Carole Douglas - Brimstone Kiss

Ric dead? No! Vampires are dead in this town.

Panting, I resumed my CPR rhythm.

Two kisses of life, ten fist pounds of life.

I'll eradicate every bloodsucker in Las Vegas.

Two kisses of life, ten fist pounds of life.

"Delilah, this is mad."

If Snow was one, he was history, despite his help today.

Two kisses of life, ten list pounds of life.

Hands on my upper arms, one set of them tiger-clawed, trying to pry me from my task.

I shrugged them off with no trouble.

Two kisses of life, ten fist-pounds of life.

Sansouci too.

Two kisses of life, ten fist-pounds of life.

And Cicereau. Anything supernatural, even Lilith, if she qualifies, goddamn her for tempting me here to meet Ric and lose him like this…

I was sobbing through my fury, tears salting my face and Ric's wounds despite myself. I was so wrenched by surfeits of love and hate I thought I would explode like a blood-bloated vampire tsetse fly.

And still two kisses of life, ten fist pounds of life.

Nothing. I was tenderizing steak, breathing into the face of death itself.

My attempts to reanimate Ric were a travesty to his already ravaged body. I was finally exhausted enough that I couldn't press his breastbone with any force or do more than sigh into his cold, slack mouth.

I stopped, sensing everything still alive in that death chamber watching me with held breaths.

I put my hands to the side of his face and bent down one last time.

And I kissed him goodbye, with all my heart and breath and loss.

Long, a long time to kiss the dead goodbye. My tears washed his bitten skin.

No one stopped me. No one dared intervene.

Until I felt hands grasp my upper arms again.

Again, I fought being torn from his body, weaker now.

But the hands held me down.

His hands.

And the kiss took on a life of its own, probed and poured back into me my love and my despair and my last remnants of hope and desire.

And between my legs I felt the rise of blood between his legs.

I lost myself in lying with my lover, everything else forgotten.

And no one tried to stop us anymore.

Finally, other hands grasped my arms and lifted me upright.

Love had weakened me where hate had not.

"He needs tending other than yours," Snow said, nodding at Grizelle.

She pulled free the blanket-sized linen cloth out from under the piled salt used to remove the leeches and wrapped it around Ric before lifting him in her powerful arms. Ric's eyes were shut. His skin was whiter than mine, but his lips were the faintest pink. Some tinge of blood, color, was returning to his skin.

All my muscles and bones were water. Snow held me upright only by my arms.

"Delilah, what have you done?"

"I don't know. Will he live?"

"I don't know. He'll exist." I could feel Snow sigh behind me. "He'd been bitten often enough and drained deeply enough to be revived as a vampire. If you'd waited-"

"Ric would never have accepted the half-life of vampire."

"And what half-life does he have now? Do you know, Delilah?"

"Why do you sound so accusing? I only did all I could to save him, more than anyone else was willing to do."

"What did you do, Delilah?"

"I gave him the Kiss of Life."

Snow slowly released me. I swayed on my feet but stabilized, and turned to face him. It was hard to forget how much I'd hated him moments before.

He nodded slowly. I sensed a heavy load on his what… soul, conscience?

"It's our deep connection," I told him, "our love. There was some small spark of life still there. I got through. Are you so lost you can't believe in the power of love even when you see it with your own eyes?"

He shook his head. "He was dead, Delilah. There are ways to get around that. Now, it's going to be your way and I don't know what that is, only that you could never have revived him unless you had first received the Brimstone Kiss."

"You're taking credit for this?"

"No. Responsibility. You've defied even supernatural laws, not to mention natural ones. This can't be good. For any of us."

"Say you. But it's not all about you and your fiendish kiss. It's about life."

I was rocked back on whatever strength I had left. I had recently taken the Brimstone Kiss and, within hours, revived Ric with what was left of it on my lips and in my soul. What I had humiliated myself to take from Snow, I had passed on to Ric and revived him.

Had I not submitted in desperation and self-disgust to Snow, I would have never been able to give Ric what I undoubtedly had.

The Resurrection Kiss.

Odd how a traitorous act, a Judas kiss, can spawn an act of love and redemption.

But I guess that was the whole point of the New Testament.

Trust Snow's eternal, twisted sense of irony to give Ric and me the Inferno's bridal suite.

Of course, we needed the lavish extra bedrooms not for the reception celebration, but for the around-the-clock nurses.

Ric was still on blood transfusions. Not mine. Having infused breath into him, I was ready to contribute blood, but my type wasn't compatible, they said.

In fact, they said I should never be a blood donor. This was bitter news, now and for the future. They said my blood had an unknown trace element that might be lethal to others. Could have been from a childhood illness. So, if the vamp boys in the group homes had succeeded in biting me, would they have gotten a case of whatever my unorthodox anonymous blood could pass on? And what about Undead Ted, the vampire newscaster whose blood had poisoned my dog, Achilles? He'd sucked down a drop of my tainted blood. Had he paid a price?

Someone had notified Hector Nightwine that Quicksilver and I were necessary guests for now. A messenger had brought over Quicksilver's dishes and food and my laptop. There was a suitcase of comfortable clothes that even matched. I suspected Godfrey's fine CinSim hand had supervised the Enchanted Cottage staff for this task and felt strangely comforted by this care package from "home."

Quicksilver stayed by my side, by Ric's imported hospital bed. He'd lay his long nose on the hospital blanket near the foot for hours, and whine occasionally. He sensed my weariness, my despair at Ric's ordeal.

Those pale blue eyes would turn my way, a sickle of white along each pupil like a waning moon, under a worry-wrinkled sky of silver fur. Dog-loyal. Keeping watch with me.

I knew his problem. The constant coming-and-going of medical personnel kept Quick from using his healing lick therapy.

I was determined to spare Ric more scars to remind him of being helpless and tormented. When the nurses took a break or changed shifts, I pulled back the covers to let Quick swipe a lick or two over Ric's arms.

The myriad puffy red sores from the vampire tsetse fly bites were scabbing over, so this hit-and-run licking kept the nurses murmuring satisfaction that Ric "was healing nicely," without alerting them to the outside help.

The doctor had been relieved that Ric didn't test positive for being "infected" by "sleeping sickness" from the fly bites, unaware that these vampire tsetse flies didn't carry any parasites to infect his system.

Ric murmured awareness when Quicksilver braced his huge paws on the mattress edge to lave his face with warm, wet swipes. Quick's big tongue made an ideal canine washcloth.

Finally, one quiet hour when we were alone, I pulled the sheets down to Ric's hips and the usual green hospital gown up to his neck. Quicksilver immediately braced his paws on the mattress again to thoroughly lave the almost solid carapace of scabs forming on Ric's abdomen.

The leech marks on his groin and legs had already faded. I was relieved. I doubt Ric would have appreciated a crotch bath from Quicksilver, conscious or not.