39. La plage De La Saint Tropez.

Damon and Samuel had come to the house after they had got the crisis under control and Adam had found evidence that Bran was behind the whole thing. Still, Adam stayed to explain it to the alphas while Damon and Samuel packed their bags and drove back to Chicago as fast as they could.

Samuel was furious when he discovered that one of his Petri dishes was missing the one with the most contagious strep, and he had gotten the vaccine for the other werewolves but not for Mimi. He should have brought Damon in on this job, but with everything that was going on and how Damon had been gone, he hadn't gotten the vaccine for Mimi yet. That's why he had the petri dish.

He explained it to Damon, making him swear and drive even faster. Knowing what Mimi was like with the infection. Adam's theory had been that Bran was probably trying to get Mimi to reveal her contact somehow when she hadn't spoken. And now it had been two weeks.

Damon kept his expression neutral, and knew the horrors Bran was capable of; Mimi had been his prisoner for two fucking weeks, and Damon felt his rage flare up. Oh, how he wanted to do some work on Bran.

They got closer to the house, Samuel noticed Damon's eyes squint a little, the muscle in his jaw twitched and his knuckles turned white as the vampire tightened his grip on the wheel, Samuel realized he was scanning Mimi's thoughts to find out what had happened and nothing good. Samuel sighed and tried to assume a clinical attitude, but couldn't help himself as his rage flared, too.

Sometimes, he felt Bran was on the other side of salvation, as if time had erased all morality and notions of good and evil from his mind, and though he knew his father had been through bad things, so had he while retaining his humanity.

They arrived in the courtyard and saw several unfamiliar cars. Damon quickly got out of the car, motioning Samuel to go inside as he himself disappeared into the dim shadows that surrounded the house on this dark and rainy night. Now and then, a crack of thunder and a flash of lightning lit up the sky, but Samuel could not see where the vampire had already disappeared to. He went inside himself. Ready to face his father.

When Damon found out what had happened to Mimi over the two weeks, he cursed for a long time in his mind. Arriving at the scene, he knew first he had to get those fear demons out of the way. The Fear Demons had also come from their own or other dimensions, not from hell, and their ability was to strike fear into the minds of their victims, killing humans.

Still, the supernatural's ability to tolerate and resist the Fear Demons varied, and Mimi was very susceptible to them as Mimi's fear popped into Damon's mind like a black cloud. He tried to reassure her with their link and spoke to her telepathically in his head, then concentrated on finding a couple of tasty victims.

 I lay in bed, shaking, in pain, and my consciousness was tantalizingly clear; I could have been more confused or half asleep, not to have every wave of pain crashing through my body so hard. I didn't know what I could do.

If only those fear demons would go away. I would then actually be lucid enough to go into a rage, and I could show Bran how I felt about his antics. The thought gave me strength.

But then I felt Damon's presence in my mind. He felt my still-growing rage and said in my head reassuringly, " Baby, you're not doing anything while you're playing along; I'll handle this. Oh, that fear demons, and you are vulnerable to them. I just am hungry. I'll get those demons out first, and then I'll see you; you've probably got yourself infected again, but guess what? I will not let you crawl around on the floor again. Don't even think about doing anything that might suggest that. And missy, you keep that rage in check. Now, you're in no condition to attack anyone. Samuel will be in soon, and I'll be right out."

Then Damon's presence disappeared from my mind. I just tried to be. I felt like I was freezing. I could feel my skin burning with fever, but I couldn't stop shaking. My fingers were ice cold, and no blanket would suffice. My throat was on fire, flames of pain hitting me every time I took a labored breath or coughed.

The pneumonia that raged made me cough and more than once I vomited pus as the abscess in my throat erupted, I could hear my own gurgling breath. My lungs were on fire, and despite that, I had to pull air in, only occasionally getting a long, harsh coughing fit. My breasts were in sheer agony, and the slightest movement sent arrows of pain up my breasts and down my spine.

Hot pain ripped through my breasts as I started coughing. I tried to position myself so they wouldn't hit anything, but I was too weak to hold my position. By now, the infection had spread all over my chest, up to my waist, and halfway up my arms, my armpits aching; I knew my lymph nodes were huge; the infection had also spread to my back, and I tried to lie on my side.

