I'd nail down the Lip Venom transmission mystery and nuances of CinSim inter-species communications later. Right now I needed to concentrate on the other key part of the message.

Casablanca Rick was the perfect messenger, not only to spur me to examine the cell phone photos I'd taken of the fetishes, but because Ric himself, my Ric, couldn't come. Only the CinSim Rick was available. He was used to remind me of my own Ric, and to make me realize that he was in danger. Terrible danger.

That had to be why I couldn't raise Ric's cell phone. The twin pharaohs already held Ric prisoner. They needed him to raise the old vampires hidden here and maybe elsewhere.

And Ric had walked right into their trap: his appointment at the Luxor today with the "Mexican consulate" people. The Luxor had been one of the first Vegas hotels after the Crystal Phoenix to create an internal lobby waterway. They'd discontinued it years ago, but the channels might well still exist beneath the hotel-casino, a quick way to smuggle anyone anywhere. I'd practically led them straight to him. I hoped like hell I was wrong about Ric being held captive, because the thought made me desperately fearful.

After being forced as a boy to raise zombies for misuse by the Mexican smugglers, Ric had sworn never to raise the dead for another's use and abuse. I knew he'd never consent to share his secret of dowsing for the dead or his skill. I guessed the spoiled Egyptian rulers would never accept anyone's defiance.

It would be a struggle of wills to the death, Ric's death.

How long had he been out of touch? I hadn't heard from him since ten o'clock, hours before my groupie gathering. My brain was as fried as the Bogart Rick's had been.

I stood up from the desk, the huge white leather chair spinning away from me, almost knocking me off my feet as my mind juggled huge questions.

How to penetrate that fortress beneath the Karnak? Who was mighty enough to fight Pharaoh's army and marching zombie mummies? How could I save Ric from a fate worse than death? From the curse of eternal living death he would loathe with every cell in him? Servitude of any kind after his enslaved childhood was unthinkable.

How could I rescue Ric?

I had to.

Now!

Chapter Thirty

"I see you're abusing my hospitality and my office furniture," a cool, deep voice said from the doorway. "So where's the party?"

Snow, still dressed from his stage show, stood in his office doorway looking like an alabaster statue in his white leather catsuit. His ever-present sunglasses seemed to be taking in my midnight-blue velvet gown, not my desperate all-business face. At least they inspected me from top to bottom.

"I'll abuse more than that before I leave," I warned him. "Listen. I've uncovered an unthinkable scenario for Vegas and the world. I need back-up. I need…Grizelle as a six-hundred-pound tiger. I need Genghis Khan and his hordes. The Egyptian vampires at the Karnak have a zombie army and they're holding Ric captive!"

"Egyptian vampires? You must be drunk on Albino Vampires." Snow's sunglasses nodded at the half-full glass on the desk. "'Grizelle said you stormed my office in a mad fury, but you're dressed for a waltz, not a rescue mission."

I was sweating bullets in my frail vintage velvet gown, melting from the agony of every single second of delay, but I didn't care. I realized there was another reason the CinSims had called me to the Inferno. Who but CinSims would know what the hotel must harbor on its many secret underground levels? If it was indeed modeled on Dante's Inferno, it could house an army of horrors below.

"Look, Snow. You've finally got what you want: me begging you for something. I need your help to save Ric. I don't care what you are, I don't care what you do, I just know you're the only…whatever… in Vegas that can bring any force up against those demented demigods at the Karnak."

"And how do you know demented demigods run the Karnak?"

"They sent their hell-raising sacred hyenas after me, so I got curious and paid them a visit two days ago. I found a hall of mummies, warriors who step out from walls and a sick pair of siblings who think they're a pharaoh in duplicate."

"Sounds like the usual spectacular Vegas theme hotel."

"This was under the hotel."

"Why would these escapees from a Cecil B. DeMille spectacular want Ricardo Montoya?"

"Are you brainless? He's the Cadaver Kid! They want him to find dead bodies. Hidden, undead vampire bodies, lost for centuries. You said yourself the vamps were driven out of Vegas during the founding days seventy years ago and wanted back in."

"I had more modern vampires in mind."

"Well, they didn't! There's no time to debate this. They've got an army down there. You happy with that in the neighborhood?"

He said nothing.

"Those monsters have had Ric for almost eighteen hours, for God's sake!"

"God is not in Vegas."

"For pity's sake."

"Pity is not a commodity in Vegas."

"For humanity's sake."

"Humanity is not worth much to many these days."

Didn't I know that from my orphanage rearing?

"Why are you so sure you need me?" he asked.

"You fight dirty, Snow. That's why I need you."

His smile was slow. "That's not why you need me, Delilah. You need me because you need Ricardo Montoya."

"Bastard! Loveless, soulless monster! You have Grizelle. You have your whole Inferno hotel security force. You have whatever evil creatures inhabit the Lower Circles of your Hotel Hell. I can tell you now who the vampire was who died with Loretta Cicereau."

"That's a very small matter in the fate of Las Vegas and its hidden founders and masters and mistresses and ignorant human occupants, including you. Why should I get involved?"

"I don't have time to haggle with you. You want me to beg? All right. You said I would someday and I will. I'll take your damned Brimstone Kiss now."

"An army of support for one kiss? You expect me to attack a neighboring hotel-casino on the basis of that?"

"Yes! The groupies are too easy for your ego. If you're a vampire, you'll want to destroy the upstart vampires who are trying to take over your territory anyway. If you're a fallen angel, you'll want to look better in my eyes and redeem your own shoddy soul. If you're a demon, you'll want to soil my soul. If you're just a very bad man, you'll want to humiliate and conquer me."

"And why would I want that?"

"Because you need to bring someone else down to your damned, lost level and I'm finally willing to go. For a price."

He licked his dead-white lips. Honest to God. Or Gehenna.

He was nervous, or hungry.

Whichever, it was all about me and the desperate spot I was in.

Not because I'm Lilith's double. Not because I'm a woman and supposed to be conquered. It's because I have nothing but true love in my heart and desperation in my soul. I'm awash with frantic, selfless fear and devotion. If I could trade my life for Ric's, I would. But I can only try to rescue him, at any cost. I'm a tasty treat for anything evil under the sun.

He was infuriatingly slow to respond. "I told you that one day you'd beg for it."

"It?" Even now, I wanted to be certain of the price.

"The Brimstone Kiss. You are the temptress, Delilah, who never wanted to be tempted."

"I'm not tempted. I'm desperate, like any other soul in Hell."

"They're desperate to get out. You're desperate to get in."

"There's no time. Do it."

"There is a price," he warned.

"With the Devil, isn't there always?" I knew this was the most desperate negotiation of my life or my death.

"Perhaps. Perhaps you just think so. Bad press, you know."

"Get to it, Snow."

He tilted his head to consider me, the dead-dark sunglasses winking with the overhead light reflections, adding false life to his hidden eyes.