Candy Kisses

Candy Kisses

Chapter Thirteen

“Solitude Stands In The Doorway
I’m Struck Once Again By Her Black Silhouette
By Her Long Cool Stare And Her Silence
I Suddenly Remember Each Time We’ve Met”
-- Suzanne Vega

Sylvia turned to a fresh page in her notebook and began another sketch. Two days had passed since Marzi decided to reject her healing. And, because she’d stayed with him during most of that time, she’d had the chance to do a lot of drawings. Anything to keep her hands busy, to calm the magic that paced restlessly under her skin. It had been bad enough to watch Marzi suffer when there was nothing she could do for him. Now, to see him endure what she could so easily cure, that was true torture. But she’d given him her word, and she would keep her promise to him. Someone in this house needed to keep their promises to him.

Also, Sylvia was forced to admit, a more selfish reason existed for her continual vigil. Marzi’s bedside was the safest place in the entire mansion -- being located in the one room that Kale now refused to enter.

For the last few hours, Marzi had stumbled in and out of sleep, carried along by dreams that didn’t end when he opened his eyes. But now, with sudden vigor, he jerked against the ropes which bound his wrists. “It’s time! I have to go. I have to get up.”

Casting aside her art supplies, Sylvia hurried to his side. She couldn’t draw while wearing the leather gloves, so her hands were bare as they touched his face, flushed from the fever. His skin seemed to burn beneath her caress, like hot pavement in summer. “Shh,” she tried to comfort. “You should rest.”

“I have to get up!” Marzi’s body thrashed sideways as he struggled to tear himself loose and strands of his long, sweat-drenched hair whipped against Sylvia’s fingers. “I have to walk Pepper to school!”

“Shh,” Sylvia repeated, stroking his forehead. “Not today.”

“But there’s a dog...a big dog. Pepper is scared of dogs.”

Sadly, Sylvia gazed into Marzi’s eyes. Perhaps it was only a trick of the light, but the colors within them seemed to blur and streak, like watercolors dissolving in the rain. She wondered what he saw. Had his childhood been spent in a suburban home, with a neatly trimmed lawn and a swing-set in the backyard? Or had his parents raised him in a tiny apartment located over their store, with the smell of melting sugar constantly rising up through the floorboards? “It’s Saturday,” Sylvia lied. “There’s no school on Saturday. Pepper is downstairs, helping make a batch of fudge.”

“Oh.” Marzi stopped struggling, and appeared to relax a little. “Tell her...to save a spoon...for me to lick.”

“I will.”

“And ask mom to turn up the air-conditioning. It’s so hot in here...”

“I will.” Sylvia bowed her head and placed a gentle kiss on Marzi’s cheek. “Now, promise me you’ll get some sleep.”

Marzi didn’t answer. But after a few minutes, his eyes slipped shut and his breathing grew easier, soft as kitten fur against her skin. Reluctantly, Sylvia drew back from the bed. When she licked her lips, she could still taste lingering traces of Marzi’s sweat, salty and sour. He was bad. And getting worse. But what could she do? At a loss for any other plan of action, Sylvia returned to her sketchbook. Except now, her hands trembled, making the tip of her pencil skip across the paper like a needle across a scratched record. Cursing, Sylvia ripped out the ruined page, crumbled it into a ball, and hurled it at the far wall. Then she got up. Pulled on her leather gloves. And went to find her employer.

After a bit of searching, she found Kale in the downstairs study, sorting through a pile of papers. His goatee, which he normally kept perfectly trimmed, had grown out so far that it was in danger of becoming a scraggily beard, and Sylvia recognized his suit as being the same one he’d worn for the last two days. While she watched, he picked up a document. Then he appeared to read it for a few moments, before putting it back down, and burying his face in his hands. For several minutes, he remained motionless. Finally, he lifted his head, picked up the same document, and started the process over again.

Eventually, Sylvia coughed.

Kale looked up, noticing her for the first time. “Well?” he snapped. “How is he?”

