Jelly Babies

Many, many thanks to Alisha Steele, Snidne, Doll'sEyes, Moonstar, and StoryJunkie for their marvelous reviews. I am delerious with gratitude. (Actually, I'm mostly delerious with lack of sleep, but there's some gratitude in there as well.)

Alisha -- Thank you! I hope this chapter gives you more lovely dreams.

Snidne -- "And yet somehow, it's all gonna work together in a way we wouldn't expect." Heh, you know me too well!

Doll'sEyes -- Yeah, that kid is going to have a pretty weird family. Dad #1 used to be her brother, and actually gave birth to her. Dad #2 is Dad #1's part-demon lover. Dad #3 is a vampire (sort of), and used to be her sweetie. Oh yeah, and "mom" is a healer, but compared to everyone else, that's almost normal. Definitely NOT the Brady Bunch.

Moonstar -- Actually, no one knows about Marzi's parents. While attempting to break him, Kale tried to insinuate that Marzi had demon blood, but his "proof" (Marzi's hedonistic and self-destructive behavior) is pretty weak. So, for the moment, I'm not saying one way or the other.

StoryJunkie -- It was so sweet of you to be concerned about Nicholas's tender modesty! But if you look back at the scene, you'll see a sentence where Kale takes off his jacket and wraps it around Nicholas's waist, hiding his nakedness. So everyone at Inferno doesn't get a peepshow.

Anyway, thanks again! Now, on with the story!

Love,
Falcon

Chapter Nine

Please, Marzi! He’s hurt. I should be with him.

No. Marzi sat on the edge of their bed, clutching the mattress with both hands. He could feel his sister’s desperate attempts to get up, banging inside him like a crazy jack-in-the-box, but he forced his body to remain still. If Kale told us to leave, I’m sure he had a damn good reason.

But you saw the way Nicholas looked! So pale...and there was blood...he looked bad. What if he’s in pain? What if he’s scared? What if he’s trying to ask for me, right this very moment? I have to go to him! Again, Pepper fought to stand, and her determination momentarily overwhelmed Marzi. His fingers lost their grip, and his body rose several inches off the bed. If it wasn’t for gravity being on his side, as well as five pounds of baby weight, he doubted he would have been able to shove himself back down.

No! We don’t know why Kale doesn’t want us there. We might be a threat to Nicholas, somehow. Or he might be a threat to us. Either way, do you want to risk it?

I don’t care about me!

Maybe not. But what about me? What about the baby? Even if Nicholas really is scared, and in pain, and begging for you to come to him, do you think he’d want you to do anything that might harm the baby?

All the fight seemed to drain out of Pepper. Marzi felt her spirit wilt, like a flower deprived of light. Damn me, she murmured. Damn what I’ve done to him. If it wasn’t for me, he’d still be in school, pursuing his dream.

He’d still be living in his little bubble, unable to understand why he couldn’t sing with real emotion, Marzi corrected. Nicholas’s life may have been normal before he met you, but it wasn’t happy. Happy people don’t make deals with demons.

I – I love him so much. Why couldn’t I keep him safe?

Because real love is never safe. Gently, Marzi wrapped himself around his sister’s essence, and comforted her with soothing memories. The warmth of the sun, trapped in a cat’s soft fur. Fireflies blinking in the evening air. A chip of opal, glittering with all the colors of heaven. And the feel of Nicholas’s hand held tightly in her own. He’s a fighter, little sister. He’ll fight to stay with us. I know he will.

You’re right. I know you’re right. I just feel so useless sitting here.

Hoping to find something which might distract Pepper, Marzi glanced around their room, until his eyes settled on the unfinished garland of small paper umbrellas. Here. We’ll work on this. That way, even if we can’t be with Nicholas, Kale can hang it in Sylvia’s room, and he’ll know that we’re thinking of him.

Alright, Pepper agreed. She said little else, as Marzi began to connect the cocktail decorations, stringing them together like beads on a paper rosary. But each time he tied another miniature umbrella into place, he heard the echo of her desperate prayer.

L’amore vincera...l’amore vincera...

