasn't exactly cold, goose bumps formed on the pale skin of her arms. Any one seeing her now would not recognize her as the Goth that they knew. Her face was washed clean of make-up and her hair, for the most part, pulled back into a ponytail; she looked like someone's little sister.

When she emerged from the washroom she thought, maybe I'll just go and knock on her door and check if Vicki made it back. Part of her mind was saying that that probably wasn't her most brilliant idea ever, but that rational thought was being drowned out by the clamoring voice of her curiosity.

Fortunately, for her, she was saved from what could have been a potentially life threatening situation when she noticed the folded sheet of paper that had been slipped under her door. She opened the page of hotel stationary and read:

My dear little assistant,

YOU ARE DEAD!!!

All right, maybe just MORTALLY WOUNDED.

But if you ever, I repeat EVER, do anything like that again…

YOU ARE DEAD!!! Do you understand?

I am in my room, ASLEEP. Wake me at TEN so I have time to get ready to go to the meeting at the aquarium.

Coffee and Danishes will be an acceptable peace offering.

Oh, I want you to find out anything you can on a Joseph Fletcher, Vancouver Island probably Victoria, and he's got a finger in prostitution so he's probably organized crime.

Henry and I are…talking.

You were lucky this time!

Vicki

***

"Mon Dieu, my backside fell asleep during the slide show," Pellerin confided as he walked out of the briefing room beside Mike. "I thought that the chief was never going to stop talking."

"Yeah, I will agree that it seemed to go on a far time but the guys in the crime lab really know their stuff," Mike said as he hoisted the new file of information.

"I agree, but then they now know what to look for."

Mike stretched out his back, "I need to look at the file on this Joseph Fletcher character, local right?

"Yes, very rich and very private and definitely very connected to the mob," Pellerin confirmed.

Mike's cell phone began to buzz; he pulled it out of his pocket and glanced down. He had been hoping it was Vicki. I need to call her. The way I left it with her just wasn't right.

Orion Gaelan's name came up again in relation to Sidorov and he knew Vicki's client's husband was enmeshed in his case somehow. He needed to know what she knew, he needed her insight and God damn it, he just missed her.

He waved a hand as Pellerin moved off to his desk; it wasn't Vicki's number on the screen. It was Liath's home number.

"Liath?" he said as he flipped the phone open.

"Michael, it's Liath," she said needlessly. He could hear the strain in her voice.

"Liath, what is it? Are you alright?" he asked quickly.

"The concern in his voice calmed her a little and she said more firmly, "Yes Michael, I'm all right. Can you come to our house, please?"

"Liath, I am working a case here and…"

"My…cousin…Orion Gaelan is here Michael, I think you need to hear what he has to say," Liath interrupted him, before either she or Orion lost their nerve.

"I'll be right there; give me fifteen minutes. I'm leaving now," he said, holding the cell between shoulder and ear as he shrugged an arm into his coat.

"All right Michael, we'll be waiting," she said and disconnected.

She hugged her arms around herself, and looked at Orion's ashen face as he stared up at her.

"It's better this way Orion, we can't let them go on so, we have to stop them." She laid a hand on his shoulder. "All you really have to do is to tell him what you overheard on the ferry. Just say you were visiting with Ryan on the mainland and were coming back, he won't ask about that anyways."

"But Liath, there was the woman who saw me at Stanley Park, she chased me. She said she wanted to talk…and I…I…changed in front of her." he confessed in a whisper.

"That has nothing to do with talking to Michael. He doesn't even know we exist Orion; he won't ask," Liath assured him. "We have to tell what we know."

***

Mike pulled up in the rental, parking at the curb. The street was part of a quiet, old, and sedate neighborhood, just a few blocks from the ocean; he could hear the gulls overhead and could smell the salt water in the air.

He felt the heat of anticipation stir inside him at the thought that Liath waited for him inside the house. He wanted to see her again, be near her again, to listen to the sound of her voice. Come on Celluci, snap out of it, he chastised himself. You're not a moonstruck teenager. But the memory of her eyes and her smile…

So, Orion Gaelan, I get to meet you at last. What part do you play in this little mystery, he wondered, and what is your relationship to my Liath?

He had not even set his foot on the bottom step when the door opened and Liath flew into his arms. He tightened his embrace around her.

"Come in…come in, Michael," she said as she stepped back, drawing him by the hand after her.

As she entered the living room a dark-haired, handsome man with the same warm brown eyes as his Liath's rose from a chair. He wiped his palms against his thighs nervously and then held out his hand to Mike.

"Detective Celluci," he nodded a brief greeting, "I am Orion Gaelan."