“His temperature keeps rising. He’s delirious. And, if all that wasn’t enough, he’s becoming dangerously dehydrated. Every time I get him to drink a glass of water, he just sweats it out within the hour.”

“Fine. You can go.”

“Kale.” Sylvia bit her tongue as she realized that she’d just called her employer by his given name, binding their fates together in a way she’d sworn she never would. But then, maybe their fates had already been bound together, from the moment they both fell in love with the same man. “Kale. Listen to me. Even if the fever doesn’t cook his brain, the dehydration will make his kidneys shut down. In a day, he’ll be raving mad. In two days, he’ll be dead.”

Instead of answering, Kale picked up another piece of paper. But Sylvia could see that his hand was shaking as he held it. During all her long years of service to Kale, she’d never asked him for anything -- not an extra penny of money, not a single day of vacation, not even a word of praise. Now, she walked into his study, her footsteps soundless against the thick carpet, and begged.

“Please. He needs help. And he needs it soon.”

With a howl of rage, Kale swept his arm across the desk, sending papers flying in all directions like a flock of startled white birds. “He chose this! I offered him everything, and he chose death. So let him die!”

“You offered him everything except your heart,” Sylvia murmured. “And your heart was the one thing he truly wanted.”

“Don’t lecture me about my heart!” Kale stormed from behind his desk, and began to gather the scattered documents, crushing them in his hands. “I don’t have a heart. And you can go tell him that. Tell him that his demon lover doesn’t feel pity, or regret, or any of those pathetic emotions. So he can stop trying to manipulate me. It won’t work. I could never fall in love with someone like him. Someone so weak, and foolish, and -- and human. You tell him that!”

Sylvia thought of Marzi’s feverish confusion. “I can tell him. But I doubt that he’ll hear me.”

Growling, Kale shoved past her. “It makes no difference. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”

Sylvia watched him tramp down the hall, leaving a trail of crumpled papers in his wake. Then she shook her head. “Men,” she muttered to herself. “And they think they run the world.”

For a second, Sylvia glanced back the way she’d come. Back toward Marzi’s room. Unfortunately, there was nothing more she could do for him. And, obviously, further prodding of Kale would be useless. But something needed to break this stalemate. Before Marzi died and Kale lost his grip for good. Sylvia didn’t exactly like her employer, but she recognized that he wasn’t the worst of his kind, and his presence provided a certain amount of stability. She didn’t relish being caught in the middle of the war that would erupt if his control slipped. So, it was time to call in the reinforcements. Even if that meant depending on the brains and courage of someone who, so far, had shown precious little of either.

Her mind made up, Sylvia descended to Kale’s underground garage. She rarely went out, since Kale required her to be available at a moment’s notice. But she did indulge in the occasional afternoon at one of Chicago’s many art galleries. So Kale’s driver, a kind, elderly gentleman named Sam, wasn’t too surprised when she asked him for a ride.

“Will it be the Chicago Museum of Art again?” he inquired, holding the limousine’s rear door open for her. “I hear they have a new Monet. And you always start pining for flowers in the winter.”

“Not today,” Sylvia admitted. Eagerly, she settled onto the car seat, and allowed Sam to shut the door behind her. Sylvia loved the limousine, loved its cool darkness and tinted windows. She always felt so safe, hidden away from the world in its belly. Stroking the expensive leather interior, like another person might pet a cat, she waited until Sam had gotten comfortable behind the wheel. Then she gave him her instructions.

“Today, I have some errands to run. I need to stop at a department store. And then one of those places that serve takeout food in boxes designed for kids. The ones that come with a little toy. Joy Dinners or something.”

“You mean Happy Meals? That’s not your usual idea of gourmet food.” Sam shook his head. “First you turn down a Monet, and now you’re eating at McDonald’s. These must be strange times.”

Sylvia sighed. “Stranger than you know, Sam. Stranger than you know.”