*****

Nicholas dreams. He’s back in Sugar Hearts, except everything looks wrong. Almost all the bulbs in the crystal chandelier are burned out, and the few remaining ones flicker wildly, filling the shop with writhing shadows. Shelves have been overturned, display cases smashed. When Nicholas approaches one, he sees ants swarming over the lemon drops, while maggots seem to eat their way out from the centers of the truffles. And something dark, and sticky, and terribly familiar drips from the ceiling, staining all that it touches.

“Welcome, my darling. Welcome to your new life.”

Turning around, Nicholas sees Cassie. Fondly, she blows him a kiss, apparently unbothered by the wooden chair leg that protrudes from her chest.

“You,” Nicholas whispers, too lost in the dream to be startled by the sound of his voice after all this time. “I thought you were my friend. And you...you raped me.”

At first, Cassie doesn’t answer. A drop of the dark, sticky substance falls on her hand, and against her pale skin, Nicholas can see its red tint, can recognize it as blood. The realization stirs a mixture of repulsion and hunger in him. Smiling, Cassie raises her hand, offering the drop to him, but when Nicholas shakes his head, she shrugs, and licks it up herself. “I raped you? Perhaps. But was that so different from what you intended for me? To bed me without loving me, to use me, like a thing, to ease your own pain?”

Ashamed, Nicholas glances away, unable to deny the things he would have done that night, if events had unfolded differently. “I liked you. I really, really liked you.”

“I liked you, too, my darling.” For a moment, her voice seems to carry a touch of sadness, a hint of regret. But it doesn’t last. “Ultimately, I paid the price for my actions. What price, I wonder, will you pay for yours? Let’s find out, shall we?”

Cassie directs Nicholas’s attention to a trail of beads, leading into the kitchen. “Go on. Go say hello to your family. They’ll be so happy to see the new you.”

A feeling of dread grips Nicholas. He doesn’t want to do this. But some force moves him against his will, making him take one step after another, until he circles around behind the counter, and pushes open the kitchen door. Inside, pots and pans are scattered everywhere. Rats nibble at rotting ingredients, while something putrid seems to be burning in the oven, its foul stench corrupting the air. But all that barely makes an impression on Nicholas. Instead, he sees the three bodies lying amidst the chaos of kitchen implements – Marzi, Sylvia, and Kale, their eyes staring sightlessly upward. And somehow, as his soul rips open, he knows that he’s done this to them.

Even then, the vision isn’t finished. Still, it moves him forward, forcing him to step over the bodies of his friends, until he reaches a cradle, oddly out of place in the kitchen. Gazing into it, Nicholas sees a baby, and his heart swells with love. His child. His own precious daughter. Affectionately, he reaches out to stroke her cheek. But her skin feels cold to the touch. She isn’t breathing. And when Nicholas rolls her over, he sees the bite marks on her throat.

“No!” Shaking too badly to remain standing, Nicholas sinks to the floor. Desperately, he curls in on himself, and rocks back and forth, in a futile attempt to create some illusion of comfort. All around him, he can hear the rats squeaking. Can smell the stench of decay. There is no comfort. What comfort can there possibly be in Hell?

“Oh god,” he sobs, unconsciously clutching the Medal of Saint Michael. “Oh god...please...help me.”

Lost in his despair, Nicholas barely hears the slight rustle of feathers. Only when the rats squeal their distress, and scatter in stampede of small furry bodies, does he look up to see the shadow revealed on the kitchen wall. The shadow of a man standing behind him. A man with...wings?

“This is not your only choice, Nicholas Foster.” The voice is deep, majestic, and yet, Nicholas imagines that he hears just the tiniest hint of an Irish accent buried somewhere in it. “Be brave. And when the time comes, God will give you the strength to do what you need to do.”

Then, the shadow fades, and the dream dissolves into darkness.

*****

After the initial shock of seeing Nicholas’s emerging fangs, Sylvia recovered, and her healing instincts took over. Nicholas was not a dangerous monster. He was someone sick, who needed her help. Automatically, she reached out to touch him, before Kale caught her arm.

“Not yet. Let me hold him down. We don’t know how far gone he is, and if you get your throat ripped open, there’s no one left to heal you.”

Impatiently, Sylvia waited while Kale crossed over to the bed. When Kale grabbed Nicholas’s wrists, Nicholas’s face twisted in pain, and it took all of Sylvia’s willpower to keep from intervening. But she knew Kale was right. So she forced herself to hold off until Kale had pulled Nicholas’s hands up over his head, and pinned them to the mattress.

