Sunglasses After Dark

by Nancy A. Collins

  His stomach growled. He opened the top cooler and heard glass containers clink together. He reached inside, fingers closing around chill glass. Soft drinks, milk, anything would be welcome.

  He stared at the pint container of blood for five seconds before dropping it. The bottle shattered, splattering his naked legs. Claude clamped his hands over his mouth and staggered into the tiny bathroom located off the kitchen. He sounded like a cat siccing up a hair ball.

  When he was through, he remained hunched over the sink, his palms against the cold enamel, and stared at his reflection in the medicine chest. Although the swelling was going down, it was surprising he'd woken up at all.

  His right eye was covered by a bruise the color of a hybrid rose. His bottom lip looked like a piece of raw liver. A knot the size of a pigeon's egg hung over his left eyebrow, and it felt like his nose was broken. Again.

  He let his hands stray to the Ace bandages wrapped around his chest. It hurt a bit when he moved too fast; otherwise his ribs seemed okay. He spat into the sink and studied his saliva for traces of blood, then tried the same experiment with his urine. He was damned lucky to have escaped without serious internal injuries. If you consider being held captive in your underwear by a vampire as being lucky…

  Claude laughed in spite of himself. Funny how good that felt. He was surprised to discover he was no longer in mortal terror. He experienced a sense of relief, not unlike emptying his bladder after a long road trip. He decided that while he did not fear Sonja Blue, neither did he trust her. He'd learned the hard way never to rely on the semblance of sanity.

  Back when he was younger and his hair longer, he'd come to trust a patient who, on the surface, seemed perfectly harmless. Then one day the patient turned into a screaming, hissing wild thing and pulled out a handful of Claude's hair by the roots. Now he wore his hair cropped close to his skull in order to camouflage the missing piece of scalp.

  He remembered the hit man called Frank and the way she'd toyed with him before the kill. Hagerty had no love for the man, but he could not repress his revulsion at the memory of his murder.

  When he was fifteen, he'd found the family cat—a fat, good-natured old torn—"playing" with a mouse. The cat snapped the rodent's spine, leaving the creature alive but paralyzed. Then, gripping the mouse by the head, it repeatedly hurled the tiny rodent against the garage door. The crippled mouse squeaked each time it rebounded onto the pavement. This prompted the cat to swat the mouse again; squeak-thud. The rodent's eyes had gone white with pain and fear, its rib cage shuddering with every breath while blood leaked from its twitching nostrils. The cat continued its grisly game of handball for a minute or two more, then it grew bored and bit the mouse's head off. After that, Claude was never able to look at the old tomcat in quite the same way, just as he could not look at Sonja Blue without sensing the feline sadism lurking below her surface, waiting for a mouse.

  "There you are. Made a mess, didn't you?"

  He reacted as if she'd poked him with a cattle prod. She stood in the bathroom doorway, a grocery sack in one arm and a suit of clothes draped over the other. Claude was acutely aware of being dressed in nothing but a baggy pair of BVDs.

  "Thought you might like some clothes. The ones you had on were covered in blood. Hope these fit." She shoved the clothes at him. "You can change in here while I clean up." The door closed in his face.

  Getting dressed in the bathroom was like changing clothes in a broom closet. Claude stopped swearing after the third time he slammed his knee into the toilet tank. The dungarees fit him well enough, although his neck overflowed the collar of the flannel shirt and the cuffs ended an inch above his wrists.

  He opened the door in time to see Sonja Blue wringing a mop in the kitchen sink. The water was the color of cranberry juice.

  "What the hell are you looking at? Expect me to lick it up off the floor with my tongue?" she snapped.

  Her feelings were hurt. Claude was taken aback by the realization. It occurred to him that he was a lousy, ungrateful houseguest. He didn't know what to say, so he watched her mop the floor in guilty silence.

  "I picked up something down at the corner superette. Haute cuisine it ain't, but it'll do for now." She didn't look up from her work, but motioned with a curt nod to the sack resting on the table.

  Stepping over the pool of blood and tapwater, Claude rummaged through the bag and produced a jar of peanut butter, a loaf of white bread, a quart of milk, and three cans of potted meat. He stared at the cartooned demon on the can of deviled ham and smiled.

