I SEE THE Vegas entertainment scene has gotten dark and dangerous," Helena Burnside commented as the cab dropped us off at the Inferno entrance at 9:00 P.M.

Manny was there to sweep open the SUV's sliding door for us.

"Welcome back, Miss Street. I'm sorry to see Dolly has not accompanied you."

"Dolly?" Helena asked after I'd tipped Manny and we were walking inside. "And just what is that parking valet's, ah... derivation?"

"A low-order demon, usually harmless. Not that he wouldn't snap up a careless soul if he could."

"And... Dolly is a friend of yours?"

"My car. Demons love classic cars and Dolly is choice."

She eyed me hard. "You named your car Dolly?"

"She's an estate-sale cream puff, a '56 Caddy Biarritz with pointed chrome bumper bullets up front that could take out a tank nest."

"Oh? Oh. My, this town is colorful, and so are you."

"As you noted, my stuffy outfit was for the benefit of the resident D.C. bureaucrat."

"I bet you show my boy a whole different side."

"He's shown me a whole different side of myself."

"It's that way. I see. What should I expect with him, Delilah?"

By then we were in the elevator wafting upward.

"That's why I went to you. He's been healing well but is still comatose. I think his mental state needs expert addressing."

"You aren't the person he'd most respond to?"

I couldn't say that he'd already responded to me way above and beyond the call of mortality just by staying alive.

"He's gone so deep inside himself the present is lost. I think he needs to come back from his past."

"A rather profound analysis, Delilah. Thanks for getting me here."

"Thanks for coming."

We smiled at each other outside the suite.

"Bridal Suite," she read aloud from the embossed gold plaque beside the double doors. "Is this a portent of the future?"

"It's what the hotel owner had free and big enough to accommodate around-the-clock nursing care."

"A most accommodating hotel owner. Any reason why?"

"Christophe is quite a... prominent figure around Vegas. It's hard to know what his motives are."

"Yet you accepted his generosity."

The statement, although true, grated on my sense of independence.

"I didn't have a choice. Ric wouldn't want his condition made public and paparazzi always stake out Vegas hospitals hunting celebrities and sensational stories. Human hyenas. That could compromise Ric's government consulting work and he'd hate that."

She nodded. "So would Philip." I saw Helena gather herself, despite her formidable poise. "Well, shall we see the patient?"

***

"I'M SO GLAD you're back, Miss Street," a frazzled nurse said. "Our patient is getting fractious about having a sponge bath and your dog is not having any of it either."

Sponge bath? In a way that was a good sign. It showed that Ric's deeply ingrained reflexes to keep people from seeing his disfigured back were still operative.

"This is Mr. Montoya's mother," I said. "She's a doctor." So I was fudging between a medical and academic title...

"Dr. Helena Troy Burnside, Georgetown University." His mother extended a hand. "Thank you for taking such good care of my boy."

"Of course we would. To see such a young and handsome man so unmoving..." She choked up, perhaps envisioning Ric through a mother's eyes.

Helena Troy Burnside actually was doing that, but was married to sterner stuff and quashed the emotion. "Forget the sponge bath for today. I'd like to examine him first myself, then spend some time evaluating his condition."

The nurse nodded, swept open one of the double doors to the bedroom suite, and stood back.

Quicksilver waited inside, muzzle lifted over his intimidating teeth like a black awning. He thrust up his snout to verify my and the nurse's familiar scents, and assign one to Helena.

"It's okay, Quick," I told him. "Ric's mother is here to see him."

The dog backed off to the side but remained alert. Even Helena lost her eternal composure enough to sidle past, eyes averted. She'd be very steadying to distraught and disoriented patients.

Once she glimpsed the hospital bed accessorized by metal medical equipment poles and tangled cords, she moved tensely forward, leaning over Ric.

"Delilah," she said without looking over her shoulder, "you probably keep more comfortable clothes here. Go ahead and change while I see what's what with Ric." She sank onto the chair's edge, setting her belongings on the floor and leaning forward to take his hand in both of hers.

With Helena here to fend off unwanted back exposure and Quicksilver on guard, I slipped away, yearning to switch my confining fifties clothes for low-heeled mules, low-riding jeans, and a simple knit top.

The bridal suite offered separate bedrooms for overnight relatives. I'd chosen the nearest one. I changed fast and skittered back into the main area to find Snow there. Rats! We'd arrived right between his 7:30 and 10:00 P.M. shows.

"Where have you been?" he asked.

I wanted to snap, None of your business, but since he was providing everything Ric needed, I bridled my tongue and thoughts.

"I fetched Ric's mother. She's a famous psychologist."

"A medium might do more good," Snow suggested. "So he's still comatose?"

I nodded.

"May I meet the mother or do you want to stand there glaring at me all night?"

Looking him over, I weighed whether a skintight be-jeweled leather jumpsuit was too much glitter-rock macho for a dignified middle-aged professional woman. I finally nodded permission. It would do Snow good to meet a formidable female who wasn't rock idol bait.

He shook his mane of white hair. "I don't know whether you or your dog is the fiercer bodyguard."

"Someone who uses a white tiger for a security chief is hardly one to talk."

He passed me without further comment and entered the bedroom, me following and wondering how Ric's mother would handle a long-haired albino wearing sunglasses.

At our approach she looked up, then gave a little coo and said, "Oh, my God! It's Cocaine. I saw your farewell show in D.C. when the Sins were still touring. Helena Troy Burnside."

You could have picked my tongue off the floor and rolled it up like a very long cigarette paper.

"They were fabulous," she gurgled on. "You were fabulous."

Helena Troy Burnside a Snow groupie?