They stopped at the department store first. After getting sprayed with perfume by an overeager salesgirl and convincing two other ones that she didn’t want a free makeover, regardless of how kissable glittery lipstick might make her, Sylvia finally managed to complete her purchase. Then Sam took her to McDonald’s. While they waited in line at the drive-thru, Sylvia studied the menu’s unfamiliar offerings. Was it possible to come up with a less appealing description of chicken pieces than “nuggets”? Whatever else Kale had done to her, at least he fed her better than this. Finally, at a loss for any real facts to base her decision on, she just chose the thing with “Big” in its name. “I want the Big Mac Happy Meal. Super Size the fries, and make the drink a Double Gulp Giant, or whatever the hell they call it.”

Sam sounded doubtful. “That’s an awful lot of food. Are you sure you’re that hungry?”

“It’s for someone else. And if he’s still alive, he’s going to need it.”

After having her food passed to her through the limousine window, Sylvia struggled to keep the giant cup of soda balanced between her legs, while she opened up the Happy Meal. This week’s toy seemed to a plastic unicorn with a flaming mane -- probably from the latest blockbuster movie or one of those collectible card games that the kids were all playing these days. Shrugging, Sylvia tossed it down on the limousine floor. Then, carefully, she removed her department store purchase from its bag, and placed it in the Happy Meal box.

“The museum will be open for a few more hours,” Sam volunteered. “You could still take a peek at that Monet.”

“I’m afraid the Monet will need to wait. We still have one more stop. And you aren’t going to like it.”

Indeed, after she named their final destination, Sam fell silent until they pulled up outside Sayyid’s Soul Food Café. Then, with obvious reluctance, he got out and held the limousine door open for her. “I don’t like the idea of you going in there alone. Promise me that you’ll be careful.”

Sylvia smiled at him, trying to exude more confidence than she actually felt. “I’m on a mission of mercy. God protects those who do his work, doesn’t he?”

“Let’s hope so, Miss Sylvia. Let’s hope so.”

Clutching the Happy Meal in one hand, and the cup of soda in her other, Sylvia walked toward the door of Sayyid’s Soul Food Café. Yeah, God would protect her. God probably spent 24 hours a day watching over her and Kale, trying to figure out ways to help them. What a joke! She’d forfeited God’s protection a long time ago. Now she had to rely on the much more fickle favors of blind luck.

Momentarily setting down the Happy Meal, Sylvia knocked. This was the hard part. Most of the demons inside would recognize her as an associate of Kale’s, and be smart enough to know that fucking with her equaled fucking with him -- something they would be reluctant to do without a damn good reason. But with certain spawn, you could never rely on smarts. And her only magic involved healing. That wouldn’t do a damn thing to keep one of them from ripping out her intestines.

“Yes?” a voice demanded from the other side of the door.

“Sylvia Herzhaft, acting for Kale.”

The door swung open, and Sylvia found herself facing a battle-scarred demoness. “What do you want?”

Sylvia held up the Happy Meal. “I brought some food for the prisoners.”

“They’re not Kale’s prisoners,” the demoness snarled. “They belong to Lord Raedeman. And he didn’t say anything about feeding them.”

“Did he say anything about not feeding them?”

That seemed to be more of a brain twister than the demoness was prepared for. Frowning, she glared at Sylvia, while dragging her long, painted claws across the doorframe. The resulting noise sounded like a rusty saw cutting into rotting wood. Finally, she shook her head. “He stopped singing. Did he stop singing because he was hungry?”

A sarcastic retort writhed on the tip of Sylvia’s tongue, but she forced herself to swallow it. The demoness’s ignorance wasn’t unusual. Unless they were tearing them apart, demons tended to forget that humans lived in bodies considerably more fragile than their own. “Yes. He probably stopped singing because he was hungry.”

“Alright. You can bring your food. But I’m going to search you, to make sure that’s all you bring.”