  The smile grew wider. He felt as if his lips were going to split.

  "What's so funny?" Sonja Blue glanced at him as she wrung the mop for the last time. The water was now the color of pink lemonade.

  Claude began to laugh. Tears squeezed from the corners of his eyes. His laughter carried the shrill edge of hysteria. He realized that if he lost control he would laugh until he blacked out. Which is what he did.

  Alive. I'm only really alive when I'm on the prowl. Alone. Unobserved. I'm glad Hagerty is too unsteady to leave the loft. I could not track my prey with him queering the game.

  The night is an origami rose, unfolding itself for those unafraid to look. As much as I hate them, my eyes allow me to know the half-glimpsed marvels and nightmares that fill this world. Sapphires among the rot.

  My eyes are windows to hell, enabling me to spot those who Pretend. Their spoor hangs in the air, as obvious as street signs.

  Over there, lounging in a doorway, sharing a cigarette with its unwitting prey, is a vargr. It rests its shoulder against the doorframe, holding a Marlboro between thumb and overlong index finger. I can see the animal in its eyes as it studies me with the detached speculation of a predator. But I am not interested in such beasts tonight.

  I round the corner and enter the city's tenderloin district. The porn shops, titty bars, and adult cinemas are all very busy, like maggots in a corpse. I like downtown. It's my element.

  Sensing my intrusion, a succubus glances up from her transaction. As she leans into the open passenger window of a nondescript rental car, she looks like all the other whores working the neighborhood. She lifts her head, tossing back a mane of copper curls, and scans the streets. Is she on the lookout for vice cops or other wayward children of Gehenna? The faltering neon of the Triple X Sinerama's marquee illuminates her true face as it shifts and roils beneath the carefully constructed facade. I do not meet her gaze and hurry away. Out of my league.

  The Pretender population in America is nowhere near that of Europe, but immigration is picking up. Standing in line at the Pussy Kat Theater, its deformities masked by a shapeless raincoat, an ogre watches me with the eyes of a rabid rat. I make a note of him. Child-eaters are a rarity nowadays, but missing children aren't. The ogre's gaze follows me as I walk past. He knows I'm not human, but cannot identify my clan. That makes him nervous.

  I smell roasting flesh and burning hair, and I nearly collide with the pyrotic before I see it. It sidesteps me, leaving a vapor trail in its wake. It wears the flesh of a middle-aged man in a business suit, his skin the color of a boiled lobster. His hair is ablaze and smoke billows from his ears and nostrils. The pyrotic is either very strong or has been in possession too long. Now it is looking for another body, male or female. It doesn't matter. Once elementals get a taste of being incarnate, they often end up addicted to the earthly plane. Kind of pathetic, really. No one pays any attention to the burning man as he hurries down the street.

  Something catches the corner of my eye and I discover the reason for the Pretenders' uneasiness. It seems I am only partly to blame.

  It sits on the bottom stoop of an old brownstone, rummaging through its shopping bags, muttering the litany of the out-patient.

  To the humans it is just a bag lady, another bastard child of Reaganomics. But I see the seams in the costume and the stage makeup on its face. It is a seraphim, come for a brief visit. The aura that surrounds the wrinkled, grime-caked face is blue fi
re. It looks up from the Macy's bag and stares at me. Its eyes are golden and have no whites or pupils. It smiles and speaks, but its language is beyond me. I am too base a creature to understand. All I hear are wind chimes. If I try to answer, all the seraphim will hear is a cat being skinned alive.

  The Other is frightened of it, just as the succubus and the ogre were afraid. Seraphim never interfere with Pretenders. But they could if they wanted to, and that is why the Pretenders are fearful of them. The Other digs its claws into my brain. If I do not leave it will try to gain control. It knows I cannot afford to let it do that. Not tonight. Not while I still have to find Chaz.

  I turn and run from one of the nine billion faces of God.

  She stood in the doorway of the bar, sucking in ragged gulps of air. Her heart rabbited in her chest and her hands trembled. That was close. Too damn close.

  She could feel the Other raging just below the surface, and bile burned the back of her throat. For the first time since she'd ducked in to escape the seraphim, Sonja noticed her surroundings.

