Divine Madness

by Melanie Jackson

  I have no explanation for this paralysis. None. All I can say is that I simply hadn’t reckoned on being so damned fascinated and stunned by our enemy. Ninon had warned me, told me of his beauty and his ability to hypnotize and seduce—Hell, I knew he was dangerous because of my dream. Had he tried a front-on assault, or again tried to invade my thoughts, I would have been ready for him. I think. But nothing of what he did, how he looked or stood or moved, had anything to do with deliberate seduction. It wasn’t aimed at me; it just was. He wore his authority like he did his skin. The power of his stance, the arrogant tilt of the head, his radiance—these were with him all the time. And they were as beautiful as they were horrible.

  I’m going to confess something difficult now, because it may be the only thing that will make you understand what he is. I have no homosexual leanings, no bisexual fantasies. But in that moment, a part of me longed for him. If not as my lover, then as my brother, my father, my teacher. I looked down from my perch on the roof and for a moment the desire to see his eyes overcame my intention—my need—to kill him. I forgot I had a shotgun. I forgot the heads in the dryer. I forgot Ninon was with a gang of potential rapists. I wanted so badly for him to look at me and smile that I nearly called out, nearly flung myself off that roof and ran toward him.

  I thought: The wonder wasn’t that Ninon had been seduced into trusting him, but in that she had seen his evil before it was too late.

  It was that thought of Ninon and her hat pin that saved me from revealing myself. That, and the attack by the ghoul—our old pal, the satyr.

  For those who have never had experience with hand-to-hand combat or any kind of life-and-death confrontation in a war zone, let me explain what happens. Reactions in battle can be divided into three phases. The first is recognition of danger. The second is formulation of a response. The third is to carry it through. All of this must happen faster than in daily life.

  Many things can affect response time to danger; age, health, general alertness, training—vampirism. I was lucky that day to have had at least three of those things in my favor.

  Had there been an eastern breeze, the smell would have warned me sooner. As it was, the only hint of peril I had was the fall of a speeding shadow over my right shoulder. My subconscious mind—which processes things faster than my conscious—knew that shadows moving so fast were unusual, probably unnatural, and likely dangerous. I recognized this straightaway. Moving out of the way seemed the correct response, and I did so with all the speed my vampirism-enhanced muscles could give me. I moved very quickly indeed—know this—but it still wasn’t fast enough. It was on me before I could raise my shotgun or even stand up to my full height. In less than a second, I was involved in a life-and-death struggle.

  Most of you won’t know this, and thank whatever god you worship that this is so, but such fighting is very personal. You look into your enemy’s eyes, smell the breath—and in this case the rotting body. This isn’t pleasant, but it does make you focus. I had no trouble forgetting about Saint Germain’s beauty and giving my full attention to dealing with the satyr.

  Many people would react with fear. I didn’t. Rage at the creature for having the affront to try to end my life made me ruthless and inventive. I found myself willing to commit acts of violence I had never before imagined, and made every attempt to carry the ideas through. Nothing worked. In fact, its first blow spun me about like a top.

  I know why I wanted to be quiet during our duel—Saint Germain and the potential for the rest of some ghoul pack joining us was a great incentive to silence—but I’m not sure why the satyr didn’t cry out. Maybe it was pride. Maybe it couldn’t. Perhaps when it was being stitched together, vocal chords hadn’t been deemed necessary. In any event, I was very lucky.

  It was on me. I felt the wiry hair of its forearms as it wrapped them about my face. It had been going for the neck, hoping for a quick snap, or perhaps to tear my throat out, but I’d dropped my head in time. Long, filthy nails punctured my cheek though, and blood flowed into my mouth and down my face. It tried to turn my head, succeeding inch by inch.

  I thought about the heads in the dryer and resisted.

