“Is there a helipad?”
Sigurd glanced over at Zeb, who nodded.
“Yes, there is a helipad. I am about to begin CPR.” He looked up at her and Zeb. “I need one of you to do artificial respiration while I do chest compressions.”
“I can do it,” she said before Zeb was able to respond. Zeb just shrugged and helped her to kneel down opposite Sigurd. Not an easy task in her short, tight dress.
Sigurd placed the heel of one hand over Farentino’s chest and the heel of the other hand atop that, interlocking fingers. Immediately he began pumping and calling out numbers, “One.” Pause. “Two.” Pause. “Three.” Until he got to thirty, then he nodded at Marisa, who leaned down and over the unconscious man. Pinching his nose, she lifted his chin, sealing her mouth over his, and breathed. Once. Twice.
Three times they went through the procedure. Midway through the fourth, Sigurd announced, “I’ve got a heartbeat.” He glanced at Marisa and smiled, and she smiled back.
“Good job, folks. Chopper should be there within fifteen minutes. Make the patient comfortable. I’ll stay on the line.”
Marisa was still slightly bent over Farentino when Sigurd said, “Stop looking at her ass, Zeb.”
She realized then that her dress had ridden up, exposing God only knew what. Shooting upright and then standing to shrug the dress down, she glared at Zeb.
He winked at her. “I get my kicks any way I can these days.”
“Why are you still here, anyway?” Sigurd asked him rudely, even as he laid a blanket over Farentino, which Zeb had found somewhere.
Not at all offended by Sigurd’s rudeness, Zeb replied, “You know why.”
Marisa could swear Zeb’s eyes looked red in this light. Were they bloodshot? She hadn’t noticed it before.
Sigurd shook his head at Zeb. “He is not a candidate,” he said enigmatically.
“Damn!” Zeb said and licked his lips.
A candidate for what? Marisa wanted to ask, but she was suddenly very tired from all the emotion and just wanted to go back to the island and crawl into bed.
“You better go give Goldman an update,” Sigurd told Zeb. “Have him make sure that the signal lights are on and the helipad is secure for a landing.”
Zeb nodded and left.
Sigurd stood then and just stared at her, a questioning tilt to his head.
“You really are a doctor,” she said dumbly.
“Apparently so. You doubted me?”
She nodded. “You just don’t look like most doctors.”
“Know a lot of doctors, do you?”
“More than you can imagine.”
Again, the head tilt as he studied her. “You’ve done artificial respiration a time or two, haven’t you?”
“More than you can imagine,” she repeated. In the early days, before Izzie’s final diagnosis, she had fainted a lot. Marisa had needed to know how to do artificial respiration and lots more emergency care.
Harry came in then and asked, “Is he going to be all right?”
“I think so,” Sigurd said.
“Why isn’t he awake?”
“It’s his body’s way of handling the trauma. It’s normal.”
“I . . . uh, have to thank you for your service, Dr. Sigurdsson,” Harry said grudgingly. “You can send me a bill.”
Sigurd bristled. “There is no charge.”
Harry scowled. He did not like feeling beholden to Sigurd, whom he obviously disliked, for good reason. Sigurd goaded him every chance he got. “Well, then, thank you.” The faint sound of the approaching helicopter could be heard overhead. Whup, whup, whup. Harry glanced upward. “I’ll bring the EMTs down here.”
She and Sigurd were alone again, except for Clinton Farentino, whose breathing was shallow but even.
“Will he really make it?” she asked.
“He will, unless he has another attack.”
“I was impressed with how you handled the emergency.”
He arched his brows. “How impressed?”
She knew what he referred to. “That was a mistake out there.”
“A definite mistake.”
For some reason, she didn’t like his agreeing with her. “I can’t explain it.”
“Neither can I.”
“Getting involved is out of the question for me right now. I have . . . issues that need my full concentration.”
“Your daughter?”
“You know about Izzie?”
He nodded. “Inga told me. A little. No details.”
Now was not the time for an explanation.
