Blood Debt

by Tanya Huff

Reviewed by Ruby

Two years have gone by since Henry Fitzroy changed Vicki Nelson into a vampire. After the initial change, he moved both her and Tony out to Vancouver. A year later she returned to Toronto to be with her lover, Mike, while Henry and Tony stayed. The link between parent and child vampire dies quickly and, as soon as it does, there is immediate tension between the two. Vampires are solitary hunters, not sharing their territory with any other creature of the night. So when Henry calls up Vicki, asking for her to come to Vancouver, it's a big deal.

Henry has been getting visitors at sunset. Living impaired visitors. A mute, handless ghost of a young man waits by Henry's bed each and every night, letting the vampire ask one question. If the answer is yes, he vanishes, if it's no somebody dies after a bone chilling wail. Kind of like a banshee.

Tony, who apparently has a sensitivity to the supernatural, feels the presence of the ghost, and it leaves him terrified. Henry is a little frightened himself that it could be Tony next. His Tony. It's pretty much for that reason only that he calls Vicki.

Since she can't fly to Vancouver, and driving alone is out of the question, Mike goes with her. They are greeted with a giant wall of fury and tension called Henry. Apparently when they say vampires can't work together; they can't work together. Immediately they are at odds with each other for no other reason that the animal instinct to attack other predators.

Once they link a body with the ghost, it leads them to the wonderful world of organ harvesting. Since he's, you know, missing a kidney.

After hitting a bunch of dead ends, they find a lead, only to have a second ghost join the party. And then Mike goes missing. Things are going from bad to worse.

This is the final book in the Victoria Nelson series. Well, we've done vampires and demons, werewolves and mummies, zombies and now we got ghosts. All the supernatural bases have been covered, but I'm a little sad that we've hit the end of the road.

But, as ends of the roads go, it was pretty good. I like how the characters have evolved through the series, especially Tony. He said it himself, he was a nobody before he met Henry and now he's almost his own person, but not quite. I'm glad Tony got himself his own series. I'm happy. This series was closed nicely and a next one starts.

Grade: B