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He knew who and what he was: Henry Fitzroy, bastard son of Henry VIII, once Duke of Richmond and Somerset, Earl of Nottingham, Knight of the Garter, Prince of Darkness, Immortal Death, and Accidental Tourist.
It was the last that made him unhappy, though the way Vicki would say Prince of Darkness often contributed to his moods. It wasn't Vicki who accompanied him today, however, it was Michael Celluci, lately of the Toronto Police Department, currently perched on the steps surrounding Boston's City Hall Plaza.
"Vicki," he said, seating himself on a higher step, "would like to know when you intend to return home."
"Vicki can mind her own business. And you can go home."
"What?" questioned Henry, spreading his arms wide to encompass the homeless woman wearing fairy wings and the group of young people congregated near the stage waiting for the free concert to begin. "And miss all this?"
"You sat in beer," Celluci said flatly. And so he had, which was a bill Vicki would be receiving upon Mike Celluci's retun to Toronto.
"Not yours, I assume."
"Not mine." Celluci scowled at him. "I'm not telling you what happened and I don't care how long you sit there."
"Interestingly enough, Michael, I am not at all interested in the details of whatever spat you had with Vicki. I was merely asked to locate you and pass along her question."
"She couldn't come herself?" Celluci swiveled upon his step to face Henry. "You look like you're on a throne. To the manor born and all that."
"Yes, actually, if you recall, I was."
"Right. Your majesty. You'll have to excuse my lack of bowing and scraping, but I come from a long line of peasants."
Henry had fed earlier in the night in preparation for this. Much like his Vicki, Mike Celluci had a way of bringing up the Hunger. "A little bowing and scraping might do you good. At least with Vicki."
"And there we have our problem, don't we? Vicki wants everyone to bow and scrape to her but she has a bad habit of desiring men who won't." Celluci leaned back on one elbow, brightly patterned shirt waving in the light breeze. "Which is why I'm surprised you're here, Fitzroy."
Henry could smell the harbor in the distance, the popcorn and hotdogs from a nearby vendor, and the bloodscent of the dozens of people surrounding him. He'd yet to sense another of his kind, but in a city the size of Boston it was obvious there would be one. That was why he had come, not Vicki, once they had learned where Celluci was.
Despite her insistence that she and Henry could learn to share territory with time, Vicki was far too young to challenge another vampire on its own territory. She'd been foolish enough to want to try it, of course. "Michael Celluci is mine," she had said, and even over the phone he had sensed her Hunger.
"He is yours," he had soothed, his four hundred and fifty years giving him a tranquility she could not yet access, "and I will return him to you."
"Untouched," she'd snarled.
"Is there any other way?" he'd asked with a laugh.
She had calmed then, joined him in laughing at the possibility of so straight he could be used as a level Mike Celluci falling for Henry's vampiric wiles.
He returned his attention to Celluci, sprawled at his feet. "There could be an Other here. It would be dangerous for Vicki."
"But not for you."
"I will negotiate." He swallowed his distaste. If he were forced to. He would prefer to immediately see Michael Celluci to Logan Airport and then see to his own arrangements for returning to Vancouver without ever gaining the attention of what called this city home.
"Aw, you'd do that for me?"
"Hardly," he snapped before he realized Celluci was mocking him. "Amusing. Now shall we leave?"
"No." Celluci turned his back on Henry. "I want to watch the show."
There was more to this than met the eye, even to the eye that could see much further in the dark than Detective Celluci's, because Michael watched those watching the show and seemed not to notice the band.
"Something Murphys," he said in response to Henry's question. "They're, uh, local."
Local they were, Irish punk like much of Boston wished it could be if it could only purge itself of the desires of its forbearers. Henry, of course, saw nothing wrong with Cabots and Lodges, less even with Kennedys, for he understood royalty better than most. As for Bulgers, well, some things were best left buried.
Bored, he leaned forward, exhaling onto Celluci's neck. "What have you found here?"
Celluci sighed. "I don't know yet."
"You could have called Vicki."
"I don't need Vicki to take care of me!"
There it was, so glaring in its obviousness that even the young girls three rows down, smelling of marijuana over their cheap perfume and fresh blood, could sense it. "No," he said. "You do not."
The fire in Celluci's eyes dimmed. "I'm glad someone can see that."
"But perhaps Vicki needs to take care of you." He held up a hand to stop the libretto of Italian curses he felt sure were making their way through Celluci's mind to his vocal cords. "And perhaps she is not yet sure your passion for her can withstand her new abilities."
It was more aria than libretto when it came, something to rival even the racket made by the band.
"And perhaps," he said, interrupting when even Michael Celluci had to pause for breath, "she is afraid."
"There," Celluci said. "At the corner of the stage. Near the, er, fairy."
"An unremarkable young man? Leather jacket, dark hair?"
"Leather jacket," Celluci said. "In Boston in July." He paused. "Is he one of you?"
"Perhaps," Henry murmured, rising from his seat. "There are too many heartbeats here, I can't tell. But I will find out."
He was vampire, and he ran. Not his territory, then, possibly an interloper afraid he had found in Henry what Henry had hoped not to find in Boston at all. They traded blows before the child ran to the glass boxes of the Holocaust memorial, surrounding himself with bright lights and humans. Wiping a bead of blood from a scratch on his arm, Henry let him go.
"He was nothing," he said, returning to Celluci where he stood behind the crowd. "A child."
