1 Blood Price Read Online Free PDF Page A

headline show. Allowing his true nature to emerge in the privacy of an empty elevator could do little harm, but doing so before a mortal witness was quite another matter. Not that he expected Greg to suddenly start pointing his finger and screaming vampire. . . .
    Helping to dampen the rage was the guilt he felt at terrifying the old man. He liked Greg; in this world of equality and democracy it was good to meet a man willing to serve. The attitude reminded him of the men who’d worked on the estate when he was a boy and took him back, for a little while at least, to a simpler time.
    Barriers firmly in place, he got off the elevator at the fourteenth floor, holding the door so Mrs. Hughes and her mastiff could get on. The big dog walked past him stiff-legged, the hairs on the back of his neck up, and a growl rumbling deep in his throat. As always, Mrs. Hughes made apologetic sounds.
    “I really don’t understand this, Mr. Fitzroy. Owen is usually such a sweet dog. He never . . . Owen!”
    The mastiff, trembling with the desire to attack, settled for maneuvering his huge body between his owner and the man in the door, putting as much distance as possible between her and the perceived threat.
    “Don’t worry about it, Mrs. Hughes.” Henry removed his hand and the door began to slide closed. “You can’t expect Owen to like everybody.” Just before the door shut completely, he smiled down at the dog. The mastiff recognized the baring of teeth for what it was and lunged. Henry managed a slightly more honest smile as the frantic barks faded down toward the lobby.
    Ten minutes alone with the dog and they could settle what stood between them. Pack law was simple, the strongest ruled. But Owen always traveled with Mrs. Hughes and Henry doubted Mrs. Hughes would understand. As he had no wish to alienate his neighbor, he put up with the mastiff’s animosity. It was a pity. He liked dogs and it would take so little to put Owen in his place.
    Once in the condo, with the door safely closed behind him, he looked at the paper again and snarled.
    “VAMPIRE STALKS CITY.”
    The bodies of Terri Neal and DeVerne Jones had been found drained of blood.
    The headline appeared to be accurate.
    And he knew he wasn’t doing it.
    With a sudden snap of his wrist he flung the paper across the room and took a minor satisfaction in watching the pages flutter to the floor like wounded birds.
    “Damn. Damn. DAMN!”
    Crossing to the window, he shrugged out of his coat and tossed it on the couch, then yanked back the curtains that blocked the city from view. Vampires were a solitary breed, not seeking each other out nor keeping track of where their brothers and sisters roamed. Although he suspected he shared his territory with others of his kind, there could be a score moving, living, feeding among the patterns of light and shadow that made up the night and Henry would be no more aware of it than the people they moved among.
    And worse, if the killer was a vampire, it was a child, one of the newly changed, for only the newly changed needed blood in such amounts and would kill with such brutal abandon.
    “Not one of mine,” he said to the night, his forehead resting against the cool glass. It was as much a prayer as a statement. Everyone of his kind feared that they would turn loose just such a monster, an accidental child, an accidental change. But he’d been careful; never feeding again until the blood had had a chance to renew, never taking the risk that his blood could be passed back. He would have a child someday, but it would change by choice as he had done and he would be there to guide it, to keep it safe.
    No, not one of his. But he could not let it continue to terrorize the city. Fear had not changed over the centuries, nor had people’s reactions to it and a terrorized city could quickly bring out the torches and sharpened stakes . . . or the twentieth century laboratory equivalent.
    “And I no more want to be strapped to a table