Chapter Fourteen.

John barely remembered his first days in La Lucemaria's infirmary. He was taken to a room where his torn feet and wounds were treated, and then another where he was helped out of his ragged robe, dressed in striped pajamas like a young boy, and put to bed. None of the monks who helped him said more than was necessary, but their expressions were kind.

After the monks left him, he slept, and was visited by an angel.

The angel was a summer sunrise, all the colors of dawn in her golden hair, fair skin, and blue, blue eyes. Her voice was clear and mellow, like a bell. She placed her soft, cool hands on his brow and face. She fed him manna from a silver spoon. She sang hymns that made his heart swell until he thought it might burst. She rocked him, ma.s.saging the sore muscles of his back and legs, her white wings fluttering around him. He blessed her over and over before he slipped back into the healing darkness.

John was sure the angel had been sent by G.o.d to watch over him.

On the fourth day he woke to find himself in a cell not unlike the one he had left behind at St. Luke's rectory. A female nurse in a tidy white uniform was removing a blood pressure cuff from his arm.

"You're awake," the nurse said. She wasn't his dream angel, not with her dark hair and eyes. She spoke with a light Italian accent. "I am Sister Gelina, and I have been taking care of you. How are you feeling today?"

"Better." He moved to sit up and was astonished to find himself too weak to make it past a propped elbow. "How long have I been unconscious?"

The big curls around her face bounced as she checked the st.u.r.dy watch on her wrist. "About three days."

She wore no habit, and no covering on her hair, but her mouth and long fingernails were painted bright red.

Unable to reconcile this woman with the angel of his dreams, John asked, "Are you a Catholic nun?"

Gelina giggled. "Oh, no, Father. I trained in England, and all nurses there are called Sister." She came over and helped him to sit up before she arranged his pillows. She touched him with a casual familiarity that put him immediately on guard. "Are you hungry?"

He was starved, and naked under the thin sheet covering him from the waist down, and this female was touching him. "Yes, but I would like to dress first, please."

"After your bath." Sister Gelina indicated the small adjoining room. "I will send one of the brothers to help you."

He saw a clean bedpan on the floor beside the bed and felt even more embarra.s.sed. Had she taken care of those needs, as well? "That is not necessary."

"It is if you become dizzy and fall and crack your head open," the nurse warned as she checked his pulse. "Ah, sixty-one, and on top of the blood pressure of an Olympian. You are in very good shape, Father." She gave him a sly smile before she noted his vitals on his chart and left the room.

A monk came back a few minutes later-without Sister Gelina, John was relieved to see-and helped him bathe and take care of his basic needs. John was shocked by how much weight he had lost, and how sore his body felt. The monk brought him a robe to wear, and when John emerged from the bathroom, it was to find Gelina making his bed. She was bent over, and her white uniform skirt was stretched over her tight, heart-shaped bottom.

"You don't have to do that," John said, automatically looking in another direction.

The nurse straightened. "These sheets smell almost as bad as you did." She handed the bundle of dirty linens to the monk who had brought his clothes, who took them from the room. "Now, Father, I have your dinner tray. Your stomach is not used to solid food, so you must eat slowly and carefully, or it will all come back up." She took his arm to help him back into the bed.

"I will be fine." He tried to extricate himself from her grasp without being obvious about it. The simple food on the tray smelled delicious, and he was eager to fill the bottomless, hollow s.p.a.ce inside him. Almost as eager as he was to see Sister Gelina leave.

"Be a good boy and eat everything, now." Sister Gelina gave him a slightly hurt look when he didn't respond, but then she left the room.

The food tasted better than the manna he remembered from his dreams, and John ate until his stomach balked. It wasn't nausea, however, that made him feel so sluggish. I'm still wiped out from the training. He pushed the tray aside and curled over, and waited for the room to stop spinning.

The last thing John wanted to do was sleep, but he couldn't fight his way out of the dark. He managed to remain conscious, but only just. He couldn't call out, however, and his body wouldn't move. Being helpless and in the dark was the script of his worst nightmares, and he wondered if he was asleep and simply didn't know it.

Someone came and moved the tray table away. It was another monk, one John had not seen before. He took one of the pillows from behind John's head and muttered something. John's eyes widened when the monk pressed the pillow down hard over his face. He tried to shout, but his throat wouldn't work, and his arms remained limp and paralyzed.

It wasn't a dream. He had been drugged, and he couldn't do anything to stop the monk or to defend himself. I'm going to die. G.o.d in heaven, not like this.

As if in answer to his prayer, the pillow went away. John coughed and choked, and looked up to see his nurse standing behind the monk, who was clawing at her hands around his neck. There was a low pop, and the monk's body jerked and stiffened before it toppled over.

"He-he tried-" John couldn't stop coughing long enough to get the words out.

"I know, my poor brother." Cool hands cradled his face. "I am sorry. He will not hurt you again." She smiled as she produced a needle, and plunged it into the side of his neck. "I will always protect you, as long as you ask nicely."