“Back to that . . . um, what happened out there.” She waved a hand toward the open door.
He arched a brow.
“The kiss.”
He made a snorting sound of disagreement. “It was much more than a kiss, and we both know it.”
“It can’t happen again.”
He ran a fingertip, just a fingertip, over her lips, and in a husky voice, informed her, “For my sins, do not count on that.”
There was a fine line separating good and bad . . .
Several hours later, well past midnight, Sigurd sat on the deserted beach with Zeb, drinking beers and watching the surf. There was no sharp dividing line between the black ink of the ocean and the white foam of its breakers. Like him and Zeb. Like good and evil.
The air was thick with the scent of pure salt water and the cloying perfume of myriad tropical flowers. Innocence and seduction.
What a night! For thinking. And other things.
Jogeir had passed them once on a security patrol of the island, and he reported that Svein was walking the halls of the mostly quiet hotel and Armod was asleep with dreams of new dance steps floating in his fool head. Tomorrow, crowds of attendees would arrive for this week-long perversion excursion.
Zeb had already told him that Jasper’s yacht would be arriving in a few hours, fifty Lucies with him. They’d both learned of another ship coming in with the vilest of procurers . . . those dealing with the most perverted of sex acts. These folks were not affiliated with the conference, but they hoped to benefit from the jaded appetites of the attendees.
“You could have let me turn the man,” Zeb complained, referring to the heart attack victim.
“He didn’t carry a sin taint, and his soul was not Lucie material . . . yet. Now, one of the pornographic film producers . . . that would have been a different case altogether. Some of them are . . . what do they say . . . bad to the bone.”
Zeb laughed and took a long draw on his beer. “You are becoming too modern by half, my friend.”
Sigurd would have bristled with offense, but he knew Zeb only called him that to annoy him. He and Zeb were not friends, and might not ever be, even if by some miracle Mike turned him into a vangel fifty years from now. His brother Trond was closer to Zeb than any of them; they shared the same warped sense of humor. “Needs must,” Sigurd replied, quoting another modern expression.
“I have to show Jasper something of a devil nature for the night’s work, or he will suspect me. Let me have the woman, then.” Zeb did not need to name Marisa for Sigurd to know which woman.
“No!” Sigurd’s response was quick and final. Bloody damn not-a-chance in hell no!
“Why? Unlike the man, she does have a sin taint.”
“Only a slight one.” Just the teeny tiniest scent of lemon, but then Lucies can sense that odor at fifty pace buried in a ton of concrete. I should have known Zeb would smell her lure. A sudden thought occurred to him. “Was it you? Did you fang Marisa?”
“If I had, she would be salsa dancing her way to Horror by now. I do not do a slight bite.”
Rhyming now? A rhyming demon? And he knows of her salsa dancing back in Miami. Why? Why would he know or care to know about Marisa? She is a venial sinner, thus far. Insignificant. Unless . . . oh, why didn’t I think of this before? “It’s me they want, isn’t it? And Jasper hopes to get me through her?”
Zeb shrugged. “Who kn
ows the workings of the deviant mind? But no, this has naught to do with Jasper. Not yet. He has not yet learned of the connection. But he will. A satanic bloodhound he is when sin is in the air.”
“Well, forget about it. I am about to remove her sin taint.” I hope. “Virtue will be her second name.” But not too virtuous.
“She has agreed to a rescue fanging?”
“She will.” I hope.
“Sig, Sig, Sig! You cannot let emotion enter into the turning or not turning of a human, let alone the saving or not saving. If you do, you will not be able to endure all that you must do.”
Lectured by a devil? I really am sinking to new depths. “Are you speaking of me, or yourself?”
“Both.”
It was true. If a vangel let himself care about every sinful person out there, he would drive himself insane. Or more insane than he already was betimes. He supposed the same was true of Lucies, but he’d assumed they’d lost all sense of caring long ago. Zeb was probably the oddball in the crowd.