I felt the fear demons cease, and I concentrated, letting my rage come to the surface to make this pain, ache, and terrible weakness that almost made me panic go away.

Damon finished the demons. They were weak, but tasty. Then he felt Mimi take out her rage to help her feel better.

He said to Samuel, " Mimi is in terrible shape then. I don't know what we can do at first, but I'll come in and get the drug ready before I go to Mimi. What is the situation with Bran and the men?"

Samuel replied, " The men ran away. My father will try to be innocent and claim he didn't realize Mimi was in such terrible shape when he just needed some contact. Mimi had not cooperated, and he had then used force. Mimi's stubbornness had gotten his temper up, so he thought nothing further. "

Damon growled, "Cat shit, he is lying!"

Samuel agreed. As Damon walked in, he looked at Bran with a look of rage, real rage, and Bran was silent.

He said, "I may have gone far in the lesson, but Damon, surely you know how stubborn Mimi is, and besides, she is immortal; this now gives her that immunity against this germ most of all."

Damon said nothing as he attacked. He sank his teeth into Bran's neck, drank him dry, and looked emotionlessly at the pale Bran with no sign of life.

Samuel said, " Too bad he can't fuck last dead. "

Samuel called a couple of men; they were the ones who ran away, and they turned around, came and got Bran, picked him up, and drove off in a hurry when they saw Damon's ruby red eyes, his teeth, and still slightly bloody mouth. The bite marks on Bran's neck had not healed and would never heal. It was Damon's way of marking his victims. He wanted Bran always to remember this.

Samuel said, "I'll get Medbay fixed up."

Damon followed him, then went to the medicine cabinet, made a cocktail, and also took another syringe full of medicine if needed.

Samuel started looking for all the supplies when Damon said, "Pneumonia, throat abscesses, mastitis, erysipelas, very much drugged."

Samuel just grunted and looked at Damon with yellow eyes. Damon nodded, then headed towards Mimi's downstairs bedroom. 

I thought with an amused, pissed-off expression that I should be fucking immortal, and I am. Still, I'm not invulnerable, that would be a lesson I might have to learn and get my head around someday, but I wasn't about to study it anymore as I was pissed off at the whole fucking Bran.

My rage helped me to tolerate the sensations in my body, and I turned onto my back, pulling myself into a slightly semi-sitting position. If only it would make it a little easier to breathe.

I got a good, long cough that wouldn't stop. The door opened, and Damon came in. He looked at me as I tried to cough; eventually, a flood of mucus and pus gushed out of my mouth. I tasted it, and it made me vomit, so the entire bed was covered in pus, vomit, and mucus. 

Damon walked into the bathroom and drained the water there. Then he came in with wet towels and gently wiped my mouth and neck, at least a little cleaner.

He said, " Don't talk, let me just feel you through gently. I've already got the injections with me, so you'll be pain-free and comatose about it. You're so medicated, though, and most of it, I don't even know. Oh fuck, some of these drugs are the ones that make you panic, those pharmaceutical drugs, but don't worry if I can't get them out any other way, I can always knock the teeth in your neck and give you a dental."

I said, as I got my voice working. "I'm in pretty damn terrible shape; I think I'm in the worst shape I've ever been in."

Damon soothed, " Baby, I'm here now. Samuel's ready; we'll help. Now I'm sorry, really sorry about my reaction to the feeding. I shouldn't have gone to Fiona when we would have had such a great time, but when I'm not perfect, not even close."

I looked at Damon and said, "Bran burned out my pheromone glands. They've been destroyed, so you don't see me as perfect anymore, so you might, and you probably will do that job again."

Damon looked carefully at my neck; he said, " Baby, remember, I'm your biological half, and probably in time, I'll get you your glands back, so don't worry about it now." 

Damon took the covers off me, all the while soothing and almost brushing through me. I screamed as he touched my breasts. He brushed my neck, feeling the deep burns there. For a moment, I was in so much pain I couldn't think. I had another coughing fit, and Damon made me sit up better.