  The bar was located in the basement of one of the old brownstones fronting the street. A frosted pane of glass faced the stairwell. It didn't have a name, but she recognized it as one of Chaz's haunts. The drinks were cheap, the lights dim, and the clientele sleazy—Chaz's kind of place.

  The front room was large and had a low ceiling. It stank of stale beer and decades of trapped cigarette smoke. The actual bar was against the far wall, situated under the only decent lighting in the joint. Clustered against the opposite wall were a handful of arcade videogames, their cases covered with graffiti and cigarette burns. A Rockola jukebox strained the Ramones' "Pinhead" through failing speakers.

  The tables and booths scattered throughout the room boasted three hookers, a ferret-eyed dealer, two glowering skinheads, and a couple of hard-core alcoholics. None of them was Chaz. She noticed a doorless passageway flanked by twin cigarette machines. Taped over the lintel was a yellowing sign that read: pool.

  Why not check it out? Maybe the little shit was back there, hustling the marks. She walked past the sentries posted by the tobacco company, aware of being watched by the people at the bar.

  For a moment she thought she'd stumbled into a nest of minor demons. She'd expected to find a roomful of teenaged boys, but not boys with blue hair. She paused as her vision shifted spectrums, scanning the faces for traces of Pretender energies. Low-level demons were identifiable by the sworls of power marking their features, like the tattoos of Maori tribesmen. But every face she scanned was clean, at least of Pretender taint.

  One of the blue-haired youths leaned across the scuffed green of the pool table, his back to her as he lined up his shot. He wore a black leather jacket garnished with loops of chrome chain at the shoulders. Emblazoned across the back of the jacket was the grimacing face of a bright-blue ape. Jesus, she had been away too long! These were members of the Blue Monkeys, one of the city's more volatile youth gangs. And she'd just walked, unawares, onto their turf.

  The Blue Monkey made his shot and moved back to watch the break go down. His competition grunted and the others made rude noises. No one bothered to look up. She moved about the room, scanning the audience for a sign of Chaz. Unless he'd taken to dyeing his hair, her prey wasn't there. She turned to go.

  A hand grasped her upper arm, just above the elbow. "Hey, baby. Looking for someone?"

  The Blue Monkey was seventeen—maybe eighteen, if he pushed it—his indigo hair short and spiky. Despite the acne that pitted his cheeks like a spray of buck-shot, he was moderately good-looking. He wore an Iron Maiden T-shirt under his club jacket.

  She shook her head. "Just looking for… a friend who isn't here."

  The Blue Monkey smiled in what he imagined was his best James Dean imitation. The gang, members gathered around the pool table were watching them now. "You can forget that asshole, baby. Rafe's here."

  She shook her head a second time, smiling wanly. "No, I don't think so." She slipped out of his grip and started for the door.

  Sniggering laughter ran through the gang. Rafe flushed red all the way to his indigo roots.

  The hand was on her arm again, only tighter this time. "Maybe you didn't hear me so good," Rafe ground the words out between clenched teeth. "I said I'm your friend now."

  She felt her patience begin to melt. The Other strained on its leash. It sounded almost friendly this time.

  C'mon! Let's settle this little fucker's hash. Just this once…

  No! It was so tempting to give in, to indulge her dislike for these swaggering, no-necked little Hitlers. But once the jinn was out of the bottle, it took blood to get it back in. Better to leave now and avoid the risk, before things got any worse.

  "I don't think yer her type, Rafe," jeered one of the gang. More snickers. Rafe's face was the color of a fire hydrant.

  "I have to go now." She disengaged herself a second time.

  "Whassamatter, whore? Ain't I good enough for ya?"

  Rafe's eyes were no longer sane. She recognized the madness in them as all too familiar. Rafe was the Blue Monkeys' pet psychotic, their own personal whirling dervish. He might look like a teenage boy, but he was something far more dangerous, and the gang knew exactly what it took to set him off. They knew which responses were guaranteed to trigger his transformation into the living incarnation of the Tasmanian Devil from the old Bugs Bunny cartoons.

