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Candy might be mad at me, but she looks more like I’m on my way to the gallows. She helps me up and I have to lean on her for support until I get my balance. I look at Vidocq.
“What do you have for a man who needs to keep moving no matter what for a few hours?”
He reaches into his coat and pulls out a small clear bottle full of a red liquid.
“Malefic baneberry. It doesn’t taste good, but one teaspoon and a skeleton would dance a jig.”
He takes out the cork and hands me the bottle.
“To the Führer’s mustache,” I say, and down it all.
Malefic is a nice word for what it tastes like. I want to spit it out, but it feels like my mouth and throat have sealed shut. The room spins. I sway. Candy grabs my good shoulder. Then I’m enveloped in warmth and the room stops moving. My mouth works and I can breathe again. I feel great, ready to run a marathon and wrestle Rodan.
“How do you feel?”
I lean over and kiss Candy.
“Not bad at all.”
Candy pushes me away and spits.
“It tastes like you gargled vinegar and ammonia.”
“Sorry. I just feel good.”
“You better pray you come back, and when you do, hit the toothpaste before you get near me.”
I look at Vincent.
“You ready?”
He’s standing in the middle of the room naked. Turns and heads for the bathroom. Allegra gets her medical bag and I get the jar. Everyone follows us.
Vincent lies down in the tub as Allegra lays out her surgical tools. She swabs Vincent’s chest with antiseptic, running her hand over the ugly scar where his heart was cut out. She selects a small scalpel from her kit.
“Are you ready?” she says to Vincent.
He nods.
She takes out a potion and rubs it on his chest.
“This will numb the area. You won’t feel anything,” Allegra says.
He nods. She gives me a dirty look.
“You better be right about all this.”
“I am.”
She turns back to Vincent and makes a straight incision across the scar.
“Does that hurt?” she says.
“I barely feel it,” says Vincent.
Her medical kit used to belong to Doc Kinski, an archangel. It isn’t exactly a regular kit. I don’t recognize half the instruments. She uses things that look like knitting needles and an astrolabe to open Vincent’s chest and hold it open.
And there it is. The same broken ribs and his sternum over the deep red hole. Vincent cranes his head down to see the opening. He doesn’t like what he sees and lies back in the tub.