I coughed powerlessly, pus dripping from my mouth. I felt the needle sink between my ribs into my lungs and felt the medicine in my lungs. My coughing subsided, and Damon opened my mouth, wiping the pus from my mouth with the corner of a towel. He handed me a straw and told me to sip, squish it around, and spit it out.

Then, I felt the next sting in my lungs. I leaned on Damon's arm now. He tried to hold the blanket so my breasts weren't too pressed. It helped a little with the pain but didn't cloud my head, or else some drug had already clouded my head, so I wasn't paying that much attention. Damon stroked my back, seeing the blisters there too.

He said, " It's all right, just let the rage go, put it away, no more fidgeting, I'm here.."

My rage fell into a well, and the pain almost drove me into a stupor. Damon looked at me for a moment with his eyebrows furrowed and gave me another jab. This one was stronger, and I felt my eyelids droop.

He stroked the hair from my forehead and said " Go to sleep, just give up, it's ok, it's ok. Just sleep."

He was still holding me against him so I could hear his heartbeat, and the feeling of security made me trust him, so I fell asleep.

When Damon felt Mimi go into a deep enough sleep, he sighed. Ever since he had come into this room, seen the pus flooding the blue lips of Mimi, and smelled the awful stench all over the satanic room, his self-control had been tested. And now again, the nesting instinct was about to surface, as Mimi was in a terrible place, but now was not the time.

Now real hard measures were needed, and now Damon did not know how fucking difficult the recovery was going to be. He went to the linen cupboard and laid Mimi down on her back on the bed for a moment. He quickly scraped all the dirty bedding into a strong plastic bag and then shoved it into the laundry chute. He grabbed some clean sheets.

He quickly wiped Mimi down with a towel to make her even a little cleaner, and then wrapped her in a sheet, lifted her in his arms, and started rushing downstairs to the medbay with his unconscious wife in his arms. Mimi weighed barely thirty kilos and had lost almost half her weight in a couple of weeks.

Mimi was burning hot, and Damon hoped they would be on time before she went into sepsis. He knew he could not yet give direct dental treatment for the drugs that Mimi was full of, while this infection or several infections had to be brought under control first.

Damon went through the doors of the medbay. Samuel, his eyes still yellow, came up and looked at Mimi seriously; Damon had told him about the fear demons and how Bran had used them as his weapon, too, making Samuel even more upset. It wasn't a good thing in itself that Mimi was susceptible to fear demons, but it would be very hard to do anything about that.

Damon knew some people had sometimes tolerated fear demons. However, after he'd eaten and discovered how weak they were and still got a terrible grip on Mimi, Damon somehow guessed that Mimi probably could never face a fear demon without being frozen in terror, at least not without the drugs. Now Damon could come up with 12 substances, 12 flankers, that would put Mimi in a state where the fear demon couldn't get into her head.

 Damon laid Mimi down on the hospital bed, opened the sheet, and in the bright med bay light, the infection was painfully clear - large pustules covered Mimi's skin from her burnt neck to her waist, still extending far down her back. Mimi's breasts were bright red and hard, and her neck was covered with third-degree burns. Damon put the collectors in his teeth as Samuel wiped Mimi's skin a little cleaner, draining the pustules and opening them up to dry.

Damon's teeth made a concentrate, and he went to make a dilution to wipe the skin. Samuel and Damon took thick bandages and dipped them in this stuff, and then they bandaged Mimi's whole upper body with them- they should be changed diligently. Damon made several bags of concentrate and put them in the medicine cabinet too.

The next thing to do was to get this infection under control. Damon had got a central line into Mimi after he had healed her skin with his blood enough to get the line in place. But there would be a risk of it clogging up, and then the line would probably go into her arm or maybe her thigh.

Samuel had several tubes of blood from Mimi's elbow, so he gave one to Damon and put the rest in the machine. Mimi was naked, and they had put fans blowing into this, trying to get her temperature down.

Samuel cursed in his mind. This would be another fucking fight for Mimi, and she would have to be kept in a coma, or they would pick her off the floor for the next month. A normal werewolf with this bug would take months before it was cured. At least. No matter what antibiotics Samuel was on.