“Alright, I’ve got him. Do your thing.”

Sylvia unbuttoned Nicholas’s shirt. Then, she placed her hand on his chest, and let her magic flow into him. Usually, her energy spread fast, carried along by the rush of her patient’s blood, but the blood in Nicholas’s veins was hardly a trickle, barely enough to feed his weakening heartbeat. Pushing her magic through him felt like trying to sail down a nearly dried-up creek. Determined, Sylvia redoubled her efforts, gritting her teeth until they ached. And, finally, she managed to illuminate each of his seven chakra points – glowing faintly, but glowing nevertheless. With a sigh of relief, Sylvia drew her magic back into her body.

“Which do you want first?” she asked Kale, wiping the sweat from her face. “The good news or the bad news?”

“I don’t believe in good news. Just tell me everything.”

“All of his chakra points are still there, so he hasn’t been completely turned. If he lives through the night, there’s a good chance that his human blood will reassert itself, and he’ll return to almost normal.”

“But?”

“But he probably won’t live through the night.” Sylvia glanced over at Nicholas. His eyes were closed, but far from sleeping peacefully, he seemed to be locked in a nightmare. As she watched, his head tossed from side to side, and his lips shaped words too distorted for her to understand. “The vampire who did this drained him nearly dry. His body is starving for blood. I suspect that’s why the fangs developed, even though he’s not truly undead.”

Kale frowned. “He needs a transfusion?”

“Yes. And that would be no problem if we could get him to a hospital. Unfortunately, we can’t.”

“Because he’d have to leave Inferno. Aryeh would wait until he’d stabilized, and then take him hostage. Use him as a bargaining chip to get the baby. And people I care about would get themselves killed.” Kale’s frown deepened. Then, to Sylvia’s astonishment, he released Nicholas, and began to roll up his own shirt sleeve.

“No!” Sylvia shouted. “Good Lord, no. Not you. Your blood is as tainted as any vampire’s. If he drinks from you, the ritual will be complete.”

“Well, I assume Marzi and Pepper are out of the question.”

“Yes. And that only leaves one of us, doesn’t it? Let’s hope that I don’t have any unpleasant surprises in my family tree.” Indicating that Kale should resume his grip on Nicholas, Sylvia shrugged off her jacket. “He needs to take a lot. I’ll let him drink as much as possible, but if I pass out, stop him.”

“Right.”

Tentatively, Sylvia extended her arm, until her bare wrist hovered just above Nicholas’s mouth. At first, nothing happened. Then Nicholas’s breath grew shorter, quicker, as if he’d picked up the scent of something. His mouth stretched open. But just as Sylvia braced herself for the bite, Nicholas hurled his body sideways, and only Kale’s grip on his arms kept him from rolling off the bed. Now, Sylvia could understand some of the words that fell so silently from his lips. No! I won’t...become that. I won’t!

Eager to mask her own nervousness, Sylvia focused on reassuring Nicholas. Despite her skill as a healer, she’d never developed much of a bedside manner, and comforting words always eluded her. Now, unconsciously, she imitated Pepper’s gentle tone. “Shh. It’s alright. I know you think you shouldn’t do this, but just this once, it’s okay. Drink.”

Whether he heard her, or whether the hunger just got too intense, Sylvia couldn’t tell. But Nicholas’s head jerked up, and he sank his fangs deep into her wrist. Sylvia gasped. Pain pierced her nerves, like being stabbed by two burning skewers, before fading to a slight tingle. Then, even the tingling changed into a strange hypersensitivity. She could feel everything! The warm moisture of Nicholas’s breath, and the slight movement of his lips against her skin, and the flow of her blood being pulled into him, binding them together with an intimacy she’d never imagined possible. Barely aware of what she was doing, Sylvia slid her free hand deep into Nicholas’s hair, rhythmically clutching at his curls as she supported his head, allowing him to drink more easily.

Indeed, Sylvia got so lost in the pleasurable sensations that it took a sharp word from Kale to make her realize that she’d begun to sway, giddy from loss of blood. Pulling downward, to try to minimize any tearing, she attempted to free her wrist. And Nicholas let her go. As his head dropped back onto the pillows, he seemed to be breathing more easily, and some color had already returned to his face.