More drugs, John thought as the room stopped spinning and started melting around him. Someone rolled him onto his side as he vomited, and wiped his face after. Flames danced around the bed. Lightning flashed, but there was no boom of thunder to go with it.

Am I deaf? John thought, confused.

The room slowly stopped melting. He was able to move again, but his head pounded and there was a terrible taste in his mouth.

Sister Gelina was sitting in a chair beside the bed, watching him.

"Was it all a dream?" John asked her.

"I don't know what you mean, Padre." Gelina stood, and he saw her white uniform darken and tighten until it was a cheap silk blouse and frayed miniskirt.

It wasn't her. It couldn't be. "What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you." She snapped the gum she was chewing. "Why are you looking at me like that, Padre? You see something you like?"

"I'm sick." John turned his head away. "I'm not in my right mind."

"No, you liked it before, Padre, remember?" The girl from Rio climbed on the bed, on top of him. Shock and pain made him jerk after her small hand slapped his face. "Look at me when I speak to you."

He looked, and felt his c.o.c.k swell beneath her. "No, please." He was not ashamed to beg. She had dressed like the demon that haunted his dreams for so long, to make him confess his sins. How did she know? He wanted only to be free of her, free of the memories. "Don't. Don't."

She hiked up her short skirt and tore open her blouse. Her mons was shaved bare, and her b.r.e.a.s.t.s were larger, fuller, with erect nipples.

John's vision wavered, then steadied. He was lying on the cobblestone street, lying in the gutter, with a menina do doce on top of him. But this wasn't right. Her nipples were red, not brown, and when had her skin turned so white? In Rio she had been so pitifully thin.

A man barked out something harsh in Italian.

"Oh, he wants it, don't you, Padre?" She smiled down at him. "I gave him enough to keep him like iron all night."

Her teeth weren't rotten anymore; they glowed white and perfect, like pearls. "Go ahead. Touch me." There was a flash of lightning in the room as she seized John's hand and brought it to her breast. Taut, firm weight touched his palm, filled it. A hard nipple poked at his fingers. He couldn't stop his fingers from contracting, his palm from rubbing.

"You want to squeeze them, don't you?" she said, her face turning sly. "Do it. I'll let you."

"No." He was a man of G.o.d. He was above temptation. He pulled his hand away. He would pray now. He would pray the paternoster, as he had in the chamber with the vampire, as soon as he could remember the words.

Why couldn't he remember the words?

She gave him another, vicious slap. "I did not tell you to do that." Her angry dark eyes moved down. "Your c.o.c.k is hard. Take it out. I want to see it." When he didn't move, she sank her red claws into his chest. "Take it out now, bad boy. Show it to me."

Lightning flashed again, and tears ran from John's eyes as she tugged the gown back and his erection sprang up between her round thighs. She made an odd, crowing sound and bent down, shoving her breast in his face, pressing her nipple against his mouth. "Take it. Suck it hard."

John opened his mouth over her nipple, gasping as he felt the slash of her nails against his shaft. She had her fingers wrapped around his p.e.n.i.s; she was shifting the head, positioning it to spread those bare, girlish folds. He heard soft sucking sounds, and tasted the velvety pebble of her nipple on his tongue.

"Good." She grunted as she worked herself on him, trying to force him into her narrow v.a.g.i.n.a.

Her p.u.s.s.y, the twelve-year-old boy inside him taunted.

They didn't fit. She was too dry; he was too engorged. She spit in her palm and reached down, rubbing the sticky fluid on the swollen head before cramming it inside her body. "Yeah, yeah, Padre, like that, push it in, harder, yeah." A grimace of painful pleasure screwed up her face. "Take it, take it, take it."

Not like before. She hadn't taken him in her p.u.s.s.y before, not in Rio. She had gone down on her knees, in the filth, in the street. She'd grabbed his p.e.n.i.s in an iron fist, and stroked him and licked him. He'd nearly torn it out by the roots, trying to push her off, trying until she'd taken him in and sucked on him like he was a stick of candy.

John knew what s.e.x was from his years on the street, had seen it performed in the alley shadows and the backseats of cars. As a teenager, he had occasionally indulged in furtive, shame-ridden bouts of masturbation, needing the physical release but never enjoying it.

None of it compared to the heat and sensation of that hungry, experienced mouth. Putting that part of his body into hers, clasping her head between his hands, feeling the weight of his s.e.m.e.n building and swelling, aching to pour into that soft, fervent s.p.a.ce-all of it had stunned him. He never wanted it to end; nothing had ever felt as good as that young wh.o.r.e going down on him.

Until the police car went by, and stopped, and the beam of the flashlight caught them- The golden-haired angel appeared over him, blocking the sight of the little wh.o.r.e trying to impale herself on him.

G.o.d had sent his messenger to save John. Only the angel's face wasn't sweet and understanding now, and she didn't reach for him. She was looking down at the s.p.a.ce between her thighs, the s.p.a.ce he was being pushed into, and then into his eyes.