  My arms were pinned by something that felt like a steel bar, and they went numb almost at once. The shotgun slid from my fingers and my ribs began to scream that they were being crushed. I tried kicking back but it did no good; the satyr’s knees jointed the wrong way to cause a break. Knowing it was a risk to expose my throat, I threw my head back as hard as I could and felt the satisfying snap of the creature’s nose and cheekbones breaking. I did it again and think I smashed its teeth. Something punctured my scalp with what felt like roofing nails. A normal man would have screamed and curled up in a fetal ball. This creature’s arm didn’t loosen much, though, and it still held me too close for me to use my arms to defend myself.

  But it did pause before going for my neck again. I think that I’d surprised it. Its previous prey hadn’t been as quick or as strong.

  It hissed through broken teeth but still didn’t call out. It belatedly occurred to me that maybe like a zombie he didn’t actually feel pain. I could smack it with my head until my skull shattered and only I would feel it.

  This was bad news.

  I pushed backwards and tried again to move my arms—no go. I was pinned and my chest was being crushed. My vision began to darken. Synapses began firing off warnings, telling me that I wasn’t getting enough oxygen. I leaned my head back a fraction of an inch, opening my airway.

  It worked. The monster tried again to pull my face around, but my neck was strong enough to resist. We breathed heavily as we struggled in place, our heads touching but sharing no thought or words, though I wanted—insanely—to ask it who it was and how it had been made, and why it wanted to live in that rotting body. Mostly I wanted to know if it believed it was Fate that had brought us here, to this place at this time, so that we would try to kill each other.

  Weird, I know. But my brain was starving for oxygen. I was thinking lots of strange, alarming stuff. Like, across the street the failing adobe continued to fall in soft shushing flakes. They were no longer gentle moths, but rather a flock of ghostly ravens come to pick my bones. At the same time, I realized that I was thirsty and wanted to taste raspberry iced tea again almost as much as I wanted another breath of air. Mostly, I longed to wash the taste of those rotting fingers out of my mouth before I vomited.

  I was also feeling fatigue. We had only been locked together for seconds—a minute at most—and yet so great was the effort I was exerting against the creature’s enormous strength that my arms, legs, and neck were nearly exhausted. This was no wrestling match. No referee would rescue me. There would be no respite until one of us was dead; and that would be me if I didn’t do something to break the stalemate.

  As I said, it’s very personal.

  We listened to the music for another moment. Or, I did. Who knows what the satyr thought as it stood there crushing the life out of me. I swayed in place, thinking that music wasn’t the soundtrack I would have chosen for a climactic fight scene and wondering what the hell I could do to get out of this mess. Then I felt the monster’s muscles gather for another attack. It tried to kick my knees, to knock me to the floor where its greater weight would be an advantage, but the knees that had saved it before were a hindrance now. Its foot—hoof—struck my calf and I felt the skin split. That hurt, but the muscle was intact and I didn’t fall. I couldn’t. I knew that if I was pinned, I was dead.

  Again we paused, our breath heaving. We were at an impasse, but that wasn’t good enough. I didn’t know how strong the thing was. It seemed likely that I would tire before it did. Then it would eat me alive.

  Two other thoughts occurred to me:

  The bad guys might actually win this one.

  Ninon might die.

  That was unacceptable, absolutely intolerable. My brain released another surge of chemical rage. I had to kill this thing, quickly and quietly. And, it finally occurred to me,
before Saint Germain or his ghouls found me or Ninon and we were overwhelmed.

  I twisted hard to the right, away from the hand buried in my cheek, feeling skin tear and more blood fall. I kicked out again, not trying for knees this time but rather the feet. Ever had your toes crushed? It’s painful. Splintered hooves would have to hurt too. It was fast, though, and he swung its right hoof out of harm’s way, so I continued to bring my knee up, going for the groin.

  I hit, I know I did, but there was no reaction except to continue the momentum of the turn I had started, spinning us both toward the trapdoor in the roof. We twirled twice like drunken dancers doing the Viennese waltz, slipping in my blood that gushed freely, and then we finally fell apart.