He's frightened, nervous, Mike noted, but his handshake is firm, denoting determination, and the brown eyes are clear. So like Liath's eyes, and the voice, the same calming and melodious voice. I wonder just how closely they are related.

Mike could feel Liath hovering at his shoulder, her concern palpable.

It was Clare who said from the doorway, "Why don't we all have a seat? Let me take your coat, Michael."

Settling in the chair in front of the window, Mike extracted a pen and a pad of paper from his pocket and flipped it open. Orion looked nervously at Liath who was seated close beside him on the sofa. She patted his arm and then she said, "Michael, Orion told me something this morning that I thought it was important for you to hear. I believe that it has bearing on the case that you are working."

Mike didn't like the fact that Liath was sitting so close to Orion, but he did his best to shunt his jealousy to the side. The man was so obviously upset, that he felt the stirring of sympathy for him, as he sat head down virtually wringing his hands in his lap.

"Why don't you just, start at the beginning and tell me the whole story, Mr. Gaelan…Orion? I'll try not to interrupt unless I need you to clarify some point or other. When you are all finished then I will probably have a few questions for you." He paused and then continued in his professional detective tone, "I appreciate any information or help that you can give me." He flashed a smile at Gaelan, and then a warmer smile at Liath as she looked appreciatively across at him.

Gaelan nodded, and hesitantly began his story at the point he had arrived in Victoria and had begun to work with the Victoria Aquatic Mammal Protection Society and had first met Ben Turner and Will Hagan. He moved on to how they had pressured him about his opinions in regards to attacking the sealers and traders in endangered species, or about the vigilante justice that they purported.

Unless his body language reading skills were way off, Mike was pretty sure that Orion had been disgusted by their suggestion of justifiable violence. Yet he was sure that Orion was hiding something. He didn't like the way Orion kept glancing to Liath as though seeking permission for what he was saying, or her supporting nods. It seemed that she knew what Orion was hiding.

When he had repeated what he had overheard Ben say about the Sidorov hit, Mike noted down the two names, Archer Ferris and Joseph Leblanc as well as noting that there were beatings and other disappearances mentioned.

He interrupted briefly, when he heard that Ferris and LeBlanc were arriving on a dawn flight. It was nearly two now, so they would be long gone already. Was Orion sure that they hadn't mentioned which island? But he was adamant. No, just that they would lay low on a gulf island and that they were going to sail there. He asked a few more questions and made some more notes.

When Orion finally fell silent, staring at the floor and looking, for all the world, as though he wished that he were somewhere far away, Mike asked the question that Orion had been dreading.

"Why are you hiding from your wife Orion? Liath told me that you were 'unhappy in your marriage.' Here Orion's eyes flew to Liath. A look of surprise flashed across his face, but she shook her head almost imperceptibly and lifted a hand slightly. Mike knew she was passing some hidden message to Orion, and noted that the man's face was noticeably calmer as he looked back to Mike.

"My wife, Linda, stole something from me detective, something more valuable to me than you can imagine. I knew that she had it, and she refused to return it to me. She used the fact that she had…this thing in her possession to blackmail me into remaining with her. When I finally managed to reclaim…what was mine, I disappeared. She is obsessed with finding me. I never want to see her again." Orion was obviously choosing his words with care.

"Why didn't you go to the authorities, if Mrs. Gaelan had stolen something from you and was blackmailing you?"

Orion shook his head slowly from side to side. He didn't look at Mike but answered while focused on Liath, "It wasn't something that the police could help me with, it was…private."

Clare spoke from across the room, "Does the difficulty in Orion's personal life have something to do with these murders, Detective? Do you think that his loving the wrong sort of person is somehow tied into what he overheard and now is voluntarily reporting to you?"

Mike heard the defensive challenge in Clare's voice and there was a low fire burning in her gaze as he looked at her. Her words touched something in him. Isn't that what is going on between Vicki and the bloodsucker? Haven't they each fallen for the wrong kind of…person? Is he even a…person?

His voice was calm when he responded. "It's hard to know where the connections lie, Clare. Sometimes the most disparate and seemingly innocent pieces of information make up the final piece of the puzzle."

To Orion he said, "I have a colleague, Victoria Nelson; she works in the private sector. Your wife hired her to find you. As far as I know she is in Vancouver now." Mike pulled out his wallet and withdrew one of Vicki's cards. He held it out to Orion, who did not lift a hand to take it. Mike set it on the coffee table between them.

"I know Vicki," Mike continued. "It doesn't matter how much your wife is paying her; she won't reveal your location until she has the whole story, and of that you can be sure. Contact her, Mr. Gaelan; she will get to the bottom of this for you."