"No."

She was disgusted; she was melting away. A moment later she was gone, along with all his hope of salvation.

Fire sliced across his chest. "Come on, Padre, I want it. Give it to me."

Like the girl in Rio when the police hauled her off John. You like, Padre? Is good, eh? Next time you pay.

If John was going to pay-and he surely was, for all the lightning flashing around them-then he would get what he wanted, for once. She wanted it, too, didn't she? She was snarling and snapping at him, telling him to push it in, shove it in, give it to her.

He'd give it to her.

John shoved his hands under her arms and lifted her off his p.e.n.i.s, rolling over, pushing her under him. She squealed and fought, but whatever made the room melt had also made him stronger, quicker. He pinned her shoulders with his knees and grabbed her by the jaw. No more sly smile, no more pouting lips. Her wet-black eyes were lighter, browner, but still as wide as they had been that night. Maybe wider now, with all the whites showing around them. "Now you take it." He guided the c.o.c.k in his fist to her lips. "Take it." When she tried to set her teeth in him, he squeezed her jaw until she stopped. "That's it." He pressed in, deep into that soft, warm wetness. The wide eyes softened and grew damp, and she sucked.

Lightning flashed, over and over and over.

"That's it." He put his hand in her big black curls and held her head still as he stroked in and out of her tugging mouth. "Good girl. Good girl."

Michael thought Alexandra should examine the other, less injured vrykolakes before a.s.sessing Thierry, but she overruled him.

"Worst case first," she said as she picked up her medical case. "I need to know how long I'm going to be stuck here."

He escorted her down into the bas.e.m.e.nt level, which still contained the makeshift surgery/trauma center he had created for her. All the equipment remained exactly where she had left it, with the addition of the human nurse he had brought in to monitor Thierry.

eliane came to him while Alexandra checked the equipment. "Would it not be wise to have Phillipe control her as before, Master?" she asked in French.

He had not told his tresora that Alexandra was here willingly, he recalled. "No. She has volunteered to help us."

"It's rude to talk in another language when everyone in the room can't speak it," Alexandra said, her voice loud.

"Where's the nurse?"

"Heather," eliane called, and the young, redheaded nurse appeared. "Dr. Keller is here to see your patient."

"h.e.l.lo, Doctor." The nurse came out from the little cubicle where Phillipe had set up her desk and gave Alex a dreamy smile. "Nice to meet you." She handed her a file. "This is what I have charted so far on Mr. Durand."

"Thanks." Alexandra gave her a sharp look before she opened the chart and read the top page. As she flipped through the other reports Heather had written, something made her mouth tighten. "We need to prep this patient for X-rays and an abdominal ultrasound."

A growl vibrated from behind her.

"Under no circ.u.mstances can Thierry be released," Michael said, stepping directly into her path when she headed toward the growl.

"The doctor perhaps does not understand the danger," eliane said.

"Why don't you go make coffee or type something?" Alexandra's gaze strayed to an open section of floor with a copper grid over it. She seemed almost afraid to look at it. "Don't tell me he's in there."

Something hit the grid, and metal screeched against metal.

"He has to stay in there all the time," the nurse a.s.sured her. "Poor Mr. Durand."

Michael saw Alexandra's face darken and went to the nurse. "Heather, would you go upstairs and check on Mme.

Durand for me?"

"Yes, sir."

Michael followed Alexandra over to the floor cell. She knelt beside the grid and looked down at Thierry. He was active today, lurching and hobbling back and forth in the restricted s.p.a.ce like a wounded tiger. The scent of gardenias rose thick and strong from the cell.

"You weren't joking; you do have him in chains," Alexandra murmured. She looked ill. "Copper chains, and manacles on his wrists."

"The manacles are lined," Cyprien told her. "They do not hurt him."

As soon as he heard Cyprien's voice, Thierry snarled up at them.

Slowly the doctor stood. "Who is Angel?"

Shocked, Michael stared at her. "It was his wife's pet name. She was killed by the interrogators. How did you know?" "Listen to him. He's not just screaming; he's screaming her name." Alexandra faced eliane. "Was chaining him like this another of your bright ideas, you nasty b.i.t.c.h?"

Michael answered before his tresora could. "I put him there, as you see. We tried allowing him to move freely, without restraints, but Thierry will not stay in the cell. He tries to kill anyone who comes near him."

"Wow, I wonder why." Alexandra rubbed her temple. "Haven't you tried giving him something to calm him down?"

"It took Phillipe and four others to hold down M. Durand long enough for the nurse to a.s.sess him," eliane told her. "No drug can anesthetize the Kyn. They must enter trance state, or endure the pain."

"G.o.d, you're as dumb as your hair." Alexandra pulled off her jacket and rolled up the sleeves before snapping on a pair of latex gloves. "Get me a bottle of saline."

The Frenchwoman's nose elevated a notch. "I am not a nurse."

"You are until Heather comes back. Get it."