She lowered her voice despite our complete privacy.

“I know what happened at the Karnak after the pharaohs recovered Krzysztof. They modified ancient rituals to clothe his bones in muscle and flesh and bring him to life again, Delilah. Once they trapped the man who was with you in Sunset Park when you two linked to find me and Krzys, all became possible. You found me so he could resurrect the Elder Vampires.”

She certainly thought the world revolved around her undead melodrama.

“How did you know Ric was captured?” I asked.

“You think you’re the only one who can call a moon goddess Dark Mother? Between Hathor’s mirror and the moon goddess Hecate’s power you escaped the Karnak’s royal vampires. I felt the wind of your passage through ancient corridors as if you were air or water.

“Hathor is the protectress of women in business-as we both are, Delilah. We’re businesswomen, you small and I… major. The goddesses protect women who are cunning as well as beautiful, as we both are. Well, we both are beautiful. Cunning is not your strong point, as it is mine.”

Oho, so now I have looks, not brains. I’d been called worse. By better.

Ric’s savvy mother-cum-doctor had helped me see that I’d grown up hating my looks because of who-or what-they attracted when I was a vulnerable preteen even younger than Loretta. As a woman grown I could realize I wasn’t responsible for whom I attracted. I could accept that my looks were attractive to more guys than half-vamp greasers. Some of those guys might be bad or some might be good but, either way, more power to me.

So it was out with the half-breed vamp boys and on with seriously complex men like Ric. Or seriously supernatural forces like Sansouci and Snow.

In view of my new take on me and men-leaving out my professional orphanhood-it was fascinating to watch Loretta’s devious side appear. Her father’s daughter. Sansouci had nailed it. Made me almost glad I’d never known a father.

Loretta’s Technicolor image cavorted on every black-and-white security screen. I kept surveying the background for random CinSims. She might claim moon goddesses as her allies but I had my Silver Screen legions to call on.

At least, they had called on me when it came to rescuing Ric. That proved the allegiance went both ways.

I noticed a nervous little guy I’d first seen at the craps table in the background of one screen in which Loretta’s image now dominated the foreground.

Could it be? Yes! Ugarte from the Karnak, aka actor Peter Lorre from Casablanca, was now a floating CinSim at the Gehenna. Was he a plant, or an escapee? You’d think he’d have found shelter at the Inferno with Snow or contacted Godfrey to enjoy Nightwine’s formidable protection. Those two Vegas moguls were collecting free-range CinSims for their own purposes.

Or had Ugarte already sought sanctuary with one party or the other and then been reassigned to the Gehenna as a spy? His criminal on-screen persona fit right in with gangsters. Every mob needs a house flunky.

Either way, I’d assumed earlier that Ugarte had made sure I learned that Ric was being held prisoner at the Karnak. In that way, this pathetic doomed con-man character from Casablanca had heroically tipped off all the topside Vegas Strip lords to Lower Egypt’s vampire legions, undermining their power from below.

As soon as I figured out what to do about Loretta turning me into a hotel-wide streaming message, I’d look up Ugarte and get the story from his own pale-gray Silver Screen lips.

Meanwhile…

“Why are you using me to aggravate your father?” I asked her.

“You know what he did to me and Krzysztof. I told you our dead souls bonded with you and your Ric when you dowsed together in Sunset Park to find us. We’re your matchmakers. You owe us. Ric has paid us back, though he may not know it, but you haven’t.”

My fingertips grew icy. Loretta considered Ric’s capture and torture “payback”?

“You think Ric’s ordeal somehow helped the Egyptian vampires raise your Prince Krzysztof?”

“It wasn’t an ordeal. It was an honor to be of such vital use to the sacred entwined pharaohs and their people. And I know it did.”

“He told them where the Sunset Park bones were kept, is that it?”

The coroner’s office location was public knowledge. I could see Ric “giving” that away to conceal his real secret: his inborn abilities to dowse for the dead and raise zombies.

“I told them where Krzysztof’s bones were,” she scoffed, as if I were stupid. “No, they have what they really needed from Ric, and you’re welcome to the leftovers.”

My hands reached for the screen, ready to seize this bloodthirsty spoiled brat’s wrists, or even more happily, her neck.

Of course my fingers curled as they met solid glass. Although I could see Loretta’s image, the medium was a camera, not a mirror, and she was safe from me.

More to the point, I was safe from her.

“What am I supposed to ‘pay’?” I asked.

“You must give me what you gave him, Ric.”

I kept silent but my blood iced in my veins again.

“You must meet me in a mirror again and give me the same Kiss of Life.”

“It was merely cardiopulmonary resuscitation. CPR won’t resurrect someone long dead, like you, Loretta. You saw me pound Ric’s chest to get his stopped heart going again before it was too late. That’s a common ‘miracle’ of the late twentieth century you didn’t live to see. I was merely acting as any ordinary emergency tech person.”

I was, of course, lying big-time right now.

I had to admit to myself now that Ric had been truly dead. I had to admit that Snow’s lingering Brimstone Kiss allowed my “Kiss of Life” to reverse mortality. I’d probably pay for that down the line but I didn’t know how yet. Nor care. The intensity of my love for Ric scared me plenty. An unloved childhood was not good practice for mature love but somehow both Ric and I had managed to overcome our beginnings. Our endings were a lot more vague.

Meanwhile, Loretta hadn’t bought either my arguments or my lies.

“How will we know you can’t revive me if you don’t try?” she cried. “Now!”

“This isn’t a mirror, Loretta.”

“Madrigal has a very special one onstage.”

Oops. I’d hoped she hadn’t known about the magician’s mirror with its front-surface glass. The blue-tinged glass was an entirely natural substance in the real world that eliminated the slight double image all other mirrors cast. That somehow allowed me to project myself more fully into the ”world” beyond the reflections.

I had even left a mindless simulacrum of myself in Madrigal’s mirror the first time I encountered it. I wondered, if I did indeed give Loretta what was left of the Brimstone Kiss, would our places be exchanged? Might I become the permanent prisoner of Mirrorworld while she walked free?

Whatever might happen was too dangerous to risk, not to mention turning her loose on Cicereau and the Gehenna. Her boyfriend’s killing spree had already claimed innocent lives. I began to fully understand Ric’s tortured continuing responsibility for the zombies he’d been forced to raise for El Demonio Torbellino during his youngest years.

Looking into Loretta’s calm yet demanding eyes, I knew she wouldn’t care. She’d presented herself to me as a horribly wronged victim, an abused innocent. She’d made me think we had love and loss in common. She’d been wrong, yet I was beginning to see that Cicereau had killed the teenage lovers the brutal way he did for motives beyond mere paternal rage.

“What do you want,” I asked, “besides a restored physical form?”

“Nothing much. Revenge and this hotel empire of my father’s. His time has come and gone, don’t you think?”

Wow. I had a very romanticized view of parental relationships. I may not have goddesses seriously in my corner but I might have some Olympian-like powers myself.