He smiled politely, an expression I'd never seen before.

"I own the Inferno now. The road life gets old. I'll get you mosh-pit passes to the show." He turned to regard me over his shoulder. "I'm sure Miss Street would love to accompany you, and her dog is all the security your son needs, believe me."

"Oh, I believe you," she answered, while I ground my teeth at their incredible coziness. Snow was a very unreliable witness on all counts as far as I was concerned.

"Meanwhile," he said, "consider yourself a guest of the Inferno, with the use of an adjoining bedroom. Anything from the hotel restaurants and shops that you need or desire may be charged to the room, gratis."

"Anything that I desire?"

She let the question hang to the point of flirtation. I supposed Snow could use that Ole White Magic anytime, on any woman. Except me.

"I desire my son's recovery," she added with a smile. "I won't need to stay long but much appreciate your princely hospitality. Delilah didn't tell me who our host was."

"She probably didn't want to ruin the surprise. She's that way. Likes to keep things to herself to tease and intrigue and enchant others."

"Really?" Helena let her clear blue gaze rest on me. It was as demandingly honest as Quicksilver's. "She's something of a magician. But then, so is a charismatic stage performer like you. If I need to stay overnight, I'll try to make your show, but I doubt I will. Ric seems to be doing well under your generous care."

He nodded and left without another glance at me, although with those dark sunglasses who could be sure?

"I had no idea," I told her, "that you were a fan."

"Oh, I wasn't. My resident fifteen-year-old boy, though, wanted to impress a girl who was, so I provided wheels and chaperoning."

"Did he-?"

"Who, Ric?"

"No, Snow."

"'Snow?' Oh, of course. A natural nickname. You must know him well."

"Can anybody really know a man who wears sunglasses all the time?"

"His albino eyes must be ultrasensitive to light."

Yeah, like the "light of truth."

"Did Snow give the so-called Brimstone Kiss to the mosh-pit groupies then?" I finally asked.

"Oh, yes. Ric's would-be girlfriend was suitably impressed. She jumped higher than all the other teenyboppers, and some pretty mature women, in fact, to snag a kiss. Funny, that reminds me that they never dated after that. Guess Ric didn't like the competition."

Or the girl had no time for fifteen-year-old Ric after getting the Brimstone Kiss. That, at least, wasn't going to happen to me. I still would rather hiss and spit at Snow than kiss him. Maybe I was exaggerating my anger to ensure my independence. Whatever worked.

I turned the conversation back to Ric. "You sound like you're not staying long."

"Don't have to. I've already established a deep suggestive state in Ric."

"You used hypnotism on him?"

"Long ago, yes. Now, I just have to draw on our common memory bank, as it were, and run the images through my mind. I'm rebooting his consciousness, you could say, overpowering the evil done to him with a speed-reading course in good nostalgia. He'll awaken and act normally soon. He'll slowly recall what happened to him only when his subconscious fully ramps up over the next several days. The shock will be muted, like a bad dream. The pain will be distant."

She bent over to lay her cheek on his hand, then straightened with a happy sigh.

"Since you've bonded with him, you should be able to do something of the sort too. Just sit by him, remembering the happy times. You can even remember the hot times." She laughed to see my latest blush. "Men respond very strongly to such stimuli. He could do worse than come to consciousness again with a wet dream. This is a bridal suite, after all.

"I'd suggest you reinstitute sex with him before he's totally himself again. That immediate and pleasant sensory memory will do more to override the ugliness than anything I can do."

Imagine. A guy's "mother" prescribing sex to his girlfriend. Helena Troy Burnside was a cool lady, just like Irma said.

She stood and gazed down on him. "I'm so proud of him. He overcame so much to become the strong, confident, well-adjusted man you fell in love with. This won't knock him down again now that he has you. Trust me."

"You're leaving? You told Snow you might not-"

"I could hardly tell a rock idol that I don't have time to accept a personal invitation to his show. I'll instruct the nurses not to disturb Ric until tomorrow."

She eyed me oddly. "I have a feeling that you can heal Ric more than I can. Sit by him for the night. I've opened his mind and senses to pleasant things. Your love is what he needs now. Don't be afraid to give it no matter what form it takes."

"But-"

"Philip will be anxious for a firsthand report. I'll catch a cab outside. This is Las Vegas. Getting in and out of town is a snap, particularly with a private plane waiting. Call me anytime to report or ask questions. I've left my card on the bedside table. Perhaps Ric will bring you home for Thanksgiving."

She embraced me lightly at the door, her smooth, mineral-powdered cheek brushing mine. For an instant after she'd left, I felt a sickening replay of interviews at the group home with prospective adoptive parents who never returned after that first meeting with me. I felt abandoned and swallowed a lump of concrete in my throat.

Get a grip, Irma told me. Be glad she's not the clingy mother type. She's a smart one. You saved Ric's life, now you get to have him to yourself and be the light of his eyes when he comes fully conscious. Enjoy, Street! You so do not get that part of things.

I walked to the wall of windows. The Strip was lighting up as the sun had set and blackness pooled over the valley. It was that magic twilight time just past sunset when Vegas's garish self-advertisement felt easy and muted.

A deep breath cleared my mind and emotions but I was still tired. I put Quicksilver on guard in the main room, where his food and water dishes were kept, and walked back to the double doors and up the single step to Ric's bed.

The nurses had settled down in their rooms and one would give Quicksilver his evening walk, she told me.

That must be a sight on the Strip!

I sat in the chair Helena Burnside had left, watching Ric. His mother was confident he'd be all right, why couldn't I be? Maybe because I feared the Resurrection Kiss as much as I'd feared the Brimstone Kiss. Or more.

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