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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 Notinfused 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 ht be lethal to others Could have been froroup hootten a case of whatever my unorthodox anonymous blood could pass on? And what about Undead Ted, the va, Achilles? He’d sucked down a drop of my tainted blood Had he paid a price?

Sohtwine that Quicksilver and I were necessary guests for now A ht over Quicksilver’s dishes and food and my laptop There was a suitcase of comfortable clothes that even matched I suspected Godfrey’s fine CinSie staff for this task and felt strangely coe from "home"

Quicksilver stayed by my side, by Ric’s i 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-loyal Keeping watch withoflick therapy

I was deter helpless and tored shifts, I pulled back the covers to let Quick swipe a lick or two over Ric’s arms

The myriad puffy red sores fro over, so this hit-and-run licking kept the nursesnicely," 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 systee paws on the e to lave his face arue made an ideal canine washcloth

Finally, one quiet hour ere alone, I pulled the sheets down to Ric’s hips and the usual green hospital gown up to his neck Quicksilver ihly lave the al on Ric’s abdos had already faded I was relieved I doubt Ric would have appreciated a crotch bath from Quicksilver, conscious or not

Ric’s neck was another e aardly taped to the spot leached Rorschach blots of blood and required changing hourly The nurses wouldn’t let ht state

I watched each clean bandage slowly darken with leaking blood and studied the resulting blot like Caressa Teagarden reading tea leaves Once the ie reminded me of the African continent Once it looked like the profile of John Barrymore, no, Johnny Depp Another tiauze would be changed and a fresh canvas was taped to his neck withoutit once had been enough I’d eyed a huge, bloody hole, not a e I hated to think how many vampires had supped there

I held my own hands as I leaned forward in the bedside chair after the nurse left, wringing theuilt Had the small sensual ritual of our love affair opened a road to an e mock-vampire at that easily excited site, soyptian vampires had used that shway to Hell, playing on Ric’s sleeping innocence, plundering his lifeblood bit by bit as torture, draining him to the brink of death If I hadn’t, if we hadn’t, maybe

"Let hi rest"

For a round during the battle with the undead I appreciated the lack of distraction

No such luck I turned to see Grizelle loo hu here?"

"I’ve returned fro out He refuses to relieve himself here and spirit cannot conquer body forever"

I’d been so hypnotized watching Ric that I’d never noticed any cos except as remote irritations

"He is a valiant warrior," she went on reat warriors must piss"

"A valiant warrior?" I wasn’t surprised because I’d seen Quicksilver at the attack, but I was areat Grizelle would bestow any praise on me and mine

"For a canine," she added with a wave of her ebony hand The long lacquered fingernails for an instant seelanced at Quick, worried He was giving Grizelle thatrespect

I was so worried about everyone and every thing I loved now,prince in a forest of

"I carried hieon," Grizelle continued a lohisper

"I know Thank you," I whispered back with that same sickroom intensity

"I don’t need your thanks You need to understand what I know"

"What you know?"

"His wounds, except for the throat tear, were superficial, but his back is a maze of elt scars"

I tensed to realize that what Ric had fought to keep secret froe to this bizarre unhuman shapeshifter and Snow flunky

"I know, but he can’t know that"

"Those are old, outer scars," she went on, "but they still sear his mind He now has new, inner scars, and they have seared his soul You have only revived hi, or undead, with no soul to feel anything instead?"

"You’ve no idea what you’ve done, have you?"

"I saved him, I hope, maybe at the cost of my own soul I don’t know yet what that demonic Brimstone Kiss did to me, and I don’t care I’ll deal"

"I meant, what you’ve done to my master"

I embraced myself to contain a shiver I didn’t knohich scaredSnow her "ations about the state of Ric’s and my mere human souls

"What I’ve done to hi I hold o"

Grizelle was silent for a long while When she spoke, it was closer to a growl than a whisper

"If you’re strong enough to wrest thisDead, you’re strong enough to undo the dauess she meant that as a pep talk

I had plenty of ti there beside Ric’s hospital-style bed My discovery of the hidden va truly "ancient" vamps would shake the city to its supernatural foundations

Cesar Cicereau and his olf est losers They’d won the olf-vao, but a powerful va secretly and subterraneously all along The Karnak was far more than a new hotel-casino on the Strip It was a visible announce-time: not assimilated vaht" vamps like Sansouci These were ruthless, Old World, blood-thirsty, power-hungry vamps with ambition and access to new Millenniuic to raiseSansouci and support forces to Snow, Cicereau ad I could see a lot of new alliances, and contentions, arising between everyone frohtwine and the CinSihes and everyone else

And Snow? If I could get le, I’d ad force in pre-Karnak Vegas In souardian, but one whose hands were tied He hadn’t played Briame, which was some co for a woinal and ood candidate for resisting the Kiss Which I had, but not enough to suit hi force

Lucky for Ric you agreed to the smooch, Irma said softly in the back of my mind, but we didn’t totally resist the ecstasy, sister My toes are still curling

Shut up, I told her I’

As soon as Ric is recovered, I had a lot of things to do, like settle what’s happening with the CinSims, who violated their set boundaries to help me And I must find Lilith Is she a Snow kissee who failed the test too? They knew each other before I hit town Does she know about me? Or care?

And no thinks I’ve perverted the Kiss to a function it should never have had Can I kiss just anyone back from the dead? Kinda doubt it The emotional mojo I poured into Ric was love and desperation-driven It ca for the dead together in Sunset Park Is Snow right? I have I doomed Ric to become some quasi-alive zoain Even the hty Snow can’t know that for sure How do you think he got all that long white hair? Dude’s obviously a art

She h at last Why borrow trouble? Ric and I would cope hatever this second chance at life and love offered