“Of course,” Sylvia agreed. One by one, she turned her pockets inside out, until she’d demonstrated their emptiness. Then she surrendered her soda, watching while the demoness poked about in the ice to make sure there was nothing concealed beneath it. Finally, she opened up the Happy Meal. Sylvia held her breath as the demoness lifted the clam-shaped piece of hinged plastic that Sylvia had placed in it. “What’s this?”

Sylvia shrugged. “Some toy. They include one with every meal.”

“Huh,” the demoness muttered, probing the plastic with her fingers. Sylvia prayed that one of her claws wouldn’t accidentally hook on the latch, springing it open. And, for the moment, her luck held. Apparently satisfied, the demoness tossed Sylvia’s “toy” back into the Happy Meal box. “Alright. You can come inside. They’re in the back room.”

“Thanks.”

That was half the battle. Now, as Sylvia stepped into Sayyid’s Soul Food Café, she braced herself for the other half. She’d gotten inside. But she still needed to slip past the establishment’s unholy patrons, none of whom were overly fond of humans. However, to her surprise, the demons seemed unusually subdued, and ignored her as they stared into the depths of their steaming drinks. Too grateful to question the cause of their melancholy, Sylvia hurried toward the back room. Perhaps, she thought, perhaps I have earned a little of God’s protection after all.

But her faith in divine assistance wavered when she reached the door to the back room and found it unlocked. That meant Raedeman didn’t care if his captives wandered off. Or, far more likely, he had good reason to expect that they wouldn’t. Of course, Pepper wasn’t going anywhere. But it didn’t bode well for Nicholas’s condition. Prepared for the worst, Sylvia pushed open the door.

A large mirror had been propped up against the far wall. Before it, in a position that almost resembled prayer, a young man lay slumped on the ground. And within the mirror, Sylvia saw Pepper -- kneeling, with her hands pressed against the glass, and strange golden tears running down her cheeks. For a moment, Sylvia recalled the last time she’d seen Pepper, and guilt stabbed at her gut. But she shoved the bloody memory aside, focusing on her work. Just like she always did. Setting down the Happy Meal and soda, Sylvia tugged off her gloves. “How long has he been unconscious?”

Pepper shook her head. “I don’t know,” she whispered. “There’s no time in this room. Every moment seems the same as the last.”

“Well, how long did it feel like?”

Mocking laughter ripped from Pepper’s lips. “How long do you think it felt like? Watching him slip away. And I couldn’t touch him, not once, not even with the tip of my pinkie finger.” Pepper dragged her hand across her cheek, but instead of smearing, her tears tumbled into the darkness like falling stars. “It felt like years. It felt like lifetimes I never want to live again.”

Sylvia remembered her own vigil at Marzi’s bedside, and she understood. So she let the question drop. Instead, she returned her attention to Nicholas. Gently cupping his head in her hands, Sylvia pushed her magic into him, guiding it down the length of his body. His lower five charka points glowed with their normal light. But the sixth point, which rested in the center of his forehead, appeared oddly discolored, while the seventh point, which hovered just beyond the reach of his unruly curls, had dimmed to the extent where even her magic could barely illuminate it. Brain trauma. Well, Pepper probably could have told her that much. Time to get specific. Sylvia concentrated her magic inside Nicholas’s head and allowed it flow along the intricate maze of nerves and arteries, until she found the ruptured vein. A quick, hot pulse of magic cauterized the rip and stopped the bleeding. Then Sylvia changed the wavelength ever so slightly, until her magic blended with the excess blood, transforming it from matter into energy, and allowing her to draw it out, relieving the pressure that the hemorrhaging had put on Nicholas’s brain.

“Is he--?” Pepper asked.

“He’s sleeping,” Sylvia assured. “But he will wake up.”

“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

Uncomfortable with Pepper’s gratitude, Sylvia glanced away and yanked on her gloves. Then she stood up. “When he does wake up, tell him to eat and drink as much as he can. He needs to get his strength back.” For a moment, her glance fell on the Happy Meal. “After that, if he’s clever, if he’s brave, he’ll know what to do.”