  I caught a break. The creature’s left hoof got caught in one of those cracks that fissured the roof, and it very nearly overbalanced and toppled through the open trapdoor. I didn’t give it time to recover its equilibrium. I leapt at it and slammed my fist into its body, accidentally punching through the desiccated flesh and into withered organs. I gave a half twist of the wrist and then grabbed. I’m not sure what I had—liver, gallbladder, appendix, something. I hadn’t paid much attention to my anatomy lessons, and anyway everything inside was sort of leathery and fused. I gave a backward yank, pulling out organs and, as a bonus, a loop of intestine. That was still soft and squishy and very full of red pulp.

  Its arms swiped at me and it tried to bite, but my second hard jab to its torso tipped it through the trap door opening. Intestines un-spooled and then ripped free with a splash of blood as it fell, but that didn’t stop it. I stood there gaping at the bloated, oozing rope in my hand as the damn thing came popping right back out. Its broken teeth were bared and it reached for me confidently, sure of my death.

  Pride goeth before a fall, that’s what Cormac always said.

  I had forgotten in those first moments of shock that I wasn’t dealing with a living person. My brain, now with oxygen restored, was finally functioning again. The only thing that would kill this creature was to rip out its heart or brain. My shotgun was out of the question—and not just because of the noise, but because I would never reach the gun in time. I did a quick calculation as the creature launched itself toward me. Ribs would be easier to break, but it might take me a moment to find the heart. There wasn’t any confusion about where the brain was. Pulling back my arm, I slammed into its head with all the remaining strength I could summon.

  All I did was dent its skull and make it fall back into the darkness. I also broke my right hand.

  Two falls from the roof. Its neck should be broken, but the nightmare refused to end. There was another hiss and then it came back up. This time I was ready. My brain had recalled Ninon’s deadly gift, tucked into my boot, a personal weapon for a personal battle. I got out the trench spike with my left hand, and brought it down with all my might as the damned thing popped out of the trapdoor.

  It must have felt the spike go in, but the beast’s upward progress stopped only when my knuckles hit its skull. The blow was numbing from fingers to elbow. My aim wasn’t great either. The front of the spike was protruding out of the thing’s upper side jaw. Still, my hit had to have wiped out massive amounts of brain.

  There was a long enough space of time for me to worry that this method would not kill a ghoul, to see the enormous teeth that were not flossed or brushed. Then the creature stiffened, thrashed once more and fell a third time through the trapdoor, slowly pulling free of the spike with a disgusting, sucking sound.

  I waited, breathing hard, listening for cries of alarm and nursing my broken hand and bruised calf. It didn’t do its Jack-in-the-box trick but I could hear it whipping about below, louder than the washing machine it had filled with victims. It still wasn’t screaming, but it was hissing and making too much noise as it lashed about in what I hoped were its death throes.

  I did some mental cursing and then dropped through the door, not bothering with the ladder. I landed beside the thing and used my downward momentum to bury the trench spike in its chest. I must have found the heart, because it hissed once more and then finally stilled.

  I got up slowly and wiped the spike on its chest, doing my best to clear the dark red slime it used for blood. I reached up and pulled a selection of its teeth out of my scalp and then pushed the torn flesh of my cheek back into place. That hurt like a son-of-a-bitch and I would probably need stitches.

  “Mary, mother of God,” I murmured, regressing to boyhood and calling on Mamita’s Virgin for help. I whistled when I spoke, the air passing through the tears in my face. No one answered, and so I passed another rite of passage alone, took another step away from my humanity and into the realm of monsters without any witnesses except heads in a dryer.

  I hurt everywhere. It took a bit longer this time for me to climb out onto the roof that second time. The smell of baking intestine left me sick. I no longer hungered for blood. When I did finally get around to looking over the wall, Saint Germain was gone. So was the music. I was truly alone.

  That felt ominous, trying to throw off my lingering shock. I cursed again and then picked up my dusty shotgun.

  Time to find Ninon. We were going to do what I should have done when I stumbled into the grisly scene in the laundry room—namely, get out of town as fast as we possibly could. I didn’t care what Saint Germain and the ghouls were up to anymore. We had grossly underestimated our enemy. Or I had. Ninon was right—we needed weapons. At the moment I was telling myself that until we had attack helicopters and a small army—and maybe a priest and a shaman—I wasn’t taking him or any ghouls on again. I’d won this battle, but no way would I win the war. Not without help.