His vaccine had made a difference, saving many, and when he hadn't had the damn time to do the vaccine for this one, then, too. But Mimi. If the infection had been any milder and Mimi had been less medicated and run down, then maybe. Maybe she would have been able to shake off the bug sooner. But now Samuel really couldn't say.

Damon was already in the cupboard getting fever medicine, some antibiotics, and nutritional solutions. Damon's expression was grave. He and Samuel both knew that Mimi was in the worst shape she'd ever been in. Damon was so anxious that his teeth wouldn't react to Mimi's blood other than to awaken his nesting instincts. 

Damon realized that some part of him knew that this was for real and Mimi might not survive; well, this one was immortal. She'd come back to life, but when? Damon vowed he wouldn't let Mimi die. He used his self-control.

He was a doctor now. He found a strong antibiotic concentrate, sniffed it, and this should do the trick. He made up several bags and put them in an IV stand and the pain, anesthesia, and fever meds. She would stay asleep and not crawl on the floor at all.

They had now been working on Mimi for 48 hours. Neither slept, barely ate. Stabilizing her, keeping her fever down and feeding her. The bandages were changed five times a day, always full of rot and blood. Mimi's skin was scarlet, and the infection was in full swing.

Damon had stopped her milk supply. He suspected that surgery would be necessary. They had gotten the uncompressed milk out of her breasts with a cannula, but it was still there. The fever medicine worked for a quick time only, but it worked by bringing her alarmingly high metabolism down, getting her body to absorb at least a little nutrition to give her some strength to recover.

The only good thing was that there was no sign of sepsis yet, and Damon hoped it would stay that way. The antibiotic was dripping as fast as Mimi's body could tolerate, and Damon was on watch the whole time, trying to keep the pace as high as possible. 

Damon was just about to get the supplies for the bandage change when suddenly Bran walked into the medbay, nailing Samuel in place with his power.

He looked at Damon and said, " My boy, you will not learn then. I will not tolerate vampires in this pack, and no blood-sucking devil will use me as a meal, actions, and consequences."

Damon tried to move and found that he was also nailed to the spot. Another man walked up beside Bran. Damon smelled a black wizard, weak but a wizard in every sense.

Bran said, "My friend here, help me a little. Now, Samuel, you will not attack me. In fact, you are going to Bangladesh right now and will be in the clinics there for a month and will not make any contact here regarding Mimi. You will be in touch with me if you need to."

 Samuel gave his father a murderous look, his eyes yellow, and then walked away. He was not yet strong enough to resist the Marrok force, but maybe one day.

Bran looked at Damon and came closer. He took a small bottle from his pocket, came right up to Damon, opened his mouth, poured the potion into his mouth, and said, " Swallow."

He had the marrok power on full blast, and Damon had no choice but to swallow. Soon, Damon relaxed; the anger melted from his gaze; he tilted his head as if to appraise Bran.

Damien smiled. Now, he wasn't quite sure if Bran knew of his existence, but that potion had given him his power and lifted him to the surface, and he intended to stay there. 

Bran said kindly, "How about you let Mimi wake up, and we'll get a proper party going to Montana? Mimi's all right. It's just a little bug. Your teeth did nothing, either. Let's wait until Mimi wakes up, and then we'll tell her she can do what she wants again. It's time for us to get some rest, too."

Damien nodded and looked at the now anesthetized Mimi emotionlessly. He then went and removed all the medication from Mimi's vein, put the drugs in the locked cabinet, and put the key in his pocket. He carried Mimi upstairs to the bedroom, and they were already calling Montana for food and drinks. 

They would fly there in a pack plane as soon as Mimi was awake enough to understand what was going on fully. Damien would not stay long at the party, though, not when he'd just see that Bran was drunk enough, and then he'd be free to leave the party and run his errands again.

He hadn't been looking forward to this opportunity, but he'd take it. He felt a sense of power and strength as he walked up to Mimi, saw her blood and rot-soaked bandages, and felt her fever soar. He won.