Another modern phrase! Zeb is right. I am becoming too acclimated to this time period. Mike best not send me traveling back in time again. I can hear myself telling some knight in William the Conqueror’s army, “You better toe the line, dude, or you are dead meat.”
“You are smiling,” Zeb observed. “I thought you were the serious one of the brothers, the one always unsatisfied and yearning for more.”
I am, I am. “You know too damn much about us.”
“Needs must,” Zeb repeated Sigurd’s own words back at him.
They sat in companionable silence for a short while before Zeb drank the remainder of the beer in his can and crushed it with one hand. “Beer is good, but blood is better,” he said. “I have developed a taste for the body dew and increasingly have to curb my appetite for more and more. Does that mean I am too far gone as a devil?”
Sigurd could have said yes. Why should he attempt to soothe one of the dark ones? But he found himself admitting, “I like it, too. Truth to tell, neither of us could do our jobs if we were not tempted by the heady beverage.” Marisa’s blood drew me tonight like the strongest temptation, and not just to cure her inclination to sin. I know how Adam felt about that bloody Garden of Eden apple. It would taste rich and sweet and . . .
Zeb nodded. “’Tis like sex, I suppose. God created it so that men and women would want to procreate.”
Sex now? First I get a lecture from one of Satan’s followers on emotional detachment and now a philosophy lesson on sex. Still, Sigurd contributed to the discussion by saying, “And then He put limitations on sexual activity, forbidding that which becomes such a powerful urge.”
Zeb gave him a sideways glance. “Not getting any lately, hmm?”
“Hah! Lately is an understatement. More like thirty years ago, and then I had another hundred years added to my penance for the lapse.”
“I would not mind those extra years if I could live them as a vangel,” Zeb said on a sigh. “Or even dead. I could even handle eternal celibacy to escape this horror of vampire deviltry.”
Do not ask. It is none of your business. You are not a boyling sharing secrets. He couldn’t help himself. He asked anyhow, “What did you do to land yourself in Jasper’s camp?”
Zeb remained silent for several minutes, and Sigurd could tell that it was a subject he rarely, if ever discussed. Finally, Zeb told him, “I lived in the Holy Land long, long ago with a wife and two children that I adored. My small vineyard was prosperous, but I wanted more. And so I joined the Roman army, intending it to be only a temporary assignment. I had been promised additional lands adjoining mine if I committed to serve for five years.” The sorrow in his voice was palpable and almost heartrending.
Sigurd wished he’d obeyed his initial inclination not to ask. He did not need to know of another’s pain and regret. He had enough of his own.
“One time, we—me and the soldiers under my command—were ordered to fire an entire village. Everyone—man, woman, and child—was to perish for some transgression or other. The Romans were easily offended. I did not want to do it, but my five years were almost up, and they were common folks, I was told, little more than beasts of burden. Only later did I realize that another Roman legion had raided the lands of my birth and herded those living there to this village. I killed my wife and children, among hundreds of others.”
There was nothing Sigurd could say to that, nothing that would appease the man’s sorrow. In the end, he shared his own secret, “I murdered my little brother.”
Silence followed.
Finally, Sigurd remarked, “I do not understand the ways of the Lord. I have always questioned, ‘Why me?’ when thinking on my sorry fate as a vangel. True, I have sinned, as have my brothers, in a most heinous way. But so have many others. Why not give us a chance to repent while we were still alive?”
“At least you were not condemned to be Lucipires.”
“There is that.”
“And I agree about the questioning. Why could I have not been given a second chance as a vangel?”
“Because you are not a Viking?” Sigurd offered. Thus far, all vangels were of Norse descent.
“I could become a Viking.”
“You can’t just become a Viking. Same as I could not just become a Jew.”
“Actually, you could convert to Judaism.”
“Well, you can’t convert to Viking-ism. There is no such thing.”
They were both chuckling when Sigurd concluded, “These are moot questions we raise. Beer conversation. We are what we are, for our sins, and ours is not to reason why.”