"He was a killer."
"As am I. As is Vicki." Henry wished for a moment he did not have to look up at Michael Celluci when standing. "Has he killed anyone you know? Or has he only fed, but you are looking for a reason to exact revenge upon our kind?"
"No deaths," Celluci mumbled, "but some very messy attacks."
"Young, then. A child."
"Yes. My child." She approached them through a crowd of teenagers, their hormones and bloodscent masking her presence until she spoke. "And this is my city."
"Walk away, Michael." Celluci opened his mouth as if to argue and Henry once again raised his hand in what he hoped would be a successful attempt at stopping the Detective from getting himself killed. Vicki would not be pleased if he allowed that to happen.
"I'll allow him to walk away," the Other said, "but you are a different story entirely."
His Hunger rose to match hers, and faster than any human eye could see she crashed into him and propelled him into the shadows far from the crowd, tearing into him with fingers and teeth. So much for negotiation. And so much for this jacket. If he survived this, Vicki was getting more than a bill for his trousers.
"I don't want your city!" he forced out with a snarl. He was the son of a king, he would not be subject to his Hunger. Bleeding from various wounds and aching from the chunk she'd torn from his shoulder, he tried again. He held the Other to the wall and put all the force of his four hundred and fifty years behind his words. "I do not want your city. I want only to take my companion and leave."
"Then leave!" She shook his hands from her arms and visibly gathered herself. "Leave my city and do not ever return." He acquiesced and she was gone, leaving him only wounds that luckily would not scar and another story of the territorial imperative to share with Vicki.
"That shouldn't have happened, should it?"
"No, detective, it should not," he said, resting his weight on Celluci and enjoying the slight easing of pain in his shoulder. "But I've no desire to wonder why it did. She wants us to leave, I want us to leave, leave we shall."
Ever practical, Celluci poked a finger into his wound. "You're really in no condition to do much of anything. You need to feed."
"In this condition I'll scare away anyone who would have been interested."
"Can't you just…" Celluci waved his hands at Henry's silvered eyes, "make them forget?"
"Yes, I could. But I generally prefer my partners to desire me as much as I desire them."
"Well, what, then?"
"I suppose I clean up, then make my way back down to the streets." He glared at Celluci. "Though I will most certainly not be borrowing from your wardrobe."
"And what if she finds you? The other one."
"In this condition?" Henry laughed bitterly. "She would kill me. I'm far too weak to defend myself against her. This is her city and she's probably feeding as we speak."
"Do you have a place to stay?"
Celluci grunted as he shifted to take more of Henry's weight. Despite the cool breeze, his body was hot, and the Hunger again rose in Henry. He thought of Vicki and of the one thing they would not ever share, and stiffened.
"I will be fine on my own, Detective."
"You obviously won't," he replied, wiping Henry's blood from his hand onto Henry's jacket. "My hotel is close, and I am out of patience with you creatures of the night and your independent streaks."
Henry allowed Celluci to escort him to the hotel and did what he could to avert eyes from his disheveled appearance. "This is not a solution," he stated. "I will still need to feed."
Celluci shut the hotel door harder than was necessary. "If I'm good enough for Vicki to eat, I'm good enough for you."
The Hunger rose to an almost overwhelming level. The thought of Michael Celluci and Vicki together, him somehow involved with them, was more than he could withstand. His eyes silvered and he allowed Celluci to see what he was.
Celluci rolled his eyes. "Please. I live with Vicki, remember? And you think I'm afraid of you?"
He was, Henry could scent it, Celluci's fear making him even more enticing. "This is a very bad idea, Michael."
"You're injured. You need to feed. If I send you back down to the streets you're liable to get killed and that'll piss Vicki off."
Henry raised one red-gold eyebrow. "More than this?"
"What Vicki doesn't know, Fitzroy," Celluci said, extending his arm, wrist bared. "But if you touch me below the waist I swear to God I will stake you while you sleep."
He drew Michael toward the bed, enjoying the frisson of fear that went through him even though the bed was the only piece of furniture in the room big enough for two. "You have my word, Detective, that I will take nothing you do not offer." He lowered his head and licked Celluci's wrist.
"Hey! You don't need to tenderize me, just get on with it."
"Are you always in this much of a rush, Detective? Do you rush Vicki like this?"
"No one rushes Vicki."
He laughed, and allowed his breath to flow over Celluci's pulse point. "And no one rushes me."
"Whatever, your highness. Just do it."
With his eyes screwed shut, Celluci looked like a child expecting to taste vile green medicine where he would normally receive cherry flavor. Rushing went against his nature, but perhaps even with speed he could give Michael something other than displeasure. He lowered his head again and bit, growling when the hot blood rushed into his mouth.
Henry lifted his eyes to Celluci's face. The look of dread had disappeared, replaced with one of curiosity and perhaps some small amount of pleasure. An expression was not permission, however, no matter how obvious the desire, so he took what he needed then licked the edges of the wound to speed the healing.
"It would be best if you did not tell Vicki."
"No shit," Celluci said, leaning back against the pillows. "You can tell her I'll be home in, what, a few weeks?"
Henry nodded. "That would be enough time for the wound to heal and traces of me to leave you, yes."
"Okay, so tell her I'll be home in a few weeks. And in the meantime I won't be here."
Henry scrutinized him. "Have you achieved what you sent out to achieve, Detective?"
"Yeah," Celluci said, fingering the wound at his wrist. "I did."