“You look like you just fucked him,” Kale observed, with his usual lack of tact.

Sylvia blinked at her boss, not quite sure how to answer that implied question. Finally, she just mumbled “I’m fine,” and sunk into the room’s only chair.

“Can I give Marzi and Pepper the good news?”

“I thought you didn’t believe in good news?” Sylvia challenged, awarding Kale a weary smile. “Well, if anyone deserves to hear some, they do. Don’t make any promises. But let them know that he's probably going to be alright. In the morning, it should even be safe for them to visit.”

“Thank you, Sylvia.”

Startled, Sylvia watched in stunned silence as he left. Ten years of unquestioning service and never, not once, had Kale ever expressed his gratitude. Sylvia hadn’t thought it could possibly mean anything to her. But somehow, despite her best efforts, she’d gotten so tangled up in these people. Kale had her allegiance, Marzi had her heart. And now Nicholas had her blood. How strange to keep giving pieces of herself away. And how strange that, with each loss, she felt more complete than ever before.

*****

Nicholas’s eyes fluttered open. For a moment, all he saw were bright blurs of color hovering in the air. Then, his vision cleared a little, and the blurs solidified into a garland of paper umbrellas, strung over his bed. Nicholas blinked, mildly confused. But a joyous cry banished all thoughts of umbrellas, as Pepper embraced him, showering his face with a flurry of kisses. “Gumdrop! You’re alright! Thank god you’re alright!”

Weakly, Nicholas returned as many of Pepper’s kisses as he had the strength to. He was back. Back where he belonged. And he didn’t ever want to leave.

“You scared me so much! Don’t you ever, ever do that to me again!”

The reminder of his crime made Nicholas wince. By now, Kale would have told her everything – how he’d discovered Nicholas hanging from the manacles, half-naked, with the mark of a woman’s mouth clearly showing where it had no right to be. Pepper was going to kill him. And rightfully so, too. Trying to be brave, Nicholas prepared himself for her anger.

However, Pepper only kissed him again, her eyes shining with the beginning or ending of tears. If tears ever had a beginning or ending. “I realize you were upset, but to get yourself so drunk, that was foolish. Kale said you got alcohol poisoning. If he hadn’t found you, and taken you to Sylvia in time...”

Confusion filled Nicholas. Had it all been a dream? A bad, drunken nightmare? Cautiously, he swept his tongue over his teeth, searching for two sharp points. His fangs had retracted. But he still felt them, lurking beneath the flesh of his gums. It hadn’t been a dream. Nicholas experienced a rush of gratitude as he realized that Kale had lied for him. Probably not intending to keep the truth from Pepper forever, just giving Nicholas a chance to tell her his own way, in his own time. And that time was not now.

“I know you’re hurting,” Pepper murmured, taking his hand in hers. “And you have every right to be hurting. I don’t want you to think you have to be strong for me. I wish I could be strong for you. But there’s so little of me left. Maybe, if we can’t be strong for each other, all we can do is be weak together. Maybe that can be enough.”

Nicholas looked up at his lover. She was so beautiful, even when her face carried the burden of grief. And in a handful of days, a brief scattering of stolen moments, she would be lost to him. Maybe lost to him forever. A dam inside Nicholas seemed to break, and everything he’d tried so hard to repress came flooding to the surface. It’s not fair! I was born to love you, and we had less than a year together. I wanted so much more than that! I wanted anniversaries, and scrapbooks full of pictures, and stories retold so many times they become smooth as polished stone. I wanted a life together!

“I know.” Bowing forward, Pepper rested her cheek against his brow. “I know. I did, too.”

Unable to stop himself, Nicholas wrapped his arms around her and held on, as if that could somehow keep her from slipping away. Don’t go, he pleaded – knowing that she had to, knowing that it was best for her, even knowing that he wanted her to, because he wanted her to be happy. But pleading anyway, because sometimes love isn’t simple. Don’t leave me all alone. I don’t want to live in this world without you. I don’t think that I can.

She had no answer to that, other than to hold him tighter. And as Nicholas wept, pressing his face into the soft comfort of her hair, her embrace was answer enough.