Enough of this male bonding, or whatever the hell it is. Sigurd tossed his empty can into a nearby receptacle, a neat pitch if he did say so himself, and stood. “I need to get a few hours’ sleep. Mayhap I will find a sinner to repent on the way back to my room.”
“And mayhap I will find a sinner who does not want to repent.”
Thus the line was drawn back in place, the line that separated them both.
Chapter 10
Work ’til you drop, or something . . .
The Grand Keys Health and Beauty Oasis, located in the center of the hotel, was a first-rate facility, with all the accouterments, despite the hotel having been closed for the past year.
The Oasis included a cluster of facilities catering to all sorts of body enhancement. And, despite the expensive charges, not to mention the generous tips expected, all services were booked solid the first day. Beauty and self-indulgence apparently held no price tag with this crowd.
The Good Looks salon, where Tiffany worked, did hair and a whole lot more; it also provided facials, manicures, pedicures, waxing, exfoliation, and manscaping. Last night Tiffany had mentioned a sign in the waxing room, which not so subtly read, “We do cities. You want the suburbs, expect to pay extra.”
At first, Marisa hadn’t understood, though Inga and Doris chuckled.
“Darlin’,” Tiffany had explained, “y’all would be surprised where some women . . . and men . . . grow hair.”
“You mean toes?”
The three women had laughed.
“Ya need to get out more, Marisa, bless yer heart,” Tiffany had opined. “Yes, toe hair exfoliation is very popular t’day, as well as nose and ear hair removal, but the sign was directed more to back yonder.” Tiffany had giggled and patted her curvy butt in the sparkly dress she had just donned for the cocktail party.
Okaay!
Another popular attraction at the beauty salon was a procedure call vajazzling. Think vagina. Think dazzle, as in crystals and sequins, down there. The places some women would place jewelry!
Also in the Oasis complex was a massive exercise room, Hurts So Good, with all the most modern equipment. It promised, “We provide the pain, you get the gain.”
There wasn’t enough time in Marisa’s days on the island for her to test that promise. The most exercise she could hope for was the occasional swim.
The spa, Feels So Good, whe
re Marisa worked the morning shift, starting at six a.m., offered nine different types of massages, all of which she had been trained to perform. But there were also salt scrubs, body wraps, saunas, and a steaming mineral Jacuzzi.
Marisa was taking a break at about ten-thirty when Hedy, the spa supervisor, joined her in the employees’ lounge.
Hedy eased her ample body down into the comfy leather chair, and sighed. Turned out Hedy was a competitive bodybuilder. Her burgundy hair was teased into an old-fashioned beehive, giving her further height.
Like the other spa employees, Hedy wore the revealing white, tank-top jumpsuit, but she’d disdained the red high heels for a pair of athletic shoes. “Executive privilege,” Hedy had explained to Marisa when she arrived at six that morning. “Or flat feet. Take your pick.”
Somehow, Marisa couldn’t reconcile this image with the clown-sex husband. And she didn’t really want to know more.
Marisa was wearing the jumpsuit as well, with high heels (no executive privilege for her, or flat feet . . . not yet anyhow), but she’d donned a thin red sweater that covered her breasts, butt, and bare arms. “I’m allergic to air-conditioning” she’d lied. Thus far, no one had complained, but then she hadn’t run into Mr. Vanderfelt yet.
“How’s it going, sweetie?” Hedy asked.
“Great. I’ve done a Swedish massage on two customers—a movie producer’s wife and a boat captain. A deep tissue massage on a ditzy female porno star, who threw her back out during some anatomically impossible sexual position. And a relaxation massage on Mitzi Dolan, the PR director for this whole shebang. Talk about hyperactive.”
Hedy smiled, having heard worse, Marisa was sure, especially with two other massage therapists, Sonja Ingram and John Ferguson, both of whom weren’t as picky as Marisa about the type of massages they were willing to do.
“How are the tips, honey?”
“Good, actually. Hundred-dollar bills, except for Ms. Dolan, who seemed to think I work gratis.”