  Rafe grabbed a fistful of her hair, moving so fast she could not dodge his attack. He jerked her off-balance, so her palms were planted against his chest for support. His breath reeked of dope and Jack Daniels.

  That's it. I'm not gonna play pattycake with this jerk.

  She levered herself backward, ignoring the tearing at her scalp. She'd endured far more pain in her past than the loss of some hair. Rafe was staring, mouth open, at the hank of hair he was left holding in his hand when she hit him. She still had the self-control to deliver the blow with the back of her hand, but it was enough to send Rafe sprawling into the arms of his tribe. Blood leaked from one nostril and his lower lip was split. His eyes rolled like an enraged mule's.

  The Blue Monkeys clotted around her, blocking the exit. There were nine of them. His friends struggled to put Rafe back on his feet.

  "You bitch," Rafe mumbled through rapidly swelling lips.

  One of the older gang members chuckled. "Looks like we got us a gash that knows jew-jitsu!" He reached out to snag her mirrored sunglasses. It wasn't any good unless you saw their eyes. "Bet you got trouble seein' with them fancy-ass shades on, bitch."

  Her hand flashed up, fast as a cobra, and her fingers closed around his wrist before he could touch her. There was a sound of balsawood crunching and the Blue Monkey screamed like his namesake.

  One of the gang tried to back away, but the others held him in place. "Fuck. Oh, fuck. It's her. The chick Chaz was talkin' about."

  Rafe spat a wad of blood and phlegm on the floor. "Shaddup, you goddam lit'l queer. Chaz was jackin' us, and you know it! This here's just some poon with fancy moves." His eyes were unfocused. "Clear off the table. We gonna have ourselves one wingding of a gangbang." Rafe glanced contemptuously at the Blue Monkey with the shattered wrist. The youth was whimpering, his lips white with shock as he cradled his arm against his chest. "Somebody shut that fuckin' whiner up."

  The gang took up its war cry. The backroom sounded like the monkey house at feeding time. Rafe lurched forward, wrapping his arms around her waist. He intended to slam her onto the pool table and fuck the bitch until she bled.

  Her knee pistoned up,, smashing into his denimed crotch and rupturing his testicles; it was as if a napalm bomb had gone off in Rafe's jeans. He managed one high, thin scream before collapsing. The agony of his ruined cojones was so great he didn't even know she'd fractured his pelvis as well.

  The Blue Monkeys watched as Rafe spasmed on the floor, clutching his groin, their ape yell fallen silent.

  That was when the Other made its move.

  "
You fuckers think you're tough, huh? You think you're bad? You shitheads can't even handle a girl!"

  Shut up. Shut up. It's bad enough without you provoking them. Let's go! Let's just walk out of here, damn you!

  Two of them lunged at her, one from behind and one in front. The one behind grabbed her arms, pinning her elbows to her side. The Other laughed and stamped on his instep, breaking it in two places. The Blue Monkey yowled and let go of her arms. The Other grabbed her frontal assailant by the throat and crotch, lifting him off the floor.

  No, stop. Please…

  The Other tightened her grip on the boy's crotch. He made a bleating sound as she castrated him.

  No. God, no. Stop…

  She lifted the struggling youth over her head.

  Don't!

  The Other laughed as she hurled the boy against the wall. The sound his spine made as it snapped was delightful.

  Someone swung a pool cue. She absorbed the blow across her back, although it cost her a couple of ribs.

  No big deal. Her laughter grew louder. The Other hadn't enjoyed herself so much in months.

  A burly youth with a royal-blue mohawk grappled with her. She caught a glimpse of the knife seconds before he slid it between her ribs, puncturing the left lung. She wrapped her arms around the mohawked punk, pressing him to her breasts. They looked like a high-school couple slow-dancing at the prom. The Blue Monkey stared into her upturned face, expecting her to die. The Other grinned and belched a gout of blood into his face. The Blue Monkey began to panic. He backpedaled, desperate to break free of her embrace, but she refused to let go. His face was a blood-slick mask, his eyes bulging like a vaudeville minstrel's. The Other unsheathed her fangs.

  Every synapse in the tough's brain overloaded and blew. "Get her offa me! Get her off a meeeee!"