  My honored father:

  I am eleven years old. I am big and strong, but shall certainly fall ill if I continue to assist at three masses every day, especially on account of one performed by a great, gouty, fat canon who takes at least twelve minutes to get through the Epistle and the Gospel, and who the choirboys are obliged to put back on his feet after each genuflexion. This is all depressing, I can assure you. Well, I am done twiddling with the rosary beads while mumbling Aves, Paters, and Credos. The present moment is the one for me to inform you that I have decided to no longer be a girl, but to become a boy. As I am now a son, it is your duty to take over my education immediately and I shall tell you how it is to be done…

  —Letter from Ninon de L’enclos

  It is with true love as it is with ghosts; everyone talks about it, but few have seen it.

  —François de la Rochefoucauld

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  While I was having my face ripped off, Ninon was having some adventures of her own.

  The Gypsy Kings played on in an asthmatic fashion. Maybe they needed some of the tequila the men had been drinking. Maybe they were just stoned from the marijuana smoke.

  Two of the men held Ninon. A third—the fat one—held a gun on her while the fourth came up behind. He seemed to have guessed that it was safest to aim for her head. Or someone had told him that he should handle her that way.

  These four weren’t ghouls—not yet—but their breath stank of blood and rotting flesh. There was also a lack of intelligence in their eyes that suggested some sort of brain damage. She didn’t think they were victims of a vampire attack, but something was wrong with them. They were a long way from being human, and even their mothers would say so.

  She wasn’t screaming, though that was what they wanted—and she wouldn’t, no matter what they did. Not unless she had to shout to warn Miguel away. Ninon had seen Saint Germain walk past the shutters outside less than a minute before. She’d had no more than a glimpse of him, a few slices of his body that moved by in a blur, but it was enough to shake her. Her enemy was here and she didn’t have a single bloody weapon to defend herself with.

  Saint Germain was here. How? How had he known she would be here?

  The man behind her tore her dress. The vandalism made her angry. He reached around her, squeezing her left breast
roughly and shoving his hand into her panties. He pushed a dirty finger inside of her and bit down on her shoulder, drawing blood. She knew that she was supposed to be afraid, to whimper and plead, but she found the idea of rape so much less horrifying than being ripped apart by ghouls that she couldn’t work up much fear. And she felt no shame, though humiliation was their aim. She wouldn’t give them that either.

  Anyway, these were dead men. Dead, dead, dead. All she needed was a moment when the gun wavered from her head and she would take them. Wisely, she kept her eyes lowered; the fat one with the gun might be bright enough to read her intent if she looked him in the eye, and he was nervous enough to shoot.

  The man behind her got bored with her unresponsiveness. He came around her left side and then stepped in front of her. She looked up but kept her face blank, not telegraphing her intent until he stepped between her and the gun. The moment she was shielded, Ninon jerked her right arm forward, throwing her unprepared captor toward the gunman. His headlong stumble wasn’t anything to put in a Hollywood movie, but it served her purpose well enough. Jackie Gleason was pinned between a body and a heavy table.

  She spun then toward the stunned creep holding her left arm and used her right hand to double him over with a shot to the diaphragm that broke the tip of his sternum. His eyes before she hit him were terrified, and she wondered what she looked like, or if he simply read his destruction in her face. As he doubled over she saw that he had a gun tucked in the small of his back. She had to reach over him to snatch it, letting his contorted face press against her bare torso.

  Jackie Gleason was shouting at the gaping dress-ripper to move out of the way. It didn’t occur to him to move himself around the table. She had no such problem with mobility. The gun wrenched clear of the goon’s waistband and she stepped around her shield to put a bullet into Jackie Gleason’s head. The strangeness of the weapon did not strike her at the time; she was conversant with firearms of all eras. The noise of the shot was uncomfortably loud but still satisfying, because it was one of the many sounds that meant death for her enemies.